hmm welcome to a scrap life no suits required just guts and hard work here is your host brett eckhart all right so i’ve been wanting to get this uh podcast on the books for a while you’re a busy guy obviously um i’m busy and so us trying to link up and get uh get it done is but we finally got it i’m like all right it i’m just gonna fly in new york i know it’s cool so here it is so i got my uh my guy nick with me and i just want to open up the podcast um maybe in like a unique way and tell kind of a story about you why i even want to do the podcast with you right so in about two from about 2000 say 10 11 to about i was like a voracious amm reader right yeah i was always reading a m i’ve been described as i’m third generation right my grandfather started it and my dad then myself um and i was we’re at the time we’re partners with schnitzer steele right a pokey traded you know monstrosity of a company right um

a lot of good memories a lot of tough times but it is what it is so i’m sitting there watching reading amm and i’m reading about the stories about this guy adam weitzman who’s like who’s making moves like from about and i kind of ran through the history probably from about say 10 to maybe 9 to you were like you were you were doing a lot of expansion yeah that about from like 2009 to that yeah i did like acquisitions yeah you were you were really like going hard and and in that time we had a couple good years and then 14 and 15 started to get really tough like in the scrap business right yeah so i was kind of felt like i was boxed in by schnitzer right and i was like i just i like i want to be able to do this i want to be able to do that my dad was you know he was tired of being partners with schnitzer he was like on his way out and so i was reading what you were doing and i was like schnitzer gave us an opportunity to buy

him out in 2015 right right and i you know it was a pretty risky decision at that time the market was but i was like screw it i’m going to do it right retired my dad bought schnitzer out in 15. and then 16 and went but one of the reasons why i was i felt good enough and i felt comfortable enough to do it because i was watching you make a bunch of moves like for years right so you were kind of in a roundabout way and i was telling this to nick yesterday you’re kind of an inspiration for me to do what i did yeah i’m glad you’ve done so well so now you’re killing it i just want you to know like to start the podcast like it’s my way of saying like you kind of maybe you didn’t know and there’s probably a lot of guys out there like me but you were kind of inspiring to like take some risks and like make it happen no i appreciate that that’s a good story i like it just so you know like that’s where i’m at we bought them out and

now we’re family owned i retired my parents yeah it’s just me and a bunch of my friend and we run the business yeah that’s really cool it’s a good story for the day now your story give me just a little bit of background you where you grew up you know what uh you know where are you from and just a little bit of the history of you and uh you know maybe and when i say history i mean like you know your grandfather your father to you and then we’ll kind of work through the rest yeah so um i started in this business um i was in new york city um i never really grew up in the scrap business okay it was just it was my dad and my grandfather they had a small retail operation about like 10 miles from here maybe five miles from here uh that’s where my dad grew up and my grandfather grew up and uh 1938 yeah 1938. so they were like really you know hard workers good guys and everything and um went to school for fine arts opened an art gallery in new york city

really was loving life there and enjoying it wasn’t making any money there but it was enough i led a pretty like bohemian life there so i didn’t really need much so when you’re young like how old were you at that time i was like uh 20. when you’re 20 and you’re young like you don’t need it a lot if you’re really loving what you’re doing right yeah it was the best it was like the best times there so um so then my uh yes i never like grew up in the business i’d come like hang out with my dad but i didn’t really get involved too much for the business and then um years later my sister had passed away unexpectedly from cancer um you know my dad got really depressed and bummed out over likely so because they were like you know inseparable the two yeah and my mom too and uh i came back to help my dad for a summer okay uh and uh i had my gallery was a tiny gallery so i just had interns like run it so it could like sort of function on so i’d go

back down on the weekends and then um so i worked here for a while didn’t really know what i was doing and um so what year did you come back to work um came back in uh in the early 90s okay it was the early 90s was when i came back i’ve been doing this now for uh like 30 years yeah it’s not crazy to think that the early 90s is 30 years yeah it goes by really fast and everything but i came into the business um you know my dad um i i wanted to do the shredding business the only reason is um his business was you know getting attacked by a local shredder yeah you know i didn’t want to see my dad get beat up so i figured out a way to borrow all this money um he didn’t really want to do the shredder at all so it was a separate entity so i borrowed all the money from the local banks and uh i figured out there was a program here that i only had to put up a little tiny money to build this place okay uh and

then i got destroyed um the market right the market the market i mean i could use the market as an excuse because the market that’s when shred went to 75 dollars a ton and then tim can rejected it or something like that but um it was uh i really didn’t know what i was doing and i was just like i was just like really like um it was just a bad scene you know so um used up my line of credit built this gigantic inventory pile i know it might have been 100 000 tons which for me that was monsters it was everywhere yeah piled up and then the market just tanked out then i couldn’t get the thing running and then the company um i had bought a new wall shredder and then they went bankrupt in between the deliveries yeah i think around there yeah i’m not that great on dates but around there so so shredders half built i i sent all my money to them uh i never got the rest of the shutter yeah um it never you know operated and then the motors didn’t work and it was

just um it was a show of epic proportions so i did this thing where i illegally transferred funds uh between two accounts uh to i was just sort of buying time to the shredder ran luckily thank god none of the banks lost any money but i got arrested went to prison for a year um which wasn’t too fun ruined my reputation um i deserved to go to prison i mean i broke the law yeah i mean i didn’t ever expect it to i thought i did it one day because each day i thought the shredder was going to run and it was just a disaster um and it didn’t it wouldn’t run for like six months and then the market tanked but it started out as like a one day thing i’m like well i’ll just write this check over here and then just to keep everything yeah you’re in that moment when you’re just trying to keep things moving and i think it happens a lot with startups in general like like even today’s tech startups they’re just you know they’re either going to get money to try and keep things moving at

whatever cost it takes right just to try and get over that to where they can get square and i had no access to more money because my lines were tapped out everything was tapped to the extreme and i couldn’t do anything with the product here because there’s really no i didn’t want to sell to the the one local guy the guy you want to compete against yeah so i just uh bit the bullet and um i was really proud because i never filed bankruptcy i ended up you know paying the banks back i still use the same banks today which is pretty cool yeah and then after i went to jail for the banks yeah the banks never luckily because they never lost any money they didn’t close the accounts or anything like that um so uh made it through paid everybody back everybody was very um kind you know to to work it out with me so i just didn’t want to stiff anybody yeah the accounts were like in the attorneys like oh file bankruptcy get out of this thing but i just i knew if i paid people late and i

just kept calling them all the time hopefully they would you know down the road maybe you know you like if somebody doesn’t pay you a dollar you don’t remember your whole life yeah if somebody pays a slow ten dollars you don’t really remember that exactly yeah so um i paid everybody i’ll pay the banks off and uh luckily the banks had stood by me until even today it feels like a karma thing right like i i don’t i don’t i don’t pretend to know a ton about you but i feel like you kind of you have you place a lot of um energy and karma like doing good and and doing the right thing eventually like it kind of comes back around right it feels like that is kind of part of that i think now that i’m older it is but when i was younger all i cared about was myself yeah but you know but as far as not paying the banks like not filing bankruptcy like i think did you were you just trying to be able to kind of get it back over the hump once you got back to

operate or was it just i mean it was it was tempting but in the end i just didn’t want to do it i just didn’t want to do it so back then it wasn’t a karma thing today like i’m trying to do good stuff and rebuild my reputation and stuff like that but back then i only cared about what was good for me so i probably my karma’s the one that got me into this pot so bad karma probably was what got me into the spot of going to prison losing my reputation you know my poor daddy had a small company and like he’s had a like a little peddler yard and his reputation got hurt because of me yeah but i could say here like he had nothing to do with yeah he didn’t have anything to do with any of this stuff it was any time i’ve ever heard that story or versions of that story you know like you know from different outlets it’s always the same like it was me it was me it was me doing this like yeah there was nobody else involved like and you’ve always taken

it like square on the chin and said this is my deal well it’s part of the story you can’t like i’m not here to give like some puff piece no i mean i wouldn’t do it i wouldn’t send a pr like oh everything’s great i love the scrap business i just love this you know you’re younger i don’t love the scrapbooks as much as you do but i love what the scrap business allows me to do do i have a passion for the scrap business not as much i see like i read all your stuff and i’m a big fan i follow everything you do but you have that that that fire in you for the scrap business me i don’t have that same fire i can work 100 hour a week because i don’t sleep so i can sleep a three-hour day so i can like out in the industry you know a lot of people like have negative things to say and there’s a lot of haters and that’s okay because it’s free speech and yep i get it but nobody’s out there saying i didn’t i don’t work hard no

i you’re my enemies no even my enemies know i work like a dog here but i’m a weird guy and i get it like i always heard like i had partners like i never had a partner other than the bank the local bank but people like if i sell something to sims like oh sims is your partner or i sell something if i go to dinner with herbie black and canada they’re like oh herbies is part yeah triple m’s is partner schnitzer emr but no i’ve never had a dollar outside of the local banks invest in this in the best in this company but it makes good like it makes good there’s not much exciting stuff to talk about in the scrap business exactly it’s you know other than the price swings right like that’s what you get to talk about so that’s when i think people use the gossip thing to sort of like make this a little more exciting yeah there’s no doubt there’s no doubt in my mind so give me the because i’m third generation you’re third generation obviously um how did the in 2005 was the transition from when

you bought your uh data out yeah right yeah so because there’s a lot of scrap is kind of known for being kind of a multi-generational business and a lot of a lot of businesses don’t ever make it to the third generation right so what did that transition look like for you from your dad was it an easy just hey i’m buy you out like i want you to go retire and is it what kind of advice would you give somebody that’s like looking to like make that transition because i mean i i know what i would tell them but this isn’t about me i’m just kind of curious like you’ve been through that third generation transition was it just an easy simple deal was it it was a small it was a really really small company with not multiple locations so it was a it was a pretty simple deal um my dad was really great you know and like we’re really close today we weren’t close like back then yeah now it’s like because business isn’t part of the conversation anymore because when he retired he retired cold turkey yeah and uh

i don’t blame him he should enjoy life he worked he worked really hard so there’s nobody happier that he’s enjoying life than me than you but the transition he was great in the beginning like there’s some things i did that i think um he questioned and some of the stuff some of his probably advice i should have taken because i made mistakes along the way for sure so i definitely would give him credit that a lot of the stuff he told me um but you’re younger you’re not really thinking about listening to your dad and stuff like that when you get older isn’t it crazy how that advice that your dad gave you like kind of comes back around you’re like oh i see what you were talking about like yeah yeah his stuff is very basic advice and so i mean i just was trying to make this a lot more complex and it really should be scrap industry’s pretty basic i do the same stuff every day i just try to raise the bar each day it doesn’t matter like you know if you have 50 employees you have 800 employees it

doesn’t matter it’s the same stuff just another zero yeah for sure no it makes 100 sense and i’ll come back to that because i got a point on that um with you so like i was just going through like i was going through your website and just kind of going through the progression and so in 96 7 is when you kind of went about putting the first shredder in and then when you came in and put the big boy that you have today yeah you know that was kind of the game changer yeah it’s a big it’s a big shredder you know yeah it’s it’s ten thousand horse right nine thousand dollars yeah it’s 122 inch mill so it’s a pretty big size mill you know you got thousand pound hammers going in there so it’s a big meal and you know i did the feeder yard system around it to feed the mill and you know feeder yards there’s pluses and minuses i’m not so pro feeder yard anymore i’m more investing in trucks and transportation that’s what was like i i so i was that was my next question for you you’re

beating me you’re beating me the question but but you’re 100 correct i was i was looking at you know the progression and you you know you you haven’t you bought the big meal and so then you started you try to figure out how to beat it efficiently so that’s that’s kind of when your acquisitions and everything started really kind of and the purpose of those was to feed this yeah and some of them were good acquisitions some were okay uh you know um well like anything you have to have a pretty big geographical area to really make them work yeah the small town ones are tough yeah you run on a much larger scale than we do but you know we have to cover you know say 600 miles to feed you know and trucking and transportation is such a huge component of it for us and i’ve seen your investments in your trucks and the end dumps and the trucking is our biggest expense yeah you know that was a big risk i was a little nervous on the trucking thing you know um some people were like no i don’t think you

should do the trucking because i don’t really want to be in the trucking industry yeah but you know we’re running like 250 trucks now which is a lot of trucks company-wide so what was the tipping point that made you say okay maybe it’s not necessarily as big of a feeder yard issue as it’s a transportation i couldn’t get the feeder yards were loaded with inventory i couldn’t get any independent the independent truckers sort of started they’re not really hauling scraps scrap is the last thing they want you know steel trailers are heavy there’s so many different reasons wait times at yards to load so yeah i wanted to be in control my own destiny and cash flow um so now i can move a lot of scrap uh when you want to yeah we can move 3 000 ton a day by truck yeah so yeah yeah yeah people 3 000 a day when you have rail and ship and barge it’s you know but when you start you start really start doing the math and say okay how can i move three thousand ton a day by truck yeah how many trucks

that is how many trailers that is how many drivers that is and miles and fuel and it’s a lot but it’s a big it’s a big undertaking it’s a big expense i’d say most of my debt is transportation yeah you know um you know borrowed money from the they have such good interest rates some of it was like two percent like 1.5 you know through daimler and things like that for like freightliner western star yeah um so you know put an investment in the trucks didn’t find the drivers the the rates have gone up so much the past two years like the you know the rate of pay all the drivers the fuel so it’s an expensive proposition the trailers are so expensive now but we had to have it and so most of my i’m buying trailers and trucks every single month building the fleet every month so instead of doing feeder yards and have to deal with you know theft and environmental i’m just i’m just really more partnering with other yards uh you know front end cash front um equipment help them and let them operate it and then i

buy the screen yeah and then if then because it’s such a big deal for most yards to be able to handle their transport if you can construct it from that freight movement for them their ability to keep them you know in the ability to buy it and cash flow their inventory and you can move it for them like that’s kind of a win-win scenario without necessarily having to take ownership of the yard because i will say you know i mean i drove around briefly and after this i’m going to go do the tour um because i’m a junkie like i want any scrappy i’m around i want to go do i want to go walk but um it’s a tight ass ship like yeah we we this is a and that’s why some people don’t like it’s you know we’ve had some turnover with managers here because i’m really ocd i really care about how the place looks and some people just don’t have that same uh the same same mentality same vision so is this the easiest place to work i don’t know a little easier now that i’m older but i

still want things i want to broom clean i want everything painted i want every dent fixed i want the equipment to look new and it’s my legacy it’s you know it’s what you know i want my daughter to take over next you know that’s why i didn’t want to sell the companies because i want my cheese and when you go buy a feeder yard and you want to look a certain way that’s a big capital investment up front not only just the purchase right because you want to reflect your legacy reflect what upstate shredding is yeah but the input plus usually when you’re going to and you buy a new yard then the old guard is not used to running it that way and they lose their they do they just like these guys are crazy you know they’re like saying this is the worst place ever then you lose a lot of the staff and then you lose those local relationships so it’s best that i stay out of it yeah and i’ll just send nice shiny trucks to other people’s lives i like it so my dad real quick one last thing

on that so my dad told me years and years ago he’s like son control the transport so we have a trucking company right yeah these trucks are beautiful you see this control your destiny by controlling the transportation right so he’s a big truck guy yeah i was always like why are we spending so much money on trucks like i was like you though no but i was sort of like i was sort of like in your in your camp but i couldn’t afford to ever sit here and i’ve always had the fear even though like financially companies really strong now but back in the day when i was like teetering yeah like i have the fear of not being able to move things and cash flow is very important in this game especially when commodity prices are high yeah the cash flow like we’ve raised prices on everything you know aluminum is because if you don’t you don’t get it you don’t buy it right but but the margin is there but you’re putting the cash outlay the cash outlays it’s gonna be a lot bigger now it’s only gonna get bigger because this

thing i don’t know we’ll see which creates another barrier of entry like for the next guy that wants to come and put a yard and all of a sudden like i tell people i’m like if you want to get in the scrap business please believe it’s it’s not about you know what kind of equipment you have on the ground or whatever else it’s about the people that can run the equipment and you better have enough money to buy scrap especially when you have the pricing you have today because then it goes quick yeah the cash burn is way different anybody like the equipment’s easy part yeah anybody can get with a ucc from a bank a bank will own anybody if you have decent credit for equipment’s the easiest thing to finance 100 it’s not that but what you’re saying is the cash burn from that startup yeah and that’s what killed me back in the first shredding day yeah like all the way back to that to that so i should have never been buying inventory until i had it running that was a big mistake but you know it’s at that point

you’re just trying to get yourself in a position that you can hit the ground running yeah but you’re also overpaying you’re buying shitty crap yeah just lessons that goes that’s going to go back to later to a lesson a good lesson learned so i love that you advertise you’re the largest privately owned um uh scrap processing company on the east coast right because i’m a dinosaur i’m one of those okay i’m not like a dinosaur i’m one of the only ones yeah that’s what i want to say so you really you have a bunch of publicly traded like large corporations you’re here competing against every day yeah and they’re getting smarter you know the public companies people say whatever they want they’re getting smarter by the day and they’re better run and uh what is your strategic strategic advantage um that i can answer decisions a lot quicker than a public company that’s all i mean they have the r d they have so much um there’s they have so much great locations you know the public companies there’s access to capital very simple yeah but just the brain trust that some of these

places have is pretty good yeah you know but um a speed and agility is i think my only strength speed wins yeah it does but but there’s some there’s some benefits of having the rnd the r d of some of the non-ferrous equipment that these guys have early it’s a it’s a game changer what they’re doing and they used to run not so but each year they’re i think they adjust and they get smarter and that’s why you got to raise guys like us that are private we have to keep raising the bar on what we’re doing because the public companies are yeah yeah everybody like talks to public companies but no not not today these guys sims pretty well run company you know schnitzer well-run company uh emr you know the owner emark you know the shepherds they know what they’re doing i mean these people herbie black up in canada guys brilliant guys like eight years old and yeah works like he’s 20 you know but he’s that’s that’s a that’s not necessarily a public like he’s that he’s not a public company he’s like but he’s an operator kind

of like you right yeah but he’s way smarter i mean that guy he’s like no but like but i i cheat because i copy what he does like because he’s like he’s uh he’s a guy that you know usually does it first you know and the guy has a work at the second and on and you know you know i’m not saying we’re like close lovey-dovey friends but i i respect even though he’s my competitor i respect him i mean look at look what the guy’s done up there oh man triple m they’re killing it up there yeah really well-run company so between all those companies you know and then you have some you know look at the guy alter trading brilliant out there rob goldstein and his group out there like really smart yeah plus one last month jay rabinovitz was an exchanger george adams is doing i mean i mean these guys run great operations so it’s you have some really great uh company some public some not that uh you know it keeps it keeps pushing to have to stay on your a-game because these guys are on

the air game are your is your goal to keep it i mean obviously you said you want your daughter to come in run the show so your goal is to keep it private as well yeah i’m not gonna sell i’m not gonna say a company i mean it’s a big company now i mean this is uh we do a big tons here and it’s a big volume company with the trucks and everything but i don’t know i just i i’d love her to take it over i got some time i’m still here kicking away so and yeah i just don’t i just don’t i never really even think about it you know we get calls from people especially now because it’s funny how the scrap industry either you’re in vogue uh-huh you’re dog yeah yeah so now we’re sexy again next year will be dog so while we’re sexy people call next year and nobody would call so what did i say what i posted a deal this morning it was basically like you’re like toilet paper you’re either on a roll or you’re you know you’re and somebody that’s in your face

that is really true that’s what it is and that’s this crap either you’re like now people are like if i go if i ask people like oh what do you do you’re like you’re the script it’s like oh wow and then like a year ago they’re like you know like oh you didn’t excel at anything else i guess you know so it’s like so now everybody thinks it’s glamorous and uh and amazing but so you mentioned earlier about like how your leadership style has changed like versus you know what it was when you’re younger to today yeah and so what is that like what’s the like what’s the change that you’ve um that you’ve seen yourself just taking better the care of the people that work here i think it’s a big thing you know i’m still a bear to work for let’s don’t get me wrong you’re like a lot nicer guy so people love you here i don’t socialize too much with the staff you know in this day and age you know i just i they don’t want you know they don’t like i don’t go out with the staff anything

probably the last thing they’d want is me to show up to some like you know if i if they ask me to go out or something like that i’ll politely pass and call up the restaurant and buy them all dinner or whatever pay for the night but i think after they leave here the last person they want to see they probably want to see the irs i’m not hanging out with the staff so i think um you know just to try to find out what people want not everybody’s driven by the same thing and give people an opportunity and to keep reinvesting in the business i put a lot of money back in this business yeah um and that’s evident yeah it’s pretty good but it’s it’s just yeah i keep always reinvesting like our capex here is monstrous here and um i don’t know there’s always going to be you know we the whole idea is to stay relevant and you know everybody thinks there’s some secret thing that we have here that we’ve been able to do stuff or like secret partners or secret this is this reason it’s just really no

the secret is i don’t sleep you know yeah and that’s the only way i’ve been able to survive is just to work like crazy hours and i’ve had some people here that have really put in the time with me so i’m very thankful do you going back to the capex that’s a big explosion that’s a good one that’s a good idea it’s real that’s real world yeah that’s a good one everybody’s okay though yeah that’s okay i’m already saying everybody okay so you uh basically from a budgetary standpoint you talk about capex do you budget at the beginning of the year like what you’re gonna spend from equipment i mean i know you have maybe two more quarterly quarterly so somebody asked me about that the other day and i and i said i don’t because i don’t know what if you tell me on january 1st how it’s going to look on december 31st then i then you’re hired because in this in our business because we’re in the commodity business you don’t know really i mean you can anticipate hope you know it’s going to go a certain way but you know

you could get to july and it’s going to be looks like a banner year and then the last six months you know you’re trying to keep the lights on right yeah and so i don’t i’m not a big budgeter because i feel like it’s a waste of time it does because this is definitely a moving target it’s industry i’ve had this conversation with with our cfo and him and i on the same page i’m like trust me like if we feel like there’s an opportunity to grow to do like to invest like this i’m going to put it in like yeah i’m putting it back in yeah i agree you know and i feel like that’s a similar you know kind of touching base back on what you just said that’s a very similar concept that you’re doing here the money you’re generating you know you’re putting it back to work it’s a little easier now because i have a really great finance team in the old days it was me that if i didn’t see him and um you know i should need help right so yeah i definitely needed help on the

finance team so uh i have a really amazing team financial guys here with the cfo and ceo and stuff like that so they definitely uh i get a live snapchat a snapshot of where we are each day so it helps that helps the cause yeah so are you so have you always been from a risk-taking standpoint has it always been kind of in your blood be willing to take risk um i went from high risk to medium risk okay you know i’m not like crazy wrist down outside i’d be doing acquisitions like crazy yeah but um right now i’m just i’m medium risk okay so this is a risky business because of environmental you know the things that we’re gonna have to do with the vocs for the shredding and that’s gonna be like 10 million dollars to burden you know the vocs offer epa and stuff like that it’s you know there’s other ways you know and i that’s why i diversified so much i’ve taken a lot of the money that we’ve made here and and put it into different different companies and uh that’s really built up a lot is

by diversifying what we do here and was the purpose of that just because your interests expanded or was it because you want to basically create a more sustainable like sustainable business or sustainability little both or a little both but you know like the crypto mining is a big uh a big thing for us here yeah and that is you know we have the you know we’re tracking what we produce on the wall but um the crypto thing was just sort of like a modern day extension of the scrap business we’re actually mining something we’re not like crypto traders you know like day trading crypto we just mine at 24 hours a day and that’s been a really huge part of our business good huge capital investment in these crypto machines it’s a monster you know you know we’re gonna be running soon they will probably get up to like 20 000 machines so it’s a big it’s a big uh it’s a really big investment is the energy usage on that deal as much as like what i mean is is it as advertised i mean is it is it pulling a lot of

yes and no i mean the ones that were since i’ve started it late to the game um the ones that now use less electricity than the other ones but the old ones were like you know monsters when it comes to yeah and we’re using renewable energy so yeah i remember you and i was reading through an article on that and so when you say you’re using renewable energy like what is that it’s energy produced by either a hydro or a solar okay on top of the building that yeah but a lot of it is you’re getting it from the utility oh okay so you’re getting it in from the utility that way okay so i had i had a question on here like that was kind of your big biggest you know business or personal failure that kind of learned from but i mean i think for me like i feel like you covered that what about just on the business side um they kind of helped change is there something big to change do you change your attitude um over and above in or different than the you know the deal in 96

is there something that’s really kind of that sticks out to you that really has changed your attitude or changed anything or is it just kind of this is this is me it’s been a progression and stuff but a lot of it i think was um the kids play a role in that or is it i mean no i just think it’s just like because i’m like a loner i’m like a hermit so it’s not like i don’t go home and discuss my work and stuff like that yeah i don’t i don’t bring that stuff home i just think a lot of it is um just morphing the company into something and staying relevant you know i you got to stay relevant in the industry yeah i don’t do as much media stuff as i used to back in the day a little more lower profile on not on social media but i mean in the yeah media yeah and there’s other people that are that have taken over and doing good stuff i’m just trying to just do my thing here and uh quietly build up a company these things uh with the crypto

and with the other businesses um it’s into a decent company so i’m pretty proud of everybody that’s worked here oh yeah you got you have something to be very proud of trying hard but we’re not done yet we’re getting there we’re it’s one through ten i would say we’re a seven okay i rate this company one through ten i’d say it says six and a half to seven a really highly profitable six and a half to seven well everybody’s profitable now so it’s not like it’s like i was talking about the other day too everybody’s like there’s a bunch of scrap geniuses out there right now right i’m like oh wait are you that deal is coming yeah you know if you went through some of these turns like the scrap genius turns into not is not as smart as a guy which i mean we’ve diversified ourselves right as well like we we do we have you know a pipe company and some other stuff but it’s just for that reason because we’ve been through those hard downturns where it’s where it’s and it sucks and so you got to find something to

keep the machine running keep the thing going when it’s and then kind of be able to shift the money either way to be able to kind of keep them all going and keep building because you’re careful with that shifted money thing yeah that got me a year i’m doing out my fbi public service announcement is don’t ship money there you go as a we’ll put it on the bottom that’s my disclaimer yeah so i was listening to your podcast uh the conversations at the palace right yeah um the guys about the restaurants and in that he talked to you know he kind of asked you like he kind of said a similar question like if you have any advice for anybody starting a restaurant or whatever you said like food costs you know watch your profit margins um knowing your input costs right and and i and that to me sounds like a scrap guy yeah starting a restaurant right but it’s the same it’s the same i mean i think a lot of problems people don’t realize the cost well it’s hard today like it’s with the with the fluctuation of fuel and

labor it’s hard to define your costs you know you’re like oh it cost me this to bail you know you can ask four different people and there’s a 15 range of how much it costs to bail yeah so like you know you got to just be careful because it’s a margin it’s a small margin margins are better now but it’s a small margin business usually especially for the cost of equipment for what i put in this place in the in the in the profit margin or the return on investment you could be doing a lot of other stuff yeah 100 and especially i feel like when especially when you run a shredder right like yeah shutters are a beast they’re better it’s a i mean it’s very margin driven it’s very like cost driven business where you got to know you were you and i were having a conversation on i think a clubhouse one time and you were basically like the operations is like where you excel right is because knowing your costs and and knowing how to dial and turn and like and and basically kind of guide that you know because

with the shredder it feels like there’s so many moving parts it’s it’s tough shredding well shutting business is our best thing i think we do but it’s really tough and i’m not like a big mechanical engineer so i’ll reach out to other people for help and advice when it comes to equipment yeah to be honest like i can’t even change the oil in my truck yeah i’m not the guy that’s mine yeah but then i’ll find the guy that can do yeah that can do it yeah that’s the key it’s just putting together the right team yeah so how does a guy go from have you always had an interest in food or has it you know from scrap to restaurants i mean has there always been like it was an issue on the scratch or did it just kind of naturally come to i love that kind of business you know i love the food and entertainment business okay it was just something as a progression and those are all non-profit yeah so all those restaurants go to charity you know we’re gonna have uh by this year we’ll have uh six

restaurants open so it’s it’s a it’s a lot of work but i love that i love the restaurant so it was the first one krebs yes yes so because i know the story but do you want to just kind of like just somebody came up to me on the street and the owner said somebody passed away that restaurant’s been like a hundred years yeah and uh they came up and said oh you need to save this restaurant i didn’t know i was doing so uh-huh so you bought the the building bought the building in the restaurant right yeah yeah i knocked down the restaurant but i built it exactly how it looked board for board yeah so took it down all the way and then rebuilt it so it looked exactly the same and basically just like structurally made it more sound and got it all fired up because i remember when you were opening it um and i was and i was listening to you said you’d brought in like you know some pretty big time chefs yeah like really kind of like kicked it off and to get it get it

going again yeah it was good it worked out good and that’s a busy restaurant like all the restaurants are busy so yeah and are most of them in that uh skinny atlas syracuse yeah they’re all right kind of along and that’s so i haven’t been there but i was i was asking aaron on the way in um i was like is that worth going like checking out as far as like you know go for a drive and like it’s a good thing that drives that’s how it’s gonna see if you guys are gonna go up later so yeah talk about that after this yeah go check it out so we talked about the crypto mining um i got i don’t have a ton more questions for you but you know in that same podcast you were talking about you know not necessarily the buying and trading and nfts and all that but more on the the property side the metaverse side was kind of more your interest so not to go too deep into that um when are we gonna have the first uh metaverse scrap yet i think you’ll have something like that

in a year okay yeah if you have something really cool but i also think that a lot of scrapyards will start paying crypto yeah i think that’ll start next year we’re getting set up that we’ll pay customers encrypt so we set that up for our converter customers yeah i saw that i think you were the first actually i i think you might be in the first in the world you know so you were way ahead of the curve doing on the retail level it’s a little harder it’s hard because it’s smaller than everything everybody has a wall so but that’s something that i think um we already had that in the planning stages so it’ll be it’s it’s going to be actually uh uh pretty simple for us to do it but sooner it’ll be everybody you’re going to be a lot more you know you’re going to be a lot more set up you’re going to be a lot more comfortable with the technology than a lot and we got a good team of crypto here because of the mining so it’s not like a lot of scrap years like oh this is

so crazy but soon though you’re going to be getting i wouldn’t be surprised if we get paid in the future by the mills in crypto too yeah well especially overseas i mean overseas you’ll definitely be getting uh money you know you won’t have to do 100 and i feel like that’s a good thing like i know people are kind of like uh you know that’s the unknown so i i get the i get the the part of like i get the part of um you know the the hesitation yeah i’m hesitating i’m hesitant to like put all this money in these mining machines like you know i’m definitely hesitant too you know about is this going to be good like is it something that’s real but um so far so good but at least i mean it goes back to like how do you know unless you try it like how do you know yeah but it’s a big but it’s a big try it’s a big try but it goes back to your risk level and your your willingness to take some risk at the opportunity of you know being able to diversify

yourself a little bit but then also just like you said it also gives you that one we go back to all the way to speed and like what makes you competitive like if it takes you as a as an individual or private operator that long too i mean if you’re quick to be able to pay you know crypto and do that i mean what a publicly traded company and it you know it’s got 10 20 accountants and this and they’ll be able to do it sims will be paying crypto absolutely the quickest right yeah but i mean i don’t know if by doing it the quickest is gonna have a big advantage i think the younger scrappers that come in the feathers are going to love it the young kids but is it going to make a huge stand a plan business i don’t think so but it just makes you relevant yeah it’s good pr it’s good that showing that you’re progressive and uh and you’re learning the technology that’s going to actually be in front of us yeah you know or at least we’re going to be on the forefront of it

so i was um have you ever watched anything on netflix a little so have you watched the new kanye west uh that genius no okay so i i watched the first there were two episodes on the airplane yesterday because that’s the only time i have time to do like okay i got three hours to kill you know so it’s awesome yeah it’s worth a watch right and in that is his mom monda west tells connie he because he documented his whole life right and he’s honest he’s on the come up he hasn’t got signed by rockefeller yet like he’s he’s about to and she says to him and i quote it because i love i like a good quote and she says when a giant looks in the mirror he sees nothing right which basically is a way for her to say like you know stay humble right like you stand on the ground that everybody else is standing on even though you you still stand way up here yeah but it’s kind of a way of like you know keep growing keep doing yes stay humble yeah and his mom was like you

know i think she was kind of the rock that kind of held that deal together he’s brilliant too he is and that’s why i have the smartest people ever and if you watch that like you if you don’t like kanye west or whatever like it gives you kind of an appreciation for his hustle like that guy that guy hustles i hustled his ass off to get even a break yeah and so i was kind of i heard that i was thinking i was thinking about you and i was like you know like because you’re a pretty humble guy like you’ve but you you’ve reached heights that maybe most people wouldn’t have thought that you would get to you know as a privately held like you know over here balanced amongst the big boys right i don’t know i just don’t i just don’t i don’t believe my hype too much you know no i’m sitting home and watching tv with the kids and stuff i do epic stuff a little burst of it so people think that like the epic stuff is every day no i’ll do like crazy stuff like for two days

thing called crazy stuff but um i just want to enjoy life the keys being happy and um you know the past couple years especially the past year i think it’s the happiest i’ve ever been just because i only do stuff that makes me happy yeah i only employ people that make me happy if my best guy doesn’t make me happy i severance them and and um we make a nice exit deal we talk and that’s it because i want people to be happy that work here and i want to be happy with the people that work here so it’s a different strategy if if you know if i want a very drama-free workplace and um you know sadly you know some relationships haven’t worked out just because you know i want to be happy yeah so like my last question i’m done grilling you is the legacy like what do you want your legacy to be like when it’s all said and done and you and not just in scrap like just whatever like what like what’s the maybe in scrap it like yeah it’s crap like what do you that important there’s

a lot of guys that are gonna have a better legacy in scrap than me but this but the scrap industry has allowed me to do so much and help a lot of people i mean for our size we have to be one of the most philanthropic companies in the industry and we’re giving away millions and millions and millions of dollars here not like little like yeah we’re crushing it and helping hundreds of charities and um i mean daily it’s every day we’re writing checks and so i’m very thankful and blessed with scrap business because it’s allowed me to help a lot of people um again people everybody in the scrapping she’s like oh they love it so much i don’t really love my job to be honest with you sometimes i hate my job in the scrap industry but i always love what it’s allowed me to do and help other people and to expand into other businesses too so this is the core and um i’ll always be in the scrap business but i mean i talk to people every day they’re like oh i love getting up and doing the scrap thing

yeah and yeah it’s uh so yeah this is a tough gig i mean 100 sleeping sleeping three hours a night it’s brutal it’s so the legacy is is the give back yeah i think the legacy is to give back and the legacy is what we can do for the small communities that we’re in and i want to make this a really environmentally compliant to the craziest stage facility so i think that’s what my legacy will be is like making really like a moral ethical safe for the employees environmentally friendly places that are above the norm but other than that it’s that’s that’s that’s how you enjoy your life yeah i enjoy life and i’m i’m living the best life that i who would ever thought like i get to do some really cool stuff and i’ve got to meet some really cool people yeah in the industry outside the industry so um just thankfully i just appreciate everything you know this i guess you know when i was on a top bunk in prison coming to here you know coming to where i am now it’s uh it’s been a crazy road but i

wouldn’t i you know i wouldn’t it’s just it’s just your path you know it’s you like me you know and i don’t really i don’t really care if people like me or not it’s not like uh people like like if somebody says oh in scrap industry like i don’t really care yeah because i don’t this isn’t this is my uh scrap persona and then when i go home i’m a totally different person it’s like dr jekyll mr hyde i’m like i’m quiet when i get out of here and i’ve had to defend a small company against big companies so i’m always going to be i’ve always would have to be the bad guy because i always had when your back’s against the wall you always had to fight back yeah let me know and just that’s it an underdog mentality that you’re able to just go out and and get it done yeah you know you you got to get it done there’s just no excuse there’s no you know when you have no plan b you you got to make it happen yourself and uh i don’t believe i’m not going to be

crying or complaining or bitching it is what it is and i just you got to make it you got to make it happen and sadly though when you’re working this hard you know people are always going to think in the industry oh there’s got to be a shortcut there’s got to be something no the shortcut is three hours of sleep at night yeah the shortcut is just getting beat up i mean it’s everything missions this just beat up i’m at the shredder i’m not like so i’m not in some like you know i’m at the production facility so we just had an explosion right here you know it’s like uh this is i’m in the trenches here there’s no shortcut like i get it i get people like this like well how is he doing it no because i just don’t want to quit you know and i just that’s it just want to quit no secret i wish i had some secrets like to share wish i had you know be sometimes back in the day i wish i had the secret sims partner or the secret partner of uh somebody but you

could be like hey send money to me honestly i don’t think any of them wanted to be my partner anyway so it’s not like you know they’re probably smart back then yeah they’re probably actually a good call yeah well maybe not now because it was really good but yeah back then they’re probably smart not to be my partner all right man thank you again appreciate it