The Man Who Owns 4% Of All Bitcoin: "I Made $15 Billion By Using ChatGPT!" | Michael Saylor

0:00I used AI to make $15 billion last year.

0:02>> You did?

0:03>> I did. Because the AI gave us a solution

0:06to the problem that no one had ever

0:07encountered before in the history of the

0:08world. And so my advice is don't try to

0:11outwork the robots. What you want to do

0:13is ask the AI to do something that's

0:16never been done before. And if you want

0:18to create these incredible success

0:20things, you want to locate the magic

0:23opportunity. I know this because I'm an

0:26technology entrepreneur. And we're

0:28[music] the biggest buyer of Bitcoin in

0:29the world. So what is my mission? I'm

0:31preaching the gospel of digital

0:33empowerment [music] in Bitcoin as

0:35digital money. And it's going to be the

0:36best long-term capital asset. And you

0:39can actually own something and someone

0:41more powerful than you can't take it

0:43away from you.

0:44>> What do you mean they can't take Bitcoin

0:46from you?

0:47>> So this is a stack of currency. You walk

0:50through an airport on this, they ask you

0:52if you have cash. They just take it. So

0:53cash in a physical form is a problem. So

0:56what do you do? You put it in the bank.

0:58So the bank then decides whether you get

1:00to keep it and whether you get it back.

1:02But I could move a million dollars of

1:03Bitcoin from here to anywhere, to

1:06London, to anywhere in cyberspace in a

1:08few seconds. So the last thing in the

1:10world you want to save is money.

1:12>> So what about this? Why not just put all

1:14of my money into gold?

1:15>> Well, gold is up 12% a year, but Bitcoin

1:19is up 33.

1:20>> What about the S&P 500?

1:21>> You're going to get double the

1:23performance from BTC that you would get

1:25from like the S&P index.

1:26>> So should I buy a house?

1:27>> I will tell you why you shouldn't buy a

1:29house.

1:29>> And then you sold a bit of Bitcoin

1:30recently after telling a lot of people

1:32sell a kidney if you must but keep the

1:34Bitcoin. So why did you sell the Bitcoin

1:35instead of your kidney?

1:36>> Because

1:38>> Michael, beyond just buying Bitcoin,

1:40[music]

1:40what is a good strategy to build and

1:43become wealthy in your view? And then

1:44>> [music]

1:44>> you have 10 rules for young adults

1:46building a strong foundation for their

1:47life and career. So let's go through

1:48these.

1:49>> So first,

1:53>> This is super interesting to me. My team

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1:56of you that watch this show subscribe

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2:06if you are regular viewer of the show

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2:20year-over-year and week-over-week, it is

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2:41Really appreciate it. Let's get on with

2:43the show.

2:45>> [music]

2:47>> Michael, because of your success as a

2:49technology entrepreneur, you are a

2:51multi-billionaire from my

2:53math and you're heavily focused on

2:56digital currencies at the moment,

2:57specifically Bitcoin. What else do we

2:59need to know about you in terms of what

3:01you've built and accomplished outside of

3:02that?

3:03>> I always wanted to make a technical

3:04contribution. So, that the early

3:07business was business intelligence. So,

3:09how do you extract intelligence from

3:11large raw data sources and that was what

3:14MicroStrategy did. We created a global

3:16business intelligence company. And

3:18[snorts] I think in 2020, when the COVID

3:21lockdowns took place and the world

3:22turned upside down, that was when I

3:25discovered my greatest idea and it

3:27wasn't even my idea, right? It was

3:29Satoshi's idea, but I discovered Bitcoin

3:32in 2020 and the company today is

3:36$60 billion, but we peaked about 125

3:39billion. So, we got somewhere between

3:41100 and 200 times bigger since we

3:44discovered Bitcoin.

3:45>> And when you speak to the general public

3:46now, when you do podcasts like this,

3:48what is the the essence of the message

3:50that you're aiming to communicate to

3:51them.

3:53>> Bitcoin is is digital empowerment,

3:56digital capital. We're living through

3:59the digital transformation

4:01of assets, and this is just as profound

4:06transformation as digital intelligence.

4:09The real profound breakthrough of

4:11Bitcoin is this idea

4:14that you can take economic energy,

4:17convert to digital form, and tightly

4:19bind it to the person, the family, the

4:22company,

4:23or the country. We can talk about how we

4:25all hate countries, but you know, the

4:27history of the world is all the weak

4:29countries getting smashed by all the big

4:31countries. So, if what you're interested

4:34in in is empowerment and fairness and

4:37equity for the small company, the small

4:41family, the small person, the small

4:44country, the weak,

4:46how do you do it? Well, you basically

4:49encrypt the money, put it in cyberspace,

4:53protect it with a private key. So, like

4:56now you can actually own something and

4:58someone more powerful than you can't

5:00take it away from you.

5:02>> There's two types two types of money

5:04there in front of you. There's dollar

5:06bills, and then I've got a couple of

5:08Bitcoin on the table. What do you mean

5:10they can't take Bitcoin from you?

5:13>> Okay, so this is a stack of currency.

5:15You walk through an airport on this,

5:17they ask you if you have cash. If you

5:19do, they

5:21Cash in a in a physical form is a

5:23problem. So, what do you do? You put it

5:25in the bank.

5:27Well, the bank is is a counterparty. So,

5:29the bank then decides whether you get to

5:31keep it and whether you get it back. You

5:33go to the bank and you ask for it back,

5:34they might ask you why you asked for it

5:36back. If you ask for that much back,

5:39they file a form

5:41with the Treasury Department. You know,

5:42if you ask for too much money back too

5:44soon, right, someone comes knocking on

5:46your door. So, the challenge with this

5:48this is fiat currency

5:50and um you hold this at the pleasure of

5:53the nation-state. I mean, not just your

5:56nation-state. It's like every country on

5:57Earth gets to decide whether you get to

5:59spend this stuff, right? Which is

6:01interesting and if you want to actually

6:03transfer money to someone in another

6:05country, you need the permission of your

6:07bank, another bank, the central bank of

6:10their country, the corresponding bank.

6:12There might be seven different banks

6:13that have to decide whether the money

6:15gets from here to there. So, this is

6:17permissioned money, you know, that's uh

6:20managed by the state and with Bitcoin, I

6:23can take a million dollars. I can

6:25actually encrypt it in a chip in a

6:27physical coin, the Cascascius coin,

6:31and that's a million dollars. I slide it

6:33across and it's literally a bearer

6:35asset, you know, and so that's one

6:37manifestation of it. But, you could also

6:40put it into information form. I could

6:42transfer this to you just in the form of

6:45a private key that I wrote on a piece of

6:46paper and I gave to you.

6:49>> of letters you can give me.

6:50>> Yeah, or I could send you a message. I

6:52could send a text message. So, so, good

6:55luck getting a million dollars of gold

6:58from here to London if people don't want

7:00you to move it, but I could move a

7:03million dollars of Bitcoin from here to

7:05anywhere in a few seconds. The idea was

7:08I don't want to trust Apple or Google or

7:12Morgan Bank or a central bank or a

7:16government, right? And so, in the

7:18extreme case,

7:20you know, two people can meet in Africa

7:23and I can trade you some Bitcoin for

7:25your truck

7:26and I don't need the permission of seven

7:29banks and 16 governments and 32 other

7:33bureaucrats

7:35in order to buy that truck.

7:37>> What is it that most people, the average

7:39person, doesn't understand about the

7:41nature of money as it sat in their bank,

7:44as it relates to the debasement of it or

7:47the sort of inflation of it. Because

7:49most people think if they've got, you

7:50know, $10,000 in their bank and they

7:51keep it there, and maybe getting

7:53interest on it at 4% a year, they're

7:55going to be good.

7:56>> So, this is about $10,000, I guess. Um

8:001 acre of land in Miami Beach on the

8:03water cost $10,000 about 100 years ago.

8:09I know this cuz I have a house on the

8:10water and I have the the deed of sale,

8:13and it was about on 2 acres and it was

8:16$20,000. The entire house cost $100,000.

8:19And uh it's about $20,000 worth of land.

8:22Today, uh 1 acre of land on this the

8:25same acre

8:27on the water

8:28$10 million?

8:30Maybe $20 million. So, you know

8:34what happened here, right? It's the same

8:37dollar. It works out to be a thousand X

8:41increase in price. So, when land goes

8:44from $10,000 to $10 million, that means

8:47that the currency, the dollar, the money

8:51lost about 7% of its economic value

8:55every year for 100 years running.

8:58If you lose 7% a year

9:00you know, then you get cut in half,

9:04right? 10 times.

9:06Right? So, what do most people not know

9:08about about money? What they don't

9:10realize is that the best currency,

9:13money, my money being a medium of

9:15exchange, unit of account, store of

9:16value, the dollar, the best in the 20th

9:19century and the 21st century, the US

9:21dollar

9:22lost 7% of its value every year going

9:25for 100 years. That's the best it's ever

9:26going to get.

9:28It's not that good for everybody else.

9:29If you go to most other countries, they

9:32lose 14% of their value, and so they

9:34collapse in about 30 years. So

9:37what you have is a situation where if

9:40you store your wealth and currency and

9:43and the money of the society, the

9:46question really is just are you going to

9:48lose most of your money within 10 years?

9:50That's the weak currencies in in Africa.

9:52For example, most currencies in Africa

9:55you couldn't hold you your wealth even

9:57for 10 years, maybe 5 years.

9:59Or are you going to lose all your money

10:00in 30 years? Hyperinflation happened in

10:02Brazil, happened in Argentina, you know,

10:05that's Mexico, that's most places, and

10:08that's the status quo. The average fiat

10:11currency, you know, collapses in about

10:1329 years, I think.

10:15And then the best is if you happen to be

10:17a citizen of the greatest nation in the

10:19world and you win all the wars, you're

10:21just going to lose all your money in

10:24you know, half-life is 35 years. You're

10:26going to lose your money over the course

10:28of 100 years.

10:29>> So, should I buy a house?

10:31>> So, you get to the next interesting

10:33point which is that $100,000 in 19, uh,

10:3826

10:39in Miami Beach

10:41today would be worth $100,000, that

10:44house,

10:4550 to 100 million dollars.

10:47So, the house is better, right? In fact,

10:50if you're trying to preserve your

10:51wealth, you have to acquire scarce

10:53desirable property.

10:55So, your choice is do I buy real estate?

10:58Do I residential real estate? Do I buy

11:00commercial real estate? Do I buy a

11:02private company? Do I buy a public

11:04company? Like stocks? Do I buy

11:06collectibles?

11:07So, let me tell you why you shouldn't

11:08buy a house.

11:09Because, uh, there's a 2% property tax

11:12on houses in in Florida, which means

11:14that if you buy a house, you pay 2% of

11:16the value every year.

11:182%, you know, means that every 36 years

11:22you actually pay the cost of the house

11:24in tax to the government. Not a very

11:26good store of value because, uh, you're

11:29taking on a massive tax load

11:32and you're taking on a maintenance load.

11:34But having said it, it's still a better

11:36deal than just holding cash in a bank or

11:38holding cash in a safe. You know,

11:40commercial real estate looks a bit

11:41better, right? Because with commercial

11:43real estate, you can offset the tax, the

11:45insurance, and the maintenance cost with

11:49rents.

11:50So, what really works out with

11:51commercial real estate most of the time

11:53is you buy a million dollars commercial

11:56real estate, you have a bunch of fees,

11:58you charge rent. The rent offsets the

12:00maintenance cost. You don't really make

12:02any money on the rent, but the

12:04underlying million dollars appreciates

12:067% a year every year. And so, you

12:09actually can build wealth

12:11with commercial real estate if you can

12:12just cover the maintenance expenses.

12:15>> Most people are are told that the way to

12:18build wealth when they leave university

12:20and they get into the working world is

12:21to buy a house. So, most people that's

12:23what most most people do. They They get

12:25a job, a 9:00 to 5:00, they take the

12:27money they get from that, they go and

12:28get a mortgage, they buy a house, and

12:30they move in. That's kind of what we're

12:31all told implicitly. Is that a good

12:34strategy to build and become wealthy in

12:36your view?

12:38>> The only way that it's a good strategy

12:41is

12:43you're buying the house in a

12:46jurisdiction where the property taxes

12:49are manageable. Then yeah, you can you

12:51can generate some wealth. But if I flip

12:54that and you end up taking a 7% mortgage

12:57and you get massive tax and massive

12:59insurance expenses,

13:01then that same investment, you know,

13:03works out the other way and it it

13:05crushes you to death. So,

13:08a better idea generally is commercial

13:10real estate if you're if you actually

13:12have the, you know, the business acumen

13:15to to get into commercial real estate

13:17business cuz you can pass all the

13:19expenses through to your tenants.

13:22These things are all hard, right? Real

13:23estate business is hard, starting your

13:25own company is hard. Investing in other

13:28companies is hard. The conventional

13:31thing, the safe thing is I just put all

13:32my money in a money market and I get

13:34paid 3% and then after tax I've got 1.5%

13:38and the currency is losing 7% of its

13:41value a year and you're just losing 5 or

13:436% of your wealth every year for your

13:45life. So

13:46that's why Bitcoin is such a compelling

13:50thing. That's why people that believe in

13:51Bitcoin are passionate about it because

13:53the average person shouldn't have to be

13:55a real estate expert. They shouldn't

13:57have to be a tax expert. They shouldn't

13:59have to be capable of launching their

14:01own restaurant or bar or bakery. You

14:04shouldn't have to be a stock picker. Why

14:07shouldn't the typical person just be

14:09able to take their money, put it into an

14:12asset which appreciates in value 15% a

14:15year and they don't have to worry about

14:17it?

14:17>> What about the S&P 500? They can just

14:19put it into the stock market, right?

14:20>> Yeah, John Bogle's real contribution and

14:23the success of the S&P 500 is this idea

14:27that

14:28currency is not a store of value.

14:31Real estate is illiquid and scary and

14:34difficult and inefficient and high

14:36maintenance. So what is the liquid

14:39capital asset that it can I can buy and

14:41it turns out to be like SPY. It's just

14:43the S&P 500 in the form of an ETF. So

14:46that has returned 15% over the past 6

14:49years.

14:50Over 100 years?

14:52Maybe 10%? Something like that?

14:54>> Every year?

14:55>> And if the US dollar is losing 7% of its

14:57value in scarce desirable terms over the

15:00course of 100 years and you're getting

15:0110%

15:02you're getting a 2 or 3% boost and

15:06in return for accepting the volatility

15:09of being invested in the stock market,

15:11but it's not a bad idea, right? If you

15:14want the conventional best idea to

15:17preserve your wealth without taking on

15:20individual, you know, corporate risk and

15:23individual real estate risk, I just buy

15:24the S&P index and wait.

15:26>> What about this?

15:29This is gold.

15:30>> Yep.

15:31>> Why not just put all of my money into

15:33gold?

15:34>> It's not an awful idea to buy gold. Gold

15:37is up, um,

15:3812% a year

15:41for the past 6 years. So, whereas the

15:43S&P's up 15, gold's up 12, the NASDAQ's

15:46up 18.

15:47Bitcoin is up 33.

15:50Okay, so,

15:52generally, if you look at the world and

15:54you say, "Where do you want to save your

15:55money?" You want to buy a capital asset.

15:58Gold's a winner, S&P's a winner,

16:01diversified tech stocks are a winner.

16:04Bitcoin is a winner. Now, you're going

16:06to say to me,

16:08"Well, so then, well, why Bitcoin?"

16:10Well, the answer is, if you're living in

16:12Turkey, if you're living in Argentina,

16:14if you're living in Brazil before the

16:16currency collapses, or Mexico, or

16:18Venezuela, or any country in Africa, you

16:21don't get gold, you don't get the S&P,

16:23you don't get QQQ. You can't buy

16:25diversified real estate in the US. Those

16:28options I named are a Western world

16:31conventional capital assets. So,

16:35the big mistake,

16:36don't invest in non-capital assets.

16:38Don't put all your family's money in

16:40soybeans, you know? Don't buy barrels of

16:43crude oil, don't buy cotton, don't

16:46invest in things that a factory or a

16:48robot or an AI can generate infinite of.

16:53You buy things that the robots and the

16:55AIs and the big factories cannot pump

16:58out by the million gallons. And so, what

17:01is that? It is maybe an ounce of gold,

17:04it is a share in the 500 most desirable

17:07companies in the world, it is one out of

17:1121 million Bitcoin. All of those things

17:14are things that the robots are not going

17:16to create infinite of. Those are capital

17:19assets. Which capital asset

17:22is a function of where you live

17:24and what your mindset is. If you're

17:26living in a war zone,

17:28my advice is Bitcoin because you're not

17:32carrying this through a checkpoint,

17:34right? Like, you know, if if you need to

17:36go through an airport, you want

17:38something that you get to keep and take

17:40with you.

17:41>> You talked about the robots there.

17:43>> Yeah.

17:44>> And uh when we say the robots, I think

17:46we mean both the the surgeon robotics

17:48we're seeing, but also artificial

17:50intelligence that's going to empower

17:52them to be very, very intelligent.

17:53>> Yeah.

17:54>> How has this changed your thesis in how

17:57you view the future? Cuz it's it's a

17:58profound surprise, I think to all of us

18:00that artificial intelligence is

18:02accelerating at the rate we're seeing.

18:04>> Technology fails until it succeeds. When

18:06I was at MIT, people were trying to

18:08make, uh you know, speech recognition

18:10work. It just didn't work. For a

18:11thousand years, people wanted to fly and

18:13it didn't work. And in 1902, the New

18:15York Times declared that every learned

18:18scientist knows that you'll never be

18:19able to fly. And then in 1903, we fly.

18:22In 2023, you know, the AI started

18:26working. You can see what's happening.

18:28We've affected the digital

18:29transformation of intelligence.

18:31Cars are going to drive themselves.

18:33It's pretty clear that anything that

18:35takes massive human labor, you know,

18:38whether it's lawyering, writing a

18:39contract, or composing a poem, or

18:42composing a script, or composing

18:46It's like, you want a book?

18:47Tell the AI what kind of book you want.

18:49Here's my 10, you know, I want this. I

18:52want it to be set in London. I want this

18:54protagonist. Can you make it like that?

18:56Put some more violence in it.

18:58Uh you know, Voltaire, right, was

19:00impressive because he created, you know,

19:03this much literature. And and when he

19:05did it, it came out of the mind of one

19:07man, and that was quite amazing.

19:09And you know, I think we're always going

19:12to admire the people that did it first.

19:15Right? But, you know,

19:17the AIs will think for us.

19:20You know, put the AI into the robot.

19:22We're not that far, right? Like when I

19:24sit when I sit and I talk to my voice

19:27assistant, whether it's Chad or whether

19:29it's Grok, and it's it's like she knows

19:32everything, and she keeps getting

19:33smarter.

19:34You know, you know, every single week

19:37she gets smarter, and it's like what

19:38happens when they go into a robot? It's

19:40like

19:41Well, you can you pretty much can

19:43imagine

19:44a billion robots, and maybe we'll pay

19:46200 bucks a month for a robot, and the

19:49robot will just pretty much do

19:51everything.

19:52And so, the question is do you want

19:53someone to do everything, to cook, to

19:56clean, you know, to take out the trash?

19:59Would you like a self-driving car? Of

20:01course, you do. We're on the verge of

20:03these perfect products, right? That

20:06like we'll get to the point where we're

20:07like I I I I

20:09You used to actually have an oven that

20:11burned things?

20:13Like what?

20:14What what it was stupid? Yeah, it was

20:16too stupid to know it was going to burn

20:18the

20:19Huh? Why don't you just put intelligence

20:21into the appliance, right? What why

20:24would you ever have an unintelligent

20:25appliance, right? At this point, when it

20:28gets exponentially cheaper. We used to

20:30get in traffic accidents.

20:33Right? Like like the big reveal, right?

20:35The big the big inversions when people

20:37realize that the self-driving cars are

20:40safer than the person-driven cars,

20:43right?

20:44It's like you used to make mistakes.

20:47You know, the irony, of course, is now

20:49when you send a message to someone, if

20:50you want to prove that it came from you,

20:52you have to actually put errors in it.

20:55Right? It's like if you put errors in

20:57it, I believe you typed it. You know,

20:59the AI can draft the thing as though it

21:01had a PhD in English, and it had 20

21:03years experience as a copy editor. And

21:06so, we're reaching this point where

21:09lack of of effectiveness is just

21:13laziness, right? Like, if you wrote

21:15something which wasn't perfect,

21:19it's cuz you're lazy, not because you're

21:21not perfect. I mean, the AIs create

21:23perfect documents. They do perfect

21:25research.

21:27The robots will do any amount of work.

21:29And I I think Elon makes this point,

21:31which is we're about to trip over an age

21:33of abundance.

21:34>> Do you believe that's true?

21:36What What does that say about Bitcoin?

21:38Because I'm looking at some of the

21:39quotes here that Elon said about the age

21:40of abundance. And he says, "In the

21:41future, where anyone can have anything,

21:44you no longer need money as a database

21:46for labor allocation. If AI and robotics

21:48are big enough to satisfy all human

21:50needs, then the relevance of money

21:52declines rapidly. I'm not sure we will

21:55have it. If you are stranded on a desert

21:57island with a trillion dollars, it will

21:58be pointless because there is no labor

22:00to allocate. In a benign scenario, we

22:03will have universal high income. Much as

22:05universal basic income mean anyone can

22:07have any products or any services that

22:09they want. Universal high income via

22:12checks issued by federal governments is

22:14the best way to deal with unemployment

22:15caused by AI/robotics.

22:18Because AI and [snorts] robotics will

22:19produce goods and services far in excess

22:21of the increase in money supply, so

22:23there will be no inflation. Work will

22:25become optional, kind of like playing

22:27sports or a video game. You can go to

22:29the store and buy vegetables, or you can

22:31go and grow them in your backyard

22:32because you like growing them.

22:34That's what work will be like. AI and

22:36robotics are going to make so much stuff

22:38and provide so many services that they

22:41will actually run out of things to do

22:43for the humans. Money is fundamentally

22:45information. The true constraints of the

22:47future won't be financial. They'll be

22:50energy and mass.

22:52>> He's half right. I agree with with part

22:55of what he says. That is, consumer

22:58goods, consumables, utilitarian goods uh

23:02will become abundant. But, there are

23:04always going to be scarce desirable

23:06goods that will not become abundant. And

23:09I think he overstates the case. Money

23:11will still be valuable, wealth will

23:13still be valuable. But, I'll give you an

23:15example.

23:17Henry VIII didn't have clean water.

23:19Did not have heat, did not have cooling.

23:22These things the King of England did not

23:23have. And technology gave all these

23:26things to the middle class.

23:28And so, if you live in the middle class

23:30today, you know, you can have your

23:32appendix out, you know. But, Henry VIII

23:34didn't have dental crowns, he didn't

23:35have x-rays. So, you get modern medical

23:38care, you know, the infant mortality

23:41rate has plunged. Life is safer, clean

23:44water, clean air, right?

23:48Clean food. And technology gave them to

23:51us. We stamp out infinite Coca-Cola,

23:54infinite Hershey's bars, ice cream,

23:56right? Running water.

23:59Right? Electricity. So, all of those

24:01things have been given to the middle

24:04class, the working class in the

24:05developed world. Right? Not everywhere,

24:07but let's say in the developed world.

24:08But, everybody doesn't get a Hampton's

24:10house, everybody doesn't get their own

24:12private jet, they don't get their own

24:13private yacht. So, what happened with

24:15the explosion of affluence?

24:18Massive utilitarian entitlement, lots of

24:21cars. But, you know, okay, so everybody

24:22gets a car, but how many people get a

24:24Porsche? What happens with humanity is

24:26we always invent the luxury car.

24:29We come up with the trophy asset. And

24:32And again,

24:34>> But, but most people don't actually want

24:35that. They want to be able to like feed

24:37their family and not have to worry about

24:39the bills. So, all of those people,

24:41you're saying that those people are

24:42going to be They're going to be good.

24:43They're not going to have to work.

24:44>> I'm saying that if if your aspiration is

24:47a good life,

24:49if you want infinite food, infinite

24:52energy, infinite education, infinite

24:55entertainment,

24:58right? You're probably going to get it.

25:00My point is, in theory, right, why does

25:02money matter today?

25:04Cuz everybody, you know, has electricity

25:07and water. Because people want to buy

25:08something more than water. By the way,

25:11water is the proletarian drink.

25:14>> What does that mean?

25:15>> It means that if you go to a restaurant

25:17and you don't and you can't afford

25:18anything else, you ask for a cup of

25:19water,

25:20right?

25:21>> [clears throat]

25:21>> And then if you have some more money,

25:23you get yourself a Coca-Cola or a soft

25:25drink, and that costs five bucks. But if

25:27you have more money, you buy yourself a

25:28vodka. And then when you have more

25:30money, you want to buy yourself the

25:31specialty high-end tequila. And and

25:34eventually people find a way to spend

25:36$38 on a drink.

25:38And uh, you know, in New York City, you

25:40know, you can see that everywhere. Why

25:42do we go to restaurants and pay $300

25:45to eat at a restaurant? Because you can

25:47actually feed yourself on three bucks a

25:49day. And the answer is,

25:51there's always going to be a hierarchy

25:53of affluence, and people are going to

25:54find things to aspire to that will be

25:57more than

25:59the utilitarian mean that everybody

26:02gets. If I give you a universal health

26:04care, people want private health care.

26:06If I give everybody a house, someone's

26:08going to want a house twice as big.

26:10Everybody's always going to have a

26:12reason to want something more, you

26:15>> Because we're status orientated animals.

26:18>> That's the cynical way to look at it,

26:20but the other way to look at it is, I

26:22wanted to be sitting on a mountain peak

26:25skiing, but not that mountain peak,

26:28because the snow's not good on that

26:30mountain peak this week.

26:31>> And it's too busy on this one.

26:33>> Yeah, and that one was too crowded.

26:35You know, it's like there's always going

26:37to be

26:38some exclusivity, you know, there's

26:41going to be a quest. So I I think that

26:44money's not going away. I think it's

26:46pretty obvious if you look around you

26:49that that Uh, people still need money.

26:52It is true

26:54that the basic needs in life, basic

26:57transportation, basic energy, basic

27:00health care, all of those things can be

27:02manufactured in quantity and they'll get

27:04progressively cheaper. We'll call them

27:06consumer goods.

27:08>> If this uh knowledge work does become

27:11I guess taken by the robots and the AIs,

27:14there's some people say there's going to

27:15be new jobs created and everyone will be

27:16fine. But it's not clear to me that

27:19there will be enough new jobs created in

27:20a period of time um to satisfy the

27:23demand of people to have something to do

27:27professionally.

27:28>> It used to be everybody was a farmer,

27:29right? And then all of a sudden in

27:31America we have new jobs like called

27:33accountants and lawyers and film

27:35producers. You're a podcaster. Your job

27:38didn't exist 20 years ago. It did you

27:40know, the job description did not exist,

27:42the business did not exist. There's a

27:44lot of things that exist today. Yeah. I

27:47There are people that make a living

27:49putting on makeup and clothes and

27:50posting on Instagram and that was not a

27:52job that existed 30 years ago.

27:55So, there'll be a lot of new jobs.

27:57There'll be dislocation. There's going

27:59to be political unrest. What do I think?

28:03I think this is the best argument in

28:05favor of encouraging a free market and

28:08allowing uh liberal

28:11uh unregulated

28:13businesses to prosper because

28:16if you have a progressive society and by

28:20the way, the United States is sort of

28:21more progressive.

28:22>> Define progressive in this context.

28:24>> You're allowed to start a business.

28:26You're allowed to sell product.

28:28It's not illegal

28:30to

28:31to create a podcast.

28:33By the way, you you can't do what you're

28:34doing in Cuba.

28:35>> Yeah.

28:36>> Right? In North Korea you couldn't do

28:38it.

28:38>> I read something crazy last night about

28:40driving autonomous cars. It said lawyers

28:42are trying to stop block EVs because

28:46these particular lawyers make a lot of

28:47money from litigating car accidents.

28:50>> We wouldn't want people to not crash.

28:52>> Yeah.

28:53>> Like Yeah, so the point is there all

28:55sorts of laws in restraint of trade.

28:57Like you can't have an Airbnb. In the

29:00face of modern technology, if you have

29:02modern technology is creating

29:04dislocation, if your goal is to

29:07embrace the technology,

29:09create maximum productivity,

29:12and then minimize the disruption and the

29:15inflammation,

29:16then the more degrees of freedom you

29:18offer,

29:20the less pain there'll be because in a

29:22more free society, you're going to have

29:2510,000 new kinds of businesses pop up or

29:28100,000 new business opportunities that

29:32no one conceptualized. And they'll be

29:34threatening to the status quo, but

29:36they'll be rational and they'll create

29:38value, and then they will create gainful

29:40employment, and they'll create wealth

29:42for all the people that are displaced

29:45right by by the technology.

29:50>> Steve, what you doing?

29:51>> Uh just making myself a delicious

29:53coffee.

29:53>> From the freezer?

29:55>> From the freezer. You not heard about

29:56Cometeer?

29:57>> No.

29:58>> Oh my gosh. This is going to change your

29:59life.

30:00Couple of months ago, the founder of

30:01this business called Matt sent a big

30:03shipment of this coffee to our office in

30:06London. What most people don't know is

30:07that the processing of coffee takes out

30:09a lot of the taste. So what they do is

30:11they flash freeze it at the optimal

30:14moment when it's most tasty. And they

30:17send you in the post the coffee in these

30:19little frozen ice cubes. Now Matt sent a

30:21big shipment to my office. I moved it to

30:23the kitchen. I said to the team, knock

30:24yourselves out. And then I saw so many

30:26messages in our Slack channel of people

30:27going, "Oh my god, what the hell is

30:30that? It's so delicious." All I have to

30:32do is pop it out in the morning using

30:33the little button on the back of this

30:34thing. I pour my hot water in, and I mix

30:38it,

30:39and that is done. You can get $30 off

30:42your first order of Cometeer Coffee if

30:45you go to cometeer.com/steven.

30:48Try it and please Instagram DM me,

30:50LinkedIn me, and let me know if you love

30:52it as much as I do.

30:54One of the things you've heard me talk

30:55about quite a lot over the last couple

30:56of years, and this is something that's

30:57true in business and content, but also

30:59with everything in life, is that

31:01consistency is the thing that really,

31:03really compounds. The same is true in

31:05sales. When your team is small,

31:07consistency happens naturally. The team

31:09knows every deal, so nothing gets

31:11missed. But, as I've experienced, when

31:13you grow, this starts to break down and

31:15deals start to slip, follow-ups don't

31:17happen, leads go cold that shouldn't

31:19have. And when this happens, a lot of

31:20leaders look at it and think they have a

31:22people problem. When actually, it's a

31:23systems problem. The businesses that

31:25I've watched scale well commercially all

31:27have a system that team uses every

31:29single day. And for my team, that system

31:32has been our sponsor, Pipedrive. It's an

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31:45It's what keeps our commercial operation

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32:02And there's no credit card needed at

32:04all. Head to pipedrive.com/ceo.

32:09You know, earlier you were talking about

32:10how you can get AI to write a book. I

32:11was thinking as you were saying it, the

32:12interesting thing is, I now ask my AI

32:16um what book I need to read.

32:18And to make that book for me, versus

32:20being prescriptive to it and because it

32:22has what it this huge memory on me. It

32:24knows what I'm I'm dealing with. It

32:25knows the businesses I'm building, the

32:26problems I have. And so, I just say,

32:28"What What do I What's the question I

32:29should be asking you? Or what should

32:31book should I be reading?" And then,

32:33"Can you make that book for me? Make it

32:3420 pages. I like it in this particular

32:36style cuz it's my favorite style of

32:37author. And then I I want to download it

32:39as an MP3 file and listen to it on my

32:41way to work. I have 43 minutes.

32:43Could you say what should What's the

32:45question I should be asking you?

32:46>> Yeah, you're you're using You're using

32:49that as an example, but at the end of

32:51the day, you have to govern the state

32:54space. For example, anybody could say

32:57what question should I ask, but the real

32:59issue is what's the What are the input

33:00constraints? If you're a baker in

33:02Nigeria

33:04in Lagos.

33:05>> Okay, yeah.

33:06>> Right? There's a certain set of

33:07conditions that are different than if

33:09you happen to be a fireman in Los

33:11Angeles.

33:12>> Yeah.

33:12>> Right? And so

33:14what's the state space that you're

33:16exploring in order to create a

33:17contribution?

33:19And I'll give you an example like um

33:22I used AI. I used AI to make $15 billion

33:25last year.

33:27>> Is that a true story?

33:28>> This is true.

33:29>> Okay.

33:29>> You did?

33:29>> I did. Yeah.

33:31And I used an AI to make $15 billion in

33:33a way that no one would ever conceive

33:35that you could make $15 billion.

33:37>> This is a true story?

33:38>> Okay. Yeah, let let's let's go back to

33:39me in 2025.

33:41We have a company that has billions of

33:43dollars of Bitcoin. Uh $30 billion of

33:46Bitcoin. We want to actually raise

33:48capital to buy more Bitcoin. We maxed

33:51out the equity markets. Uh we became the

33:53largest issuer of convertible bonds in

33:56the in the world. And we maxed out the

33:58convertible bond market. And And uh that

34:01was our journey in the first 5 years of

34:03our Bitcoin.

34:03>> To simplify this for Jenny Davis, you

34:05borrowed as much money as you could from

34:06traditional means.

34:07>> Yes.

34:08>> Okay.

34:08>> Yeah.

34:08>> To buy Bitcoin.

34:09>> Yeah.

34:09>> Yeah.

34:10>> By the beginning of 2025, we had issued

34:12as many convertible bonds as you could

34:14issue. We were the largest issuer in the

34:16world. And it wasn't scalable. So, we

34:18needed to invent a new type of security,

34:21a new type of credit instrument that we

34:23could use to borrow money to buy more

34:25Bitcoin.

34:27So,

34:28we went to the AI. I went to the AI and

34:30I started exploring how do I design a

34:32preferred stock.

34:34And so I said, I think I want to create

34:36a security that's not a common equity

34:38and I don't want it to be a bond. I want

34:39it to be some hybrid in the middle. A

34:41preferred stock, you know, for the

34:44layman, it's it's just a security that

34:46could be anything. You can give it any

34:47terms. I can sell you a preferred stock

34:49and give you the right to put it back to

34:51me in 12 months and it looks like that.

34:53I can give you a guaranteed coupon on

34:55it. I can give you conversion rights and

34:58and make it look like equity. So, we

35:00used AI to design a convertible

35:02preferred stock called STRK. When we did

35:05it, no one had ever created a preferred

35:07stock that was backed by Bitcoin before

35:10and and we'd never issued it and so it

35:13was kind of a combination of financial

35:15engineering and digital asset

35:17engineering and legal work and

35:20securities law.

35:21So, we built it and

35:24and, you know, when we asked the lawyers

35:26and the bankers, they're like, well, no

35:27one's ever done it before.

35:29Okay. And and you know, their their

35:30their answer, by the way, is no one's

35:32ever done it before and people don't do

35:33that. So, we don't think you should do

35:35that.

35:36And we're like, well, everything else

35:38that people have done we've maxed out

35:40and so we're kind of at the point where

35:43our growth is going to stop unless we

35:45find a way out of the box. So, we're

35:47going to have to do something no one's

35:48ever done before using

35:51new technology, right? We're using

35:53digital capital. We're using uh

35:56digital intelligence and we're using a

35:59digital treasury company. So, three new

36:02forms of something in order to create

36:04value.

36:05And after we'd done three of them, we

36:07decided what we wanted to do was create

36:09a short duration credit instrument, one

36:12that would be would trade stably around

36:14$100, around par.

36:16And we're trying to figure out how do

36:17you get a preferred stock to trade at at

36:20a stable level? It's what what you would

36:22call technically short duration credit,

36:25but it's like we're trying to create a

36:26money market type instrument where

36:28people can buy it at 100, sell it at

36:29100, collect the yield, and not worry

36:32about it trading up and down or being

36:34sensitive to interest rates.

36:36Well, if you do that, you have to vary

36:38in order to get it to trade stable, if

36:40you want the price to be stable, you

36:41have to change the dividend rate.

36:43And so, we created an instrument

36:46that where we could change the dividend

36:48rate every month. Now, had anybody ever

36:50done it? No. In the history of the

36:52world, no one ever created a variable

36:54dividend rate preferred stock.

36:56Is it illegal? No.

36:58Why has no one ever done it? No one ever

37:00had a reason to do it. They never

37:01thought to do it.

37:03The lawyers, the bankers, the

37:05conventional investors, they're like,

37:06"Well, we've never seen it done before.

37:07We're not sure you can do it."

37:10We go to the AI, we said, "Well, can we

37:11do it?" They're like, "Of course you can

37:12do it. Just do this, this, and this, and

37:14this, and it Well, they said they don't

37:15like that. Well, just do this, this,

37:16this."

37:16>> Which AI?

37:18>> Chat GPT.

37:19Open AI.

37:20>> So, Chat GPT made you $15 billion?

37:23>> Yeah, because the short of it is, we

37:24brought our IPO to market, it became a

37:26$2.5 billion IPO, the biggest IPO of the

37:30year to date.

37:32And then, we put a shelf registration on

37:34it, we sold another $8 billion of it.

37:38So, we sold 10 and 1/2 billion dollars

37:39of that instrument, plus 4 billion of

37:41the other instrument. So, we basically

37:43sold $15 billion of credit, which kind

37:46of equates to the company making about

37:48$15 billion.

37:50>> I'm thinking about what this means

37:51generally for the average person

37:52listening.

37:53>> Yeah.

37:54>> Because everyone's like searching for

37:55business ideas.

37:56>> Right.

37:57>> New ideas. And you're telling me that

37:58you you can use AI now to come up with

38:01novel business ideas and solutions that

38:03are outside of the box and that would

38:05generate value for people. Um you though

38:08there is it's almost like hearing that

38:10there's an arbitrage opportunity with

38:11this intelligence.

38:13Now, I was reading something the other

38:14day that said only 2% of households have

38:16a Chat GPT or AI subscription still.

38:20So, do you think there is an an an

38:21arbitrage there for people who go to AI

38:23now and and can build business ideas

38:26from it?

38:27>> If If you're an entrepreneur, right? If

38:28you If you aspire to create a business

38:31or create something of value, then it's

38:34the no-brainer is you definitely should

38:37pick one or more of these AIs and maybe

38:40you want to become adept using multiple.

38:42They're They're just different tools.

38:43It's It's kind of like saying you got to

38:45learn how to use a computer and you got

38:47to learn how to read reading, writing,

38:49arithmetic, right? Just basics.

38:52And then

38:53once you've done that, you you do need

38:56to have some domain expertise in

38:58something, right? The question is

39:01what are you going to do, right? You

39:02either want to create

39:04a new product or you want to create a

39:06new service

39:08or you want to radically transform an

39:11existing product or service using AI to

39:15be much cheaper, much better.

39:19But to my mind, you know, I would try to

39:21create something magical.

39:23Like for example can you create

39:25something that does everybody's

39:26accounting, does you know, does the work

39:28of a million accountants and sell it for

39:3010 bucks a month?

39:32Right?

39:32>> If you're 18 now, if your kids came to

39:34you and said, "Dad, what should I

39:36go and study at university? And what

39:38shouldn't I study at university?

39:40Would your answer be different now as we

39:42stand on the foothills of this new

39:43technology?"

39:44>> You want to study the new thing, right?

39:46You want to learn the new thing. And so,

39:48if you look at the history of of

39:50science, the real question is, what's on

39:52the S-curve?

39:53>> On the S-curve?

39:53>> The whole theory of the S-curve is for a

39:55thousand years we try to fly.

39:58And infinite energy makes no progress.

40:00You cannot fly. And then in 1903

40:04all of a sudden we can sort of fly.

40:06And in 66 years we go from flying 20

40:11miles an hour to flying 300 miles an

40:13hour. First a fighter jet, then a

40:15passenger jet, then we have like rockets

40:17that are unmanned. Then we have manned

40:18rockets. And then we have rockets to go

40:20to orbit. Then we have rockets to go to

40:21the moon. And so that's an example of an

40:23S curve. But then you know what happens.

40:25In the mid 70s, we designed the 737, the

40:27747.

40:29And we hit a wall. You know, and 737 is

40:33still the primary airplane for the next

40:3450 years.

40:36And if you look at the efficiency of an

40:37airplane from 1975

40:41uh to the year 2025, over 50 years,

40:44the modern airplanes are 15% more

40:47efficient.

40:48Like So, what you got was a diminishing

40:50return. And when you're on the S curve,

40:53things are doubling every 3 years.

40:55You're doubling, you're doubling, you're

40:56doubling. You're exponential growth.

40:59And then you hit diminishing returns.

41:00And then you stagnate. And then you

41:02stop. And then things are just not

41:04getting any better. So,

41:05>> Let's show an S curve on the screen. And

41:07also

41:08uh the the new S curve coming in below

41:10it.

41:11>> Like when I was at MIT, you know,

41:12everybody basically flocked to uh

41:15electrical engineering and computer

41:16science. Because that was the cool

41:18thing. And so, the mistake to make when

41:21you go to school is

41:22you get at the end of the S curve. You

41:24basically start studying something that

41:27has hit diminishing returns. And once

41:29you hit that diminishing return,

41:32no material progress may take place for

41:34100 years. It might be that you just

41:37can't break through. Propulsion

41:40technology is the limiting factor. Like

41:43why don't we have planes that will fly,

41:45you know, supersonic, you know, on um

41:49you know, a tank of gas that's that's

41:51this much, right? Or fusion drives.

41:53Well, cuz we don't. Now, on the other

41:56hand,

41:57semiconductors

41:58uh started exploding. And semi And

42:00semiconductor technology has continued

42:02to advance. We haven't hit

42:04that limit yet. And that's that's why so

42:08many profound breakthroughs were made in

42:10computer science over the past 50 years.

42:13>> This is kind of hit a nice curve, hasn't

42:15it? As a form factor, my iPhone here.

42:17You know, that over since the iPhone, as

42:19you said, since the iPhone like 6,

42:22it hasn't really gotten thinner, but uh

42:24the battery hasn't really taken a leap

42:26forward as such. So, we're now looking

42:28for another form factor to interface

42:30with computers.

42:31>> Yeah, you know, the iPhone 1 didn't have

42:33cut and paste.

42:35And we didn't get cut and paste till the

42:37version 3.

42:38And so, there was a rapid improvement

42:40versions 1 through 6 or 1 through 7,

42:44call it.

42:45And at that point, you start hitting

42:48diminishing returns. And if you were to

42:49do some utility function, and you were

42:51to score on a scale of 1 to 100, you

42:54would have gone from like 5 to 70 in a

42:58hurry, and then you would have gone from

43:0170 to 90 over the next few iterations,

43:04and then that you're 91, 92.

43:07You hit that limit, and I if if you are

43:10starting a company, right? You don't

43:11create another iPhone.

43:13Right? The [clears throat] real question

43:14right now

43:15is uh

43:17can I create smart glasses where I have

43:19something that's like my Maui Jim

43:20sunglasses, I put them on, they weigh

43:22nothing, and they have the camera, and

43:24they see what I see, and they hear what

43:26I hear, and they know where I am,

43:29and plug that into AI, and in that

43:31point, I can just say, "Hey, Eve, what

43:35is that?"

43:37You know, "Where am I? And tell me about

43:39that." And and it's like

43:42"Why do I have to type anymore?"

43:44>> When I met Mark Zuckerberg, he showed me

43:46the the device that's on the way from

43:48Meta. This is not secret, cuz I know

43:50they've talked about it publicly. Which

43:51is just a it was just a plain wrist

43:53strap with no screen on it.

43:55But it linked to the glasses.

43:58And in the glasses, when I looked

44:00around, I could see all of my screens

44:01and everything like that. And I And if I

44:02just because of this wrist strap, if I

44:04just click, it clicks on all the stuff.

44:06So, I was just like, "Hey, with this

44:07little wrist strap. The wrist strap

44:08again was just like a cotton bracelet,

44:11very thin cotton bracelet. And as I just

44:13looked around, I could click on

44:14everything and open things and call

44:16people and send texts and go on YouTube,

44:17etc. And it was just up here in my

44:19peripheral. You imagine again, imagine

44:21that on an S curve. At some point it's

44:22going to be a some sort of like almost

44:24like contact lens type thing

44:26that's that I can just

44:29>> By the way, this is why you should study

44:31fantasy, right? Because they have this,

44:34right? In magic worlds, right? This is

44:36like

44:37you know, like I just wear my talisman.

44:39You know, I have a necklace. What does

44:40it do? Oh, it makes me omniscient, all

44:42powerful, immortal, indestructible. I

44:45live forever. What what what do you have

44:47to do to make the product work? Nothing.

44:50I'm wearing the wristband and I walk and

44:51every door opens to me and stuff

44:53happens. And here's where Elon gets it

44:55right. It's like the number one

44:56engineering mistake is engineers want to

44:58optimize the part that shouldn't exist.

45:00Like make the parts go away, right? We

45:03start on the topic of what should you

45:05study,

45:06right? It's It's study technologies that

45:09allow you to create magic things that

45:11your parents could never

45:13If your parents would say that's magic,

45:16you're on the right track, right? So,

45:17like how about What's better than the

45:19wristband? Just like How about you just

45:21like implant one pellet?

45:23>> Neuralink.

45:24>> Yeah. Maybe it's a Neuralink. Maybe it's

45:27Maybe it's when I'm born, there's a

45:29slight implant and now I I hear like I

45:33can talk to the AI in cyberspace

45:36forever.

45:37>> But should you go study that because

45:38conceivably the artificial intelligence

45:41and the robots are going to be the ones

45:42that create that technology. If they

45:44have a PhD in everything and that's

45:45accelerating.

45:46>> Yeah, well, I guess we're back back to

45:48the what should you study? You ought to

45:50study digital intelligence or digital

45:53assets. If you can generate,

45:56you know, generate proteins, generate

45:58generate any kind of

46:01life form or enzyme or protein or the

46:04like, maybe it's interesting.

46:06But I think with regard to AI,

46:09you don't want to learn how to do things

46:11that AI can do. What you want to do is

46:13learn how to ask the AI to do something

46:17that's never been done before. Like if I

46:19were to go back to school, 95% of what I

46:22learned, uh, probably wouldn't want to

46:24study.

46:25>> What about a surgeon? Do you think

46:26you're going to be a surgeon?

46:27>> No.

46:28>> What about a a lawyer?

46:30>> No.

46:31>> Accountant?

46:32>> No.

46:33>> Driver?

46:34>> No.

46:36At some point, what you have to do is

46:39ask

46:40the AIs aren't really answering the

46:42question yet, but you have but you have

46:43to ask whatever is the marginal question

46:45that hasn't been answered by the

46:46civilization. Maybe I'll take it I'll

46:49take that position, which is

46:51the way you create value in the world is

46:53you bring something into the world that

46:55wasn't here before.

46:58>> This is something that I've made for

47:00you. I realized that the Diary of a CEO

47:01audience are strivers, whether it's in

47:03business or health, we all have big

47:05goals that we want to accomplish. And

47:07one of the things I've learned is that

47:09when you aim at the big, big, big goal,

47:11it can feel incredibly psychologically

47:14uncomfortable because it's kind of like

47:16being stood at the foot of Mount Everest

47:17and looking upwards. The way to

47:19accomplish your goals is by breaking

47:21them down into tiny, small steps, and we

47:24call this in our team the 1%. this

47:26philosophy is highly responsible for

47:28much of our success here. So, what we've

47:31done so that you at home can accomplish

47:33any big goal that you have, is we've

47:35made these 1% diaries, and we released

47:38these last year and they all sold out.

47:40So, I asked my team over and over again

47:42to bring the diaries back, but also to

47:43introduce some new colors and to make

47:45some minor tweaks to the diary. So, now

47:47we have a better range for you. So, if

47:51you have a big goal in mind, and you

47:53need a framework and a process and some

47:55motivation, then I highly recommend you

47:57get one of these diaries before they all

47:59sell out once again. And you can get

48:01yours at the diary.com.

48:03And if you want the link, the link is in

48:04the description below.

48:06There should be a button just down below

48:08here. And if it says subscribed, you're

48:10already subscribed. If it says subscribe

48:12bar, that means you're not yet. And if

48:14you're not subscribed, please could you

48:15do us a favor and hit that button. It

48:16helps the show more than you know. And

48:18according to the algorithm, you're

48:19someone that watches our show, but you

48:21haven't yet hit that button. Thank you

48:22so much.

48:24Beyond just buying Bitcoin, is there any

48:26sort of actionable steps that the

48:28working class should take right now to

48:30pre- prepare for this robot transition

48:33that you're talking about?

48:35>> I mean, the actionable step is is

48:39learn

48:40>> Learn about the robots.

48:41>> digital. Right?

48:42>> Digital.

48:42>> Like understand digital. For example,

48:45how much content's available on YouTube

48:46right now? Like

48:48>> Infinite, right now.

48:49>> Right? What can you get for free on

48:51YouTube and what can you create of

48:53value, right? If you're in the business

48:55of content creation, my advice would be

48:58study digital channels. As As like,

49:02should I go and become a stage actor on

49:04Broadway?

49:06It's It's a It's a

49:09a much smaller thing. Mr. Beast can get

49:11100 million subscribers, you can get 20

49:13million subscribers. You're not getting

49:1520 million subscribers if you do the

49:18thing that your parents' parents did.

49:21So, I think that you want to look at

49:22digital platforms. There's There's

49:24digital communication like Acts or

49:26Instagram, there's YouTube and

49:29and the like, but there's also

49:32There's also digital intelligence.

49:34>> Let's just just test that first point a

49:36bit. I guess a lot of content creators

49:38are thinking at the moment now because

49:39of these frontier models that can

49:41produce video content, pictures. A kid

49:44in Mumbai or Manhattan, where we are

49:46now, can set up an agent while they're

49:48asleep and say, "Listen, just post 100

49:51videos while I'm asleep on this every

49:54single platform.

49:55I actually I'll make five agents and

49:57I'll ask all of them to post 100 videos

50:00each. So, you're going to have this you

50:01have in terms of supply and demand,

50:02presumably that's a supply shock.

50:04There's this slop tsunami coming in. And

50:06then if you look at demand of attention

50:08online, it is arguably fixed. Financial

50:10Times did a report said that young young

50:12people are actually starting to come

50:14down in terms of time spent online. Uh

50:16slightly older generations are starting

50:18from a lower base, but they're still

50:19going up, but they're starting from a

50:20lower base. So, you've got a tsunami

50:22slop of supply and fixed demand.

50:25I get this even this business feels a

50:27little bit insecure. Actually, a lot of

50:29the major podcasters are actually down

50:30on YouTube. If I look at the top who I

50:32would consider the sort of top five

50:34podcasters in my niche, um every single

50:36one of them is down at least 50% in the

50:38last 20-ish uh 12 12 24 months.

50:41>> Well, the solution is certainly not to

50:43not pay attention, right? So, for

50:45example, if you're in the business of

50:47creating content right now, you would

50:49ask the question, can I enhance the

50:51content with AI?

50:53Or can I better market or distribute the

50:55content with AI?

50:57>> What is the moat?

50:59>> The moat's going to be the most talented

51:01content cre- the person creating the

51:03best stuff that everybody wants to see.

51:05There are videos being created like,

51:07here's a walk-through of a 16th century

51:10warship.

51:11And you know, I don't know if you've

51:12seen a guy constructs the entire warship

51:15from the keel and he creates the ribs

51:17and he shows you the lower deck and the

51:18ballast and he takes you through every

51:20step and it's a three-dimensional uh

51:22video animation.

51:24Takes about an hour and it's absolutely

51:26riveting. I have no reason to care about

51:2916th century warships, but I can't take

51:31my eyes off it because it's just so

51:34fascinating to see him explain

51:35everything.

51:36>> Are you saying creativity is the moat

51:38still?

51:39Or understanding what humans want and

51:41then delivering it it which I guess is

51:43creativity.

51:44>> Let's say the Led Zeppelin example. But

51:48what what you see in human history

51:51is

51:52within 10 years of whenever there's a

51:55new technology platform, there's some

51:58geniuses. They push it to the limit and

52:01they do 95% of everything that can be

52:04done and it all happens within 10 years

52:06and they live forever. So

52:08why didn't anybody before Beethoven do

52:10stuff with the piano? Well, the piano

52:11comes out, some genius does stuff with

52:14the piano, right? And between Beethoven

52:17and Chopin and you know, and a a few

52:19players, it's like it's not clear to me

52:21if humans try for another 10,000 years,

52:23they'll do

52:24much better.

52:25So with Led Zeppelin, you had electric

52:28guitars and amplification and everything

52:30kind of clicked late 60s.

52:33Like the sound of the early 60s was not

52:35quite there and then by 1971, 72, you

52:39could do some amazing stuff. And if you

52:41think about all the classic rock between

52:431970 and 1980,

52:46you have human creativity pushing the

52:49edge of the envelope in so many

52:51directions and then you hit this

52:52diminishing return. And then along comes

52:55sampling, right? And then you get

52:57Swedish House Mafia and Avicii and

52:59that's new technology and then they push

53:01it to the extreme.

53:03And then along comes YouTube and Justin

53:06Bieber comes out of nowhere, you know,

53:09and Mr. Beast comes out of nowhere and

53:11they push it to the extreme.

53:13And what you see with every generation

53:15is

53:16I give you a new thing, whether it's a

53:18piano or electric guitar or internet.

53:22Think about Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg

53:24and what he did at just about the point

53:26when you could do that with the web and

53:28then think about the early mobile apps,

53:30you know, WhatsApp and the like and it's

53:32like

53:33what you want to do if you want to

53:34create these incredible success things

53:38is

53:39you want to locate

53:41the magic opportunity right at the right

53:45point on the S curve where it just now

53:48became commercially viable to do it and

53:51is a zero to one moment and you want to

53:54be there. You want to be the first

53:55person

53:57that applies that technology, right? To

54:01this new idea. Like what did our company

54:03do to to go from nothing to 60 billion

54:06dollars or from 1 billion to 60 billion?

54:09We were the first company to take

54:11digital capital, Bitcoin,

54:13and put it together with digital credit

54:17and a digital treasury model. So, we

54:19created a credit instrument, a security

54:21that you could never created before. You

54:23couldn't have made it 10 years ago. You

54:25couldn't build it on top of anything

54:27other than Bitcoin. So, we needed to get

54:31to the point where we had 10 or 20

54:32billion dollars of capital

54:35and then we could create this thing that

54:37was a multi-billion dollar thing and

54:39that becomes resident and that window

54:42is like 12 to 24 months. And you go

54:45through that window and you create

54:46something that might be a hundred

54:48billion dollar thing because you go

54:50through if you went through 36 months

54:52early, you smack into a wall and you

54:54fail. And if you wait,

54:56like at this point, our company is 20

54:58times bigger than the next biggest one,

55:0050 times bigger than the company doing

55:02something similar. Did we plan it? Not

55:06at all.

55:07We found some extraordinary cool thing.

55:10We committed to it with all of our heart

55:12and soul and we declared we were going

55:13to make it work come hell or high water

55:16and we got punched in the face a hundred

55:18times and every single time we ran into

55:20a problem,

55:21we stopped, we recalibrated, we went a

55:24different direction and the process of

55:26creating something beautiful,

55:28like the beautiful thing, like everyone

55:30wants a bank account that pays 10%. So,

55:32if you can figure out how to give people

55:34this thing they want with a new

55:37technology

55:39that was impossible that did not exist 5

55:42years or 3 years earlier.

55:44Then you resonate in the society, right?

55:47You would go viral. Like we were just

55:48the first ones to get there. It

55:50exploded. If you gave me a billion

55:52dollars right now and said run a

55:53marketing campaign, it wouldn't be as

55:56effective. Like you couldn't buy the

55:59success with a billion dollars of

56:00marketing. You just have to that let's

56:03up guys. They didn't spend a billion

56:04dollars marketing. You got to be in the

56:06right place, the right time,

56:09and you have to have the courage

56:11to offer people the new thing.

56:14>> I have been thinking a lot about this.

56:17This idea of you said, you know, if you

56:18spend a billion dollars you couldn't go

56:20as viral as that. And if someone came

56:21along and spent a ton of money today,

56:23they couldn't go as big as

56:24let's say Michael Jackson.

56:27When we go back through history, I was

56:28thinking about this this idea because I

56:30watched the Michael Jackson documentary

56:31recently and he was

56:33at a level of fame that is I don't think

56:36we've ever seen since. And I think part

56:38of the reason why it was because there

56:39was a constraint on the distribution

56:41channels back then. So in my house,

56:44there was 20 albums over there, books of

56:46albums, and Michael Jackson was like

56:48three of them. And then the other way

56:50that we could consume was the TV over

56:52there and there was like six channels

56:54and MTV was one of them and it was

56:56Michael Jackson all day.

56:57>> [snorts]

56:57>> In the world we live in now where

56:59there's my phone experience is a

57:01completely different phone experience to

57:03yours because of AI. AI is learning what

57:05I like and showing me my own little

57:07version of the world. I wonder [snorts]

57:09if it's possible to be

57:12as big as a

57:14Michael Jackson once was for anybody

57:16these days. And actually I even with the

57:18YouTube you mentioned earlier, I wonder

57:20now if fame or cool being a content

57:23creator or a musician once looked like

57:26this

57:27this sort of like high ceiling and then

57:32you're known for a hundred years like

57:33Michael Jackson.

57:35And now with algorithms that are

57:37personalized, does it now look like

57:38this?

57:41Shorter and shallower.

57:44>> Is it possible to get big? You could

57:46say, well, I can't get as big as Michael

57:48Jackson, but on the other hand, Elon

57:50Musk got big.

57:52Right? Like Like there are things that

57:54get big, right? Companies get big.

57:56OpenAI went from nothing to how many

57:58users in just a few months.

58:01So I I think what you could say is going

58:03viral is about hitting a resonating

58:05frequency in the civilization, whether

58:07it's an artistic frequency or it's a

58:09political frequency, or it's a it's a

58:12technical frequency. Yeah, there are

58:15some things

58:17where there's going to be a glut.

58:18There's going to be Well, let's take

58:20Instagram, right? It's like

58:23on one hand, a billion people have like

58:26bad photos posted online, but on the

58:29other hand, there are people that

58:30managed to get, you know, 8 million

58:33followers, and they, you know, are the

58:36Kard- Kardashians, you know? You have

58:39these people that get massively big, and

58:42that's the other side of the equation.

58:46So

58:46I don't really know how it all plays out

58:50except for the fact that it seems clear

58:52that there is room for human creativity

58:55and innovation.

58:57And if your goal is to make a

58:59contribution,

59:02right? If you're at the If you're in

59:03your working years where you want to

59:05upgrade the world and make a difference

59:08and be remembered for something,

59:10then a a pretty simple principle is

59:13don't keep doing the same thing over and

59:16over, working harder and harder every

59:19year, fighting against the modern

59:21automation,

59:23you know, epidemic, right? Don't try to

59:25outwork the robots. It's like you're

59:28you're lamenting, you know,

59:30how difficult it is for a content

59:32creator, but let me remind you that it

59:34used to be you would go be a college

59:36professor and teach 200 students a year

59:40for 20 years and you would feel that

59:43your life contribution was 4,000

59:46people's whose minds you touched.

59:49And now you get 4,000 people a second.

59:53Okay? So, you're charging yourself

59:55against,

59:57you know, the next thing, but if you

59:59look back in time, technology has given

1:00:02us the ability to amplify

1:00:05our intellect and amplify

1:00:08our creativity

1:00:10in a way that is

1:00:12unprecedented in human history.

1:00:14>> Yeah, I think I think in part it's I'm

1:00:15wondering now if we're kind of

1:00:17we technology said, "Okay, you can reach

1:00:19more people." TV, radio, all these

1:00:22things. And actually now with

1:00:23intelligence, it's saying, "Ooh, we can

1:00:25figure out exactly what Michael wants."

1:00:27So, we're starting to live in these

1:00:28smaller echo chambers where your

1:00:30creative idea or your creative piece of

1:00:32content reaching lots of people is going

1:00:33to become harder because the algorithms

1:00:34are now in the way and they're deciding

1:00:36who sees what.

1:00:37And they're optimizing for

1:00:39the the I guess the platform, the the

1:00:42platform's monetary desire. The other

1:00:44thing that I think is really interesting

1:00:45and I've been mulling for the last

1:00:46couple of months is that that which is

1:00:49really really hard and scarce and

1:00:50actually you could say something being

1:00:52hard and scarce are are the are the same

1:00:55cuz to create something scarce is also

1:00:57hard, like you did with that financial

1:00:58instrument. Very few people on Earth

1:01:00could have created that. We don't run

1:01:01public companies, we don't have the

1:01:03information, etc. Or even that YouTuber

1:01:05you mentioned who walks you through

1:01:06those

1:01:07the 1600s or whatever. That is very hard

1:01:10to do. I theorize that actually pursuing

1:01:12that which is hard and scarce Getting

1:01:15you to come here today is not easy. So,

1:01:17that's kind of my moat. Michelle Obama

1:01:18coming and sitting down with me here is

1:01:20still kind of my moat. Um is is is what

1:01:23we should aim at.

1:01:25What do you think of that as a theory?

1:01:27>> I agree. Let's say you have a business,

1:01:29whatever your business is,

1:01:31right now the right thing to do is to

1:01:34spend an intense time with the AI

1:01:37considering what are all the ways you

1:01:39can upgrade and improve the product or

1:01:42the service you create, right?

1:01:44Uh, for example, like the it used to be

1:01:47you do this in English and the issue is,

1:01:49well, what if What about Japanese or

1:01:50Chinese or French or whatever? And, you

1:01:54know, the hard way is you learn 20

1:01:55languages and, you know, but then how

1:01:57does your guest How do we translate it

1:01:59or you hire, you know, we used to spend

1:02:01money to hire translators, but now

1:02:04you could have the AI translate this

1:02:06into a hundred languages, right? Now,

1:02:08the question is should you

1:02:10or not? Can I enhance it?

1:02:12Right? It's interesting when someone

1:02:13describes something, but you're like,

1:02:15let's just put up a chart of the S curve

1:02:16there. And then the next step is can I

1:02:18market it better or distribute it

1:02:20better? And the next step is

1:02:23am I creating something that'll be

1:02:24valuable in a decade? Well, will it be

1:02:26valuable in a hundred years?

1:02:28>> Well, this is probably a good time to

1:02:29mention this. 24 months ago we started

1:02:31exactly that, which is

1:02:32>> They're all aliens, you just never see

1:02:33them.

1:02:38Arabic

1:02:43>> Tell me.

1:02:43>> Yeah, and and ask yourself how many

1:02:45people that do podcast interviews offer

1:02:48that level of quality of content? And

1:02:51>> I can see that

1:02:51>> I think that you're I think you're

1:02:52outstripping like I don't know that

1:02:54anybody else has done it that well.

1:02:57Right?

1:02:57>> We started almost three years ago and

1:03:00for the first 24 months it was a tragic

1:03:02failure. So, you had the data scientists

1:03:03in the corner of our office failing for

1:03:0524 months. And then about 12 months ago

1:03:08for the first time ever we saw that the

1:03:10translation technology underneath us had

1:03:12improved and that we could get the view

1:03:14duration in Spanish to be higher

1:03:17[snorts]

1:03:18than English.

1:03:19>> And how many months do you think Jimmy

1:03:20Page spent trying to master the electric

1:03:22guitar?

1:03:23More than 24 months?

1:03:24>> a lot longer.

1:03:25>> My advice to an entrepreneur is

1:03:28you focus, you commit.

1:03:31If you're successful in less than 4

1:03:33years, you got lucky. It's pro- Yeah. If

1:03:36it takes you 10 years, well, between 4

1:03:38and 10 years is is very, very normal.

1:03:42If you haven't had success by the

1:03:4410-year point, you're probably not cut

1:03:45out for the business. But, you know,

1:03:48what you're doing is it's totally

1:03:49logical. It's like, is AI going to

1:03:51remake this industry? The first issue is

1:03:54can you make the product better? And the

1:03:56second question is what's it worth?

1:03:58Right? Right? You can do that. Can you

1:04:00get paid? You know? And by the way, even

1:04:02if you didn't get paid,

1:04:04I would argue that your audience have

1:04:07limited attention span. It's like, I

1:04:08don't have time to listen to every Lex

1:04:11Fridman, every Joe Rogan, every Diary of

1:04:14the CEO, and every one of the next 20.

1:04:16And so, I'm going to become loyal. I'm

1:04:19going to become a customer and a fan of

1:04:22whoever serves me the best content. And

1:04:25certainly, if I'm a native Portuguese

1:04:27speaker

1:04:28>> [snorts]

1:04:28>> or a native Russian speaker, you all of

1:04:30a sudden just leaped, right? To the top.

1:04:33>> This gets to my point about hard and

1:04:35scarce because

1:04:36people in in Portugal maybe have never

1:04:39heard Michael Saylor before in

1:04:41Portuguese.

1:04:42So, in terms of scarce, it's actually

1:04:43the only interview now available that is

1:04:452 hours long of Michael Saylor talking

1:04:48in Cantonese with Steven, you know?

1:04:50And so, that the we then are competing.

1:04:52We have That's kind of the moat then,

1:04:53right?

1:04:54>> And that that becomes a benefit to all

1:04:55your guest. You're the distribution

1:04:57channel for me

1:04:59to send the message of digital capital,

1:05:03digital empowerment to the world. And

1:05:06then,

1:05:07your guest become your moat. I think

1:05:09that

1:05:11with every single business, it's pretty

1:05:13clear you have to ask the question, is

1:05:15technology going to cannibalize my

1:05:18business or disrupt it, and am I going

1:05:20to be the one that embraces it and

1:05:22evolves and grows with it, or am I going

1:05:25to fight it? And then of course,

1:05:27you're in a dialogue with the market.

1:05:30For example, the great thing about what

1:05:31you've done is if you've done it, you

1:05:33can look and see how it runs and how and

1:05:35whether YouTube actually expands your

1:05:37reach, and then you can look at the

1:05:38engagement and and figure out whether or

1:05:41not you're able to monetize that,

1:05:43whether you're able to

1:05:44able to convert that, and then you tweak

1:05:46it, right, and adjust, and you're

1:05:506 months or 12 months can be enough that

1:05:52you have a lasting advantage forever,

1:05:54right? If you're 12 months ahead of

1:05:55everybody else,

1:05:56>> and you're compounding in

1:05:58>> Yeah, it compounds over time, and then

1:06:00maybe they never catch you. Like it's

1:06:02That's you know, but that's the story of

1:06:04every business.

1:06:06Right, that's the that's the story of

1:06:07Ford Motor Company and Standard Oil,

1:06:09that's the story of Microsoft, it's the

1:06:11story of Facebook, it's everybody's

1:06:14story, which is

1:06:15you just have to focus, commit, and then

1:06:19if you're good enough,

1:06:21invariably what happens is is your

1:06:24customers

1:06:26will make you the winner.

1:06:28The world needs someone to do what you

1:06:30do.

1:06:31Like someone had to has to win, right?

1:06:34There needs to be a winner. The audience

1:06:36out there wants they want what you do.

1:06:39They want they they want to walk into

1:06:41the living room and figure out what

1:06:43Obama was thinking, or they want to

1:06:45hear, you know, what Mark Zuckerberg was

1:06:47thinking, and they want someone to bring

1:06:50them into that living room. They want

1:06:52you to host them in. They need someone

1:06:55to do that job. You don't

1:06:58you don't have to be

1:07:00what, perfect or better than anybody

1:07:02ever lived. You need to be better than

1:07:04the people that are currently doing it

1:07:06now, or you need to be one of

1:07:08you know, a handful of people that are

1:07:11that are doing it because at that point

1:07:14right, the audience comes to you, the

1:07:16guests come to you.

1:07:18You're making a market, right?

1:07:20You're the market maker in that

1:07:22information.

1:07:24It's just the real key is

1:07:26know what your value proposition is,

1:07:28stay in your lane.

1:07:30You know, don't don't try to compete in

1:07:33an area where you're not going to be the

1:07:35best in the world.

1:07:37But on the other hand

1:07:39right, the the one thing that's pretty

1:07:41clear is that anybody can have the best

1:07:44in the world in like 2 seconds at their

1:07:46fingertips. And so you don't want to be

1:07:49the third best. You don't want to be

1:07:51mediocre across a bunch of things. You

1:07:53want to be exceptional in one area.

1:07:56Figure out what that one area is and

1:07:58then

1:07:59maybe you have 2 million followers then

1:08:01200 million followers, right? Then

1:08:03eventually, you know, over 100 years 2

1:08:05billion. You

1:08:07You just You just have to have this

1:08:08vision.

1:08:09>> One of the things that comes with the

1:08:11pursuit of being first is you go over

1:08:14the hill, you take the arrows as the

1:08:15phrase goes. And so even in that

1:08:17experiment that I just showed you that

1:08:18we started 3 years ago, which was trying

1:08:19to figure out how we translate the

1:08:21diversity into lots of different

1:08:22languages. It sounds simple. Problem is

1:08:24you you discover you could up.

1:08:25Spanish words are longer. So the video

1:08:27in Spanish is 3 hours 10, but in English

1:08:29it's 3 hours it's just 3 hours. And then

1:08:31the video's going to be out and then

1:08:32Cantonese, how long is Cantonese words?

1:08:34And then you go, "Oh my god." You have

1:08:35to then translate all the thumbnails and

1:08:37all the titles in 20 languages at the

1:08:38same time. That's why you end up 3 years

1:08:40in when you thought it was just a 1-hour

1:08:43job. But also, if you zoom out even

1:08:45further, there's this graveyard of other

1:08:47things we tried that never worked.

1:08:49There's this the other 90% of

1:08:51experiments we ran in the corner that

1:08:53did nothing.

1:08:54And it's I I always say to the team,

1:08:56there's two things a year that define

1:08:57us.

1:08:58And of that, in our failure and an

1:09:00team, which is literally what it's

1:09:01called. We tried 60 things. Now, but

1:09:04there's this that you know, five of them

1:09:05are meh.

1:09:06Two of them

1:09:08game-changing. So, the attitude of

1:09:09dealing with failure at the very

1:09:11forefront of trying to be first, I think

1:09:14is something people don't talk about

1:09:15enough.

1:09:16>> Focus your energy.

1:09:17Guard your time.

1:09:19Just cuz you can do a thing doesn't mean

1:09:21you should do the thing.

1:09:24Right? Most of the time, the reason

1:09:26people fail is they get successful in

1:09:28their 30s and they're successful at one

1:09:30thing and it's like all of a sudden

1:09:32they've decided they're going to do 10

1:09:34other things because they're good at

1:09:36everything and they dilute their focus

1:09:38in 10 ways.

1:09:40People always underestimate the

1:09:42maintenance obligation. Like always.

1:09:45And so I the right the right solution to

1:09:48growth is

1:09:50I would like to make whatever I'm doing

1:09:52twice as good.

1:09:54And if I do 10 things to make it 10%

1:09:57better, I'm probably diluting,

1:09:58distracting the uh phenomenon that

1:10:01causes most businesses to fail.

1:10:04It's uh dilutive distractions or it's

1:10:06it's dilutive expansions. They do one

1:10:08thing, it works, and then instead of

1:10:11turning their energy in

1:10:13to make that better and better and

1:10:15better and better, they start to

1:10:17bifurcate and trifurcate and they expand

1:10:21and they overreach

1:10:23to too many areas. It's like the dude

1:10:25with the great restaurant

1:10:27and he's got the second restaurant and

1:10:28he's got a chain of 37 restaurants and

1:10:30they all suck.

1:10:32And it's like, "Yeah, I remember the guy

1:10:33used to have There's no one, by the way,

1:10:35with a failed restaurant chain that

1:10:37wasn't a successful restauranteur at

1:10:40scale one.

1:10:41>> Mhm.

1:10:41>> Right? Like, you didn't get to a failure

1:10:43of 37 or 62 or 437 until you had a good

1:10:47one, but it's very, very common that

1:10:50people think that they can just

1:10:51cookie-cutter these things out and you

1:10:54can't. And so, the conundrum that you're

1:10:57putting your finger on is

1:10:59I want to grow and progress, but I want

1:11:02to not dilute and distract. And that

1:11:06requires this maturity of saying, I

1:11:08tried it,

1:11:10had a moderate success, but it's not

1:11:12enough. Kill it, right?

1:11:14Like and and and move on because it's

1:11:17just not going to work.

1:11:18>> There's two things that came to mind

1:11:19there. The first is a lot of young

1:11:21people come up to me and they're 9

1:11:22months into their idea and they're not

1:11:24rich yet. So they're They look over

1:11:26there and they see their friend has

1:11:27started a thing with a CBD. And so

1:11:31they're like, I think I need to go into

1:11:32CBD. And so their careers kind of look

1:11:34like this sort of like swinging through

1:11:35the jungle grabbing onto the next branch

1:11:37and letting go of the last and never

1:11:39really making um

1:11:41upward motion towards any goal. And then

1:11:43the other thing I thought about as

1:11:44you're speaking is I've been mulling

1:11:46this um I've really only in the last 2

1:11:48months this idea that if you take a

1:11:51long-term approach to things, you make

1:11:54foundational decisions today

1:11:57that create huge competitive advantages.

1:12:00And the simple analogy I would give, if

1:12:03you gave me 10 seconds to make the

1:12:04highest possible tower that I can, what

1:12:07I'm going to do is I'm going to go like

1:12:08this and I'm going to go like this and

1:12:09I'm going to try and do something like

1:12:11this and just by nature of the time

1:12:13constraint,

1:12:14it's unstable. If you gave me 10 years

1:12:17and infinite blocks again, I would start

1:12:19like this. I'd do this one here. I'd put

1:12:21this one here. I'd put this one here and

1:12:23I'd build something more stable. And

1:12:25when I look at some of the great

1:12:25founders and also when I saw that you'd

1:12:27been at your you know MicroStrategy for

1:12:29more than three, almost four decades I

1:12:30think it was, I thought, oh, you're one

1:12:33of the rare long-termists in a world

1:12:36where most of my generation, we think

1:12:37about our career or what we're working

1:12:39on in like maximum 5-year periods. Then

1:12:42we'd either quit and go do something

1:12:43else.

1:12:44Startup founders, they build so they can

1:12:46sell and then they they they're sort of

1:12:47holding it together with tape as the

1:12:49acquirer comes to buy the thing. And

1:12:51they're nervous as the contract's being

1:12:52signed cuz they know if the the acquirer

1:12:54looks under the hood they're going to

1:12:55see some but then I look at Elon

1:12:57and I go oh gosh he went and

1:12:59rebuilt a brand new battery and then

1:13:00built the charging network and SpaceX

1:13:03took two decades. My question is about

1:13:06this long-termism and does it create a

1:13:10competitive advantage?

1:13:12>> I think Elon thinks like a

1:13:14like an engineer and uh if you if you

1:13:17look at his businesses they're all built

1:13:19upon each other. Like

1:13:21if you figure out how to launch a rocket

1:13:23and you have the

1:13:25the highest payload capacity and the the

1:13:29the cheapest cost to orbit

1:13:31then you've got an advantage. Now the

1:13:32question is what do you want to put in

1:13:33orbit? We put satellites but what

1:13:35satellite? Like Starlink satellite

1:13:38because that's the thing everybody

1:13:39wants, internet. And so all of a sudden

1:13:42he's got an advantage,

1:13:44you know, in the sky and then you build

1:13:46on that advantage and you know, with

1:13:49battery technology, right? You see that?

1:13:51>> could have gone to Russia and bought a

1:13:52rocket and just shot that up and

1:13:54that would have been the short term.

1:13:55Even with Tesla he could have bought the

1:13:56batteries off Ford or

1:13:58>> One great natural example is like a

1:14:00chambered nautilus. If you look at if

1:14:02you look at a creature and it's building

1:14:04a shell and it's spiraling out on itself

1:14:07and basically it keeps building on its

1:14:09own structure and it's nature's solution

1:14:12for growth under pressure. It's the

1:14:14Fibonacci sequence too. If you look at a

1:14:16Fibonacci sequence, if I have this and

1:14:19then the next structure is here and the

1:14:20next structure is there and the next

1:14:22structure is there

1:14:24part of my previous business is the

1:14:27foundation for my next business. And so

1:14:29if you're thinking your growth strategy

1:14:31is to build on a foundation of something

1:14:33you already had and extend its

1:14:35functionality in a natural fashion

1:14:38that's natural stable growth.

1:14:41When your second business idea is

1:14:43unrelated to your first business in any

1:14:46way other than the fact that you own

1:14:48both.

1:14:49Right? Now you're not building on a

1:14:51stable foundation.

1:14:53So, most of these businesses that work

1:14:55and and the the best ideas that they

1:14:57start with someone dominating a market.

1:15:00I'm really good at this.

1:15:01>> Sounds like a bet.

1:15:02>> Yeah, and now what is the natural thing

1:15:05that I can add

1:15:06that I can use my existing business to

1:15:09to maybe I'm marketing it. Well, you're

1:15:11Coca-Cola. Well, we deliver a pallet of

1:15:14drinks to 87,000

1:15:16restaurants in the UK every morning.

1:15:19What's the natural extension? Well, I

1:15:21can put one more type of drink on the

1:15:23pallet, right? You need to use your

1:15:26distribution strength, your market

1:15:28strength, your technical strength in

1:15:31order to lever. I think you look at all

1:15:34the great businesses

1:15:36in the history of the world. I got

1:15:37Standard Oil, Ford Motor, Boeing,

1:15:39Microsoft. The things they did that

1:15:42worked were generally building on top of

1:15:46their foundation, either loyal customers

1:15:48or distribution or some financial asset

1:15:52they already had. Another way to say it

1:15:54is

1:15:55if there's no one else in the world that

1:15:58has that is better situated to do this

1:16:01thing than you,

1:16:03then you're probably in good shape,

1:16:04right? If there are 97 other companies

1:16:07that have more assets than you in that

1:16:10space, well,

1:16:13you got to bet that all 97 of them are

1:16:15not going to react to you when you do

1:16:17it. It's a bit harder. So,

1:16:19>> And that's where the long-termism comes

1:16:20in because to build that fundamental

1:16:21advantage, it it it by definition is

1:16:24going to take time.

1:16:26>> Good example,

1:16:28uh Amazon

1:16:30Prime, right? Where Amazon started

1:16:33giving free shipping, you know, first

1:16:35free shipping or very cheap shipping and

1:16:37one day shipping and and everybody said,

1:16:39"Well, while losing money. You're losing

1:16:41money. You're losing money." And they

1:16:42lost money doing this for like a decade.

1:16:45And then they got to some point where

1:16:46like everybody in the country was a

1:16:49member of Amazon Prime and then like,

1:16:51"Okay, well, now it's 20 bucks a month

1:16:53instead of 10 bucks a month." And it's

1:16:55like an extra $10 a month times like 100

1:16:58million people. And people like, "Oh my

1:17:00god, they just made $12 billion

1:17:02in one press release per year in cash

1:17:05flow.

1:17:06And that's worth like $250 billion." And

1:17:09And you're all like, "Well,

1:17:10what were you doing?" It's like, "We

1:17:12were

1:17:13We were building the moat." That story

1:17:15is not uncommon with every other thing.

1:17:18It's like you first believe,

1:17:20you build the biggest distribution

1:17:22channel you can. People are going to

1:17:24tell you They're going to tell you, "Oh,

1:17:26there's no future to whatever the

1:17:27podcast. There's no future to

1:17:29something."

1:17:31And what'll happen is 99% of people will

1:17:34drop out because they don't believe. And

1:17:36the true believers, the ones that are

1:17:38not creative, won't adapt.

1:17:41And then there'll be some that'll say,

1:17:42"I believe, but I also know there's a

1:17:44threat, but I'm going to channel the

1:17:46technology threat, and I'm going to

1:17:48evolve, and I'm going to emerge as

1:17:50something a thousand X better

1:17:52than anybody could conceive."

1:17:54And that's a beautiful story.

1:17:57>> So, speaking of strong foundations, you

1:17:58have 10 rules for young adults building

1:18:00a strong foundation for their life and

1:18:01career. And you've talked about two of

1:18:02them here, which is focusing your energy

1:18:04and not chasing every good idea.

1:18:05>> Yeah.

1:18:06>> The second one was guard your time. The

1:18:08third one is train your mind.

1:18:12And with that, you've got train your

1:18:13body.

1:18:14>> You know, the funny story of that is I I

1:18:16was invited to a cocktail party of a

1:18:18billionaire on the French Riviera in a

1:18:20beautiful home. And I showed up, and I

1:18:23walked into the party thinking I was

1:18:25going to hang out. And another

1:18:26billionaire showed up, and he said, "You

1:18:28know, Mike, I just had twins, a boy and

1:18:30a girl. And I'm walking around asking

1:18:33all of all of my friends for advice for

1:18:36them. And I want you to like write some

1:18:39advice for them that I can give to them

1:18:41on their 21st birthday.

1:18:43And he's got this book where he's

1:18:44actually collecting advice for his his

1:18:46children that to give them on their 21st

1:18:50birthday.

1:18:51As young adults. So, I sit down and I

1:18:53think think think think think and I'm

1:18:54like, focus your mind, guard your time,

1:18:58and train your mind. You got to learn

1:19:00that you got to

1:19:01learn something, right? You got to learn

1:19:03reading, writing, arithmetic. You have

1:19:05to actually develop a cultured base. So,

1:19:08I was like, get an education, and then

1:19:10train your body.

1:19:12Like, because if if you're weak, you're

1:19:14not going to make it, right? You're not

1:19:15You're not going to survive. And then,

1:19:17think for yourself. Everybody in the

1:19:19world wants to program you to believe to

1:19:22do something they want you to do.

1:19:24And you have to have the presence of

1:19:27mind to think, that's not right. Just

1:19:29because everybody that I know and

1:19:30famous, rich, and beautiful people tell

1:19:32me it's right doesn't make it right. You

1:19:34need to decide think for yourself.

1:19:37And then, curate your friends.

1:19:39Because you you know, you become who you

1:19:41surround yourself with. And if you

1:19:42surround yourself with positive uh

1:19:44inspirational, talented people,

1:19:47you'll be the best person version of

1:19:49yourself. And if you surround yourself

1:19:50with negative, cynical, failing people,

1:19:54they're going to want you to fail or

1:19:56they're not going to inspire you to

1:19:58succeed. And

1:19:59and they'll bring you down.

1:20:01And so, after curate your friends,

1:20:03curate your environment, right? Like,

1:20:06make it a happy place where you can work

1:20:08or you can live. And you know,

1:20:11the world didn't say you had to be in

1:20:13the dark and in an ugly situation. And

1:20:15And after that,

1:20:17keep your promises.

1:20:19At the end of the day, people remember

1:20:21if you didn't keep your promise. So, you

1:20:23you tell you tell someone you're going

1:20:24to do something, do it, right? If If you

1:20:27keep your promises, you'll find those

1:20:28are the people that invest in you. They

1:20:30uplift you. They make you successful.

1:20:32They may be the difference between life

1:20:34and death or the difference between

1:20:35success and failure for you and

1:20:38and ultimately, you know, we're all in

1:20:40relationships with each other, right?

1:20:42And and no one is so powerful that they

1:20:46can afford to take anybody else for

1:20:47granted.

1:20:49We all need each other and and um

1:20:52finally,

1:20:54stay cheerful and constructive. It

1:20:55doesn't matter whether bad things

1:20:57happen. The point is people want to come

1:20:59to work with someone that's cheerful and

1:21:01happy and constructive. They want to,

1:21:03you know, they want to be in a

1:21:04relationship with that person. All those

1:21:07are just basic principles to get through

1:21:10life and then the final point is upgrade

1:21:12the world. If you have a plan, if you're

1:21:14on a mission to upgrade the world,

1:21:17you're going to feel better about

1:21:18yourself. You get up every day, you have

1:21:20a mission, you have something to do.

1:21:21Like, what is my mission?

1:21:23You know, I'm preaching the gospel of

1:21:25digital empowerment, right? Satoshi

1:21:29created

1:21:30this

1:21:32economic property right. He gave

1:21:34economic empowerment to 8 billion people

1:21:36for the first time in human history.

1:21:38And we created the world's first perfect

1:21:40money. We created, you know,

1:21:43digital energy, digital matter, digital

1:21:46property, right? We can be a thousand X

1:21:50more as as humans with technology than

1:21:54we were.

1:21:55I look through all human history and I

1:21:57see it's a story of misery.

1:22:01You know, why do people die? Lack of

1:22:02clean water, lack of clean air, lack of

1:22:05clean food, lack of clean money.

1:22:08What do we want? We want to live

1:22:10forever. We want to live happily

1:22:11forever.

1:22:12>> Do you want to live forever?

1:22:14>> I want to live as long as I can live in,

1:22:16you know, constructively and make a

1:22:18contribution. If if I could be if I can

1:22:21be engaged and vital, then yeah. At the

1:22:24point that I can no longer make a

1:22:25contribution,

1:22:27uh then I will move on gracefully.

1:22:29>> But if there was a button in front of

1:22:30you now, and the button, pressing it

1:22:32guaranteed you immortality, would you

1:22:34press it?

1:22:34>> I think so. I suppose so.

1:22:36>> Why aren't you then committing more of

1:22:38your efforts to longevity? People ask

1:22:40Elon the same question.

1:22:42>> I think

1:22:44there's 8 billion people on the planet,

1:22:46and there are many people that I respect

1:22:48that are much more qualified to pursue

1:22:49that mission than me.

1:22:51>> And the thing that you've chosen to

1:22:52focus your efforts on and become the

1:22:54leading voice on, and I've watched you

1:22:55for many, many, many, many years as

1:22:56I've, you know, when Bitcoin comes down

1:22:58in price and when sometimes I need a bit

1:23:00of a therapist to

1:23:01remind me of why I've invested in

1:23:03Bitcoin, and that person has been you

1:23:04over the years.

1:23:05And then when it's up, you know, you're

1:23:07you're

1:23:08to your credit you're consistent about

1:23:09it. And that is,

1:23:11you know, I I have watched you and

1:23:13thought, I think this guy must be he's

1:23:14either like batshit crazy or a genius.

1:23:17And it's sometimes hard to tell. And it

1:23:18goes back to what you were saying

1:23:19earlier when people will say you're

1:23:20crazy at first, and and then you'll be

1:23:22proven right. Now, historically you've

1:23:24been proven right.

1:23:25>> If you if you zoom out from when you

1:23:26started advocating for Bitcoin,

1:23:28Bitcoin is down right now. So again,

1:23:30we're back into fear. People are scared

1:23:32again in that It's funny what happens

1:23:34because when it was going up a couple of

1:23:35months ago, everyone thought, "Oh my

1:23:36god, this is going to be the future of

1:23:38money." And now it's down, everyone is

1:23:40like convinced that it's it was always a

1:23:41Ponzi scheme and it's it's done. You've

1:23:44got a

1:23:45I guess trying trying to simplify this

1:23:46for average people, you've taken a lot

1:23:48of debt out to buy more and more and

1:23:50more and more and more Bitcoin.

1:23:52Is that accurate?

1:23:54>> I guess we've got about 6 and 1/2

1:23:55billion dollars of convertible debt and

1:23:5715 billion dollars of preferred stocks

1:23:59outstanding, and we're sitting on top of

1:24:01about 58 billion dollars of assets right

1:24:04now. So, we have raised

1:24:07about 65 billion dollars in capital to

1:24:09buy Bitcoin, but most of it was in debt.

1:24:11>> Okay.

1:24:12>> Of the 65 billion, for the most part

1:24:15we've raised capital with equity and

1:24:17some debt in order to buy Bitcoin, and

1:24:20we've been doing that because we wanted

1:24:22to pump 65 billion dollars of capital,

1:24:26of money, of energy into the ecosystem.

1:24:28So, we're we're powering the ecosystem

1:24:31with capital.

1:24:32>> Everyone theorizes, I've seen a few

1:24:33people on my timeline that I follow

1:24:35theorize how bad it would have to get

1:24:36for Bitcoin in terms of price for you to

1:24:38be in trouble. Because you have a lot

1:24:40>> Bitcoin could fall to $5,000 a coin, we

1:24:42would still be over collateralized

1:24:44against the debt.

1:24:45>> You'd still be fine.

1:24:46>> Yeah.

1:24:47>> And the other thing people theorize a

1:24:48lot, and I again I did a comment

1:24:49analysis to figure out what people want

1:24:50to hear from you, is you sold a bit of

1:24:52Bitcoin.

1:24:53You've been asked this a few times, I

1:24:54know.

1:24:54>> Yeah.

1:24:54>> You sold a bit of Bitcoin recently after

1:24:58telling a lot of people maybe to hold on

1:24:59to their Bitcoin.

1:25:01People want to know why you sold the

1:25:02Bitcoin.

1:25:03>> Okay. Well, so let's make the first

1:25:04point.

1:25:07The only person that's never sold more

1:25:10Bitcoin than me

1:25:11>> Satoshi.

1:25:12>> is Satoshi.

1:25:13Satoshi never sold a million a million

1:25:16one Bitcoin.

1:25:18Our company has 847,000 Bitcoin. And so,

1:25:21we bought more and we're holding it more

1:25:23than anybody other than Satoshi and

1:25:25Satoshi's not active. So, we have a

1:25:27reasonable chance of of never selling

1:25:30more Bitcoin than Satoshi if we just

1:25:31keep at it for the next few years.

1:25:33Um what I've said is um

1:25:36>> So, I should probably share this. This

1:25:37is This is why there's a kidney.

1:25:39>> Yeah.

1:25:39>> Cuz you said sell the kidney if you

1:25:40must, but keep the Bitcoin.

1:25:41>> I I have I have waged a campaign

1:25:44non-stop every day for 6 years to to

1:25:48promote and advocate Bitcoin as a

1:25:51long-term store of value. Right? And and

1:25:54what I would say is if you have money

1:25:56that you don't need for the next 4 years

1:25:59and your choice is do I invest it in the

1:26:01S&P or a house or a private company or

1:26:04soybeans or money markets or debt

1:26:07instruments

1:26:09I think that Bitcoin is the best. Right?

1:26:11I think that Bitcoin is digital capital.

1:26:13It's going to be the best long-term

1:26:14capital asset.

1:26:16And uh you know

1:26:18>> So, why did you sell the Bitcoin instead

1:26:19of your kidney?

1:26:21>> Yeah. Um

1:26:23We sold some Bitcoin a few weeks ago

1:26:26because there was a narrative or a

1:26:28belief in the market that our company

1:26:31had become so systemically integrated or

1:26:33important to Bitcoin that we could never

1:26:36sell.

1:26:37And if we sold Bitcoin would go to zero

1:26:40and our stock would go to zero.

1:26:42>> Because you own 4% of the total supply

1:26:44of Bitcoin.

1:26:44>> We own 4% because we're the biggest

1:26:47buyer We're the biggest buyer of Bitcoin

1:26:49in the world. So the first sentiment was

1:26:51well Bitcoin will never succeed if they

1:26:53don't keep buying. And the second

1:26:55sentiment or belief

1:26:57uh misconception was if we sell it'll

1:27:00crash Bitcoin and it'll crash the

1:27:02company.

1:27:03And because of that short sellers and

1:27:06and certain people in the market took

1:27:08the position that the $55 billion of

1:27:11Bitcoin we own was worth nothing.

1:27:14And so what we had was this ignorant

1:27:18uh skeptical notion that all of the

1:27:21company's assets were worthless.

1:27:23And because the company's assets were

1:27:25worthless we wouldn't pay our dividends

1:27:27and because we wouldn't pay our

1:27:28dividends the credit would go to zero

1:27:30and the equity would go to zero. The

1:27:31company would fail and the coin fail.

1:27:34And we said well Bitcoin is trades $20

1:27:38billion a day or more and we've got 55

1:27:41billion of it and if we were

1:27:430.01% of the market we could still meet

1:27:45all of our obligations and it's not

1:27:47going to change the price of Bitcoin but

1:27:48no one believed us.

1:27:50So if if you want people to believe that

1:27:53you can do a thing you have to do the

1:27:55thing. If you told me you could do a

1:27:56backflip right now but I said you you

1:27:59can't at some point you have to do the

1:28:00backflip. Right? Especially if I tell

1:28:03you that I'm going to throw you in jail

1:28:05if you can't do a backflip.

1:28:07>> Who told you that?

1:28:08>> Well that's exactly what's going on in

1:28:09the market. The market's position was

1:28:11the company is worthless. the stock is

1:28:13going to zero, Bitcoin is going to zero

1:28:15because they can't sell, right?

1:28:17So, if we want to defend Bitcoin,

1:28:21like we have to prove that we can sell

1:28:24it on occasion, right? So,

1:28:26what we're doing is we're

1:28:28commercializing the market in digital

1:28:31credit. And if you have a billion

1:28:33dollars of Bitcoin and they believe it's

1:28:35worth a billion, you can sell 200

1:28:37million dollars of credit and then you

1:28:39can grow the business if they believe

1:28:41that. If they don't believe

1:28:44that the Bitcoin is worth anything, you

1:28:45can't and you sell the 200 million of

1:28:47credit, the credit's worthless and the

1:28:49company's worthless.

1:28:50And so, we were in a doom loop or the

1:28:52market was in this doom loop this this

1:28:55negative short I don't know, like a

1:28:59psychosis almost like hyperventilating

1:29:02saying that the largest buyer of Bitcoin

1:29:05can't sell it and if they do sell it,

1:29:07Bitcoin will fail. And what we needed to

1:29:10do was demonstrate that if we sold

1:29:12Bitcoin, it wouldn't fail.

1:29:13So, when we sold the Bitcoin, it was 60

1:29:1659,000 and it traded up. And so, we

1:29:18broke that misconception, we broke that

1:29:22that narrative.

1:29:23It turns out that the break-even point

1:29:25for us is about 3.2%, so if Bitcoin

1:29:28appreciates 3.2%, we can pay the

1:29:30dividends forever by just selling the

1:29:32Bitcoin.

1:29:33But you can imagine if you're a short

1:29:34seller, you say, "Well, you can't sell

1:29:36the Bitcoin, hahaha, because Bitcoin

1:29:38will fail." And so, they want to say

1:29:40that the credit is worthless because you

1:29:42won't sell the Bitcoin. So, the way to

1:29:44break that cycle is you sell the

1:29:45Bitcoin.

1:29:46Now you can illustrate that the credit

1:29:48is actually good credit, we can pay the

1:29:51dividends forever and now the credit

1:29:52investors

1:29:54>> without having to sell more Bitcoin.

1:29:55>> No, the whole point of this was

1:29:58we were selling equity in order to pay

1:30:01the dividend on the credit.

1:30:03>> Yeah.

1:30:03>> And the short sellers took the position

1:30:05that you're going to sell the equity

1:30:07until the stock goes to zero

1:30:09because you can't sell the Bitcoin.

1:30:10>> Yeah.

1:30:11>> So, how do you actually get How do you

1:30:13break that? Well, you have to say

1:30:16well, we can sell the Bitcoin.

1:30:17>> And you sold enough Bitcoin to pay the

1:30:19dividend.

1:30:19>> So, we sold enough Bitcoin to pay the

1:30:21dividend, to prove that we could fund

1:30:23the dividends with Bitcoin, which means

1:30:25we don't have to sell the equity. And if

1:30:27if we don't have to sell the equity,

1:30:28then the equity trades at a premium to

1:30:30Bitcoin, trades rationally, and then the

1:30:32credit trades rationally. So, it was a

1:30:35benefit to the equity investors and the

1:30:37credit investors to show that you can

1:30:39power the company with Bitcoin.

1:30:41>> Do you Do you intend to sell more?

1:30:44>> It's not our primary strategy. So, if

1:30:48the if the the common stock trades at a

1:30:51premium

1:30:52to the underlying assets, then probably