Cosmos: 

Welcome back to the show, my fellow extraordinary Americans. Today’s guest is Dr. Matt Marco. Dr. Matt is an entrepreneur, corporate leader, investor, author, speaker, TEDx presenter, and engineer. Rising from an entry-level engineer to the C-suite, he has led multiple businesses valued at $ 9 billion and $10 billion across technology and defense. Beyond the corporate world, he’s a successful investor with interests in real estate, private equity, debt, securities, and entertainment. Through his unconventional entrepreneur program, Dr. M.A. is reshaping how professionals think about wealth and success. Instead of urging people to quit their jobs and chase risky startups, he equips high achievers to thrive in their careers while building real financial independence. 

Blending hard-won lessons from the corporate world with the financial strategies of elite investors, the anti-preneur framework offers a clear, practical path to lasting wealth without the risks associated with entrepreneurship. In his corporate career, Dr. Matt has held senior leadership roles at the forefront of defense and autonomy. He served as the chief technology officer of Empires Inc., a growth—stage defense technology company developing high-power microwave weapons for counter-drone applications. 

As president and leader, CEO of Spartan Radar, he led the company’s development of advanced sensing and commercial vehicle products. He also brought his expertise in ghost autonomy as vice president, where he created and led the radar division in advanced collision avoidance for truly hands-free self-driving. Before that, he was the head of radar at Waymo, the Google self-driving car company. He’s an extraordinary American, and I’m glad and honored to have him on the show. Dr. Man, thank you so much for taking the time to be here.

And Dr. Matt, I know you’ve had a truly remarkable and incredible career, having worked as an engineer for decades in defense, serving as an engineering leader at Raytown and Waymo, and as an executive in the self-driving car, radar, and defense sectors. Could you tell me a little more about your story, your background, and how you got into such an illustrious career?

Dr. Matt Marco: 

Throughout my career, I’ve always tried to work on projects where the problem we’re addressing and the mission we’re pursuing are bigger than us. Right. So, with defense, it’s not just about creating an app or a finance application, or something similar. We’re working to protect our land, protect our people, and protect our way of life. That’s bigger than me for sure. It’s bigger than most of us. And when I worked in the self-driving car space, it was the same thing. This mission aims to help save the approximately 43,000 lives lost on the road every year. That’s big. That’s bigger than us.

So, everything I’ve done has been focused on working on things in an area that’s bigger than myself. One of the things I’ve always tried to do is live by five success principles. They’re actually in my book, but I’ve included a brief description of what they are, and I didn’t have these details from the beginning. I’ve somewhat consolidated my thoughts over the years. But I’ve always tried to make the most out of every day. So, how do I get to where I am today? Well, I didn’t start out being the CEO right out of school, right?

 So what I had to do was work my way through things. You become CEO because you have experience as a president. You become president. You have experience as a vice president, or VP, because you had experience as the head of a product. And that was because I was managing a division responsible for the tech development of various products. So basically make the most out of every day. 

Number two is always be learning, always be growing. Oh my gosh. During the early part of my career, when I was flying around the country, I’d always have a textbook with me. I’d be reading textbooks on the plane just to continue expanding my knowledge and pushing the insights I gained, knowing that I would still do so even after completing my Ph.D. I’d still be carrying books, as there’s more you want to learn that you want to push yourself on. And, like the third principle, be ready to take advantage of big opportunities when they present themselves. Throughout my career, I haven’t always been looking for the next big thing, even after starting a new job. I worked hard at it, and I planned to be there for substantial periods of time. But then, right when you needed it, an opportunity presented itself. 

And I’ll tell you, if I had not taken those, my career might have been dramatically different. If I had not taken and moved from the small area in Northwest Florida, where I was working on a military base, to Los Angeles to join a major defense company, and ultimately become a principal engineering fellow and the tech director for all of their advanced electronic warfare, I wouldn’t have. That wouldn’t have led to the other things that I did. So, if I hadn’t taken the leap to pursue my doctorate while working, and when that opportunity presented itself, it wouldn’t have led to several other things. 

So that’s. Number three is to take advantage of the big opportunities. Number four is that you and I are both in a community that talks about different types of exchange, right? There are partial exchange, criminal exchange, and fair exchange. I always strive to exceed expectations in my work, which leads to an abundant exchange. And then, fifth, we are all in this together, so if we can really look for opportunities to be kind to one another, which is really hard in the business world today. You know, so many times we’re like, oh, business, business, business. We often fail to take the time to think about others. Always look for opportunities to be kind or to lift someone else. It might just be like, hey, man, you know, I saw you earlier today. You’re rocking that coat. That looks fantastic. I just wanted to give you a little compliment on that and let you know. Yeah, I saw it. I noticed. 

So, those ways to lift each other are a cool coat, by the way. I do like that. The. Those ways to lift each other just make everything so much more enjoyable, and it increases our ability to connect. Those are essentially the secrets I’ve used to get ahead and achieve my current position.

Cosmos:

 So, Dr. Matt, like, I know you’ve had this illustrious career, right? But for somebody who wants to follow in your footsteps, especially when it comes to technology and defense, but they also have the ambition of being an entrepreneur, how would you go about advising such a person?

Dr. Matt Marco: 

So the. It’s really important, especially early in your career, to go deep before you go broad. Okay? Go deep before you go broad or wide. 

So, really master some things. So often I see people who are younger thinking, ‘Okay, well, I’ll do this for a year, and then I’ll become a master at it.’ And then I’ll do this, and I’ll do this, and this, and this. You don’t become a master at anything in a year. Whether you’re a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s ” The Outlier or any other things that talk about how long it takes to really master something, you’ll get to the point where you’re really good at it. 

Those skills will be integral to your career and part of your professional identity, which you can then apply in other industries and contexts as well. If you’re in defense and interested in technology, consider exploring this area. Learn as much as you can from others. Because when you decide, if you decide to be an entrepreneur later and start your own thing, there’s not gonna be a lot of time for learning. It’s gonna be go, go, go all the time. You’ll be meeting with investors, trying to get things done, hiring people, and figuring out why we’re not making payroll. Why is this deadline coming? All these different things will consume your time. 

So learn stuff as much as you can. Go as deep as you can early and learn the basics. Learn whether you’re an engineer, in finance, or whatever those skills are. Learn those really well. And then, as opportunities present themselves, you can start looking at things to maybe branch out on your own or branch out to a smaller company where you’ll be given more responsibility. But don’t forsake that initial learning, that initial going deep, for the allure of a prize by jumping to a startup too soon.

Cosmos: 

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people have the shiny object syndrome, and they do exactly that. So what you’re saying is pretty relevant about like sticking to one thing for a period of time, you know.

Dr. Matt Marco: 

Absolutely. It’s hard, you know, you have to get in there and learn it and grind it out and go through the peaks and valleys of that, you know, but in doing so, you’ll get really good at it. And then those skills that you’ll use and that ability to. Here’s another trick, also. When you get really good at that, then when you’re in the throes of some really tough situations later, you could look back and say, well, hey, I was able to get really good at electrical engineering or radar signal processing or whatever, finance, calculating DPI on a private equity, whatever it is that.

And you’ll tell yourself, and you realize, look, I was able to become a master at that. I can become a master at these new things because I’ve already shown that I can do that. 

And your mental, subconscious, and unconscious mind can look to that and say, ‘Yes, you have a proven track record of being able to perform in these high-pressure situations and learning and mastering a new skill.’ So in this new application, it’s the same thing.

Cosmos: 

So, doctor man, your entire career, what was the biggest mistake or challenge you had to face? And how did you go about fixing it or overcoming it?

Dr. Matt Marco: 

So I think the biggest mistakes I made early in my career were that I was very focused on, like I said, going deep and being the smartest one in the room, right? I really wanted to be the smartest one in the room on things. I wanted to be the guy whose opinion was never questioned, whose insights were never double checked, even though I wanted to really be that guy. And I realized after a while that that is impossible. You know, it is impossible always to be the smartest one in the room on every single thing. 

And it’s not really the path to success, even if you are. Because of the things I had, I would have changed if I could have. Now it’s always weird to go back and change something, right, because you might put yourself on a completely different trajectory. 

However, I would have done two things: I would have worked my network and connections with people much more substantially, much earlier. I realize now just how absolutely important every position I’ve had in the last 15 years has been. Perhaps even more has come from the fact that I was already well known to people who wanted to bring me in. I had a strong network, which led to the positions I’ve held. 

However, at first, I didn’t realize how truly valuable that was. There’s a phrase that your network is greater than your net worth; therefore, your network will always be greater than your net worth.

Cosmos: 

I was actually about that.

Dr. Matt Marco:

Yeah, yeah, that’s absolutely true. So, if I were to go back and tell my younger self something, it’s to build genuine friendships and relationships, not just superficial ones. This is when I earned my undergraduate degree and began my career. We didn’t have LinkedIn or any of those things back then, but it wasn’t just about making superficial contacts; it would have been more like exchanging business cards or something similar. Back then, it would have been truly about making relationships with people that they could call if they got stuck on something. I know we work for different companies, so I’d appreciate some non-proprietary advice on this, as I have a personal situation. 

So I would have worked my network earlier. The second thing is similar to trying to be the smartest one in the room, which is usually very difficult. Pursuing that goal can be challenging, but it’s also important to strive for humility. I’ve also learned that being humble in everything we do is far more important than always trying to prove you’re the smartest one in the room. You can’t prove that you’re ever the smartest one in the room. 

And even if you are the smartest on a particular topic, that may not be the topic that’s most relevant to the problems we have. And people don’t necessarily like to work with that person. And we do business with people we know and trust. Right. Well, if you’re trying and humble, you’re a lot more likable. If you’re honest, which stems from humility and the ability to be humble, then you’re also more trusted. 

So I would say. Another phrase we use in some communities is that your humility must always be greater than your ability. Humility is always going to be greater than your ability. And so, if I were to go back and tell myself to build stronger connections earlier and remain humble, I would have learned those lessons later. But it’s if I were to jump-start things a little bit more for myself early.

Cosmos: 

Dr. Matt, what you’re saying is very relevant. Right. However, for many people, when they look at individuals in your industry, such as those in entrepreneurship, they often see the arrogant, cutthroat types who usually succeed. 

This is a refreshing outlook on humility, which should be greater than your ability, because we need more of that in our society.

Dr. Matt Marco: 

Absolutely. People that you see, the successful entrepreneurs that you see are a very, very small subset of the number of people that are actually running businesses today. So we see the very visible Zuckerbergs and Elon Musk’s.

Cosmos: 

And I was thinking about Elon Musk.

Dr. Matt Marco: 

So I think that those are, yes, some big personalities, and they are in charge of. They’re incredibly wealthy people. Steve Jobs was reportedly a challenging person to work for and with, I’ve been told. I mean, I didn’t know him personally, but came across him really strongly in Isaacson’s biography of him. But those are a subset.

How many businesses do you think there are in the United States? How many even entrepreneurial-type businesses are there in the United States? There’s a bunch of. And yet, we focus our impression on Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and maybe Sam Altman — these are some of the very visible people in the news. Still, they aren’t necessarily representative of the population.

Cosmos: 

No, for sure. I mean, I just wanted to bring it out there because, like, when a lot of people are starting, they’re going to look at these people as role models. It’s essential to note that humility plays a significant role in achieving success in all aspects of life. 

But Dr. Matt, on another note, I know you worked in defense and tech, and you’re a senior leader in both. What similarities do you think exist between the two industries? And what do you think are the differences as well?

Dr. Matt Marco: 

So, in between defense and something like commercial tech, they’re. The experience I had was that they were both focused and very passionate about the mission. So I worked at the Air Force Research Lab and kind of the last couple things I did in Defense, Air Force Research Lab and then Raytheon, and in both of those, very focused on the mission, very focused on the warfighter, gathering the intelligence that we need or protecting our warfighters or developing, the weapons that we need, all those sorts of things because we’re serving something bigger than us. The defense of our land, the defense of our way of life, and the ability to prevent aggression around the world. Those are big things. 

And when I left that and went to Waymo, I was actually a little worried that I wouldn’t find it there. However, as I mentioned earlier, that same passion was there because we’re working on something bigger than ourselves. We’re working on saving lives. And we were at Waymo; we weren’t sitting there talking about, ‘ Okay, how much money are we going to make, or what are the gross margins or the net margins on this? ‘ Or we were talking about safety, safety, safety, saving lives and protecting our passengers. Anyone in the company could ground the fleet if needed for a safety-related reason. I grounded the fleet. 

You know, I had one of my team members submit a ticket to ground the fleet because we found an error that was very unlikely to occur in some of the radar software. We decided that it was not worth the risk that the software would fail. 

So we grounded the fleet and made the necessary repairs. In 24 hours, I think we were back to being operational again within 18 hours. But it’s that concept of safety, protecting our passengers as well as protecting the lives of people and pedestrians around us, so that they don’t get killed in automobile accidents or other automobile-related accidents. So those are similar things. Now that I’ve worked in other defense and tech places, I’ve seen that they offer much higher salaries. We’re going to focus on it, and they may not. We’ll see whether they’re as successful or not. 

But Raytheon is obviously very successful—one of the largest defense companies in the world. And Waymo is absolutely crushing it in how they’re rolling out city after city now, after 12, 13 years of grinding it out to make a system that is safe and repeatable. I think the differences lie in some large defense companies, where an old-school mentality prevails: how much do we really trust and how much do we really value our employees? And sometimes, when accountants take over running the company, you start seeing a decline in trust and a decline in the value you place on your workforce. Right. 

Some startup defenses place a great deal of focus on the employee. We know that our employees are the key to solving this. You know, our building doesn’t hold any significance. We rent the building. You know, the IP we have is maybe okay, but it’s our employees that are going to get us there. A big defense sometimes loses that, so you have to go to another computer because you can’t log into your laptop due to a broken one, and submit a ticket, answering questions like, ‘Why is your laptop broken?’ and ‘Why did you break your laptop?’ And it might take a while for you to get a new one because they outsource some of that work, and it just takes a long time. At Waymo and Google, it’s not considered a priority if you forgot your laptop or need another one for the day. You would go to a place called TechStop, where there’s a rack of laptops outside. You just flash your badge and grab one, right? It wasn’t like 20 questions, like, ‘ What did you do to your laptop? Or you have to drive back home. I’d drive an hour back home to get it. You know, it’s like, no, here, take another one. Your time is valuable to us. We value you and we trust you. We know you’re not going to. Well, you flashed your badge on it, so they know you took it. 

However, the trust and value sometimes seem to differ slightly. You see some defense companies that don’t offer any free food or coffee to their employees. You just wonder like, really, is that the best, is that the best use of the shareholders’ money? Wouldn’t you do better to be able to give some of those profits back to the employees? Just make things a little nicer and more efficient. 

So, those are some of the things that I think make a difference. Working the same mission, working with the same passion. Although in different missions. But sometimes that trust and value is a little bit skewed between the two entities.

Cosmos: 

So, Dr. Matt, I know you’ve been at the top in both the defense and technology industries. From your perspective, what does success actually mean to you?

Dr. Matt Marco: 

So the more. First of all, that is a great question. I think that so many people don’t take the time to answer that themselves, and they go through without a compass, you know. So what does success mean? I don’t know. I’m just going to work hard, or I’m going to do this, or whatever. 

So, the more I think about success, I realize three words start with ‘I’ and one of them is independence. Okay. We want to have financial independence. Right. We want to be financially independent so that we don’t have to work if we don’t want to. We have money coming in from other sources to cover our expenses. Ideally, this money continues to work for you, allowing you to be completely self-sufficient without requiring any active hours. That’s the money. Independence, there’s time. Independence is the ability to make your own choices or pursue your own purpose. A friend of mine, Jason Duncan, has a resource that’s now available, which is essentially his version of the five aspects of independence or five freedoms. And it’s really solid. 

So number one is independence. Number two is impact. You want to be working on things that are bigger than you. So, to me, impact is about things that move society towards upward leveling. And then, thirdly, and I didn’t add this in until more recently, I’ve had those two for a while. This concept of interdependence is one that we should consider. If we aren’t working in a way that allows us to become interdependent upon one another, we’ll feel alone and isolated. And to be honest, the ability to create, attract, and recognize opportunities will start to suffer. 

So this interdependence between us, between me and others, that’s what I’m really pushing for now. But not just from a network perspective; from a genuine connection sense.

Cosmos: 

No, Yeah. I would also like to add that many people value financial freedom. Still, time freedom is actually much more important, or at least of higher priority on a grand scale, because you can’t get back your time, but you can always get back your money.

Dr. Matt Marco: 

Right? Right. We get 168. 168 every week. Right. So 168 hours every week.

Cosmos: 

Yeah.

So, Dr. Matt, I wanted to ask you this for this episode because I find this concept really interesting. I read your book, The Anti-Preneur, and it’s a little different from the concept of an entrepreneur. 

Right. Like, this podcast is obviously about entrepreneurship, but can you tell me, the audience, a little bit more about what the Anti Preneur is about and this concept?

Dr. Matt Marco:

 Absolutely. So the name is meant to be a little bit provocative, but I want to come out of the gate. I’m not against entrepreneurs. I’m not looking down my nose at you like, hey, you, entrepreneur—nothing like that. I absolutely respect. An entrepreneur started every company I’ve ever worked for, just by definition.

So I’m not against entrepreneurs. However, what I do see is that there is just so much hype surrounding being an entrepreneur that you can’t be financially successful unless you are one. And that is just blatantly not true. You know, there are many examples of very successful people that are worked as employees their entire career. You know, there are obviously some famous people, such as Mary Barra of General Motors or Tim Cook of Apple. Those are employees. 

However, there are several people you may not know about, simply because they live two streets over and you haven’t met them, yet they’ve worked as a W-2 employee. However, they are very successful. What I’m trying to help with this whole movement is the group I call professionals, practitioners, and experts, which is really the backbone of our society. 

By the time you experience anything from a company, it’s not the entrepreneur or the founder who’s done that. It’s the professionals, practitioners, and experts. Steve Jobs designed the iPhone I use. Well, Steve Jobs didn’t pass away for a while now, but even back earlier, he didn’t. He wasn’t the one building that. Employees built it. You know, the software was written by employees. Employees write the Microsoft software I use on some laptops. The employees built the computer I’m using. My house, built by employees. None of these is built by. 

In fact, by the time they’re built, none of these are built by the entrepreneur or founder. By the time you experience something from a company, it’s built by these professionals or created by these professionals, not the founder. And I want to help these people do two things. Thrive in their career. Because sometimes they get stuck. They adhere to the myth that hard work alone will lead to a successful career. 

So I can help them unstick that. And number two is to achieve financial independence. Those are the two tenets of being an anti-preneur: being your professional, whether a W2 or 1099, and acting like a W2 employee. It’s a professional practitioner or expert who is or strives towards financial independence. 

And so so many people need this. They might have had a few promotions in their career, but they feel like they’re falling behind, missing out, or stuck in some ways, and/or they’re not really doing the best with their finances. They’ve had one layoff, and they’re really in a financial tough spot. So that’s what I’m trying to do: help them. So let them know you can be successful in your career. You can achieve significant financial independence through your career if you follow a few key steps. You don’t have to throw everything away and become an entrepreneur. You can be an anti-preneur.

Cosmos: 

So, Dr. Matt, this is a very interesting concept because, normally, whenever people think of financial freedom, they think of starting a company like Steve Jobs and becoming very successful, or they think about investments and all that. 

From your perspective, could you elaborate on how professionals can attain financial independence without having to delve into the business side?

Dr. Matt Marco: 

Absolutely. First of all, when we think of starting a business, we often only consider the successes, because those are what’s on the news. We think of companies like Apple, Tesla, Facebook, Stripe, and others like them. So those are. We think of the things where they’re very successful. What we don’t think about is that for every one of those, there are four that went under. 

And so the concept, like, ‘I’ll just be an entrepreneur,’ is that it’ll be easy street for me. Now you’ve got a one in five chance of making it. As a matter of fact, if it’s your first time starting a business, you’ve given up your W2 career, bought the $4,900 course on Facebook, and you’re going to be an entrepreneur. You’re going to this, you’re going to crush it. 

You know, millions will be flowing in. Well, if it’s your first time, you have an 18% success rate. 18% less than, less than one in.

Cosmos: 

Five people only, either. Glam. They don’t see the four out of five. But yeah, that’s pretty intense. That’s a significant percentage.

Dr. Matt Marco: 

Yeah. And here’s the deal, also, if it’s your second time, you get your first business that failed, but you’re going to do better. You purchased another $4,900 course and watched all the episodes of Shark Tank. You know your success rate goes from 18% to 20%. And not your job, not who you work for, but that being an engineer, being a corporate leader, being a marketing professional, being a doctor or a chef or whatever, that’s part of your identity. And to throw that away to start buying laundromats or flipping houses just seems wrong. It seems like you’re not using the gifts God has given you to the best of their potential. 

So yeah, you might make some money at it. One out of five does. It’s really not; it’s not the best thing for most people, and that’s what we’re trying to get out there. It’s exactly the right thing for some. The. But for most people, it’s not. You’ll do much better by staying in your career and optimizing it, because your career provides the financial means and the insurance to give you a place to stay. If you’re smart with your finances, you can use that money for investing, and that can then become a flywheel for investments. Pay thing, pay money. It leads to more investable money, which leads to more money being paid. And it’s a flywheel that basically gets you to the point of financial independence.

Cosmos: 

So, Dr. Matt, you’re familiar with Robert Kiyosaki’s four quadrants, right? You have the business owners, investors, and then you have the employed and self-employed. 

So, from your perspective, what I’m getting is that you should be like a high-level executive, and I think you save the money and then use it to invest in different businesses. And that’s how we acquire our financial independence.

Dr. Matt Marco: 

Right, right, right. By optimizing your career, you gain validation, joy, and a sense of worth. It also provides the funding vehicle for the investments that will put you in that investor quadrant.

Cosmos: 

Wow. So, Dr. Matt, another thing in this book that you wrote, right? As you mentioned, the standard retirement is a pretty bleak picture for most. So what do you mean by that?

Dr. Matt Marco: 

So here’s the deal. Around 1978, we revised our tax laws, essentially creating the concepts of the 401 (k) and the IRA. What we’re dealing with now is the first generation of people who were under this new system, not the old pensions, but this new system. 

And what we’re seeing now, these aren’t my data. These are data from the US government. We currently have a $7 trillion deficit in retirement savings as a country. Just the United States of America. $7 trillion. Now that sounds like kind of a big number, but you know, billions, trillions, quadrillions. It’s challenging to keep track of everything. To put that in perspective, that is more than the United States federal government spent in 2024. 

So, if we took an entire year of government spending and did nothing with it, but tried to shore up a retirement deficit, we still wouldn’t quite make up for it. We’d be close to about $200 billion of it. But that’s as if the government did nothing, no military, no roads, no food stamps, no aid to other countries, no CIA, nothing. No border, nothing. Just use everything to invest all our tax money in a retirement account. We still wouldn’t make it. The issue is that the retirement system we’ve been operating on is fundamentally broken. 

And let me paint a picture of this also. Think about the way retirement works in many people’s minds today. You divide your life into two phases. There’s a phase when you’re working where you hoard money. You put it in your 401(k) and give it to a financial planner. You don’t look at the balance as if the market goes down; that’s in your best interest due to dollar cost averaging. It’s this weird thing. 

So, you hoard this money, and then when you retire, you look at the lump sum you’ve created. For all these years, you’ve been staring at that amount, hoping you’ll die before it runs out.

Cosmos: 

Yes.

Dr. Matt Marco: 

A morbid, weird game that is just not right. We’ve created a system where we have abdicated our financial responsibility through payroll deduction.

Cosmos: 

There’s inflation, just like the money you made in your earlier years. It’s not the same. It doesn’t have the same purchasing power as it did because the dollar has been weakening over the years.

Dr. Matt Marco: 

Absolutely, absolutely. 100%. One of the key entrepreneur concepts is that you must be in total ownership of your financial situation. No more set it and forget it mindset. You own this, and you need to chart the course and enlist the help of others who can assist you. Any financial planner isn’t really a financial planner; they’re salesmen. 

So just be cautious of that. Find someone who can be a truly honest advisor and explore various types of alternative investments as well. Just think about the way most retirement plans work: you have a 401 (k) with a company, and you’ll get the choice of four or five or ten mutual funds to pick from. And would you like to put it in a Roth IRA, a 401(k), or a combination of both? Okay. However, the one that most people choose now, as they’re being encouraged to do so, is target date funds. Right. 

So, I want to retire in 2035 or 2040, and I’m going to invest in a fund that gradually transitions from equities to bonds over time, in theory helping me reach my goal. However, the more you have, the more you can leverage the power of doubling through investments in your final years. You know the rule of 72s, right? 

So, if you’re making 9% a year, it takes eight years to double it, which means it can grow to 72. But over the last eight years, they’ll be pulling money out of high-yield IU equities to put in bonds, which are not going to give you that doubling effect. The math model for the whole thing is flawed as well. That’s why I think it’s broken, in my opinion. We need to rewrite this so that each individual has active control over their financial situation. No more of this set it and forget it mindset that we’ve gotten ourselves into.

Cosmos: 

So, Dr. Matt, as a continuation of this in the coming years, with AI and automation changing the landscape and many jobs being eliminated as a result, how should people approach being an entrepreneur in these changing times that we’re living in?

Dr. Matt Marco: 

First of all, despite every major tech advancement we have, we continually have a growing workforce, right? So we’ll find new things to do. It might be different things, but you’ll find that new opportunities arise for people to do, as every new advancement brings about new industries to support, leverage, and utilize. So, I don’t think that basically, the GDP is going to start dropping. Because we have AI doing everything, it’s going to enable more things, and it’s going to enable more efficiency. I think of AI in much the same way I think of computers. Right? 

We still have a lot of people in the workforce today. However, some people predicted that computers would replace all the employees. Right, well, change the workforce a little bit, but really didn’t get rid of the need for people to do things. What you find is that the AI, in most cases, is an enabler and an accelerator. However, here’s what an anti-preneur can do. And all that, number one, is that if you are in a situation where a company’s restructuring and you end up being laid off as a result, it’s essential to understand that your job is different from your career. Right? So many people, when you ask them what they do, they’ll say, I’m the senior director of purchasing at XYZ Company, right? 

Or I’m the manager of a team of people at Apple, or I’m a VP of something at this company. Well, those are your jobs, right? That’s your job. That’s something that’s not really yours to own. That’s not something you can control. It’s start time or it’s end time. But your career is something different. Your career is the skills that you have acquired, that you have attained, that you’ve developed, and your ability to use those in any company and in any industry, at least in many industries. 

So, separate your job from your career. Don’t identify with that career. Identify with that.  I’m a strong engineer with a deep expertise in signal processing, automotive radar, and military radar. And I can lead teams to create wonderful products in extremely short time frames and help companies achieve success by bringing extreme clarity. That’s what I do. And that’s not tied to any company I’m currently with. And that’s yours. So, if you do get laid off and think of yourself in that way, with that as your identity, then it’s a lot easier. Yeah, it still sucks. You’ll pout for a few days or whatever. But you have to realize that it didn’t strip away your identity. Whereas if you identify with, like, I’m the senior director of something at XYZ Co., now, when you’re not anymore, what’s your identity?

Cosmos: 

Yes, I mean identity is extremely important for many people. Like that’s like. Many people’s careers are built around that. So I see what you’re saying.

Dr. Matt Marco: 

Yes, yes, I think it’s one of the most important things we need to understand here. And it’s easy. You can see it play out in the real world, right? If you watch any sort of sports team, right? We have just concluded the regular season for baseball. We’re seeing several managers who weren’t doing well and are getting fired. Now, will that manager say, ‘Ah, my baseball career is basically over’? You know, I’m not worth anything to anybody? No. They’re like, okay, what’s my next gig going to be? Where am I going to go next? You know, they have identified themselves as a successful baseball leader, even if they’re no longer the successful baseball leader for the Texas Rangers or whatever. The Texas Rangers just got a new manager. 

We can also see this in sports teams. Right on the players. Right. You know, you could be playing for one team one day. You know, hey, you got traded to another team, and maybe that trade’s good for you, the trade’s not so good for you. There’s goodness in everything. I do believe that. But if your identity was like, I’m playing for the. Playing for the Rangers or the Cardinals, and then you get traded —now what’s your identity? We see that model all the time in professional sports. We just need to bring that to the attention of professional workers here in our country.

Cosmos: 

So, Dr. Matt, regarding the entrepreneur’s concept, what is the catalyst that got you started on this journey to help more people who are about to go through this?

Dr. Matt Marco: 

So, great question. I’ve been building up in my mind for a while because I’ve been doing things like mentoring people and giving talks on career advice. However, I began to notice an increasing number of situations where brilliant people, individuals who are much smarter than I am, in the same age range as I am, mid-50s, are being laid off by a company. And then with this one individual in particular, I remember talking to him, and I was like, 

So what are you going to do? He’s like, I don’t know, Matt, but I’ve got to do something. We still need to work for. We still need to keep working. And I was like, You know, that’s. I have some knowledge of the other details of their financial situation. And I’m like, that’s just horrible. This absolutely brilliant individual is now at this. This issue of scarcity, anxiety, and fear arises because they didn’t manage their money more effectively throughout their career. And spunk came a lot of the stories. The need for this also came from my own situation. For a long time, I completely abdicated financial responsibility. I remember making these dorky jokes, as I got divorced and lost a lot of money, my first divorce. 

For instance, I joked that I think I can retire about five or six years after death. I’ll have enough money by then to retire. And then I recall that I once joined. I think it was when I moved to Raytheon. I turned my finances over to a professional there. It’s like, look, I’m good at making the money. I want you to be good at investing. And I just didn’t even check what they were doing. Well, not really the smartest idea. I’ll just say that. So, my own concepts of fear and abdication, and so forth, have become clear. If I could share what I know now with people much earlier in their career, oh, my goodness, just how much better could we make that? 

So, that’s what I did. I decided that I don’t just want to fix this one at a time. I want to institutionalize helping people so that we can make this world a better place, allowing people to live without fear. They can truly enjoy the careers they have, as well as live lives that are not filled with scarcity, but are instead filled with abundance.

Cosmos: 

This is amazing, Dr. Matt.

So, if people watching this want to become entrepreneurs, join, and learn more, and if they want to connect with you in any way, how would they go about doing so?

Dr. Matt Marco: 

Okay, two ways to do that. One is to go to antipreneur.com. That’s anti-preneur.com. Currently, we have a great deal available where, if you sign up, you’ll receive two benefits. One, you receive a sample of the book “Entrepreneur.” And it is. It’s got a lot. Even that sample has a lot of cool stuff in there, including this great story about the different ways retirement and viewing money and careers can play out. 

However, you’ll also receive a weekly set of tips. One tip to help you thrive in your career. One tip to help you achieve financial independence, delivered to your inbox every Monday. This is the newsletter we call the Anti-Preneur Insider. I receive numerous weekly newsletters, and I’ve skimmed over many of them over the course of several months. Which ones do I really like? Which are the ones that are like, ah, this is a bunch of esoteric stuff that I’m not interested in. So, I looked at some statistics for myself. Like, what are the things that I open? What are the things that I read end to end? And I patterned it after that. You’ll receive a free sample of the book and weekly tips. The Entrepreneur Insider. If you want to connect with me personally. I’m active on social platforms, but LinkedIn is the main one that got me started. So I’m Matt Markle on LinkedIn.

Cosmos: 

That is amazing, Dr. Matt. And Dr. Matt, I’m so appreciative that you took the time to come here and share the concept of the entrepreneur, because it’s relatively different from what most of the people that I interview in this podcast are. Still, it remains relevant because there are different ways to attain financial independence, and this should be taken into consideration. I hope you will take the time to come back at a later date.

Dr. Matt Marco: 

Absolutely. I love being on your show. Your questions are fantastic. You’re so insightful, and you’re connecting us to a different generation of people. So I think that it’s really exciting. It’s an honor for me to be here, Cosmos. Really, really appreciate it.

Cosmos: 

Thank you, Dr. Matt. And I want to conclude this episode by letting my fellow extraordinary Americans know that, hey, look, there’s an extraordinary within every one of us. And it’s our duty to awaken it and unleash it. Until next time, bye for now.