Hey All,
Welcome to Talk Money Weekly - where I cut through the noise and curate the best money-related topics from the web.
We're taking a mid-season break of the podcast, but we'll be back with the rest of Season 3 in a few of weeks. We'll be covering retail, real estate, and investing. These episodes are going to be AWESOME. In the meantime, you can listen to the first six episodes of here.
📈 Markets & Business
Valued at $1B, Here Are All the Reasons Why Clubhouse Will Fail
What I love about this thread is that it really breaks down the risks that high-growth companies face. Clubhouse is being talked about everywhere. With millions of people using it and fresh funding valuing the company at $1B, what could go wrong? A LOT can go wrong.
Besides competition from Twitter with their Twitter Spaces, Facebook has its eye on the platform. On top of that listenership has leveled off. So how do you get more people to engage and keep listening? Is that possible with live audio? The other day I listened to a room with Mark Zuckerberg, Daniel Ek (CEO of Spotify), and Tobi Lütke (CEO of Shopify). A pretty incredible experience, but celebrity can only take the platform so far.
At the end of the day, if the market is big enough and the team is able to execute, there are lots of reasons people are betting on this company. Highly recommend you dive into Shaan's reasons for why this won't happen. It's very well thought out.
Bitcoin Risk/Return Has Changed
Years ago, Bitcoin was seen as the ultimate asymmetric bet. Meaning, one could lose a set amount of investible capital, but in return, the reward/profit would be extremely high. This proved correct for anyone who invested in Bitcoin in the early days. Even if you were investing in Bitcoin last summer, you've already returned 10X your money. BUT as more and more people enter the trade, the risk may go down, but so does the reward.
The days of Bitcoin returning 100X is most probably over. BUT the upside potential is still there. So does that mean that the amount you risk can increase? This is also a possibility. Ari's thread is a great read.
Jack Dorsey’s Square Started with a Pitch Deck
I love Square. I'm a huge fan of the company and everything they've done for payments. Square had a vision of being in every small business in the country. Their business model was to charge 2.75% as a transaction fee on their reader, which they gave for free to all small business operators. To this day, one can recognize a Square reader.
Square is now bigger than the two companies they saw themselves exiting to- Ebay & HTC. Generally, the US has been behind with payments technology in the US in comparison to companies like China, but with companies like Square, we are getting closer to that future.
Kids Want to Be Famous as a Job
Is this really surprising? When I was a kid, I wanted to be a musician. YouTubers/Vloggers are basically rockstars. They reach millions of people, they have a fanbase and they're able to earn a decent living (if you're in the top). The good thing is the content that's being created is wide. Marc Rober for example is a Youtuber that makes science videos and they're brilliant. So, if you want to make amazing science, math or other educational content, please do! We need more of it.
So let kids be ambitious about creating content that is niche. They'll learn how to build a business and they'll find out how hard it is to stand out. Those that truly care about the art will stick around. I'm in my mid-30's and I want to be a podcaster and a Youtuber. There's not much difference between myself and kids these days.
The Latest Stock Pickers are Influencers (Nothing new here)
Influencers have always had power when it comes to the stock market. People listened to what Warren Buffet, Bill Ackman, and George Soros had to say when it came to stock picking. They would use CNBC, analyst letters, and media outlets to get their message out. Let's not act like it's not part of the game.
This time around, it's people who have huge social media followings on Twitter, Instagram etc. Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports, Chamath Palihapitiya, Elon Musk all have huge social media followings. And the new entrants into the world of stock market investing listen to them. There's nothing really different here. Everyone has an agenda.
We can't stop people from saying what they want. We just need to provide the education and tools to allow them to make their own decisions. Well-informed decisions.
That's all the news from this past week! If I was to make this newsletter into a Youtube show, would you watch it?
If you haven't already subscribed to my podcast, Talk Money, do so here. New episode next Wednesday!
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