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Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Boomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: This week on the podcast, I have a special guest,

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Speaker 1: my friend Paul Vigna has been a reporter with The

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Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal for a hundred and twenty years. He

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Speaker 1: is the author of multiple books on blockchain cryptocurrency bitcoin.

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Speaker 1: This is an area that is quite fascinating and a

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Speaker 1: little bit wonky, and if you are at all interested

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Speaker 1: in a crash course, I heartily recommend both of his books,

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Speaker 1: or you could spend the next ninety minutes listening to

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Speaker 1: us chat about all sorts of things involving bitcoin. And

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Speaker 1: to be honest, it's really me asking Poul questions and

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Speaker 1: him taking me to school about, uh, some of the

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Speaker 1: details history minutia about bitcoin. I am really intrigued at

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Speaker 1: how he breaks the entire blockchain slash bitcoin discussion into

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Speaker 1: three distinct groups. The first is the underlying software, the

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Speaker 1: technology of the distributed ledger a k A blockchain. Uh,

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Speaker 1: that's one. The second is really the fascinating group of

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Speaker 1: um cyberpunks and libertarians and and just generally kind of

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Speaker 1: wacky dudes. And it's mostly dudes who um become enamorative

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Speaker 1: bitcoin in the early days and help take it viral

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Speaker 1: from this open source software program to really a a

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Speaker 1: full blown phenomena and now arguably a bubble in in

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Speaker 1: the actual coins itself. And that's the third part. The

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Speaker 1: bit coins, the transactions, the mania surrounding the trading. That's

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Speaker 1: a different issue than either the people behind it or

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Speaker 1: or the technology underlying it. I found the conversation fascinating.

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Speaker 1: I think you will also, with no further ado, my

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Speaker 1: conversation Nation with Paul Vinya. This is Master's in Business

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Speaker 1: with Barry rid Holts on Bloomberg Radio. I'm Barry Ridhults.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My

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Speaker 1: guest today is Paul Viena. For the past twenty years

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Speaker 1: he has been a journalist covering markets in the economy

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Speaker 1: for such August outfits as Dow Jones and The Wall

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Speaker 1: Street Journal. He is the co author, with Michael Casey,

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Speaker 1: of two fascinating books on blockchain and bitcoin. His first

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Speaker 1: book was The Age of Cryptocurrency, How Bitcoin Is Challenging

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Speaker 1: the Global Economy, and his latest book, The Truth Machine,

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Speaker 1: Blockchain and the Future of Everything, was just released to

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Speaker 1: excellent reviews. Paul Viena. Welcome to Bloomberg, Barry Hults, how

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Speaker 1: are you very very well, let's let's jump right into

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Speaker 1: the bitcoin conversation. And you know more about this than

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Speaker 1: just about anybody I know. That's a totally untrue statement.

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Speaker 1: Well you don't, I know, I know something, I know

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Speaker 1: some about it. Well you don't know the people I know,

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Speaker 1: and apparently everybody else knows less than you. So it's

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Speaker 1: a flawa running. That's right. But let me ask you

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Speaker 1: this question. What was the initial idea behind the entire

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Speaker 1: concept of bitcoin? The initial idea that So this comes

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Speaker 1: out in October two thousand and eight, some guy names

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Speaker 1: to Toshi Nakamoto. Nobody knows who he is? Is that

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Speaker 1: a real name? Is that us? Nobody knows what his

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Speaker 1: real name is? Who he is? If it's a team

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Speaker 1: of people, you know, it's it's a whole mystery. So

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Speaker 1: this white paper comes out to Toshy Nakamoto, uh bitcoin A.

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Speaker 1: I forget the exact title, but basically the point is

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Speaker 1: what he is creating is a digital version of cash. So,

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Speaker 1: in other words, if you're a shopkeeper and I come

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Speaker 1: in for a cup of coffee or whatever, I hand

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Speaker 1: you a five dollar bill. That is the transaction. What

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Speaker 1: Knakamoto was trying to do was replicate that transaction digitally

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Speaker 1: on the internet, meaning no paper, no credit card, no

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Speaker 1: no paper, no credit card, and also an immediate transaction

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Speaker 1: between just you and I that nobody else sees another

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Speaker 1: word party, government, no banks, no credit card, nobody exactly,

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Speaker 1: just buyer and seller, right, just buyer and seller, peer

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Speaker 1: to peer electronic money. That was the original idea. It

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Speaker 1: sounds like a good idea. It sounds like a good idea,

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Speaker 1: sounds like a simple idea, right. And and remember this

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Speaker 1: is two thousand and eight, right in the middle of

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Speaker 1: the financial crisis, where confidence in banks and governments or

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Speaker 1: record lows. So alright, so he comes up publishes this

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Speaker 1: white paper. How do you get from and where was

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Speaker 1: the white paper published? We just released it online just

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Speaker 1: to Originally it was to this uh, I think it

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Speaker 1: was on an email list, sir, you know, one of

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Speaker 1: those distributions. So, so, how do you get from a

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Speaker 1: white paper to an actual blockchain technology g and a

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Speaker 1: coin that starts to appreciate in value almost immedia. So

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Speaker 1: what the white paper was describing was a computer program,

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Speaker 1: and the goal of the computer program was to create

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Speaker 1: this digital money, this peer to peer electronic version of cash.

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Speaker 1: So he releases the white paper in October two thousand

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Speaker 1: and eight and puts the program online. So he set

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Speaker 1: up the program. Was more than a white paper, It

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Speaker 1: was a paper describing what he's doing. He wrote the

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Speaker 1: program too, puts the program online in January of two

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Speaker 1: thousand and nine as an open source project where and

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Speaker 1: anyone is open to participate in building it. So let's

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Speaker 1: describe that. So building the software or building the coins themselves. Well,

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Speaker 1: the software, So you know, he releases version zero point

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Speaker 1: zero of bitcoin, and what he is looking for our collaborators.

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Speaker 1: He's looking for people to come on and help develop

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Speaker 1: the program. In other words, again, you know a company

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Speaker 1: like Microsoft, like Apple, whatever, they have teams of developer

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Speaker 1: building a thousand. This is a a different kind of

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Speaker 1: version of that. You're talking about developing a software program,

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Speaker 1: but you're looking for collaborators like Linux is a great

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Speaker 1: example of it of an open source program. So that's

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Speaker 1: what he releases. And again it's it's very key I

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Speaker 1: think that you mentioned this is all happening during the

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Speaker 1: financial crisis. This is a time where the the existing

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Speaker 1: financial infrastructure has shown that it is just hopelessly conflicted,

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Speaker 1: hopelessly corrupted. In this Philip Right, we could do a

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Speaker 1: whole radio show on just that. I could write a

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Speaker 1: book on it. You could write a book on some

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Speaker 1: of us have right bailout nation. People are interested in

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Speaker 1: alternatives the existing the warts of the existing system have

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Speaker 1: been shown. People are looking for an alternative. He comes

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Speaker 1: up with an alternative and people take to it, and

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Speaker 1: it kind of goes viral. It takes a little while,

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Speaker 1: but inside this community of uh they call him cipher punks,

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Speaker 1: you know, anarchists, libertarians, coders, tinkerers, this small clack, this

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Speaker 1: thing does go viral and it starts getting this community

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Speaker 1: very quickly around. Initially a lot of skepticism, but once

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Speaker 1: it goes live and they see it working, people start

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Speaker 1: coming on and and and originally what you have is

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Speaker 1: a lot of again tinkerers, programmers, anarchists, cypherpunk's. This small

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Speaker 1: group it grows within that probably takes a couple of

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Speaker 1: years until it starts hitting the mainstream. So let's talk

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Speaker 1: about that period before it ramps into the mainstream. You

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Speaker 1: download the software you want to create coins, so you

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Speaker 1: have to solve a complicated mathematical problem, and there's only

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Speaker 1: a finite number of potential coins twenty one millions, right,

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Speaker 1: what bitcoin has? It's really actually and to degreed to

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Speaker 1: the degree that I understand coding and programming at all, Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's really it's a very elegant program. The idea is

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Speaker 1: to create a program that can support a currency, a

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Speaker 1: digital currency that does not need a centralized party controlling it.

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Speaker 1: In other words, you don't have a computer company running

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Speaker 1: the software and responsible for it. You don't have a

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Speaker 1: government or a bank running the software, responsible for the

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Speaker 1: software and the currency. You have to come up with

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Speaker 1: a way to create a system that can opt that

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Speaker 1: can be self self sustaining by this sort of decentralized

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Speaker 1: group of people. So within that there are a bunch

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Speaker 1: of ways that he There are a bunch of levers

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Speaker 1: that he pulls to make that happen. One of them

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Speaker 1: is you you want to you want to you want

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Speaker 1: people to come on or you want to people to

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Speaker 1: download the software. You want people to run it. You

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Speaker 1: need people to run the software for the program to work, obviously, right,

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Speaker 1: how do you do that? How do you entice people

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Speaker 1: to contribute their computing power to a volunteer project. Well,

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Speaker 1: one way you do it is your reward them. What

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Speaker 1: do you reward them with bitcoin? So the way bitcoin

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Speaker 1: is created is you download the software. You are contributing

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Speaker 1: your computing power to the network. What you are really

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Speaker 1: doing is you are confirming transactions. That's sort of the

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Speaker 1: live operation of this software is you and I trade, Right,

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Speaker 1: So my mobile app on my phone, I used to

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Speaker 1: send you five bitcoin. Now five bitcoin would be like

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Speaker 1: a hundred thousand dollars. I'm not sending you that. Then

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Speaker 1: it was pennies. How did that leap from that period

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Speaker 1: to bursting into the mainstream? So the program is released

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, two thousand nine, two ten.

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Speaker 1: It is like I said that this small group of

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Speaker 1: codas tinkerers, programmers, anarchists, libertarians, cypher punks, uh and the currency.

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Speaker 1: And you know it's funny people argue, is that a

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Speaker 1: currency is not whatever I'm gonna call it a currency.

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Speaker 1: For um, it really had no actual value, right, I

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Speaker 1: mean it was it was a program that these guys

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Speaker 1: were using. There was nothing in the real world you

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Speaker 1: could do with it. You could argue that any currency's

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Speaker 1: value is only the populace is willingness to assign it

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Speaker 1: a value. Well, of course, right, So so no currency

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Speaker 1: has a value unless people are willing to use it

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Speaker 1: as a medium of exactly the very first time bitcoin

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Speaker 1: gets used to buy something in the real world is

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Speaker 1: programmer in Florida. Uh, this programmer and Florida, Da says

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Speaker 1: that he on a on a message board. He says,

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Speaker 1: I will give anyone ten thousand bitcoin if you'll buy

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Speaker 1: me two pizzas. So, in other words, he wants to

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Speaker 1: show that bitcoin can be used to buy things, but

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Speaker 1: he can't do it directly because no one's gonna take

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Speaker 1: a bitcoin because to start out, it's just amongst that.

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Speaker 1: It's just among the uh, the pizza places don't have

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Speaker 1: a bitcoin swipe here for bitcoin. So this guy, and

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Speaker 1: it's a pretty famous story, you know, he has this

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Speaker 1: open offer. He says, I'll give anyone ten thousand bitcoin

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Speaker 1: if you buy me two pizzas. And he does that

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Speaker 1: for about two weeks, and people are sending pizzas to

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Speaker 1: his house and he's sending them ten thousand, multiple pizzas,

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Speaker 1: multiple pizzas. Yeah, the first one was I forget that

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Speaker 1: early in May, and then he kept this thing open

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Speaker 1: for about two weeks and he probably you know, spent

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Speaker 1: about two hundred thousand bitcoin on it, which is to

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Speaker 1: day of fortune God. But that was the first time

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Speaker 1: that it was proven that you could actually use this

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Speaker 1: to buy something in the world, real world, It could

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Speaker 1: actually work as a currency. At that point it starts changing.

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Speaker 1: Now people realize there's something here, and of course at

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Speaker 1: the very beginning, it's really only being used basically on

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Speaker 1: the dark web, right, I mean, people who want to

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Speaker 1: buy and sell things sociately. He was the early criticism

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Speaker 1: that I recall hearing about this is used for drugs,

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Speaker 1: this is used for human trafficking, this is used to

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Speaker 1: buy hitmen, this is used for all sorts of nefarious things,

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Speaker 1: and there for it will never be incredible well product.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the answer to that is there are two

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Speaker 1: answers to that. The first answer is, yes, it is

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Speaker 1: being used for that, but that is not the main

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Speaker 1: It really isn't the main use of it. It's still there.

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Speaker 1: And look, we're in the media. We love sensational stories

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Speaker 1: and we tell those stories, but it really is a

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Speaker 1: very small percentage of overall bitcoin track and the dollars

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Speaker 1: so is the year. I mean, every currency is used,

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Speaker 1: So that's not really criticism of bitcoin, that's a criticism

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Speaker 1: of currency. Right, So people start realizing this can be

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Speaker 1: used to buy and sell things. And what is the

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Speaker 1: price of bitcoin back then? Oh, I think it's in

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Speaker 1: the single dollars. It's in the single dollar. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if we pulled up the chart, we could find out, uh,

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Speaker 1: it's in the it's it is in single dollars around

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Speaker 1: the same time, and we're not to go into the hold.

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Speaker 1: But anyhow, in it starts getting out of this small

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Speaker 1: sort of cipher on uh programm or community, and it

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Speaker 1: starts permeating a little bit into the mainstream really into

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Speaker 1: sort of more the the the tech press, the tech mainstream.

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Speaker 1: From there probably around starts hitting the mainstream mainstream. Because

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Speaker 1: I remember first reading about it in early July, it

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Speaker 1: finally gets over ten dollars exactly ten dollars, right, so

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Speaker 1: inteen it kind of has its first wave of mainstream

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Speaker 1: uh awareness, almost runs by November that year, it's just

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Speaker 1: under a thousand dollars itself. Is a great run from

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Speaker 1: ten box. Now. Yeah, also remember too, and your audience

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Speaker 1: will appreciate this and you will too. The thing you

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Speaker 1: have to keep in mind when you're talking about bitcoin

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Speaker 1: in the price of it, you have to keep in

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Speaker 1: mind that this is still a relatively small market, a

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Speaker 1: relatively a liquid market, and it is a relatively one

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Speaker 1: way market, meaning you could buy it, but it's very

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Speaker 1: hard to actually convert that into cash. Yeah, it's well,

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Speaker 1: it's difficult to convert into cash. It's difficult to sell it.

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Speaker 1: Uh it. You know, they're look, they're just starting to

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Speaker 1: build derivative products, they're just starting to build different more

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Speaker 1: more you know, intricate ways to bet on, bick on

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Speaker 1: things that are in the market right now. It is

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Speaker 1: also a market that run has no there's no closing bell,

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Speaker 1: there's no circuit breakers. It goes in whatever direction it is.

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Speaker 1: It is wild West of trade. If you like open markets,

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Speaker 1: there has never been a more open market than this

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Speaker 1: you have, So you have to keep that in mindment

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Speaker 1: talking about the price. The price can go in crazy

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Speaker 1: directions because of those reasons. But it goes from ten

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Speaker 1: to eighty, back down or whatever. Then you know, in

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Speaker 1: the second half of the year it goes up to

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Speaker 1: almost a thousand. You have an exchange called mount Cox

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Speaker 1: which was handling about seven year eighty percent of all

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Speaker 1: the trading and Mount Cox was a terribly created financial exchange.

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Speaker 1: It was just bad. It was not they call not secure,

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Speaker 1: are not well built, not well constructed, and all the

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Speaker 1: money is going through it, so the liquidity there is

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Speaker 1: almost nothing. So when Mount Cock shuts down and you

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Speaker 1: can't get your money out easily, what do you do

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Speaker 1: to get your money out? What you gotta offer higher prices,

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Speaker 1: really higher prices just a big reason why to sell.

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Speaker 1: So you're offering higher prices to sell or lower I

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Speaker 1: would think you're offering lower prices to sell the only

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Speaker 1: way you can get it out because withdrawals were limited,

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Speaker 1: so and it was thin. There was not a lot

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Speaker 1: of liquidity, so you know, you gotta entice people to sell,

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Speaker 1: so you're offering higher prices. So the price goes flying up.

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Speaker 1: It kind of comes down a little bit. Now you're

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Speaker 1: now you're starting to get more and more in the mainstream.

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Speaker 1: People are seeing it and you what you have though,

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Speaker 1: is again still longer. It's still completely a volunteer community.

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Speaker 1: I mean, this thing is just being built by volunteers,

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Speaker 1: by volunteer coders. You're starting to have some people realize

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Speaker 1: that there's money to be aid here. And you're starting

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Speaker 1: to have people try to build businesses on top of bitcoin,

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Speaker 1: and that was sort of the um and that was

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Speaker 1: sort of the first time you have some infrastructure being

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Speaker 1: put around this computer program that I was talking about before.

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Speaker 1: And importantly too, I think there are I think there

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Speaker 1: are a couple of things that you have to keep

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Speaker 1: in mind when you're talking about bitcoin, and I think

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Speaker 1: this is why people kind of get so screwed up

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Speaker 1: about it. There are really three main things there. And again,

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Speaker 1: this is one of the reasons why I love this

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Speaker 1: so much as a writer. There are so many angles,

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Speaker 1: there are so many stories. You have to keep in mind.

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Speaker 1: A couple of things. One, this is a computer program.

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Speaker 1: That is really what this is. If Microsoft in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and nine had said, hey, you know what, We've

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Speaker 1: come out with a new feature on Excel that will

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Speaker 1: allow people to run a shared database that will be

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Speaker 1: all all your transactions that you put onto This database

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Speaker 1: will be recorded, an exact copy, will be distributed to

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Speaker 1: everybody in real time, and it will be cryptographically secure.

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Speaker 1: It will be impossible to counterfeit, to create false entries.

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Speaker 1: It is an open source, a transparent database that an

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Speaker 1: entire community can run and can feel confident that it's

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Speaker 1: real and well. You would have said, Okay, that's nice,

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Speaker 1: and Microsoft probably would have done well, and you would

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Speaker 1: have said, oh, Sati has come up with a new product.

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Speaker 1: You know, he's really doing a good job over at Microsoft,

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Speaker 1: and that would have been the end of it. It

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Speaker 1: would have been a nice program. However, what you have

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Speaker 1: with bitcoin is you have the program, you have the

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Speaker 1: time that it was released. Like you said, people looking

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Speaker 1: for alternative way to do things, so you have this

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Speaker 1: sort of viral community grow up around it. Personally, I

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Speaker 1: think bitcoin is one of the three big social movements

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Speaker 1: that erupted out of two thousand and eight. You have

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Speaker 1: the tea party you had to occupy, and you have bitcoin.

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Speaker 1: Bitcoin is a social movement and that is why people

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Speaker 1: are so passionate about it. This is not just a

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Speaker 1: computer program, This is not just digits, ones and zeros.

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Speaker 1: This is a new way to build finance, to build

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Speaker 1: a financial infrastructure. That's fascinating. Let's talk a bit about

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Speaker 1: your career as a journalist covering markets and the economy

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Speaker 1: and how that morphed into your coverage on bitcoin. How

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Speaker 1: did you get into financial journalism, what what led you

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Speaker 1: to your first first gig. Oh my god. Well, I

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Speaker 1: mean it was quite simply. It was money, but not

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Speaker 1: for the reason that you might think most people get

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Speaker 1: into finance. I was just Look, I was working at

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Speaker 1: a weekly newspaper. I had done been there a few years,

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Speaker 1: making no real money. You make no money at community journalism.

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Speaker 1: It's fun, it's a good place to learn the ropes,

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Speaker 1: but you make no money at it. So I needed

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Speaker 1: a job orr I can make some money. Dal Jones

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Speaker 1: was hiring. It was a doctor. It was so everybody

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Speaker 1: was everybody was hiring. Dal Jones was hiring editors. So

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Speaker 1: I took the editing test. I passed the editing test.

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Speaker 1: I knew nothing about finance. I did not go to

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Speaker 1: school for finance. Really, I didn't know. No, I didn't

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Speaker 1: study it at all. I literally passed the editing test.

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Speaker 1: So they hired me as an editor, and my first

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Speaker 1: job was rewriting press releases. And that's what I did.

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Speaker 1: That's how I started out, rewriting press releases. How did

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Speaker 1: you end up at what was so few young uns

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Speaker 1: out there? The U C I LX terminals and other

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Speaker 1: such um quote machines and the news feed would have

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Speaker 1: a constant stream of of stories. But my favorite feedback

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Speaker 1: in the nineties was Dow Jones market Talk, which were

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Speaker 1: all these little blurby stories about what was going on

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Speaker 1: in the market. It was Twitter before there was Twitter

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Speaker 1: for it was finance Twitter before there was such a thing. Um,

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Speaker 1: how how did you find your way to down Jones Market?

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Speaker 1: So I spent a few years on what was called

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Speaker 1: the spot news desk doing that press release rewrite job,

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Speaker 1: which was actually another great education in journalism. And it

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Speaker 1: sounds horrific to me, Well it was. I mean, it

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Speaker 1: was a total It was. It was a grind, I

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Speaker 1: mean it was it was. That's what I was thinking

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Speaker 1: that you learn a lot about finding You're constantly looking

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Speaker 1: at what companies are telling you, and if you're if

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Speaker 1: you're being discerning about it, you're trying to find the

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Speaker 1: holes in it. So I learned a lot about finance

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Speaker 1: doing that. Then I spent a few years on the

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Speaker 1: editing desk, and then I had a friend who was

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Speaker 1: on market Talk, which which really was from I loved. Well,

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Speaker 1: we still do market Talk, I don't think they published

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Speaker 1: it in quite the same way. So we used to

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Speaker 1: publish it on the web and then they stopped, so

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, now I've been there a while.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand five I started at market Talk with

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Speaker 1: John Shipman, and it was it was great. It was

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Speaker 1: just the two of us. It was it was actually

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Speaker 1: a great job because you're right, I think our limit

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Speaker 1: was a hundred words, so these tight little commentaries on

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Speaker 1: which is about yeah, exactly right. So that was that

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Speaker 1: was how I kind of got out of editing and

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Speaker 1: into writing. And I did that for probably seven years. Again,

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Speaker 1: another great education, right fast, right analytically and right short.

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Speaker 1: That was it. That was our own only kind of

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Speaker 1: remit and I did that for a long time. Loved it.

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Speaker 1: John and I had a great time doing it. We

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Speaker 1: were kind of left out on our own in the newsroom.

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Speaker 1: No by the voice. It had a voice, don't get right,

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Speaker 1: and the voice was my voice in John's voice. And

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Speaker 1: from that I moved over to one of the blogs

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Speaker 1: and then I heard about bitcoin. And my first reaction

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Speaker 1: to bitcoin was, this is an online scam, this is

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Speaker 1: an internet joke. We are not writing about this. We're

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Speaker 1: not writing about this. Because I was gonna so how

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Speaker 1: much bitcoin did you buy? An ask? The answer is zero?

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Speaker 1: So My first reaction was probably what everyone's reaction is,

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Speaker 1: is that this is some kind of scam, and I thought,

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Speaker 1: we're not writing about this no way. But like I

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Speaker 1: said earlier, it was starting to permeate into the mainstream.

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Speaker 1: You're starting to hear more and more about it. And

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Speaker 1: the more and more I heard about it, the more

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Speaker 1: I read about it, and then I started to become interested.

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Speaker 1: And at the time, now this is this is the

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Speaker 1: spring of At the time, the Wall Street Journal had

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Speaker 1: nobody writing about bitcoin, and I was exactly I was

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Speaker 1: writing for our money Beat blog, and so I had

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Speaker 1: a pretty wide, pretty wide latitude in what I wanted

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Speaker 1: to write about. My my coverage was the markets. It

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Speaker 1: was a market in the economy, so I could write

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Speaker 1: about anything within that, which is pretty much everything, which

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Speaker 1: is pretty much right exactly, which which was great. So

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Speaker 1: because I had that latitude to write about whatever I

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Speaker 1: wanted to write about, and I was starting to get

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Speaker 1: interested in bitcoin, I started writing some bitcoin posts and

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Speaker 1: I did that for a few months, and in the

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Speaker 1: summer of I went to a conference here in the city.

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Speaker 1: It was called Inside Bitcoins. It was a one day

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Speaker 1: conference at the New Yorker and it was the first

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Speaker 1: time that had ever been around bitcoin people. And again

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Speaker 1: it was a small conference. They had like, you know,

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Speaker 1: one one room, you know, one one conference room, a

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Speaker 1: couple hundred people. Uh, there was a lobby outside and

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Speaker 1: maybe a dozen, twelve or fifteen tables set up at

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Speaker 1: little businesses. But it was again the first time I

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Speaker 1: had ever been around these people these So two questions.

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Speaker 1: One is what was the response to the blog post

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Speaker 1: you were doing on bitcoin before that conference? And then second,

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Speaker 1: how did what what was the impact of the conference

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Speaker 1: on you? So you're talking about the reaction among readers

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Speaker 1: of the news readers readers not much. Then you know

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Speaker 1: what's funny is readers not much. In the newsroom not much.

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Speaker 1: You know, there was enough interest among the editors that

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Speaker 1: they said, yeah, I head right that it's it's probably

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Speaker 1: worth us. There's something, but nobody knows what it is

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Speaker 1: exactly right, And I think, and then how did the

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Speaker 1: conference so? Well? The conference affected me in that what

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Speaker 1: I got out of that conference was this incredible energy

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Speaker 1: of this group of people, and the ideas are flying

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Speaker 1: around and the it was very utopian, very pie in

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Speaker 1: the sky. But again you have to remember all of

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Speaker 1: this I'm coming to as a writer. I'm not an investor,

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Speaker 1: I'm not an entrepreneur. I'm not looking to make money.

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Speaker 1: I'm looking to write good story, interesting stories, and I

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Speaker 1: realized that there are tremendous stories to be told here.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about some of the specifics

429
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:21,480
Speaker 1: of blockchain and cryptocurrency I want. I'm I'm comfortable getting

430
00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:25,160
Speaker 1: into the weeds here, but before we do, let's let's

431
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:31,200
Speaker 1: start out a little basic. Um. What is a digital

432
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:36,600
Speaker 1: distributed ledger? So that is that's sort of the that

433
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 1: is the heart of the Bitcoin program, and it has

434
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:42,920
Speaker 1: come to be called by a couple of different names.

435
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:46,840
Speaker 1: You call it distributed ledger technology, blockchain technology, just blockchain.

436
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 1: But what it essentially is is a program that is

437
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:56,879
Speaker 1: designed to maintain this online ledger. It's a live ledger

438
00:24:57,400 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 1: that is not operated from any one central server. In

439
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:05,159
Speaker 1: other words, JP Morgan has a ledger of every transaction

440
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 1: that they don't take, but it's on JP morgan servers

441
00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:10,439
Speaker 1: and JP Morgan maintains it and only JP Morgan can

442
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 1: see it. What is it track? What is it? Before

443
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:17,800
Speaker 1: we even get into that, just what this is is

444
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:22,679
Speaker 1: a a program that can run on any number of computers.

445
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 1: Every computer that is running the program live has an

446
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 1: identical copy of the ledger. Every transaction that goes into

447
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 1: that ledger gets updated on every single computer at the

448
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: basically at the same time. The transactions are secured cryptographically,

449
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 1: so it's virtually impossible to change them. So what you

450
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:49,240
Speaker 1: have is a live transaction history that is transparent because

451
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 1: it's on any number of computers and anybody can see it,

452
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:57,680
Speaker 1: and it is impossible to change. That's what it essentially is.

453
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: So that means that means it's a legitimate record of

454
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: each transact and it's theoretically unhackable. And bitcoins blockchain has

455
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 1: never been hacked. You hear a lot of stories about

456
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 1: hacking in this world. It's always some company that got

457
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:15,879
Speaker 1: like mild like mauld Cox got hacked, or someone's wallet

458
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 1: got broken into. That's possible too, But the the ledger itself,

459
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:23,160
Speaker 1: the transaction history, but has never been attacked. It's been attacked,

460
00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:25,879
Speaker 1: it has never been hacked. Now you said, what can

461
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:27,560
Speaker 1: you do with that? Well, the question is, and that's

462
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:30,879
Speaker 1: why you have this sort of explosion and interest. The

463
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: answer is, anything that can be digitized and recorded and

464
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:39,680
Speaker 1: tracked potentially these are still early days. Potentially could be

465
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 1: done with this program. So, in other words, the first

466
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 1: application of this technology was bitcoin. Let's track a peer

467
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 1: to peer transfer, transaction, exchange, value exchange, it's a currency.

468
00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 1: Could you use it for land registries? Could you use

469
00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:01,639
Speaker 1: it for identification? Could you There so many things now

470
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:05,440
Speaker 1: that people realize that you can use this fork Potentially

471
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:08,880
Speaker 1: can artists use it to protect their copyright and maybe

472
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:11,040
Speaker 1: make some money and track where things, you know their

473
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 1: their works are being used. So anything that's transacted digitally,

474
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:18,359
Speaker 1: you could keep a perfect so perfect example. We were

475
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 1: talking about the financial crisis earlier. Um Mers is a

476
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 1: sort of unspoken villain of the crisis. This is the

477
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 1: electronic registry of mortgages, and they were so overwhelmed with

478
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:36,920
Speaker 1: the number of transactions and collateralized mortgages all put into

479
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:40,399
Speaker 1: other derivative products that very often when there is a

480
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:43,359
Speaker 1: default and people would go to court to defend it,

481
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: the people who thought they owned the mortgage couldn't prove

482
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:49,440
Speaker 1: they actually owned the mortgage. If you went to court

483
00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:52,840
Speaker 1: with a lawyer, you very often won because the people

484
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:56,199
Speaker 1: suing you couldn't demonstrate they were the appropriate party. They

485
00:27:56,280 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 1: were a mortgage holder. It's amazing. So Jane theoretically could

486
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:03,119
Speaker 1: solve for something like exactly, and it's you know, it's amazing.

487
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 1: I always think of this. Uh. Two thousand and seven,

488
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:10,639
Speaker 1: Lehman Brothers reports record revenue, record earnings, best year in

489
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 1: the company's history two thousand and seven, hundred and fifty

490
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 1: years they've been around, two thousand seven best year. Nine

491
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:21,439
Speaker 1: months later they're out of business. How is that possible? Right?

492
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:27,680
Speaker 1: Morga total accounting fraud moving fifty billion dollars in links

493
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:32,119
Speaker 1: which which to this day Dick Fault still claims was legit,

494
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:36,800
Speaker 1: which is hilarious. So this is a really interesting program. Essentially,

495
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 1: what you have is would prevent that sort of fraud

496
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 1: theoretically if it was implemented, if the industry would accept

497
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:45,440
Speaker 1: it as a standard. That's the other thing. I mean,

498
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 1: one big problem for the banking industry is that this

499
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:53,479
Speaker 1: is too transparent to transpor course it is. I mean,

500
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 1: you know, you listen, you've been in the market's a

501
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: long time. I mean you know that information and having

502
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 1: it and having it before other people and a city

503
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 1: are all virtues if you're trading. They are a feature,

504
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:07,960
Speaker 1: not abuve you can you could charge higher prices by

505
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:11,640
Speaker 1: bamboozling people and making things that are simple sound complex

506
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 1: and eliminating transparency. And when the bank started experimenting with this,

507
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 1: they were all interested in it, and they're gonna have

508
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: their blockchain labs and everyone's gonna build something. Well what

509
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: happened was they all realized it was way too transparent,

510
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 1: and so they know really and it really held things up.

511
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:30,480
Speaker 1: And now people are trying to build things that are

512
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 1: sort of that that will operate among a bunch of say,

513
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:37,800
Speaker 1: financial institutions, but they also are trying to put in

514
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: checks so that nobody's order book is is visible to

515
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 1: anybody else, so you can mean so they're trying to

516
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 1: figure that out. So let's talk about this exact subject.

517
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 1: What are some of the legitimate uses for blockchain and

518
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: how likely is it that we're gonna see implementations at banks, insurers,

519
00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:00,320
Speaker 1: brokers of this sort of technology. I think of actually

520
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 1: we will. And I think the reason I think, I

521
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 1: think there are two reasons why bitcoin kind of took

522
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 1: off the way it did and why this technology is

523
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 1: being so looked at the way it is. One is

524
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: certainly just sort of the viral nature of it, the

525
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 1: panic A two thousand and eight, the idea that we

526
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 1: can have an alternative way, uh and and that was

527
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 1: But the other reason, I think the more important reason

528
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 1: is just that this technology fits our lifestyle today. We

529
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: are digital, we are online, We are doing things across borders,

530
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 1: across time zones, across continents, and this is a program

531
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:36,680
Speaker 1: that will allow you to track things across borders, across

532
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 1: time zones, across continents, and to do things live and

533
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 1: to do things in I hate saying the word real time,

534
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 1: but real time. And it's one feature of the Internet

535
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:47,239
Speaker 1: when it was first built in the nineties, that one

536
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:50,480
Speaker 1: feature that it didn't have was an easy way to

537
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 1: exchange value, to to do currency transactions. So what gets

538
00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: built onto the Internet, of course, or all the sort

539
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 1: of existing you know, the third party credit card transaction

540
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 1: literally literally punching in a credit card. And because you're

541
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 1: doing this over such great distances and it's harder to

542
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: verify identity, you have an entire industry that grows up

543
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: around that. Right. You have very assigned. You have all

544
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 1: these third party providers who will take your information, validate it,

545
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: and allow you to do the credit card transaction. Bitcoin

546
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: kind of takes that and and blockchain technology takes that

547
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: and sort of uh flattens it and makes it all

548
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 1: one transaction replaces it. So the transaction, the verification of validation,

549
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: the valid and the exchange of value all happen in

550
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: one That is it exactly? You don't sound like a

551
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 1: skeptic on this, Barry Ridholtz, Well, no, I'm just so

552
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:48,480
Speaker 1: let's talk about the skepticism. It's not on the blockchain technology.

553
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 1: And it's a cliche every time you hear someone say

554
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: blockchain is fascinating, but I'm skeptical on bitcoint. To me,

555
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: when I see something rise two thousand percent in six months,

556
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 1: my experience, both in the markets and as a trader

557
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: is immediately to screen bubble. And uh, I got a

558
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 1: little lucky in the timing on on writing something when

559
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: should you sell your bitcoin? Um? And the timing on

560
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: that is as often luck as anything else. But how

561
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 1: let's let's look at bitcoin. Is bitcoin separate from the

562
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: underlying technology? Is that in a bubble? If it was

563
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:36,320
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars and now down to ten thousan dollars, Well,

564
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, there, to me, there are three

565
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:42,600
Speaker 1: huge angles to this whole story. There's the software, which

566
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 1: is what is really important, and its applications. There's this,

567
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 1: by the way, is the thing people talk the least

568
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 1: about exactly. There is uh, the counterculture movement, the social

569
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: movement that I really fint I think is a big

570
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:57,000
Speaker 1: part of the story. And the third party is the

571
00:32:57,120 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 1: speculative mania, the trading of it. And you know, you say,

572
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 1: is this a bubble? I don't even know if it's

573
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 1: almost it's such a it's such a pre thing. I

574
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 1: don't even know if you can say it's really a bubble.

575
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 1: I mean, this is it? Is this a speculative mania?

576
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 1: Without a doubt. I think it is virtually impossible from

577
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 1: a fundamental perspective to say what bitcoin is worth. I mean,

578
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:27,320
Speaker 1: obviously it's worth what anybody will pay for it. I mean,

579
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 1: that's the simple answer. So if someone's willing to pay

580
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: eleven thousand, twelve, nine thousand, whatever it is, that's what

581
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 1: it's worth. But at that moment, at that moment, that's

582
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: the problem. Can can you fundamentally value a technology that

583
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 1: has not really been implemented yet? No, you cannot. I mean,

584
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: does bitcoin run? Is it live? Two people use it? Yes,

585
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely. Uh is there a lot that you can

586
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: do with bitcoin right now? No? Besides trade it. I

587
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: mean really, so what you what you have is a

588
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 1: a mania, a speculative mania for a product that is

589
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 1: virtually impossible to fundamentally value. And like I said earlier,

590
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 1: still a small market. It's still a thin market. It's

591
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 1: still a relatively a liquial liquid market. So you get

592
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:17,839
Speaker 1: these crazy volatile swings. So yeah, you're in in terms

593
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 1: of the price. I think your skepticism is a hundred

594
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: percent on um. I don't buy bitcoin because the Wall

595
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: Street Journal would not want me buying and selling something

596
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 1: that I'm writing about. I mean, it's obvious every journalistic

597
00:34:31,080 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 1: operation has ruled exactly avoiding you know, you can't go

598
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: buy a stock and then talk about it. You can't

599
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:40,560
Speaker 1: be the Apple Beat reporter and be day trading Apple shares.

600
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 1: So it's the same thing. So I don't buy bitcoin

601
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:46,239
Speaker 1: for that reason. But even if the journal didn't have

602
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:50,360
Speaker 1: that restriction on me, I personally would not buy it anyhow,

603
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:53,360
Speaker 1: because it is a specular gambling. It's a speculative asset.

604
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:55,840
Speaker 1: You're betting that it is going to go somewhere, and

605
00:34:55,920 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 1: it's going to be something, So you probably you want

606
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:00,160
Speaker 1: to do that, but you have to understand of what

607
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:02,720
Speaker 1: you're doing, and what you're doing is just you're you're gambling.

608
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 1: So am I assuming too much in saying that you

609
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 1: don't believe this belongs in people's four oh one k

610
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:13,720
Speaker 1: or their retirement portfolios? No, and I'm not giving financial advice.

611
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:17,040
Speaker 1: You're just asked me a question. I mean, does an

612
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:20,839
Speaker 1: unbelievably speculative asset belonging to four oh one k, which

613
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 1: is essentially retirement portfolio? My answer is no, And I

614
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:26,719
Speaker 1: don't think anybody else would say. Nobody should say, let's

615
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 1: put it this way, nobody should say yes to that.

616
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:31,800
Speaker 1: We have been speaking with Paul Vina. He is the

617
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 1: co author, along with Michael Casey, of Truth Machine, Blockchain,

618
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 1: and the Future of Everything. If you enjoy this conversation,

619
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 1: be sure and check out our podcast extras, where we

620
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 1: keep the tape rolling and continue chatting about all things cryptocurrency.

621
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 1: I'll be sure and check out my daily column. You

622
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 1: can find that on bloomberg view dot com. Follow me

623
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 1: on Twitter at rid Halts. We love your comments, feedback

624
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:02,799
Speaker 1: and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at

625
00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:07,280
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot Net. I'm Barry Results. You're listening to Master's

626
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 1: in Business on Bloomberg Radio. So there are so many

627
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:20,400
Speaker 1: questions I did not get to during the broadcast portion.

628
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:24,800
Speaker 1: Let's let's spend some time on on those questions before

629
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 1: I get to my favorite podcast questions that I ask everybody.

630
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 1: One of the things that I had to ask is,

631
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:37,719
Speaker 1: so you write the Age of Crypto in what made

632
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 1: you think that there was an audience for a book

633
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 1: on crypto? It's interesting because the whole thing goes back

634
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 1: to that conference in that I was talking about where

635
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 1: I go to this conference and I realized that there's

636
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 1: just this tremendous energy around this thing. I realized this

637
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:56,799
Speaker 1: is a story to be told. And I go back

638
00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 1: to the newsroom and I'm talking to another reporter, this

639
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:01,880
Speaker 1: guy Dave Benoit, very good reporter, and I'm telling him

640
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 1: about the conference and these crazy people I saw, you know,

641
00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:07,440
Speaker 1: and he's listening to me and he looks at me.

642
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:10,480
Speaker 1: He says, it sounds like something like a lewisid write

643
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 1: a book about. And I'm trying to stop my fingers,

644
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:18,640
Speaker 1: like bang, lightbulb, Oh my god, this is And I've

645
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: been looking for a long time. I wanted to write

646
00:37:21,120 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: a book. I've always wanted to write, you know, I

647
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 1: wanted to write a book. I never found a good topic.

648
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 1: And he said that to me, and I realized I

649
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 1: had just been handed a great topic and nobody else

650
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:34,400
Speaker 1: has done it yet. I'm like, I'm the first one

651
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:38,320
Speaker 1: there was that was this book? Literally, Age of Cryptocurrency?

652
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 1: Was that the first book on this topic. By the

653
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:45,840
Speaker 1: time that went out, a few other people had also

654
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:49,359
Speaker 1: written their books. Uh, I don't I don't remember if

655
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 1: Nathaniel Popper's book came out right before or right after

656
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:55,840
Speaker 1: hours around the same time. The New York Times is

657
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:59,000
Speaker 1: Digital Gold Popper's book, and it's a good book to digital.

658
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 1: I shouldn't plug a competitor's book, but whatever, you know,

659
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: you get a free one from me, Nathaniel. So I

660
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:09,439
Speaker 1: mean at that by the time our book came out,

661
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:12,320
Speaker 1: other people had gotten onto this this idea too, that

662
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:15,320
Speaker 1: there were books to be written. But I think Popper's

663
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:17,840
Speaker 1: book and our book were the first mainstream books, the

664
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 1: first ones by big publishing houses to go out. He

665
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 1: was made, Oh that's the paperback. That's the paperback, uh,

666
00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:28,800
Speaker 1: digital gold Bitcoin and the inside story of the millionaires

667
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 1: trying to reinvent money. Yeah, that was his book. So anyhow,

668
00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:34,520
Speaker 1: so I realized there was a book to be written.

669
00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:37,439
Speaker 1: I spend a lot of time. Actually, at the time,

670
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:39,719
Speaker 1: I wanted to convince the journal to let me write

671
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 1: any book. No one else has done this. Let's do this,

672
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 1: get it out quick. And I remember I went home

673
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 1: to my wife and I said, I have this great idea.

674
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 1: I said, I want to write I'm gonna try to

675
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 1: do any book about bitcoin. And she said she slows down,

676
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 1: and she says, let me get this straight. She says,

677
00:38:55,840 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 1: you want to write a digital book about a fake currency.

678
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:04,279
Speaker 1: She's I think, she said, you want to write an

679
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:07,759
Speaker 1: electronic book about a digital currency. And I said yeah.

680
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 1: And she said, so you want to write a fake

681
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: book about fake currency. I said yeah. She said all right,

682
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:14,960
Speaker 1: She's like, just good do I don't want to hear

683
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:16,680
Speaker 1: another word until you get a check for me. Like

684
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:19,239
Speaker 1: just she thought it was in you know, crazy um

685
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:23,040
Speaker 1: And again you know that's because you know, people who

686
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:25,840
Speaker 1: grew up on our generation were used to tangible things, right.

687
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:27,719
Speaker 1: So anyhow, I come up with this idea, I try

688
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: to sell it to the journal. They eventually don't want

689
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:31,799
Speaker 1: to do it. Uh. And then by that by that time,

690
00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:34,400
Speaker 1: my Casey, my co author, had also started getting interested

691
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 1: in bitcoin. So we put our heads together and Ike

692
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 1: had written some books. He had an agent. We go

693
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 1: to the agent, she loves the idea, and we find

694
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 1: a publisher and we sell it. January it comes out

695
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:46,759
Speaker 1: and so you beat you beat uh Poper by like

696
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 1: five months, right, So we beat Popria. So I guess

697
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 1: we were the first mainstream book. So here's the question

698
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 1: I have with you. My experience with writing a book

699
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 1: was that it was like a PhD. You know, it was.

700
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 1: It was your graduate thesis. It was it was exhausting.

701
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:05,800
Speaker 1: And immediately after you start getting some sales and they're like,

702
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:07,520
Speaker 1: how about a follow up? It's like, go away for

703
00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:10,839
Speaker 1: a decade. You guys turned around and write another book

704
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:14,120
Speaker 1: three years later. That's and I wrote another book in between.

705
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:17,320
Speaker 1: That's a lot of book writing for someone who's also

706
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:20,279
Speaker 1: writing a regular column in the mainstream. Mean you have

707
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:23,160
Speaker 1: to realize, like, I'm a news drunkie. Yeah, I mean

708
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 1: he was drunkie. I I want to write that's all

709
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 1: I want to do. So for me it was not

710
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,400
Speaker 1: I mean, look it. Also, it helps tremendously having a

711
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: co author, because what Mike and I would do is,

712
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 1: you're too half books and other ones? How did you

713
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:38,399
Speaker 1: guys split over? What we would do is we we'd

714
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:40,440
Speaker 1: plot out the book, we'd plot out the chapters. We

715
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 1: we kind of figure out what each chapter is going

716
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 1: to be about, and then we just split them up.

717
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: Who's written about this more, Okay, you've done this more,

718
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: so you do that chapter. I've done this more, I'll

719
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:49,360
Speaker 1: take this track. Do you each then go back and

720
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:51,560
Speaker 1: then we so we would write our chapters, then we

721
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,319
Speaker 1: would send them to each other, edit what we were doing,

722
00:40:55,080 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 1: rewrite what we were doing, send it back to the

723
00:40:57,600 --> 00:40:59,439
Speaker 1: guy having to look at it again. Then we said

724
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 1: it to ours. End up, we sent the book in

725
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: chapters to our editors, which is a little bit unusual.

726
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:05,880
Speaker 1: A lot of times you'll just write the whole manuscript

727
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:07,719
Speaker 1: and send it to your editor. We were doing this

728
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:10,320
Speaker 1: in chapters, so you end up with this crazy dynamic

729
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:13,839
Speaker 1: where I'm writing my own chapter, I'm editing something Mike

730
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 1: sent me, I'm getting back something that Tim Bartlett, our

731
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 1: editor at St. Martin sent So you're doing it's it's

732
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:23,920
Speaker 1: a little hectic and crazy. But like I said, if

733
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 1: you're a junkie for this kind of stuff, it wasn't

734
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 1: that bad. I mean, it really just wasn't I don't know.

735
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: I would work during the day, i'd come home, i'd

736
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:31,960
Speaker 1: see my wife, i'd see my son, they'd go to bed,

737
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 1: and I put in a couple hours every night. So

738
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:36,920
Speaker 1: you guys did this very postal service, like if you're

739
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 1: familiar with Postal Service. The band No so Ben Gibbert

740
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:46,040
Speaker 1: from Deathcap for Cutie and Jenny Lewis, who has been

741
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:48,400
Speaker 1: with a number of other sort of old country and

742
00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:52,640
Speaker 1: alt rock. They start writing this music and literally mailing

743
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:55,640
Speaker 1: tapes back and forth to each other, and the first

744
00:41:55,760 --> 00:42:02,360
Speaker 1: Postal Service album is this fascinating combination of odd electronic

745
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 1: um music overlaid with a sort of old country sort

746
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:11,760
Speaker 1: of Yeah, you have to listen to it. It's actually

747
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:16,600
Speaker 1: quite charming and once you get past how initially confusing

748
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:20,000
Speaker 1: it seems. But they basically did an album the way

749
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:22,000
Speaker 1: you guys did the book, and today you can do

750
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:23,840
Speaker 1: all that digitally. And I think the thing too is

751
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:25,520
Speaker 1: a lot of people will say to me too, like

752
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 1: you just said, like, oh my god, I can't believe

753
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:29,759
Speaker 1: you wrote a book, and you wrote another book books.

754
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:32,200
Speaker 1: I've written three books. Sin yeah, I wrote a book

755
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: about the Walking Dead too, because that's my other sideline. UM,

756
00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:37,560
Speaker 1: and people say, I can't believe you wrote a book.

757
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:39,080
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to write a book, but I can't.

758
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:42,360
Speaker 1: What I figured out early on is that it is

759
00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:45,799
Speaker 1: an extremely mechanical process. There has to be a lot

760
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:49,240
Speaker 1: of thought that goes into analytics and yeah, but that's

761
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: that's one element of it. The other the writing element,

762
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:55,240
Speaker 1: is extremely mechanical. And all you do is you say, okay,

763
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 1: today is today. My deadline is this deadline. I have

764
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:00,239
Speaker 1: X number of days to write X number of words words.

765
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 1: Do the division, do the math, figure out how many

766
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 1: words you need to do per day, and you do

767
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 1: that every day, no matter how long it takes, how

768
00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:10,400
Speaker 1: short it takes. If you have a great day and

769
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 1: you write two thousand words, then great. You can, you know,

770
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:15,359
Speaker 1: ratch it back a little bit the next day. If

771
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 1: you have a terrible day and you only write a

772
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 1: hundred words, you have to you have to amp it

773
00:43:19,080 --> 00:43:21,399
Speaker 1: up the next day. You have to average that many

774
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:25,160
Speaker 1: words every single day until you're deadline, and you can

775
00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:29,960
Speaker 1: do it it's it's it's it's work. It's hard, it's work,

776
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:31,960
Speaker 1: but you can do it when when you have to

777
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:33,279
Speaker 1: set it out, I think you have to set it

778
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 1: out that way because if you set it out as

779
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 1: here's my deadline and I need a book, and you

780
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 1: have nothing, no structure to what you're doing in between,

781
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: that's how you can kind of get lost in the weeds.

782
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:45,160
Speaker 1: When when people say they want to write a book,

783
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 1: what they really mean is that they're subconsciously paraphrasing Dorothy Parker.

784
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 1: They don't want to write a book, they want to

785
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:55,520
Speaker 1: have written a book, because the writing of the book

786
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 1: is a lot of it. You describe it's heavy lifting.

787
00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:00,160
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a grind exactly it is. But

788
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: you seem to have been really enjoyed it. Well, I

789
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:05,239
Speaker 1: love it. I mean this is it's funny because I've

790
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:09,240
Speaker 1: been in this business since was my first journalism really

791
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 1: twenty five plus years plus years, and for that entire time,

792
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 1: I I always you know, look, anybody you know, like

793
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:19,759
Speaker 1: you want to be the guy at the middle of

794
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 1: the story. I've always wanted to be the guy at

795
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:23,920
Speaker 1: the middle of story. And I never was the guy

796
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 1: at the middle of the story, and in the journals newsroom,

797
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 1: you would watch the guys and the girls in the

798
00:44:29,239 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: middle of the story, and you'd see the other reporters

799
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:34,759
Speaker 1: who are covering a big covering the first story. We're there,

800
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: the person there at the center of attention, there at

801
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:38,759
Speaker 1: the center of the big story, and it's great and

802
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: you want it. For the first time in my career,

803
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: I'm that person. And a lot of times you can

804
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 1: go a whole career and never be that person. So

805
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:48,920
Speaker 1: I recognized that. I recognized that I'm in a very

806
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:51,360
Speaker 1: fortunate place and that I lucked out and getting interested

807
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 1: in this early, and I kind of set myself up

808
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:55,360
Speaker 1: to be that person at the middle of the story.

809
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:57,279
Speaker 1: And now I'm there, and I just want to take

810
00:44:57,280 --> 00:44:59,440
Speaker 1: advantage of it. So I love it again. I'm a

811
00:44:59,520 --> 00:45:01,320
Speaker 1: news monkey. This is what I live for. This is

812
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 1: all I want to do. So yeah, right, So you

813
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:07,160
Speaker 1: have you have two books on on blockchain and cryptocurrency.

814
00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 1: Is there another blockchain book, crypto book, bitcoin book in

815
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:14,520
Speaker 1: you or if you pretty much said everything you need

816
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:19,200
Speaker 1: to say about the topic, Uh, there's there's probably another book.

817
00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:21,680
Speaker 1: I don't want to say. Definitely. It's funny because he's

818
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:24,200
Speaker 1: you know, it's at the launch event on that Tuesday night.

819
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 1: People are saying to me immediately, oh, what's the next

820
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:31,000
Speaker 1: book about? Uh? And we got the I got the

821
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:33,839
Speaker 1: check for this book from my publisher, and my wife

822
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:35,719
Speaker 1: is very happy with that. It was all the money

823
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 1: in the world. But by the way, if you want

824
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:39,920
Speaker 1: to earn a living writing books, if your name is

825
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:43,560
Speaker 1: and Stephen King of Michael Lewis, you're you're going to

826
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:45,279
Speaker 1: be disappointed. You're not gonna do it as a full

827
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:48,120
Speaker 1: time thing. But uh, my wife, we got that check

828
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:50,160
Speaker 1: and I immediately put it in the bank and she

829
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: was happy with that, and she said, Okay, what's the

830
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 1: next next book? You gotta keep Yeah, she's like, you

831
00:45:55,520 --> 00:45:57,680
Speaker 1: gotta keep working. You gotta produce. You're the going you

832
00:45:57,719 --> 00:46:00,279
Speaker 1: want to be the producer, you gotta go produce that.

833
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:03,799
Speaker 1: I mean, there will be There will definitely be another book.

834
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 1: Whether it will be another bitcoin book, I I don't know.

835
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 1: And Mike and I kind of shoot around ideas. There's

836
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:11,439
Speaker 1: just so many stories to tell in this, so yeah,

837
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:13,320
Speaker 1: I could definitely see another book coming out of it.

838
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:18,720
Speaker 1: So you mentioned the social network of of sort of libertarians,

839
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:25,920
Speaker 1: and um, uh cipher punk's libertarians anarchists. So the question

840
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:28,800
Speaker 1: that had come up um from Mike bat Nick in

841
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:32,600
Speaker 1: my office, who helps me put these questions together, is

842
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 1: what's the overlap between the crypto enthusiasts and the gold bugs,

843
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:40,799
Speaker 1: because there seemed to be some similar If you were

844
00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:45,280
Speaker 1: to draw a Venn diagram, it feels like the enthusiasm

845
00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:50,600
Speaker 1: for something that is a speculative um asset that may

846
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 1: or may not be worth a whole lot more or

847
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 1: a whole lot less than a few years. They seem

848
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:58,359
Speaker 1: to have similar characteristics. They do. And the interesting thing

849
00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:03,200
Speaker 1: about both the gold bugs and the bitcoiners is you

850
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 1: can make a rational argument that you know, the world

851
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 1: is an imperfect place and if you're investing in this world,

852
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 1: things are gonna go up and things gonna go down,

853
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:14,880
Speaker 1: and you should probably have a hedge against bad times.

854
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:20,360
Speaker 1: What's that hedge, Well, gold is is, you know, traditionally

855
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:23,800
Speaker 1: been a store of value and you know, stable asset.

856
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:26,920
Speaker 1: You should have a little bit of gold in your portfolio.

857
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:30,000
Speaker 1: A bitcoin they're trying to set up as a digital

858
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:31,880
Speaker 1: version of that. So if you're looking to have a

859
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 1: hedge against the world, something that when everything else goes

860
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:36,880
Speaker 1: down this is sort of stable over here, and it's

861
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:39,239
Speaker 1: a little different in my God, you can you can

862
00:47:39,320 --> 00:47:44,480
Speaker 1: make that as a sort of rational argument, but it

863
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:47,440
Speaker 1: gets that message gets lost somewhere. There's a reason they

864
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 1: call them gold bugs because they get crazy about it,

865
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 1: and the bitcoin people they get crazy about it, and

866
00:47:52,600 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 1: suddenly you go from this sort of rational argument about well,

867
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:58,319
Speaker 1: you should have a hedge against bad times, it might

868
00:47:58,400 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 1: be this too. Gold is everything in the world is terrible.

869
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:05,000
Speaker 1: Bitcoin is everything in the world is terrible. And so

870
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:07,920
Speaker 1: they do have a sort of similar psychology in that

871
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:10,200
Speaker 1: they get so caught up in the idea that the

872
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 1: world is terrible and everything is going to go to

873
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:13,840
Speaker 1: hell in a hand basket and we're just waiting for

874
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:18,240
Speaker 1: the next crash that you should put everything nobody should

875
00:48:18,280 --> 00:48:20,160
Speaker 1: ever put everything into gold or bitcoin. And I think

876
00:48:20,200 --> 00:48:22,759
Speaker 1: that's insane, but it's sometimes on it feels like that's

877
00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:27,480
Speaker 1: their argument. So it's not their argument. My belief, and

878
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 1: I am obviously biased. My belief is that is their

879
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 1: post hoc rationalization. If they own all this gold and

880
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:38,200
Speaker 1: if the world goes to hell, gold or maybe bitcoin

881
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 1: is worth a whole lot more, they start internalizing the

882
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:47,000
Speaker 1: concept that it's not my own gold because it's a

883
00:48:47,080 --> 00:48:50,520
Speaker 1: possibility of the world going to hell. It's our own gold.

884
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:52,360
Speaker 1: The world has already gone to hell, and therefore this

885
00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 1: gold should be worth so much. So we listen, everybody

886
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 1: does it. We all lie to ourselves. The easiest person

887
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:03,000
Speaker 1: to fool is yourself. Um, talk yourself into an at everything, absolutely,

888
00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 1: and so you you end up with So So that's

889
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:09,000
Speaker 1: what I've kind of find fascinating is there's not a

890
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:11,719
Speaker 1: cold calculating what is the value. Here's a price to

891
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:16,640
Speaker 1: book ratio. It's filter for these it's we don't know

892
00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:19,400
Speaker 1: what this value is. But I'm so emotionally in tied

893
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:23,080
Speaker 1: up in it, not only my personal net worth, but

894
00:49:23,239 --> 00:49:25,399
Speaker 1: my sense of self and how smart I think I am.

895
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:30,040
Speaker 1: And therefore this proves it. All objectivity goes goes out

896
00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:32,520
Speaker 1: the window. And that's why I kind of I think

897
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 1: Mike was looking at them as hey, here are some

898
00:49:35,239 --> 00:49:38,920
Speaker 1: very similar or characteristics with two distinct groups. So the

899
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:41,480
Speaker 1: next question is what sort of overlap is there in

900
00:49:41,719 --> 00:49:45,080
Speaker 1: terms of are the crypto people also holding gold and

901
00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:48,759
Speaker 1: vice versa, or have those two groups never the twain

902
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:50,680
Speaker 1: shall meet. I mean, I'm sure there are people in

903
00:49:50,760 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 1: this world who are holding bitcoin and gold, but I

904
00:49:53,640 --> 00:50:00,160
Speaker 1: think the real bitcoin you know, uh, aficionados they think

905
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:03,520
Speaker 1: bitcoin is the better gold. So they're probably not you know,

906
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:06,760
Speaker 1: they're not holding bitcoin and gold, they're just holding bitcoin.

907
00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:10,000
Speaker 1: The people are doing it are pride people who are gold,

908
00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:17,319
Speaker 1: people who think the right right, right. Um, So let's

909
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:21,200
Speaker 1: talk about some of the companies that have grown up

910
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:24,920
Speaker 1: around this. So we mentioned Mount Cox, which very famously

911
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:27,239
Speaker 1: blew up and it was hacked then I want to

912
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:30,400
Speaker 1: say a hundred million dollars or something. I think they

913
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:35,240
Speaker 1: usually they lost eight hundred thousand bitcoin. They later recovered

914
00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:38,160
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand bitcoin. And what's interesting is so they

915
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:40,800
Speaker 1: lost six hundred thousand bitcoin, which at the time I

916
00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 1: think it was worth four hundred millions something like that. Uh.

917
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:46,960
Speaker 1: The crazy thing now that they're trying to figure out too,

918
00:50:47,040 --> 00:50:49,719
Speaker 1: is that that two hundred thousand that they recovered is

919
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:53,200
Speaker 1: now worth more than everything they lost. Who gets it?

920
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:56,320
Speaker 1: Who gets it? They have to distribute it. Do the

921
00:50:56,360 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 1: creditors get it, does the company hold it? Do you

922
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:01,759
Speaker 1: sell it at what it was worth? Do you sell

923
00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:03,839
Speaker 1: it what it's worth? Now? You know, like this has

924
00:51:03,880 --> 00:51:06,040
Speaker 1: become a whole different issue with Mountco. But mount Cox

925
00:51:06,560 --> 00:51:10,120
Speaker 1: was basically a one man company. It was a guy

926
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 1: who had bought a website from another guy and just

927
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:15,120
Speaker 1: set it up and because there were no real exchanges,

928
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:17,839
Speaker 1: it just got all that traffic. It was never really

929
00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:21,960
Speaker 1: a very well thought out company. What coin Base is

930
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:26,880
Speaker 1: another company that started in and initially I think they

931
00:51:26,920 --> 00:51:29,440
Speaker 1: were just trying to build bitcoin wallets. So anyhow, so

932
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:31,800
Speaker 1: in another word, it is a place to say digital

933
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:35,480
Speaker 1: account where, yes, where you hold your bitcoin, although apparently

934
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:37,759
Speaker 1: lots of these have gotten halfed over the years. Well,

935
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:41,800
Speaker 1: you know, interesting thing about bitcoin is though one of

936
00:51:41,840 --> 00:51:44,879
Speaker 1: the core ideas was that you are your own bank.

937
00:51:45,239 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 1: You are holding your own money. You're responsible for your

938
00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:50,799
Speaker 1: own money. You're not putting your money at a bank

939
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:52,560
Speaker 1: and then the bank gets to do whatever it wants

940
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 1: with your money. You have it, so your wallet, your

941
00:51:56,000 --> 00:51:59,680
Speaker 1: digital wallet, your account that is like that's the equivalent

942
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 1: of your bank account. You are in control of it, though,

943
00:52:02,640 --> 00:52:04,920
Speaker 1: so you have to secure it. You have to make

944
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 1: sure that the security measures are there. You have to

945
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:09,759
Speaker 1: hold the private key, the the account number to it,

946
00:52:10,120 --> 00:52:12,319
Speaker 1: never lose it. If you lose it, it is gone.

947
00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:14,480
Speaker 1: You are the only person forever the only person with

948
00:52:14,520 --> 00:52:17,399
Speaker 1: access to it. You lose the key, it's gone. There's

949
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:21,560
Speaker 1: been some estimates that twenty plus percent of bitcoin keys

950
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:23,879
Speaker 1: have been lost and that money has gone. Yeah, which

951
00:52:23,920 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 1: again gets to my whole point I was making earlier

952
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:27,840
Speaker 1: about liquidity. I mean, if a quarter of all the

953
00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:32,360
Speaker 1: bitcoin that exists can never trade, that's huge. But anyhow,

954
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:35,240
Speaker 1: coin Base started out building a wallet. They have grown.

955
00:52:35,320 --> 00:52:37,279
Speaker 1: They now have an exchange. I think they do some

956
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:40,800
Speaker 1: uh and you know, enterprise business. They work with companies

957
00:52:40,840 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 1: trying to implement bitcoin processes and everything. Uh. They have

958
00:52:45,560 --> 00:52:50,360
Speaker 1: become probably you could safely say the premier bitcoin company.

959
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:52,359
Speaker 1: I mean they've kind of gotten into the mainstream. At

960
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 1: one point last year in seventeen, their online app was

961
00:52:56,600 --> 00:52:59,480
Speaker 1: the number one app in the Apple Store. It rose

962
00:52:59,520 --> 00:53:02,200
Speaker 1: to the top up. Estimates are they made a billion

963
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:05,040
Speaker 1: dollars last year. They're making a lot of I mean

964
00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:07,560
Speaker 1: a lot of money. Now people are realizing is in

965
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:11,279
Speaker 1: operating as a quote unquote exchange. I almost say quote

966
00:53:11,320 --> 00:53:15,320
Speaker 1: unquote for coin Base their regulated company. Uh, they registered

967
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:17,520
Speaker 1: with the New York Department Financial Services. But a lot

968
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: of these exchanges are quote unquote exchanges. They're just websites

969
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:22,719
Speaker 1: where people are trading back and forth. But there's a

970
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:24,799
Speaker 1: lot of money to be made in that. So right

971
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:27,719
Speaker 1: now the big money is being made by you know,

972
00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:31,759
Speaker 1: offering trading services, the tel Aviv company. Let's see if

973
00:53:31,800 --> 00:53:35,120
Speaker 1: I can pronounce this right. Commuter is commuters I think

974
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:38,440
Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, it's interesting. And again, you know a

975
00:53:38,560 --> 00:53:40,520
Speaker 1: lot of these companies will come up and you have

976
00:53:40,640 --> 00:53:43,800
Speaker 1: to realize that these are startups. They have ideas, but

977
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:47,719
Speaker 1: they have to build it and implement it, survive fund

978
00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:51,600
Speaker 1: revee to build a business. Right, coin based started in twelve.

979
00:53:51,600 --> 00:53:53,520
Speaker 1: There are a lot of companies that started in twelve

980
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:55,279
Speaker 1: that didn't make it. Coin Base made it. They built

981
00:53:55,320 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 1: a business. Uh, Commuters is an interesting idea. It's sort

982
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:02,359
Speaker 1: of a bitcoin based version of Uber. So in other words,

983
00:54:02,480 --> 00:54:04,520
Speaker 1: Uber is this great popular app everyone. You don't have

984
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:06,759
Speaker 1: to explain what it is now at this point, but

985
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:10,120
Speaker 1: it is a piece of software that's owned by a company.

986
00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 1: The idea behind Commuters is to have a piece of

987
00:54:14,800 --> 00:54:17,880
Speaker 1: software that is not owned by a company that operates

988
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:20,360
Speaker 1: the same way Uber does. It's about hooking up riders

989
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:24,040
Speaker 1: and drivers, but the program operates the way bitcoin operates

990
00:54:24,120 --> 00:54:27,320
Speaker 1: on a decentralized network of computers. That's it. That's the

991
00:54:27,400 --> 00:54:31,200
Speaker 1: idea behind it. Uh, it's really interesting. I don't know

992
00:54:31,320 --> 00:54:33,400
Speaker 1: how far they're getting with it yet. I was actually

993
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:36,000
Speaker 1: went online line last night trying to find some updates

994
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:37,960
Speaker 1: on how they're doing, and I couldn't really find anything,

995
00:54:38,160 --> 00:54:40,520
Speaker 1: which is never a good sign. No offense commuters. I

996
00:54:40,560 --> 00:54:43,920
Speaker 1: hope you make it great, good luck, But again, interesting idea,

997
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:46,279
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of interesting ideas out there.

998
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:49,160
Speaker 1: At some point you have to build a business on it.

999
00:54:49,239 --> 00:54:52,680
Speaker 1: What else is an interesting idea built around blockchain? A

1000
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:54,880
Speaker 1: lot of the hot ideas and I think these are

1001
00:54:54,920 --> 00:54:56,920
Speaker 1: going to be difficult to build quite frankly. A lot

1002
00:54:56,960 --> 00:55:00,480
Speaker 1: of the hot things are people want to build the

1003
00:55:00,640 --> 00:55:04,040
Speaker 1: platform now right. I mean the idea is you look

1004
00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:08,799
Speaker 1: at Ethereum, which is essentially an operating system. It's an

1005
00:55:08,800 --> 00:55:11,840
Speaker 1: operating system, it's like Android, it's like iOS on your mobile,

1006
00:55:12,160 --> 00:55:15,640
Speaker 1: but it's a decentralized operating system, rather than Apple owning

1007
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:19,840
Speaker 1: it for computers or for computer for no, for computers.

1008
00:55:20,160 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 1: So you would download the software you get on the network,

1009
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:25,440
Speaker 1: and then anybody who wants to build an Apple or

1010
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:27,640
Speaker 1: service on top of that platform build it and then

1011
00:55:27,640 --> 00:55:29,800
Speaker 1: you have access to it if you're on the Ethereum network.

1012
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:32,040
Speaker 1: That's what it is. So what you have now a

1013
00:55:32,160 --> 00:55:34,360
Speaker 1: lot of people and a lot of people have raised

1014
00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:37,880
Speaker 1: money to build their own version of the platform. So

1015
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:40,960
Speaker 1: now you have this competition. Everybody wants to build the

1016
00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:47,280
Speaker 1: platform the next Android, Android for mobile, Android for mobile, decentralus,

1017
00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:51,160
Speaker 1: open source, decentralized. It's a good idea, but it's going

1018
00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:52,920
Speaker 1: to be hard. You have to build up all the

1019
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:54,840
Speaker 1: network effects. You have to build up the community, you

1020
00:55:54,920 --> 00:55:57,000
Speaker 1: have to build up users, you have to have people

1021
00:55:57,080 --> 00:55:59,680
Speaker 1: coming on and building services on top of it that work.

1022
00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:02,399
Speaker 1: Uh So that's a really that's a big bet kind

1023
00:56:02,440 --> 00:56:04,000
Speaker 1: of thing. You know, that's pie in the sky. I'm

1024
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:07,080
Speaker 1: gonna build the next Ethereum. What meanwhile, Ethereum is still

1025
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:10,320
Speaker 1: trying to build the next Ethereum. What about other coins?

1026
00:56:10,400 --> 00:56:13,439
Speaker 1: Which is ethereum? So you have Bitcoin as the best.

1027
00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:17,719
Speaker 1: There's probably fifteen hundred coins whatever you want to call

1028
00:56:17,760 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 1: the cryptocurrencies, tokens coins, you know, yeah, this probably is

1029
00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:23,719
Speaker 1: at least not off of the same blockchain, not off

1030
00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:28,200
Speaker 1: the same blockchain. The idea because bitcoin is open source software,

1031
00:56:28,239 --> 00:56:32,240
Speaker 1: anybody can take that program rewrite it to their own specifications.

1032
00:56:33,880 --> 00:56:36,760
Speaker 1: So what are the top five coins? Out the top five,

1033
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:39,960
Speaker 1: and I have to say of those fifteen hundred, I

1034
00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:43,440
Speaker 1: would my personal bet is no more than a dozen

1035
00:56:43,560 --> 00:56:46,440
Speaker 1: have any chance of ever becoming something. Most of them

1036
00:56:46,520 --> 00:56:49,600
Speaker 1: are just you know, either they're flat out pump and

1037
00:56:49,680 --> 00:56:53,400
Speaker 1: dump schemes or their well meaning their well meaning efforts

1038
00:56:53,440 --> 00:56:55,000
Speaker 1: that are not going to go anywhere. Yeah, I mean

1039
00:56:55,040 --> 00:56:57,959
Speaker 1: it's Look, it's hard to get a community of people

1040
00:56:58,040 --> 00:57:02,120
Speaker 1: to come together and agree to use your thing. Uh, Bitcoin, Ethereum,

1041
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:06,680
Speaker 1: Ripple light Coin are probably the four major ones. Then

1042
00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:09,319
Speaker 1: you have offshoots of that. You have bitcoin Cash, which

1043
00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:11,879
Speaker 1: is an offshoot of Bitcoin. You have Ethereum Classic, which

1044
00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:14,839
Speaker 1: is an offshoot of Ethereum. Those are probably the half

1045
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:18,520
Speaker 1: dozen that I think have the largest market value right

1046
00:57:18,600 --> 00:57:22,240
Speaker 1: now combined. Um. There are a couple others out there,

1047
00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:25,160
Speaker 1: but they're gonna have a harder time. But that's really it.

1048
00:57:25,360 --> 00:57:27,960
Speaker 1: There's not there are a lot of them out there.

1049
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:29,600
Speaker 1: I think there are very few that have a real

1050
00:57:29,720 --> 00:57:32,680
Speaker 1: chance of kind of building a viable future for themselves.

1051
00:57:32,880 --> 00:57:35,680
Speaker 1: So I have I have two more coin questions before

1052
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:39,480
Speaker 1: I get to my standard questions. One is explain what

1053
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:45,280
Speaker 1: forking is, okay, and the other is uh i c oh.

1054
00:57:45,400 --> 00:57:49,240
Speaker 1: So so let's start with forking. Alright. So forking is

1055
00:57:49,680 --> 00:57:52,240
Speaker 1: it's a it's a term. It's a software term. Basically,

1056
00:57:52,320 --> 00:57:55,640
Speaker 1: what you're doing is you are taking the software and

1057
00:57:56,240 --> 00:57:58,320
Speaker 1: you are update, you're updating it. You're creating a new

1058
00:57:58,480 --> 00:58:02,160
Speaker 1: version of it, and you can have is a soft

1059
00:58:02,280 --> 00:58:05,440
Speaker 1: fork and a hard fork. In a soft fork, you

1060
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:07,600
Speaker 1: are updating the software, coming up with a new version

1061
00:58:07,640 --> 00:58:09,960
Speaker 1: of it, but the older versions of the software will

1062
00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:12,440
Speaker 1: still work with it. Think of when Microsoft comes up

1063
00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:14,600
Speaker 1: with a new version of Word. You can download the

1064
00:58:14,640 --> 00:58:16,560
Speaker 1: new version of Word, or you can keep working off

1065
00:58:16,600 --> 00:58:21,960
Speaker 1: your old version of Word. They're still A hard fork

1066
00:58:22,440 --> 00:58:24,520
Speaker 1: is where there's a new version of the software but

1067
00:58:24,640 --> 00:58:27,760
Speaker 1: it is incompatible with the old version of the software.

1068
00:58:28,040 --> 00:58:30,120
Speaker 1: So say Microsoft comes out and says, well, we have

1069
00:58:30,120 --> 00:58:32,600
Speaker 1: a new version of Word that you have to download

1070
00:58:32,680 --> 00:58:35,360
Speaker 1: or the old version won't be compaled. That's a hard fork.

1071
00:58:36,080 --> 00:58:39,320
Speaker 1: In open source, this becomes a policy, It really becomes

1072
00:58:39,360 --> 00:58:42,680
Speaker 1: a political tool. Um, if there's a community that wants

1073
00:58:42,840 --> 00:58:46,560
Speaker 1: certain features and they're not getting them, they can hard

1074
00:58:46,640 --> 00:58:48,560
Speaker 1: fork the software. They can come up with their own

1075
00:58:48,680 --> 00:58:52,120
Speaker 1: version of every everyone has to come along or not.

1076
00:58:53,000 --> 00:58:58,320
Speaker 1: And I c O stands for initial coin offering. Uh,

1077
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:02,200
Speaker 1: and this is a very nascent field. It's very contentious

1078
00:59:02,920 --> 00:59:06,040
Speaker 1: eyes when I asked that, it's just it's such a

1079
00:59:08,120 --> 00:59:11,320
Speaker 1: it's such a great story. Again, remember everything for me

1080
00:59:11,480 --> 00:59:14,280
Speaker 1: is the story. It is a great, great story. It

1081
00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:16,160
Speaker 1: is so much fun, it's so interesting. There's so many

1082
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:18,520
Speaker 1: angles to it. So and I see O his initial

1083
00:59:18,560 --> 00:59:21,120
Speaker 1: coin offering. It's it's a way for companies to to

1084
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:24,160
Speaker 1: raise money. It's kind of a cross between crowdfunding and

1085
00:59:24,240 --> 00:59:27,560
Speaker 1: an I p O. So a startup says. What a

1086
00:59:27,600 --> 00:59:31,160
Speaker 1: startup says is we have this digital product that we're building.

1087
00:59:31,200 --> 00:59:33,560
Speaker 1: We have this service. We are going to attach a

1088
00:59:33,640 --> 00:59:36,360
Speaker 1: token to it. You can buy the token and give

1089
00:59:36,440 --> 00:59:39,760
Speaker 1: us money, and we're gonna sell it. And that's it.

1090
00:59:40,160 --> 00:59:42,560
Speaker 1: That's really what it is. What I think happened in

1091
00:59:43,000 --> 00:59:45,400
Speaker 1: Seen was you had a price rally in Bitcoin and

1092
00:59:45,480 --> 00:59:47,760
Speaker 1: ethereum and a couple of the other coins. So people

1093
00:59:47,960 --> 00:59:51,160
Speaker 1: who were holding we're making tons of money. But again

1094
00:59:51,360 --> 00:59:53,400
Speaker 1: there's not much you can do with this stuff besides

1095
00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:56,920
Speaker 1: trade it. So they're sitting on all these paper profits,

1096
00:59:57,080 --> 01:00:00,320
Speaker 1: paper profits, digital profits without much to do with it.

1097
01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:02,400
Speaker 1: Here comes this other trend of the I c O

1098
01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:05,320
Speaker 1: startups saying, hey, invest in us, we could be the

1099
01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:07,439
Speaker 1: next hot thing. So you have a group of people

1100
01:00:07,440 --> 01:00:08,800
Speaker 1: who have a lot of money and nothing to do

1101
01:00:08,920 --> 01:00:10,520
Speaker 1: with it, and you have a group of companies over

1102
01:00:10,560 --> 01:00:12,680
Speaker 1: here saying we're gonna be the next hot thing. Those

1103
01:00:12,760 --> 01:00:16,000
Speaker 1: two things merge, they bang into each other, and you

1104
01:00:16,080 --> 01:00:20,000
Speaker 1: have this unbelievable speculative menia. The I c O market

1105
01:00:20,080 --> 01:00:22,120
Speaker 1: takes off, and I think it was it was six

1106
01:00:22,240 --> 01:00:26,120
Speaker 1: billion was raised last year via this method. Uh it is.

1107
01:00:26,560 --> 01:00:30,720
Speaker 1: It's most of which no one expects to do anything anything, virtually,

1108
01:00:30,800 --> 01:00:33,600
Speaker 1: all of which everyone expects will be dead money in

1109
01:00:33,680 --> 01:00:36,640
Speaker 1: the end. Amazing. All right, So let's get into my

1110
01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:40,240
Speaker 1: favorite questions. These are what I ask all of my guests.

1111
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:43,960
Speaker 1: So let's jump into our favorite questions. Tell us the

1112
01:00:44,040 --> 01:00:48,920
Speaker 1: most important thing people don't know about your background. I

1113
01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:51,600
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know if this is the most

1114
01:00:51,680 --> 01:00:55,880
Speaker 1: important thing, but and I'm probably important thing. I'm probably

1115
01:00:55,920 --> 01:00:59,200
Speaker 1: gonna expose myself here and maybe, actually maybe people would

1116
01:00:59,200 --> 01:01:03,000
Speaker 1: figure this out on their own. I'm basically self taught.

1117
01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:05,000
Speaker 1: I didn't go to school for journalism. I didn't go

1118
01:01:05,040 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 1: to school for finance. I didn't go to school for

1119
01:01:06,680 --> 01:01:09,400
Speaker 1: business or economics. I was an English major. Got out

1120
01:01:09,440 --> 01:01:11,560
Speaker 1: of college, needed a job and there was a newspaper

1121
01:01:11,600 --> 01:01:14,760
Speaker 1: in my town that was hiring. So I applied for it.

1122
01:01:15,080 --> 01:01:19,360
Speaker 1: And I knew the rudimentary writing and editing skills, so

1123
01:01:19,480 --> 01:01:22,040
Speaker 1: they hired me and that was it. So I learned

1124
01:01:22,080 --> 01:01:24,720
Speaker 1: everything I learned about journalism I learned on the job.

1125
01:01:25,000 --> 01:01:27,720
Speaker 1: Everything about finance I learned in my twenty years of

1126
01:01:27,760 --> 01:01:30,320
Speaker 1: working at Dow Jones and reading The Big Picture and

1127
01:01:30,400 --> 01:01:33,160
Speaker 1: some other blood. By the way, there was a long

1128
01:01:33,320 --> 01:01:36,320
Speaker 1: standing argument that said all of education is a function

1129
01:01:36,400 --> 01:01:40,640
Speaker 1: of giving students the tools to teach themselves. Yeah, well

1130
01:01:40,680 --> 01:01:42,840
Speaker 1: you know what the tools I got. I went to

1131
01:01:42,960 --> 01:01:46,600
Speaker 1: Fairfield University in Connecticut, which is a Jesuit school, And uh,

1132
01:01:46,880 --> 01:01:50,000
Speaker 1: the Jesuits give you a great education. They really believed

1133
01:01:50,040 --> 01:01:51,520
Speaker 1: them in New York as well. Right for them in

1134
01:01:51,520 --> 01:01:54,280
Speaker 1: New York as well. Uh. They are big on teaching

1135
01:01:54,360 --> 01:01:57,440
Speaker 1: you how to think, how to analyze, and giving you

1136
01:01:57,560 --> 01:02:00,680
Speaker 1: a broad introduction to everything. So I got a great

1137
01:02:00,680 --> 01:02:04,120
Speaker 1: I actually got a great education in learning how to

1138
01:02:04,200 --> 01:02:08,240
Speaker 1: think what you can apply to anything. So who are

1139
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:13,080
Speaker 1: some of your early mentors. My early mentors were they're

1140
01:02:13,080 --> 01:02:15,080
Speaker 1: gonna be people you never heard of. Right. My first

1141
01:02:15,280 --> 01:02:18,760
Speaker 1: editor was a guy named Ward Mealy. My first editor

1142
01:02:18,960 --> 01:02:21,600
Speaker 1: at at the Verona Cedar Grove Times run in New Jersey.

1143
01:02:21,880 --> 01:02:25,240
Speaker 1: My first editor at Dow Jones was this guy Pete Rooney.

1144
01:02:25,760 --> 01:02:28,800
Speaker 1: And they were great mentors. They were old school journalists. Right,

1145
01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:32,640
Speaker 1: work hard, don't f with the news, go out and

1146
01:02:32,680 --> 01:02:34,400
Speaker 1: have a beer after work. This is just a job.

1147
01:02:34,480 --> 01:02:37,320
Speaker 1: Don't take it too seriously. Uh, And that was what

1148
01:02:37,400 --> 01:02:39,320
Speaker 1: they kind of taught. They kind of taught me how

1149
01:02:39,880 --> 01:02:43,280
Speaker 1: journalists operate, and and that was great. So my my,

1150
01:02:43,840 --> 01:02:46,560
Speaker 1: you know, look, I started in right, I mean, I

1151
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:49,880
Speaker 1: started pre Internet era, so I have a little bit

1152
01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:52,680
Speaker 1: of a foot in the old, the old journalist world.

1153
01:02:53,000 --> 01:02:54,760
Speaker 1: And those those guys were more early mentors, and they

1154
01:02:54,800 --> 01:02:57,000
Speaker 1: were great guys, absolutely great guys. I picture you with

1155
01:02:57,080 --> 01:03:01,440
Speaker 1: the fedora with a little press for a band of that. Um.

1156
01:03:01,880 --> 01:03:06,520
Speaker 1: So you mentioned, uh you started in the nineties. Who

1157
01:03:06,600 --> 01:03:09,880
Speaker 1: were the journalists, who were the writers who influenced your

1158
01:03:09,920 --> 01:03:16,120
Speaker 1: approach to writing? Right? Uh? Some of them were actually

1159
01:03:16,280 --> 01:03:19,960
Speaker 1: let's see, you know you can read that. I'm impressed.

1160
01:03:20,000 --> 01:03:24,520
Speaker 1: I have classes classes, didn't do anything without classes anymore. Um,

1161
01:03:25,360 --> 01:03:28,240
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's funny a lot of And I'm

1162
01:03:28,280 --> 01:03:30,760
Speaker 1: not just trying to kiss up to you because you

1163
01:03:30,760 --> 01:03:32,840
Speaker 1: already gave me the interview and imagine you're gonna publish this.

1164
01:03:33,160 --> 01:03:36,400
Speaker 1: But I loved I know, I'm just like I loved

1165
01:03:36,480 --> 01:03:38,680
Speaker 1: the Big Picture the blog, you know, back in the

1166
01:03:38,840 --> 01:03:40,800
Speaker 1: early auts, when you were doing it, that was that

1167
01:03:40,920 --> 01:03:44,200
Speaker 1: was a big influence on me. James Stewart, Denna Thieves

1168
01:03:44,440 --> 01:03:47,520
Speaker 1: was a great book. Daniel Jurgan, the Prize. Those were

1169
01:03:47,680 --> 01:03:51,040
Speaker 1: great books to read, you know, they were great storytelling.

1170
01:03:51,560 --> 01:03:54,000
Speaker 1: They really kind of especially Denna Thieves got it all

1171
01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:56,040
Speaker 1: the craziness of the eighties that was going on in

1172
01:03:56,560 --> 01:03:59,640
Speaker 1: Jurigan's whole history of the oil industry was really fascinating.

1173
01:04:00,240 --> 01:04:03,280
Speaker 1: So those are those are some of my early influences.

1174
01:04:04,800 --> 01:04:07,840
Speaker 1: Tell us about this is everybody's favorite question. You mentioned

1175
01:04:07,920 --> 01:04:10,480
Speaker 1: Denna Thieves and the Prize. What are some of your

1176
01:04:10,560 --> 01:04:15,000
Speaker 1: favorite books, by the way, finance, non finance, unfiction, anything,

1177
01:04:15,200 --> 01:04:18,440
Speaker 1: most of it's it's more fiction. My favorite, my favorite

1178
01:04:18,480 --> 01:04:21,280
Speaker 1: book absolutely of all time is Zenna The Art of

1179
01:04:21,360 --> 01:04:26,080
Speaker 1: Motorcycle Makers. Repeatedly in college, did you yeah, I did too.

1180
01:04:26,360 --> 01:04:28,440
Speaker 1: I mean I not only did I read it repeatedly

1181
01:04:28,480 --> 01:04:30,600
Speaker 1: in college, I there was a point in my life

1182
01:04:30,640 --> 01:04:33,080
Speaker 1: where I was probably reading that whole book once a year.

1183
01:04:33,160 --> 01:04:35,920
Speaker 1: I mean, I just know people do that. So it's

1184
01:04:35,960 --> 01:04:38,680
Speaker 1: such a great book. Uh. That is, without a doubt,

1185
01:04:38,800 --> 01:04:41,440
Speaker 1: my favorite book. Then a lot of others. I mean

1186
01:04:41,440 --> 01:04:43,720
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other stuff. I think Dubliners by

1187
01:04:43,800 --> 01:04:47,240
Speaker 1: James Joyce's story short story collection, I just think that is.

1188
01:04:47,880 --> 01:04:51,480
Speaker 1: I think James Joyce is probably the greatest English language

1189
01:04:51,520 --> 01:04:54,200
Speaker 1: writer ever. You're not the first person who knows. I'm

1190
01:04:54,200 --> 01:04:55,640
Speaker 1: sure I'm not, but I think he is. And and

1191
01:04:56,320 --> 01:05:01,200
Speaker 1: like you know, Ulysses and and it's his novels can

1192
01:05:01,440 --> 01:05:03,560
Speaker 1: kind of you can get lost in them. They're difficult,

1193
01:05:03,760 --> 01:05:07,760
Speaker 1: but the short stories are unbelievable. They're great. Uh, this

1194
01:05:07,920 --> 01:05:10,880
Speaker 1: is gonna sound odd. I guess Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

1195
01:05:11,240 --> 01:05:15,960
Speaker 1: Ryan Holiday just was talking about. I'm not kidding, that's

1196
01:05:15,960 --> 01:05:17,640
Speaker 1: one of my favorite books. That's in on my bookshelf.

1197
01:05:17,680 --> 01:05:19,919
Speaker 1: I turned to it off. Have you read his book

1198
01:05:19,960 --> 01:05:22,520
Speaker 1: The Daily Stoic? I have not, but I know who

1199
01:05:22,560 --> 01:05:25,640
Speaker 1: you're talking about. That is something you should check out.

1200
01:05:25,640 --> 01:05:28,120
Speaker 1: If you should if you like market, if you like meditations,

1201
01:05:28,560 --> 01:05:31,520
Speaker 1: check that out. You know what else, Give me one more,

1202
01:05:31,760 --> 01:05:37,000
Speaker 1: give you one more. I mean just giving me. I

1203
01:05:37,680 --> 01:05:41,040
Speaker 1: mean most of Hemmingway a lot of carouac. I think

1204
01:05:41,320 --> 01:05:43,560
Speaker 1: Fitzgerald was a great writer. I think it was a

1205
01:05:43,640 --> 01:05:45,080
Speaker 1: good I had a good command of the language. But

1206
01:05:45,120 --> 01:05:47,240
Speaker 1: I don't think he was a great storyteller, like I

1207
01:05:47,280 --> 01:05:49,280
Speaker 1: think if you look at Great Catsby, there's no real

1208
01:05:49,480 --> 01:05:51,640
Speaker 1: story there, which is I think why all the movie

1209
01:05:51,840 --> 01:05:57,800
Speaker 1: adaptations fail. The richer difference. I was on a flight

1210
01:05:57,920 --> 01:06:00,240
Speaker 1: the other day and I had been carrying him own

1211
01:06:00,320 --> 01:06:03,880
Speaker 1: The Old Man in the Sea, only like a hundred

1212
01:06:03,960 --> 01:06:07,080
Speaker 1: and something pages, And I had this thin book in

1213
01:06:07,200 --> 01:06:10,120
Speaker 1: my bag for weeks, and I figured, let me just

1214
01:06:10,240 --> 01:06:14,080
Speaker 1: bang out the first chapter and through. Six hours later

1215
01:06:14,160 --> 01:06:16,320
Speaker 1: we land and I had finished the book, and I

1216
01:06:16,480 --> 01:06:19,560
Speaker 1: was debating going back and reading it. Hemingway is a

1217
01:06:19,720 --> 01:06:24,520
Speaker 1: master of the language, mastering language, a master storytell Yes.

1218
01:06:24,720 --> 01:06:27,240
Speaker 1: I think people get caught up in his his persona,

1219
01:06:27,400 --> 01:06:30,120
Speaker 1: that sort of tough guy thing, uh, and they kind

1220
01:06:30,120 --> 01:06:34,600
Speaker 1: of miss his ability to write. Unbelievable writer. And Old

1221
01:06:34,640 --> 01:06:36,240
Speaker 1: Man in the Sea is just it's a master and

1222
01:06:36,320 --> 01:06:39,920
Speaker 1: it's so beautiful. The funny thing is it's so sensitive

1223
01:06:40,000 --> 01:06:43,840
Speaker 1: and so perceptive. It stands in stark contradiction to that

1224
01:06:44,080 --> 01:06:48,320
Speaker 1: exact guy ex drinking woman ezing. No Hemingways. I think

1225
01:06:48,360 --> 01:06:53,200
Speaker 1: Hemingway is a great writer. Yeah again not the first person. Yeah,

1226
01:06:53,760 --> 01:06:55,760
Speaker 1: have said that with me. Um, We'll give me one

1227
01:06:55,800 --> 01:06:58,760
Speaker 1: other Hemingway. But if you if someone says, hey, I've

1228
01:06:58,840 --> 01:07:01,680
Speaker 1: read Old Man, see what else should I read by Hemingway.

1229
01:07:02,400 --> 01:07:05,120
Speaker 1: The first one I read by Hemingway that I really

1230
01:07:05,160 --> 01:07:07,680
Speaker 1: fell in love with when I was fifteen, a sophomore

1231
01:07:07,680 --> 01:07:10,680
Speaker 1: in high school was Sun Also Rises, which was interesting

1232
01:07:10,800 --> 01:07:12,960
Speaker 1: at the time. But you know it's funny is at

1233
01:07:13,000 --> 01:07:15,360
Speaker 1: the time I really didn't understand half of what was

1234
01:07:15,440 --> 01:07:17,360
Speaker 1: going on in that book. I was fifteen years old.

1235
01:07:18,120 --> 01:07:20,080
Speaker 1: I was just in tranced by the way. Too young,

1236
01:07:20,520 --> 01:07:22,160
Speaker 1: too young. I went back and read it years later

1237
01:07:22,280 --> 01:07:24,680
Speaker 1: and kind of caught everything I was missing. But I

1238
01:07:24,760 --> 01:07:27,880
Speaker 1: mean all his all his early novels before, I mean

1239
01:07:28,000 --> 01:07:32,160
Speaker 1: Sun Also Rises? Uh, farewell to arm Well, that's a

1240
01:07:32,240 --> 01:07:36,160
Speaker 1: master piece. What's the one set in the Spanish Civil

1241
01:07:36,240 --> 01:07:40,720
Speaker 1: War and blanking on the name now obviously famous for

1242
01:07:40,800 --> 01:07:42,919
Speaker 1: Whom the Bell Tolls? For Whom the Bell Tolls? Yeah.

1243
01:07:42,920 --> 01:07:45,080
Speaker 1: I mean those are all great works. And his early

1244
01:07:45,160 --> 01:07:48,320
Speaker 1: short story collections are great too, They're very very good. Yeah,

1245
01:07:48,440 --> 01:07:52,240
Speaker 1: I really like his short So I'm a big Hemingway fan. Um,

1246
01:07:52,640 --> 01:07:57,400
Speaker 1: so since you joined finance? What has changed since you

1247
01:07:57,560 --> 01:08:01,560
Speaker 1: joined finance journalist? Him? Right, that's what I joined. Let

1248
01:08:01,600 --> 01:08:04,080
Speaker 1: me ask that question again, Oh, to have and have not?

1249
01:08:04,400 --> 01:08:07,560
Speaker 1: I haven't have not such a spectacular movie too. Um,

1250
01:08:07,760 --> 01:08:12,400
Speaker 1: since you joined financial journalism? What has changed in that industry?

1251
01:08:14,240 --> 01:08:16,519
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what a broaden it a little bit.

1252
01:08:16,560 --> 01:08:19,680
Speaker 1: I'll just talk about journalism, because since I joined the

1253
01:08:19,760 --> 01:08:26,320
Speaker 1: journalism industry, what has really changed? You know the answer

1254
01:08:26,400 --> 01:08:28,640
Speaker 1: you want to give as well, everything's changed. What has

1255
01:08:28,720 --> 01:08:32,280
Speaker 1: really changed is the business model. The business model and

1256
01:08:32,400 --> 01:08:35,000
Speaker 1: journalism and and it's funny. When I got in, we

1257
01:08:35,120 --> 01:08:38,679
Speaker 1: were still we were making the pages by hand. We're

1258
01:08:39,439 --> 01:08:41,719
Speaker 1: we're printing out the pages. We had a big piece

1259
01:08:41,720 --> 01:08:44,000
Speaker 1: of oak tag on a light table. We would cut

1260
01:08:44,080 --> 01:08:46,320
Speaker 1: out the stories with an exact o knife and glue

1261
01:08:46,360 --> 01:08:48,679
Speaker 1: them to the page. I did that in college. Yeah,

1262
01:08:48,840 --> 01:08:50,639
Speaker 1: that's what I got into journal That's what we did.

1263
01:08:51,560 --> 01:08:56,400
Speaker 1: But journalism hasn't really changed the business the journey. What

1264
01:08:56,640 --> 01:09:00,679
Speaker 1: journalism's you know model is goal is has not changed.

1265
01:09:00,880 --> 01:09:03,960
Speaker 1: What has changed is the business model. The business model

1266
01:09:04,040 --> 01:09:06,439
Speaker 1: was blown to smither reens by the Internet. The idea

1267
01:09:06,520 --> 01:09:09,800
Speaker 1: that you could create a product, a hard product of newspaper,

1268
01:09:10,160 --> 01:09:13,360
Speaker 1: sell ads in it, and make a business on that

1269
01:09:13,840 --> 01:09:17,720
Speaker 1: is gone. The Wall Street Journal does a wonderful newspaper,

1270
01:09:17,800 --> 01:09:20,200
Speaker 1: it really does. I love our newspaper. The Times does

1271
01:09:20,240 --> 01:09:23,200
Speaker 1: a great newspaper. That that is a business model that

1272
01:09:23,240 --> 01:09:27,000
Speaker 1: has been blown to hell. And in my mind, nobody

1273
01:09:27,040 --> 01:09:29,600
Speaker 1: has actually figured out what the new business model is.

1274
01:09:30,920 --> 01:09:34,360
Speaker 1: I I think that the two papers your names, along

1275
01:09:34,400 --> 01:09:37,280
Speaker 1: with the Washington Post in the FT that have a

1276
01:09:37,360 --> 01:09:41,559
Speaker 1: paywall up that charged for online access, that's the model.

1277
01:09:41,680 --> 01:09:46,280
Speaker 1: And and it looks like the whole fake news and

1278
01:09:46,400 --> 01:09:50,800
Speaker 1: the whole Facebook Twitter real fake news, not what the

1279
01:09:50,840 --> 01:09:57,120
Speaker 1: President calls fake news, but actual Russian bots and fake

1280
01:09:57,200 --> 01:10:00,760
Speaker 1: news has become this kind of buzzy drive. It's it's

1281
01:10:01,120 --> 01:10:05,679
Speaker 1: propaganda and it is I'm hoping that sends more people

1282
01:10:05,720 --> 01:10:08,519
Speaker 1: into the arms of the Wall Street General, the New

1283
01:10:08,600 --> 01:10:12,120
Speaker 1: York Times, the Washington Post FT. Because I've written about noise,

1284
01:10:12,120 --> 01:10:15,360
Speaker 1: I've written about signal. You can't just take something off

1285
01:10:15,400 --> 01:10:17,519
Speaker 1: the web and say, oh, I read it on the internet.

1286
01:10:17,880 --> 01:10:20,840
Speaker 1: That's a joke now, you know. It's so maybe that

1287
01:10:21,000 --> 01:10:26,040
Speaker 1: will imbute to the benefit of the big because you know,

1288
01:10:26,240 --> 01:10:29,280
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting in that we think we're living

1289
01:10:29,320 --> 01:10:31,439
Speaker 1: in such a different time and everything is different, everything

1290
01:10:31,439 --> 01:10:35,080
Speaker 1: has changed, and it really hasn't. The tools have changed. Uh,

1291
01:10:35,280 --> 01:10:39,160
Speaker 1: Politicians have always lied, political parties have always spread, you know,

1292
01:10:39,680 --> 01:10:41,960
Speaker 1: lies about their opponents. I mean, these things are not new.

1293
01:10:43,320 --> 01:10:46,280
Speaker 1: Readily how readily it can influence. And the job of

1294
01:10:46,439 --> 01:10:52,640
Speaker 1: journalism has always been to independently verify facts, too, independently

1295
01:10:52,840 --> 01:10:55,040
Speaker 1: tell the truth as best as we can get to

1296
01:10:55,160 --> 01:10:57,920
Speaker 1: it at that time. That has not changed and that

1297
01:10:58,000 --> 01:11:02,200
Speaker 1: will continue to be what our business is. The problem

1298
01:11:02,320 --> 01:11:04,920
Speaker 1: is just trying to do that profitably. And I think

1299
01:11:05,479 --> 01:11:08,160
Speaker 1: what you're you know, you can see pro Publica is

1300
01:11:08,200 --> 01:11:11,200
Speaker 1: a really interesting effort. The Washington Post. Look what the

1301
01:11:11,240 --> 01:11:14,559
Speaker 1: Washington Post did. That was a big, publicly traded company

1302
01:11:15,040 --> 01:11:17,800
Speaker 1: that bought a lot of pieces when things were hot,

1303
01:11:18,280 --> 01:11:20,920
Speaker 1: things turned in, things turned out, They went private, they

1304
01:11:20,960 --> 01:11:22,920
Speaker 1: sold off a lot of the business. They got back

1305
01:11:22,960 --> 01:11:25,960
Speaker 1: to their core pieces, They got back to their core,

1306
01:11:26,280 --> 01:11:30,680
Speaker 1: which is Washington not that they did, and so the

1307
01:11:31,479 --> 01:11:35,080
Speaker 1: business what what we do hasn't changed. Trying to figure

1308
01:11:35,120 --> 01:11:37,000
Speaker 1: out a way to do it profitably. That is a

1309
01:11:37,040 --> 01:11:39,160
Speaker 1: big challenge for us right now. Tell us about a

1310
01:11:39,240 --> 01:11:43,559
Speaker 1: time you failed and what you learned from the experience. Uh, time,

1311
01:11:43,640 --> 01:11:46,960
Speaker 1: I failed. So for a while in the nineties, and

1312
01:11:47,040 --> 01:11:49,880
Speaker 1: I guess they're early aughts. I thought I was going

1313
01:11:49,960 --> 01:11:52,920
Speaker 1: to make a career as a screenwriter. Really yeah, I did.

1314
01:11:53,000 --> 01:11:56,360
Speaker 1: I thought I love movies, I like telling stories. I'm

1315
01:11:56,360 --> 01:11:58,439
Speaker 1: gonna be a screenwriter. Have you have you written a

1316
01:11:58,479 --> 01:12:01,040
Speaker 1: screen play? I've written like ten. Uh, you know, I

1317
01:12:01,280 --> 01:12:04,160
Speaker 1: bossom software, read some books, try to figure out what's

1318
01:12:04,200 --> 01:12:06,439
Speaker 1: the mind? How do you broad a screenplay? Wrote a

1319
01:12:06,479 --> 01:12:11,680
Speaker 1: bunch of them, never sold one. One day, this is

1320
01:12:11,720 --> 01:12:14,400
Speaker 1: before this is before bitcoin. So one day I'm walking

1321
01:12:14,439 --> 01:12:16,400
Speaker 1: down the street in New York City. If this really happened,

1322
01:12:16,400 --> 01:12:18,280
Speaker 1: I'm walking down street, New York City. A guy comes

1323
01:12:18,360 --> 01:12:20,200
Speaker 1: walking up the street. He's on his cell phone and

1324
01:12:20,320 --> 01:12:23,720
Speaker 1: he said, I hear him say this. He says, I've

1325
01:12:23,760 --> 01:12:25,879
Speaker 1: got one day to get a script to Steve Bouschemmy

1326
01:12:25,920 --> 01:12:29,280
Speaker 1: and I've got a million dollars. And I my first

1327
01:12:29,320 --> 01:12:33,080
Speaker 1: thought was, I've I've got a script. Oh my god,

1328
01:12:33,160 --> 01:12:37,479
Speaker 1: Like this is Opportunity walking up the street at you guys,

1329
01:12:37,640 --> 01:12:40,200
Speaker 1: says I've got a million dollars. I need to get

1330
01:12:40,240 --> 01:12:43,160
Speaker 1: a script to Steve Brushemy. And I'm thinking I have

1331
01:12:43,240 --> 01:12:47,439
Speaker 1: a script, and I literally within within five seconds is

1332
01:12:47,479 --> 01:12:49,920
Speaker 1: how fast it went. I literally talked myself out of

1333
01:12:50,000 --> 01:12:52,200
Speaker 1: going up to the guy and saying, I've got your

1334
01:12:52,240 --> 01:12:57,759
Speaker 1: script right now. I I said, girl, maybe my script

1335
01:12:57,840 --> 01:13:00,400
Speaker 1: isn't right for Steve Bouchemy. I don't if he's the

1336
01:13:00,439 --> 01:13:04,040
Speaker 1: best character, would he really be interested in? And I don't.

1337
01:13:05,080 --> 01:13:09,240
Speaker 1: Opportunity walked up the street with me right and I

1338
01:13:09,800 --> 01:13:13,519
Speaker 1: and I talked myself out of it. Why did I

1339
01:13:13,600 --> 01:13:16,240
Speaker 1: talk to myself? Why didn't I just who cares? If

1340
01:13:16,280 --> 01:13:19,479
Speaker 1: it's right for Steve Bush, Like, here's a guy looking

1341
01:13:19,560 --> 01:13:22,360
Speaker 1: to buy a script, I've got a script, talk to him.

1342
01:13:22,600 --> 01:13:24,479
Speaker 1: And I didn't do it, and I regretted it my

1343
01:13:24,560 --> 01:13:27,960
Speaker 1: whole life. And how I learned from it is I

1344
01:13:28,080 --> 01:13:30,800
Speaker 1: led to the books when I realized bitcoin was a story.

1345
01:13:31,120 --> 01:13:32,600
Speaker 1: I was not going to let it go. You were

1346
01:13:32,640 --> 01:13:35,000
Speaker 1: not gonna get Steve not. I was not gonna Steve

1347
01:13:35,040 --> 01:13:37,960
Speaker 1: Bushemy myself again. Tell us the sort of advice you

1348
01:13:38,000 --> 01:13:41,160
Speaker 1: would give to a millennial or someone who just graduated college.

1349
01:13:41,200 --> 01:13:44,760
Speaker 1: You said, I'm interested in becoming a journalist or writer. Yeah,

1350
01:13:44,920 --> 01:13:50,840
Speaker 1: I would say, it's really it's it's two words, don't stop,

1351
01:13:52,080 --> 01:13:54,040
Speaker 1: don't don't stop, And it's funny. I learned this. I

1352
01:13:54,080 --> 01:13:56,519
Speaker 1: actually learned you know, talk you talk about tennis. For

1353
01:13:56,560 --> 01:13:59,000
Speaker 1: a while, I was running. I was jogging. And what

1354
01:13:59,120 --> 01:14:02,240
Speaker 1: I realized doogging was that as long as I didn't

1355
01:14:02,360 --> 01:14:05,640
Speaker 1: give up, I could build up my endurance. Whether I

1356
01:14:05,800 --> 01:14:08,680
Speaker 1: ran for ten minutes or for an hour, whether I

1357
01:14:08,720 --> 01:14:11,200
Speaker 1: felt good, I felt bad, I was into it. I

1358
01:14:11,360 --> 01:14:14,360
Speaker 1: wasn't into it. As long as I kept doing it

1359
01:14:14,439 --> 01:14:16,400
Speaker 1: and convinced myself I was going to keep doing it,

1360
01:14:16,439 --> 01:14:18,400
Speaker 1: I would get better at it. So if I didn't

1361
01:14:18,479 --> 01:14:19,880
Speaker 1: run for a day, if I didn't run for two days,

1362
01:14:19,920 --> 01:14:21,400
Speaker 1: if I don't run for a week, I was going

1363
01:14:21,520 --> 01:14:23,240
Speaker 1: to go back to it and keep doing it. And

1364
01:14:23,320 --> 01:14:24,840
Speaker 1: I did that for a while, and eventually I got

1365
01:14:24,880 --> 01:14:27,080
Speaker 1: pretty good at it. And I realized too, like in

1366
01:14:27,200 --> 01:14:30,240
Speaker 1: your career, that is the only thing you can control,

1367
01:14:30,360 --> 01:14:35,360
Speaker 1: is you right, don't stop. Especially in journalism, journalism is

1368
01:14:35,400 --> 01:14:38,000
Speaker 1: a war of attrition. I have seen a lot of

1369
01:14:38,080 --> 01:14:40,320
Speaker 1: good writers over the years just give up and get

1370
01:14:40,360 --> 01:14:42,800
Speaker 1: out of the business. It's not an easy business. It's

1371
01:14:42,840 --> 01:14:46,720
Speaker 1: not a particularly lucrative business. It's hard to do if

1372
01:14:46,760 --> 01:14:48,479
Speaker 1: you really want to do it. Thought, if you love it,

1373
01:14:48,520 --> 01:14:51,880
Speaker 1: if you're a writer, if you just don't stop. And

1374
01:14:52,000 --> 01:14:54,519
Speaker 1: our last question, tell us what it is you know

1375
01:14:54,760 --> 01:14:58,800
Speaker 1: about writing, uh and the markets today that you wish

1376
01:14:58,880 --> 01:15:04,439
Speaker 1: you knew when you began. I mean one thing, This

1377
01:15:04,560 --> 01:15:07,040
Speaker 1: is gonna sound very cliche, but but there is there

1378
01:15:07,120 --> 01:15:09,680
Speaker 1: is no substitute for experience. And it kind of goes

1379
01:15:09,680 --> 01:15:12,400
Speaker 1: back to what we were both saying years ago. I

1380
01:15:12,479 --> 01:15:14,240
Speaker 1: was a bad writer and the only way I was

1381
01:15:14,320 --> 01:15:17,200
Speaker 1: going to get good at writing was by writing for years.

1382
01:15:18,080 --> 01:15:21,320
Speaker 1: That's it. There's literally no other way to get good

1383
01:15:21,360 --> 01:15:25,920
Speaker 1: at writing, but by writing. No. I thought it was

1384
01:15:25,960 --> 01:15:28,200
Speaker 1: a good writer. I thought it was a good writer.

1385
01:15:28,439 --> 01:15:30,880
Speaker 1: My very first story, I interviewed three guys who were

1386
01:15:30,920 --> 01:15:33,160
Speaker 1: at Pearl Harbor the day it was bombed. So we're

1387
01:15:33,200 --> 01:15:35,320
Speaker 1: doing a fiftieth anniversary and there were three guys at

1388
01:15:35,360 --> 01:15:38,320
Speaker 1: the local VFW who were at Pearl Harbor the day

1389
01:15:38,320 --> 01:15:42,080
Speaker 1: it was bombed, and I interviewed them on December and

1390
01:15:42,160 --> 01:15:44,280
Speaker 1: I wrote the story and I thought it was you

1391
01:15:44,360 --> 01:15:49,559
Speaker 1: interviewed them. I interviewed them in Pearl Harbor, No. Fifty

1392
01:15:49,640 --> 01:15:54,000
Speaker 1: years earlier years. So I interviewed them. I wrote the story.

1393
01:15:54,080 --> 01:15:56,200
Speaker 1: I thought it was a really good story. I got

1394
01:15:56,240 --> 01:15:58,760
Speaker 1: this such a good story. I have gone back to

1395
01:15:58,840 --> 01:16:01,840
Speaker 1: read that story. It's a terrible story. It's not not

1396
01:16:02,040 --> 01:16:04,120
Speaker 1: for the guys. The guys gave me great story. They

1397
01:16:04,160 --> 01:16:06,640
Speaker 1: were at Pearl Harbor. The story itself is terrible. There

1398
01:16:06,760 --> 01:16:11,040
Speaker 1: was nowhere me my writing that terrible. That's amazing. I

1399
01:16:11,479 --> 01:16:16,479
Speaker 1: missed your did rollout events at the New York Museum

1400
01:16:16,560 --> 01:16:20,799
Speaker 1: of Finance. It's the it's the Museum of American Finance,

1401
01:16:20,920 --> 01:16:23,320
Speaker 1: museum in downtown on Wall Street, and you what was

1402
01:16:23,400 --> 01:16:26,040
Speaker 1: that an event was Well, we were going to have

1403
01:16:26,160 --> 01:16:28,600
Speaker 1: it at the museum. They had some water damage, so

1404
01:16:28,680 --> 01:16:30,479
Speaker 1: we couldn't do it there. When they got that fixed up,

1405
01:16:30,960 --> 01:16:33,559
Speaker 1: I encourage everyone to go to the museum. Oh my god,

1406
01:16:33,600 --> 01:16:36,080
Speaker 1: it's great. It's absolutely great. So we held it up

1407
01:16:36,160 --> 01:16:41,120
Speaker 1: at Fordham Law School in Lincoln Center and it was, uh,

1408
01:16:41,560 --> 01:16:43,920
Speaker 1: you know, it was a launch event. But we had

1409
01:16:44,240 --> 01:16:46,680
Speaker 1: a uh, we had a you know, one of these

1410
01:16:46,760 --> 01:16:50,799
Speaker 1: quote unquote fireside chats which might conducted with Joe Lubin,

1411
01:16:50,880 --> 01:16:52,880
Speaker 1: who is a co founder of Ethereum, which is another

1412
01:16:52,960 --> 01:16:56,840
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency platform, And then we had a panel discussion which

1413
01:16:56,920 --> 01:17:00,759
Speaker 1: was myself, your colleague, Josh Brown, and the Winklevoss twins,

1414
01:17:00,840 --> 01:17:05,600
Speaker 1: Tyler and Cameron with the Winkle Vye is Now, so

1415
01:17:05,760 --> 01:17:08,439
Speaker 1: I talked about that actually, and yes, I gave you

1416
01:17:08,479 --> 01:17:11,960
Speaker 1: a hard time for not gave me grief. It was Tuesday's.

1417
01:17:12,160 --> 01:17:15,040
Speaker 1: I have a standing date on Tuesday's, so unbelieving. Yeah.

1418
01:17:15,040 --> 01:17:16,679
Speaker 1: I leaned over to Josh before it and I said,

1419
01:17:16,920 --> 01:17:19,719
Speaker 1: Barry coming and he said, no, no, it's it's Tuesday.

1420
01:17:20,960 --> 01:17:24,880
Speaker 1: It's like, what are you kidding me? So I have

1421
01:17:25,080 --> 01:17:27,360
Speaker 1: to you gave me grief, But I really have to

1422
01:17:27,439 --> 01:17:31,920
Speaker 1: share why that was an issue. So I am very

1423
01:17:32,120 --> 01:17:34,880
Speaker 1: late to the game of tennis. I picked it up

1424
01:17:35,520 --> 01:17:40,160
Speaker 1: in my mid fifties, right, I'm and I'm only in

1425
01:17:40,280 --> 01:17:44,280
Speaker 1: my mid fifties, right. And there's a longer story about

1426
01:17:44,360 --> 01:17:47,719
Speaker 1: a younger, much dumber, fourteen year old version of myself

1427
01:17:48,200 --> 01:17:52,080
Speaker 1: being offered tennis lessons by my mom and saying tennis.

1428
01:17:52,479 --> 01:17:56,680
Speaker 1: Who plays tennis? Fourteen year old idiot? So anyway, I

1429
01:17:56,800 --> 01:18:02,360
Speaker 1: start playing, and this is really a bizarre digression, but

1430
01:18:02,479 --> 01:18:05,479
Speaker 1: since you've been You tortured me about it on Twitter.

1431
01:18:05,640 --> 01:18:08,360
Speaker 1: I have to explain this, so that was private. I

1432
01:18:08,360 --> 01:18:11,439
Speaker 1: didn't give your heart. You d mned me, which was worse.

1433
01:18:11,600 --> 01:18:15,000
Speaker 1: Publicly people can trash me and I laugh, but privately

1434
01:18:15,120 --> 01:18:18,400
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, he really means this. I start playing tennis,

1435
01:18:19,000 --> 01:18:23,000
Speaker 1: and if you've never really played before, but you have

1436
01:18:23,320 --> 01:18:28,440
Speaker 1: some I hand coordination and have played other sports like baseball,

1437
01:18:29,000 --> 01:18:32,120
Speaker 1: you feel like you can hit the ball wherever you want,

1438
01:18:32,560 --> 01:18:36,479
Speaker 1: and I could place the ball anywhere in the court.

1439
01:18:36,479 --> 01:18:40,439
Speaker 1: I could catch that back mine anytime I want when

1440
01:18:40,439 --> 01:18:43,519
Speaker 1: I'm playing with other newbies. Then you start progressing and

1441
01:18:43,560 --> 01:18:45,760
Speaker 1: you start playing with people who have some skills, and

1442
01:18:46,200 --> 01:18:49,880
Speaker 1: now you want to be in that group. They're hitting

1443
01:18:49,920 --> 01:18:54,240
Speaker 1: the ball with some power, and suddenly merely swinging back

1444
01:18:54,400 --> 01:18:58,160
Speaker 1: doesn't get it done, and you start to learn you

1445
01:18:58,360 --> 01:19:03,000
Speaker 1: have to have the eight mechanics of your swing, the

1446
01:19:03,200 --> 01:19:05,760
Speaker 1: distance to the ball, the footwork, there are all these things,

1447
01:19:06,400 --> 01:19:11,960
Speaker 1: and it's classic meta cognition Allah Dunning Krueger. Where As

1448
01:19:12,040 --> 01:19:14,760
Speaker 1: you get better at something, you developed the ability to

1449
01:19:15,040 --> 01:19:18,479
Speaker 1: self evaluate. Right. You ask most people you're a decent driver,

1450
01:19:18,600 --> 01:19:20,639
Speaker 1: and you know how many people are above average drivers

1451
01:19:20,680 --> 01:19:24,120
Speaker 1: in a room, hands go up. Most of them you

1452
01:19:24,200 --> 01:19:26,880
Speaker 1: are not, so I be. I am. I am among

1453
01:19:26,920 --> 01:19:29,679
Speaker 1: the group that I have. I have become skilled enough

1454
01:19:29,760 --> 01:19:33,960
Speaker 1: at tennis to know I suck, right. That is a

1455
01:19:34,040 --> 01:19:36,800
Speaker 1: skill set to be able to say honestly, Oh, I

1456
01:19:37,040 --> 01:19:40,400
Speaker 1: really have a lot of work to do. So a

1457
01:19:40,600 --> 01:19:44,720
Speaker 1: friend who I was playing with, who also sucked, disappears

1458
01:19:44,760 --> 01:19:46,840
Speaker 1: for a few weeks, and he comes back, and we

1459
01:19:46,960 --> 01:19:50,759
Speaker 1: were pretty head to head, evenly matched, and he starts

1460
01:19:51,160 --> 01:19:53,240
Speaker 1: running me off the court. I'm like, dude, where did

1461
01:19:53,320 --> 01:19:55,400
Speaker 1: this come from? I got a new guy I'm taking

1462
01:19:55,520 --> 01:19:57,840
Speaker 1: lessons from. You can't get it to see him. He's

1463
01:19:57,880 --> 01:20:01,360
Speaker 1: sold out. He coaches a no, no, it's absolutely true,

1464
01:20:03,800 --> 01:20:08,439
Speaker 1: like the top people at a particular tennis facility. So

1465
01:20:09,000 --> 01:20:12,280
Speaker 1: one day and so I I asked, hey, you know

1466
01:20:12,360 --> 01:20:14,840
Speaker 1: i'd like to take my friend said he's taking lessons

1467
01:20:14,880 --> 01:20:16,920
Speaker 1: with you. I'd like to take a lesson. He's like sorry.

1468
01:20:18,200 --> 01:20:19,840
Speaker 1: So a couple of weeks go by and I'm still

1469
01:20:19,840 --> 01:20:22,680
Speaker 1: getting my ass kicked. This like a year ago, eight

1470
01:20:22,800 --> 01:20:27,000
Speaker 1: months ago, and maybe with September October, I get a

1471
01:20:27,040 --> 01:20:29,559
Speaker 1: text on my phone, Hey, I had a cancelation. If

1472
01:20:29,600 --> 01:20:32,040
Speaker 1: you want to take a lesson tonight. I'm free, so

1473
01:20:32,200 --> 01:20:35,559
Speaker 1: I go in August September, I go take a lesson.

1474
01:20:36,240 --> 01:20:38,599
Speaker 1: The next day, I'm playing with a bunch of people

1475
01:20:38,640 --> 01:20:40,560
Speaker 1: and the like. And by the way, the lesson, it

1476
01:20:40,680 --> 01:20:42,960
Speaker 1: was just one of those things where just a few

1477
01:20:43,120 --> 01:20:47,439
Speaker 1: little mechanical changes, keep your elbow down, turn this direction,

1478
01:20:47,560 --> 01:20:50,560
Speaker 1: make sure your shoulders are like stupid things that I

1479
01:20:50,680 --> 01:20:54,160
Speaker 1: can't believe in hindsight, nobody else told me. Um, and

1480
01:20:54,240 --> 01:20:57,439
Speaker 1: you're unaware of the I think it's called prior perception,

1481
01:20:57,920 --> 01:21:01,519
Speaker 1: where your various body parts are in space. So the

1482
01:21:01,640 --> 01:21:04,960
Speaker 1: next day I go in and I just amongst my

1483
01:21:06,280 --> 01:21:10,720
Speaker 1: you know, the junior crew, I do really well. And

1484
01:21:10,880 --> 01:21:15,280
Speaker 1: I pin him back and said, that was a great lesson. Let's, uh,

1485
01:21:15,520 --> 01:21:18,320
Speaker 1: let's do another one. He's like, listen, I'm fully booked.

1486
01:21:18,439 --> 01:21:21,639
Speaker 1: I teach six days a week. If you want a lesson,

1487
01:21:21,720 --> 01:21:24,719
Speaker 1: if somebody drops out, i'll get But but you're committing

1488
01:21:24,760 --> 01:21:28,000
Speaker 1: to that space every Tuesday at seven o'clock for forever

1489
01:21:28,600 --> 01:21:30,639
Speaker 1: or or for a year. So I'm like, I'm willing

1490
01:21:30,680 --> 01:21:33,760
Speaker 1: to do that because my game. You you made me

1491
01:21:34,760 --> 01:21:37,200
Speaker 1: better in one lesson, and I understand the rules of

1492
01:21:37,280 --> 01:21:41,120
Speaker 1: diminishing returns, but I'm in. You get a cancelation, I'm there.

1493
01:21:41,600 --> 01:21:43,920
Speaker 1: So a few weeks later go by, I get a cancelation,

1494
01:21:44,080 --> 01:21:46,280
Speaker 1: and now I have to commit to him for the

1495
01:21:46,400 --> 01:21:50,479
Speaker 1: next six months. So seven listen, if I had the

1496
01:21:50,520 --> 01:21:53,000
Speaker 1: pope on the panel, would you have blown off the tennants?

1497
01:21:53,040 --> 01:21:57,200
Speaker 1: I like this Pope, but you have to extend my regrets. Absolutely.

1498
01:21:58,000 --> 01:22:00,040
Speaker 1: And and by the way, I'm not like a I

1499
01:22:00,080 --> 01:22:02,080
Speaker 1: was been playing tennis for forty years and I'm insane.

1500
01:22:02,360 --> 01:22:05,160
Speaker 1: I've been playing for three years and wish I've been

1501
01:22:05,160 --> 01:22:07,120
Speaker 1: playing for forty years. So I feel like I have

1502
01:22:07,240 --> 01:22:10,639
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff to make up. That's five minutes

1503
01:22:10,680 --> 01:22:15,000
Speaker 1: of tennis that nobody who's listening to this gives. If

1504
01:22:15,040 --> 01:22:16,360
Speaker 1: you want to make it, if you want to make

1505
01:22:16,400 --> 01:22:19,479
Speaker 1: it interesting and not just a funny anecdote. I do

1506
01:22:19,680 --> 01:22:22,080
Speaker 1: think it's interesting that in your mid fifties you decided

1507
01:22:22,120 --> 01:22:26,400
Speaker 1: to pick up something that is brand new pro at

1508
01:22:26,560 --> 01:22:30,600
Speaker 1: obviously no offense, but I mean, I think that is

1509
01:22:30,680 --> 01:22:33,080
Speaker 1: so I think that's a thing that people kind of

1510
01:22:33,160 --> 01:22:35,320
Speaker 1: lose as they and I'm fifty two, folks, so I'm

1511
01:22:35,360 --> 01:22:37,200
Speaker 1: not like in my third you know, I think people

1512
01:22:37,600 --> 01:22:41,520
Speaker 1: lose the interest in new things. Oh no, I'm fascinating.

1513
01:22:41,520 --> 01:22:44,000
Speaker 1: I think that really is a problem. I'm fascinated by

1514
01:22:44,040 --> 01:22:47,759
Speaker 1: new things. But I'm said when old things go away.

1515
01:22:48,120 --> 01:22:51,519
Speaker 1: So I used to play softball, baseball and softball, and

1516
01:22:51,640 --> 01:22:53,640
Speaker 1: you hit a certain age and you just can't do

1517
01:22:53,800 --> 01:22:56,320
Speaker 1: that anymore. I used to play basketball. I I have

1518
01:22:56,600 --> 01:22:59,840
Speaker 1: I have some, I have some. I got game and

1519
01:23:01,120 --> 01:23:05,040
Speaker 1: I remember, like mid thirties, rolling my ankle and usually

1520
01:23:05,120 --> 01:23:07,679
Speaker 1: the next day and it just takes days and days

1521
01:23:07,880 --> 01:23:11,280
Speaker 1: and weeks to heal. And finally at forty, you know,

1522
01:23:11,800 --> 01:23:16,120
Speaker 1: you're fatter, you're slower, you win, You're you're So there's

1523
01:23:16,160 --> 01:23:21,360
Speaker 1: there's lots of stuff with that one last tennis thing, keenness,

1524
01:23:21,479 --> 01:23:24,000
Speaker 1: you haven't lost any listeners. They're still they're gone. It's

1525
01:23:24,040 --> 01:23:26,280
Speaker 1: just dude, it's just the two of them. They're still here.

1526
01:23:26,680 --> 01:23:31,560
Speaker 1: So tennis tennis has ruined the Matrix for me, the

1527
01:23:31,640 --> 01:23:35,839
Speaker 1: original Matrix movie, because if you because if you remember

1528
01:23:36,120 --> 01:23:39,320
Speaker 1: the movie The Matrix, the scene on the roof where

1529
01:23:39,320 --> 01:23:42,240
Speaker 1: he's leaning back, bullets are going by and she has

1530
01:23:42,320 --> 01:23:45,920
Speaker 1: to jump into the UI and fly the helicopter and

1531
01:23:46,080 --> 01:23:48,880
Speaker 1: she calls in, Hey, Tanka, I don't know how to fly.

1532
01:23:49,080 --> 01:23:52,400
Speaker 1: You hold on and they download remember, and now she

1533
01:23:52,520 --> 01:23:58,439
Speaker 1: could and it turns out that's not true. Hypothetically, if

1534
01:23:58,520 --> 01:24:01,840
Speaker 1: you're in any sort of compute dissimulation, and someone could

1535
01:24:02,160 --> 01:24:07,440
Speaker 1: download a skill set. And I have watched enough of Dartfish,

1536
01:24:07,920 --> 01:24:13,799
Speaker 1: which is an online collection of of basically every tennis

1537
01:24:13,840 --> 01:24:16,240
Speaker 1: stroke by every major player. You want to see how

1538
01:24:16,320 --> 01:24:18,479
Speaker 1: federal served, you want to see how aggassy backhands, you

1539
01:24:18,520 --> 01:24:22,000
Speaker 1: want to see, It's all there. It's an incredible service.

1540
01:24:22,080 --> 01:24:24,000
Speaker 1: It's effectively free. I don't know how they do this,

1541
01:24:24,360 --> 01:24:31,160
Speaker 1: but anyway, intellectually I understand exactly how to do a backhand,

1542
01:24:31,200 --> 01:24:33,839
Speaker 1: how to do a forehand, a drop shot. But actually

1543
01:24:34,000 --> 01:24:40,200
Speaker 1: developing the muscle memory to convert your intellectual understanding of

1544
01:24:40,760 --> 01:24:44,920
Speaker 1: the mechanics of a specific stroke to executing that stroke

1545
01:24:45,520 --> 01:24:49,400
Speaker 1: is this Giants to the matrix is not a real place.

1546
01:24:49,520 --> 01:24:52,320
Speaker 1: It is a computer program. They're not manipulating their bodies.

1547
01:24:52,360 --> 01:24:59,880
Speaker 1: They're manipulating digits digits. Completely understand that for you. But

1548
01:25:00,360 --> 01:25:03,040
Speaker 1: even with they're not in the physical world. They're inside

1549
01:25:03,120 --> 01:25:06,519
Speaker 1: a computer program. To the muscles they're manipulating are also

1550
01:25:07,240 --> 01:25:11,639
Speaker 1: even within so then within the simulation, within the simulation,

1551
01:25:11,680 --> 01:25:14,200
Speaker 1: I can't believe this conversation is within the simulation, there

1552
01:25:14,400 --> 01:25:18,559
Speaker 1: isn't even a then why have a fight, because all

1553
01:25:18,640 --> 01:25:22,320
Speaker 1: you're gonna do is download various fighting techniques and so

1554
01:25:23,800 --> 01:25:27,840
Speaker 1: everybody ends up with the same various things. Either of

1555
01:25:28,080 --> 01:25:31,040
Speaker 1: skill matters. But the point is that most people in

1556
01:25:31,120 --> 01:25:33,280
Speaker 1: the program don't realize they're in the program. This is

1557
01:25:33,320 --> 01:25:35,639
Speaker 1: only a small group of people who have figured out

1558
01:25:35,680 --> 01:25:38,639
Speaker 1: they can manipulate the program. But the agents who are

1559
01:25:38,800 --> 01:25:42,840
Speaker 1: within the program, but their program, they know their party,

1560
01:25:44,000 --> 01:25:46,519
Speaker 1: they are programs don't exist in the right word, that's right.

1561
01:25:46,720 --> 01:25:51,320
Speaker 1: So so theoretically, Agent Smith of course busts out. But

1562
01:25:51,439 --> 01:25:56,880
Speaker 1: theoretically shouldn't shouldn't every agent have at least this the

1563
01:25:57,080 --> 01:26:01,160
Speaker 1: downloadable skill set that they do. Just why until Neo

1564
01:26:01,360 --> 01:26:05,040
Speaker 1: comes there? Unbeatable? That's why they say to Neo, if

1565
01:26:05,080 --> 01:26:08,000
Speaker 1: you've see an agent, run because the agents were unbeatable

1566
01:26:08,400 --> 01:26:11,200
Speaker 1: until Neo. Who is the one? And I hate that

1567
01:26:11,280 --> 01:26:17,800
Speaker 1: whole like this is a little Jesus anyhow, but but

1568
01:26:18,120 --> 01:26:21,760
Speaker 1: to me, so so let's we'll we'll bring this back

1569
01:26:21,800 --> 01:26:27,360
Speaker 1: to bit. We're discussing digital technologies and the application of them.

1570
01:26:27,720 --> 01:26:30,720
Speaker 1: So you gave me grief about not coming and the

1571
01:26:30,800 --> 01:26:34,680
Speaker 1: whole launch, the whole tennis thing is I made a

1572
01:26:34,720 --> 01:26:38,720
Speaker 1: commitment on Tuesday's there's a sunk cost. I'm paying for

1573
01:26:38,880 --> 01:26:42,400
Speaker 1: the uh lesson whether I'm there or not. So I

1574
01:26:42,520 --> 01:26:46,200
Speaker 1: sort of feel like an obligation to Plus, I respect

1575
01:26:46,240 --> 01:26:50,280
Speaker 1: your commitment to your game. You know what there are?

1576
01:26:51,360 --> 01:26:53,960
Speaker 1: There are things that I am interested in that I

1577
01:26:54,120 --> 01:26:57,160
Speaker 1: know I have skills or abilities. I may not be

1578
01:26:57,280 --> 01:27:00,960
Speaker 1: able to win a Formula One race, but I get

1579
01:27:01,000 --> 01:27:03,880
Speaker 1: on a track and hold my own with just about

1580
01:27:04,160 --> 01:27:07,439
Speaker 1: any other amateur. I wish I had more track time.

1581
01:27:07,520 --> 01:27:11,120
Speaker 1: That's another area. Yeah, it's it's if you ever get

1582
01:27:11,120 --> 01:27:14,600
Speaker 1: a chance, go to Lime Rock take a uh AN

1583
01:27:14,640 --> 01:27:20,479
Speaker 1: Advanced driving course. Um, they're amazing. You realize you don't

1584
01:27:20,960 --> 01:27:23,719
Speaker 1: most people think they know how to drive. You discover

1585
01:27:23,840 --> 01:27:26,960
Speaker 1: again back to the medicognition. Oh really, I could keep

1586
01:27:27,000 --> 01:27:28,320
Speaker 1: a car on a lane and I can make a

1587
01:27:28,439 --> 01:27:31,400
Speaker 1: left turn, but I really don't have the ability to

1588
01:27:31,720 --> 01:27:34,720
Speaker 1: manage a car in a variety of So you you

1589
01:27:34,880 --> 01:27:39,200
Speaker 1: run through this whole. So. I like being competent at things.

1590
01:27:39,400 --> 01:27:42,080
Speaker 1: I like being good at things, and it was frustrating

1591
01:27:42,160 --> 01:27:45,599
Speaker 1: to find something that was fun that I sucked at

1592
01:27:46,160 --> 01:27:49,400
Speaker 1: and the better I got, the more I realized how

1593
01:27:49,479 --> 01:27:53,160
Speaker 1: poor I was, Like with each additional skill that was added,

1594
01:27:53,680 --> 01:27:56,960
Speaker 1: it was oh really, so you think like on a

1595
01:27:57,000 --> 01:27:59,160
Speaker 1: scale of one to team him a five and suddenly

1596
01:27:59,160 --> 01:28:01,400
Speaker 1: you realize, no, no, you're five on a scale of

1597
01:28:01,479 --> 01:28:04,679
Speaker 1: one to a hundred. Did you ever find that early?

1598
01:28:05,320 --> 01:28:07,479
Speaker 1: Because now, obviously, I mean, if you host a show

1599
01:28:07,560 --> 01:28:09,920
Speaker 1: called Masters in Business, you should be a master yourself.

1600
01:28:09,960 --> 01:28:11,800
Speaker 1: But I mean, and you're early in your career in

1601
01:28:11,840 --> 01:28:15,840
Speaker 1: the markets, did you ever find that dynamic, that same dynamic? Um,

1602
01:28:16,320 --> 01:28:20,800
Speaker 1: that's an interesting question. I've talked about this before. The

1603
01:28:20,920 --> 01:28:23,320
Speaker 1: training you. I started as a trader, and the trading

1604
01:28:23,360 --> 01:28:25,200
Speaker 1: you get is essentially they throw you in the deep

1605
01:28:25,280 --> 01:28:28,280
Speaker 1: end of the pool, and whoever drowns is in a

1606
01:28:28,360 --> 01:28:33,000
Speaker 1: trader anymore. And oh the people who managed too and you.

1607
01:28:33,280 --> 01:28:35,280
Speaker 1: One of the things I picked up quickly was cut

1608
01:28:35,320 --> 01:28:38,720
Speaker 1: your losses short. But when you're winning, uh loss was?

1609
01:28:38,840 --> 01:28:43,160
Speaker 1: I felt the loss very intensely and would would if anything,

1610
01:28:43,439 --> 01:28:46,080
Speaker 1: cut my losses too fast. You want to call them quickly,

1611
01:28:46,200 --> 01:28:49,840
Speaker 1: but not instantaneously, but so you eventually iterate and get

1612
01:28:49,880 --> 01:28:53,080
Speaker 1: better and better. But I was more fascinated not by

1613
01:28:53,120 --> 01:28:56,240
Speaker 1: that process, but why the people around me on the

1614
01:28:56,320 --> 01:28:59,720
Speaker 1: long trading desk who were effectively all doing the same thing.

1615
01:29:00,120 --> 01:29:02,439
Speaker 1: How come this person is making money this month and

1616
01:29:02,600 --> 01:29:05,640
Speaker 1: last month you lost money. How come that reversed the

1617
01:29:05,760 --> 01:29:08,080
Speaker 1: last money last month? Act I was losing money, this

1618
01:29:08,200 --> 01:29:11,320
Speaker 1: month is making it, and I it set me down

1619
01:29:11,400 --> 01:29:15,080
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole of behavioral finance. And and so so

1620
01:29:17,160 --> 01:29:20,400
Speaker 1: I was a decent trader. I made decent amount of money,

1621
01:29:20,479 --> 01:29:25,840
Speaker 1: but it was very volatile and inconsistent. Um I liked it,

1622
01:29:25,960 --> 01:29:28,479
Speaker 1: maybe a little too much. I loved it. It was

1623
01:29:28,720 --> 01:29:31,560
Speaker 1: it was, you know, looking for a vein. And so

1624
01:29:31,840 --> 01:29:35,320
Speaker 1: all of that stuff ends up going to well, if

1625
01:29:35,360 --> 01:29:37,559
Speaker 1: you want to have a career in finance, you're gonna

1626
01:29:37,600 --> 01:29:40,639
Speaker 1: make your wife crazy if you stay as a trader.

1627
01:29:41,120 --> 01:29:45,439
Speaker 1: So move to research. Moved to market analysis so that

1628
01:29:46,160 --> 01:29:50,400
Speaker 1: you'll make less base money but more consistently, and she won't.

1629
01:29:51,040 --> 01:29:53,960
Speaker 1: I'm not a stress monkey. She is. So it's like

1630
01:29:54,160 --> 01:29:56,400
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, honey, how is today I lost a

1631
01:29:56,479 --> 01:29:58,840
Speaker 1: hundred grand? And she would go throw up. No, no,

1632
01:29:58,920 --> 01:30:00,840
Speaker 1: you understand that happened all the time. I'm about a

1633
01:30:00,920 --> 01:30:04,439
Speaker 1: hundred of them down. Stuff happens and they don't care.

1634
01:30:04,680 --> 01:30:08,720
Speaker 1: Now she she's a teacher. She wants ready, steady life.

1635
01:30:08,760 --> 01:30:11,840
Speaker 1: The thought of you lost four cars or half a house,

1636
01:30:11,960 --> 01:30:15,320
Speaker 1: what's wrong with you? Sometimes a position goes against you

1637
01:30:15,439 --> 01:30:18,160
Speaker 1: and you have limits of how much you're willing to

1638
01:30:18,200 --> 01:30:22,799
Speaker 1: accept losses, and you know it's everybody's style is different,

1639
01:30:22,880 --> 01:30:27,000
Speaker 1: and all of that led to where we are today.

1640
01:30:27,160 --> 01:30:31,280
Speaker 1: And by the way, ps, if you go back and

1641
01:30:31,439 --> 01:30:35,760
Speaker 1: listen to the early versions of Masters in Business, I

1642
01:30:36,000 --> 01:30:44,160
Speaker 1: find their unlistenable. They're terrible. Yes, only because that with

1643
01:30:44,320 --> 01:30:46,320
Speaker 1: a lot of my old Do you go back and

1644
01:30:46,400 --> 01:30:48,880
Speaker 1: read some of your own right, listen? I think Bailout Nation.

1645
01:30:48,920 --> 01:30:51,800
Speaker 1: If I was writing it today, I would have adopted

1646
01:30:51,920 --> 01:30:55,400
Speaker 1: a much more dispassionate tone. I would have been a

1647
01:30:55,479 --> 01:30:58,160
Speaker 1: little less flamboyant, and some of you you probably would

1648
01:30:58,160 --> 01:31:00,400
Speaker 1: have asked me to be your co oer there instead

1649
01:31:00,439 --> 01:31:02,920
Speaker 1: of Aaron. Aaron was not my co author. Adarin was

1650
01:31:03,040 --> 01:31:09,080
Speaker 1: my editor. Kept me from having these long, rambling digressions

1651
01:31:09,160 --> 01:31:17,600
Speaker 1: and things like Aaron is a wonderful editor. So so No,

1652
01:31:17,720 --> 01:31:20,160
Speaker 1: but I do find that I things that I wrote

1653
01:31:20,720 --> 01:31:24,240
Speaker 1: early in my career, the videos that I made earlier,

1654
01:31:24,280 --> 01:31:26,560
Speaker 1: because I did a live show for the Journal for

1655
01:31:26,640 --> 01:31:29,800
Speaker 1: a while. All the early stuff. I go back now

1656
01:31:29,840 --> 01:31:32,720
Speaker 1: and I cringe. I just cringe. I can't stand it.

1657
01:31:33,240 --> 01:31:35,479
Speaker 1: I actually can't stand it. I don't like it. I

1658
01:31:35,520 --> 01:31:39,120
Speaker 1: don't like who I was. That. It's funny because experience

1659
01:31:39,400 --> 01:31:41,920
Speaker 1: do you get criticisms and you think that person doesn't

1660
01:31:41,960 --> 01:31:44,680
Speaker 1: know what they're talking about. I'd be that person now

1661
01:31:45,000 --> 01:31:48,439
Speaker 1: criticizing me. I have that experience every five years or so.

1662
01:31:48,560 --> 01:31:50,559
Speaker 1: Every now it's five to ten years, where you look

1663
01:31:50,600 --> 01:31:54,160
Speaker 1: back what you were doing five years ago and you say, oh,

1664
01:31:54,320 --> 01:31:57,960
Speaker 1: what I'm doing and whatever it is? Radio writing, management, assets,

1665
01:31:58,200 --> 01:32:03,160
Speaker 1: what whatever? Distructing portfolios. I'm so much better at X,

1666
01:32:03,320 --> 01:32:06,240
Speaker 1: Y and Z today than five years ago, and I

1667
01:32:06,360 --> 01:32:08,639
Speaker 1: assume five years from now, I'm going to look back

1668
01:32:08,680 --> 01:32:12,120
Speaker 1: and say, what were you doing in talking about tennis

1669
01:32:12,200 --> 01:32:16,800
Speaker 1: and trading? It's you clearly have have no idea how

1670
01:32:16,880 --> 01:32:18,840
Speaker 1: to host a radio show. And I will tell you

1671
01:32:20,360 --> 01:32:22,599
Speaker 1: is looking at this right now and it's like, oh

1672
01:32:22,640 --> 01:32:26,160
Speaker 1: my god, this is terrible. Everyone stopped listening. It's horrific.

1673
01:32:26,280 --> 01:32:30,840
Speaker 1: It's hope people are still listening because actually we'll move

1674
01:32:30,880 --> 01:32:32,840
Speaker 1: this to the end so people who hang out get

1675
01:32:32,960 --> 01:32:35,320
Speaker 1: you did have some interesting questions for me. One last

1676
01:32:35,360 --> 01:32:38,400
Speaker 1: thing about medicognition. I want to share with you if

1677
01:32:38,479 --> 01:32:42,080
Speaker 1: you've ever done live radio with somebody who's a pro.

1678
01:32:42,520 --> 01:32:46,640
Speaker 1: When I watched Tom Keane run a constant with the

1679
01:32:46,760 --> 01:32:50,320
Speaker 1: producer and you're counting down ten seconds to the commercial

1680
01:32:50,479 --> 01:32:54,240
Speaker 1: five four three to one. Live commercials were live billboards,

1681
01:32:54,520 --> 01:32:56,839
Speaker 1: live roze to people on the floor of the exchange,

1682
01:32:57,320 --> 01:33:01,960
Speaker 1: and he does it flawlessly, seamlessly. People don't appreciate how

1683
01:33:02,200 --> 01:33:06,640
Speaker 1: skilled the pros are because you just assume, hey, how

1684
01:33:06,720 --> 01:33:08,000
Speaker 1: hard is it to get on a mic and go

1685
01:33:08,080 --> 01:33:10,439
Speaker 1: blah blah blah for an hour. But when you actually

1686
01:33:10,520 --> 01:33:13,120
Speaker 1: watch the bullets in the air, the moving targets, the

1687
01:33:13,280 --> 01:33:16,439
Speaker 1: precision in which the timing has done, you realize these

1688
01:33:16,479 --> 01:33:19,719
Speaker 1: guys are amazing. And after thirty years, you certainly should

1689
01:33:19,760 --> 01:33:23,639
Speaker 1: be good, but they're astonishing, astounding. No, Tom is great,

1690
01:33:23,680 --> 01:33:26,360
Speaker 1: and I think you have to realize too, he has

1691
01:33:26,439 --> 01:33:28,960
Speaker 1: a team around him. Sure, he has a team. He

1692
01:33:29,000 --> 01:33:32,320
Speaker 1: has producers, he has people on the floor, control room,

1693
01:33:32,400 --> 01:33:35,200
Speaker 1: he has researchers. I mean, that is a huge team.

1694
01:33:35,640 --> 01:33:38,720
Speaker 1: And all those efforts get funneled through Tom Keane, But

1695
01:33:38,840 --> 01:33:40,640
Speaker 1: you don't He has to be able to maintain that

1696
01:33:41,240 --> 01:33:43,120
Speaker 1: and he does he's great. I mean, Keene's a total pro.

1697
01:33:43,240 --> 01:33:45,960
Speaker 1: He's great, but the listener doesn't see it. They don't,

1698
01:33:47,479 --> 01:33:49,240
Speaker 1: So that that's what I get why I keep coming

1699
01:33:49,320 --> 01:33:51,479
Speaker 1: back to Donning Krueger. You have to get to a

1700
01:33:51,560 --> 01:33:55,920
Speaker 1: certain point where you can understand exactly what goes in

1701
01:33:56,240 --> 01:33:59,880
Speaker 1: and how much you suck at it. So the joke is, wait,

1702
01:34:00,280 --> 01:34:03,560
Speaker 1: you host a podcast, will you interview people? You're my

1703
01:34:03,680 --> 01:34:06,400
Speaker 1: wife says I'm a terrible listener or something like that.

1704
01:34:06,560 --> 01:34:09,640
Speaker 1: I wasn't paying attention. So that's the joke. So now

1705
01:34:09,680 --> 01:34:13,280
Speaker 1: we're gonna go back in time, and we have been

1706
01:34:13,400 --> 01:34:17,240
Speaker 1: speaking with Paul Vina. He is the author and co

1707
01:34:17,400 --> 01:34:20,760
Speaker 1: author with Mike Casey of two books, the first being

1708
01:34:20,840 --> 01:34:24,879
Speaker 1: The Age of Cryptocurrency, the second being The Truth Machine, Blockchain,

1709
01:34:24,960 --> 01:34:29,679
Speaker 1: and the Future of Everything. If you enjoyed this rambling

1710
01:34:29,800 --> 01:34:33,200
Speaker 1: and digressive conversation, ban look up an Inch or down

1711
01:34:33,240 --> 01:34:35,280
Speaker 1: an Inch on Apple iTunes and you can see any

1712
01:34:35,320 --> 01:34:39,240
Speaker 1: of the other two hundreds such conversations we've had about uh,

1713
01:34:39,320 --> 01:34:42,720
Speaker 1: the art of the backstroke and the drop. Um. We

1714
01:34:42,880 --> 01:34:46,599
Speaker 1: love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at

1715
01:34:47,400 --> 01:34:50,760
Speaker 1: m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. I would be

1716
01:34:50,880 --> 01:34:53,040
Speaker 1: remiss if I did not thank the crack staff that

1717
01:34:53,120 --> 01:34:57,519
Speaker 1: helps put together these conversations each week. Medina Parwana is

1718
01:34:57,680 --> 01:35:01,640
Speaker 1: our producer Slash What You Engineer? Taylor Riggs is our

1719
01:35:01,680 --> 01:35:04,559
Speaker 1: book of producer. Mike Batnik is our head of research.

1720
01:35:05,240 --> 01:35:08,759
Speaker 1: I'm Barry Ridholts. You've been listening to Masters in Business

1721
01:35:09,320 --> 01:35:10,479
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio.