Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:10 This is the Owl Cast, the official podcast of ACS Athens. Listen to the exciting story of the American Community Schools of Athens. Check out what drives all the members of our international community of learners as we create the education of the future. Here's John.
Speaker 2 00:00:43 Welcome to this week's outcast. Part of the ACS Athens experience is to draw from the life story of our community members who offer their mentorship advice and knowledge to our students as they imagine plan and begin their academic and professional future. And ultimately, their career. Parents have always been a tremendous pool of talent and knowledge as they come from all walks of life, nationalities and career paths. Today's outcast posts one of our parents, Constantine Jam Bekos, an engaged and creative entrepreneur in several industry sectors, including the aviation industry, finance, retail, fashion, beverage, and real estate. He's running several startup companies of his own, but continues to be an executive positions within his decades long career in the aviation industry. Mission. And Makos graduated as a mechanical engineer in Toronto, Canada, and applied his technical engineering skills as an aerodynamicist stress engineer and structural repair engineer before moving into the airline industry.
Speaker 2 00:01:48 Constantine is now the founder of several new startup companies in fashion, accessories and jewelry designing, beverage manufacturing. And most recently, he heads a startup incubator. He also continues to maintain organic roles in firms related to investment advisory, aerospace representation, and business aviation consultancy with constant Ninja Bekos. Today we discuss all about opportunities, a point of view coming from an entrepreneur managing the project by seeking the talent instead of being the talent, the art of empowering the members of your team, and the dangers of micromanaging the boring and the exciting things that make you find your passion. Learning how to learn at the university and seeking knowledge by doing the hard stuff. As an international school, a c s Athens offers a distinct educational model to its community. You and your family are part of this community for some years now. What was the thought in your mind that made you decide that this is your school?
Speaker 3 00:03:05 Ah, very interesting. Um, I think that, uh, one of the things in our back of our mind is, you know, having worked in different countries and having worked in different places, is getting out of your kind of local community, becoming more of a global citizen, let's say. And to become a global citizen, you need to be exposed to multiple cultures, uh, different mindsets. Um, something that's, you know, more widely networked. And this particular school is very well placed doing that. It, I think it fosters students to become global citizens, uh, where borders don't matter to them, where opportunities could be anywhere in the world, not just in their local neighborhood. And that's, I think, what one of the strengths and one of the, the drivers of sending our kids to this school.
Speaker 2 00:03:52 Uh, are you a product of international education?
Speaker 3 00:03:55 Uh, I am. Well, if you, yes, to some degree <laugh>. So in Canada, of course, I was educated in Canada, but, um, I didn't get the opportunity to, uh, study in other places, um, like on a, on a program and an exchange program, which I kind of regret, but, cause I think that would've been amazing. Um, but, uh, yes, I see the value in it though. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, absolutely. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:04:18 <affirmative>, your experience, your professional experience spans several industries with primary interest and expertise in aviation. You also have been engaged in finance and retail fashion, real estate and startups. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, this by itself tells me that either you have multiple talents or you sought different experiences before you could make up your mind.
Speaker 3 00:04:40 Mm-hmm. Very interesting. Yeah. Well, um, you're right. My, my career and continues to some extent has always been in aviation. Cause that's where my passion has always been. But, uh, um, in the recent years, I was, um, very lucky, very fortunate to have the ability to explore other things as well. However, I don't pass myself off as an expert in the things I was engaged with. Uh, for example, the, the fine jewelry that we're doing. I'm not a jewelry designer. Um, I'd like to be, but I'm not. But I know how to pick and choose the right people for the team, get out of their way, let them do what they do best, and build these new businesses or these new opportunities, uh, from that. So really, my role, um, is kind of the same across all the businesses. It's really to, um, to bring together the right people to kind of manage the projects as opposed to being the talent in the project.
Speaker 2 00:05:33 You, you provoked me to ask you, are you the one who approves ideas?
Speaker 3 00:05:38 Oh, no. Geez. We have a very democratic process. We, we vote <laugh> on everything. And usually I'm the one that has the, is the outcast, to be honest with you. But, um, no, it's not a matter of approval. You know, you'd be, uh, amazed. You need to empower. In fact, yesterday, uh, I was talking to my team and they're like, oh, we've been waiting 10 days for you to come and join this so you can make a decision. I'm like, well, I'm not gonna make the decision. You know, you, you guys are perfectly capable of making the decision yourself. Don't make a dumb one though. <laugh>, don't make a stupid one. Don't
Speaker 2 00:06:07 Make me regret it. Don't make
Speaker 3 00:06:08 Me regret it. Yeah. But, but, but do it yourself. You need to empower, because if you start to get into everything that you're, you end up micromanaging. And if you're micromanaging, then you're trying to run everything yourself. And that's the worst thing I think you can do. You need to, uh, and that's where picking the right people really comes in, because if you pick the wrong people, you have to micromanage in order to, uh, make sure things stay on track or whatever. But that means you, you, you're not, you haven't built the right team.
Speaker 2 00:06:35 How do you correct micromanaging mentalities
Speaker 3 00:06:39 Really, really hard. You just have to bite your lip and literally say, I will not say anything here, <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:06:45 But there has to be a point where you're gonna have to step in or step out.
Speaker 3 00:06:49 Yeah. Well, you need to engage. Sometimes engagement is more about keeping people on the rails. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because when people get excited or something, sometimes we have a tendency to drift off in the wrong direction. So really what you try to do is you, you observe. And that's why it's also important to kind of stay outside the process a little bit, because you have a little bit more objective thinking when you see it from a distance. Then when you're directly into the, into the things, it's like, you know, watching your kid grow, you know, you, you don't notice your kid growing, let's say. Right? But if you, you know, haven't seen someone for three months, four months, you say, oh, you know, you've really grown, you know, three inches. Right. Um, this is the, um, the way to go about it is, is to step back and, and, and help bring them back onto the milestones, the timelines, the, the objectives, and get that clarity in there. And that's it. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 00:07:37 <affirmative>, from all the things that you have done, what makes you forget time? What do you feel most passionate about?
Speaker 3 00:07:45 Oh, aviation by far.
Speaker 2 00:07:47 Aviation. How, how is that expressed? What is the craziest thing you have done because you love aviation?
Speaker 3 00:07:54 The craziest thing,
Speaker 2 00:07:55 <laugh> Well, something that you might want to share.
Speaker 3 00:08:00 Well, av um, interesting. I'm trying, well, I'm trying to think what the craziest, I mean, the craziest stuff I've done is in, when I've participated in test flights. I mean, that's where the excitement really is. Are
Speaker 2 00:08:08 You also a pilot?
Speaker 3 00:08:09 I'm a pilot as well, but I haven't flown commercial. Like, I don't fly commercially like an airliner Captain Wood, even though that's really what I wanted to do when I was a kid.
Speaker 2 00:08:17 It's never too late. I don't see you wear glasses. Uh,
Speaker 3 00:08:20 I, I used to, I did, I actually did laser surgery, but interestingly enough, the reason I couldn't do the laser surgeries because I wouldn't lose my pilot license. Mm-hmm. Because at the time, you weren't allowed to do laser surgery. Now you can, there's a process you follow, uh, to keep your license because the
Speaker 2 00:08:36 Technology has changed,
Speaker 3 00:08:37 Technology's changed, and, you know, they suspend you for like six months, let's say, something like that. And then you, you do some testing and then if you're okay, but it does affect your night vision. It affects certain vision when you do the, the type of surgery. So it's not the best thing, but it's also with respect to the type of flying you do. But in any case, the flying part was always the fun part. And that's where the, the, the, the interesting, the fairy flights and the repossessions and all, that's where the fun was because, you know, starting off as an aerospace engineer, it was all about the science. I mean, that's where it was exciting, the science and the, you know, the designing and all that. But as you progress in the business, you have a choice to make. You gotta stay in that for 20 years, and you just become, stay in design. There's nothing wrong with that. Or if you're restless like me, and you keep wanting to learn more, you start to migrate into more management positions and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, position, responsibility, and you become a paper pusher more than a designer or a pilot or whatever the, that you're doing. But it's an interesting evolution. So you get to see a lot of things, uh, but sometimes you lose touch with what really got you into in the beginning. So,
Speaker 2 00:09:40 So if you had to think back in your college days where you were, uh, studying aviation or aerospace engineering or design mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, what was the boring aspect of it? What was your most boring class that you took and what's the most exciting one?
Speaker 3 00:09:58 Yeah, interesting. So, um, in university, let's say the, you know, it's, uh, physics and the, you know, the science, science mechanics and the sciences and all that kind of stuff. And the, the maths, uh, I wasn't the best student because that wasn't where the drive was for me. But I was top of my class in airspace design because that's where my interest level was. So I did notice that if you really like what you're doing, you, you do very, very well in it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And if you don't really, like you're doing, you're just making sure you just make it get enough to get across the line. So the, the university I realized gave me the toolkit mm-hmm. <affirmative> to do life afterwards. It didn't teach me how do we become an aerospace engineer, even though I was in that kind of a program. And I mean, we did, you know, aerodynamics and we saw the wing of an airplane was one day, everything else was, you know, fluid dynamics and bodies in motion, in fluids and stuff like that. So I was like, what am I learning about? I'm not learning about airplanes here. And I wasn't, I was learning about aerodynamics. It's a completely different thing. But when I ended up in industry, the, the companies I worked for gave me the, the, the knowledge I needed to do the job that I really wanted to do. What university helped me do is it helped me feel confident that, man, if I could do this level of math, the level of math I had to do in, in the real world was a piece of cake.
Speaker 2 00:11:17 So in a sense, you were learning how to learn.
Speaker 3 00:11:19 Exactly. I was learning how to learn and have the confidence where nothing was too hard. Nothing was hard. It's interesting, at one one point, I was, uh, I was a stress engineer, and, um, I started with a new group, uh, meaning, uh, well, yeah. Meaning, so stress engineering in Aspace,
Speaker 2 00:11:36 Because we are stressed most of the time. Yes. I don't know it has anything to do with
Speaker 3 00:11:39 It. It has nothing to do with psychology or medicine or anything like that. But stress engineers in aerospace is what we call the, the, the, the, the, the science where we make sure that the parts on the airplane can take the loads. Right. Um, the stresses as we say. So we use different programs and we do a lot of hand calculations as well to make sure these parts are all, you know, doing their job.
Speaker 2 00:12:00 So were you and the team that they were trying to break the wings?
Speaker 3 00:12:03 Oh, we were trying to break stuff, for sure. <laugh>, absolutely. We were trying to break stuff. But, um, in, in that role, um, I started with this new team, and it was in, it was in structural repairs. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So if an aircraft was damaged in service, we had to come up with repairs for this. So pretty 10, it's a 24 7 job type of thing. You know, we had a team, we would, we would share that. And when I first started with the team, you know, with really easy repairs where you just have to put a, a rivet, and we had really, really complicated repairs. Every time I'd go into the chief engineer's office, I said, gimme the hardest one you've got. And he was like, um, you know, okay. He would gimme what he thought I could do and then make 'em harder and harder.
Speaker 3 00:12:41 At one point, you know, he was even to the point, giving me real easy stuff just to, just to, you know, to, to make fun of me. But he goes, you're the only person that comes in here and always asks for the hardest thing. Why do you do that? And I said, listen, I don't work. I work eight hours a day just like everyone else. The difference is if I do the hardest thing, it might take me four days to do it, right? Instead of four minutes. But I'm learning to do something, um, new every single time I come into this office, as opposed to doing the easy stuff, which 10 years later I have learned nothing more. So you start to realize that doing the hard stuff and stuff like that isn't really an effort. It's like you said, you, you, you learn how to do the stuff. You just doing it, you know what I mean? It's not that it's harder or easier, you just takes more time. That's the only difference.
Speaker 2 00:13:26 And, and what is the point that you have to learn how to unlearn?
Speaker 3 00:13:31 Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Bad habits, right? As I say, bad habits die
Speaker 2 00:13:35 Hard. Not only that, but because new knowledge is always there. So sometimes new knowledge cancels old knowledge.
Speaker 3 00:13:43 It does. But you know, what I found more times, more often than not is that sometimes you think trying to make something better actually isn't making it better. Hmm. For example, when we shifted from aluminum to composites, right? Everybody said, oh, composites is the, the, the wave of the future. Everything should be composite. It came with a load of problems, a load of problems as well. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. It wasn't as simple as that. And, and in fact, what we found is you can't beat aluminum. You c in some cases, you couldn't even beat wooden construction in airplanes in some particular applications. It was just easier, better, whatever. It was fine. You know, there was nothing, you didn't need to go to something. So advances composites, so you find that certain classic things are fine. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know,
Speaker 2 00:14:30 Just leave it as is. Just
Speaker 3 00:14:31 Leave it as is. Yeah. Yeah. Put the technology where you really need it. Not everywhere. Don't think it applies to absolutely everything. Um,
Speaker 2 00:14:37 Your children are slowly but surely coming closer towards college life. And I think your twins are already in college, correct?
Speaker 3 00:14:46 They've graduated from college. Oh, they
Speaker 2 00:14:47 Graduated. They've finished already. Yeah. I'm behind <laugh>. So if you had to give your best advice that you have given them mm-hmm. <affirmative>, what do you think was that advice? Uh, what is their biggest concern and how do you hope to help them prepare for this transition? Uh, you know, when they did,
Speaker 3 00:15:06 Right. Well, the advice I gave them, and I continue to give them, and I'll give to my youngest Sure. Is don't go to university or college because you think you know what you wanna do for the rest of your life. It's a heavy question to ask someone at year, you know, 19 years old, and say, what do you wanna do with the rest of your life? So do what you feel is right for you and go for the educational experience. Like I said, it's a toolkit. College, university, any secondary, you know, education, whatever, it doesn't matter. Whether you're in a technical school is a toolkit. What you do with it later is entirely up to you. And there's no right or wrong. Getting an education is about the experience. It's not about the knowledge. And let's face it, when you come outta university, even though you have a degree, you have no experience.
Speaker 3 00:15:50 Which means you might think you know what you're doing, but you don't. You need to work in the business five, 10 years to become experienced. Well, it doesn't matter if, if it's something else. So I say to them, go get your experience. You could always go back and learn something else to do a master's, whatever in some other field if you want. But where the magic is, when you come out into the real world, pursue the opportunities that excite you no matter what they are, even if it has nothing to do with what you studied in, in mm-hmm. <affirmative> University or, and never turn down an opportunity, even if you think it's irrelevant, you, you find that the best opportunities come where you least expect them. That's what, uh, my advice
Speaker 2 00:16:30 Was to do. And the main idea yes. Is that, you know, the first diploma is always, um, most of the times, and I'm speaking from personal experience most of the times, irrelevant. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in a sense of you can have a business degree, but end up some, doing something completely different in your life or have an engineering degree mm-hmm. <affirmative> and go to business. Yeah. So one advice that I usually give to, uh, students when they come and, and talk to me in here, in, in the studio, is figure out, as you said, look for the opportunities. But you have to have the skills to recognize when an opportunity is an opportunity. Yes.
Speaker 3 00:17:05 Yeah. Yep.
Speaker 1 00:17:11 You are listening to the owl, the official podcast of acs, Athens.
Speaker 2 00:17:27 In this episode of the Outkast, we're talking with Constantine Jams, a creative entrepreneur who's currently mostly active in startups around several industries. Stay with us as we talk with Constantine about education as an experience that offers a toolkit for life. The inflection point of the AI emergence appetite to learn as an important asset in the job marketplace. The need for talented people willing to unlearn and be trained. And the illusion project business incubator with a flare to innovate, inspire, and create. During the past few months, and I'm changing gears here, um, the big topic in education, but also in business, in health, culture and science, is ai. It's the big buzzword for the years to come. Although it's not new, of course, the concept of artificial intelligence has crossed the Rubicon, as we say, establishing itself as the new driving force and game changer, if not a revolution. It's definitely a disruptor. In your opinion, how will AI affect the areas you are most active? Do you feel hopeful or are you worried?
Speaker 3 00:18:45 Very, very, uh, a very timely question. Um, I feel that we've kind of hit this new inflection point, uh, with AI coming to emergence and it kind of took us blind sidedly and all of a sudden we have chat G P T coming out and it, it's like, what is it? I didn't even know what it was until I first heard about it. Um, I think it's one of those things that is very similar to when we start to realize that we can clone things. For instance, we started to realize we have this powerful technology in our hands. Now the question is how do we apply it and how do we protect from applying it improperly? So AI was inevitable where we're getting there, and, you know, it's probably the next big right transformation in human race right now. Um, but the, the, it will transform every industry out there.
Speaker 3 00:19:31 It's already transformed every industry out there. In fact, already, um, we've been doing, you know, some marketing work and the data mining that the companies are doing, traditionally are now doing it with ai. And this is brand, brand new. So the way they're, they're, they're getting, uh, information is now already being applied. Um, I think there, there always needs to be a word of caution with these kind of things. And it's really, how do you use this technology? Cuz I think it's exciting, but at the time, same time, it has its place. And I think we need to be respectful and mindful that it has its place. Um, there's already talk about putting legislation in place on how we can manage AI for industries like healthcare or education. You know, we know that how powerful, you know, AI can be in, uh, you know, what, what is an education going forward if AI is writing your <laugh> your thesis, you know, so these are very interesting ethical questions that are already getting down to the everyday aspect. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I think overall it'll be a positive force going forward because knowledge is a very powerful tool, but also we need to be very careful how we use it. Very, very careful.
Speaker 2 00:20:41 So I'm coming to you to pitch an idea and you figure out that this idea was completely constructed by an AI generator.
Speaker 3 00:20:51 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,
Speaker 2 00:20:52 How are you going to confront me?
Speaker 3 00:20:55 Interesting. Well, if it's a good idea, we're treat it like any other good idea, <laugh>, you know, it doesn't matter, but
Speaker 2 00:21:00 It's not mine.
Speaker 3 00:21:02 Um,
Speaker 2 00:21:02 You could have done it yourself. If you go and you say, you know what? Give me a business proposal about this and this and this, Uhhuh, <affirmative>, uhhuh, <affirmative>. So why did you need me?
Speaker 3 00:21:12 Well, okay. I think I understand what you're, what you're, what you're getting at. Hmm.
Speaker 2 00:21:17 <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:21:19 So coming up with the idea as one thing, implementing the idea as another, right. Look, an AI could come up with a business, probably do it implemented and have the ability to actually, right? I mean, it comes to the question, does the, I think there was a movie out there where it was like a, a robot or something that end ended up becoming an independent. And then the question came, well, should a robot have the ability to earn money? Should a robot have the ability to have its own bank account? I mean, if AI comes with the idea and implements it, why shouldn't the AI have its own bank account? Make its own money, right.
Speaker 2 00:21:50 Regarding ai. Yeah, I get it. But how about individual?
Speaker 3 00:21:55 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:21:56 So I mean, is it something that has to do with the ethics of business? Is it have something that has to do with productivity? Because very easily it can go say, this is my idea. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, this is the website that I'm gonna create for that idea, and this is the marketing plan for this idea, and none of it is mine.
Speaker 3 00:22:12 Yeah. Well technically speak, whoever designed the ai, it's his, because he made the AI actually do it.
Speaker 2 00:22:18 Let's hire this guy. Right?
Speaker 3 00:22:19 Let's hire this guy. Old
Speaker 2 00:22:20 Girl
Speaker 3 00:22:21 Or girl or girl, whatever. Yeah. Um, the AI in that respect, should be a tool. Really. It should be a tool. I mean, ideas could come out of collaboration. They could come out of individually come out, come out of inspiration, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, if an AI comes up with an idea or solution, cuz let's put it this way, I suspect the AI is taking in inputs. They take in, uh, information and come up with a proposal that has some logic to it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's probably not emotional, but has some logic to it. Um, and this is for example, why, you know, what, if AI is now, uh, treating, um, uh, patients, uh, when does the AI decide what is ethical and compassionate? You know, does the AI just decide, hey, this is what the medical tests show and this is what the logical solution is. Doesn't matter what the, the emotional aspect of that decision means to the patient, if you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 00:23:10 So analyzing data is not always the answer. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:23:13 So analyzing data is not always the answer because there's a, there's an aspect of I think, pure logic there. And it might be the right solution, but it's not always the best solution. Right? Right. So I think the human element will always be in there, uh, to weigh, engage, uh, even the wrong decision might somehow, ironically in the end be the right decision because maybe that'll produce a learning experience, right. As opposed to always having everything. Right. So who gets credit for the, the idea, probably the ai, but does it matter <laugh> if the world is a better place because of it?
Speaker 2 00:23:48 It's a, it's a theoretical question, but it's coming more and more into the, you know, into the front stage. So in, in our recent event about AI we did here at the school mm-hmm. Uh, the most frequent comment from our panelists was that we need to learn how to unlearn and also the idea of re-skilling in human resources. So I know that pilots and all of the people in aviation field, uh, depend heavily on technology, on continuous upgrading skills and knowledge. Could AI in a few years, in your opinion, um, could ai, uh, take the industry to a new level which can make human intervention irrelevant or even bothersome?
Speaker 3 00:24:29 I don't think it'll ever make it irrelevant. And, uh, bothersome is, is a moot point. I think, uh, um, like with all technologies and auto, let's look at automation over the, you know, past, you know, three, four decades mm-hmm. <affirmative>, robotics in, uh, heavy industry, for instance. You know, we've, we've replaced human labor with robots, you know, in, uh, manufacturing for instance. Um, did the planet suffer because of it? You know, okay. Job shifted from a type of job to another job. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> for sure. Um, I think with ai it's the same thing. There'll be a shift. AI will start to undertake certain, uh, processes and it frees us up to do other things. It'll never be a full replacement. It's, uh, an additional, let's say, tool that might, um, hopefully help him, uh, solve legacy problems like maybe climate change. But yeah, I think we do need to adapt to it because it will now start to find its way into things that traditionally we would, uh, do ourselves. Right.
Speaker 2 00:25:25 Um, your company's hiring, I'm just telling you mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 00:25:29 <affirmative>. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:25:30 And your company is looking for new talent. Uh, what are the most profound skills you'll be looking for when making a decision to hire? Is there still a dilemma between experience and new skill sets?
Speaker 3 00:25:43 So, ironically, the majority of our new hires are inexperienced people, but talented people or people with enthusiasm, people with that have an appetite to learn mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And one of the motifs that we are very lucky that we do is because we have such a broad base of different, um, let's say, uh, businesses that we run mm-hmm. <affirmative>, when we do, let's say our weekly briefing, everyone's invited to participate, and we start with, you know, one business sector, and then we end up, you know, we go through all of them. So people get to listen to literally seven, eight different types of companies all under one roof. They don't have to work at seven different eight companies. They're working at one, but they get to listen to it all. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So that's a competitive advantage we have, especially for younger people where they're getting, they need that exposure so they're getting compressed exposure. Yeah. Um, on the other hand, what are the elements that we're looking for when we're looking for new talent? Um, nobody will ever hire you really for what you know, because like you said, sometimes what, you know, they want you to unlearn it. I've seen it before where people come in, oh, I know how to do this. Yep. We don't want you to do how you did it before. We want you to do it how we want to do it now, you need
Speaker 2 00:26:46 To be able to be trained. You need Yes. According to what we need. Correct.
Speaker 3 00:26:50 Yes. When you, when you get to the point where you, you're untrainable, I think you're starting to lose your,
Speaker 2 00:26:55 You're irrelevant.
Speaker 3 00:26:56 You're becoming relevant because you're, you're doing things in a certain way which might not match with new things that emerging. Sure. Sure. Um, so the, the talent, the the, what we're really looking for is, um, talented people. How do you find talented people? You find people that are driven, you find people that are driven by themselves, result the drive comes from themselves. You don't give them the drive, the drive comes from within. Right. You give them the environment for them to thrive mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And you need to empower them. And they need to take advantage of that empowerment. They need to exercise that empowerment. They need to make their own mistakes. They need to be accountable for their mistakes. They need to come with solutions to those mistakes. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But you need people who understand that you need people who are engaged continuously. That's really what I think is, uh, really help. So the interview is way more important than the, than the CV in our case.
Speaker 2 00:27:50 So, okay. Long CVS is a no-no. Then
Speaker 3 00:27:53 Long cvs, you probably stop reading after page two and it doesn't really matter. You know what I mean? Like what's
Speaker 2 00:27:58 The I would have said paragraph two, but that's okay. Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:28:00 Yeah, yeah. <laugh> and, and that's the truth of it. I mean, I've done a lot of interviews. Yeah. And, you know, and I do reach out and I say to them, you know what, if you wanna be successful, you really want to consider this. Because a lot of people don't have the guidance, but they also don't seek the guidance. Right. So if they don't seek the guidance, you know, that's really up to them. But there's a lot of people don't also have the guidance to know, how do I make a good cv? The guy reading the CV is gonna spend 15 seconds, in 15 seconds. He's gonna decide if you're interesting or not. He's never gonna get past page one. So the more you write, you won't even read it. Whatever you need to put, put literally in the first paragraph, that's what's gonna capture the interest. And people don't know that. You know,
Speaker 2 00:28:39 Assuming it's a human who reads the cv. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:28:41 Oh yes, that's so true. Or a human that wrote the
Speaker 2 00:28:45 Cv <laugh>. Ah. And then you have to figure out, is the AI writing <laugh> from the ai? Who's reviewing and who's making the decision? Another ai. And who are
Speaker 3 00:28:55 You hiring at the end of the day? <laugh>. It's chat. Gtp, you're hiring <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:29:00 So finally, uh, Constantine, um, talk to us about the illusion project, if you will. Very ambitious title and very intriguing, I might say.
Speaker 3 00:29:09 Right? Well, funny, like a lot of our businesses, they started with a completely different purpose and then they ended up becoming something else. So Lian project was actually an umbrella because as we started to grow our businesses, we had a lot of identities. And we said, okay, you know, we have these identities, but one of the best things we do is we have people working on more than one of these. So, you know, you could have, like, I have like 12 different emails. Nobody, nobody sends it to the right email. You know what I mean? He send everything all over the place. So he said, why don't we make this umbrella where we have kind of, uh, all the, the companies underneath this and we have like one identity, which is a group of companies. So that's how a leasing project started originally. But, um, when we started to develop the certain brands, much stronger brands, they needed to have their own very, very strong identity, didn't make any sense to really keep 'em under the identity of something else.
Speaker 3 00:29:59 They would lose their, um, not their appeal, but their kind of, their, their ah, you know mm-hmm. <affirmative> stuff. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> their Wow effect. Their wow effect. Yeah. Yeah. Because a strong brand, I mean, you know, putting, let's say Nike under a parent company, I mean, the Nike in itself is, is a statement. It's a, it's a worldwide brand. You don't need to hide it under something else. So Elise, in project eventually, uh, evolved into three things that we wanted to do. One is, uh, orig, the, the real reason was, uh, startup incubator. So we wanted to build a startup incubator that was catering towards the smaller projects, smaller projects, smaller vent, you know, venture capitalists that would put, uh, you know, are not putting a million and a half into a business necessarily to give opportunity. Cuz amazing, what we found out when we started our finance advisory business is sometimes it's easier to raise 200 million than it is to raise 2 million because 200 million attracts certain large, uh, investment bodies and makes it interestingly enough for them.
Speaker 3 00:30:55 Um, 2 billion is maybe too much for an individual mm-hmm. <affirmative> or to get a loan mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but it's, um, you know, it's kind of that gray area, you know? Right. So with the startup incubator, I mean, there's a lot of startup incubators out there, and part of it is about financing the opportunities. The other thing is about mentoring the opportunities. So there's those two elements to it. So one of the things we'd like to do with our startup incubator is first of all, provide the mentoring opportunities, the space which we have available for them to come and, and work. They don't have to rent the place. They could come and work with us. They have access to all our experts in all the different businesses that we're doing. So it's like a community. So we have an environment for them. That's the one thing then comes the finance.
Speaker 3 00:31:34 Right. And it could be, we can, uh, invest in it or we could have associates that are interested in investing it or reach out to venture capitalists. And we're doing a lot of work now with Canada and, and, and bringing opportunities across border. So that's, um, the one interesting purpose. And it's, it's in that sector where, you know, we're going for those, uh, lower budget, let's say, uh, uh, startup incubations or the projects that, you know, startup companies. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. The other thing is the events planning. We, we like to do invent plan, business events, small and medium sized business events. And we like to do it with a bit of flare. So, you know, if you wanna have an acrobat in that event, you know, we'll do it. You know, we'll do interesting out of the box thinking is what we like to specialize in, but it's business oriented, so we won't do like weddings and, uh, receptions.
Speaker 3 00:32:15 It's not that. It's about, you know, business like interviews, podcast. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, whatever. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> could be a product reveal or a book reveal. And, um, and the other thing we do is an internship program. And the internship program is there to find talent. What we're lucky though, is that internship program can come and, and apply itself to all the different businesses that we have and the businesses that some of our customers have as well. So there's huge variation, huge opportunity. It's not an interested program in one very specific company. And that's it. There's opportunity here to kind of mix it up. That's why the talent that we're looking and the interns that will be successful in coming with us are the ones that are thirsty for exposure, thirsty for networking, thirsty for testing the waters. And they're not gonna say, oh, I'm not interested in this, but I'm interested in this. They're gonna be like, yeah, I wanna try everything and then I'll decide what I like. Mm. You know, and those three components, they work very well together and with our other business units that we have.
Speaker 2 00:33:15 So the, the name Lian Project is a destination.
Speaker 3 00:33:18 It's a destination. We wanted that name to inspire the environment that we're trying to build.
Speaker 2 00:33:23 Well, wishing you all the best with this. S thank you so much for being with us. It's been exciting to hear about all these ideas, and I'm pretty sure there are more in your mind, <laugh> than you want to share at this point. But we'll have another discussion later on. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 00:33:38 Excellent. Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1 00:33:42 You are listening to the Acast, the official podcast of ACS Athens. Make sure you subscribe to the Acast on Google Podcast, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This has been a production of the acs, Athens Media Studio.
