The Compound and Friends - Will AI Save the World?

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

On episode 96 of The Compound and Friends, Jill Schlesinger joins Michael Batnick and Downtown Josh Brown to discuss whether or not the bear market is over, the chances of Jamie Dimon running for president, Apple’s WWDC product unveil, the accredited investor rule, Artificial Intelligence, the state of the economy, and much more! Thanks to Wisdom Tree for sponsoring this episode. For important information including objectives, risks, and performance visit http://wisdomtree.com/dgrw. 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

You literally might be the fan favorite. Like, number one fan favorite. No pressure. No pressure. I feel it. I love it. I feel the love. We're so happy to have you back. Only because I cajoled you, I think. No, no.

You were coming back no matter what. You look so tan. Thank you. Is that a thank you or not? No, I'm outside a lot. Josh does not believe in sunscreen. Is that right? No, I do a little.

No, you don't. Josh, can I refer you to my dearest college friend, Debra, who is a dermatologist? Why? Because I feel like she wants to do a full body scan. And yeah, exactly. She wants to make sure you don't have any little melanoma or anything. I haven't saw, I see Dr. Cliff Burke

on the north shore of Long Island. But don't you know that Jews are prone to skin cancer? You think because you're half Irish you're not going to get it?

I do a body check. Are you half Irish? I don't think I knew that. They block out the doctor's calendar for a week and I do a full body scan. Oh my God.

Who's got my volume? Jill, I'm Irish on my mother's side. I'm not your volume. Do you need to come up or down? Up, please. On your mother's side? Yeah. My mother's family's from Ireland, and my father's family's from Eastern Europe.

Really? They have the worst of both worlds, basically. Why is that? I don't know. It's a tough genetic— Well, look. Hold on a second. I'm not going there, but just why do you say that?

It's just a tough genetic makeup. It's not a very common one. It's only in New York, kids. Right. It's like a Brooklyn wedding. My parents met. My mother was my father's secretary at Burlington in the garment center. Yeah.

Coat store? Like, in other words, it probably would be illegal how they met. It is a coat store. Yeah, it is. Burlington Coat Factory. Well, in other words, it probably would be illegal how they met. It is a coat store. Yeah, it is. Burlington Coat Factory. Well, that was where they took the excess. That's where they took the excess textiles. Yes.

And hastily sewed together some shit. Nicole's laughing. Like, I don't know from fashion. No, you just said it like. A garmando. You know where they went on dates? Dorian's Red Hands. Oh, gosh.

Dorian's. That's where they would go out on dates. Is that better? That's much better. Joe, I need a ruling on something from you. Okay. Don't get upset, okay? I love you. You're my brother. What could you possibly say? I love them both. I want to hug you both. I can't even tell you. I want to adopt you as my children. That's going to upset me.

So we're in... I know what you're saying. Gum? Tampa. Alright, so we're in Tampa. Yeah. With Cath All right. So we're in Tampa. Yeah. With Cathie Wood. At a very chic- Not a joke.

No, we're at a really nice- Not a joke. We're at a really nice restaurant in Tampa. Okay. We're at- It's where Instagram models go to influence. Yeah, that's how you know it's classy. The Addition Hotel, they have a restaurant called Market.

It's like an Italian restaurant. There's not a lot of people there. It was empty. All right. Okay. It's nine o'clock at night. Anyway, but it doesn't even matter. It matters. It's unacceptable no matter. It's like an Italian restaurant. There's not a lot of people there. It was empty. All right. Okay. It's 9 o'clock at night. Anyway, but it doesn't even matter. It matters.

It's unacceptable no matter who's in the restaurant. Oh, brother. Here's the setup. Well, maybe you'll disagree with me. Okay. Maybe you'll be on Team Michael. Never. We'll see how you thread this needle.

Who's the boss? Duncan. So Duncan sits down. I sit down. Michael sits down. The waiter comes over, takes our drink order. And there's like side plates on the table because we ordered appetizers that we're all going to share. Duncan's not going to share because he's a vegan.

But Michael and I are going to share. So there's like, all right, here's some white plates. And then I go to pick up one of the plates and I put my thumb in something. And I look down and it's white chewing gum on a white plate. Yeah. I mean, this is an audio medium, so you could express your disgust verbally. I just made one of those faces. Jill just threw up in her mouth.

It's a little cringy. So hold on. I want to tell you how he justifies this. Okay. This is still crazy to me. I'm still thinking about it. I go, did you put gum on a plate on a table that we're eating dinner at? He's like, what did you want me to do with it?

I go, what do you mean? He's like, wouldn't it be such a dirtbag move if I like put it into the napkin? The cloth napkin. I'm not going to do that. Or stuck it under the table. He'll go, no, but also there's probably a garbage somewhere. The men napkin. I'm not going to do that. Or stuck it under his heel and go, no, but also there's probably a garbage somewhere. The men's room. He's like, I don't know where that is.

It's not like we come here all the time. Okay. Let me just, let me get. Please weigh in. Judge Jill. Theater of the mind. Judge Jilly. You can now call me Jilly, which is like many people.

All right. Judge Jilly presiding. Okay. So was there a bar when you walked up? Yeah. Yes? Yeah. What was that?

There's always a bar. Okay. So I think the move is as follows, just to be clear. Bar napkin. Bar napkin. Yeah, that's a move. That's the move always. And did you have a mother?

Put the napkin on the plate. the move always and uh uh did you have a mother napkin on the plate let me ask you is it a napkin on the paper napkin on the plate would be far better than the actual gum are you blown away by what did you want me to do doesn't that sound like a five-year-old a little bit i was just doubling down was the funniest part double down but michael is it possible that you were waiting for your mommy to put her hand in the back of the car and say to everybody, it's time to go to high holidays. Excuse me, my mother's dead. How dare you? I mean, I'm sorry, but did she do that?

No, but listen. This is not the first time that we've had this conversation. Yes, it is. No, it's not. What do you mean? You've done this before? You and I have had this conversation.

Maybe I shouldn't admit this. Don't go through this. We had this conversation, I don't know how many years ago, but it's not the first time that we've done this. What? That you've put gum on a table? Yes, and you got mad at me. Oh, my gosh.

So then why again? I don't remember, but why'd you do it again? Now you're a recidivist. Just to incite violence. Never. No, because I didn't know what else to do with it. Now I know. The only reason, so the thing about it was that the gum was white.

Imagine like a red piece of gum on a plate. No, that I would not have done. Oh, so you said what color is my gum? It's white? Okay. Are you sure? This is a little crazy. I have something to do before we officially start the show.

Okay. Your taxes? Nope. So first of all, I was late today, so I feel terrible about that. But part of the reason I was late was that I was thinking that we are sitting Shiva here. You said half Jewish. Yeah. Michael, half or full? Who died? All the way. Okay. So for those of our Gentile listeners, welcome. Thank you. Welcome to your first Shiva call. Shabbat shalom. So part of the thing that I was thinking is that we are sitting Shiva for a number of things, potentially. market? Potentially. Either the bear market

or potentially the economy or potentially humanity because I'm very upset about this whole live golf thing with the PGA, even though I don't play golf at all, but I have many opinions. I think I disagree with you on this. Okay, it's okay. I'm happy to disagree. Okay, so

for the Shiva, what I What do you bring to a Shiva, guys? Get a camera oniva, what do you bring to a shiva, guys? Get a camera on this. What do you bring to a shiva, ladies and gentlemen? What is that? You bring a babka. Oh, babka. So there is a chocolate and a cinnamon babka.

My trainer is going to kill me. Okay. So I bring it for everybody in the room. Fantastic. Because I don't know what we're sitting shiva for, but I love a shiva, by the way. Why does the live golf PGA thing bother you? I also love a good shiva. I know why it would bother.

Big death guy. Me too. Michael's a big shiva shiva. Michael, you and I should talk. I love to mourn. I'm into mourning. I really am. And I told you last show that I had like a little mourning situation.

I do mourning porn. Okay. Anyway, so. You know Wedding Crashers? I do that for funerals Anyway, so... You know Wedding Crashers? I do that for funerals. Actually, that was in Wedding Crashers. That was the end of Wedding Crashers. Yeah, I stole that.

So the thing about... I don't know why this Liv thing is bugging me. It's going right up my ass because I am worried about this accepting of the Saudis as if they were the greatest people in the world, as if they didn't kill a journalist or journalists, or as if they don't treat women horribly, or as if they did not help fund taking planes down at 9-11.

So it makes me so anxious. So I'm very much sympathetic to the 9-11 families, So I'm very much sympathetic to the 9-11 families. But my take on it would be 20 years ago in 2003, we were trying to figure out how do we get these guys to stop funding terror. This was the diplomatic response to 9-11. We had a military response. The diplomatic response was, how do we stop the madrasas and the terror schools and all of the money going? Because if you think about why all that money was going to fund terror in the first place, it was like the purchasing of indulgences. It was like, hey, don't look at us buying gold-plated Rolls Royces. Look at the great Satan, America. Look at Israel. Focus on that.

Look at the great Satan, America. Look at Israel. Focus on that. Don't pay any attention to us literally hoarding all of the oil wealth and creating these conditions of inequality where you have an endless amount of young, unhappy men that you can recruit from to build your terror army. That was the state of affairs 20 years ago. There has been an about face. MBS is probably a psychopath, but he's also focused on business and hanging out with Jared Kushner

and buying things and funding startups. And I think this is better. That's all I'm saying. Okay. I'd rather them have the golf tournament ownership than be... And by the way, when was the last time you heard about Al-Qaeda and ISIS? And you don't hear about any of these f***ing guys anymore because the money's been turned off.

The UAE, the whole Saudi Peninsula, all these countries, they're not funding terror. They're funding Jared Kushner. Which is also frightening, but you're right. I would take that over. But isn't it better? Yes, I would agree that it's better. I still feel uncomfortable about it I don't know why

I just have like a little bit of you send teams to the Olympics most of the countries in the Olympics are not treating women as equals I know

I know I mean I got enough problems we can't vouch and we can't vouch for every they treat objects like women they treat

so I'm sympathetic to the idea that it's like an affront to the 9-11 families of course but I just think we don't live in a world of absolutes we live in a world of relatives I know I'm sympathetic to the idea that it's like an affront to the 9-11 families, of course. But I just think we don't live in a world of absolutes. We live in a world of relatives. I know.

And I heard that the tour was maybe running out of money and that, you know, look, I don't play golf, so I don't really care. But I don't know. If you were one of these guys who didn't take the money from Liv. So unbelievably pissed. So mad. So mad. They're like, we'll give you $30 million. You're like, no, I'm loyal to the PGA.

Yeah. But now I think that there are some mechanism by which that they have to make everybody a little bit whole or not. Is there a callback? They're talking about a tax on the guys who did take the live money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I doubt that'll happen. How could that hold up? But basically they're going to have to pay these guys like traditional sports stars.

It's really probably 20 people they care about. Yeah. And it's 150 golfers that are just happy to be there. Yep. So they'll have to figure that part out. Because by the way, you're still getting paid to play a sport, which is amazing. And any of us would do that in a heartbeat. I would.

I certainly would. Also, the longevity of a professional golf career. Much longer than anyone else. Potentially be much longer than. Also, the longevity of a professional golf career. Much longer than anyone else. Could potentially be much longer than. Yeah, absolutely. Bringing enforcement action on something you knew full well at the time was occurring. That I don't see how all of a sudden you make that leap. That just seems arbitrary and capricious and vindictive almost.

That is a regulation by enforcement approach. And, you know, we met with the SEC 30 times in the last year. They never gave us a single piece of feedback about what we could be doing better. We just got silence. And when we asked them, how would you like us to register? You know, we have this dormant broker dealer license. Could we activate that? We got we really got silence. And so it's not appropriate for the regulator to come back and and do an enforcement action if we don't have a clear rulebook and clear guidance. You know who that is?

Yeah, that is the general counsel of Coinbase. Close. CEO has a great bald head. Oh, is that right? I meant to talk to you about that. You know, I was about to say whatever he says, I agree because as one of the bald, I got to defend my brothers. But he's also got like a phenomenal head for baldness. It's perfect.

So yesterday, yes, yesterday, we're talking. What's today? Wednesday? Today, Wednesday. So yesterday around 5 o'clock, I get a call from CBS Morning's producer. And they're like, we want you to come on 90 seconds, explain exactly what happened with Coinbase. I said, oh, 90 seconds. The SEC suit?

Good luck. I literally was like, well, and I kind of, I said,, I you know, I can talk for 90 seconds and give you a lot. I said, but if you think that I get to say the word not should have registered as a security and think that the rest that like three million people in America are going to get that, it's really hard. And I said, so can you give me three minutes and we can do something? No, 90 seconds or nothing. I said, then it's nothing. And, you know, do a reader or something because I didn't know what to say over 90 seconds. That's tough. Yeah, I think it's confusing even to people that follow this stuff because it's going to ultimately be a legal decision on whether or not any digital assets or all digital assets are securities.

And what is a security? What's your opinion? I think they're all securities. They're all securities. So obvious. I think Bitcoin is probably the one that deserves its own category because of how little central governance there is. You look at Ethereum, every year and a half, they decide to do something entirely new with the protocol.

They get buy-in from all the miners. There's a council. They have meetings. It's a corporation. It's just not organized as a corporation legally, but that's how it's functioning. And the idea that, I mean, I think it's great that it's Gensler, since he's like, first he's like, no, it's a commodity when I was head of the CFTC.

Now it's a security. But I think that someone does need to regulate. Once they said, if you were truly decentralized and that nobody wanted anything, but you notice then when FTX goes bust, everyone's like, what about me? And now they want centralization, right? Yeah. So if you want centralization of some sort, you get regulation and you get oversight. This morning on CNBC, Secretary Yellen said, quote, we've identified a number of risks with crypto. I'm supportive of those agencies to use the tools they have.

I see some holes in the system where additional regulation would be appropriate. We'd like to work with Congress to see additional regulation pass. Oh, we're supposed to start the show. Oh, that's an idea. So Congress, so new laws, new laws. Yeah, that's going to happen. All right, we got so excited to have you, we forgot to start the show.

Okay. Can I get a knife? John, what episode is this, please, sir? Josh, episode 96. Thank you, sir. 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 Ritholtz Wealth Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may

maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. Today's show is brought to you by WisdomTree. When DGRW was launched 10 years ago, I remember that. Wow, 10 years, getting old. The big dividend ETFs of the time looked backwards to identify companies increasing dividends 10 years in a row, which are known as the dividend achievers. And some even looked back even longer, 20 years, called the aristocrats. Doug, did you know that? Now you do. That's 20 years. Those are the aristocrats. WisdomTree wanted to focus more on forward-looking based on premise that the fastest growth comes from the newest players. DGRW uses a forward-looking methodology that focuses on returns on equity and return on assets,

as well as earnings growth to identify companies with high-quality balance sheets and a strong potential to grow their dividends in the future. Quality dividends, that's the Buffett factor. That's Buffett factor. If you want to learn more about DGRW, which is a five-star morning star fund as of April 30th, go to wisdomtree.com slash DGRW. All right. Episode 96. Welcome to your favorite show, investment podcast show, The Compound and Friends. I'm downtown Josh Brown here with my co-hosts, Michael Batnick. John is in the house today. Rob is here. Duncan's here.

Nicole is here. Sean is somewhere in the dock. Got some summer interns here, which we're super excited about. Got Zalopka. We got Bobka from Jill. And speaking of Jill, true fan favorite. Guys, we have never had as much feedback on a guest before and maybe not ever again as Jill Schlesinger. How do you want me to do that?

That's rough. Schlesinger. That's it. I know. I'm so bad at that. No, you got it. Can I tell you something? Yesterday, my colleague goes, who's on TKF this weekend?

I said, Jill, and I abbreviated your name. I said S-C-H-L-E-S. And I said, that looks really weird. I don't know why I did that. Jill Schlesinger. He goes, he's like, yeah, that was weird. Oh, you know what? I'm going to give you guys.

You have a lot of silent letters in your name. It's very suspicious. It's anglicized. We have been in this country for many years. What's your actual, what's your real name? What's my actual name? Schlesinger. So my Jewish name is Batwinik, which is horrific.

Thank God Ellis Island did what they did. My family didn't come through Ellis Island. I'm like a Mayflower Jew. So the Schlesinger-Ehrlich family came over in the 1800s, like 1860. Like my great-great-great-grandfather was like a schmata salesman to Lincoln's army. So you're like an American Jew. Sort of. 1880s? Yeah, the 1840s

they came in the 1840s is like the first wave. So the weird thing is that so the name has really totally been anglicized and it is, we pronounce it Schlesinger as if there were no CH. but it screws with every anchor across the CBS network because you got to make a choice when you see it so am I doing

sh or not yeah there were 17 Jews in the civil war your family and your family's one of them uh no we we sold we sold uniforms we did not fight we're conscientious made and sold uniforms uh my last name at Ellis Island was Braun which they converted to brown but they both mean brown right it's German for brown yeah

you know why all the Jews have colors in their names why you don't know no I did not know you ever think about it no Greenberg

Goldblatt Silverstein Whiteside why because that's how they kept track of us we had the original ghettos.

They invented ghettos for Jews and they did quadrants. So they would cut the ghetto up in four and they would say, this is red or rose, rose and crayons. This is gold. I didn't know this.

This is great. This is white and this is green. So if you were a Greenberg, they knew where you belonged. Wow. Okay. So that white and this is green. So if you were a Greenberg, they knew where you belonged. Wow. Okay. So that's why almost every Jew in America, if they're not named Levy or Cohen has a color in their last name. Wow. That's amazing. I didn't know that. I, I went to the, I think the original Jewish ghetto in Venice. Yeah. I did that. The museum. Yeah. And it's just sort of amazing. Also, I know you were just in Paris.

So, you know, of course, I'm obsessively listening to your show now. We'll get back to the show show. And do you like Paris? I loved Paris. Yeah. Filled with anti-Semites still. But yes. That's okay.

I don't know if it's okay. I kind of get it. I kind of get it. But I do love Paris. But I've been listening to the show. And ever since I was on it, you guys were so generous and lovely. And I have to report back to you that many compound listeners have come and asked me questions on my podcast. How about that?

Real, like, hardcore, interesting personal finance questions. What's Michael like in real life? No, not so much that, but more like questions about their own financial lives and doing some deep dive into that. So number one, thank you so much. Number two, after you guys were both so generous and you said nice things about me in the subsequent show, Michael mentioned me again. And so now I'm so competitive that when you have someone else on, I'm like, I wonder if they liked that person better than – Nobody can hold a candle to you. Let me give you the full intro.

Jill's an Emmy and Gracie Award-winning business analyst for CBS News and writes, hosts a nationally syndicated column and podcast, Jill on Money. Prior to CBS, Jill was editor-at-large for CBSMoneyWatch.com and spent 14 years as the co-owner and CIO of an RIA. Jill got her start on Wall Street trading gold, silver, and copper options on the floor of the Comex. Jill, welcome back to the show. Thank you. Thank you. Are we in a new bull market?

Oof. Can I rephrase it? Yes. That's – is the bear market over? Those are not necessarily the same things. Yeah. But I didn't ask that question. Well, I wanted to rephrase it.

I love this. So I saw this also. I always think, isn't it funny that you think it's like 20% is this arbitrary line in the sand? We have to draw a line somewhere. Yeah, exactly right. You know, I'm the worst at picking bottoms and tops, as my dear departed father Albie used to say. They don't ring a bell at the bottom of the top, so that's why we hedge. So I think that it appears that companies are just printing money and profits. And so it's hard. Again. And so it's hard to say, well, we're going to stay

in a bear market if many companies, not all companies, I know, but are actually making money and continue to make money. That said, I am very uptight about the economy in general, and I always feel like there is this sucker punch coming. That's what being a trader is. I always feel that way, too. The shooter drop. Everyone does. Here's my take. The bear market that we experience because of the Fed hiking is over.

Okay? Yes. So the S&P 500 is slightly positive. Cut this clip and just hold it for me somewhere. No, no, no, no, no. I'm going to need it. I don't know when or why. So all of the fears about corporate earnings coming down, inflation staying elevated, layoffs,

unemployment going up, that did not come to fruition. We're now 20% off the lows. All of those fears are dead. I don't want to say I'm buried. So, okay. So that bear market that we experienced is over. Yeah. It doesn't mean that we can't enter a new phase of, or have another bear market. Right. So what we just lived through that, that is over. Yeah. It doesn't mean that we can't enter a new phase or have another bear market.

Right. So what we just lived through, that's over. Eight hiking cycle, eight hikes or whatever it was, done. Doesn't mean that we can't enter a new bear market.

Back to the question though. Is it a new bull market? I don't feel- We're 19.5% off the October low. If we get up, if we have another half percent upside day, technically,

like the statisticians will record a new bull market or not? The new bull market has been minted. So Ryan Dietrich has a great chart showing one, two. Well, if it's minted, then you can't be in the old bear market by definition. I'm saying the bear market died. Got it. Got it. So there are – there have been like eight bear markets going back to the 1950s.

And this shows what happens one, three, six, 12 months later after a 20% bounce. So after the bear market officially ended from a 20% bounce. 12 months later, we have never been negative. Now, that doesn't mean that we can't be negative this time. Time will tell. So you're saying the market falls 20% or worse, triggering the bear market. Then it recovers.

It doesn't have to recover all the way. It just has to bounce 20%. And then the question is, well, what happens after? The median three-month return based on... Forget about three months. Go six or 12. The median six-month return based on— Forget about three months. Go six or 12. The median six-month return is 18.8%, and the median 12-month return is 27.8%.

And higher 100% of the time. Again, there's a sample size of— And it's 100% of the time. Sample size of seven. So not a gigantic sample size. Right, right. I guess, do you guys have the sense that because we just lived through this once-in-a-century pandemic that whatever was the past, it's very hard to extrapolate forward?

I really feel that way. I feel like my little spidey sense is off a little bit anyway because I'm like, well, who would have thunk that we could have 33% savings rate and then just go back to living like idiotic Americans? Right. Take all the rules of thumb you grew up with and throw them in the garbage we just had a federal reserve do 500 and and 25 basis points worth of tightening and the labor market is accelerating and the housing market freeze oh and a stock market uh pullback without a recession exactly right at a 35 percent crash in the NASDAQ.

Did not leak over into the real economy the way that you thought it would have. Not even in California. And I mean, maybe the municipal finances are stinky. That's probably because of real estate also. But, you know, I just keep coming to the end of this and say, I kept thinking, well, there's no freaking way that we escape a deep, dark recession coming out of this. Unless unemployment stays below 4%. And inflation keeps coming down. Right.

And how could you actually have a recession if anyone that wants a job can get one and most people are getting raises for switching? How is it possible? We've spoken a lot about tech over the last couple of weeks, mega cap tech and how strong they are. I think people forget that they got killed. Meta. Trillions in market cap. So Meta had a 78% drawdown. Netflix, 76%.

Amazon, 56%. Google, 46%. These stocks, how quickly we forget, got fucking annihilated. Yep. Right. Like they already foresaw a drop in earnings and a recession that didn't come to fruition. Well, it's in that respect, when you were a child in the dotcom boom and bust, did you were you in the business yet or not? I was I was I was a cold caller at a retail brokerage. OK. I was in I was very much in. Okay. So I remember that so well because I was so,

I was so punished because I was an investment advisor then and in the late 90s, I could not get on top of like this tech boom in the way that clients wanted. And they're like, well, I have the,

remember there was like that weird fund. It was like Hans and Franz. They were in like investors business. The Munder Net Net Fund. Yeah, yeah, all that crap. So everybody wanted to be in it. I'm firing you. So I, like 1999 was my worst year of business

because I was just, you know, a regular investment advisor and got everyone left and said, I'm just going into the- I killed it that year. I got a three series BMW. I swear to God I did. I swear it's true. So I just was like, I was so, and I went on the air. I was 22.

It was awesome. I was killing it. I love it. I was cold calling and I was pitching 3Com and opening new accounts with people over the phone. They never heard of me. Could you imagine what a douchebag he was? I was the worst. I'm so absolutely the worst.

The reform broker right there. I was 22, Ferrag The reform broker right there. I was 22, Ferragamo's on my feet, three series black BMW in the parking lot, calling you from Great Neck, New York. How's your day going, sir? And I was pitching 3Com and the pitch, and it f***ing worked. The pitch was they own Palm Pilot.

They're going to spin off 10% of Palm Pilot as its own separate company. They're going to spin off 10% of PalmPilot as its own separate company. They're going to do an IPO. And then the other 90%, they're going to pay to 3Com shareholders as a dividend. So it's like a two-part story. And I swear to God, Palm went public. And its valuation on the first day made it so that that 10% piece of Palm was worth more than all of 3Com. Oh, yeah.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And you were on it. And I have to tell you, for the investor, the end investor, that is the worst possible thing that could happen is the broker is right because the next trade they did was always 5X, 10X. Okay. You need to send me more money immediately.

Oh, yeah. So for me, it was the inverse. And I was like, okay. You were buying like me more money immediately. Oh, yeah. So for me, it was the inverse. And I was like, okay. You were buying like shoe cobblers. Right. Colgate or some bullshit. Anyway, and I actually owned Vons. Don't forget.

So anyway, I just got hammered. But I had gone on and very publicly said, this is going to end in tears. Yeah. And so then that's kind of how I got like a media presence because someone saw me, heard me, and then all of a sudden that happened. And what was fascinating is I remember – this is my lesson in getting my ass kicked in market timing. I got out of the way and I was spared. My clients were spared and it was a wild success for me. You have got to believe it.

We had like so much money came in the door in 2000, 2001 because we had this reputation. They didn't get hammered like everyone else. Okay, great. Except – You were the last man standing fund. Yeah. Except it was very hard for me to pull the trigger to get back in. And that was a brutal lesson.

Yeah. And even then, again, this is like my training as a trader. Did you look at downside first? Like, well, I'm going to, the thing's going to zero, obviously. Also, now your new reputation is like you're the cautious one. Yeah. And so I was really late getting in. But what feels reminiscent about the period today as then is that we thought the world was coming to an end and it didn't.

It's shocking. It didn't. It's shocking. It didn't. And this really did feel like the world was coming to an end because when you have a once in a century pandemic, the world did kind of feel like it was coming to an end. But in the economic cycle sense of it, it didn't feel that way. And it's shocking that, you know, even with inflation, even with 10 consecutive rate hikes, that we are where we are. It's a beautiful thing. People always forget, myself included, when all the news is bad and everything's negative, people forget like 95% of the economy is just people putting gas in their car and getting

their kids on the school bus with lunch. That's like 95%. And then the other 5% at the margin, like corporate CapEx and technology spending cycles, that's tiny in comparison to the main thing. Yeah. And the main thing doesn't go to zero. No, it doesn't.

And, you know, the thing about the resilience of even the global economy, you can cherry pick and be like, oh, China's in bad shape or this one's in bad shape. Or, you know, I got on the Greece will drag us down bandwagon in the European debt crisis. I was literally talking to people at Deutsche Bank. We're like, we're going broke. We will go broke if this thing goes down. Like it's bad. And I was so freaked out and I didn't do anything.

I didn't say anything. But I remember talking to friends of mine who were like traders and they're like, world's going to zero. Is that 2011? 12. I wrote an insane blog post. I never deleted it. Maybe I will don't search for this

the gist was why I'm not worried about Greece or Europe or whatever and my reasoning was like the actual truth which is that rich white people will always figure it out because it's all they got they're running the show so like the Germans

they're not going to let Greece take down the European economy because they want to stay rich and they want it like, this is just this is just like the gamesmanship and like, don't, these people have nothing else but to be in charge. Do you know what women say about this in corporate America? We call it white boy

chess. That's all it is. Like, it's all posture. That's how I felt about this stupid debt ceiling thing too. These people are not going to let this get to a point where they lose their jobs. I will say yes, and I was a little unnerving because the people I knew in, um, who were, like, corporate government affairs people

said that there were some serious lunatics who just wouldn't answer the phone, and it scared them. Because you're not accustomed to that. Exactly. It's the game behind the game normally. It's like, hey, great TV hit you did. What a devil I am. But, right.

And nobody was giving them that assurance at the very end. And that's why the nerves got rattled a little bit. So getting back to the market, John, throw this chart up, please. So somebody, Ophir made a great chart looking at prior bear markets versus the current one. And just eyeballing it, we could roll over again. Sure. Why not? But this looks a little bit different than the rest. It appears that it's over. Again, we'll see. But here's the point that I want to make that I made with Josh last night on what are your thoughts. Everybody came into the year, economists, everybody came into the year,

economists, hedge funds, retail, institutional money managers, everyone came into the year really afraid. You have 7 trillion, I don't know what the exact number is, of money going into money market funds, people severely underinvested getting on the same side of the boat. And what is happening in the stock market today?

Doesn't mean it can't change a week from now or two weeks from now, make me look very stupid. But right now you have the IPO ETF hitting a 52 week high. You have Tesla hitting a 52 week high. You have the NASDAQ 100 hitting a 52 week high. You have Apple hitting an all time high.

You've got all of these things. You've got the ratio of consumer discretionary to consumer staples. My point is this, absent something knocking the market off course, which is always a possibility, the chase will be on soon if we're not already there yet. The second half is going to be all these people reversing their bearish posture and getting as much exposure as they can.

So professional money managers can only stay bearish for so long. By the way, which is why I love retail investors, actually. Remember we used to call them dumb money? They used to be like, oh, the retail investors are dumb money. Really? Who's so dumb now? The people who are like, actually. Retail investors don't stop investing. They don't stop investing. Keep putting money in my 401k.

Keep rebalancing. By the way, you know what's so funny? I'll listen to a newscaster explain why the Russell 2000 just started rallying. It's like, you know why it started rallying? Because these stocks have high betas and small market caps. And if you just missed Apple, Google, that's what you do. You start buying that stuff because it's down on the year.

And that's how you catch up. Well, I think that's human behavior, though. Isn't that the best part of it? It's portfolio managers. They're human, right? Yeah, of course. You like to think that the algorithm's running it? No.

There's actually a human being. Oh, maybe the portfolio managers are bullish again because they're buying small caps. No, they're terrified. They're worried about their career. They're not bullish. So you guys are fond of buying individual stocks, right? Personally. Personally.

So what's your opinion when you meet, let's call it, I like to call them the working rich, the people that you know around, they meet you at a barbecue and they say, Josh, Michael, tell me really, what should I do with my money? So what do you tell them? God, I get it. It's like my worst nightmare. Six month T-bills. No. What do you say, Michael? Michael, what do you say? I, I get very socially awkward around these situations because I hate having casual conversations about this with people I don't know. So I'm— We have a friend in common, Ryan.

You should see me. I start sweating. It gets very ugly. But what would you say? Like if I give you a truth serum— No, all right. What's the question? What's the question? I'm going to tell you how I answer this. What's the actual question? Michael and I have a friend in common, my friend Ryan. I know him 40 years. Hey, we discussed a little while back I would have some cash to put into the market from the sale of a boat.

I have blank dollars to invest. Would love to know where to put. Maybe something with dividend or you were saying index funds. I missed the boat on NVIDIA. Maybe that's the thing I should buy. It depends on who the – go finish your thought. And then he says his wife has been putting some money into Amex savings accounts with 4% yields. Call me later when you're not busy.

I give him the same answer. I literally give everyone else, and I get this question from strangers, from friends. I said liftoffinvest.com. This is where I put my –. My wife and I put our excess savings directly into that. It's easy. It works. It, you could accumulate, you could do. So that's like the, the automated asset management thing that we own. Yep. So, so he goes, okay, call you later. No, no, no. Don't, Ryan, I love you. Don't ever call me because I'm not going to tell you something different on the phone. So, Jill.

That's what I do. My answer to friends when they text me is that is the same thing. Just buy index funds and leave me alone. Wait, you don't send them to Liftoff? Wait, what? Wait, what? No, I send them directly to Betterment. I'm only kidding.

Oh, that's fine. I'm only kidding. No, but I thought that you were referring to like a stranger. For sure, it's like, hey, what do you think about the market? No, like I, okay. Stranger, he starts rattling off tickers. Exactly. Exactly. Can we tell you about my interview with Cassie? What is your question? You asked me for... I'm asking you that oftentimes

I hear you guys, you're talking about stocks, you're laughing, you're joking, and I have complete religion. I do not trade anymore. Absolutely do not trade. When I take risk, I take risk on my own career. I do not trade anymore. Absolutely do not trade. When I take risk, I take risk on my own career. I take risk about different things.

I'll buy some artwork that's like out of – So you don't want to be pinned down to a screen all day. Exactly. I love – I love obviously the stock market, but I love like the thrill of being right or wrong. You do. I love risk. So I will never stop trading individual stocks for entertainment. Okay, but what percentage of your portfolio do you trade?

Probably a little bit too high. Okay. But I'm looking at it as like a percentage of like my future portfolio. Oh, how ambitious of you. Right? So I don't really trade. I invest and every once in a while,

an investment turns into a trade because you're wrong. Right. Or you're right really fast. Right. But I, a substantial amount of my net worth is in this firm and this firm is very heavily exposed to the stock market. Right. So I don't need more index funds with my, my other money.

Like I don't need more S&P exposure, but so individual stocks. Also, I started out as a stock broker, So I fall in love with story stocks all the time. And I stay in love. And I listen to conference calls. And I talk to the CEOs maybe. And like that's what I like. But so for people that – I'll hold stocks for decades.

For people that are not interested, I don't recommend, hey, start trading. Right. Like I recommend the opposite. Do not waste your time with that shit. Because I have found, like, even when I talk to these people who have had, like, incredible success trading, once they have a certain amount of wealth, they're like, yeah, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm, like, socking it away, and I have, like, 5% of my portfolios, my fund money. You know there's an alternate universe in which I am literally a villain, a Bond villain. Really? Yeah, where I'm taking calls from people, like, oh, my God a villain, a bond villain. Really? Yeah.

Where I'm taking calls from people like, oh my God, Josh, manage my money. And I'm like, all right, here's what we're going to do. I have a two and 20 hedge fund. I'm going to pick 20 stocks. Here's the rules. Oh, James Bond villain. I thought you meant fixed income. Yeah.

Yeah, no. James Bond villain. Where I like literally tell people that I could beat the market every year and charge them $2.20 to do that. Yeah. I probably could have done that, gone that route, but I don't believe in it. It's bullshit. So I would never do that. It's so funny that people want to believe that someone knows.

I know. You get disappointed. I'm like, here's what you do. Figure out a dollar amount. Put the same amount in every month. Rebalance once a year. Nobody wants that. Nobody.

Pay your taxes. And I talk to 30. Somebody who's 30 years old. Pay your taxes and focus on why you make X amount a year and how you could like double that and triple that by the time you're my age. Like that is. But people want the secret. That's what you do.

We've had this conversation a million times. All people really want is what stock to pick. Yeah. That's really what they want. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that scene advice, but seriously, what stock? You could tell them a million times, I don't know. I don't believe in it.

I'm bad at it. No, but seriously, no, I get all that. But like- You know what else is funny? What's my upside in giving somebody in the supermarket a ticker symbol? Let's say it works. It was supposed to work. I'm Josh Brown. Yeah. If it doesn't work, I'm a scer symbol. Let's say it works. It was supposed to work. I'm Josh Brown.

Yeah. If it doesn't work, I'm a scumbag. Yep. Okay. And here's what's really funny. Being in financial media, you definitely could relate to this. Like, we had Kathy Wood on last week.

I heard. I was already jealous of her. Somebody's like, did you hold her accountable for... Are you f***ing high? Did I hold her accountable? What is that even***ing high? Did I hold her accountable? What is that even—citizens arrest? What do you want me to do, honestly?

Well, did you ask a tough question? Wait, nobody could be wrong on a stock? Is that what you're saying? Let me tell you my view on that interview. Yeah. First of all, you know, number one, I hope they don't love her more than me. Nobody loves anyone more than you. So insecure.

Go ahead. Second thing was, she's so obviously not Jewish. I've never heard such optimism. Unbridled optimism. It was shocking to me. I was listening. I think that's my favorite part of her, is that she sees the

upside everywhere she looks. Her parents must have loved each other. And nothing bad happened to them. Yeah. Because I listened to that interview very intensely as I was putting together my new grill, which is a very big thing to say as a lesbian. I almost got it done.

What did you get? Whatever. Some Weber that I had to say to my neighbor. I'm like, Myron, can you come down here and help me fix this grill up? His name is Myron. Oh, you got the Genesis? Whatever I got. Who knows? All right. here and help me fix this grill up to his name is myron oh you got the genesis uh whatever i got who knows um so i was listening to your your podcast and i was like god damn it she really is

all i think about is like the world will fall apart with ai people are going to get crushed yeah maybe there's productivity gains but back to the original let's bring it back like are the people who are already advantaged going to just be more advantaged? And are we going to leave people behind, right? And forget about the end of the world, which is who cares because we'll be dead. But that's also somewhat of an issue. I get concerned if 10% of the people you knew said, I'm working on this thing. It really has 90% upside, but 10% will actually eradicate humanity.

It's a small chance. We'd be like, that kind of tail risk sounds scary. Did you read Andreessen's Why AI Will Save the World? Yeah. Are you buying it? I want to. I want to. I want to buy it. That's somebody who has a lot of money invested in AI.

I know the source, but he convinced me. He did? I was mostly—I'm on the fence, and I'm not all the way there, but I leaned me. I was mostly, I was, I'm on the fence and I'm not all the way there, but I leaned over to, he made some good points. He made a powerful point about how many people are currently being paid to say that AI is doom for one agenda or another.

And I do believe, because I remember that from the internet. Wait, hang on. We've got a whole topic on that. Can we just finish the stock market stuff? So are we, so the question is, are we in a new bull market? And the answer is yes.

But I think that's unanswerable. I think you could say the bear market is over without stamping that we're in a new bull market. Yeah, I think that's fair. So I will say it when we make a new high. When we get above the 2021 high, I'll say we're in a new bull market. It'll be very courageous. I mean, are you serious? No, but that's the,

for me, that's the confirmation. What was the 2021 high? It was November of 21. Is that right? October, November-ish. And then the S&P made a new high. No, it was January 2022. Wasn't it? Oh, no, 2021.

My bad. January 22. I think Nasdaq was 20. January 22? I think January 22 was S&P and Nasdaq was 21. The Nasdaq topped before Thanksgiving in 21. The ARK stocks topped in February 21.

We had this argument with JC Mike Adams. None of those are in the S&P. The S&P 500 topped on January 3, 2022. Okay. So we got to retake that. And then you're convinced, Michael? No, no, no. Well, fair point.

So that's when I will say confirmation new bull market. Very courageous. I know, but it's true. By the way, you know, but it's true. By the way, you know, we talk about charts and taking things out all the time. And one of your shows, I heard someone mention Ralph Acampora. FYI, greatest Ralph Acampora story for a second. Tell it.

1987, July. I am at the New York Institute of Finance downtown with a bunch of other Spearleads and Kellogg traders with a course taught privately by Ralph Akampura, who puts a chart up of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index. And it is July of 1987. And he says,

the sky's the limit, kids. Let me show you why. Well, the technicians always get the most bullish at the top and the most bearish at the bottom. At the risk of doing the same thing that he did in 1987, if you had to press my feet to the fire, I would say that I'm not making a call a year from now. But in the short term, given what the market is doing and how underinvested people are, I think the bias is to the upside. I don't know how you could say anything else.

I get all the risk. You're a big recency guy too. I'm not blind to the risk. Yeah. is to the upside. I don't know how you could say anything else. I get all the risk. You're a big recency guy too. I'm not blind to the risk. Yeah. Quite to the contrary. I'm always nervous. But the market is seeing past it. If the Dow was down 500 points today,

Michael would not be saying anything. Oh, fact. Right? Yeah. Our friend Brian Belsky put out a year-end price target bump this week. So can I read it? You doing this or am I doing this? Go ahead.

BMO's Belsky raising S&P 500 year-end price target to 4550, upgrading tech because that's been a very underloved – just kidding. Talk about courageous. All the worries that damaged 2022 market performance are slowly beginning to subside. Yes, earnings growth is likely to remain a sticking point, but it appears investors fully understand this and are looking past 2023 results

and expecting growth to reaccelerate in 2024. We expect market price momentum to persist. Upgrading technology from market weight to overweight and downgrading healthcare from overweight to market weight. The AI hype surrounding the tech sector is real and likely to propel future growth for many stocks within the space. Look at this chart.

What is this? So this is from BMS, Belscape BMS. Revision of tech stocks, the percentage of upward revisions versus downward. We had all of the downside revisions in 2022. Obviously, analysts took their estimates way down. We're in the opposite camp. We're rising.

And I just keep coming back to this point. When, I'm using air quotes, everybody is expecting the sky to fall and we're not seeing it in almost any of the data. I know there's indicators showing that the sky is about to fall, but it's not happening. And the market is saying the exact opposite is happening. It is there's indicators showing that the sky is about to fall, but it's not happening. And the market is saying

the exact opposite is happening. It is my bias to listen to the market and not everybody who's saying something different. And I believe so much in psychology. And so I think

that when everyone gets their second quarter statements and all the clients and all the managers have to feel the phone calls and say like, you guys suck. Why didn't I just buy,

why didn't I just buy the index? Why don't you own Microsoft? Yeah, what, what, where are, where were you guys suck. Why didn't I just buy the index? Why don't you own Microsoft? Where were you guys? Why am I giving you 1%? And they're going to jam it up. Massive. That's a massive part of it. You know what else might be over? Inflation. How about that? I would love that because I don't ever want to do another inflation story again. And by the way, they, for some reason at CBS, now I have to be on the air live when the inflation report comes out for all the markets. And I'm like, do we still have to do this? It's going to have a three handle. They're going to say, all right, forget it. I mean, they're going to bump you. Exactly. You're done. We're talking.

ISM services prices paid was the lowest since May, 2020. We put it in the two and a half years leading up to COVID, there was only three months. So prior to COVID, there were only three months where prices paid was lower than last month. Prices paid is a component of the ISM services. You know what's kind of weird about the whole,

the idea around inflation and just how embedded in the mindset it does get and that you can really hear people talk about it so much, people who can totally afford to fill up their tanks. Or like, I cannot tell you the number of people who are like, what about the eggs? I'm like, so don't eat eggs. They're bad for you.

And they came down also. And then they came down also. It became part of popular culture. There's also a big political component to it because every high CPI report means Biden's doom. So there's a lot of people watching it closely for that reason. With a three handle, it becomes less interesting.

Joe, last time you were here, I think we were talking about the labor market and job switchers and how much money they were making. That's over. If you look at a chart of the premium that job switchers were getting and people quitting, things are getting back to normal. Yep. Not outside, but things are getting back to normal.

Yeah. Like nature, well, I say nature, it's a horrible thing to say on this world. Goldman Sachs says stocks are getting back to normal. Like nature, well, I say nature, it's a horrible thing to say. Goldman Sachs says stocks are cheap because of AI. They are not the only firm talking this way now. Meaning what? They're getting as euphoric about AI as everyone else. They're just doing it with CFAs and spreadsheets.

But this is Goldman Sachs this week. Quote. Because they've now replaced all their investment bankers with AI. It's David Solomon's dream. Oh, it's productivity? We assume that widespread AI adoption occurs in 10 years and lifts trend real GDP growth by 1.1

percentage points for 10 years. In this scenario. Wait, each year? Annually? 1.1% a year for 10 years. Yeah, it's GDP growth. That's crazy. In this scenario- Wait, each year, annually? 1.1% a year for 10 years. That's huge. In this scenario- Yeah, it's GDP growth. That's crazy. In this scenario, earnings per share in 20 years would be 11% greater than our current assumption, and the S&P 500 fair value would be 9% higher than today. This is Ryan Hammond at Goldman. I love fair value. However, a wide degree of uncertainty exists around the potential productivity boosts and the ability of firms to translate AI into increased profits for 10 years.

Based on a range of scenarios for productivity, we estimate the benefit to S&P 500 fair value could be as small as plus 5% or as large as 14%. And we're talking about trillions of dollars worth of GDP. So those numbers are meaningful. Yeah. I mean, it's fascinating. Have you guys been playing with chat GPT and the like a little bit? A friend of mine, actually, we're talking about the old days from the brokerage firm. Yeah.

My friend Stevie Rapp said, back in the day, you used to write some of the best presentations. They weren't always the best when it came to timing, but that's a different story. Thanks, Rapp. He said, I asked ChatGPT, this guy's a stockbroker in lower Manhattan. I asked ChatGPT to write me a presentation in the, quote, style of Josh Brown from CNBC. You have to read this thing. It's wild. So people are playing with it and playing with my name in it, and I guess that's fun.

Yeah. I mean, I was just doing something. I had to do a book presentation, and, I mean, I just played with it in different – I used BARD. I used ChatGPT and, like, build me and like build me a PowerPoint and just build you the slides. It can't actually go into PowerPoint. So some of it was good the way it laid it out. Some of it was not so great and some of it is like actually factually incorrect but okay. The thing that I found fun to work with was Dali, the image creator.

Yeah. That was wild. What's the coolest thing that you did? It just blew my mind. I mean, you just like sort of write something that you feel like, let me look at a fish in a fishbowl looking out and looking scared. And I was trying to, right? Did the fish get scared?

I don't know, but this one did. This one did. It was sort of like I just wanted to sort of have a visual for people who feel like they've built a life. They're fearful. They don't know how to get out of it. And, you know, my book will help them, whatever, you know, but like that there are ways out. But I just, it is pretty amazing.

And I want to believe, I want to believe in the upside of humanity. And yet I'm always consistently overwhelmed by how horrible people are at the same time. Yeah, but didn't you just hear what I said about GDP growth? Yeah, I did. It's not good enough for you? I don't know. It's like saying like, well, you know, well, what about democracy? Is it a debt? You know, like what depends?

GDP growth is great. And I love my friends at Goldman Sachs who very nicely have invited me to speak there. But they ain't always right. And they've been pretty wrong about lots of things., but they ain't always right. And they've been pretty wrong about lots of things. Well, they won't see the end of the world coming. Well, they don't have to see the end of the world even, but that not everything has an economic outcome only that the unintended consequences for so many of these things are real. And I just can't walk away from that part of it. I think last time I was on the program,

we were talking a little bit about, you're like, oh, should I care about TikTok, right? Like, should someone care that my kid is, you know, that the Chinese are looking at what my kid's basketball schedule is? And I said, no, but maybe you would care about the Chinese being able to influence your young adult children and how they vote and how they consume news and how they see society. And so it's like when we were thinking about Facebook in 2007, when it was the Facebook, no one thought, well, this is going to destroy young girls in some weird way, this thing called social media. So that's the thing that makes me, I'm worried. I, you know, this is why I don't have children. I have four legged children because I'm worried. This is why I don't have children. I have four-legged children because I'm worried about humanity. Well, there will be ways that all this AI stuff affects society and some of them will be great and some of them won't be. And we have no – the thing is that we have no choice.

No. I know. You're right. So it's going to happen regardless. Okay. So buckle up. Should Jamie Dimon run for president? You ever interview him?

You must've. Um, well now I can say, cause it's been so long ago. When I first got to CBS, it was the beginning of 2009. And the then president of CBS news arranged to have Jamie Dimon come in and speak to the executive producers of all the shows and, um, and a couple of people. And I was brand new. And they just like doing the – or right after the crisis. Okay.

And he came in. He pitched you all life insurance. And he was very charming, you know, because he is very charming. And I was really the only person who came from the industry because I had just gotten there. And I was very taken by him. So then we get to a question and answer period. And I started asking him about, well, why shouldn't J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley

just reunite, make it the old family, do this? And I kept asking questions. At some point, he's like, I don't want to ask, you can't ask any more questions. These are a little bit hard. Because I kept saying like, well, what role did you have in this?

You mean, oh, I didn't need the money. I didn't need the government. He wanted to answer questions like, what's your favorite color? Exactly. And so I'll tell you, so I get out of it and I call my girlfriend who was then at Morgan Stanley,

you know, the company almost died. And I said, honey, you're not going to believe this, but Jamie Dimon, he's so amazing. He's so like charismatic and everything. She's like, he just chopped off the head of his number two, just to be clear before he walked into that meeting, just so you know who he really is. He just beheaded the guy who he had previously anointed his successor. So that's one Jamie Dimon story. My second Jamie Dimon story is that this is so great. It's a great

little name drop. So I don't know, maybe a year ago or so, I get a call from- LeBron James. Not LeBron James, because I would never tell you about that. I get a call from somebody who, I don't really look at the phone number. It's a 212 number.

And I pick it up and here's how it says. Jill? Yep. I think it's one of my mother's friends. Janet Yellen? Leslie Stahl. Oh's one of my mother's friends. Janet Yellen? Leslie Stahl. Oh, wow. From 60 Minutes.

So she's like, hi, it's Leslie from 60 Minutes. Like, she's my best friend. I never talked to her before. Yeah. She says, I got to interview Jamie Dimon. I need some help. Oh, wow. So she's doing a one-on-one.

And that just happened, right? This was like a year ago, right? Okay. So go through the whole thing i said he is going to evade every single one of these questions but you still have to ask them yeah yeah you just have to ask them and it was some bullshit thing about like oh you know we're giving money away to women-owned companies or environment it was the same bullshit that like goldman sachs is like oh it's 10 000 women and it's 10,000 small companies.

Well, that's when they do those interviews. Either they're defending themselves from something horrible or they want to do like a diversity and inclusion thing. So, you know, and she calls me up

after the interview. She goes, he destroyed me. Yeah. He destroyed me. And she's maybe one of the top interviewers in the world.

Probably. Yeah. I would say like the top dozen for sure. Listen, he's good and I don't know if he's for sure. Listen, he's good. And I don't know if he's presidential material because he's still a banker. You know, we've never had a banker run for president

in a serious way or obviously win. It's just never happened. We have very wealthy people, but there's just something about that guy worked at a bank or ran a bank, especially that bank. Yeah. I don't think, anyway, Bill Ackman did a 9,000-word tweet storm. I'm not going to read it.

I'll give you a taste. Jamie Dimon – I can't do an Ackman impression. Jamie Dimon is one of the world's most respected business leaders politically. He's a centrist. He's pro-business, pro-free enterprise, also supportive of well-designed social programs, rational tax policies. He's smart, thoughtful, pragmatic. He can dance well.

I don't know. This is a whole— This is so long. Did ChatGBT write this for him? But can I ask a— But I agree with—I wish we lived in a country where, like, the most qualified person wins. Not happening. That's not how the country works. No, I see that tweet—

He's too centrist. No way. You know what I say? I look at that and I'm like, oh— Bloomberg lasted a debate. Exactly. person not happening that's not how the country works no i believe he's too centrist you know what i say i look at that and i'm like bloomberg lasted a debate exactly i'm like great way to like basically peel off rational human beings out of all of politics and let the two sides lunatics fringes win so most people are single issue voters that are like most people yeah and the majority of single issue voters it's it's about uh slash whether or not they have a job. Yep. And then after that, you have people, they're solely voting on abortion.

It doesn't matter who the candidate is. Then you have the gun people. Then you have – that's – if you talk to most people, what's your – I know like Israel people. Like really? That's your biggest issue is Israel? I know. Yes. And I will like live and die on that. My belief on that.

And that's the only thing I want to hear. In that world, somebody with Jamie Dimon's qualifications to run a large scale organization and make decisions that does none of that shit matters because he doesn't have a forceful enough opinion on one of those to like get the rabble riled up. This part is depressing. Yeah, I totally, totally. Because we don't do that in this country. And the, I mean, it's funny when you think about money.

Sometimes I'll have conversations. Like I had a brawl at my cousin's wedding with somebody. Guy who's an old Wall Street family. And we're sitting at a table. And this must be like, I feel like it was Clinton time maybe, or I can't remember, probably about that time. And he's like, you're a money person. How could you vote for a Democrat?

Right. And I looked at him, I'm like, can I get ready to get- Clinton is the biggest money person there is. I said, here, get ready to bleep. I looked at him, I i'm like you know what i'm also a f***ing lesbian yeah and i don't really like to be like voting for a party that actually makes me money but actually doesn't appreciate who i am or honor who i am or believe you deserve human rights or believe i deserve any rights at all right so why don't you go f*** yourself and

i asked him to move his seat away from my table. I said, this guy used to be an old trader on the American Stock Exchange, an old, old friend of my dad. And he went to my dad. He's like,

ah, you know, Jill kind of gave me the business. And my father looks at me and goes, Mike, what'd you expect? What'd he expect, dude? And who hasn't, and who hasn't learned

like growing up, you don't, you don't, you don't go to a dinner and start talking to people about who they voted for. Oh my God. Or they like growing up you don't you don't you don't go to a dinner and start talking to people about who they voted for oh my god or they're or you don't do there's no it's a bartender rules if you're a bartender there's three things you can't touch one is religion the other one is politics what's the third i thought there's only two what's the third i thought it was religion and politics nah there's another one ai uh race oh well yeah that's probably

shut up shut up anything else under the sun and there's a lot. AI. Race. Oh, well, yeah, that's probably. Shut up. Shut up. Anything else under the sun. There's a lot to talk about. Yankees versus Mets, let's do it. Anyway, long story short, they ask Jamie Dimon every year at the shareholder meeting how many more years are you going to be at J.P. Morgan, and every time he says

five more years. I know. This year he said two more years. And then he said something about serving my country. So I don't think this is like that far fetched. I don't think it's a dead deal, but I don't think it's this time. No. But by the way, that's interesting though

because you'll have Diamond and Gorman stepping down at the exact same time. He also said in 2018, pretty sure I could beat Trump because I actually understand like how the economy works. If only that's what it was about yeah really alright

anything to say about Apple's unveil I almost I almost brought you guys a pair of meta goggles that I have

that had been never worn I mean one time you had the Oculus drift goggles yeah someone got them for me my dear friend said you gotta

put these on I put it on. First of all, they're not made for people with big noses. And I'm like, oh, this kind of hurts my nose. It's heavy. Yeah. And I was like, you know, I'm not into this. I'm not a gamer at all.

I mean, like Pong, that's about as far as I go back. And I mean, I can appreciate it must be cool. Like I could see that like, oh, if I wanted to try to meditate, this could be good. But mostly I was like, I'm not into this. But if Apple's in the business, of course you want it, right? Because now it's going to be user-friendly. I don't want anyone else's. I just want theirs.

Yeah, that's it. And I'll wait. It looks like magic. It really does. Yeah. Like they cracked whatever code they had to crack. And they're amazing. Being able to watch a movie on a virtualized 100-foot screen.

On an airplane. I mean, that would be so cool. But being able to sit on an airplane or a train or even in your room and feel like you're in the desert. Yeah. Look at this. And the fact that it's not blacked out and you can see past it was huge because you'll be claustrophobic. Right. You know, a lot of people say that with the meta things that they get nauseous

with them, right? Because it's- Yeah, it's going to be so- So Apple has solved for that by putting

the response time to certain gestures right on the chip. I have an idea for Apple if they want to listen. If they would like to buy-

Tim Cook listens to the show. I'm sure. If they want to buy Paramount Global, which is the company that owns CBS, which made a new— Piece of shit stock. Yes, who made a 52-week low recently.

It's like chump change for them, and you could put headsets on people where you could feel virtually you are in a stadium at a sports event. Yeah. Like, that would be so cool. Oh, that's coming. Mark Cuban said that he wants to make it so that anybody can rent the experience of sitting courtside. How much would you pay for that? I think that's cool. If courtside tickets are $1,500, would you spend $300?

Absolutely. If you had the true immersive experience of the crowd around you. Exactly. And if they have a camera there, like this is our AI camera or, you know, our augmented reality camera. That would be so cool. How about this? Not only will you be able to do that. I don't know how far away this is, but you will be able to sit courtside and also look around as if you're at the stadium.

Yeah, yeah. You will be able to turn around and see the crowd behind you. That's cool. Duncan, did you, you were a Portlandia guy? Yeah. So do you remember when they're like, they want to go to Lollapalooza, but then they're like, oh, wait, but there's no bathrooms and it's hot and there's mud and it's too crowded and they put on the helmets and the helmets are basically virtual. We're attending this festival concert, but they're sitting on their couch.

So Fred Armisen technically invented the Vision Pro. Uh-huh. Yeah. He should get a residual. Maybe eight years ago. So Mark Andreessen did a big post yesterday called Why AI Will Save the World. And I'll just give you the teaser.

He spoke about why it's good, but he addressed head-on the five main risks that people are getting hysterical about. Risk number one, will AI kill us all? Number two, will AI ruin our society? Will AI take all our jobs? Yeah. Will AI ruin our society? Maybe. Will AI take all our jobs? Yeah.

Will AI lead to crippling inequality? Will AI lead to bad people doing bad things? That's the one that I don't like. They're going to do bad things anyway. I know. Sort of a cop-out. But maybe quickly. Yeah.

More quickly, maybe. I think so. But given that this is a financial podcast, I wanted to spend time on number three. Will AI take all of our jobs? Okay. And here's what he said. I think so, but given that this is a financial podcast, I wanted to spend time on number three. Oh, all right. Take all of our jobs. Okay. And here's what he said. The fear of job loss due variously to mechanization, automation, computerization, or AI has been a recurring panic for hundreds of years since the original onset of machinery such as the mechanical loom.

Even though every new major technology has led to more jobs at higher wages throughout history, each wave of this panic is accompanied by claims that, quote, this time is different. This is the time. It will finally happen. This is the technology that will finally deliver the hammer blow to human labor. And yet it never happens. Yeah. I believe that actually. I actually believe that there are ways that you – I mean wouldn't it be great if people didn't have to do backbreaking horrible jobs that are repetitive in nature? This is more white-collar office jobs.

Again, yes. And also not have the young people banging out spreadsheets that are like – that's not really what you're using your brain for. It's not – it doesn't really – What about the argument that if you get rid of all those jobs then how does anyone start if there's no entry level then how do you get into a career that's a good point but

so people think linearly okay that job is disappearing what do those people who have those jobs do without appreciating the fact that this will create new jobs exactly

that's what I have to imagine we can't every single time that there's a leap we can't envision so when GPS came around there's a gap though between when the new jobs are. We can't. Every single time that there's a leap, we can't envision. So when GPS came around, I understand. There's a gap, though,

between when the new jobs are created and the old jobs are going away. Of course. But that's when you really actually need public policy to swoop in here a little bit

and say, like, okay, let us not, like, make all these coal miners sit at home and do opioids and wish that they were back in a coal mine and not give them opportunity.

Let's actually intervene before these people are lost and sort of dreying around society. So this to me is actually a solvable problem. We have experience. We just haven't decided as a society we want to. People will be displaced in the short term. There's no doubt about it. However, when GPS came out,

you could never have imagined the iPhone and Uber and all of the new jobs that are created. Yeah, but you know what's funny about the iPhone? And I, you know, I certainly understand that we are all able

to do things from different places and in different ways. I don't work a lot less because of connectivity. In fact, I work a lot more. And it is exhausting to always be on. Also, whatever the AI can't do,

that becomes the focus of your new job. Oh, you have to do all the things. And then that's how, that's why we have more productivity than ever. And we're all working more than ever. I saw someone point out the other day that instead of taking the back-breaking jobs, AI is like writing poetry

and making music and doing art and stuff now. And we get more back-breaking jobs. Yeah, instead of doing stuff. Oh, I like that. I don't know. Is AI going to create the golden age of content? I don't think anybody wants AI-generated content. I mean, I'm really happy with my content. Sorry about the writer's strike and all, but I mean, I guess

that they'll get a deal, and I don't know if AI is going to be I mean, maybe. Maybe there's going to be some great stuff, but I don't think that AI couldn't have written the U.S. Constitution. You know what they're going to use? AI just takes things that already exist and recombines them in interesting ways. AI does not have original thoughts. It doesn't have desires.

I forgot who said this, but Law & Order SVU can be written with ChatGBT and the writers can punch it up. Yeah. Sure, that will happen. Yep. But, I mean, who's to say? We'll see.

Yeah. I mean, you're going to get—are you guys Succession fans? Oh, yeah. Are you going to get writing like that? No. Never. Impossible. And, in fact, like, our favorite show is White Lotus.

He doesn't even have a writing— I'm learning a lot about Lotus. He doesn't even have a writer. I'm learning a lot about you. He doesn't even have a writer's room. You love White Lotus. You must love it. Yeah, of course. I mean, like, they treat gay men a little bit weirdly, but okay. Armand?

He writes the show himself. He writes the show himself. You know, he's got a weird backstory also. He's a gay man. Mike White? Yeah. What's the backstory? I think the backstory is his father was like—his parents were like a fundamentalist Christian of some sort,

or maybe Mormon. Fact check! But religious. Yeah. And his father came out as gay late in life. That explains a lot. Wow. Hello.

Yeah. You know what? I'm going to get you on gay Twitter. You guys will learn a lot. There's a lot going on. Is it a separate app or it's just what's... You have to intuit. I don't do the Twitter anymore. I don't either.

Tell me if you like this. We don't have to spend a lot of time on this. The House unanimously passed a bill to expand the accredited investor pool. I'll read this. This is Mark Sheff from Investment News. I have very mixed thoughts on this. Go ahead.

House lawmakers Monday unanimously approved legislation that would increase the number of investors who could buy private securities by expanding the criteria beyond income and wealth. This is the Fair Investment Opportunities for Professional Experts Act and would deem as accredited people who have certain licenses or educational or professional backgrounds, for instance, brokers and investment advisors. That's funny. So the idea is that only wealthy people who have $200,000 in annual income or a million dollars in net worth are able to invest in private securities. And what that does is it makes the rich richer.

I would argue that's not true. But it's keeping people who might have domain experience from being able to invest in something because of their income level. As long as they don't whine about their losses, I'm fine with it. Like, you want to give your money away?

They're going to lose money. Of course. On the one hand, I don't like that you have to have money to have access to some investment vehicles. On the other hand, the investment vehicles that are worthwhile on the private side are tiny.

And unless you're a pension fund, you don't have access anyway. So what is going to be left for people without a lot of money is going to be shit. Yep. I mean, I do think that whole, those levels are ridiculous now anyway.

They haven't been moved in a long time, the 200 and a million. We all could agree that just because you have a million dollars does not make you sophisticated. But there's a racial component to this. This is French Hill, who's a Republican from Arkansas. The current accredited investor rules favor the rich and the affluent over people who

have knowledge that are working maybe in their own area of expertise. Go crazy. And then it effectively discriminates against someone who would be poor or potentially in a minority community. Hill said SEC statistics indicate that 1.3% of accredited investors are African-American and only 2.8% of accredited investors are Latino. Yeah, I mean, I get that. It's not actually like something I actively worry about. I mean, I get that. It's not actually like something I actively worry

about. But yes, I understand that. You know, there's a woman you guys should interview her. She is phenomenal. Knock your socks off. Her name is Dorothy K. Brown. She wrote a book called The Whiteness of Wealth. She traces a lot of the economic inequality to the tax code. And she did a deep dive as to how this actually developed. And so do I think that, you know, the wealth disparity is a huge issue? Yes.

Do I think that the solve is, yeah, let's let more people be accredited. No, come on. Ridiculous. I agree with you. So it sounds like,

it sounds like we agree on what you just said. Like, should there be like arbitrary laws that you have? Probably not. But it also is not going to help them either. It that you have, probably not, but it also is not going to help them either. It's not going to help you, but it's okay.

If you think there's a man behind the curtain, good luck. I saw Wicked and I saw The Wizard of Oz and I know how they both end. Citadel pays its interns $5,000 a week.

Oh my effing God. Unbelievable. I should, my friend works at Citadel. And provides free housing in NYC. The caveat to this is they end up hiring most of them. So this is more like a glorified orientation.

But this is a summer after junior year college students. Is that what it is? I don't know. Here, this is New York Post, of course. A summer internship at Citadel offers perks that include a salary up to $5,000 a week, free corporate housing in one of 10 different world financial centers like New York, and an opening retreat at the Four Seasons in South Florida. Oh, I'm sold.

Yeah. Billionaire Ken Griffin's hedge fund, which has $58 billion in assets, picks a crop of 300 interns for their summer program out of a pool of 69,000 applicants. Nice. An acceptance rate of 0.5%, which by— All right, here's where the interns come from. Nassau Community College. Stop.

My alma mater. Undergraduate STEM programs at elite universities such as MIT, UC Berkeley, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and UT. Can I just say one thing about this guy? I know he's smart. Say more than one thing. First of all, what a failure of imagination. He gave $300 million to Harvard. There's no one else who deserves his money.

Like, I don't get these people. Yeah. And secondly, like, even if this is true, whatever, who's, it's such garbage anyway. Yes. Okay. You're elitist. Great. And you're very, you care so much about making the world a better place that you can't even say, you know what I've done?

I've really decided I'm going to all the historically black universities and I'm going to endow the shit out of those schools. And you don't hear about it. Look, I don't. Oh, you'd hear about it if he did it. Don't worry. I don't think his persona is like I'm trying to make the world a better place. You know what he is? He's a very big law and order guy.

And I think it's one of the main reasons why he's not in chicago anymore and he wants to live in like a clean prosperous city i think he believes in like creating opportunities for people i don't think he's trying to uh turn one person into another he's looking for the best of the best and these these kids are geniuses. And like, he's not starting, he's not trying to start from raw material. He's trying to start from geniuses

and then put those geniuses to work for him. I, I just, I get it. I know, I get it. It just,

it's a, it's disheartening to me that you have all that wealth and you don't want to make the world a better place. Hey, listen to this. Every year,

Griffin addresses the interns at the opening retreat in Florida. Can you imagine? Is this what you do at Ritholtz? Yeah. The interns are then sent to their base of operations. Oh, my God. Their base of operations where they are mentored by a manager who guides them in, quote, deep dive quantitative trading simulations. At the end of 11 weeks, a majority of interns are offered a full-time position

with the company. So that makes more sense than Yeah. It's like your onboarding process, basically. Imagine you lose. Imagine you do 11 weeks there and your parents are so proud of you and you're like, they didn't pick me. What's wrong with you? You're going to a millennium loser.

Joe, did you have fun on the show today? Yeah, but I got to tell you, I got a few little graphs for you that I thought were fun. Roll them up. Let's do it. I got a chart that is about how much equity people have in their homes. Oh, where is this? Check this out. Check this out. How is this possible?

It is insane. So we're looking at homeowners equity in real estate as a percentage of GDP, which is hockey sticking higher right now. It is over 100% of GDP. Yeah. And then home mortgage liabilities, a percentage of GDP, which are somehow falling. I know. What is this? I mean, this is, so this is from my friend, Mark Spindell, who is a highfalutin money manager, used to run the bond portfolio for the World Bank, and he ran all sorts of, you know, hedge fund-ish things. He says to me, the thing that is never captured appropriately is just how much wealth people have in their homes, how low their mortgages are, how that's locked in.

And don't even, don't sweat it. We are not going into a recession anytime soon if that chart holds. So we have more than GDP in equity value. Yeah. Just in our houses. That's wild. Insane. Okay. So then I decided, let me talk to Eeyore, another, someone else who's a little more downtrodden. So I talked to my dear college pal, Alicia Levine. So I went to school with Mark Spindell. He sent me that one at high school with him. And now Alicia Levine is the head.

I got her title, Head of Investment Strategy at BNY Wealth Management. You'd love her. And so here she is as leading indicators. Okay. She wrote to me, her text. Over the last 75 years, when LEI has gotten to this level, it has always all caps led to a recession. LEI is leading economic indicators. So she's a little bit more downtrodden.

And she says, you know, we have caution. And she's worried. She thinks that, you know, we're seeing bank willingness to lend to consumers falling, that this is going to be a problem. Oh, I point this out to you because I'm not so smart to come up with these beautiful charts. But what I can tell you is if you want to find a bear case or a recession case, you will find it. And if you want to find a bull case, you will find it. And at the end of the day, at the end of the day, in your real life, everyone here who's watching and knows this, it's not going to make a difference. You keep doing what you guys say to do.

Put your money away. Don't mess up. Get on with your life. Get on with your life. Don't get – this is fun. This show is so much fun. I would come on every quarter and I would like to lock that down right now. Business guy, let's talk.

I do a great read. Oh, you met let's talk. I do a great read. Oh, you met Robbie? Yeah, I do a great read. But I will say that the idea of looking at this stuff at such an intense level, the reason why you guys are amazing and you guys really are like magical when you're on the air together, you're great together. You're great with guests. Some of your guests suck, but whatever. No, I'm just kidding.

But it's because you make this stuff fun and entertaining. Oh, thank you. Right? And this is why people like you. But for your real lives, people don't need to freak out about this stuff. Well, this is the whole, you know, we started the blogs. And the idea behind the blogs was let's just do common sense context. We don't go on the blogs and say there's a crash coming or – like we're not doing things for attention.

What we're basically saying is like, OK, this week everybody is worried about the trade war. Let's go back and look at stocks, bonds during the last few trade wars. How did the economy do? How long did they last? What was the after? And when we do that for people, we help them make better decisions with all the information. And so much of the information in the financial media

is complete bullshit because it's being put out there with an agenda for attention. So that was the idea behind the blogs. We tried to do this and bring this to YouTube and I think we're doing it and podcasting. And like, even now, we were talking about a guy today.

He's got a YouTube channel with a million subs. You look at the thumbnails of all his videos. He's doing the Kevin from Home Alone face. Like- It's garbage. It's garbage. Like his titles are like, is the stock market going to zero?

And his face is like, you know what I mean? Like with his hands on his cheeks. But legit almost 2 million subs. But he's doing it on every video. And he's, I get what he's doing. He's attracting attention and people are subscribing. And every week he scares them with some new bullshit.

He doesn't believe in any of it. The content isn't even that good. But that shit works on YouTube. Here's, this is the great Jason Zweig. Three ways to get paid. Where is this? You know, I think what's fascinating about that is I had someone come on the show, sent me an email and sent me this, an Instagram, same thing.

And so I said, let me see, like nobody does this in real life, right? So I'm like, who is this guy who has, you know, hundreds of thousands of subscribers on Instagram? And I look him up and he works for an insurance company. Oh, shockingly, he thinks that you should everyone should buy whole life insurance. I just can't believe it. Shocking. And then I go look and I'm like, is this guy licensed? No, he's not licensed. He runs marketing for this life insurance company.

So if Gary Gensler wants to actually do something, stop screwing around with accredited investor or not. And I really don't even care that much about like, so yes, regulate crypto, but crack down on this baloney. This is nonsense. These people who just prattle on about nothing and they have no licenses. It's a pandemic era phenomenon where a lot of people became overnight finance experts on TikTok and Instagram, and they built huge followings. But you can only trick people so many times. Well, actually, I wish that were the case

because it's not true. And let me appropriately quote Jason Zweig. You can trick people over and over again. There's a lot of people to trick. That's true. You can't trick a private. There's a lot of people to trick. Here's the actual quote from Jason Zweig.

There are three ways to make a living. Number one, lie to people who want to be lied to, and you'll get rich. That's what we were just talking about. Number two, tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you'll make a living. Number three, tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you'll go broke. Yeah. I think that's – is that him or is that him quoting somebody else? That's Jason.

That's him. Is that his father? He's quoting his father. Jason is a national treasure. He is. I'm sure you agree. That's him. Is that his father? He's quoting his father. Jason is a national treasure. He is. I'm sure you agree. I love him. All right.

We had a blast having you on the show today. We're going to do favorites. Okay. And then we're going to let you back out into the apocalyptic smoke fog. What do you call it? What are we calling this? I called it the zombie apocalypse. Did you see that picture I sent you?

Yeah. It's unbelievable. That was so crazy. I don't know. I'm feeling a little bit weird about it. There's actually a song, Orange Sky. Who's that? There was a group that was called-

Alexi Murdoch? Yes. Holy smokes. It is Alexi Murdoch. It is, right? I used to have a yoga instructor who was obsessed with Alexi Murdoch. You know this song? We Can't Play It?

Yeah. We definitely can't play it. They were using it in a lot of movie trailers back in the day. Yes, they did. It's like a great acoustic. Did you just hum it? Oh, no. I don't think you can.

I was thinking more like the movie The Mist, you know? Well, that's a little bit scarier. No, but the sky is – So, narrate for people. It's a sunny day behind the smoke, so the sky is orange. Right. So, there is like a brownish haze that has fallen across New York City. It started this morning.

It came from Quebec. It came, well, it's very fancy with your pronunciation. I said Canada. There's a whiff of brie in the air. Ah, there's a little looniness that's going on. So, and so then because of the way the sun was sort of above New York City today, it looked orange in the sky against that sort of muted brown York City today. It looked orange in the sky against that sort of muted brownish okra color.

My daughter's taking prom photos tomorrow. And you think this is still going to be what the air looks like? I don't know, but I heard that there was a prom situation and I was going to show you my prom picture to have you put it up in front of everybody, but I refused to do that

and embarrass myself totally. But I will anyway. All right, so here's my favorite thing this week. Do it. Aaron Levy, he's the CEO of Box, or founder of Box, tweeted, pretty amazing confluence of new technologies all landing at the same time. Haven't seen a period like this for a decade and a half when we

had cloud and mobile emerged together. Never a better time to be building software. What does he talk? He's talking about AI and the visual pro. So it better time to be building software. And it is easy. What did you talk about? You talked about AI and the visual pro. So it is easy to be pessimistic. Vision pro. I think, you know,

that's just where our brains go. What's, you know, the worst is going to come. When I saw Apple's event this week, which you can watch on YouTube, the commercial, it really like blew me away. And I am so excited

for the future of that technology. I'm not going to be a buyer at this price point, but for the future of what is coming, like I can't wait to sit next court side on my couch. And you also would rather sit court side anyway, though, probably. True. Okay. But if I can't do that. Yeah, exactly. And I feel like it's expansive in terms of inclusivity in that respect that more people like you don't have to be – I was going to say a funny name, but I won't say it. But you don't have to be Spike Lee to be courtside anymore. We could have fans feel like they're sitting here in the room for our show, whatever podcast they like. Business guy.

Write that down. Great idea. No, but like that's where this stuff is going. I totally agree. Jill, you got a favorite for us? I have two things. I'm obsessed with Julia Louis-Dreyfus' new podcast. I didn't know she had one.

Oh, my God. It's called Wiser Than Me. And for English majors out there, you might say it should be Wiser Than I. But – That's the point. It's okay. She interviews women who pretty much don't have a voice in the society. So I presume that nobody in your audience cares about this.

But if you like her, she is hysterical. Just listen to a little bit of her interview with Jane Fonda. It will blow your mind. She is freaking unbelievable. And Julia Louis-Dreyfus is hysterical and off the cuff. And she's a great interviewer. Well, the thing with podcasts is you don't even have to care about the subject matter. You have to like the person.

Yeah. You have to be in. That's like a pre-rec. All right. My the person. Yeah. You have to be – that's like a prereq. All right. My second thing, are you ready for my suck up? Yes. CBS News asked me to participate in Pride Month. They sent this thing out.

They're like, hey, gay people at the organization, like write an essay about pride. And they produced it in a segment. And they produce it in a segment. So I didn't just come out on your show, but I came out to three million people on June 1st. And it was— Is this the first time you were on CBS's air talking about that? I would never have a reason to. So that's the beginning of the segment. Good for you.

And there's Gail doing the intro. And there I am. Oh, wow. And that's Jackie. And that's a college and there I am and that's Jackie and that's a college friend and that's my dad and that's my sister and that's me like really coming out and um so what was kind of cool about it uh was how many people responded to me like I mean there's haters everywhere but like there are people across the organization in affiliates, in the middle of the country who maybe are not out. And they were so into it. And it was like –

Were they like, I've been a fan of yours all this time. I have no idea. Or what are they saying? It was like, I can't believe you did that and that is so meaningful to me. And you mean – you're doing this means something to me. And me as gay director in Chicago, in Dubuque or whatever. And it's amazing to me to think like, it didn't seem like that big a deal when I was doing it, whatever. And I'm like the old fart there anyway. So the

younger ones have much better stories than I do. But you know, like I came out in the middle of AIDS. I came out when like the world hated gay people in a very overt way. Now they just hate trans people, not just gay people. So we were more expansive. Yeah. But, you know, plenty of room for all the hate. I know. Let the haters hate shortage. And, you know, it's weird because one of the reasons I stopped, I got off social media was like probably around 2016, 17. I started getting super homophobic and anti-Semitic stuff thrown at me. Yeah.

And I was like, I don't need this. Like, I don't need to be part of this. I don't need to defend this. This was like a moment where it was like, like it really meant something. So it was great. It was like a great feeling. And I want to thank my bosses for that.

Good for you. I'm going to watch that clip. So it's great that you got a great response for it too. I mean, haters too, but. Well. Haters going to hate, right? This is life. Did you see this Elvis movie?

No. Tell me about this. All right. I was not into this when it first came out. I was like, skip. I think it's one of the best movies of the decade so far. Really? What? Yeah, I really do. Did you see it? Whoa. I watched

20 minutes, but I'm not saying it was bad. I just, I didn't go to it. You're actually not a good candidate for this. But, no, it's not, no disrespect. It's not your kind of movie. What are you talking about? It's not your kind of movie. It's one of the best movies of the decade. You're not, your opinion doesn't count? No, not your opinion doesn't count. You're not the type of person

that I think would like it. You don't like cinema. That's not f***ing cinema. Elvis? It's not a documentary about Elvis. It's a cinematic feature film. It's Baz Luhrmann.

He makes like over-the-top spectacle musical movies. Yes. It's not for you. That would be for me. That's true. It's not even for me,

but I appreciated the history in it. And I think they really went above and beyond That would be for me. he was a white guy doing this on television, they would never have let, I think they had Chuck Berry in the movie. They had B.B. King was one of his earlier, was one of his early mentors. They would never have been on television the way that Elvis was. Better than Scream 6? I mean, honestly, if you finish-

Thank you, John. If you finish the movie and watch this arc of young Elvis becoming dead Elvis and everything that happened in between, I think you would look at it from that standpoint and say this is a pretty big achievement. They captured like the whole Elvis story in an hour and a half. That's kind of cool. I would be into that. I mean I have heard a lot about that. you know, the Ken Burns documentary was like the series on PBS about country music,

had an aspect of that, had a part of it like about Elvis and about how some of the country music people who sort of borrowed from the African-American traditions and brought it forward and how they kind of merged those two things, which you're absolutely right, they would never have made it.

I'm going to watch that. So where is that? So he causes a riot and they basically tell him, you've destroyed your image. Almost like when Justin Bieber went through that phase where it was like over the top. So they said to him like basically your career is done. They're not going to play your records anymore. You pissed off the Christians.

You pissed off the police. You pissed off – so they were like – and by the tom hanks as colonel tom parker is a huge bonus and it's such a strange role for him um but so tom hanks is basically like there's only one option you have to go into the army and they send him to germany that's where he meets priscilla and uh he comes back and he becomes a hollywood. But they like show you every phase of his career and what was going on in the country that kind of like dictated it almost. I will say, Josh, you're right. I have not seen Walk the Line. I have not seen Ray or Rocketman.

I don't think this is your— I am not a music biopic guy. Although I did see the Queen one. But you're right. Not for me. The Queen one was great. But this one's really good. Walk the Line was great also.

I know. People love that movie. Anyway, that's my favorite. All right. We're going to hit this babka hard. We have two and a half Jews in the house, so let's see what we can do. All right, everybody. Listen, thank you so much for watching the show, for listening to the show.

Make sure you leave us reviews and ratings and likes. All new stuff in the Compound merch store. That's idontshop.com. The new Compound and Friends towel is now available. It's a hot item. Is it a hot item? That's idontshop.com. The new compound and friends towel is now available. It's a hot item. Is it a hot item? That's what I'm hearing. Yeah. People are really feeling the towel. Yeah. I mean, it's summer.

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That was, that was like, that was the best. That was the best rehearsal. Yeah, we ready to go? Yeah. Everybody feeling good now? Woo! Chill, you're awesome.