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January 19, 2022

Microsoft spends $70B on a video game

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Mesh Lakhani Headshot
Mesh Lakhani

Hey All,

Welcome to Talk Money Weekly - where I cut through the noise and curate the best money-related topics from the web.

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Markets & Business


Season 3 Finale: Stop and Smell the Stocks


Yes, I know it took us a while to get this out. We unfortunately lost one of our producers and debated putting it out. We decided to finish and publish it. This episode is dedicated to Temi.

In our Season 3 finale, we explore the new breed of investors that came out of the pandemic -- and one person who emerged from the infamous Gamestop short squeeze a millionaire.

With Josh Brown, Anthony "Pomp" Pompliano, Andrew Wilkinson, and Redditor Kevin Sanzone, we learn how investing has evolved over the last decade.


Jeff Bezos’s Personal Blog


Listen, if I bought a newspaper for $250M, turned it around and made it profitable, I would fucking hope they’d throw me a few “appreciation posts” my way. Right?!

At least they’re opinion pieces! Every publication is owned by someone who wants to influence. We can say the same thing about Fox News, we can say the same thing about NY Times…we can say the same thing of SNL! There’s someone’s influence all around us.

At the top is a rich person, who answers to a bunch of other rich people. If I owned a newspaper, you better bet that I’d be pushing my agenda on folks. Why else would I buy it?

WTF Is Play to Earn


Microsoft bought Activision for $70B. Games are big MONEY! Now Microsoft owns the rights to popular games like Call of Duty. It’s a genius acquisition to play into Microsoft’s Xbox universe, and most probably a play into their metaverse.

So what is this guy talking about? I’m all about Web 3- everyone owns a piece, but sometimes these outbursts are a bit ridiculous. We buy games to enjoy them. There is a satisfaction we get from them. We are entertained by them. We make friends playing (not me, I suck at games and nobody wants to play with me). Just because you are part of the community that makes the game popular, should you be rewarded monetarily?

I think not. BUT, if you are providing more to that game, you should be rewarded. “Play to earn” is a concept we see a lot in “Web 3.” Players are rewarded with tokens for building the community and the network effects that make a game popular. We might see a lot of that moving forward, but I think we’ll simply see different forms of games. Some people play these Web 3 games to earn money…it’s their job. It’s not for fun.

I watched the new Scream over the weekend…I didn’t get paid shit, but I enjoyed it! Not everything has to be about ownership. And btw, if you really loved Call of Duty, you could’ve bought Activision stock, and you would’ve done decent.

Stock Market Crash Guideline


Always zoom out! The trick to investing…don’t look at your portfolio. Don’t look and don’t touch. Keep adding. That’s it. There’s no real secret sauce.

When you’ve witnessed a few crash and recoveries, you start developing this thick skin. Yes, in the short run its annoying and nerve wracking. And yes, when your tech stock is down 50%, it feels like absolute crap. BUT, the stock is also up 3X since you bought it.

This is why they say to just buy the overall market. 3% down from the highs is NOTHING. Just don’t look. And if you look everyday and you’re stressed out…you’ve invested too much.

Finally, Someone Said It

Money grab. Watch out for money grabs. I haven’t done enough homework yet. I don’t feel comfortable with what is real and what is being on the wrong side of a trade.

When celebrities are coming out of the woodwork pushing this stuff, you know people are trying to collect as much money as possible. If you don’t LIKE or CARE about the art…don’t buy it. IF you don’t understand the project or know the people behind it…don’t buy it.

Remember, there’s so much room for innovation in this space. You are not late. Making irrational decisions because of FOMO, is playing into the game…the sucker’s game. Don’t be a sucker. Be a loser like me. No NFTs, and no one to play video games. I turned out fine! (Nervous laugh).

Inflation is Relative


This is SO true. Inflation headlines are everywhere, but the truth is, we are experiencing it in a very minor way in comparison to other countries. BUT it should be a lesson to what can happen with high inflation- ie QE + money pricing and no way of paying it back.

Imagine taking out $10 and walking down the street only to find its now $5. That’s real inflation, and that’s something we never want to get to in this country. I think this is why Bitcoin hasn’t resonated with a lot of Americans in the same way it has on global level. There are real economic pains that we don’t experience here in the US.

That's all the news from this past week!

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