That is the stupidest thing you can ever

do.

Well, what is the most important thing

for someone who's just trying to grow

their money?

So, I learned this from my mother and I

actually built a whole company around

it. Yeah, there she is. So,

I haven't seen that picture in a while.

Damn. I mean, what she did, the

performance was extraordinary. And with

that, did she put my brother and I

through college? She took care of our

family when they

fell on hard times.

When I saw the results, I said, "That's

it. That's how I'm going to invest for

the rest of my life."

So, talk me through this one as much

detail as possible.

Okay, let's start with this. Kevin

O'Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, is the

self-made millionaire and investor who's

built and sold companies for billions.

There's a lot of people don't like me

for my bluntness. I don't care because

there's people that don't think ahead

and find themselves mired in debt, but

then pissing away money, spending $28

for lunch. I mean, that's just stupid.

What about a house? The mistake that

people make is they buy too much house.

Never let the mortgage and the cost of

maintaining the house be more than 1/3

of your income. And how much does the

person that you fall in love with have

an impact?

You're kidding? It's everything. And I

did some research and most marriages can

survive infidelity. They can't survive

financial stress. But, if everybody

that's listening does this one thing,

you will have over a million and a half

dollars.

Kevin, can anybody be an entrepreneur?

No, only a third of people can become

successful entrepreneurs because there's

a couple of things that you must achieve

to be successful. First,

Kevin, I'm going to ask you to do

something which is quite difficult

because I'd find it quite hard if

someone asked me to do this. But, before

we get into the detail, can you give me

a 30,000 ft view on your

entrepreneurship and investing career?

Just the just the three bullet points

that are most pertinent before we dig

into those

specifics. Every entrepreneur I've ever

talked to that finds himself where I am

today has has a defining moment where

they are

pushed into this path. It's It's

something they can remember and they

remember it in perpetuity. And I'll

remember my moment getting fired in an

ice cream store.

That simple. First day on the job, asked

to serve and scoop ice cream.

And um

I did that all day, but when people

sample ice cream, they get a taster and

they take their gum out and they throw

it on the floor.

Somebody's got to scrape the gum off the

floor at the end of the day.

I only took that job because I was very

interested in a girl who was working in

the shoe store and I figured

I could you know, hang out with her

afterwards. And I saw her waiting for me

and the

woman who owned the store said, "You've

got to scrape the gum off the floor."

And I didn't want her to see me on my

knees with a scraper. It'd be bad for my

brand. I was in high school. And uh

she said, "No, no, you have to do it."

And I said, "You know, you hired me as a

scooper, not a scraper."

She said, um

"How about you're fired?"

And I didn't even know what that meant

and it was the defining moment for me

because I realized there's two kinds of

people in the world. There's people

that own the store and there's people

that scrape the [ __ ] off the floor. And

you have to decide who you are and I'm

not saying being employed is a bad

thing, not at all. But for me, um it it

hit me. It just hit me. Kevin, there's a

present for you. We give a present to

all of our guests. Really? Underneath

that black Can I open it?

You can open it.

I just take this out?

Oh, look at that.

You've heard the story.

That is exactly how it looked, except it

was black gum. And that was exactly the

tile. It was just like that Mexican

tile.

That's really freaking me out. So, you

were asked to scrape gum off a Mexican

tile.

Yes, just like that. And in order to do

that, you got to get down on your knees

and do it. And um I just couldn't do it.

And I And I And

And then you know the rest of the story.

I eventually could afford to bulldoze

the whole mall if I wanted to. And we

went back to meet her and thank her for

her pushing me off the treadmill into

that direction. And she was gone and

there was a bodega there instead. You

said that that you realized that there's

kind of two people in life. There's the

entrepreneur, there's the person that

owns the ice cream parlor, and there's

the person that scrapes it off the

floor.

Yeah.

That provoked a question in me, which is

do you think anybody can own the ice

cream parlor? I do you think anybody can

be an entrepreneur? No.

I've

tried to teach it um

and I mentor it all the time to the CEOs

that I work with.

Uh there are some attributes of people

that can do this. A certain element of

risk tolerance, uh a certain element of

focus.

And then the other element which I've

really started to believe in of late is

karma.

Luck.

You need to be lucky. You need It's like

Napoleon was once asked,

"Who are your favorite generals?" And he

said,

"My favorite generals are lucky

generals, my lucky generals." And I'm

starting to think that in life um

particularly entrepreneurship, you look

at the difference to the path of success

and failure and I Nobody's exposed to it

more than I am in terms of how many

investments I made I've made over the

decades.

I think if you want a percentage, and

then I teach these cohorts in in at

Harvard,

I'm an executive fellow there. I'm very

proud of that work.

You get a class of 120 people in a room.

Two-thirds of them want to become

consultants. That's why they're there.

And lead

a life of mediocrity and never make a

decision of consequence in their lives.

And after 24 months, they are tainted

with that disease forever. They'll

always be good consultants, but they

will never achieve greatness in any way.

In life, only a third of people can

become successful entrepreneurs. That's

it. And the rest can be very successful

employees, and there's nothing wrong

with that. You can have a fantastic

life.

You won't be shackled to the you know,

the the ups and downs of

entrepreneurship, the challenge of it,

how hard it is.

But, you will never be free.

And that's the debate. That's it right

there. Do you want personal freedom?

It's the only path. That's it. It's the

only path. It is the only path. I mean,

you can't I I've always said it's not

about the pursuit of money. It's not

about the pursuit of greed. You will

fail if you do that. It's It's the

undying love freedom.

So, that 1/3 of people that you say will

be successful, they'll pursue their

their dreams, they'll build a business,

whatever it might be.

Yeah.

Do you think it's possible for us in

this conversation to increase the

probability of their success? You said

you don't think you can you can make

someone an entrepreneur.

But, is there things you can do to

increase their probability of success?

Yes, there are a couple of things that

you must achieve to be successful. And

let me explain what they would be. And

this is not some academic study. This is

real data from real situations of real

CEOs I've worked with and learned from,

because I used to work for guys like

Steve Jobs and others

in my career.

Let me um

Let me give you one that I think's very

important. We'll start with this one. I

used to work for Steve Jobs in the early

'90s making all of his educational

software. And it was just Yeah, there

they are. My goodness, you guys do good

research. Those are the kind of things

that we did for him.

You know,

yeah.

Yeah, all of that. It's hard to find.

Those are CD-ROMs.

But, you know,

in developing that software,

we used to go quarterly. Um Heidi Roizen

was there in the room. She's still a

very famous venture capitalist.

And

I would say, "Steve, you know,

we got to do some market research on

Oregon Trail. I mean, it's a huge title.

It's in 110,000 school buildings. We got

to do an update. It's going to cost you

12, 15 million bucks.

We want to find out what the students

want. We want to find out what the

teachers want. We want to find out what

the parents want. Steve would say, by

the way,

not a nice guy.

Not a nice guy.

He would say to a room full of people,

"Kevin, I don't give a [ __ ] what the

students want or the parents think or

anybody thinks. It's what I want. They

don't know what they want till I tell

them what they want."

And I said, "Steve, you sound like such

an [ __ ] You have no idea what that

sounds like." He says, "No, no.

That's how it is, Kevin. Now, are you

making money with me? Are we Are you Am

I your fastest growing OEM?

Have we not been wildly successful and

continue to be?"

I said, "Yes, Steve, that's true." He

said, "Then [ __ ] shut up and do what

I say." That's how he would talk to you?

100%

and

here's what I learned.

Look how wildly successful he was.

But, here's why.

There's a concept that he understood

that very few people focused on back

then in the early '90s of

signal-to-noise ratio.

What was so brilliant about Jobs

that I tell every CEO now, and I don't

care if you're an S&P 500 CEO or you're

just starting a business.

His vision of signal was the top three

to five things you have to get done in

the next 18 hours. Not your vision for

the business next week or next month or

next year. Just the next 18 hours you're

awake.

You're going to get those three things

or those five things done that you have

deemed critical for your mission. They

must get done today.

Anything that stops you from doing that

is the noise.

So, the signal-to-noise ratio to be

successful for Steve Jobs

was 80/20. 80 signal, 20 noise.

And I knew that to be true with him

because he would email me at 2:30 in the

morning, expect me to get back to him

because back then we didn't have texts.

It was all email.

He was right. He was right.

And the only other person that I've seen

that has a higher ratio than that

is Elon Musk. He has no noise.

He does not deal with noise. He is 100%

signal 24 seconds of, you know, every

cycle. I mean, the guy is just 60

seconds of every minute, 60 minutes of

every hour,

the 18 hours he's awake, it's all

signal.

And look what he's achieved. Now, that's

very awkward for him socially

because

noise is dealing with your family

sometimes, or noise is saying hi to a

friend, or noise is is is listening to

some doom scrolling on, you know, some

social media app that just takes your

mind, or maybe playing your guitar. But,

very few people on Earth, and if you go

back in history, you're going to find

out that the geniuses of their time

were close to 100% signal.

And so, I can really sort of summarize

this for my audience. Signal is the most

urgent thing you should be focused on

right now, and noise is basically

everything else.

No, the goals you set for that the the

way the that you were awake. If you're

going to be awake 18 hours, Yeah.

and you've determined that there's three

things you have to get done,

you're going to get those done. No

matter what it takes, you're going to

get those done. And you're not going to

let anything distract you from the three

to five things.

If you're a CEO, and you achieve that,

and you can get those done with 80% of

your time based on that,

you're extraordinarily successful. You

are absolutely And you're Steve Jobs, or

you're an Elon Musk, or you're somebody

If you If you even talk to Bezos, I

don't know him personally, but I've

heard in many interviews, like I knew I

I know, I've I've met Elon just a few

times. I spent a lot of time with Jobs.

But they say the same thing.

Bezos will not make a decision after

1:00 in the afternoon because he felt

that the noise was too high.

The signal for him was in the morning

hours. If this is a crucial aspect of

success that that I now understand to be

the ability of

defines

an entrepreneur. A man or woman that

understands the signal noise ratio that

focuses on that

they'll be successful.

The ones that can't that get down to a

50/50 signal noise, they'll fail. It's

that simple.

And it's a very simple concept.

You know

you made one of your things today this

interview. You're going to get it done.

You're going to all these people around

and everything else. This is one of the

three to five things you're going to get

done. I have five things today. I'm

going to get them done. I'll do the same

thing tomorrow. And the day after that.

And you have to decide how much signal

you need to get those three to five

things done.

And for Jobs it was 80%.

What's the opposite of that? Sometimes

looking at the opposite helps us to

understand something. So the opposite of

having Well, I hire managers and CEOs

that have a balance in life between the

discipline the binary aspect of business

which is I make money I lose money.

And the chaos of the arts or some other

pursuit dance, painting, photography

collecting crystals, whatever it is that

that they that they have that balance

you you need you need the yin and yang

in your mind to make correct decisions.

It doesn't mean it takes you off the

signal. The signal is you got to get

stuff done. But how do you live your

life? And so I spend a fair amount of my

time practicing my guitar or working

with my photography or my my watch you

know I

tonight very late tonight I will meet a

master watchmaker and we will deal with

the design of a new piece unique is

going to make for me and I'm going to

love that moment. That's going to be

something completely different to what I

did all day long and we'll start our

journey together over the next 2 years

to make this piece unique. And

that's something that just takes me away

from all the [ __ ] I'm going to be

dealing with today. And I also tell

successful entrepreneurs

in the same day you'll get a and I this

happened to me today. It happens every

day.

You're going to get a call from some

aspect of of your

what you do you call it your empire

whatever you want where your this

company's going bankrupt. It's just

going to go bankrupt and you're going to

lose

I don't know 10 million bucks on that

deal.

And that's a piece of information you're

dealing with.

Half an hour later

this actually happened to me today.

One of my company's going public.

It's a 450X for me.

The stock will get unlocked sometime in

the fall but

how can how do you

how do you fit that together?

Utter catastrophe, destruction, woe,

loss

utter euphoria

half an hour later.

That's

that's what my life is like. That's

entrepreneurship. Obviously on a

different scale for most founders.

Well, the founders deal with the same

thing. They get disastrous news. They

lose a an account like a Costco or

something if it's consumer goods or

service and they get something else.

The the the ebb and flow is is the

management of expectations and your

ability emotionally to navigate those

ups and downs is part of what

entrepreneurship is but it goes back to

the signal.

It can't take you off the signal. This

is what Steve taught me.

Yes, it's great news. Yes, it's bad news

but focus on the signal O'Leary. Focus

on the signal.

That's it. Where does this analogy come

from of signal and noise? It was his

genius of a of of making it so simple.

What are the three things you got to get

done today? What are they? What are

they? How do you know what they are?

They will make themselves apparent. They

will definitely make themselves

apparent.

They will make themselves apparent and

you will realize I have to deal with

that. You may have them set up from the

day before. I actually still use sticky

notes on my mirror.

Got to get these three things done.

And or five thing or whatever it is, but

then something else will hit.

That's the skill of understanding. Is

that noise hitting me or is that signal?

There is the essence of the great

entrepreneur, the great manager, the

great leader.

Is that signal or is that noise? What is

it?

That's what you're looking for. You're

hiring somebody that can actually

distinguish signal and noise.

Because it could be noise. It could be

irrelevant.

You have to determine only you makes

that decision.

That's the key right there. This is what

I teach

entrepreneurs and engineers and

This is the most important thing. It's

not judgement of prioritization but then

the sort of force of execution to get it

done.

Can you interpret signal and noise?

And can you keep the noise away from

from the things you got to get done?

That's one. The other which is something

that I've learned over the last five

years.

And this you might find this interesting

but most of my particularly the nascent

startups and you're you're involved in

the same format I am. You're Dragon's

Den in England. I'm Shark Tank in the

US.

I you know, you put up 500,000 or a

million bucks into somebody's business.

Eight eight out of 10 are going to fail,

maybe six out of 10 depend you just

don't know.

And

I love it when people tell me, oh, I I

know

when I make an investment it's going to

work.

They are so full of [ __ ] They They have

I'm talking about startups. They have no

idea what's going to work and you won't

know for 5 to 7 years, which is why you

need diversification in the portfolio,

but

I would go as far to say now,

you know, when I meet um

venture capital firms and young analysts

that work there and they think they're

so damn smart, they've never operated a

business. They don't know nothing. They

have no idea what they're doing. They're

going to hope that one or two of their

portfolio is going to work out in 7

years and pay for all the other

mistakes.

But the serendipitous nature of success

in entrepreneurship is brutal. It is.

So that does that mean though that it's

I guess I was going to say does that not

mean that it's highly luck? If

investing's highly luck,

entrepreneurship must be. Well, I said

karma, you know, I call it karma, but

you need execution skills, but here's

another skill that I think we should

talk about. Um

when you look at at least my experience

over decades of making these

uh

nascent these early stage investments,

these A round investments,

remarkably, and I've done them in all 11

sectors of the of the economy, the

majority of the successes 5 to 7 years

later are companies run by women.

Why is that? Why is that?

And so

they don't know each other, they're in

different sectors, they never meet each

other. Why is that? And I have come to

the conclusion

um

two things. They set goals that they can

achieve so that in the early stage of

their businesses,

they put growth rate targets like 15,

16% versus men at 30% very often. Men

hit their target 65% of the time at

least in my portfolio and and women 90

[ __ ] plus per time percent of the

time. And that keeps the

the team very sticky. They want to be

part of a so they don't have a lot of

attrition when they're small. They don't

lose the head of finance, head of

marketing. That that works. But they

have another attribute and this was

pointed out to me by one of my female

CEOs a few years ago to me. She said,

"You know, Kevin, you talk too much.

You talk too much. Um

you talk 2/3, you listen 1/3. Why don't

you try reversing the ratio?" She said

that to you?

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm very thankful, actually, cuz I tried

it.

And um she's right. If you don't talk

and you listen, you become far more

effective as a manager or an investor in

my case

by getting information that

you weren't going to get by talking. And

so, if you go into a room

I just did this a few minutes ago before

I came here. I'm involved in a

litigation.

And we decided to attempt settlement

talks.

Which is why I was a few minutes late.

And um

you know, we knew we were going in there

to settle.

And it it's long protruded, you know, a

long It's a long long long

uh

litigation.

And I remembered her as we sat at the

table like this. There were other people

in the room, but

the two uh

you know,

we were across from each other.

I just looked at him. I didn't say

anything.

For a long time.

A long time.

And

it gets uncomfortable and no one else is

talking.

You know, just looking.

And um

maybe after 90 seconds, he blurted out

something he shouldn't have said.

And I knew exactly what the price was.

Right there.

That was the end of it.

You learn that as a podcaster.

You learn that there's actually

something going on in the silence. There

is something going on in silence and

it's it's

it's the number that he was going to

settle at.

He showed his hand. So, we saved

ourselves 2 hours, you know.

It's a It's an attribute that many

people can't do cuz they can't stand the

social uncomfort of it. I have no

problem with it. I can sit here and look

at you for 10 minutes. It wouldn't

matter to me.

And I've actually found it to be a very

useful piece of information. It's not

just in negotiating, but to listen to

employees, listen to investors, listen

to financiers, listen to alternate ideas

to yours,

and become more powerful from it.

You're in the very business of people

selling to you and pitching to you. We

both sit on a similar show and my people

come in and pitch to us. You're seeing

at times 10 to 12 a day. So, you've

developed this muscle over the last

couple of decades now.

Almost this instinctive spidey sense of

when an entrepreneur

will be successful, at least in the

context of securing investment. What

have you come to learn about the the

attributes of the ones that are

successful? Is there is there anything

one can take from that?

In the moment when that entrepreneur

comes out on the carpet in the context

of Shark Tank or Dragon's Den even,

they need the set up shot of the product

with the entrepreneur and they have a in

our case a steady cam or a a jib that

comes down and shoots it. So, the the

stage director

Eric uh is his name. I've worked with

him for years.

Says to the

entrepreneurs I've never met, usually

it's a team or it's a family or it's

whatever, three or four, two people,

whatever.

Hold. Hold.

Hold.

Don't speak. Hold. Hold.

Don't mind the camera coming into your

face. Hold. Hold.

Maybe for

2 minutes.

And I'm right there in front of them.

I'm 12 ft from them and I just look at

them.

Not smiling, not blinking, not frowning,

just looking at them.

And before they say a single word, I

know if they're winners or losers.

Just like that.

And why is that? Why is that?

When

and I'm right probably 99% of the time.

Maybe I get it wrong one out of 100. I

doubt it though.

You walk in a room, even though you've

practiced, you know, you're in the

context of of Shark Tank, 20 plus

cameras,

a billion plus dollars in in the five

chairs there. You've been practicing for

months your pitch, but it wasn't the

real deal.

Here you are. Cameras are rolling, tape

is running.

You know you've only got so many

minutes.

This is your moment. And you're on

national television, 100 plus million

people will see you in syndication. It's

all in your mind. It's all in your mind.

It's going through your head.

Can you project

who you are with your eyes and the way

you're standing? Can you project your

confidence?

Are you looking at the ground? Are you

looking away from me cuz you can't stand

me looking at you directly without

saying anything to you?

Or do you push back? Or do you say I'm

going to I'm going to stake my aura. I'm

going to stake my ground here. I'm going

to show you I'm ready.

See what I'm getting at?

Yeah.

And I can feel it. I can see that

they're ready to do battle. They're

ready to answer. They're ready to

present. They're ready, ready, ready,

ready, or they're not. And

I've taken that out of the Shark Tank. I

see that every day in life. I see it.

So, you have to learn how to project

yourself in front of your peers or who's

who you want to you want to lead or

teach or if you're a general or a

preacher,

that is maybe

an innate

something you're born with or maybe you

can learn that. I don't know. I don't

care. But if you don't have it, you're

going to fail. And you're just that's

before a word is spoken.

It'll before the first word is spoken.

And so, then what has to happen?

Then Eric says, "Go.

You're on."

And everybody's just sitting there

looking at you.

Can you articulate your idea in 90

seconds or less? Can you, whatever props

you have or whatever you're going to

say, can I get the big idea right away?

The ones that had that aura generally

get there. 30 seconds later, I get it.

I get what they're here for. I

understand their product. Okay, that's

good. Unfortunately, great ideas are

dime a dozen.

I mean, there's millions of them.

The next phase begins. This is after 90

seconds. Can you explain why you're the

right person

to execute on this idea and create a

business from it because you know

something about this space. You worked

for a competitor. You've tried three

times before and failed. You figured out

what you did wrong. What is it about you

or your team that can take this

idea and make it happen?

Now, we get those two things together,

you can feel the aura of the room.

The isotope is sizzling because you've

de-risked a great idea. You got an

operator in it and they But then the

third thing, this is the killer. This is

the killer.

I've seen it so many times in real life

and Shark Tank's real life it is, but

you got to know your numbers.

How big is the market? How fast is it

growing? What's the gross margin? I've

said this a million times to people. I

teach this every day.

How many competitors are there? When are

you going to break even? What month?

If you get the first two right and you

don't know your numbers, you deserve to

burn in hell and I'll put you there

myself.

I mean, you wasted an opportunity for an

entrepreneur that did know their numbers

that could have been in that spot that I

could have invested in. You don't know

your numbers.

I'd take you out behind the barn and

shoot you. You should have brought

somebody

that understands the language of

business because those three together

are the definition of leadership right

there.

I've never heard someone talk about aura

in entrepreneurship quite like that. And

I was I was just trying to

for the people listening that

are either trying to figure out if they

have an aura or to grow that aura, what

does it what does it look and feel like?

Is it physically? Is it shoulders back?

Is it You said it's eye contact.

Or is it indescribable? And do you think

you could take someone who doesn't have

that aura

in business and

teach them it? Does business give you

that aura?

I think you can teach it. I certainly

try and teach it to my children. Um

I try and teach it to my students.

And the best way to do it is to look at

yourself in the mirror sometime. You

know, just

what do you look like to yourself?

You know, if you're going to go make a

presentation to take down a

million-dollar line of credit or

something, you want to dress the part,

obviously.

But you're going to walk in a room with,

you know, a loan officer and maybe an

assistant, maybe one other, depending on

the size of the deal.

And they all never met you, probably.

And you're going to have to project

yourself in those seconds as you're

walking up to shake their hands.

What does that take? It takes an aura of

confidence, and it's in the eyes, it's

in the way you're you're standing, it's

in how the way you're dressed. It's It's

not a joke to be dressed for success.

You know, it's it's um

it's

but it's it's something about presenting

yourself

and

keeping your eyes focused on who's

talking to you, so that they know that

you're absorbing the information, that

you respect the information, that you're

about to get into a narrative with them

of respect, even though there may be

disagreements. All of this is happening

in the first 60 seconds, and it's

setting up for the rest of

your life with that person. It could be

who you're going to marry, it could be

who you're going to work with, it could

be your partner in business, it could be

your banker, it could be anybody. It

could be a soldier that's going to give

up their life for you. It's sort of

Who are you?

That's it. Just closing off on the point

you made about women being your most

successful investments and the companies

that have given you the greatest returns

tend to be led by women. Does that mean

that you focus on hiring women into

executive roles? Yeah, I'm practically

all women, um particularly Asian women.

I am a uh you know, this whole thing

about

DEI and all this stuff, I've always had

diversity because I only hire on merit.

I don't care

if what sex you are or what you call

yourself or what where you came from or

the color of your skin or what planet

you were born on. I couldn't give a

[ __ ] Can you execute?

And the way I hire people, and that's

why I have such a diverse staff in my

operating company,

I don't hire you. I say, "Look, you

sound good and

you look great on paper,

but that doesn't mean anything if you

can't work within the team. So,

I know you want a job and you want

benefits and all that stuff, but I'm not

going to do that. If you want to be part

of my universe, you're going to work for

4 to 6 months as a contractor at a much

higher salary

cuz you're not going to get any stock

options, you're not going to get any

benefits,

but I just want to see what it's like

for you to work with all of the people

that we deal with every day, all the

lawyers, all the bankers, all of the

you know,

the CEOs that we have investments in and

and your co-workers because I don't

do 9:00 to 5:00 anymore. I do

project-based work. I don't care where

you live. We have people working in

Dubai, Abu Dhabi,

uh

England. I mean, everywhere, everywhere.

And and you know, we meet we try and

find an hour every week where we can see

each other, but we're just constantly

communicating using modern-day tools

today.

But,

you know,

can you actually be given a mandate

and execute on it?

That's it. I don't care when you do it.

If you have to get the financials out,

let's say you're running in finance, you

got to get them out the 15th for taxes.

I don't care when you do it, but if you

miss the 15th, I care.

So, I I need to find out if those people

can fit into that kind of an

environment. Some of them make it, some

of them don't. Some sometimes we know

right away after 90 days, you know,

let's hire him, bring him in the team,

and you know, let's give him the whole

package. And sometimes after a month we

say, "No, it's not going to work."

Here's like, you know, that's it. I

think I think more companies should do

that, actually. It's more like the Swiss

apprentice system. They bring you into a

lot like it, you know, my stepfather's

Swiss. I've been going to Switzerland

for 50 years. So, if you're a giant

company, like a Pfizer or a Nestle, you

pull them out of high school at 14.

You give them a job in the afternoon.

They become an apprentice. They want to

learn. They want to work. They want to

understand what it's like. And then you

find the the winners at while they're

still in high school. Then you give them

summer jobs, and then you bring them

into the company.

That's where I got the idea from. The

Swiss are genius that way. Cuz you're

sort of mitigating the risk, I guess.

You're taking less of a a risk on this.

No, but you're also finding out if their

their DNA is going to fit with your

I mean, I want my team to make a ton of

money. I I just I want them to be

successful.

I want every person to be proud to work

with the other and and just

we're almost invincible. We're so damn

good at what we do. You have the same

thing here. You you don't have people

that don't work for you well, you get

rid of them. You whack them. I'm more

just formal about it. Boom, you're gone.

With with the investments that you've

made, how many investments, how many

offers have you done on Shark Tank now?

Probably like Oh, I just We don't even

count it anymore. We look at the

portfolio rolling over 5 to 7-year

period.

A lot. Yeah, like a lot. And And the

thing is the thing what I've learned is

you get a you get an exit like uh

Basepaws from 5 years ago or something

Anaya from remarkable woman. That was

the the cat DNA Cat DNA thing. I mean,

nobody saw that coming. I thought the

thing was a joke.

Um I was so wrong. I mean, that's the

whole point and and she she had the

highest IRR in in I think in the whole

format's history. Nobody's made her she

was around for 36 months.

And taken out at such an extreme number

in all cash that there was an NDA signed

between Sony and the the pharmaceutical

company. I can't even tell you what it

was. It was extraordinary. It was an

extraordinary Was it nine figures?

Believe me, it's a

tough NDA because and I understand why

they did it.

They didn't buy it for the cat DNA

testing. They bought it for the data.

Mhm.

With AI didn't really wasn't emerging

then. It would existed, but it wasn't

With the data they have now

they can develop products for animals

that are extraordinary in terms of feeds

and medicines. Yeah. And nobody had that

much data on the 110 million cats in

America because she got it all during

the pandemic. Thousands and thousands

and thousands of of you know

It was it was never about it was it was

a data company. It's like my son telling

me when he got his internship at Tesla.

Hey Dad, it's not a car company. It's a

data company. Mhm.

Buy the stock. I said never mind the

stock. It's too joke. It's so expensive.

He said, "You're an idiot. It's not a

car company." So I bought the stock. And

he was right.

It became my most successful investment.

I I had to keep selling it down to 5%.

Uh my cost base is zero on Tesla now.

[ __ ] you. Yeah, but before it split and

he worked there for 5 years.

One of the personas that I have that

watches this show a lot are young people

not always young, but that are

on the sofa thinking about being an

entrepreneur and they talk about it a

lot. You know, they they come up to me

in the street 2/3

will never do it. 2/3 will never do it.

You you might as well do it when you

have less burdensome risk like a

mortgage and a family. You might as well

do it in your 20s.

You're going to fail the first time,

maybe the second, maybe the third. You

only need one success.

You know, I had plenty of failures and I

I still have failures. I mean, it's

just, you know, that what I I talked

about this morning. It's, you know, when

I

I I, you know, I I tell I said to the

largest shareholders as as as as in the

car and your assistant was, you know,

looking at me in the limo. I was telling

the other two shareholders, "Listen,

guys,

it's it's a binary decision. As soon as

I get out of this interview, we're going

to make a decision.

This company's going bankrupt. Oh, on

the bankrupt company.

Yeah, that yeah. And so, if we want to

save it, everybody's going to have to

pony up X million.

And um

we're going to own the whole thing.

We're just going to own it all. We're

going to We're just going to do a

cram-down round at a fraction of a cent.

We're going to own the whole thing. You

want to do that or you want to let it go

bankrupt? You guys choose. I'm 1/3 of

it, so it's going to have to be, you

know,

two against one. And I'll do whatever

they want because that's how I am. But

it's, you know, you want to get yourself

in a position in life that I think most

CEOs understand this.

You are going to have bad outcomes.

They're going to be bad outcomes.

But never put yourself in a situation

where one bad outcome defines who you

are.

I mean,

for those shareholders, they're going to

be unhappy.

But then I got the call on the IPO.

Those shareholders may be very happy.

They're going to make 400 400X. So, it

and that was one of my deals. And so,

it's sort of like

learn to live with the idea that

you are going to fail. You are going to

lose money by taking risk.

Will it change relationships

permanently? Maybe. But if there if

you're respected and you're honest and

you're transparent,

probably not.

I think there's a lot of people don't

like me for my bluntness. I don't care.

I think a lot of people respect me for

my bluntness. They may not like me.

And you know, it's sort of um

it doesn't matter because the only

people that really matter to me are

probably my 20 is closest friends and my

family. Do you think if you hadn't

worked with the known Steve Jobs, you

would be a different person?

100%. Steve changed my life. There's no

question.

I didn't like him.

But

I feel so bad that he he didn't have to

die that way.

He just wouldn't go with the modern

medicine at the time. That's my view.

But he was a freaking genius.

He was so smart in terms of

keeping on track to get getting stuff

done and look what he did achieved. But

he was

difficult.

Difficult cuz he wasn't always right.

But he was right so much that the

mistakes just didn't matter.

And I thought, you know, the people that

spent enough time with him

know what I'm talking about. Um

You know, it occurred to me cuz I know

Wozniak too, not as well as Jobs, but

they really needed each other.

They really needed each other.

Because Woz understood

he was he understood

what the

Let me draw an analogy here for you. I

think it's a good one.

Take the situation going on right now

with

Nvidia, AMD, to a certain extent Intel,

um

maybe Broadcom,

where policy makers in Washington have

decided that we can't sell those chips

to countries like China or Russia or

whatever the list is of adversaries.

That's bad policy.

And here's why. What I learned from

from Jobs was

the the computer, the chip, is the queen

bee.

It's It's the It's the queen bee.

But it has no value without the

honeybees, which are the programmers

around that form a community that spend

all of their energy

writing code that works with the queen

bee, which is the chip,

that

pushes out its influence because every

coder that

becomes familiar with that firmware,

that Wozniak computer, writes to that

platform

is part of the honeybees.

Jobs understood that. He said, "I've got

to get every honeybee writing for the

Mac,

writing for the OS of Apple."

It's the same with

the Nvidia chip.

We need to sell it to everybody. Every

Even adversaries because within

that country of Russia or China is some

genius kid. You don't know who he is or

she is that's going to write the next

piece of firmware or advance AI

from the queen bee,

the chip, the American queen bee.

The minute you shut down a market and

you don't

your adversary sends their queen bee in,

which is Huawei.

We can't let that happen because I don't

think the lawmakers understand what Jobs

understood.

You create the hive with the queen in

the middle. That's the chip.

You convince every bee around

to make the honey,

which is the software and is the AI

right in this in this case. You make it

off that chip and when you advance the

chip again, everybody knows how to take

that set

and

stay within the American chip that

you're advancing.

Maybe you keep them one generation

behind, maybe. Maybe that's the policy,

but you don't ever let an adversary put

their queen bee in the middle of the

hive. You see what I'm saying? Of

course. I mean And that is what Jobs

did. That was the war between Gates and

Jobs on the OS, on the operating system.

thinking about the App Store and

Yeah, it's the same thing. Yeah.

It's exactly the same thing. And so so

when I see this policy now,

I go out of my mind. I mean,

the first thing I do is get on a plane

and go to Washington because

AI is so important for all of the

investments I've made. I do not want to

be putting Chinese honey into my

companies at all.

It's that simple.

So for that person that's stewing over

their ideas now, if they had just a

couple of minutes with you

and they and they asked you the

question, Kevin, I'm about to start this

business. I'm about to go on this

journey of trying to go from zero to

something in my life.

Is there anything else that I need to

know as I set up upon this sort of next

10 years of my life? I'm 21 years old.

What what I cuz I think every

entrepreneur has like their principles.

You you talked about one which is the

signal versus noise thing. Are there any

other foundational principles that you

think are conducive with success?

That you might have learned

Yeah, I mean I've what I'm telling 20

21-year-olds now is look,

go work for 24 months in a sector you

love that you're passionate about, even

if they don't pay you.

Go in there and be an apprentice. Um

if you're that passionate, you're going

to be able to convince some manager to

go work for free in there. You're just

they're going to recognize your passion

and

they're going to bring you in.

Do that first.

Most

young entrepreneurs say, "Nah, nah, I

don't want to work for anybody." I said,

"Yeah, you do actually. You you do want

to work for somebody. You want to just

understand how all the cogs move." Just

24 months.

And after that,

launch.

The first one will probably fail.

You're going to start with your parents

giving you 10,000 bucks or whatever it

is, friends and family.

But you will have the baseline knowledge

of your industry. You will know who the

participants are. You will understand

how it works.

And you'll have a much higher

probability of success. But the key is

to launch sort of in your

in your mid to early 20s because you

need to burn a few years failing. And

and that that matters.

On the point of how to lead people,

when people hear about Jobs' approach,

they

sometimes assume that you also have to

be an [ __ ]

And this is the this is the conflicting

thing because the world has changed

since Jobs was in a leadership position.

Things have gone a little bit more

soft,

shall one say.

Have you seen all all types of

leadership win out in that regard? The

direct, you know, signal-focused,

kind of brash approach, but also the

kind approach.

I know that kind works. I think respect

works. I I

The same number of [ __ ] are out

there being successful now as they were

back in the '90s.

Um

it doesn't matter

um

whether you're an [ __ ] or whether

people like you or not. I mean, people

get so stuck on this stuff.

It It's

the team you're building

are not your friends.

They are the team you're building to

execute on a mandate.

Your customers come first. They're more

important. And then, of course, the

employees and how are they respected or

not. There are people that work for me I

don't like.

It doesn't matter. I respect them. I

respect their ability

to execute. And that above all is the

most important thing. If you start

getting into interpersonal

relationships, you will fail because you

may have to fire that person one day.

People that hire family take huge risk.

Nepotism is a horrible disease.

It's It's uh some of the greatest uh

private companies on Earth

never let the kids run them. They just

put them on the board and they hire

professional management. That's how they

keep wealth multi-generational.

Think about Tetra Pak, for example.

People may not know that name, but it's

a massive successful company. IKEA. I

mean, you know, it's sort of you have to

learn those lessons.

It's It's um

It's about respect

in both directions. It's not about

likeability

or softness or

some social

met- metric. It really isn't.

And

trying to redefine leadership that way

because it's on trend,

it's not going to work.

I started my first business at 12 years

old, and then I started more businesses

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What about finding the definition of the

word company as a of people? So, in

terms of finding great people,

is there anything that you can offer to

entrepreneurs that are listening about

how you've done that and what you've

learned over time, the mistakes you've

made with assembling your group of

people?

Yeah, hiring them without testing them

first. I've made that mistake.

So, so you now test them first. Yeah.

Just cuz someone says they can execute

doesn't mean they can. I mean, it's of

course in your interview, you're not

going to say I can't execute. You know,

you're looking at their past you're

saying this looks terrific. Looks like

you can fit in, but it's on a piece of

paper. They haven't been road tested.

They haven't put in a situation where

they have to make individual decisions

that that have consequence. The people

you want are able to make decisions that

have consequence. Good bad good

consequence bad consequence. You don't

know yet, but they have to have be able

to make that decision on their own

without calling you up because you gave

them that mandate. Maybe you put a set

of parameter you can spend a million

bucks no more, but they're calling me,

but whatever it is.

I don't want to hear from them. I just

want the outcome.

What about resilience and hard work? How

much does that matter to you? Cuz I know

you said they can work when, you know,

they as long as they get the job done,

but are you trying to figure out if they

are

a bit of a psychopath in terms of hard

work? If they're possessed themselves.

find the ones that are psychopaths hard

worker actually the most successful.

It's not the case. I find the ones that

are eclectic people that have other

pursuits that are nothing to do with the

business they're in.

That

do crazy stuff. You know, maybe it's

riding motorcycles in the desert. I

don't know you know, these are the

examples I'm just using cuz I'm living

with them.

And say, look, I've got to go and ride a

bicycle across the the desert.

Okay. How many days you're going to be

gone?

I don't know, maybe three. Okay. Is

there anything that is immediate?

That tells me that

if you look at if you look at the year's

outcome from that person, you're going

to find that they probably outperformed.

You You want You want You want the

eclectic ones. You want the ones

that are not just robots working. It's

It's going to be cheaper to get a robot

if you want a robot. I'm going to buy

those two when they come available. But,

I want people that have creative

and

unusual solutions

that, you know, just think outside of

the box.

It's It's really interesting that way.

The other thing that, um,

everybody wants to hear from you about

is how to keep and grow your wealth.

Because, you know, making wealth I kind

of understand through the lens of

entrepreneurship, take a big bet,

um, hopefully have an exit or, you know,

draw a dividend or make profit from a

company you started. But, in terms of

what you did and your relationship with

your money, what are the most important

things for someone to understand who's

just trying to grow their money? Yeah,

yeah, and I learned this from my mother,

and I actually built a whole indexing

company around it. When I was very

young, I found out something, uh, that,

um,

So, she, um,

was fiercely independent. She was one of

three daughters, uh, of Lebanese

descent. My Irish was father My father

My original father, biological father,

was Irish.

She didn't Yeah, there she is, Georgia.

So,

I haven't seen that picture in a while.

Okay.

She was very independent.

And

she never ever wanted a man to control

her life. So, she

started at an early age when she was

working for her father.

They paid the girls, the family all

worked there, and she worked in the

accounting department

and billing, but she got paid cash. And

so, she

would take 20%

of that cash each week.

And

she would put it into two asset classes.

Stocks that paid dividends, large cap

stocks,

and Telco bonds.

Seven-year Telco bonds paid about 6 and

1/2 to 8% back then.

She bought the long bonds.

And she had that portfolio for 55 years.

Wow. Um she never spent any of the

principal. Only the dividends and the

interests. She put my brother and I

through college, and you know, she took

care of her family and her sisters when

they

fell on hard times.

But her rule was very simple.

No more than 5% in any one stock or bond

of the portfolio, and no more than 20%

in any one sector, ever.

Ever. So, when a stock ran up past five,

she'd sell it down. This is not genius.

This is just diversification.

And

when she passed and I I was the older

brother and I saw the portfolio,

cuz the lawyer said, "Listen, you got to

come down here. You're the executor of

the will." And I said, "Yeah, but you

know, my mother was middle class."

He said, "No, you got to come down here.

Um she kept her accounts secret from

both of her husbands.

She wanted her own independent money.

And back then you could do that.

And um

damn, I mean, what that portfolio did.

The performance was extraordinary. It

was beyond any

hedge fund guy or anything.

55 years.

When I saw the results, I said, "That's

it. That's how I'm going to invest for

the rest of my life." Exactly the way

Georgette did. No more than 5%

in any one stock ever, no matter no

matter what it is, and no more than 20%

in any one sector with the exception of

real estate, which is a very large part

of what I have in net worth. And I

That's a It's a third. So, that's broken

the rule, but there's reasons for that,

and I'm very happy with that portfolio.

But, um that if she if you if everybody

that's listening to this does that,

they will maintain and grow their

wealth. But, it's people bet they make

big bets. They're just They think

they're so damn right, they put half

their net worth into one sector or one

stock, and they get wiped out. That's

what happens.

So, would your mother pick the stocks

herself, or would she invest in an index

fund or She indexed. She used to So,

okay.

Even even back then, you know, they

didn't have ETFs, but they had mutual

funds that said their own only stock in

this mutual fund is doesn't have any

debt, and it pays dividends, you know,

whatever. They were very rudimentary

back then. They were just collections of

stocks. I think she had like

thir- 28 names or something like that in

the portfolio. But, if you looked at

them, they were really boring large cap

names. But, they were sec- totally

diverse. There wasn't 10 sectors back

then. There was only There there wasn't

11, there was 10.

So, they didn't have real estate as a

sector. So, but you know, I looked at it

saying, "Wow, these are really boring."

You learned a lot about money from your

early upbringing, right? From your that

early context. Yeah, because what she

said to me was, "Look,

you know,

I I even do this today with wealthy

people call me up all the time and say,

"Look, um

you know, they get divorced. It's really

I I This is a very wealthy woman got

divorced recently and she said, "Look, I

you know, I'm divorcing and

she was a billionaire. She was divorcing

She was more multi-billionaire and so

she said, "Look, I I I'm getting

Everybody's calling me up um

to be my advisor cuz I'm separating from

my husband and it's all his guys that

did all the management of our family

wealth.

"Would you be my advisor?" I said, "No,

I don't do that. Um

but you know, I can

I can just give you some basic advice

and you can hire people to stick on the

mandate." And I gave her Georgette's

strategy, but she I I had to do

something else, too. I said, "Let's get

a piece of paper. You're a billionaire.

Let's put everything on this piece of

paper on the last 90 days that you've

spent on whatever the hell it is. I

don't care.

And let's put on No computer, no

spreadsheet. On this Let's look at all

the income that you've made off your

portfolio as it stands now, whether it's

gold you have or land or stocks or

bonds.

Let's just do a gut check

on

do you outspend yourself?

She said, "Why would I give a shit?" I

said,

"Wouldn't you like to know

how much money you're burning living

your lifestyle the way you live it? Just

out of interest. Maybe you have enough

for the rest of your life, but maybe you

want to give some of it to your family

when they are or give it to charity.

Wouldn't you like to know?

Because one of my rules is never

outspend yourself on any 30- or 60-day

cycle, ever. Just ever. I don't have any

debt. So So I'm very careful about that.

And we went through this little thing.

She freaked out. She was

pissing away money.

Just bleeding

hundreds of thousands of dollars a week.

I mean, I don't care how rich you are.

You don't want to be stupid. And

I said, "Does that shock you? One of the

things that has to happen I mean, you're

you're losing millions of dollars a

quarter. Like

Why?

Why?

Like you don't you have you've had

nobody restrict what you do with your

money cuz you're going to have to sell

stocks at some point or sell gold or

sell land to keep this up.

And are you really that happy? Like what

do you what's all this [ __ ] you're

buying? Like what is all this crap that

you don't need? It was an eye-opener for

her. So I My point is most people don't

do that exercise. I don't care if you're

only making 56,000 a year or 68 the

average salary.

So are you in the camp that you

shouldn't spend money on the small

things like the coffee if you don't need

it you should make the coffee at home?

Is that kind of I I just I can't stand

it when I see kids that are making 70

grand a year

spending $28 for lunch.

I mean that's just stupid. It's just

think about that in the context of that

being put into an index and making 8% 8

to 10% a year for the next 50 years.

What's an index for someone that doesn't

So okay. I mean

you know

I even have it I even built an app for

this purpose just so I could There's

many apps out there you don't have to

use mine. Mine's called Beanstocks but

you just allocate 15% of your salary and

it automatically puts it into two

buckets some stocks and some bonds. The

stocks are ETFs exchange-traded funds

that just track the S&P 500 very simply.

Mine's a little The S&P 500 is the top

500 stocks.

Yeah so it's just you know people will

tell me oh I can beat the S&P P I can

pick stocks. They're so full of crap.

Not over the long period they can. So

it's better you might as well just own

ETFs. I have a version of the S&P that I

designed with other people that strips

out all the crappy balance sheets but

that's just me. You can just buy the

index that you want you know the ETF and

then you pay low fees and then over time

it appreciates and then if you buy some

treasury bills or what fixed income you

get that. You should have less of those

when you're young and more of them when

you're older just just diversification.

But

you you know

the best test I do with my kids' friends

too. Go into a closet. Go into your

closet, and look at how much [ __ ] you

have you don't wear.

Because you either bought it cuz you

thought you were going to wear it

and never wore it or wore it once, and

you end up wearing 20% of your portfolio

all of the time and 80% you you pissed

away.

I mean, that's really stupid. And so,

for a young person, a young woman or

man,

don't do that. Start putting in just

buy the minimum stuff. And another thing

in my life with my mother, this is

interesting cuz I saw it happen at her

death.

She,

you know, would buy two Chanel jackets a

year. Really expensive Chanel jackets.

Handmade Chanel jackets.

I do business with Chanel because of,

you know, the legacy of my mother and

the whole Coco Chanel thing and watches.

I love those guys.

And

her theory was, this will never get old.

And it never did. A classic vintage

Chanel jacket from the '50s, this

well-kept,

is worth a fortune today. The classic It

still wears beautifully. They're so well

made. So, she wouldn't buy crap. She'd

buy really good stuff, but a little just

small amounts of it. And over the years,

she'd built up this portfolio of amazing

clothing. And when she died, the women

in in our family had a cat fight over

her portfolio. Unbelievable. Is that in

part why you have so many watches? I've

noticed you have a watch on either wrist

right now.

Yeah, I'm pretty big in watches. I mean,

but but watches to me,

every piece I have

marks something in my life that was

important. A deal, a child, graduation,

um

you know, something. Every piece. I've

got a lot of watches. How many have you

got? I I don't even say anymore cuz of

the insurance policy I have. I got a

lot.

Do you invest in You You're talking

about your your mother's investing

strategy, and one of the things you said

is she invested in dividend stocks.

Yes. What is a dividend stock, and

should I be investing in dividend

stocks? Yeah, I mean, you know, a if

it's profitable and it's operating and

its business plan is working and it's

growing market share, at some point

says, "I'm going to distribute some of

the success of our profits to our

shareholders." That's a dividend.

And so, they send that cash to you and

you can either redeploy it in other ways

or live off it or whatever. Many tech

stocks until recently did not pay

dividends, but now the behemoth tech

stocks do pay dividends because the

demand of an aging population is I need

to eat. And so, I like to own the stock

for growth, but I also want to get some

of the profits. And so, dividend-paying

stocks used to be utilities, but not so

today. Every Every sector has

dividend-paying stocks, so I prefer to

own dividend-paying stocks, div payers.

And then I also own fixed income

products. I also own crypto now and I

own alternative assets like gold and

watches. My watch collection's actually

done quite well, even though there's

been a correction. There's volatility,

but I have some watches that have, you

know, I bought for

200,000 and worth over a million today.

Crypto. So,

are you still bullish on crypto as an

investment? I am actually, but people

get crypto confused with its real

potential. Um

Uh

let's talk about digital payment systems

because what's about to pass first,

we're days away from this happening, is

the Genius Act, which is actually the

stable coin act. It was just passed by

the Senate 48 hours ago. It's going back

to the house. I I actually worked on

that bill 2 years ago. So, if that bill

passes, it's really nothing to do with

speculating on crypto. It's a new form

of payment. So, if I wanted to order a

watch in from Simon Birch, who's

somebody I buy watches from, he's a

master watchmaker,

right now I have to take US dollars.

I've got to get through a know your

client prerogative. I'm treated like a

criminal by transferring 100,000 dollars

over, turn it into Swiss francs. Takes

about a week. I get screwed for about

200 basis points in the whole thing.

If I If he accepted USDC, which is

actually

a stable coin backed by the US dollar,

just went public, very successful IPO. I

was a shareholder in that company, too.

That's one of my best IPOs in in the

last 2 years. The transaction would

happen in less than a second.

And

the fees would be a hundredth of what

the costs are right now. So, it's a

digital payment system. The price

doesn't

It's not It's not It's no speculation on

it. It's backed by the US dollar

Treasury bills.

So, it's sort of

a new form of of digital payment.

That's different than Bitcoin, which is

a speculation. It's If you believe in

Bitcoin, you think it's a digital gold,

and you live through the volatility.

I believe in both. I believe that that

crypto will be the

12th sector of the S&P in some period of

time because it provides productivity to

all 11 other sectors. So, the way I own

it is I own

the exchanges.

My exchange of in one called WonderFi up

in Canada just got acquired last week or

2 weeks ago by Robinhood.

I'm happy cuz I think Vlad who runs

Robinhood is great. And now he's got a

million plus accounts in Canada in

market that he'd never participated in.

But the point is

this is never going away. It's going to

stay forever. So, how do you

participate? You can buy some Bitcoin,

just like you can buy gold, buy it in

ETF or actually own it yourself. You can

buy the exchanges. You can use

um you know, you can buy Circle stock

now it's public. You can Circle makes

USDC. You can buy USDC in in an account

and make 4.1% interest on it right now.

So, there's a lot of ways to

participate, but yes, I'm here to stay.

But I've grow I've grown up. I was

around during the period where the

crypto cowboys lived. And and I survived

that all. And I even testified in front

of the Senate and the House and whatever

else the testimonies were during the the

tumultuous period. And most of those

guys went to jail. Your portfolio in

terms of Bitcoin allocation or crypto

allocation, what is it now? It's at

about all in. Uh

we we marked to market last month, it

was 19.1%.

19.1%?

Yeah, we have to keep it under 20. It's

a sector, so. But remember, in that is

the cryptos itself, Bitcoin, the USDC,

and the shares of the infrastructure

companies, like Circle and everything

else. I've got, you know, it was a very

successful IPO. One of the first things

most people do when they get a bit of

money, usually from their their job, is

they get a mortgage on a house.

Because we're kind of taught as we grow

up that the best way to make or that

not maybe the best, but the most obvious

way to create wealth is to buy your

first home.

Yeah, there's a very basic rule for

that, and I understand it, and I did the

same thing.

But what I made sure again from my

mother was

never let

the mortgage and the cost of maintaining

the house be more than 1/3

of your income.

1/3 of your income.

If it's more than 1/3, you bought too

much house.

So, it's better to buy a house that's

maybe it's only going to be 1,900 square

feet to start in a neighborhood that you

may not want to stay in for the rest of

your life, but

start to accrue the benefit of real

estate from that point of view, learn

how to manage it, maybe you rent part of

it out or whatever, but it can't be more

than a third of your income. The mistake

that people made and they're starting to

suffer from it now is when money was so

cheap, mortgage mortgage rates were

under 4%, they were 3.2% some of them.

They bought massive houses.

And now they're running into having to

refinance those houses at much higher

rates, more than 7%.

And it's becoming 60, 70, 80% of their

income. They're screwed.

They bought too much house. So, it's

about making sure that you can manage

that, and also you want some

diversification. Yes, a mortgage is

okay,

particularly if you're having a family,

cuz you're going to pay rent or you're

going to pay a mortgage, one of the two.

But you want some diversification and to

starting to build up that

investment account for when you retire,

so that you have something to live off.

If you only put aside 15%. If you're

you're making 70,000 a year and you put

15% aside from when you're 25,

you'll have over a million and a half

dollars if you just invested it in the

stock index, in the S&P 500. That's what

That's what history has told you. In

what time frame?

Your whole career. I mean, you're going

to be 65. You're 25, 65. You just stick

with that protocol and you'll watch it

grow. You'll watch it grow. You go up

and down as the market goes up and down.

Some years it'll go flat, whatever, but

it's the people that don't even think

ahead and find themselves at 45 mired in

debt including a mortgage. You want to

get rid of your mortgage in your 40s.

Most people's primary investment asset

is the house they buy.

Is that a small

Yes, it is, but it's also the debt they

own. It's a primary asset. How much debt

does it have on it? It's only the equity

value is the asset. So, if you're buying

a house that's too big and it's you've

only put down 10% and it's a 90%

mortgage, what do you really own? You

really own the 10%

at whatever price it is. Sometimes

housing goes flat for a while.

It's

It's okay, but it's not okay if it's too

much house. If you're a 25-year-old and