WEBVTT - Tracy and Joe Answer All Your Questions 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:14.000 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.480 Hello and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast. 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:23.079 I'm Tracy Alloway. 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:24.520 And I'm Joe. Why isn't thal Joe? 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.520 It is the holiday season. I am very much looking 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.480 forward to it. One reason I'm looking forward to it 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:35.200 is because we always do an annual ask Us Anything show. 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:39.000 Yeah, you know, I think I liked it in the podcast. 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:40.800 You know, it's true not about us. I mean, the 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:43.200 show is about what we're interested in, but it really 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:46.559 is about the perfect guests. But every once in a while, 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.159 I suppose it's nice to sort of have the microphone 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:51.000 turned in the other direction, so to speak. Yeah. 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:54.360 The other thing I would say is we're already pretty accessible, 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.360 Like there's a whole All Thoughts discord that we're on. 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:03.120 There's Twitter, obviously, there's instant messages on ib and mostly 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:07.040 we respond depending on how busy we are, so feel 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:10.119 free to contact us there too. But we did get 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:13.440 some pretty interesting questions from a bunch of listeners. 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:15.880 Yeah, and I like the fact that we can put 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.400 in many cases listeners voices on the air bring back 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.959 some of the old time radio call in shows, the 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.000 likes of which I used to listen to when I 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:26.479 was a young kid writing in the car. 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:26.840 With my dad. 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:28.200 Colin shows are Lindy. 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.560 The Colin shows are definitely Lindy. All right, shall we start, Yeah, 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:32.600 let's take a listen to some. 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:38.840 John sorrow A sixty three, Berkeley, California. Sometimes when you 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:41.520 finish recording an episode, do you look at each other 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:44.240 and say this doesn't meet our standards and kill the 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:47.560 episode or is it more like skiing? Once you commit 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:49.920 to writing the chair lift, you commit to skiing down 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:50.400 the mountain. 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.040 Well, I can't ski. I'm the only Austrian in the 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:59.440 world possibly who cannot ski. So I'm we have killed 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:03.440 episode in the past. In fact, there's kind of a 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:06.440 funny story where we did an episode it really wasn't 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:10.040 going very well. The guests seem very nervous and just 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:14.480 sort of like not at his top performance. And in 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:18.120 the end, after we recorded, we told him, you know, 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:21.520 we're just going to kill this episode, and he was 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:24.760 actually really happy about that because he felt he hadn't 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.840 done his best work either. And then the other thing 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:31.040 I would say is I actually think journalists should kill 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.160 a lot more stories. We should be more selective and 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:38.680 if you think about the German word for reductor, reductor, 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:43.359 it sounds a lot like redact, right, which gives you, 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.760 you know, some sense of what editors are supposed to 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:49.799 be doing, which is taking away as opposed to adding. 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.160 Yeah, it is very rare we have. I mean, the 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:57.560 number of episodes that we've fully recorded that we actually 0:02:57.560 --> 0:02:59.959 did not release. I think it's less than you could 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.240 on one hand, Right, it's not that many, but there 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:04.760 have been a few just for whatever reason I guess 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.320 was not on their game or whatever, it didn't work. 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.960 And I agree. I agree with Tracy. I think we 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.799 should do more in general. I mean, I think journalists 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:14.640 as a whole should do more. It's like, just release 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.160 the good stuff, you know, just released ones you're you're 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.880 genuinely proud of. I don't want to release anything anywhere 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:22.400 when I can't say I'm really proud of this work. 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:24.760 And normally we are proud, but occasionally it's like, no, 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:27.560 this is this is not awesome. All right, let's go 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:28.280 on to the next one. 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:34.320 Thanks Joe, Thanks Tracy. I was really inspired by Joe's 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:37.640 tweets on Moby Dick, so this question is for him. 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.800 What did you read after Moby Dick. Thanks guys, thanks 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:44.360 for listening. 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:46.680 That's a very easy one. Because I was such in 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:49.880 such a mood to keep after reading Moby Dick, I 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.440 didn't want to read anything besides Moby Dick. I sort 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:54.920 of just thought about rereading it again, and I probably 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:57.240 will sometime the next year or two. But because I 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.640 was in that mood, I read a book by the 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:04.680 historian writer CLR. James, who wrote a book about Moby Dick. 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:08.160 Is a book called Mirrorer's Renegades and Castaways by CLR. James, 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.920 and it basically made the argument that Herman Melville, with 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:16.640 the Ahab character, specifically anticipated many of the pathologies of 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:21.320 the twentieth century, the rise of fascism, dictators, and so forth, 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:23.880 all of the crises of sort of Western civilization that 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:27.320 we experienced in the twentieth century. Fantastic book, almost as 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:28.960 good as Moby Dick itself. 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.159 Also, I've been recommending two books to you. One of 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:34.479 them is The Heart of the Sea, which is about 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:38.839 the whale ship Essex, which is the ship that mobi 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:42.200 that actually inspired Moby Dick. And then there's another one 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.520 I'm reading just now called A Marriage at Sea, and 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:50.000 it's about a couple who are out, you know, sailing 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:53.680 around the world, and their ship gets destroyed by a 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:56.360 whale and they have to survive on like a little raft. 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:58.640 I actually don't know if they survive yet, so I 0:04:58.680 --> 0:04:59.480 guess we'll find out. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:01.719 I promise I will read both of those. 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:03.279 Both of them are excellent. 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.200 I promise I'll read both. Let's hear the next question. 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:10.479 Hi Yang, longtime listener here. My name is Sturm. I'm 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.320 thirty two and I live in Puerto Rico, and I 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:15.960 have a question for Joe. I know you're an efficient 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.840 markets guy, but if EMH is true, how have portfolio 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:22.240 managers accumulated such vast wealth. 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:27.479 There's a really good question. I wonder about why the 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:32.640 financial system overall exists. Why are people putting targets on prices, 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:35.360 and why are their pundits on TV? And why is 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.440 their financial TV? And why is their trading and so forth. 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:40.440 I still don't really know why the answer of why 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:43.160 anyone has made any money. But my guess is that 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:47.520 there are other services that people on finance provide other 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:52.200 than high quality security selection that whether it's like okay, 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:55.679 I don't really know how to manage risk or whatever 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:58.680 it is, or I'm anxious about the thought of investing 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.800 all kinds of things. I guess, you know, there probably 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:06.920 are people who are able to obtain information that maybe 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:10.440 counts as alpha probably exists. I don't know. I remain unsatisfied. 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.440 I've asked this question myself. I don't fully know the answer, 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:17.440 but my guests, my best guess, intuitively is that within 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.480 this world that we call finance, there are things that 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:24.520 produce value other than sort of you know, making good 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:27.560 trades and so forth, that maybe are harder to articulate 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.920 and so forth, and thus they are providing a valuable 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:32.080 service at that front. 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.599 But imling your customers. 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:35.560 You're counseling something. 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.800 I don't know, but I mean, I would just add 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.560 on to that, like it it seems just on the 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:46.920 EMH stuff, it seems on a simplistic level, if EMH 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:48.920 was real, you would never get. 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:50.560 A bubble, right, this is what? 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:50.880 Yeah. 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:53.839 And in fact, one of my favorite moments on the 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:57.960 podcast was when we interviewed Eugene Fama, the father of 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:02.960 the EMH I and I think I got him to 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.240 say that like bubbles exist, right, which I was surprised. 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:09.640 Yeah, I know, they hate like they really wrestle with it, 0:07:09.640 --> 0:07:12.040 like this is there one thing they hate this phenomenon, 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.600 so they come up with all this stuff. But yeah, 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:18.840 we will continue asking the question of why why do 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:22.000 we exist? Why does financial media and coverage in pundits 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:24.880 and all this stuff exist. We will continue answering this question. 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.400 In twenty twenty six, maybe we'll have an answer. 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:29.080 Only the big questions why are we here? 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:29.760 Why are we here? 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:32.720 All right, let's listen to the next question. 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:38.920 Hi, I'm Max Niederman. I'm nineteen and I live in 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:43.240 San Francisco. Supposing that AI does end up being as 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:46.720 transformative as people claim, where do you think the value 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:51.080 that that creates will accrue? From their valuations and how 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.119 people talk about it, At least in SF, it seems 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:57.160 people expect the labs to capture a massive chunk of 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:01.440 that value. On the other hand, the have never been profitable, 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:05.600 and even then, hardware companies like Navidia and TSMC seem 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:09.560 to trade at lower multiples despite being near monopolies with 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.400 very good margins. So my question is this, when all 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:16.120 things are sudden done, which parts of the supply chain 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.400 will be commoditized and which will capture all the value. 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:24.440 Yeah, I think that's a very fair question. And I think, 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.880 you know, it's difficult to predict if tech at some 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:33.040 point is going to produce the or invent the proverbial 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:36.760 AI god, like this thing that solves all of our problems. 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:40.000 I would be a little bit skeptical of that. It 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:44.040 seems to me like it's going to be a productivity improvement, 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:48.000 kind of at the margin for now. So maybe you 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.000 use it instead of Google Search. You can use it 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:55.120 to explain certain terms much more quickly. Some industries are 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:57.880 probably going to use it to design new products. I 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:02.160 know there's a lot of excitement around medicine, but where 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:06.320 the value will accrue. I mean, some of the big 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.920 tech companies are so expensive right now in the US. 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:14.080 I keep describing this as the coffee pod theory of AI, 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:19.960 which is, some tech companies are choosing to basically produce 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:25.800 the world's most expensive, sophisticated cappuccino machine, and they're saying that, 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:29.240 you know, it produces the best coffee that you've ever had. 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:34.360 And crucially, what they're doing is targeting a market for 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:37.080 this machine. Let's say it costs like two thousand dollars. 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.600 That's basically the entire world, and I'm not sure that 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.959 approach works. And then you know, some other companies are 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:50.240 taking a very different strategy, and they're producing something that's 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:54.400 relatively cheap and standardized, sort of like a coffee pod 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:59.280 coffee maker, and it's much cheaper and again targeting the 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.080 total market of the world. And you know, if you 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:04.080 think about it that way, I kind of have a 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:06.000 sense of where it's going. 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:09.040 I really have no idea, you know. The one thing 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:13.400 I'll say is, I think there is this view that 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:17.080 okay Ai can replace human labor, and therefore lots of 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.280 workers are very vulnerable, and therefore there is gonna be 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:24.640 this tremendous like it'll be this very a force of inequality, 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:26.680 so to speak. Right, So it's gonna be there's gonna 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.000 be the model makers. And I think in this vision 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.600 that you're asking about these model makers and they're gonna 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:34.400 make a fortune and the rest of us are going 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:37.680 to have to get by on Ubi or whatever because 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:39.679 they've put us all the models have put us all 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.920 out of work, and look, I think that's possible. The 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.160 one thing I'll say, though, is that like the tech 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.880 is a force for like financial inequality, that's already been 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:51.640 the story. We don't even need to talk about AI. 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.319 With the existing tech giants that we've seen that have 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.199 built over the last fifteen twenty years out of San Francisco, 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:02.160 we've already seen this incredible rush of sort of wealth 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:04.960 and income, et cetera to this fairly like small, you know, 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:09.160 this one industry. This is very like, you know, very small, 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:13.400 fairly small concentration of software engineers and executives and vcs 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.360 and so forth. And as such, I do wonder, like, 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.280 could it be that somehow it's like totally the opposite, 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.040 that it goes in the other trajectory, and that really 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:24.440 it's sort of like a force free quality or something, 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:28.000 and that it ends up being a situation in which 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:31.400 people were like, capital itself is not as valuable as 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:33.880 it used to be. I don't know. I just think 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:38.839 we should possibly consider the idea that what people are 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:41.800 predicting that will happen with AI is that what is 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.960 literally just an extension of what we've already seen, and 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.880 that to the extent that AI is something new, maybe 0:11:47.880 --> 0:12:05.560 that'll put us on a new trajector. All right, let's 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:06.480 take another question. 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.960 Hi, Tracy and Joe, this is Jennifer thirty calling from Seattle, 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:15.120 long time, first time. This question is for Joe. Joe, 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:18.240 what drew you to your interest in Chinese history, particularly 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.200 it's modern era. Have you ever considered going more back 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:24.960 in time? I asked, because I'm Chinese American with parents 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:27.360 who said very little about their lives during the Cultural 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.640 Revolution and the eighties when the country started opening up. 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:34.079 So I often learned through Joe's tweets and book recommendations. 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.000 But I had also noticed in my last trip to 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:39.680 China that the one historical figure cities pay the most 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:44.240 homage to is not Mao or Dungchowping, but actually Sonyette Sen, 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:47.599 who was a precursor to these leaders. Thanks love the 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:48.120 show as. 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:52.120 Always, so obviously we do a lot of contemporary China episodes, 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:53.559 and it sort of seemed like, you know, I should 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:56.800 probably understand a little bit more about the history. I 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:58.600 started with the ancient stuff. I was like, oh, I'm 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:00.400 just going to I'm just going to go back and 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:02.360 I'm going to read about the old dynasties and then 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:04.440 I'll get to the present. And I sort of like, 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:07.440 I found it a little bit hard. It wasn't grabbing 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.040 my attention to ancient stuff. But then I remembered a 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:12.199 couple of years ago. We did an episode with Adam 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:14.520 Posen at the Peterson Institute a couple of years ago 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:16.600 at Jackson Hall, and he had just sort of mentioned 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:20.600 offhand that he had read asra Vogel's biography of Don Chopeg, 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:22.760 and I was like, oh, maybe I'll just start there. 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:25.120 That seems like more recent and tractable and I could 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.120 sort of slot that into my head into something. And 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.080 I read that and I found it very very compelling, 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.240 as Adam suggested, and I think that sort of set 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:38.240 off like it. I think reading twentieth century Chinese history 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:42.560 helps me to some extent understand the present day. I've 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:46.760 never read a Sunyatsen biography, but I'm very interested in him. 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:49.360 One of the rare figures who sort of revered in 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:54.160 both Taiwan and Mainland, and so therefore someone who is 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:56.960 an inspiration to both the nationalists and the communists, which 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:58.640 is kind of weird. And he was like sort of 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:02.559 a for you know, a an early pioneer of land 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:05.040 reform and so forth. So I think maybe that'll be 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:07.440 another thing I aim to read in twenty twenty six 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:09.000 A good signette symbiography. 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.480 I really like the older Chinese history. I read a 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:14.680 really good book. I can't remember the title now, but 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:19.600 it was all about the Chinese bureaucracy and government system 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.160 how it used to be, and you know, one of 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:26.520 the most rigorous systems in the world. Arguably you had 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.120 to take this insane test to get the position. And 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:33.560 I remember I also did a bunch of research around 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:37.520 the sort of late eighteen hundred's, early nineteen hundreds, the 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:40.320 fall of the Imperial family and what it means for 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.600 debt markets. That was a really fun story. 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:46.960 Yeah, I should go back and read read the ancient 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.720 stuff as well. I'm going to add that to the 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:51.040 twenty twenty six list. 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:53.240 Okay, let's take another question. 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:56.280 I joined Tracy. My name is Danny Bessov. I'm twenty 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:58.480 six years old and currently based in New York where 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:01.320 I'm doing my masses at Columbian Financial Economics. I'm a 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.080 huge fan of the pot and Spotify told me in 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:05.920 the last year I was in the top half percent 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.720 of listeners and maybe now the first time caller as well. 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.240 My question is this, you have such a wide range 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:14.800 of guests with very different backgrounds, and you cover an 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.880 enormous amount of information. How much of that are you 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:20.760 able to retain and not really call back in everyday 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:24.360 conversations or when you do follow up episodes? And how 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.000 much do you rely on not taking or revisiting past 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.320 episodes to connect your ideas over time? 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.240 This is a really good question. This is a sort 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:36.480 of journalistic process question. By the way, thank you for 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.680 being in the top top percentage of Odd Lots listeners. 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:40.560 We appreciate that. 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:41.560 It's good coffee sometime. 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:47.480 But going back to the question, you know it kind 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.160 of this is obvious, but it kind of depends on 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:54.240 the guest, and if the guest says something memorable or 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.520 something that you really think is insightful. I think we 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.400 do retain some of that information. I used to retain 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:03.680 a lot more when we were editing our own transcripts 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.920 and publishing them. I really value transcripts, but it was 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:11.240 just so much work and took forever, so we stopped 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:13.760 doing it. We're hoping to come up with some sort 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:18.200 of solution soon. And the biggest compliment I can pay 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.800 a guest is saying that, like, I'm going to go 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.960 back and read the transcript because there's so much knowledge, there, 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:29.359 so much information. I just have to absorb all of it. 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:31.080 It was funny. I was a dinner the other night 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:33.720 with someone and I said to them, have you ever 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.480 actually learned anything from listening to a podcast? Because I 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.440 do sometimes wonder if I ever remember anything. No, that's 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.960 not totally true. I do, but I also sometimes wonder 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:47.400 setting a side podcasts and recall the specific facts. I 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:49.400 also have the same thing with books. You know, we 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:52.120 were just talking about that Dunk Show Pang biography. And 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:54.560 if someone's like, oh, Joe, you just spent three weeks 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.360 of your life reading a biography of Dunk Shopang, what 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:00.440 did you learn? And I'd be like, uh, he sort 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:02.640 of opened up and for a while he was sent 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:06.680 down to work on a tractor factory, and then he 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:08.840 opened up, and I would be like, you know, there's 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:10.320 like I was like, oh, did I really need to 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:12.119 spend three weeks of my life to be able to 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:15.960 recall four basic facts. I suppose that there are things 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:17.800 that I don't know that I remember, and like my 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:20.600 deep storage part of my memory that would be you know, 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.280 that would come out in a conversation. But I do 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:27.040 going back to questions of like why are we all 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:29.840 here and so forth. I do sometimes have these thoughts 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:32.639 of like do you know how much? How much do 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:35.679 we really learn and internalize? And how much is it 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:37.440 just fun to have these conversations. 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:41.119 Sometimes we surprise ourselves, yeah, right, Like sometimes we come 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:43.840 up with some random fact that's kind of interesting that 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.320 we learned from somewhere. Just on the note taking part 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:51.240 of the question. We generally don't take notes in the interview. 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.000 We might jot down like a word or two just 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.960 to remember to come back and ask a follow up question. 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:04.479 But yeah, it's a genuine conversation between three people, and 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:06.760 we try to keep it as natural as possible. 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:11.160 Hey, Joe and Tracy aj Toss here. I'm thirty seven 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:13.679 years old and I'm from Lafayette, Louisiana. 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:14.760 Go Cajun's. 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.160 I have a question for you about bitcoin. You guys 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:21.600 have spoken about how the narrative around bitcoin changes every cycle, 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:24.399 and so I'd actually like to ask you to make 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.280 a prediction whether you think there will be another cycle 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:31.360 for bitcoin where it way out performs everything else, and 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:36.600 assuming that it does, what would the narrative be this time? 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:38.240 Thanks guys. 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:43.440 That is a really good question. So the narrative theory 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:47.880 of bitcoin is this idea that because bitcoin is essentially nothing, 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:52.440 it is able to transform itself into anything. So we've 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:58.080 seen it go through these various cycles of transformation, reinventing itself. 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.080 You know, in the beginning, it was supposed to be 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.680 just a digital payment system. And there's the famous incident 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:08.040 of the guy that bought a pizza and lost a 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.239 lot of money that he otherwise would have gained. And 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:13.240 then it kind of, you know, it turned into an 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:19.160 inflation hedge. More recently, it's turned into a Trump vehicle. 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:23.159 I actually had it. I had an idea for a 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:27.160 narrative that comes next. But I'm blanking out on it totally. 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:28.320 I feel really bad. 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:31.600 You'll tweet it if yeah, I'll tweet it. 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:33.480 It was like two days ago, oh man, and I 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:35.720 had this idea and sorry, I'm very tired. 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:36.520 It'll come back to it. 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:38.240 It's the end of a busy season. 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:40.800 It's it's been a busy season, busy year. Look, I 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.320 have no you know. I was like, oh, now I'm 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:46.440 going to give the official odd lots for Bitcoin price 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:48.760 target for twenty twenty six. No, I really have no idea. 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.159 I don't have any idea of it'll outperform again. You know, 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:56.040 of course it has been pronounced dead several times many 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:59.280 times over the years, so perhaps that's always the reason 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:01.880 to disc out the idea of okay, this time is dead. 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:06.080 That being said, you know, look like the I thought 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.159 one of the most compelling arguments that had of the 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:11.200 various narratives over time, I thought one of the most 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:13.480 compelling ones had been that it would be sort of 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:17.919 this you know, post sovereign money and therefore kind of 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:21.040 like a digital gold safe haven. It has not been 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.080 behaving like one in twenty twenty five. I mean, this 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.120 is one of the most volatile years on memory. From 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:30.840 like a de globalization and geopolitical standpoint. If you'd think 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:33.960 there'd be one year where it's like, okay, people want 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:38.200 some sort of money that is disconnected from governments, maybe 0:20:38.240 --> 0:20:40.080 this would be the year. Maybe they do, but they're 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:43.840 choosing for gold. They're choosing the actual safe haven. Bitcoin meanwhile, 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:47.080 has underperformed US treasuries. So the US treasuries yet another 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:50.360 safe haven that is outperforming Bitcoin in twenty twenty five. 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:53.600 So I really don't know, but I do think that 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:59.480 the poor performance in twenty twenty five should be something 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:02.320 of a certain Again, people have always said, oh, it's 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:04.320 a tech stock hitch well, techtocks have had or a 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:07.359 textdoc proxy textocks have done great this year, So it 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:11.119 hasn't even it hasn't even satisfied that requirement. And then 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:13.280 the last thing I'll say is that there's a lot 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:17.600 of I think legitimate enthusiasm about crypto, particularly in the 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:21.480 realm of stable coins, getting back to maybe the original idea, 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:24.560 as Tracy mentioned, of a payments platform, but all that 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:28.800 is happening on other chains besides Bitcoin, and so even 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:31.840 if crypto becomes more of a thing in the financial system, 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:35.879 it's not obvious possible, but it's certainly not obvious that 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:38.000