Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. Uh, Tracy, It's
Speaker 2: time for our annual AMA episode.
Speaker 3: The Annual Call In Show. This is my favorite time
Speaker 3: of the year, Joe, totally.
Speaker 2: It's a weird time of year. Actually.
Speaker 3: The thing is, I feel like we're always answering questions
Speaker 3: that people ask us. Right, maybe we're too accessible.
Speaker 2: No, I never feel that way. I feel like all
Speaker 2: we do is ask questions and no one ever answer
Speaker 2: asks us question.
Speaker 3: I feel like if people want to ask us questions,
Speaker 3: it's pretty easy to do so. But we still have
Speaker 3: this call in show.
Speaker 2: It's amazing that your entire job is you ask questions
Speaker 2: people multiple times a week, every week for the entire year,
Speaker 2: and your main takeaway from the year is that you
Speaker 2: answer too many questions. This is really interesting.
Speaker 3: That's very That was not my main takeaway. My main
Speaker 3: takeaway was we are question platform agnostic, Like it doesn't
Speaker 3: really matter what format the questions come in, whether they're
Speaker 3: called in like in this show, or whether they're typed
Speaker 3: in via the discord or on Blue Sky or Twitter
Speaker 3: or something else.
Speaker 2: This is fair. I like talking to people, I like
Speaker 2: answering questions, but I like the call in format. I
Speaker 2: missed the old days of you know, it'd be fun
Speaker 2: to do a live radio show with callin.
Speaker 3: I'd be fun to do it.
Speaker 2: When I was a kid, I called into sports talk
Speaker 2: radio sometimes and I sort of missed that platform. And
Speaker 2: you don't really get that with podcasts. A wait, what.
Speaker 3: Did you say on sports radio?
Speaker 2: I don't remember the you know, I think like I,
Speaker 2: you know, I usually follow baseball really closely, and I
Speaker 2: would like say, like, oh, I think the Toronto Blue
Speaker 2: Jays have a lot of momentum down the stretch, and
Speaker 2: I think they're gonna, you know, win the American League.
Speaker 2: Or it's just some nonsense like that.
Speaker 3: Sports and now tell usis in commentary is just something
Speaker 3: I really I struggle to get into because it's like
Speaker 3: it's either well, the team played well or I think
Speaker 3: the team could play better. That's it. Like that's the
Speaker 3: sum totality of what people say on those things.
Speaker 2: So yes, we are going to be uh. We invited
Speaker 2: listeners to record a voice memo and then email that
Speaker 2: to Odd Law too. Bloomberg Dot net and let's take
Speaker 2: a listen to some and Tracy and I will do
Speaker 2: our best to answer them.
Speaker 3: We'll pretend that we're live.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is Steve from Northville, New Jersey. I would
Speaker 4: like Tracy and Jodas set up a cage match type
Speaker 4: hardcore debate on the value of cryptocurrency. Every Saint analyst
Speaker 4: says it's a pointless scam which uses tons of energy
Speaker 4: to create valueless tokens that have been bid up to
Speaker 4: insane prices and at the same time greatly facilitate many
Speaker 4: criminal transactions. On the other side, there are a host
Speaker 4: of promoter promoters that say it is the future of finance.
Speaker 3: First off, Steve, that's not a question, that's request, But
Speaker 3: you know what, we'll take it. We'll take what we
Speaker 3: can get. I think it's a good request. I would
Speaker 3: like to see a cage match on crypto.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So you know, I've said it before. I have people
Speaker 2: from time to time to ask us, you know, we
Speaker 2: should do a debate topic, and we may have done
Speaker 2: one or two of theirs. I the reason I'm skeptical
Speaker 2: about well, I mean, if we're talking about a literal
Speaker 2: cage match where people beat people up, that's fine, but
Speaker 2: if we're talking about a figurative one where it's some
Speaker 2: sort of debate, Debates, to my mind, are only interesting
Speaker 2: if the two sides agree on like ninety nine percent
Speaker 2: of premises, where they agree on all definitions, et cetera,
Speaker 2: and there is a very specific thing. Most debates on
Speaker 2: crypto you get some sort of mainstream canesy and economist
Speaker 2: and then some sort of you know, crazy laser ezed
Speaker 2: person that don't agree on anything and they just talk
Speaker 2: past each other. Not a particularly productive use and I
Speaker 2: think most debates in public forms are like that. But
Speaker 2: if we can find the right guests who largely agree
Speaker 2: on and then disagree on something specific, maybe that's a
Speaker 2: good twenty twenty five ambition.
Speaker 3: I think you're right that that's kind of a difficulty there.
Speaker 3: The one other thing I would say when it comes
Speaker 3: to crypto, the use case or the envisioned purpose of
Speaker 3: cryptocurrency always seems to be changing, right sure, And I
Speaker 3: used to think I've written about this, but I used
Speaker 3: to think that was a bad thing. That you know,
Speaker 3: one day, bitcoin, for instance, would be like a way
Speaker 3: to pay for things, and then the next day it
Speaker 3: would be a store of value. And it would just
Speaker 3: change every day. But I think as time has gone on,
Speaker 3: we've kind of seen that that's turned out to be
Speaker 3: a strength rather than a weakness. But it does make
Speaker 3: it incredibly hard to have a resonable discussion over the
Speaker 3: use case totally.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: I would say we did that episode a couple of
Speaker 2: months ago with Austin Campbell. I think we're going to
Speaker 2: have them back on soon. I'm like coming around to
Speaker 2: some of like the stable coin stuff. Maybe anyway, should
Speaker 2: we go to the next question?
Speaker 3: Next question?
Speaker 7: Hey, Joe and Tracy. My name is Ryan Ross. I'm
Speaker 7: based in New Jersey, and I'm curious what have been
Speaker 7: your most favorite industries you've learned about in the past,
Speaker 7: and also what are you interested in learning about in
Speaker 7: twenty twenty five. You've had episode on the tractor supply,
Speaker 7: which is interesting, and wood palettes and how those are
Speaker 7: logistically moved around in an episode about how car leather
Speaker 7: affects the price of gummy bears. I'm curious what's been
Speaker 7: most interesting to you in the past in terms of
Speaker 7: industries and also what are you interested in learning about
Speaker 7: in twenty twenty five?
Speaker 3: Hi, Ry, and I like this question. There are a
Speaker 3: lot of interesting things that we get to talk about
Speaker 3: on the podcast, and at the end of the year
Speaker 3: it kind of becomes hard to remember all of them.
Speaker 3: I will say one thing I really enjoyed diving into
Speaker 3: this year was doing a bit more on agriculture. I
Speaker 3: think one of the great things of hosting your own
Speaker 3: podcast is that you can sort of to some extent,
Speaker 3: tailor the content to your new interests. And you know,
Speaker 3: I've kind of become interested in gardening and growing my
Speaker 3: own food, and I have some latent prepper tendencies, I guess,
Speaker 3: is the way I would put it, And so it's
Speaker 3: been really fun to kind of dive into industrial agriculture
Speaker 3: and learn more about that.
Speaker 2: There's a good tracy, will you shelter my family in
Speaker 2: the event of some disaster? Like do you have enough
Speaker 2: stored away?
Speaker 7: You have?
Speaker 6: Note?
Speaker 3: Joe, what do you bring to the table other than
Speaker 3: other than sparkling conversation, which is.
Speaker 2: Really important you're in for the long haul. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I fear my kids are very cute.
Speaker 3: This is very true. Yeah, all right, you know.
Speaker 2: So I like learning about agriculture too. So I've said
Speaker 2: it before, I really want to do more on Defense
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty Well, yeah, of course I want defense spending,
Speaker 2: the defense industrial base, and if anyone listening to this
Speaker 2: has the perfect guest and anything about how that all works,
Speaker 2: which I really know nothing about, shoot me and Tracy
Speaker 2: a message, because I would say that's there's a big
Speaker 2: that's a big area that it feels wide open and
Speaker 2: interesting for me.
Speaker 3: Next year Defense is a really good one that crosses
Speaker 3: over into financial markets quite a bit, but also is
Speaker 3: obviously in the news given the new Trump administration and
Speaker 3: Elon Musk and joje and all of that.
Speaker 2: One thing.
Speaker 3: One other thing I would say that I'm interested in
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty five that touches on agriculture. I really
Speaker 3: want to do a fertilizer episode. Oh yeah, like where
Speaker 3: a fertilizer comes from and whether or not all the
Speaker 3: headlines you see about the land becoming less fertile, how
Speaker 3: serious should we be taking those? So yeah, if anyone
Speaker 3: has fertilizer contact contacts, send them our way as well.
Speaker 2: Let's do it. Should we go to the next Let's
Speaker 2: do it?
Speaker 6: Hey, Tracy, Hey Joe, this is Duncan. I am curious,
Speaker 6: what is the most embarrassingly wrong take you've had on
Speaker 6: something in popular discourse over the last five years. Love
Speaker 6: the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks Wait, Joe did duncan say the most embarrassing take
Speaker 3: or our most embarrassing.
Speaker 2: I think you should the most embarrassingly wrong take that
Speaker 2: you've had. But I don't know if it was a
Speaker 2: collective our.
Speaker 8: Oh.
Speaker 2: I think it was more specifically, you know, like either
Speaker 2: one of us. Man, I mostly have wrong takes. You know,
Speaker 2: like I wouldn't have expected crypto to bounce as much
Speaker 2: as it had starting in twenty twenty when FTX imploded.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have expected that so quickly, you know. I
Speaker 2: remember we did episodes years ago about like China's like
Speaker 2: made twenty twenty five stuff, and I wouldn't have expected
Speaker 2: it to be as successful as it has. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: have expected inflation to persist and be as elevated as
Speaker 2: long as it has. What else I mean? I mostly
Speaker 2: I mostly get things wrong. I mean, it's harder for
Speaker 2: me to think of what I get things right about.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Tracy, do you have any Do you
Speaker 2: have any.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think of anything, like really really bad.
Speaker 3: I would say I probably wrote my last bitcoin obituary
Speaker 3: in like twenty seventeen, and I've written quite a few
Speaker 3: at this point before I had my big, like come
Speaker 3: to Jesus moment about narrative flexibility and the idea that
Speaker 3: as long as the story's there, it almost doesn't matter
Speaker 3: what the story is, and there's always going to be
Speaker 3: a new one. I'm trying to think.
Speaker 2: I will say, there's just no upside right in writing
Speaker 2: another obituary. O, No, what are you going to get
Speaker 2: from that?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 3: And I will say the last obituary here's a bit
Speaker 3: of inside like journalistic navel gazing. But the last obituary
Speaker 3: that I wrote on Bitcoin, I made sure to end
Speaker 3: it with like the possibility that it could come back.
Speaker 3: Having written obituaries before where it did come back, I
Speaker 3: learned a little bit. So it's a constant process where
Speaker 3: you're trying to improve on your own work. And the
Speaker 3: one thing I would say is, and I don't think
Speaker 3: people realize this, but journalism everything plays out very publicly, right.
Speaker 3: It's like you do your work, you put it in
Speaker 3: front of people at the end of every day, and
Speaker 3: people get to comment on it and decide if they
Speaker 3: like it or not, if they think it's good or not.
Speaker 3: And so you're constantly sort of getting that immediate feedback
Speaker 3: and trying to go back and improve yourself based on it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's an iterative process, let's just put it that way.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to just think if there's anything else that
Speaker 2: you've got, I don't know, is it? I you know what,
Speaker 2: I don't think. I don't think I've had many like
Speaker 2: embarrassingly mega wrong takes, in part because I don't have
Speaker 2: many like takes where I stick my neck out and
Speaker 2: say like this.
Speaker 3: Oh, I know one. I know one that Joe had.
Speaker 3: What about the thing about scooters? How scooters are going
Speaker 3: to be like the next motive?
Speaker 2: You know What's funny though, So this is fair. But
Speaker 2: someone then reached out to me and said, you know,
Speaker 2: you're you're wrong about scooters in the US, but that
Speaker 2: in Europe actually they have been highly disruptive. So I'm
Speaker 2: actually giving myself a half point this if someone reached
Speaker 2: out to me from Paris actually, So I'm going to
Speaker 2: take a half uh half credit for that. Anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mostly have like modestly wrong takes rather than anything
Speaker 2: incredibly embarrassing. But dun't can thank you for the question.
Speaker 3: Duncan I will say, like our takes, we try to
Speaker 3: ground them in some like reality with rational analysis and reason,
Speaker 3: so hopefully they're never too embarrassing.
Speaker 2: But we sure work right, Yeah, we.
Speaker 3: Show the work. I'm sure we could come up with
Speaker 3: some find some if we went back into the archives
Speaker 3: that we wouldn't want anyone to see now. But hey,
Speaker 3: they're all there, they're all public.
Speaker 9: Next question, Hey, Joe and Tracy, this is Nick or
Speaker 9: newsman on Blue Sky. I'd like to know what you
Speaker 9: think is the most significant financial story of the year.
Speaker 9: I know there's a lot to consider, but there must
Speaker 9: be one thing that bubbles up to the top when
Speaker 9: you hear this question.
Speaker 8: Thank you for your time.
Speaker 3: I love odd lots, oh man, Nick, there is a
Speaker 3: lot to consider. I do think one thing, one thing
Speaker 3: that I find really interesting, and I think you could
Speaker 3: probably connect it to a bunch of different things that
Speaker 3: are going on right now, is the episode that we
Speaker 3: did a while back on companies getting smarter about how
Speaker 3: they're ing their respective products. And it sounds like an
Speaker 3: incremental thing. It's like, okay, well, companies, they're always trying
Speaker 3: to charge more and make more money, and now they've
Speaker 3: figured out some interesting new ways to do it with
Speaker 3: new technology, but I think the level of sophistication and
Speaker 3: the way that they're doing it is starting to become
Speaker 3: a problem. And the more it comes on people's radars,
Speaker 3: I think, the more sense of unfairness there is in
Speaker 3: the general American population over the practice. And maybe that's
Speaker 3: why you get so much of this anger sort of
Speaker 3: boiling up into politics and things like that. So price
Speaker 3: pack architecture, I think is a really interesting one.
Speaker 2: I have three stories that I think are the three
Speaker 2: biggest stories in the world right now and a varying
Speaker 2: time concerns. One is just the incredible amount to which everyone,
Speaker 2: every investor is implicitly who has long risk assets is
Speaker 2: long tech and long AI specifically concentration concentration in this one.
Speaker 2: Bet anyone who has a diversified portfolio is making a
Speaker 2: bit in some way on tech and AI. The incredible
Speaker 2: rise of China is a manufacturing powerhouse, and the sort
Speaker 2: of big questions about whether anything is going to get
Speaker 2: built anywhere in the world that's not China, and can
Speaker 2: anywhere can anyone be competitive in manufacturing outside of China's borders.
Speaker 2: And then the destabilizing effects of mobile technology, which I
Speaker 2: think we're sort of you know, social media and how
Speaker 2: that's changing politics everywhere. And I think, you know, you
Speaker 2: look like Romania recently, like you know, Revert canceled an
Speaker 2: election because they claim that there was interference from Russia
Speaker 2: via TikTok and so forth, and the sort of like
Speaker 2: ways that new technologies are revertebrating across democracies and we
Speaker 2: see change and basically everywhere, numerous shocking developments everywhere. I
Speaker 2: think in part due to tech. Those to me are
Speaker 2: the three big stories right now.
Speaker 3: When do we get to do the drone slash UFO episode?
Speaker 2: Joe, I hope. Let's let's go to the next question.
Speaker 10: Okay, Hey, Joe and Tracy, This is Daniel in Seattle, Washington.
Speaker 10: I was just wondering your opinion on AI models being
Speaker 10: trained on journalist content across the web, and I feel
Speaker 10: free to elaborate on if what your colleagues might think
Speaker 10: or who has a bigger bone to pick is it
Speaker 10: you as the journalist or the media company.
Speaker 3: Oh, this is an interesting question. I think if you
Speaker 3: had asked me this like ten years ago, before chat,
Speaker 3: GPT and all the other variations of it became a
Speaker 3: big thing, I think I would have expected to be
Speaker 3: really annoyed at this development, but actually, now that it's happened,
Speaker 3: I feel kind of relaxed about this idea that you know,
Speaker 3: it trained on basically the entirety of the Internet, and
Speaker 3: a big chunk of the Internet is stuff that paid
Speaker 3: journalists have been writing for years. I don't know, like,
Speaker 3: I don't really feel that upset about it.
Speaker 2: To you, no, I don't, And also I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe I should like, but I don't. And also I
Speaker 2: don't think it's really worth getting upset, Like there are
Speaker 2: some things that I think of as the sort of
Speaker 2: big historical technological shifts that are happening, and I don't
Speaker 2: think our opinions matter very much. So I guess maybe
Speaker 2: in some sense I could be convinced to be upset
Speaker 2: about it, but in reality, I don't think me being
Speaker 2: upset is going to do very much.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of journalists have also probably given
Speaker 3: up on the notion of making money from like old
Speaker 3: fashioned copy, and so the idea of someone else being
Speaker 3: able to make money off of it, even if it's
Speaker 3: by training some new generative AI models fair game to them.
Speaker 3: Maybe we should all start developing our own AI models.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's the way for it.
Speaker 2: We'll try. I actually remind me, Tracy, I have a
Speaker 2: research project I want to do in twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: or twenty twenty five. I'm going to tell you about it.
Speaker 3: That sounds interesting. Yeah, all right, next question please.
Speaker 5: Hello Joan Tracy. This is Mois from Karachi, Pakistan. I'm
Speaker 5: a big fan of the show. My question to both
Speaker 5: of you is that who are your favorite economists and
Speaker 5: why are they your favorite?
Speaker 9: Oh?
Speaker 3: Interesting? Well, hello moys from Karachi, Pakistan. I spent some
Speaker 3: time in Pakistan. I was in Islamabad and Lahore. I
Speaker 3: never made it to Karachi, though I would have liked
Speaker 3: to go there. Favorite economists do you think he means
Speaker 3: current or like old school economists?
Speaker 2: Well, you know what we can answer however we want.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, then I'm gonna do like a massive cop
Speaker 3: out and I'm just gonna say Canes. And the reason
Speaker 3: is like a he's like, you know, a sort of
Speaker 3: granddaddy of a lot of modern economics theory. But also
Speaker 3: I think he was a really good writer. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: he has some amazing quotes that I still like. Every
Speaker 3: once in a while when I find myself being very pretentious.
Speaker 3: I find myself using like the words are meant to
Speaker 3: be a little wild, for they are the what is
Speaker 3: it for? They are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.
Speaker 3: I think that's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are some good quotes. He's a good writer,
Speaker 2: you know, he wrote, I wasn't recently went back, and
Speaker 2: you know, the last few years people have talked about
Speaker 2: the so called vibe session, et cetera. He talked about
Speaker 2: that quite a bit, in fact.
Speaker 3: But he didn't call it a vibe session.
Speaker 2: He didn't call it the vibe session. But what you said,
Speaker 2: I went back and read something I forget. It might
Speaker 2: be like a chapter twelve of the General Theory, for.
Speaker 3: The producer says he did call it a viba.
Speaker 2: He didn't. Our producer is trolling us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Cale, don't do that. It's Cane's anything that is possible.
Speaker 2: But he went back. I was reading something. He went
Speaker 2: I think it's like a chapter twelve, one of the
Speaker 2: really good chapters. And he says something about like how
Speaker 2: political shifts can change people's perceptions of the economy, which
Speaker 2: is sort of intuitive, and we see it in polls
Speaker 2: or whatever. But then this thing you said, afterwards is
Speaker 2: like there's sort of no point in being upset about this,
Speaker 2: Like it's like people get angry. Are these facts about
Speaker 2: seeming irrationality, that when the preferred party is in power
Speaker 2: out of power, that people shift that then people change
Speaker 2: their view about investment and impulse and all the investment
Speaker 2: impulse and that like it sort of bothers people intellectually.
Speaker 2: And he has like some good lines. I forget exactly
Speaker 2: what it is every read it recently, which is like, again,
Speaker 2: don't work yourself up trying to like get irritated at
Speaker 2: the whims of the public, except that the whims of
Speaker 2: the public are the whims of the public, and that
Speaker 2: when the political shifts happen, the vibe shift, so to speak.
Speaker 2: And this is what it means to sort of understand
Speaker 2: the economy, which I thought is really good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's pretty good. So you're also in the Canes camp.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'll go with Kanes.
Speaker 3: All right, fair enough, Next.
Speaker 11: Question, Hi, Tracy and Joe. My name is Rosalind Loubi
Speaker 11: and I live in Westport, Connecticut. My question is whether
Speaker 11: the podcast is going to tackle the state of the
Speaker 11: venture capital industry as a topic in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 11: I teach a class on alternative investments to undergraduate college
Speaker 11: kids in an economics department, and I've used your podcast
Speaker 11: extensively in my class, and I think this would be
Speaker 11: a great topic for you guys to dig your teeth into.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I agree this would be a great topic. And I
Speaker 3: got to say whenever I hear we have a lot
Speaker 3: of professors who will often reach out and say that
Speaker 3: they use all lots of material to teach their students,
Speaker 3: and I always think that, like, the students are learning
Speaker 3: a lot more interesting things than I did at university,
Speaker 3: Like you guys are learning about like alternative investments, and
Speaker 3: I've learned about neoliberalism versus realism and political theory.
Speaker 2: But oh well, well, always more to do about vcs,
Speaker 2: for sure, and we have. So we ended the year
Speaker 2: with some VC episodes recently, so.
Speaker 3: We were back there. We were recently in San francisc, Go,
Speaker 3: and we met with a few vcs while we were
Speaker 3: out there. Joe and I enjoyed being in San Francisco.
Speaker 3: I think we will probably be back next year. And
Speaker 3: I'm just really intrigued, you know, partially by the whole industry,
Speaker 3: but also the sort of job lifestyle.
Speaker 2: I guess it seems great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well the idea of you know, you go out,
Speaker 3: you meet people who are doing cool things, and you
Speaker 3: decide whether or not you want to invest in them
Speaker 3: and then kind of take them on as a sort
Speaker 3: of mentee. It seems fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, plenty more to do. And you know the
Speaker 2: other thing, we've recently done some episodes, so there's some
Speaker 2: big changes. Interest rates have gone up. It's not zerup
Speaker 2: any more, obviously, AI sort of the new dimension. I
Speaker 2: think the other dimension though, is that since especially post COVID,
Speaker 2: so many people are in the game, right, so many
Speaker 2: new entrants are trying to get VC, perhaps in part because,
Speaker 2: as you say, the lifestyle seems pretty great. You know,
Speaker 2: you wear those like sneakers that look very comfortable.
Speaker 3: You just want to wear the hoodies.
Speaker 2: The hoodies is totally fine, Like you don't really have
Speaker 2: to like get up, and you like meet really interesting
Speaker 2: people in probably a way that you rarely get in
Speaker 2: most careers except journalism perhaps, Yeah, who wouldn't want to
Speaker 2: be into it? But you have all these changes and
Speaker 2: all this competitors, so more to do for sure on that.
Speaker 2: And plus you know there's a lot to do on
Speaker 2: the fact that there are a lot of tech people
Speaker 2: in the new who are going to be entering the
Speaker 2: new administration, So that should just be really interesting to
Speaker 2: see how that plays out policyized.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, all right, Next question, what.
Speaker 8: Are some of the biggest lessons you've learned from your
Speaker 8: career that you wish you had known earlier.
Speaker 3: That is a very good question.
Speaker 2: Okay, I have an answer. Oh, go ahead, you know
Speaker 2: what I really wish I had learned earlier. Something I've
Speaker 2: found that when Tracy and I interview people, the people
Speaker 2: who are the smartest and have the most intelligent ideas
Speaker 2: about things like the sort of best theoreticians, so to speak,
Speaker 2: are also the most are frequently among the most detail
Speaker 2: oriented and assiduous with the facts and important names, dates, places,
Speaker 2: things like that. And I think I wish I had
Speaker 2: learned earlier in my career that there is no substitute
Speaker 2: for names, dates, and places, having them memorized and using
Speaker 2: facts upon which to build ideas.
Speaker 3: That's a good one, because I think when you're sort
Speaker 3: of younger, you're you get used to thinking about these
Speaker 3: big things who they have these great ideas, but they're
Speaker 3: not that detail or technically oriented. But actually you find
Speaker 3: that some of the people with the biggest, most interesting
Speaker 3: ideas often they have all the numbers and all the facts,
Speaker 3: and they can walk you through the entire history of
Speaker 3: their path.
Speaker 2: And learning learning facts and history and dates and times
Speaker 2: and places and names and acronyms does not seem as
Speaker 2: sexy as like learning some interesting theory about how the
Speaker 2: world works, et cetera. So when you're young, you're sort
Speaker 2: of attracted to the former and or whatever. You know,
Speaker 2: you're attracted to the big ideas, But the people who
Speaker 2: actually have really good ideas are frequently and I've seen
Speaker 2: this over and over again on the podcast, very well
Speaker 2: grounded in actual knowledge.
Speaker 3: So speaking of ideas, my lesson that I wish I'd
Speaker 3: learned earlier. This is a little bit more tied to journalism.
Speaker 3: But you know, when I first went into journalism, it
Speaker 3: was like you should be you always want to be first,
Speaker 3: and you always want to be original, and that was
Speaker 3: how you know, that was success in journalism. And I
Speaker 3: think as time has gone on, sort of realized like
Speaker 3: the chances of being first to anything. And I'm talking
Speaker 3: like kind of a wave from hard news scoops. I'm
Speaker 3: talking like scoops of ideas is what we used to
Speaker 3: call them, or analysis or something like that. The chances
Speaker 3: of being truly first and original to anything are extremely,
Speaker 3: extremely low, and so I think as I've gone on,
Speaker 3: I've sort of come to appreciate the importance of not
Speaker 3: necessarily being first, although if that happens, absolutely fantastic, but
Speaker 3: being the person to like pull it all together the best,
Speaker 3: or explain it the best, or I don't know, write
Speaker 3: it in a new way that like reaches a new audience.
Speaker 3: I guess. I guess I've just become a lot more
Speaker 3: patient with coming up with things and sort of presenting
Speaker 3: them in new ways and not necessarily thinking that just
Speaker 3: because something isn't like one hundred percent new and original,
Speaker 3: that it's not worth writing.
Speaker 2: I think there's a really good lesson. And journalists we're
Speaker 2: very prideful people, and so the idea that's like, oh,
Speaker 2: someone already said this, or someone sort of said this.
Speaker 3: Someone said it in the eighth paragraph of a story
Speaker 3: from six months ago, like that doesn't mean that no
Speaker 3: one else in the world can ever talk or write
Speaker 3: or think about it ever.
Speaker 2: Again, there's a really good line in the movie Pulp
Speaker 2: Fiction where you know, I can't say it on there,
Speaker 2: but he tells them not to let pride mess with
Speaker 2: his head. And I think about that a lot with
Speaker 2: respect to journalism.
Speaker 8: All right, Next question, what advice would you give to
Speaker 8: young professionals looking to make a meaningful impact in the
Speaker 8: financial industry?
Speaker 3: Looking to make a meaningful impact, Well, decide what that
Speaker 3: impact is going to be. Yeah, first of all, because
Speaker 3: there are different ways of having an impact. You know,
Speaker 3: maybe you think you would like to reform the financial
Speaker 3: industry from the inside out. That would be a pretty
Speaker 3: big impact, but also a tall order. But maybe you
Speaker 3: think that making an impact is generating wealth for yourself
Speaker 3: and your clients. Like I think number one is probably
Speaker 3: decide what the goal is exactly.
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, I would sort of say I might
Speaker 2: take a slightly different turn, which is, I don't even
Speaker 2: know the idea that any of us, that anyone can
Speaker 2: know what it means to have impact in any field,
Speaker 2: let alone the financial field. There's a very tall stretch.
Speaker 2: The career advice I always sort of give to people, though,
Speaker 2: is do whatever you're doing right now, try to do
Speaker 2: it well, and that'll the better you're doing at your
Speaker 2: job right now. The more likely doors will open for you.
Speaker 2: And I'm a big believer in the cliche about how
Speaker 2: the best way to make make a plan is to
Speaker 2: make God laugh or sorry, the best way to make
Speaker 2: God laugh is to make a plan. You really don't
Speaker 2: know how the future is going to turn out. If
Speaker 2: you have a plan, it's probably not going to unfold
Speaker 2: that way, so better to just focus on being good.
Speaker 3: That's good advice to thank you.
Speaker 2: We got one more question.
Speaker 12: Hello Joan Tracy. This is Cynthia from Vancouver, Kata. A
Speaker 12: question I have for Tracy is one, if you get
Speaker 12: your chicken, what kind of acid clause in market would
Speaker 12: you let your chicken trade? It's not kind of all.
Speaker 12: What kind of trading strategy would you let them test out?
Speaker 12: And do you think they're going to beat the benchmark?
Speaker 12: Thank you?
Speaker 3: What kind of asset class would I let my chickens trade?
Speaker 3: Do I need to explain this question or does everyone
Speaker 3: know that I really want to get chickens?
Speaker 2: One didn't chicken do some trading?
Speaker 3: I'm sure someone has done experiments with chickens trading stuff before.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna go with the coins. I think chickens
Speaker 3: trading a variety of shit coins would be would be
Speaker 3: an intro one, and I think you could probably you
Speaker 3: could probably create some sort of interesting pecking mechanism for
Speaker 3: them to choose things. And I would like to watch
Speaker 3: that on a day to day basis. I think I'd
Speaker 3: find it soothing.
Speaker 6: Was it? There?
Speaker 2: Something?
Speaker 7: Though?
Speaker 2: Like, there're some artists taught a chicken how to trade?
Speaker 2: Am I hallucinating this?
Speaker 10: Like?
Speaker 2: There was some artists and like the and that they
Speaker 2: like trained and then it turned out I think the
Speaker 2: whole thing was a little bit fake, but that they
Speaker 2: I can't I'm like googling it. I'm not seeing it.
Speaker 3: Here's a question.
Speaker 2: Those were like the beat There were some artists who
Speaker 2: tried to see if they could turn it chicken into
Speaker 2: a mastered trader by giving it sort of various Pavlovic
Speaker 2: shocks when it made a good trade or a bad trade,
Speaker 2: and then it put its beat down on a green
Speaker 2: or red button. I might be completely hallucinating this.
Speaker 3: Uh, maybe Joe, maybe I should stop taking questions.
Speaker 2: All right, that's a good place to end it.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, thank you everyone so much for listening
Speaker 3: to all thoughts. This year. Joe and I had an
Speaker 3: absolute blast as always, and thank you as well to
Speaker 3: everyone who sent in questions. And let's do it all
Speaker 3: again next here shall we leave it there?
Speaker 2: Let's leave it there.
Speaker 3: This has been another episode of the Authoughts podcast. I'm
Speaker 3: Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2: And I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.
Speaker 2: Follow our producers Carman Rodriguez at Kerman Ermann Dash, Ol
Speaker 2: Bennett at Dashbod and kill Brooks at Kilbrooks. And thank
Speaker 2: you to our producer Moses Ondem. For more odlogs content,
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