The Compound and Friends - Jim Cramer Absolutely UNLOADS On Stage, Make Popcorn Now

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

On this special episode of The Compound and Friends, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Michael Batnick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Downtown Josh Brown⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ are joined by the one and only Jim Cramer to discuss: how Jim became the voice of the individual investor, iconic CEOs, the next big bull market, and much more! This episode is sponsored by Calamos. To learn more visit: http://www.calamos.com/CAIE Pick up Jim's latest book: How to Make Money in Any Market. Sign up for The Compound Newsletter and never miss out: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thecompoundnews.com/subscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠instagram.com/thecompoundnews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠twitter.com/thecompoundnews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/company/the-compound-media/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tiktok.com/@thecompoundnews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Josh Brown are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ritholtz Wealth Management⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. 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/podcast-youtube-disclosures/⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's show is sponsored by Calamos. All right. Let's talk about what Calamos is doing because this is actually pretty wild. We've talked about several of their ETFs on our podcasts, but they just did something incredible with their new autocallable income ETF, ticker C-A-I-E. This thing seeks high tax-efficient monthly income, 14.47 percent last month, a majority of which is estimated to be treated as return of capital, game-changing income and tax treatment. Auto-callables are a $100 billion market that banks have been selling to wealthy clients for years. Calamos just hit the easy button for everyone and democratized the whole thing in an ETF wrapper. C-A-I-E just passed $300 million in assets and is climbing fast. While everyone's chasing yield with covered calls, Calamost opened

up an entirely different playbook. Check out C-A-I-E at Calamose. Your income-hungry clients will thank you. Welcome to The Compound and Friends. All opinions expressed by Josh Brown, Michael Batnik, and their castmates are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Redholt's wealth management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Riddholt's wealth management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage. Josh Brown, Michael Batnik, and your very special guest for the night, Jim Kramer. All right, so that was the warm up. Let's go. Woo! All right. Michael Baddick, ladies and gentlemen. All right.

You guys, we are on a Friday night in South Street, Seaport. We are here to talk about stocks. Give yourselves a round of applause. Let's hear it. This is a vacation for me. This is what I want to do in my vacation. You want to talk stocks. I have to tell you, this is, without a doubt, the number one career highlight for me.

We're about to spend six and a half hours talking with Jim Kramer. I didn't even write an introduction because I don't think you need it anywhere in the world. In my estimation, you are, when people think of the stock market, if they could think of one person, it might be Warren Buffett, but also it might be you. And that's it. I don't know of a third person that the global population associates more with the stock market. Because I have felt from the day I met you that you are the democratizer, and you understand how to demystify, which I love.

I'll tell you a story a buddy of mine Sembolist you saw him on this thing I'm just gonna put the mic down I go fishing with Sambalist he's terrific going off in Panama

right where they had Survivor one year they had Survivor there and when he did this really unbelievable piece and it was just it was a piece about the it was about how big AI

is whatever I said you gotta come on my show and he goes oh what what you're eight minutes I said well I'll try to I'll give you 10 minutes he goes now I go with Josh

I said well Josh Brown yeah he said he said He'll give me as long as much time as I won. And I don't need to be on TV anymore. Oh, man. Think about that. Number one analyst in the country.

He doesn't want to be on TV with the eight minutes, not really able to get the job done. He wants to come see you because he said, I can get my points across in an atmosphere where people care and are fired up. And I know his family and everything. And it is just great testament that he said, I have to go where people care.

And that's what you've done. I really appreciate that, Jim. And to all the fans of the compound, you guys are the reason that we do it and I just want to express how much it means to me to see you guys here tonight. One more round of applause for yourselves. And also

before I... And furthermore. Yeah, and that being said, before I turn the naked mark, because I'm definitely not going to get a word in. With these two world-class maniacs for the rest of the show, I just want to say it is such to echo what Josh said.

What an honor. All time highs for the S&P 500 and every other index. And if this is the top, there's nobody I'd rather celebrate it within you. Oh, thank you. Yeah, right? I mean, oh, and we breached 47,000 in closing it. And the 34th time, my producer, Heather

Gaines is here. I said, we got to work all that stuff in. All the other shows are working that stuff in. Let's work that stuff in. So, Jim, outside of, and maybe even not outside of Jack Bogle, you really have done as much for the individual investor, for the people and the audience, for the

300 million people around this country or the 150 that owns stocks, whatever it is. Thank you for everything. Well, I'm honored to you say that. I mean, it's kind of what I did want to accomplish. It's loftier that I ever, that I think I am, and I'm really honored that you say that. If I could get through, I knew Jack. And I had this debate about Jack and an index fund performance. And I showed him my performance. I said, listen, I'm up, I've been up 24% after all fees versus 8% for the S&B. And he goes, okay, so let me ask you something. When you have a good year, how much money do you take in? I said, none. He said, well, that's why you beat

the market. Everybody who has a good year, they go marketing. And how many times have you been open? I said, I've been open like three times in the last 10 years. And he said, well, look, you're not a marketer. And I said, I tell you the truth, I hate the marketing. And he said, well, if you marketed, you would have so much money come in at once.

You'd be ruined because you had that hot year. And I've always respected that. Jack was a guy who said, yes, you can beat the market. You never want to say that loud. You can beat the market, but under circumstances that aren't what the Masters of the Universe want. Because if you have the best year in your career, that's

also going to be the high point of your money raising. Yeah. And then you're forced to buy things that you wouldn't otherwise buy probably toward a top, if not at the top. He would say, he said to me, how many great ideas to have a year? I mean, real ideas that you want to own, say, four or five percent of a company. I said,

that's probably come three or four times a year. He goes, you'd have to have, you'd have to own 10% of 10 kinds of companies like that. And it was really mindful because it means that there are great and think about how great Will Danoff is at Contra, that he's able to handle it. But most of the guys are not able to handle the big rush and the money.

And so I knew I had to get out and we can talk a lot about the business, but the business was, Jack was very humbling because he did make it clear that most people should be an index fund. I believe that you can have both. I think that somehow this only index

fund at all time thing is a big mistake because there's a lot of people who have eyes and ears and see things and don't take advantage of their own knowledge because they're told they're too stupid. And then when I say that, I mean it. They're told, listen, you don't know, we do give it to us. And I think everybody has eyes and ears. They can do things. But they're talked out of believing that they could have owned Facebook. Now, Meta. They just got talked out of it. And most people in 2012, when Meta came public, when Facebook came public, they understood this is going to be a big company. Absolutely. They could have bought it.

but they said, ah, it's in the index. I don't need to. Exactly. And then at 10 X's. Hang on revisionist history. I remember you on TV. Both of you actually. Yeah.

What a shit show that IPO was. It was. 42, 43. I happened to be the day, I was doing a, I was doing this junior prom after party for my daughter. And I had just laid down red carpet and it rained. And she said, dad,

I was like the night before. She's dad, I want a slate patio. I said, well, what do you like? I got guys. I said, well, it had to be at night. because it's against the zoning.

But, you know, we got it down, and just in time, it opened and Mussolly asked me, what do you think? I said, 47, like 40, no. But then it got clobbered, if you remember, because he didn't have the, he didn't have the mobile.

How do they monetize mobile? And then go 17, 18, and then bingo. I got, you know, I became friends with him. It's kind of a weird thing. With Mark? Yeah, he's a different kind of guy. But he's not a bad guy. Yeah.

He's not a big, no, he's not a bad guy. Hey, he liked my book. I don't think he's a bad guy. but he does live like a supervillain. He lives in a volcano in Hawaii, and he is surrounded by his own food source. Sharks with laser battles. I took a chopper to look at his place.

Okay. Because my friend Rick Kiel from Lambertsurch. He's living like a literal super villain. No, it is. Bond villain. And he's like, someone told my, one of my lawyers was saying, I like M.M.A. And I said, my wife, what's the M.M.A?

And she goes, that's that stuff that Zuckerberg does. I say, you like, did this stuff? He goes, yeah, that's the MMA is. He's a little crazy. But, like, I was sitting him on Rogan. And look, I think that he, look, he's off the reservation right now, but I like the product. So I want to, we're going to get to the modern market, but in order for this discussion to achieve what I wanted to achieve for all of you, and for those listening from home or from their cars, I want to go back because I think people need to understand if you're a fan of the compound,

you're a fan of what Michael and I do, how influential you've been on us. but also on, I think, the American investing public, 25 years ago, literally to the month, I told my wife Shari, aka Sprinkles, who's here tonight, I said, I'm going to the YMCA, the 92nd Street Y, and I'm going to spend the whole day there. I don't know how long this event's going to be, but that's what I'm doing today.

She says, what are you doing? I said, Jim Kramer is going to give a talk at the Y, and I have a copy of Confessions of a Strzsche, addict in my hand, and I'm going to go. And at this point, I think I'm 23 years old. I'm a retail stockbroker. Literally nobody. Still nobody, but... Stop it with that. Much more nobody back then. So I go, and I sit in the audience, and it's literally six months after the market topped, and we don't know. Right. But so it's tickers, and it's a little mini lightning round. This is five years before you have your own show on CNBC. You're letting

like random people ask you tickers and I've never seen anything like it you did an hour on every stock under the sun and you actually had things to say about every company and I sat in the back of the room and I waited for my chance to get you to sign my book

and you did but I remember saying to myself oh my God this is like the greatest communicator about stocks I've ever seen in my entire life it's literally 25 years to the month of where we're sitting right now.

That's funny. Did you have any idea in those days that your career would take you from hedge fund manager to columnist at the street.com to where you are now? No. I mean, was this a blueprint? It's very interesting to say. I mean, remember what you said about how he took all that money in at once?

Yeah. That would be the top. I mean, that was my best book. And it was the only one that's really personally. I sold two million copies of it. It was a big book. I mean, that's a huge amount now. Yeah.

And the book was, it was actually very loved by the critics. I couldn't believe I didn't care about the critics. But my lawyer didn't want me to write it. My then-wife didn't want me to write it. My kids didn't want me to write it. Everyone was afraid that I would tell everything. And then I did tell everything. And it was very embarrassing for me.

Remember all this horrible stuff I said about myself? Well, there was stuff about the SEC calling you. Oh, yes. And you're drinking, you're laying on the linoleum floor. Slipping in your car, sleeping in the cold. So, my 40th birthday, the SEC called me. I had written an article. We were talking earlier about what, you write an article now,

and no one really cares about it. But I moved a bunch of stocks in a piece I wrote for smart money, which I had helped start a few years earlier. And it was the day that there was an article about me, it was a big party for all my friends that my wife was throwing, NEM wife, Jesus. And it was, it was, the SEC was looking into my manipulation. of four stocks. And what happened is, is that, and this is how life really, you know, now I can

talk about it because I don't give it to them. But there was, there were four stocks that I wrote about that I said were orphan stocks. And I thought there'd be good stocks. And I said, one, I'm probably going to be a bomb. Two are going to be okay. And one's going to be a killer. That's pretty much the ratio on. And what happened is they left the disclosure box off that I own them. And the SEC went afternoon with everything they had in the journal did not. reveal that they dropped the box. So then we had to go and say, listen, we're going to sue you guys. And there happened to be a memo that said, do you think Kramer would mind if we dropped the four stocks? We don't have enough room for the article in the disclosure box. And, you know,

hundreds of thousand dollars in legal fees and very embarrassing for me. And at the end, you know, my lawyer was saying, listen, Jim Kramer wants to be the CEO of Dale Jones. He can be it because we have the memo and they apologized and they did an investigation about how they could have been so wrong but all these things happened and I wrote about them and it's incredibly crazy you put that in a book at that time people writing investment books were writing them to burnish their careers they were writing them to say look how smart I am and your book first of all you call yourself a street addict right in the title right that was supposed to be like confessions of you know this is the book that Andrew just wrote yeah but you know about

Jesse Lawrence Jesse Livermore but yeah confession because I was a street addict I was possessed by the ticker just like But I think that was

like paradigm shifting and I think that the next wave of commentary that came after that people were much more comfortable being themselves being authentic yes I'm a market participant

no I'm not a genius yes I make mistakes I think that you were the first person to do that in not just book form but on the street.com and eventually on television and we take it

And we take it for granted now that people are able to be themselves. Prior to that, everybody was very stage manager. I watch you when you're on with Scott or do your own stuff and do this. And this is like fantasy land back then. I mean, it'd be like, what are you kidding me? And yet this is how it really should be. I mean, it was about rich people making money and then poor people not making money. And that's all changed.

And I like that. But I knew I had to get out of the hedge fund business. And it's in the book where there was this guy, Berkowitz, said I had hired, there's a guy really good manager by the name of Dan Bent and said, listen, I got this kid, you ought to hire him as your assistant. And I had become progressively really possessed with beating the numbers. And I had to do $430,000 a day by the time I'd done just to be able to maintain my average. And I was becoming meaner and more horrible and wrecking everybody's life.

I was trading when our kid was born and bought a lot of Alcoa, killed it on the South COVID trade. When you were coming out there, it was like a real accomplishment. That was the wrong way to look at it. And at the end, right at the end, his daughter was probably nine, and she was in a play. And it was the same day that Intel reported. And I said to him when he was leaving, I said, wait a second. What play is it? Let me tell you something.

Your kid's going to be in a million plays, but Intel only reports four times a year. And he said, can you listen to yourself? I said, yeah, Intel only reports four times. Go to your play. Go see it. Yeah, she'll be terrific. Let me do the damn intel, okay? I'll get it right.

And that's not good. There are stories of, you've told these stories of breaking keyboards and throwing. I did have a, I had an anger problem. Okay. So I don't think it's crazy to say that you made the right decision. I think for most people, they would look at the level of success that you've achieved as market commentator, a teacher, a mentor to investors. you've gone way beyond what you could have accomplished had you continued running a hedge fund. I think about a lot.

I was at this Goldman dinner. I started Goldman, you know, sales and trading, then went towards sales and toward, you know, wealth management, they call it. And I was with a bunch of guys from my class, and they're all doing really well. And their life is based on how well they did on money. And that's okay, because that's the thing. And they all like the fact that I did not, everybody wants to have money. There's nothing matter with being wealthy. But they love the fact that I went for some money.

something else. Because they said, that was right for you. We always knew that was right for you. And you knew what was right for us. And it was right in a sense that I wanted to do something really different. And I started the street because what had happened, I had gone to Dal Jones say, listen, there's going to do this thing. And we can do, we can do Dowell, we can do a Wall Street Journal like all day. You show them the internet. Yeah. And they say, well, no, but then what would happen? People wouldn't want to read it in the morning. I said, well, no, but that's history. That's history. What's going to happen? You're going to read all that. We're updated a million times. Well, we can't update. We can't keep throwing the paper on people's lawns and stuff. I said, no, no, we're not

going to do that. We're going to update it on our PCs. Well, but no, I mean, who'll read that? Who will pay for that? I said, well, that's another story. But then they got in this fight that I just mentioned. I said, listen, I'm keeping it myself. They offered me $400,000 for my ID, and I said, go, shut out. I don't want you, 400,000. I wanted to try it. Jim, when you started your road down the media, which was obviously a complete 180 from running a hedge fund, did you think that you were going to eventually come back to running money? No, because I was 225 pounds. I had really bad blood pressure.

My life was, I just, I was possessed, and I didn't, I wanted to live. And that's what I felt, it was about living or dying. Because that's, you know, I'm 160 pounds and my blood pressure is okay. There was just no way to make it. I knew that I would not make it. Where do you think that pressure on a day-to-day basis came from? Is it just your internal, your maniac? I know that I love my late dad, and he was sensational, but he always thought David was smarter than I am, and Barbara was really smart, and Laura was so incredible, and she's going to hear, and Shelley's smart. Hey, Shelly, I bet you she was always somebody who was smarter, and it just broke my heart, that there was always somebody who was more accomplished and better, and I owe him my dad as a salesman, and he sold boxes and bags to retailers, and he sold doggie bags in Philadelphia at restaurants and later part of his career.

but I just never, ever felt secure. You felt that you had to prove yourself to yourself or to him or some combination. I always wanted his approval. Let me tell you when I got his approval. I was desperate. My whole life I've been desperate to try to get the Pops approval.

But I had this buddy Tom McGrath. He's a great friend of mine. He was in my hedge fund. He goes, look, we were Eagle Seasons. Tickets are together. He goes, look, the Philadelphia Inquirer that's going out of business. I got a guy in the courtroom.

We can get that box. I said, where's the box? She's just on the 50. I said, oh, my God, oh, my God. Oh, my God, you got to get it. Yeah, in a 50 yard line. I said, no, and she says, why, why do you have that? I said, you'll see, you'll see.

And just be there, be there opening day. So we go on first day, and my father says, Jimmy, I think you've done okay. But I'm on the 47. I said, pop, move five feet over. You're on the 50. Unbelievable. He said, hey, Jimmy, you're okay. Jimmy's, Jimmy's, so I very much relate to that.

And, uh, it never goes. me tell me uh it never go drop it like that i got to know because it's so hard okay it never so it never goes away is my would be my comment even after you get to a place where obviously you can pay your bills obviously your family's doing well obviously like you can drive whatever car you want you can pick your own hours you can sign contracts and decide how hard you want to work who you want to work with even when you get to that point that like need for other people to see you somebody who's accomplished something, it, like, never goes away, at least from my perspective. Well, look, I think that you take a guy like Semblis, it was here.

Yeah. Like, Samblis is, I don't know who, is that, did anyone say? Michael Semblis fans in the audience, yes? All right. Legend. Like, you know, like, Samblis, so, like, I first meet Semblis, and I say, damn, this guy's, like, the smartest guy ever. And then he turned out to be the smartest guy ever.

He might be. And I'm incredibly intimidated by him, but I realize, wait a second, he likes the fish, I like to fish. We go fishing. And the next thing I know, it's like, you know, he's a regular guy. He's worried that people don't like his stuff. That's what he's worried about. Right. And did you like that? I said, yeah. You just, no, no, tell me. Do you really like it? The head of research at J.P. Morgan is worried. No one's waiting what he?

He is. He's like, hey, what do they? Like, the piece will come out, like, at 759 on Monday, and he'll say, what's you think? And I'm like, I said, I haven't had a chance to read it yet. Are you going to read it before you go on? Of course, I'm going to read. Are you going to mention it? Maybe I'll mention it. I know if I like it. If I like it, I'll mention it. Oh, no, even if you don't like it. I think, can you mention it? I said, Michael, relax. You're like a brilliant guy. No, he's worried that I won't like it. So, I think that's universal. I want to go to the dot-com era because of all the comparisons that are being made from then to today.

Sure. I started reading you, this is a true story. I started reading you in 1997. Jesus, that would have been my, my, six months in. during this street.com, you're also doing a column for New York magazine, and my first job at a brokerage firm in Garden City, Long Island, a firm called Lou Lieberbaum. It's a true story. Before I have my Series 7,

I can't talk on the phone to clients. I can cold call. That's it. But my other job is take this one computer in the office. It's in the computer room. This is true. Print out Jim Kramer's column in the morning. It was you. Maybe Herb Greenberg. Yeah, sure. I forget

who, it was the third guy, Dan. We had... Okay. So print these columns out and make sure all the brokers get a copy on their desk. And I did that for six months, every single day,

and they ate it up. They would grab it out of my hand as I'm walking through the aisle. Yes. Dynamite. 100%. And so I remember that era is the first time I started reading your stuff.

I think it's the first time you're writing. And I was curious if you think the comparisons between that era and now are apropos, or if these periods are different, how are they different? Well, I think that they're very different.

And one of the reasons I think they're very different, until Open AI, which is something we can talk about, is that these companies are remarkable. They're like nation state companies. They're tremendous balance. It's led by really great people. Whereas, like, when you were back in those days, you'll see a guy from infuspace,

and it'll come in to see, and I'll say, hey, listen, street.com, kind of struggling. I'm kind of struggling, but I've said that I'm going to be the first trillion-dollar company. So what I could do is here's $10 million, and you write the test of check, and I'll give it to you, and then what you do is you buy $10 million per the ads in mine. It's called a lazy Susan deal, and we all work out. I said, that sounds illegal. And he goes, well, no, that, you understand, no one's in the room.

And I said, well, that doesn't make it less. So that's double-click and, like, all those early Internet advertising. business models. That's the way it was back then. It was not Wild West so much as like the authorities are stupid. We can do it. We went. There's Jack Grubman. I met Jack Grubman through my, my ex-wife, when he was just at just beginning at Payne Weber. And he was doing stuff I couldn't believe to build up his name. It was all insider trading stuff. But it was not illegal. It means like it's hard to describe what illegal and illegal meant. But put it this way. The companies are so well capitalized that are involved now, again, with the exception of open AI. I went.

talk about that, but the businesses are real. And by that point, almost all those businesses were about lighting fiber and having product to be sold over the fiber. And what we didn't realize is kind of like Walmart. Walmart destroyed all of retail. Amazon destroyed all of online retail. And you just didn't think that either could happen. Look, if you're Target right now and the new guy comes in, believe me, he's thinking about whether his company can make it. Coles, can they make it. They probably can't make it because Walmart's going to wipe everybody out except for Costco. What it was like them was we had all these different retailers, different companies, and we somehow thought they were all going to work, and we had all these companies that were

light and fiber, and we somehow thought that they were going to work. And I mentioned Jack Grubman, because Jack Grubman was Worldcom. He was the banker behind World. He was the banker behind all these. And you always had this next deal, next deal, next deal. And it was always the same, which is that you could jam, you could get the e-trade guys, the retail people to pay up, you could then offer him stock, you go short, and then you hold it until it goes to two. It was all crooked. You had a... You had a series of columns back then, probably 98 or 99.

You had these two fictional characters who you pretended, Buzz and Batch. So Buzz and Batch were two guys who were, I guess, institutional sales traders, and they would call you up, and you would write these dialogues that never took place, but probably took place, right? an amalgamation of all the people calling you with stock ideas. Well, yeah, I'm surprised you if that's a long time ago. I go deep, I go deep. Well, that's, you know.

So would buzz and batch today would be trading Acklo and they would be involved in all these stuff. Yeah, so this is the problem. I mean, look, and I know, I mean, yes, should I get up? And I get up real early. And I'd say, son of a bitch, someone for the administration has told someone that you got to, that they're going to put $10 million in each of the big four quads of companies. 10 million, that would make it.

difference, right? These are all like $10 billion companies and $20 billion companies. And I've been trying to tell people, listen, trim, trim, trim. I don't want you to blow it out. I just don't want you to lose it all. Trim. I never say, you know, get out now. I did that once October 8th, and that's in, you know, 1908 in the book, 1206. And what happened is, it's really interesting was that I said, oh, shit, everyone's going to hate me because I said be trimming the quantums and suddenly going to take the quantums up again. Now, I've met with two of the four quantums. The other two don't want to come on the show. It doesn't mean anything.

D-Wave. Yeah. Let's tell the people what stocks talking about. I won't Q. What's a rigatoni? We like that one. Yeah, like someone sold $2.5 million with a rigatoni last week. And I'm like, look at it.

It was like a penny stock a year ago. Michael said it's Ziti now. He's eating down-down-ground. Carbon, they work for Carbone. But you look at this stuff and you just say, okay, I'm not going to get people out. but I got to get people to take some off so you look at Oclo, okay, and that's good, Aklo, did you see the guy who said

he said, yes, the analysts is it Aklo or Oklo, the analyst? And the analyst said, it doesn't matter. That's very 90. That's very 99. It goes up, it doesn't matter what it's called. Yeah, it goes up. That's, that's a batch. So Buzz and batch would be in the quantum stocks. Right, they would be doing the

ACHO and Q's, and they would be doing the Bloom Energy, which has never made any money, but suddenly does have a real product. And you go to like a Michael N-trader at Corrieve, who's actually a Jersey guy, and he's really easy to talk to. And you say, how about the bloom? And he goes, I don't know. I mean, it doesn't scale. But that doesn't matter.

It doesn't scale. It's got a couple of things that are making so a couple of data centers have backup power. But then what happens is that you have Tesla. And Tesla makes you look like an idiot. Because Tesla is like, you know, what a guy will say. Anyone you can say, hey, Jim, you know, you knock that Aklo, that's the next Tesla. Really hard to refute the next. Tesla crushed some of the smartest people

I've ever met in this business. It steamrolled people that I would say are probably geniuses. Yeah, but there's one Elon. It was Elon. It wasn't, that's it. It's Elon, but you know, look, the other day I had Scotty was my co-host,

and Tesla was down 30, and I said, look, we were all, he was talking about car sales. Now, if you read the conference call, he had his pretty good conference call, there wasn't anything about cars. It was all about a robot, it was all about self-drive. It's all about battery storage to be able to make it so that the terawatt that's produced in the country goes and you don't need to build any new places and new power plants.

And it was really fabulous. So I said to Scott, I think the other side of the trade. And he goes, why? I said, because he's changed the narrative. The narrative is not about cars. And cars are passe with him. He said, yeah, but this car is. He's talking about robot surgery on the conference call this week.

I don't think anybody even asked the question about cars. No. It wasn't. And I heard this. Rick Smith, who's the son of the late Fred Smith, who was the greatest guy, started FedEx. He was saying, look, the big problem, this was when I was at Dream Force last week, he said, the big problem with the robots is the hand. Because, you know, it can only handle, it only knows a certain size box. And then it goes wrong, and it hits the box. It doesn't know what it's doing. And there it is a week later. Elon must have, you know what, I'm developing the hand. The hand is the hardest thing. But we're going to work out. out the hand. And you realize he's solving the real-world question of AI and robots. And we're all sitting here thinking about how are the sales in Germany? Give me a break. Right. How many cars did you sell? How many courses sold in Germany? Jim, one of the, so I think we all understand the big differences between those companies in the late 90s and these companies. The amount of money these companies are able to produce. The moats. Our friend Kai Wai wrote a paper about the CapEx spending and the hyperscalers.

These companies are doing, the Mag 7, 22% return on an invested capital versus 6% for the S&P 493. So we all understand that these are not fly by, they're not going anywhere. The difference is the size of these companies. Invidia and Apple are both $4 trillion. Maybe Nvidia is on its way to 10. Who knows? The size is a huge difference.

Microsoft right behind. Okay, but does that part, what Jensen would tell you is, so what, maybe my company should be worth 10? He said, you can't, he urged me not to look at that. And he urged me not to look at it, I went across the trillion. Don't look at the market cap. Yeah, he said, you can't. It just doesn't help. Well, how could you not look?

Okay. So, I mean, I agree with you. It's absolutely right. I mean, but this is what he's trying to say is don't limit, what he, what he's been saying is, if you take a 20-year review, which is what he does, and you work. backwards, it's entirely possible that he will develop things that no, that no one's ever thought about, and it might be worth far more than you think. They better. Remember, Elon uses 50 trill.

But they better, because... Well, they better, absolutely. He'll tell you they better, or else his company. He runs scared. Because you know... He runs very scared. What happened to Cisco and all of the other companies, they did it. All of those companies, they did 10x their sales from 1999 to 2010, but the stocks fell 85% because

investors were way ahead of expectations. So whatever Jensen is saying to you, they better do all of that to justify these valuations. Okay. So here's what Jensen would say if we were here. He'd say, you know what, we better do all of that or we're dead. See, he'd say just what you said. And that's why you'd like him. He's not going to come up with the, no, let me tell you this, that. He goes, no, you're dead right. I mean, if we don't, if we don't beat Lisa Sue and AMD and we don't stay one ahead, we're dead because he runs more scared than anybody I've seen. And it's really impressive that he runs scared because I think we'd all like that. look, are these companies, here's the way that Sarah Fryer, the CFO of Open AI, and I really like her because she helped me when I thought that Square was going to go bust.

She didn't do so well at the local thing, the newspaper stuff. But she was a good partner at Goldman. And she's saying, look, if we can take over every vertical, if we can take over the Facebook vertical, the meta vertical, and if we can take over the Microsoft vertical, and we can take over what they're doing at Nvidia, whatever. Then we win. But we have to win in every vertical.

So you listen to that and you're Zuckerberg and you say, listen, I got to spend like hell. I cannot have open AI come in. I have to own my vertical. And that's the fight out there. That's what people are saying. It's like open AI is going to destroy us unless we up our game. It's an existential spend. 100%.

They're all saying that. Same thing. But the verticals are really great. Look at Zuckerberg. He's really good. So let's do opening eye while we're on the topic. This is the strangest thing about the modern market. Open AI is like this character that exists off-screen.

It's not public. It's the most important character in the movie. So we're all watching a movie, and the main character is Kaiser Sose. Yes, it is. Okay. Everything Kaiser Sosei does behind the scenes that then becomes news, we don't see the resulting share price move because Open AI doesn't trade. we can only see that interpreted through the share prices

of all of the other characters in the movie. It's a phenomenally fascinating thing. And the main character has not yet appeared. Is this the first trillion dollar market cap IPO? So you told me, Sarah, said, please don't use the trill. He said, don't go. She said, we don't think it's going to be worth of $7. I feel like this show is not in Sarah's heavy rotation.

So you can go there. I'm just saying that I wanted to use trill. I'll tell you, let me tell you why it's so hard. Well, it's $500 billion. I'm not saying anything crazy. Let me tell why it's so hard. So I got Mark Casper on. He's a real smart guy.

He runs Thermo Fisher. And I've had Mark for many, many years. I've done him for a long time. And I say to him, why aren't companies trying to really solve cancer with AI? And he goes, okay, the drug companies, they don't believe us. They don't think that we're important. There's only one guy who took our call, Sam. I said, Sam.

He goes, Sam's the only guy who's interested. He knows that we working together can be able to figure out gene sequencing that's going to be able to take on ALS, going to take on Parkinson's, going to take on all the diseases that these drug companies are afraid they're going to lose billions. They're going to lose billions. And he is a great guy. And I said, well, I don't know. I don't know enough about him other than the fact he's really good at taking down money. He goes, no, Sam takes your call, and he goes, what are the hardest diseases to cure?

I want to go after those. And he said, you should respect Sam for that because the drug companies only want to go after the easy ones. Because these other ones, ALS, costs too much money. And so there you got, again, you know, he's off on the sidelines, but he wants to solve that disease. And when you go and you talk to someone in cars, he's trying to figure out, you know, is there a car that could develop? One of the things the jobs wanted to do before he died, a car that can run on water because that would solve the internal combustion problem. That would be something that Sam wants to go after. So I don't know him personally.

I met him when I shook his hand. His partner, Greg, who's been on the show a couple of times. But he's trying to do big things. Yeah, well, clearly. You got to hand him. Got a hand it to him. He's trying to be. But do I like the fact that they're borrowing money?

Look, when Saffircats is a really good business person. And when she told me that she was going to do. When she told me she was going to do this, I said, why are you getting, you can't do that, Saffir. You can't borrow that kind of money to be able to build what you're saying. Because we have no choice. We have to. Our business is growing two, three,

This could be the greatest business ever. Larry loves it. Larry's the richest man in the world. Larry Ellison, his son's got the paramount thing. And what's interesting is that she's serious. She's a serious person. I have Hawk Tan on last week. Now, Hawk Tan is, it brought home, which is by a trillion to our company.

He's one of the, he's ruthless. I happen to love Hogg, but he's ruthless. And everyone knows. And I said, Hawk, are you sure that this thing's going to work? And he goes, Jim, it is going to work. What thing? The data centers? Oh, the Open AI.

Okay. Because Open AI is borrowing far more money than it should. And I don't know. They have to win something. You know, Google's deathly afraid of Open AI. Jim, are you worried about the credit part of this? Because obviously, that is the biggest part. Until Open AI came along, I was thinking this is a really responsible group of people

who are figuring out how to keep their turf and continuing to reinvent. Then Open AI comes along and they have a dream and they're back with the Microsoft and they get Oracle to do the data centers. And next thing you know, it's gospel. And remember, the dream starts. I mean, I talk about Jensen. Like, Jensen's, remember, Jensen brought them the first platform. And that's what ChatGPT was based on, was what Jensen brought it over.

And so he, Sam, Sam, like, I fucking know Sam. He's in, he's everybody, on everybody's lips, and yet he is not there. He's not there. Yeah, he's not doing quarterly conference calls. No, he's not. He doesn't have to. No, he does. You know what?

If you're over a sort of market cap, I feel like you need to do public market earnings calls. Well, I guess, look, they do it. It's a tough question because there are people who actually trade the stock all the time. The government doesn't seem to care. Like, there's people who buy it and sell it. The government is going toward having two conference calls a year instead of four. How that helps people, I don't know. As a regular investor, you want as much information as possible.

But that's what this new justice... What we've heard from people on that topic is that it'll actually increase transparency because a lot of times companies don't talk as a result of a quiet period surrounding earnings. If earnings were only twice a year, then theoretically they might be able to speak more frequently, not less. Okay, here's what I hear about it, which is that when they have news, they should say it. That should be the rule. News, they should say it. And I would like that because I think a lot of them feel like I can't give the news.

news until a quarter. So this opens that up theoretically. Right. And then some people get it and others don't. We just want it so that everybody gets it. Jim, so the companies are huge. We've never seen this before. The valuations are not stupid.

They're just not. These companies... That's what I f***ed up on the alphabet, okay? Because the goddamn Justice Department guys is in my face telling me, I pull voice of my lawyer. So listen, we're going to destroy Google. Okay? We're going to try you, you think Google's so powerful.

Let me tell you something. We're going to split it up and we're not going to let them have any money. You think it's going to be like Ex-on when they're a standard oil and they came, everybody did well, we're going to wipe it out. So I went and sold it for the club, okay? And I listened to the guy, and they got this judge to call it Monopoulos. Then the judge just immediately goes back on everything. And I looked at it and I said, I sold Google at 16 times earnings.

What about the idiot? I mean, I'm an idiot, 16 times earnings. I sold it through American Electric Powers model. I'm an idiot. So you are the face of the American investor. Is there, would there be a point in time at which? Did I get, get eyes? I think you look fabulous.

I think you look fantastic. What do you guys think? Let's go. Let's hear for Jim. Jim, is there a point out there on the horizon to which you would say, time out? This is silly season. Forget about Aklo and the Iran. That gets a distraction.

But where the integrity of the capital market system is under, not a salt, it's where, all right, time out, everybody, no more new money. What would have to happen for you to get there? Okay, well, look, in March, in the third week of March of 2000, I very publicly wrote a piece in real money and in the street which says, I'm getting out. It's too silly, it's too stupid. I'm going to go into bonds.

I've never bought bonds other than for trade, for treasuries, and I'm going to go short most of the NASDAQ. And I did it, and everyone just thought it was a stunt, but I did. I just, you know, when I had a good year, I sold everything. And I wrote from the short side for the red, mostly for the rest of the year because it was phony

and I had seen it to be too phony but it had been phony for years so what was... Okay, that's a really good point. I waited until it was it was phony but I wanted to make money and

someone, a very nice woman came out. I remember very distinctly when micro strategy blew up the first time and it was an accounting fraud and you said this is now going to be open season on every stock trading at 500 times eyeballs no one's going to believe any of these guys

again. I read the, I read what you wrote, and it ended up being that way. But I got lucky because I had the streets, so I knew how phony it was. And I saw the streets numbers go down really big. And I was very public about it. Listen, the numbers are bad. All the IPOs are phony. Everyone's trying to do a secondary. Everyone's

trying to get out. Count me out. There isn't a soul I know it doesn't want to sell. They're begging at Morgan Stanley to put together projects so they could get out of their stock in a synthetic way. Now, if I felt that all these companies, let's say I thought I felt that there were five open AIs. There were five different companies that could pull this off. That would be hard for me because I struggle with open A. I mean, literally, I pull up with these people when I was in this, and it's one of the reasons why I was so glad to go to Dreamforce. All I asked everybody the same thing was, am I nuts?

A. Open A.O.A.I. seems crazy. Am I nuts? and I didn't meet anyone who felt that opening I was a joke. I just met people who said it can work because Larry Ellison, Sirius, and Sam, and I said, but what happens if they come up with a source of power that makes us all this spend on power is not needed? What happens if it turns out that D-Wave quantum is faster and everything they're doing, all the fast compute at NVIDIA is not fast enough? And remember when Jensen said, look, I didn't believe in,

quantum, then he came back, he said, well, look, quantum's very close. And these guys all say the same thing, well, look, we'll be ready when that happens, and they won't be when it happens. So I think you have to look, I hope you live long enough to see that it makes it, but I know that, but I've got to tell you that if I told

you that I'm not worried about it after my wife, I come back, I tell my wife, I said, look, I got to tell you something, something's, I'm afraid of screwing up here on this, this open AI, and I describe it, and she's what does Mark say? Benioff. She says, Mark's okay with it.

He says, well, what does Jensen say? Janice is okay. We said, well, everybody's okay with it. So maybe you have to make your piece with it until you can figure out something. But there are a bunch. I mean, there's what Elon's doing. There's anthropic. Like, it's not, it's not just that. Well, I want to ask, I actually want to ask you about that. I believe in Elon, but, I mean, I really do.

I think he's very surreal. So you and I invested through the first.com wave, we're left with zero of those companies, with the exception of Amazon. but none of the search players. So to me, the LLMs remind me of search, and there are none left. Google came public in 04 after. There were 10 of them at one point.

That's the LLM thing. It doesn't feel like there are going to be 10. It feels like they're going to be two. I don't know for sure. It's chat GPT probably and perplexity or chat GPT and Claude. Well, you've got to look at this lawsuit between the New York Times and

Open AI. Because New York Times isn't, you know, Open AI is constantly cribbing the Times, but they have two million instances of plagiarism. Two million instances in the lawsuit. Two million. So I'm never with the lawyers in this thing, and I said, wait a second, are you telling me that they won't pay you because you're going to win this lawsuit? And then everybody who runs these sites is going to have to pay every single site. That might cost more than energy. Well, the fact is, is that they get a free ride. And they're not going to get a free ride. And a lot of these sites won't be able to afford it.

And that lawsuit, which I think the Times wins, is going to make it so all these companies have to start. They have to train. Well, Reddit sued perplexity on the same grounds. They said, you're training your LLM on our proprietary data and you owe us money. And perplexity said, hey, you're fighting against the open internet. And Reddit's probably like, yeah, go fuck yourself. That's our data. Pay us.

It's not open internet. Yeah, and they use Cloudflare, Matthew Prince, that stock went from 70, to, 200 because they perplexity used them and now everyone's going to have to fall in line everyone's got to pay. These LLMs can't survive a scenario where they have to actually pay for all the data they're being trained on. That's what's like

2000. So that's what makes me nervous. That's what's like 2000. The second part, you wrote I've stolen this idea from you I've given you credit but you wrote in a moment like this you wrote about being at the diner by the Holland Tunnel

where the guy drops the eggs on the griddle, and it's just too hot. If you're not ready with the spasurer, the minute you drop it, the eggs, why are your eggs so perfect? He goes, nine seconds. Nine seconds. If I leave them on for 10 seconds, it's burnt until Chris. Is this market, is this market, is this market not a hot griddle, Holland Tunnel

diner market environment? No, I don't think so. I think there's sections that are. Okay. At that point, everything was. I think there's lots of stuff. Okay. I mean, okay, now I know Procter & Gamble's not what this room might be about, or maybe

I don't know, but Proctor opens up for it. today. And it's John Mueller. He's like the most boring man on Earth, but he's a nice guy. He's a CFO. He sells toilet paper. Excuse me? He sells toilet paper. He got that wavy toilet paper. First innovation in 40 years, you know. But he, they told a good story in the stock's up five. And I'm like thinking, shit, that doesn't work. That doesn't work for me.

It's not going to fit my thesis. My thesis is that that group is safety last. That's my big rap, you know. And then by the time the market opens, the stock's only up a buck, you know. And so that's working for me. that every day you seek validation of your thesis, okay? So, I mean, it's not like I am saying to him, no, let me tell you, it's fine. Every minute you're seeking, if you're any good, if you're any good at this business and everybody wants to be good at picking stocks, you have to constantly validate your thesis. And if you see something that says that your thesis is wrong and you ignore it, your jackass.

So, I mean, Proctor been up big today. I mean, and literally I'm thinking this. I'm watching the guy on 704, and they're talking, of course, about the reds. The Cincinnati Reds and the bank, I don't know, because of Cincinnati thing. And I'm listening to say, shit, this stock's going up too much. This is wrong.

This is not my thesis. This is not my thesis. What am I going to say? When Carl talks to me, what are we going to say? Like the Proctuary's going, it's got to come down. It's got to come down. It doesn't work.

And it goes down. I go on at 859. I'm like, hey, Proctor, I was a little bit. That's nothing. You don't want to be in that. So, I mean, you can never make it seem like you're, if you are secure in this business,

you're just such a joke. I mean, you have got to be like, It's such a, look, and I'm friends with everything. Stephanie worked with me for years. But, you know, Josh will come out and say, look, toast was toast. I didn't know, you know. And I'm like thinking, oh, there's another guy that's made a mistake in this business besides me. I know two people, him and me.

And the ones who don't say it, they're like, are you kidding? There was a guy, there was a guy part of the original cast of Fast Money. We won't say his name. But if the stocks he picked on Monday didn't do well on Tuesday, he would call in sick to the show. I can't be on today. Say his name. Say it. I won't do it.

See, that shit. And it bothers me so much. Jim, do you think the audience, I mean, I'm curious here to take on stocks. Do you think that the software stocks are a value or a trap? Let's talk about. Are people too worried about AI disintermediating Adobe and Salesforce? I'm going to give you a micro answer to macro answer. The macro is the ServiceNow report this week.

And I think it'll be a really good quarter. And people say, ah, shit, I should have done that when that's got AI. But there's a company called Encino, you know, not the town, but Encino, NCI, it's a spin-off of a bank called Live Oak. And Live Oak is an actual non-deposit bank. It's more of a, it's an Internet bank, but it's based in Wilming, North Carolina. So, you know, what do they know down there? Hey, this guy is a real smart guy who runs it. And what he did was develop software that made it so that you could do softwares or service for bank.

and he did it in conjunction with Salesforce. And that company is now worth $3.2 billion and his bank is worth $1.5 billion. He just ripped out the Encino sales force product. And I said, this is in front of the Federal Reserve. It was a panel I ran. He said, I had some kid write the stuff that was better than what Salesforce has got.

Using AI. Using AI. So I think that it is going to be existential. Adobe, similar story. Adobe's really in trouble. What if anybody can make any graphic they want just by speaking it into existence? My daughter went to Parsons and she was in Adobe that they train on Adobe and she said,

Dad, there's this, I bought her this for her present for graduation. I bought her the $600 suite for Adobe and she stopped it. I said, why she goes, I got this Canva for free. I said, you tell me the free products better than Adobe? She goes, I'm telling you they're equal. Yeah. And that's his stock peaked when Canva came out with free. So these guys are all going to be really.

challenged. And now, Mark's guy, so I've worked with Marks, Benioff's new product and Salesforce, and I see what it's doing. Agent Force? Yeah, Agent Force. But the problem with Agent Force is, one, it can be impersonated, so you have to do a lot of cybersecurity. But two, I mean, do you really want to give, like when you call Walgreens, well, I guess they're almost calling me, you call CBS, and you have like, dial one for this, do that, you don't, you don't want to, if they're able to get your information, like United Health got, was a real bad hack. And I got hit by the hack because I had back surgery five years ago. And like every five days, someone calls me, says, yeah, this is, you know, how's your back surgery? I understand because

I'm from the national back guys. And we are checking up on your medical. And I said, oh, my God, it's the United Health. It never stops. They got my, they know everything about me. And it was a Chinese hack. And I don't want my, I hope agent forces never hacked because they know too much. Right. If you set something loose inside of your email, for example, then all of a sudden it's got every detail it needs for somebody to steal and impersonate. And that's why I like Crowdstrike

and Nick Cash Palo Alto so much, because they're the two that are most soup to nuts. You and I are both CrowdStrike Bulls. George was on yesterday with Wapner in the morning. Yeah, he came on my show the day before. I said, George,

you're overexposed, man. Is cybersecurity security, the most obvious secular bull market between now and the end of the decade, other than AI and robotics? That's why I own two of them for the trust. I would never do that. You own crowd and- Cyber and Palo Alto.

I'll tell you why Scott had him one. It's kind of interesting. When he was getting up, and we had him one pretty early on the hour, because it was me and Scott because David was off and Carl's off. And I said to Scott, Scott's a good sports fan like I am, I said, you know, Georgia won Lamont's And he goes, yeah, I said, no, he won Lamonts. Not as a sponsor. He drives the F1 car.

Yeah, and he finished second in Sebring last year. And, you know, Scott was like, give me a break. I said, George, tell him. Tell him, he goes, yeah, I won Lamonts. George has a sleeping problem. Now, you can only go eight hours. Now, let me go all 24 of one guy. But he can't sleep, so he's like watching all 24 hours, and he's great.

And Scott was like, you've got to be kidding me. Yeah, yeah. But George is, yeah, he is the sponsor. but he's also the chief driver. I love him. Who's your favorite CEO? Not because of what the stock performance was, but you've interviewed every important CEO

probably over the last 20 years that's ever been. Who's your favorite? Was it Jack Welch? I have a very odd ball pick that I want to make. I think you genuinely liked Aubrey McClendon from Chesapeake. Okay, I mentioned Aubrey last week. Oh, you did? Someone.

Yeah, because. I think you liked the guy. No, I loved all. And it was a really, it was a tragic end, but. Yeah, and, you know, Aubrey violated just a Sherman Act. Now, if you take a look, there's, when you look at this article two of the Sherman Act. Wait, he burned down Atlanta? How do you violate the Sherman Act?

He rigged, he bid rigged. Okay. There was a nice piece of land that he knew had a lot of Nat Gas on it. And he wanted to be sure he got it. So he went to everybody who was bidding and said, listen, this is mine. I'll give you something. I wanted it, and it was all recorded. Someone just recorded it, and he...

Was this Straussie Billups? No. No. Orby, no. Chesapeake Energy. Chesapeake Energy was the Nvidia of the 2000s. Yes, it was. Aubrey was larger than life, and he owned the Thunder, and he was a big giver to Duke. He was actually more of a finance guy than he was an oil guy, but he explained a lot

and lied to me, and I went to a bunch of schools with him. And I really just enjoyed it, just really enjoyed him. And he, when I went to my, he said, listen, Jimmy, I'm in trouble. And I say, let me, let me check on this. Let me check on this. So I called my guy Paul Weiss who does the antitrust. And my friend said, he's done. He's done.

He's done. And I said, I got to call him back. And he said, what do I tell him? Why do I tell him? and I left the message and he was and he, that's when he killed himself. He killed himself about an hour after

and he didn't get my message but he was a tragic figure whom I loved. I'll tell you, we went to Ohio together. I wasn't going to say that. We went to Ohio together. Jim, I think you did it. It was your fault.

Yeah, my fault. I did it. We went to Ohio together. Was Heather there in the Ohio trip? Exactly, my producer. Yeah, well, so we did. He goes, Jimmy, listen to me. We got, and then, you know, it was the day. People, I love it.

My mom and dad called me, Jimmy, so I like it. He goes, Jimmy, he goes, we're going to go to Utica because there's the largest oil patch in the world, bigger than the Permian. And what we're going to do. New York. Yeah. We're going to do. You know, we're going to go, and you're going to be there the moment it, oh, we're going to spud. We're going to spud.

And it's going to be amazing. So he said, but you got to put all the stuff on. You got to be ready. And he goes. all right hit it and nothing comes up and he goes

no hit it it's nothing and the guy comes over to me he's with him he goes hey boss listen it's natural gas no no it's oil no it's natural gas he goes no there's oil in there and I'm thinking

oh my god there'll be blood I mean could the guy but you know he lost everything on the Utica lost everything on the Utica That was a true gambler, for sure. Oh, was he ever a gambler? Oh, I love them. This is your eighth book.

Why are you doing this to yourself? What are we trying to do here? Who is this book for? This is what I f***ed up one. I really did. No, I mean, because I worked really, really hard on it. And I really kind of did a lot of damage. I certainly, I'm a gardener.

And I know this sounds stupid, but you only get so many gardens in life. This is my 38th. And I let this one go fallow because I had to read the book into the, Into the microphone. To the microphone, as Josh knows. And what happened is that it can only be your voice. And the only time my voice would not be able to hold up after the show. So I had to work on the weekends.

And it took me two years or I was really out of commission. I wrote 500 pages. And then they said, listen, pick your best 250, basically. They wanted to be 250. So then, like, I had this great section about how that if you're going to go do a GameStop, let it be a Palantir or a Self. Celsius. So they cut out the Celsius and they kept the Pounceer. And the Pallentzer makes it seem like the carp, messianic guy. But what I was trying to say was like, look, at least have some companies that have numbers. You know, have it to have real growth. Oh, so if you want to have this group movement where everyone buys the same stock, the underlying should not necessarily be a video game retailer.

Don't buy bullshit. Yeah. And then I also said, let me tell you a good balance sheet first. But you know, I said, I'm going to take, I remember telling my wife, I'm going to take on the balance sheet. He said you have to because if you're going to say people should pick stock. you have to at least show them a balance sheet. So I had this big, like 40-page section about AMC's balance sheet and income statement versus apples. You know, apples is perfect, and AMC's the worst. And they said, okay, Jim, we only have room for one.

I said, what do you mean one? I know, it's a contrast. So no, we only have room. We're going to use Apple. I said, no, but Apple's boring. It's a companion. And they said, well, you know, we're not going to do AMC because that's bad.

And I said, but the whole point, is to be able to show people what a bad balance it is. And they said, well, Jim, you know, we got to worry about people getting through it. So the exigencies of having to write a mass book that I wanted to be read contrasted versus what trying to be a serious practitioner of the game. So you have to make too many, I made so many compromises. It drove me crazy. But the good stuff, most of the good stuff made it in.

Yeah, and that's what they said. You know we're trying to like sell the book. No, no, no, no. I don't get me wrong. What a piece of shit this book was. Oh, my God. Thank you. Thank you for that.

I just give you behind the scene stuff. In the end, I actually like it. I like the book that I like the book that you wrote. Hey, did you like the thing with my dad and Mr. Paul? It was actually called Mr. Hank. These are the stories that help people better understand the investor. The mentality behind the investments and the connection. This is why people need to read the book.

We are bombarded. I've been talking a lot about this. We are bombarded with. why this is going to end badly. And maybe it does, fine. But what you are trying to do with the book is to tell to people, stiff-arm the headlines, and focus on the opportunities.

And it's not easy, but you can do it. Right. And I keep saying, look, I was in 1982, dollars of a thousand, walking down the street, and I'm going to Goldman Sachs at 55 Broad, and everyone's telling me it's a terrible time. Interest rates are real high, and the company's not come back. and Reagan's a doofus and all this stuff.

And even then, it was a great time to buy. And I think that, yes, it is absolutely true. I was in the book I had to wrestle with 2007, 2009. You were back even again, not until 2013. So that was a big long stretch. But the idea is, is that if you believe, if you observe and you have some curiosity and you use the chat sheet, BT, and you do the current homework,

you might have three or four stocks in your life that are really great. And I know I use the NVIDIA, and you can say, well, Jim, I had an unfair advantage. But the fact is, is that Jensen asked me to come out because no one would listen to him. That's how I came out. He said, look, I'm going to show you things. No one's listening to me. There was a moment with Jensen where he said, do you think you get me in front of like a Wendy's or McDonald's? Because this thing understands 28 languages.

And I called McDonald's. I called my day. It's like, no, that doesn't work for us. Of course, now McDonald's is trying it. But what is amazing is it doesn't take a lot of great ideas to make a million dollars. Just eat like three or four. But if they talk you out of it, then you'll never ever make anything in your life. And Larry Fink, whom I really respect, he and I worked, he worked on me very hard.

He said, look, you've got to get people to invest. These younger people don't believe in anything. And I said, well, look, match index funds, which are very valid, with let them be able to see on Facebook. I mean, I found Facebook because my daughter was a suicide counselor, and she said, I can't get the kids to not get off this thing. This thing is like, Coke.

You got to see if you can't get this guy Zuckerberg to stop doing this because all the people are trying to commit suicide. It's because their friends are telling them that they're ugly. And it's like, you know, on the one hand, I'm like thinking, well, that's terrible. I think, shit, Coke. This is Coke, legal Coke.

All right, Jimmy, we got five minutes. minutes. No, we don't. That's bullshit. Where are we going? What are we going to do? Yeah, we got to go watch some. It's a Knicks. Put him on. So there's no football right now, right? So Michael had this adorable idea where we do

What an asshole. No, I don't mean it facetiously. I mean, people have a lot to do. Michael had this. I'm having more fun than I've had on this damn book tour. We're absolutely having a blast. Michael had this really adorable idea where it would be very fitting, very on brand to end with a little

mini lightning round. What I don't want to do is like just throw the mic out there and have people tell them, tell you how much they love you, because that could eat up too much time. So I thought we would throw some tickers slash themes slash whatever at you and you can keep these as brief

for as long as you want. I'll start. I'll start. So there are, there's this misconception I think. Shut up. It's my turn now. I have the mic. That every stock is going up. It's a bubble. It's just not true. There are a lot. There's a hundred 70 stocks in the S&P that are down 20%. There's a lot of opportunity.

So a couple of weeks ago, Josh and I did, value or value traps. So let's start here. Lulu Lemon. Okay, I love Calvin McDonald, but he has to adopt to, he has to understand that when I go to Costco and they got exact same thing for $17, he's got to reprogram. Is that the problem there? Yes. Okay.

Not aloe, but the low end. The low end. Look, Richard Glantz, he's a good friend of mine. He was the CFO at Costco 38 years ago, and he told me that Lou Lemon, when they sued them because their stuff was exactly the same, that was the end of Lou Lemon. His stock was about 350.

So I think the management hasn't been able to reinvent. How do they keep him? I mean, think about that. How did they keep him? Josh, what else? I would love to get your take. Amazon is flat on the year? Isn't that something?

What the hell is going on there? Amazon Web Services, and they better do a better, They've got to show you 22% growth this week. What's keeping that stock from participating with the rest of the NASDA? The last five years, what a magnificent underperformer. Right. It is amazing. And I don't want to blame Jassy.

I think that what's happened is that Amazon Web Services was doing really great. And then Google Cloud, Thomas Curran, came in. And obviously, Azure, Nadella is a very tough guy. But I think the main thing is I take the cue from my son who does software. Okay, he does venture capital software. And he says, look, I would never write on Amazon Web Services because it's retail product. You're right on Openette. You're right on Azure.

You're right on Openette. Like developing software. And that when you hear like the cutting edge people don't want to write on it, what that really means is that that's the beginning of the end. It means that it's just a product that's meant for a room retailers. And then, you know, they have the outage this week. And the stock should not have gone off. The algebra is terrible.

But I do believe that they are in a scrum against Walmart and Costco on retail. This Amazon Web Services is losing customers. Behind an AI. Yeah, they're behind an AI. And when I had this discussion with Andy Jazzy, I said, look, Andy, you're doing, you don't want to pay Jensen's price. And I get that. And you're doing your trainium and you got your really interesting chips. But the fact is, is that no one wants to write on you because they can go to Open AI and they can

write on on, they can write on invidia. Does Bezos pull a Bob Iger? I'm sorry? Does Bezos pull a Bob Iger? Or Howard Schultz or anyone else who's had to come back to... He respects Jazzy and that guy Doug who does retail is really fabulous. I just think that if you're going to, that

he's decided to be cheap. He's cheap. He won't pay Jensen. And the fact is, is that Musk, if you go over Musk's conference call, there's this moment in the call where he goes And you know what? Invidia is the best, and I have to use invidia. Now, think about that.

There isn't anything that he's ever said that he isn't the best. He's always the best. And he goes, you know what? Invidia's the best. And I was like, yes, I knew that. And Jassy should read that. And he should recognize that this whole tranium bullshit, no one wants to use this stuff because it's not fair.

Did you notice that they're not in that carousel of companies that are announcing open AI partnerships? They're like not in the – it's like a – It seems like there's a cool club that Oracle is in, and Sam Altman is in, and Amazon is, like, not in any of these announcements. Well, how about that Anthropic? They have more money in Anthropic, and yet Anthropic went to Google. All right, a few other ones. We spoke about...

But I'm on this one, by the way. I'm like spending one more before I forget it. No, no, I spent a lot of time with Amazon to see if he can't be great, because I love Amazon the company. I'm not giving up on Amazon. Palantir. Are you as impressed with Alex Carp as he is with himself? All right, so

I find him to be really interesting I'm not long the stock I'm curious what you think Books who come out Axios says and stuff about it I don't like him Isn't he a Philly guy too? Yeah, oh I told him that

I said listen like you're like a more repulsive Philly guy than I am I gave him a note once I said I'm not your enemy and he goes yeah I said no that's a peace offering yeah it was like horrible

he's like a horrible guy but I think he's real and I say that Because, like, all the companies that have hired him, the big ones, I've called them. And I said, how is it? And they all, to a person say, listen, it's pretty good. I mean, he's on fire. That business is on fire.

It's on fire. But is it too expensive, even given how on fire they are. It seems crazy to me. It is Rule of 80. I think I'm going to end up, it's going to go to- They're killing Will of Eddie. They're killing. And, you know, look, Boeing just went with them, and Orkberg was a very serious guy.

When I say the serious guys, it's like the scene in succession. Right, yeah, right, Brian Cox. You are not serious people. You are not serious people. Well, it's like a great line because I'm talking about people who are serious. Like Orpard would not be going to him. I know a kid who went there from Wharton and I know his mom. And his mom was saying, you know, they work 24-7.

They're all, carp to them is a hero because he's really not imperious at all to them. And that's what makes me like him. Now, I sent that guy Shyam, the number two guy. He had a really good piece about the military last week. I sent him an email. And I knew he wasn't going to return, but I just said, look, you know, I know you guys despise me, whatever. But then I meet this woman, Wendy, who's in charge of defense. She's head of the defense.

She's a Department of Defense, Palantir, which is like a real legitimate palatine. And she says she came up to me. And Heather was there. my Alex likes you. I said, what? What? Just,

Alex likes you. Okay. I said, yeah, yeah, sure. You think he's a good guy. If he thinks of a man, I said, if he thinks of a good guy, what does he think about the guys that he really dislikes?

Jimmy, a few other iconic American brands. I'd take any one you want. Chipotle, Nike, Starbucks. Airbus. Tripoli, that guy. I mean, I love Scott. It's not pulling it off. I mean, I check all these different Chipolis.

My last one I went to on Sunday Night, dirty, ridiculous. Used to be nice. I think Elliot Hill is going to turn Nike. It's going to be two quarters because there's too much inventory. I spent a lot of them. I went to a Dallas Eagles game with him. I really want to find out the guy's real. I think the guy is very, very real.

But New Balance is the one he's worried about because they're better performance. He's not worried about Hokka. Obviously, everybody else isn't either after today's number. But I think he's going to be able to pull it off. I really do. That's a nice. Hoka is Decker's. Steckers, yeah, I don't, you know, and that was a bad, the numbers were mid-single.

Chipotle, no? Chipotle, no. Airbnb? Do you have to change management? Airbnb? Airbnb? Airbnb, Airbnb, that's a tequila talking. I'm sorry.

No, no, Chesky's an interesting figure because I like him, but he has to bring in someone else to have a bigger vision than he does. Because he's like, you got like Dara has a big vision, and he has to bring a guy like Tony's shoe from DoorDash, really big vision. His vision isn't big up. Now, when I've mentioned that to him, he's like, I don't have the vision either. So when you say something like that to a guy who's insecure, they say, well, what's your vision? But you say it to a secure guy, screw, I says, yeah, I got to get somebody else in.

I think Brian Nichols is going to turn Starbucks big because he was about execution. It was about execution at... That stock has been $85 for six years. I think it's going to be... This is the year? I want to buy it. No, it's going to be... Look, this quarter's still going to be tough.

And I know that people are going to get to... scourge, go back down to 79. But I think, you know what the problem is? China. You know what the problem is? China's got, it's worth 10 billion. North and 10 bill now, before it was south of 10 bill. I know it's splitting hairs, but it's not bad. I want to pull the trigger on these names.

Every name Michael just mentioned, Chipotle, Nike, Starbucks. Don't say Chipotle because they got a real lot. They haven't, they don't think anything's wrong. But they're all 35 to 40 times earnings. They're expensive. We're in a market where even the worst performers, the stock don't get cheap enough. No, they have to have an earn. earnings breakout. And I do think that you have to believe in Brian, who I do. And it's tough to just

believe in a guy and also have to deal with the fact that everybody else must or else you wouldn't have that high PE. But Elliott is, Dono wrecked that did really, really did a major damage to that company. And two CEOs did major damage to Starbucks. That's a long, you're talking about five, six years of just terrible damage. Most brands cannot handle five, six years of damage. They just can't. And so those two, you're betting that the brand's strong enough to have dealt with how horrendous the CEOs were. When I say horrendous, like, everyone in this room would have been better than anything. You killed the last CEO of Starbucks. Yeah, that was bad.

That was rough. Well, I had a decision tree for that in, for that piece, I had a decision tree. I had gotten the number. I pulled every stop out to get the numbers for Tim Hortons, which were not getable, and get the numbers for Duncan, which were not getable. But I did. I really worked hard knowing about that interview. So I had them.

So I said, if he is humble, go with, you know, I understand. It's fine. If he's not humble, just give him everything. I think you got him fired. I really do. No, I know. All right. Last one.

Last one. What is, what is, and this is not a recommendation to the audience. What is your favorite stock right now? Give us a 10 bag. Oh my God. No, no. I have two. I have two stocks that I love right now.

Guys, will we take two? I have two stocks. We'll take two. All right, we'll take two. All right, first of all. We're not like you're public. sure. We'll take two. First of all, I actually love the stock of Boeing. Really? Yeah, I do. Okay. Because they've solved the, they've solved the construction problems.

Okay. And the demand is incredible. They got their act together. They got their act together. And Kelly's real serious. And they actually won, the fact that they won that fighter plane told you that the government is not going to give them a hard time. Where does that stock trade today? It's a two at two 19. I think you can go to, that from six. I think you can go to 600. Yeah, I think you can go to 300 pretty quickly. When they get the cash flow And the cash flow is really... They're in the good graces of the White House again. They're in great...

Yeah, see, that really mattered. Airplane demand around the world is as strong as it's ever been. If Airbus could meet the demand, then it wouldn't be so good. But this is... They also have the wide body and they don't have the non-union wide body is doing very well.

But the other one is one that people are not thinking about and they've got to think about, which is Capital One. Really? Yeah, Capital One. I like the chart. C-O-F. How about that chart?

It is, they bought this company called Discover, and Discover has a network like MasterCard and Visa. Discover is a credit card company for people who have no money. Exactly right. Exactly right. It's great. It's brilliant. And if you look at their numbers from this last quarter,

they had a huge decline in defaults. Because this guy, Richard Fairbank, I met Richard Fehran. I was saying in 2007 that Capital Woman is going to go under. And I get this phone call, I don't know how he got by his phone number. I said, listen, my God, I'm here. I'm like at my proctologist. man, I got like a problem. I try to figure out.

He goes, do you have 10 minutes? Like, half a minute later. I thought, say, yeah, are you coming in here? He's a guy up in Columbia Presbyterian. I said, I got up, I'm talking to this guy from Capital One. He said, well, what does that mean? And I got out the phone, I said, this guy is the smartest guy I have ever seen. And he won't come on the show.

He's a very humble guy, but this Capital One is a rocket ship. Well, it's a big shareholder. Which one? Berkshire is a big shareholder of Capital One. I didn't know that he's in that. Yeah. Are they? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I always, ever since I don't think he's picking him, you know. So I haven't checking what he's in. But the conference call was just magnificent. It was a magnificent conference school. And that's about the American consumer. So what a great way to end.

Well, I mean, look, Capital One is the way they're going upscale and downscale. And I urge people not to buy it, but to do everything you can to learn to stop. Do your research. Because this one is a monster. Jim, I want to close by just reiterating how appreciative. Michael and I are for decades of your commentary and educating all of us. I know the audience feels the same way.

You're an icon, you're a legend. This conversation lived up to it, and we love you. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. Thank you. Wow, applause, Jim Craver. All right, guys, I want to let everybody know. We're going to run off the stage so we can get in place. We're going to do,

we'll sign some books, we'll take some pictures, and we'll try to get to everybody. let us make our egress. Nicole's going to walk us, are you walking us off or what are we doing, music? All right. We want to meet everybody. We'll be out there if you're interested. Thank you guys so much for being here. We appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you, Jim. You know,