-Hey pal! Can I buy you a drink?
Green eyed young man sat next to me in a lonely bar in the downtown of San Jose. He looked like a tech guy in a hoodie, but from his live face, quirky eyes and attractive smile I would think he was in sales. Maybe both.
-Sure, my name is Sebastian.
-Call me London.
After several drinks I told him about my divorce. He said that he is using artificial intelligence to collect data on people for commercial purposes, whatever hell that is.
-Let me ask you an honest question Sebastian?
Without waiting my answer he continued:
-What do you think price is?
“-This is where supply meets the demand”, I fired out without thinking, remembered my class in economy.
-A lot of people don’t realize that. They think price is fixed. You go to Apple store and buy iPhone for $1000, no negotiations. Restaurant bill – fixed. Rent is fixed. What if I told you you can get anything for 50% of it’s advertised price?
-You mean secondary market?
-Nope, brand new – electronics, food, clothes, cars, real estate – anything!! Sometimes 20% of its price. People are stupid and never negotiate. They never look for deals. I will give you an example. You are buying a condo where there was a murder, and it immediately lost 20% of it’s price. Over the couple years it will lose another 10% if it exceeds 1 year on the market. What if it is a foreclosure? It already lost 30% of its value. Same with cars that deprecate faster than butter melts on the sun. Dealers wanna get rid of old models whenever they upgraded style and nobody wants old style for the price of the last year. So car drops 40% of its price just after 6 months.
-Okay okay, you found some hacks but it doesn’t mean that it applies to everything in the world man!
-Yep it does. Employment, business opportunities, personal relations etc.
Personal relations was kinda sensitive topic to me so I asked him:
-What do you mean? Like a girlfriend?
-Yep. You see, if you wanna date attractive young women who looks like a model, you automatically think she is hard to get, you need to have a status, money and shower her with money which is not the case.
-What do you mean?
-Let me give you an example: If there is young woman who dates Director at Google with a lot of money, your $1000 gift would not mean a lot since she is already having $5 Million at her disposal every year. But. If you are dating the same girl how is trying hard to pay her rent, just got out of relationship and has no viable options for relationship, her let’s call it “demands” drop dramatically. If she likes you, she will move in with you without you spending a fortune on her.
-And how do you find girls like that?
I leaned forward, in interest.
-My software analyzes millions of deals on different websites. Moreover, it analyzes millions of profiles of a real people, their social media activity and public comments, scans for certain behavior and makes profiles with data that can be dissected in any space, income, lifestyle, relationship status, overall happiness in life, specific needs or anything.
-You mean you can predict anyone’s needs and get a huge discount on it?
-Yep.
-And how exactly do you monetize it?
-Let me give you an hypothetical offer. I will give you contacts of a 10 model looking women who don’t require a lot of money and attention, all you have to do is to take them out to once in a while, buy them a gift once a month and allow them to move in with you. And for these contacts you will pay me $500/month as long as you are with any of them.
My brain started thinking about the morals of this whole thing. It’s not right. I should refuse. But I will be helping them. No, you will helping only yourself! They are not some discount goods! It’s so wrong! Taking advantage of people in need is really bad. But I didn’t ask them to come to Silicon Valley, the most expensive place in the world and struggle to pay the rent. If they can’t they can move to some place cheaper. If they wanna stay, they have their own thinking and nobody forces them to do anything. If anything – I would be only helping them.
-Deal.
—
On the way out of the bar London took out his iPhone and scratched the name from his long list. “Sebastian, recently divorced, actively on dating websites, owns his house, teacher in a public school, lacks big money or ambition. Estimate:$500/month.