The Compound and Friends - It’s Crypto Winter Again

Episode Date: January 28, 2022

On this week's episode of The Compound & Friends, Michael Batnick, Packy McCormick, and Downtown Josh Brown discuss: Robinhood earnings, the crash in Bitcoin and Ethereum, Packy's Substack (Not Boring) passing the 100k subscriber mark, early stage investing, Coinbase teaming up with Mastercard, if Apple will still be a top 10 company (market cap) in 10 years, Ackman buying Netflix, and much more! Thanks to Fundrise for sponsoring this episode. Visit fundrise.com/compound to learn more about the future of real estate investing! Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/disclosures/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

7% 7 Robinhood 80 cents It's down 80 cents .8 points Let's see Let me see the numbers

Revenue 3.. Revenue. Revenue came in light. 360. What was it last quarter? Downtown. Revenue, revenue, revenue. Looks like it was 364 last quarter. Stock's $11.

$10.52. $10.52. None of these companies4 last quarter. This stock's $11. $1052. None of these companies are worth anything. Watch your mouth. I'm a buyer here. Paper. Is Coinbase selling off? Hold on a second. I would buy that dip before I would buy... What's the Wi-Fi here?

The Wi-Fi is Robinhood 42069. $362 is $ 346 last quarter. That's it? What's that? I'm sharing. I'm sharing. Just boom. Right over the metaverse, baby.

Welcome to the metaverse. That's the metaverse. All right. 362. Revenue is down quarter over quarter. You don't like to see that. Growth stock. I'm pretty sure Berkshire

is going to snap this up. They're going to buy it all. Take it down. It's rat poison. Crypto revenue 48 down from 55 expected. Antonio Banderas gif.

It's very hot. I'm just letting it cool. They were, yo. Put my mic on! There we go. Robin Hood sees first quarter revenue below $340 million, estimated $447. That's going to leave a mark. Ooh.

That is going to leave a mark. They should go private. Oh, man. Pac, any thoughts? Put my mic on! Can I hear myself? Can you? Test.

One, two, three. I was talking with friends the other day about just... With who? With friends. Oh, friends. Yeah. What are those? Yeah.

People you meet on the internet. This is what we're drinking, so sip slowly. Is it actually? I didn't know that. Wait, can I just show you the front? That's never a good sign. Yeah, let's do it. Is that skull?

A fucking skull and crossbones on the coffee bag. So, Paki, what will your friends say? I'm just talking about the ballooning optics, and obviously some of that's stock based comp coming out of the IPO and all that but I don't know I've never been a buyer it's one of the few pieces that I wrote that was a little bit critical

about writing about Robinhood what's the problem with it the operating expenses I'm only seeing revenue I think the problem of it is the most profitable thing they do is crypto trading. And there's better places to do that. And it's going to shrink. Yeah.

It was $48 million this quarter, down from $55 last quarter. And it's not going back up. You're not going to make 3% on crypto transactions. Coinbase is on fire, too. I mean, you know. What do they report? I don't know what they did today, but. No, Josh, I'm with you.

I'd rather buy Coinbase. Did they report yet? I don't think so. When do they report? Yeah, Josh, I'm with you. I'd rather buy Coinbase. Did they report yet? I don't think so. When did they report? Yeah, but I already lost money on Coinbase this year, so I got to wait a little while. I try not to get killed in a stock twice. Wait, you don't revenge trade the loser?

No, I used to. You have to make your money back. No, I used to short it as revenge, and then it would bounce. All right, give me more numbers. I'm going to stay out of all that. And Robinhood did better in a market where it's just more fun to trade.

So much fun. It stays a little bit flatter. That's the thing. Robinhood's number one competitor is not Schwab and Fidelity. It's FanDuel. FanDuel is a more fun experience than Robinhood right now. It's NFL playoffs. We're in the heart of the NBA season.

Like, why wouldn't you be dicking around there versus weekly options on Robinhood when every stock just goes down every day? What if you go real crypto? Holy shit, this stock is $10. It's down 85% from the highs, which is a lot of percent in case you need to train. How much? 85. How many points is that? What was the high of Robinhood?

70. 70? The stock's down 60 points, Mike. It's a big deal. After hours. It's down 10% in the after hours. 11% now. I mean, we're down.

Gosh. Nice market, huh? Nice little market. 1,756 biffs? That's a lot of biffs. That's a lot of biffs. Okay. So one of the big problems here is that this is now a sub $10 billion market cap.

I mean, there are funds that just won't even look at it just because it's like out of their universe. Bill Ackman needs to buy it. I mean, this would make sense for what he was looking to do with his SPAC. He was looking for a mature unicorn. Robinhood qualifies.

$10 billion market cap. It's legit nine now. In business for eight years. It's amazing. When did Robinhood start? Dude, Josh and I were just talking about this. OpenSea just raised it at $13 billion. Good luck with that. The public markets are savage. Private markets are practice.

No offense. No, I mean, I talked to a fintech investor today who could do both and was saying, you know, I'm just buying stocks. I'm just buying the public markets now because it's a hell of a lot cheaper than what late-stage fintechs are going at. Do we have coffee? Do we actually have coffee? Yeah, it's going to kill us all. The world's deadliest coffee. It's the world's strongest.

Why don't I have any? I'm getting coffee. We all got our own. Is that a good title for today? That's a lot of bips? That's a lot of bips. That's a lot of bips. This is wild.

Okay, let me get my dock up. I'll tap it. Ready to do this? To open door. Did I do that? Or is that you testing? Put my mic on! I think we need a little bit more bass in Francesca's voice.

Put my mic on! Can we do that? You know what I mean? We're not going to do that today. Not right now, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. We'll do that. Oh, man.

This is the one sound that Batnick won't get mad at me for. Do it. Because he's a huge Mike Francesa fan. Oh, we got Apple, boys. We got Apple coming out at 4.30. Oh, my God. This is it. Let's make or break.

Yeah, it's big. I don't know if I told you, I was at Mulcahy's this summer because one of Tara's friends' bands were playing there, and they have a portrait of Mike Francesa right in the lobby when you walk in. The Pope, as they should. It's not really a painting. It's a photograph. I texted it to him. I said, I love the lobby when you walk in. The Pope, as they should. It's not really a painting. It's a photograph. But I texted it to him.

I said, I love you at Mulcahy's. Very confident in my assertions. There's Ben Carlson. What's going on? Oh, man. Oh, man. Okay. Oh, Visa.

Visa beats. Oh, man. Okay. Oh, Visa. Visa beats. But Chamath said to short these indiscriminately and buy DeFi. Visa can beat and the stock could go down 8%. Can you stop it? That's not me.

You f***ing... I'm telling you. I'm telling you it's not me. Card networks are below his line. Visa's up 3%. All right. Paki, how's the baby? Baby's good.

Baby is 16 months almost. But how many points is that? Oh, my God. Them bips, that's... How many days is that? Wait, how old? 16 months? 16 months.

Babysitter, he just got into school okay he's going to science school in Brooklyn next year engineering yeah he's gonna they don't start

learning coding until the 3's program but in the 2's you just kind of like start getting the basics they have animals they have like plant walls so he walks now

oh he walks he walks backward he like kind of moonwalks he can say all the animal sounds if you like go like dog woof woo horse, nay, nay, nay, cow. Kramer, bye, bye, bye. Kramer, bye, bye, bye.

We'll do that one next. It's wild. I mean, it's so cool. He's in this spot now where he's just like, he did a puzzle. Not like a thousand-piece puzzle, but he did a few puzzles. Yeah, you're in the place where the hits come almost every day. It's so beautiful. It's wild. Yeah, it's such a great age hits come almost every day. It's so beautiful. It's wild.

Yeah, it's such a great age. Congratulations. Thank you. I'm in a little bit of a different moment. My kids are regressing at this point. How old? They're doing less and less. No, honestly, I get excited if one of them takes out the garbage.

I'm like, probably the way you are when you see him take five steps. I'm like, holy shit. I think she just took the garbage out. It's just such a great fatherly moment. They're 15 and 12. I mean, to be fair, the last thing that my wife and I texted about before this was that I forgot to take the recycling out before I left.

Oh, this is a good one. Every hood bag holder right now. What is below? I don't, I'm not there. We don't have to get into that. Oh, we don't have to get into that? Yeah, fine. Get into it.

Do you guys, are you sponsored by? So he, they were on the All In pod. Yeah. And they were talking about the Uyghur genocide. This is sponsored by IPOF, just so you know. Oh, yeah. No, I did hear about that where, where like nobody cares about Chinese human rights abuses.

And I think to be, I don't even know if you want to be fair here, but his point was like, there's a ton of bad stuff happening here that he's worried about. And so that is below his line. That obviously is a meme to hell. You can't say that genocide is below. You know,

it almost wouldn't matter what he said. Like almost like it doesn't matter what he said. Almost like it doesn't matter if LeBron decides one day he wants to start saying anti-China things. No matter what he says, there's enough LeBron haters that it will be completely misconstrued, torn apart, flipped upside down. So there's almost no purpose to trying to like say the right things. Because of course he cares that there's a genocide, right? Like obviously, but- Maybe, if you watch the clip.

See, this is, see, that's why that's entirely necessary. Wait, where the is my sound thing? So we're not gonna get into any of that today. We're not going to talk about Ukraine, which is not going to do any of it. Ukraine is below my line. What's been happening there? It's above my line.

I don't know enough to say anything intelligent about it. Did you listen to Gavin Baker with Patrick? Like a while back? No, he did one like this week. Oh, no, not yet. I love the first one. It sounds so obvious. Oh, my God. Hold no, not yet. I love the first one. It sounds so obvious. Oh my God.

Hold on. I know. We got clapped in. Just talking about how complicated individual stocks are. And then doing that with the economy. It's like, what are you, a four-year-old? Do you think you could like see the future? It's just nonsense.

What? I don't understand. The idea, they were talking about how complicated stock picking is and business forecasting. Not for me, but go on. And then just the idea that just one company is so hard. And then at the economy level where you have thousands of companies and billions of people and it's a joke. Macro's a joke. That's why I only predict interest rates.

I keep it very simple. The Fed can't predict the economy, but you can. Yeah. Duck, rabbit for 2069. at the economy, but you can. Yeah. Duck rabbit for 2069. Why doesn't the Fed see what I see, said the anonymous guy on Twitter with no friends and girlfriend. I just don't understand it. Welcome to the Compound and Friends. All opinions expressed by me, Michael Batnick, and our castmates are solely our own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. This podcast is for informational

purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Fundrise. Fundrise makes high-end private market real estate investing effortless and accessible to everyone. Thanks to Fundrise, anyone can invest, accredited or not accredited, and you can manage your investments from your phone. Fundrise is the latest example of how technology can harness the power of large populations to disrupt institutions. With more than 1 million users and over $7 billion worth of assets

transacted on, Fundrise is already the largest direct-to-investor real estate investor platform, and they're giving individuals the potential upside of an asset class that was mainly reserved for institutions and high net worth individuals for decades. If you want to learn more, go to fundrise.com slash compound. Again, that's fundrise.com slash compound. All right. Taki McCormick is here. Is this appearance three for you? This is appearance three. Okay. We are in a race against Dan Nathan to see who could book you the most. So I think we're losing, but- You haven't made me a co-host yet.

That's true. That's true. Shout to Dan and Guy. We love those guys. I'm so excited that you're here. This is a momentous time, not only for the markets, which we're going to get to,

but for you personally. Haki, you broke 100,000 sub stack subs. And so all the podcast appearances are definitely paying off. And what else are you doing? How is this happening? It's a huge number. I think it's mostly compounding friends. No, come on. Come on.

You have 100,000 people and your open rate is half? It's about 50%. 54% recently. That's ludicrous. That's ludicrous. And it might be too ludicrous. It got good all of a sudden. I was going to say, that's not going to last.

You're not that good. One, yeah, 100%. And two, I think something happened with Apple and maybe it like auto opens. I don't know, but- I hope it's 75 times every time it comes out. That also means, that means a lot. Hold on, Duncan, what's my open rate?

Don't ask, 8%. What's our's my open rate? Don't ask. 8%. What's our firm wide open rate? I don't know about the blogs right off. What's the YouTube open rate for this? Fired so low you don't want to say it on the air. It doesn't really apply. The click-through rate is very high. Oh, my God.

Sometimes close to double digits. Robinhood's going to break 10. It's down 13%. All right. So, Paki,'s down 13%. All right. So, Paki, 100,000. All right. Yeah.

100,000. Let's dwell on this for a minute because that's a, it's a huge number. And the way you put it, you compared it to the Alabama football stadium,

which is what? 100,000 people? 100,000 and 77 people. So, more people than fit in that stadium have clicked subscribe on your sub stack. And given me their email address. Yeah, dude. You're crazy.

And you started a lot more than that because a lot of people have unsubscribed too. I mean, obviously you started at zero. Everyone starts at zero. But you started at zero like two years ago? Has it even been two years? Yeah, so I started writing something else that got me to like 400 subscribers in 2019, but really

started this at 400 subscribers less than two years ago. You know why I have so much respect for this? You're so overvalued. Forget how big the number is and it's amazing. I have so much respect because the way that you've done this is the most honest, like intellectually honest way. You're like, guys, I'm just excited about this stuff.

I'm not the world's smartest. I can't predict the future. I think most of the stuff I'm saying is right, but all subject to me saying, oh, what an idiot I was. Like you're doing it that way. So many people who have built big platforms, whether it's blog, sub stack, it's like, I'm a genius. Well, the bigger they get, it's self-reinforcing. Follow me and I'll save you. You're the same exact guy. It is.

It feels almost the opposite to me. Like, I feel dumber the more, because I'm like, there, I mean, now there's even more people who are smarter than me reading this who work in a particular industry or like who know that I'm not a hundred percent right on any of this stuff. So I really do feel dumber with everyone. Which I'm listening to them though, as part of what you do. That's the whole thing, right? You're like, you are a general. Which I'm listening to them though as part of what you do. That's the whole thing, right?

You're like, you are a generalist. I'm a generalist. No, no, no. But your audience being smarter than you actually is a net positive for the rest of the audience that isn't because you'll listen to them if they correct you. A hundred percent. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and, and all right, here's what I want to tell you. Here's what you wrote. I'm quoting you. Just live through it. Happy Monday. Last week, we crossed a big round milestone.

Our little not boring family is now 100,000 strong. While I've been excited about the small victory, I've also noticed something new. A voice in the back of my mind asking me what the cynics and trolls are going to think of what I write. And here's what I want to tell you. I wrote this in the docs.

I wouldn't forget. Don't do that. Forget these people. Here's why. 99% of the people who are reading you love you and want you to succeed. You just don't hear from them every day. Okay. Like because they're winners also.

They're busy. They have lives and families and they just don't have the time to tell you how great they think you are. Or they're indifferent. They think you're good enough. Fine. I'll take good enough. That's good. So this small kernel of people who are trolls or whatever, it's such a tiny number.

So that's the first thing you need to know. And it took me 12 years to learn this. So trust me. The second thing is of those critics, 99% of them are just mad at themselves. They're not really mad at you, but you become a target because you're in their face. You said something, tweeted something, you wrote something, and you're just there. And they're taking their frustrations out on you. So don't go about your day now, every time you want to say something, being like, oh, but what are the people who hate me going to think?

There's like five of them and they don't matter. And here's proof that they don't matter. How many of these people f***ing with you on the internet are even doing it under their real name? Zero? One? That is, I mean, that is one of the weirdest parts about this is that it is so asymmetric because it is a bunch of people. It's a lot of Sudanese people. But some of the Sudanese people have a ton of followers. So that's a weird thing.

Because they're so good at being nasty that it attracts other nasty people. But let me guess. It's like something capital, right? Almost every time. So that tells you right there it's somebody who failed to launch a hedge fund or failed to launch a venture fund. You can't. You've got to be you. And those people will cease being mad at you. They eventually go away. You'll have new trolls though. It'll, but it's a tiny number, just very vocal. You can't let

them stop you doing what you're doing and just recognize mostly they're jealous of you. And I will have Michael stop eventually. So I will, I will, I will eventually make sure that he, he, he stops, but listen, you're, you're kicking ass. What is the biggest change besides now how paranoid you are? What is the biggest change in how you're going about what you're doing? Given this, this new size, the biggest thing is, you know, so one, ignoring the troll piece, but the other is it does feel like even if I say and yell from the rooftops that I'm an idiot, this is not investment advice,

there is still responsibility that comes with sending something to that many people. And so that's one of the biggest things that I'm thinking about. So I'm writing about one on Monday that I'm an investor in that, you know, is a publicly traded crypto. Is it Robinhood?

I did not. I was going to say, hold that letter. I did not go Robinhood. I never bought a share of Robinhood, to be fair. But I just need a caveat on this one that, like, even the founders and the people don't care what the price of this token is. So, like, please don't buy this token. And there's still going to be people who read it,

who read this thing, read this very long disclaimer that go out and buy it. So that's one of the things to think about. So I interviewed Jim Cramer for one of my books. I was with Jeff Mackey. And one of the questions, we wrote a book about being a financial pundit and talk about responsibility.

You go on TV five days a week, three hours a day, you talk about thousands of stocks in the course of any given year, one or two of those stocks is going to be really, really, really, really bad, right? Possibly even like a fraud happened and you just, there's no way to really know. So he tells this great story about, I think he was in Costco or supermarket. He walks down one aisle and he's with his kids and like this woman comes running up to him and hugs him like thank you so much you helped me put my kid through college with all your with all your shit over the years and like he was like talking about like how everyone else is like looking at him beaming and then he walks into the next aisle

and this guy like wants to kill him because you know a tech stock blew up in 2000 and uh the number one thing that you have to just do is just remind yourself you're not someone's financial advisor yeah you're basically talking about things you're investing in or interested in and then people have to own their own decisions yeah and they won't but you can't paralyze it. You agree with that? Oh, he knows. Yeah, it's enough. Let's move on.

No, I think this stuff's important. Somebody's got to tell you that even though you already know it. I feel like you should have that reinforcement. All right. So now what are your plans to like, what are your plans going forward now with this huge audience,

just more of what you've been doing? I mean, I really want to do more of, you know. Pump it, pump it. Yeah, so now that I have this huge audience, I can pump whatever I want. So I've been honest up to this point so that I can turn and make a ton of money. No, no, I mean, it's more of the same.

I'm spending still seven days a week writing these essays, often doing, you know, a couple of them a week, doing a podcast occasionally, which is just me reading tired in the morning. And we'll see, maybe we'll professionalize or add something. Next time this kid shows up, he's going to have like an entourage. He's going to have like a whole team around like a style, a packy stylist. That's a good idea. Have you thought about hiring somebody? Like what would they even look like? Who, like, who do you, what do you need help with? Yeah. I

actually had my first hire starting and I can't say who it is yet. Not that, you know, it's any anybody that people know, but it's still still employed. What's the role? The role is really like I'm not good at operations at all. So it's really like across both the fund and the newsletter. One, making sure that things like just kind of run smoothly. So like almost like a CEO role to really owning revenue on this. Like, you know, I have the newsletter, I have the podcast, I have all these spots that like literally is me sending off a DM to somebody being like, hey, you want that newsletter spot again? Yeah.

Collect the money. Somebody has to invoice people. Somebody has to handle like transactions. And it's higher level than that. It's like go out and find out like how should I be monetizing this? Like what are other people doing? All of that kind of stuff. It's a generalist role also.

So it'll be, you know, this person is a lot more skeptical than I am, or like, you know, just, which is good. Everybody's more cynical or skeptical than I am. So when I'm thinking about investments, like going back and forth and talking to them on that. So really kind of, you know, chief of staff is an overused role now.

You need help. You need help. This is a killer role for somebody. It's amazing. It's an amazing job. I would totally take this job if I wasn't employed. You need help. You just need help. This is a killer role for somebody. It's amazing. It's an amazing job for somebody. I would totally take this job if I wasn't employed. You need to spend 90% of your time being packy, right? Content, meetings, and all the stuff that you're not good at, off your plate.

Exactly. This is a great role for somebody. You're probably going to find this person on Twitter. I have this person. Oh, you have them? Yeah. That's awesome. Ah, okay.

I'm jealous. Congrats to this person. That's awesome. Ah, okay. I'm jealous. Congrats to this person. That's awesome. That's great. And then do you see them in person or it's not even necessary? Occasionally, but I don't think it's necessary. All right. The person who gets my, when I get to 200,000, somebody like gets me coffee and does my laundry

and all that kind of stuff. Like that person obviously has to be a person. What's their PFP? All right. Let's do a hard pivot. Bitcoin, Ethereum have fallen 50%. And unfortunately, this person you've hired is going to have to be let go. No, because I, listen, I wanted your, I've been waiting on this, but I want to hear your

take on, like, this is what it feels like to me from the outside looking in. I don't talk to as many crypto people as you and Michael do. I don't talk to as many crypto people as you and Michael do. My take is that they seem more nervous this time than previous price declines. But I might be making that up. We both just went like this. Okay. Not at all. No.

This one's been so funny to me because it's been prophesied for like a couple of years. And like everyone's been waiting for this. Just that there would be a crash. Oh no, no, no. We all know that there will be a crash, but this one didn't happen from an all-time high. Doesn't matter. I don't think it particularly,

I've been shocked on both the public market, kind of like growth tech stocks and in crypto, that none of it felt risky or like, you know, none of it felt like it was systemic or like the world was going to blow up. It just felt like some air was coming out, which is probably good. Well, the dollar losses are real. Like it may not feel risky, but like the risk has been realized so far. Totally. But then there's, I agree that they're not all selling. I think this depends on who you're following, I guess. But for the people that I follow,

nobody that I follow seems to be particularly nervous. If you've been in crypto for more than a minute, like, I don't know, this feels pretty normal and I'm not like a crypto OG by any stretch of the imagination. This does not feel like a big deal.

I personally have just been buying more ETH. Like it's, I was bummed with how much I had kind of coming like after it started spiking. And so instead of buying at the top, now we're back down. ETH drawdown is roughly the same as Bitcoins. Right about.

Give or take. It is kind of, I mean, it is a big move though. Like I started buying ETH probably in like 2020-ish. And I checked the other day, like, holy shit, I'm down like 20%. Not that I care. It's just interesting.

Like all of the gains and then some were ripped away. Yeah. John, do we have this head and shoulders Bitcoin chart? I don't love the one that you used, Josh. No, I know, but this is my very crude, and it's probably not even a real head and shoulders. Oh, no, it is.

It really is. Throw up the next one. This is from Investopedia, like the definition of head and shoulders. This is pretty good, okay? So the head and shoulders formation, it sounds silly, but there is some behavioral shit behind it. Basically, you go up, you crash, right? You make a new high, you crash again, and then you,

you struggle. You don't take out those previous highs and you fool everybody. Then they get trapped. Go back. So go back to my Bitcoin thing. Oh no, the next one, the next one, the next one, the next one, the next one. You made a better version of mine. Okay, go. Sorry, John. Sorry. So boom. Why is this better? Cause it? Because it looks exactly like the Investopedia one. It looks like my ass. It looks like, it's the Investopedia one. I know, but. It's candles.

It's pro. But like I focused in to like a more. I'm using candlesticks. No, no, no. All right, fine. Use Josh's one. Yeah, please. I can't even see what this is.

It's on a black screen with a glare on it. All right, so. Chart fight. Yeah, his chart's better. Well, no. My chart's obviously. Use fucking Google. My chart. Amateur. Yeah, his chart's better. Well, no. My chart's obviously- Use fucking Google, amateur. I did chart this on Google.

I typed in Bitcoin chart. And then I used paint, whatever, apples. Anyway, apples coming out. Go do your thing. My point here is the psychological thing that you're talking about, which is like, think about what that feels like if you wrote it the first crash and then you got a subsequently higher price.

Yeah, thank God, right? Right, you're like, yeah, I did it right. Told you. I did it right. Yeah. And then it falls again and that next rally- Fails. Doesn't take you back to that high.

That hurts. And then it's like, well, wait a minute. We're going back down again. Like I didn't, I didn't get my- Well, you like how I'm doing commentary over Josh's talk. This is so good. You guys have gotten better

since the last time I was in here. No, but I just, I feel like that, the head and I don't believe in pattern shit with technical analysis. I believe in trend, which is why I pay attention to it. This is the one pattern- It's real. That I have personally felt in so many markets and stocks, and I know it's real. You agree with

that too? 100%. This is the real shit, right? Yeah. So then the question is, well, what is a head and shoulders portend? Aha. I did the math. Change in trend. I did, but I did the math.

Okay, go. So the technicians would say, and this is of course all bullshit. No, I'm just kidding, JC. The technicians would say that there's like a measured move. So where the neckline is, basically the bottom of that range to the top is 22,000. So the price target would be 22,000 from the lows, which would take us down to like 23,000. To what though? What happens there? You're saying that's where buyers- That's like the measure. That's where the target is. I mean obviously who gives a crap you know but that's what they would say yeah or so that would be really bad 22 would be a third that'd be tough i think the funny thing about bitcoin more than you know a stock that you would have run into this with before is that it's

all trading on belief so i don't know i'm not a technical trader or chartist, but I would imagine that charting works better in crypto than it does with equities. Well, no, it's not that it works better. It's that it's the only thing you can go by. Right. Yeah. If you're trading. By the way, Apple, massive beat, and it's up in the after hours. We'll see.

All right, goodness. Thank God. We can breathe. You have 15 minutes to get out. But no, but what's interesting is that from what I could tell, the holders, they never sell, right? The people that have been in bigger, they never sell. So the point is there's, but what's interesting is that this it's all leverage on wine, that it's all people that are, that are puking it up. But the lack of buyers is a little bit surprising. There's, I mean, I think the big money is actually waiting for what you're talking about. Like, I don't think it goes to zero. I

think it comes back, but you know, when I. But I'm kind of just averaging down, Anit, because I'm not a trader. But people who are that I talk to are like, just wait for $1,700. Just buy it at $1,700. And it's at $2,400 right now. And so I 100% believe that I'll continue to keep buying lower and also probably believe that in a couple of years, we're at $10K. And I don't care. So I'm thinking about it the same way that you are.

Unfortunately, I'm doing this in our index, but also on Robinhood, because it's open on the weekends. And I'm the same way. Like, and I feel like this is one of the weird things where with stocks, people do freak out. Even believers, right? They have a pain point where they say,

all right, I was wrong or I can't take it or whatever. With crypto, it seems like there's no number. Like absent, like zero, like there's no number. Like absent like zero, like there's no number. So Andreessen Horowitz raised a $4.3 billion crypto fund last week. Is that right? Or announced it or something. And the woman that used to work there, the crypto, what's her last name? Han? Katie Han. Yeah. Okay. She seems like a big deal. She's doing a billion dollar crypto. So these people are going to be investing in crypto related businesses, companies, startups, like does the price of Bitcoin and ETH not affect

anyone's enthusiasm for those startups? Is it too soon for people to give a shit really? Cause this thing could be 40,000 tomorrow. I like fully acknowledge, right? For sure. How does that, like, how do those conversations change or do they not change at all? So full disclosure, advisor to A16Z Crypto, that whole group there, not involved obviously in the fundraise.

And anyway, I haven't seen prices change actually in the early stage yet. Meaning like valuations for funding. Meaning valuations for Web3 companies. Right. The way that it often works is that they go out and they either raise equity with token warrants or they raise a SAFT. So there's something called a SAFE, which is what everybody raises on. Team Jack, by the way.

That's the token version. Yeah, Team Jack. Not Web3 people. I have no philosophy at all. And so like token prices are down, but I think everybody knew that they were crazy before. And I actually think there was a pretty – there was this like wide thing that you could almost like – you could drive a truck through where I think entrepreneurs just didn't want to say the numbers out loud that they'd have to raise that to get to where the price would pop to kind of once the token launched, just because the public will do crazy things with the tokens.

So there's a pretty easy way. You have to hold the tokens for years anyway, but if you somehow had liquid tokens after they launched the token, you can get a pop pretty easily, and that was a pretty wide delta. The underlying businesses, I think any serious investor was still looking at these like an actual business. And I don't think the early stage prices got too out of hand or really rely on Ethereum or Bitcoin. I guess the question is like, of course, these are actual businesses. these are actual businesses, but if you look at commodity price crashes, and then you look at the common stock prices of companies that let's say sell equipment to natural gas drillers or

build pipelines or are involved in LNG, liquid natural gas terminals or shipping, there are reverberations for the prices of these commodities rising or falling in those. And those are businesses. Those are physical, bro. This is digital shit. And then they say, and then like the analysts will say, oh, you don't have to worry about it because this company only does pipelines.

So they're not sensitive to the price of natural gas. And it's like, oh, then why is this MLP down 60% from its high? It's just totally unrelated. So that's why I'm curious about how that works. I think this is an interesting conversation. And maybe it's just lagging a little bit further, but happening in the private markets generally, right? So with the early stage non-crypto stuff that I'm doing,

I'm seeing the good companies still kind of raising at the same early stage valuations now that they were two weeks ago, even though those are actually probably clear comps to the public market versions of those companies. But I don't know, the debate on Twitter right now is whether VCs are saying, oh no, the pain is coming to the early stage just to drive down prices or whether they actually believe that. But so far, I have not seen that trickle down. I think you'll probably see bad companies have a harder time raising at higher valuations. But there's so much competition and so much cash for the very clearly good companies in the private markets that I still think those valuations are not going to get questioned.

Well, the thing with crypto is it is right now $1.5 trillion, like everything, which to me sounds very small. million dollars, like everything, which to me sounds very small. And I think everybody has their eye on the ball that I don't really care about today because in five years, it's going to be so much bigger than it is right now. But here's the thing. This is an opinion I formed during this 20 something years. The most important timeframe for pretty much everyone, whether they admit to it or not, is the past 12 months. Like you asked me like what timeframe affects most people's decisions the most in how they invest, how they think, are they bullish, are they bearish? It's whatever has just gone in the last year. Last three months obviously are important, but I think most people can see a little bit

beyond that. It's really tough to see beyond the last year emotionally. Well, here's the thing. really tough to see beyond the last year emotionally. Well, here's the thing. Bitcoin has just wiped out all of the gains of 2021, which was a great, a great year for crypto, everything. The NASDAQ hasn't, but it's like, it's frightening too. It's down year over year. No, but all of 21 games. I don't, I don't know. I don't know about that, but, but definitely a huge chunk of them because January of 21 was awesome for stocks.

Awesome for a lot of things. But so that one year period, now we're going to lap that. And now everyone's going to look at trailing 12 months, whatever. ETF, mutual fund, asset class, sector. So that now it's not like in a clear uptrend. Like even if you accept most people don't look at 200 day moving average of, you know, Bitcoin, they're going to look at like, how is this up or down over the last year? I just feel like the narrative gets a little bit tougher for money raising purposes. But maybe it doesn't because so much money has already been raised.

I think there's that. And I think there's this jealousy almost that people in crypto have for the people who stuck with it in 2017, 2018. There are people who stuck with it in crypto winter very recently who you can talk to and are no smarter than you or I, who are fabulously rich now because they just stuck with it and kept building and did the thing that they were passionate about. Now, to be fair, it was completely illiquid. They had no choice. But go on. There was no way to not stick with it if there were no buyers. No, but I mean, there were certainly, I'm talking, you know, often about kind of the entrepreneurs and the

people building in the space who could have gone back and just built non-crypto stuff, but I think were actually the true believers. So there's that piece that you've just seen very recently, the people who just kind of stuck it out are now worth a lot of money for doing so. There's the other piece, which is, you know, a lot of the people building in the space and a lot of people investing in the space are not doing it, at least on the venture side, not doing it speculatively, but doing it because they believe that crypto enables you to do stuff that you couldn't otherwise do. So the business that I'm writing about on Monday, I actually think is a really good

example. When are we releasing this? Tomorrow. Tomorrow. I won't say the name, but as a marketplace business that I think is a really good kind of on-ramp explainer of how kind of Web3 can tackle some of the Web2 incumbents. And it allows you to have a lower take rate, to align incentives, to do all these things that are actually just, I read a Bill Gurley post from

2013, exactly what you'd want to do in a marketplace. And this just actually lets you do it without losing money and without having shareholders eventually being like, all right, you need to jack that take rate up and then losing people out of the system. So the people that come across this project are not necessarily judging the amount of money they should put into it or the amount of time they should invest in it

based on Bitcoin's price over the last few months. They're thinking, will this actually let me suck up as much of the supply and demand in this market as humanly possible? And what does this look like if that's the case? And I think that's true in a lot of different areas. And there's going to be some NFT projects that go to zero, although NFTs have held up surprisingly well. That part shocks me.

So just an aside, I keep hearing the same term being used specifically for crypto NFT. What, utility? No, Bitcoin winter, NFT winter. Why are these people so dramatic? We just have bear markets. I wouldn't call this a NASDAQ winter right now. What's with the winter thing? Well, they have these kind of four-year cycle, and it's a very short amount of time, these kind of four-year cycles in crypto.

And to your point, the last one lasted years. So if you look back 12 months from 2019, things were brutal the year before and then a little bit brutal in that year previous. And so I think they're called the winters just because they're these very long periods where in equities, people are still going to work at these companies and build it and using their products. There was like no, no activity. An NFT winter that lasts four years. I don't know if that's survivable for most existing NFTs. Like I'm sure the people stuff will come back and that probably the apes, but like that might be it.

I don't think we're going to have a four year NFT winter. Let's talk about, I know we said macro is bullshit. I just, just want, if you have an opinion, just real quick, because I want to move on. Bitcoin and inflation. I wrote a post that like, how is this an inflation hedge with when it's down 50%, second 50% crash in the last 24 months or whatever, and a 50% draw. Okay. Anyway, so the pushback that I got, and this was like, I thought this was fair, was that Bitcoin ran in anticipation of the inflation and do you want better? And I don't know about that, but fine. Let's give it to them. This chart is interesting. John, throw up this chart. So this is showing the break-evens. So inflation expectation, next chart, the inflation

expectations versus the price of Bitcoin. And they're directionally pretty damn similar. Now, I guess my pushback to this would be, well, fine, but break-evens don't exactly predict inflation very well either. So do you have any opinion on this, Paki? You never believed in this as an inflation hedge anyway. I never believed in this. It's not my shtick. That's not my thing. The 21 million Bitcoins only thing isn't my thing.

I think the interesting thing is that there will only be 21 million Bitcoin, but there will be many multiples of that, Satoshis. But then there will also be ETH and there will be Sol and there'll be NFTs and there'll be, so I think it's, you know, if, if Bitcoin was the only crypto that was ever created and there are only 21 million of them, like maybe interesting as an inflation hedge. I don't know. I think that there's been enough interest away from Bitcoin that it's, it's. We have an abundance of that scarcity. Exactly.

Few, few. So let's move on. So we're good. Real quick though. Rest in peace Diem. Facebook is going to abandon its plans to do its own digital currency. You have a take on that? I have no take on that.

I actually like that they tried it. You know, they brought a bunch of smart people and companies together and then it all kind of fell apart over time. Congress was like, yeah, I fucking dare you. yeah i mean i mean i think that's a bigger a more interesting point broadly it's like you know what happens in crypto is is largely dependent on what the sec decides to enforce from its from its rulebook and like facebook doing something with money is like very clearly something that congress sec was gonna go you go, you know, like that is a movie.

That is a huge target. To me, that speaks to Zuckerberg's judgment. How could he not know that? He's so smart. Is he so out of touch with what people think of him that he would think there's even a chance that Facebook could launch its own money. And that,

and that like nobody would say anything to me. That's why that consortium, maybe that was a part of it. And you bring in like likable people like Stripe, uh, who is, who was involved for a little while. And I think the card companies, at least one or two of the card companies were, were involved. So, you know, it's true. They still sold for $200 million to, to sell. Okay.

That's not nothing. Like what did they actually sell? That's, that's a lot of money. I think patents, I think they were like legitimately That's a lot of money. I think patents. I think they were like legitimately creating like real stuff. Oh, a hundred percent. They had a really, really smart people on that team who have now gone on to a bunch of other places, but a really good team building there.

The IMF begging El Salvador to stop buying Bitcoin. So El Salvador needs like a $10 billion loan and like no one's obviously going to give them it, but the IMF, like, which is what it exists for. And they're like vocally being like, no, no, no. You cannot continue to buy Bitcoin and get money from us. So, Paki, are you not seeing valuations cool off even a little bit? Outside of crypto for the stuff that you're seeing, are we seeing any sort of ripple effect yet?

Because public growth are getting squished and these are companies that were private a year ago. And worth more than they're worth now. Oh, for sure. I think growth stage stuff is maybe taking hit. I think there's, you know, probably a lot of the stuff that I'm seeing priced a couple of weeks ago and signed a term sheet or priced a week ago and signed a term sheet. So that hasn't quite rippled, but I do think that growth is, is taking hit early stage is still, you know, if you're in the $15 million post money or $25 million post money, it doesn't really matter. Obviously your returns are two times better, but it doesn't really matter. I was saying this to Josh before you got here that I suspect similar to what you just said that

the series E right, that's going to get marked down. But Seed, probably A, that's years away, is probably not going to be impacted. Totally. And there's just so much. I mean, just like doing rough math in your head, right? Like even if you get to a billion from 25, you're looking at a 40X. Like that's awesome. So you're a buyer, right? As an investor,

you're basically a buyer. Isn't this better in the long run? Even if like you did a bunch of deals last year or whatever, like let's say you're a venture capital fund, you did a bunch of deals last year. Maybe this pushes out the exit or maybe it changes the dynamics in an industry such that you'll never see the multiple you thought. Okay, fine. But if you're continuing to invest, maybe you're having more constructive meetings with founders who aren't like, I need a decision right now. And by the way, the valuation is based on whatever number I came up with in the shower. The IPO market wasn't like particularly great for tech companies in the past year anyway. Like I don't think that people were pricing it on some expectation that you'd get to the public markets at the same multiples that you're at now.

I think the- Yeah, but it's so violently compressed now. Violently compressed. So obviously, particularly late stage again. If you're a buyer, that's like good, I feel like. If you're a buyer, that's, I mean, certainly if you can get the same asset for half the price. Well, it depends.

And if that asset, I mean, I think the other thing is if you can prevent a bunch of like shittier versions of companies being built and shittier competitors being built, the biggest problem right now for any startup is getting really, really, really good talent because it's so competitive and there's so much money. If that talent actually like congeals in a few of the kind of more promising early stage companies, like that could be a really good thing for whoever gets into those. And obviously, yeah, lower prices are – Oh, that's a great point. In other words, it might have seemed lower risk to just join any startup, any old startup, no matter what stage they were at because of how great the valuations were and how much money – If that slows down, the talent might say, you know what? The smarter thing for me to do is to join this other firm that's got a lot of talent already and not necessarily try to do this thing on my own in the wilderness. Or founders of maybe that second tier of company might see that like, oh, maybe I can't get a $50 million valuation to pre-seed right now.

I'll go work for my friend who I'll admit is definitely smarter than me and better than me at this. I'll go be their first engineering hire or X, Y, and Z. So maybe fewer companies helps there a little bit. That said, I mean, entrepreneurs are going to build. And so we'll see how long that lasts. But I do think that'll help a little bit. Yeah, even like, let's say we do, like I think the NASDAQ will have a bear market this year.

If like, we're very close anyway. It's not that big of a deal. Apple just saved us, by the way. Temporarily. But even if I end up being right, some of the best startup stories that ultimately became multi-billion dollar companies began in bear markets for tech and for- A lot of them. Uber and Airbnb, I think, are class of 09. Is that right?

That sounds right. So that is as bad of an environment as you can imagine outside of 0203 for a startup. Like just nobody's taking any risk ever again. And in that moment, somebody did. And it doesn't take long for these things to all of a sudden get momentum when there's a recovery. So I don't think it's all bad. And I remember – I mean those were the places to work, right? Like I remember, I think my wife interviewed it at Uber and like, I remember a lot of people leaving finance or

whatever else and going to Uber and going to this handful of companies. And so I think that's a little bit of what I'm talking about. Maybe you see now, like if you told me where you go work now in the early stages, like Uber was probably series A when that happened, or maybe even a little bit earlier. Everybody runs to Stripe right now. Yeah, well, that's the obvious one. But it's hard to say that is the early stage company to go work for right now and maybe a little bit more compression there.

Let me ask you guys this. Do you have any opinion on what interest rate impact, how interest rates might impact private markets if and when we get some rate hikes? It feels like that's a little bit priced into all of this as well. Well, none of them are borrowing money from the bank. But that's not the point.

It is a- Their investors might be. It's just the cost of money. It's the cost of money. Yeah. It's how much future growth you're getting credit for right now. Nobody is saying, hmm, should I invest in this pre-seed or by the 10-year? Nobody's doing that, but that doesn't matter because it's still the cost of money.

No, right. It affects the discount rate that you're willing to use on whenever there might eventually Should I invest in this pre-seed or by the 10-year? Nobody's doing that, but that doesn't matter because it's still the cost of money. Right. It affects the discount rate that you're willing to use on whenever there might eventually be earnings. You're thinking about an earnings stream that might be 20 years from now or 30 years from now. It absolutely affects what you're willing to pay for that today. I wanted to ask you about Coinbase and MasterCard. Does this defeat the purpose of crypto? No. Hold on. Let me set it up for the audience. They haven't read this.

It was ironic to me. I remember laughing when the big gold miners were making so much money, they started paying dividends in US dollars to their investors. And I'm like, wait a minute, I don't feel like their investors want US dollars. I feel like they want gold. All right. Coinbase partnership with MasterCard aimed toward mitigating the barriers to entry for novel NFT enthusiasts to the somewhat technical world of digital collectibles that require a base level knowledge of using crypto wallets. We need this and storing NFTs. All right. So buying, buying an NFT for most people is annoying. On the weekend, I can't buy NFTs. If I don't just ETH lying around with,

sorry, I don't have my MetaMask wallet. So you set up a MetaMask wallet, then you have to move ETH out of your Coinbase and then you have to buy the thing. So it's not a great experience. It's not meant to be. I would totally buy- This is for nerds, but now MasterCard's like,

oh, how about this? Just put your credit card in. I would totally buy the NFT. I would totally buy NFTs is for nerds, but now MasterCard's like, oh, how about this? Just put your credit card in. I would totally buy you the NFT. I would totally buy NFTs with my credit card. All right. So, but this is like cheating. So I think. It opens it up to a lot of people. It opens it up to a lot of people. And you know, the fact that you can now get a digital thing that you own and can transfer to another wallet, like that's, I guess, progress on the decentralization and Web3 front. If you pay for it in fiat, awesome.

You're just bringing more. No, no, no. How did we get here? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not the thing. The thing is the decentralization. Who gives a shit? Always trends towards centralization because if the NFT buyers say, oh, this is so easy

to do with MasterCard from now on. This is just what I do. Dude, 99% of people are not libertarians, right? So I don't think that we're all decentralization zealots. But how did we get to a point- Then just sell NFTs on fucking Amazon then. I just said I would totally buy an NFT with my credit card. Punch me in the head.

Then just do it on eBay. Then just put the NFT on eBay then. And let's stop all the MetaMask nonsense. That's Web2. That's where we're going. Boomer. That's Web2. Exactly. Web2 is easier to buy shit than Web 2. That's where we're going. Boomer. That's Web 2. Exactly.

Web 2 is easier to buy shit than Web 3. That's all I'm saying. 100%. I'm not going to live forever. I don't have that much time. The argument here is that if you make the on-ramp easier, I mean, the best example, we have a big NBA Top Shots guy over here. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Not anymore.

Huge NBA Top Shots guy over here. He doesn't introduce himself that way anymore. Hey, Michael Batnick, big NBA Top Shot guy. But I mean, the number of people that you hear building in the NFT space now and building like really like decentralized, maximally decentralized NFT products that do all sorts of crazy NFT and DeFi combination stuff, they started buying NBA Top Shots, which is a fairly centralized experience. Dapper Labs and Flow itself,

that chain will get more and more decentralized over time. We'll give people options to start centralized and then move decentralized. Flow is a chain invented by Dapper Labs, so the seller had its own blockchain. Actually, when I bought my first Top Shot, which was my first NFT, I DM'd you, and I told you, and you were like,

I can't believe I'm your forward to all things that you're going to lose money with. I love it. Or I hate it. I can't remember what you said. Exactly. He reminded you. I told you I'm an idiot, right? But that's the point.

I mean, I think if you can give people a menu of different levels of decentralization and ways to access a space, that's a great thing. And then over time, the people who want full decentralization can send that to their MetaMask wallet. They can do all sorts of stuff in the totally decentralized way, or they just like this digital thing. They want to participate. And so they keep it in their Coinbase wallet and a centralized exchange and they paid for it in MasterCard and that's totally fine. Paki, you'll appreciate this. I was very skeptical of the fact that NFTs would onboard people into crypto. And this is an anecdote of one, okay? So whatever. Oh, I think it will. But my friend, like three weeks ago,

who's been like texting me about NFTs here and there, not that I know anything, obviously, but just like whatever. He bought a doodle. He split a doodle with his friend and he had never owned crypto or anything. And that was his first foray. What made him do it? To make money or because he really liked the thing he was buying owned crypto or anything. And that was his first foray. What made him do it? To make money?

Or because he really liked the thing he was buying? To make money. So he's, okay. So it's just another outlet to speculate. His brother-in-laws are messing around and they've been doing it for a while. And they finally convinced him to buy one. He's like, I want to buy a blue chip one.

So, I mean, that's an expensive project. And he had never bought ETH before. See, and so then he understands what it's like to buy ETH. He has his first doodle. You join the community. You get to see other people with the profile. That part's all fun. And he can either choose to leave it there or he can choose to keep going and try new things. What I think is super interesting is that I'm now seeing projects that are using NFTs to represent a piece of land on which people are going to grow trees to pull carbon out of the air and get carbon offsets for doing that. And so NFTs, which started very much as like,

you know, CryptoKitties and then profile projects are now just like the technology of a non-fungible token is being used for all sorts of things. So that to me, like if you look at a snapshot of any of this, it looks absolutely silly. And if you look at a snapshot of any of this, it looks absolutely silly. And if you look at a snapshot of like, oh, cool, yeah, this is the end point that everybody's buying NFTs

on Coinbase with MasterCard, then what the hell was the point? But if you look at it as this march towards people experimenting and trying new things and building on those things and some people coming into the space and going more decentralized and some not, I think over time you'll wake up in a decade and it won't be called Web3,

probably won't be called NFTs, and all these things will have just been normalized and they'll be used where they're useful and they won't where they're not. What's the market cap of NFTs? $30 billion I think I saw recently? Does that sound about right? That sounds ballpark, right? The further these things push into the real

carbon-based world, the more likely it is that they'll be held up against the Howey test and regulators will say, all right, what you're doing actually is not decentralized or digital at all. You just came up with a way to pay for something that in the real world we would consider to be a security. So that's like a consideration. It depends on the asset for sure. People talk about, you know, if you fractionalize an NFT, then it like certainly runs into the Howey test

and all of that. But there are other things where it's just like, how, if you're spending, if people are spending 50% more of their time digitally, what do you do to let them own the things that they use and interact with digitally? And an NFT at the base, without the speculation piece attached to it

is just that token that you attach to a digital thing to say, somebody owns this, this is scarce. Here's the provenance of that thing. And so I think NFTs from that perspective will, you know, grow in a, in a pretty huge way because we'll want to own the things that we use in the space that we spend most of our time, whether that's immersive or not immersive or whatever else, like just being online all the time, we'll want to own those, you that's immersive or not immersive or whatever else, like just being online all the time, we want to own those things. And I think it'll go into like, people's code will be backed by an NFT

and all sorts of like little things will happen that again, we wake up in a decade and it's just second nature that you're doing this track. I think that's mostly right. And then the question just becomes like, what are the benefits of ownership of all of these things? And that's the part that there'll be some things where it turns out, wow, that was really smart. So-and-so bought this NFT, whatever. However they bought it is not the thing. It's that they had the foresight to say,

I don't want to just use this service. I want to own a piece of it. Some of that will turn out to be really prescient. Obviously not all of it, but that's the same as in regular securities markets. So it's not going to be materially different. Like 10% of things will look great, let's say. 100%. And then there will be things that look like good on the margin or like look like okay, but in aggregate look great. Like think about open source software. There's a bunch of people contributing the code.

It might not make any sense to track down the guy who wrote the code months ago when it's used in this other project. But if that code is backed by an NFT and there's a smart contract that just pays out, you know, a couple of cents and we're not paying $400 or whatever in gas fees. Look at Linux and how many people contributed to that over the years. And then Red Hat finds a way to put a great wrapper around it. And did they sell to IBM? Right. I think so. I think so. Yeah. Red Hat finds a way to put a great wrapper around it. And did they sell to IBM? Red Hat? I think so. I think so, yeah.

Right. Now, imagine there were a scenario where some of the early people working on Linux were in the late 90s, had some version of a royalty contract on at least their contribution to that code. And that when Red Hat came about, because there still should be a Red Hat, there should be somebody that makes it easier to work with that. That's the equivalent of MasterCard letting you swipe to buy an NFT.

It's the Red Hat version. You know, that person then has to pay, you know, has to use Linux tokens. And then the value of the Linux tokens that everybody else who contributed to the project hold get more valuable because Red Hat built on top. And as they use more and more resources from the underlying protocol, they all kind of grow together. That's the whole kind of hypothesis.

What do you think is the closest, like people talk about real world application, how close do you think DeFi is to like penetrating into like where somebody normal who doesn't sit in front of a screen 24 seven can like begin to understand? Yeah. So this is going to be a bag pump corner a little bit, but you know, a company called meow that, that I invested in is meow. It's, it's the, the idea, O W M E O W. I don't know why, but I'm in now. So Duncan, how much you want to put in? I'll put down 10% of that net worth. 10% of your net worth.

And so now instead of 0% in your bank account, you'll be earning 4%. But the idea is, so if you're familiar with BlockFi, think BlockFi, but for corporate treasury, right? So like if you're a CFO of a company, you have $100 million on the balance sheet. X is sitting in your bank account making almost zero money. You take a portion of that. You put it in Meow. They'll help you earn up to 4% now, maybe more later. If you go with kind of crazier DeFi stuff,

you can move your risk curve. You're putting US dollars in, you're choosing an interest rate and a level of risk, and then you're getting interest back out in USD. And then there's a bunch of DeFi stuff happening. So Meow is not a token, it's a service? Yeah. So not everything is tokenized here.

Meow would just be a service that makes it easy. What are they doing? They're taking that cash and they are putting it into staking things and then spitting the money back out at you? So for now, it's kind of just crypto lending over time. They'll plug into more kind of DeFi protocols, maybe let you stake and do all sorts of stuff. And they're doing that on your behalf? They're doing that on your behalf. So they're a broker in this scenario, right?

Or no? They're not. I know they don't call themselves that. Yeah, they're not. And they can't do some things that brokers would do. Like if they went through other platforms, they couldn't actually get paid for it. So they don't do things that brokers would do. But they have a bunch of, I mean, they launch.

You're an investor in this? All the name brands are on here. Coinbase, Lux, Jump Capital, Castle Island, Slow, Gemini. Not boring. Oh, there's Gemini too. That's all their investors. The team came from Gemini, so they're

like hardcore crypto engineers. But this is a part of a broader trend of, they call it like the DeFi mullet, where it's just like a very clean fintech looking thing in the front and then all this DeFi stuff happening in the back. I think, you know, meow is one of my biggest- But that's the right approach because we're asking like about real world application, like the CFO of a company doesn't want to screw around with code.

Yeah. We don't want bill suite yield farming. Right. Right. Our CFO. So, so we're sitting on X dollars as a, as a company. Right. And we know we have to pay out some of that and some of that we don't, it'll just sit there. So if we just say to ourselves, okay, we're cash managing this, but it's hilarious. It's like, do you want two basis points or one? And then we could take like a percentage of that, turn it over to meow. And then Meow will say, okay, here is the interest rate that we can earn you based on whatever you told us. So the inspiration behind this was what, Super Troopers?

Exactly. So the inspiration behind it, it's funny. I had Brandon, the CEO, on my podcast, and that was the first question I asked him. And his point was like, look, we want something friendly. We don't think the future of all this stuff belongs to something called like BitBlock or like there's just these very, like you're naming the thing that you're doing kind of names in crypto right now.

So Meow is superior to Woof because dog has a bad connotation in investments. Woof would be tough. Maybe Bark. I actually saw a company that does this, but it's not B2B. I guess it's more B2C called Donut App. Have you seen that one? Yeah. Looks like they're doing something similar, but for

regular people. Yeah, and I think Chime or Current started offering crypto yields for people. We met that guy. Love that dude. We had dinner with that guy, with Dan. Oh, Dan was telling me he met him, yeah. Yeah, that guy's a lunatic. We love him. We absolutely love this guy.

You got to call that guy up again. All right, I want to go back to Robinhood briefly. Not about earnings, which seem to have been- Wait, can we talk about Apple for one second? Yeah. So Apple, like all kidding aside, just reported $123 billion in revenue for the quarter. Sick. I mean, it's the Christmas quarter.

It should be. So what? I mean, yeah, fine. It's up 5% in the after hours. Who cares about that? But they did $123 billion in 2011, the entire year, which was an astounding number. Think about where the stock was then. It was on fire. Yeah.

$123 billion. It's almost as though the stock price should have gone up since then. Irrelevant what the Fed did or not, or index funds or whatever people are saying is the reason Apple is where it is. So just like for comparison, freaking Facebook and Target both did a hundred billion over the last 12 months. And Apple did 123 over the last three months.

Apple's doing that every 90 days. It's unbelievable. Yeah. So my dumbest take on Twitter was that Apple won't be a top 10 market cap company. Let's go right to that. Why are you doing that? Why are you saying that?

You stupid son of a bitch. You might be right, but still. John, throw up this chart. So I might have to – I'm unsubscribing now that you told me this. I'm going to write this one up. Wait, time out. Your take is that what?

Be very specific because I'm going to have Kalshi put this bet up actually. It'll be a 10-year bet. Oh. We're going to do this. I like that. Apple will not be a top 10 market cap company? By – Do you think it will still be a top 10 by revenue?

That's a good question. I thought about this for three seconds when I tweeted it. It doesn't matter. Let's go market cap. I mean, who knows? Let's go market cap. I think that's – I mean, that's what I tweeted it. It doesn't matter. Let's go market cap. I mean, who knows? Let's go market cap. I think that's what I tweeted, so let's stick with the original. There's a couple of different things.

One is the chart that we have up right here, which is that the top 10 turns over all the time. Apple's been there for- This is a chart of the top 10 companies by market cap from 1965 to 2010 in five-year intervals. by market cap every 1965 to 2010 in five-year intervals and there's very little repetition companies that continue to stay on that list obviously and the 1960 class is hilarious because that's a good class eastman kodak and sears are in that class um so okay we know this this is just like this is just like uh this is just like a natural.

So there's that the, the, and this was like, that was kind of my backup point. The real thing was like, and this is, I doubt I'll be able to write 10,000 words on this point, but like, it just does little shitty things like that. Everyone believes that, you know, Apple degrades their phones when the new phones coming out. That's obviously not true, but it's a conspiracy theory. That's believable. Cause they just like do, but it's a conspiracy theory that's believable because they just do these little things. They said that about Sony.

They charge you with all the dongles and whatever, the way that they treat. This is not like a- It's below my line. Yeah, this is not a moral argument or anything else, but just the fact that they charge developers 30%, there's just enough little things like this that pop up that I think one of those cracks

for a company that is so dependent on brand, I think enough of those cracks and a decade is a long time, just grow over the next decade. Somebody has to come along that is as high quality as Apple and not looking to make as much money as they are. I know.

I know. Who is that going to be? I know. Realistically. I'm not saying it's impossible. No, it would have to be a Chinese company that somehow gets itself into the hands of us consumers without our government having a huge problem with it.

But like, look what went on with Tik TOK at the end of Trump's presidency. It was such an easy pinata for him to just turn around and beat on when he needed to. So what Chinese, like what Chinese company even could do that? It's hard to imagine. It's all hard to imagine. It's also crazy that in the year of our 2022, the most valuable company in the world is a hardware company like that. That also, you know, there's just like enough. I'm going to be wrong. I'm sure about this.

But there's enough little things that don't make sense. I think one is just like the slight antagonism of the consumer for a company that's all about like building great products for consumers. People love, but like people love, there's not as much antagonism as maybe you would expect there to be. People fucking love their apple stuff i'm tweeting this from my iphone i have my mac here so like i understand the hypocrisy of all of this it just feels like every year you move further away from steve jobs you like try to squeeze out a little bit of extra margin somewhere and like over time those things compound so whether it's by 2030 or 2040 those that I think will be the reason that Apple's

It's just a spicy take. But I didn't even mean it to be. But you tweeted my spiciest take. There's just enough things that annoy me about the products even though I continue to buy them. The AirPods had nothing to do with Steve Jobs and they are awesome. I love my AirPods. Although they...

The connection is... Once in a while. They don't have the best sound as someone who deals with a lot of podcasts where people are recording on them. No, they... Oh, stop. The connection is... Once in a while. No, you got pissed. They don't have the best sound. As someone who deals with a lot of podcasts where people are recording on. They don't have as good sound compared to something else that's wired or something else that's wireless. No, the donker means the mic. Yeah, I would argue that a lot of wired ones that have the mic down on the cord are better.

Of course, because it's on the wire. You know what? I agree with that. The big over-ear Apple headphones I've heard are amazing. Those exist? I never, what, Beats? No, no, no. They have their own $600 over-ear headphones

that everybody says are incredible. I've never seen those. Where do they sell those? I'm sure on Apple.com. Really? Yeah. I've seen them selling Sennheiser stuff or something. Oh, no, no, no.

They have their own that, yeah, these. Let me see. Oh, whoa. Wait, what? They have their own that, yeah, these. Let me see. Oh, whoa. Wait, what? They're beautiful. Apple makes great products. It's probably a dumb take. I never saw these before.

$550. Oh. No, dude, it's not five. It's 91 a month. Oh, that's it? For six months. No interest. 91 a month for nine years because you're going to upgrade everything.

I mean, think about how much you wear your headphones, all right? Yeah. Amortize that over every much you wear your headphones, all right? Yeah. Do you advertise that every minute you wear your headphones? Today, I went to Best Buy to grab a cord for my charger. They don't have any. They don't have these ones. They don't have these ones. They are out.

Of what? Chargers. Oh, really? I said you have to be kidding me. Did you go to Apple Store? I went to Best Buy. Yeah, but I'm asking why didn't you do – that's a Mac. Go to Apple Store. Where's the Apple Store? It doesn't matter. My points are but I'm asking why didn't you do... That's a Mac. Go to Apple Store.

Where's the Apple Store? It doesn't matter. My point is supply chain. It's unbelievable. On Northern Boulevard? I'm in the city. We're in the city. Oh, there's no Apple Stores

in Manhattan? There's one at Grand Central, right? Grand Central. My point is I'm just talking about supply chains. The fact that Best Buy doesn't have any Apple chargers is insane.

Joe Biden should really be ashamed of himself. I have to say. I want to do this thing on Robinhood. One year after GameStop, they put out a letter on their blog. When? I'm glad you're in the doc. One year ago on January 28th, 2021, a new generation turned the act of investing into a mass movement that revealed the power of individual investors. That's a fact. True. That extraordinary market activity led our clearing broker to place temporary restrictions on certain securities. And Dave Portnoy almost got me

arrested. Wait a minute. Why doesn't Citadel buy Robinhood? Yeah. Cut out the – buy the middleman. Yeah. That would be a little too on the nose. If they wanted to, they could though. It's very cheap. So basically what they're talking about here is how their net capital position has greatly improved since then. As of the end of 21, Robinhood Securities net cap, $2.8 billion. 21 times what is required by the SEC, putting us in the ranks of the largest brokerage firm.

All right, so now the company's worth $10 billion and its net cap is $3 billion. So you could actually buy that company for $7 billion right now if you think about it. No, I don't think that's – they're not saying that they have that on the balance sheet. Yes, they are. Yes, they are. As somebody who worked at small broker-dealers for many years, net cap violations could literally put you out of business. Not Robinhood, apparently, but anyone else that dared have a net cap violation. Who's the buyer?

Deutsche Bank. Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think you can buy it. Maybe Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley could buy it. SoFi? They're not big enough? They're not big enough. I don't think. Just bar money. Goldman would be interesting. Yeah, Goldman's doing a lot of tech

stuff. And they're doing it well. Yeah. Goldman could do it because Goldman is, I don't think, afraid reputationally after what they've already lived through. I almost think they'll have a week of press and then whatever we own Robin hood.

So it's about to be bigger than Robin hood at the open. Do you think like the squid thing is even a, no, nobody cares about that anymore. No. The people that care are 58 years old. Yeah. That was 2011.

Yeah. I mean, that was a long time ago. Yeah. I think they could do it. I think Morgan Stanley could do it too. Potentially. Um,

they bought E trade. I wouldn't be shocked. it too, potentially. They bought E-Trade. I wouldn't be shocked. Anyway, I thought it was interesting that a whole year has gone by. Anything else worth mentioning there? Not really? Okay. I am just, I'm truly stunned. Like, honestly stunned that Robinhood is down 85%.

And not just Robinhood. Like, if you looked at all of these names that are down 70, 85%, and that's all you saw, you would think that we're in like a violent recession. It's unbelievable that this is happening. It really is. And it's not isolated. There's tons of names. I got I got corrected by Lizanne Sanders on the air yesterday. I said something that was true, but I missed the bigger point.

And she I think she she had a little gleam in her eye correcting me. But basically, I was making the point that like last year was the really aberrant year. Like this year, I don't want to say it's a normal year because it's only January. Last year, the S&P did 30%. And the deepest pullback was 5.7%. What did she correct you on? She's like, okay, but Josh, the average stock was down like 19% at some point last year, which is pretty damn near a bear market.

The average stock is always down 19%, I feel like. But just making the point that, yes, if you own the SPY, then it was a very strange year. But if you owned individual stocks, you had tons of volatility. And that's definitely true. So shout out to Lizanne. She's right. I should have of volatility. And that's definitely true. So shout out to Lizanne. She's right. I was,

I should have brought that up. Last, last thing before we do favorites. Did you see this asshole from Connecticut who was throwing, he's a stockbroker. I guess he's a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch. Not anymore. Who was throwing smoothies at people.

Did you see any of this? No. You missed this whole thing. Did you see it? I did not. I did not watch a video. I saw all the news. Duncan, please tell me somebody in this room has seen this. Well, you, you of this? No. You missed this whole thing? Did you see it? I did not watch the video. I saw all the news. Duncan, please tell me somebody in this room has seen this.

Well, you told me about it. But so you did or I just told you? No, I haven't seen it. You just told me about it. John, my last hope. Wait, so did you make up the story about the smoothie broker? John saw it, but John doesn't have a mic. So let me tell a story.

There's this guy. I know this guy. I don't know him personally, but I just know him. Okay? Because he's 48 and he's a Merrill Lynch lifer. He started there in 1995 and he managed, he's a financial advisor and he goes to Robex in, I don't know if it's like Stanford or Fairfield, Connecticut.

You know where, John, where was it? Somewhere in Connecticut, somewhere in like rich person, Connecticut. And he walks in the door and he starts screaming at these two teenage girls that work there. And they're filming him on tech and they end up posting it to TikTok.

But they're like filming him and he's cursing them out. Who made this drink? Like, I'm gonna kill you, literally. And then they start like laughing at him and they're like, just get out. And he takes the smoothie and throws it at this girl. And it's all over her in the video.

It's like, it's ridiculous. Anyway, they uploaded to TikTok within like two hours, Merrill Lynch announces that he's fired. This guy's been there for like 30 years and his life is wrecked. And then his lawyer comes out. He gets, oh, he gets arrested. He turns himself in and they book him. And then his lawyer's like, hold on. He specifically asked for no peanut butter in the smoothie. His son has an allergy and went into anaphylactic shock and was taken to the hospital because they put peanut butter in the drink so this guy was beside himself with rage um and fear because his like son almost died from this drink and one of

these girls made this drink so at first i was i wanted to be like oh this guy should get the death penalty you know just seeing the tiktok video which is very triggering if you see it because he like called him an immigrant or something. He ends up calling one of the girls an immigrant loser, which probably was the last straw for Meryl because that's racist. But still, when you hear his side of the story, that like one of these girls might have almost killed his kid, you're kind of like, maybe I hope he opens an RAA or gets another job.

Like I hope his life isn't completely ruined. It is crazy when that happens. Like obviously a horrible thing. But then, okay, his like life and his family's life is like how does he like put food on the table? He lives in like a $3 million house. That's gone. Like he has no income now. Like forever? Well, for the foreseeable future, he's untouchable.

Who could hire him? That data will 100% be written about by the Wall Street Journal or somebody. Unhireable. Yeah, unhireable. It's just a sad story. I haven't seen the video. I mean, it's shitty that he did it. It's probably good that there was like a proportionate response

and is ruining somebody's life on any of these for the rest of their life, the proportionate response. And not just his. His family. His family's. Well, of these for the rest of their life, the proportionate response. And not just his. He's can't. His family. His family's. Well, so that's the thing. Now his son, who went to the hospital. That actually happened.

Literally. I mean, unless they're lying, that would be like really bad if they're making this up. The son could not breathe. He said the wife tried two EpiPens on him and then finally they went to the emergency room. So if I were him, I would probably kick the door down in this store too. What's the calm way to respond to your child having their life threatened because somebody doesn't follow the –

I'm not saying that he should have acted that way, obviously. I'm just saying there's an explanation for it. It's not a good one, but it exists, right? And so like his poor wife and this is horrible. Now his kid is like me wanting that smoothie just cost my whole family. It's not good. Like nobody's winning here. You feel bad for the girls who work there,

who had to put up with this guy like threatening their lives. Obviously, did M merrill have a choice no no no if that person worked here they'd be gone what do they say we stand with him i mean they no well here's what they could have done they could have said we've investigated it we think it's horrendous we're putting this person on a six-month suspension forcing them to take anger management courses and cannot come back here until he's made a full act of contrition and written a check to a foundation or these teenage girls college. Or they could have done that. And I think the mob would have like moved on.

Yeah. But they did not do that. They basically. And I think it would have been better for everybody involved. The girls would have gotten college out of it. I agree. And he clearly has the money. So immigrant loser is the line where somebody in Merrill was like, nope.

Yeah. No way. Fair. Fair, which I totally understand. And I'm not saying that I disagree with how they handled it. Anyway, I think the big takeaway is that I put that link up and neither one of you guys watched the nine second. I read about it. I got it.

I don't have to watch. Oh, you should watch it now though. Did you see the Michael Rapaport video? Oh no. No. Oh, okay. I'm sure it was very calm.

Oh, with the shoplifter. Yeah. Yeah. I can't. Yeah. Don't throw that up. I can't,

I can't. What happened? What'd he do? He, he filmed someone shoplifting. Apparently they've decriminalized shoplifting in New York City under a certain threshold. And so people are just loading up grocery bags. Is this a CBS?

Yeah, a Rite Aid. What does that mean, decriminalized? So we saw it was working so well in San Francisco. And they were like, all right, let's do that here too. So what does that mean? Yeah, so literally people are just loading up grocery bags. And so he filmed someone loading up a grocery bag and walking out. And he's like shaming them.

And they just walk right by the security person out the door with like bags you could just steal now i don't understand going out in san francisco for you probably can't a homeless person or somebody with a criminal background who can't get a job or whatever can literally walk into a giant chain store in new york city fill up a bag with shit off the shelf, and nobody wants to do the paperwork. It's below their line. It's below. No, nobody is chasing this person down the street and handcuffing them.

It's just not going to happen. See, this is inflation. We don't have the manpower and the police. If you're a policeman, you're like, oh, yeah, wow, he got away with stuff from Rite Aid. Rite Aid, kiss my ass. I'm not appearing on somebody's cell phone video handcuffing this guy. I'm just not doing it. And it's a problem for the big cities.

They're going to become unlivable. I mean, I kind of agree with that, but then it's like the reverberations from that are horrible. Who wants to live like that? Hold on. Horrible. Who wants to live like that? Hold on. I'm not going to use any names, but do you remember walking down the street this summer with somebody who bought weed off a folding table in front of three policemen?

Yes. Okay. Was that not shocking to you at the time? Yes. Okay. What if I told you that that just goes on now all over Manhattan? Oh, it does go on now. Nobody gives a shit.

Well, it does go on now. Yeah. So if you see it three times, four times, you won't be shocked. Well, there's a big difference between buying weed on the street and literally taking something out of a store without paying. You know who we need as mayor again? De Blasio. Giuliani. Oh, yeah.

We need to bring back broken windows. Oh, yeah. I'm kidding. I think the new guy wants to focus on having people not get shot. Totally. And so this will probably continue because I don't think mayor Adams got elected cause he wants to crack down on shoplifting. I think we have an emergency.

We had five cops murdered this year. It's January. It's today. 20. What's today? 27th. Today's January 27th. There are five NYPD officers shot dead since,

since the year began. So no one's going after shoplifters next week either. We have like real issues. Anyway, I don't know how we got here. That one, the subway pushing is the other one that, if we can stop that as well, that's terrifying. So he's been riding the subways. Like he's going to the funeral.

He's doing the things. So we'll see what happens. Let's do favor, on that note. My God. On that note. Let's do favorites. On that note. My God. On that note, let's do favorites. Who's more likely to stage a turnaround, Julius Randle or Cathie Wood? I cannot stand the New York Knicks. I am so disgusted.

It's just awful. So this is your unfavorite. I felt guilty when we went to the game and I was young at Julius with the towel over his head. You were out of control though that night. We were close to him. I legitimately felt bad the next morning but I can't take it. You were out of control and those were a smoothie, Adam?

No, stop. We were sitting in Dave's seats and you were squeaking. You were like, boom! Hold on, we just lost to the Timberwolves. It was a horrible blown lead, and then we lost to the Pelicans. We got blown out at home to the Pelicans. Yeah, but Dave has to see these people again the next time he goes to games.

That's why I was holding back, but I'm glad you were there to make sure that they were adequately – we were sitting five feet from the Knicks bench. No, 20. Sure. And Julius Randle is on the end. Towel over his head, head down. Like face in his hands.

He's broken. He's got to get out. He's broken. So Michael thought it would be the right way to handle that is to just make it worse. I couldn't help it. I'm so fed up. He's going to kick your ass. Is anybody watching?

It is. You know, it's true. Obviously, awful and you should be fired from Merrill Lynch and all that. But it feels like sports fans have gotten so much tamer in the past couple of decades. Based on Michael's conduct. Nobody's yelling. Because Nets have no fans. You're right.

Based on Michael's conduct at the Knicks game, I might have to take action. If he were filmed hollering at Knicks game, I might have to take action. If he were filmed hollering at Knicks players, it might have forced me to take some kind of action. Fortunately, I don't think you're on camera. Is anybody watching Station Eleven? No, what is that? I read the book. Oh, you did? John, thoughts?

I'm on episode nine. Very interesting. What is it? It is dystopian. I know everything else. I can't wait for it. What is it? It is dystopian. I know like everything else. But it's like sort of – I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

We're living in a dystopia already. That was well described. Well, because it's – all right. It's so ludicrous. They're Shakespearean actors and 20 years after the human race has been obliterated, they still continue to act. They're thespians. And so it's just – it's a very weird sort of show. It's HBO Max,

so you know it's like quality. It's interesting. I'm on Witcher season two now. Oh, I didn't know you were a Witcher guy. I wasn't. It's gotten better the longer it's been running. Netflix?

Netflix. And I'm not a video gamer, so I never played like the game that it's based on or anything. The show is improving. I saw season one. I haven't watched season two yet. Season one did not start off great and it built. It got better.

And I didn't realize that main guy, Duncan, did you know this? Is the guy that played Superman. Did you know that? You knew that. Yes. I haven't seen this. How would you not know that? Is he Clark Kent in the show? He wears glasses in the show.

He has blonde hair down to the middle of his How would you not know that? Is he Clark Kent in the show? He wears glasses in the show, so you can't tell. He has blonde hair down to the middle of his back. He does not look like... Is it Henry Cavill? Yeah. Henry Cavill. So he was Superman in the most recent DC... Okay, he's unrecognizable.

Unrecognizable. Yeah. What a body on this guy. Yeah, super hot in either case. Wow. Yeah. Are you going to start watching The Witcher now? Holy, look at this guy.

Look at that guy. He looks like He-Man. Wait till you see his girlfriend on the show. If you're not, if you're listening, Batnick's pointing at me right now. He looks like He-Man. Anyway, Witcher season two is good. You know what's unwatchable, though?

Same genre. Whatever the hell that Amazon thing is called. What is that called? The Wheel of Amazon thing is called. What is that called? The Wheel of Fortune? Not watching. What is that? I think they spent like $10 million an episode on this or some crazy number. This is one where they spin the wheel and there's the letters. Oh, Wheel Time?

Never heard of it. Wheel Time. Oh, Wheel of Time. Wheel of Time. Don't even spend one minute. I promise you they're not going to make another season Anybody watch The Expanse?

I haven't watched that I'm reading the books on that also I've only watched like one thing on Amazon recently and it was the Ricardos They do not have

good stuff I'm sorry other than what's the one that we like on Amazon? Oh The Boys Oh The Boys

Oh so good I only watched one or two seasons Oh it's so good That's all there was That's the only good thing that they have So good Oh, The Boys. The Boys. Oh, The Boys. Oh, so good. I only watched one or two seasons. Oh, it's so good. Oh, my God. That's all there was. Okay. That's the only good thing that they have, I think.

So good. I love the Amazon fashion show that they did. I know that was one of the first things I wrote about in Not Boring. That was off my radar. I didn't see that. Yeah. What's the Amazon fashion show? They had a show that, like, literally you could buy.

They ripped out the cast of, I think, America's Next Top Model. Like, I think Heidi Klum. They just ripped her over to Amazon. and then you could just buy all the looks on Amazon. Oh really? Yeah. So one of the first things I wrote about was like Amazon's, you know,

whatever. How do you do it? You click the, you click the remote. Yeah. Cause it's on your fire stick. And so you just click buy and it's connected to your account. I doubt they did very many sales,

but it was an interesting model. And it was the very beginning of COVID when we ran out of everything else to watch. And so we watched that. Speaking of, Bill Ackman bought 3 million shares of Netflix. And I think where he wants to go with it is sports. Would you watch live sports on Netflix? I mean, I'm sure you would. Could that be cost effective though do

they really need to do that is sports content like a sports media distribution a good business i don't know amazon showing nfl games now like they're all gonna get there eventually i guess i i don't know you pay a ton of money for something like nfl maybe they maybe they do something niche like tennis or something. Fortune favors the bold. God. Should Netflix have done the Activision deal? Microsoft. It's a huge deal. You're saying, should Netflix have done

it instead of Microsoft or should Microsoft have done it? Well, everyone thinks Netflix is going to make this big push into gaming, but where is it? Why would they let Microsoft buy Netflix if they were really going to do that? I don't know if you go with a studio if you're Netflix.

I don't know. Microsoft has this really interesting portfolio obviously now of gaming things, of coding things. They're like the Berkshire of tech. They really are. They have a pretty unbelievable, I wrote about this company called Replit before

that is an online coding thing for beginning coders and looking at all the competitors at different points in the stack like they're all microsoft companies they don't realize they don't get hub they don't get hub they have like the code editor that everybody uses there's a few other things that they own in that stack gaming is very much the same way they almost bought discord for $10 billion. They seem to be fearless about making acquisitions. Apple doesn't do any, and Microsoft

does one every six months. It really feels like they're taking advantage of the fact that Facebook can't do acquisitions. Maybe Apple can't do acquisitions. Google can't do acquisitions. And Microsoft's just snatching up companies. How come they can? The others can't. It's so diversified away from their core thing and they're not a social network.

I guess like the social network thing is just so scary that you can kind of plug in social to anything. I don't know if Netflix could have paid what Microsoft paid for Activision. No. 68 billion is that the number? I think 69 billion. I don't think Netflix could have paid that. There's speculation that Ackman is going to recommend – he's an activist sometimes. He's going to recommend a lower-priced ad-supported version to help them speed up growth.

That sounds terrible, but Peacock is ad-supported and is growing faster – is growing pretty fast. I don't know. To me, maybe that could work, but I feel like Netflix doesn't need to do it. They don't need to have advertisers on the platform but you know maybe that's a whole new line of revenue that no one's pricing in so I guess it could work

alright I have nothing else on that we did favorites we're all good? alright Duncan you want to turn on the machines and we'll do this for real? you want to get the recorders going? yeah let's do it never gets old hey listen if you are not subscribed to not boring packy substack i really don't know what you're waiting for don't be after the last the first 250 000 that's embarrassing that's embarrassing a couple months to get in are you going to do

a limited edition nft for the first 100 000 you're going to start dropping Satoshis on people or what? Dropping Satoshis. You should maybe do something commemorative. Maybe try to see if your first hundred people are still there. Yeah. And promise them a weekend at a bed and breakfast with you. I don't know. Figure something cool out though.

I'm not in the first 100, so I'm not saying that out of self-interest. New Animal Spirits this week? Every week. Every week. Coming up this Monday. I thought your episode this week was off the hook.

Thank you. Yeah. And on YouTube, it's going crazy. Good. If you guys want to watch our content on YouTube, it's youtube.com

slash the compound RWM. And John, Big John, always kills it on the video edit. Did a really nice job this week, by the way, with what are your thoughts? Did huge numbers this week, right?

Duncan, where are we at with that? 35,000 views already? I said I wanted 50. Yeah, we're on the way. It's been three days. Yeah. Yeah, so we're blowing up. Way bigger than, by the way, your whole crew over there with Dan Nathan.

I'm just saying. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. All right, listen. Love you, Paki. Thank you so much for coming. Congratulations on 100,000. It's a very, very big deal. It is.

It really is. And we will see you very soon. We'll get you back in here this summer. Right? Love that. All right, awesome. Subscribe to Not Boring. Watch us on YouTube.

We'll see you next that. All right. Awesome. Subscribe to Not Boring. Watch us on YouTube. We'll see you next time. All right. That was fun. Good. Thanks so much for coming.