The Compound and Friends - Responsibly Reckless

Episode Date: May 5, 2023

On episode 91 of The Compound and Friends, Michael Batnick and Downtown Josh Brown are joined by Ian Dunlap and Leanna Haakons to discuss regional banks, the importance of Apple's earnings, how AI is changing the labor market, TEN STRAIGHT RATE HIKES, the Coinbase shareholder lawsuit, and much more! Thanks to Birddogs for sponsoring this episode! Enter promo code "MICHAEL" and get a free Yeti style tumbler with every order: birddogs.com/michael. Check out the latest in financial blogger fashion at The Compound shop: https://www.idontshop.com 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. Wealthcast Media, 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

Your shirt looks sick through this. I watched The Whale on the airplane. Okay. You guys seen it? I haven't seen it yet. Amazing. You see it? Amazing.

So, it's perfect for the airplane because you're not going to sit down on a Friday night and watch it. And watch it, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so f***ing depressing. But holy s***. That's a great movie. He did a great job. Holy s***. Yeah. For the first like 20 minutes I was like...

It was slow. Yeah, a little bit slow, feeling it out, but holy s***. Yeah. Yeah, it was tough. They don't even really feature whales that much in it. Duncan. Wait, you saw it, Duncan? No.

Okay. Nicole? Yeah, I've seen it. Liked? I mean, yeah, sad but liked it, yes. Yeah. Did you watch it on an airplane?

I did not. Where'd you watch it? On a couch? Yeah. In a theater? So I think theaters are back. You think so? I forgot to talk about this

with Ben. Last week, DK Metcalf sat right there. Yeah, I saw the party. And we spoke about movies and I said, what type of movies? He goes, horror.

And I gave him a pound. Yes. Because I'm like, I told you f***ing guys I'm not the only one who goes to the movie theaters by themselves. Yeah, I'll go into the movies

by myself. DK goes by himself. Anyway, that Friday night, I saw Evil Dead by myself. How was it? It was me and a bunch of 16-year-olds. But and a bunch of 16 year olds.

But it was tons of 16 year olds to the point where they had to have like a fake security guy walking up and down the aisles like shush people. Yeah. So the movie was good. I was genuinely scared

because the trailer looks like terrifying. Yeah. Like it looks like terrifying. And it was good. It was like fun. It wasn't like as scary as I thought. I was honestly scared. I'm a big this guy. In theater. Yeah. You it was good. It was like fun. It wasn't like as scary as I thought. I was honestly scared. I'm a big this guy.

Hey, how's it going? In theater. Yeah. You know, whatever. I get scared. So we can. Okay. We can move this a little.

I like horror, but I get scared. Leanna, how's life? We're going to find out. Pretty good. Because it comes out tomorrow. What does? Oh, Guardians. Yeah.

Oh, we're going to find out if theaters are back? I think they're back. No, they'll do a billion dollars immediately. It should. Yeah. It should. Because, you know, Maverick was the one that put it over the top. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're going to find out if theaters are back? I think they're back. No, they'll do a billion dollars immediately. It should. Yeah. It should because, you know, Maverick was the one that put it over the top. Yeah. Yeah.

I think we're back. So, Leanna, life is good? Yeah. A lot as crazy as last year. Yeah. A lot less like events. Because like the reopening. So, I'm going to one in two weeks.

Where are you going to? I'm going to the one in Hollywood, Wealthstack Edge. Oh, Wealthstack. Yes. Thank you so much. But they're having a hard time. I'm not saying that's kind of specifically,

but getting advisors to go to conferences is hard. Because there's like so many. It's hard. Yes, it's hard. And also like, it doesn't matter who's speaking because anybody that's speaking

that you would want to see, you could just listen on podcasts. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like conversation with all the events I work for and stuff that like getting good speakers

is like not enough. No. Also the same speakers are doing the same circuit as all the other events. It and stuff that getting good speakers is not enough. No. Also, the same speakers are doing the same circuit as all the other events. It's not even close to enough. I love Magic Johnson, but you could hear him anytime you want. You know what I mean?

It's true. It's not like you don't need to go to a conference to see somebody speak or listen to somebody speak. Yeah. Well, what do you think needs to be done to make them more appealing? It's tough. That's what they're asking.

The thing is like events themselves like just having an event has never been like a big margin business it has to be it's a tough business like what Anthony

always used Salt for it was supposed to be like a driver and service the real business yeah but now I think Salt is like

their main kind of thing pretty much that's the opposite it's tough but like yours like you're yeah you do the in person stuff

to like build the back end of the business and regeneration for Red Holtz and all of that, right? Yeah. But just your event companies? Well, they have obviously fanatics, right? To be able to get 20,000 people, that's mental. But it's still a huge thing.

And you're marketing or planning for it all year. Margin sale can be tough though. Margins. Yeah. That's the reason why we say in Atlanta, we're thinking about taking it elsewhere because people are telling us now you got to get percentage of hotel and food because if not, cost is going to be so high in a couple of years. But if you guys are driving that sort of, imagine you go to a place.

So Atlanta is a gigantic city. Yes. But if you went to a city that like is not used to having that sort of... That's what I'm telling them, like take the Iowa City. You go to Iowa City, like they will pay you to come. Yes. That's what I want. I'm like, let's take it elsewhere. But hopefully we can have a conversation with the mayor. Of what? Of what? Any other city?

Atlanta, yeah. And if not, we gotta take it elsewhere next year. You were at the, next to the Mercedes-Benz. What is that stadium called? Mercedes-Benz, yeah. What is that venue called that the event was at? It's massive. Yeah. I forgot the name of it.

Liana, I went to Ian's event last year in Vestfest. You did it at Madison Square Gardens, right? No, it's Mark and Mundo's live. The bigger one is at Inveralta. The convention center was crazy.

I remember, did Tyrone go to that too? I don't know. There was like a bunch of you guys went to that. Yeah, Frank Holland went. I went in VestFest

last summer. Oh, you told me it was nuts. It was nuts. Was that your first one last year? Josh came back and he was like, dude. Yeah.

Because we do live stuff, but I've never seen an audience. They weren't even sitting. Did you drug your audience? Be honest. They were standing. We should, though. They were so excited. And I thought what was cool was you had music in between speakers.

Yeah. What type of music? Like Waka Flocka Flame. Like live music? Yeah. Your favorite.. Like Waka Flocka Flame. Like live music? Your favorite. I love Waka Flocka. I know you do. That was my first cassette.

Oh, was it? I don't think he's old enough. My first cassette was Throne Copper. Yeah, that sounds right. 94 or something. But you guys had a crowd that was so into what you do. Yeah.

And, I mean, the Steve Harvey thing, which I watched from backstage with you. Yeah. Are you friends with him, too? No, like, I wasn't friends with him. I actually put that on the thing for today. His story's in my book. Oh, is it really? He was at your event?

Yeah. That's awesome. Let me tell you really? He was at your event? Yeah. That's awesome. Let me tell you. He spoke for an hour and a half, maybe two hours. Really? And the crowd was hanging on. He has amazing stories. I put his story in my book about how he was homeless until he was almost 40.

What? I met him at Salt like 2018. Is that true? He didn't really get it on track to like 36, 37. He lived in his car. He did well for like his 20s, but L.A. lifestyle. He was part of the Kings of Comedy. Yeah.

So who was it? That was Cedric. Bernie Mac. Bernie Mac. Oh, my God. And D.L. Healy. Yeah. D.L. Healy, right, right.

But that's one of the things he told us. He's like, I want to make sure you guys get along because like them arguing over who was the headliner over the next four years cost him, like, $45 million. They couldn't get along to go back on tour. Why Bernie Mac was the obvious headliner, but then Steve started to blow up. Bernie Mac is, like, all-time. Amazing. Yeah. So it's just a good lesson in camaraderie.

Having the right partners. Absolutely. Taking the right partners. Absolutely. Taking the ego out of the business, you know. Oh, wow. Yeah. But you guys got a great crew. Trapper.

Yes, my guy. MG, the mortgage guy. Yeah. Who's, he's from near where I live. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. And who else is in the crew? 19 Keys is doing really well. 19 Keys.

Yeah. So he's like a music producer turned investor? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. What was he a producer on? I think he did some stuff with Kendrick. Yeah, but he would do songwriting stuff behind the scenes.

Okay. Yeah. Is there room for more people? How do you guys know when you have too many content creators? I don't think you can ever have too much room if it's the right people. For me, it's all about acumen and trust. So my thing is always when we're vetting, I'm like, are you doing

what you say? I don't give a damn about the following and all that. It's a lot of people that have a following and they end up scamming people like 2019, 2020. For me, it's all about trust and synergy and stuff like that. People that are saying one thing on YouTube or Instagram and doing something else.

You have people trying to join you? You have people coming to you? The biggest platform? You guys are the biggest financial media platform there is right now for people that want to be influencers. I hate that term, by the way. Talk about it. You are influential. I'm going to try all the time. Okay. I hate that term, by the way. Same.

Talk about it. You are influential. I'm an influencer. I don't know. No, well, I never wanted to do any of this. I didn't know how to break into the hedge fund industry. So I had to take a back route to show a preponderance of proof that I knew what I was talking about. That's why I always say, if I've made you money, let me get a yes in chat.

Hell, you're on stage. So when I go to my meetings, you can't deny that I've helped 15,000, 20,000 people. I never decided to... It's a route I had to take unfortunately. But the word itself, you feel like it's pejorative these days. It's used to put someone down, like, oh, they're just an influencer. Do you feel that way?

I just don't think well I think in our space it doesn't give credit where credit is due like what are we influencing we're like I would say experts in a field

where not a lot of people are experts okay I think we're worth more than the word yeah I'm investing like I'm investing since 2009

trading futures since 2013 right I don't want to be influential, especially with all the shit that comes with it. If I knew what happens in the comments and all,

I wouldn't have... Well, that's... So one of the things is that 2020, a lot of people just didn't have anywhere to be. Yeah. And they had a lot of time

on their hands and they started trading. Yeah. And the market was just rampaging. Everything was working. So a lot of people all of a sudden became influential because they just, they said they were influential. And I don't think you could do that now.

It's tougher. I think that moment has passed on. Yeah. Unfortunately, I think all the other, the substitute words aren't good either. Like change maker oh don't use that that is terrible there's other

no there are terms that you're like I use the word change maker instead of influencer I'm like no I haven't thought of a good substitute I'm a thought crafter

thought crafter some people say curator I'm like what the fuck is that curator what does that mean they just put together and compile information like a content curator

I guess I'm that also talent I'm a lot of those things but I don't like I guess I wouldn't want Curator. What does that mean? They just put together and compile information. Like a content curator? I guess I'm that also. Talent? I'm a lot of those things, but I guess I wouldn't want to be called them either. We're the talent. We are the, well, clap it up for that. Most definitely we're the talent. The talent is ready. The talent's ready.

Let's do this. What episode is this? Time to influence. Coming in. Zero percent chance. Oh, man. Episode 91. 91. Let's go.

Welcome to The Compound and Friends. All opinions expressed by Josh Brown, Michael Batnick, and their castmates are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Red Holtz Wealth Management. Today's episode of The Compound and Friends is brought to you by our friends at Bird Dogs. Today is the perfect time. They're in the sweet spot. I'll tell you why. They've got pants, right, with liners. It's pants weather because it's sort of cold in the morning as we transition from spring to summer. And it's shorts weather. We're like right around the corner. It's like 56 degrees in New York City. It's not quite shorts weather. Got the pants today. Shorts hopefully next week. Go to birddogs.com slash Michael and use the code Michael to get a Yeti-style tumbler from Bird Dogs with every purchase. Got good friends in the house today.

Vibes are good. Vibes are good. I got to tell you, I've been excited for this episode for a while. I got to tell you, I've been excited for this episode for a while. And, you know, Liana, I'm going to give you guys official introductions in a minute. But Liana is a third time. Are you four? Four.

Come on. I don't even know why you guys keep asking me that, but I'm so glad. Because you're amazing. Because you're amazing. That's exactly right. Let me do your intro. Hang on one sec. Okay. Liana Hawkins is...

Wait, what happened to this? Oh, here we go. Hawkins. No, let me do my way. Like Black Hawk. But that's just my accent. Is that the Long Island? The Long Island?

Liana Hawkins is the founder of Black Hawk Financial, a financial business development and marketing firm. Liana frequently makes appearances on CNBC, Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, and wrote the book Young, Fun, and Financially Free. She is also a changemaker. Yay. All right. changemaker. Yay! Alright, and first time on the show, my friend, Ian Dunlop. Ian is the founder of Red Panda Academy and the creator

of Market Mondays with Earn Your Leisure. Ian has also been featured at Forbes and on The Breakfast Club. Welcome to the show, Ian. Thank you. I'm honored to be here. Long time fan. It's a privilege to be here. Seriously. The Breakfast Club is a big show, like much bigger than this show. What was that like going on with those guys? That was amazing. Yeah. I mean, like when my mom called

and my aunts called and friends from high school, like, oh my God, I saw you this morning. Yeah. All those crazy investment ideas. I guess they're panning out. So it's fun. So shout out to Charlamagne, Envy, Yee. Yeah, DJ Envy, Angela Yee, Charlamagne. Okay. Where do they tape? They're in Manhattan? Yeah. Okay.

All right. And Earn Your Leisure in general, though, is on a lot. So could you explain to the audience what Earn Your Leisure is and what your role in that whole movement is? Yeah. Earn Your Leisure, shout shot to try and shot, but we felt it was necessary to create a platform for black and brown people to easily understand investing and how to make money in the market.

So when I met with them, I did an episode with them, episode 70. It was the month before COVID hit. Oh, wow. So we taped it. And I actually shot him like,

Hey, when's the episode coming out? I'm like, everything's going to fall apart because I'm trading features. Were you bullish during the asked Rashad, I'm like, hey, when's the episode coming out? I'm like, everything's going to fall apart. Because I'm trading features. Were you bullish during the episode? No, I was on one of the ones we were talking about today, Apple, Microsoft. But I was short the S&P futures at the time, and I'm like, the market's going to fall apart. It hit, and that's when it kind of clicked for them.

Like, okay, he knows what he's talking about. He does have some controversial takes, but he's actually doing what he's saying. Then the episode came out and caught fire. And we just went on YouTube Live one day, and I just called out technical levels. I did my JC thing, like here. No fundamentals, all technical. Shout out to JC. And people, in the next two months, some people were up like 30%. Okay. And it just caught fire from there. Then we created Market Mondays and the rest in the history. All right. So Market Mondays, we'll plug all this stuff later. But basically, Troy and Rashad founded Earn Your Leisure. Yes.

And you do that show with them every week. Yes. And that's like very much your brand. Yes. As well as theirs. Absolutely. And that must be a lot of fun. It's incredible.

You guys have a huge audience. Yeah. They tune in every week. Yeah. I see it. Like every time you put something out on social media, I see it go crazy. No, I mean, you guys are a huge audience yeah they tune in every week yeah um i see it like every time you put something out on social media i see it go crazy no i mean you guys are a huge inspiration behind i told you i know you hate when i say it but to me you're like the mark haynes of our generation

okay and mark called the bottom like so your transparency honesty you and kramer would like to chew that i know kramer's had a tough time the last two years right but he was the inspiration for hasn't true uh for the show show. You should see my cholesterol. We're all having a tough one. I appreciate that. Of course. Thank you. And Liana, tell us a little bit about what the journey from the book being published has done for you. I mean, yeah, the book is sort of what started me in the influencer space, whatever you want to call it, in financial media. I think we settled on changemaker. Yeah.

Okay. Well, I'll be a changemaker today. That's cool. With the book coming out and all the proceeds of the book go to charity. And it was a client idea that I was helping his daughter out who's in college and she was spending a lot of money and didn't really have any education around it, even though she was from a family that was self-made and financially successful. So it was a client that gave me the idea to write the book.

And yeah, all the proceeds go to a charity that supports income opportunities and economic sustainability in third world countries. That's incredible. And sort of that's like the nod to anyone that has access to this podcast or, you know, in the Western world with education opportunities that we have and people like Ian to follow and learn from, that they can change their financial situation. You're going to follow that book up? You got another one in you?

I really have to. I have to update it. I mean, there's not even in the last five years, like there wasn't, we didn't even talk about crypto in the retail space five years ago. Like there's not even a mention of it. See, that's the cheat code in books is just don't write a new book. Just update the old book.

I got to update it. Put some digital in there. We'll talk about some AI today. Maybe put some AI in there, a lot of the hot topics. But yeah, technology changes so fast. So I need some updates there. But yeah, doing a lot in financial media and still just running my company, marketing, IR, business development, and finance. And I've been doing that for over 15 years now.

We're so happy to have you both here. Kind of a big week. We had a Fed meeting this week, which we'll get to. Apple reports this week. This is the most important stock in the world. Absolutely. On a lot of levels, not just because of how big it is in the indexes, but just people pay close attention to what Apple is doing,

and then they extrapolate out, well, what does this mean for everyone else? What do we got on Apple going into the number? Well, Apple, so I don't know. Okay, great. First of all, but I will say, I will say that it does seem like, so Apple's the last mega cap tech stock to report. Yeah. We got Nvidia, but Apple's the big one. And the market, hanging in the balance is too strong of a word. It's not like we're like, you know, looking at the over the edge of got Nvidia, but Apple's the big one. Hanging in the balance is too strong of a word. It's not like we're looking over the edge of a cliff, but the market's been vulnerable in the past few days. I feel like, I don't know if an

Apple beat can take the market to new highs, or forget about new highs, could take the market to its next level, but if Apple misses, it could definitely be a rough couple of days for the market. Yeah, I think if they miss it, oh my God, I think people are going to a full panic. That's scary. I mean, Microsoft did well, thank God. Another one of my favorites, but if Apple misses, it could definitely be a rough couple of days for the market. Yeah, I think if they miss it, oh, my God. I think people are going to full panic. That's scary. I mean, Microsoft did well, thank God.

Another one of my favorites. But if Apple doesn't do well, which I think they will, I think people are going to panic. I agree because the S&P is up about 6% or 7% on the year-to-date. Not that that is so important, but people pay attention to year-to-date. Apple having a tough day tomorrow, or I guess by the time our listeners are listening to this today, Apple having a tough time after earnings would be the thing that, is the Dow already down on the year? The Dow is, as of today, negative on the year.

Yeah. There's not going to be an earnings surprise, I don't think, from Apple, given what we've seen. No, a guidance surprise. So, possible. But I think that the positivity in that new high-yield savings account they have, I think that was two weeks ago when they just launched that and they got a billion dollars in deposits in the first four days. That's an – Is that a number?

Yes. That's a huge number. Four days. 240,000 new accounts. That's through Goldman Sachs. That's at 4.15 APY, Bank of America, Chase, everyone is still at 0.01%. Would you bank with Apple? I would. Absolutely. It's Goldman.

The caveat is that you have to already have the Apple card and then it's all accessible through your Apple wallet on your phone. So I think with the guidance I think they're going to give us, I think it's more about rather than what this earnings report is and the guidance for it is that Apple is becoming like the Apple of everything. Apple is the future of everything, the lifestyle of everything. And as they're building out these new product offerings, how they integrate into our lives, it's kind of like becoming like Amazon and Apple. They're going to be everything.

I've always said they're going to push to be the biggest brand in every space. So we'll talk about it later, but part luxury, part healthcare. But look at how much market share they could take away from crypto in the in every space. So we'll talk about it later, but part luxury, part healthcare. But look at how much market share they could take away from crypto in a staking space. When I looked at the rollout, I'm like, this looks like Ethereum or Cardano of a year ago.

What, like you're saying the percentage yield itself? Absolutely. Because if I asked my aunt, who knows nothing about crypto, she would never buy crypto, but she will buy Apple. So since they're the most trusted brand, look at the conversion that they'll be able to have. Oh, so if somebody's trying to get 5% staking something with the most sophisticated, I would say, annoying technology possible.

Yes. Or you could just do this. Why wouldn't they just do it through the biggest company that's profitable? So Jamie Dimon talked about this on the JP Morgan call. He's been talking about this a lot lately. Just like to look at JP Morgan and say that they're like monopolizing banking, Walmart is going to be a bank and so is Apple.

Are those brand names like at all non-competitive with JP Morgan and Bank of America? I don't think so. Like I think those brands are just- When you say Apple's going to be a bank, you don't mean they're going to like register for a charter or anything like that. They're just going to be in banking services. No, I don't think so. Like, I think those brands are just- When you say Apple's going to be a bank, you don't mean they're going to like register for a charter or anything like that.

They're just going to be in banking services. No, I don't think they would want to, but if they can deliver a savings account at a good yield and you can access it through iOS,

why wouldn't you? Well, they are. And it is, actually, I don't know the answer. Is it FDIC insured? I'm sure. For deposits, I'm sure. Dude, honestly,

I'd rather have it be Apple insured than FDIC insured. Good point. Or Your deposit's insured. Honestly, I'd rather have it be Apple insured than FDIC insured. Or yeah, either way. But I mean, just even with everything going on with regional banks, like if there's more options

like this for people to plug money in at different types of accounts to get coverage of some sort, I mean, that's literally what we're talking about all right now.

Is Apple a tech stock or a luxury brand? It doesn't, the multiples were never a tech stock. Never traded like a tech stock from a multiple point of view. It was always low. Consumer electronic stock would have a very low multiple historically.

People would always say that it was trading like at a hardware multiple, right? When it was like 11 and 12 times. And it never belonged there because it's so much bigger than that. But I think it got up to like mid-20s. Chris, I put this chart up. Let's put this chart up. I put this together very quickly Let's put this chart up. I put this together very quickly.

I should say, Sean put this together. Is the PE ratio for LVMH, Moet Hennessy versus Apple? And I mean, it kind of, I don't know. I don't know if this is like charlatanism, but I don't know. Do you have a take on this? Like, is this a chart crime? Yeah, is it a little bit of a chart? I mean, it's way worse.

It's okay. So there's not stock prices, but LVMH, which is the world's largest luxury goods retailer, it's every, they own everything except for Gucci, right?

It's about 33 times earnings and Apple's 28. So you could, I could hear both of those. Like, should Apple trade at a premium, just given how gigantic it is? People, you could say like, come on, it's like, it's $2 trillion.

How much, how much multiple expansion could there possibly be? But then you'd be like, what other company in the world, like literally in the world can do what they do? Where they say, all right, save this account and you get a billion dollars in four days. That's incredible.

I think the greatest publicly traded stock of all time, I think is a combination of luxury, tech, and eventually healthcare. Because if you want growth, the only area that they can go into is finance and healthcare. They've dominated every other space. They're already getting 30% of everything out of the app store. They destroyed the music industry brilliantly. What else is there to do besides healthcare? I don't know how much revenue the AirPods are doing, but is it like more revenue than McDonald's or Netflix?

I'm making that up, but it's something crazy. Just in the AirPods? Just in AirPods. It's crazy. That's the thing. But I think that they are, and obviously they've been trying to do this over their earnings reports and guidance for many years now, is like going away from leading with sales of hardware to like becoming a lifestyle brand. Everything that's cardless, cashless, paperless. Like Apple can drive your lifestyle from your phone.

To your point, they stopped reporting the number of units, number of iPhones they sell. That used to be the number that Wall Street would hang on every quarter. Exactly. How many units. Now they'll give you the revenue for the segment, but they're out of this game of counting how many phones because the installed base

of current phones is so big that it's almost not important. And not a lot of people that are iPhone users, if their phone breaks or gets too old, go and buy something else. And that's how it becomes a luxury brand. There's just a percentage of the population that are just Apple or nothing. Well, Galloway used to show that chart in New York City and the surrounding metro areas

of where people have an iPhone and where people have an Android. The further you go from the center of the city. It's very socioeconomic. Really? Actually, that I didn't know. So that's what makes it

a luxury brand. Galloway's point is there's 10% of the country that they will only ever use it. Absolutely. An Android phone is that much cheaper than an iPhone? I guess so. I think some are. Some are. Some are.

But even in the dating scene, it's a thing. Like if you text someone with a green bubble, it does kind of signal that you are not high status. That is a big thing. And back to the air power revenue. But just because you have a blue bubble doesn't mean that you're high status. That's very true as well. That's very true. Apple air power revenue.

But if you're wearing a blue suit, it does. Well, it's status. He and his status. Or a blue T-shirt, Michael. $23 billion in revenue for 2020, more than Twitter, Spotify, and Square combined for Apple AirPower revenue. Is that – I mean – $23 billion. Oh, this is in the doc.

I thought this was interesting. The guy that they say is the godfather of Google's AI program quit Google, warned of its dangers. Apple hasn't even come out with whatever they're going to do in AI. Yeah. But you could assume it's going to be something mass market and consumer focused. But just generally speaking, this is the whole story of 2023 is AI and how excited investors are. And finally having a new technology to talk about, which I guess this replaces crypto and cloud. Yeah. That's now old news. and this is like the new shit.

I know. I need to get with it. I need to learn more about AI. Is there an AI Liana out there yet? I hope not. Have you created yourself out there to answer questions? But I guess I should make one because I need to be with the times. Someone's going to make one if you don't.

If you don't do it, yes, someone will. How excited are you about AI in general, and what are you telling people who ask?'m sure you get asked every day yeah i think if you're not using the platform and the tools that are available um you're going to get replaced so whether you're in a job in the business even for me in the business like i replaced probably 12 people with it just being more efficient um all the stuff that i'm seeing in music biggie rapping knobs and that's been interesting to see how the music industry is adjusting there, but just on the content creation side as well, absolutely. I haven't been this excited about business and entrepreneurship since I started.

The opportunities that are there just to create and develop things at Lightness, even like video.ai to cut up content or the stuff you can do with Open Labs and like Synthesia where you can like replicate your voice in 30 minutes are you using any of it

for your business or not yet all of it yeah auto GPT chat GPT wait are you AI right now yes

this is AI the real Ian is at home what did you think when you heard when you heard Biggie rapping New York State of Mind which is a classic Nas song and it sounds

perfect it sounds like it's a real Biggie song. I don't know how I felt about it. I'm not sure. I thought it was amazing. But the first thing I thought for the artist is like,

you're in trouble. Well, that shit went viral. Like that went global. Yeah. That was a big deal. And the Drake and Weeknd song. Right. So they took Drake's voice.

They took the Weeknd and they made a new song. And the guy is like wearing a sheet over his head, which I'm not crazy about. There's going to be a bull market and legal fees for this sort of stuff. Oh, absolutely. But then I heard Grimes, Elon's ex-wife, who's also an artist. I heard she came out and said something like, anyone that wants to create a new song using my voice, I'll split the royalties with you.

So that's like another way to think about it. It's like, all right, my voice is out there in the world. I've made a thousand recordings. You could probably feed it into AI and create something. And if it's good and it makes money, thank you for doing that. I didn't have to do anything. And let's split it. Yeah, but what does that mean?

Just send me a check? Like there's a lot of shit to figure out how this is going to work. I know, but just, it's a different philosophy. So Drake's approach is- I'll sue you. Tell every streaming service if they don't remove that right now, they're going to lose the rest of my music

and it's trouble. Yeah. And then you have an artist, I don't think she sells anything near what Drake sells, but I'm saying like, just as a mentality, like, sure, use it, cut me in. I don't think she sells anything near what Drake sells. But I'm saying like just as a mentality, like sure, use it. Cut me in. I'm cool with it. One of the analysts asked Daniel Ack from Spotify on the conference call about like all of this sort of stuff.

And he's just like, listen, it's moving so fast. Like we just – we don't know yet. Well, I was going to say it's kind of the – they could integrate it with blockchain. But it's the same thing around regulation of like crypto and the rights to different things. around regulation of like crypto and the rights to different things. I don't know what the different legal guidelines are around music and your voice, someone's personal voice

and using that for another purpose and being profitable off of it. So royalties on the blockchain, like it sounds like silly, but I think that that's probably going to be the thing. Absolutely. But yeah, again, it's moving so fast. How do you like-

Right, it's just, you can build into the code where- So I told ChatGPT to write a blog post about investing in international stocks in the voice of downtown Josh Brown. How did it come out? Because this is what I am these days. Terrible. Really? Yeah. Nothing anywhere close to what I would do writing about that topic because it's not creative.

It's generative. What it's doing – so what it's doing is it found mentions of me and I guess some of the mentions of me are articles about me. That's not relevant, but I don't know if it knows that. Then it found some interviews that I gave and it pulled some phrases out that I know are things that I've said but all it's doing is recombining whatever the the source material is into new versions so there were a few things about it I thought there'd be like five f-bombs there were none so that's how you know I didn't write it um so I'm less worried about that what I'm more excited about I think I'm worried about the stuff where it can mimic someone. Yes.

Or you can take a video and make it look like somebody did something. The deepfakes of scale. That's the part that I'm worried about. I am not worried about it as a job replacer for creatives. I think what it replaces is the people who can least afford to be replaced. So if you come out of college and your first job, you're a copy editor. word to be replaced. So if you come out of college and your first job, you're a copy editor and somebody, a company could just say, why are we paying this kid, you know, $60,000 plus benefits right out of school when I could just take this copy, feed it into Bard or chat GPT,

have it cleaned up for grammar and have it automatically published wherever I want it published. That's, that's going to be a real issue. I just don't – listen, I could be – two years from now, it could be laughable what I'm saying. No, no. So Sam Altman, he's a founder of OpenAI, was interviewed by Barry Weiss. And I found this in George Pelleg's blog, Substack. He said – this is a quote from Sam Altman. Over time, the shift of leverage from labor to capital as technology continues gets more and more extreme, and that's a bad thing.

And I can imagine technology like AI pushing that even further. So exactly to Josh's point. Well, it's all anything like back office analysis, research, writing, journalism. Grunt work is done. Grunt work is done. But the problem is, is that if you take away those more entry-level roles for people, how they learn and work their way up. Eventually baby boomers and all of us will age out of the system. And then how are those new leaders created in industry without having that experience? That's such a great point. You need grunt workers, not for the grunt work,

but so that they will be the next non-grunt workers. How do you climb the ladder if there's no rungs on the bottom of it? Yeah, exactly. Right. You hollow out certain professions. There's just going to be this lack of, like, real experience because people weren't needed early in their career. I'm about to grab them earlier. Eighth grade, ninth grade. I'm dead serious. My son's six.

I put him to work. The number one thing in our community that we— He was going child labor. So, like, with AI— You do have controversial views. You're right. Child labor. Go on.

Four. Xander, I need you to do more work this weekend. But when I'm looking at the AI landscape and for the jobs that will be replaced, our audience is like, well, this widened the wealth gap. I think it has to. Absolutely. Doesn't every technology widen the wealth gap? Yes, it does. Yeah, that's unfortunate. If this is as big as the internet, like if this is that earth shaking of an emergence of a new technology, I mean, we probably can't predict the ways in which it will affect the workforce.

No way. But you can't say it won't. Yeah. I think prompt generation and curation for AI is the new version of coding. Wait, say that again. What do you mean by that? So the ability to prompt correctly and check. Prompting.

Yes. Like how to give the right instructions to the AI. For that and curation through mid-journey and to be able to create. Like I've seen someone like work on a short film through mid-journey. It was amazing. Mid-journey is like artwork, not text. Yeah. Okay.

So knowing how to do those things at scale. Because if you look 25 years ago and say, hey, we'll be sitting in a room doing a broadcast at scale people be like it will cost too much like i think the evolutionary leap that we're going to take in the next especially when chat gpt5 comes out and then when apple gets involved and it's i mean the first thing i thought why don't they have it for imessage yet yeah so when we have those things there they will and we have it at scale it is going to be game set match for a lot of people we have to adjust. Talk about technology and what it can do

and I think, were you and I talking about how progress is deflationary or was that somebody? Is it always though? For most things.

Technology progress. Yeah. So, for example, over the weekend, Patrick O'Shaughnessy, not over the weekend, it's Thursday, we were at an event that Patrick O'Shaughnessy was at and he was interviewing some guy, Jason.

I can't remember his last name. But anyway, they were saying that the battery that's in the Tesla today, if that was built in 1991, it would have cost a million dollars to build. Wow. Crazy. Was it Jason Statham? I think AI will be the third biggest story of 2023. What would be the top two? What are the top two?

Like inflation and interest rates and banking. Still? You still think we're going to be worried about inflation by the end of this year? I think it's still going to be a topic of conversation. Interest rates and inflation will end up being like the number one thing still of 2023. Interest rates, yeah. I'm putting both those in the same category. And then number two is probably like banking, shakeups in banking. I think that's, yeah. I'm putting both those in the same category. And then number two is probably like banking,

shakeups in banking. I think that's, yeah, I think that and AI are the two big ones. We already have a case of AI having a direct effect on a business. So this is stock Chegg. Anybody ever heard of this? Yes. Not before yesterday. That's the stupidest name I've ever heard.

Yeah, not before yesterday. All right, let me set this up. The stock dropped 42% after warning that- That day we're going to become a bank. Yeah, we're going to become a regional bank. Check plummeted 42% after warning that chat GPT tool is threatening growth of its homework help services. One of the most notable market reactions yet to signs that generative AI is upending industries.

So Chegg gives online guidance for students taking tests and writing essays. That sounds like cheating. They gave revenue and profit forecasts for the current quarter that fell well short. Chegg makes much of its money from subscriptions, which start at $15.95 a month. That's a revenue source that's in peril if students see AI chatbots as an alternative to paying. The impact... So, all right.

That's a thing. IBM said they're going to replace 7,800 jobs with AI. So this is not a 2024 story. This is now. Also, the other one today, Chipmaker AMD up 8% just today on the Bloomberg report that they're going to be working with Microsoft

in a new AI processor. That was like just coming up. Oh, that's a big deal. Yeah, just today, one day. Right. So this is like, we were talking about AI like three years ago or two years ago,

like this is coming. Now it's here. And it emerged like overnight, November 30th, ChatGPT went live. And now we already have companies that basically are being decimated. We'll be honest. Chat's business model was shitty beforehand. Yeah. I mean, it did well through COVID.

Great. I'm looking at the price now. Topped out at $116.21. It's down to $9. Wow. If your company got destroyed because of ChatGPT right now, A, the business model was wrong. Going back to Apple with having a luxury price,

the margins are really thin. So if you're charging $15.99 a month, most people are dropping off at month four. You only net in probably 18% to 13%. It's a horrible business model as is. The question about IBM, why did they not have this when they built Watson?

That's not like, what is going on with their leadership? That's such a great point. They've been talking about AI and this stupid Jeopardy playing robot for like,

I don't know, 10 years. Well, what about Google? I just feel like when you get to the point of like, just you have that much to lose and you'd rather,

a lot of companies would just rather melt the ice cube, right? Because they're not worried about 20 years. They're worried about like 20 days from now or the next quarter or the next quarter or the next quarter. Is that a mistake though? Absolutely. Well, from whose point of view? If you're not worried about like 10 years from now and you're worried about self-preservation, like incentive-wise for yourself, it might not be a mistake.

But it's a mistake for the company long term. Absolutely. Speaking of self-preservation, we had a Fed rate decision this week. There's not a ton to say about it. The bank stocks all crashed throughout the course of the week. The Fed seems not to be that worried about it, which is either a good thing or a bad thing. I guess we'll find out. Let me set this up.

The Federal Reserve raised rates for the 10th time, 25 basis points. The new target range is five to five and a quarter. Ten times. Ten times in a row without stopping. That's the highest Fed funds rate since 2007. Things didn't go well last time. The statement hinted at a pause. They took some stuff out of the statement that made

people think, here, this is Brian Westbury at First Trust. The Fed removed language from the previous statement that it, quote, anticipates that some additional policy firming may be appropriate, end quote. They also took out a reference to future increases in the target range. So the emphasis is that, now the emphasis in the statement is that further rates, hikes may be appropriate with no reference to future increases. They're done. The market is saying that they're done,

but not saying that they're cutting, but maybe three or four quarter point rate cuts by the end of January, 2024. So were either of you guys surprised at all by that? Do we have these charts? Yes. So let's put this first one up real quick. This is the stock market reaction.

And let's put up the next one. So this is the new target range. Were either of you guys surprised at all by anything that went down on the reaction or the statement or not really? I don't think so. I think consensus has been pretty much right all along, which is a good thing. Like there shouldn't be big surprises

out of this every month, right? But I think the comments and what they do next month is going to be a big thing for what happens obviously with regional banks, but just how the rest of the year is going to look as well. What do you, obviously, with regional banks, but just how the rest of the year is going to look as well. What do you think?

I wasn't surprised at all. I expected a quarter. The question is, what number do we need to get to to balance the market out to where they need? Because, of course, they just raised, so they can't cut right away. They'll wait until next year, but do we need to be at 6.5%, 7%? What's the real number to stop the bleeding? And I know he's in a tight spot, but I feel like he's giving conflicting messages every time that he speaks.

Six and a half is devastating. Yeah. My opinion. I think June is going to be really interesting. Like now it's like so I think it's getting so close that people really want to know like when is there going to be a pause? But what happens in the next like week over the rest of the regionals, like the ones that are going down now following yesterday, like that I think is going to be really telling as to what they do in June as well. This is the second time in a row that Powell said, all right, we're just another 25, just another 25. And the bond market said, I don't believe you.

The two-year fell last time after they did it. I think they raised to 475, 500. The two-year immediately went under 4%, I believe. And it did it again yesterday. Same thing. And it's following through today a little bit to the downside. The regional bank thing has gotten much worse. And so now First Republic is resolved.

They thought, they, people thought in the media that that would put an end to this. And that happened over the weekend. And so Monday morning, the market opened up. JP Morgan basically stole First Republic. And I think there was an assumption out there on the part of some people, maybe even me a little bit like, OK, the bank run part is probably over. And now we have a few banks that are still in trouble and they'll get rescued. But they're not as big as First Republic. These are small banks at this point. Comerica is not big.

What are the other ones? PacWest. PacWest, which I never heard of until two months ago. Western Alliance, which I could care less about. First Foundation. Yeah, I think it's not the banks themselves, the amount that could be in trouble. That's startling to the markets.

I think it's the contagion effect of like, there are hundreds of thousands of millions of people that are employed by and use these banks regionally in places that are not New York City or Los Angeles or like major coastal cities. A lot of people that are part of your community, I'm sure, are banking with these regional banks because that's what's nearest to them in their small town. It really has a big contagion effect and that's what's scary to me as someone that is DMing with and talking to people day to day. Like there's no – this situation does not help generate trust in the financial system or in the banking system for at-home investors. So no depositors have ever lost money in the history of the FDIC. It's almost 100 years. It's never happened.

And no depositors have lost money this year, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Because people don't understand that. They don't want to hear it. They don't care. And that's why the money, I think, remains in motion.

And the cost of funding these banks just goes up as the Fed does what it's doing. I would say the average person probably doesn't even know what FDIC is, means, or that there's $250,000 of depositor insurance. Well, Gallup did a poll. We know it. That's not the means, or that there's $250,000 of deposit or insurance. Well, Gallup did a poll. We know it.

That's not the average. Gallup did a poll April 3rd through April 25th, so effectively in the midst of all this. They said, how worried are you about the safety of money you have deposited in banks and other financial institutions? And only 20% said not worried at all. 19% said very worried. Another 29% said moderately worried and 30%. So it's about 50% of people are worried. That was a month ago too.

Let's see what happens if they do that this month. And you know why this is relevant? They're not asking how worried are you about the banking system. They're saying how worried are you about the safety of money you have deposited in banks? And that's all that matters. And that's what's

getting lost in this discussion about, oh, the system is strong because Citigroup and JP Morgan, and they have these ratios. People don't give a shit about ratios. Like they care about their money. And that panic, maybe it's slowed down, but it's still with us. I would have liked to have seen a follow-up question. So like, are you moving your money? Because like, what does moderately worried mean? Like, are you worried to the point that you're moving your money? I think another thing is like, even if people will say,

okay, I'm not worried necessarily that my money's going to disappear because I don't have more than $250,000, but I'm worried about getting 0% interest rates, pay me, right? Like if I could get four and a half, so that's why the money I think continues to remain in motion

is people just want to get paid. And if we think about it, banking is maybe one of the only industries where almost at scale no one trusts the players there. Like I can name every other. Like there's no Steve Jobs. It's true. Thank you right now.

Less trusted in the government. I was going to say custodians, but that's banks too. Like Jamie Dimon may be the most trustworthy publicly faced, and most people don't like him. Kudos to everyone at Jake Morgan. Love you guys. But most people couldn't tell you who was the CEO of PacWest, and most people don't like him. Kudos to everyone at J.K. Morgan. Love you guys. Yeah. But most people couldn't tell you who was the CEO of PacWest,

and we talked about trust before. I don't know why they don't have more people that are advocates of those institutions to build trust. But even with the federal chairman, I think they should just deliver the news and, like, this is what is really going to happen. It will suck. Like, same thing in parenting.

If you're like, hey, I'm going to ground you for two weeks, but after these two weeks, if you never do this again, we're clear. Great. I think when we tell a person we're going to raise rates, then cut and refine, and the entire world is panicking, like even our audience, they'll go on CNBC and watch you and look at everyone's,

they're like, the investors look worried. How are you going to tell me not to worry about a bank? Oh, that's interesting. Like, I see volatility on the screen on CNBC. So why are you telling me to remain calm? That everything's fine.

And then banks, it feels like 2007 and 2008 all over again. There's a lot of pressure on regionals, and I think the big four are going to get even bigger. But it was a great acquisition

for sure. It does feel like, does it ever feel like you're taking crazy pills? It's like, wait a minute, the Fed is hiking rates after giant banks. And rescuing banks simultaneously. Like what is happening here?

So they asked Powell. A reporter asked him, just wondered if you have any regrets or was there anything that – decisions that maybe you regret now in light of what's happened. And Powell said, I've had a few. Sure. And he did it with a smirk on his face. Like Sinatra. He's had a few. You know, who doesn't look back and think that you could have done things differently.

But honestly, you don't get to do that. I kind of would – if they could – you get some truth serum in him. What does he regret? I would guess it's waiting so long to raise rates. They didn't start until March last year. March of 22. And inflation was already over 6% for multiple months. And the housing market was on fire and they were still stimulating the economy. March of 22. And inflation was already over 6% for multiple months.

And the housing market was on fire and they were still stimulating the economy. Like I would think that that would have to be his regret as opposed to like all of these consecutive rate hikes. Yeah. It's one of the hardest jobs in the world though. I don't think there's been a blueprint for what to do. Of course, we can sit on the sideline and say I would have done this. But in a seat, man, that's incredibly difficult. on the sideline and say, I would have done this. But in that seat, man, that's incredibly difficult.

And also, for the first time in 2020, in a long time, people felt like, okay, I can get into crypto, investing, and make money. And now people feel like it's been snatched away. So we had one year to make a lot of money to make up for the losses that we'll have for the next three. That's a tough job to see. I'm glad you said that. How many people started investing for the first time in 2020 and 2021. And then the rug was pulled.

One out of four? Like almost, yeah. An entire generation discovered the market at the same time. How about this? Retail investors became 25% of the daily volume. Yes. Like that's insane. And our, like when we talk to our audience,

they feel like it was planned. What do you mean? That's it. Like, as soon as we get into real estate, crypto, NFT, indexes, they pour the rug on us because they didn't want us to have wealth. I mean, if you— Every age range. But that's what happens in every bubble. It happens in every generation, too. Like, by the definition of people chasing. Yeah.

People chase more, people chase more. Somebody's the last one on the door. Absolutely. So my generation got rugged. The Gen Xers discovered investing in the late 90s, early 2000s. Penny stock mania. So I was like the youngest. I was the youngest.

This is very important for everyone to understand. I'm the youngest Gen Xer born in 1977. Okay. Like my year. So you're like almost a millennial. I'm like a child. I'm almost the oldest millennial well we know you're a man child

my hair got rugged when I was 22 yeah that's true that was planned bald is beautiful no no no but like my generation

discovered stocks in like 98 everybody at the same time and then we had two years of making tons of money and everyone got real comfortable

and everyone thought they were a genius. And then it almost felt planned. Like how fast the NASDAQ fell apart. And like not cut in half, down 90%. And all the stocks that people were actually trading went to zero. And it felt that way.

It felt like a betrayal. Well, I hope that they took some of their profits and bought a house. I certainly did. Because that's what me, I graduated college in 2009 trying to get a job in finance. Ended up getting one that I didn't really like very much as an advisor. I just didn't like the firm I was working with.

But I saved my money and bought a house. That's a great investment. And that was the best investment I've ever made. More money than stock so far. Good for you. That's incredible. Listen, thank God NFTs weren't around then. You might not have the house.

Do you think some of these super cycle debt bubbles are created by venture? Because I don't think we've talked about the role that angel investing and ventures had in these bubbles. That's a great point. Because what they did, I'm sorry, finish your thought. No, no. What venture did was they subsidized all of us for the last 15 years. How many years did Uber lose money for? All of the companies that we were the beneficiary of,

for how long? Like all of them. All of them. We'll do the Series D. We'll do the Series G. L. M. They just kept going.

Lose money, gain market share, just keep going. We got your back. We'll fund you, we'll fund you, we'll fund you. And they were a huge part of this. FTX. Not all in a bad way, just keep going. We got your back. We'll fund you, we'll fund you, we'll fund you. And they were a huge, they were a huge part of this. FTX. Not all in a bad way, by the way. Like they gave us a lot of incredible,

incredible products. Yeah. But, but right. And then, and then the switch flips and they will have to make money. And. They leave crypto and go right to.

But wait, but the, but the pandemic was a switch. Like that was what caused all of the shit that we're dealing with now. And we're now – All of it. All of it.

Us being at home locked up just trading, trading, trading. So if they pause in June and we just witnessed the last hike of the cycle, what does the stock market do? Let's guess. Is that bullish because they're done? Or is it bearish because, oh my God, why did they pause? The pause is either super bullish or super bearish. Yeah. That's where I see it.

Going into the next three or four weeks, the June meeting, very telling on what the summer will look like. But you know why? Okay. Because they only cut when shit is breaking. Right? So the cut- No cut, just pause.

I understand. I understand. I understand. But after a pause, eventually is a cut. Well, yeah. Right? Well, no. Not necessarily. You pause and then start hiking again.

Let's talk about this. So Powell said yesterday the case of avoiding a recession is, in my view, more likely than that of having a recession. I can't imagine he would have said that six months ago. He probably would have been much more vague about it. Just the fact that we can be here legitimately talking about no recession, as soft-ladenly as possible, despite all the banks blowing up, like a lot of the economic data, Atlanta now, the Fed tracker is, I think, projecting 2.7% growth for the next quarter. Really? Like the fact that they could even pull this off, whether or not they deserve credit for it,

is kind of nuts. Yeah. And one-of-a-kind situation. Like 10 straight rate hikes, banks failing, housing market frozen, a million other things thrown at us, and it might be okay. Put this chart up, S&P 500 after the last Fed hike. This is from Callie Cox. So this is interesting. The outcomes—

Oh, wow. I don't see any rhyme or reason here. So this is every month and year where the Fed had done the last rate hike. And then they're showing you what the S&P does up to 12 months after that hike. And it's not quite binary, but it's pretty extreme. But it's all over the place. It's August 71, May of 74, February of 95, June of 06, all these moments. And stock returns range, after 12 months, range from down 15% to up 35%. But it's really bad or pretty, pretty good. So 1987, we obviously know what happened in October. They stopped in May 2000, right? We know what happened to the tech rec.

They stopped in June 2006. And all of those led to catastrophic markets, right? Like not 12 months later, but three months later, five months later. Really, really bad. I would love to see that data versus when they were pumping in money versus when they were halting a little bit to see if that would make a huge difference in these gains. There's no precedent for what we just experienced. Like if you're looking for an analog for what we just lived through, forget about it.

Regional bank losses this week. And this is as of Thursday. So expect worse Friday. And Michael just bought the KRE. So you know they're not fully done going down. Oh, God. It's like 25. No, I respect that buy. No, I'm into that. No, I respect that buy.

No, I'm into that. I would buy it at 30, though. No, I haven't bought Panic in a while. So you bought pure Panic today? I mean, I was thinking FRC, but I'm glad I just didn't have enough data points. That's crazy. That's crazy. Well, I'm talking like, I don't know, two months ago.

But yeah, I didn't have enough data points to have conviction on that. Leanna is so gully. She's straight for the FRC. I do it all, you guys. Like Coinbase. I'm like into whenever there's negative news, I'm like, ooh. All right, here's the rundown. PacWest, this is this week, guys, and it's Thursday.

Down 67%. HomeStreet, down 48%. First Horizon, down 47%. Metropolitan, down 40%. First Foundation, 35%. Western Alliance, 34%. Comerica, down 47%. Metropolitan down 40%. First Foundation, 35%. Western Alliance, 34%. Comerica down 25%. That's bad.

What's West Banco? That sounds fake. Down 25%. Zion down 25%. And we won't throw Schwab into this conversation, but that has not had a good week. This is pretty wild that that's happening with simultaneous rate hikes. And we're all just like,

all right, let's see how much worse it's going to get. In a vacuum, if you knew that- These are companies, not just stocks. If you knew just in a vacuum that regional banks were failing left and right, maybe left and right is a bit of a stretch, but I mean, they kind of are. At scale, yeah.

You would say Fed's probably cutting. And yet. It's tough. I mean, PacWest is at 308 now. I mean, in 2000, in,

what was that? Eight? It was at zero. Got bailed, of course, and pushed back up to 12. But I think all of these are going to go back to lows. Previous episode,

like never buy lower lows. Yeah. We're going to see KRE at 28. Unless, no, I'm just kidding. Well, he just did it. No, you're right. No, listen. But. We're going to see. Unless. No, I'm just kidding. Well, he just did it. No, you're right.

No, listen. But listen, here's the thing. A lot of people are buying these stocks. Vanda Track or Vanda Research was quoted in the Wall Street Journal saying, before SVB failed, net retail purchases of First Republic was $20,000 to $60,000 a day. So basically zero. That figure surged to an average of $9.3 million a day. On April 24th,

when First Republic disclosed that it lost $100 billion in deposits, net retail purchases were $8.6 million. And here's why. What the hell are these people doing? Here's why. They found Mr. Hamlin, who said that he likes to trade stocks

in small increments as a, quote, diversion. He says he was emboldened after making money on Hertz, which paid out shareholders despite the bankruptcy we know about. He said, quote, this is fun money. I call it my ice cream account. There's a lot of people that are doing this mildly responsibly, like I am. So I just bought a little bit. I'm gambling. I'm having fun. Is that your ice cream account, Michael? It's not. It's all good. Whether I make money, I lose money. So $9 million sounds like, holy shit, $9 million up from an average of $60,000. But how many people are we talking about? Yeah. Right?

It's a lot of people. So a lot of people are just like, whatever, I'll buy $2,000 worth and I'm just – it's a lot of taking. I'm having fun. What are you telling like the Red Panda people if they come to you and they're like, is there an opportunity here? Or how should I? I'm like, you're an idiot. Yeah. Okay.

Flat out. Because you don't want the risk. Because I know. You talking to me? I was just going to say. You're a seasoned investor, right? LOL. But if you're going to be reckless, be reckless responsibly. How do you do that?

That's like getting halfway drunk. I'm a quarter high. No, with a small amount of money. Stop. No, with a small amount of money. Be reckless responsibly? Yeah. Oh, that's a great one.

That's like your tagline. 10 shares, 20 shares. Responsibly reckless. I'm not opposed to that if it's at the right level. But we know when most people are trading AMC, GameStop, Hertz, Doge. But that's what retail does. So I'm going to give Michael some backup here, you guys. Okay?

So there's over 5200 regional banks local local and regional banks we're looking at a list of like five whatever half of us haven't even heard of it

and we work in the industry before today there's 145 holdings in the carry ETF so if you're approaching this from an ETF perspective those 145 holdings

and there's what seven in trouble this week of those 5200 and they're probably tiny in the index too so recklessly responsible on buying an ETF I'm not buying PacWest

you're getting exposure to 145 of 5200 of these banks yeah might I lose money sure no big deal but if you're buying if you're just like

flinging like a individual regional bank here like that's kind of nuts like I know somebody that personally like when First Republic dropped they bought it.

And then, shout out to you, leave it in the comment if you want to, but he lost, like, 80 grand doing it. Yeah. I thought about it,

but I didn't have Unless it's Diddy. Unless it's Diddy and he's playing. It wasn't Diddy. But the funny part is, like, people, they will hide those losses

until, it was like, okay, it's from receivership. What does that mean? I'm like, well, what do you mean? He's like, First Republic.

I was like, fuck. No, because that's how you know. Yeah. It's tough. There's also people screwing around in these stocks with options. That's a lot of it too. It's not volatile enough.

You need even more juice. Yeah. What's in this KRE then? If it's not these bullshit stocks or they're not big in it. Let's take a look. New York Community Bank Corp is the biggest weighting, 4%. NYCB. M&T, Regions.

So First Horizon is in there. Yeah. And that's the fourth largest. Citizens, which bought – Citizens bought Silicon Valley, right? Yeah. Okay. Huntington Bank shares, Truist, which I think is the old M&T bank. Yeah.

Merged with SunTrust. And then Western Alliance is in the top 10. So, I mean, listen, I don't think they're all going to zero. So I like the ETF approach. I do agree with you, Liana and Michael. I just feel like I'm going to get it lower. But individual stocks in a regional space, they have no competitive advantage. But you don't have to time it perfectly, right?

Wait, what do you mean by that? Like, just because they're in a region, that's not enough anymore? It's not enough. I mean, we saw that in 2007 and 2008. Like, they got squeezed and consolidated then. So if I'm comparing them head up, I have to pick PacWest regions

versus JP Morgan, et cetera. Like, you can do it as a swing trade, maybe as a value play, but I don't think most people are going to get the return out of these that they're actually expecting. So let me ask you guys this, in terms of the way that this might affect the communities, the local communities that use these regional banks, let's just say that a big bank buys one of these banks, right? And the branch is still there.

There's a different owner, there's a different banner, a different logo, whatever, but more or less the same people are there. I'm sure some back office people might get duplicitous roles get cut out. Are those banks now not going to extend credit because there are larger banks? I feel like people keep saying that, and I'm sure there might be some truth there, but we don't know that. Lending standards have gone up. That's data. Absolutely.

It's definitive. It is harder to borrow money now. Yeah, but that's because of the macro backup. That's not because they're now owned by a different bank. No, but if there are less options— No, my point is just big picture. Is less community banks bad? Yes.

How can it not be? I mean, I'm from Canada where the system is—I'm still a Canadian. So I grew up with a system that's completely different. It's four banks control everything. Yes. How can it not be? I mean, I'm from Canada where the system is I'm still a Canadian. So I grew up with a system that's completely different. It's four banks control everything. Yes. And there's a lot of stability there. So it's good. But there's a big difference between four banks and 5,900, whatever the number.

We probably don't need 5,900. There's a difference between having some credit unions and regional banks versus 5,200 people with banking licenses. So not to get on a soapbox, but this is something you'll hear politicians say, make the case for, which is that our, they'll say our, our community banks, our local banks, there are roots in the community. They help, like one bank helps successive generations of the same family maintain their business or, you know, take out another mortgage on a property when times are tough. That's what you lose if you lose these 5,200 banks. And you might not give a shit, and there are people that don't. And you might say, well, actually, isn't it better if there are seven mega banks that are sophisticated and know what they're doing? And I think, I think

you lose something. But I'm saying that these banks might still be there. They just might have a different logo. It's not like these banks- But it will never, it won't be the same. And lending practices and the relationships will be different. Yeah, probably. But like, but I'm saying, but how, how bad? I just don't think we know. We don't know, but you know, they will replace tellers with kiosks and screens, and they will replace personal relationships with one-size-fits-all email communication, and apps will take the place of storefronts. And it's going to happen anyway. Speaking of communication, is there a reason why the chatbots on websites are not replaced by AI? So I was on the phone.

I'm like, no, no. Customer service. We're! No! Customer service! We're so bad. Customer service! That's you at your most Jewish when you're pretending to yell into a phone at a robot. No! You talk like that. I'm at my most Jewish

in a multiple. You're at your most like Larry David. Alright, let's move on. Coinbase. This is something that I haven't seen before. New civil lawsuit accuses Coinbase directors and executives, a star-studded list of elite Silicon Valley investors, including Mark Andreessen and Fred Wilson, along with the company's CEO and its co-founder, of dumping shares soon after the crypto exchange went public. Knowing it was likely to miss its financial targets. So, you know, they named Brian Armstrong the CEO, they named the CFO.

The two of them sold $2.9 billion worth of stock with those other names. It's prudent. It's prudent right there. Right after the market came public in April of 2021. I would just say, like, isn't that what the public offering is for? The insiders to get some liquidity?

I was about to say, what's wrong with that? Well, unless it's like blackout, unless it's something truly illegal. I'm glad you asked. The allegation is that the insiders were like made aware that some bad numbers are coming. And the public was led to believe that things were going great. That's what the lawsuit. Between Coinbase's listing on April 14th and mid-May, Wilson sold $1.8 billion worth of stock.

That's a lot. How much? $1.8 billion. He's a venture fund. He's supposed to sell stock. CEO Brian Armstrong sold 292 million worth Andreessen sold 119 million worth

so that was a huge IPO super hyped up I think the stock went to 400 or something wait hang on I'm sorry when you said insider

I thought you meant like an employee of Coinbase no but these are like venture investors who are but isn't that what the IPO is literally for to get liquidity

it just looks really bad. It's more of a moral thing. There's so many issues like in our space that are really kind of a lot of us or maybe not the four of us but are responsible for is like the headlines in the media. It's not necessarily – yeah, like if it's normal selling, that's not insiders being sued. They're allowed to do it, of course. Yeah, and VCs, like that's literally why they get involved in these deals they sell this but look at all the spacks yeah look at like chamath they're not they're not buying whole this is not berkshire hathaway we're a venture fund um but yeah i think just i think the headlines are kind of messing with

this one too but i think the thing when the venture and angel community are promoting these projects so much that's the issue and then exiting and not kind of saying, hey, I'm now getting out. That's when the moral hazard starts. Literally look at all those SPACs that happened. I agree. Virgin Galactic was one of them. Yeah.

That's really the issue is that if you're like the face, if you're a venture investor and you're doing all this media and you're on Twitter and you're crowing about how smart you were to be in Coinbase or any of these other things. And then, so it almost becomes- That's a lot of gross. It becomes like part of your identity.

Yeah. And then like two weeks after the thing goes public, you sell $2 billion worth. Yeah. Even if you're entirely within your right to do that, it looks bad if the stock falls 90%. Or how much did Coinbase go down from the high? 4.29 down to, is that 49 now?

That's never going to be a good look. Yeah. So the old model of hedge funds, venture funds is shut the up. Don't tweet. Yeah. Don't do TV. Like you're an insider, de facto. You might not be a CEO, but if you own five percent of a company that's going

public you're prominent face of that thing yeah but you know the fall of coinbase's stock has has not happened overnight it's happened over the last year i mean it's it started on day one though yeah it did but you know it's that that happens with a lot of ipos though and it's there's so many multiple factors from crypto winter. There's so much I would agree that a lot of it was outside of Coinbase. I'm curious, were people talking about those sales when this happened last year or is it just now in hindsight?

I don't know. Chief executives selling that much would always raise a bunch of This is the thing, though. It's not just chief executives. It's prominent investors. No, I know, but I'm just saying seeing 2.9 billion sold by the CFO and CEO is not a bad sign. I agree that that's like, you couldn't

have spaced that out over 10 years. I'm holding my computer to show a bar chart of all of these recent IPOs. The green is their current valuation and the gray is what they were at the peak. So Coinbase went from a $65 billion market cap down to $13 billion. Rivian was, my God, Rivian was $90 billion.

Now, I don't know if Rivian was the exact top, but everybody was like, all right, that's enough. That's enough. In Coinbase's defense, if you read their S1, you read their filing, it's like hundreds of pages of risk disclosures. They basically, every potential risk on it, regulatory risk, all the things that actually happened,

like there could be problems in the crypto market. There could be lawsuits. They told you what all those risks were. But in the moment they came public, April of 21, nobody gave a shit about any of that. Like people were just buying things because they woke up in the morning. And the environment changed. And that's not inside of Coinbase's control. So, I mean, I'm not defending them in a lawsuit. But I just – I feel like that part of it should be brought out.

And it goes back to your point that you've always talked about not to invest in brokerages long term because margins and regulations is really tough. Do we think there will ever be like a major crypto brokerage that is allowed here or Gensler is just going to act that completely? Well, he won't be in the seat forever, And we don't know who comes in after him. I assume, I assume, I don't know the outcome of the 24 election, but I assume the Republican that comes in, if they beat Biden, replaces him overnight with somebody that maybe is more crypto friendly. Okay. But the bigger picture for me, brokerage margins only go in one direction.

Damn. You can't get more for a trade. So Coinbase had incredible margins in 2020. They could make a spread on trades that is like nothing else in any other asset class. And there was no way that was going to stay forever.

There still are. Somebody told me they were trying to buy USDC on Coinbase just to see what it was like. 3.8%. Yes, but the volumes have dried up. Nobody's doing that. The institutions are not trading at that rate. It's insane.

Why? Why were they trying to do it on Coinbase? They were just saying. But the fact that they're still doing retail like that. So they release this in all of their numbers every quarter. The institutional trading, I'm making this up, but it's directionally right. It's like 10 times what retail is, but they only make up 20% of the revenue.

Retail is paying like eight. Again, I'm making this up eight times more, whatever it is, than institutional money. It's crazy. In the financial, and they claim to be a moderate, that's the,

that's the, the future of finance is 3.8% spreads. No, I think that's the past. It's ridiculous. So we know that over time um spreads trend lower commissions trend to zero why would crypto be any different and of course it turned out that it wasn't um all right let's let's keep it moving we talked about this influencer stuff

uh what else do we have in here oh the all the promoted crypto stuff and NFT stuff. I think a lot of famous people just got bad advice from the people that were around them. And I also think it was the era. Like a lot of people just felt like the rules don't really apply to me. I get an airdrop of a coin. I do a – not me. Somebody gets an airdrop of a coin because they're famous or they're like in the right room. They get the drop and then they go and do a TikTok and tell everybody, hey, this coin is great.

And then they sell it. Yeah. And I think they probably just thought like it's a game. Who cares? But a lot of regular people got just destroyed. It just amazes me though. Like when the day that Kim Kardashian posted that Ethereum Max thing and Floyd Mayweather,

I was like, what? And she's a lawyer. Yeah, that's a crazy quote. Well, I mean, whatever.

In roots. Lawyer. No, kudos to her. No disrespect, but you would think a lawyer might have come across some material

giving them some sense that they are responsible for their own actions. I just, yeah, like when you say they got some bad advice, of course, yeah, obviously these people have full management teams, have come across some material giving them some sense that they are responsible for their own actions. Yeah, like when you say they got some bad advice, of course. Yeah, obviously these people have full management teams, legal teams. You notice the mother didn't do it.

I just can't believe that anyone said to either of those individuals to do it. Yeah. Like, I just can't. The day I saw that come out, I was like, what? That was like the worst blunder of the year. Financial products and healthcare products are the two things where there's no leeway. You can't f***ing around with that. You could promote a bottled water and it's just not good water.

You can't attach yourself to a token or a pharmaceutical like legal advice from somebody that actually knows those industries that's saying that that that really shocked me actually i have to say uh brought me to the point that i put in a doc but why don't you think more banks and institutions don't grab celebrities to advocate for those brands to build trust because if they don't it ends up making room for doge and pepe coin and oh why don't, it ends up making room for Doge and PepeCoin. Oh, why don't reputable financial institutions use celebrities? Insurance companies, though.

They take a lot of TV actors. But not in their prime, though. No, but like Jake from State Farm and he's always got like Chris Paul and they're kind of, I think there's a hesitance on the part of celebrities to be associated with things that are not cool.

Isn't Kevin Hart attached to that? Kevin Hart doesn't want Chase. Chase. Chase? Yeah. Yeah. I think historically there's been a hesitance for celebrities to attach themselves to mundane things like banking. But insurance uses a lot of celebs.

Crypto, probably no celebrities want to touch that ever again. Not now. Maybe forever. The next stadium naming right will not go to a crypto company, I would assume. Will it go to AI? Yeah, it'll go to AI. It'll go to the new bubble for sure. What would you guys say to people who want to build a brand in investing or in financial media? Like what,

what would be your, your advice to people who are listening to this and they're working in the industry and they want to transcend whatever role they're in right now? Like what, what, what are the best things that they should do? Not promote, not promote a token. Okay. I think you have to have a genuine passion for the information and for the education that you've got yourself through your career or through self-teaching. Like obviously I've worked in the industry for over 15 years. But working in the industry didn't teach me like the personal financial knowledge, the personal investing. I work in institutional finance. That's not teaching me how to trade or

how to be a long-term investor like I am in my day-to-day life. So I just am so passionate about how I have been able to build my financial life. And all of my friends were always asking me for help. So yeah, I decided to write a book and then get on social media about six years ago is when I started. And I don't do it as a full-time business or role. It's just something that I do for fun to connect with my community and my peers. But yeah, you have to have a genuine passion and interest to just be doing good and sharing information and be helping other people better their lives. You also tend to, you have surrounded yourself with like some very well-known people in finance and you're, I know you're at a lot of events and you seem to be like in the right place at the right time. Well, I always plug myself

into the places and people, the people that I want to be learning from. I mean, I really do believe in that whole, like the top five people you surround yourself with. So I mean like, what's the rest of that sentence? You become, you become the average of the top five people you spend the most time with. You made a good point about plugging yourself in. You have to advocate for yourself. Sometimes you have to push because nobody's going to do it for you. Well, you guys, I used to pay tens of thousands of dollars to fly and register to all the conferences now that they pay me tens of thousands of dollars to host. Look at you.

That was my 2022 goal. Yeah, you ain't writing the check now. Now they're writing the check. Yeah, I'm just hanging out with Ray Dalio every week, you know? What are you going to this year? This is my 2022 goal. Yeah. You ain't writing the check now. Now they're writing the check. Yeah. I'm just hanging out with Ray Dalio every week, you know? What are you going to this year? Next one I'm very excited for. Wait, were you at Milken?

No, but Milken's right now. I'm like the only one not there. Okay. That's why we have you. All right, good. This is better than Milken. California, future proof. All right, you coming?

That's not until September, but yeah, for sure. Yes. I mean, that's the Super Bowl. What other finance wealth conference is on the beach? None. Beautiful view. None. By the time they all start doing that, we'll be moving on to the next thing.

Yeah. We're going to be on Mars. Do you know about our musical guest? No. No, no, no. I know. I was just asking it. Come on.

Whoa. Tell us off the air. I got you. We're actually announcing that next week. What advice do you give people that look at you and look at Rashad and Troy and they're just like, I want to be in the game. Maybe they're in insurance. Maybe they're in mortgages. Maybe they're in trading.

What do you tell people that want to step their career up a notch? Number one, tell the truth. Okay. So for me, I just started posting on Facebook in 2009. What got me, my audience was me showing my losses. Okay. So in 2020, everyone started to treat this like a hustle. And back when I was doing it in 2009, if I like came to you and like, I have a proposal, I'm going to take a black kid from a small city that curses and love rap. Yeah. He's going to be the face of investing.

You're like, this business is going to fail. Yeah. Right? But it was my passion. And then also, number two, being honest about the losses. But most importantly, people have to talk about what they do. There's too many people that have theories. So when I'm like, hey, I love Apple, Microsoft, VOO, VTI.

I've done that for me, my my family and I got rich from that first I didn't come out and set out to teach like I was trying to build relationships with funds and they were like you don't have enough

experience and I'm like look at my track record so I think if truth talk about what you're doing and talk about your losses you'll be A-OK

so let's talk about the world tour you guys are playing the biggest stages I say playing, you're not a musical act. Have to be entertaining though. But it feels like,

it feels like a concert more than it feels like sitting through somebody's seminar. Yeah. I mean, you guys, the crowd is excited to be there. You guys are amped up to be there. Tell us about the world tour

and just the connections that you're making with fans all over the at this point it's global yeah we're doing London in June for Market Mondays stop

you did London last year yes where did you do this Royal Albert Hall so like Adele you know what the Royal Albert Hall is yeah I used to live and work in London oh my god

this is like where the Beatles played yeah it was an honor like this is the biggest event. So you guys took that stage and sold it out. Yeah. One night? One night.

Okay. And what was that like? I mean, it was breathtaking. And the interesting part, because in London, a lot of people travel, but the trading market and investing market, they're very hungry. We take this for granted to be able to go to like, well, you should be at Milken, but thank you for being here and being on a salt conference or money show or future proof yeah they don't have a ton of those there okay so we saw it out relatively fast but they were hungry like even when we was

doing the theatrics of coming out and the performative stuff but wait how did you guys know like first of all i don't know what's involved in booking the royal albert hall i would imagine it's not an email no shout out to ash to Ashley, though, for our amazing event. Okay, but how do you know that you're going to sell it out before you go there for the first time? Now you know, but last year. Just people in Africa messaging us in London. And even if I'm looking at the macro picture,

my perspective is like I got a place in Mexico this past summer. My thing is even with content and business, everyone can fight for the States. If I can get Mexico, Africa, and Australia, I'm fine. Because when we go to Africa, everyone's like, there's no Kramer here. So if we can do the same thing and give advice, and that's why when I was- Right. There's no stock market celebrities yet.

At all. It's very early. It's very early. It's like 92-ish in comparison to where we are now. Okay, gotcha. So my thing was we have to expand internationally. And then we didn't know we was going to sell it out. But Rashad was like, we have to get we are now. So my thing was we have to expand internationally. And then we didn't know we was going to sell it out. But Rashad was like, we have to get the best venue.

I love Rashad's mentality. The biggest. You have to. Everything Rashad does is like, we're either going to do this right all the way or we'll do something else not worth doing. It's not worth it. Right.

So he's not like in London like, all right, here's our budget. What could we afford? He's like, Royal Albert Hall. But then the people respond to that.

They come out. Yeah. Dude, I thought that was amazing. So you're going back. Yeah, we're going back there. Where are you playing this year? Same place? Peacock Theater.

We'll be there and then we're doing Chicago in October and then Ghana in... Where are you going to be in Chicago? We haven't announced it yet. Okay. But I'm sure it's going to be nuts.

Yeah, it's going to be nuts. Soldier Field? Maybe next year. Okay. Invest us. We'll be in Atlanta. We should do 20,000 people this year. And when you go to Africa, Ghana, like, what's—are there people trading on their phones there and stuff?

Are there, like— In Africa, like, their crypto market is serious. Same thing, but there isn't a blueprint for safety there yet. Okay. So if even with indexing long-term investment internationally, then I think crypto

should maybe be 10, 15%. But they're hungry for the information. So even in creating a business, you guys are a prime example of it. Like, you create the content, tell the truth, ups and downs. People build that trust.

Same thing, like never missing a show. So I know we're probably, I probably shouldn't say, but I give you an exclusive. We'll probably do like seven days worth of events in Ghana. That's crazy. Yeah. Takes a lot of energy and stamina for me to do like two day event. Yeah. I can't even imagine. It's a lot. And also these people that come out, they want to touch you. want face time they they came all the way there from god knows where yeah like it's not just like waving to them from a stage you guys are like in the mix have to i mean i'm grateful i think a lot of times when people

and we all have done it at different points but when i go back to when i was first just trying to build a business i wish for this yeah I can't be mad at the audience. So a lot of times Ashley would have to grab me off the stage and she's like, I told you to come off stage. I'm like, they travel here from California. People came from Amsterdam last year. I'm like, I can't take 15 minutes and they bought a ticket and flew? Because when I've met other celebrities that shooed me away,

it made me have a distaste for them. So when we booked Floyd Floyd was the easiest person we ever worked with Floyd made it when we did the show in Madison Square last year

he was like I love what you guys are doing I love that you're preaching about investing I'll promote it for free even the rate that he gave it was like at cost so it was amazing

just to see that so I've always been humbled to be here even being on the show like I've been a fan for the longest time. Thank you. But I don't take any of this for granted.

No, you guys seem like you're having a great time. You got to get Liana down to Invest Fest. Yes, we have to. I would love that. Seriously. Let me tell you one thing about it. And you and I have been to a lot of this similar events over the years. The big difference between Invest Fest and like, you know, we've been to Salt and

all the stuff that we go. There's nobody walking around there like they're the king of the world and they know everything. People that are there, they probably know a lot, but it's not about what they know. They're there to learn more. And openly, like, oh, I can't wait to hear what he has to say about this. It's very different than going to a conference where, like a sewn conference. It's for a great cause,

but everybody there thinks they know everything already. Yeah. So I like that vibe. Yeah, and the community is great. Like they end up doing business together and some of them have like broken to the industry and gotten jobs. And some of them like raise real estate funds and stuff together.

So your headliner at InvestFest this year is Diddy. Diddy. Okay. Yeah, and then Robert Smith. How do you keep Diddy on stage for three hours? I don't know, but we got to figure out a plan. But he's going to be super vulnerable. Talked about ups and downs, how he's built his business.

I think he's in a place in his career where he's done everything he can do, and he really wants to pour back, especially like we're in a recession. Our audience is panicking a little bit more, but you need those voices to speak and be like a voice of reason. Like I've been down too and I've made mistakes too. Yeah. Absolutely. That's huge.

So he's going to do that. And who else is going to be there? Robert Smith. Okay. So that's going to be. He's like a legit billionaire. Yeah. A billionaire, I think.

Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. That's going to be great. Congratulations on that. Thank you, man. Yeah. Proud of you.

Let's do favorites. And it looks like the sun's coming out. So we'll let everyone get out of here today. Liana, do you have any favorites for us? You knew I was going to ask. I did. I did. Okay.

What are we talking about? Cities? Favorites? Okay, here. Oh, I listened to a really good podcast episode lately that i think any entrepreneur or just investor should listen to if you guys know do you guys know ed mylet yes ed is amazing yeah who is that um he's a laguna beach california guy but he was sort of in financial services built a big business he's kind of part of the tony robbins like

joe dispensa crew of influential guys that has their own podcast. April 27th, he had a podcast episode called The Lonely Road to Success. And it's about courage and endurance and taking the road less traveled and how experiencing loneliness is likely a sign that you're on a good path.

I like that. And I listen to it. It's really, yeah, 30 minutes or something. I really resonated with it because all of us doing things that are sort of outside the box, it's a big rollercoaster, as you all know. What was your biggest takeaway from it? That it's okay for me to feel like shit sometimes and be scared.

Okay. That's a good message. And lonely. All right. We'll put that one on the list. What do you got for us? A book, True Love. I like that book a lot.

Well, I have three. They all tie together. True Love, we're in the last episode of snowfall okay i haven't seen it yet you haven't i'm a season behind still so i'll get there i won't spoil it but there's a great lesson in how you treat people so at one point franklin was at the on top of the world and he loses everything and now he's screaming at the people that he came up with, and now they have more money than him. He's like, give me the last of your $3 billion. And I think in the climate that we're in now,

I think people think that the dog-eat-dog mentality works. And I'm like, every great brand, every person that we really love was kind. And it goes to show, like, if you're an asshole, at some point things are going to turn around on you. And maybe some of the people that you did help are not owed to pay you back in the way that you want them to. Yeah, you'd be surprised by that. Absolutely. You think you're on the way up.

Then you stumble. Someone else is on the way up. And it's like, how did that happen? We've seen this all. We've seen it with Madoff. We've seen it with SVB. Like it's just at scale a great lesson to remember to be kind to everyone. What's True Love?

That's a book? Yeah, True Love is a book about a guy who's trying to find love but he's like using technology and ai so it's really interesting for this time um about how you really need to focus on the things that matter and not put tech in front of family and friends and love okay i love it well and what's what's the chinese new warships thing also it's a book called concrete podcast so um it's really interesting. They were talking to a military guy about their plan to like try to take Taiwan and what will happen over the next 10 or 15 years. Bullish? On China?

No, I'm just kidding. That's probably the thing that I worry about the most is whatever the hell ends up happening there. That might be number four in 2023 in terms of topics. Yeah, maybe number one in 2024. You worry about that at all or no? Absolutely.

Not for me. Really? Okay. No. I'm not saying that it's not worthy of worries. It's just outside of my purview of things that I worry about.

Do you think like as a country we are losing our way and then even like on a tech side and company side and IPO side we aren't as great

as we used to be. I don't know. I don't know if that stuff – again, outside of my lane, I don't know if that stuff is overhyped. Like we still have the best companies in the world. Are we maybe falling behind on like blockchain regulation and like what we're doing there to foster that? Yeah. But I don't know. I don't know many other places that I'd rather be.

Well, that's the big thing. Do it all over. Wake up. Do you want to wake up in a different country or not? I can't answer yes. Yeah. So. Favorite cities?

Chicago. In our country. That's your favorite? I do love it there. Chicago is amazing. I like Orange County, California. Yeah, that's beautiful. I'm excited.

I could live there. Yeah. This wasn't in our country, but I put Accra, Ghana. I did an event there last summer. Did you? What's the name of the city? Accra put Accra, Ghana. I did an event there last summer. Did you? What's the name of the city? Accra. Is that the capital?

Is that where your event's going to be? Yes. I assume, yeah. Oh, do they have a good bagel store? I doubt it. I will report back and let you know. What did you like most about it? I actually did.

I was hosting, emceeing a family office event. I got to interview Queen, which was my first royal interview. That was cool. The queen of Ghana? Well, they have like multiple queens there. That's incredible. But I did with some of the family office people sort of helped arrange and put together a trip and doing some outreach and giving to an orphanage for kids with HIV, which is a life-changing experience. That's a day where,

an entire trip where it's like gratitude for living in this country and every single thing we have. So that was a real positive experience for me last summer. Very cool. Very cool. All right.

My favorite is, do you know this kid, Jamie Catherwood? I know you know him. No, tell me more. What? What? Go. You love what? I love you know him. No, tell me more. What? What? Go. You love what?

I love Jamie. Go. Why did you start laughing? What are the best? I was with him this week. All right. He did this thing that I thought was cool. He has a blog called Investor Amnesia.

Oh, so yeah. And one of the recurring things, themes, is like going back, looking at history. And like pretty much most things have happened before. They just, the names change, the the places change some of the details change um so he did this thing that's like a financial history timeline and it's really cool it starts in 1494 with the birth of double entry uh bookkeeping and you just like you go through the years, 1571, the Royal Exchange, which is the first time people were trading commodities in an organized way. 1602 is the first IPO. It's a Dutch East India company. And I just thought it was really well done. It's not a lot of reading.

It's just a timeline with, you know, one illustration or picture and like a paragraph worth of stuff on it. And if you want to learn more, he links to the best book or article or source. And when you go through this, and I spent an hour with this, you just realize these are all analogs for things that are happening now. And we don't realize it at the time, and it always feels different. But there have just been a lot of things that have repeated throughout history. Well, people are the same today as they were in the 1700s.

Well, it doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. That's right. But even like here, 1690s, they had an IPO bubble. Nice. And yeah, I did well in that one. But there's just a lot of stuff that we've seen before and we will see again. So shout out to Jamie. And it's InvestorAmnesia.com and you'll see the financial history timeline as one of his pieces that you can link to. All right.

That does it for us this week. I think we covered it all. Duncan, is there anything that we need to announce? I would just add that – I feel like I got shortchanged on that one. Which one? Favorites. That's okay.

What are your favorites? Oh, dude. No, we can't wrap up. No. Turn those machines back on. Can I just say something real fast? One of my first videos I did here was with Jamie Catherwood. So look back to 2019 on our YouTube.

What was he on talking about? I don't even remember. Probably investment history. Financial history. All right. What do you got for us? I'm sorry, Michael. That's okay. I was at an event this week with the folks at Canvas slash Franklin Templeton,

and Patrick O'Shaughnessy, actually, Patrick O'Shaughnessy interviewed this guy in like 2016, was an early Invest Like the Best guest. So this guy was on stage for 90 minutes. His name is Eric Maddox, and he is the interrogator who was responsible for finding Saddam Hussein. Wow. And he changed the way that we do interrogation. I think the numbers that he gave was prior to his techniques, it was like a 4% success rate. And he got it up like 60% or 80% or something crazy. What, bigger baseball bat? So the topic of the chat, it was 90 minutes and everybody was like literally leaning forward.

Bloody, yeah. Hanging on the edge of their seat. It was about empathetic listening, which apparently the audience tells me I could work on. But it was – Do the comments get to you sometimes? Zero percent. Not anymore. Gotcha.

It happens when you're passionate though. Well, we got an email last night. Go on. Did you see that? No. I don't see the emails. Somebody emailed everyone that I work with, Josh, Barry, Chris, Bill, our PR, just trashing me with screenshots

of comments, just trashing me. And I was listening to a podcast last week with Brian Rusillo. It's this guy who does, I forget his name. He fills in for Ernie on TNT. And that crew has been doing it for 20 years. And so he was the new guy. And during the break, he's on Twitter. And he's like Shaq, like almost smacked the phone out of my hand and said, don't do that. Like, don't look at that shit. And the guy's like, no, I'm serious. Like, do not look at that.

He goes, we're aliens. They're Earthlings. And so I don't view my audience as earthlings, but I get the point. It's like, do what you do and don't let that shit get to you. And it's important. Listen, of course, I don't like it, but I don't want to say it.

As long as I don't say it, I'm okay. You're fine. What, comments? Guys, can we be nice to Michael? Can we be kind to Michael? No, no, no. Can we be kind to Michael? Everybody in Red Panda, please put in chat,

we love Michael. Can I say one thing that people don't understand? The amount of work that you do for all of our content, you're on Animal Spirits, Animal Spirits Talk Your Book. Hit that button, Josh. You're on What Are Your Thoughts? Dude, and then you do The Compound Friends at the end of the week, and we create these shows with docs,

and you're in the docs making sure we have the right topics, the charts, the data is up to date. Like, people don't understand how much work you do before the cameras even turn on. And then you're a little bit of a dick. But before that, you're— By that point, he's just over it. On camera. On camera. In person, Michael would give you the shirt off his back.

Yeah. So, guys, come on. Like, please. And don't start on me either, though. Like, don't. Please don't. Because I'll get back in the comments and argue with you over Josh. I'll just quit.

No, we love our commenters. We love our audience. We're going to send our AI back up. Wait, so why did the interrogation change? That's like the whole thing I wanted to hear. Before the pity party that you threw for yourself. Stop. That makes appreciation day.

What are you doing? So, no, he said, the guy said to him, he's like, you don't get it. Like, you don't get me. You don't know me. And that was like a light bulb. He's like, you're right. Who, the terrorist that he was interrogating? You don't know me? Like, whatever. Yeah, it was like, you don't understand. Who, the terrorist that he was interrogating? Yeah. You don't know me?

Like, whatever. Yeah, it was like, you don't understand. I don't think I'd be a good interrogator. You don't understand. And so that was like the light bulb switch flipped, and he said, like, you're right. I'm just coming. I'm just interrogating. Like, just get these people talking.

Just get them talking. Just talk to them. Ask them about their family. Just get them talking. Just be a person. How old is this guy, out of curiosity? He's probably 50 at this point. Oh, so he's quite experienced.

Yeah. but he was a Chinese linguist and the story of how he got to Baghdad was like nuts he's like why me

I've never done this before it was an incredible talk we have breaking news this gentleman this interrogator was just replaced by Chad GPT

so it turns out the AI alright listen we're to wrap it up. Thank you guys so much. What a great week. Nicole, John, Duncan. We did content from multiple cities this week,

multiple guests, all kinds of crazy stuff happening. You guys keep it running. Please be nice to Michael and me in the chat. We love you. Leave us a rating, leave us a review. We'll see you next week. All right. Take us out.

So Apple 90 billion dollars. That was what was expected? No, they upped it. Stocks up. You guys have fun? Always. Thank you guys for coming.

Double beat. Double beat. Double beat.