TDI Podcast: Yuk Yuk with Lindzon (#970)

27:21But most of our business were putting corporate logos, whether it was Bed Bath and Beyond or Pfizer or Compaq. So this ad specialty business that was this huge business and putting corporate logos on that stuff, we had kind of come up with the pet rock at the right place at the right time for that industry and just kind of got lucky, rode away. The great thing about that industry was if you make 2 million grips and sell them to Target or Walmart, they may return a million of them. And then you also, they may never pay you. They could go out of business. But if you make 250 ,000 balls for Pfizer, they paid you before you shipped them.

28:00So not only did we find a business, we found a business with like incredible margins and no receivables. So it's just one of those rare, you know, businesses that was magical and it was rather silly. From that success, though, obviously we made tons of mistakes because we thought we were geniuses. You know, we misinterpreted the genius of this one product and all the markets that it brought to us for our own genius and like discovering products and marketing them. So of course, that led to many failed, you know, product launches of other products. But the lesson of the grip was, if you have a great product that has great margins, you're on to something, right?

28:46Now, there's all kinds of things that can go wrong around the way. And I think obviously, this is why technology and software have been such great businesses, because you have the ability to sell a product that people love with incredibly high 90 % gross margins. So it leaves a lot of room to make mistakes and to still build a good business. So that was the genius of technology, right? Instead of making a product and having to find customers very expensively, you could use the internet to find customers and software had just higher margins. So of course, the markets have been incredible for the last 20 years because of margins.

29:22Yeah. So fast forward to last Howard and Insight. Tell me about Yuck Yucks.

29:31You there? Did I lose you? Yeah. No, no, no, I'm here. Oh, yeah, so it's about Yuck Yucks. Yeah, yeah. So Yuck Yucks is a comedy club, like the Canadian version of the improv. And growing up in Canada, in Toronto, and, you know, I was born in 65. So by the time I was like 12 in 1977, you know I was there was there was a second city television and I guess I was just a geek you know I was a tv geek you know my parents were wealthy had a tv and I would stay up late at night and watch Johnny Carson and you know just like someone today would be you know on YouTube and find their passion whether it's music or or golf or whatever their niche thing that YouTube could serve them you know when you're 12 in in 1977 you had 12 channels or five channels on your television and you were self-selected into something.

30:24So back then, you know, entertainment was, TV was entertainment with the likes of Johnny Carson. I was just like fascinated or smoking cigarettes and they were goofing off and drinking. And, you know, these adults were like, you know, just living the life. And, you know, Johnny used to have comedians on all the time. And so that's what I thought was cool, right? You know, I was just like a awkward kid. and, you know, and Toronto just happened to be the hotbed for whatever reason. Canada still continues to be a hotbed of comedians. And so I was, I grew up around the water, the water was all comedians.

31:02Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Second City Television. We didn't even need Saturday Night Live because Eugene Levy, these people were hysterical. And so Yuck Yucks was this chain of clubs and Jim Carrey was probably my age, maybe a little bit older. They would be performing at 14 years of age. And, you know, they let young kids in. If you were a fan of that type of stuff, you could go to the clubs. Obviously, you couldn't drink and you would follow these comedians around because there's no, you know, there's nothing to do. There was hockey and comedy. And so eventually I got up the nerve to, you know, do open mic nights and started doing that for a little while.

31:44And that was, you know, my yuck, yuck story. And it's really shaped kind of some of my investing and, you know, some of my what interests me on the Internet around media. That's when we first met with Wallstrip. That was a definite branch from this. Yeah. In the end, I finally got to the Internet allowed me to create something that inspired me from when I was young. right? I wanted to create the Second City version of CNBC on YouTube. So when YouTube came out, you know, I was just disgruntled, you know, I didn't have my life's work. And, you know, I was a hedge fund guy and I couldn't beat the market.

32:27I didn't know what I was doing. And, but, you know, and when YouTube came out, I said, you know what, I'm just going to make like Second City meet CNBC. And we started the show called Wallstrip and it was really, you know, low budget, you know, and we would make this - Great production, by the way, for low budget. Great production. 2006, the internet was really just getting started. And CBS, you know, within six months, CBS, you know, even though I had no experience on production or comedy or whatever, it was good enough that CBS bought our show. So my claim to fame is we were the first YouTube show acquired by a major media network.

33:05So I went from like clueless to CBS employee. So that became kind of internet famous from that. And just so you know, internet famous back then was if 2000 people saw your YouTube video, you were like viral. Well, that's because it was 4000 eyeballs. Right. So and the eyeballs at the beginning were executives from major media networks who were like, trying to figure out if this is going to be disruptive. Yeah, what is this? So even though we didn't have big traffic, the eyeballs mattered. So it was another lesson. It's not how many see you or watch you. It's who sees you or watches you. So influence is something that's always fascinated me, not scale.

33:53And I think, you know, it's much sexier to have scale, but in the end, who do I really, who am I really impressed by? It's Larry David, right? He wasn't an overnight success. He never really had scale until maybe the very end. And he was, you know, this misfit, authentic, weird, comedic genius. And it took 50 years of work for him to become an overnight success. And so I'm still that guy. There's a theme going on here. The theme I keep hearing is we still got a chance. Yeah, like that. Exactly. We're the misfits. I think you put in the reps, whether it's weightlifting or golf or whatever it is you do, investing and dollar cost averaging, the reps matter.

34:45There's very few overnight successes. And if you're upset by overnight successes, I mean, it's really a distraction, right? There's some people that just get lucky. But overall, it's a 50 year grind to build the expertise that eventually leads to money. And we live in an era where a lot of young people have gone risk. That didn't used to be a thing, right? Where 20 year olds could be billionaires and 30 year olds could be billionaires, you know? So it used to be not a thing. And so I think the way media is constructed and the way people choose their mentorships has been kind of screwed up because it's like the Facebook.

35:28It's like the Facebook maybe. People think they can be the next Mark Zuckerberg. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but what are the odds? Like really that's just – that's fantasy. It's a lottery ticket. You know, by the way, thinking about The Tonight Show and your avid watcher of Johnny Carson, do you remember a guy named Will Schreiner, a comedian, Will Schreiner? I know the name. He was a center in Hollywood squares for a while. He had a thing called, uh, anyway, he's a good friend of mine. This guy is, he, he, there was never a moment that he's not trying to just comedically rip me apart somehow.

36:05Like, like, like he's on stage and I'm the guy in the front row, you know, I'm, I'm was never that good. That was the thing. Now I'm back. I'm back full circle doing comedy. I've done a few shows myself. My daughter has come to see me, but I'm not like interested in doing it, but I'm fascinated. We're investors in a company called punch up dot live. Yes. Oh yeah. Which is, yeah. We might've talked about it one of the episodes, which is really fast growing. So every good comedian uses it from Sam Murrell to Mark Norman to, um, every good comedian. These are two guys that I really am friendly with now and, and think they're geniuses.

36:43So it's fun in my, you know, I'd be six years old and kind of get to hang out. occasionally with comedians as a fan, not too stalkery, but like as a fan, but these comedians are like fascinating people. It's not an easy lifestyle. Kind of like trade, kind of like traders. They work every day. They, they have a routine. You know, it's scary to break away from the routine. Like us traders having a strategy, you got to stick to your strategy if you want to trade and do this. So I'm really fascinated by that whole industry. And comedians right now are back in vogue because YouTube, because of Instagram, because of TikTok, and because, you know, in real life, people are starting to go back out to comedy clubs.

37:28So comedians, comedians are really a very interesting, much like traders, right? Like they're very interesting people. Yeah. They're not interested in money. They're not interested in the markets. They're interested in the art of it, but they got to go out every night and do work. They work every day. So I want to just tag on something. You talked about how, you know, who are your mentors or who are you following and what are you looking for? You are involved in the private markets. We know that. You've talked about following the great white sharks like Andreessen. I'll say Horowitz. That's me.

37:59But the other Horowitz, you know, some people know him a little bit more. Fred Wilson. So the average person doesn't have that. They don't know what to do. Right. So I I know that's one of the reasons you actually built StockTwits. But the question I have is, I guess, you know, well, we can talk about StockTwits too, but how is the average person to follow this? I mean, is it now the way to go into some of these private ETFs or maybe even social leverage, which you can talk about as well? What's the play for the average dude? It's the ultimate question. So I don't want to, there's no one way. It's like DNA, right?

38:37Everybody, it comes down to like a risk score. Everybody has a risk score. And it's something that I'm trying to build a product that kind of caters to this. Meaning, you know, we've been out there. People wear a whoop. They have their Apple wash. They have a mattress. They got a score for everything right now. And what's fascinating about it is I don't believe in any of that stuff, man. If you want a good night's sleep and you don't have body problems, just don't drink. Don't eat sugar. Stop eating at 7 o 'clock at night. You really need a whoop. You're not a professional athlete. I play pickleball regularly.

39:10There are two guys that I play with that literally cannot start the game until they push some button. I guess it's pickleball mode on their watch. I'm like, what is this going to tell you? Nothing, nothing. So I'm not a data geek. So you've got to know who you are. So first of all, you know, and so you do have to find mentors. It's both never been easier to find a mentor because you have social networks. But it's also never been more confusing time because people are busy. People aren't looking to give mentorship, right? There's unfortunately been this whole negative theory around if someone's going to teach you how to invest, if they were good, they wouldn't have to charge you.

39:49So there's this whole fallacy around, you know, oh, if a guy charges you to help you learn how to invest, he must not be good at investing. And I'm like, that makes no sense to me. Some people are just good teachers. They may just not be good investors, right? And so I say, don't be afraid of paying someone, right? They have coaches for everything. You've got weight loss and you've got your whoop. The most important thing is your money and your health, right? So if you have your health, right, do whatever you can do to kind of, you know, not smoke, you know, eat correctly, have as few vices as possible.

40:28But next to that is wealth. So if you need to pay someone to truly help you find a strategy that fits your mental risk profile, all the best. And the sooner you do that and the sooner you stay true to that, the better. And so there's so many ways to do it, right? If I'm the guy that people like and I have my own strategy, which is pretty much high momentum, low fundamentals, then it's easy to follow along. But you really want to try and find people that kind of fit your risk profile. And then the other most important thing for someone starting to invest is just to start, right? And there's no shame in indexing.

41:14I think indexing still works for 99 % of people. I think it's fun to pick stocks. I think the public markets are one of the greatest things ever. But I'm also a major indexer, right? I do direct indexing, which is more tax efficient. But 80 % to 90 % of my money in the market is indexed, right? Because I don't want to time the market. I want to be in the market. Now, if we get to a point in the United States where profits don't matter overall, right? And they do still, like why would NVIDIA be the biggest company in the world? Because their profits are massive and their growth is massive. So that game still works.

41:55If they change the rules there, I don't know. But until they change those rules, I think 90 % to 99 % of investors should just be in the market. And the younger you are, the better. And you don't need mentorship for that. You can open up a Robinhood account or a Freck account or a Wealthfront account. There's thousands of ways to just be in the market. So the sooner you start, the better. The less fancy you are at the beginning, the better. and then understand what the markets have done historically, right? Companies' earnings, you know, even in the tech era, the S &P or the QQQ has grown 10 % to 12 % a year with 20 % drawdown.

42:35So just be prepared. If you invest$10 ,000, you know, you should expect, you know, having$11 ,000 to$12 ,000 at the end of the year. But there's a chance during the year that your portfolio could drop to$8 ,000. And by the way, just to be clear, that year is not like January 1st, December 31st. You're talking conceptually over a period. Yeah, it's just math. You ask about math again. This is just math. Like there's no get rich quick. And kids have never really wanted to get rich quick more. Why? Because prices are high. Like they have all kinds of other anxieties that you and I didn't have. So, you know, something that I coined called the degenerate economy is we have an economy of young people who feel like they'll never be able to buy a home.

43:22They'll never be able to pay off their school debt. We've saddled these kids with an anxiety that we're not willing to just call what it is, right? Call a spade a spade. We've handed our kids a shit pile of problems surrounding money. Sure, they're going to live, two things, they're going to live longer, but they're miserable because they can't afford anything. So they're living in the moment. They're thinking differently. They're not the Schwab generation. They're spending, which is kind of cool. They're living their life. But they're also unfortunately staring at their phones and not really in the moment.

43:55So we're in this weird era for kids between 20 and 35 where the phone just fucked up their lives and COVID and other things. But it doesn't change the fact that young people should invest and learn how to invest. and there's really no excuse for not indexing and just getting started. Indexing and working around. So a lot of people think they have to be really fancy. You know this. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. You know, people need to be really fancy and they need to be the, you know, they have to have the greatest name out there and all that. The fact of the matter is that you can do that.

44:29How many times if you're not working at this on a full-time basis, are you going to be able to track and figure it all out? That's the point. Baseline investing, we can call it, indexing, whatever you want to call it, right with with a with satellites right with you want you want to have some stocks in there okay there's no go have a good time it's great you know do that but if you're going to rely on you doing it you're probably going to get burnt out if you're not doing it full time you're going to have disappointments where you're going to be like freaked out and you're going to start pulling out the wrong time because stocks have more volatility and i think howard i think you would agree with me that for everybody listening out there this idea of oh you know look at all the bad things that are happening.

45:09There's always bad things happening. Some are worse bad. Some are not so worse. There's always something we could find if we wanted to. And as an excuse to not invest. But I always talk about something. I want to share this with you. I don't think I've talked to you about this. I've talked about what will the future you say about the present you, about your investment habits now, what you did. Because in 20 years from now, I'm certain if you don't invest because of all these different reasons, you're going to be pissed off at the current present you and how you screwed up your future? Oh, 100%.

45:43Right now, I'm more about teaching my kids these basic math problems. My daughter's very into it. My son is like, you're doing a good job, dad. I don't want to learn. So they're very different, like everybody's kids, right? My daughter likes to do everything by herself and experiment and doesn't want any help from me, whether it's a job or whether it's her money, independence. Whereas my son, he won't even get off Morgan Stanley. So I see how he's spending all his money on vaping and food and fast food. It's not that he's not ashamed. He's like he grew up in a world where he's not hiding anything.

46:15Howard Lindzon:Yeah. Right? They reveal they're not ashamed, not because he should be ashamed, but like big deal. He saw what I ate. You know, big deal, you know, he saw that I'm in an Uber. I think it's a big deal because I'm trying to tell him like, dude, like I don't want to see this stuff. So everybody's DNA around this sharing and pride and stuff is different. For my kids, I know one thing as a parent, right? And I'm not telling other parents what to do. I know the problem. I see the anxiety that my kids have. And let me give you the math. When I bought my first home in Arcadia, it was 1996. Arcadia was where?

46:56It was at 30 in Phoenix. It was a nice neighborhood in Phoenix. This is Arcadia, Florida, and I know you don't like Florida, by the way. Right. No, I love Florida. So Arcadia, I love Florida. Arcadia, Phoenix, right? And it's a nice neighborhood. Okay, so our first home was$149 ,000, right? And it was like a step, like, fuck. But that, and so that home was, interest rates were probably the same, six and a half percent in 1996, but they were coming down from like 20 % from 10 years earlier. So we were like, lock that bitch in. So we put down 20 grand and or owed, what,$130 ,000 at 6%. Let's do the math.

47:39So we were paying, I don't know,$800 a month with insurance to own our home in a great neighborhood. That same home today is$2 million, right? We put some work into it, but that same home today is$2 million. We moved in, you know, but let's just do this 30-year basic story, okay? That home today in a good neighborhood, and it was always a good neighborhood, is$2 million. That$2 million home, the same age person that would try and buy that home would have to put down$600 ,000 instead of my$20 ,000 and still have a million for loan with the same interest rate. The math will, this goes back to math.

48:19If you think things aren't broken, understand the, kids are not stupid. They can do math. even a hallucination from ChatGPT would say, you're fucked. It wouldn't give you the number, but just say, go live, go party in Cabo and rent, right? So when you've taken away choices and the choices that we had are different than the choices young people had. So we have to recognize that we fucked this generation. Yeah, they may get the money when we finally die, but they're going to get the money much older because we're going to live till we're 80. before we can get our money. So it's like all these bullshit excuses of why kids have it better.

49:01Listen, I get it. Like they have it better, right? They're going to live longer, but they don't, just because we think that doesn't mean, so these kids are riddled with anxiety and stress, not from the same stress that you and I had or the war generation had, but it's a different type of stress because they know prices and they know they can never afford them. And they don't want to have to take money from their parents. We didn't have to take as much money from our parents. We had independence at an early age. So the markets have pushed independence. I was 18, by the way, and that was it. Done.

49:35No more money. Yeah, I was done. I left home when I was 17. Yeah, exactly. And you got a credit card and you released your car. My fault is you have to get a Sears credit card. Why do I need that, Dad? Because that's how you build credit with a Sears credit card. That's how you build credit. Now kids have debit cards and Venmo and they can survive. So they're not learning the stress of paying the man back. So we have to figure out, it's up to the parent now to somehow coach their kids that it's not their fault. You know, be a good kid, but, you know, we understand your stress. You'll never be able to afford this home, but we're going to help you.

50:09Like, don't be ashamed. Like, I don't know how else the game's going to work. So I think parents have to be realistic about the fact that even though kids act like they're 40 when they're 10, because they are. They have a magic wand in their hand. They can fucking go DoorDash. They can Uber. They can have a gig, economy, life. When they're 25, even though they thought they grew up when they're 10, when they're 25, they're going to be back in your home because of prices. And that's a problem. They're going to be dealing with being ashamed. In fact, they don't want to be back at home. It was a better world when they were gone when they were 18 than when they were gone at 10 and back in the house when they're 25.

50:50So I think these are legal, fundamental, non-investing things that are going on in the economy. And lucky for me, I get to actually work on these things. But I know my kids are going through a lot of stress over this stuff. A lot of stress. Yeah, a lot of stress. Let me just, I want to tag on two quick items before we go. You do a lot of, I'll call it private, non-public. We'll call it non-public, angels, slash, all those kinds of investments that usually have long periods. You know, there's these long periods, five to 10-year lockups maybe, or maybe, you know, we don't know when that event, a liquidity event's going to happen, right?

51:29These long J-curves. With what's going on these days, what you see, what you hear with regard to private equity, private credit, is there any concern that you have with the retail investor, which maybe they got a little spooked at this last go-around, being allowed to potentially get this in their 401ks? Yeah, I mean, those are very personal opinions. Because again, I assume most people are going to be bag holders of private companies. I try to be honest about this. And again, it's hard. I'd like to have an ego about my success. But if you're born at the right time and a wave appears at the right time and you happen to be involved in that wave, there's too many people that think it's because of their own genius.

52:22This is my era of young people, of people, my contemporaries, who I fight with all the time online. I'm like, you're confusing a bull market with brains. There's an old saying. And there's never been more people in history that are confusing a bull market with brains. And I'm not saying I don't have ego. I understand, I get it. I cannot believe the amount of charlatans that worked at Facebook or LinkedIn or, you know, Google. Again, there's 30, 40, 50 % of them are mad geniuses. But the other 50 % that were along for the ride and are mistaking the fact that they worked at the right company for being wealthy.

53:02And so I think people have to be extremely careful of that. And I think AI, again, Web2 was very good to me because the internet was very open for a period of five to 10 years. And like you could grow without paying for growth. But now growth has never been more expensive. And so when growth is expensive, and by growth being expensive, I mean it's hard to find a new user because everybody's locked down their graphs. It's hard to do marketing because it's expensive and you can't get scale. It's hard to, it's expensive to borrow money. It's expensive to hire an engineer. So it's never been more expensive to grow a business, but it's also never been more inexpensive to start a business.

53:48And easy, right? Easy and inexpensive to start, but never been more expensive to be successful. And so I am bearish on that. Not bearish on the world. I'm just bearish on private investing when the cost of getting new customers is expensive. So I'd rather be in the public markets because I have liquidity, right? So it's not that I'm not making seed investments. It's just I'm very much more cynical about prices and expertise because yes, I'm going to be in a company for 10 years, maybe 15 now because it's much harder to grow and valuations are much higher. So the math isn't as good for me. So I'd rather make less money for the assured liquidity.

54:37Now, part of that could be my age and et cetera, but I am very cynical of what's happening in the private markets. Well, I think a lot of it also is, Howard, we'd have to admit that the private markets used to be like, hey, we found something, it's interesting, it may or may not work, and here's a price for it. Now it's like the same exact backtrack, but here's the price times 1 ,000, you know, because everybody— Well, here's the price times 1 ,000. And because of AI, 100 copycats of your product could be done in a minute. So like with the grip, my old first company, we had knockoffs, right? It was a squeeze ball with balloons.

55:13But our distribution was great. But today, not only is your product going to be knocked off, if you don't understand distribution, the 10th guide to your product could be the winner. Yeah, I heard a guy. There's all kinds of risk of thinking that you're successful and then immediately being wiped out, which is a really, I think that's my problem with this market is I think there's a lot of confident people that are working on an old playbook. Yeah. And I think that's a problem. So I'd rather be in the public markets where if I change my mind, I can get out. I don't want to be locked up for 10 years with people that don't know what they're doing.

55:52I don't want to be locked up for a long period of time with people that are stupid. There's a guy I know who sells stuff on Amazon. And what he does is he goes, finds the most successful stuff that's selling. And he goes, grab that product, repackages it, and then just finds ways to maybe either knock the price down a little bit or package it nicer. And he becomes the leader in it. That's what you're talking about. And it happens fast. It happens very fast. So everything's being arbed away very fast. And so I think just private marketing, I've changed how I think about private markets. It doesn't mean Andreessen's still not amazing, but they're playing a different game than me.

56:32They're playing with money that doesn't really care about the best return. They're managing billions and billions of dollars and their incentives are very different than mine. Mark Andreessen can go 10 years without a winner. People will still give him money. If I went five years without a winner, no one would give me money. And so I think a lot of people are thinking they're Andreessen and there's only one Mark Andreessen. Right. And so he's the unicorn. The company isn't the unicorn. Mark is the unicorn. Fred Wilson is the unicorn. And so I can't afford to invest with Mark Andreessen because he's going to be wrong more than ever.

57:11But he can afford to be wrong more than ever. I can't afford to be wrong as often as he is anymore. Yeah. Let's just finish up on this because I think you have some definite, I think, I believe, you have some definitive opinion on this particular topic. And the topic is, what do we do with the official messaging that's coming out of leadership on all sorts of platforms that is coming out fast and furious? Are we to believe? How are we dealing with this? well i feel good for my kids like i don't know what they're reading but again i know that i'm anxious because i don't trust obviously i don't trust the iranians i definitely don't trust hamas i definitely don't trust the un i definitely don't trust the new york times or bbc but i also definitely don't trust the leadership of the democratic party i definitely don't trust trump or vance and i definitely don't trust the igrc so what do we have all we have left our prices.

58:10So really, I've had to just, you basically have to ignore the news and understand which prices to look at that will give you a much clearer semblance of truth. So what's the biggest issue today? The straight or her booze, whether we like it or not. That's what everybody's focused on. But do I want to read headlines? Is it open? Is it closed? No. So I'm watching oil futures or I'm watching the USO stream on StockTwits because that's the closest thing I'm going to get to the truth. If oil drops below 80 bucks a barrel, I assume the straighter Hormuz is open. But as long as it stays above, you know, the$90 range or$80 range right now, everybody's lying.

58:50Right. Right. And I don't need to know day to day. I'll check when oil gets back below 80. Yeah, give me a call. I don't know what all that means. I just know that the Hormuz is open. Yeah. But in the meantime, everybody's lying. And I hate this, but it's also easier to live right now because I know they're all lying. They're all assuming both sides are treating, IGRC is treating Iranians like non-humans. And Trump doesn't care about the people that voted for him. He says it out loud. He says, you voted for me, fuck you. That's not even the people he hates. He hates his own voters right now. So we're both countries are being held hostage by their governments.

59:32And in America, much better than being an Iranian, no doubt. So when you're held hostage by leadership that's lying, that the only thing you can do is check prices. And so I'm trying to just keep my sanity by not going online and just looking at prices and trying to decipher what this war will end. To me, it seems like this is going to be a long war because it's not a typical war. And, you know, we're dealing with two governments that are both insane. Yeah. And we're also dealing with two governments. They may say they like their people, but they don't like their people. We're just being pawns.

1:00:12We're being pawns in some bigger game. I think what Howard's saying is, channeling a good friend of both of ours, by the way, Brian Shannon, only price pays. Yeah, I've long believed that. Meaning you have to understand prices move a lot and things can change, but that's where money management comes in. But at least with price, you can have a basis of understanding and contextual understanding of what the world looks like. It's not obviously perfectly accurate, but it's one of the smallest data points and one of the largest data points. The price of Google or the SPY at any one time is just a small data point, but it's also accumulation of so much data.

1:00:52So it's both the smallest data point and the largest data point. And that's, to me, comforting. It's not necessarily accurate second to second because it's constantly moving, but it gives you context for how people are feeling and how confident people are. And, you know, I don't think there's a fast way to learn all this, but in a world where it's easier to make fake news than real news, it's easier to disseminate, you know, fake news. Therefore it's easy to do it. Why would I go to a, why would I go swim in an ocean of fake news? Yeah. Right. And so unfortunately, as dumb as it sounds, the less news you consume and the more you understand how prices are working, the more you'll understand how people are really thinking, the people that matter.

1:01:37And then the most important thing is the economy is not the stock market. So I'm only giving you the stock market view of how I do things. The economy is a mess. Any way you slice it, the economy is a mess, right? It's great for certain companies, but go look at Nike, go look at retailers, go look at healthcare, go look at education. It's a fucking disaster. So the economy is different than the stock market. I have no understanding of the economy, zero. But that doesn't mean I can't be a great investor. Yeah, I hear you. And so that's how I see the world. Yeah, Howard Lindzen, all the way from the grip to yuck yucks and forthright into private transactions, of course, creator of many things, serial entrepreneur.

1:02:19Great having you always. And I appreciate great insights today. All right. Thanks, everybody. See you. See you, Andrew. All right, buddy. See you. Howard doesn't hold back, not even for a second. I mean, he's got a lot to talk about and a very, very strong opinion. So that's pretty awesome. Anyway, thanks for joining me this week. Next week, like I mentioned, coming up, we have Meb Faber coming up. And he's going to talk hopefully about what's going on with the emerging markets, ex-US investments in equities and why they are beneficial. Something that he really does a lot of work on and a lot of research and paying off big time right now.

1:02:55Thanks for joining me again. and I'll see you again next week.

1:03:00This podcast is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute personalized investment advice. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal and past performance is not indicative of future results. The views and opinions expressed are those of the host and any guests and may not necessarily reflect those of Horowitz and Company, Inc., an investment advisor registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of training or skill. Advisory services are only offered to a client or prospective clients where Horowitz and Company is properly registered or is excluded from registration requirements.

1:03:38Any mention of third-party companies, products, or services is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement. Hypothetical scenarios or forward-looking statements are for illustrative purposes and should not be viewed as guarantees. Content is intended for U.S. residents only and may not be applicable in other jurisdictions. Listeners should consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Please visit our website for additional information, disclosures, as well as a copy of our form CRS. Advertisements are not related to the host or affiliates and are not considered recommendations by the host of the show or any affiliates of Horowitz & Company.

1:04:28We'll be right back.