#467 From Engineer to Entrepreneur: Tom Basey on Reinventing Career Paths Through Insurance & Impact

Episode 467

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Mehmet: Hello and welcome back to an episode of the CTO Show with Mehmet today. I'm very pleased joining me from the US Tom Basey. Tom, thank you very much for, you know, being here with me today. We've been like talking for a while and we thought like it's [00:01:00] a good, uh, you know, opportunity to record the episode together.

So thank you for being here with me today. The way I love to do it, usually I keep it to my guests too. Kind of introduce themself, tell us more about your journey, you know, your background and what you're currently up to, and then we can start the conversation from there. So the floor is yours. 

Tom: Thanks very much mad, but on the contrary, it's a pleasure to be here with you today.

Uh, a little bit about me. So I'm a recovering engineer. That is back in the day. My undergraduate was an engineering. I worked for many years in high tech, uh, predominantly telecom, computer type stuff. Then in 2010, I made a transition to medical device. And so. Uh, I worked that, uh, so over 30 years in corporate America, in technology as an engineer, as a project manager.

And so that was my legacy career and undeniably, uh, it affects me to this day. But that's the thing. Throughout that time, even though I was a senior project manager and a big corporate, uh, fortune 50 company, um, I was still an employee and I wanted to do something entrepreneurial. So actually [00:02:00] seven years ago or more.

Uh, I left corporate America to start an entrepreneurial journey. So that's the thing. There's a lot of stuff we can talk about today, but in a nutshell, that's me. I, I was born and raised in Texas, but actually, but I, I love to meet people and travel the world. So I've, I've traveled extensively in Mexico, various company, uh, countries in Europe, and several in Asia as well.

I haven't been to all continents areas I want to go yet, but I, I, I'm a, I'm a citizen of the world and I'm glad to talk to people today. 

Mehmet: Great. And uh, it's good to have you with me here today also, Tom, so let's start, you know, with what you're currently doing, which is a little bit kind of interesting to me.

I. Um, so you are in the insurance industry today? Mm-hmm. So, and when I was checking and also explained to me also of course, when we were preparing for, for this episode, um, why did you choose this? Like coming from kind of working with, you know, like as you mentioned now, different things? Mm-hmm. Why [00:03:00] insurance?

Like why did you choose insurance? 

Tom: So I'm in this industry by accident in a certain way, but what I would offer is this. If you wanna be an entrepreneur, there's several things you gotta do one way, no matter what you, you could, you can start a franchise restaurant if you want. Uh, you can, you can sell t-shirts online if you want.

But one thing, there's several challenges you, you're gonna have no matter what you're doing. However, I have found I, the insurance industry is fabulous in that there's certain, depending on what type of insurance and how you do it, you can kind of. Uh, avoid certain fundamentals. And so one of the things I'm going with is supply chain.

I have no supply chain, so whether you're, whether you need some lettuce in your restaurant or if you need some small, certain size screws or fasteners to build some product. If you have a supply chain issue, you kind of can't finish the the product and deliver. In the entrance industry, I have exactly the size the person needs immediately.

That is, I can enroll someone online and if they owe. $236,000 on their [00:04:00] home, and they want a life insurance policy of that size. I have that exact side. In fact, I can shop it from multiple carriers and, and then I can do that for 'em. So one of the thing, one of the reasons I, I love this as an entrepreneurial industry is I have no supply chain issues and then act, and there's, and there's many, but I'll just tell you another one out there.

And the other thing is payroll. I don't have payroll. I. I may have licensed agents in my downline. That is people who I have helped get their license and get appointed with big major carriers, but the carriers pay them whenever they write a policy, for example, I don't pay them. So my, my accounting is quite simplified, but that same thing allows me to scale so I can scale, but with no supply chain and with no payroll.

So that's, that's one of the main reasons from an entrepreneurial standpoint. I live now at the end of the day. Also, the thing is I'm helping people. I spend my day helping people because everybody, everybody should have a life insurance policy. For example, everybody should have a long-term care policy, so I'll, I'll stop there for you.

But that's, you're right. It's, it's counterintuitive. What are you doing? But I actually find there's a lot of technical people and actually. Medical people that are doing this now for those [00:05:00] reasons, if nothing else. So I'll, I'll stop there. My, but that's my short answer. You're right. It's kind of weird, but that's what's going on.

Mehmet: No, that's fine. You know, no, nothing surprises me and, you know, I can see the passion also, Tom. Right. So, so you followed your passion also as well. Now, just out of curiosity, how much is it a crowded space to be in? Because as an entrepreneur also you want to differentiate yourself, um, you know. Like any other product or service when you want to present it to your clients.

So you need to have that edge. Now you mentioned something interesting is that you can find anything that just fits the customer needs. Mm-hmm. But still, you know, what makes this, you know, something that you can really differentiate yourself, you know, among many other people who might be doing the same thing.

Tom: You know, this is another, for one thing, there are personal beliefs that you have to sometimes overcome. If your personal beliefs are strong and good, then keep those. If they're limiting, I think you need to [00:06:00] work through those. As an engineer. Part of the reason I stayed with a company so long is because I thought you had to have an innovation to start your company.

I contend that, no, actually you just have to do a very good job. And so actually to your number one, you said crowded space. Well, I would contend selling clothing is a crowded space. And restaurants are cloud and there's almost all of 'em are crowded spaces. The real chick is actually doing a good job and doing a J good job means providing value to the customer, being professional, delivering on time.

So actually, you're right, I am in a crowd space and actually there are thousands, perhaps millions globally of people who can sell life insurance policies. So actually at the end of the day, it's just my, I mean, there's some ways to your point. I like to talk. Now, I'm not salesy. I don't wanna be sold to, if somebody wants to sell me something, I'm out.

I prefer to take a consultative or educational approach. I'm just gonna explain to you how this stuff works. If you don't want it, that's okay with me. So, uh, I would contend. That it, same, same thing as in, like I say, if you wanna sell [00:07:00] t-shirts, you and I could sell t-shirts online. Well, guess what? It's gonna be a combination of the quality of the, of the product that we sell and our deliverability and the pricing.

And so, you're right, I am in one, I am in a, a crowded space, but I claim that in certain way all businesses are crowded space and it really comes down to delivering value and, and consistency and professionals. I'm, I'll leave it at that. 

Mehmet: Yeah, sure. No, but a, again, you mentioned something very important, Tom, which is you differentiate yourself by the service that you offer by, you know, understanding your client.

And, you know, making sure that you just fulfill their needs. You don't oversell them like you don't offer something which they didn't want to have. Mm-hmm. Which absolutely makes sense to me. Now, again, out of curiosity, like how much, you know, uh, background you had helped you also in, let's say. You've been doing this for a long time, so there must be also something of course you're passionate about, but you know [00:08:00] how, how much I would say your background also played a role in making you successful in this business.

Mm-hmm. 

Tom: So, number one, so many years in corporate America, there're a pros and cons, but if nothing else I am professional, you, they, you'll be fired if you don't, if you don't behave professionally largely in corporate America. So I was trained to be professional in project management. It's all about delivering on time with value.

So to your point, there's certain foundation that, that, uh, prepared me for any entrepreneurial journey. And then, then it similarly. Everybody that works somewhere. For some company, typically there's some level of benefits. Typically there's health insurance, maybe they'll give you life, different things they, but so I've been on the consumer side and so I understand that type of thing.

Uh, but what I wanted to go back to a little bit is this industry. Another thing, I'm actually incentivized, you use the word oversell. I'm incentivized not to oversell because what happens is if I enroll someone in an insurance policy. I get paid an initial commission. It's kind of like the value add [00:09:00] that I have of finding the person, helping 'em understand and enrolling.

Actually, you do the work one time and you get paid repeatedly. That is every year the policy is in effect. I continue to get paid, so it's important I not oversell 'em. I oversell someone something, X number a months worth of like, this is too expensive. Then they'll leave and my. Uh, and my, uh, compensation goes away.

So actually I'm incentivized to not oversell you, you properly when you use that word. And so I, I wanna rightsize it, but if I rightsize it, then I get to keep that client for a long time and I get recurring revenue. On the contrary, I oversell I won't keep 'em a long time. 

Mehmet: Yeah. Interesting. Um, so they are saying, Tom, nowadays that a lot of, uh, industries are being disrupted by the technology, right?

So, mm-hmm. How far is your industry, I mean, being really disrupted, is it business as usual? And again, like you've worked with tech companies also as well, you have the technology background. So what are you seeing [00:10:00] in this space? 

Tom: So that's a great question I'm gonna answer a little historically. So number one, there have been insurance policies, like even since Roman Times, that is Roman soldiers have.

If they were serving the, the Roman interest then, and if they, if they passed away, their heirs would get compensation up. And so it's been around a long time. And I say that because when I first started, actually the per the, there was still the majority of agents who were actually still using paper applications.

And so in a certain way, I, I like to brag on the industry. Well, it is, it's really not a brag, it's, I'm kind of poking front of 'em. They're, the industry's been behind the times. And so actually I do have clients now. Uh, so I'm based in the US and I have clients in Hawaii. I have, I, I don't really sell international.

I can sell solutions to international people, but it's, it's US based. But my point is I do sell virtually. And so between Zoom and just ele, uh, traditional electronic and web, they, that was great progress over the past seven years. So already they made great progress. Having said that, you mentioned ai, [00:11:00] AI is pervasive.

It's, it's impacting every industry. And so, oh no, I know. So I, at first I started to say, well, I can't really think of, no. Here's an example. Uh, when someone applies for policy, there's a process called underwriting, which is basically where the company who's gonna insure that person decides either how much they're gonna charge to cover that person, or even if they will accept it, not, for example, in the life insurance policy.

Actually ai behind the scenes, it's obfuscated both from the client and even from me as the agent. They're using that to make those decisions. So actually AI can very quickly. Check on someone, find out if they've been in the hospital, look at you. They'll ask like, what meds did you take? It'll take a look at that medication, make decisions.

So actually to your point, I did last year get a client approved in hours rather than what used to take weeks, simply because they were younger and healthier. But I, I believe AI was in the background, make a decision and basically automatically decided the company can afford to insure this person for $250,000 for this.

$50, $60 price [00:12:00] based on ai. So actually it is impacting even what we will call the fundamental production of the business, which is ensuring people putting policies in place. Having said that, that is not, that is not true for every business. What is true for every business is actually just communication.

So the communication, in other words, so I'm very active on social media. AI actually just facilitates that. So I provide, I take a, an educational consultative approach. So I try to pro, I try to communicate to people, help them understand things. AI helps me with that, in other words, and, and I use different AI tools for different things, but it helps my productivity.

So unique to insurance, AI is helping with the decision making process and then not unique to insurance. That's helping them. Social media. 

Mehmet: You know, that makes completely sense. Before I go more into the technology side, I want to stay here because, you know, like, um, I'm kind of little bit, uh, you know, I would say [00:13:00] inspired by, by the journey, Tom.

So, because you mentioned about the move from corporate America and it can apply like whether you are in the states or maybe wherever. Mm-hmm. Wherever you are in the world. Um, so. Uh, more and more people will start to, to hear that they want to go do things by themselves, right? Mm-hmm. And usually, you know, they get stuck, right?

So, so they, they feel like they're stuck. They want to do a move. They, they doubt themselves sometimes, you know, like mm-hmm. Where to go. So, choosing something niche like what you have done. Uh, I'm not saying it's easy, and of course it's not easy. I know this for a fact. Mm-hmm. I know pe, I know a lot of of my friends who does this, but if someone want to take the same path, like leaving, you know, the corporate world to start to build kind of, uh, you know, their own businesses, being entrepreneurs, [00:14:00] is there like something they should took, take into consideration before making this move?

Like, of course, first. In general, and maybe if they want to go and do the same thing, like go, go with the past mm-hmm. Of, uh, insurance. 

Tom: Mm-hmm. Well, so I'm gonna talk to your audience like I'm an older uncle. I'm, I'm older than most people. I've been around a long time. Right. So I've been in corporate America and so one thing I would offer is the old dream or model is even dead and, or it's not dead.

It's simply changed. And so the things people thought, and I lived, I know that. So actually. I worked for long. The, the back in the day, it was, you go to university, you graduate from there, and you go to get on with some company and you, you perform well and you rise through their, their hierarchy and you become leadership in there.

And then after 30 years you retire. And when you retire, I. They give you a gold watch and you have a pension as well. But my point is no one can even, there's very few people can actually do it anymore. It is very likely you're gonna switch jobs multiple times. It's also quite unlikely you're [00:15:00] gonna get a pension.

So my point is people own their futures more now than ever before. Now I'm as to your point, I'm biased in the US because that thing in the US it was relatively, we won't use the word easy, but simple. It was simple to do that. If you go to university and get a job, there was a. Simple formula for that retirement.

Now it's much more, uh, it's much more challenging. So my message is you should be thinking. So even if you are working somewhere and you love it, my concern is, we talked about ai, you may be displaced from AI because our productivity is gonna go up in a certain way. There's, there's a lot of people looking for jobs right now, and I feel bad for 'em because if I'm Company X, I don't know if I wanna be hiring more people.

It seems like we'll potentially be able to do whatever our activity is, maybe even with the less people. With the productivity gains in ai. So I'm concerned for anybody that wants to be an employee long term, so I think you should own your own future. Now to your question, like, hey, well what'd I think about?

So one, I'm trying to dispel that myth to you that you gotta be innovative and I'm guilty as an engineer. That's what [00:16:00] I thought that was part of the thing that held me back. You don't have to, so you gotta find, so you need to find something to do well, what is available for you? What are you interested in?

And I, and in all candor, I used to hate insurance. I hated it. My wife was talking about it this past week and kind of making fun of me because you know, when you're married you can kind of divide and conquer. She traditionally was in charge of that, selecting the benefits. We both worked at two different places, but I made her own that 'cause I didn't like it.

And now that, and, and, but with the day that somebody explained to me, well there's two different days. One day somebody explained to me about insurance for cancer and I was still an employee and they pointed out that even though I had health insurance, the care for cancer can be so expensive that it may not be enough.

Here in the US 40% of, uh, bankruptcies are due to health related things. So you can actually get sick yourself into bankruptcy and or your family. So one, I I started to learn later on, oh, the, the value importance of that insurance. And then when somebody explained to me the business, half of it, how you can do the work one [00:17:00] time.

Talk to that person, understand their needs, find a solution that works for them, and then get paid repeatedly. That was very compelling to me. So understanding both sides. I like it. But there, I mean, there you don't have to do insurance. I actually, I'm, I've got a second thing I got going. Digital learning is something, that's the thing that a lot of the stuff kind of crosses over, but digital learning is something someone can participate in that way.

If you have some skill, how do you monetize that? And then you, I just figure, how do you do that? Well, I think digital learning may be a way you can monetize it. I personally am a big proponent of traditional universities. I got a master's degree, uh, when my son was finishing his undergraduate, I encouraged him, I think you should consider taking the gmat, which is the exam, to, to get to get into the Master's school for business.

And he thought about it and said, but bottom line is he did do it. But my point is. Over to. I, I, like I, I gave someone a campus tour recently. Some, a friend of mine's, uh, daughter wanted to study, wanted to consider the university that I attended, the University of Texas, and I walked them around. I love universities in, I love high learning.

I'm a lifelong learn. [00:18:00] However, I look around. All those big buildings and those, I'm not only am I concerned about, uh, the, our old models for corporations and working, I'm concerned about learning as well. Concern may not be the right word. I'm intrigued by, but I think it's gonna be very disruptive. And so I think people should continue to learn, but I don't know that a traditional university is absolutely necessary.

I, I like it because I want you to be educated, so you need to understand, uh, history and economics as well. So I'm not gonna, I'm not saying one shouldn't go to university and there's real value in it. But if you're wanting to start a business, and I think everybody should be considering it. Well, can you learn without going to business school?

I, I'm gonna stop there a minute, but that's my thought. 

Mehmet: No, absolutely. And actually I tried to bring this topic multiple times and, uh, I'm happy, you know, you, you know, gave also your opinion on that. Um, I am also a big believer that, you know, the system is. Outdated. I, I don't want to be more harsh, I would say.[00:19:00] 

Mm-hmm. Uh, I'm like you to like, I'm fascinated, you know, by, you know, any, any educational institution, but what I think, this is my personal opinion. Some people are meant to be, I call them life learners. So these people, we cannot force them into a system that all what it does, it just spill on them information, hoping that they will remember it someday and probably they will not use it afterwards.

And then you have this, you know, part of the population who loves studying, who are too much in academics and. You know, these are the people who would be sitting in labs, in, in research centers within universities, you know, working on hard problems in an academic way, writing papers. Yeah. But if, if we count today, like what's, what's the percentage of professors versus like everyone else?

So probably we should not [00:20:00] consider university or missing university as a taboo. I'm, I'm, I'm. I know like in the US it's like class. I'm not sure, like this is what I hear from people. But for example, in, in the part of the world where, uh, I was born and raised, like it's a taboo if you don't go and have like higher education, right?

Mm-hmm. You would be considered like someone who's a misfit, someone who's uh mm-hmm. Will not do anything useful in life. But guess what? Like the people who, who, who went outside and learned doing business by themselves, they were the ones who succeeded. So. I agree with you a hundred percent. But you mentioned something about digital, you know, aspect, the digital learning mm-hmm.

And monetizing your skills. Mm-hmm. Tell me more, Tom, like what, what are you seeing working, because I'm sure everyone of us have something that can deliver, but again, how, how to start? Like what, what are you seeing? You know, the, the useful I would say, um, you know, [00:21:00] methods, maybe the useful. Uh, channels to start this.

Is it like creating courses? Is it like mentorship? Like, I know, like it depends, and I know it's a loaded question. Mm-hmm. But you've, you've, you've got a lot of experience, so what you can share with us mm-hmm. 

Tom: Well, so, uh, again, I want to be young, so I like to be young and I use young prai and stuff, and I do young things, but I cannot deny the number of years I've been here on this planet.

And then I've read about history. You know, you used the word mentorship and I use that a lot recently. I've been thinking about, I've saw some histor thinking about apprenticeship, that in fact, I was listening to a podcast today. I think podcasts are a great way to learn. That's a, that's a high impact. So while you're at the gym or while you're doing whatever you're doing, listen to podcast.

You know, there, and this guy, this gentleman was talking about how he, he didn't use the word apprenticeship, but he basically went to work for somebody. It was kind of in writing, publishing, and in doing so, one, he was getting compensated. Maybe it wasn't a lot, but he was learning so much and it was a way to get, spend time with an expert, a subject [00:22:00] matter expert.

And so back in the day, people used to, often it was parental, right? Often maybe some son would be, would work with the, with the father or someone else. Sometimes you sit, if you didn't have a school, you might put your. Child was somebody else who knew it. I remember my father-in-law, it wasn't, it wasn't from a career standpoint.

He, his first job as a, you're a young kid, was working in a bakery. And so my point is, you can do that. Well these days you can do that digitally so you can find mentors and or if I want to be a mentor and share my information, this digital age facilitates me distributing that much easier. And to your point, you can monetize it.

And just like everything else, the more. Uh, the more valuable your information is. Well, I, I think you'll get compensated, uh, commensurately, but, so I think plenty of people know how to, like, yes, you can take a video of yourself and put it on your phone and share that. And there, depending on what you're saying, there may be some value there and that's good.

But these days there are actually digital learning platforms that, uh, [00:23:00] that facilitate that. You sharing that information and then if you can get compensated for it, all the better. And that's the thing, if you get that out to people and they need to know that. And so like, I'm just gonna use an example, fishing, you know, because there's an ancient adage about, you know, if you, if you give a man a fish, you feed him for the day.

If you teach him how to fish, you free him for a lifetime. That act of teaching someone how to fish as a young boy, I enjoyed fishing. It's fun. It's a leisure time activity for some people. It's their way. They make a living. Bottom line is whether it's fishing or anything else, can you teach someone how to do it?

I think you can in a series of lessons, and guess what? You start with the fundamentals. Whatever they learn, you kind of progress. And so humans, we learn that way. I think digital learning facilitates that process and it so it at once allows the mentor to share his, his knowledge. It also then helps people gather new knowledge.

And I called myself, you said life learner, and when you said that you meant they learn from life and or experience. I'm a lifelong learner. That is, I like to continue learning. There's different ways to do it. I [00:24:00] listen to a podcast today, I read books. There's different, there's different ways to learn.

Someone can show you, it's very traditional, but I'm all about learning. But that's my remark there. 

Mehmet: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I, I consider myself, uh, you know, the day. There's an old saying, I can't remember. I, you know, the, who, who's the one who said it, but like, if one day pass and I don't learn anything, it's not my worst.

I'm quoting someone. I feel like it wasn't a worst day, like mm-hmm. Because yeah, like I am believer that we are here on, on the planet to keep learning. Right. And, uh. You know, it's a little bit philosophical. I know, but you know, because we, we, we come to, to this world, we don't, we don't know anything. And then, you know, with time we start to learn about our surroundings, what's happening.

We are curious by, by nature. And, you know, curiosity means learning. So I, I need to keep. Understanding how things works and why [00:25:00] it's happening and so on. So yeah, a hundred percent. And I, I'm believer also like in, in, in this huge economy of, of digital learning, that people can start sharing, you know, their knowledge.

With each others and in a kind of a more democratized way. Again, it's, it's like outside of the walls of the traditional schools and colleges and and so on. And I think the internet is one of the fascinating, um, inventions by, by us humans that allowed us to, to actually do this. And to your point, like you just mentioned, like you, you can do zoom and you don't have to be physically in a place to, to do that.

So. Just need the, the will of, of doing that now, want to come back to, to, to kind of, not necessarily insurance, but something, you know, which may be related from technology perspective. So there's a [00:26:00] lot of, of, uh, you mentioned AI and the use of ai, but there are a lot of also kind of, um. Edge technologies when it comes to, to finance in general.

So the FinTech is on the rise, the Web3, the, the blockchain. Mm-hmm. Uh, and I know like you have your own, I would say, you know, experience and vision on that. Mm-hmm. So what would like to, to, to, to share with us on, on that space, particularly Tom, and then maybe we can deep dive in, in few of these topics. 

Tom: So in our previous conversation, we were talking about.

You, you used the word democratization, so that's the thing. The internet perhaps democratized education. I think that's true. And we, and we've, and so people around the world can share information and that's beautiful. Um, when you say Web3, so there, so for one thing, I'm gonna say this, I, I. I love the current state.

Well, I have a, I have a love aid, uh, relationship with technology 'cause I love it when it [00:27:00] has a positive impact on humanity. And I, and I hate it when it has a negative impact, but I guess my point is I love that people all around the world can share good information. Now, having said that, we are still in our current format.

I call it Web 2.0. The good news in web two is. You and I can put information on the web, we can, we can put it there and we can take it back and we can share it. And with e-commerce, so with the mobile web and with e-commerce Web 2.0, we could do that and I could even, I can compensate you or we could, I, information can be monetized and I think information is so valuable.

I'm a big proponent of that Web3, which is, uh, there are multiple factors in Web3, including ai and then actually blockchain technology, it further democratizes it. And what I mean is. And I, like you mentioned Zoom, whether it's social media, a multimedia platform or the tradit, or not traditional, but the new distribution channel.

I talked about podcasts, the platforms that those are on in Web 2.0, there are [00:28:00] corporations, maybe even individuals controlling that. So if I come, if I developed a whole digital university today, if I'm not on Web3. I can be de platformed by somebody. So whether it's, I have my podcast and certain corporations says, you will no longer be distributed on there, or if I'm using social media to distribute store or show my information that if they turn off my account, I'm out of there.

What blockchain does, which is one of the component, one of the building blocks of Web3 is. There is no ownership. It's like shareware, uh, open source stuff. So when, when I talk about Linux technology, people understand Linux is like an operating system, kind of like Windows, but, but that's the thing. Bill Gates and Microsoft really own and control windows, and there are pros and cons of everything, right?

Uh, but in Linux world, really, there may be some consortiums that kind of control it, but no one really owns it. And when no one owns it, that democratization. I believe is a good thing and or it solves certain problems. So I'm enamored with blockchain because if you had, and, and you literally, you could [00:29:00] have, I guess you could have an internal blockchain, but a blockchain solution where it's decentralized and where ownership is democratized.

I really love that, uh, because you can use consensus to control and, and build security. But it, but I, I, I like the way that it, it makes, there's a certain level of transparency. Democratization and it allows, I guess I'll call it this, that's the thing. People are saying this now, the creator economy. I love the creator economy and exists, but the creator economy is a little bit of a fallacy if it's in web two, because really, whether it's, uh, mark Zuckerberg or, or Bill Gates, certain people may really control that, and they may either own it, they may.

One of the other cliche things that I like is they'll say, don't build your business on rented land. Right or wrong, if you're, if you're building a business. On a web two platform that's like rented land only in Web3 where there's a distributed blockchain where no one owns it. Are you really kind of, you, the, the ownership it becomes to the creator, not the, not the platform.[00:30:00] 

Mehmet: You know, this is very controversial, I would say, because, you know, people, sometime they might not, they might not really, uh, understand this is very, uh, uh, you know, important point, point to mm-hmm. Because I ask this question sometime, I challenge people. Mm-hmm. Um, I, I say, I don't tell them about, you know, this.

What I like to call single person of failure, because you know, your, your whole business might be controlled by Yeah. And, and it's not the CEO by the way. So think people, they think, ah, are you talking about, are you referring to Mark Zuckerberg? Mm-hmm. I say no. So there's one guy who sits and control the accounts, right?

He, mm-hmm. He's in charge or she's in charge of detecting, let's say, frauds or maybe deciding, hey, like you are sharing something, which not within the policy of our company. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Boom. Right. And to your point, I've seen a lot of people who, who, uh, faced, you know, these issues [00:31:00] multiple times on different platforms, by the way, to be fair.

Mm-hmm. Sure, sure. Uh, and because it was centralized platform, I. They lost money for a period of time because they were not able to be there. And then they say, what's your backup plan? Mm-hmm. So what are you trying to do today to change this fact? Now let's, let's try to explain more, uh, Tom, why decentralized systems allows people, it's like, because people, the problem, in my opinion, and by the way, myself included.

Although coming from a technology background, I was very, very skeptic about mm-hmm. Blockchain and mm-hmm. Web3, because honestly, I didn't think about the use cases that we can mm-hmm. Build on top of that. Right. But if we, if we want to like kind give real examples to people about the possibilities of these decentralized systems mm-hmm.

Like what are the options and what are the. I would say [00:32:00] opportunities that it can open for us what, what we can tell them. 

Tom: So for a great question. So first I wanna make some analogies 'cause to your point, so, so number one in my background, when I worked in telecom, I had a lot of exposure. To problems and solutions of big distributed networks.

That's why, for one thing, blockchain and distributed networks kind of resonate with me, so I, I have exposure to that. Now, having said that, if you and I are gonna start a company today, we're we're partners. We might use a G Drive or there's different, there's these different solutions where we kinda have these shared folder structures.

You and I could decide to do that, and there's some controls to that, and you and I can control who we allow. In fact, I have interns that work for me, and I don't give them, I don't give them access to my entire folder structure, but I can invite them and allow them to read and or write. You can do it either way.

A subset of my data. And so we can do that, but, but there is, you know, in, in this case it's alphabet. I'm using Google Drive. Those guys control my [00:33:00] email and stuff. And so I, one day I could be de platform, but I, I guess where I'm going with this is if you envision a, if you and I started, if we started a network using, uh, my laptop and your laptop, well, then there's those and those, those are the only two nodes.

If we use some open source software like Linux or something like that, and we, we write this thing up and where you and I, and then both of our families can start using it, and we're all on there, we are still constrained by things like electricity has to be turned on. But if all those computers are connected, then there's a network there already.

And where I'm going with this is if we can, if we can architect that solution so that there really isn't an owner, like I said, I'm using Linux or some. Sh open source software that's beautiful in that. So we've, we've reduced that one risk. There's still some risk in it, but at least there's nobody that's gonna, uh, take us all off either shut down the thing altogether.

And so if you go to a hundred million, if a hundred million people sign up and, and download something, then you've got a real network. It is at [00:34:00] once. It's important to recognize both robust and, uh, vulnerable. In other words. Well, well, that's a, that's a hundred million places where someone could hack, and that's true.

But then if you are all incentivized for that to stay, like if we've got all the family photos on there, we all want it there. We'll, for one thing we might all make backup copies of it. We might all be monitoring. So it's a fascinating model. There's this, there's this ancient model called the Byzantine Generals problem, and it has to do with the fact that if you're controlling a big, massive military thing, some percentage of your armies can actually flip.

Uh, there was a film that came out last year on Napoleon. I actually read the book it right about Napoleon. Kinda had some issues sometimes where he would have, he'd make alliances and then someone flip and fight against. So it's a fascinating problem to have. But there are, you can address that. So my point is, if you have a large, decentralized, democratized open source network.

Everybody's incentivized for it to be good. And we're all watching it. That's the thing. So if you, like, if you take a snapshot every day, and that's, that's where blockchain comes in. Blockchain is kind of a periodic sequential series [00:35:00] of transactions or data capture we can all watch and verify. And so that's really what it is.

So, so that's, so that's kind the background. So there's blockchain is a distributed thing. Then you said what use cases? Well, I'm gonna use, um, it happened both recently in the US and Miami, and then it happened a year or so previously in, uh. Paris for soccer games, any kind of event, you have this PR challenge where you and I have bought tickets.

I sell my ticket. Depending on how I sell that thing, sometimes people can fraudulently do it, right? I can make a screen catcher of a QR code, or I print out, I sell four to five copies of printouts. Only the first one in gets in. Then everybody else gets the chef. They don't get in. If we can all, if we can all see the network, and it's hard to visualize this perhaps when there's a hundred million people, but if it's just you and I, if we can both see it, we kind of already know when that's used or not.

And so it, it, it addresses, so it addresses kind of authentication and au authenticity. So when you do that, it is not perfect. Nothing's in valuable. It can be anything can be compromised. But a [00:36:00] democrat democratized, decentralized, uh, open source blockchain where we can sit there and watch it and we got, we're controlling it.

It, it really, it, it, it can allow us to address issues like that. So you ask for use cases, I'm saying selling tickets or it could be, how about this? How about deep fake? That's a big problem. So AI is at once great and terrible. I think a blockchain solution to help validate the legitimacy of a photo, uh, is, is a good thing.

So I'm, I'm kind of gonna stop there because I'm, but that's, that's my response for you. 

Mehmet: Yeah. And I, I remember now probably I research it or one of my guests mentioned it even. Related to something you do today, Tom, regarding the insurance? So blockchain can actually, you know, validate and, uh, I, I would say like, let's say if, if, if I do a claim, so it is recorded on the blockchain.

Mm-hmm. So no one else can, you know. Say no, like you didn't claim this, or like mm-hmm. You have a fraud over there because the [00:37:00] blockchain knows everything. It record, it's like a single source of, uh, truth, right? Yeah. And no one can alter it. So it has a lot, a lot. And you know, the more I spoke with people about it, I became more excited about it.

Um, the decentralization, and again, like to your point. Um, it's not like we want to be kind of skeptic, but yeah. It's, it's a, it's a reality that whenever you are using a system owned by someone else, you have this risk of being removed from that system. Mm-hmm. And to your point, that might be deleting all your files.

It might be removing you from social media like we and the other examples you just mentioned. Mm-hmm. Which is, which is great. So. What else? Also, Tom, from, from technology perspective, you know, excites you and you know, you say like, yeah, like this is, will be big. 

Tom: Well, you used the [00:38:00] word skepticism and I wanna remark about that.

So again, because I'm so old, I've lived through some of this stuff. So I remember back in the day, boys and girls, when there was no internet, and so when I wanted to, to buy a shirt, I had to get in my vehicle and drive and go to a store and purchase it. Okay. And, or actually I could get it remotely. I could use a telephone and, and look at a printed catalog.

So I pre-internet, I could buy things. Okay. I remember that. Then internet 1.0 came. That was great because now I could look online. I, I could use and I could, at my home, I could connect to the internet and I could look and see at this retailer what kind of things they offered. Now, admittedly, when I got there, what if it was out, what if they didn't have my size, but at least the internet at least opened it up so I could see it.

That was 1.0 when 2.0 came along. Oh, actually before that, you know what the skepticism thing is? I remember the time when people would talk to businesses about websites like, I don't need a website. No one here has a website. I don't need one. I'm selling. Everybody has a website now. Right? [00:39:00] In other words, skepticism.

Skepticism is healthy, I think is a na. It's human one. We are naturally curious as humans. I think we're also skeptical and both are good. They're kind of two sides of the same point over. But I'm just telling everybody listening. People used to be skeptical about, uh, the internet. And then it came and everybody adopted, and then, and then web two came.

Like, I remember people saying, I'm not gonna buy something on my phone. Are you crazy? I won't do that. You know what I mean? And or you couldn't, I'm gonna go home. I'm gonna go home and check that on the internet. Well, now you can, because mobility came in for Web 2.0 and E-commerce. Now you've got these access to all the information everywhere you need.

You can navigate with it and you can certainly buy stuff. I'm telling you, Web3 is coming and because of AI and because of blockchain. Everybody, everybody will be on the blockchain. That is, you will make transitions because that architecture lends itself to solve a variety of problems. And it is not perfect.

Just like, I mean, that's the thing, the internet is not perfect and neither is e-commerce. There's still frauds, but that doesn't mean no one's, no one's taking their phone and throwing it. They're like, no, it's [00:40:00] coming. So blockchain technology and Web3 is coming. In fact, it's already here, but it will be, the mass adoption is coming too.

'cause it, it will be used for pervasively. So whatever. Absolutely. 

Mehmet: Yeah. Yeah. By the way, to your point, like skepticism also in my opinion, encourages the people who come up with the technology to go forward and try to prove to these people, Hey guys, like you are wrong. Like, no. Mm-hmm. We have real use cases.

Mm-hmm. And you know, I always. Every episode try to refer to the famous chart where you have the early adopters and then you know, the rest will come with time and you have Yeah. These guys who you can't please them and you can please everyone who would come very late. That's fine. This is, mm-hmm. This is nature, uh, of us humans and it's, it's completely fine.

So, um, to your point, a hundred percent, and I'm a big believer also like with the all, what's happening today. With ai, [00:41:00] blockchain Web3. Yeah. So we have a bright future guys. Like I'm, I'm kind of an optimistic guy by nature. So, uh, everything, everything gonna work just perfect. Uh, ignore the noise. And if I want to wrap up and ask you, Tom, if you want to leave the audience today with something that they can reflect on, something that.

I maybe didn't ask you and you want to just share, so this is a space for you to, to kind of wrap it up for us and mm-hmm. You know, tell us also where we can get in touch with you. Well, 

Tom: so number one, that's the thing. I like to talk, so I request that people connect with me and so they can find me anywhere.

My name is Tom Basey. Whatever social media platform would find me and make, and make a connection request, I want to connect with 'em. And then I really feel like, so one thing you said, the future's right, I kind of wins it. I'm not sure the future's bright and like I say, I, so I left, I changed from telecom and high tech to medical device.

Because I had a [00:42:00] bad taste of mouth. I don't like the negative impacts of technology on society, so I don't like it when I walk into a restaurant and there's a family there, a couple adults and a couple of kids, and rather than talking, they're all four on their mobile devices. I don't like that. So that's, that's an example to me of negative impact and or the dehumanization that occurs in technology.

So I, I'm at once anti-technology and pro technology. The other thing is, like I said, it's coming actually, I. I'm concerned about it, but how about this, instead of being concerned, why don't we get educated? So we were talking about digital learning. So my point is just educate yourself. Listen to some podcasts.

Take some di there's plenty of free, that's something we didn't talk much. There's free, free learnings up there. So, oh yeah. M mit some, some of my first understanding blockchain technology are because I took a free course, so I'll go ahead and say this. I, I tried to be brand agnostic, but. On YouTube, I took an MIT free course on blockchain technology that's available now.

I later did, I got a paid certificate and did some stuff through that same university. My point [00:43:00] is, shame on you humanity if you don't get educated and check your sources. So I'm gonna stop there, but that's my, that's my message. I encourage everybody to be a lifelong learner. Don't stick your head in the sand and connect with me on social media.

And I met connect with him too, not connect with him. You're like, no, no. Shut up. That's my message. 

Mehmet: Yeah. Thank you very much Tom. And just, you know, very quickly, plenty of resources. So MIT is one of them. I think Stanford, they have something. There is K Academy, which is also available. I mean, guys like. Chat, GPT made the life much, much easier also as well.

So just, you know, use, use any of the AI tools. If you don't like a chat GPT, use any of the available tools. You know, you can find them easily. I think everyone shares about them. And for connecting with Tom, you don't need to go right and left and then search. I'm gonna make the life easier. I'm gonna put the links in the show notes if you're listening on your favorite podcasting app.

If you are watching on YouTube, of course you will be able to find that in the description. And again, [00:44:00] Tom. I can't thank you enough for, you know, this episode and sharing your experience and encouraging more people to go learn more people to become entrepreneurs and also learn about, you know, the future which is ahead of us and staying human.

So I really appreciate, you know, this, uh, time with you today. And. For the audience. This is how usually I end my episodes. So if you just discovered us by luck, thank you for passing by. I hope you enjoyed. If you'd so please subscribe, share it with your friends and colleagues. We are trying to make an impact, so as much as we can reach to people, that would be great.

And if you are one of the people who keeps coming again and again, thank you for. All the support, all you know, the messages you sent me, all, you know, the encouragement you, you gave me and watching me from far. Thank you very much for this and thank you because, uh, this year I'm very blessed. Um, the podcast is really doing well in multiple countries where we [00:45:00] are ranking in the top 200 chart of Apple Podcast.

And simultaneously, thank you for, for, uh, you know, all this. And also I'm, I'm discovering this guys with you. So we are also choosing to be one of the top 45 most listen podcasts in Dubai. We were like also chosen as a. Top hundred futuristic technology podcast also as well. So I'm really, you know, grateful for all the support.

This couldn't happen without you. And as I say, always stay tuned for a new episode very soon. Thank you. Bye-bye. 

Tom: Thanks very much, Mehmet. Bye.