The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Dr. Matthew Johnson Joined Alex Urpí & Michael Urpí On "Today y Mañana!"

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Dr. Matthew Johnson, Founder of Free Range Direct Primary Care, joined Alex Urpí & Michael Urpí On “Today y Mañana!” “Today y Mañana” airs every Thursday at 10:15 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Today y Mañana” is presented by Emergent Financial Services, LLC, Craddock Insurance Services Inc, Charlottesville Opera and Matthias John Realty, with Forward Adelante.

Good morning everyone and welcome to Today y Mañana. I'm Avic, this is Michael. We're very excited to have you joining us on a pretty sunny morning. This feels like summer compared to what we were doing last week. Babs and I came into the studio, my gush, it was like 20 degrees. Yesterday, when it hit 60, I was literally like, man, it's kind of warm. And then I'm like, well, yeah, I've been relatively speaking. Well, listen, when it hit 45, like over the weekend, I was like, it's so warm. I was like,

I'm in my car and I'm not freezing. I don't need like five layers on. Forget it. Well, that's what I was saying. After suffering through like 15, 20 degrees,

anything over 30 is going to feel warm. Yeah. And then when we were getting 50 and 60, I was like, this is nice. Yeah, so it's a beautiful day

to be out and about. But if you happen to not be out and about, it's also a beautiful day to sit down, grab a trafetto and lecce, and watch them today and mañana. So there's always that. There's always that. You don't have to feel

forced to go out and be in the weather. You can still relax at home and enjoy a fantastic show that we have lined up for everyone. We're going to be joined shortly in the show by Dr. Matthew Johnson from Free Range Direct Primary Care. In the meantime, of course, always love being here on the I Love Seville Network set.

Thanks to our presenter, Emergent Financial Services, and our awesome sponsors and partners, Cradit Serious Insurance, Mattias Yon Realty, and Charlottesville Opera. So we love all of them. I think Charles Lopp was on, was it last? Two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. Two weeks ago when Nick and I, we had Bridget. Oh, wonderful, wonderful.

So it was great to talk about that. In fact, I think they have their Valentine's duet coming up on February 14th, obviously on Valentine's Day. Ah, yes. So if you don't have plans to take your special someone, you still can, you might be able to get tickets. I don't know if they're sold out, but you probably should double check that.

If you don't have plans. You should make plans. Exactly. Exactly. Looking at you, Alex. Oh, I have plans. Oh, you got plans. He's ahead of the game. I'm a planner.

I was ahead of the game. Don't spill it in case Dr. Elizabeth Irby is watching. Yeah, no, no. Don't spill the plans. I won't spill the plans. I will not spill the plans. Thanks, Ana Maria Amolio from New York is joining us this morning. Ana Maria, thanks so much for tuning in.

Nicholas Irby is watching. I told you everyone did a shout-out if they watched. That includes Nick. So be sure to let us know if you have any questions. Always love doing that. You ready to jump right in? I'm ready. Let's go. Let's do it. Let's do it.

So without further ado, we're glad to welcome to the show this morning Dr. Matthew Johnson from Free Range Direct Primary Care. Morning. How you doing? Good morning. Good morning. Glad to be here. Thank you for having me.

Glad to have you on. Glad to have you on. So for those who haven't met you yet, maybe you could start by telling us a little bit about yourself and maybe how you first became interested in medicine and went into primary care. Yeah, sure. So long story, but I was born and raised in a small town in Tennessee and kind of just had poor penmanship my entire life. And then my parents just said, hey, I think you're going to be a doctor one day. Just kidding. I had a lot of

interest in science and math and things like that growing up, so I kind of dabbled with sciences and things in college and ended up finishing with a degree in microbiology and didn't really know what to do with that. I didn't want to do lab work for the rest of my life, so I explored the medical field and ended up applying to medical school, getting accepted, and that's how it all got started. And then I kind of envisioned myself being old Doc Johnson, you know, with the doctor bag doing house calls and being the small town doctor and kind of what I saw myself doing with

the rest of my life. I really enjoyed building relationships with patients, helping them with their ailments and just being there for them and being supportive. And I always thought it was kind of an honorable and, you know, career path. So it was a natural fit for me. That's awesome. Yeah. And then how did you decide to kind of start? Well, before we asked you how you decided to start free range maybe a little bit about for

those who aren't familiar with the term what is direct primary care sure um so direct primary care and uh basically it's a membership-based practice so uh patients um uh join the practice as a membership and they pay a low monthly fee usually around the amount of a cell phone bill, if you think about that. And it's a monthly amount, and that gives them full access to me, and that covers all of their visits and things like that. I don't bill insurance. I don't contract with any insurance companies, so I don't bill insurance for my services. And that's kind of like the only difference. As far as the care that I provide, I'm traditionally trained physician, so I prescribe medicine, I, you know, do lab tests, things like that. So

I just, the model is different, I guess, as opposed to how we treat patients. So it's great. I think it allows me to take on fewer patients than a traditional or insurance-based practice would. So a smaller panel allows me to spend more time with patients and answer their questions and take care of their needs as a primary care doctor should. Yeah, go ahead. Is there a limit to how many times people can come to you over the course of like a month or a year? No, great question. I don't have any limits.

So, yeah, so patients can see me once a week if they need to see me that frequently. So far, I don't have anyone coming in every day or anything like that. But, you know, I don't have any limits on that. So I see them for annual physicals or, you know, preventative visits and sick visits, things like that. Okay. A little bit of everything. And so, for example, when there's like a family, how does that kind of work? Is it like one billing and then like someone has to pay per child?

So all of my billing is done online electronically. So I do offer couples, single parent, family discounts. And usually there's one like head of household, for example, that we put the billing information in and it just goes there. So they can bring on their children and their spouses and things like that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's always nice. I remember, I mean, some of the challenges with the traditional system is that there's also that kind of thing.

It's like you come in and it's like, well, you know, you come in for one thing. It's like, well, we can't do these other things. You have to make another visit. And it's like, well, I would imagine people to be like, okay, doc, I got like three, four questions, things I got to ask you. One for this kid, one for me. I remember one time I was there. I was at a traditional insurance system. I was younger. I was at a traditional insurance system. I was younger.

I was maybe high school or something, and my dad had come with me. And when we were done with me, he had just a question about himself, and the doc's like, I can't do you because this is the kid's appointment. And my dad was like, but I'm like right here. It's just like one question. It was just to know that family comes in and you can you can handle like yeah you actually answer dad's question too for sure and it's the system that does that right yeah the doctors every family doctor i know would would love to take care of

that patient take care of that person and i think that that's part of the reason why i i got out of that system and explore direct primary care because it allows me to do that. It allows me to give time to my patients and have them answer questions and not leave feeling unheard or that they had lingering questions about their health. What kind of led you down the road of, because obviously your enthusiasm for it shows through and the sense of it, what kind of led you down the road in your career to say hey i i'm ready to to start free range to go out on my own and do this as a direct primary care model great question i so i worked um out of when i when when you finish medical school you do something called residency where you get your specialty training after

residency i um did a i i received a scholarship when I was in medical school called the National Health Service Corps. And that required that I work for year for year. So four years, I had four year commitment to work in underserved areas in our country to pay back the, the, the med school tuition that they paid for. So I worked kind of in the FQHC, Federally Qualified Health Center world, for four years. And most of these practices see a lot of Medicaid population, a lot of lower income-based communities. And I began to see there the limitations of insurance, the limitations of in primary care, I will say, and limitations of just the seeing 25 to 30 patients a day and not really taking care of my patients with the limited amount of time. I did that. I finished my commitment there. Then I began taking on a teaching role. I was a clinical faculty member with a residency program in Pennsylvania. There, I really enjoyed teaching.

I worked out of a rural health center. It was in a rural area in coal country, Pennsylvania. I was teaching residents. I was seeing patients, and I started to see the same thing. I just wasn't able to meet patients where they were and really take care of them because of the demands of the hospital system and the system. So I began exploring direct primary care, you know, reading about it, going to conferences, reaching out to people doing it in my area. And then I guess my wife, who's also a physician, got an opportunity to come here. And that's kind of what brought us here. And I was like, well, we're separating from our healthcare system. I don't have to worry about

a non-compete because we're moving to a new state. This is a great opportunity for me to go out on my own and do my own thing. So that's what I did. I ripped off the Band-Aid and did it. And here we are. I think Free Range has been doing really well, and we're growing, and we're taking new patients, and we love being here in Charlottesville. That's fantastic. And did you say that yet?

Because I think what's important for people to keep in mind is that it's not like, okay, get rid of your insurance for everything. It's just this is talking like primary care in particular. Yeah. So the way I liken it, I think I'm not opposed to insurance. I think insurance is great if it's used as insurance, which, you know, we look at other insurance, the worlds of insurance like homeowners insurance, car insurance, and they're catastrophic care, right? We use them when we need them for catastrophic, expensive things. Our healthcare system has evolved into us relying on health insurance for every aspect of healthcare,

and it drives up the cost. It makes things more expensive. So I always tell patients, and they're asking like, oh, well, why can't I use my insurance for this or whatever? I'm like, well, would you use your car insurance to fill up your gas tank or to pay for your brakes or your tires? No, if you did that, they're probably way more expensive. And so primary care in itself is not expensive. And I think that cutting that middleman out, the insurance aspect, and allowing us to work

directly with our patients cuts costs down. It cuts a lot of the overhead in our practices down and it cuts the cost of patients too. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's just a different model than I think a lot of people have been used to. But I think used to, not necessarily because they picked it, but because that's just what you do, right? You go find a primary care doctor. You don't do anything.

My dad remembers, Xavier remembers when he used to have to go fill out insurance. But now you go, show your insurance card, and you have no clue what happens behind the scenes. You only know it's the 15-minute appointment. All you see is the quickness of the care that the system imposes, but not really everything that's going on behind the scenes. And obviously you as a primary care doctor could see what was going on behind the scenes. Sure. And price transparency is a big part of it.

That's starting to take effect in our health care system, hospital systems and things, and legislation making them more required to be more transparent with cost. But you still have no idea what the bill is going to be a lot of times if you're going to an insurance-based practice or whatever. So that's what free range. We're all about price transparency. We want our patients to know like, hey, this is what this is going to cost you and let them make a decision on whether or not they want to pursue that, you know, as far as testing or whatever that needs to be done. And remind me, Dr. Yu, before the show, you also said you work with small businesses

about primary care. Can you kind of talk a little bit about that as well? Sure. Yeah. So one of the things that direct primary care can do is we can offer our primary care services as a benefit for employers that they can purchase or pay for as a benefit to their employees. So for example, I work work with a couple small businesses here that have paid for membership to my practice for their employees, and I'm their primary care doctor. So they don't have to worry about that monthly payment. Their employer pays for it. I see them for their primary care needs, and they go from there. Most of those are coupled by a high deductible insurance plan or a health share or

something to cover more catastrophic things like cancer treatment, hospitalizations. But the primary care aspect is covered by me and I see them and take care of them. And it works pretty seamlessly. And I think, you know, a lot of small businesses who don't offer, are not required to offer their employees benefits. It's a great recruitment tool and retaining benefit to offer their employees as a, as a, as they're trying to, you know, keep people employed, keep people healthy and keep their business going. And remind me too, you also, did you mention before that you did like lab work or blood work? Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. So,

you know, I, like I said, traditionally trained physician, I rely on testing, blood testing, things like that. I have a negotiated partnership with LabCorp that I have cash-based prices for labs that are a fraction of the cost that you would pay if you were utilizing insurance or if you were to go to another healthcare system. So patients utilize that. If patients have insurance plans and they're still a member of my practice, they're more than welcome to use their insurance for labs and things if they want to do that. It's kind of up to them. I give them the option. But it's like, it even surprised me how affordable like lab work can be when you look at it and you look at like really what the cash

based pricing is. So it's a fraction of the cost. I would say someone that goes to another healthcare system and asks for their cash rate, they're going to pay hundreds of dollars. I'm paying like $20 to $30, uh, example for most like routine labs. What is your just paying for the lab as opposed to the administrative back and forth between insurance company lab, insurance company lab, which eventually, you know, inevitably like anything else that you're not much goes ends up at the consumer's pain because that has to be factored in somewhere. Yeah, yeah, and it's been really fun because, like, I'm a solo, so I don't have staff to draw blood and things, so I draw the blood. And it's been fun because not a lot of doctors get to do that or do that,

and that was definitely a skill I had to go back and reteach myself it's a long time you know medical school we did a little bit and then residency you don't really do it and then i was out practicing and definitely didn't do it and then now i'm like oh well i'm the phlebotomist too so um that's been that that and the business aspect of things has been the biggest steepest learning curve for me. I was going to ask you about that, because obviously starting your own practice, you're also functionally an entrepreneur. You have kind of that back-end stuff. Was there anything surprising or challenging about that part?

Yeah, every day I think there's something challenging or surprising. I think just all the details of starting a business and what you need to have aligned and the licensing and all of that kind of stuff is just can be challenging and getting all your ducks in a row and doing all of that.

I will say the direct primary care community, both nationally and here locally, has been very supportive of that. So the other direct primary care practices, both nationally and here locally, has been very supportive of that. So the other direct primary care practices, I can't say enough how thankful I am for them to be supportive and help me out with navigating those kind of things. And yeah, so family has been very supportive in doing little things. I have two kids, two daughters. They're wonderful. My wife has been very supportive in allowing me to just run things by her.

Like, is this a good idea? Do you think I'm stupid? Whatever. So it's been so good having a supportive group like that. And then there's a lot of resources out there that I've utilized as far as there's books. We have a very robust, I might be aging myself, but Facebook group here. No, that's what we're streaming on. Yeah, no, it's great.

Of DPC, direct primary care doctors nationwide that we can bounce questions off of and things. It's been very helpful, very supportive. As you experience as a doctor, either through primary care or beforehand, are there any underlining health issues you've experienced that seem that are kind of prevalent in like either younger children or younger adults or older adults? It's like a trend that you and other doctors have noticed. I'm just kind of curious throwing it out there. If it's a tricky question to answer, you don't have to. Yeah, no, no. I think there's a tricky question answer you don't have to yeah no no i uh i think there's a lot of things i think um you know your your your uh big three as i like to refer to them in primary care or like things like hypertension or high blood pressure diabetes um high cholesterol or hyper

lipidemia those are things that don't aren't always visible and aren't always symptomatic or patients you know suffering from and having a good relationship with a primary care doctor and checking in on those things routinely, I think, help lower risk and lower poor outcomes in the future. So those would be my common things. As far as like in kids, I don't really see anything like that trends you know we we see um i have a decent and growing population of pediatric patients in my practice now and um one of the one of the things that i see in our area here is some and i think this goes nationwide is a little bit of uh distrust in medical system, like a little bit of,

you know, one realm of that is like vaccine hesitancy, like not wanting to get routine childhood vaccines. And, you know, I think that that's something that's been a challenge to me to try to, I don't want to say persuade, but educate patients and their parents on the benefits of vaccines and benefits of getting your routine childhood vaccinations and how that prevents disease and poor outcomes in the future. So very supportive of that. I don't discriminate from people whether their decisions are to not vaccinate, but I do try to educate them if they are hesitant or they want an alternative vaccine schedule or if they just flat out don't want to vaccinate their kids. I try to educate them.

And oftentimes I can convince them to be supportive of that and to vaccinate eventually. But that's been one of the challenges, I would say. I think part of that is being an independent practice or an independent physician is that I kind of sometimes attract those people seeking alternative models of health care and alternative views on health care. And I welcome everyone with open arms if they want to come to me for care. And I always try to give them the best care that I've been trained to give. So I think that's been, clinically, I think that's been one of the bigger challenges that I've had since I've started this. Yeah, makes sense, makes sense. Audience question for you. Matias Yon says, interesting concept.

Can subscribers' members also, like, email you to get medical guidance and answers, or is it all in-person visits? So one of the hallmarks of direct primary care is that we and I strive to be available and meet my patients where they are. So I, every day, I text my patients. I don't text, I text with patients. I guess they text me questions. They email me questions. I have secure platforms for both of those that are compliant with HIPAA guidelines and things like that. Um, I, I do telehealth, I do video visits. Um, I, um, and I do in-person visits. Um, so yes, I, I, I, um, am available and accessible, um, in various formats. Um, so, and I've enjoyed that. I think a lot of things, um, I, uh, like, for example, I've had a mom send me a message with, um, kiddo has a rash. So I, I asked her like, well, send me a picture of the rash. Let's take a look and see if they need to actually come

in and be evaluated. So we determined that it was through sending me some photos of the rash, and I triaged the patient and determined that it was probably a benign thing that would self-limit and go away, and we saved the patient from having to come into the office and take time out of school and take time out of the parents' workday and things like that, and they ended up getting better. So, yeah, I'm all about being accessible to my patients and meeting them where they are as far as technology goes. That's fantastic, because so many times, I think, especially when you have children, you have, like, these little questions, because you always freak out every

little thing about your child, and it's just, like, if you have, sometimes you have to reach a doctor. It's like, oh, you have to make a point with that. It's like, I just want to know if, like you said, this rash, is it something serious or is it just a rash? Did they rub on grass and they had some sort of allergic reaction? But it's like, no, you have to make an appointment. Sometimes all parents really want to know is walk me off the ledge. Exactly. You know what I mean?

All I want to know is that I shouldn't panic. Exactly. And it's nice to have a way to communicate with a doctor that's not just, no, I got a call, make an appointment, come in. It's just sort of like, hey, is this okay? And then you'll be looking and say, exactly. And it's nice to have a way to communicate with a doctor that's not just, no, I got a call, make an appointment, come in. It's just sort of like, hey, is this okay? And then you'd be looking and say, yeah. They rubbed on grass. And they scratched too much or something like that.

And I will say that those messages come directly to me. They're not being filtered by a staff member or anything like that. So they're coming to me, and I give them my honest response. So that's been great, and I think it's been one of those things that patients value, I think, being able to access their doctor. Fantastic. Absolutely, yeah. Well, this has been fantastic.

I've learned so much before we let you know. So I noticed you said you are taking new patients. Where can people find out more, reach out to you if they want to, I just meet with you, chat? Yeah. Where's the best way for them to do that? Sure. So I'm always on social media. So Instagram, Free Range Primary Care, and then Facebook and Instagram.

My website is the best spot to get information. It's www.frdpcfreerangedirectprimarycare.com. There, patients can sign up for membership. They can read about me, read about my practice. They can also schedule appointments there. I do free meet-and-greet appointments for patients. Oh, it's like a first-time, get-to-know-you kind of thing? Get-to-know-me, ask questions, things like that.

I do those virtually and in person, however they want to do that, and they can schedule that right on the website. And then my phone number, email address is all on there as well, so folks can email me with questions, text me, call me with questions, however they would like to. Fantastic. This has been an absolute pleasure. Yeah, it's been great.

Thanks so much for coming on. Thank you so much for coming on very informative great job be sure to check out frdpc.com is where you can find Dr. Matthew Johnson that's fantastic I always like that

when you see people in the center their own business but also that interpersonal connection especially with your doctor you kind of want to know who your doctor is like you see people in the center of their own business but also that interpersonal connection that comes with that especially with your doctor you kind of want to know who your doctor is sometimes with health care I'm sure you've had this experience it just feels like your insurance is

switching every year it's like that doctor you went to last year now it's like well they're not on that list yeah so it's either you got like a new doctor like I don't feel like going to meet a new doctor and I think he made a great point in that, back in the day, almost all health insurance was functionally

catastrophic health insurance. In other words, it was for, like, these really big disastrous things. And over time, it became to absorb everything. And so it's interesting that, like you said, and that's how you run these issues where, right, where, oh, you lost your job, you know, back to, obviously, you know, 20 years ago, you to obviously you know 20 years you lost your job you lost your health insurance you lost your

doctor you lost everything yeah right so it's nice to just imagine the peace of mind of like okay this is my primary care doctor this is where i go for my kid is sick my kid is a cold i have this i have that right my back aches that kind of stuff, right? No matter what happens, my job, my insurance, I switch insurance, switch jobs, this changes, that changes, nothing affects it because it's just the membership thing. It's just kind of divorced from

all that complicated sphere of... Yeah, it's an overmodel. The ability to contact them with questions either via text or like you said email or do like video

the nice thing about that too is like you said so many times you have like a little question it's like I don't think I have to come in for this but at the same time it's like sometimes with the other doctors you gotta call and make a point it's like I don't have to come in I just wanna just do a quick video say hey what is this like on my finger and they'd be like oh it's you know it's just a rash or it's just a bump.

To be honest, from the perspective of taking care of yourself, it probably encourages people to come in more so than the other ones will. Because I'm pretty sure under traditional model, you get the one free checkup. But every other time you go to the doctor, you've got to pay. So how many people – you know there's people out there that are like oh i'm sick but you know i don't i already did my free checkup and it's gonna cost me yeah to go see the doctor right or i'm going on a trip but i think it cost me like it cost me when we were going to egypt and i went to go see if i needed any like vaccinations whatever. Pills or something like that, yeah. Malaria pills and stuff for the trip, right?

It cost me that $125 to go. So how many people are like, well, I'm not going to go. I'm just going to take my chances. Whereas this encourages, I'm already paying the guy. I'm already paying my doctor this much per month

for unlimited visits. I might as well go. Like, oh, this is hurting me. I have this pain in my stomach. I might as well go. Like, oh, this is hurting me. I have this pain in my stomach. I might as well go because I'm already paying him as opposed to like, oh, I better not go in

because it's going to cost me. Well, same thing happened one time way back when. I was like itchy all over my hand. I had all these little bumps. I was 90% positive. I said, I think I got poison ivy. But again, I wasn't a doctor.

I didn't know. I wasn't 100% sure. But I literally had to make appointment pay just for the doctor to go, I think I got poison ivy. But again, I wasn't a doctor. I didn't know. I wasn't 100% sure. But I literally had to make appointment pay just for the doctor to go, yep, you got poison ivy. I was 90% sure I had poison ivy. But I was just in case because I don't know. You probably did a test. Yes. I could have been like, poison ivy.

You would have been like, yep, that's poison ivy. Okay, that's what I thought. You just want that extra confirmation because, again, I'm not a doctor. Yes, Google could show me a million images. I'm like, man, it looks like poison ivy. You put it in there. I got a rash on my hand. It's like, well, you're going to die in six weeks.

It could be poison ivy, but it could also be these 10 things that could lead to serious illness. Oh, my gosh. Anytime you go on WebMD, no matter what you have, you're going to die in six months. Well, exactly. It's like I have a headache. Cures for headaches. You have a headache. it could be from stress. Okay, so it could also be brain tumor, or this,

or that. Oh my goodness. You know, so you start getting scared. So it's nice to be like, have someone like you, at least contact for anything big or small. It's a clever model. I think, like we've said, Dr. Johns is not the first individual we've had on that team.

And he said that it's growing in Charlottesville. I think that's good. Nationwide. So definitely, yeah, an interesting thing to check out. More interesting stuff, Alex. I know you want to touch upon. We have some more, yeah. I know the big news was the other day or was it last week about NVIDIA and the new…

I think it was just Monday. Just Monday. It feels like it was a week ago. I know, I know. It was just Mondayay just monday it feels like it was a week ago i know i know it was just monday that um deep seek deep sea we know it's no offense it just deep seek also has like a very nefarious sounding thing to deep seek i was thinking remember the show person of interest there was the bad ai what was the name of it i think it was a samaritan that Samaritan. It was the bad AI that could read everything. And Deep Seat is just like, oh, boy.

Deep Seat, yeah. But, yeah, Monday, Deep Seat, oh, we managed to do what OpenAI does for $6 million as opposed to, like, you know, a billion. Right? And we did it with, like, all these cheap NVIDIA chips. Total market, like, market crashed. Went up a little bit the next day. Went down again yesterday. I kind of wanted to talk about it for a couple reasons.

One is to kind of, I wanted to start with a little comparison and contrast because, alright, here we have what you would think of as, okay, maybe not great news for the market, right? That, okay, a Chinese company did for a fraction of the price

what we spent billions doing, right? On the other hand, I might remind people, and so market goes down. I might remind people, in 2022, a major country in Europe invaded another major country and the market went up. And so you would say that can't possibly – like how can these two things happen?

One of these sounds way worse than the other. But I think what people need to often think about is that moments like this, I think, tell you more about the market than they tell you about the actual event that occurred. But as you dig into some of the data, I think we were talking with Jerry about this before, you dig into some of the data and you're like, well, A, a lot of it is copycat. They ripped off some of the code and stuff. And secondly, a lot of tech people are saying, yeah, Open... OpenAI, yeah, they have their language learning model, you know, you type in stuff, it gives you an answer, right? But it's also been

applied to other, to very large businesses to do a lot of things. This, although this deep seat has a certain set number of tasks that you can actually ask it to do. So I compare it a lot to like being, oh, I made a new computer for a fraction of the price of a PC.

Oh, man, that's amazing. Microsoft, they're finished. Yeah, I mean it only does these ten things. But it's a fraction of the price. Yeah, but that's why it's a fraction of the price. It only does ten things. Yeah, you don't need a data form because it's not doing as much, right? But I think – and the reason I say it,

because you look at the tech, is it, now, is it a, you know, does it show that maybe Chinese companies are not as far behind as we thought they were? Perhaps, right? But it's not necessarily like, oh, this is the end of NVIDIA, especially because, I mean, they used NVIDIA chips to make this thing, right? They didn't use-

And everyone is still using NVIDIA chips, so in the end- They didn't use as many as OpenAI, right? But it's not like, oh, we did it using NVIDIA chips. They didn't use as many as OpenAI, right? But it's not like, oh, we did it without NVIDIA. What I think this is telling you is that you look at a lot of the price-to-earnings ratios. And a lot of these companies, they were sitting at 80. So in other words, the price of the company of one share was 80 times the earnings per share, meaning if that earnings per share stays steady over the next 80 years, after 80 years you'll break even. So in other words, some of the prices of these stocks were just very, very high. The market was very high. And when the market gets that top heavy and high, sometimes a little bit of news, the news isn't sufficient to justify the reaction.

The news is sufficient to justify, oh, maybe it's a good time for me to take some days. Yes. Maybe I should get out because it's too risky. Maybe I should rebalance away from some of these top heavy. Well, you know, because Xavier mentioned it last week. He had that graph, which you mentioned earlier or before the show had started to Jerry. But the fact that like most of the S&P 500 is consistent, those like top five or top 10 stocks. Right. So I think what happens every time there's a little bit of bad news, people. I'm sure if we've seen the graph, other people have seen it as well.

And I wonder if there's like an overreaction. It's like I don't I don't I have all these earnings. I don't want to potentially lose them. So if there's like an overreaction. It's like, I have all these earnings. I don't want to potentially lose them. So if there's any little bad news, my first reaction is to sell. Is to get out. Exactly. And I think that's a big piece of it.

It's kind of prescient that in Xavier, you talked about that, what, three, four days before this happened. Now, my only thing is, to play devil's advocate here, a lot of those top five companies are tech companies. And we do seem, it doesn't seem like, I know we've talked about this was also something that happened in the 70s. And then over the next 10 years. They haven't formed.

Yes. But I'm curious whether we live in kind of like an era that's very technological. And we seem to keep progressing into becoming more technological. Whether the correction that happened in the 70s doesn't necessarily mean that's going to happen this time because we are trying to progress to more open IR. We're trying to progress to drones delivering goods for people.

We're trying to progress into self-driving cars. All this is going to eventually lead to a point where it's like, yes, you feel like there should be a correction but there might not be because in the end we're still trying to get more technologically advanced and these companies are just tech companies. So in the end, they're going to continue to go up. I think this is a good point to be made.

That's why I always – I think I agree completely because you have to remember – what do they say? History doesn't repeat. It rhymes. Yes. So you can't just sit here and say, all right, because this happened in 1976, therefore it will happen again in 2024. And it's also why, like when you talk, Xavier will be the first to tell you, right? You don't go out there and say, oh, I have to sell Meta,

Alphabet, NVIDIA, Amazon, I need to sell them. I need to get out of this stuff because it's going to crash. Well, no, right? You need to keep in mind, sorry about my allergies. You need to keep in mind that often what you need to look at is, sorry about my allergies. No, no, no worries. You need to keep in mind that often what you need to look at

is where is my risk level? If I think that there is somewhat of a greater risk in the S&P 500 than would otherwise be there because it is top heavy, maybe what I need to do is just reallocate. Say, all right,

maybe instead of being 30% S&P 500, I am 20% S&P 500, I am 20% S&P 500, 10% equal weighted S&P 500. I want to weight a little more the other 45, you know, 450 risk when the top five are sitting at 80 times earnings, right, than they would be if they were at 20 times earnings, right? Without saying I need to be either all in on these stocks or I need to be out of these stocks. Because you're exactly right. You look at companies like you just looked at nvidia right all right you say let's say you were to look at that company and say this business model is unsustainable at any time because how do you know that tomorrow they won't invent something else that you haven't heard of yet that their r&d is working on that changes the picture right or someone cracks you know know, really cracks

self-driving drones to deliver stuff. It's like, well, we really need, the only way we can know how to do it is with an NVIDIA chip and then suddenly, same situation. Exactly. That's where you're sitting there saying, Amazon, I don't know how much time they don't further, and then tomorrow Amazon says, we can now have same-day delivery in the entire

country. You're going to wish you had it, right? You just said the same thing about Apple. It's like, oh, the Mac is good, but is it really that good? Then they invent the iPhone and their fortunes change completely. You can't just look at these

companies and say, oh, they've had their day. It's over. It's finished. What you can do is say, okay, the calculus of how much potential growth they have has to be different at 80 times earnings than it does at 20, right? It has to be different at their market cap now than it was when they were small. So I just need to take that into account and determine, does that mean that the risk I'm taking in my portfolio is too great for me? Or does it mean it is the correct'm taking in my portfolio is too great for me?

Or does it mean it is the correct level of risk that I should be taking? Because that's where you need to make the judgment. And what I would tell people is you need to make the judgment based on the market, like where the market is, where the risk level is, and not the news. You can't look at NVIDIA and say, I'm going to decide whether or not this is a good company based on whether or not DeepSea did some open AI copy

for... Now, whether you want to track the portfolios of those in government, that's a different story, because it seems like every once in a while, there's these trackers for the people in Congress and the Senate, and it's like they outperformed the three, four times, and it's like, wait a second, I'm just going to

deal with it. The theory might be that, yeah, they know something we don't. They might know something that we don't. For that, you decide how much you choose to believe in insider trading. But that might be a different strategy that I can neither confirm nor deny nor recommend.

Absolutely. But I think that's the key element to keep in mind. and i think the same applies for instance yesterday right we yesterday federal reserve announced nothing they said we're not lowering rates we're not raising rates the projections were 99% to 100% beforehand that the Federal Reserve was going to do nothing. So the Federal Reserve did yesterday exactly what people expected them to do. Market went down. Now, you go back, right?

They had lowered rates, I think, last time. They had done nothing. I mean, they only lowered rates two times last year. A lot of the other times, they did nothing. Sometimes the market went down, sometimes it didn't. And then it's the same picture, right? Is it the news that made the market go down?

Not really. It wasn't shocking news. It wasn't a change in the... It wasn't a paradigm shift, like, oh my goodness, Powell came out and said something we didn't expect him to say. This is shocking. Right? No. He said exactly what people expected him to say. Right? He did exactly what people expected them to do. The market was in a different place Wednesday than it was

in December, than it was in November. The market was already a little spooked. The market was already a little hot. Let me take some more days. Let me sell some stuff. So I think you need, again, you need to be aware of news. You need to be aware of what's happening. But I think you can't make

decisions based on the news. You need to make decisions. I mean, Black Swanston happened, right? But you can't make decisions based on the news. You need to make decisions. I mean, things, Black Swanston happened, right? But you can't make decisions based on the news as much as you say, all right, where is the market? Like, you shouldn't have made the Sunday, Wednesday morning saying, oh, I'm going to guess what the Fed's going to do and buy accordingly. You need to make a decision based on where is the market, what does that mean relative to the risk that I am comfortable taking and the risk that I can afford to take.

And it's funny, you've touched upon something that actually Xavier had talked about last week too, about when you talk about reinvesting your portfolio. Because he was mentioning how a lot of the top stocks in S&P 500 sometimes are also a lot of the top stocks in, for example, the Russell 1000 growth. And he says sometimes you don't realize that you're kind of doubled invested in these companies, and that's when it's a good time to kind of look at your portfolio and say, oh, wait a second. I might need to cut back because I didn't realize that I'm, you know,

I'm thinking I'm invested in different indexes, which you are, but they still have the same companies. And we see this all the time. We'll have prospective clients come to us, bring us their old statement, and they've got like, they're like, oh yeah, I'm well diversified. I'm in like, usually it's not a guy, it's like

a robot, right? The robot has me invested in like 12 different mutual funds. And then we'll go adding up the mutual fund. Well, yeah, but this one's like the tech mutual fund, and this one is future thinking fund. And this one's the American future thinking fund.

And before you know it, we're like, do you realize that 10% of your portfolio is Amazon? No. How can it be Amazon? I mean, 17 different mutual funds. Yeah, but every one of these mutual funds is like, has 4%, 5% in Amazon. So we add it all up, you're 10% in Amazon. And they're like, oh, I don't want to be 10%.

You got to dig in there. Because if they all have the same top 10 holdings, then you are going to be heavily invested in these top 10 stocks, even though you think you're diversified. So being diversified means being actually diversified, not I have 17 mutual funds. Like you mentioned, there's 495 other companies in the S&P 500 you don't have to be invested in, just the top five. Exactly.

So you need to look at that, keep in mind, and also when you do diversify, you have to think about what you're diversifying into, right? Because you say, oh yeah, I want to lower my risk. Let me diversify. And then you go out and buy, like, you know, the Latin America fund, right? You say, well, if Latin America is more risky than everything else you have in your portfolio, and you're now adding currency risk, you've diversified, but have you reduced the risk of your portfolio? Oh, yeah, maybe I have some new correlations and all this stuff.

But have you reduced the risk or have you just increased it? So you need – people need to be very careful. You need to look at what's in your funds, especially mutual funds that are not what we would call passive or index. In other words, when you have a Russell 1000 fund, you can go, that job of that fund is to track the Russell 1000. For the most part, it will have the stocks that are in the Russell 1000. When you have, you know,

the growth fund of so-and-so company, right? You know, designed to outperform stuff, right? That's just an outperformance mandate. It's an active fund. It's not, its job isn't to replicate anything. It's to somehow do better. They could be invested more in Microsoft. They could be betting against

Microsoft. They could be going for Tesla. They could be betting against Tesla. They could be making a lot of decisions which could result in you having certain stocks in there that you also have in this guy's fund, that you also have in this. Because if you've got, again, 15 different portfolio managers, but they all happen to think that the top five guys in the S&P 500 are going to have a great year, then before you know it, you could be very heavily invested in the top five guys. And if you have – it could be the opposite, right? If you have 15 different funds and they all are betting against the top five,

you could be in big trouble if the top five do well. And they bet against them. You could be hammered. Because you had 15 guys who all thought, yeah, I'm going to underweight those guys because I don't think they're going to do as well this year. I think Nvidia is going to have a bad year this year. And it's not just

sometimes with companies. It's also with sometimes sectors because, you know, a lot of these companies, like we mentioned, are all technology. Sometimes you could be extremely heavily weighted in technology sector and, you know, Xavier mentioned this before, not really having enough exposure to real estate

or consumer staples or consumer director or industrial. There's so many different sectors. S&P 500 is considered a middle of the road risk level as far as stocks are concerned. It's not considered super risky like

emerging markets or small cap stocks. It's not like your... But it's not considered bonds or your dividend payer or consumer staple stuff. It's not considered, it's not like you're, but it's not considered, you know, bonds or like your dividend payer, consumer staple stuff. It's considered middle of the road, but if you're, you know, so you might sit there and say, oh, I'm 60, I want to be middle of the road stocks, S&P 500.

Would you feel the same if I told you that you were 25%, 30% tech? Because that's where you probably are. If you are solely s&p 500 if you were to invest solely in this 500 you're probably approaching 30 tech and was that something you would consider risky or not risky my change the way you think about your portfolio if i say you're 100 s&p 500 okay good my stocks 30% tech. No, wait. That's too risky for me.

I'm 65. I can't be 30% tech. They're the same thing. So you need to think about how the S&P 500 has changed over time and what the sectors are. And maybe you need to invest in sectors separately. Maybe you need to look at different asset classes in the equity space so you need to think about it because there's two ways of describing the same thing which give you two really different impressions as to how risky your portfolio is good point Alex good point so yeah so just a couple things

to keep in mind yeah keep in mind not telling people to panic right but I am telling you I think what we are telling people is this is a good little wake-up call for you to look at, alright, what is my portfolio actually invested in and how much risk am I actually taking? Does that make sense for me? Or do I need to rethink not based on the news, but based on the

market, how much risk I need to be taking in my portfolio. Good point. So that's our nugget. That's our nugget. That's our thinking nugget for the day. That's our thinking nugget for the day. Hopefully it's worth more than two cents. That's why I didn't say it was.

Well, inflation now, so it's four cents. Exactly, four cents. We've doubled the value of our prognostications. This was a lot of fun. Yeah, I was happy to have you back, Alex. I had to host like three straight weeks and I didn't have to

yeah I know exactly you didn't have to worry about the questions exactly the introductions the sponsors the beginning is easier

it's always the end where it's like you know you gotta close out you have to interrupt the other person especially when it's what pops because you'll just start talking

I'm looking at the time I'm like I got it in the show but he keeps going he keeps going especially when I'm like about to start I'm like and thank time, I'm like, I gotta end the show. He keeps going, he keeps going. Especially when I'm about to start, I'm like, and thank you too. And then he's like, oh, by the way, this and this and this. I'm like, I was about to end the show. You just have to, yeah, you just have to, you don't use doing.

You don't use doing over time. I won't interrupt you though. I'll stay silent once he's starting to end it. There you go. I appreciate it. You know what it's like. You know what it's like. But yeah, it's a great show this week. Thanks to Dr. Johnson for coming on. Next week, our good friend Matthias Young from Matthias Young

Realty, our monthly meetup. Always a great show when Matthias comes on. It'll be a lot of fun. Look forward to catching up with him, seeing how things are going. I feel like spring is coming, dare I say it. You can sense that it's on the way. A couple of the warmer days

you could smell it, but it's tricky because we know February can be... We know February, yeah. And we know there's always that something in March that takes you back. We could get snow in March. It wouldn't be the first time. Definitely hope people enjoy the warmer weather while it lasts.

I'll look forward to seeing Matthias next week. Of course, thanks to Judah behind the camera making us all look good, to the Isle of Seville Network, to our presenter, Emergent Financial Services, our awesome partners, Charlottesville Opera, Matthias Young Realty Credit Series Insurance. Thank you all for watching today.

Thanks, everyone, for tuning in, for your likes and comments and shares. Always appreciate. Thanks, Matthias, for the great question. And we look forward to seeing you all next week. But until that time, as we like forward to seeing you all next week. But until that time, as we like to close it out, hasta mañana. Thank you.