She Was Brainwashed. Then She Left Iran. Now She Has an $18M Portfolio | Kiana Danial, The Invest Diva

0:01James Altucher:Today on the James Altucher Show. I get trolled a lot about this because like I would talk about stocks and someone's like, oh, are you selling a course? I'm like, of course, because I need money to invest. That's also exactly what Dave Ramsey does. That's exactly what Robert Kriosaki does. That's exactly what Warren Buffett does. Everybody thinks, oh, Warren Buffett is such a genius investor. He has businesses. We don't have control over oil. We don't have control over the war. We don't have control over other people's businesses. The most important thing that we have control over is ourselves, right?

0:34Let me put it this way, because I know a lot of Americans, oh my gosh, you're Iranian, you're voting for Trump and go get your oil. I'm like, we don't have access to our oil. They used all of our oil, all the money, all of our resources to build these underground killing machines. So here's the thing, 90 million Iranians inside Iran, 90 % of them want the regime gone. The hatred for Israel and Trump that is blinding people to understand and see the nuance.

1:08James Altucher:This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show.

1:27James Altucher:What is going on in Iran? And not only that, once this war is over, what is going on with investing? Is the world coming down? Now, I'm gonna bring on the invest diva in a second to talk about this. Kiana Daniel, she's wrote the book, Triple Compounding for Dummies, which we're gonna talk about, and it's very interesting. but she's Iranian. She's an expert in all things Iran, of course, or Iran. And just, I'll give my gut based on the force of history. When this Iran war is over, which it will be, by the way, Iran has no air force left, no Navy left. Their missile strikes per day are down 90%.

2:05James Altucher:Their 50 top potential leaders are all dead. And there's no way left. They survive as the Islamic regime, which they've been. That's my opinion, but that's also based on facts. But here's the interesting thing. This reminds me of the Soviet Union in 1991. What happened then? Well, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. And from that point on, there was a peace dividend. There was 10 years of solid stock market growth. It was enormous. Now, of course, you could say, well, that was because of the internet. But here's the thing. There's a saying, which is true, which is that two countries either trade bullets or dollars.

2:43James Altucher:And when the Soviet Union collapsed, it meant the entire iron block, as it was called, all the countries allied with the Soviet Union, they all stopped being bad guys, at least in a financial point of view. We all started trading together. And when I say we, the entire world started trading. It became a global trading world. And the globe just soared in terms of economic growth. Iran has been an existential threat to humanity. For 47 years, Iran has funded every act of terrorism we know about. They funded ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, all the terrorism that happened in Syria, Lebanon. There's a lot of indications Iran was behind al-Qaeda.

3:25James Altucher:Not only that, they were building nuclear weapons that they were willing to drop on other countries. Yes, That's Israel, possibly Europe, possibly other Arab countries. You know, the Shia Muslims, or they had a problem with the Sunni Muslims, which is Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and all the other Middle Eastern nations. So again, when the Iran regime falls, this is gonna lead to a peace dividend that's gonna be enormous, much bigger, by the way, than the Soviet Union peace dividend, simply because we already had kind of cool relations with the Soviet Union at that time. We have no relations with Iran right now.

4:00James Altucher:In fact, they're trying to kill everybody. But anyway, I bring on Kiana Daniel, author of Triple Compound, to talk about Iran.

4:17James Altucher:So you moved from Iran to Japan to the U.S. Yes. And I've got to correct you there. I love you guys, but it's Iran. We've got to start the promotion. No problem. them. I'm here to learn. So you grew up in Iran, then you decided to study electrical engineering in Japan. Why didn't you study electrical engineering in the U.S. or some other place? Oh, I couldn't come to the U.S. So the crazy thing is, I didn't even want to, like, electrical engineering was kind of like the thing to study in Iran. It's kind of like fine art. Like, everybody here apparently goes to liberal arts or whatever. In Iran, if you're a good student, and you go to engineering.

5:00Like engineering has a higher status than even doctors. Like it's insane. And my dad was an engineer. So I'm like, oh, I'm going to do engineering. Going to Japan thing was completely accidental. My mom, she got cancer while I was studying for the university's entrance exam in Iran. And she was so worried that I'm not going to get in because of her, because it's super hard to get into college in Iran. The entrance exam is really difficult. So she kind of, as a backup plan, signed me up for a scholarship from the Japanese government just in case I don't get in.

5:33James Altucher:But why the Japanese government? It just seems so random. Like, why not? No, they had this program. She randomly heard about the program from her friend. So apparently the Japanese government has this scholarship program for like third world countries, like good students, to get a scholarship and go study in Japan as part of their like cultural expansion, whatever program. so that we just randomly heard about it and I applied and I actually I both got into the college and got the scholarship and I'm like I'm just gonna go to Japan I'm just gonna see what it's like I'm gonna come back like after six months but I went in and I stayed for seven years wow all right why did you stay so long did were you an electrical engineer in Japan no I mean the thing is when I first went to Japan, so imagine like I had never really left Iran.

6:25The only place I had ever gone to was Turkey. I had never really seen like Chinese people, Japanese people. So the first time I went to Tokyo, I'm like, oh my gosh, there's this whole world exists that I had no idea about. So I was, it was so fascinating. And especially the first year in the Japanese school, it was like all foreigners I had never seen in my life. I'm like, what? Like people of old colors. It was so exciting studying Japanese. And so I decided to stay not knowing that the next year is going to, I'm going to become miserable. The first part was just at the studying Japanese with all the foreigners.

7:04And then they sent us to suburb, like really rural area Japan colleges. And we were almost like, I was the only foreigner in my class and the only girl in my class. and it was and then I became depressed so but I shouldn't go back I mean so that's the thing like I was like okay I already so it was kind of for me was like okay I already wasted a year if I go back then I have to start again then I'm like getting old of course like when you're like young you think like 20 years old is very old so oh my god I'm getting old I'm getting 20 I don't want to go back and start college again so I'm like it was like okay I'm just gonna stick with it I'm going to at least get a degree and then decide what I'm going to do.

7:47And in Japan, it's kind of, they kind of make it hard for you to switch. So what they do is like, whatever that you study, your major, like that is going to be like, like people don't change. And I already was standing out. I already was a foreigner. Everybody was like, well, what's this person? Like, what is this alien looking person? And I didn't want to like really rough the person. It's very weird. Like it was very interesting, interesting experience.

8:16James Altucher:Well, and then of course you came to us, you have been involved in a lot of different aspects of finance. Most recently you have the very excellent book, triple compounding for dummies. And I want to get into what triple compounding is, but also because of your unique perspective coming from Iran, being involved in finance, I really just want to hear your viewpoint on what's going on right now. I feel like there's so many mixed messages out there and just like literally today, there's so many mixed messages. And what's your, you know, just from all the people you talk to and your whole network of contacts and Binance, what's going to happen in the markets?

8:54James Altucher:That's a lot of broad questions. Yeah. I mean, as you know, and you're an investor, an excellent investor yourself. And you know, I mean, nobody can really predict. All we have is the data of what has happened in the past wars. And 63 % of the time after six months, the markets have actually gone back up. This one, obviously, I have a particular interest in because I am from Iran, and we have old emotions, and we want regime change, and people are scared of bombs, and they also don't want the bombs to stop, but they also are scared. It's like extreme emotions. And if I wanted to look at it completely practically, I would think in about two to six months, the war headline is going to drop off the headlines, just like Ukraine did.

9:41Like, nobody talks about the war in Ukraine anymore, even though it's still ongoing.

9:45James Altucher:But do you think the war in Iran will be still ongoing then? That, I hope not. But, I mean, we were hoping this is going to be like a two-week thing and they're going to just like get rid of all the IRGCs and then bring in the transitional leader and everyone's going to be happy. But now they're having boots on the ground, which, well, my husband actually has experience. He worked for Lockheed, so he knows a lot about like the strategies and stuff. It's like, yeah, they got to have boots on the ground. Like what? So it probably is going to take longer than we thought. It's probably not going to take as long as Afghanistan or Iraq because we already have the transitional leader in place.

10:21And people, like Iranian people are very different. Like they're very united in a sense that we're all Iranians. Like no matter, like I'm Jewish, but I'm also Iranian. Like we have Kurds, Iranian. We have that nationalistic pride, if you will. So it's not going to be as long as Afghanistan. It's not going to be as chaotic as Iraq. But I don't know how much longer. I can't tell.

10:43James Altucher:I don't know. Like when Trump says he's negotiating with Iran. I think he's bluffing. He's bluffing. You don't think he's, but there's like talks in Pakistan. Like who is he talking to? Do you know, there's nobody? I don't know. I'm just looking at the whole thing and I'm like, Like, well, obviously the Iranian, the Islamic regime, I don't even want to call them Iranian, the Islamic regime guys are like, oh, no, he's not talking to us. Maybe he is. Like, it's become such a political game that we cannot really be sure. Is he bluffing? Is he trying to buy time? Are they trying to buy time? I hope not, because the more time the Islamic regime buys, the more they can build back up.

11:22So I'm on the hope that he's bluffing because you cannot negotiate with these people.

11:29James Altucher:Yeah, right. So you don't want a situation. I think the Iranian people don't want a situation where Trump takes control of the oil, but then the Islamic regime stays in power. I mean, that's literally the worst case scenario because, I mean, right now, so let me put it this way because I know a lot of Americans, oh my gosh, Iran, you're Iranian, you're voting for Trump and go get your oil. I'm like, we don't have access to our oil. Nobody, like, Iranian people don't have access to their soil. They don't have access to nothing. Like, yes, like, we don't care about that part as much as we just care about the freedom.

12:04Like, okay, yes, it's going to be super bad if Trump comes and takes the oil. But at this point, we don't have the oil. They used all of our oil, all the money, all of our resources to build these underground killing machines. Like, we just found out the underground city of bombs. All of that money could have been helping people, but no, they didn't build them shelters. They didn't build them nothing. They just built their bomb shelters with all of our money. So like it is, I mean, the Americans, they have a lot of people in the West, they have the best intentions, but they just don't understand.

12:38Like our lived experience is like so much more horrifying than, oh my gosh, Trump comes and takes our all. Of course we don't want him to, but if Islamic regime stays, that's that's even more horrific because they already killed like 40 ,000 people like

12:53James Altucher:no it's it's horrible right and what people don't people forget like one month later 40 ,000 civilians were killed by the iranian regime and it's ridiculous that people are now in the streets of new york city protesting in favor of the islamic regime and saying you know get america out which the iranian people want from what i can understand iranian people want like 80 million people want USA in? It's insane that, I mean, the propaganda has been ongoing and they're like, well, yeah, there are Iranians who don't want the war. There are so many of them. I know them. So here's the thing. 90 million Iranians inside Iran, 90 % of them want the regime gone.

13:38The rest of the 10 % are with the regime. That is a huge amount still of 90 million people. So of course there are people inside Iran that are in favor of the regime. Here are the people who are in favor of the Islamic regime. People who have businesses that are tied to the Islamic regime one way or another. So it's to their benefit that the regime stays. People who, I think that's all about it. People who hate, okay, in America, the crazy thing about it is the hatred for Israel and Trump that is blinding people to understand and see the nuance. Like, I didn't vote for Trump. I actually consider myself a Democrat.

14:21And I can see the nuance. Like, I can see that if the Iranian people, now I'm sitting here from the comfort of my home, I cannot tell what the Iranian people should want. They are telling us, we want America to invade. We want America to come and free us. So we have to listen to them instead of letting hatred of our own, the policies that he has impact our morality in a way. So it's been very hard. Okay, let's say, you know, there's all these issues.

14:53James Altucher:Like right now, the Strait of Hormuz is closed down, more or less, it's pretty much closed. How long does it stay closed down for infrastructure across, for basically supply chains across the world to break down and cause this global havoc that everyone predicts is going to happen. Like I myself think the world's pretty resilient and this is not going to happen. But what do you think? I think it's more of a headline because, I mean, for example, look at the stocks like Chevron and ExxonMobil. Like they instantly jacked up their prices. They didn't, nobody was, they weren't importing oil from Elon.

15:31Like they're just taking advantage of the headline. And America has resources. like there's so much oil resources. I think it's more hype than anything, to be honest with you.

15:43James Altucher:Although 20 % of the world's oil every day was going through the street. Yes, but goes to China. Right? And places that are actually our adversaries. Yeah. Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It means so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at alcatra at gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks.

16:18James Altucher:So again, like what are the other things that people aren't taking into account? Like, I mean, I kind of think my own opinion is that this war is going to end pretty quickly. I mean, apparently, you know, we've got 48 of the top Iranian Islamic regime officials are now dead. So I don't even know who's running things. And, you know, if this war, you know, the Iranian Navy is gone. The Iranian Air Force is gone. Most of their missile capacity is gone. So let's just say it ends fairly quickly. U.S. controls Venezuelan oil. U.S. will probably start marketing Iranian oil to our friends instead of our adversaries.

16:56James Altucher:Seems like this is going to be a peace dividend rivaling when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. I think the outcome is going to be so amazing if people only understood. What people are not understanding, again, because of all the propaganda, is first of all, how much safer the world is going to be. You understand, the IRGC is the one who's funding Hezbollah, the Hufis, Hamas. Like you tell us, oh, what if Trump goes and takes over our oil? This is where our oil money has been going. To terrorism, to kill. Number one, the world is going to be a safer place. Number two, imagine the alliance. Like talking about the changing world order that Ray Dalio talks about.

17:48A free Iran that is an ally with America and Israel. it is literally the three, the triangle that is going to be going head to head with China, Russia, and the Islamic regime. Those were the buddies. If we take one out, how much easier is it going to be to, you know, push the world towards a safer, more, you know, better place? not to even consider like how amazing Iran is, the resources, the talent that is trapped over there. Like Iranian people are so smart. It's like so heartbreaking that America, like the collaborations, like all the companies in America that can get talent freely from Iran instead of like smuggling them out.

18:36And it's just going to be, I think it's going to be absolutely amazing for people who are peace loving, who are saying no to war. This is the war to get to peace, in my opinion. I could be coming along.

18:46James Altucher:Yeah, no, I totally agree. And like right now, you see it like every time the news goes bad, stocks goes down, Bitcoin goes down, even gold now is going down. What do you think? Let's say the war ends within the next month or there's some negotiation. I actually don't even know how the war ends though. Like even though all the capacity seems gone, there are people speaking for Iran. Like the Iranian parliamentary speaker is now speaking for Iran. How does it actually end? So what is happening right now? So I've been following Reza Pahlavi, who was the crown prince, who was trying to step in to be the leader.

19:22And he has a 100-day, actually, transitional plan, which is very interesting. What he's doing right now is fascinating. He's actually already partnering up with his opponents, even people who are anti-Pahlavi, anti-whatever it is. But he's been able to bring them together in a coalition. is already calling on the Aartesh, which is the Iranian army. So Iran has so many different facilities. So one is the IRGC, Islamic regime, Islamic republic, whatever. I don't even know what it is. So the army is, they take ordinary people. All boys, all men at 18 have to go and serve the army. But IRGC is separate, is very connected to the actual government and the ideology and the jihadi Hezbollah ideology.

20:13So Reza Pahlavi is already calling on the army to come join him. And many of them are already stepping in. Again, right now we don't have really much connection, but from the videos that we're seeing, people are like saying, we're our coalition with Reza Pahlavi. He's even calling on the IRGC members who haven't killed Iranians. So he's very strict about this. is that anybody who hasn't killed Iranian people, now is the time to put your weapons down and come join us, join the winning team because the regime is going down. And so that is the calls that he's kind of making on the inside. And of course, there are so many of the heads of IRGC have been killed.

20:56But what we can't disregard is the fact that this is not just the people, this is also an ideology that so many of these people have been brought up with. I was brainwashed. I was brainwashed studying in Iran at school. Like there are so many things that I'm now kind of ashamed to admit to, but I was brainwashed by. So this is an ideology that is not just going to be gone just by the bullets, but a weakening regime and seeing the leadership of Reza Fahdabi kind of gives us hope. It is not as easy as it sounds, I feel like, but what gives me hope is that there is an actual plan.

21:38James Altucher:And do you think gradually from within, like IRGC army will get disheartened with what's going on and start to move over? I mean, what we noticed is that to kill those 40 ,000 people, the regime had to import thugs from Iraq and Hezbollah. So we're already seeing that the IRGC, that Iranian IRGC members are not willing to kill. So they had to import. When you were growing up, did you have like one, like you're talking to your friends about career choices and one guy says maybe, oh, I want to be a fireman. You say, I want to be an intellectual engineer. Another person wants to be a librarian. And then the final kid of the class wants to be, I want to be in the IRGC.

22:22No, no, that's not how they recruit. How they recruit is through years of propaganda at school. And also they typically go through and target underprivileged families and they basically bribe them with money. So that's how they get in. And nobody dreams of going like, I mean, in my class, in my school, we all collectively hated the IRGC. Like how many times I've been arrested by IRGC just for showing my hair. Like it's been like growing up, it was us versus the regime. That was our life. Nobody that I knew really was with the IRGC. I never saw, like, at least in my class. And even if they were, like, it was us versus them, always.