Welcome to Mick on Plug, where we ignite potential and fuel purpose. Get ready for raw insights, bold moves, and game-changing conversations. Buckle up, here's Mick. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick on Plug, and today's guest is a visionary in the financial technology space, lending his expertise in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and software engineering to reshape the future of finance. Known for his influence on social media as the Tall Guy Tycoon, he continues to inspire millions by sharing insights on wealth building and the future of financial markets.
Please join me in welcoming the innovative, the driven, the Tall Guy Tycoon himself, Mr. Armando, Pentoy, Armando, how are you doing today, brother? I'm good. I appreciate your having me. Hey, I am honored to be here, and I want to just go straight in, man.
Like you have, I don't want to say you figured out blockchain and crypto, but you figured it out. But the most important part is you're sharing your knowledge and expertise with others. So my initial question is, man, what got you into blockchain and crypto? So it's an interesting story. I was a software engineer for many years.
So around 2009, 10, I decided to go back to grad school. So when I got first day in grad school, you know, you learn the base of software engineering and undergrad, but then you go into grad school, you have to pick a specialization. So first thing I asked you, what's your specialization going to be? I don't know, I guess, software security. Well, you need further specialization. What do you know, folks?
I said, well, look at the list of stuff, cryptography, cryptology, which is the study of computing encryption. And then, you know, I got into it and I liked it and everything. But then right in the middle of grad school, cryptocurrency came out. Now, cryptocurrency and cryptography and everything. Now, cryptocurrency based on the science or the study of cryptography, which is the study of computer encryption.
And that's why crypto is so transformative, is because it's the most advanced database ever known to man. And that's what we don't realize. You see, Bitcoin is like some kind of money or some kind of investment that's way deeper than that. So I was just lucky to get in so early because I was studying at the time and I thought it was a cool technology. Now, for about three years, I didn't really realize it as investment.
So the opportunity I saw on cryptocurrency the first three years was way. I could be a crypto developer. I can integrate stuff on people's sites. I can also look into like buying Bitcoin and ETFs because I thought it was going to be the next currency. So around 2015, Ethereum came out.
That's when I actually 1450, I started seeing investment potential. I started investing it instead of just developing on the technology side. So I was just lucky to be around the right people and get in early, being around studying the technology that crypto currencies based on. Yeah, man. So I told you offline, I'm a huge fan of you and what you do for people and helping them understand. Because you just hit on it.
There's this big thing, well, what is Bitcoin and what does it do? And for some people, it's one of those things. It's just a fad. It's going to play out. And there's other people that really go hard into it.
But what I love is that you're helping people with financial literacy also. How important is financial literacy to you and what you're about? Yeah, so I got into Bitcoin 2011. I'd been playing around with stocks for a little bit before and then I made some money. And before that, I did have a guy that would train me in stocks and not even working and everything like that. So he was actually a close friend.
He was an older gentleman. He brought me long in stocks, but I really didn't put any real money into it. So when I got into crypto, the first three years of crypto was on the technology side. So I really didn't look at charts and markets and how things work. So 2013, I bought a bunch of Bitcoin here. I put up a post of the day and I was buying Bitcoin
at $200, $100, $100, $80. But at the time, I thought it was a currency. But around that time, about around 14, I started seeing investment potential. And so I started buying it for investment purposes. So now it's 13. I think it was the only Bitcoin exchange on earth got hacked.
And somebody stole like $50 million at the time. That's like billions now. But it was 50 million at the time, which was like a lot of Bitcoin. So everybody panicked. The news started saying that Bitcoin was a scam.
It really wasn't, that's proof that these are the ponds, because people got panicked. And Bitcoin dropped all the way from $1,000 on the back down to the $100,000 again, 90% drawn out. And then for two years, I didn't even look at it no more. It's like late 15, early 15. And then I saw it started to creep back up and I was like, well, that's weird.
Why would it creep back up? I thought they said it was over. And then so I started buying it again, 2015, 16. And then, you know, and I started looking deeper into how markets work. Like, why did they tell us that it was going to crash? And I started researching, I realized that there's underlying truths and all of that.
There's a cycle, there's cycles, there's patterns, there's all these things that happen almost predictably in markets that start applying at stocks and crypto at that point. And that's why I've done so extraordinarily well, is because there's underlying truths and all of that. There's a four year cycle in Bitcoin. There's also market cycles in the stock market. As times when the media will tell you that things are over and done, they'll make you scared.
And it all deals with cycles, curves, it curves cycles, and also human psychology. All of that is interwoven into like a tapestry of that underlies all these financial markets. Now, we figured it out. You could figure out everything on top. So that's what I've been trying to teach people over the years is that these things, it's very simple to understand. If you just look past all the fluffins, look at the base and see
what's happening. Yeah. And you've done a lot. You made a ton of money. Obviously, you're helping people understand crypto and blockchain. You're also an award winner, man.
In 2021, the IBM blockchain award, right? So tell us a little bit about that project that led to that award. And then I know that's not the pinnacle of your success, right? Because that was four years ago. But at that moment, man, like, how did Armando feel? Like, did you feel validated that
yes, I'm doing the right thing. Yeah, that was one of the validation points along my life, you know, because that was one of the big moments because, you know, IBM coming like that recognized you for your innovations on blockchain. That was, we can't afford a solution to get people, you know, work on IBM to get people to use the blockchain to get people hired back after COVID, to give you back to work. And we wanted an award for that. It was me on a business partner, actually.
And we know that was a big moment to win an award. But like you said, that's a big validation point. It makes you feel like you're doing the right thing. And you know, I was proud to win it. And actually, that was after I won an award, I got a blue check like the next week on my name. That was before the
blue checks you could pay for right before everybody. Right. I be a main ticket to the main Twitter page on, you know, shouting me out and say, you know, I want this to work on my picture. And then like the next week, I got a blue check on Instagram. I was before you had to pay for it.
So you had to earn it. And you can even like ask for it. He just had to recognize you. So that was really the biggest thing. So I was really excited about those two things. Yeah. So I want to go into
your book, man, because there are a lot of listeners and viewers that I know you can give strategic insight and tips to so the strategic millionaire, right, we're talking the seven laws of wealth. I love for the man, the myth, the legend himself, right? There's no better source than the source, right? What are these seven laws of wealth and how can people start imparting them into their routine and their habit when it comes to finance? It's about like these market cycles and patterns that we, you know, we just talked about. So here's the seven laws that I've learned over time. And a lot of them, you know,
almost fly in the face of what traditional logic is because traditionally I've learned in life is that when everybody does something's probably wrong, when everybody thinks a certain way, it's probably wrong. And then if you just fly in the face, it at a lot of times you'll be right because the system does not allow everybody to be rich. It's relative, it's based on ratio. So only a certain amount of people can be rich and everybody else has to be more class-supported. It's just how it works. The more
people that move up, the system will readjust and then now it goes post the move. And now it's like this is rich. So everybody can be rich. So the only way you can be rich is by thinking differently than the masses. And that's what those seven laws are. It's like, you don't have to hustle and be up
three, four days straight to make money. A lot of billionaires, a lot of billionaires, I know that they don't have, you know, that's because they got everybody else doing the stuff. And also I learned in that book, we talk about how you have to have a certain amount of your week free because of your max value, your hustling, you're working 60 hours a week. Early, early in your life is different. When you get later, 30 and 40, you got to start pulling that back. It's because if you don't have a certain
time you're free from opportunity, you don't have time to chase it. You see, if you're working 60 hours a week, somebody comes and you look man, I got this idea, I'm just going to make a lot of money. You don't have any time to work on it. So you have to, what you have to do is you have to find something work on it and reduce the time it takes you to make money on it and put it like in a basket. And that basket is your passive income. So when you reach opportunity, let's say somebody comes and say,
I got an opportunity to build a website and make a bunch of money. All right. Well, I'm going to build a website. I'm going to work on it. We're going to get it developed. But over time, I have to reduce
the amount of time it takes me to work on it. So finally, it's zero. And I throw that in my basket of passive income. I'm going to move on to something else. So that's you have to think about things in life like that. That's actually a law. It's called be lazy. And it talks about how not actually technically
lazy, but it talks about always find ways to not make money with your time constantly. Be jealous with your time because you need that time to build up new passive. You can't work all the time and you won't be able to build up anything. So I mean, if you stop working the money, stop. So a lot of that book is focused on that. Some of the book is talks about the trends that we talked about, trends and patterns and
stuff that exists in markets. I talked about having the right circle of friends around you. That's very important building the circle of winners. And it also talks about how a lot of people think that they just can show up to a group of people. And all of a sudden, that group is going to feed into them.
It doesn't work like that. So you have to show up to the group and say, you're not the millionaire. The first year that group you have to be giving them stuff. You have to offer people to show up to a network of events and now what do I do? It doesn't work like that. You know what you do when you
show up to a network and you find the people that can help you and you offer them something first. Everybody's trying to get everybody's trying to take them out to lunch, pick their brain. That's nothing. So I don't even people ask me to lunch five times a day. I don't go because I'm not dropping over the tamper because I live a little bit outside of Tampa. It's not worth it to me.
So you have to come to these people and say, look, you need somebody to pick up your laundry every week. I'll do that. Don't ask anything in return. Say, if you need somebody to spot you at the gym, I'll do that. Especially when you're young. You need somebody to help you with anything. I'll do that.
And don't ask anything in return. If you got to all the people in the group, over a time, they will pull you up to your level. Eventually, you're building, get into your life. You're helping them. They'll start to like you hopefully. And then they'll start your hair stuff and you'll start
understand how they think they'll put you on opportunities. And that's how things work. It's not like you show up and they're not going to. Well, there's no incentive to pull you up unless you're going to integrate yourself into your lives. And that's how you have to do it. That's why most
people fail in those situations. No, I'm on spot with you a million percent. So I want to unplug a few things that you said about what I'm going to say, the hustle culture, right? And I've been saying this for years. Hustle works to a certain extent, but then it's got to be strategy. To me,
real wealth comes when I can work on the business, not in the business. Real growth for me as an individual works when I can work on me and not in me all the time. And so I love the fact that you said that because I think that people miss that both in business and in life. You do have to be able to work, but you've got to work smarter. And people talk about, you know, the person that works smart and hard always wins. No, the person that works smart and hard usually is burn out. And
the person that's working smart and smart and smart and is always looking to the future isn't one of the gets so well faster than those who don't. And so I love the fact that you said that, like that, to me, that validates some things that I say. Yeah, I agree with you. Yes, you have just worked smart. A lot of times labor is not needed. If you're strategic about anything.
At first you do, especially if you come from poverty or a lower income because you don't have the initial capital, you got to grind. That's your capital. So you got but once you start building up capital, you got to look for ways out of labor because nobody of any significant wealth has gotten a labor for it. It's normally the ownership of some idea, a technology, or they got to let people doing it for them. That's right. That's right. And then the most thing, because most people don't
want to, you can always find workers because most people don't want to take the risk of owning a business. So you take on the risk, which is not that bad. And then you always have workers. Yep. Agree. And then the other thing I want to unplug is also something that I whole hardly agree about.
And it's leveling up, right? And so it's, you know, you get to a certain level, you should always be looking at how do I now level up, right? Because, and you know this, and I got to see this now going into these different worlds. There's always somebody a level above you, right? Like always, I don't care who you are, there's always somebody that you can level up and strive to get into that room, into that table, right? And you're exactly right about
networking. Most people look at it selfishly, right? I go to events all the time and I laugh at people that just want to be around celebrities or influencers and take a picture. I'm like, that person, he or she gave you 30 seconds and you wanted to take a selfie. Do you know how valuable those 30 seconds really could have been? Like, you could have asked an amazing question, right? You could,
to Armando's point, what do you need help with? What can I do for you for free, right? To prove myself. People get it wrong. Like, the next time I see somebody taking selfies with celebrities or influencers at a networking event, I'm going to go crazy. I'm probably going to grab a mic and say
something because that's not, that's not that time. And I'm like, it's, if you really want to grow your influence, if you really want to level up, spend 30 seconds and ask an amazing question, right? And if you can't ask an amazing question, you really probably shouldn't have been in that room anyway, because you were there for the selfie. And I promise you, that celebrity is not going to remember you in five minutes from the selfie. As an amazing question, they can't sleep because they're thinking about that question. Exactly. I agree with you. Yeah. And it's funny about these
events and stuff is that when I go to events, push that investor's last year, it's like a lot of people come to me with these business ideas, apps or mostly tech. And the thing about it is that it's so many, I can't really, you know how I stop people from doing that? They come up to me, they show me an idea to give me the elevator pitch and I say, Hey, yeah, sounds great, man. So here's my email, send me a full business plan by Monday. 95% of people never send it. Of course, of course.
I had to come and say, just short, I said, look, man, I love the idea. Send me a business plan by what's got here's my email and 95% of people never send it. So that's that's that's that shows you how people will show up to network and events and really don't have a plan or a strategy or you don't want to put in the effort to get to the next level. Nope, that's that's it, man. That's it. So Armando,
again, I've been a huge fan of yours and I'll make him plug. We talk about your be college, right? That purpose, that thing that's deeper than your why that really moves the needle for you that's almost like your accountability. So for Armando to get to where he is today, what's been your be college? So what's been one of your be causes if we look at it that way that holds you accountable, but it's really your mission and your purpose. So I grew up in poverty. My father left when I was three. So I really didn't
have a lot of money. I didn't get a computer. I was 19. And that's when I bought it with the Pell grant money from college. Austin, P university. Austin, P university. So that was the first amount
of computer in the house, right? So technology took me out of tennis, Clarksville, Tennessee, poor kid and made me into what I am saying, just technology, you're not. And I know I can see that we're in our transformative time from the late 90s to about maybe 2035. It's almost like industrial revolution in early 1900s. It has the power to transform a lot of people's situations, transform communities, transform entire ethnicities to a whole different level. If people would just
pay attention and learn. And that's my because is like, I just I scream for the top of the rules as many people listen, because there's never been a time I can see in my life where things to me are more obvious than what they are saying. Like, where to invest, where to grow, where to build your business is that because the thing about technology makes it so much different in other industries is that the amount of money that can be made. That's why most companies are becoming tech is because if I make a factory and I sell, let's say widgets, I'm selling these widgets and I can make them for 2020, $1 and a $75 and a $50. So that's like a big profit, $80 profit each one. So in order to increase
my production, I have to, you know, let's out double it. Well, I'm still making 80 of widget, but now I have to have twice as many employees. The fact that it has to be twice as big, I'm using twice as much electricity, twice as much material. So my profit is still linear. So same, no matter what, it may go down up a little bit, you know, based on the math of scale, you know, that does help, but it's still basically linear. Now technology is different. I can develop one app.
I can have four or five people running it. And as users come up to that, that's been the money, the chart looks more like a hockey stick, right? Because it because the amount of money you can make on its own technologies exponential. And that's why stocks reflected like, reflect the profit and stocks, tech stocks like that. And that's the reason why if you, if people start tech companies, they can make money like that. That's a transformative technology where a lot of people can go a lot of
wealth rapidly with a small team, just with a great idea and great execution. And I understand that that's why I appreciate so much because I know it has the potential for people to hear that message and make a lot of money and change their lives and children's lives and the great children's lives, just one five to 10 year execution on I set up ideas on idea. I love it, brother. I love it. And I know, you know, we're, we're pinch for time today. I love for you to tell people, you know,
what does Armando have going on? And then following up with, where can they find and connect with you? I mean, I already gave them in the opener, but I want you to tell it yourself. So I'm available on all social media platforms, Tall, Got Tycoon on Twitter. It's an underscore before somebody got my name before. So I'm also on the crypto trends podcast. You see back here
about the film in a few seconds. So me and Robert Croak talk about what's happening this week in crypto and we try to predict where things are going. So it's very popular. I think it's the biggest right now, the biggest crypto podcast on Spotify. So reach out, you know, make sure you guys listen to that.
And that's it really. So I would appreciate if you guys will follow them. I will make sure we have the description both on YouTube and on the audio versions, what I've done, everything in the show notes, man, just honored to have you here. Really quick rapid fire with Armando, right? So Rope and Clarksville, Tall guy, Tycoon, how tall was Armando for those who don't know? Oh, six, six, six. Can I wind up hoop?
Yeah, I used to be good. I mess my knees getting bad now. I played overseas. I played in Puerto Rico. So still hooping. Yeah.
I'm going through physical therapy. I was ducking before that. So I'll have to catch them off the rim and everything. Hopefully I'll get back to it. That was like eight months ago.
All right. That's the new YouTube channel. Armando getting back. Armando getting back. All right, man. So again, appreciate your time. I know you're busy guy. Truly honored all the
nuggets and wisdom that you dropped for the viewers and listeners. Appreciate you more than you know, brother. Appreciate me. Thanks so much. You got it for all the viewers and listeners. Remember,
you're because is your superpower. Go unleash it. Thank you for tuning in to Mic Unplug. Keep pushing your limits and placing your purpose and chasing greatness. Until next time, stay unstoppable.