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May 20, 2022- Elon Musk Decided to Put Twitter Buy on Hold
John C. Morley: (00:09)
Hi everyone. I'm John C. Morley, the host of the JMOR tech talk show and inspirations for your life.
John C. Morley: (01:02)
Hi everyone. It is John C. Morley, serial entrepreneur here, and welcome to another great edition of the JMOR tech talk show. It's great to be with you here on another Friday evening, May 20th. And we have another great show for you guys tonight. Lots of great information for you. You might have noticed that I have a hat on me. Well, this hat, if you haven't caught, it says believe and achieve before you can achieve anything, you need to believe it. And you could scan the QR code or you can go directly to my link, which is just www.believemeachieve.com. Got to get a little sip of water there when we do it live. We never know if we're going to need water or want to cough on something. So we do what we need to do. Anyway. Today I got a great show for you. And just to start with, you know, where we're at, I think the biggest question has been, and I'm sure this is no surprise to everyone what's going on with Elon Musk. I still need more water.
John C. Morley: (02:06)
Okay. That's a little better. So anyway what is going on with him? And that is Elon Musk suddenly decides to put his bid on hold for Twitter. So what does this mean to everybody? Well, I think in one regard, it means that the deal is probably gone south. There are other options of course. Besides the deal falling apart, which I believe it is. Musk may want a lower price. And then again he's going to have to pay a $1 million breakup fee if he decides to not continue with a purchase. So this could be an issue. And if you're thinking that it's about spam, well Twitter says that about 5% or less is the accounts are considered fake. So not sure what Elon's doing there. I don't know why he wanted to purchase it. I don't know if he had a plan or if this was like a whim of his, I don't know.
John C. Morley: (03:13)
I don't think it's something he wants and he might be trying to understand that now, but again, he owes them a $1 million break of a fee if he decides not to continue through and make a further offer. So you know that's going to be a big problem for him. And we'll keep you updated with the story and what's happening as things kind of progress. Well in other news our good friend, Apple, well looking to boost production outside of China. Yeah. Outside of China, Apple is looking to boost production. So what does this mean? That's a great question.
John C. Morley: (04:04)
Well, Apple had told some of its contractors you know, and also, their contract manufacturers that it wants to increase production outside of China. The wall street journal and I quote, reported, citing people familiar with the matter. And what I want to say to you is that India and Vietnam, which are already cited for Al production are among the country shortlisted by the company as alternatives. And the report also added that Apple's last month's forecast had a bigger supply issue as COVID lockdowns continued to slow production and demand in China. So they're looking for a way because obviously, Apple is losing big, big money. And we all know that when the new iPhone comes out, hopefully, it'll come out again. Maybe the end of the year, it's going to cause a problem when Apple can't get these products to the street, whether it's ship shortage issues or whatever it is, they need to figure a way or it's going to affect their bottom line.
John C. Morley: (05:11)
So I think Apple's trying to get this resolved sooner than later because it's going to put a big dent into their pocketbook. So that is a situation that I guess we're going to have to look at and see, you know, what's going on, but we'll keep you abreast of what's going on with Apple and of course the rest of the market. So another interesting thing that's happened speaking about chips just before one of the big chips, I mean ASML places big bets on a tiny future. And so why are they saying that? Well, it's because of some new technology that they're working on. An optical system prepared for testing in a vacuum chamber at the Carl Zeus SMT in urban Cocklin Germany is this undated precedent of some recent handouts, many of you have seen.
John C. Morley: (06:14)
And this thing is quite remarkable. It develops an optimal system that will go into the newest tools being developed by ASML of the Netherlands to create a new generation of computer chips. This helmet Isler Zeis device is going to make a big change because I think what it's going to do is we all know how we're able to put more information when we make the chips denser. And even though the chips are smaller, we're packing more information in a shorter period. We did this by stacking. Now we're using other technology. So I think this might help. However, I think it might drive the cost of chip production up because anytime R and D have to go into a chip it's a serious problem. And people are wondering, you know, are we going to even be able to get these chips, or is this going to be something that's promised, but we just can't get, so we're going to have to see what's going to happen.
John C. Morley: (07:13)
And you know, they're building lots of new machines to help put together these new types of chips. And they're hoping that they're going to have a big market because a lot of manufacturers are going to want to put smaller chips in, but smaller chips, ladies and gentlemen, I think are going to cost more money because again, there is more R and D that goes into them. Yes, it's less chip, but you've still gotta pay for the R and D that went into that chip production system. So I think that might be something that might halt the process for a little while, and then I believe it might pick up, and then the cost of the production will come down once a lot of people are using the ASML manufacture chip. So that's going to be very interesting and we'll have to see what happens, but we'll keep following up on that story for you guys as well.
John C. Morley: (08:09)
All right. Some other interesting news, we all know 3m the manufacturer. Well, they were ordered to pay 77.5 million to veterans actually in situations. And so this is veterans in the latest ladies and gentlemen, it's the latest earplug trial. So this is pretty interesting because you know, we don't hear this often, especially with the reputation that 3m has but just recently a jury in Pensacola, Florida, federal court on Friday today ordered the 3 million to be paid in 77.5 million to a US army veteran who said he suffered hearing damage as a result of using the company's military issued earplugs. Now, is that true or not? We'd like to think that they're being honest, but we have no way of proving this. So the verdict for veteran James Beal is the largest yet for an individual in very large litigation over earplugs that as of the middle of May included more than 290,000 claims in the Pensacola court by far the largest amount of tort litigations in the United States history.
John C. Morley: (09:31)
Wow. and the Bill trial was the last of an initial set of 16 trials held to test the strength of the plaintiff's claims and facilitate settlement talks and talks, and of those so-called bellwether trials plaintiffs prevailed in 10 winning a total of nearly 300 million juries sided with 3m in the remaining six. So that tells me that some of these people coming up for the money, cuz we've seen this in the trials before, especially with people faking that they got hurt in a car accident. And then they suddenly have whiplash when the next day you see them walking around and then when you see the person, oh, I left my brace at home, but oh, my neck's hurting me. They're so full of it. So I'd have to say that it's funny that it's taking this long. I'd like to know when they originally started reporting the loss because how long does it take for ear loss? I mean, how many years have we had to ask that question? How many years from ear damage, does it take for loss?
John C. Morley: (10:49)
They're saying that you know it can happen immediately, but it can take many, many years. So I guess they're not untrue, but my question is, did they do anything else? Was there anything else loud in their environment? Okay. So this is a concern, you know, what age they work there, how many years different, which is the only reason for age to where they are now, how many years is it different to know? And was there a big issue or is this something people are just jumping on the back bandwagon? Hey Bob, you know, you can get a few million if you come here. I don't know. So I'm not believing the fact that the jury sided with the six of 3m tells me that some of these cases were BS and whenever something happens where people think they can get money, they all try to jump on that bandwagon and believe that they're just going to win because you know, they want to get money.
John C. Morley: (11:45)
I don't know, ladies and gentlemen, I'm kind of on the side for 3m on some of it. I don't have the facts. So I can't tell you the truth. Although I know a lot of cases that I've seen, you know, you see a lot of these big law firms and they say, well, if you recently had surgery, if you recently did this, or if you're recently involved in this, that you may be eligible for a settlement, like they're putting thoughts in people's heads. They don't even have an issue, but they're kind of creating this issue. So I don't know how much of it is legitimate. So that is a problem. So speaking about food being hard to get, did you know that baby formula is now being airlifted? Wow. So that's pretty incredible.
John C. Morley: (12:30)
Food's hard to get in some parts of the country, in certain types of food. And now a nationwide shortage of baby formula, continue to cause anxiety for parents. The Biden administration announced it has secured its first cargo of formula from overseas and will soon fly the ship into the United States. White House officials have said that they reached an agreement late Thursday with Nestle to transfer the equivalent of up to 1.5 million, eight-ounce bottles of formula from Switzerland to Indiana. The formula, of which is hypoallergenic. And so suitable, they say infants who are allergic to cow milk will then be transported to areas in most critical need. According to Kate Chapman editor at LinkedIn news, courtesy of them. So I think we have to be, you know, understanding. Everybody wants to raise the price tag, you know, COVID here.
John C. Morley: (13:29)
I keep hearing well because of COVID just the other day in my homeowner's organization, they were saying they're raising commentary maintenance fees. And I said why? Well. They were raising it more because of COVID. I said, well, why? Well, because we had to pay a lot of money out. So everybody's using the COVID excuse. I go to my dentist and they're like, I'm like, what's that $25 fee on my bill? Oh, that's a COVID processing fee. I said, what do you mean? Well, you know, we have to put on extra gowns. I said I don't think they seem any different. So I think this is nonsense. And I think the real issue is that people need to speak up and say, look enough of this COVID nonsense that you need to be charging me. I'm not saying that COVID's over.
John C. Morley: (14:14)
I'm saying it's probably in remission. I'm not saying it's gone. However, we need to not blow it up so much and try to extort people for money when there's no need for it. They're using this as what I like to call the software vendors, get a rich quick update. It's not a good version, but it's designed to make them a lot of money. I don't know. So I have a problem with this whole thing that's going on across the country and what people are doing and not doing and how we can just literally make excuses for people to pay more money because they're claiming due to a COVID region or COVID Georgia. I mean, we're still having issues, getting certain product technology products. We're being told anywhere from 60 to 180 days. So we have to tell the client, that's what it's going to take. Now. That's a big, big issue, really big issue.
John C. Morley: (15:12)
I don't know. I feel that America right now is getting so many COVID excuses, right? There are so many COVID excuses out there. And a lot of customers, according to the BBC are saying that customers are fed up with COVID excuses for bad service. You know you call a company and they're still working from home. I don't care if they're working from home, but they're using cheap technology. The companies can afford it, but they're being too cheap. They're not giving them the right communication protocols and equipment they're giving them a cheap laptop. Internet that's not very stable and that's how they're running their customer service. I mean, customers are fed up with being told, they're getting poor service because of COVID. And this is according to a lot of research and firms are being accused of using the pandemic as an excuse for long waits on telephone lines and late deliveries.
John C. Morley: (16:10)
And recently the UK Institute of customer service said, and I quote, said that consumers were initially tolerant of delays and other issues as businesses fought to cope with the effects of the crisis. But it said the blanket excuse was no longer sufficient. I agree that NS and IS must work hard to win back customers and bid to make financial terms and conditions a lot clearer to people. So, you know, this is a very, very big problem. I was speaking to another lady the other day who was starting a company and she was trying to sell NSFTs right.
John C. Morley: (16:53)
But she was doing it weirdly. She was doing it to try to do it as a membership. So if you pay more money, you should get better service. Right? Well, not according to a lot of these companies, their excuse is, well, we're sorry about that. And they say these exact words, we're sorry about that one. That's not even proper English. Right? So how are we supposed to run our businesses? I mean, many of us are business owners, myself being a serial entrepreneur. Some of you work for companies, how do we provide good quality service? And how do we keep revenue coming in when this is an extreme problem. Thus I know that companies are gouging people left and right. Prices are going up at the food market. Prices are going up in distribution warehouses. Prices are going up for lots of things and we all know prices going up for gas, right? So everybody says to me, John, you know, the big million-dollar question is, when is the price of gas going down? it's a conundrum, will gas prices ever go down?
John C. Morley: (18:07)
So a few people are theorizing that to relieve current pressures at the fuel pump, but they don't expect gas prices to go meaningfully lower soon. As it becomes increasingly more painful to fill up your gas tank, you might be wondering, will gas prices go down? But the thing is these fuel prices feel like they've been on a never-ending ride going higher of late a year later. The national average price of regular unleaded gas was $2 and 96 per gallon. According to the AAA travel website a month ago, it was $4 and 12 cents. And it's now around 4.33 and continues to climb just the other day. I think it was almost 4.59 and it's heading up. So I think people right now are getting fed up with putting gas in their cars. And I know one thing I'm not putting the premium gas in my car anymore.
John C. Morley: (19:06)
I'm putting in the lowest gas and then, and then giving the last five gallons you know, the premium. And then once a month I give my car, I call it a candy bar. I give it a full tank of premium gasoline, but these are all challenges. And they're all coming because they're creating the shortage, but we all know the shortage doesn't exist. So maybe the issue is that Biden needs to open up the pipeline, but they've shut that down. So what is our government doing? What is the industry doing? What is OPEC doing? Because this is a natural phenomenon that keeps seeming to get worse. And I know it frustrates more people that I talk to each day and they just don't have a clear answer. And everyone says, well, whenever Russia does this, whenever Russia does that, it's going to change, but it takes time. And so does that mean that prices this year for toys for Christmas and Hanukah and other holidays that they're going to soar through the roof? I think so.
John C. Morley: (20:15)
I remember the other day buying a printer and being in the industry. I mean, we get them very reasonably, but we couldn't get them from our normal suppliers, even the manufacturer. So we found somebody that had it online to one of these mass sites. The printer was about $350 at the price we were supposed to pay. And with the retail, maybe it's like four something. That same printer, same model, same everything, brand new. I wound up buying it that my parents for almost $850. Now that's ludicrous, right? That's ludicrous. That's just about a hundred percent increase. Then I love the website to say, oh, well, we can't ship it to you, but we have a COVID processing shipping protocol. Then they blow another 50 to 125 dollars on the item. I remember ordering a printer for my parents months ago. And after putting the right order in, they ship the wrong printer, we get the printer, but it doesn't have a fax on. So we send it back. Then we order another printer. We're supposed to get the other printer. We bring the printer back to like one of those shipping stores. I'm not going to mention the name. And so we bring it back to them and you know what happens in a day or two, we thought we're getting the new printer, the same printer that we got delivered shows up again with our address on. I'm like, what are these people doing? The people at these shipping stores, a lot of them not saying all of them, they're just not doing their job. And when I went there to politely inform them and complain, they told me to go somewhere else that they don't need my business. And I said this is terrible. They're giving us inferior service, yet you're getting annoyed when you're not even delivering the service that you should. And just to give you a little FYI, I can tell you, this was in a part of west Florida at one of these chains. And I'm not going to mention the name, but you know, there are probably two major chains that do the shipping and, and mailing and postage and stuff like that. So knowing that they did something wrong, you think that they would do the right thing.
John C. Morley: (22:44)
They just took it like it was our fault. And I'm like, excuse me, this is a problem. The level of service that we're getting from merchants is so subpar. And I think it's because, and nothing against people that are retired or partly retiring, they don't care. They don't give a darn. They just want to walk in there. They want to lower a gag. My dad used to have a phrase when my mom had a business many years ago and he used to say, you know our business, you know, this isn't the country club, the country club across the street or the country club, you know, down the street. What do you mean by a country club? Well, you know, we come here, we're doing our work. You get your handmade ham, egg, and cheese sandwich, and you're eating it. A customer is coming in.
John C. Morley: (23:41)
And it's like, well, I'm eating my sandwich. Oh, you know, we need to take care of the customers first. And so we have always come up with myself and my family and their generations, that service is a given. And we've learned from Disney, despite what's going on right now, you need to under promise and over deliver when you're on time. Ladies and gentlemen, you are late. I don't care if we're talking about a limo driver. I don't care if you're talking about a delivery, when you're on time, you're late. Thus, you tell somebody the delivery would be ready at four. You better have that delivery ready at like 3 45. So when they come at four o'clock, oh yeah, it was ready at 3 45. We wanted to make sure it was ready for you. See, that's the kind of service that we want. And that's the kind of service people will pay money for.
John C. Morley: (24:34)
They won't pay money for, oh, you know, we are like the best. Yeah. You're the best, but you're always late. That's a problem. And you might say, John, well, it depends on what you're spending. I don't care if you're buying a copy for 49 cents or 59 cents, or even a black and white copy for 15 cents, or you're spending thousands of dollars on custom booklets. Service needs to be there all the time. And this is a great big problem in the United States of America. And this is why our manufacturing has been getting pushed out to other countries. Why people are saying, well, you know, we can't afford to pay our US people. Pay more money. People will pay more money, we'll get better services. I was at a company the other day. And one of my companies is a printing and marketing company and production company.
John C. Morley: (25:26)
And I said to them, I said, where's the stuff he says, John. He says we order this eight days ago, eight, nine days ago. And it was supposed to be here yesterday and we haven't gotten it. And we're missing nine pieces that we need to deliver for eight different customers. I said, oh my gosh. And I said, well, you know, next time you have this, I said, reach out to us. I said, we not only are on time. But we'll personally deliver it to you. So I think there's a difference. There's nothing wrong with big companies. Okay. However, when the big company doesn't have the dichotomy of understanding that it's all about family and personal service, your big company's worth squad. Now there's a big company that starts with an A, I'm not going to mention their name. They have the worst customer service in, in the world.
John C. Morley: (26:18)
You call them up, you get some fancy greeting, then you press buttons to go through their stupid menus. Then you get somebody and say, can I talk to a US representative, please? Then they try to qualify. I'm like, no, don't qualify me. Just get me to a US representative. You got the US representative. And then they're somewhat helpful. The best is when this company makes its delivery and they deliver it wrong. I had a drone delivered by this company. And I think I ordered on Monday and was supposed to get there on Wednesday. And I came on Thursday morning. They said it was delivered. I said, where is it? Oh, it was delivered. Last night at 10 o'clock where? Oh, it was delivered to this address. Where'd they put it? Oh, they left it in the parking lot. You left it in a public parking lot at 10 p.m. Just, just right in the parking lot. I mean, somebody's going to take you, it was a thousand dollars’ drones. Oh, I see. I'm sorry about that one.
John C. Morley: (27:15)
I'm like, I want another drone. Well, that's going to be complicated because you see, we can't do that. Oh, you can't. No, we can't. You're going to have to wait for seven days. Meanwhile, you took the money out of my bank account. So I said, I'm going to file a complaint. Oh, well you can do that, but you'll get your product. It's just going to take seven days and we'll issue a refund and we'll get you another one that same day, which was Thursday morning, I went online and filed a complaint with a better business bureau for the state, for which they were incorporated. And I filed a complaint with the district attorney General's office and consumer affairs. Do you know what happened by the next day? I think it was nine or 10 a.m. They said to Mr. Morley there was no need to file a complaint.
John C. Morley: (28:02)
We were already issuing the refund. Baloney. You were issuing the refund when you document things and you submit them to other places and agencies to CYA, right? But I'll tell you something. If I hadn't filed that, I can bet you. I was not getting that refund. Do you know what happened the next day, that same day I got the refund. They used the credit and shipped me out to a new drone. This happened three times within 10 years that they delivered expensive products and they got lost because their drivers were negligent. The drivers don't have a scheduled route. They just show up and they just throw them wherever they have packages for that day. That is so poor and terrible. The guy who started the company left the company to go guess, and play around in the space world. You probably know what company, I mean, but I'm not impressed with big companies. I'm not impressed with 10 stars voicemail systems. It doesn't. I impress me. I want people that can answer the darn phone. I say, you know what we do at our company, we have an auto-attendant, but you know what we do, we answer our phone.
John C. Morley: (29:22)
We give service. We're there before the sale, right. During the sale, after the sale. And of course, many people believe that, oh, I've made my profit. So, you know, I don't have to give service. That's so terrible. But a lot of people in this industry do it, especially if they're like sole source, oh, we're the only ones that do this. So, you know, you're going to have to wait and I'm like, I'm not waiting, but you can't get it anywhere else. That's fine. I don't want it. You don't want it? No, I don't want it. And this might baffle you. But I think when there
Is a problem with a product or service, even if it's specialized, the people need to boycott that company to send a message until their owner, their manager, their director, and CEO says, Hey, wait a minute. We're losing a lot of business here. We better fix this. And we as individual citizens, don't have to be business owners, entrepreneurs, or serial entrepreneurs. You just need to come together as one, you need to voice your opinion, but too few people will open up their mouths cuz they don't want to take the time to send an email or file a complaint. Want to take me to do that for 5, 10 minutes. And I got all my money back that next morning. I reported at I'm going to say whatever it was 1 o'clock. I got the notice that the money was going back to my account that next day Friday, I got the money by Monday or Tuesday.
Pretty amazing. Right? I think service is something that has lost its luster because people don't want to give service unless they're spending a fortune. I don't care if you're buying a bottle cap. Okay. Or you're buying a case of soda or you're buying, a luxury car or you're buying a new mansion service should be there all that time before, during, and after. And of course, while the sale takes place, they're always there. They're there before during the sale, but as soon as the sale's over, oh, thanks for reaching Josh. Please leave me your name and number and I'll get back to you. Hi, this is Maryanne. I'm with another client at the moment, but leaving your name and number in your message is important to me. Leave a message. Hi Maryanne. This is John. Just reaching out to you again.
I left your message two days ago. I need you to get back to me. No call. Two days ago, you call again and say, look, hi Maryann, having her back from you. Just want to let you know that I'm going to be pulling out of this deal. So now they call back all annoyed and flustered. Well, what are you doing? Well, maybe if you checked your messages, you'd see that this property isn't going to work for me and where it's going and the location or something. People are so self-centered that they're into themselves. When we need to be concerned about others. I'm not saying don't be concerned about yourself. I'm saying that we need to have a balance.
John C. Morley: (32:42)
There's a town where I'm in. I'm not going to give you all these details. People become so absorbed in their cells, themselves, and their families. That if something else is going on, there could be a fire and they would barely do anything. I have a joke in town. It's called my driveways on fire. And so my driveway's on fire and I say, Hey, Maureen, would you help make my driveways on fire? Oh, John, I love to, I gotta take Brenden to band practice and I gotta take Carrie to cheerlead, but you know, just call 911. I'm sure they'll help you both. By the way, go on Facebook. Let me know. You're alive later tonight. Toodles and we laugh, but this is the precedence that this generation is setting and they're putting that off to their kids and they're making them lackadaisical. And this is why service in a company is not service. It's like, I hope we'll get a response.
John C. Morley: (33:47)
Even in my charity when somebody had an issue they couldn't make an event. Do you know what I did? I said, sorry, you're not able to make the event. Maybe you'll be able to the next one. Here's your refund. He got back. And he says, John, he says, I was so impressed. And my boss was so impressed that you issued a refund within 10 minutes of canceling the event after I emailed you. I said, yeah, why would I hold onto your money? I realized what was important to me. And I realize what's important to others, but the difference is I know what people want and I want to make sure I satisfy them. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been a privilege and pleasure to be with you here on May 20th on the Jane Moore tech talk show. We have another great show coming up the last one for this month, which will be on May 27th.
John C. Morley: (34:37)
And I got something huge to tell you we're going to be celebrating JMOR's birthday for all of our channels on June 26th. It's going to be an amazing birthday party. We'll tell you more details as it comes up and if you're in New Jersey, you're going to want to reserve a spot, with lots of free giveaways. We're going to have some people. We're going to have a live show for three hours indoors in nice air conditioning. So you're going to want to be there for that. Some water, some juice, and some delicious cake. And of course, singing happy birthday. And you may even get a chance to get on the JMOR tech talk show live. pretty cool. All ladies and gentlemen, I hope you guys have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your day and weekend and you know what I'm going to be back next Friday, same time, 5:30 PM. If you're looking to become a guest on the JMOR tech talk show, go to www.jmor.com. Reach out to us, and let us know what you are looking to be interviewed about. Remember, we are not a sales show. Did you know? We refuse 90% of our applicants because they come here looking to advertise. If you want to advertise, we're happy to take your advertisements, but as an advertiser between our show, not while we're on the air, we'll even give you a plug, but we don't do that for the people we interview have yourself a wonderful rest your weekend, and I'll see you next Friday. Take care, everyone.