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3 episodes with Jim Chanos
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2 episodes with Jim Chanos
Matt and Katie discuss the Michael Saylor vs. Jim Chanos debate, financial gibberish, the mid-2000s federal clerkship hiring plan, private equity recruiting and mid-frequency trading.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week on Friday Five, I break down why Mike Novogratz believes Bitcoin could soar to $1 million - and what that means for markets right now. From the explosive GENIUS Act stablecoin bill and ETF milestones to bullish treasury moves and a fiery clash between Jim Chanos and Michael Saylor, crypto is heating up on all fronts. We also cover major IPO news from Thiel-backed Bullish and why U.S. regulators are suddenly calling self-custody a “foundational American value.” Don't miss this jam-packed episode! ►► JOIN THE FREE WOLF DEN NEWSLETTER, DELIVERED EVERY WEEKDAY!
Chanos & Co. founder Jim Chanos discusses the outlook for the US stock market, his views on Tesla and why he is betting against Carvana. Speaking with Scarlet Fu on Bloomberg Television, Chanos also responds to Michael Saylor dismissing his recommendation to short the shares of Strategy and buy Bitcoin.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor dismissed short-seller Jim Chanos’s recommendation to short the shares of the Bitcoin treasury company and buy the cryptocurrency because of the large premium the company’s common stock commands over the value of its token holdings. Saylor spoke with Bloomberg's with Katie Greifeld and Matt Miller.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hier geht's zu den Tickets für die Finanzpodcast-Nacht am 6. September. Wir freuen uns auf euch! https://www.myticket.de/de/ohne-aktien-wird-schwer-tickets Aktien + Whatsapp = Hier anmelden. Lieber als Newsletter? Geht auch. Das Buch zum Podcast? Jetzt lesen. Meta jetzt auch KI-Startup-Investor? NVIDIA feiert London. USA & China verhandeln in London. Renault goes Drohnen, IonQ goes Oxford, Qualcomm goes Alphawave, Advent goes Spectris. Warner Bros. Discovery trennt sich. Tesla raus, Starbucks runter. Marimekko (WKN: 920479) hat nicht nur bunte Farben und geile Kollabos, sondern ist auch ein Tenbagger. Carvana (WKN: A2DPW1) ist DER Highflyer der letzten Jahre und lässt selbst KI-Aktien alt aussehen. Aber der legendäre Shortseller Jim Chanos ist skeptisch. Diesen Podcast vom 10.06.2025, 3:00 Uhr stellt dir die Podstars GmbH (Noah Leidinger) zur Verfügung.
Pendant que les semiconducteurs s'envolent comme si on avait guéri le cancer avec une puce, le marché obligataire nous hurle que quelque chose cloche. Et au milieu de ce joyeux bordel : Cisco ressuscite, Boeing décolle avec le Qatar, et Jim Chanos shorte MicroStrategy en misant sur… le bon vieux Bitcoin.
Danny Moses hosts renowned short seller Jim Chanos of Chanos & Company. Chanos discusses his extensive career in short selling since 1985, offering insights into current market debacles, the elevated risks in recent valuations, and specific cases of fraud he has encountered. He examines the historical context of financial fraud and the systemic issues facing modern markets, such as inadequate regulatory actions by the SEC under the Trump administration. Chanos also touches on his notable short positions, including Enron, and his views on current stocks like IBM and data centers. Additionally, he highlights the importance of rigorous forensic accounting and investigative journalism in uncovering fraud. After the break, Danny is joined by former professional golfer and broadcaster Ned Michaels to preview the 2025 Masters. -- ABOUT THE SHOW For decades, Danny has seen it all on Wall Street and has built his reputation on integrity, curiosity and skepticism that he will bring with him each week. Having traded through the Great Financial Crisis and being featured in "The Big Short" is only part of the experiences Danny wants to share with the listener. This weekly podcast cuts through market noise, offering entertaining and informative discussions with expert guests giving their views of the financial world and the human side of it. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just getting started, On The Tape provides something for all listeners. Follow Danny on X: @dmoses34 The financial opinions expressed are for information purposes only. The opinions expressed by the hosts and participants are not an attempt to influence specific trading behavior, investments, or strategies. Past performance does not necessarily predict future outcomes. No specific results or profits are assured when relying on this content. Before making any investment or trade, evaluate its suitability for your circumstances and consider consulting your own financial or investment advisor. The financial products discussed in 'On The Tape' carry a high level of risk and may not be appropriate for many investors. If you have uncertainties, it's advisable to seek professional advice. Remember that trading involves a risk to your capital, so only invest money that you can afford to lose. Derivatives are not suitable for all investors and involve the risk of losing more than the amount originally deposited and any profit you might have made. This communication is not a recommendation or offer to buy, sell or retain any specific investment or service.
Chanos & Company President/Managing Partner/Founder Jim Chanos discusses what the imposition of a 10% tariff could mean for China's economy. He sits down for an exclusive conversation with Bloomberg's Scarlet Fu and Romaine Bostick.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Scott Bessent is the CEO and CIO of Key Square Group and a renowned global macro investor. His 40-year investment career has included two stints at Soros Fund Management, the first for a decade under Stan Druckenmiller and the second for five as CIO. In between, Scott launched a hedge fund, retired, and joined me at Protégé Partners when he learned retirement wasn't for him. Following his second tour at Soros, Scott started Key Square with $4.5 billion, one of the largest hedge fund launches in history. Scott has been profiled in two best-selling investment books, Steve Drobny's Inside the House of Money and Sebastian Mallaby's More Money than God. Our conversation covers Scott's investment path learning research from Jim Rogers, short selling from Jim Chanos, global macro investing from George Soros and Stan Druckenmiller, and twice hanging his own shingle. We discuss high-conviction ideas, asymmetric asset selection, position sizing, risk management, a hub and spoke approach, and core challenges of the global macro hedge fund business. I once told Scott that he could read the newspaper six months ahead of time because I had never encountered someone with his ability to connect dots and imagine investments others had not considered. His interest in improving the country's economic picture has led him to shed his publicity-shy nature, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to share his story. Take Capital Allocators Audience Engagement Survey Learn More Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access Transcript with Premium Membership
Harry Markopolos, Michael Burry, Jim Chanos. Het zijn maar enkele namen van shortsellers die tot de verbeelding spreken. Zo ook tot die van onze centrale gast in De Beursvoyeurs, beursanalist Dieter Plas, die er een boek aan wijdde. Hij is er stellig van overtuigd dat in ieder van ons een shorter schuilt. Dieter Plas begon met beleggen op zijn dertiende en het liet hem sindsdien niet meer los. Nu verspreidt hij zijn kennis op zijn eigen platform en via zijn boek 'De verloren kunst van het shorten'. Zijn favoriete beleggingsinstrument? Opties. 'Met opties kan je op een goedkope manier voldoende bescherming inbouwen', aldus Plas. Verder hebben onze voyeurs het ook over enkele beurslievelingen die tot nu toe rake klappen kregen tijdens het resultatenseizoen, en many more to come!En op vraag van Ellen, deze link!Ontdek meer in deze aflevering van De Beursvoyeurs. Host: Tomas De Soete Gasten: Dieter Plas, Geert Smet en Ellen Vermorgen.Redactie en productie: Anne-Sophie Moerman See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week, we dive into the shifting tides of the U.S. economy and its global impact on smaller countries like Ireland, who are deeply tied to American trade and investment. With the Fed's balancing act of boosting stock markets while trying to control inflation, are we heading into another bubble? As inequality deepens, we ask what the upcoming U.S. election could mean for the global economy. Legendary short-seller Jim Chanos joins us to discuss why he believes we're living in a “Golden Age of Fraud” and how investors are ignoring red flags. Are we returning to a 1970s-style economic era, but with new players like China and the rise of social media-driven distrust? We explore it all in this week's episode. Join the gang! https://plus.acast.com/s/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chanos & Company President and Managing Partner Jim Chanos says the market is probably as attractive as it was in the first half of 2021 and the future of short-selling with Bloomberg's Scarlet Fu, Alix Steel, and Romaine Bostick See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Wall Street Journal wrote that “Wall Street's best-known bear is going into hibernation" after the legendary short seller Jim Chanos announced he would close his main hedge funds late last year, in part due to diminishing interest in stock picking. Short selling, which bets on drops in asset prices, wins when companies and governments fail and has gained a predatory reputation over the years. Just last week, the China Securities Regulatory Commission vowed "zero tolerance" against what they called "malicious short sellers," according to Reuters.One of our listeners wrote to Bethany with this question: “What does it say about capitalism if Jim Chanos can't find enough investors willing to profit from its frauds, fads, and failures, not to mention the competitive forces that are necessary for a functioning market? Is short selling dead?” To discuss this, Luigi and Bethany sat down with Chanos himself, who has been cast as the “Darth Vader of Wall Street,” the “Catastrophe Capitalist,” and the “LeBron James of short selling.” Together, they discuss the relationship between short sellers and our information environment, the fallout from the "meme stock" craze, the effects of the Federal Reserve's interest rate policies, and how short selling can contribute to market efficiency and resilience. Do short sellers play a positive role by uncovering corporate fraud, mismanagement, and systemic risks? What safeguards are necessary to prevent short-selling abuse and ensure fair and transparent markets?
Dan Nathan, Guy Adami and special guest Jim Chanos are LIVE from Miami for iConnections Global Alts '24 -- Subscribe to our newsletter: https://riskreversalmedia.beehiiv.com/subscribe MRKT Call is brought to you by our presenting sponsors CME Group, FactSet & SoFi Watch MRKT Call LIVE at 1pm M-TH on YouTube Sign up for our emails Follow us on Twitter @MRKTCall Follow @GuyAdami on Twitter Follow @CarterBWorth on Twitter Follow us on Instagram @RiskReversalMedia Like us on Facebook @RiskReversal Watch all of our videos on YouTube
Dan Nathan, Guy Adami and special guest Jim Chanos are LIVE from Miami for iConnections Global Alts '24 -- Subscribe to our newsletter: https://riskreversalmedia.beehiiv.com/subscribe MRKT Call is brought to you by our presenting sponsors CME Group, FactSet & SoFi Watch MRKT Call LIVE at 1pm M-TH on YouTube Sign up for our emails Follow us on Twitter @MRKTCall Follow @GuyAdami on Twitter Follow @CarterBWorth on Twitter Follow us on Instagram @RiskReversalMedia Like us on Facebook @RiskReversal Watch all of our videos on YouTube
In this week's episode, Mark looks at the implications of famed investor Jim Chanos shutting down his hedge fund which specialized in shorting stocks. The closure comes as stock markets in the US hit all time record highs. Mark frames these two events in light of the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle. Be sure to follow Minor Issues at Mises.org/MinorIssues. Get your free copy of Murray Rothbard's Anatomy of the State at Mises.org/IssuesFree. Additional Resources "The Social Function of Stock Speculators" by Robert P. Murphy: Mises.org/Minor46_A "Short Sellers Keep the Market Honest" (Wall Street Journal) by Jim Thanos: Mises.org/Minor46_B "Jim Chanos, Short Seller Who Took on Enron and Tesla, to Close Hedge Funds" (Wall Street Journal) by Gregory Zuckerman Follow and Peter Rudegeair: Mises.org/Minor46_C
In this week's episode, Mark looks at the implications of famed investor Jim Chanos shutting down his hedge fund which specialized in shorting stocks. The closure comes as stock markets in the US hit all time record highs. Mark frames these two events in light of the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle. Be sure to follow Minor Issues at https://Mises.org/MinorIssues Get your free copy of Murray Rothbard's book Anatomy of the State at Mises.org/IssuesFree Additional Resources "The Social Function of Stock Speculators" by Robert P. Murphy: https://Mises.org/Minor46_A "Short Sellers Keep the Market Honest" (Wall Street Journal) by Jim Thanos: https://Mises.org/Minor46_B "Jim Chanos, Short Seller Who Took on Enron and Tesla, to Close Hedge Funds" (Wall Street Journal) by Gregory Zuckerman Follow and Peter Rudegeair: https://Mises.org/Minor46_C
In this week's episode, Mark looks at the implications of famed investor Jim Chanos shutting down his hedge fund which specialized in shorting stocks. The closure comes as stock markets in the US hit all time record highs. Mark frames these two events in light of the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle. Be sure to follow Minor Issues at Mises.org/MinorIssues. Get your free copy of Murray Rothbard's Anatomy of the State at Mises.org/IssuesFree. Additional Resources "The Social Function of Stock Speculators" by Robert P. Murphy: Mises.org/Minor46_A "Short Sellers Keep the Market Honest" (Wall Street Journal) by Jim Thanos: Mises.org/Minor46_B "Jim Chanos, Short Seller Who Took on Enron and Tesla, to Close Hedge Funds" (Wall Street Journal) by Gregory Zuckerman Follow and Peter Rudegeair: Mises.org/Minor46_C
In this week's episode, Mark looks at the implications of famed investor Jim Chanos shutting down his hedge fund which specialized in shorting stocks. The closure comes as stock markets in the US hit all time record highs. Mark frames these two events in light of the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle. Be sure to follow Minor Issues at Mises.org/MinorIssues. Get your free copy of Murray Rothbard's Anatomy of the State at Mises.org/IssuesFree. Additional Resources "The Social Function of Stock Speculators" by Robert P. Murphy: Mises.org/Minor46_A "Short Sellers Keep the Market Honest" (Wall Street Journal) by Jim Thanos: Mises.org/Minor46_B "Jim Chanos, Short Seller Who Took on Enron and Tesla, to Close Hedge Funds" (Wall Street Journal) by Gregory Zuckerman Follow and Peter Rudegeair: Mises.org/Minor46_C
On this episode of TCAF Tuesday, Josh Brown talks SpaceX, Starlink, and OpenAI with Aaron Dillon. Then, Josh and Michael Batnick are joined by tech expert Alex Kantrowitz on an all-new episode of What Are Your Thoughts where they discuss Sam Altman, Nvidia earnings, Michael Burry, Jim Chanos, and much more! Thanks to Public for sponsoring this episode. To learn more about Public treasury accounts, visit: https://public.com/compound Check out the latest in financial blogger fashion at The Compound shop: https://www.idontshop.com Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Josh Brown are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. Wealthcast Media, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat milliardenschwere Nebenhaushalte der Ampel-Koalition für unvereinbar mit der Schuldenbremse und damit für verfassungswidrig erklärt. Die beiden Wirtschaftsjournalisten Dietmar Deffner und Holger Zschäpitz diskutieren die Folgen des Karlsruher Urteils für Deutschland und streiten über die Zukunft der Schuldenbremse und darüber, wo sich Ausgaben einsparen und Einnahmen erhöhen ließen. Weitere Themen: - Größter Kurssturz in der Geschichte von Bayer – was jetzt für einen Zock beim Mischkonzern spricht und was dagegen - Chaos bei OpenAI – wer der Gewinner der peinlichen Zirkusvorstellung um Sam Altman ist und warum 80 Mrd. Dollar an Wert auf dem Spiel stehen - Zahlen bei Jumia – wie lange das Geld beim Amazon Afrikas noch reicht - Trendwende bei Ökoworld – was jetzt für den Anlageverwalter spricht - Jim Chanos schließt Hedgefonds – warum Shortseller wichtig für die Hygiene an den Märkten sind - Ökonomisches Experiment – was der neue argentinische Präsident vorhat und welche Erfolgschancen seine Dollarisierung hat Impressum: https://www.welt.de/services/article7893735/Impressum.html Datenschutzerklärung: https://www.welt.de/services/article157550705/Datenschutzerklaerung-WELT-DIGITAL.html
A podcast about how "passive income" money-making scams seem to have taken over the internet, and the economic implications of such scams.Patrick's Books:Statistics For The Trading Floor: https://amzn.to/3eerLA0Derivatives For The Trading Floor: https://amzn.to/3cjsyPFCorporate Finance: https://amzn.to/3fn3rvCPatreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/PatrickBoyleOnFinanceBuy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/patrickboyleVisit our website: www.onfinance.orgFollow Patrick on Twitter Here: https://twitter.com/PatrickEBoylePatrick Boyle YouTube Channel Support the show
Anjee Solanki, National Director of U.S. Retail at Colliers, shares her thoughts on US retail sales that showed signs of slowing in August as consumers limited their discretionary spending amid higher gasoline prices. Bloomberg News Entertainment Reporter Chris Palmeri and Bloomberg Wall Street Week Host David Westin break the news that Disney is considering selling ABC to Nexstar. Jim Chanos, Founder and President of Chanos & Company, discusses his investment outlook and thoughts on China. Paula Vissing, President of Global Retail at Little Caesars, talks about the business of being the official pizza sponsor of the NFL. And we Drive to the Close with George Schultze, Founder and CEO of Schultze Asset Management. Hosts: Tim Stenovec and Simone Foxman. Producer: Paul Brennan. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jim Chanos, Founder and President of Chanos & Company discusses his investment outlook and the latest on China with hosts Tim Stenovec and Simone Foxman. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
At the turn of the millennium and the dot com bubble burst Enron, from seemingly nowhere, became the biggest corporate fraud in history. Bethany McLean, the journalist who broke the story after a tip-off from activist short-seller Jim Chanos, joins the pod to discuss how it all unravelled and what we've learned 23 years on. Remember to download my follow up episode with Juan Torres Rodrigues to find out how an investor puts plans in place to try to avoid making the mistake of investing in companies like Enron. Also, listen to the other two episodes in our short-selling series: Muddying the waters: the story of an activist short seller Everything you ever wanted to know about short selling but were afraid to ask RUNNING ORDER: 03:23 - Part one: Enron - the smartest guys in the room? 16:16 - Part two: the fine line between visionary and fraudster 31:22 - Part three: the dangers of group thinking NEW EPISODES: The Investor Download is available every Thursday and will be released at 1700 UK time. You can subscribe via Podbean or use this feed URL (https://schroders.podbean.com/feed.xml) in Apple Podcasts and other podcast players. GET IN TOUCH: mailto: Schroderspodcasts@schroders.com find us on Facebook send us a tweet: @Schroders using #investordownload READ MORE: Schroders.com/insights LISTEN TO MORE: schroders.com/theinvestordownload Important information. This information is not an offer, solicitation or recommendation to buy or sell any financial instrument or to adopt any investment strategy. Any data has been sourced by us and is provided without any warranties of any kind. It should be independently verified before further publication or use. Third party data is owned or licenced by the data provider and may not be reproduced, extracted or used for any other purpose without the data provider's consent. Neither we, nor the data provider, will have any liability in connection with the third party data. Reliance should not be placed on any views or information in the material when taking individual investment and/or strategic decisions. Any references to securities, sectors, regions and/or countries are for illustrative purposes only. The views and opinions contained herein are those of individual to whom they are attributed, and may not necessarily represent views expressed or reflected in other communications, strategies or funds. The value of investments and the income from them may go down as well as up and investors may not get back the amounts originally invested. Exchange rate changes may cause the value of any overseas investments to rise or fall. Past Performance is not a guide to future performance and may not be repeated. The forecasts included should not be relied upon, are not guaranteed and are provided only as at the date of issue. Our forecasts are based on our own assumptions which may change. Issued by Schroder Investment Management Limited, 1 London Wall Place, London EC2Y 5AU. Registered No. 1893220 England. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Today's guests are Jim Chanos, famed short-seller and founder of Kynikos Associates, and Bethany McLean, contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the author of multiple books, including The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron. In today's episode, Jim & Bethany cover all aspects of fraud. They share where we are in both the financial cycle and the fraud cycle, why we continue to see frauds since they first connected about Enron over 20 years ago, and the thin line between a visionary and a fraudster. We discuss the anti-short seller rhetoric that pops up every few months, the impact of social media on the rise and fall of companies, and the impact of stock-based compensation and adjusted earnings. As we wind down, Jim shares his concerns about the commercial real estate sector, and Bethany gives a preview of her book releasing this October. ----- Follow Meb on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube For detailed show notes, click here To learn more about our funds and follow us, subscribe to our mailing list or visit us at cambriainvestments.com ----- Today's episode is sponsored by Farmland LP. Farmland LP is one of the largest investment funds in the US focused on converting chemical-based conventional farmland to organic, sustainably-managed farmland using a value-add commercial real estate strategy in the agriculture sector. Since 2009, they have built a 15,000-acre portfolio representing over $200M in AUM. Today's episode is sponsored by The Idea Farm. The Idea Farm gives you access to over $100,000 worth of investing research, the kind usually read by only the world's largest institutions, funds, and money managers. Subscribe for free here.
Tesla's aggressive price-cutting strategy has divided opinions as the company aims to dominate the global automotive industry. In the quest to rule the automotive world, Elon Musk's strategies are polarizing opinion. Some compare him to Henry Ford in the Model T era, while others liken him to Steve Jobs bringing about the iPhone revolution. But what if he's more like Rick Wagoner, who led General Motors to near destruction? Tesla's numerous price cuts this year, taking nearly a third off the cost of its top-selling US model, have left industry insiders debating whether this strategy is revolutionary or desperate. Ford CEO Jim Farley compared Musk to Ford himself, citing the development of an innovative product, efficient manufacturing, and driving down costs as key similarities. On the other hand, the Jobsian theory posits that Musk is applying Silicon Valley tactics to the electric vehicle (EV) industry in an attempt to outperform rivals like Rivian Automotive Inc. and Lucid Group Inc. The cautionary example of General Motors comes to mind, as Wagoner's reliance on incentives after the September 11 terror attacks ultimately led to GM's and Chrysler's bankruptcy in 2009, with Ford narrowly avoiding the same fate. Tesla's plans have been scrutinized before, with investors like Jim Chanos, David Einhorn, Cathie Wood, and Ron Baron divided over the company's survival and growth potential. Tesla's stock has surged more than 750% in the last five years, proving doubters wrong.
BNB Chain on Twitter: "BNB Greenfields code is now open source
Compound248 is back to host another episode of Business Breakdowns. His most recent podcasts have focused on digital infrastructure and today we continue with that theme, but with a twist. Our guest is Wall Street Legend Jim Chanos, famed for bringing a skeptical eye to a credulous world. Together, we walked through his short thesis on the US Data Center REITs, his bear case for commercial real estate, and some broader wisdom on how management can thoughtfully respond to short sellers. Let's get started. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus is the modern research platform for leading investors. I'm a longtime user and advocate of Tegus, a company that I've been so consistently impressed with that last fall my firm, Positive Sum, invested $20M to support Tegus' mission to expand its product ecosystem. Whether it's quantitative analysis, company disclosures, management presentations, earnings calls - Tegus has tools for every step of your investment research. They even have over 4000 fully driveable financial models. Tegus' maniacal focus on quality, as well as its depth, breadth and recency of content makes it the one-stop, end-to-end research platform for investors. Move faster, gather deep research to build conviction and surface high-quality, alpha-driving insights to find your differentiated edge with Tegus. As a listener, you can take the Tegus platform for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick. ----- This episode is brought to you in partnership with Roundhill Investments, the advisor to the Roundhill IO Digital Infrastructure ETF – BYTE - which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BYTE. The fund tracks the BYTE Index, which measures the performance of 40 leading global digital infrastructure businesses, such as towers and mobile communications, fiber and fixed line connectivity, and data centers. For a prospectus and more information, please visit roundhillinvestments.com/etf/byte. ----- Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @jspujji | @zbfuss | @ReustleMatt | @domcooke Show Notes (00:03:30) - (First question) - His counter-narrative thesis of shorting traditional data centers (00:09:34) - How data center hyperscalers have been shifting the industry since 2016 (00:12:14) - The size, margins, and depreciation profile of the data center industry (00:16:14) - The cash burn problem with digital REITs (00:18:30) - How he thinks about interest rates, liquidity, and leverage in the space (00:20:25) - More on why the value of these data centers is so elusive (00:21:57) - The extent to which macro tech slowdowns intersect with his thesis (00:23:13) - What investors see in these businesses that he discounts (00:26:59) - Risks for the short and the bull case for data centers (00:29:04) - Big concerns about the broader commercial real estate market (00:36:34) - The best way for operators to handle a short thesis about their company (00:39:49) - Critical mistakes he recommends managers avoid
Compound248 is back to host another episode of Business Breakdowns. His most recent podcasts have focused on digital infrastructure and today we continue with that theme, but with a twist. Our guest is Wall Street Legend Jim Chanos, famed for bringing a skeptical eye to a credulous world. Together, we walked through his short thesis on the US Data Center REITs, his bear case for commercial real estate, and some broader wisdom on how management can thoughtfully respond to short sellers. Let's get started. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus is the modern research platform for leading investors. I'm a longtime user and advocate of Tegus, a company that I've been so consistently impressed with that last fall my firm, Positive Sum, invested $20M to support Tegus' mission to expand its product ecosystem. Whether it's quantitative analysis, company disclosures, management presentations, earnings calls - Tegus has tools for every step of your investment research. They even have over 4000 fully driveable financial models. Tegus' maniacal focus on quality, as well as its depth, breadth and recency of content makes it the one-stop, end-to-end research platform for investors. Move faster, gather deep research to build conviction and surface high-quality, alpha-driving insights to find your differentiated edge with Tegus. As a listener, you can take the Tegus platform for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick. ----- This episode is brought to you in partnership with Roundhill Investments, the advisor to the Roundhill IO Digital Infrastructure ETF – BYTE - which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BYTE. The fund tracks the BYTE Index, which measures the performance of 40 leading global digital infrastructure businesses, such as towers and mobile communications, fiber and fixed line connectivity, and data centers. For a prospectus and more information, please visit roundhillinvestments.com/etf/byte. ----- Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @jspujji | @zbfuss | @ReustleMatt | @domcooke Show Notes (00:03:30) - (First question) - His counter-narrative thesis of shorting traditional data centers (00:09:34) - How data center hyperscalers have been shifting the industry since 2016 (00:12:14) - The size, margins, and depreciation profile of the data center industry (00:16:14) - The cash burn problem with digital REITs (00:18:30) - How he thinks about interest rates, liquidity, and leverage in the space (00:20:25) - More on why the value of these data centers is so elusive (00:21:57) - The extent to which macro tech slowdowns intersect with his thesis (00:23:13) - What investors see in these businesses that he discounts (00:26:59) - Risks for the short and the bull case for data centers (00:29:04) - Big concerns about the broader commercial real estate market (00:36:34) - The best way for operators to handle a short thesis about their company (00:39:49) - Critical mistakes he recommends managers avoid
Dan Nathan, Guy Adami and Liz Young preview the week ahead and discuss the latest news (3:30) Madness in the markets (6:30). There is no quick fix for The Fed (10:00) Where does the banking sector go from here (15:00). Wednesday the most important Fed meeting yet, we mean it this time (17:00)! Can the Fed thread the needle (23:00)? The interest rate risk (29:00). Why the Nasdaq looks like best short on the board (33:00). After the break, we bring you a conversation from MRKT Call. Dan and Danny look back at a pivotal week in the markets with legendary short-seller Jim Chanos About the Show: On The Tape is a weekly podcast with CNBC Fast Money's Guy Adami, Dan Nathan and Danny Moses. They're offering takes on the biggest market-moving headlines of the week, trade ideas, in-depth analysis, tips and advice. Each episode, they are joined by prominent Wall Street participants to help viewers make smarter investment decisions. Bear market, bull market, recession, inflation or deflation… we're here to help guide your portfolio into the green. Risk Reversal brings you years of experience from former Wall Street insiders trading stocks to experts in the commodity market. Check out our show notes here See what adding futures can do for you at cmegroup.com/onthetape. Shoot us an email at OnTheTape@riskreversal.com with any feedback, suggestions, or questions for us to answer on the pod and follow us @OnTheTapePod. We're on social: Follow Dan Nathan @RiskReversal on Twitter Follow @GuyAdami on Twitter Follow Danny Moses @DMoses34 on Twitter Follow Liz Young @LizYoungStrat on Twitter Follow us on Instagram @RiskReversalMedia Subscribe to our YouTube page
Join Dan and Danny for a special of edition of MRKT Call. We're looking back at a pivotal week in the markets with legendary short-seller Jim Chanos. MRKT Call is brought to you by our presenting sponsors CME Group, FactSet & SoFi Watch MRKT Call LIVE at 1pm M-TH on YouTube Sign up for our emails Follow us on Twitter @MRKTCall Follow Dan Nathan @RiskReversal on Twitter Follow @GuyAdami on Twitter Follow @CarterBWorth on Twitter Follow us on Instagram @RiskReversalMedia Like us on Facebook @RiskReversal Watch all of our videos on YouTube
Jim Chanos, the president and founder of Kynikos Associates and well-known investment manager talks to Rob about the post-pandemic financial system, which has become more steeped in a casino culture than it has been in a very long time, and whether China's financial situation serves as an example or as a warning.
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Jim Chanos joins Dan Nathan, Guy Adami and Danny Moses at the 2023 iConnections Global Alts conference. About the Show: On The Tape is a weekly podcast with CNBC Fast Money's Guy Adami, Dan Nathan and Danny Moses. They're offering takes on the biggest market-moving headlines of the week, trade ideas, in-depth analysis, tips and advice. Each episode, they are joined by prominent Wall Street participants to help viewers make smarter investment decisions. Bear market, bull market, recession, inflation or deflation… we're here to help guide your portfolio into the green. Risk Reversal brings you years of experience from former Wall Street insiders trading stocks to experts in the commodity market. FactSet Webinar: https://riskreversal.com/factset2023/ Check out our show notes and transcript here See what adding futures can do for you at cmegroup.com/onthetape. Shoot us an email at OnTheTape@riskreversal.com with any feedback, suggestions, or questions for us to answer on the pod and follow us @OnTheTapePod. We're on social: Follow Dan Nathan @RiskReversal on Twitter Follow @GuyAdami on Twitter Follow Danny Moses @DMoses34 on Twitter Follow Liz Young @LizYoungStrat on Twitter Follow us on Instagram @RiskReversalMedia Subscribe to our YouTube page
Jim Chanos joins Dan Nathan, Guy Adami and Danny Moses at the 2023 iConnections Global Alts conference. About the Show: On The Tape is a weekly podcast with CNBC Fast Money's Guy Adami, Dan Nathan and Danny Moses. They're offering takes on the biggest market-moving headlines of the week, trade ideas, in-depth analysis, tips and advice. Each episode, they are joined by prominent Wall Street participants to help viewers make smarter investment decisions. Bear market, bull market, recession, inflation or deflation… we're here to help guide your portfolio into the green. Risk Reversal brings you years of experience from former Wall Street insiders trading stocks to experts in the commodity market. FactSet Webinar: https://riskreversal.com/factset2023/ Check out our show notes and transcript here See what adding futures can do for you at cmegroup.com/onthetape. Shoot us an email at OnTheTape@riskreversal.com with any feedback, suggestions, or questions for us to answer on the pod and follow us @OnTheTapePod. We're on social: Follow Dan Nathan @RiskReversal on Twitter Follow @GuyAdami on Twitter Follow Danny Moses @DMoses34 on Twitter Follow Liz Young @LizYoungStrat on Twitter Follow us on Instagram @RiskReversalMedia Subscribe to our YouTube page
Fast Money is on the road in Miami, Florida, at the iConnections Global Alts Conference. We're talking to legendary investor and short-seller Jim Chanos about his latest bets as well as one venture capitalist who left the hustle and bustle of Silicon Valley for South Beach. And with bitcoin rallying this year, we dig into whether the crypto winter has really thawed.
This was one of my favorite episodes ever.Bethany McLean was the first reporter to question Enron's earnings, and she has written some of the best finance books out there. We discuss:* The astounding similarities between Enron & FTX,* How visionaries are just frauds who succeed (and which category describes Elon Musk),* What caused 2008, and whether we are headed for a new crisis,* Why there's too many venture capitalists and not enough short sellers,* And why history keeps repeating itself.McLean is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair (see her articles here) and the author of The Smartest Guys in the Room, All the Devils Are Here, Saudi America, and Shaky Ground.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform.Follow McLean on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. If you enjoyed this episode, please share. Helps out a ton.Timestamps(0:04:37) - Is Fraud Over? (0:11:22) - Shortage of Shortsellers(0:19:03) - Elon Musk - Fraud or Visionary?(0:23:00) - Intelligence, Fake Deals, & Culture(0:33:40) - Rewarding Leaders for Long Term Thinking(0:37:00) - FTX Mafia?(0:40:17) - Is Finance Too Big?(0:44:09) - 2008 Collapse, Fannie & Freddie(0:49:25) - The Big Picture(1:00:12) - Frackers Vindicated?(1:03:40) - Rating Agencies(1:07:05) - Lawyers Getting Rich Off Fraud(1:15:09) - Are Some People Fundamentally Deceptive?(1:19:25) - Advice for Big Picture ThinkersTranscriptThis transcript was autogenerated and thus may contain errors.Dwarkesh Patel: the rapid implosion of a company worth tens of billions of dollars. Insider dealing and romantic entanglements between sister companies, a politically generous c e o, who is well connected in Washington, the use of a company's own stock as its collateral, the attempt, the short-lived attempt to get bought out by a previous competitor, and the fraudulent abuse of mark to market account.[00:01:00] We are not talking about ftx, we are talking about Enron, which my guest today, Bethany McClean, uh, first broke the story of and has written an amazing and detailed book about, uh, called The Smartest Guys in the Room. And she has also written, uh, a book about the housing crisis. All the devils are here, a book about Fannie and Freddy Shaky Ground, and a book about fracking Saudi America, all of which we'll get into.She's, in my opinion, the best finance nonfiction writer out there, and I'm really, really excited to have this conversation now. So, Bethany, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Bethany McLean: Thank you so much for the, for the probably Undeserved Conference, for having me on the show. Dwarkesh Patel: My first question, what are the odds that Sbf read the smartest guys in the room and just followed it as a playbook, given the similarities there?Bethany McLean: You, you know, I, I love that idea. I have to, I have to admit, I guess I love that idea. I don't know. That would make me responsible for what, for what happened, . So maybe I don't love that idea. L let me take that back . [00:02:00] Anyway, but I, I, I actually think that, that, that even if he had read the book, it would never have occurred to him that, that there was a similarity because self-delusion is such a, Strong component of all of these stories of business gone wrong.It's very rare that you have one of the characters at the heart of this who actually understands what they're doing and understands that they're moving over into the dark side and thinks about the potential repercussions of this and chooses this path. Anyway, that's usually not the way these stories go.So it's entirely possible that Sbf studied Enron, knew all about it, and never envisioned that there were any similarities between that and what he was doing. Dwarkesh Patel: Oh, that's a fascinating, um, which I guess raises the question of what are we doing when we're documenting and trying to learn from books like yours?If somebody who is a, about to commit the same exact kind of thing can read that book and not realize that he's doing the same exact thing, is there something that just [00:03:00] prevents us from learning the lessons of history that we, we can never just, uh, get the analogy right, and we're just guided by our own delusions.Bethany McLean: Wasn't there a great quote that history rhymes, but it doesn't repeat. I'm Yeah. Relying on who it is who said that, but I think that's, that's absolutely true. Oh, I think it's important for all of us, those of us who are not gonna find ourselves at the center of, uh, giant fraud or, so, I hope, I think my time for that has passed.Maybe not you, but, um, I think it's important for all of us to understand what went wrong. And I, I do think these, I do think just there, there's a great value and greater understanding of the world without necessarily a practical payoff for it. So I think when something goes wrong on a massive societal level, it's really important to try to, to try to explain it.Human beings have needed narrative since the dawn of time, and we need narrative all, all, all the more now we need, we need to make sense of the world. So I like to believe. Process of making, trying to make sense of the world. , um, [00:04:00] has a value in, in and of itself. Maybe there is small, some small deterrence aspect to it in that I often think that if people understand more the process by which things go go wrong, that it isn't deliberate, that it's not bad people setting out to do bad things.It's human beings, um, at first convincing themselves even that they're doing the right thing and then ending up in a situation that they, they never meant to be in. And maybe on the margin that does, maybe on the margin that does, that does help because maybe it has deterred some people who, who would've started down that path, but for the fact that they now see that that's the, that's the usual path.Dwarkesh Patel: Yeah. Yeah. That actually raises the next question I wanted to ask you. Bern Hobart, uh, he's a finance writer as well. He wrote a blog post, um, about, uh, I mean this was before FTX obviously, and he was talking about Enron and he said in the end, it actually looks like we fixed the precise problem. Enron represented.Nobody I know solely looks at gap [00:05:00] financials. Everybody ultimately models based on free cash flow, we're much more averse to companies that set up a deliberate conflict of interest between management and shareholders. And I guess there's a way in which you can read that and say, oh, it doesn't FTX prove I'm wrong.But, you know, there's another way you can look at it is that FTX deliberately set up outside the us. So there's a story to be told that actually we learned the lessons of Enron and, you know, uh, so remains obviously worked. Uh, that's why, you know, they were in The Bahamas and we haven't seen the scale fraud of that scale in, you know, the continental United States.Um, do, do you think that the FTX saga and I guess the absence of other frauds of that scale in America shows that. The regulations and this changed business and investment practices in the aftermath of Enron have actually. Bethany McLean: Well, I think they've probably worked in narrowly, written in, in the way in which the writer you quoted articulated, I think it would be very hard for the cfo, F O of a publicly traded company to set up other private [00:06:00] equity firms that he ran, that did all their business with his company.Because everybody would say That's Enron and it would be completely. On the nose. And so, and Sarbanes Oxley in the sense of, in the sense of helping to reign in corporate fraud of the sort that was practiced by Enron, which was this abuse of very specific accounting rules. Um, I think I, I, I think that worked.But you know, you say there hasn't been fraud on a scale like Enron up until perhaps f ftx, but you're forgetting the global financial crisis. Yeah. And then the end, the line between what happened at Enron. and, and what happened in the global financial crisis. It's not a matter of black and white. It's not a matter of, one thing was clear cut fraud and one thing great.We love these practices. Isn't this fantastic? This is the way we want business to operate. They're both somewhere in the murky middle. You know, a lot of what happened at Enron wasn't actually outright fraud. I've coined this phrase, legal fraud to describe, um, to describe what it is that, that, that, that happened at Enron.And a lot of what [00:07:00] happened in the global financial crisis was legal, hence the lack of prosecutions. But it's also not behavior that that leads to a healthy market or mm-hmm. , for that matter, a a a a healthy society. And so there's a reason that you had Sarbanes Oxley and what was it, eight short, short years later you had Dodd-Frank and so Riri broadly.I'm not sure Sarbanes actually did that much good. And what I mean by that is when President George Bush signed it into law in the Rose Garden, he gave this speech about how investors were now protected and everything was great and your, your ordinary investors could take comfort that the laws were meant to protect them from wrongdoing.And you compare that to the speech that President Barack Obama gave eight years later when he signed Don Frank into law in the Rose Garden. And it's remarkably similar that now ordinary investors can count on the rules and regulations keeping themself from people who are prey on their financial wellbeing.[00:08:00] And I don't think it was, it's, it's true in either case because our markets, particularly modern markets move and evolve so quickly that the thing that's coming out of left field to get you is never gonna be the thing you are protecting against. Mm. . Dwarkesh Patel: , but given the fact that Enron, as you say, was committing legal fraud, is it possible that the government, um, when they prosecuted skilling and Fastow and lay, they in fact, We're not, uh, they, they prosecuted them to a greater extent than the law as written at the time would have warranted.In other words, were, uh, was there something legally invalid in the, in this, in the quantity of sentence that they got? Is it possible? Bethany McLean: So that's a really, it, it's, it's a, I I get what you're asking. I think it's a really tricky question because I think in absolute terms, um, Enron needed to be prosecuted and needed to be prosecuted aggressively.And while I say it was legal fraud, that is for the most part, there was actually real fraud around, around, uh, but it's on the margin. It doesn't [00:09:00] entire, it doesn't explain the entirety of Enron's collapse. Much of what they did was using and abusing the accounting rules in order to create an appearance of economic reality.Nothing to do with actual, with actual reality. But then there was actual fraud in the sense that Andy Fasta was stealing money from these partnerships to benefit himself. And they were, if you believe, the core tenant of the prosecution, which was their, this agreement called Global Galactic that was signed by, that was between Andy fau and Jeff Skilling, where Jeff agreed that Andy's partnerships would never lose money.Then that invalidated all of the, all of the accounting, and that's the chief reason that that. That skilling was, was, was convicted, um, was that the jury believed the existence of this, of this, of this agreement that in, um, one set of insider stock sales, which, which we can talk about, which was also a really key moment relative to the, so in absolute terms, I don't know, it's, it's hard for me to, to say there was [00:10:00] such, Enron was such a, to a degree that is still surprising to me, such a, a watershed moment in our, in our country, far beyond business itself.it, it, it caused so much insecurity that about our retirements, our retirement assets safe. Can you trust the company where you work? That I think the government did, did have to prosecute aggressively, but relative to the financial crisis where a lot of people made off with a lot of money and never had to give any of it back, does it seem fair that, that, that Jeff Skilling went to jail for over a decade and no one involved in a major way in the financial crisis paid any price whatsoever?People didn't even really have to give up that much of the money they made then. Then it seems a little bit unfair. Yes, so I think it's, it's an absolute versus a relative Dwarkesh Patel: question. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, who do you think made more money? Um, the investment banks, uh, like, uh, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, um, from doing, [00:11:00] providing their services to Enron as the stock was going up, or Jim Chanos from shorting the stock?In absolute terms, who made more money? Bethany McLean: Oh, I think the investment banks for sure. I mean, they made, they made so much money in investment banking fees from, from, from Enron. But, you know, it's a good question. . , it's a good question actually, because I think Jim made a lot of money too, so, Dwarkesh Patel: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, you've spoken about, I guess the usefulness and the shortage of short sellers des a sort of, uh, corrective on irrational exuberance.And I'm curious why you think that shortage exists in the first place. Like, if you believe in the efficient market hypothesis, you should think that, you know, if some company has terrible financials and implausible numbers, then people would be lining up to short it. And then you would never have a phenomenon like Enron.And so it's, it's, you know, it's so odd that you can. , you know, reporters who are basically ahead of the market in terms of predicting what's gonna happen. Uh, well, uh, how do you square that with like the efficient [00:12:00] market hypothesis? Well, do you Bethany McLean: believe in the efficient market hypothesis, ? Dwarkesh Patel: I, I, I'd like to, but I'm like trying to , trying to wrap my head around Enron.Bethany McLean: I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not sure how you. Can, unless you, unless you adopt Warren Buffett's point of view, and I'm gonna mangle the quote because, uh, but, but it's that the market in the short term is a voting machine in the long term. It's a weighing machine, right? Mm-hmm. , or is it the other way around? . Anyway, but the idea is that the market may be very efficient for a long, very inefficient, for a long period of time.But, but it does actually, rationality does actually work in, in, in the end. And I think I might believe that, but isn't it John Maynard Cas who said the market can remain irrational for a lot longer than you can remain solvent. And so I think that's true too. I think believing that the market is efficient and rational in the short term is just obviously wrongUm, but back to your question about short sellers, which is, which is interesting, you know, I think part of it is that there is still this, um, there certainly was a couple of [00:13:00] decades ago, and I think it still exists, this idea that. Owning stocks is Mom, American, and apple pie in shorting stocks somehow is bad and evil and rooting, rooting against America.And I remember going back to the Enron days, someone, people criticizing me, even other people in the press saying, but you took a tip from a short seller. They're biased. And I. , I would say. But, but, but wait, the analysts who have buy ratings on stocks and the portfolio managers who own those stocks, they're biased too.They want the stocks to go up. Everybody's biased. So the trick as a journalist is getting information from all sides and figuring out who you think is right and what makes sense. But it's not avoiding anybody with any bias. But it was really interesting that people saw the bias on the part of short sellers and did not see it on the part of, of, of Longs.And I think there is that preconception that exists broadly, that somehow you are doing something wrong and you're somehow rooting for a company's failure. And that this is, I don't know, anti-American if you, if, if you [00:14:00] short a stock. And so I think that's part of why there's, there's, there's a shortage of shortage of, of, of short sellers.Um, I think also, I mean, we've had. Incredible, unprecedented bull market for the last four decades as a result of falling interest rates, and especially in the decade before the pandemic hit, it was very, very difficult to make money shorting anything because everything went to the moon. Didn't matter if its numbers were good, if it was eventually unmasked to be somewhat fraudulent, , it stocks just went to the moon anyway.The riskier the better. And so it is only diehard short sellers that have managed to stick it out . Yeah, and I think, I think lastly, Jim Chano said this to me once, and I, I think it's true that he could find, dozens of people who were skilled enough to come, smart enough to come work for him.There's no shortage of that. People who are technically skilled and really smart, but being able to be contrarian for a long period of time, especially when the market is going against you, is a different sort [00:15:00] of person. It that it requires a completely different mindset to have everybody in the world saying, you're wrong to be losing money because the stock is continuing to go up and to be able to hold fast to your conviction.And I think that's another, uh, part of the explanation for why there are fewer short sellers. Dwarkesh Patel: Yeah, and that raised an interesting question about. Uh, venture capital, for example, where, or private markets in general? Um, at least in the public markets, there's shorting maybe in shortage, but it, it is a possible mechanism, whereas, uh, I'm a programmer.So, you know, if, if like a one guy thinks the company's worth a hundred million dollars and everybody else thinks it's not, you know, the company will still be, uh, the price will still be said by the, you know, the person who's a believer. Um, does that increase the risk of some sort of bubble in venture capital and in technology?Um, and I guess in private markets generally, if they're, they're not public, is that something you worry about that they're, they will be incredible bubbles built up if there's a lot of money that's floating around in these Bethany McLean: circles. . Well, I think we're seeing that now, [00:16:00] right? And I don't think it's a coincidence that FTX and Theranos were not publicly traded companies, right?Mm-hmm. . Um, there's a certain sort of, uh, black box quality to these companies because people aren't charting them and aren't, aren't, and aren't, you know, whispering to journalists about that. That there's something wrong here and there aren't publicly available financials for people to dig through and look, look, and look at the numbers.So now I don't think that's a coincidence. And I do think this gigantic move into private assets has been, um, probably not great for the, for the, for the, for the. for the, for the safety of the system. And you'd say, well, it's just institutional investors who can afford to lose money who are losing money.But it's really not because institutional investors are just pension fund money. Mm-hmm. and in some cases now mutual fund money. So that distinction that the people who are investing in this stuff can afford to lose it is not really true. Um, so I don't, I don't like that rationalization. I think we're gonna see how that plays out.There was [00:17:00] just a really good piece in the Economist about private equity marks on their portfolio companies and how they are still looked to be much higher than what you would think they should be given the carnage in the market. And so all of what, what actually things are really worth in private markets, both for venture capital firms and for private equity firms, Is absent another, another bubble starting, starting in the markets.I think we're gonna see how that plays out over, over the next year. And it might be a wake up call for, for a lot of people. Um, you know, all that, all that said, it's an interesting thing because investors have been very complicit in this, right? In the sense that a lot of investors are absolutely delighted to have prep, to have their, their private, um, their private investments marked at a high level.They don't have to go to the committee overseeing the investments and say, look, I lost 20% of your money the way they might, um, if, if the numbers were public. And so that the ability of these of private investors to smooth as they call it, the, the, the returns is, is it's [00:18:00] been, it's been part of the appeal.It hasn't been a negative, it's been a positive. And so I would say that investors who wanted this moving are. Art might be getting what they deserve except for the pointing made earlier that it isn't, it isn't their money. It's, it's the money of, of teachers and firefighters and individual investors a around the country, and that's, that's problematic.Dwarkesh Patel: Yeah. Yeah. Being in the world of technology and being around people in it has. made me, somewhat shocked when I read about these numbers from the past. For example, when I'm reading your books and they're detailing things that happened in the nineties or the two thousands, and then you realize that the salary that Hank Paulson made a c e o of Goldman, or that skilling made as, you know, um, c e o of Enron, you know, I, it's like I have friends who are my age, like 22 year olds who are raising seed rounds, , that are as big as like these people's salaries.And so it just feels like the, these books were, you have $50 billion frauds or, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars of collapse and the individuals there, um, it just feels like they, it's missing a few zeros, uh, [00:19:00] because of the delusion of the private markets. But, um, but speaking of short sellers and speaking of private equity, um, I think it'd be interesting to talk about sbf.So, you know, your 2018 Vanity Fair article I thought was really interesting about, you know, sbf factory in Buffalo H How, how do you think back on Tesla and sbf now, given the fact that. The stock did continue to rise afterwards, and the factory, I believe, was completed and it's, I hired the 1500 or so people that had promised New York State, uh, is sbf just a fraud?Who can pull it off? And so he's a visionary. How, how do you think about sbf in the aftermath? Bethany McLean: So I don't think that's right about Buffalo and I have to look, but I don't think they ended up, I mean, the Solar City business that Tesla has pretty much collapsed. I don't think people haven't gotten their roofs.There was just a piece about how they're canceling some of their roof installations. So sbf has repeatedly made grand visions about that business that haven't played out. And I will check this for you post the podcast, but I don't think [00:20:00] if there is employment at that factory in, in Buffalo, it's not because they're churn out solar, solar, solar products that are, that are, that are doing.What was originally promised. So I guess I, I think about that story in a, in a couple of ways. It definitely, um, it was not meant to be a piece about Tesla. It was meant to be a piece that shown a little bit of light on how sbf operates and his willingness to flout the rules and his reliance on government subsidies, despite the fact that he, um, presents himself as this libertarian free, free, free market free marketeer, and his willingness to lie to, to, to, on some level enrich himself, which also runs counter to the Elon sbf narrative that he doesn't care about making money for, for himself.Because the main reason for Teslas to by Solar City was that Solar City had the main reason, was it Tes, that was, that Solar City had, that, that sbf and his, and his and his relatives had extended the these loans to Solar City that were gonna go. [00:21:00] There were gonna be lo all the money was gonna be lost at Solar City when bankrupt.And by having Tesla buy it, sbf was able to bail himself out, um, as, as as well. And I also think a good reason for the, for the, for, and it brings us to the present time, but a reason for the acquisition was that sbf knows that this image of himself as the invincible and vulnerable who can always raise money and whose companies always work out in the end, was really important.And if Solar City had gone bankrupt, it would've cast a big question mark over over sbf, over over the sbf narrative. And so I think he literally couldn't afford to let Solar City go bankrupt. Um, all of that said, I have, I have been, and was I, I was quite skeptical of Tesla and I thought about it in, in, in, in.And I always believed that the product was great. I just, mm-hmm. wasn't sure about the company's money making potential. And I think that, that, it's something I started thinking about, um, background, the Solar City time, maybe earlier, but this line, something I've talked about [00:22:00] before. But this line between a visionary and a fraudster.You know, you think that they're on two opposite ends of the spectrum, but in reality they're where the ends of the circle meet. Characteristics of one. One has that many of the characteristics of the other. And sometimes I think the only thing that really separates the two is that the fraudster is able to keep getting mo raising money in order to get through the really difficult time where he or she isn't telling the truth.And then they, that person goes down in history as a visionary. Um, but because no one ever looks back to the moment in time when they were lying, the fraudster gets caught in the middle. Um, so Enron's Lo lost access to to the capital markets lost AC access to funding as the market collapsed after the.com boom.And people began to wonder whether skilling was telling the truth about Enron's broadband business. And then there were all the disclosures about Andy fasa partnerships if Enron had been able to continue raising money, Business of Enron's called Enron Broadband might well have been Netflix. It was Netflix ahead of its time.So Enron just got caught in the middle and all [00:23:00] the fraud, all the fraud got exposed . Um, but that's not because Jeff Skilling wasn't a visionary who had really grand plans for, for, for, for the future. So I think sbf falls somewhere in that spectrum of, of, of fraudster and visionary. And what's gonna be really interesting why I said that this, we bring it to the present time about what happens to the mu narrative.If something fails is what happens. Yeah. Is as the world watch watches Twitter implode, um, what does that mean then for the Elon sbf narrative overall? Dwarkesh Patel: Yeah. Yeah. Um, going back to the Smartest Guys is the Room, the title obviously suggests something about. The, I guess in general, the ability and the likelihood of very smart people committing fraud or things of that sort.Um, but you know, Begar Jones has this book called Hi Mind, where he talks about how the smarter people are more likely to cooperate in prisoners dilemma type situations. They have longer time preference. And one of the things you've written about is the problem in corporate America is people having shorter, [00:24:00] um, uh, you know, doing two too big time discounting.So, uh, given that trend we see in general of greater Cooperativeness, um, and other kinds of traits of more intelligent people, do you think the reason we often find people like S B F and skilling running big frauds just by being very intelligent, is it just that on, on average smarter people, maybe less likely to commit fraud, but when they do commit fraud, they do it at such garat scales and they're able to do it at such gar scales that it just brings down entire empires?How, how, how do you think about the relationship between intelligence and fraud? . Bethany McLean: That's interesting. Um, I'm not sure I know a coherent answer to that. Um, smartest guys in the room as a title was a little bit tongue in cheek. It wasn't meant to say, these guys actually are the smartest guys in the room. It was, it, it was a little bit, it was a little bit ironic, but that doesn't take away from the really good question that you asked, which is what, what, what is that relationship?I, I mean, I think if you look at the history of corporate fraud, you are not going to find unintelligent people having [00:25:00] been the masterminds behind this. You're gonna find really, really, really smart, even brilliant people having, having, having been, been behind it, maybe some at part of that is this linkage between the visionary and the fraud star that so many of these, of these corporate frauds are people who have qualities of the visionary and to.The qualities of, of a visionary, you have to have a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty high intelligence. Um, and I do think so many of these stories are, are about then self delusion. So I don't think smart people are any less likely to suffer from self delusion than dumb people. And they're probably more likely to, because you can rationalize, you know, the smart person's ability to rationalize just about anything they wanna rational rationalize is pretty profound.Whereas perhaps someone who doesn't have quite the same, the same brain power isn't gonna be able to create a narrative under which their actions are blameless and they're doing the right thing. So I think sometimes, so maybe there is some sort of relationship [00:26:00] there that somebody more qualified than I am would have to study between smart people's ability to, to, to rationalize just about anything as a way of, as part of the path to self delusion and part of the path by which these things happen.Yeah, that's completely, that's completely , that's Bethany theory. There's absolutely nothing to back that . I'm just Dwarkesh Patel: well clear. Let's do some more speculation. So, um, one of the things, uh, John Ray talked about in his testimony, um, was it two days ago where he said that, you know, FTX had done $5 billion of investments and deals in the last year, and most of those investments were worth a fraction of the value that FTX paid for them.And we see this also in, obviously in Enron, right? With, uh, broadband and with, um, ul, or is that how pronounce it, but basically their international department. Yeah. Um, what is this, uh, this obsession with deal making for its own sake? Is that to appease investors and make them think a lot's going on, is that because of [00:27:00] the hubris of the founder, of just wanting to set up a big empire as fast as possible, even if you're getting a bad sticker price?What, why do we see this pattern of just, you know, excessive deal making for its own sake? Bethany McLean: That's an interesting question too. I'm not sure that that's, um, limited to companies that go splat dramatically. There's a lot of, a lot of deal making in, in corporate America has that same frenzied quality. Um, I haven't seen an updated study on, on this in a, in a long time, but, you know, I began my career working as an analyst in an m and a department at at at Goldman Sachs.And. Definitely deals are done for the sake of doing deals. And I once joked that synergies are kind of like UFOs. A lot of people claim to have seen them, but there's no proof that they actually exist. , and again, I haven't seen an updated study on, on, on this, but there was one years back that showed that most m and a transactions don't result in increased value for shareholders.And most synergies, most promised synergies never materialize. [00:28:00] Just getting bigger for the sake of getting bigger and doing deals for the short term value of showing Wall Street a projection. That earnings are gonna be so much higher even after the cost of the debt that you've taken on. And that they're these great synergies that are gonna come about from, from combining businesses.So I don't know that either the frenzy deal doing or deal doing deals gone wrong is, um, solely limited to people who are committing fraud. , I think it's kinda across the spectrum. , . Dwarkesh Patel: Um, um, well one, one thing I find interesting about your books is how you detail that. And correct me if this is the wrong way to read them, but that, uh, incentives are not the only thing that matter.You know, there there's this perception that, you know, we've set up bad incentives for these actors and that's why they did bad things. But also, um, the power of one individual to shape a co co company's culture and the power of that culture to enable bad behavior, whether scaling at Enron or with Clarkson Right at Moody's.Yeah. Um, is that a good, good way of reading your books or how, how do you think [00:29:00] about the relative importance of culture and incentive? Bethany McLean: I think that's really fair. But incentives are part of culture, right? If, if you've set up a culture where, where how you're valued is what you get paid, I think it's a little, it's a little difficult to separate those two things out because, because the, the incentives do help make the culture, but for sure culture is incredibly, um, incredibly compelling.I've often thought and said that if I had, when I was leaving my short lived career in investment banking, if I had, if I had gotten in some of the head hunters I was talking to, if one of them had said, there's this great, really energetic, interesting energy company down in Houston, , why don't interview there?If I had gone there, would I have been a whistleblower or would I have been a believer? And I'd like to believe I would've been a whistleblower, but I think it's equally likely that I would've been a believer. Culture is so strong. It creates this. What's maybe a miasma that you can't see outside?I remember a guy I talked to who's a trader at Enron, really smart guy, and he [00:30:00] was like, after the, after the bankruptcy, he said, of course, if we're all getting paid based on creating reported earnings and there's all this cash going out the door in order to do these deals that are creating reported earnings, and that's the culture of the entire firm, of course it's not gonna work economically.He said, I never thought about it. . It just didn't, it didn't, it didn't occur to me. And I think the more compelling the CEO o the more likely you are to have that kind of mass delusion. I mean, there's a reason cult exist, right? . We, we are as human beings, remarkably susceptible to.Visionary leaders. It's just, it's the way the human brain is wired. We, we wanna believe, and especially if somebody has the ability to put a vision forward, like Jeff Gilling did at Enron, like Elizabeth Holmes did it Theranos like SPF F did, where you feel like you are in the service of something greater by helping this, vision, , actualize then, then you're, particularly susceptible.And I think that is the place where [00:31:00] incentives don't quite explain things. That is, there is this very human desire to matter, to do something important. Mm-hmm to be doing something that's gonna change the world. And when somebody can tap into that desire in people that feeling that what you're doing isn't just work in a paycheck and the incentives you have, but I mean, I guess it is part of the incentive, but that you're part of some greater good.That's incredibly powerful. Yeah. Dwarkesh Patel: It's what we all speaking of. We all wanna matter. . Yeah. Speaking of peoples psychology, uh, crime and punishment, underrated or overrated as a way to analyze the psychology of people like scaling and S B F or maybe SBF specifically because of the utilitarian nature of SB F'S crime?Um, Bethany McLean: I think it's, I think it's underrated, overrated. I'm not sure anybody. , I'm not sure anybody has ever proven that jail sentences for white collar criminals do anything to deter subsequent white collar crime. Mm-hmm. , and I think one part of this is the self delusion that I've, that I talked about. Nobody thinks, [00:32:00] oh, I'm doing the same thing as Jeff Skilling did at Enron, and if I, and if I do this, then I too might end up in jail.Therefore, I don't wanna do this. I just don't think that's the way the, the, the, the, the thought process works. I think Elizabeth Holmes at Theranos, probably for the most part, convinced herself that this was going to work, and that if you just push forward and push hard enough and keep telling people what they wanna hear and keep being able to raise money, it's gonna work.You know, if. . If, if you pause to think, well, what if it doesn't work and I've lied and I go to jail, then, then you'd stop right, right then and there. So I think that, I think that, that I'm, I'm not, I'm not sure it's much of a deterrent. I remember, and partly I'm, I'm biased because I remember a piece, my co-author Peter Alkin, and I wrote out right after Jess Gilling and Kenley were, were convicted and can lay, we're we're convicted.And we wrote a piece for Fortune in which we said that the entire world has changed. Now that corporate executives are, um, are, are put on high alert that behavior in the gray area will no longer be tolerated and that it will be aggressively prosecuted. And this was spring of [00:33:00] 2006 and the events that caused the global financial crisis were pretty well underway.It didn't. Do much to prevent the global financial crisis. Mm-hmm. , Enron's, Enron's jail time, didn't do anything to present, prevent, Elizabeth Holmes doesn't seem to have done anything to change what Sbf was doing. So I just, I, I just, I'm, I'm, I'm not sure, I'm sure a psychologist or somebody who specializes in studying white color crime could probably make a argument that refutes everything I said and that shows that has had a deterring effect.But I just, I just don't think that people who get themselves into this situation, con, con, consciously think, this is what I'm doing. Dwarkesh Patel: Yeah. Yeah. Um, speaking of other incentives, stock options, uh, you've spoken about how that creates short-term incentives for the executives who are making decisions. If you wanted to set up an instrument that aligned an executive or a leader's compensation with the long-term performance of a company, what would that look like?W would you have the options of less than 10 years instead of a [00:34:00] year? H how would you design it? How do you usually design a compensation scheme to award long-term thinking? Bethany McLean: If I could do that, I should ru rule the world . I think that very sweet. I think that is one of the really tough, um, problems confronting boards or anybody who is determining anybody who's determining stock options and that almost anybody who's determining compensation and that most compensation schemes seem to have really terrible unintended consequences.They look really good on paper. And then as they're implemented, it turns out that there was a way in which they accomplished exactly the opposite of, uh, thing the people who designing them wanted, wanted them to accomplish. I mean, if you think back to the advent of stock options, what could sound better?Right. Giving management a share of the company such that if, if, if shareholders did well, that they'd do well, nobody envisioned the ways in which stock options could be repriced. The ways in which meeting earnings targets could lead to gaming the ways in which the incentive of stock-based [00:35:00] compensation could lead to people trying to get anything they could in order to get the stock price higher and cash out when they're, as soon as their stock options vested.So, and even there was, there was, the whole valiant saga was fascinating on this front because the people who designed Mike Pearson's compensation package as ceo e o Valiant, they were convinced that this was absolutely the way to do it. And he got bigger and bigger, um, stock option incentives for hitting certain, for having the stock achieve certain levels.But of course, that creates this incredible bias to just get the stock to go up no matter, no matter what else you do. Um, it does seem to me that vesting over the long term is. is, is a much better way to go about things. But then do you create incentives for people to play games in order to get the stock lower at, at various points where there's about to be a stock optional board so they have a better chance of having directions be, be worth, be worth something over the long term.And do you, particularly on Wall Street there is this, or in firms where this sort of stuff matters the most? There [00:36:00] is this, there was this clearing out of dead wood that happened where people got paid and they got outta the way and made way for younger people. And I don't know, it was a harsh culture, but maybe it made sense on some level.And now at least I've been told with much longer vesting periods, you have people who don't wanna let go. And so you have more of a problem with people who should have retired, stick sticking around instead of in, in, instead of clearing out. And then it also becomes a question, How much money is, is enough.So if somebody is getting millions of dollars in short-term compensation and then they have a whole bunch more money tied up in long-term compensation, do the long-term numbers matter? At what point do they, do they, do they really matter? I mean, if you gave me $5 million today, I'm not so sure I'd really care if I were getting another $5 million in 10 years.Right. ? Yeah. So, so I think all of that is, is it, it's, I'm not, I'm not sure there's a perfect compensation system. All things considered though, I think longer term is, is probably better, [00:37:00] but. Dwarkesh Patel: Yeah, I didn't think about that downside of the long investing period. That's so interesting there. I guess there is no free lunch.Uh, so with Enron, um, it, it was clear that there was a lot of talent at the firm and that you had these companies and these trading firms launch at the aftermath by people who left Enron, kinder Morgan and John Arnold's, um, uh, Sintas, uh, that were wildly profitable and did well. Do you think we'll see the same thing with FTX, that while Sbf himself and maybe the, his close cadre were frauds, there actually was a lot of great trading and engineering talent there that are gonna start these very successful firms in the aftermath.Bethany McLean: That's, that's interesting. And just, just for the sake of clarification, kinder Morgan was actually started years before Enron's collapsed, when Rich Kinder, who was vying with Jeffs skilling in a sense, to become Chief Operating Officer. Um, Ken Lay, picked Jeffs skilling and Kinder left. Mm-hmm. and took a few assets and went to create Kinder, kinder Morgan.But your overall point, I'm just clarifying your overall point holds, there were a lot of people who [00:38:00] left Enron and went on to do, to have pretty, pretty remarkable careers. I think the answer with ftx, I bet there will be some for sure. But whether they will be in the crypto space, I guess depends on your views on the long-term viability of, of, of the crypto space.And I have never , it's funny is crypto exploded over the last couple of years. I was, I've been working on this book about the pandemic and it's been busy and difficult enough that I have not lifted my head to, to think about much else. And I always thought, I don't get it. I don't understand , I mean, I understand the whole argument about the blockchain being valuable for lots of transactions and I, I get that, but I never understood crypto itself and I thought, well, I just need to, as soon as this book is done, I just need to put a month into understanding this because it's obviously an important, important enough part of our world that I need to figure it out.So now I think, oh, Okay, maybe I didn't understand it for a reason and maybe, um, maybe there isn't anything to understand and I've just saved myself a whole life of crime because it's all gone. And you have [00:39:00] people like Larry Fink at BlackRock saying, whole industry is gonna implode. It's done. And certainly with the news today, this morning of finances auditor basically saying We're out.Um, I, I don't, I don't know how much of it was, how much of it was, is, was a Ponzi scheme. You might know better than I do. And so I don't know what's left after this whole thing implodes. It's a little bit like, there is an analogy here that when Enron imploded, yes, a lot of people went on to start other successful businesses, but the whole energy trading business is practiced by kind of under capitalized, um, um, energy firms went away and that never came back.Yeah. And so I, I, I don't, I don't know, I'm, it'll be, I, I don't know. What do you. The Dwarkesh Patel: time to be worried will be when Bethany McLean writes an article titled Is Bitcoin Overvalued for the Audience. My Moments on That ? Yeah, for the audience that, that was, I believe the first skeptical article about Enron's, um, stock price.Yeah. Uh, and it was titled [00:40:00] Is Enron Overvalued. In aftermath understated, , title. But , Bethany McLean: , I joked that that story should have won, won, won awards for the NICU title and business journalism history. , given that the company was bankrupt six months later was overpricedDwarkesh Patel: Um, uh, well, let me ask a bigger question about finance in general. So finance is 9% of gdp, I believe. How much of that is the productive use and thinking and allocation of the, uh, the capital towards their most productive ends? And how much of that is just zero sum or negative sum games? Um, if, if you had to break that down, like, is 9% too high, do you think, or is it just.I think it's Bethany McLean: too high. I have no idea how to think about breaking it down to what the proper level should be. But I think there are other ways to think about how you can see that in past decades it hasn't been at the right level when you've had all sorts of smart kids. Um, Leaving, leaving business school and leaving college and heading into [00:41:00] finance and hedge funds and private equity is their career of choice.I think that's a sign that that finance is too big when it's sucking up too much of, of, of the talent of the country. Um, and when the rewards for doing it are so disproportionate relative to the rewards of of, of doing other things. Um, the counter to that is that there've also been a lot of rewards for starting businesses.And that's probably, I think, how you want it to be in a, in a product. In a productive economy. So I think the number is, is too high. I don't know how to think about what it should be other than what a, actually, a former Goldman Sachs partner said this to me when I was working on all the devils are here, and she said that finance is supposed to be like the, the substrata of our world.It's supposed to be the thing that enables other things to happen. It's not supposed to be the world itself. So the, the role of a financial system is to enable businesses to get started, to provide capital. That's what it's supposed to be. It's the lubricant that enables business, but it's not supposed to be the thing itself.Right. And it's become the thing itself. [00:42:00] You've, you've, you've, you've, you've got a problem. Um, um, and I think the other, Dwarkesh Patel: there's your article about crypto , that paragraph right there. . Bethany McLean: There you go. That's, that's a good, um, and I think, I think the other way, you, you, you can see, and perhaps this is way too simplistic, but the other way I've thought about it is that how can it be if you can run a hedge fund and make billions of dollars from, and have five people, 10 people, whatever it is, versus starting a company that employs people mm-hmm.and changes a neighborhood and provides jobs and, you know, provides a product that, that, that, that, that improves people's lives. It, it is a shame that too much of the talent and such a huge share of the financial rewards are going to the former rather than the latter. And that just can't mean good things for the future.Dwarkesh Patel: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, when people criticize technology, for example, for the idea that, you know, these people who would've been, I don't know, otherwise teachers or something, they're, you know, making half a million dollars at Google. [00:43:00] Um, and I think like when I was in India, people were using Google Maps to get through the streets in Mumbai, which is, which is unimaginable to me before going there that, you know, you would be able to do that with, um, a service built out of Silicon Valley.And so, Yeah, I think that actually is a good allocation of capital and talent. I, I'm not, I'm not sure about finance. Um, yeah, Bethany McLean: I think I, I, I agree with you. I think there are other problems with Google and with the, the social media giants, but, but they are real businesses that employ people, that make products that have had, uh, huge.Um, impact on on, on people's, on people's lives. So in, in that sense, it's very different than a private equity firm, for instance, and especially private equity, even more so than hedge funds draws my ire. Mm-hmm. , because I think one of the reasons they, that it, they've been able to make part of the financialization of our economy has been due to super, super low interest rates and low interest rates that have enabled so many people to make so much money in finance are not, they're just a gift.It wasn't because these people were uniquely smart, they just [00:44:00] found themselves in a great moment in time. And the fact that they now think they're really smart because money makes me crazy. Dwarkesh Patel: Um, are Fanny and Freddy America special purpose entities? Are they our Alameda? It's just the way we hide our debt and uh, that's interesting.Yeah. Bethany McLean: Well, I guess we, you know what? I don't know anymore because, so I last wrote about them when was it in 2016 and I don't know now. No, you're right. Their, their debt is still off, off, off balance sheet. So Yeah, in a lot of ways they, they were. . I would argue though that the old Fanny and Freddy were structured more honestly than, than the new Fanny and Freddy, that it really is conservatorship that have made them, um, that have made them America's off balance sheet entities, because at least when they were their own independent entities.Yes, there was this odd thing known as the implicit guarantee, which is when you think about, back to your point about efficient markets, how can you possibly believe there's an as such a thing as an efficient market when their [00:45:00] Fanny and Freddy had an implicit guarantee, meaning it wasn't real. There was no place where it was written down that the US government would bail Fanny and Freddie out in a crisis, and everybody denied that it existed and yet it did exist.Yeah. Dwarkesh Patel: No, but we, I feel like that confirms the official market hypothesis, right? The, the market correctly, they thought that mortgages backed by Fannie and Freddy would have governments. Uh, okay, okay. You might be father Bethany McLean: and they did . You might be right. I, I, I think what I was getting at you, you might be right.I think what I was getting at is that it is such a screwed up concept. I mean, how can you possibly, when I first, when people were first explaining this to me, when I first read about Fanny and Freddie, I was like, no, no, wait. This is American capitalism . This is, no, wait. What? I don't, I don't understand . Um, um, so yeah, but I, I, I, I think that Fanny and Freddie, at least with shareholders that were forced to bear some level of, of the risks were actually a more honest way of going about this whole screwed up American way of financing mortgages than, than the current setup is.Dwarkesh Patel: What [00:46:00] is the future of these firms? Or are they just gonna say in conservatorship forever? Or is there any developments there? Well, what's gonna happen to them? Bethany McLean: The lawsuit, the latest lawsuit that could have answered that in some ways ended in a mistrial. Um, I don't think, I don't, I don't think unfortunately anybody in government sees any currency in, and I mean, currency in the broad sense, not in the literal sense of money in, in taking this on.And unfortunately, what someone once said to me about it, I think remains true and it's really depressing, but is that various lawmakers get interested in Fannie and Freddy. They engage with it only to figure out it's really, really goddamn complicated. Mm-hmm. and that, and that any kind of solution is gonna involve angering people on one side of the aisle or another and potentially angering their constituent constituents.And they slowly back away, um, from doing anything that could, that, that could affect change. So I think we have a really unhealthy situation. I don't think it's great for these two [00:47:00] entities to be in conservatorship, but at this point, I'm not sure it's gonna change. Dwarkesh Patel: Yep. Speaking of debt and mortgages, um, so total household debt in the United States has been, uh, climbing recently after it's, it's like slightly d decline after 2008, but I think in quarter three alone it increased 350 billion and now it's at 16.5 trillion.Uh, the total US household debt, should we worried about this? Are, are, are we gonna see another sort of collapse because of this? Or what, what should we think about this? Bethany McLean: I don't know. I don't know how to think about that because it's too tied up in other things that no one knows. Are we going to have a recession?How severe is the recession going to be? What is the max unemployment rate that we're gonna hit if we do, if we do have a recession? And all of those things dictate how to, how to think about that number. I. Think consumer debt is embedded in the bowels of the financial system in the same way mortgages were.And in the end, the, the, the [00:48:00] problem with the financial crisis of 2008, it wasn't the losses on the mortgages themselves. It was the way in which they were embedded in the plumbing of the financial system. Mm-hmm. and ways that nobody understood. And then the resulting loss of confidence from the fact that nobody had understood that slash lies had been told about, about that.And that's what caused, that's what caused everything to, to collapse. Consumer debt is a little more visible and seeable and I, I don't think that it has that same, um, that same opaque quality to it that, that mortgage backed securities did. I could be, I could be wrong. I haven't, I haven't, I haven't dug into it enough, enough to understand enough to understand that.But you can see the delinquencies starting to climb. Um, I mean, I guess you could on, on, on mortgages as well, but there was this, there was this profound belief with mortgages that since home prices would never decline, there would never be losses on these instruments because you could always sell the underlying property for more than you had [00:49:00] paid for it, and therefore everything would be fine.And that's what led to a lot of the bad practices in the industry is that lenders didn't think they had to care if they were screwing the home buyer because they always thought they could take the home back and, and, and, and, and make more money on it. And consumer debt is, is unsecured. And so it's, it's, it's different.I think people think about it differently, but I'd have. I'd have to, I'd have to do some more homework to understand where consumer debt sits in the overall architecture of the financial industry. Dwarkesh Patel: I, I, I'm really glad you brought up this theme about what does the overall big picture look like? I feel like this is the theme of all your books that people will be, So obsessed with their subsection of their job or, or that ar area that they won't notice that, um, broader trends like the ones you're talking about.And in Enron it's like, why, why, why do we have all these special purpose entities? What is the total debt load of Enron? Um, or with the, you know, mortgage back securities a similar kind of thing, right? What, what, uh, maybe they weren't correlated in the past, [00:50:00] but what's that? Do we really think that there's really no correlation, um, uh, between, uh, delinquencies across the country?Um, so that, that kind of big picture, think. Whose job is that today? Is it journalists? Is it short sellers? Is it people writing on ck? Who's doing that? Is it anybody's job? Is, is it just like, uh, an important role with nobody assigned to it? Bethany McLean: I think it's the latter. I think it's an important role with nobody, with nobody assigned to it, and there there is a limit.I mean, , I hate to say this, it is not, uh, um, it is not an accident that many of my books have been written. That's probably not fair. It's not true of my book un fracking, but that some of my books have been written after the calamity happened. So they weren't so much foretelling the calamity as they were unpacking the calamity after it happened, which is a different role.And as I said at the start of our conversation, I think an important one to explain to people why this big, bad thing took, took place. But it's not prediction, I don't know, as people that were very good at, at prediction, um, they tried [00:51:00] to set up, what was it called? In the wake of the global financial crisis, they established this thing called fsoc, and now I'm forgetting what the acronym stands for.Financial Security Oversight Committee. And it's supposed to be this, this body that does think about these big picture. That thinks about the ways, the ways an exam, for example, in which mortgage backed securities were, um, were, were, were, were, were, were, were repopulating through the entire financial system and ways that would be cause a loss to be much more than a loss.That it wouldn't just be the loss of money and that security, it would echo and magnify. And so that there are people who are supposed to be thinking about it. But I think, I think it's, it's, it's really hard to see that and. In increasingly complex world, it's even, it's even harder than it was before, because the reverberations from things are really hard to map out in, in, in advance, and especially when some part of those reverberations are a loss of confidence, then all bets [00:52:00] are off because when confidence cracks, lots of things fall apart.But how do you possibly analyze in any quantitative way the the risk that that confidence will collapse? Mm-hmm. . So I think it's, I think, I think, I think it's difficult. That said, and of course I am talking my own book here, I don't think that the lack of the, the increased financial problems of journalism really help matters in that respect, because in an ideal world, you want a lot of people out there writing and thinking about various pieces of this, and then maybe somebody can come along and see the.Pieces and say, oh my God, there's this big picture thing here that we all need to be thinking about. But there's, there's a kind of serendipity in the ability to do that one, that one that the chances, I guess the best way to say that is the chances of that serendipity are dramatically increased by having a lot of people out there doing homework, um, on the various pieces of the puzzle.And so I think in a world, particularly where local news has been decimated mm-hmm. , um, the [00:53:00] chances of that sort of serendipity are, are definitely lower. And people may think, oh, it doesn't matter. We still got national news. We've got the Washington Post, we've got the Wall Street Journal, we've got the New York Times.Um, I would love to have somebody do a piece of analysis and go back through the New York Times stories and see how many were sparked by lp, a piece in the local paper that maybe you wouldn't even notice from reading the New York Times piece, because it'd be in like the sixth paragraph that, oh yeah, credit should go to this person at this local paper who started writing about this.But if you no longer have the person at the local paper who started writing about this, You know, it's, it's, it's, it's less likely that the big national piece gets written. And I think that's a part of the implosion of local news, that people, a part of the cost of the implosion of local news that people don't really understand the idea that the national press functions at, at the same level, um, without local news is just not true.Dwarkesh Patel: Yeah. And, but even if you have the local news, and I, that's a really important point, but even if you have that local news, there still has to be somebody whose job it is to synthesize it all together. And [00:54:00] I'm curious, what is the training that requires? So you, I mean, your training is, you know, math and English major and then working at working in investment banking.Um, is that the, uh, I mean, obviously the anecdotal experience then equals one, seems that that's great training for synthesizing all these pieces together. But what is the right sort of education for somebody who is thinking about the big picture? Bethany McLean: I, I don't, I don't know.And there may be, there may be, there are probably multiple answers to that question, right? There's probably no one, one right answer for me. In, in the end. My, my math major has proven to be pivotal. Even though , my mother dug up these, um, my, my parents were moving and so my mother was going through all her stuff and she dug up these, some my math work from, from college.Literally, if it weren't for the fact that I recognized my own handwriting, I would not recognize these pages on pages of math formula and proofs. And they're like, get gibberish to me now. So , but I, but I still think that math has, so I do not wanna exaggerate my mathematical ability at this stage of [00:55:00] the game.It's basically no. But I do think that doing math proofs any kind of formal, any kind of training and logic is really, really important because the more you've been formally trained in logic, the more you realize when there are piece is missing and when something isn't quite, isn't quite adding on, it just forces you to think in, in a way that is, that in a way that connects the dots.Um, because you know, if you're moving from A to B and B doesn't follow a, you, you understand that B doesn't follow a And I think that that, that, that kind of training is, is really, really important. It's what's given. , whatever kind of backbone I have as a journalist is not because I like to create controversy and like to make people mad.I actually don't. It's just because something doesn't make sense to me. And so maybe it doesn't make sense to me because I'm not getting it, or it doesn't make sense to me because B doesn't actually follow, follow away, and you're just being told that it does. And so I think that, I think that training is, is really, really important.Um, I also have, have often thought [00:56:00] that another part of training is realizing that basic rule that you learned in kindergarten, which is, um, you know, believe your imagination or you know, your imagine follow your imagination. Because the truth is anything can happen. And I think if you look at business history over the last couple of decades, it will be the improbable becoming probable.Truth over and over and over again. I mean, the idea that Enron could implode one of the biggest, supposedly most successful companies in corporate America could be bankrupt within six months. The, from its year, from its stock price high. The idea that the biggest, most successful, um, financial institutions on wall, on Wall Street could all be crumbling into bankruptcy without the aid of the US government.The idea that a young woman with no college degree and no real experience in engineering could create, uh, uh, um, could create a machine that was going to revolutionize blood testing and land on the cover of every business magazine, and that this [00:57:00] whole thing could turn out to be pretty much a fraud. The entire idea of ftx, I mean, over and over again, these things have happened.Forget Bernie Madoff if you had told people a year ago that FTX was gonna implode six months ago, three months ago, people would've been like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And so I think just that, that, that, that knowledge that the improbable happens over and over again is also a really fundamental, fundamentally important.Dwarkesh Patel: If we're con continuing on the theme of ftx, I, I interviewed him about four or five months ago.Wow. And this is one of these interviews that I'm really, I'm, I don't know if embarrass is the right word, but I knew things then that I could have like asked, poked harder about. But it's also the kind of thing where you look back in retrospect and you're. If it had turned out well, it's, it's not obvious what the red flags are.Um, while you're in the moment, there's things you can look back at the story of Facebook and how, you know, Marcus Zuckerberg acted in the early days of Facebook and you could say, if the thing fell apart, that this is why, or, you know, this is a red flag. So [00:58:00] I have a hard time thinking about how I should have done that interview.B
With the latest macro-economic cycle coming to an end, let's look at what's next on the horizon and how to spot companies that are over-value with the help of the legend himself: Jim Chanos Join the gang! https://plus.acast.com/s/the-david-mcwilliams-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Earlier this year we talked to the legendary short seller Jim Chanos, during which he warned of more pain ahead for speculative areas of tech. That call proved to be prescient by a number of measures. So where are things now? We spoke to Chanos again at the recent Berkeley Forum on Corporate Governance in San Francisco. We discussed frauds, crypto, and the pro-cyclical effects of stock-based compensation. Note: This episode was recorded on November 9th, 2022. We're publishing our usual Thursday episode one day early due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the US.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
I had the opportunity to interview the legendary short seller Jim Chanos. Jim is the founder and president of Kynikos Associates and is very well known for shorting Enron, Wirecard, Luckin Coffee among others. In this conversation we touch up on some of the major issues today - the FTX collapse and what it means for the crypto world, the Uber and Lyft story and why they, among other "gig economy" companies, remain unprofitable. We also talk about the fate of the various Cathie Wood names, and much more in this wide-ranging conversation!
Stocks rally as the UK government intervenes. Scott Wapner and the investment committee live at Delivering Alpha to debate if stocks are anywhere close to bottoming. Plus, Apple sinking on reports it plans to drop production increases for its iPhone. What this could mean for the markets and tech. Plus, famed short-seller Jim Chanos joins us live to discuss his current position on the market and where he sees it going in the next few months.
Scott Wapner and the Investment Committee discuss the uncertain road for the market and whether the summer sizzle for stocks is ending. Plus, legendary short seller Jim Chanos joins us to respond to Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on retail fees and the fate of the company. And later, Palo Alto Networks surges on an earnings beat, the Committee take their positions on the name.
Friday afternoon into the close, Guy, Dan, and Danny were joined by Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates and Deirdre Bosa of CNBC for a LIVE conversation about the markets, Fed, Tech earnings, and what to expect in the coming weeks. Follow On The Tape Follow Trading Spaces
On The Cloud Pod this week, the team discusses shorting Jim Chanos amid the great cloud giant vs. colo standoff. Plus: Google prepares for a post-quantum world, Amazon EC2 M1 Mac instances are now generally available, and master of marketing Oracle introduces sovereign cloud regions for the European Union. A big thanks to this week's sponsor, Foghorn Consulting, which provides full-stack cloud solutions with a focus on strategy, planning and execution for enterprises seeking to take advantage of the transformative capabilities of AWS, Google Cloud and Azure. This week's highlights
Legendary short seller Jim Chanos says that despite the plunge in stocks, there are numerous swathes of the equity market with plenty of downside risk. On this episode, the Chanos & Co. fund manager, argues that the market overall has simply not internalized what sustained higher rates will mean to business models and valuations across a variety of sectors, including real estate, utilities and consumer packaged goods. He walks through the various excesses that we've seen over the last several years, and why investors are all paying the price for them now. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jim Chanos - Bitcoin, wise investment or fraud. by John Catsimatidis
*This originally aired live on Hedgeye.com as part of our eighth semi-annual Investing Summit on April 12, 2022*This is an exclusive "Hedgeye Investing Summit" interview between Jim Chanos, Founder of Kynikos Associates, and Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough.To watch other "Hedgeye Investing Summit" interviews, click here.Watch Real Conversations LIVE and get other great video investing content here
Guy, Dan, and Danny speak with famed short seller Jim Chanos about why he thinks this market is eerily similar to 2000 and 2001 (1:48), whether a rate shock and bear market is just around the corner (5:35), when investors will know when to get out of Tesla (18:50), successfully shorting Carvana (25:20), and how China's economic problems aren't getting enough attention (38:30). Later, Guy and Dan speak with iConnections CEO Ron Biscardi on the post-pandemic future of meetings & events in the investment industry (45:38) digital assets' rapidly growing role in the world of alternative investments (58:30), and iConnections's philanthropic efforts to help Ukranians (1:10:43). ---- See what adding futures can do for you at cmegroup.com/onthetape. ---- Shoot us an email at OnTheTape@riskreversal.com with any feedback, suggestions, or questions for us to answer on the pod and follow us @OnTheTapePod. We're on social: Follow Dan Nathan @RiskReversal on Twitter Follow @GuyAdami on Twitter Follow Danny Moses @DMoses34 on Twitter Follow us on Instagram @RiskReversalMedia Subscribe to our YouTube page
Scott Wapner and the Investment Committee debate the hottest question in the market right now, are we experiencing a bear market bounce or is this a reliable rally? Brian Belski of BMO joins us to explain why he thinks last week's market moves demonstrates why you cannot be bearish. Plus, we dive into Coinbase after legendary short seller Jim Chanos said the name is in a bubble. And later Jon Najarian shares some Unusual Activity in 2 names.
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