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if you would give me a 2025 investing
primer I want to know for the person who
just wants like a set and forget
investing strategy where should they be
putting their money right now well each
person is different right some people
have different uh risk profiles other
people have different knowledge sets uh
but I think that a lot of the Timeless
investing principles are really
important so you should basically create
a system that you can automate uh and it
pays to pay yourself first so what most
people do is they get paid they take the
money they spend it in all their
expenses and they hope there's a little
bit of money left over but a great way
to ensure that you're able to invest is
to actually take out of your paycheck
your investment money first and then
spend what is left over so that's kind
of the first thing is you got to get
money to be able to invest then what do
you do with that investment money and
really I think for the the average
person what you want to be able to do is
you want to dollar cost average every
time you get a paycheck you want to take
some portion of it you want to put it
into the S&P 500 NASDAQ and then I like
Bitcoin as well and the reason why those
three assets is because they likely have
uh very long-term resilience uh they
have a return profile that is uh pretty
good and also they're very simple to
understand you kind of know what you're
buying um I think where people tend to
get in trouble is if you are a amateur
but you are trying to make professional
moves and so I say just like the person
who goes and plays pickup basketball on
the Saturday wouldn't try to go play in
the NBA uh I don't think that the person
who says hey I'm going to spend 30
minutes a month on the investing World
should try to go and pick individual
stocks or use Leverage or short things
or or anything like that and so
understand kind of what your knowledge
set is understand what your uh kind of
competitive Advantage would be and for
the average person it's actually
discipline just simply continue to
dollar cost average into very simple uh
kind of plan and then let time and the
market do its thing and usually turns
out pretty well for those people all
right when I look at the market now it
feels like something is changing it
could be that I just only have one
lifetime I've only been paying attention
for so long but it feels like things are
really collapsing down to very few
assets so when I look at the S&P 500
that to me is synonymous with the S&P 7
AKA The Magnificent 7 that that's
driving the bulk of the returns that if
you really just look and I think I've
heard you say this before if you were
even just to focus on AI and Bitcoin you
would have mopped up most of the recent
gains is it atypical for things to
collapse down to so few assets or uh is
this really just a different moment yeah
what really interesting is if you take
the US economy in general it has gone
through a shift over the last 50 years
or so it used to be that the US economy
was dominated by industrial businesses
manufacturing businesses you know you
can think of these companies as uh
businesses that created physical things
for the physical world um and so whether
it was car manufacturers or construction
or you know home builders Etc but we've
transitioned very much to a world where
now you have what is considered these
kind of capital light businesses they're
pretty much software oriented uh they're
able to create a product they don't need
a manufacturing facility they don't need
nearly as many employees per Revenue as
they used to need uh and those
businesses are really capturing a ton of
the revenue and so a very simple example
would be look at the media industry it
used to be all about newspapers and
magazines you had to make that stuff and
you had to get that logistically out to
people and you paid you know subscribers
and all this stuff now you can simply
just use the internet and you can create
it you don't need that uh plant to print
the newspaper print the magazine you
don't need the logistics you simply are
able to just put it out there uh in
software and so naturally as that
transition has occurred the businesses
that are better right they're more
Capital efficient they're able to drive
more Revenue per employee or more profit
per employee uh they continue to grow
while the businesses that are left in
the traditional economy uh have more of
a headwind and so that shift from
industrial manufacturing and kind of
physical world businesses to these kind
of software oriented businesses really
is the story of the last 50 years and
can see that in the concentration you're
talking about right the top seven
companies in kind of the S&P 500 the
Magnificent 7 they're all software-based
businesses that really are uh pretty
special and by a number of different
measurements uh but also look at the
richest people in the world right really
uh other than Bernard Arno who sells
kind of a luxury physical item uh
everyone else is based in the technology
world and so that shift I think is
really driving uh changes in our
everyday lives and so naturally that
shift in our everyday lives is showing
up in investment returns and you're
seeing those tech stocks are doing much
much better than maybe the rest of the
S&P 500 um and so that I think is going
to be the story uh for the next 10 or 15
years is a continuation of this software
story uh Mark andreon famously wrote
this piece about a decade ago or so and
he said software is eating the world and
we now are seeing very real examples of
this right you know obviously Amazon use
software to eat the bookstores uh you
can see Facebook was able to use
software to eat into the Yellow Pages um
and you kind of go through all these
examples but software is also eating
gold with Bitcoin you know the kind of
this software-based money is really uh
kind of much better and more popular
right now than gold uh you can also then
take that even a step further obviously
with the media companies um but I think
AI is really interesting like AI is
starting to actually eat into uh the
number of employees a company actually
hires or employs and so software is
coming for all of these different use
cases
uh and it's going to make the world more
efficient it's going to empower some
really exciting cool things around
Robotics and self-driving cars and AI
agents and kind of you know quotequote
the future but also as investors you
have to understand am I betting on
things that I hope don't change that
would kind of be more of like a warn
Buffett style of investing or am I
actually betting on things that I hope
do change and that would be more kind of
a venture capitalist or Tech stock uh
investor once you understand who you are
and what you're trying to do then that
really allows you to figure out where
you're going to go put the money if
we're looking back though over say the
last 20 years are you going to capture
value by betting on things staying the
same or would you have missed basically
all of the recent gains if you don't go
for the the software Revolution yeah
what's really fascinating about this is
uh I always like to remind people uh
there's multiple ways up a mountain
right so there are plenty of people take
a Warren Buffett who have been super
successful betting on the world not
changing you know he's owned Coca-Cola
and American Express and a number of
these companies that are really good
brands have good business models kind of
integrated into American Life uh and
those businesses have continued to
compound for a long time now with that
said obviously companies like Nvidia or
Tesla or you know uh Microsoft and
Amazon and Facebook and Google they have
had you know a pretty spectacular return
over that same time period they've
outperformed in many cases now when you
look at a portfolio I think a lot of
young people say to themselves hey I use
the technology products I'm digitally
native this is what I understand kind of
my competitive Advantage is I can
actually tell you are my friends all
using Instagram or are they not right uh
what is going on am I actually shopping
on uh Amazon am I using some of these
Technologies and so I think that the
younger you are the more you're going to
gravitate towards those technology
companies and I think the older you are
the more likely it is that you came up
in a time where you really understood
some of those more physical world uh
economies and so it's just two different
kind of demographics really just
investing in frankly what they know um
and so for young people most who are
probably watching this uh they're going
to be much more attracted to the
technology companies and those have done
very well over the last
decade so my question becomes though is
is the Warren Buffett play still a valid
play or and and let me Define how I read
that so Warren Buffett to me value
investing you look at a company that you
think has the fundamentals right uh and
because they have the fundamentals right
they are going to continue to go up in
value over a long period of time um now
admittedly I am not a Warren Buffett um
uh studier so I don't have a complete
breakdown of how successful he's been
over the last let's call it seven years
but my gut instinct is that uh and I
think he's even said like you're not
going to see another thing like what
Berkshire Hathaway did moving forward
our gains all came from getting into
value investing a long time ago and
holding for a very long period of time
and so when I think about okay I've got
somebody out there who wants to set and
forget they don't want to be um in the
mix every day trying to bet on
individual stocks but uh it seems like
the thing that they should be doing if
they want to get uh more aggressive
returns without taking undo risk would
be to focus on the thesis of software is
going to eat the world that um
everything is transitioning from the old
world of what we're betting on is that
value creation maintains over time based
on fundamentals in the business to
um technology is the thing that has the
cultural energy and therefore as more
and more young people um begin to invest
in a system that they understand not
necessarily a system with fundamentals
But A system that they understand that
they interact with every day that that's
where the gains are going to come from
and I'm just curious if you know do the
numbers bear that out or am I delusional
and Warren Buffett is still just killing
it year after year yeah maybe the way
that I would describe the difference is
Warren Buffett really is trying to do
something that most people would
consider value investing and really all
value investing is although it is
associated with a lot of the industrial
manufacturing businesses he's basically
trying to buy things for less than
they're worth so he looks at a company
and he's got a bunch of different
calculations he'll do and he'll say I
think that this company is worth you
know a billion dollars but right now in
the stock market the market cap is only
$700 million and so if I go ahead and I
buy this business at a $700 million
valuation then I am pretty much
guaranteed to make money because it's
actually worth a billion and so as long
as I can wait and don't have sell the
stock at some point the company will
trade back to at least what it's worth
if not more money and so anytime you're
buying things for less than they're
worth if you actually do the evaluation
correctly you should make money right
and so I think that the value investing
style will always kind of be in favor as
long as you implement it correctly now
to your point and a point that frankly I
agree with um and think is probably the
focus for most young people is if you're
not a a superar investor in terms of
your ability to underwrite companies and
do cash flow evaluations and understand
you know kind of uh uh cash onh returns
and things like that your better bet is
to try to say to yourself okay well
where do I think uh the technology world
is going and how do I go and get
exposure to that and so you know my view
of the future is one that people would
probably put on the spectrum of very
excited about what technology will do to
our lives you know I fully believe that
we are going to have self-driving cars
and there may be even a world where
humans are banned from actually driving
uh vehicles I think that we will all
have humanoid robots that we interact
with on a day-to-day basis you can see
this obviously in places like you know
warehouses and things like that but it's
not a far um you know kind of thought
process to think that we're going to
have uh these humanoids in our homes
right now I always say that uh there are
you know cleaning devices that people
put into their homes and it will go
around and it'll kind of clean the floor
well what happens when all of a sudden
you can have a humanoid that will do the
dishes or do kind of household chores
and stuff like that people probably be
pretty interested in that if you go and
you look at things like uh DNA sequence
and crisper technology and the ability
to either biohack yourself to more
longevity or more kind of healthy years
or also maybe to avoid certain diseases
with babies and things like that that
seems like a huge you know uh area of
opportunity then you go to places like
Bitcoin and obviously there is hundreds
of millions of people around the world
who have chosen to take some portion of
their wealth and store that economic
value in a decentralized asset that is
software based that can't be taken from
them and can't be debased by somebody
else and then you go and you look at
things things like drones and it's
obviously changing kind of the entire
Battlefield and how these things are
being used and it's removing humans and
it's now becoming much more of a
technology battle uh in these wars and
then you can kind of go even a step
further and say to yourself okay well if
all those Technologies are happening
here on Earth what happens when you
introduce Rockets and the ability to
inexpensively go up off of the Earth's
surface and get into space whether that
is to go to Mars or to explore more
about the moon or I'm an investor in a
company called vaa that is literally
manufacturing units in space so they
bring pharmaceutical drugs up they
manufacture them in zero gravity and
then they bring them back to Earth and
so you think about this stuff and you
say you know the future is very very
bright because technology has now got
the capital flowing to it to be able to
build these things and really we are
only limited by our creativity what
ideas can we think of that we can now
kind of use software to actually go and
Implement and so if that is the trend
then really what it is challenging
investor to say is hey do you want to be
more of a professional and go pick
individual stocks you can do that
there's more access to information than
ever you have direct access to the
market through things like Robin Hood
public Weeble Etc or you can go and you
can simply index you can buy the NASDAQ
100 or you know any of these kind of
tech oriented indexes and say hey look I
actually just want exposure to
technology in general regardless of the
way you choose to actually get uh kind
of exposed I do think that technology
has performed very well and will
continue to perform perform very well uh
as long as you don't have to time
markets and say I'm buying today I'm
going to try to sell tomorrow if you can
say hey I'm going to buy technology
today and I'm going to hold it for a
decade very hard to see how technology
does not continue on the trend that it's
on okay let me give you my burgeoning
thesis this is a burgeoning thesis so
hopefully the audience will give me
space to uh to start formulating these
thoughts versus being able to give it as
crisp as I would like but um I believe I
think it was Elon that said over the
next 10 years we're going to have a
hundred years of innovation that quote
alone drives my thinking on what's about
to happen and it's a two-fold thing one
I believe that all of the stock market
is gambling full stop period end of
story uh you have gambling with cover
story and you have just pure gambling so
gambling with cover story would be value
investing I I unless you're buying only
dividend um producing stocks that
actually pay you for holding them you
were simply saying I'm going to buy this
because I believe somebody else will buy
it for more money down the road and
that's exactly how you make your money
but make no mistake this is just
gambling okay if you're gambling the
thing that you want to bet on is
cultural energy now I like you don't
think unless you're going to be in this
full-time and even then you're probably
going to lose your money I don't think
you want to think shortterm I don't
think you want to be a day trader I
think you want to look at movements that
happen over years ideally half a decade
or a full decade at a time but the next
decade to me feels like it is going to
be driven driven almost exclusively by
technological changes and Rapid
advancement so I'm going to be focusing
in sectors that have a lot to do with AI
or like Bitcoin to me my whole thesis
there is it is a migration from not just
Fiat but analog money to digital money
and so every day that I hold Bitcoin
whether price goes up or the price goes
down I'm just asking myself is tomorrow
going to be more or less digital than
today if tomorrow's going to be more
digital meaning every kid that becomes
aware of money and starts dealing with
that is going to prefer a software-based
money over an analog money then cool I
want to be where the software based
money is going to be and I think that
that trend is going to continue as far
as the I can see with the rapid rate of
change we're about to live through I
think this moment is wildly
unprecedented I think the rate of change
is going to be unlike anything we've
ever seen I think it is going to be more
dramatic than uh the printing press I
just think it's really really going to
be something quite manic so if this is a
if this is all betting gambling and the
most obvious gamble to me is that um
everything is going to be more digital
tomorrow than it is today um then for a
set and forget strategy while I agree do
it at the index level you want to be
focused on uh technology I treat Bitcoin
as my uh the place where I store my
wealth um that feels like the right play
and that what has been happening
historically with something like a
Burkshire hathway is it just isn't going
to work on mass is my gut instinct and
it's going to be harder and harder to
get uh value out of that what I'll call
the the Boomer strategy and um a more
likely bet is to bet on the continued
migration from analog to digital does
that make sense to you I I do think it
makes a lot of sense if you think about
Bitcoin right um the way I treat Bitcoin
is it is an asset that I buy and uh I'm
going to give it to my grandkids now the
reason why that's really important is
that's not a new Phenomenon with just
Bitcoin if you think of let's take uh
the country of India in their culture uh
gold is passed down from generation to
generation to generation it could be
jewelry or kind of the family gold right
uh if you think in the United States
land a lot of times has passed down from
generation to generation to generation
the ability to pass these assets on from
generation to generation really drives
quite a bit of wealth right whether it's
real estate land gold or or any other
asset Bitcoin has a lot of the same
properties of these assets so if you
think about land it's a finite asset
they're not making more of it same thing
with Bitcoin right it's a finite asset
there's only 21 million that will ever
be available if you think of gold it has
sound money principles it's outside of
the system and no one can devalue it
same thing with Bitcoin right it's
outside of the system and no one can
devalue it and so I like to think of uh
there's a very small amount of assets
that you can buy today you can hold your
entire life you can pass it on to your
kids or grandkids and that is going to
set up your family and kind of uh those
that come after you uh to be in a really
good position so that's Bitcoin for me
it stores economic value really well
over a long period of time so I want to
make sure I have that for some portion
of my portfolio in comes to technology I
am not like a Warren Buffett I don't
want to try to bet on the world not
changing that's not how my mind think
it's not what I'm intellectually
stimulated by I am much more interested
in how things are going to change uh and
where that change is going to occur and
who is driving that change and so these
new technologies in my mind are
absolutely fascinating and what I notice
in the market is that now not only are
uh entrepreneurs uh having Capital
available to them there's tons of people
who want to give people money to go and
kind of change the world uh but also the
technology that is available to these
entrepreneurs to do this makes them 10
20 50 100 times more effective and so if
you think back to businesses it used to
take forever for them to get to a
million dollars of Revenue or10 million
dollar of Revenue we are now seeing
businesses launch and get to a million
dollars of Revenue in the first couple
of months right in some cases we have
seen businesses that literally are
getting to 100 million dollars of
Revenue in two or three years and so any
time that you can use technology to be a
more effective company to grow faster to
be more efficient obviously value is
going to acre there and the way that I
think about kind of this brand new
future is two things remain true who is
the person who's actually building the
company whether they're in the public
market the private Market whatever
you're betting on a person right the
same way that somebody would come and
bet on somebody building a manufacturing
business or a food business or anything
you're betting on a person you need to
make sure you get that right and then
the second thing is you need to bet on
these long Trends and the beauty right
now is that technology has the Tailwind
because ultimately there's an economic
incentive and I think that that's really
something that gets lost on this right
if you think about somebody who wants to
go start like a local restaurant and
they go and they talk to investors and
you say well how much money could I make
here there's usually a cap right hey we
have 50 seats we can turn over the seats
three times a night we're open six days
a week and you do the math and you're
like okay the most amount of money that
this business can make is X dollar and
it doesn't matter how long they're in
business it's just capped that's what
this business can do but these
technology companies they kind of have
exponential growth so if they start
today they say Hey look we're making X
or Y product or service and we're going
to sell that and when we get started we
think we can sell it to a certain number
of people but over the next 10 years we
think that that number can literally go
up 10 or 100x and so there's no cap to
the upside of these companies and a
great place to watch this is a company
like paler I mean paler hit a hundred
billion dollar market cap they literally
started off basically as a service they
went to companies or or organizations
they said hey we have this you know
really unique uh technology capability
why don't you pay us some money and
we'll kind kind of custom solution for
you and then over time they began to
build that into a technology product now
that technology product is used by
people all around the world and they
built a hundred billion dollar company
it's insane and so that's where
ultimately I see from an investor
standpoint is I want to be in businesses
that have unlimited upside potential and
if the entrepreneur is good and
continues to do what they're supposed to
do then I can put a dollar in today and
get back way more in the future and I'm
not capped by physical space or the
number of times I can turn over a or
something like that and so I do think
this technology trend is just really
really big um but it's showing up
everywhere right and I think that uh for
the people who are watching this
regardless of what industry you're in
technology is probably infiltrating it
and if you think it's not then you're
not looking hard enough because right
now if you take AI maybe as as the
easiest example uh AI is coming after
Blue Collar jobs and it's going to come
after White Collar jobs you know the AI
and machine learning uh self-driving
cars is it going to take away Uber and
taxi drivers at some point yes when I
don't know but it's also going to take
away truck drivers and it's going to
take away a lot of people who are
employed as drivers but then if you go
and you take a look at well I know a lot
of companies I was having breakfast with
a Founder today and he said that he
thinks that he can take his company
which currently has 85 employees and he
think he can actually use AI to shrink
the number of employees from 85 to 50
but during that time frame he's going to
FX his Revenue which which means that he
can take his Ai and he can actually
replace some of his software Engineers
he can replace some of the marketers he
can replace some of the designers and
the software is going to start to do
this stuff and so if that is the path
that we're on is things like AI are
going to infiltrate every industry it
doesn't matter if you're in accounting
if you're an engineer if you're a
designer if you're in Ops if you're in
sales whatever the way that you insulate
yourself from this is you become the
most knowledgeable person at your
company on these new tools because they
will be the last person that they can
fire is you and so one quotequote
investment you can make yeah you can
make financial investments but I also
think you can make a kind of career or
personal investment by becoming an
expert using these things because it
will help you continue to be employed it
will help you to continue to drive
income whether you're an entrepreneur or
an employee and that will give you the
funds to they get then go invest in the
market and so this idea that hey we're
just investing is partially true I think
it's really important that people
understand these tools are coming for
people's jobs and the people who will
survive are the people who know how to
control them who know how to use them to
be better at their jobs and so don't
ignore it actually embrace it Go become
the expert and you'll become more
valuable to your company we get back to
the show and just a minute but first let
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oh buddy do I agree with that so I think
that 2025 is going to be the year of
just massive anxiety around AI you've
got Salesforce making their announcement
we're no longer hiring any more
Engineers there are going to be a
gazillion conversations like the one
that you had this morning where people
are looking at their headcount saying
how do I shrink this uh so not even
staying static but but how do I actively
reduce this I think what that leads to
is not in 25 but as we go down the road
and that uh proliferation of AI becomes
super ubiquitous that we're going to
have to print more money to create a
bigger social safety net which is going
to push people and this goes back to my
thesis that all of investing is gambling
it's going to force more people to
become uh uh people want me to say
educated investors I'm going to say
degenerate gamblers uh it's going to
force people to be degenerate gamblers
to outpace the inflation of printing all
of that money to take care of the people
that are getting their jobs just
absolutely obliterated by Ai and so now
all of a sudden it's driving more people
into this okay where are the big returns
going to be I think that those are going
to be in technology so you get this
really weird Loop of the more that
technology um begins eating the world
the more people need that social safety
net the more that we are printing money
which requires more people to invest
what are they investing in they're
investing in the very technology that's
eating them which causes it to eat the
world even faster and so it is this
crazy self-reinforcing loop
and that's where I start to get very
uneasy about what's going to happen to
people psychologically during this uh
spiral but being aware that that's where
the opportunity lies certainly for
people that are paying attention
you can uh begin to position yourself
again I'm an index guy do not think that
you can pick the right company but if
you can pick the right sector and hold
for long enough to your point about look
for those longterm trends that I think
people can really um set themselves up
to win now one thing I want to talk
about that to me is tied to that when I
look at micro strategies and what
they're doing is I say okay people
people that invest actively you going to
be able to predict their behavior far
better if you think of them as a
degenerate Gambler than if you think of
them as some sophisticated investor and
what micro strategy has done a brilliant
job because he has a company that adds
value it's just not growing and so from
the stock markets perspective that's a
bad company not interested it's not
going to grow not going to invest and so
what he did was say okay I know the
people want to gamble they don't care if
my company is solid solvent well-run all
they care about is whether they're going
to be able to gamble on this so let me
start doing a Bitcoin treasury strategy
and then overlay basically the entire
stock market all of the shorts the
options trading all of that on top of
cryptocurrency which already attracts
the most extreme gamblers and so what
you're seeing with micro strategy is uh
gambling
mainlined do you see something else when
you look at the just unbelievable
success of micro
strategies yeah so I think if you put
yourself in Michael sailor's seat um why
does he buy Bitcoin to begin with right
uh do I think that there's an element of
hey if I buy Bitcoin then the bitcoiners
will notice me and they'll start to buy
my stock definitely but I think that
probably the bigger story was I'm
sitting on $500 million of dollars of
cash and if I keep holding this cash and
it's being devalued you know since 2020
the US dollar has lost more than 25% of
its purchasing power uh that would be
very detrimental to somebody who's
sitting on $500 million of cash and so I
need to convert it to something else
whether that's real estate land gold
Bitcoin whatever and so I think that was
uh kind of a huge piece of this is hey
I'm now convicted that uh inflation is
going to be a problem the currency is
losing value I need to convert it to
something else he buys Bitcoin and I
think that it's kind of this thing where
you know you ever like go to the pool
you're like I wonder if it's cold or not
so you dip your toe in oh it's not that
bad then you put your ankle in right
then you put your knee and then
eventually you go all the way in the
water that's kind of what happened here
right as he like dipped his toe and he
bought you know $400 million or so of
Bitcoin he waited he's like that worked
let me buy some more let me buy some
more and then eventually he was just
like I'm dumping in the deep end I don't
need to check the water I'm buying as
much Bitcoin as I can and so naturally
as you go through that progression it
definitely begins to attract people who
are much more uh kind of uh speculating
on the stock and really the genius of
his strategy is he's not just attracting
speculators from kind of the equity
Market he's also attracting speculators
from the debt Market as well and the
debt Market is massive in the United
States and so he's giving the ability
for people who have a mandate to buy
bonds say hey come and buy these
convertible bonds at micro strategy I'm
going to give you underlying exposure to
bitcoin so now he just unlocked a whole
new pool of capital that wants exposure
to bitcoin and so that has played out
very well for them and you see all these
copycats around the world that are all
kind of popping up saying hey that works
so well maybe I'll do the same thing how
do I start to raise capital and go and
do it but maybe the bigger story here to
me is in in the public markets companies
previously had two levers they could
pull to improve their business they
could drive more Revenue so there's a
revenue lever and then they could also
cut expenses so they could pull the
expense uh lever micro strategy kind of
opened people's eyes to know there's a
third lever which is your balance sheet
so you have Revenue you have expenses
but what he's doing is he's buying
Bitcoin and by putting things on your
balance sheet that go up in value that
is a third lever you can pull and Real
Estate Investors kind of sort of knew
this before right because they would
have uh their ability to borrow against
their balance sheet and things like that
but this is a whole new way of thinking
about it and so I am predicting that
there are going to be a ton of public
companies that are going to say wait a
second we don't pull the revenue or the
expense lever we pull that third lever
the balance sheet lever uh and we're
some people are going to do with Bitcoin
we already see companies like uh Soul
strategies uh which I'm involved with in
Canada they're doing it with salana but
there's going to be companies that do
with all kinds of assets they're going
to say look let's put this on the
balance sheet and let's wait for some
capital appreciation to happen and let's
continue to play this game where we can
now pull the lever of the balance sheet
in that world the ability to evaluate
companies the ability to be a capital
allocator is going to be really really
important and so I always say that you
know to be successful in the world going
forward you need to be able to operate
companies you need to be able to uh
allocate capital and then you need to be
able to create content if you can do
those three things you're kind of a
triple threat and if you look at what is
Michael sailor or Jeff Bezos or a Mark
Zuckerberg right Mark Zuckerberg
operates a business he allocates capital
and he's creating content it may not be
the content that you think of you know
in terms of Mark Zuckerberg is a content
creator but he's able to do this if you
think of Warren Buffett Warren Buffett
operates a business he allocates Capital
he creates incredible content writes his
annual letter he's got an amazing
conference all this stuff and so I think
the challenge for people moving forward
in kind of a digitally connected world
with all these Technologies accelerating
everything is can you be the triple
threat you do those three things to
position yourself to be able to
capitalize to be able to actually build
the businesses attract the capital and
then go and get customers in a cost
effective way and I think the people who
can do that will benefit significantly
from these Tech Trends and if you are
one of those beneficiaries you'll have a
lot of capital then you can turn back
around and that kind of spiral that you
talked about you're going to invest it
back into the tech companies which going
to only further your kind of economic
status if you continue to do that over
and over again uh you will be one of the
big winners over the next 10 or 15 years
that all makes a lot of sense to me I I
am trying to develop a predictive engine
so that when I look at the world I can
say when th this thing happens it's
going to lead to this thing and when I
look at investors as quote unquote
investors meaning oh there's something
of value here I'm going to put money
into this um it does not lead to
Accurate predictions when I look at uh
people's desire not only desire that the
current printing of money forces people
to dodge the devaluation of their money
by gambling in the financial system to
outpace the rate of
inflation and I look at everybody is
these gamblers that are trying to beat
inflation they're being forced into this
then my predict validity seems to
Skyrocket and so I would love for you to
point out if there's anything in the
following statement that you think is
crazy when I look at micro strategy I
see one brilliant move that Towers so
far above everything else um but it only
makes sense when you look at people as
gamblers is that sailor was like oh wait
a second I'm not going to dip my toe in
the water I don't need to I'm going to
run a mathematical equation about what
people would be willing to bet on and
I'm taking the highest volatility
longest performing asset and I'm going
to put over the top of it all of the the
G gambling mechanisms of the stock
market and this is why I think the
average person which I will very much
consider myself of they don't understand
the stock market has almost nothing to
do with whether the company is valuable
people do not give a [ __ ] Anthony all
they care about is the really fancy guys
they want to know can I beat other
people at guessing whether this goes up
or down which is why in the stock market
you can make a ton billions of dollars
betting against something say saying
this is a trash company and it's going
to go down and sailor's like hey I don't
care whether you think it's going to go
up or down I'm going to let you pick the
amount of volatility that you want it is
so brilliant I'm literally it melts my
brain to think about what he's done to
go oo you like this High volatility
thing a word let me give you all of
these different ways that you can bet
for it against it short-term long-term
uh highrisk low risk it it's
unbelievable but it only makes sense
when you look at it as the entire I
don't want to limit it to the stock
market people may get the wrong idea the
the financial system for the most part
is just a big casino and once you
understand that oh I'm being forced to
play at the casino to beat inflation and
sailor has built the greatest Casino
ever and this is why this guy is it it
is he can borrow money hand over fist it
it it's unb believable but it for me it
didn't click into place until I was like
oh wait this is just gambling once I was
like oh he built a casino now I get it
it all made sense tell me why that's
crazy well I think a good uh kind of
framework for people to think about is
uh if you want to drive a financial
return you have to take risk right and a
you know kind of old adage in the
financial world is uh the risk you take
is the return that you make so whatever
risk you're taking if you take a small
risk you can only expect a small profit
if you take a huge risk then you can
expect a potentially huge profit right
but the risk and the return is uh very
much married together and so obviously
the best investors in the world are
looking for how do I take almost no risk
and make a massive return it's just that
that doesn't exist very often right so
usually it is small risk big or uh small
risk small return big risk big return
and what I think Michael saor figured
out is this Bitcoin thing is highly
volatile you know 80 90 100 Vol asset um
and it goes up and down up and down up
and down but over a long run it goes up
and so if I put this highly volatile
thing into the public market there's a
ton of people who are going to have an
opinion to your point and some of them
are going to think that it's going to go
up a lot and some of them are think it's
going to go down a lot and they're going
to bet in either direction but again it
goes back to people who are investing in
that asset they are betting knowing
they're taking a big risk and so they're
expecting a big return and that's what
they've gotten if you have bet and said
that micros strategy was going to go
short for the most part you've lost
money and you probably lost money big
because it has gone the exact opposite
way but if you've bet on micro strategy
and it's gone up a lot you've probably
made a lot of money and so what I think
about that type of uh company is you can
expect it to have the same volatility as
the underlying asset there have been
times where micro strategy has gone up
you know hundreds of percent there's
been times where it's been cut in half
and lost 50% of its value but it goes
back to that idea of what is your time
frame right there was this great study
done I think by Fidelity where they
looked at all of the best performing
accounts and they tried to find
commonality between them and said what
are the best people uh from a return
perspective do and two of the insights
they got were the best performing
accounts were from people who lost their
passwords or people who had died because
people just didn't look at the account
for 5 10 15 20 years and so naturally
the same thing here is if you buy some
of these stocks whether it's an index or
the individual stocks and they're good
companies and you don't look day-to-day
you just come back in two years it's
probably going to be doing better than
it was when you bought it but the
problem that people have is if there's a
daily Ticker price it went up today it
went down today it went up today went
down today their like entire mood is
affected you know I have some friends
who are public market investors they
literally are in a bad mood when the
Market's down they're in a good mood
when the Market's up right I'm like dude
the stock market is determining whether
you're having a good or bad day like
stop looking and I think that is the
challenge for young people is how as
you're learning as you're investing how
do you figure out how to deploy Capital
but also remain uh emotionally
disciplined so that when the market goes
up or down you don't actually get you
know upset or excited because if you go
back to the Warren Buffett Buffett
actually gets excited when the price
goes down he's already convinced himself
I'm going to buy you know whatever stock
if it goes down I'm excited because I
get to buy more of it at a cheaper price
so the joke about bitcoiners is the
people who really understand Bitcoin
they get excited when it goes down
because they can buy more at a cheaper
price
right same thing with some of these
these businesses but you got to make
sure it's an asset that's going to be
around in 10 years right that's got got
kind of longevity got resilience to it
Etc and so I think your point about uh
kind of this High volatility you know uh
really elicits people who want to
speculate is 100% true um and Wall
Street is better than anyone at creating
you know kind of speculation tools or
you know casino games as you said um
sure they've got you know kind of better
ways to describe it they've got all
these models and all this stuff but at
the end of the day they're risking
dollars for a potential return if
they're right the market rewards them if
they're wrong they're they lose the key
thing is there's probably better odds in
you know the stock market than there is
at a casino table right and I think that
that's where a lot of people get
attracted to hey let me go over here one
of my favorite stories I don't know if
you know the story of Susana Investment
Group uh Susana uh was a couple guys in
college they actually started betting on
horses and they were trying to use all
this math to figure out which horses
were most likely uh to win the races and
do all this stuff and somebody came to
them and said hey you guys are pretty
good at this like horse betting thing
but like did you know that you don't
have to wait for the horse races to bet
every day like there's a stock market it
trades every day right you can go over
here and there's all these horses uh
called stocks you could pick different
ones and run your math models and
whatever and they ended up becoming one
of the great investment firms but it
literally was people saying hey why
don't we take something that works in
you know kind of the the risk-taking and
gambling world and let's bring it to
kind of a more orderly Market that we
have more access to there's more
opportunities and let's go and implement
it there and so I do think that there's
a lot of these stories where people have
crossed over from you know kind of pure
risk-taking with very you know um
unattractive odds to a market like the
stock market where they say hey there's
much more attractive odds here let me go
uh and uh you know kind of invest
here okay so to me that is the perfect
illustration of my point that the guys
who are betting on horses end up doing
great in the stock market because it is
the same skill set
uh my question becomes why do you think
the government and Society at large is
cool with people betting on the stock
market but not cool with betting on
sports so I think that's changing um but
what I would say is uh you know there's
this really interesting Dynamic where uh
people will say what do you want to do
why do you want to do it and the why do
you want to do it is actually a really
important component to whether they like
what you're doing or not maybe it
shouldn't be that way but that's how it
is I'll give you a couple of examples
why do you want to invest in companies
somewhere someone somewhere along the
line said you know I want to invest in
companies because I want to give Capital
to entrepreneurs so as entrepreneurs can
use it to build products and services
and corporations and create jobs and
economic activity and you know GDP
growth and all these things that sounds
really good people said hey we like that
idea let's Empower let's let's fund kind
of American compan companies so that
that that's
okay somebody came along and said you
know what we should do we should create
a lottery system and you know what would
be a great thing to do with the proceeds
we can use it to fund the education
system within a state and so there's
many states across the United States
where they literally have a lottery and
the odds are not good you know there's
like one in a billion chance of winning
or something and the proceeds are
actually used to pay into the education
system the schools the teachers you know
all that kind of stuff well all of a
sudden what do you want to do when I
create a lottery well I don't know if I
like that why why do you want to do it
oh we're going to help fund the schools
great idea that gets approved Sports
gambling right now is very much what do
you want to do I want to bet on Sports
uh why do you want to do it because it's
fun that answer hasn't been so you know
well accepted but I do think that it is
changing now because really what ended
up happening is kind of twofold one
there was like this like black market of
gambling that had been going on for a
long time and they kind of realized hey
we can't control this so it actually may
be better to pull it into the regulatory
apparatus put some rules around this
kind of sanction this stuff and uh it
probably is better actually for the
market participants but two is there's
Revenue source and so states started to
really say hey look we should legalize
this because we're actually going to
make some money and I forget the exact
number so somebody will probably correct
me if I if I get this uh wrong but I
think it's something like in the first
two or three years the state of New York
has generated like 122 billion in
revenue from Sports gambling and so
again whether it's 12 billion it's 1
billion or it's you know 20 billion it's
some big number that is going to the
state and so whenever you see that you
say to yourself why is it that this was
not legal and now it's becoming legal
why do you want to do it oh because the
state's going to get money and so that I
think is really what's kind of
transitioning it now what I will say is
um there is uh a potential risk where it
all comes down to odds right so again if
you're investing in a company uh the
company some are winners some are losers
but there's disclosures there's a lot of
things that happen in the public markets
that make an investment quote unquote
safer than maybe trying to pick what
color is the Gatorade going to be when
somebody dumps it on the coach at the
end of the game that is like you know
very pure play uh kind of you're right
or you're wrong now I'm in the situation
where I always say to myself look I
think Americans should be able to do
what they want with their money right
that's kind of the beauty of America the
the kind of uh belief in Financial
Freedom is you should be able to do what
you want with your money but I also
think whether you're investing in a
company you're you're betting on sports
or you're doing something in between you
also should have as much information
available to you as as uh needed and so
things like company disclosures Etc is
really important in the public markets
things like in sports betting having an
understanding of the odds and and
various other uh topics is really
important as well I think you see a lot
of States saying hey what what is the
standardization of that stuff
and the beauty of this is uh there's
going to be winners like there will be
people who are very good at sports
gambling right there will be people who
are very good at stock picking and there
will be people who somehow continue to
be really good at Lottery you know
participation um I'm not an expert at
gambling or the lottery but there are
people who understand this stuff right
no different than somebody uh like an ed
Thorp Ed Thorp you know went uh to Las
Vegas and he figured out a couple of
different tricks of how he could
actually outsmart the casinos a lot of
money doing it and so there's this
economic incentive that sits out there
and if you look think about sports
gambling I'm aware of a number of
different outfits where they might as
well be hedge funds right I mean they're
calculating all this data they're really
trying to get smart about what odds are
priced correctly and not correctly and
where is the risk reward all this kind
of stuff and then I would actually even
take it a step further and maybe one of
my big uh predictions over the next 10
or 15 years is that these prediction
markets are going to become a massive
part of society so when I talk about
sports gambling I'm literally talking
about hey the Super Bowl is coming up
there's going to be two teams that play
I can bet on the game I can bet on the
score I can maybe do some prop betting
uh in that specific game but right now A
really interesting detail is uh there's
a platform in the United States that is
approved by the cftc called CI k a l Shi
and I was recently talking to their team
and just trying to get an understanding
hey how does this work what are people
betting on you know where are these
people coming from are these hedge funds
are the individuals whatever and the guy
pulled up the platform and he said you
want to know what people are betting on
today he go one of our biggest markets
people are betting $25 million a day on
what the highest temperature will be in
New York City
tomorrow and I sat there and I said to
myself oh my God there is $25 million
per day that is being wagered on what is
the temperature going to be tomorrow in
New York City and so is it going to be
14 to 15 degrees is it going to be 15 to
16 degrees is it going to be 16 to 17
degrees tens of millions of dollars and
this stuff just started right I mean
this stuff is all pretty brand new in
the last year or so so as that continues
there will be prediction markets for
everything you'll be able to bet on who
wins an Emmy or an Oscar you'll be able
to bet on does a certain thing happen in
the world right does somebody get
elected or uh we saw in the presidential
election like who's going to win the
debate who's going to win certain seats
who's going to become the president all
of these things now you're going to
start to be able to bet on it but one of
the things that I think is really
important to call out here is although
there will be plenty of critics that say
oh that's just another form of gambling
I do think that there is going to be
this kind of meshing of many of these
markets whether it's Sports gambling
prediction markets or stocks and maybe a
good example is let's say that I uh am
very interested in Tesla and I continue
to look at the company and evaluate it
and I know that an earnings call is
coming up and I want to bet not on what
is going to happen with the price
movement of the stock I have an opinion
on are they going to hit their delivery
number or not and right now in the stock
market what people have to do is they
say okay if Tesla hits their delivery
number or beats it the Stock's going to
go up but what in practice happens is
Tesla will beat this uh delivery number
and then Elon will say something in the
commentary and the stock will dump
because people will say oh Elon is
bearish about next quarter or something
so now all of a sudden you said hey I
was right on the thing that I wanted to
bet on but there was all these other
factors around it that actually the
stock market moved against me
well in a prediction Market you can
actually go and you can bet just on will
Tesla beat on the delivery number or not
it doesn't Nothing Else Matters it's
just a yes or no it's a binary thing and
so you can imagine in the financial
world all these different details that
people would want to bet on what is the
delivery number you could even do will
Elon mention you know Dogecoin three
times or more in the earnings call that
could be a prediction market and so you
get into this very interesting world
where uh I think the mainstream media is
going to start to cover these prediction
markets because these prediction markets
actually are telling us the truth
because it's a market Dynamic that's
determining it rather than kind of
opinions of journalists bloggers you
know people with Twitter accounts Etc
and so if that starts to happen now you
have stocks gambling you know kind of in
sports and prediction markets we now
become in a society where actually
economic value being wagered is a signal
for what you believe or how you think
the world is going to play out which
sounds a hell of a lot like investing in
companies and trying to predict which
one's going to succeed and which one
isn't right ding ding ding yeah that
that is uh exactly what I'm talking
about that is an utterly fascinating
glimpse into a potential future that I
think is all too
plausible uh that basically people are
just going to turn into gambling
machines um yeah it's interesting
because I think the stock market has
there's so much knowledge re quired that
it keeps out the average person um I
don't know if it's a good or bad thing
because as we go to things that people
think that they already understand like
sports or uh you know will he mention
something three times in the next
earnings call that you're just going to
see a lot of people gambling gambling
gambling which then brings about squid
game uh type people getting themselves
in trouble it's uh it can be dystopian
really fast okay so speaking of people's
pension for gambling what do you think
about meme coins
yeah so you know I should say first
before we talk about the meme coins like
the gambling in general uh I actually
think is a pretty big Fool's eron for
99% of people I just described in sports
gambling there are basically the
equivalent of hedge funds being set up
where they're calculating all this data
Etc if you think you're going to sit
down on a Sunday morning you know uh go
to the store get some beers get ready
for the games and then all of a sudden
you're going to like outperform the
hedge funds it's probably going to be
pretty difficult to do and so what we're
seeing is the kind of the
professionalization of these markets um
and so if the odds are further tilted
against you your odds of losing
obviously are are much higher um and
there can become a spiral it's why you
see you know the gambling hotline
numbers and stuff having to be um uh
promoted alongside any of these
companies and so I don't think we want
to become a gambling Society like I
actually think that would be pretty
detrimental uh to the United States and
so there's like a like a paradox of we
want people to be able to do what they
want with their money but also we can
recognize that if everyone was just
gambling all the time that probably
wouldn't be great for productivity of
the United States and happiness and
things like that and so meme coins are
kind of like the final uh uh maybe
version of this and I'll give you uh
maybe an analogy of kind of how we get
to meme coins right so we talked about
birkar Hathaway uh if you think about
birk Shear 90% of the value of the stock
is because it's a great company they
have cash flows they've bought things
that less than they're worth like Warren
Buffett has really perfected the value
investing uh um kind of uh approach but
10% is the like buff bump right people
love Warren Buffett he's kind of like
the U's Grandpa from Omaha he's been
able to build this brand and and kind of
uh I would argue almost like a pseudo
religion around his approach and uh you
know he's got his annual substack that
he sends out but really it's just called
an annual letter uh he's got a
conference that people you know kind of
go to Mecca uh in Omaha or the financial
Mecca and they go and they check it out
um and he's kind of like this like
Finance influencer for Boomers right and
that's really important because 90% of
the the value is the company and the
cash flows and the assets Etc but 10% is
that Buffet bump the buffet premium and
so that's been amazing for birkar
because it obviously helps on the stock
price but more importantly he wins deals
because of it people want to sell their
company because Warren Buffett bought my
company he's able to attract Capital all
that stuff so you can think of that as
like 90% company 10% meme right and
people like oh Buffett's not a meme
whatever but like it's the same idea
right the brand the meme whatever you
want to call it 10% of birku go to Tesla
Tesla is maybe 50 60% company 40 or 50%
meme elon's the greatest marketer of Our
Generation he's got this rabid fan base
online at times Tesla's traded at
massive premiums he's been able to
attract Capital he's been able to do
things because he's got that brand or
that Meme right and so you get Burk
Shear is kind of there Tesla is the next
step take it to the third step which is
uh the Trump media stock djt is the
stock ticker it's like A7 billion
company on $4 million of Revenue so
that's like 10% company 90% meme or 90%
brand right now if we look at they
basically inverted from Buffett 90%
business 10% meme to djt is like 10%
business 90% meat well the next logical
step is literally a meme coin which is
0% business 100% meme right and so like
we've been going down this path now for
40 50 60 years it's just that we finally
reached the final form which is people
are saying like screw it we don't even
need a business we can just launch these
things and whatever Brand's tied to it
people will subcribe some value to it
and so the scary thing for somebody who
uh is thoughtful who thinks of
themselves as kind of a sophisticated
investor they say what is underlying
this how do I underwrite it and the
answer is you're never going to be able
to underwrite it so from that standpoint
you think this is insane crazy you'll
never buy it and you think it's stupid
right 80% of my body is in that category
but 20% of my body is in the category of
man something's going on here right
first we saw kind of No Name people do
this then we started to see kind of
smaller brands or celebrities then we
saw bigger ones do it now it's the
president of the United States it's
Donald Trump right these are the biggest
brands in the world doing this thing and
they've created 30 50 70 billion dollars
of market cap depending on when you look
at the at the coin is it sustainable I
have no clue am I buying it absolutely
not but we got pay attention to this
thing because it feels like this is some
version of a a collectible or a trading
card or whatever and so I think there's
a lot of people looking at it through a
a financial lens but I actually wonder
is that the wrong lens to look through
instead you should look at it through
the entertainment lens people are buying
these things because they want to be
entertained it's almost like a video
game to them and if we get into a world
where people's portfolio starts to look
like a video game people are going to
lose money it's going to be more kind to
gambling like there's all those issues
that we talked about but doesn't mean
that we're going to stop doesn't mean
that there're not going to be more of
those in the world and so to me that is
the the difficulty of evaluating kind of
the meme uh coin world is there's
nothing underlying it there's no utility
it's not used for anything there's no
product there's no service there's no
Revenue there's no anything but there's
a brand attached to it is the brand
worth $30 billion you'd be hard pressed
to find someone that's like yeah
100% but it's probably worth
something but again you're playing a
game where there's massive risk and the
question becomes is there enough juice
worth the squeeze right like you know if
you go and you buy these meme coins if
there is no assets no product no service
whatever what do you do well like I
think to your point you're just gambling
right and if you want to go gamble for
entertainment purposes like hey you
should be able to do whatever you want
with your money that's not my investing
style right so I I kind of take a
different approach
yeah I think meme coins are where uh we
all just admit oh this is what it always
has been from top to bottom the stock
market all the financial system it it is
all gambling from top to bottom and uh
when you get to a mcoin everyone just
agrees that the emperor has no clothes
but everywhere else I point and I say oh
the emperor has no clothes and people
like oh Tom you're an idiot you don't
know what you're talking about and I'm
like nope there's there is virtually no
predictive validity to people's behavior
when I think of them as like uh
strategic investor there is 100%
predictive validity when I say oh you
think that you'll be able to sell this
for more money down the road now I'll go
back to this idea of a cover story uh a
good business with sound financials all
of that gives you a great cover story
but I think the real reason that works
is it it becomes like legal contracts
where the vast majority of people uh
just get they get blocked out of the
system because they don't understand it
so most people don't invest because they
just don't understand it and so they
don't go gamble on that thing rather
just go gamble on Sports because at
least the sports they gamble they can
gamble based on emotion and I get it
there are going to be people of all
intellectual strata that cannot stop
themselves from betting on something to
your point which is how people get
themselves in trouble um they do things
on Leverage and so they can lose more
than everything it can literally be a
wildly negative balance but once you
understand all of it is gambling and
some people just have way stricter like
if I go to a casino first of all I don't
gamble but if I were going to go to a
casino I would find the thing where I
can play the longest I can enjoy myself
that I'm not going to lose a ton of
money um cool that that's my strategy so
I'm going to play something like the
stock market where I can be like well if
I stay in for 10 or 20 years I'm
probably going to be fine I'm not going
to get the big upside that other people
are going to get but cool uh but as we
really take off the shackles when the
president is launching his own meme coin
I think we can agree that we're more or
less at least for the next four years
we're taking off the shackles here and
we're just saying all right why do
people want to bet on the Donald Trump
mean coin because it's going to have
extreme volatility because people are
going to pay attention because he is
going to be constantly in the news and
so now you're just allowing people to
bet on that without having to go to poly
Market or something else like that where
it's like okay how many times is he
going to say greatest of all time in the
next speech instead you just go Trump
brand up
down but ultimately the reason that
people are going to gravitate towards
these big cultural moments is because
where the cultural energy goes now
you're able to bet on that and again it
makes sense when you just go oh that's
all any of this is agreed that it's
degrees of risk it's some people really
need to embrace no no no there are
fundamentals here there's something that
I can base my underwriting on all of
that but all of that is just to
facilitate people gambling now with the
stock market the one thing I will give
it is by creating this gambling pool
around these companies you're able to
let those companies raise money and do
incredible things so in terms of is it
Justified to let people gamble on it I
like it way better in the stock market
because it does something for the
economy the betting on mem coins is
never going to do and in fact I think
there's an argument to be made that by
letting people gamble on mem coins
you're really dissipating Capital
because all the capital that would
otherwise be forced to gamble inside of
a system that brings capit to businesses
that create things that we want that
generate GDP all of that that sounds
like it has a better knock on effect but
to what you said earlier oh man it's
like you got to let people decide what
they're going to do with their own money
but it really won't be only positive and
so this is where I think we're I'm very
glad that we don't just do what I think
we should I'm very glad that this will
be something that will be decided by a
lot more people than me uh but oo buddy
like this is
I don't think there's any way to say
people shouldn't be able to do it other
than to say you're too dumb and you need
a
nanny one of the um things that recently
uh kind of came back up in my memory is
in 2016 or 2017 uh I went to Nigeria and
in Nigeria um you know most people would
think about the country and they' say oh
they're probably way behind the United
States um it's probably a very different
culture Etc Nigeria has about 200
million people that live there uh it is
a very young demographic it's growing
very quickly and it's estimated by about
2050 2055 there will be more Nigerians
in the world than Americans to give you
a sense right so growing very quickly
there's very high internet penetration
and very high mobile phone usage and so
it's a kind of a technology forward uh
country given those demographics and the
penetration and one of the most
eye-opening experiences I had in Nigeria
was the country's love for soccer what
they call football and and they
everywhere we went they were watching
games and I think I kind of expected
that part but I saw one thing that I
wrote about when I came home and I said
I saw the future which was in Nigeria
they had these bedding houses so you
could basically go to physical location
and you could walk up to the counter and
you could make a bet on whatever game
was coming up and you know I wasn't
really paying enough attention to know
was it prop bets or just you know bet on
the score or what people were going and
they were exchanging physical money but
they had a bunch of the TVs on so you
could literally sit there in the room
you could watch the games that you just
bet on right with your friends and you
go back you bet on more games whatever
but on the far right of all these
screens was one game and when all the
other games were either over or done
with or a commercial or whatever this
game kept playing and it was kind of far
for me to see so I walked over and said
what are they watching and I realized
that they were actually watching video
games it was a video game of soccer and
so I said to one of the kids I said hey
man uh who's playing and he said oh no
none of us are playing the game it's a
simulation and they were betting they
were betting on the simulated video game
so if you ever play like Madden or you
know NCAA or you know NBA 2K whatever
you know you can like simulate a game
and it'll have the teams play each other
but nobody's actually playing that's
what was going on and they were betting
on it and so I sat there and you know
kind of the the naive American saying
like well how do you know that's not
rigged how do you know that you know
like whatever literally just wondering
who who oversees the algorithm that
creates like of course right in America
there's like no trust whatsoever but
these guys were sitting there and they
were playing this game they were like
betting on this simulated game and so I
think that that actually if you
extrapolate that out the meme coins
there's quotequote some algorithm the
algorithm is just the market is making
this thing go up and down and it's got
people's attention and and they're
betting on it and we're sitting there
saying like this is insane but it's
actually just a natural progression it
doesn't mean that you should go do it
but it's not hard to see again going
back to volatility if there's something
with a big brand on it with lots of
volatility that can get the media to
talk about it of course people are going
to pay attention and then if you
essentially dangle an opportunity in
front of them to say do you want to bet
on whether this goes up or down like go
to the local state fair and people are
trying to shoot basketballs that are too
big to go into the basketball rim I
wonder if I could do it right they're
trying to slam the Hedge the the
sledgehammer to see can I hit it hard
enough to make the you know thing go up
they're trying to shoot uh you know a
paper Target with a pellet gun that
doesn't quite shoot straight so when you
think about all those things you say to
yourself like man do you think they're
not going to bet go up or go down of
course they're going to bet on go up or
go down right and so I think that it it
is uh much more an entertainment lens
than it is a financial lens the question
is going to be people putting real money
into these things and are The Regulators
are certain people going to step in and
say hey I know that human nature is to
bet up or down we're not going to let
that happen or we're going to we need to
change the rules or standardize or
there's got to be disclosures you know
whatever I think that's the stuff that
now is going to uh really come to the
Forefront that the president has got a
meme coin all right you have the impulse
that people should be able to do
whatever they want with their money but
um do you think that that Meme coins
should be regulated and really tamped
down on or do you want to see people
betting on anything they want including
simulations mem coins
whatever I think that there's a middle
ground doesn't have to be yes or no I
think it's yes with changes is probably
the right way to think about it and so
you know disclosures who's launching
this how much do they own could they
sell in the market when are they selling
in the market you one of the things that
I think the public markets really gets
right is if you're the you know CEO of a
company and you own a lot of the stock
you got to tell people when you
sell like that seems pretty fair right
and so those are the types of things
where rather than attack individuals
ability to do what they want with their
money maybe actually you should do is
you should attack the other side of the
problem and say how do we give these
people as immense amount of information
as possible you know if you want to go
and let's say that you're the CEO of a
company and you want to write a tweet
about your own business there's tons of
disclosures there's tons of rules and
regulations all this kind of stuff with
a meme coin that stuff doesn't exist and
so it may actually be less about do we
tell people what they can do with their
money or what they can't and more about
if people are going to do this if
they're going to issue these things if
they're going to you know kind of offer
these opportunities there's a ton of
rules regulations standardizations Etc
that get put in kind of in place and you
know what this really feeds into is if
you think about the public markets
probably one of the biggest uh maybe
complaints from public market investors
right now is that the public market is
much less popular than it used to be
there used to be 8,000 public companies
now there's like 4,000 public companies
so people look at yeah huge drop 50%
drop and uh if you think about that drop
people are like oh companies are staying
private for longer they've got more
access to Capital it's really expensive
to be a public company it's really
erroneous in terms of uh how hard it is
to comply with all the regulations and
you know all these things and so
naturally companies are want to stay in
the private Market if they have access
to that Capital but what they don't
suggest is actually the public markets
are more popular today than ever before
we have 4,000 publicly traded companies
on what we consider the traditional
stock exchanges but there are hundreds
of thousands of publicly Trad
tokens and so people not only said hey
if I have a company I want to stay in
the private Market but also there's a
bunch of people who said hey I want
things that are publicly tradeable but
I'm going to not go to your stock market
I'm going to go to these new markets and
have them publicly trade over here and
so it's very clear that it is the cost
of Regulation the burden of the
regulation all that kind of stuff but
you want people to be protected and so
that's a natural tension that I think
has to get worked out of is there a way
to make this less costly for people to
have public companies is there way to
allow more and more people to
participate earlier in the life cycle of
these Innovative businesses that are
getting built in America but also still
get them the information they need but
that crypto world is all these new
public uh kind of assets that are
trading means that there that Young
Generation that everyone thinks is an
interested in the stock market they want
liquidity they want public markets they
just don't want to do it in the world
that the stock market currently exists
in and maybe one of the best examples is
um I invested in the private Market uh
in Reddit and Reddit went public and
when Reddit went public uh I was really
excited about the IPO I was like oh my
God look at this all these guys on
Reddit who use it all day long that talk
about stocks they're going to go buy the
Reddit IPO because that's the platform
they use great you have you know some
stock there's more demand the price
should go up and the stock did pretty
well but a couple days before the IPO a
bunch of people started tweeting at me
and I was like what is going on here and
they kept talking about Reddit and then
all of a sudden I realized they were
talking about Reddit coin not Reddit the
stock I said what is Reddit coin I went
and I looked and someone had created a
Reddit
coin right before the stock went public
well on the day that it went public
guess what happened they both went up
but the Reddit coin went up way more
than the Reddit stock why because you
just had people who were looking for a
traditional stock stock investor wants
to understand what are the assets we own
what's the cash flow what's my downside
protection where am I in the capital
stack right what is our future plans
what is uh kind of our 2025 Outlook how
are we thinking about you know AI as a
threat or an opportunity all these
things so there's a ton of uh evaluation
that goes into it and there's just as
much focus on what's the downside as
what's on the upside but actually
there's usually a lot of people who want
to buy a stock who simply say I want
pure price exposure I don't care if I
have a you know a claim on the assets I
don't care if I have a claim on the cash
flows all that stuff is for the smart
walery people I just want to speculate
on the price and so the coin has none of
this stuff I just want to know coin up
or coin down and you can imagine for me
from an investor seat I'm holding the
equity right I I did the smart thing I
did you know frankly the legal thing and
so I'm like oh okay wait a minute the
world is changing how is it that on IPO
day the people on the internet are
buying a coin that's going up more and
it's somehow tied to this thing and so I
walked away from that day saying to
myself if you don't understand something
you can't knock it right because maybe
you're missing something maybe you don't
understand something and I really went
and I spent a lot of time trying to
understand this and that my conclusion
was there are investors who want to own
businesses kind of you know the buffet
or maybe the tech investors Etc they
they want to own the equity in the
business they want downside protection
they want to claim on assets cash flows
Etc but there is enough people the world
they just want pure price speculation
and a coin gives them more volatility
and if the Reddit stock goes up the coin
goes up more if the red stock goes down
the red coin goes down more and so it's
almost like a levered price you know a
levered uh volatility on the
price and so that's when I said you know
look man this game is
hard this game is real hard right uh and
uh you just got to kind of tip your hat
and say look things change very quickly
and try to do your best to keep up what
do you think how much of that is the
Wall Street bets [ __ ] the man ethos
going on with
that it's impossible to put like a
percentage on it but it definitely plays
into it for sure um you know one of the
interesting things is uh if you go back
and you look you know I recently read a
book uh on Carl icon and Carl icon is
this famed you know kind of corporate
Raider um he is known as one of the best
activist investors in history and when
you read the book um you know he's it's
called King icon it's the title of the
book and in the book they talk about how
Carl icon thought of himself as an
outsider and he had the like f the man
you know uh mentality and the reason why
he became an activist investor is
because he felt like corporate
Executives and CEOs were flying around
on private jets and they had Country
Club memberships and these big salaries
and they were taking the money from the
shareholders to enrich themselves but
they actually owned very little equity
in the businesses that they were running
and and therefore they were
incentivizing themselves to get rich at
the expense of the shareholder and so he
would start buying up the stock and he
would go and say you guys are enriching
yourself you should do this this and
this to the company so that the
shareholders actually make more money
and you know activist investing short
investing this stuff is very important
to the market because kind of a check
and balance on what's happening in the
market but people wouldn't think of
famed Carl icon you know kind of the
king of Wall Street and activist
investing as the guy who's saying like f
the man but that's literally why he
started doing so of the stuff and so
again people want to point to like Wall
Street bets be like this brand new it's
actually not right it's just that it's a
new form for that same energy and so I
think that the form factor is much more
uh kind of uh interesting and worth
paying attention to than the energy of
like you know F the man there's plenty
of people over the years who have had
that mentality uh and some of the funny
things are like the biggest billionaires
in the world have that same mentality
you know Elon Musk sitting the uh I
think it was the deal book Summit one
year and uh Andrew Ros sorin asked him
about advertisers and he said you know
go f yourself and he said what did you
say and he turned to the audience and he
said just so I'm super clear advertisers
go f yourself and you're like all right
well that guy's like the richest guy in
the world and he definitely has the like
Fu you know man energy right it's just a
different form factor and so I do think
Wall Street bets um is you know one
cohort of this of self-directed
investors and to me the self-directed
investor trend is fascinating because
the self-directed investor is the doctor
lawyer uh who sits at home and is
investing the self-directed investor is
also the uh you know kind of mid-level
manager who goes home and studies stocks
on the weekend the self-directed
investor is the portfolio manager at JP
Morgan or at a hedge fund that's trading
their personal money and so everyone
feels like they personally are a
self-directed investor now and
self-directed investor means that you
have access to information so you're on
Twitter you're on Reddit you're you know
reading the news Etc you don't need to
call up the bank and say hey what do you
think what's going on you just get the
information yourself and then there's
been a rise of these tools things like
you know eoro Robin Hood uh public
Weeble Etc where now I don't need to
call a financial adviser or a broker and
actually go and execute trades so now
what I've done is I've broken down the
friction to information and to the
market and I've empowered individuals to
be able to go and and do this well as
those self-directed investors start
allocating in the market do you think
some of them are going to be like well
screw the hedge funds screw the you know
the CEOs screw the man screw the
incumbents of course and so you know is
the best way to uh kind of put that
forward buying certain stocks like you
know GameStop and you know kind of f the
man and let's go and and short squeeze
people it's one form buying the you know
Reddit coin instead of the Reddit stocks
that another form absolutely buying meme
coins and trying to make more money than
your dad or grandfather or mother or
grandmother is in the stock market
that's another form right like these are
all different variations of the same
thing where people are saying hey I'm
trying to get ahead I'm trying to risk
capital and get a return um and maybe it
looks different but it's something that
I understand or I believe in or I'm
gambling on whatever and so I think the
question just comes back to you know if
we fast forward 10 years and we Look
Backwards who's going to make more money
the speculators who are trying to time
markets and you know look at these
different Trends or the people who are
trying to allocate Capital to kind of
Highly resilient assets that'll be
around in 10 years they're both
speculating right but I think that young
investors the best thing they can do and
the reason why I said you know buy the
indexes buy Bitcoin things like that is
what you really want to be able to do is
not optimize for what is the thing that
I can buy that can go up the most which
want to do is you want to buy the thing
that you have the highest degree of
confidence will continue to grow year
after year after year for a long period
of time and it's really hard for young
people to think about compounding right
you know when you're 22 years old you're
not thinking about when I'm 55 when
you're 55 you wish you were thinking
about it when you were 22 right and so
it comes down to this idea of are you
trying to buy an asset that's going to
go up 20x in a single year or would you
rather buy an asset that's going to go
up 20% a year for 20 years
that's the question people face right
and I think that the people who are kind
of more long-term thinking throughout
history the data shows they tend to do
much better than the people you know
kind of just trying to win uh you know
the short-term kind of get-rich quick
games I have to keep running this
thought against more historical examples
but I have a feeling that a very
substantive percentage of what's
Happening among the young people that
are investing in things like Reddit coin
instead of Reddit the stock is this is
an echo of the Occupy Wall Street
movement where uh they feel isolated
from a financial system they're in a
worse place now than their parents were
at the same age they feel like the
American dream of buy a house and
everything else is going to take care of
itself it doesn't exist um that
something is happened to the system that
has uh leveraged it towards the old and
against them and I think there's a lot
of resentment built up in the system and
the thing that people just do not think
enough about is you're going to have
incredibly intelligent people that are
going to find a way to um get out from
under that system and so I think they're
the the old proverb of if somebody is
not embraced by The Village they will
burn it down to feel its warmth like
this is there is a reason that they
launched Reddit coin at the same time
that Reddit the stock was going live now
part of it is uh it's just smart because
you know that people are going to be
talking about it so now there's going to
be a tension you can run in the parallel
system but you also know that you're
going to take that liquidity just just
like you were expecting that oh this is
going to flood in because all these guys
use it and they're going to want to be
participating in the system it feels
like the stock that was made for them
and they're like no you guys had your
chance we're going to create a parallel
Financial system now you're bringing up
a really interesting point which is in
this parallel Financial system I think
that there there isn't the um longterm
Trend this is all cultural energy it's
very fickle very high volatility and so
people that are day trading are going to
get a lot of mileage out of it if they
can win in the long run which most of
them will not be able to but I get the
attraction not thinking about
compounding getting something right away
um but over time what will the market
that they control turn into because
boomers are going to die uh and they're
ultimately going to control what this
financial system becomes and I am so
curious to see if it's just a classic
example of you're very rebellious when
you're young and suddenly you start
having kids and you realize whoa whoa
whoa I can't deal with this level of
extreme volatility I need something
that's going to earn over time so I'm
curious what it becomes but I again
going back to this idea of building a
predictive engine when I look at it and
say there's a lot of resentment here uh
it makes more sense than if I just
assume that it's something that's more
familiar or they're more digitally
native that's part of it but it feels
like if you don't account for the
resentment it doesn't make as much sense
there's this whole element of um kind of
Revenge uh or you know kind of the
resentment you're talking about and
historically um there's a lot of uh
people who probably were upset by
something but they couldn't really do
anything and you know it's funny because
uh in the book one of the things I talk
about is um compete don't complain and
what's really interesting about this
idea is let's take for example the uh
the United Healthcare shooter which you
know obviously is incredibly tragic um
and in that scenario you have an
individual who was upset with the
insurance company and rather than
compete he essentially decided that he
was going to go find somebody in the
industry and killed them but in a
competitive world the better story and
probably what would have affected more
change and obviously wouldn't have led
to the death of an individual and then
ruining of his life is he sat down and
he said I'm a smart guy I've got an
engineering degree I'm going to Build a
Better Health Insurance business and I'm
going to figure out how to do this so
that it helps people and so if you then
extrapolate that and say look at what
Mark cubin is doing with Cost Plus
drugs Health Care system is pretty
broken prescription drugs are really
high he's figured out this model to go
and actually do cheaper drugs online
competing not complaining right and so
it goes back to this idea of like maybe
a part of in the financial world is
people are saying hey I'm done
complaining Occupy Wall Street did it
really affect any change or should we
compete now you're going up against a
highly regulated industry and so
naturally there's going to be a lot of
you know kind of questions about uh laws
and securities and and things like that
but is that part of the story absolutely
compete don't complain and so I think
that if you go throughout history how
many companies were started out of spite
or out of Revenge
right somebody gets fired and they go
and they start a company to take on
their old employer how many people you
know applied for a job and didn't get it
I mean if you look at WhatsApp WhatsApp
was bought for like $22 billion Yan the
CEO and founder uh it's got a famous
story he applied for a job at Facebook
and got turned down so then he only
started WhatsApp and then WhatsApp
bought his company for $22
billion right like how many stories are
there of that in history
tons creating a you know crypto coin
almost seems Amateur hour compared to
building a 222 billion you know company
that gets bought by the people who
turned you down but it's still the same
theme right is somebody got scorned
somewhere and you know they're on a
mission no doubt what's interesting here
to your point about this is a highly
regulated industry that they're going to
be competing against one of the things
that young people I think are really
aware of and they're taking advantage of
is the rate of change of these
Technologies is too fast for Regulators
to keep up with and so they're able to
get in spin these companies up bet like
crazy move move on to the next onto the
next onto the next before Regulators are
going to be able to do anything and if
the thesis is right that in the next 10
years we're going to see a 100 Years of
innovation good luck keeping up with the
regulatory burden on that there's just
going to be so much wild Westy uh it is
going to be crazy uh so yeah what comes
out on the other side really does feel
like it's on the other side of the
technological singularity I I can't see
around that corner uh I just know that
when there is this rate of change and
you get smart fast acting people um the
the change will be the thing that
dominates and the only option that the
government will have which I think will
get pushed back on aggressively in
America is to be authoritarian and clamp
down from the top down and this is why
it scared me so much with what the Biden
Administration was doing with AI where
uh they were just like and this from
Mark andrees uh was really unnerving
when he said oh they just told us
outright do not build AI companies
because we are going to control there's
going to be a very few uh and while I
doubt they use the phrase regulatory
capture that was the implication that uh
we're going to work handin glove with
them uh they're going to be compliant
there's not going to be anybody else and
when I think already how much I rely on
AI uh oh man it is crazy to think that
the government would be able to get
their tendrils in there and really
control it uh so with Trump in office
now um I I don't think we're going to
see that same um push for top down
control I think we're going to see a
push for um Innovation things that hit
the bottom line GDP so that he can point
to that and um brag about it quite
frankly and so it's going to be wild man
these next four years are going to be
wild if you put somebody in the White
House that measures the success of the
US economy by the stock market and by
the Bitcoin price odds are those things
are going higher right and so if you
need those to go higher there's a bunch
of uh manipulation that can happen with
monetary and fiscal policy but also you
just need the companies to be better you
need them to make more money you need
them to drive Revenue you need them to
innovate you need you know the R&D Etc
and so a great way to do that is to
deregulate is to empower them to do more
and so if you think about Trump's plan
uh he is really saying Hey I want to
reduce taxes I want to deregulate I want
to you know kind of Empower our
entrepreneurs which likely should drive
to more profits higher stock prices
higher asset prices more money in
individuals pocket you know that are
invested in the market and all of that
leads back to him claiming victory that
hey I implemented my agenda and so I
think that the odds you know barring
some sort of external shock is that that
stuff's going to happen and so if you
take that to the extreme you say to
yourself okay well these AI companies if
now all of a sudden they do have the
freedom to go and innovate what are they
capable of we're probably
underestimating it you know one of my
favorite quotes is Bill Gates has this
famous line where he says uh we
underestimate or I'm Excuse me we
overestimate what is possible in 2 years
and we underestimate what is possible in
10 and so if you think back you know 15
years ago who could have ever thought
coming out of the global financial
crisis that we'd be here where we are
today
nobody who would have thought just look
at Bitcoin one asset who would have
thought that Bitcoin would be a$2
trillion doll asset nobody right and so
if you you start to look at this you say
to yourself okay well what about 10
years from now 15 years from now it's
crazy the iPhone is less than 20 years
old right and you think about just how
ubiquitous that is do you think about
just how much this idea of a touchscreen
supercomputer in our pocket has changed
our lives if you think about something
like that iPhone release also came with
GPS which empowered things like
uber and food delivery and all of these
other use cases simply because there was
GPS in the phone
now those things all got unlocked by one
single product release
and so if you then take that what other
product releases are going to come out
you know what's possible now because
chat gbt or perplexity or name your uh
different thing three years ago four
years ago nobody talked about prediction
markets prediction markets were the
first and most accurate Market to
determine the US presidential
election right that was crazy to watch
that's four years ago no one that wasn't
even in the Lexicon and so you kind of
look at these things and you say man
we're we're getting this rapid
Innovation now and some of it's because
we're all digitally connected some of
it's because capital is more abundant um
but a lot of it frankly is uh I blame
the social network the movie if you
think about that movie that movie
redpilled an entire generation of people
that they want to be
Founders and they watch the movie and
they're like that looks cool I want a
startup and it made startups from like
the nerd activity that your parents
would yell at you because you didn't go
get a real job to then all of a sudden
it's said startups are cool you can go
and you can do this and it's actually a
high status thing and we had an influx
of people that went and started
companies and so if you think about
things like even movies or music or
whatever completely change society in a
way that is really hard to know in the
moment but you only can see it with
hindsight and so what movies are going
to come out next right you know one of
the stories right now that I think is
just absolutely incredible is JD Vance
JD Vance was born born uh I believe in
West Virginia to a drug addicted single
mother one of the poorest count uh one
of the poorest parts of the
country he was just sworn in as the vice
president of the United
States should not be possible anywhere
on the planet that you can go from the
situation he was born into the second
most powerful person in the world only
in America is that possible economic and
social mobility and along the way he was
in the Marines he went to college he
then went to Yale and got a law degree
right he became an investor he like did
all these things then he became Senator
he was a senator for less than two years
I believe and then became the vice
president of the United States so you
look at that and you say when is that
movie G to come out because that movie
would probably be pretty inspiring and
empowering to a lot of people in the
United States who are saying hey I was
dealt a bad card a bad handed cards
I need to figure out how do I get out of
here I need to figure out how do I
improve my life how do I improve my
family's life and the craziest part of
that entire story is that when he was
sworn in the other day he had his wife
his three kids standing beside him and a
lot of people didn't notice but there
was a woman standing next to the person
who was reading him you know what to
repeat that woman was his mother and
she's been sober for 10 she's been sober
for 10 years and I was reading into her
story and actually one of the reasons
why she got sober is because she was
inspired by her son wow and so you say
to
yourself a story like that comes out in
a movie it will empower the country it
will inspire people it will tell people
that in this country there is
mobility the same way that the social
network kind of redpilled all these
people and said hey you can become a
founder and so then it asks the question
of we talked a lot about technology and
the rapid you know kind of uh
acceleration that we're uh watching AI
is going to to change the way movies are
made and you know I know you know quite
a bit about all the ideas of Brands and
and various things
right as AI starts to change the way
that movies and content is created now
we're basically going to empower and
democratize access to movie making and
we can actually accelerate how many
people can we Empower and Inspire how
many people can help spread ideas in a
way that's entertaining for folks and so
the same way that military movies are
really really instrumental for the US
army or navy or Marines to be able to go
and recruit people to join the
military these movies are really
important for society and so I think
about these Technologies not just from a
pure hey what stocks do you buy but the
kind of second and third order effect if
now all of a sudden we can triple or 10x
or 30X the number of Movie Makers and
they can do it because it's cheaper they
got the tools at home and they don't
actually need to go spend all this money
to you know film all these different
scenes what's possible I don't know I
don't have a crystal ball but it feels
like that's a pretty important thing
that's really going to change the fabric
of society as more and more people can
tell inspiring
stories yeah no doubt about that uh that
that is going to get weirder than people
think in terms of uh just the amount of
stuff that will come
out uh the way that people will try to
influence SLC control you with media and
now that the cost drops to zero you're
going to be getting pulled in a thousand
directions what's real what's not real
uh yeah that that one is uh something I
think a lot about is somebody who sees
himself in that in that World um yeah
that I will say the entertainment side
of my business is the one that has
existential AI risk just because once it
is truly ubiquitous it'll be amazing
from uh our ability to take in
incredible stories to your point it will
all be democratized demonetized it'll be
very easy uh for very talented very
incredible storytellers to make sweeping
epics you know on on the scale of a
Marvel movie um cutting through the
noise is going to be a different story
but yeah that's going to be really
fascinating uh before we go too far down
that road though I want to talk about
inflation so underlying all of this is a
story of uh inflation I think that the
fact that we can't run a balanced budget
and we're um printing money like crazy
uh Trump is in office and is going to do
what some people think is going to be
very inflationary um what do you think
is going to happen to inflation in the
near
term so inflation um the headline you
know title right now is that inflation
has come down but that's not really true
because inflation was sub 2% meaning
that it was growing you know 1.8%
year-over-year uh before the pandemic it
then spiked at one point was growing at
9% year-over-year that's the official uh
metrics uh there's an unofficial
measurement that's much higher but let's
just use the official ones for this
conversation and so now what we have is
inflation has come down it's like
2.9% and so people say wow it fell from
9% to 2.9% that doesn't mean that
inflation stopped it just means that it
has slowed and it's still growing at
2.9% year-over year 2.9% is 50% higher
than what the Federal reserve's target
of 2% is so we are still elevated levels
from where they would like us to be the
reason why that's important is because
you compound inflation so if it goes up
2% in one year then it goes up 5% the
next year then it goes up 9% the next
year then it goes up 3% the next year
right obviously that is not sustainable
and so what we have seen is there's been
a bifurcation from an impact standpoint
in the economy people who had Financial
assets benefit from inflation when
inflation happens those asset prices go
up so you see in countries like
Argentina or in Venezuela or other
places that have high inflation those
are some of the best performing stock
markets every year because a stock is
one share right and the denominator is
usually the local currency and so if
you're devaluing it well it used to be
you know a 100 pesos to buy that one
share but now this currency has lost so
much value that now it's a th I
10x and so the same thing happened s in
the US is as inflation hits the asset
prices go up so if you're holding assets
you're getting richer the problem is 50%
of Americans don't hold Investments they
sit in 100% of their net worth in cash
so what is happening is as that
inflation is happening the rich people
with assets are getting richer and those
without the investment assets are
actually losing money so if you've sat
$100 in a bank account since January of
2020 till today your $100 can buy only
about 70 to 75 cents worth of goods from
2020 it's lost 25 to 30% of its
purchasing power and that is why you see
the bifurcation and we have this wealth
inequality Gap it's not some evil
billionaire thing it's not you know
anything other than It's actually an
education gap which is some people know
that you have to buy Investments and
they benefit from the dollar devaluation
other people don't know that they save
and so Savers are losers in this economy
and investors are winners and so it's a
structural thing that really affects
people and it's why you see why are
wealthy families or asset owners their
kids usually do pretty well some of it
may be environment or maybe their
parents are good or you know whatever
thing but a huge part of it is they
teach their kids buy assets don't sit in
cash like that is the one lesson if you
could teach every kid in America one
thing and you wanted it to have the most
profound impact on their financial
future you would teach them invest
don't
save so if you think about inflation
going forward we're still elevated that
2.9% there are a number of things to be
excited about that could potentially get
inflation to come down technology is
very de deflationary so if you look at
all areas where technology has an impact
those prices tend to come down over time
if you think of uber used to be really
expensive for you to get a private car
now you can press a button on your phone
and it's pretty inexpensive and it shows
up within minutes that is a deflationary
element of Technology if you think of
TVs this like one of the craziest things
if you ever wanted to go buy like an
80in you know screen TV you'd go to the
store like thousands of dollars you can
go now they're like 400 bucks still not
you know $5 but the cost has drastically
compressed and the TVs are better higher
quality more definition better surround
sound like all these things right and so
you've got a better product for less
money that is technology being
deflationary and the beauty is that if
you're able to get tons of Technology
into the economy it's this downward
pressure on inflation because that
deflationary element is uh applying now
the problem is that while technologists
and entrepreneurs and business owners
are trying to create productivity
they're trying to drive this kind of
deflationary aspect of Technology we
have politicians who didn't get the memo
and so the politicians are spending
money they're creating inflation one of
my you know favorite quotes of all time
is Milton Friedman the famed Economist
uh he says that inflation is only
created in one place that's Washington
DC it's nobody else's fault it's not
created anywhere else the politicians
create inflation by spending money by
Printing and so if you look at right now
the US national debt is increasing by $1
trillion do every 100
days but here is the more concerning
part is that it used to
be maybe every two years
then it was every year then it was every
six months then it was every three
months it was every two months now we're
at 100 days and so every 100 days we are
adding a trillion dollars to the debt at
some point if we continue on this path
it'll be every 90 days there'll be every
80 Days there'll be every 50 days
because what we're watching happen is
not just that inflation is going but
interest rates are higher so the
interest expense on the national debt is
higher meaning the government's having
to pay more and more money to interest
right now we spend more money on the
interest expenses for the national debt
than we do on the defense industry of
our country that's so crazy crazy we're
basically paying more on our interest
payments than we are to defend our
country and so you start to say to
yourself okay that's obviously a big
problem so what can we do another thing
that we can do to positively impact
inflation is we can actually go and we
can cut cost we can say hey right now we
have a $2 trillion annual deficit all
all that means is we spend about $6
trillion a year and we take in about 4
trillion there's $2 trillion deficit
that's not good that's like making
$80,000 but actually you spend 100 how
long can you do that for right got to
keep taking on debt that's what the US
does and so what we can do is we can
start to put a dent in that and we have
to get back to a surplus now the United
States has not operated at an economic
surplus in more than 20 years I think it
was like 200 or 2001 was the last time
we operated at a surplus so it's been
nearly 25 years since we actually did
not have that annual deficit and cutting
cost would be a big boom to doing that
that's why you see the establishment of
the Department of government efficiency
Doge with Elon uh Etc and so can they do
it remains to be seen they're going to
try though pretty important you have
Trump coming into office saying hey
we're not going to spend on some of this
stuff we're actually going to get rid of
some of these departments we're actually
going to stop some of the you know
insane spending that they're doing but
on top of that he also wants to go and
drive Revenue so again if you go back to
an individual's you know kind of
financial statement or you go to a
business they have two levers they can
drive revenue or they can cut expenses
cutting expenses is what doge is tasked
with that would really make a dent in
that national uh annual deficit but if
you want to make more money as a country
you have two options you can look
internal the internal revenue s uh
service IRS they tax you so we can raise
taxes so that we make more money it's
like raising prices in the grocery store
the grocery store makes more money and
so naturally people don't want their
taxes raised so the next option is
rather than look internal we can look
external for more revenue and so Trump
has established something be executive
order called an external Revenue Service
just exactly what it sounds like look
outside the rather than tax the people
find me other Revenue one of the areas
where he believes there's a lot of
Revenue to be captured is
tariffs tariffs are basically a tax on
foreign countries and corporations if
they would like to bring their products
to the United States so if you make the
products in the US you don't worry about
the Tariff if you make the product
somewhere else and you want to bring it
to the country you got to pay a higher
tariff we have tariffs on some countries
other countries have tariffs on us it's
the way that Global Commerce works now
if you go back in history and you look
actually a bulk of or majority of the US
Revenue used to be from tariffs and
there was almost no income tax so it
used to be that we taxed other people to
benefit the American people but at some
point that switched and now income tax
is the bulk of the the revenue kind of
internal revenue comes from taxing the
people and tariffs is a very small
percentage so now we are taxing the
people in the United States to benefit
people outside the United States and so
Trump's entire idea is let's switch that
back let's start tariffing and taxing
these other people internationally so
that then it can benefit the United
States we don't have to raise taxes here
we can drive more Revenue we can get the
balance budget and then we can get
inflation to come back down now that
sounds amazing one of the big questions
that people have is if you add that
tariff to these products uh that are
coming into the United States won't the
companies just raise their prices so now
it becomes more expensive for Americans
to buy these products which would then
contribute back to inflation so the
question of are tariffs actually
inflationary very highly debated topic
right now and so one it really depends
on how do you implement the tariffs
right if you're talking about 1 two 3 5%
probably not that big of a deal there's
been numbers like 25% that have been
thrown out a 25% tariff would have a
significant impact in the market and so
how you do it and who you do it to is
pretty important and so I so he's
already put 25% on Mexico and Canada um
do you think that that is going to be
inflationary or do you think that it's
somehow not so I think that he's
threatened Canada and Mexico and he said
hey I'm GNA do it but both of them came
to the table very quickly and said hey
let's negotiate let Let's do let's kind
of make some deals and so his supporters
will say uh the tariffs are actually a
bargaining chip he you know he's the AR
of the deal he's a master negotiator
what he's doing is he's threatening them
with a stick and then he's offering them
a carrot in his other hand and so
they're showing up to the table and
they're I don't want the 25% tariff
please don't do that you're going to
destroy our economy you're going to
really make a big problem for me what do
you want he says fine I won't put the
25% tariff if you close the southern
border if you you know ABCD other thing
and so that's one ideas that these are
just uh negotiating tactics remains to
be seen but the other thing is what he
also has said is that he is trying to
incentivize people to manufacture in the
United States so he says look the
tariffs aren't a problem if you just
make your stuff in the US so rather than
run around the world and try to go to
Southeast Asia and find somewhere where
you can manufacture really inexpensively
build your manufacturing plant in Ohio
build it in Arizona build it in a local
area in the United States employ
American workers and you don't have to
worry about the Tariff and so if I put a
25% tariff on something coming from
Thailand or China or wherever
now that 25% would make it more cost
effective to actually just bake it here
in the United
States and so there's this game getting
played in this kind of global complex
economic machine where what he really is
trying to do is he's trying to drive
American manufacturing bring back
American jobs he's trying to drive
external revenue for the United States
to benefit the people here and it really
all falls under this Banner of
quotequote America first now great plan
it remains to be seen what the risks are
and there's plenty of critics right and
I think the critics have some validity
in some areas and I think the critics
are wrong in other areas but what you
ultimately I think I find soless in is
regardless of who the president is
regardless of who anyone voted for the
path that we're currently on we can't
stay on we can't operate with a 36 37
trillion dollar national debt adding a
trillion dollars every 100 days an
inflation at 2.9% home affordability the
worst has been 40 years and a southern
border that's poorest right a
manufacturing jobs that are leaving the
US in Mass uh and an education level you
know there's a stat one out of every
five Americans can't read above a third
grade level whoa crazy numbers one in
every five Americans cannot read past a
third grade level so you say to yourself
okay we got to fix that stuff right and
so if we can't stay on the path we're on
the first and most important thing is we
got to do something different
he's at least and him his administration
going to do something different is it
the right plan I don't know I don't
think anyone knows right it's kind of
like uh it's almost like we're going to
run an experiment there's a lot of data
there's a lot of studies there's a lot
of things that have gone into
formulating this experiment or this plan
but we really are not going to know does
it work or not until we get three four
five years from now but we just know we
can't stay on the path that we're on so
there's a lot of people who are
advocating for this plan is bad maybe it
is maybe it isn't but I know for sure %
there's almost you know unified
agreement that the path we on is the bad
you know wrong path and so I think that
becomes really interesting where you
think about this inflation because if
the tariffs are inflationary if some of
the policies are inflationary could we
have inflation come back absolutely is
it going to happen I don't know but if
we're already at 2.9% if the fed's
cutting interest rates by 100 basis
points already and now you have these
policies that come in that potentially
could be inflationary if you said to me
hey we are you know in 2026 and sometime
between now and 2026 we saw inflation at
4%
5% it's possible is it probable eh you
know that's a pretty big leap something
would really have to go wrong but at 2.9
could we go to three and a half
absolutely and anytime that you start to
creep up again it hurts the bottom 50%
of Americans that just hold cash but it
will enrich the 50% of Americans that
have investable assets and so what I
always tell people kind of going back to
the beginning of our conversation is
like how do you invest I always say to
them whether you agree with the system
or not whether you think that the
structure is fair or not you I and them
can't change it nothing we're going to
do we can yell and scream all we want
we're never going to be able to change
it but what you do control is if
inflation is available or higher than it
is right now are you going to benefit
from it or are you going to get hurt by
it and so if you want to benefit from it
you got to be invested if you want to be
hurt by it you would sit in all cash and
so so it's kind of this idea of like
regardless of how you view the structure
of the system and the fairness of it
your personal thing that you can control
is are you invested in the market or not
doesn't mean you have to go take a
immense risk doesn't mean you have to go
buy meme coins or any of this stuff
right but it does mean that again where
did I start with S&P NASDAQ 100
Bitcoin you can make you know the S&P
500 the bulk of your Investment
Portfolio you can put a little bit of
NASDAQ a little bit of Bitcoin probably
going to do pretty well over the next
decade or so right but it really com
down to what you're betting on is
inflation is not going to zero it's just
going to be above zero and so these
assets are going to continue to go up
maybe the rate of change or the
appreciation you know kind of percentage
each year varies but it is very hard to
see a world where those three assets are
not much higher 10 years from now
because of inflation and many of the
issues that the country
faces yeah when I look at Trump's
policies it seems inevitable that in the
short term it is uh he's either going to
get every concession that he wants in
the negotiations which I doubt or uh he
will slap tariffs on as an incentive to
drive manufacturing back to the US uh it
will create short-term inflation uh in
that you're
now if if he can generate Revenue off of
the tariffs lower people's income tax at
least in that case while you will get
inflation it becomes discretionary if he
is wise and makes exemption for things
that are the basics the essentials that
you need food uh shelter energy things
like that that okay cool those aren't
going up some of the discretionary
things are going up but at least I
control my money I have it it's not
being taken away from me I think people
will be able to handle that um I do
think though there's going to be uh they
will have to put a focus on getting some
of the regulations out of the way
because of somebody living in California
uh we have these Grand projects and
we're not able to to actually move
forward with them because there's so
many regulations that stop even the
government from running its own projects
that uh people are going to realize very
quickly that back in the day when we
were able to live off of the tariffs and
only either not tax not do a federal
income tax at all or keep that federal
income tax in the neighborhood of 1%
which would be shocking for people to
hear that we did that um but back then
we had a really strong really strong
manufacturing base here we were not a
globalized world so we were making
everything here in the US so if somebody
wanted to bring something in here and we
tarff the life out of it and it became
more expensive or Hipp parity you had
americanmade options at that time which
we will not have now at least for some
amount of the future and so uh while we
spin up the manufacturing base which I
think is going to be measured in
the three to seven year range it's not
going to be super fast this is not World
War II where you know we turn on a dime
and all of a sudden instead of making a
bunch of Fords with the um the assembly
line we're making battleships and things
we're just not going to that you're
starting from scratch this time so um I
think there's going to be a little bit
more uh sloth in the system than people
are prepared for but to your point um we
have to change something and so it'll be
very interesting I I want to get your
take on this so I think one thing people
have to think about when you talk about
America First is there are there are two
parts of that and I think they need to
be rank ordered so part number one is um
you are born here you're a citizen and
so we want to make sure that you're
employed first and foremost okay that
would be one interpretation of America
First and the other would be uh that we
want to make sure that America remains
number one on the global stage and so
whether it's H1B visas or whatever we
are attracting the best and brightest
from all over the world to bring here to
make sure that we are out innovating
everybody else in the world and whether
that's
in military or whether that's in
technology um but we're just out
innovating we have the strongest economy
in the world and so we're already peers
with China in some ways they are ahead
of us economically and so um we really
have to be thoughtful about that now to
me America being number one having the
strongest economy is the most important
thing but I know that that's going to
set some people on edge and they want to
make sure that because you're
American that you're getting employed
first and I think that that could weaken
our standing internationally and I think
having your standing weakened
internationally is the more problematic
because we're going to be able to do
less things to make your life better
here in the US whether social safety net
job opportunities whatever and so while
I think they are both incredibly
important and I do understand why
Americans would feel betrayed uh if
we're importing a bunch of people from
all over the world um but remaining
number one should be
the most important because it will have
the biggest impa on everyone's lives
that's my instinct and I think it takes
a very small number of people uh
relatively speaking to ensure that we
keep the strongest economy what do you
think about
that yeah you know when you ask yourself
what is America America really is uh a
Melting Pot of people from all over the
world um my family if you go all the way
back somebody came here from Italy then
another person came from Italy another
person came from Italy right
uh if you go and you look at many people
they came here from somewhere else
whether it's them or their families and
so America really became America because
we took the best from around the world
whether it was the best Risk Takers the
smartest people uh whatever and they all
came here it was the land of opportunity
and people were able to take risk and
get rewarded the capitalist you know
kind of democratic system is the
greatest system ever erected the
founding fathers were able to be uh
incredibly press
in their thought process and this is
probably you know the thing that has the
best shot of contined to exceed moving
forward but in the debate of h-1bs or
other you know kind of immigration
illegal immigration visas Etc the hard
part about it and the reason why it's so
controversial is everyone's
right that's the part that people don't
want to talk about so what do I mean
everyone's right there's a cohort of
people who say that uh American citizens
should not be hurt and given less
Opportunity by people who are coming
here from elsewhere true you're right
Americans should not be at a
disadvantage in their own country okay
another cohort of people say hey I
operate business I need the best people
in the world true they do we should find
the best people whether they're American
or not everyone should have an equal
opportunity to go and work there and the
employer should be able to hire whoever
they want then people say well the H1B
program is abused true there's
definitely a abuse in the system you can
go and you can look you know there
there's this famous example of one of
the big four accounting firms they're
literally using h-1bs to financially
level accountants you're telling me you
can't look in America and find an
entry-level accountant why do you need
to go elsewhere to do that right and so
again true then there's people who say
uh well actually what we're doing is
we're incentivizing all sorts of other
issues where people are basically
getting into certain universities simply
to get visas Etc true like that's
absolutely happening and so you just go
through this debate there there's you
know maybe 20 different perspectives on
the debate every single person is
correct whether it's a small correct or
a very big correct in their Viewpoint
and that's why it's controversial is
because when you go and you talk to each
one of these you know kind of
perspectives and you hear them out
you're right that that 100% is happening
so what is the solution right if
everyone is right what is the solution
and I think that one of the best
examples is that there's got to be a
merit based system where the best person
wins with that we have to educate
American citizens rather than spend
money internationally doing all kinds of
stuff let's invest that here so that our
people have the skills and experience
that's necessary to build our companies
here so that we can be successful on the
national stage or on the international
stage and so what you can say is that
the best analogy I've heard about this
is kind of like a sports team right a
good sports team wants to really have a
lot of homegrown talent that should be
the bulk of the team and every once in a
while you want to import an overseas
player the Dodgers go they get a player
from Japan pretty good player right if
you look at Wembley in uh the NBA pretty
good
player right and you go and you do this
over and over again but if you have
homegrown talent that should make up the
bulk of the team then you go and you get
specific skills or experience and you
bring them in but then what do you do
you invest in baseball what do you do
you invest in your farm team you want to
have homegrown Talent you got to put
money there got to give them
opportunities right you got to go and
you got to work you got to hire coaches
you got to do all this stuff and so I
think that is the hard part about the
the conversation is that no one extreme
is correct if your position is the H1B
program is perfect and there's no abuse
you're not correct if your position is
hey uh we should have zero legal
immigration your position is probably
not correct either right and so the
truth is that the the uh answer is in
the middle and the middle is kind of the
the messy part people don't like the
answer of okay we should really spend a
lot of more time energy and money on
helping Americans be better educated
more experienced Etc one in five
Americans aren't literate past the third
grade level we should probably fix that
right and guess what the money the
government spends you know $6 trillion
doll we got the money let's fix it but
also it's true that there are people who
come from outside the United States that
are just as capable if not more capable
than certain fields that we should go
ahead and we should have them go and do
it and so one of the things I always
point to is there's a lot of people who
say I buy americanmade product that's
exclusively okay well there's a lot of
products that you use on a DA Bas on a
daily basis that are not made in America
because somebody could make it cheaper
or somebody could make it better right
are there American products that are
great yeah of course I know a guy in
South Carolina he makes weights like
ironcast you know uh like uh barbell
weights made in America it's like one of
the only people supposedly that make
American weights it's got a good
business a lot of people want to buy
weights made in America right but
there's also a lot of people who say
just give me the cheapest one right like
you know it's all 225 pounds on the
bench press 225 pounds like just get the
weights on for the cheapest cost so it's
all different preferences for different
people and so I think that when you look
at this you have to say to yourself
okay is it true that immigrants have
come here and created a lot of value
Elon Musk great example Jeff Bezos
American
Born Jeff bezos's parent not born in
America and so you don't just get the
individuals but then you get the parents
the grandparents the great- grandparents
the great great grandparents Etc and
what you realize is
ultimately the debate really comes down
to do you prefer
nationalism or do you prefer
excellence and rarely can you get
both because the greatest Nations
throughout
history have always sought the best
technology regardless of where it came
from the best people wherever it came
from the best ideas wherever they came
from the you know best Capital sources
regardless of where it came from and so
the same thing here is the most
patriotic thing you can do is to make
sure you your family your children and
those around you are as best possibly
suited to succeed in America but then
you should also hope that we're able to
build an All-Star team of people from
outside the United States who come here
let's get them going too right and so
it's very much this like team effort but
people specifically on the internet like
to debate back and forth on these like
black and white scenarios should there
be legal immigration or should we have
no immigrants the answer that it's just
it's too simple of a you know kind of
choice
instead why don't we take the people
that we have do as best of a job as we
possibly can to educate them make sure
that they have equal opportunity like
going back to your point about American
citizens I think where people get really
upset is that they say wait a second I'm
being penalized for being an American in
my own country that doesn't feel right
level the playing field give everyone an
equal opportunity let the best man or
woman win
sometimes it's going to be somebody who
comes from somewhere
else that's okay yeah this is going to
be a a raging debate because yes I agree
with you we have to fix the education
Pro problem but it's going to take a
long time for that to turn out a crop of
people uh that's why I think we have to
rank order this stuff
um yeah so you've been getting more into
politics and we've sort of subtly moved
from uh Finance to politics and back
again the two are very um connected
what originally got you into beginning
to um think more politically and
commentate on
it I think that there's a lot of folks
in Tech and finance who were
disinterested in politics but politics
became interested in them and so it's
really the political Arena that's pulled
a lot of people in Bitcoin and crypto is
a great example where I think most
people said hey let's let let us do our
thing right we we see an opportunity
we're deploying Capital we're holding an
asset we're building companies Etc just
let us do our thing and the political
Arena kind of came for the industry and
so there's a lot of people who said oh
man I got to pay attention to this I
don't know if Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff
Bezos really cared about politics until
the political Arena kind of came for
them I don't think Elon mus probably
cared about politics till the political
Arena came and knocked on his door and
said you know we're coming for you and
so I think that it's less about these
people are getting interested in
politics it's more of they have
identified Politics as a crucial
component of their business now because
the politic uh kind of apparatus came
for them and so when you look at it from
that perspective uh you're right they
are intertwined and if you look at
Bitcoin is maybe the the purest example
Bitcoin success and failure uh on a
day-to-day week- toe month-to-month
basis very intertwined with banks
regulation politics Etc now over the
long run Bitcoin probably succeeds
regardless you know we've seen in
certain countries where the government's
banned Bitcoin in adoption goes up so
you know doesn't mean that politics can
kill some of this stuff but it
definitely means that it's a smoother
road if you participate rather than
ignore it and what's interesting I think
from my perspective is I don't really
care too much for the actual politics
themselves I'm an independent registered
you know um I frankly look at each topic
and there's topics where I'll say I
think a democrat's right I think a
Republican's right and a lot of times
it's not because they're a democrat or a
republican it's just because who they
are right we've seen a lot of people
switch kind of parties in the last
couple of years where they said hey you
know I was a Democrat now I feel like
I'm more aligned with the Republicans
and vice versa and so I think that this
stuff is less black and white and it's
become much more fluid and so what we're
really watching play out here is uh
people are trying to understand how do I
think independently how do I think
critically that's what I try to do try
to say to myself what are the topic what
are the different arguments who do I
agree with and sometimes I'm surprised
you know I've had people come on our
podcast and my favorite is people who
lean really hard one way and I'll always
ask them to say something nice about the
other side and something they agree with
and I don't know 50% of people can do it
50% their brains like broken like
there's literally nothing I agree with
the Republicans on or there's nothing I
agree with the Democrats on you're like
there nothing you know let's start with
uh do you think that everyone should be
safe oh yeah I agree with that okay all
right like at least we got some common
ground right and so like you know you
just kind of have to understand that um
being able to think critically in
today's day and age is really important
and the last thing that I would say is
um I have a lot of friends who've gone
to work in this Administration they
frankly are both Republicans and
Democrats um most of them were not
political before one of my really really
good friends I've known for a long time
recently called me and out of the blue
said hey I put my name in the Hat for
this position I think I'm going to get
it I looked up the position that's big
boy job would have never thought that
this guy would even be ever interested
in politics but he's like I'm not
interested in the politics I'm
interested in going and working on this
problem it's a hard problem and so if
you then go and you look one of the
beauties that Elon Musk in particular
has really perfected is he's able to
identify problems in society and explain
to people how important it is that they
get solved and he's able to attract
talent to come and work there because it
becomes a high status job so we want to
go and build a civilization on Mars wow
if you want to do that come work at
SpaceX SpaceX immediately High status
job you tell somebody who worked at
SpaceX immediately hey you get credit
for working at
SpaceX working in the government was
about the low status job you could get
you know outside maybe being the
president or somebody but all of a
sudden Elon and a bunch of these people
from Silicon Valley they've now made it
another high status job they said hey
we're looking for the smartest people in
the world to come work on this if you
can pass our filter and you can come
here uh work here for a year three years
four years whatever this is going to be
a high status thing to put on your
resume immediately the quality of talent
goes up is that what caused this rapid
turnaround because all the sudden you've
got some of the most successful people
in the world wanting to participate in
government is it just that uh Trump is
like all right this is a return to Merit
and I've got the best and the brightest
here and they're naturally going to try
to get the best and the brightest and by
uh Dent of Association people are now
flooding in is is that the whole game or
is there something else going on I think
there's probably three things that are
going on I do think there's a lot of
people who frankly uh said hey I'm just
fed up right with whatever whatever
their issue is some people there's you
know a homeless problem in my city
there's a crime issue the inflation's
too high you know housing is
unaffordable the border is open you know
what whatever the thing is and for each
person I think it's a little bit
different you know kind of what their uh
red pill moment is or their topic but
eventually they just said hey look you
know I want to be part of the solution
I'm tired of complaining I want to
compete I want to go solve the problem
so I think that that's some version I
think that Elon um Bezos and other
people's kind of uh participation really
there's a lot of people who look up to
them and are inspired by them and they
said hey well if they can do it I'm
going to go do it you know if Elon can
go and give away money and go door too I
can go spend a year working in the
government at a certain job right and so
there there's kind of that high status
component of the job and then the third
thing and and this is probably the most
controversial one but uh I've talked to
a lot of friends frankly that are
Democrats and they've met Trump and they
come back and they're like I hated that
guy but I actually kind of like him now
he's cool he you know he's Charming he's
this whatever in
private blown away like people who
you're like there is no way in hell
they're going to go meet Donald Trump
and walk away and be like I like that
guy right they would they would
literally be outside you know picketing
more likely than they would walking away
saying that and they come back and
they're like dude I hate to say this
like you're never going to believe it
but I kind of like them he's charming
and so if you think about that you know
if you think of quotequote leadership
like what do leaders do what is the
definition of leadership is to get
people to do things they otherwise
wouldn't do without
you right and so in a crazy way
one of the most
unpredictable presidents that we've
had is actually able to inspire a bunch
of people who want to go work for him
now the question that I would pose which
we don't have the answer to yet in the
first Administration there's a lot of
those people a lot of them didn't make
it his argument is hey I kind of you
know really embraced the like political
machine I put a lot of people in
positions that were suggested to me by
the political machine I'm not making
that mistake twice is that true is it
not I I don't know you go and you talk
to some of them right you know I'm
friends with Anthony scaramucci
literally who I was thinking of yeah
yeah he he's not super excited right um
a gentle way of putting it yeah but like
you know there's plenty of these people
right that that all kind of um you know
come together and so you look at it and
and I always say that um whenever I hear
someone be passionate about something
for it or against it I always think to
myself there's probably some portion of
what they're saying is true right some
portion of it is uh if you think
somebody is smart and they make good
decisions and and they're able to kind
of evaluate situations maybe they're
exaggerating maybe they're this or
whatever right but like nobody is 100%
good nobody's 100% bad and so the
question is just like what are the
things you care about and it is 100%
possible to look at every single
president in American history and say
what's the best thing they did and what
was the most atrocious worst thing they
did you'll come up with something right
and so when you look at it from that
perspective um I think that that is a
much better way to evaluate this stuff
is not you know Biden is good or bad or
Trump is good or bad instead it is hey
on these different topics how would you
grade them do they get a f they get an A
they get a B what you know how do you
think about it and the truth really
comes down to like most presidents are
probably more of a net positive than
they are a net negative but every
president has contributed some damage
whether it is on spending crime crime
you know whatever the thing is and so
going into the Trump presidency um is he
going to do everything 100% right of
course not it's impossible right I mean
just think he sat there yesterday and
and he signed how many executive
orders there's no way that you can get
every single thing right right you're
talking about like 200 things and we're
talking about like geopolitics we're
talking about the World Health
Organization we're like all this crazy
stuff right and so you almost have to go
into it and say to yourself okay for me
individually I'm going to evalue the
performance of the president or my
Governor or my city mayor what are the
things that I care about I get to pick
two or three of them if they're good on
these things most other things if
they're just okay I'm I'm good with that
and I think that's where you see a lot
of these people who um hardcore
Democrats right that are saying hey I'm
going to go and I'm going to work on
this is because they're kind of saying
to themselves look if I can have an
impact maybe actually I think that the
administration is going to be in trouble
maybe I participating can help pull it
closer to the vision that I have and
that is the beauty of democracy right is
that everyone gets to participate in
some form or fashion and so I just think
that um politics is like very
polarizing but what we now have seen is
politics Tech and finance are all
meeting and there's a lot of things to
work out but in my years of you know
kind of participating in markets and
building businesses you can't work those
things out if people aren't sitting at
the table and it feels like now we got
everyone sitting at the table and they
still disagree on a lot of stuff but
like I don't think Mark Zuckerberg and
Donald Trump were going to talk five
years
ago at least now it seems like they're
cordial they got some work to do right
and so I think that I kind of put my
optimistic view on and I say all right
we got everyone at the table for the
most part let's go figure this stuff out
and man are we lucky that it's not just
government officials doing it we got
some business people we got some
nonprofit people we got some Finance
people right we got the politician
people get them all at the table let's
go let's all work together and try to
figure this out it's probably a better
situation than not what do you think
about the people that look at this and
go yo you've got like a handful of the
richest people in the world effectively
sitting right next to him at the
inauguration uh working in different
parts either advising or what have you
that this is oligarchy RIT
large yeah I mean look uh if you go back
50 years guess who was sitting next to
the president the people who owned all
of the industrial manufacturing
businesses the people who owned the big
corporations right it it was the same
thing it was just different types of
companies and so I think that's one is
just like uh these people are are uh the
different people right they're new
people uh the second thing is every
single one of those individuals you
probably could put on a list of who's
created the most valueable for society
and they'd be up there at the top of the
list so it's a sign that capitalism is
working in that that if you create the
most value you should get the most
economic reward and so the richest
people for the most part actually are
the ones who created the most value that
is should they have the most say because
that's how people are going to push back
and say sure let them capture the
economic value that's fine but I don't
want them in they're telling them how to
run the government they're just going to
swing it all towards them so it goes
back to okay uh who are the most
effective people who are the people who
quote unquote are the smartest and
smartest isn't like IQ test right but
smartest is like can you take ideas can
you implement them can you do all this
stuff well the people who won in the
free
market have a natural proclivity to be
quotequote the best like the market has
determined that Jeff Bezos is really
good at allocating Capital you know
doing uh complex decision- making
thinking long-term doing all stuff
that's how he built Amazon right Elon
Musk has been able to prove in the free
market with Merit that he's got really
interesting ideas that he can grow that
he can scale that he can you know change
the world Etc and so on the positive
side those are the people that you want
trying to help you solve problems 100%
on the negative side those are exactly
the people that you don't want steering
things in their favor right and so again
it goes back to like the world isn't
just black and white it's like you get
the good with the bad right and it's not
a Republican or Democrat thing like
Biden obviously had tons of people
around them that were super successful
that were probably trying to steer stuff
in their Direction and so I think that
um the best thing for the country is our
smartest most effective people are
trying to help solve our biggest
problems but also the beauty of a
democracy is there supposed to be
transparency and we should have people
who are standing there scrutinizing it
and saying hey they're doing this that's
actually you know helping them they
shouldn't do that and that's how the
system kind of course corrects so it's
not hey just because there's a risk of
somebody steering something in their
favor we shouldn't have our smartest
most competent people working on
something instead use sunlight as the
best disinfectant have our smartest
people work on the problems but just
have the ability to have transparency so
that external people that's what part of
the media's job is it's also the beauty
of kind of the individual you know
becoming a a kind of their own media
have these people critique them the the
critics are actually a really important
part of the system because they help
make sure that we don't sway in any One
Direction and so in that scenario what
do we get we get our best people working
on the biggest problems we get tons of
transparency so everyone knows what's
going on and feels confident that people
aren't doing things to their benefit and
then the third thing is that uh the
journalist Etc are able to the people
informed it's like a win-win
win given though that uh Elon controls x
uh you've got Bezos owns the Washington
Post you've got Zuckerberg controlling
uh arguably the largest Media company in
the world um should people be paranoid
that not only do they control the money
uh or have enough money that they can
really sway politics uh but that they
also happen to control so much of the
media it's a perfect example
transparency would solve a lot of it
right have them public what are the
algorithms show show the people Ju Just
o open them and and there's competitive
secrets and you all the stuff and
everything but explain to people let
them see what is being down ranked what
is being removed right imagine a feed
where any journalist could go and they
could see all the things that Twitter or
Facebook or anybody else is
deleting how much confidence would that
ReStore in these platforms where people
would say hey we now now get insight
into what's happening again how do you
do it all like I'm not smart enough to
figure out all those details but I think
that so much of the distrust with the
mainstream media with social media with
other things really comes down to the
fact that um there's not
transparency and so Facebook is a black
box right and so you say to yourself
when the you know Hunter Biden laptop
story got suppressed at first you don't
know is it because it got like reported
a bunch by Bots or something or is it
that they're actively doing this only
when people find out they're actively
doing it people like hey what the hell
right and distrust you know explodes
higher and so I think that it's not
there will be no perfect system but I do
think that there's an element of
transparency that can be introduced that
again at least you're never never going
to get to the point where there's blind
trust we don't want blind trust what we
want is kind of cautious optimism right
right we we want people like a
journalist job is to be
skeptical go and figure out what's
happening and if they're doing bad stuff
tell us right like like we should
celebrate the journalists that go and
find stuff that is actually bad stuff we
shouldn't celebrate the journalists that
manufacture things just for the clicks
right that ends up being kind of Twisted
facts but I think that's really again it
goes back to like the world's not black
and white it's gray and so adding that
transparency would be really important
one of the things that's really
interesting to me
um that I like that Trump does is when
he was signing the executive orders he
sat for like 90 minutes and he fielded
all these questions and frankly my
observation was like the guy likes it
he's like holding Court you know like
you ever like go and talk to a grandpa
and he's like sitting at his favorite
bar and he's got all his friends around
it's like holding Court that's kind of
what Trump was doing but it's like man
you want to know what this guy really
thinks it's completely
unscripted and people are asking him
questions and guess what he said a
couple things and of course the media is
like hey what the hell like that's not
cool
but that's what their job is to do it's
like get understand what is he doing
what is he what is he trying to do right
and so if we had to choose would we
rather a situation where the president
doesn't talk to the media or we'd rather
a situation where the president sits and
holds court and you know for 90 minutes
just answers random questions you could
say hey he's lying or he's not or you
know whatever but like we'd much rather
obviously the president who is more
forthcoming and and kind of transparent
with his thoughts um than anything else
and so I think the same thing is true of
social media right now it's just a black
box and there's been attempts to build
you know decentralized versions and kind
of all this stuff but I think the way
you really establish trust is you just
keep giving people information and maybe
a theme through this entire conversation
is uh we live in a society where um
there are certain companies
organizations institutions and people
who feel like they are smarter better
have the moral High Ground on the
masses let's not give them information
let's not let them talk let's not let
them transact how they want to transact
right that is a key theme in society but
that's a losing strategy I think the
better thing is where is there
excitement where is their trust where is
their productivity happening it's when
people say I actually think the masses
are smart give them all the information
let them talk let them transact let them
do what they want to do let's Empower
them rather than stifle them and so
whether it's social media whether it's
the president politicians whatever like
that that is the you know kind of
bifurcation of approaches and so
hopefully we get the transparency and
empowerment more so than we get you know
kind of back room deals and you know all
the nonsense that you know the critics
are are worried about fingers crossed
we'll see uh people have referred to
Trump as the first Bitcoin president um
one what do people mean by that and two
assuming that that is true what would
you want to see him do that would allow
Bitcoin to um flourish
the first Bitcoin president I think
originally started as hey he's the first
president to openly say I'm going to
support Bitcoin I'm going to protect
Bitcoin I'm going to protect your right
to hold Bitcoin and self- custody all
these things so he kind of was like the
first president to openly positively
Embrace Bitcoin fast forward to today uh
it still means that but it also means
that the guy's got majority of his net
worth right now in crypto right you know
between Bitcoin and and all the other
assets uh it's some you know it's like I
don't know 80% % of his net worth now is
in the industry so uh you could also say
like hey you know the first Bitcoin or
first crypto president is just like he's
the first one to have majority of his
wealth in in the industry um but I think
that's kind of the last you know couple
of days or weeks more so than what it
originally started at which just like he
Embraces it and you know in terms of
what he can do I think there's three
major things that he should do right uh
will he do them I'm not sure the first
thing is I think that he should repeal
something called sa221 uh it's a very
kind of technical legislative thing but
essentially what it would do is it would
uh drastically reduce the friction for
banks to hold Bitcoin and other crypto
assets so right now you can hold the
Assets in self- custody you can hold
them at coinbase or you can buy the ETF
Banks generally are pretty trusted you
know institutions with high security and
all this kind of stuff and if you allow
them to hold the assets it probably
would create a safe custodian uh kind of
relationship for a lot of people but
also then those Banks can offer tons of
financial services they can lend against
those assets they can you know use it on
a personal financial statement to get a
mortgage like all those types of things
so I think that would be a really big
boom and the banks recently the Bank of
America CEO came out and said hey I want
to do this so the banks want to do it
the people want to do it it's just kind
of this regulatory uh situation the
Congress uh and Senate actually approved
this to happen and Biden vetoed it and
so it was kind of like one person really
kind of you know came in and stomped it
at the end and so I think Trump should
repeal that and allow Banks to do that
the second thing is we should EST uh
establish a strategic Bitcoin Reserve
which simply means that we should hold
the 200,000 Bitcoin that are currently
on the government's balance sheet don't
sell them and we should start to acquire
more Bitcoin how much we acquire and how
quickly somebody smarter than me will
figure that out but I do think that if
uh Bitcoin is a great Reserve asset for
individuals if it's a great Reserve
asset for financial institutions and
corporations it will be a great asset
for uh countries as well and we know
other countries are stockpiling Bitcoin
and so we should also be a leader there
and we should be doing it as well and
then the third thing and probably uh one
of the things that would be most complex
but but most important is we should uh
change the tax treatment for using
Bitcoin to buy goods and services so
right now if I go and I sell a stock I
obviously pay capital gains tax but it I
can't use that stock to go by dinner
right I got to go from stock to dollars
dollars to dinner with Bitcoin I could
in certain restaurants buy dinner as an
example but when I do that I pay for the
meal I tip the waiter or waitress I pay
the sales tax and then I also pay
capital gains tax when I spend the
Bitcoin and so what we'd have to do is
create a way where you can spend your
Bitcoin for goods and services you do
not pay the capital gains tax but you
also still need to tax people who are
just trading Bitcoin so basically if
you're selling Bitcoin for dollars then
you get hit with capital gains if you
are buying a good or a service with
Bitcoin then you don't pay the capital
gains and I think that would be a big
kind of Tailwind for Bitcoin as well so
three things uh I don't know if he'll do
them but I think all three of those
would have a significant impact on uh
kind of continuing the adoption of
Bitcoin and obviously creating more
value if we created a strategic Reserve
that would essentially be investing in
Bitcoin with the expectation that it
goes up does the US uh invest in the
stock market and anything else or would
that be a break with
tradition well the US has gold you know
as maybe the the closest proxy uh in the
Central Bank Reserves uh it's probably
one of the most popular you know central
bank reserve assets in the world
different nation states all uh hoard
gold um and so I think that there's no
reason why the US couldn't do it with
Bitcoin right Bitcoin is kind of gold
with wings um you know digital sound
money uh and um I think that's kind of
the easiest argument the US also has a
lot of real estate has a lot of land um
it does uh buy obviously via the Federal
Reserve which isn't so Federal but uh
you the Federal Reserve obviously buys a
lot of uh debt um and things like that
and so uh it really depends on kind of
where you look um there's even things
like there there's this new office that
was created created and I recently met
some of the guys there um called the
office of strategic Capital basically
the government is making strategic loans
to certain types of businesses that do
business or or could help the government
and so you know like the government's
like in The Lending business and so we
definitely are buying various types of
debt or or um you know kind of commodity
based assets and so I think Bitcoin kind
of fits right in there um and you know
to your point are they buying it because
the price is going to go up it's
probably part of it but I also think
they're buying it because it's sound
money and even if the price just stayed
flat the dollar is going to continue to
be devalued and therefore you know the
US dollar price would kind of move more
so the dollar falling rather than
Bitcoin becoming you know quotequote
more valuable to the individual holder
now one thing I've heard you say that I
thought was a little crazy is to print
money and buy Bitcoin and I'm like hold
on a second printing money is bad while
good for uh the price of Bitcoin I hate
it for the price of the dollar um would
you still like to see the government do
that well my point was um you know if
we're increasing the debt by a trillion
dollars every hundred days if we printed
$250 billion we wouldn't even notice it'
be rounding
error and if we could then do that to
buy a substantial percentage of the
Bitcoin Network and it depends on where
the price is ETC but we're not talking
about buying 1% we're talking about
buying a very substantial part of the
network with that $250 billion call it
you know 10 to 15% depending on the
market cap all of a sudden you say to
yourself is it worth
it probably over the long run now the
question is would I rather not print the
money of course so could we find $250
billion of savings somewhere in the
budget and then use that money that
would be better could we actually get to
a surplus and use the Surplus amount to
buy the Bitcoin that would be even
better right so it more so I was using
the like go print 250 billion and buy
the Bitcoin H for illustrative purposes
in terms of hey we should go do this
like with size and uh kind of intention
now one of the most interesting things
is everyone was really disappointed in
the uh kind of Bitcoin world that on day
one there was no executive order uh to
establish the Strategic Bitcoin
Reserve but if you're a country wouldn't
you want to buy the Bitcoin and then
tell everyone you bought it rather than
tell everyone you're going to buy it the
price goes up and then you start
buying and so that's definitely true I
have an instinct that Trump isn't going
to do that I think he's going to be very
slow uh to move on that because I think
there are going to be enough people that
are freaked out by the idea of us buying
a highly volatile asset that that one
feels more like a bit of a political Hot
Potato we'll see he's certainly signaled
obviously positive things um but my gut
is the first two things you talked about
about you probably got a pretty high
chance of him doing the Strategic
Bitcoin Reserve I don't know I'm a
little more skeptical we'll see yeah and
look I think that the uh probably the
most likely Common Ground between the
Skeptics and you know the Enthusiast is
we have 200,000 Bitcoin in the US
government's control today just say hey
we're not going to sell that right so
we're not going to buy more right but
like we're also going to commit to not
selling again that kind of feels like uh
probably both sides are a little
disappointed you know the Skeptics are
like hey why do we have to hold this and
the enthusiasts are like why aren't we
buying more and as you probably know you
know the best negotiations are where
everyone feels like they left a little
on the table he's already making those
noises right like he's said ah we're not
going to sell it I mean in this typical
Trump way where uh it doesn't feel
exactly firm but I think he's indicated
strategic ambiguity I think is what they
call it sometimes right yeah yeah
certainly when it's AED to China no
doubt um so you wrote a book uh give us
your hardest hitting what is like if you
were going to say this is the way to
live an extraordinary life um what what
is that most important thing that people
could do well I think the first thing is
everyone has a different version of what
their extraordinary life is right so
what I want my extraordinary life to be
is very different than yours versus
anyone who's listening to this and so
understanding what is the life you want
to live and being intentional about that
is is pretty important and it doesn't
mean like hey what job am I going to get
but like what are the things that are
important to you how do you spend your
time right do you spend your time uh
going out and you like to go to a lot of
business dinners and you know meeting a
lot of interesting people do you like to
spend your time sitting at home uh
hanging out with your wife and kids
right you know all these different
components but designing your life in
terms of uh kind of your aspirational
life put you on a path to accomplishing
that extraordinary life and then when I
wrote the book I wrote 65 letters to my
kids uh and it's kind of all these
different life lessons uh that I've
picked up over the years uh and it's
everything from health and wealth to uh
work relationships to running a business
to how I think about happiness Etc and
the major theme throughout the entire
book is that you have agency we live in
a world where every single thing around
us tells us the world happens to you
just sit down shut up and let the world
happen and you have to take what the
world gives you but the most successful
people I know the happiest people I know
the people who feel like they've lived
kind of the most fulfilling
extraordinary life they're the people
who say no I have agency and I am
actually going to act on the world and
so if I want something I go and I get it
if I want to accomplish something I set
a plan I go and I execute if I want to
feel better healthwise I put together a
plan I go and I do it and so when I sat
down and I started writing these letters
to my kids uh my wife and I had
basically decided on two things if we
could only teach our kids two things
what is the thing that we wanted to
teach them the first thing was we wanted
to teach them to be good decision makers
it is a very specific skill but it's
applicable to everything in your life
should I go to that party or should I
not should I take that job or should I
not should I make that investment or
should I not should I hang out with this
person should I not right should I do
drugs should I not if you teach them to
be a good decision maker it applies to
every aspect of their life and something
they get better at over time I think a
big part of it frankly is you got to
expose them to a lot of decisions and
then you got to talk through it right
it's no different than trying to help a
uh you know an employee at a company get
better at decision-making you got to put
them in this in in scenarios and say
okay here's the scenario here's your two
choices what do you think why did you
choose that oh well here's how I would
think about it right and you just
constantly you're trying to get better
but there's no Finish Line you're you
never get to the point where like I'm a
great decision maker you're always like
I can be better at it and so it's kind
of again this aspirational thing but
that was one thing we really wanted to
teach our kids was be good decision
makers you do that by exposing them to a
lot the second thing is we want to teach
them that you have agency you know kind
of the internet you know Meme is like uh
you can just go and do things and so if
somebody is a good decision maker and
then they know they have agency every
outcome in your life is ultimately
determined by the actions you take and
so if you think about JD Vance the
reason why I think that story is so
inspiring is because he basically was
dealt the worst hand if you were to
concoct you know hey okay well you think
that everyone's life is all based on the
decisions they make well what about the
guy who's born to a drug addict single
mom in West Virginia who's no
connections no education no money Etc
it's like the guy just became the vice
president of the United
States right and most of the things that
he did were decisions that he made he
chose to go into the Marines he chose to
apply to college he chose to app apply
to Yale he chose the study he chose you
know and you just go through these
things now everybody has help along the
way right but part of that is he met uh
for example Peter teal when he was at
Yale Peter teal seems to have been a
pretty big part of his story and so
again he went to the dinner right like
all these actions are really important
and so imagine if you started off in a
position in life that wasn't born to a
single mother who's a drug addict in
West Virginia with no money no education
no resources no connections you already
have a leg up on JD Vance and he became
vice president imagine what you can do
right and I think that that agency is
really important and so pretty much
every letter in the book is reinforcing
that across a a couple of different you
know uh ways and one of my favorites is
this idea of luck is not real I was
going to ask you how much push back you
get on this idea probably the most
controversial letter in the book um but
really my message in it is let's say
that you know you Tom and I uh we walk
across the street and we get hit by a
bus and we both lose our right leg and
our friends come to visit us in the
hospital and they say oh my God Tom you
lost your leg today what happened you
say man I was so unlucky I was walking
across the street this bus hit me and I
lost my leg I'm such an idiot but then
they walk over to my bed and they say
hey what happened today I say man I am
so lucky I was walking across I got hit
by the bus and I'm still alive you know
anyone who got hit by a bus and lived
how lucky am I two people same scenario
same outcome two completely different
views on luck and so when you realize
luck is actually a psychological concept
there's academic studies that show that
you can make yourself luckier by simply
thinking you're lucky it is all about
perspective in life that means that luck
is not a real thing it's all about how
you think about the things that happen
in your life and once you begin to
understand that luck is not real it is
all about your perspective and you are
in control of your perspective it goes
back to you have agency whenever you
think you're unlucky you should say to
yourself what is the good thing that
comes out of this and another chapter in
the book I talk about this idea of good
jao wilnick who is a very well decorated
and well-respected Navy SEAL Commander
um he you know said one time uh that he
had guys on his team who' come to him
whatever they had bad news and say hey
man we got bad news but I already know
what you're GNA say he said what are you
gonna say so you're gonna say good and
his point was you know training gets
canceled today good we got more time to
clean our equipment you didn't get the
job that you wanted good you got more
time to get better so you can get a a
promotion in the current job you got you
know you didn't get uh the grades you
wanted good it's a reminder that uh you
got to work harder right you just go
through this and and it's looking at the
LI at life through a specific lens that
is much more positive and optimistic
than looking at life through the lens of
the world is happening to me I have no
control I have no agency and you know
everything is screwed and so again you
go back to this idea of you want to
write letters to your kids what do you
want them to learn you want them to be
good decision makers you want them to
learn that they have agency put 65
letters down put in a book and uh you
know hopefully they learn from it now
even the luck one seems like a very
positive empowering idea why is it
controversial what what does that
trigger in people I think that people uh
fall into two categories uh there's
definitely people who just they're
intellectually lazy like they just don't
think about anything and it's like much
easier just to blame luck oh I'm an
unlucky person something happened you
know uh it's not my fault I don't want
to take personal responsibility and so
uh luck kind of becomes like the
boogeyman um and usually that's when
it's a negative thing right uh but then
there's a lot of uh very successful
people who they actually want to
downplay their success and so you'll go
talk to like a multi-billionaire and
they like I just got lucky nobody gets
lucky and becomes a multi-billionaire
right like obviously they did things
they knew things they they acted Etc and
so luck in both the negative and
positive sense is really used as a
crutch the people who think that they're
quote unquote unlucky they use it
because they want to take personal
responsibility for their situation the
people who are successful they use it as
a crutch because they're embarrassed
that they were successful they want to
downplay what they did they want to more
so you know kind of claim a moral High
ground and say oh I was just lucky you
know I if I ran the experiment 10 times
you know this only happens once I just
you know lucky not not my fault and so I
think that luck when you remove it both
from the positive and negative sense it
gets back to the same thing your
decisions your actions determine your
outcome regardless of the details of
where you start
JD Vance becomes vice
president you can go through history you
know Elon Musk born to an abusive father
in South
Africa right and you just look at this
over and over and over again and you say
to yourself why is it that so many
highly successful people actually
started out with really bad childhoods
Jeff Bezos I think uh he grew up in a
single uh mother household at first and
then his mother remarried and you look
at it over and over and over again you
say to yourself maybe actually a big
piece of it is you've got to forge
yourself in the fire got to make the
right decisions right actions and your
outcome is then determined by those
decisions and actions it's fascinating
right I don't have all the answers I'm
figuring out alongside everybody else
but when you start thinking about why is
this controversial it's because it
basically strips away a crutch from
people and it makes them look in the
mirror and accept the fact that the
outcomes that I get in my life are
solely dependent on what decisions I
make some people are happy with the
decisions they made some people aren't
but the beauty is it's never over
there's people who you know turn their
life around at 40 50 60 years old after
years of drugs and alcohol and you know
crime and all these crazy stuff it's
okay one of my favorite stories is Mark
wallberg people forget Mark Wahlberg
actually got arrested when he's a
teenager pretty bad incident he you know
beat a man in the street probably not
proud of it but then he went he became a
rap star Marky
Mark to today he's pretty successful
businessman obviously well-paid actor
you know highly highly highly
successful doesn't matter what you did
in the past it's all about moving
forward and so again it goes back to at
any point you can choose hey I'm going
to make the decisions that put me on the
right path and I think that um you know
from people I've heard so far from the
book you know the book's been able to
get them to think differently about uh
some of the things that they're doing I
love it all right well if people want to
stay on a good path where can they
follow you um just go to Twitter uh a
Pompano aomo is uh probably the best
spot and then I write a uh a daily email
um to investors about 260,000 investors
on there um just my thoughts on
financial assets markets Etc and you
just go to pomp letter.com just
pet.com I love it all right everybody if
you have not already be sure to
subscribe and until next time my friends
be legendary take care peace here is the
brutal truth about scaling most
entrepreneurs don't outright fail they
plateau and if you're stuck right now
you know how true that is it could be
that your Revenue flat lines every time
you step away or maybe you're trapped in
a commodity Market that's racing to the
bottom or maybe you're one of the lucky
people who is navigating a very complex
partner Dynamic that turns every
decision into a battle these problems
and a whole lot more can seem impossible
until you break them all down into first
principles my partners and I use this
thinking to grow Quest Nutrition By
57,000 per in our first 3 years alone
and scale to a billion exit and now I'm
teaching this framework to a select
group of entrepreneurs who are ready to
scale now I want to be clear this is not
for everybody because I'm looking to
work with serious entrepreneurs that
already have an established business and
a proven track record of execution if
that's you and you want to learn how to
break through your biggest business
bottlenecks using first principles
thinking be sure to apply now just go to
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sscale or click the link in the show
notes again that's impact Theory
./ scale if you like this conversation
check out this episode to learn more how
is it that all the economic reports make
it seem like the economy is RedHot and
yet people feel like they're in a
recession what's going on well all those
metrics are baked you know they reverse
engineer all of them we've talked about
the inflation metric before