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

I used AI to make $15 billion last year. >> You did? >> I did. Because the AI gave us a solution. to the problem that no one had ever. encountered before in the history of the. world. And so my advice is don't try to. outwork the robots. What you want to do. is ask the AI to do something that's. never been done before. And if you want. to create these incredible success. things, you want to locate the magic. opportunity. I know this because I'm an. technology entrepreneur. And we're. [music] the biggest buyer of Bitcoin in. the world. So what is my mission? I'm.

preaching the gospel of digital. empowerment [music] in Bitcoin as. digital money. And it's going to be the. best long-term capital asset. And you. can actually own something and someone. more powerful than you can't take it. away from you. >> What do you mean they can't take Bitcoin. from you? >> So this is a stack of currency. You walk. through an airport on this, they ask you. if you have cash. They just take it. So. cash in a physical form is a problem. So. what do you do? You put it in the bank. So the bank then decides whether you get.

to keep it and whether you get it back. But I could move a million dollars of. Bitcoin from here to anywhere, to. London, to anywhere in cyberspace in a. few seconds. So the last thing in the. world you want to save is money. >> So what about this? Why not just put all. of my money into gold? >> Well, gold is up 12% a year, but Bitcoin. is up 33. >> What about the S&P 500? >> You're going to get double the. performance from BTC that you would get. from like the S&P index. >> So should I buy a house? >> I will tell you why you shouldn't buy a. house. >> And then you sold a bit of Bitcoin.

recently after telling a lot of people. sell a kidney if you must but keep the. Bitcoin. So why did you sell the Bitcoin. instead of your kidney? >> Because. >> Michael, beyond just buying Bitcoin, [music]. what is a good strategy to build and. become wealthy in your view? And then. >> [music]. >> you have 10 rules for young adults. building a strong foundation for their. life and career. So let's go through. these. >> So first, >> This is super interesting to me. My team. gave me this report to show me how many. of you that watch this show subscribe. and some of you have told us according. to this that you are unsubscribed from.

the channel randomly. So, favor to ask. all of you, please could you check right. now if you've hit the subscribe button. if you are regular viewer of the show. and you like what we do here. We're. approaching quite a significant landmark. on this show in terms of a subscriber. number. So, if there was one simple free. thing that you could do to help us, my. team, everyone here to keep this show. free, to keep it improving. year-over-year and week-over-week, it is. just to hit that subscribe button and to. double-check if you've hit it. Anything. I'll ever ask of you. Do we have a deal? If you do it, I'll. tell you what I'll do. I'll make sure.

every single week, every single month we. fight harder and harder and harder and. harder to bring you the guests and. conversations that you want to hear. I. stayed true to that promise since the. very beginning of The Diary of a CEO and. I will not let you down. Please help us. Really appreciate it. Let's get on with. the show. >> [music]. >> Michael, because of your success as a. technology entrepreneur, you are a. multi-billionaire from my. math and you're heavily focused on. digital currencies at the moment, specifically Bitcoin. What else do we. need to know about you in terms of what.

you've built and accomplished outside of. that? >> I always wanted to make a technical. contribution. So, that the early. business was business intelligence. So, how do you extract intelligence from. large raw data sources and that was what. MicroStrategy did. We created a global. business intelligence company. And. [snorts] I think in 2020, when the COVID. lockdowns took place and the world. turned upside down, that was when I. discovered my greatest idea and it. wasn't even my idea, right? It was. Satoshi's idea, but I discovered Bitcoin.

in 2020 and the company today is. $60 billion, but we peaked about 125. billion. So, we got somewhere between. 100 and 200 times bigger since we. discovered Bitcoin. >> And when you speak to the general public. now, when you do podcasts like this, what is the the essence of the message. that you're aiming to communicate to. them. >> Bitcoin is is digital empowerment, digital capital. We're living through. the digital transformation.

of assets, and this is just as profound. transformation as digital intelligence. The real profound breakthrough of. Bitcoin is this idea. that you can take economic energy, convert to digital form, and tightly. bind it to the person, the family, the. company, or the country. We can talk about how we. all hate countries, but you know, the. history of the world is all the weak. countries getting smashed by all the big.

countries. So, if what you're interested. in in is empowerment and fairness and. equity for the small company, the small. family, the small person, the small. country, the weak, how do you do it? Well, you basically. encrypt the money, put it in cyberspace, protect it with a private key. So, like. now you can actually own something and. someone more powerful than you can't.

take it away from you. >> There's two types two types of money. there in front of you. There's dollar. bills, and then I've got a couple of. Bitcoin on the table. What do you mean. they can't take Bitcoin from you? >> Okay, so this is a stack of currency. You walk through an airport on this, they ask you if you have cash. If you. do, they. Cash in a in a physical form is a. problem. So, what do you do? You put it. in the bank. Well, the bank is is a counterparty. So, the bank then decides whether you get to.

keep it and whether you get it back. You. go to the bank and you ask for it back, they might ask you why you asked for it. back. If you ask for that much back, they file a form. with the Treasury Department. You know, if you ask for too much money back too. soon, right, someone comes knocking on. your door. So, the challenge with this. this is fiat currency. and um you hold this at the pleasure of. the nation-state. I mean, not just your. nation-state. It's like every country on. Earth gets to decide whether you get to. spend this stuff, right? Which is.

interesting and if you want to actually. transfer money to someone in another. country, you need the permission of your. bank, another bank, the central bank of. their country, the corresponding bank. There might be seven different banks. that have to decide whether the money. gets from here to there. So, this is. permissioned money, you know, that's uh. managed by the state and with Bitcoin, I. can take a million dollars. I can. actually encrypt it in a chip in a. physical coin, the Cascascius coin,

and that's a million dollars. I slide it. across and it's literally a bearer. asset, you know, and so that's one. manifestation of it. But, you could also. put it into information form. I could. transfer this to you just in the form of. a private key that I wrote on a piece of. paper and I gave to you. >> of letters you can give me. >> Yeah, or I could send you a message. I. could send a text message. So, so, good. luck getting a million dollars of gold. from here to London if people don't want.

you to move it, but I could move a. million dollars of Bitcoin from here to. anywhere in a few seconds. The idea was. I don't want to trust Apple or Google or. Morgan Bank or a central bank or a. government, right? And so, in the. extreme case, you know, two people can meet in Africa. and I can trade you some Bitcoin for. your truck. and I don't need the permission of seven. banks and 16 governments and 32 other.

bureaucrats. in order to buy that truck. >> What is it that most people, the average. person, doesn't understand about the. nature of money as it sat in their bank, as it relates to the debasement of it or. the sort of inflation of it. Because. most people think if they've got, you. know, $10,000 in their bank and they. keep it there, and maybe getting. interest on it at 4% a year, they're. going to be good. >> So, this is about $10,000, I guess. Um.

1 acre of land in Miami Beach on the. water cost $10,000 about 100 years ago. I know this cuz I have a house on the. water and I have the the deed of sale, and it was about on 2 acres and it was. $20,000. The entire house cost $100,000. And uh it's about $20,000 worth of land. Today, uh 1 acre of land on this the. same acre. on the water. $10 million?

Maybe $20 million. So, you know. what happened here, right? It's the same. dollar. It works out to be a thousand X. increase in price. So, when land goes. from $10,000 to $10 million, that means. that the currency, the dollar, the money. lost about 7% of its economic value. every year for 100 years running. If you lose 7% a year.

you know, then you get cut in half, right? 10 times. Right? So, what do most people not know. about about money? What they don't. realize is that the best currency, money, my money being a medium of. exchange, unit of account, store of. value, the dollar, the best in the 20th. century and the 21st century, the US. dollar. lost 7% of its value every year going. for 100 years. That's the best it's ever. going to get. It's not that good for everybody else. If you go to most other countries, they.

lose 14% of their value, and so they. collapse in about 30 years. So. what you have is a situation where if. you store your wealth and currency and. and the money of the society, the. question really is just are you going to. lose most of your money within 10 years? That's the weak currencies in in Africa. For example, most currencies in Africa. you couldn't hold you your wealth even. for 10 years, maybe 5 years. Or are you going to lose all your money.

in 30 years? Hyperinflation happened in. Brazil, happened in Argentina, you know, that's Mexico, that's most places, and. that's the status quo. The average fiat. currency, you know, collapses in about. 29 years, I think. And then the best is if you happen to be. a citizen of the greatest nation in the. world and you win all the wars, you're. just going to lose all your money in. you know, half-life is 35 years. You're. going to lose your money over the course. of 100 years. >> So, should I buy a house?

>> So, you get to the next interesting. point which is that $100,000 in 19, uh, 26. in Miami Beach. today would be worth $100,000, that. house, 50 to 100 million dollars. So, the house is better, right? In fact, if you're trying to preserve your. wealth, you have to acquire scarce. desirable property. So, your choice is do I buy real estate? Do I residential real estate? Do I buy.

commercial real estate? Do I buy a. private company? Do I buy a public. company? Like stocks? Do I buy. collectibles? So, let me tell you why you shouldn't. buy a house. Because, uh, there's a 2% property tax. on houses in in Florida, which means. that if you buy a house, you pay 2% of. the value every year. 2%, you know, means that every 36 years. you actually pay the cost of the house. in tax to the government. Not a very. good store of value because, uh, you're. taking on a massive tax load.

and you're taking on a maintenance load. But having said it, it's still a better. deal than just holding cash in a bank or. holding cash in a safe. You know, commercial real estate looks a bit. better, right? Because with commercial. real estate, you can offset the tax, the. insurance, and the maintenance cost with. rents. So, what really works out with. commercial real estate most of the time. is you buy a million dollars commercial. real estate, you have a bunch of fees, you charge rent. The rent offsets the.

maintenance cost. You don't really make. any money on the rent, but the. underlying million dollars appreciates. 7% a year every year. And so, you. actually can build wealth. with commercial real estate if you can. just cover the maintenance expenses. >> Most people are are told that the way to. build wealth when they leave university. and they get into the working world is. to buy a house. So, most people that's. what most most people do. They They get. a job, a 9:00 to 5:00, they take the. money they get from that, they go and. get a mortgage, they buy a house, and.

they move in. That's kind of what we're. all told implicitly. Is that a good. strategy to build and become wealthy in. your view? >> The only way that it's a good strategy. is. you're buying the house in a. jurisdiction where the property taxes. are manageable. Then yeah, you can you. can generate some wealth. But if I flip. that and you end up taking a 7% mortgage. and you get massive tax and massive. insurance expenses,

then that same investment, you know, works out the other way and it it. crushes you to death. So, a better idea generally is commercial. real estate if you're if you actually. have the, you know, the business acumen. to to get into commercial real estate. business cuz you can pass all the. expenses through to your tenants. These things are all hard, right? Real. estate business is hard, starting your. own company is hard. Investing in other. companies is hard. The conventional.

thing, the safe thing is I just put all. my money in a money market and I get. paid 3% and then after tax I've got 1.5%. and the currency is losing 7% of its. value a year and you're just losing 5 or. 6% of your wealth every year for your. life. So. that's why Bitcoin is such a compelling. thing. That's why people that believe in. Bitcoin are passionate about it because. the average person shouldn't have to be. a real estate expert. They shouldn't. have to be a tax expert. They shouldn't. have to be capable of launching their.

own restaurant or bar or bakery. You. shouldn't have to be a stock picker. Why. shouldn't the typical person just be. able to take their money, put it into an. asset which appreciates in value 15% a. year and they don't have to worry about. it? >> What about the S&P 500? They can just. put it into the stock market, right? >> Yeah, John Bogle's real contribution and. the success of the S&P 500 is this idea. that. currency is not a store of value.

Real estate is illiquid and scary and. difficult and inefficient and high. maintenance. So what is the liquid. capital asset that it can I can buy and. it turns out to be like SPY. It's just. the S&P 500 in the form of an ETF. So. that has returned 15% over the past 6. years. Over 100 years? Maybe 10%? Something like that? >> Every year? >> And if the US dollar is losing 7% of its. value in scarce desirable terms over the.

course of 100 years and you're getting. 10%. you're getting a 2 or 3% boost and. in return for accepting the volatility. of being invested in the stock market, but it's not a bad idea, right? If you. want the conventional best idea to. preserve your wealth without taking on. individual, you know, corporate risk and. individual real estate risk, I just buy. the S&P index and wait. >> What about this? This is gold.

>> Yep. >> Why not just put all of my money into. gold? >> It's not an awful idea to buy gold. Gold. is up, um, 12% a year. for the past 6 years. So, whereas the. S&P's up 15, gold's up 12, the NASDAQ's. up 18. Bitcoin is up 33. Okay, so, generally, if you look at the world and. you say, "Where do you want to save your. money?" You want to buy a capital asset. Gold's a winner, S&P's a winner,

diversified tech stocks are a winner. Bitcoin is a winner. Now, you're going. to say to me, "Well, so then, well, why Bitcoin?". Well, the answer is, if you're living in. Turkey, if you're living in Argentina, if you're living in Brazil before the. currency collapses, or Mexico, or. Venezuela, or any country in Africa, you. don't get gold, you don't get the S&P, you don't get QQQ. You can't buy. diversified real estate in the US. Those. options I named are a Western world.

conventional capital assets. So, the big mistake, don't invest in non-capital assets. Don't put all your family's money in. soybeans, you know? Don't buy barrels of. crude oil, don't buy cotton, don't. invest in things that a factory or a. robot or an AI can generate infinite of. You buy things that the robots and the. AIs and the big factories cannot pump. out by the million gallons. And so, what.

is that? It is maybe an ounce of gold, it is a share in the 500 most desirable. companies in the world, it is one out of. 21 million Bitcoin. All of those things. are things that the robots are not going. to create infinite of. Those are capital. assets. Which capital asset. is a function of where you live. and what your mindset is. If you're. living in a war zone, my advice is Bitcoin because you're not.

carrying this through a checkpoint, right? Like, you know, if if you need to. go through an airport, you want. something that you get to keep and take. with you. >> You talked about the robots there. >> Yeah. >> And uh when we say the robots, I think. we mean both the the surgeon robotics. we're seeing, but also artificial. intelligence that's going to empower. them to be very, very intelligent. >> Yeah. >> How has this changed your thesis in how. you view the future? Cuz it's it's a. profound surprise, I think to all of us.

that artificial intelligence is. accelerating at the rate we're seeing. >> Technology fails until it succeeds. When. I was at MIT, people were trying to. make, uh you know, speech recognition. work. It just didn't work. For a. thousand years, people wanted to fly and. it didn't work. And in 1902, the New. York Times declared that every learned. scientist knows that you'll never be. able to fly. And then in 1903, we fly. In 2023, you know, the AI started. working. You can see what's happening. We've affected the digital. transformation of intelligence.

Cars are going to drive themselves. It's pretty clear that anything that. takes massive human labor, you know, whether it's lawyering, writing a. contract, or composing a poem, or. composing a script, or composing. It's like, you want a book? Tell the AI what kind of book you want. Here's my 10, you know, I want this. I. want it to be set in London. I want this. protagonist. Can you make it like that? Put some more violence in it. Uh you know, Voltaire, right, was.

impressive because he created, you know, this much literature. And and when he. did it, it came out of the mind of one. man, and that was quite amazing. And you know, I think we're always going. to admire the people that did it first. Right? But, you know, the AIs will think for us. You know, put the AI into the robot. We're not that far, right? Like when I. sit when I sit and I talk to my voice. assistant, whether it's Chad or whether. it's Grok, and it's it's like she knows.

everything, and she keeps getting. smarter. You know, you know, every single week. she gets smarter, and it's like what. happens when they go into a robot? It's. like. Well, you can you pretty much can. imagine. a billion robots, and maybe we'll pay. 200 bucks a month for a robot, and the. robot will just pretty much do. everything. And so, the question is do you want. someone to do everything, to cook, to. clean, you know, to take out the trash? Would you like a self-driving car? Of.

course, you do. We're on the verge of. these perfect products, right? That. like we'll get to the point where we're. like I I I I. You used to actually have an oven that. burned things? Like what? What what it was stupid? Yeah, it was. too stupid to know it was going to burn. the. Huh? Why don't you just put intelligence. into the appliance, right? What why. would you ever have an unintelligent. appliance, right? At this point, when it. gets exponentially cheaper. We used to.

get in traffic accidents. Right? Like like the big reveal, right? The big the big inversions when people. realize that the self-driving cars are. safer than the person-driven cars, right? It's like you used to make mistakes. You know, the irony, of course, is now. when you send a message to someone, if. you want to prove that it came from you, you have to actually put errors in it. Right? It's like if you put errors in. it, I believe you typed it. You know, the AI can draft the thing as though it.

had a PhD in English, and it had 20. years experience as a copy editor. And. so, we're reaching this point where. lack of of effectiveness is just. laziness, right? Like, if you wrote. something which wasn't perfect, it's cuz you're lazy, not because you're. not perfect. I mean, the AIs create. perfect documents. They do perfect. research. The robots will do any amount of work. And I I think Elon makes this point,

which is we're about to trip over an age. of abundance. >> Do you believe that's true? What What does that say about Bitcoin? Because I'm looking at some of the. quotes here that Elon said about the age. of abundance. And he says, "In the. future, where anyone can have anything, you no longer need money as a database. for labor allocation. If AI and robotics. are big enough to satisfy all human. needs, then the relevance of money. declines rapidly. I'm not sure we will. have it. If you are stranded on a desert. island with a trillion dollars, it will. be pointless because there is no labor.

to allocate. In a benign scenario, we. will have universal high income. Much as. universal basic income mean anyone can. have any products or any services that. they want. Universal high income via. checks issued by federal governments is. the best way to deal with unemployment. caused by AI/robotics. Because AI and [snorts] robotics will. produce goods and services far in excess. of the increase in money supply, so. there will be no inflation. Work will. become optional, kind of like playing. sports or a video game. You can go to. the store and buy vegetables, or you can.

go and grow them in your backyard. because you like growing them. That's what work will be like. AI and. robotics are going to make so much stuff. and provide so many services that they. will actually run out of things to do. for the humans. Money is fundamentally. information. The true constraints of the. future won't be financial. They'll be. energy and mass. >> He's half right. I agree with with part. of what he says. That is, consumer. goods, consumables, utilitarian goods uh.

will become abundant. But, there are. always going to be scarce desirable. goods that will not become abundant. And. I think he overstates the case. Money. will still be valuable, wealth will. still be valuable. But, I'll give you an. example. Henry VIII didn't have clean water. Did not have heat, did not have cooling. These things the King of England did not. have. And technology gave all these. things to the middle class. And so, if you live in the middle class.

today, you know, you can have your. appendix out, you know. But, Henry VIII. didn't have dental crowns, he didn't. have x-rays. So, you get modern medical. care, you know, the infant mortality. rate has plunged. Life is safer, clean. water, clean air, right? Clean food. And technology gave them to. us. We stamp out infinite Coca-Cola, infinite Hershey's bars, ice cream, right? Running water. Right? Electricity. So, all of those.

things have been given to the middle. class, the working class in the. developed world. Right? Not everywhere, but let's say in the developed world. But, everybody doesn't get a Hampton's. house, everybody doesn't get their own. private jet, they don't get their own. private yacht. So, what happened with. the explosion of affluence? Massive utilitarian entitlement, lots of. cars. But, you know, okay, so everybody. gets a car, but how many people get a. Porsche? What happens with humanity is. we always invent the luxury car. We come up with the trophy asset. And.

And again, >> But, but most people don't actually want. that. They want to be able to like feed. their family and not have to worry about. the bills. So, all of those people, you're saying that those people are. going to be They're going to be good. They're not going to have to work. >> I'm saying that if if your aspiration is. a good life, if you want infinite food, infinite. energy, infinite education, infinite. entertainment, right? You're probably going to get it.

My point is, in theory, right, why does. money matter today? Cuz everybody, you know, has electricity. and water. Because people want to buy. something more than water. By the way, water is the proletarian drink. >> What does that mean? >> It means that if you go to a restaurant. and you don't and you can't afford. anything else, you ask for a cup of. water, right? >> [clears throat]. >> And then if you have some more money, you get yourself a Coca-Cola or a soft. drink, and that costs five bucks. But if. you have more money, you buy yourself a. vodka. And then when you have more.

money, you want to buy yourself the. specialty high-end tequila. And and. eventually people find a way to spend. $38 on a drink. And uh, you know, in New York City, you. know, you can see that everywhere. Why. do we go to restaurants and pay $300. to eat at a restaurant? Because you can. actually feed yourself on three bucks a. day. And the answer is, there's always going to be a hierarchy. of affluence, and people are going to. find things to aspire to that will be. more than. the utilitarian mean that everybody.

gets. If I give you a universal health. care, people want private health care. If I give everybody a house, someone's. going to want a house twice as big. Everybody's always going to have a. reason to want something more, you. >> Because we're status orientated animals. >> That's the cynical way to look at it, but the other way to look at it is, I. wanted to be sitting on a mountain peak. skiing, but not that mountain peak, because the snow's not good on that.

mountain peak this week. >> And it's too busy on this one. >> Yeah, and that one was too crowded. You know, it's like there's always going. to be. some exclusivity, you know, there's. going to be a quest. So I I think that. money's not going away. I think it's. pretty obvious if you look around you. that that Uh, people still need money. It is true. that the basic needs in life, basic. transportation, basic energy, basic.

health care, all of those things can be. manufactured in quantity and they'll get. progressively cheaper. We'll call them. consumer goods. >> If this uh knowledge work does become. I guess taken by the robots and the AIs, there's some people say there's going to. be new jobs created and everyone will be. fine. But it's not clear to me that. there will be enough new jobs created in. a period of time um to satisfy the. demand of people to have something to do. professionally. >> It used to be everybody was a farmer, right? And then all of a sudden in.

America we have new jobs like called. accountants and lawyers and film. producers. You're a podcaster. Your job. didn't exist 20 years ago. It did you. know, the job description did not exist, the business did not exist. There's a. lot of things that exist today. Yeah. I. There are people that make a living. putting on makeup and clothes and. posting on Instagram and that was not a. job that existed 30 years ago. So, there'll be a lot of new jobs. There'll be dislocation. There's going. to be political unrest. What do I think?

I think this is the best argument in. favor of encouraging a free market and. allowing uh liberal. uh unregulated. businesses to prosper because. if you have a progressive society and by. the way, the United States is sort of. more progressive. >> Define progressive in this context. >> You're allowed to start a business. You're allowed to sell product. It's not illegal.

to. to create a podcast. By the way, you you can't do what you're. doing in Cuba. >> Yeah. >> Right? In North Korea you couldn't do. it. >> I read something crazy last night about. driving autonomous cars. It said lawyers. are trying to stop block EVs because. these particular lawyers make a lot of. money from litigating car accidents. >> We wouldn't want people to not crash. >> Yeah. >> Like Yeah, so the point is there all. sorts of laws in restraint of trade. Like you can't have an Airbnb. In the.

face of modern technology, if you have. modern technology is creating. dislocation, if your goal is to. embrace the technology, create maximum productivity, and then minimize the disruption and the. inflammation, then the more degrees of freedom you. offer, the less pain there'll be because in a. more free society, you're going to have. 10,000 new kinds of businesses pop up or. 100,000 new business opportunities that.

no one conceptualized. And they'll be. threatening to the status quo, but. they'll be rational and they'll create. value, and then they will create gainful. employment, and they'll create wealth. for all the people that are displaced. right by by the technology. >> Steve, what you doing? >> Uh just making myself a delicious. coffee. >> From the freezer? >> From the freezer. You not heard about. Cometeer? >> No. >> Oh my gosh. This is going to change your. life.

Couple of months ago, the founder of. this business called Matt sent a big. shipment of this coffee to our office in. London. What most people don't know is. that the processing of coffee takes out. a lot of the taste. So what they do is. they flash freeze it at the optimal. moment when it's most tasty. And they. send you in the post the coffee in these. little frozen ice cubes. Now Matt sent a. big shipment to my office. I moved it to. the kitchen. I said to the team, knock. yourselves out. And then I saw so many. messages in our Slack channel of people. going, "Oh my god, what the hell is.

that? It's so delicious." All I have to. do is pop it out in the morning using. the little button on the back of this. thing. I pour my hot water in, and I mix. it, and that is done. You can get $30 off. your first order of Cometeer Coffee if. you go to cometeer.com/steven. Try it and please Instagram DM me, LinkedIn me, and let me know if you love. it as much as I do. One of the things you've heard me talk. about quite a lot over the last couple. of years, and this is something that's. true in business and content, but also. with everything in life, is that.

consistency is the thing that really, really compounds. The same is true in. sales. When your team is small, consistency happens naturally. The team. knows every deal, so nothing gets. missed. But, as I've experienced, when. you grow, this starts to break down and. deals start to slip, follow-ups don't. happen, leads go cold that shouldn't. have. And when this happens, a lot of. leaders look at it and think they have a. people problem. When actually, it's a. systems problem. The businesses that. I've watched scale well commercially all. have a system that team uses every. single day. And for my team, that system.

has been our sponsor, Pipedrive. It's an. easy-to-use intelligent CRM tool for. growing sales teams that gives you. visibility of every deal in your sales. pipeline at every single stage. And it. shows you what needs to happen for that. deal to move forward, all in real time. It's what keeps our commercial operation. consistent when we were a team of five. or when our commercial team was a team. of 50. Over 100,000 companies are. already running their sales on it. So, if you'd like to join them, sign up at. pipedrive.com/ceo, where you'll get an exclusive 30-day. free trial instead of the usual 14 days.

And there's no credit card needed at. all. Head to pipedrive.com/ceo. You know, earlier you were talking about. how you can get AI to write a book. I. was thinking as you were saying it, the. interesting thing is, I now ask my AI. um what book I need to read. And to make that book for me, versus. being prescriptive to it and because it. has what it this huge memory on me. It. knows what I'm I'm dealing with. It. knows the businesses I'm building, the. problems I have. And so, I just say, "What What do I What's the question I. should be asking you? Or what should.

book should I be reading?" And then, "Can you make that book for me? Make it. 20 pages. I like it in this particular. style cuz it's my favorite style of. author. And then I I want to download it. as an MP3 file and listen to it on my. way to work. I have 43 minutes. Could you say what should What's the. question I should be asking you? >> Yeah, you're you're using You're using. that as an example, but at the end of. the day, you have to govern the state. space. For example, anybody could say. what question should I ask, but the real. issue is what's the What are the input.

constraints? If you're a baker in. Nigeria. in Lagos. >> Okay, yeah. >> Right? There's a certain set of. conditions that are different than if. you happen to be a fireman in Los. Angeles. >> Yeah. >> Right? And so. what's the state space that you're. exploring in order to create a. contribution? And I'll give you an example like um. I used AI. I used AI to make $15 billion. last year. >> Is that a true story? >> This is true. >> Okay. >> You did? >> I did. Yeah.

And I used an AI to make $15 billion in. a way that no one would ever conceive. that you could make $15 billion. >> This is a true story? >> Okay. Yeah, let let's let's go back to. me in 2025. We have a company that has billions of. dollars of Bitcoin. Uh $30 billion of. Bitcoin. We want to actually raise. capital to buy more Bitcoin. We maxed. out the equity markets. Uh we became the. largest issuer of convertible bonds in. the in the world. And we maxed out the. convertible bond market. And And uh that.

was our journey in the first 5 years of. our Bitcoin. >> To simplify this for Jenny Davis, you. borrowed as much money as you could from. traditional means. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> To buy Bitcoin. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> By the beginning of 2025, we had issued. as many convertible bonds as you could. issue. We were the largest issuer in the. world. And it wasn't scalable. So, we. needed to invent a new type of security, a new type of credit instrument that we. could use to borrow money to buy more. Bitcoin. So, we went to the AI. I went to the AI and.

I started exploring how do I design a. preferred stock. And so I said, I think I want to create. a security that's not a common equity. and I don't want it to be a bond. I want. it to be some hybrid in the middle. A. preferred stock, you know, for the. layman, it's it's just a security that. could be anything. You can give it any. terms. I can sell you a preferred stock. and give you the right to put it back to. me in 12 months and it looks like that. I can give you a guaranteed coupon on. it. I can give you conversion rights and. and make it look like equity. So, we.

used AI to design a convertible. preferred stock called STRK. When we did. it, no one had ever created a preferred. stock that was backed by Bitcoin before. and and we'd never issued it and so it. was kind of a combination of financial. engineering and digital asset. engineering and legal work and. securities law. So, we built it and. and, you know, when we asked the lawyers. and the bankers, they're like, well, no. one's ever done it before. Okay. And and you know, their their.

their answer, by the way, is no one's. ever done it before and people don't do. that. So, we don't think you should do. that. And we're like, well, everything else. that people have done we've maxed out. and so we're kind of at the point where. our growth is going to stop unless we. find a way out of the box. So, we're. going to have to do something no one's. ever done before using. new technology, right? We're using. digital capital. We're using uh. digital intelligence and we're using a. digital treasury company. So, three new.

forms of something in order to create. value. And after we'd done three of them, we. decided what we wanted to do was create. a short duration credit instrument, one. that would be would trade stably around. $100, around par. And we're trying to figure out how do. you get a preferred stock to trade at at. a stable level? It's what what you would. call technically short duration credit, but it's like we're trying to create a. money market type instrument where. people can buy it at 100, sell it at. 100, collect the yield, and not worry.

about it trading up and down or being. sensitive to interest rates. Well, if you do that, you have to vary. in order to get it to trade stable, if. you want the price to be stable, you. have to change the dividend rate. And so, we created an instrument. that where we could change the dividend. rate every month. Now, had anybody ever. done it? No. In the history of the. world, no one ever created a variable. dividend rate preferred stock. Is it illegal? No. Why has no one ever done it? No one ever.

had a reason to do it. They never. thought to do it. The lawyers, the bankers, the. conventional investors, they're like, "Well, we've never seen it done before. We're not sure you can do it.". We go to the AI, we said, "Well, can we. do it?" They're like, "Of course you can. do it. Just do this, this, and this, and. this, and it Well, they said they don't. like that. Well, just do this, this, this.". >> Which AI? >> Chat GPT. Open AI. >> So, Chat GPT made you $15 billion? >> Yeah, because the short of it is, we. brought our IPO to market, it became a. $2.5 billion IPO, the biggest IPO of the.

year to date. And then, we put a shelf registration on. it, we sold another $8 billion of it. So, we sold 10 and 1/2 billion dollars. of that instrument, plus 4 billion of. the other instrument. So, we basically. sold $15 billion of credit, which kind. of equates to the company making about. $15 billion. >> I'm thinking about what this means. generally for the average person. listening. >> Yeah. >> Because everyone's like searching for. business ideas. >> Right. >> New ideas. And you're telling me that. you you can use AI now to come up with.

novel business ideas and solutions that. are outside of the box and that would. generate value for people. Um you though. there is it's almost like hearing that. there's an arbitrage opportunity with. this intelligence. Now, I was reading something the other. day that said only 2% of households have. a Chat GPT or AI subscription still. So, do you think there is an an an. arbitrage there for people who go to AI. now and and can build business ideas. from it? >> If If you're an entrepreneur, right? If. you If you aspire to create a business.

or create something of value, then it's. the no-brainer is you definitely should. pick one or more of these AIs and maybe. you want to become adept using multiple. They're They're just different tools. It's It's kind of like saying you got to. learn how to use a computer and you got. to learn how to read reading, writing, arithmetic, right? Just basics. And then. once you've done that, you you do need. to have some domain expertise in. something, right? The question is.

what are you going to do, right? You. either want to create. a new product or you want to create a. new service. or you want to radically transform an. existing product or service using AI to. be much cheaper, much better. But to my mind, you know, I would try to. create something magical. Like for example can you create. something that does everybody's. accounting, does you know, does the work. of a million accountants and sell it for.

10 bucks a month? Right? >> If you're 18 now, if your kids came to. you and said, "Dad, what should I. go and study at university? And what. shouldn't I study at university? Would your answer be different now as we. stand on the foothills of this new. technology?". >> You want to study the new thing, right? You want to learn the new thing. And so, if you look at the history of of. science, the real question is, what's on. the S-curve? >> On the S-curve? >> The whole theory of the S-curve is for a. thousand years we try to fly. And infinite energy makes no progress.

You cannot fly. And then in 1903. all of a sudden we can sort of fly. And in 66 years we go from flying 20. miles an hour to flying 300 miles an. hour. First a fighter jet, then a. passenger jet, then we have like rockets. that are unmanned. Then we have manned. rockets. And then we have rockets to go. to orbit. Then we have rockets to go to. the moon. And so that's an example of an. S curve. But then you know what happens. In the mid 70s, we designed the 737, the. 747. And we hit a wall. You know, and 737 is.

still the primary airplane for the next. 50 years. And if you look at the efficiency of an. airplane from 1975. uh to the year 2025, over 50 years, the modern airplanes are 15% more. efficient. Like So, what you got was a diminishing. return. And when you're on the S curve, things are doubling every 3 years. You're doubling, you're doubling, you're. doubling. You're exponential growth. And then you hit diminishing returns.

And then you stagnate. And then you. stop. And then things are just not. getting any better. So, >> Let's show an S curve on the screen. And. also. uh the the new S curve coming in below. it. >> Like when I was at MIT, you know, everybody basically flocked to uh. electrical engineering and computer. science. Because that was the cool. thing. And so, the mistake to make when. you go to school is. you get at the end of the S curve. You. basically start studying something that. has hit diminishing returns. And once. you hit that diminishing return,

no material progress may take place for. 100 years. It might be that you just. can't break through. Propulsion. technology is the limiting factor. Like. why don't we have planes that will fly, you know, supersonic, you know, on um. you know, a tank of gas that's that's. this much, right? Or fusion drives. Well, cuz we don't. Now, on the other. hand, semiconductors. uh started exploding. And semi And.

semiconductor technology has continued. to advance. We haven't hit. that limit yet. And that's that's why so. many profound breakthroughs were made in. computer science over the past 50 years. >> This is kind of hit a nice curve, hasn't. it? As a form factor, my iPhone here. You know, that over since the iPhone, as. you said, since the iPhone like 6, it hasn't really gotten thinner, but uh. the battery hasn't really taken a leap. forward as such. So, we're now looking. for another form factor to interface.

with computers. >> Yeah, you know, the iPhone 1 didn't have. cut and paste. And we didn't get cut and paste till the. version 3. And so, there was a rapid improvement. versions 1 through 6 or 1 through 7, call it. And at that point, you start hitting. diminishing returns. And if you were to. do some utility function, and you were. to score on a scale of 1 to 100, you. would have gone from like 5 to 70 in a. hurry, and then you would have gone from.

70 to 90 over the next few iterations, and then that you're 91, 92. You hit that limit, and I if if you are. starting a company, right? You don't. create another iPhone. Right? The [clears throat] real question. right now. is uh. can I create smart glasses where I have. something that's like my Maui Jim. sunglasses, I put them on, they weigh. nothing, and they have the camera, and. they see what I see, and they hear what. I hear, and they know where I am, and plug that into AI, and in that.

point, I can just say, "Hey, Eve, what. is that?". You know, "Where am I? And tell me about. that." And and it's like. "Why do I have to type anymore?". >> When I met Mark Zuckerberg, he showed me. the the device that's on the way from. Meta. This is not secret, cuz I know. they've talked about it publicly. Which. is just a it was just a plain wrist. strap with no screen on it. But it linked to the glasses. And in the glasses, when I looked.

around, I could see all of my screens. and everything like that. And I And if I. just because of this wrist strap, if I. just click, it clicks on all the stuff. So, I was just like, "Hey, with this. little wrist strap. The wrist strap. again was just like a cotton bracelet, very thin cotton bracelet. And as I just. looked around, I could click on. everything and open things and call. people and send texts and go on YouTube, etc. And it was just up here in my. peripheral. You imagine again, imagine. that on an S curve. At some point it's. going to be a some sort of like almost. like contact lens type thing. that's that I can just. >> By the way, this is why you should study.

fantasy, right? Because they have this, right? In magic worlds, right? This is. like. you know, like I just wear my talisman. You know, I have a necklace. What does. it do? Oh, it makes me omniscient, all. powerful, immortal, indestructible. I. live forever. What what what do you have. to do to make the product work? Nothing. I'm wearing the wristband and I walk and. every door opens to me and stuff. happens. And here's where Elon gets it. right. It's like the number one. engineering mistake is engineers want to. optimize the part that shouldn't exist.

Like make the parts go away, right? We. start on the topic of what should you. study, right? It's It's study technologies that. allow you to create magic things that. your parents could never. If your parents would say that's magic, you're on the right track, right? So, like how about What's better than the. wristband? Just like How about you just. like implant one pellet? >> Neuralink. >> Yeah. Maybe it's a Neuralink. Maybe it's. Maybe it's when I'm born, there's a. slight implant and now I I hear like I.

can talk to the AI in cyberspace. forever. >> But should you go study that because. conceivably the artificial intelligence. and the robots are going to be the ones. that create that technology. If they. have a PhD in everything and that's. accelerating. >> Yeah, well, I guess we're back back to. the what should you study? You ought to. study digital intelligence or digital. assets. If you can generate, you know, generate proteins, generate. generate any kind of.

life form or enzyme or protein or the. like, maybe it's interesting. But I think with regard to AI, you don't want to learn how to do things. that AI can do. What you want to do is. learn how to ask the AI to do something. that's never been done before. Like if I. were to go back to school, 95% of what I. learned, uh, probably wouldn't want to. study. >> What about a surgeon? Do you think. you're going to be a surgeon? >> No. >> What about a a lawyer?

>> No. >> Accountant? >> No. >> Driver? >> No. At some point, what you have to do is. ask. the AIs aren't really answering the. question yet, but you have but you have. to ask whatever is the marginal question. that hasn't been answered by the. civilization. Maybe I'll take it I'll. take that position, which is. the way you create value in the world is. you bring something into the world that. wasn't here before. >> This is something that I've made for.

you. I realized that the Diary of a CEO. audience are strivers, whether it's in. business or health, we all have big. goals that we want to accomplish. And. one of the things I've learned is that. when you aim at the big, big, big goal, it can feel incredibly psychologically. uncomfortable because it's kind of like. being stood at the foot of Mount Everest. and looking upwards. The way to. accomplish your goals is by breaking. them down into tiny, small steps, and we. call this in our team the 1%. this. philosophy is highly responsible for. much of our success here. So, what we've.

done so that you at home can accomplish. any big goal that you have, is we've. made these 1% diaries, and we released. these last year and they all sold out. So, I asked my team over and over again. to bring the diaries back, but also to. introduce some new colors and to make. some minor tweaks to the diary. So, now. we have a better range for you. So, if. you have a big goal in mind, and you. need a framework and a process and some. motivation, then I highly recommend you. get one of these diaries before they all. sell out once again. And you can get.

yours at the diary.com. And if you want the link, the link is in. the description below. There should be a button just down below. here. And if it says subscribed, you're. already subscribed. If it says subscribe. bar, that means you're not yet. And if. you're not subscribed, please could you. do us a favor and hit that button. It. helps the show more than you know. And. according to the algorithm, you're. someone that watches our show, but you. haven't yet hit that button. Thank you. so much. Beyond just buying Bitcoin, is there any. sort of actionable steps that the. working class should take right now to.

pre- prepare for this robot transition. that you're talking about? >> I mean, the actionable step is is. learn. >> Learn about the robots. >> digital. Right? >> Digital. >> Like understand digital. For example, how much content's available on YouTube. right now? Like. >> Infinite, right now. >> Right? What can you get for free on. YouTube and what can you create of. value, right? If you're in the business. of content creation, my advice would be. study digital channels. As As like,

should I go and become a stage actor on. Broadway? It's It's a It's a. a much smaller thing. Mr. Beast can get. 100 million subscribers, you can get 20. million subscribers. You're not getting. 20 million subscribers if you do the. thing that your parents' parents did. So, I think that you want to look at. digital platforms. There's There's. digital communication like Acts or. Instagram, there's YouTube and. and the like, but there's also.

There's also digital intelligence. >> Let's just just test that first point a. bit. I guess a lot of content creators. are thinking at the moment now because. of these frontier models that can. produce video content, pictures. A kid. in Mumbai or Manhattan, where we are. now, can set up an agent while they're. asleep and say, "Listen, just post 100. videos while I'm asleep on this every. single platform. I actually I'll make five agents and. I'll ask all of them to post 100 videos.

each. So, you're going to have this you. have in terms of supply and demand, presumably that's a supply shock. There's this slop tsunami coming in. And. then if you look at demand of attention. online, it is arguably fixed. Financial. Times did a report said that young young. people are actually starting to come. down in terms of time spent online. Uh. slightly older generations are starting. from a lower base, but they're still. going up, but they're starting from a. lower base. So, you've got a tsunami. slop of supply and fixed demand. I get this even this business feels a. little bit insecure. Actually, a lot of. the major podcasters are actually down.

on YouTube. If I look at the top who I. would consider the sort of top five. podcasters in my niche, um every single. one of them is down at least 50% in the. last 20-ish uh 12 12 24 months. >> Well, the solution is certainly not to. not pay attention, right? So, for. example, if you're in the business of. creating content right now, you would. ask the question, can I enhance the. content with AI? Or can I better market or distribute the. content with AI? >> What is the moat? >> The moat's going to be the most talented.

content cre- the person creating the. best stuff that everybody wants to see. There are videos being created like, here's a walk-through of a 16th century. warship. And you know, I don't know if you've. seen a guy constructs the entire warship. from the keel and he creates the ribs. and he shows you the lower deck and the. ballast and he takes you through every. step and it's a three-dimensional uh. video animation. Takes about an hour and it's absolutely. riveting. I have no reason to care about. 16th century warships, but I can't take.

my eyes off it because it's just so. fascinating to see him explain. everything. >> Are you saying creativity is the moat. still? Or understanding what humans want and. then delivering it it which I guess is. creativity. >> Let's say the Led Zeppelin example. But. what what you see in human history. is. within 10 years of whenever there's a. new technology platform, there's some. geniuses. They push it to the limit and.

they do 95% of everything that can be. done and it all happens within 10 years. and they live forever. So. why didn't anybody before Beethoven do. stuff with the piano? Well, the piano. comes out, some genius does stuff with. the piano, right? And between Beethoven. and Chopin and you know, and a a few. players, it's like it's not clear to me. if humans try for another 10,000 years, they'll do. much better. So with Led Zeppelin, you had electric. guitars and amplification and everything.

kind of clicked late 60s. Like the sound of the early 60s was not. quite there and then by 1971, 72, you. could do some amazing stuff. And if you. think about all the classic rock between. 1970 and 1980, you have human creativity pushing the. edge of the envelope in so many. directions and then you hit this. diminishing return. And then along comes. sampling, right? And then you get. Swedish House Mafia and Avicii and. that's new technology and then they push.

it to the extreme. And then along comes YouTube and Justin. Bieber comes out of nowhere, you know, and Mr. Beast comes out of nowhere and. they push it to the extreme. And what you see with every generation. is. I give you a new thing, whether it's a. piano or electric guitar or internet. Think about Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. and what he did at just about the point. when you could do that with the web and. then think about the early mobile apps,

you know, WhatsApp and the like and it's. like. what you want to do if you want to. create these incredible success things. is. you want to locate. the magic opportunity right at the right. point on the S curve where it just now. became commercially viable to do it and. is a zero to one moment and you want to. be there. You want to be the first. person. that applies that technology, right? To.

this new idea. Like what did our company. do to to go from nothing to 60 billion. dollars or from 1 billion to 60 billion? We were the first company to take. digital capital, Bitcoin, and put it together with digital credit. and a digital treasury model. So, we. created a credit instrument, a security. that you could never created before. You. couldn't have made it 10 years ago. You. couldn't build it on top of anything. other than Bitcoin. So, we needed to get.

to the point where we had 10 or 20. billion dollars of capital. and then we could create this thing that. was a multi-billion dollar thing and. that becomes resident and that window. is like 12 to 24 months. And you go. through that window and you create. something that might be a hundred. billion dollar thing because you go. through if you went through 36 months. early, you smack into a wall and you. fail. And if you wait, like at this point, our company is 20. times bigger than the next biggest one,

50 times bigger than the company doing. something similar. Did we plan it? Not. at all. We found some extraordinary cool thing. We committed to it with all of our heart. and soul and we declared we were going. to make it work come hell or high water. and we got punched in the face a hundred. times and every single time we ran into. a problem, we stopped, we recalibrated, we went a. different direction and the process of. creating something beautiful, like the beautiful thing, like everyone.

wants a bank account that pays 10%. So, if you can figure out how to give people. this thing they want with a new. technology. that was impossible that did not exist 5. years or 3 years earlier. Then you resonate in the society, right? You would go viral. Like we were just. the first ones to get there. It. exploded. If you gave me a billion. dollars right now and said run a. marketing campaign, it wouldn't be as. effective. Like you couldn't buy the. success with a billion dollars of.

marketing. You just have to that let's. up guys. They didn't spend a billion. dollars marketing. You got to be in the. right place, the right time, and you have to have the courage. to offer people the new thing. >> I have been thinking a lot about this. This idea of you said, you know, if you. spend a billion dollars you couldn't go. as viral as that. And if someone came. along and spent a ton of money today, they couldn't go as big as. let's say Michael Jackson. When we go back through history, I was. thinking about this this idea because I.

watched the Michael Jackson documentary. recently and he was. at a level of fame that is I don't think. we've ever seen since. And I think part. of the reason why it was because there. was a constraint on the distribution. channels back then. So in my house, there was 20 albums over there, books of. albums, and Michael Jackson was like. three of them. And then the other way. that we could consume was the TV over. there and there was like six channels. and MTV was one of them and it was. Michael Jackson all day. >> [snorts]. >> In the world we live in now where. there's my phone experience is a.

completely different phone experience to. yours because of AI. AI is learning what. I like and showing me my own little. version of the world. I wonder [snorts]. if it's possible to be. as big as a. Michael Jackson once was for anybody. these days. And actually I even with the. YouTube you mentioned earlier, I wonder. now if fame or cool being a content. creator or a musician once looked like. this. this sort of like high ceiling and then.

you're known for a hundred years like. Michael Jackson. And now with algorithms that are. personalized, does it now look like. this? Shorter and shallower. >> Is it possible to get big? You could. say, well, I can't get as big as Michael. Jackson, but on the other hand, Elon. Musk got big. Right? Like Like there are things that. get big, right? Companies get big. OpenAI went from nothing to how many. users in just a few months.

So I I think what you could say is going. viral is about hitting a resonating. frequency in the civilization, whether. it's an artistic frequency or it's a. political frequency, or it's a it's a. technical frequency. Yeah, there are. some things. where there's going to be a glut. There's going to be Well, let's take. Instagram, right? It's like. on one hand, a billion people have like. bad photos posted online, but on the. other hand, there are people that.

managed to get, you know, 8 million. followers, and they, you know, are the. Kard- Kardashians, you know? You have. these people that get massively big, and. that's the other side of the equation. So. I don't really know how it all plays out. except for the fact that it seems clear. that there is room for human creativity. and innovation. And if your goal is to make a. contribution,

right? If you're at the If you're in. your working years where you want to. upgrade the world and make a difference. and be remembered for something, then a a pretty simple principle is. don't keep doing the same thing over and. over, working harder and harder every. year, fighting against the modern. automation, you know, epidemic, right? Don't try to. outwork the robots. It's like you're. you're lamenting, you know,

how difficult it is for a content. creator, but let me remind you that it. used to be you would go be a college. professor and teach 200 students a year. for 20 years and you would feel that. your life contribution was 4,000. people's whose minds you touched. And now you get 4,000 people a second. Okay? So, you're charging yourself. against, you know, the next thing, but if you. look back in time, technology has given.

us the ability to amplify. our intellect and amplify. our creativity. in a way that is. unprecedented in human history. >> Yeah, I think I think in part it's I'm. wondering now if we're kind of. we technology said, "Okay, you can reach. more people." TV, radio, all these. things. And actually now with. intelligence, it's saying, "Ooh, we can. figure out exactly what Michael wants.". So, we're starting to live in these. smaller echo chambers where your.

creative idea or your creative piece of. content reaching lots of people is going. to become harder because the algorithms. are now in the way and they're deciding. who sees what. And they're optimizing for. the the I guess the platform, the the. platform's monetary desire. The other. thing that I think is really interesting. and I've been mulling for the last. couple of months is that that which is. really really hard and scarce and. actually you could say something being. hard and scarce are are the are the same. cuz to create something scarce is also. hard, like you did with that financial. instrument. Very few people on Earth.

could have created that. We don't run. public companies, we don't have the. information, etc. Or even that YouTuber. you mentioned who walks you through. those. the 1600s or whatever. That is very hard. to do. I theorize that actually pursuing. that which is hard and scarce Getting. you to come here today is not easy. So, that's kind of my moat. Michelle Obama. coming and sitting down with me here is. still kind of my moat. Um is is is what. we should aim at. What do you think of that as a theory? >> I agree. Let's say you have a business, whatever your business is,

right now the right thing to do is to. spend an intense time with the AI. considering what are all the ways you. can upgrade and improve the product or. the service you create, right? Uh, for example, like the it used to be. you do this in English and the issue is, well, what if What about Japanese or. Chinese or French or whatever? And, you. know, the hard way is you learn 20. languages and, you know, but then how. does your guest How do we translate it. or you hire, you know, we used to spend.

money to hire translators, but now. you could have the AI translate this. into a hundred languages, right? Now, the question is should you. or not? Can I enhance it? Right? It's interesting when someone. describes something, but you're like, let's just put up a chart of the S curve. there. And then the next step is can I. market it better or distribute it. better? And the next step is. am I creating something that'll be. valuable in a decade? Well, will it be. valuable in a hundred years? >> Well, this is probably a good time to. mention this. 24 months ago we started.

exactly that, which is. >> They're all aliens, you just never see. them. Arabic. >> Tell me. >> Yeah, and and ask yourself how many. people that do podcast interviews offer. that level of quality of content? And. >> I can see that. >> I think that you're I think you're. outstripping like I don't know that. anybody else has done it that well. Right? >> We started almost three years ago and.

for the first 24 months it was a tragic. failure. So, you had the data scientists. in the corner of our office failing for. 24 months. And then about 12 months ago. for the first time ever we saw that the. translation technology underneath us had. improved and that we could get the view. duration in Spanish to be higher. [snorts]. than English. >> And how many months do you think Jimmy. Page spent trying to master the electric. guitar? More than 24 months? >> a lot longer. >> My advice to an entrepreneur is. you focus, you commit.

If you're successful in less than 4. years, you got lucky. It's pro- Yeah. If. it takes you 10 years, well, between 4. and 10 years is is very, very normal. If you haven't had success by the. 10-year point, you're probably not cut. out for the business. But, you know, what you're doing is it's totally. logical. It's like, is AI going to. remake this industry? The first issue is. can you make the product better? And the. second question is what's it worth? Right? Right? You can do that. Can you.

get paid? You know? And by the way, even. if you didn't get paid, I would argue that your audience have. limited attention span. It's like, I. don't have time to listen to every Lex. Fridman, every Joe Rogan, every Diary of. the CEO, and every one of the next 20. And so, I'm going to become loyal. I'm. going to become a customer and a fan of. whoever serves me the best content. And. certainly, if I'm a native Portuguese. speaker. >> [snorts]. >> or a native Russian speaker, you all of.

a sudden just leaped, right? To the top. >> This gets to my point about hard and. scarce because. people in in Portugal maybe have never. heard Michael Saylor before in. Portuguese. So, in terms of scarce, it's actually. the only interview now available that is. 2 hours long of Michael Saylor talking. in Cantonese with Steven, you know? And so, that the we then are competing. We have That's kind of the moat then, right? >> And that that becomes a benefit to all. your guest. You're the distribution. channel for me. to send the message of digital capital,

digital empowerment to the world. And. then, your guest become your moat. I think. that. with every single business, it's pretty. clear you have to ask the question, is. technology going to cannibalize my. business or disrupt it, and am I going. to be the one that embraces it and. evolves and grows with it, or am I going. to fight it? And then of course, you're in a dialogue with the market.

For example, the great thing about what. you've done is if you've done it, you. can look and see how it runs and how and. whether YouTube actually expands your. reach, and then you can look at the. engagement and and figure out whether or. not you're able to monetize that, whether you're able to. able to convert that, and then you tweak. it, right, and adjust, and you're. 6 months or 12 months can be enough that. you have a lasting advantage forever, right? If you're 12 months ahead of. everybody else, >> and you're compounding in. >> Yeah, it compounds over time, and then.

maybe they never catch you. Like it's. That's you know, but that's the story of. every business. Right, that's the that's the story of. Ford Motor Company and Standard Oil, that's the story of Microsoft, it's the. story of Facebook, it's everybody's. story, which is. you just have to focus, commit, and then. if you're good enough, invariably what happens is is your. customers. will make you the winner. The world needs someone to do what you.

do. Like someone had to has to win, right? There needs to be a winner. The audience. out there wants they want what you do. They want they they want to walk into. the living room and figure out what. Obama was thinking, or they want to. hear, you know, what Mark Zuckerberg was. thinking, and they want someone to bring. them into that living room. They want. you to host them in. They need someone. to do that job. You don't. you don't have to be.

what, perfect or better than anybody. ever lived. You need to be better than. the people that are currently doing it. now, or you need to be one of. you know, a handful of people that are. that are doing it because at that point. right, the audience comes to you, the. guests come to you. You're making a market, right? You're the market maker in that. information. It's just the real key is. know what your value proposition is, stay in your lane.

You know, don't don't try to compete in. an area where you're not going to be the. best in the world. But on the other hand. right, the the one thing that's pretty. clear is that anybody can have the best. in the world in like 2 seconds at their. fingertips. And so you don't want to be. the third best. You don't want to be. mediocre across a bunch of things. You. want to be exceptional in one area. Figure out what that one area is and. then. maybe you have 2 million followers then.

200 million followers, right? Then. eventually, you know, over 100 years 2. billion. You. You just You just have to have this. vision. >> One of the things that comes with the. pursuit of being first is you go over. the hill, you take the arrows as the. phrase goes. And so even in that. experiment that I just showed you that. we started 3 years ago, which was trying. to figure out how we translate the. diversity into lots of different. languages. It sounds simple. Problem is. you you discover you could up. Spanish words are longer. So the video. in Spanish is 3 hours 10, but in English. it's 3 hours it's just 3 hours. And then.

the video's going to be out and then. Cantonese, how long is Cantonese words? And then you go, "Oh my god." You have. to then translate all the thumbnails and. all the titles in 20 languages at the. same time. That's why you end up 3 years. in when you thought it was just a 1-hour. job. But also, if you zoom out even. further, there's this graveyard of other. things we tried that never worked. There's this the other 90% of. experiments we ran in the corner that. did nothing. And it's I I always say to the team, there's two things a year that define. us. And of that, in our failure and an.

team, which is literally what it's. called. We tried 60 things. Now, but. there's this that you know, five of them. are meh. Two of them. game-changing. So, the attitude of. dealing with failure at the very. forefront of trying to be first, I think. is something people don't talk about. enough. >> Focus your energy. Guard your time. Just cuz you can do a thing doesn't mean. you should do the thing. Right? Most of the time, the reason. people fail is they get successful in. their 30s and they're successful at one.

thing and it's like all of a sudden. they've decided they're going to do 10. other things because they're good at. everything and they dilute their focus. in 10 ways. People always underestimate the. maintenance obligation. Like always. And so I the right the right solution to. growth is. I would like to make whatever I'm doing. twice as good. And if I do 10 things to make it 10%. better, I'm probably diluting, distracting the uh phenomenon that.

causes most businesses to fail. It's uh dilutive distractions or it's. it's dilutive expansions. They do one. thing, it works, and then instead of. turning their energy in. to make that better and better and. better and better, they start to. bifurcate and trifurcate and they expand. and they overreach. to too many areas. It's like the dude. with the great restaurant. and he's got the second restaurant and. he's got a chain of 37 restaurants and.

they all suck. And it's like, "Yeah, I remember the guy. used to have There's no one, by the way, with a failed restaurant chain that. wasn't a successful restauranteur at. scale one. >> Mhm. >> Right? Like, you didn't get to a failure. of 37 or 62 or 437 until you had a good. one, but it's very, very common that. people think that they can just. cookie-cutter these things out and you. can't. And so, the conundrum that you're. putting your finger on is. I want to grow and progress, but I want.

to not dilute and distract. And that. requires this maturity of saying, I. tried it, had a moderate success, but it's not. enough. Kill it, right? Like and and and move on because it's. just not going to work. >> There's two things that came to mind. there. The first is a lot of young. people come up to me and they're 9. months into their idea and they're not. rich yet. So they're They look over. there and they see their friend has. started a thing with a CBD. And so.

they're like, I think I need to go into. CBD. And so their careers kind of look. like this sort of like swinging through. the jungle grabbing onto the next branch. and letting go of the last and never. really making um. upward motion towards any goal. And then. the other thing I thought about as. you're speaking is I've been mulling. this um I've really only in the last 2. months this idea that if you take a. long-term approach to things, you make. foundational decisions today. that create huge competitive advantages.

And the simple analogy I would give, if. you gave me 10 seconds to make the. highest possible tower that I can, what. I'm going to do is I'm going to go like. this and I'm going to go like this and. I'm going to try and do something like. this and just by nature of the time. constraint, it's unstable. If you gave me 10 years. and infinite blocks again, I would start. like this. I'd do this one here. I'd put. this one here. I'd put this one here and. I'd build something more stable. And. when I look at some of the great. founders and also when I saw that you'd. been at your you know MicroStrategy for. more than three, almost four decades I.

think it was, I thought, oh, you're one. of the rare long-termists in a world. where most of my generation, we think. about our career or what we're working. on in like maximum 5-year periods. Then. we'd either quit and go do something. else. Startup founders, they build so they can. sell and then they they they're sort of. holding it together with tape as the. acquirer comes to buy the thing. And. they're nervous as the contract's being. signed cuz they know if the the acquirer. looks under the hood they're going to. see some but then I look at Elon. and I go oh gosh he went and. rebuilt a brand new battery and then.

built the charging network and SpaceX. took two decades. My question is about. this long-termism and does it create a. competitive advantage? >> I think Elon thinks like a. like an engineer and uh if you if you. look at his businesses they're all built. upon each other. Like. if you figure out how to launch a rocket. and you have the. the highest payload capacity and the the. the cheapest cost to orbit.

then you've got an advantage. Now the. question is what do you want to put in. orbit? We put satellites but what. satellite? Like Starlink satellite. because that's the thing everybody. wants, internet. And so all of a sudden. he's got an advantage, you know, in the sky and then you build. on that advantage and you know, with. battery technology, right? You see that? >> could have gone to Russia and bought a. rocket and just shot that up and. that would have been the short term. Even with Tesla he could have bought the. batteries off Ford or. >> One great natural example is like a.

chambered nautilus. If you look at if. you look at a creature and it's building. a shell and it's spiraling out on itself. and basically it keeps building on its. own structure and it's nature's solution. for growth under pressure. It's the. Fibonacci sequence too. If you look at a. Fibonacci sequence, if I have this and. then the next structure is here and the. next structure is there and the next. structure is there. part of my previous business is the. foundation for my next business. And so. if you're thinking your growth strategy.

is to build on a foundation of something. you already had and extend its. functionality in a natural fashion. that's natural stable growth. When your second business idea is. unrelated to your first business in any. way other than the fact that you own. both. Right? Now you're not building on a. stable foundation. So, most of these businesses that work. and and the the best ideas that they. start with someone dominating a market.

I'm really good at this. >> Sounds like a bet. >> Yeah, and now what is the natural thing. that I can add. that I can use my existing business to. to maybe I'm marketing it. Well, you're. Coca-Cola. Well, we deliver a pallet of. drinks to 87,000. restaurants in the UK every morning. What's the natural extension? Well, I. can put one more type of drink on the. pallet, right? You need to use your. distribution strength, your market. strength, your technical strength in.

order to lever. I think you look at all. the great businesses. in the history of the world. I got. Standard Oil, Ford Motor, Boeing, Microsoft. The things they did that. worked were generally building on top of. their foundation, either loyal customers. or distribution or some financial asset. they already had. Another way to say it. is. if there's no one else in the world that. has that is better situated to do this.

thing than you, then you're probably in good shape, right? If there are 97 other companies. that have more assets than you in that. space, well, you got to bet that all 97 of them are. not going to react to you when you do. it. It's a bit harder. So, >> And that's where the long-termism comes. in because to build that fundamental. advantage, it it it by definition is. going to take time. >> Good example, uh Amazon.

Prime, right? Where Amazon started. giving free shipping, you know, first. free shipping or very cheap shipping and. one day shipping and and everybody said, "Well, while losing money. You're losing. money. You're losing money." And they. lost money doing this for like a decade. And then they got to some point where. like everybody in the country was a. member of Amazon Prime and then like, "Okay, well, now it's 20 bucks a month. instead of 10 bucks a month." And it's. like an extra $10 a month times like 100. million people. And people like, "Oh my.

god, they just made $12 billion. in one press release per year in cash. flow. And that's worth like $250 billion." And. And you're all like, "Well, what were you doing?" It's like, "We. were. We were building the moat." That story. is not uncommon with every other thing. It's like you first believe, you build the biggest distribution. channel you can. People are going to. tell you They're going to tell you, "Oh, there's no future to whatever the. podcast. There's no future to. something.".

And what'll happen is 99% of people will. drop out because they don't believe. And. the true believers, the ones that are. not creative, won't adapt. And then there'll be some that'll say, "I believe, but I also know there's a. threat, but I'm going to channel the. technology threat, and I'm going to. evolve, and I'm going to emerge as. something a thousand X better. than anybody could conceive.". And that's a beautiful story. >> So, speaking of strong foundations, you. have 10 rules for young adults building.

a strong foundation for their life and. career. And you've talked about two of. them here, which is focusing your energy. and not chasing every good idea. >> Yeah. >> The second one was guard your time. The. third one is train your mind. And with that, you've got train your. body. >> You know, the funny story of that is I I. was invited to a cocktail party of a. billionaire on the French Riviera in a. beautiful home. And I showed up, and I. walked into the party thinking I was. going to hang out. And another. billionaire showed up, and he said, "You. know, Mike, I just had twins, a boy and.

a girl. And I'm walking around asking. all of all of my friends for advice for. them. And I want you to like write some. advice for them that I can give to them. on their 21st birthday. And he's got this book where he's. actually collecting advice for his his. children that to give them on their 21st. birthday. As young adults. So, I sit down and I. think think think think think and I'm. like, focus your mind, guard your time, and train your mind. You got to learn.

that you got to. learn something, right? You got to learn. reading, writing, arithmetic. You have. to actually develop a cultured base. So, I was like, get an education, and then. train your body. Like, because if if you're weak, you're. not going to make it, right? You're not. You're not going to survive. And then, think for yourself. Everybody in the. world wants to program you to believe to. do something they want you to do. And you have to have the presence of. mind to think, that's not right. Just. because everybody that I know and.

famous, rich, and beautiful people tell. me it's right doesn't make it right. You. need to decide think for yourself. And then, curate your friends. Because you you know, you become who you. surround yourself with. And if you. surround yourself with positive uh. inspirational, talented people, you'll be the best person version of. yourself. And if you surround yourself. with negative, cynical, failing people, they're going to want you to fail or. they're not going to inspire you to. succeed. And. and they'll bring you down.

And so, after curate your friends, curate your environment, right? Like, make it a happy place where you can work. or you can live. And you know, the world didn't say you had to be in. the dark and in an ugly situation. And. And after that, keep your promises. At the end of the day, people remember. if you didn't keep your promise. So, you. you tell you tell someone you're going. to do something, do it, right? If If you. keep your promises, you'll find those. are the people that invest in you. They.

uplift you. They make you successful. They may be the difference between life. and death or the difference between. success and failure for you and. and ultimately, you know, we're all in. relationships with each other, right? And and no one is so powerful that they. can afford to take anybody else for. granted. We all need each other and and um. finally, stay cheerful and constructive. It. doesn't matter whether bad things. happen. The point is people want to come. to work with someone that's cheerful and.

happy and constructive. They want to, you know, they want to be in a. relationship with that person. All those. are just basic principles to get through. life and then the final point is upgrade. the world. If you have a plan, if you're. on a mission to upgrade the world, you're going to feel better about. yourself. You get up every day, you have. a mission, you have something to do. Like, what is my mission? You know, I'm preaching the gospel of. digital empowerment, right? Satoshi. created.

this. economic property right. He gave. economic empowerment to 8 billion people. for the first time in human history. And we created the world's first perfect. money. We created, you know, digital energy, digital matter, digital. property, right? We can be a thousand X. more as as humans with technology than. we were. I look through all human history and I. see it's a story of misery.

You know, why do people die? Lack of. clean water, lack of clean air, lack of. clean food, lack of clean money. What do we want? We want to live. forever. We want to live happily. forever. >> Do you want to live forever? >> I want to live as long as I can live in, you know, constructively and make a. contribution. If if I could be if I can. be engaged and vital, then yeah. At the. point that I can no longer make a. contribution, uh then I will move on gracefully. >> But if there was a button in front of.

you now, and the button, pressing it. guaranteed you immortality, would you. press it? >> I think so. I suppose so. >> Why aren't you then committing more of. your efforts to longevity? People ask. Elon the same question. >> I think. there's 8 billion people on the planet, and there are many people that I respect. that are much more qualified to pursue. that mission than me. >> And the thing that you've chosen to. focus your efforts on and become the. leading voice on, and I've watched you. for many, many, many, many years as. I've, you know, when Bitcoin comes down. in price and when sometimes I need a bit.

of a therapist to. remind me of why I've invested in. Bitcoin, and that person has been you. over the years. And then when it's up, you know, you're. you're. to your credit you're consistent about. it. And that is, you know, I I have watched you and. thought, I think this guy must be he's. either like batshit crazy or a genius. And it's sometimes hard to tell. And it. goes back to what you were saying. earlier when people will say you're. crazy at first, and and then you'll be. proven right. Now, historically you've. been proven right. >> If you if you zoom out from when you. started advocating for Bitcoin, Bitcoin is down right now. So again,

we're back into fear. People are scared. again in that It's funny what happens. because when it was going up a couple of. months ago, everyone thought, "Oh my. god, this is going to be the future of. money." And now it's down, everyone is. like convinced that it's it was always a. Ponzi scheme and it's it's done. You've. got a. I guess trying trying to simplify this. for average people, you've taken a lot. of debt out to buy more and more and. more and more and more Bitcoin. Is that accurate? >> I guess we've got about 6 and 1/2. billion dollars of convertible debt and. 15 billion dollars of preferred stocks. outstanding, and we're sitting on top of.

about 58 billion dollars of assets right. now. So, we have raised. about 65 billion dollars in capital to. buy Bitcoin, but most of it was in debt. >> Okay. >> Of the 65 billion, for the most part. we've raised capital with equity and. some debt in order to buy Bitcoin, and. we've been doing that because we wanted. to pump 65 billion dollars of capital, of money, of energy into the ecosystem. So, we're we're powering the ecosystem.

with capital. >> Everyone theorizes, I've seen a few. people on my timeline that I follow. theorize how bad it would have to get. for Bitcoin in terms of price for you to. be in trouble. Because you have a lot. >> Bitcoin could fall to $5,000 a coin, we. would still be over collateralized. against the debt. >> You'd still be fine. >> Yeah. >> And the other thing people theorize a. lot, and I again I did a comment. analysis to figure out what people want. to hear from you, is you sold a bit of. Bitcoin. You've been asked this a few times, I. know. >> Yeah. >> You sold a bit of Bitcoin recently after. telling a lot of people maybe to hold on. to their Bitcoin.

People want to know why you sold the. Bitcoin. >> Okay. Well, so let's make the first. point. The only person that's never sold more. Bitcoin than me. >> Satoshi. >> is Satoshi. Satoshi never sold a million a million. one Bitcoin. Our company has 847,000 Bitcoin. And so, we bought more and we're holding it more. than anybody other than Satoshi and. Satoshi's not active. So, we have a. reasonable chance of of never selling.

more Bitcoin than Satoshi if we just. keep at it for the next few years. Um what I've said is um. >> So, I should probably share this. This. is This is why there's a kidney. >> Yeah. >> Cuz you said sell the kidney if you. must, but keep the Bitcoin. >> I I have I have waged a campaign. non-stop every day for 6 years to to. promote and advocate Bitcoin as a. long-term store of value. Right? And and. what I would say is if you have money. that you don't need for the next 4 years. and your choice is do I invest it in the.

S&P or a house or a private company or. soybeans or money markets or debt. instruments. I think that Bitcoin is the best. Right? I think that Bitcoin is digital capital. It's going to be the best long-term. capital asset. And uh you know. >> So, why did you sell the Bitcoin instead. of your kidney? >> Yeah. Um. We sold some Bitcoin a few weeks ago. because there was a narrative or a. belief in the market that our company.

had become so systemically integrated or. important to Bitcoin that we could never. sell. And if we sold Bitcoin would go to zero. and our stock would go to zero. >> Because you own 4% of the total supply. of Bitcoin. >> We own 4% because we're the biggest. buyer We're the biggest buyer of Bitcoin. in the world. So the first sentiment was. well Bitcoin will never succeed if they. don't keep buying. And the second. sentiment or belief. uh misconception was if we sell it'll.

crash Bitcoin and it'll crash the. company. And because of that short sellers and. and certain people in the market took. the position that the $55 billion of. Bitcoin we own was worth nothing. And so what we had was this ignorant. uh skeptical notion that all of the. company's assets were worthless. And because the company's assets were. worthless we wouldn't pay our dividends. and because we wouldn't pay our. dividends the credit would go to zero.

and the equity would go to zero. The. company would fail and the coin fail. And we said well Bitcoin is trades $20. billion a day or more and we've got 55. billion of it and if we were. 0.01% of the market we could still meet. all of our obligations and it's not. going to change the price of Bitcoin but. no one believed us. So if if you want people to believe that. you can do a thing you have to do the. thing. If you told me you could do a. backflip right now but I said you you. can't at some point you have to do the.

backflip. Right? Especially if I tell. you that I'm going to throw you in jail. if you can't do a backflip. >> Who told you that? >> Well that's exactly what's going on in. the market. The market's position was. the company is worthless. the stock is. going to zero, Bitcoin is going to zero. because they can't sell, right? So, if we want to defend Bitcoin, like we have to prove that we can sell. it on occasion, right? So, what we're doing is we're. commercializing the market in digital.

credit. And if you have a billion. dollars of Bitcoin and they believe it's. worth a billion, you can sell 200. million dollars of credit and then you. can grow the business if they believe. that. If they don't believe. that the Bitcoin is worth anything, you. can't and you sell the 200 million of. credit, the credit's worthless and the. company's worthless. And so, we were in a doom loop or the. market was in this doom loop this this. negative short I don't know, like a. psychosis almost like hyperventilating.

saying that the largest buyer of Bitcoin. can't sell it and if they do sell it, Bitcoin will fail. And what we needed to. do was demonstrate that if we sold. Bitcoin, it wouldn't fail. So, when we sold the Bitcoin, it was 60. 59,000 and it traded up. And so, we. broke that misconception, we broke that. that narrative. It turns out that the break-even point. for us is about 3.2%, so if Bitcoin. appreciates 3.2%, we can pay the.

dividends forever by just selling the. Bitcoin. But you can imagine if you're a short. seller, you say, "Well, you can't sell. the Bitcoin, hahaha, because Bitcoin. will fail." And so, they want to say. that the credit is worthless because you. won't sell the Bitcoin. So, the way to. break that cycle is you sell the. Bitcoin. Now you can illustrate that the credit. is actually good credit, we can pay the. dividends forever and now the credit. investors. >> without having to sell more Bitcoin. >> No, the whole point of this was. we were selling equity in order to pay.

the dividend on the credit. >> Yeah. >> And the short sellers took the position. that you're going to sell the equity. until the stock goes to zero. because you can't sell the Bitcoin. >> Yeah. >> So, how do you actually get How do you. break that? Well, you have to say. well, we can sell the Bitcoin. >> And you sold enough Bitcoin to pay the. dividend. >> So, we sold enough Bitcoin to pay the. dividend, to prove that we could fund. the dividends with Bitcoin, which means. we don't have to sell the equity. And if. if we don't have to sell the equity, then the equity trades at a premium to.

Bitcoin, trades rationally, and then the. credit trades rationally. So, it was a. benefit to the equity investors and the. credit investors to show that you can. power the company with Bitcoin. >> Do you Do you intend to sell more? >> It's not our primary strategy. So, if. the if the the common stock trades at a. premium. to the underlying assets, then probably. we fund with the common stock. But, if. the common stock ever sells at a. discount or trades at a discount to the.

common to the Bitcoin assets, then you. sell Bitcoin in order to protect the. common stock. >> And what do you think Bitcoin's going in. terms of monetary value? In terms of one. Bitcoin. Currently, what did you say. it's worth? 68,000 or something? >> I think it'll appreciate about 30% a. year for the next 20 years. Right? And then it'll slow down to being. appreciated about 20% a year. So, >> You think it's the best asset to put. your money in really it really. respective of. who you are? >> Another way to say it is I think it a. pre- I think it outperforms the S&P. index by a factor of.

1.5 to 2. >> Who shouldn't invest in Bitcoin? >> The right people to invest in Bitcoin. are long-term capital investors. So, if. you have a certain amount of money. and you don't need it for the next 4. years. and ideally 10 years, then you would. take a portion of your capital. investment portfolio and buy Bitcoin. And if you believe in it, if you're a a. Bitcoin maxi, if you spend 100 hours. studying it, uh you'd buy a lot.

And if you're not sure, you'd probably. diversify that portfolio across, you. know, some real estate, some equity, some other long-term assets, and some. Bitcoin. The people that shouldn't buy it are. people that need the money back in 12. weeks. >> What about like a regular 25-year-old? Um. One of the questions that I saw emerging. from some of the interviews you've done. is if if a normal young person has a few. hundred dollars to invest today, why should they bother with Wall Street. products like stocks or corporate stocks.

instead of just buying a real Bitcoin. and holding it themselves? >> Yeah, I think if you have money to. invest for the long term, you're going. to get double the performance from BTC. that you would get from like the S&P. index. >> But for that 25-year-old, would would it. not be smarter for them to spend it on. something that's going to help them. train their mind, like you said? If you only have a hundred dollars. >> I wouldn't go spend five hundred. thousand dollars on an expensive, you. know, university education, but I would. spend twenty bucks a month on an AI.

subscription. So So yeah, you should. definitely spend money necessary to get. the. the super grok or the pro or the. professional edition, whether it's, you. know, twenty dollars a month or two. hundred dollars Two hundred dollars a. month is the most I would spend. Twenty. dollars a month is probably the least I. would spend. But look, we're talking. about your Netflix subscription at that. point. But I. after you've done that, then you're. talking about what you ought to be. invested in.

I think that the that you ought to be. invested in digital capital cuz you can. take it with you anywhere in the world. If you invest in an Airbnb or real. estate, you know, you're you're locked. into a certain city. You can't travel. with it. It's high maintenance. There's. a lot of risk. If you invest in an. individual stock, you have a lot of. anxiety because they come and they go, and you got to pick the right stock. And. most stocks will fail, but some will. succeed, but but it it really is much. more challenging. I I think really it comes down to.

if you have a liquid portfolio, you know, are you going to invest in. like the S&P index if you're a. conventional capital investor, or you're. going to invest in Bitcoin if you're a. digital or a you know, a a a technology. capital investor. >> Michael, we have a closing tradition. where the last guest leaves a question. for the next guest not knowing who. they're leaving it for. And the question. left for you is what is one thing you. believe that maybe you haven't talked. about enough. that you think likely 99% of the world.

don't yet believe. >> If I look at my life and I think about. something that's been that's had a real. impact on me, it's after I got a full. education, you know, uh. from college, I. I eventually. went back and I studied two topics on my. own. One, uh like practical applied. statistics, all the stuff that Nicholas. Taleb wrote, like Fooled by Randomness. and Skin in the Game and The Black Swan.

And uh you know, how do you know the. difference between something that's. meaningful and something that's just. misleading random data. That was. profoundly valuable to me and I would. say, you know, anybody that hasn't read. all of those books probably ought to go. read those books and and obsess over. uh applied statistics. That's the one thing that AI will not be. able to do for you when you have to. decide whether to cross the street while. you're typing on your phone, that you. know, the AI will not give you a never-ending.

real-time stream of common sense to tell. you you should or should not do that. thing. And so I I think that that's. really important. And the second thing. that I did after I left school and and. after a a lifetime of experiences, like I went back and I just read uh. The Story of Civilization by Durant. Every page. 11 volumes, 14,000. pages. Most of the history that you read.

in school, it's the CliffNotes. But if you go through the entire thing, and I recommend that one just cuz I. think it was a pretty well-balanced. history that covered art and culture and. politics and technology, and. it's not just military history, not just. political history, but it was. you know, all. a very synthetic history. When you go back and you read it all. as an adult, then it gives you such a profound.

appreciation for humanity, and it gives. you so much wisdom. And what you'll find. is all these things you think you're. discovering, they got discovered in like. 15th century Russia. And then they got. rediscovered, you know, like most of. these things that people tell you are. this is new and profound. Oh, it's new. and profound 100 times in a row, or. 1,000 times in a row. It's just the the. story was told a different way each. time. >> Give me an example of a a thing. that we think is new, but history tells. you. >> Maybe the fact that currency started.

getting debased when Nixon went off the. gold standard, you know, and. what happened in 1971, or whatever. And. the truth of the matter is that was the. point at which the US dollar started. weakening at a much more rapid rate. But it turns out that every currency. everywhere in history has been debased. My point here really is uh. I think people think that they that they. learn stuff in college, but really it's not too late to go back.

and relearn math, especially applied. statistics, and it's not too late to go. back and relearn history. And as an. adult, you always appreciate those things much. better. Yeah, you almost it's like the education. is wasted on the youth. You know, because you don't you don't. have the life experiences to appreciate. what you're reading. But also, you know, they're they're. summarizing, editing, and censoring a. lot of the stuff you read.

And and if you just go back and say I'm. just going to, you know, read the entire. thing in its entirety. And. there are a lot of other things you. could also read, full histories of other. things, but. as an adult. I think that that just makes you a. better person and makes you a better. business person, makes you a better. leader. And also, it helps you overcome. the arrogance of thinking, oh, I'm the. first guy in human history that ever. encountered it. And and what you'll.

realize is no, you're not. And the. empowering part is someone else did and. this is how they worked their way. through the issue. And and that can be. very inspirational for you. >> Michael, [snorts] thank you. Thank you. for taking the time. Thank you for. opening all of our eyes. And thank you. for. building a business which has continued. to innovate in such a way that people. never thought was possible. Thank you. for introducing me to Bitcoin. I think you both introduced me to it, but also you enabled me to have a mental. framework for not selling it. When.

if I had, I would have lost a lot of. money. And thankfully now I don't even. know where it is. My brother my brother. and some of my siblings take care of it. for me. And I don't have to experience. the angst. And also just thank you for. pushing for this idea of sovereignty. because I think. in the world of increasing censorship. and centralization, sovereignty I think is a really winning. idea. And I think that's what you're. sort of philosophically aiming at as. well. And um. >> [snorts]. >> yeah, I hope to speak to you sometime. soon because you're a very you're an an. individual capable of speaking about.

such a broad range of subjects that I. care so much about. >> It's a pleasure to be on the journey. together. >> Thank you, my friend. YouTube have this new crazy algorithm. where they know exactly what video you. would like to watch next based on AI and. all of your viewing behavior and the. algorithm says that this video is the. perfect video for you. It's different. for everybody looking right now. Check. this video out. I bet you you might love. it.