The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► I feel like we're getting institutionalized, you know?

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, I mean, it does feel like that, right?

00:00:05 ◼   ► I mean, like you're kind of locked up,

00:00:07 ◼   ► but don't have to get up early anymore, so that's good.

00:00:12 ◼   ► And basically the entire family appreciates that.

00:00:16 ◼   ► Even the dogs have gotten into that routine now.

00:00:18 ◼   ► The big dog, he won't get, I mean,

00:00:20 ◼   ► he doesn't get up before nine.

00:00:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:24 ◼   ► - That's pretty good for a dog, really.

00:00:27 ◼   ► That's pretty good. - Well, he's old now.

00:00:28 ◼   ► I mean, both of them are old.

00:00:30 ◼   ► They're both 12.

00:00:31 ◼   ► But yeah, he does not see the need to be up and around.

00:00:34 ◼   ► He basically gets up when he has to go,

00:00:36 ◼   ► like when he has to go to the bathroom,

00:00:37 ◼   ► he gets up and he's like in a big hurry too.

00:00:40 ◼   ► He's a typical old man.

00:00:43 ◼   ► He's just like, "Oh, I gotta go to the bathroom

00:00:46 ◼   ► and I gotta go right now."

00:00:48 ◼   ► - I do think that is part of why dogs are so great,

00:00:51 ◼   ► is they are very much like people in that way,

00:00:54 ◼   ► in that they age in similar ways.

00:00:58 ◼   ► I don't need that, right?

00:01:00 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:03 ◼   ► There's just a whole bunch of stuff in life

00:01:04 ◼   ► that as you get older as a person,

00:01:06 ◼   ► you're like, "Ah, I don't need that.

00:01:09 ◼   ► I don't need to put up with that."

00:01:10 ◼   ► That's why old people, the older you get,

00:01:12 ◼   ► the more curt you are with bad service.

00:01:14 ◼   ► - And he makes a lot of noises

00:01:17 ◼   ► like getting up and getting down, like I do.

00:01:20 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:22 ◼   ► It's just, "Oh, oh, my hip, ah."

00:01:26 ◼   ► - I remember with my childhood dog who lived,

00:01:28 ◼   ► I believe he died when I was in college.

00:01:30 ◼   ► He lived a long time, Chester.

00:01:32 ◼   ► And he was, I mean, vicious to the mailman.

00:01:36 ◼   ► I mean, I know all dogs hate the mailman,

00:01:39 ◼   ► but I mean, he was nuts.

00:01:42 ◼   ► And there were times when he'd get real old

00:01:43 ◼   ► and I'd come home from college

00:01:44 ◼   ► and there'd be times where he'd be sleeping

00:01:46 ◼   ► and the mail would come and he'd get up,

00:01:48 ◼   ► he'd perk his head and you could see the anger.

00:01:50 ◼   ► 'Cause he was like, they don't call him rescue dogs anymore,

00:01:55 ◼   ► but we got him from somebody in a trailer park.

00:01:57 ◼   ► It's, he wasn't, he was like a total mixed breed poodle,

00:02:02 ◼   ► peek-a-poo thing, had a bad underbite.

00:02:06 ◼   ► And when he'd get angry, the underbite would get worse

00:02:09 ◼   ► 'cause he'd grit his teeth, he'd get up and grit,

00:02:12 ◼   ► and he'd ask for it.

00:02:13 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:02:15 ◼   ► - That seems like a lot of trouble.

00:02:17 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:02:19 ◼   ► You might expend the energy.

00:02:24 ◼   ► - It's sorta like he was saying to the mailman, you know.

00:02:27 ◼   ► - Just reminding him.

00:02:30 ◼   ► - Did you ever hear that?

00:02:32 ◼   ► - Hey Carl, hey Carl, I'm still here.

00:02:34 ◼   ► - Man, we got a lot to talk about.

00:02:38 ◼   ► Can you believe that old Trumpy's out of office?

00:02:40 ◼   ► This is the first post-Trump episode of the talk show.

00:02:43 ◼   ► - Is that right?

00:02:44 ◼   ► - It is. - Wow.

00:02:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess so.

00:02:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, I did one with Montero after a sort of a,

00:02:50 ◼   ► you know, there was like a little insurrection,

00:02:52 ◼   ► a little, (laughing)

00:02:55 ◼   ► - There was an incident.

00:02:56 ◼   ► - There was an incident.

00:02:57 ◼   ► But old Trumpy was still in office, and now he's out,

00:03:00 ◼   ► and man, do I feel better.

00:03:01 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

00:03:04 ◼   ► Another, I mean, yeah, I was talking about sleeping.

00:03:06 ◼   ► I mean, really what I was doing was staying in bed.

00:03:09 ◼   ► I wasn't sleeping much.

00:03:11 ◼   ► - Do you have any idea?

00:03:12 ◼   ► - Now I'm sleeping.

00:03:13 ◼   ► - And it is true, there are so many things

00:03:16 ◼   ► that have gone on in the last year.

00:03:18 ◼   ► I would say over the four years of Trump,

00:03:20 ◼   ► but 2020 in particular will be remembered,

00:03:24 ◼   ► it's the most memorable of the four Trump years for sure.

00:03:27 ◼   ► But it's been an obsession of mine recently,

00:03:32 ◼   ► is the way that we as human beings convince ourselves

00:03:36 ◼   ► that we can intellectualize certain things,

00:03:39 ◼   ► but it's not the same thing as actually experiencing them.

00:03:42 ◼   ► Like, it's like, you know that war is vicious and bad,

00:03:47 ◼   ► and violent, and that it's gruesome and horrible.

00:03:50 ◼   ► But if you see pictures of it, it hits you in a way, right?

00:03:53 ◼   ► And it's like, you know, like when those pictures

00:03:56 ◼   ► of the Abu Ghrail prison in the Iraq situation,

00:04:00 ◼   ► 15 some years ago, came out.

00:04:03 ◼   ► You could hear a description of those photos

00:04:06 ◼   ► and be appalled and outraged,

00:04:07 ◼   ► but because the pictures actually leaked, it was worse.

00:04:11 ◼   ► It shouldn't be, in theory, we should be able to see

00:04:14 ◼   ► be fully outraged through the intellectual aspect of it,

00:04:18 ◼   ► but we're not, you know, we're animals at a certain sense.

00:04:21 ◼   ► We knew that it would be better when we had a president

00:04:27 ◼   ► who we didn't have to check if he tweeted

00:04:29 ◼   ► at something every morning.

00:04:31 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, and that's the thing.

00:04:32 ◼   ► I mean, also just having an empty platform from Twitter,

00:04:35 ◼   ► as you guys talked about, is huge, right?

00:04:39 ◼   ► I mean, because you imagine what he'd be saying

00:04:41 ◼   ► - Right now. - now, and I had him muted.

00:04:45 ◼   ► I mean, I think I had blocked him, you know, from day one,

00:04:49 ◼   ► but you still couldn't get away from it.

00:04:52 ◼   ► People would like screen capture, tweet, retweet.

00:04:55 ◼   ► I mean, they would do, like, there's any number of ways

00:04:57 ◼   ► that other people can force you to see the idiotic things

00:05:02 ◼   ► that the president is saying, and it was exhausting.

00:05:06 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:08 ◼   ► - It was exhausting. (laughing)

00:05:12 ◼   ► - I knew I'd sleep better, but man, do I sleep better.

00:05:15 ◼   ► Like, do you, we're recording on Saturday.

00:05:18 ◼   ► Do you have any idea what Joe Biden is up to right now?

00:05:20 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:22 ◼   ► I have no idea, none.

00:05:24 ◼   ► - I don't, though I do tune into the news conferences now,

00:05:27 ◼   ► the press conferences. - Oh, aren't they great?

00:05:29 ◼   ► - Because it's just such a, you know, it's like,

00:05:31 ◼   ► oh my God, there's competence.

00:05:33 ◼   ► That's the sort, 'cause that's also relaxing.

00:05:37 ◼   ► It's just, it's delightfully boring.

00:05:39 ◼   ► - That is exactly the word, though.

00:05:41 ◼   ► It's competence, right?

00:05:42 ◼   ► And it's like, even if you don't agree

00:05:44 ◼   ► on certain other policies, it's like,

00:05:45 ◼   ► isn't it nice to have competent people

00:05:47 ◼   ► talking about these things and giving answers

00:05:50 ◼   ► that aren't screaming, yelling, confrontational?

00:05:54 ◼   ► It's, you know, sometimes, hurry.

00:05:57 ◼   ► - And there are still things I worry about, of course,

00:05:59 ◼   ► because the GOP is not, it's not really improved.

00:06:02 ◼   ► I mean, they're doubling down on the same stuff

00:06:07 ◼   ► that they've been saying for the last two and a half months.

00:06:10 ◼   ► And I just, I don't see this ending in a good place,

00:06:14 ◼   ► but at least we're not in the same crappy situation

00:06:18 ◼   ► we were in back in the fall.

00:06:20 ◼   ► - All right, and like listening to Fauci talk now,

00:06:23 ◼   ► it's like, man, how did that guy skate through?

00:06:25 ◼   ► It's really remarkable.

00:06:27 ◼   ► I mean, and again, I'm not saying that even Fauci

00:06:31 ◼   ► in particular is without blame and that there were,

00:06:34 ◼   ► you know, certain policies and aspects

00:06:35 ◼   ► like with the masks and stuff early in the pandemic

00:06:38 ◼   ► where he was wrong.

00:06:40 ◼   ► He's not perfect.

00:06:42 ◼   ► Like that, again, it's like one of the things

00:06:44 ◼   ► that's so obvious is the worst thing in our media culture

00:06:49 ◼   ► that you can be is wrong about one thing one time,

00:06:54 ◼   ► really obviously.

00:06:55 ◼   ► Like if you're mostly right and then you make one mistake,

00:06:58 ◼   ► then it's like there's this giant pile on

00:07:01 ◼   ► as opposed to other people who are wrong

00:07:04 ◼   ► every single time they open their mouths.

00:07:06 ◼   ► Like that Larry Kudlow guy, just talk about something.

00:07:10 ◼   ► That guy is wrong about everything, everything.

00:07:13 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:07:15 ◼   ► Right?

00:07:16 ◼   ► It's like, oh, well, you know, the CDC and Fauci

00:07:19 ◼   ► made some pretty bad mistakes in their messaging

00:07:23 ◼   ► on face masks early on in the pandemic.

00:07:25 ◼   ► But it's like, okay, they were wrong.

00:07:28 ◼   ► Mistakes happen, but for the most part they're right.

00:07:31 ◼   ► But Fauci looks, he looks five years younger.

00:07:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:07:35 ◼   ► And you heard that comment he made

00:07:37 ◼   ► in like his first press conference about,

00:07:40 ◼   ► he asked him some question and he said,

00:07:42 ◼   ► I really, I don't know the answer to that.

00:07:43 ◼   ► And then he said something along the lines of like,

00:07:46 ◼   ► one of the differences between the previous administration

00:07:48 ◼   ► and this administration is when we don't know the answer,

00:07:50 ◼   ► we're gonna tell you

00:07:51 ◼   ► and we're not just gonna make something up.

00:07:53 ◼   ► - Right, which is so, that was,

00:07:57 ◼   ► and in particular, and he's like,

00:07:59 ◼   ► we're gonna let science and medicine guide

00:08:01 ◼   ► all of our answers and policies.

00:08:03 ◼   ► And that's a big change.

00:08:04 ◼   ► And it's like, yes.

00:08:06 ◼   ► - Not whatever makes the president look good.

00:08:08 ◼   ► - Right, and it's like, I think we all knew that

00:08:11 ◼   ► what makes the president look good

00:08:13 ◼   ► or just what the president wants to hear

00:08:16 ◼   ► or the way he wants it to be,

00:08:18 ◼   ► and that's what he wants you to say,

00:08:20 ◼   ► versus what we actually think

00:08:22 ◼   ► do the best of our knowledge scientifically and medically

00:08:25 ◼   ► is the difference in messaging.

00:08:27 ◼   ► But that I don't know part,

00:08:31 ◼   ► to me, was not clear while Trump was in office,

00:08:36 ◼   ► but I suspected it.

00:08:37 ◼   ► But that Fauci coming out and saying that I don't know

00:08:40 ◼   ► was an unacceptable answer

00:08:42 ◼   ► during the last administration is so important.

00:08:47 ◼   ► It's like so many people in so many fields

00:08:50 ◼   ► will just bullshit if they don't know,

00:08:52 ◼   ► 'cause they feel like I don't know makes them look bad.

00:08:54 ◼   ► It's better to bullshit than say it.

00:08:55 ◼   ► I don't know is like, once you accept it

00:08:58 ◼   ► and you're like, when you don't know, just say, I don't know.

00:09:01 ◼   ► It's life-changing.

00:09:02 ◼   ► It is like one of my top 10 tricks for life is embrace--

00:09:06 ◼   ► - It's the same thing.

00:09:07 ◼   ► It's the same thing.

00:09:07 ◼   ► I think you've said this before

00:09:09 ◼   ► and other people have as well,

00:09:09 ◼   ► but Trump is a poor person's idea of a rich person.

00:09:14 ◼   ► - Right.

00:09:14 ◼   ► - And he's also like a dumb person's idea of a smart person.

00:09:19 ◼   ► - Right, very true.

00:09:21 ◼   ► 'Cause he's nothing but confident, right?

00:09:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, mm-hmm.

00:09:25 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:09:27 ◼   ► Anyway, I feel good.

00:09:29 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:09:32 ◼   ► I do, I really do.

00:09:33 ◼   ► - I feel better, let's put it that way.

00:09:36 ◼   ► - I do feel, I feel better.

00:09:37 ◼   ► - I feel a lot better.

00:09:38 ◼   ► - My folks have a vaccine appointment for Tuesday.

00:09:43 ◼   ► - Oh, nice.

00:09:44 ◼   ► - Which is a huge relief and what a hassle.

00:09:47 ◼   ► Oh my God, what a mess this whole vaccine thing is.

00:09:49 ◼   ► But yeah, and my dad is 83, my mom is 75.

00:09:53 ◼   ► They should be, you know, it should not be hard

00:09:57 ◼   ► for them to get scheduled for this, but it was a mess.

00:10:01 ◼   ► I mean, and thank God they were diligent about it.

00:10:03 ◼   ► Like, my mom had to work the phone for days

00:10:06 ◼   ► because they'd be like, okay, here's the number to call.

00:10:09 ◼   ► And it, eh, eh, eh, because it's--

00:10:12 ◼   ► - Oh, really?

00:10:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was like overwhelmed.

00:10:14 ◼   ► And they were like, they got an email,

00:10:16 ◼   ► like some parts of the system worked.

00:10:18 ◼   ► Like some part of the healthcare system

00:10:23 ◼   ► that they're in sent them both an email that said,

00:10:25 ◼   ► okay, you're eligible now for a vaccine

00:10:28 ◼   ► and you can go to this website.

00:10:30 ◼   ► And the website crashed, you know, and it was like,

00:10:34 ◼   ► you know, and I'm only talking on the phone.

00:10:36 ◼   ► I can't prove it.

00:10:37 ◼   ► But then like they said, like the next day,

00:10:38 ◼   ► the paper came out and said, oh yeah, the website crashed.

00:10:41 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:10:42 ◼   ► Just terrible.

00:10:43 ◼   ► So I'm relieved about that.

00:10:46 ◼   ► I figure, I feel like--

00:10:47 ◼   ► - I don't think, yeah, my parents haven't had it yet

00:10:49 ◼   ► and they're 87-ish, 86, 87,

00:10:54 ◼   ► and they're in, but they're in Florida.

00:10:58 ◼   ► And I just assume the whole system

00:10:59 ◼   ► is completely screwed up in Florida.

00:11:01 ◼   ► - Well, Florida has a thing where there are people

00:11:04 ◼   ► who are flying in from other parts of the country

00:11:06 ◼   ► to get the vaccine because it's like,

00:11:07 ◼   ► you don't have to be a Florida resident.

00:11:09 ◼   ► This, it's just the exact sort of thing

00:11:13 ◼   ► that has to come top down instead of bottom up.

00:11:18 ◼   ► And the Trump administration--

00:11:20 ◼   ► - Each state having their own system is bananas.

00:11:22 ◼   ► - Well, and then each state delegates it

00:11:24 ◼   ► to like the county levels.

00:11:25 ◼   ► Like that's who my parents are dealing with.

00:11:27 ◼   ► It's a county level issue.

00:11:28 ◼   ► Here in Philly, it's the city and you know,

00:11:31 ◼   ► it's a mess, it's horrible.

00:11:33 ◼   ► You know, we're like a national disgrace

00:11:36 ◼   ► 'cause somehow the city hired, do you see this story?

00:11:40 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes.

00:11:42 ◼   ► I gotta link it from "Daring Firewall."

00:11:43 ◼   ► But even Colbert had a whole segment on it last night

00:11:46 ◼   ► where the city hired some outfit called

00:11:49 ◼   ► Philadelphia COVID Fight and they got like a sort of

00:11:53 ◼   ► a rocky-ish logo and apparently they ran a testing site

00:11:57 ◼   ► earlier in the year that was somewhat successful.

00:12:00 ◼   ► And so they somehow got a contract from the city

00:12:03 ◼   ► to help administer vaccines.

00:12:04 ◼   ► But the, I'm not making this up,

00:12:06 ◼   ► the CEO of the company is a kid from Drexel

00:12:08 ◼   ► who's 22 years old.

00:12:09 ◼   ► They're all college students.

00:12:12 ◼   ► None of them, nobody in the company

00:12:14 ◼   ► has any medical expertise at all.

00:12:16 ◼   ► Nobody's a doctor, they're all like 20.

00:12:19 ◼   ► And they started taking appointments from people,

00:12:21 ◼   ► turning people away at the door.

00:12:23 ◼   ► There were senior citizens who had these appointments.

00:12:25 ◼   ► They're crying out in the street

00:12:26 ◼   ► 'cause they won't be let in.

00:12:28 ◼   ► And then it turned out that all these 19 and 20,

00:12:31 ◼   ► 21-year-old kids were just giving each other the vaccines

00:12:34 ◼   ► and they're not even nurses, doctors.

00:12:37 ◼   ► I mean, you couldn't make this up.

00:12:40 ◼   ► - I did not see that.

00:12:41 ◼   ► - Oh, you can't make it up.

00:12:43 ◼   ► And everybody is like, how did this happen?

00:12:46 ◼   ► Like somebody's head is gonna roll in the city

00:12:48 ◼   ► 'cause people are, I mean, tempers are short.

00:12:51 ◼   ► People are at the end of their freaking ropes.

00:12:56 ◼   ► Bad.

00:13:00 ◼   ► I don't know, I don't expect to get the vaccine

00:13:02 ◼   ► until like, I'm 85.

00:13:05 ◼   ► - I think, yeah, I mean, I don't think I'm gonna get mine

00:13:10 ◼   ► until late spring, early summer.

00:13:13 ◼   ► For sure, I would imagine.

00:13:15 ◼   ► I mean, I'm in my 50s, you'd think I'd be like,

00:13:18 ◼   ► have a decent chance of getting it, but I don't go anywhere.

00:13:21 ◼   ► Like I don't need to be anywhere in particular.

00:13:24 ◼   ► I would imagine that puts me down a few notches.

00:13:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, the city of Philly does have a signup form

00:13:33 ◼   ► where you can get like on some kind of list.

00:13:35 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure how it works,

00:13:36 ◼   ► but my own doctor sent it to us and said,

00:13:39 ◼   ► you should sign up here.

00:13:40 ◼   ► I don't know what's gonna come of it,

00:13:42 ◼   ► everybody should sign up.

00:13:43 ◼   ► And so I signed up and it's like, what's your name,

00:13:46 ◼   ► what's your address, what's your age?

00:13:48 ◼   ► And it's like, do any of these apply to you?

00:13:50 ◼   ► And there's a list of like 30 things

00:13:52 ◼   ► and they're clearly all things

00:13:53 ◼   ► that would make you more likely to get it.

00:13:55 ◼   ► Like, are you a healthcare worker?

00:13:57 ◼   ► Are you a first responder?

00:13:58 ◼   ► Do you, you know, are you morbidly obese?

00:14:02 ◼   ► Do you have, there's not a single thing on the list

00:14:06 ◼   ► that I even vaguely, possibly even like squint your eyes

00:14:12 ◼   ► and look on the horizon could possibly claim to qualify for.

00:14:15 ◼   ► - You could pull a Homer Simpson and just start eating.

00:14:17 ◼   ► - I know, that was my joke to Amy.

00:14:21 ◼   ► I was like, let's start, nothing but carbs.

00:14:25 ◼   ► - That's why you had the big pasta meal last night.

00:14:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

00:14:29 ◼   ► All right, let me take a break and thank our first sponsor.

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00:15:08 ◼   ► Buy all new socks all at once.

00:15:10 ◼   ► Wear them evenly and then you don't have like

00:15:13 ◼   ► half a collection of old socks, some medium socks.

00:15:16 ◼   ► Buying your socks in bulk and then just wearing 'em,

00:15:20 ◼   ► it's a great tip, life tip.

00:15:22 ◼   ► I love Mack Weldon stuff.

00:15:24 ◼   ► Don't even get me started on their slippers.

00:15:26 ◼   ► Oh my God, the slippers, I got the slippers on right now.

00:15:29 ◼   ► I'm wearing 'em, they're great slippers and they last long.

00:15:33 ◼   ► The problem for me is I wear 'em 18 hours a day every day

00:15:35 ◼   ► 'cause I don't leave the house.

00:15:37 ◼   ► But it's freezing cold here in Philadelphia.

00:15:40 ◼   ► My feet are toasty warm, very comfortable

00:15:42 ◼   ► thanks to their amazing slippers.

00:15:44 ◼   ► Every time I pump these slippers on this show,

00:15:49 ◼   ► they sell out.

00:15:50 ◼   ► So if you're interested in a great pair of slippers,

00:15:53 ◼   ► go check 'em out immediately as you listen to the podcast

00:15:55 ◼   ► 'cause they might sell out.

00:15:57 ◼   ► But I love 'em and they're the type of slippers

00:15:59 ◼   ► you can kind of just slip your feet into 'em

00:16:01 ◼   ► without tucking over the heel.

00:16:02 ◼   ► But they do have a little heel in the back

00:16:04 ◼   ► so it's, you know, for safety's sake,

00:16:06 ◼   ► so like me, you don't like a clutch fall down the stairs

00:16:08 ◼   ► or something like that 'cause your slippers are falling off.

00:16:11 ◼   ► I love it.

00:16:12 ◼   ► They've got everything though, hoodies, polos, active shorts.

00:16:16 ◼   ► Everything looks great, feels great.

00:16:17 ◼   ► They've got advanced technology.

00:16:19 ◼   ► Don't even get me started on this stuff, but seriously,

00:16:21 ◼   ► they call 'em air knit, dry knit, warm knit.

00:16:25 ◼   ► Their underwear is made out of these fabrics

00:16:28 ◼   ► that are supposed to be anti-microbial.

00:16:32 ◼   ► - Microbial.

00:16:33 ◼   ► - Make sure, what they mean is you're not gonna stink.

00:16:36 ◼   ► And it's true, I think it works.

00:16:37 ◼   ► They're great in the summer, they're great in the winter.

00:16:40 ◼   ► I've got a hoodie from them that I wear.

00:16:42 ◼   ► Every time I get chilly, I just, you know,

00:16:45 ◼   ► 'cause I'm getting to be an old man,

00:16:47 ◼   ► I don't turn up the heat.

00:16:48 ◼   ► You know what I do?

00:16:48 ◼   ► I put another layer on and I've got this hoodie from them.

00:16:51 ◼   ► - You're not paying to heat the neighborhood.

00:16:53 ◼   ► - Exactly, it's true.

00:16:55 ◼   ► I don't know what happens.

00:16:56 ◼   ► Something biological kicks in at some point in your 40s.

00:16:59 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:17:00 ◼   ► And then I look at the thermostat,

00:17:02 ◼   ► I'm like, who turned this up?

00:17:03 ◼   ► Just put another layer on.

00:17:05 ◼   ► And I'm like, my God, you really do turn into your father

00:17:07 ◼   ► as you get older.

00:17:08 ◼   ► Anyway, Mack Weldon, they've got this

00:17:10 ◼   ► totally free loyalty program.

00:17:13 ◼   ► You don't have to do anything.

00:17:15 ◼   ► Level one gets you free shipping for life.

00:17:18 ◼   ► Once you reach level two, and you get to level two

00:17:20 ◼   ► by spending just 200 bucks on clothes.

00:17:23 ◼   ► Once you get there, you get 20% off every order

00:17:27 ◼   ► for the next year.

00:17:28 ◼   ► You could buy some stuff now, get to $200.

00:17:31 ◼   ► And then come springtime when it gets warm,

00:17:34 ◼   ► buy some more stuff for the summer

00:17:36 ◼   ► and you'll get 20% off every single thing you order.

00:17:39 ◼   ► And you don't have to do anything except buy the stuff.

00:17:42 ◼   ► It is a fantastic deal.

00:17:44 ◼   ► The loyalty program is wonderful.

00:17:46 ◼   ► And if you don't like, if you buy the underwear,

00:17:48 ◼   ► here's their guarantee.

00:17:49 ◼   ► First pair of underwear you buy, you don't like 'em,

00:17:51 ◼   ► you can keep 'em, don't send your used underwear

00:17:53 ◼   ► back to Mack Weldon, they don't want 'em.

00:17:56 ◼   ► But they'll still refund you, no questions asked.

00:18:00 ◼   ► Now, you can also get 20% off your first order

00:18:03 ◼   ► as a new customer by starting at mackweldon.com/talkshow.

00:18:08 ◼   ► M-A-C-K-W-E-L-D-O-N, mackweldon.com/talkshow.

00:18:13 ◼   ► And use that promo code talk show.

00:18:18 ◼   ► That's mackweldon.com/talkshow.

00:18:21 ◼   ► Promo code when you check out talk show.

00:18:23 ◼   ► And you save 20% off, it's fantastic.

00:18:26 ◼   ► I've got, I have so much Mack Weldon stuff on right now,

00:18:28 ◼   ► as I speak, I can't even count at all.

00:18:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I did exactly what you suggested.

00:18:33 ◼   ► Like a year or two ago, I threw out all my underwear

00:18:36 ◼   ► and went all Mack Weldon.

00:18:38 ◼   ► - And buy it in a big batch,

00:18:40 ◼   ► and then they all wear out at the same time,

00:18:42 ◼   ► and then it's like, all right,

00:18:43 ◼   ► time to throw it all out again and start all over.

00:18:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, mine haven't worn out yet.

00:18:47 ◼   ► - Well, I'm hard on underwear.

00:18:49 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:18:51 ◼   ► - Just sitting a lot.

00:18:51 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:18:52 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:18:55 ◼   ► Right in the seat.

00:18:56 ◼   ► All right, what do we wanna talk about?

00:19:00 ◼   ► Let's--

00:19:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, where do you wanna start?

00:19:02 ◼   ► - Why don't we start with the stonks?

00:19:05 ◼   ► That's a word that I learned this week.

00:19:08 ◼   ► Did you know this?

00:19:10 ◼   ► - I've never heard it.

00:19:11 ◼   ► I mean, I assume it's just a meme thing, right?

00:19:13 ◼   ► It's just a dumb way of saying stonks, right?

00:19:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think so.

00:19:17 ◼   ► But this is--

00:19:18 ◼   ► - It's not anything other than that.

00:19:19 ◼   ► - In addition to my personal thermostat policies,

00:19:22 ◼   ► another sign of my rocketing into the deep ends

00:19:26 ◼   ► of middle age are the fact that I just see slang now,

00:19:30 ◼   ► and I don't even look it up.

00:19:31 ◼   ► - Right, don't look it up.

00:19:32 ◼   ► - I take a guess, but the kids call them stonks.

00:19:36 ◼   ► My dad called me yesterday.

00:19:41 ◼   ► This is a true story.

00:19:42 ◼   ► This is how I knew that this was for real.

00:19:44 ◼   ► This is a real sensation.

00:19:46 ◼   ► My dad called me yesterday to ask,

00:19:48 ◼   ► what the hell's going on with this game stock?

00:19:50 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:19:52 ◼   ► He actually called it game stock.

00:19:57 ◼   ► And I'm like, and now that he said it,

00:19:59 ◼   ► now I can't say, it's hard for me not to say.

00:20:01 ◼   ► - It's hard to say the other way, yeah, the right way.

00:20:04 ◼   ► - So that was a fun call.

00:20:05 ◼   ► That was actually fun.

00:20:06 ◼   ► I should have recorded it.

00:20:07 ◼   ► It would have been a fun little mini podcast.

00:20:08 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, instead of having me on, jeez.

00:20:11 ◼   ► - Me explaining to my dad the GameStop situation.

00:20:14 ◼   ► And where do you start?

00:20:17 ◼   ► It's kinda nuts.

00:20:19 ◼   ► This is the thing that's always been in the back of my mind

00:20:21 ◼   ► with the stock market is,

00:20:23 ◼   ► if I were Tim Cook or Jeff Bezos

00:20:27 ◼   ► or anybody who runs a big, good, successful company,

00:20:31 ◼   ► I would lose sleep every night knowing

00:20:33 ◼   ► that the fate of my company is in the hands

00:20:36 ◼   ► of this totally irrational market

00:20:40 ◼   ► that could do something like drive GameStop up 1,900%

00:20:44 ◼   ► in a month.

00:20:48 ◼   ► - Institutionalized gambling is what it is.

00:20:51 ◼   ► - But like, (laughing)

00:20:53 ◼   ► it's very strange.

00:20:56 ◼   ► And then you combine it with the story

00:20:58 ◼   ► of this Robin Hood brokerage,

00:21:01 ◼   ► and it really becomes a fascinating story.

00:21:05 ◼   ► And a couple of explanations I've seen,

00:21:08 ◼   ► and I believe it, is that there's really

00:21:11 ◼   ► like three or four stories.

00:21:13 ◼   ► And it's not that they're in conflict with each other.

00:21:15 ◼   ► It's that they're all true, and they're different,

00:21:18 ◼   ► and sometimes they don't even intersect,

00:21:21 ◼   ► but that the conflation of all of them happening at once

00:21:25 ◼   ► made this bizarre thing happen.

00:21:27 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:21:28 ◼   ► Years ago, I used to know the details of shorting.

00:21:34 ◼   ► - Right.

00:21:35 ◼   ► - And I don't remember them anymore.

00:21:37 ◼   ► And I almost, at the beginning of this thing,

00:21:39 ◼   ► I was like, "I should figure out how that works exactly."

00:21:41 ◼   ► And I started reading something,

00:21:43 ◼   ► and I said, "They're betting."

00:21:45 ◼   ► - Right.

00:21:45 ◼   ► - They're placing a bet that the stock is gonna go down.

00:21:48 ◼   ► That's all I really needed to know.

00:21:50 ◼   ► And lo and behold, a bunch of other people decided,

00:21:54 ◼   ► "Now we're gonna make it go up."

00:21:57 ◼   ► - How much of internet jerks decided

00:21:59 ◼   ► we're gonna make it go up?

00:22:00 ◼   ► - Well, and the other aspect to it is that

00:22:03 ◼   ► they did these, some of these, like,

00:22:07 ◼   ► so the idea that the people who made it go up

00:22:10 ◼   ► stuck it to, quote, "all of Wall Street"

00:22:12 ◼   ► is, of course, nonsense, right?

00:22:14 ◼   ► Because at some point, all of Wall Street,

00:22:16 ◼   ► at least if you consider Wall Street

00:22:18 ◼   ► to be the financial industry,

00:22:20 ◼   ► they are like the casino where they just win

00:22:23 ◼   ► the more people play, right?

00:22:25 ◼   ► It's like, if the casino is busy,

00:22:27 ◼   ► the casino is making money.

00:22:28 ◼   ► And so if people are making lots of trades,

00:22:31 ◼   ► Wall Street as a whole is doing well.

00:22:34 ◼   ► It's a few particular hedge fund investors

00:22:37 ◼   ► who had these short positions in GameStop

00:22:40 ◼   ► and maybe AMC movie theaters and,

00:22:43 ◼   ► who are the other darlings this week, I forget.

00:22:45 ◼   ► Blackberry, for some reason, that is sort of a--

00:22:48 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, Blackberry, yeah.

00:22:48 ◼   ► - That's the one that really escapes me,

00:22:50 ◼   ► because at GameStop, you get that these 20-year-olds

00:22:54 ◼   ► have affinity for the brand, right?

00:22:56 ◼   ► Because it was like their favorite store

00:22:58 ◼   ► is as kids and teenagers.

00:23:00 ◼   ► And same thing with AMC, where it's like,

00:23:03 ◼   ► "Hey, I loved going to movies.

00:23:04 ◼   ► "I can't wait to go back to movies.

00:23:05 ◼   ► "I don't want AMC to go bankrupt."

00:23:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:23:09 ◼   ► - Blackberry, I don't get.

00:23:10 ◼   ► I don't get that. - No, I don't get that.

00:23:12 ◼   ► That seems like that one's just sort of,

00:23:14 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:23:16 ◼   ► we picked the random one because we were,

00:23:19 ◼   ► like, to show that we're funny.

00:23:21 ◼   ► - Right, I guess.

00:23:22 ◼   ► - To show we have a sense of humor.

00:23:24 ◼   ► - Because Blackberry isn't really even Blackberry anymore.

00:23:27 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:23:28 ◼   ► Like, AMC is still AMC.

00:23:30 ◼   ► They still have the theaters.

00:23:31 ◼   ► So, like, let's say we all get vaccinated

00:23:33 ◼   ► and COVID goes away, as we hope it will,

00:23:36 ◼   ► as 2021 progresses.

00:23:39 ◼   ► When we go back to movie theaters, it will be,

00:23:41 ◼   ► and it looks like this whole crazy scheme

00:23:45 ◼   ► might have saved AMC from going bankrupt.

00:23:47 ◼   ► We'll be able to go see the James Bond movie

00:23:50 ◼   ► later this year, and it'll be like it used to be.

00:23:53 ◼   ► Whereas Blackberry isn't even Blackberry anymore.

00:23:56 ◼   ► If they don't run, it's not like you can still go buy

00:23:59 ◼   ► a Blackberry running the Blackberry operating system.

00:24:02 ◼   ► It's just like a brand that sells Android phones.

00:24:05 ◼   ► And I don't even know if they even have keyboards anymore,

00:24:07 ◼   ► which was, like, the whole point.

00:24:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:24:10 ◼   ► - It's almost surprising that they exist.

00:24:14 ◼   ► It's like--

00:24:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, they have gone out of business

00:24:19 ◼   ► and almost everything, but actually going out of business.

00:24:23 ◼   ► - It's, do you remember mimeographs?

00:24:26 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah.

00:24:27 ◼   ► Yeah, you had to hand that out and you'd smell it.

00:24:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, that was great.

00:24:30 ◼   ► For those of you who are too young,

00:24:32 ◼   ► there used to be a copying technology called mimeographs,

00:24:36 ◼   ► and it was sort of a photo chemical,

00:24:39 ◼   ► it was a chemical-based process

00:24:42 ◼   ► rather than purely electronic.

00:24:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, before there were copy machines

00:24:47 ◼   ► in every school in the nation,

00:24:50 ◼   ► they used this technology,

00:24:52 ◼   ► which you would just write it on,

00:24:54 ◼   ► write whatever you wanted to make copies of

00:24:56 ◼   ► on a particular kind of, you know, the mimeograph paper,

00:24:59 ◼   ► and then you could run it through a printing press

00:25:02 ◼   ► sort of thing, like a roller.

00:25:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it would come out blue, right?

00:25:06 ◼   ► Ours were always blue.

00:25:08 ◼   ► And when they were fresh,

00:25:09 ◼   ► they would have a very pleasant sort of, you know--

00:25:14 ◼   ► - You get a little high off of it.

00:25:15 ◼   ► - Little high!

00:25:16 ◼   ► - Maybe not, like, really high, but it was just like a,

00:25:18 ◼   ► it was a weird chemical smell that it--

00:25:21 ◼   ► - Like if somebody broke a smelling salt

00:25:23 ◼   ► for somebody who passed out

00:25:24 ◼   ► and gave it to the passed out person,

00:25:26 ◼   ► and then after they got the bulk of it,

00:25:28 ◼   ► you took like a secondhand hit off the smelling salt.

00:25:31 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:25:32 ◼   ► But it was a real thing, like kids, you know,

00:25:34 ◼   ► they'd pass them out, and you know,

00:25:36 ◼   ► if the teacher hadn't made the mimeograph

00:25:38 ◼   ► until right before class, it would be fresh,

00:25:40 ◼   ► and it was a very pleasant smell.

00:25:41 ◼   ► It's like, Blackberry still being alive

00:25:44 ◼   ► is like if there was still a mimeograph company.

00:25:46 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:25:47 ◼   ► Right?

00:25:48 ◼   ► Like, it doesn't even make sense anymore.

00:25:52 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:25:53 ◼   ► - I bought, I have to admit,

00:25:58 ◼   ► I bought a bit of GameStop on Thursday morning.

00:26:01 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:26:03 ◼   ► So I heard, just to have some skin in the game, you know?

00:26:08 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:26:09 ◼   ► And I have to say, it was very distracting.

00:26:13 ◼   ► I probably shouldn't have--

00:26:14 ◼   ► - So what did you, do you wanna go into

00:26:15 ◼   ► what you bought it for and what it's at now?

00:26:17 ◼   ► - I bought it at $360, it's at $330 right now,

00:26:22 ◼   ► and I didn't sell any of it, so I still have it.

00:26:25 ◼   ► I bought some at $360, and then it jumped up to like $480,

00:26:29 ◼   ► and I was like, thinking about selling,

00:26:32 ◼   ► 'cause I was like, that's pretty cool,

00:26:34 ◼   ► and then I could, and I was like,

00:26:36 ◼   ► well, let's see if it gets to $500.

00:26:37 ◼   ► And then like an hour later, it was $112.

00:26:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:26:41 ◼   ► And plummeting.

00:26:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:26:46 ◼   ► And I didn't buy a lot, but I bought enough,

00:26:50 ◼   ► but as much as I would maybe take in my pocket

00:26:53 ◼   ► to a casino to play some blackjack.

00:26:55 ◼   ► But enough that, which is enough

00:26:58 ◼   ► that I don't wanna lose it all.

00:26:59 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:27:00 ◼   ► - Right, sure, no, of course not.

00:27:02 ◼   ► - When it went from $400 to $300 to $200,

00:27:04 ◼   ► down to, rocketing towards $100,

00:27:09 ◼   ► it really started looking like you might end up with zero,

00:27:12 ◼   ► which is what can happen when you play blackjack.

00:27:15 ◼   ► Not what you think when you buy a stock, right?

00:27:17 ◼   ► You go buy some Apple stock,

00:27:18 ◼   ► and you don't look at it for a year.

00:27:20 ◼   ► Maybe it's up, maybe it's down,

00:27:22 ◼   ► but it's not gonna be zero.

00:27:24 ◼   ► - Right.

00:27:25 ◼   ► - Well, the GameStop seemed like it could've been zero.

00:27:28 ◼   ► But then I did buy some more

00:27:30 ◼   ► to even out my position at around, I think around $230.

00:27:35 ◼   ► So the average of the shares that I hold are $301,

00:27:40 ◼   ► so call it $300.

00:27:41 ◼   ► And now that it's $330, I'm overall, I'm above water.

00:27:45 ◼   ► - Well, okay.

00:27:46 ◼   ► There was a piece in the Washington Post

00:27:49 ◼   ► about this kid in San Antonio

00:27:51 ◼   ► whose mom gave him 10 shares of GameStop.

00:27:55 ◼   ► And she was like, in 2019 for Kwanzaa.

00:27:59 ◼   ► And she was just trying to,

00:28:03 ◼   ► she wanted to give him a present,

00:28:04 ◼   ► and she wanted to give him something that,

00:28:06 ◼   ► like as a kid, he loved to go to GameStop

00:28:08 ◼   ► to buy games all the time.

00:28:09 ◼   ► So she was like, oh, there's a company that he enjoys.

00:28:12 ◼   ► I'm gonna get him some stock in this company

00:28:15 ◼   ► to teach him a little bit about the stock market.

00:28:17 ◼   ► And so she bought 10 shares at $6.19.

00:28:22 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:28:24 ◼   ► And he sold them.

00:28:25 ◼   ► So it goes up like crazy.

00:28:27 ◼   ► It goes up to like 320.

00:28:28 ◼   ► And she's like, hey, did you see this?

00:28:30 ◼   ► And he's like, and she wanted to make sure

00:28:32 ◼   ► that it was his decision about what to do.

00:28:34 ◼   ► And she was like, I was really hoping he would say sell.

00:28:36 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:28:37 ◼   ► And so he sold at 320.

00:28:39 ◼   ► So he got like 3,100 bucks out of this.

00:28:42 ◼   ► - That's amazing.

00:28:44 ◼   ► Wow, what a great story.

00:28:45 ◼   ► I will put it in the show notes, I promise.

00:28:47 ◼   ► That's fantastic.

00:28:49 ◼   ► But it's so great.

00:28:51 ◼   ► What a great story.

00:28:52 ◼   ► But perhaps, perhaps this might be damaging

00:28:55 ◼   ► to the young man's viewpoint of adventure.

00:28:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's, yeah, she talked about that too.

00:29:00 ◼   ► She made very clear that this is not a usual event.

00:29:05 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:29:08 ◼   ► You can turn $60--

00:29:10 ◼   ► - Don't get used to this.

00:29:12 ◼   ► - Well, there's the guy who's the main,

00:29:16 ◼   ► I'm not gonna say instigator,

00:29:17 ◼   ► 'cause I don't think he's done anything wrong.

00:29:19 ◼   ► But the promoter of GameStop is this guy on Reddit's

00:29:23 ◼   ► Wall Street Bets who goes under the name,

00:29:26 ◼   ► what is it?

00:29:29 ◼   ► It's got the F word. - Big fucking value?

00:29:30 ◼   ► - Big fucking value, something like that.

00:29:32 ◼   ► And now he's been, I don't know if he got exposed

00:29:36 ◼   ► or he chose to, but you know, the Wall Street Journal

00:29:39 ◼   ► had an interview with the real guy.

00:29:41 ◼   ► But anyway, he put $50,000 into GameStop back in April.

00:29:45 ◼   ► And his position now is like 40 million

00:29:50 ◼   ► or something like that?

00:29:52 ◼   ► It's like he cashed out a bit to have 13 million in cash

00:29:56 ◼   ► and is still holding the rest, which is fascinating.

00:30:00 ◼   ► But not a bad way to do it, right?

00:30:05 ◼   ► Because then if, you know what I mean?

00:30:07 ◼   ► If he still believes that the stock could go higher,

00:30:12 ◼   ► it's not a bad way to do it.

00:30:13 ◼   ► Put a little cash in your pocket, right?

00:30:15 ◼   ► 13 million from 50,000 starting point.

00:30:18 ◼   ► If that's really what he walks away with,

00:30:21 ◼   ► he's still, that rags to riches story.

00:30:24 ◼   ► I mean, not that he, I don't think he was in rags, but.

00:30:26 ◼   ► - No, I'm sure he wasn't.

00:30:29 ◼   ► - Let's say average Joe to riches.

00:30:32 ◼   ► $13 million in cash is, you know,

00:30:35 ◼   ► it's a lot of money to most people.

00:30:38 ◼   ► You know, 40 million seems like more.

00:30:40 ◼   ► I would be very tempted to have sold

00:30:44 ◼   ► at some point along the way.

00:30:46 ◼   ► But you know, but not,

00:30:50 ◼   ► most people aren't making that type of money, but.

00:30:53 ◼   ► - No.

00:30:54 ◼   ► - I just wanted to follow.

00:30:55 ◼   ► - And I get, I mean, it seems like,

00:30:56 ◼   ► I mean, I'm sure that a lot of people are excited

00:30:58 ◼   ► about making a lot of money,

00:30:59 ◼   ► but it also seems like these guys are just mostly,

00:31:01 ◼   ► I mean, a lot of them are sticking a finger

00:31:03 ◼   ► in somebody's eye.

00:31:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's definitely a part of that where they're,

00:31:06 ◼   ► you know, and the idea is that,

00:31:10 ◼   ► one of the ideas is that GameStop

00:31:12 ◼   ► has been unfairly maligned by the short sellers

00:31:15 ◼   ► and that these hedge funds pounce on troubled stocks.

00:31:20 ◼   ► And you can see why,

00:31:21 ◼   ► and there, GameStop in particular seemed

00:31:25 ◼   ► open to this attack

00:31:30 ◼   ► because the short seller's story is true,

00:31:35 ◼   ► which is basically, hey, it's COVID,

00:31:38 ◼   ► GameStop is a physical retailer with all these positions.

00:31:43 ◼   ► Physical retail is already hurting before COVID.

00:31:47 ◼   ► COVID is death to physical retail, literally.

00:31:50 ◼   ► I mean, it's, you know,

00:31:51 ◼   ► 'cause people are staying home

00:31:53 ◼   ► and they're supposed to stay home.

00:31:54 ◼   ► And the larger trend in the video game industry

00:31:58 ◼   ► is towards downloads only,

00:32:00 ◼   ► and people aren't buying discs,

00:32:01 ◼   ► and that's the whole thing that GameStop is about.

00:32:04 ◼   ► And so that rings, it is true to some degree,

00:32:07 ◼   ► and so it sounds true to other people,

00:32:09 ◼   ► and so when they say, you know,

00:32:11 ◼   ► you should short this stock

00:32:12 ◼   ► because they're gonna go bankrupt, it rings true.

00:32:14 ◼   ► But when you actually look at GameStop's numbers,

00:32:17 ◼   ► it's not that bad, you know?

00:32:19 ◼   ► It's like, and they had a strong holiday quarter,

00:32:21 ◼   ► you know, so there's some truth

00:32:23 ◼   ► that they might be more resilient to this

00:32:26 ◼   ► than that storyline would have you.

00:32:29 ◼   ► That bankruptcy may not be on the,

00:32:32 ◼   ► you know, in their future.

00:32:34 ◼   ► - Well, and part of the problem with the hedge funds,

00:32:36 ◼   ► you know, stuff that they do

00:32:38 ◼   ► is it creates kind of a feeding frenzy, right?

00:32:40 ◼   ► - Right.

00:32:41 ◼   ► - It does take, I mean, you know,

00:32:42 ◼   ► they're generally not doing it based on absolutely nothing,

00:32:46 ◼   ► but it becomes a fait accompli

00:32:47 ◼   ► because they all get together and they do the same thing,

00:32:50 ◼   ► and that drives the stock down,

00:32:52 ◼   ► and then they cash out and they make their money.

00:32:54 ◼   ► - Right, and when there's a very short, succinct story

00:32:57 ◼   ► that you can tell in 30 seconds during a hit on CNBC,

00:33:01 ◼   ► it's more compelling, and hey,

00:33:04 ◼   ► COVID hurts physical retailers,

00:33:05 ◼   ► GameStop's a physical retailer,

00:33:07 ◼   ► and kids are moving towards digital downloads.

00:33:09 ◼   ► End of story, they're going bankrupt,

00:33:11 ◼   ► and it's like, oh, that sounds good.

00:33:13 ◼   ► - You know, as people who follow Apple,

00:33:15 ◼   ► we, I think we are in not necessarily a unique position,

00:33:19 ◼   ► but we are in a good position to recognize the fact

00:33:22 ◼   ► that a lot of the activity that happens on Wall Street

00:33:25 ◼   ► is based on a bunch of crap that people are making up

00:33:29 ◼   ► or are ill-informed about.

00:33:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's very true.

00:33:33 ◼   ► You know, and again, I'm not an investment expert, trust me.

00:33:37 ◼   ► You, you know, you have more of a background in this,

00:33:39 ◼   ► and you know more about how the stock market really works,

00:33:41 ◼   ► but I do know the basics of how Apple in particular

00:33:46 ◼   ► over the last 25 years, oh, maybe 30 years,

00:33:50 ◼   ► you know, maybe the whole history of the company,

00:33:52 ◼   ► has largely been valued unfairly on the market.

00:33:57 ◼   ► And even at the point now where maybe

00:34:00 ◼   ► they're valued too high, right?

00:34:02 ◼   ► Maybe they're part of an overall bubble.

00:34:04 ◼   ► But the basic idea of price to earnings, you know,

00:34:09 ◼   ► where the average company over the last 100 years

00:34:12 ◼   ► in the S&P 500 has had a price to earnings of around,

00:34:15 ◼   ► I think it's like 19, but let's call it $20, right?

00:34:18 ◼   ► So it's like, however profitable you are,

00:34:21 ◼   ► your stock price is sort of like a 20 times factor

00:34:25 ◼   ► on earnings per share.

00:34:26 ◼   ► I think that's what price to earnings ratio is, right?

00:34:29 ◼   ► And you know, I don't know,

00:34:33 ◼   ► that sounds like that's the way it should be, right?

00:34:37 ◼   ► But for a long, long stretch,

00:34:40 ◼   ► Apple was always valued way under $20 price to earnings.

00:34:45 ◼   ► Because the narrative was, ah, this company is on the,

00:34:49 ◼   ► you know, they're in trouble.

00:34:50 ◼   ► They're, you know, even when they weren't in trouble.

00:34:52 ◼   ► - They're gonna go out of business.

00:34:53 ◼   ► They're gonna go out of business any day.

00:34:55 ◼   ► - Right, and every time they had a hit,

00:34:56 ◼   ► it would be like, ah, you know,

00:34:58 ◼   ► like the iPod is a great example.

00:35:00 ◼   ► 'Cause the iPod, we can talk about as it's over, right?

00:35:05 ◼   ► It happened and it was a, not a flash,

00:35:09 ◼   ► but it was sort of a decade long thing, right?

00:35:12 ◼   ► It appeared in 2001, it was Mac only,

00:35:15 ◼   ► and Mac only until like 2003.

00:35:19 ◼   ► And then I think it was around 2003, maybe 2004,

00:35:21 ◼   ► when they added the Windows support with iTunes.

00:35:26 ◼   ► And you know, digital music really, really took off.

00:35:31 ◼   ► And they had a couple of years

00:35:32 ◼   ► where it was a true sensation.

00:35:34 ◼   ► And I always remember, I just remember being at the mall

00:35:39 ◼   ► and hearing people, kids talk about going to the iPod store.

00:35:43 ◼   ► And it'd be like, you kids, you know.

00:35:48 ◼   ► I mean, this is 20 years ago, so I was like 29 years old.

00:35:51 ◼   ► And I already felt like an old man.

00:35:54 ◼   ► You kids, that's the Apple store.

00:35:56 ◼   ► The iPod store.

00:35:59 ◼   ► But it became a thing.

00:36:00 ◼   ► But when it became a thing, the narrative was,

00:36:03 ◼   ► ah, Dell's gonna come out with a thing,

00:36:07 ◼   ► Microsoft's gonna come out with a thing,

00:36:08 ◼   ► and nobody's gonna buy these expensive ones from Apple.

00:36:11 ◼   ► There's gonna be cheap ones from other companies.

00:36:14 ◼   ► And it never happened, right?

00:36:16 ◼   ► But their stock never really took the value of the iPod

00:36:20 ◼   ► because the narrative was, at any given moment,

00:36:23 ◼   ► the iPod was gonna just poof, the bubble's gonna pop.

00:36:25 ◼   ► - Get replaced by, yeah, yeah, yeah,

00:36:26 ◼   ► get beaten by Microsoft.

00:36:28 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Yeah, I mean,

00:36:29 ◼   ► there was a rumor, I still remember this,

00:36:31 ◼   ► that Microsoft was going to give you the value

00:36:36 ◼   ► of whatever music you had already purchased on,

00:36:40 ◼   ► like just give it to you somehow,

00:36:42 ◼   ► like magically transfer whatever you had already purchased

00:36:44 ◼   ► onto the Zune when it came out.

00:36:49 ◼   ► And of course, that never happened.

00:36:50 ◼   ► I mean, you had to buy, you had to get a subscription

00:36:52 ◼   ► or you had to buy it all over again to get it on digital.

00:36:56 ◼   ► But it was just like, yeah,

00:36:56 ◼   ► but it was that kind of thinking.

00:36:58 ◼   ► It was like, Microsoft is too mighty,

00:37:01 ◼   ► and there's no way that Apple's gonna be able to keep up

00:37:04 ◼   ► when Microsoft introduces whatever

00:37:05 ◼   ► they're gonna bring to market.

00:37:06 ◼   ► - Right, and that basically Apple's only core audience

00:37:10 ◼   ► was a cult.

00:37:12 ◼   ► - Yeah. - All right.

00:37:12 ◼   ► I mean, there's even the site, Cult of Mac.

00:37:14 ◼   ► I mean, it's like it's been there for a while,

00:37:16 ◼   ► but it's no exaggeration to say

00:37:20 ◼   ► that that was the narrative on Wall Street,

00:37:22 ◼   ► was that the people who buy Macintosh computers

00:37:24 ◼   ► were cultists, you know?

00:37:26 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Because they couldn't see

00:37:28 ◼   ► any other reason why people would be buying

00:37:31 ◼   ► these other computers that don't accept DOS floppies.

00:37:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:37:37 ◼   ► I put my floppy disk in and it said it wanted to format it.

00:37:40 ◼   ► - What's the VGA porn on that laptop?

00:37:42 ◼   ► - Right, these people are in a cult.

00:37:46 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:37:47 ◼   ► - The trackpad works, what the hell is that?

00:37:51 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:37:53 ◼   ► What kind of crazy--

00:37:55 ◼   ► - It's unsustainable.

00:37:56 ◼   ► - What kind of crazy laptop is this?

00:38:00 ◼   ► It actually wakes up from sleep.

00:38:02 ◼   ► My computer shuts down if I leave the lid closed

00:38:07 ◼   ► for 10 minutes, just like God intended.

00:38:10 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:38:12 ◼   ► But the thing, so it's a weird story to follow

00:38:18 ◼   ► because I love the idea that they are, you know,

00:38:22 ◼   ► sticking a finger in the eye of these hedge funds.

00:38:25 ◼   ► But at the same time, you can easily see how,

00:38:27 ◼   ► and this may be an example of one,

00:38:31 ◼   ► but I don't even know, like I said,

00:38:33 ◼   ► I don't know exactly how it all started necessarily,

00:38:35 ◼   ► but you can see how this can be,

00:38:38 ◼   ► particularly after our experience in the 2016 election,

00:38:41 ◼   ► this could be weaponized, right?

00:38:43 ◼   ► How actors from foreign states or, you know,

00:38:49 ◼   ► just bad people can influence people on online forums

00:38:54 ◼   ► and other places and try and get them to do stuff like this,

00:38:59 ◼   ► thinking that they're doing something that's cute and funny

00:39:01 ◼   ► or even a social good and pointed in the wrong direction.

00:39:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely, you know, and especially,

00:39:09 ◼   ► maybe not especially, but you know,

00:39:14 ◼   ► Reddit in particular is,

00:39:18 ◼   ► I've never been a big Reddit user.

00:39:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, me neither.

00:39:22 ◼   ► - I mean, in fact, the opposite.

00:39:23 ◼   ► I'm a very rare and occasional Reddit user.

00:39:26 ◼   ► But like the culture of Reddit is complete anonymity.

00:39:32 ◼   ► Like as far as I can tell, nobody on,

00:39:35 ◼   ► I might be the only person on all of Reddit

00:39:37 ◼   ► who uses their actual name.

00:39:39 ◼   ► I think I signed up when, I don't know,

00:39:45 ◼   ► I was logged in 'cause I was looking

00:39:47 ◼   ► at Wall Street Bets this week,

00:39:48 ◼   ► and it says I've signed up 15 years ago.

00:39:50 ◼   ► So I don't know if that's early, how early that is,

00:39:53 ◼   ► but you know, but my username on Reddit is just Gruber.

00:39:57 ◼   ► I've got like one, I've got one karma point,

00:40:00 ◼   ► but I've been there for 15 years.

00:40:01 ◼   ► As far as I can tell, nobody on Reddit uses their name.

00:40:04 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:40:06 ◼   ► But when I signed up, I didn't know.

00:40:08 ◼   ► And I no longer know what made up name I would use.

00:40:12 ◼   ► I mean, Daring Fireball wouldn't exactly hide my--

00:40:16 ◼   ► - No.

00:40:17 ◼   ► - Hide my identity.

00:40:18 ◼   ► But, you know, and I know that there's lots of people,

00:40:23 ◼   ► a lot of people on Twitter,

00:40:24 ◼   ► including some of my favorite people who I follow

00:40:26 ◼   ► who don't use their real name.

00:40:28 ◼   ► Darth, for example, who might be the single--

00:40:32 ◼   ► - First one I think of.

00:40:33 ◼   ► - Right, the single greatest Twitter user in the world,

00:40:35 ◼   ► maybe, does not use his real name.

00:40:39 ◼   ► And it doesn't make him less credible.

00:40:41 ◼   ► I think it's great that you don't have to.

00:40:43 ◼   ► I think Twitter would be for the worse

00:40:45 ◼   ► if they had originally had a real names only policy.

00:40:49 ◼   ► But the fact that no one on Reddit uses their real name

00:40:53 ◼   ► does seem to make it even more likely to be,

00:40:55 ◼   ► like how would you tell if it's foreign actors

00:41:00 ◼   ► or people with the bad intent

00:41:01 ◼   ► of attempting to crash the stock market?

00:41:03 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:41:06 ◼   ► - It's very strange.

00:41:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was, the other thing I saw was that there are,

00:41:11 ◼   ► now there are like 6.3 million subscribers

00:41:14 ◼   ► to Wall Street Bets.

00:41:16 ◼   ► And half of them subscribe since Wednesday.

00:41:19 ◼   ► - It's a very weird board.

00:41:24 ◼   ► Did you take a look at it at all?

00:41:26 ◼   ► I mean, now--

00:41:27 ◼   ► - Just the stuff that's been posted in articles I had.

00:41:30 ◼   ► I don't think I've gone there directly.

00:41:31 ◼   ► - Man, it's crazy.

00:41:34 ◼   ► I kinda see how people are into it,

00:41:36 ◼   ► but it's like, it's too frenetic for me.

00:41:39 ◼   ► But I love--

00:41:41 ◼   ► - And they have their own kind of cultural language almost.

00:41:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I love it.

00:41:45 ◼   ► They say they call it, what they want,

00:41:47 ◼   ► with the basic idea that the hardcore users of it,

00:41:51 ◼   ► they want you to buy GameStop and AMC and hold.

00:41:56 ◼   ► Just buy some and hold it,

00:41:58 ◼   ► and it's gonna drive the share price higher.

00:42:01 ◼   ► And we're all gonna get rich,

00:42:03 ◼   ► and they post a bunch of rocket ship emojis

00:42:06 ◼   ► to show that it's going to,

00:42:09 ◼   ► I swear, this is part of the lingo.

00:42:10 ◼   ► It's like, there's like going to the moon.

00:42:12 ◼   ► Going to the moon is good, but going to Alpha Centauri

00:42:15 ◼   ► is like, that's where they want it to go.

00:42:16 ◼   ► 'Cause they want GameStop to go to like 4,000.

00:42:19 ◼   ► I swear, I mean, I don't think, I don't know.

00:42:23 ◼   ► Well, you laugh, but--

00:42:25 ◼   ► - I know, I know.

00:42:26 ◼   ► - But it was at like $12 a month ago,

00:42:29 ◼   ► and now it's at 300.

00:42:30 ◼   ► So I don't know, could it, you know,

00:42:33 ◼   ► it's gone up 30 times in a month.

00:42:36 ◼   ► Maybe it could go up 10 times more.

00:42:37 ◼   ► I don't know, this is what they want.

00:42:39 ◼   ► But they call it, but buying and holding,

00:42:41 ◼   ► they call it diamond hands.

00:42:42 ◼   ► And if you-- - Okay, that's what that was.

00:42:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I saw that referenced a few times, yeah.

00:42:47 ◼   ► - That's diamond hands.

00:42:49 ◼   ► And what you don't wanna have is paper hands.

00:42:51 ◼   ► Paper hands would be like, let's say,

00:42:53 ◼   ► like when I bought my GameStop at 300,

00:42:58 ◼   ► and it went up to 480.

00:43:00 ◼   ► If I had paper hands, I would have sold right there

00:43:02 ◼   ► for a nice win.

00:43:04 ◼   ► But I don't, see, yeah, but I don't wanna have paper hands.

00:43:07 ◼   ► You know, I want diamond hands.

00:43:08 ◼   ► So I got the, I'm in with the kids.

00:43:11 ◼   ► I got diamond hands, John.

00:43:13 ◼   ► I'm old.

00:43:13 ◼   ► But I sat there, I'm sitting there thinking,

00:43:17 ◼   ► you know, and again, this is not an investment for me.

00:43:20 ◼   ► This is recreational gambling.

00:43:22 ◼   ► But I am, it did occur to me, well, wait,

00:43:24 ◼   ► if I don't sell at 400 or 450,

00:43:26 ◼   ► well, what am I doing?

00:43:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, right.

00:43:31 ◼   ► And that's a question for all of these people, right?

00:43:34 ◼   ► I mean, what's the end game here?

00:43:36 ◼   ► Because it doesn't seem like, I mean,

00:43:38 ◼   ► maybe it does go up to something,

00:43:40 ◼   ► some crazy value like 4,000.

00:43:41 ◼   ► But fundamentally, I don't think it's a $4,000

00:43:46 ◼   ► per share stock.

00:43:47 ◼   ► - No, I don't.

00:43:48 ◼   ► I think--

00:43:49 ◼   ► - And it's gotta come back down.

00:43:51 ◼   ► And when it comes back down,

00:43:53 ◼   ► somebody's gonna be left carrying a hole in the bag.

00:43:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's no doubt about it.

00:43:59 ◼   ► I mean, again, and I don't mean--

00:43:59 ◼   ► - Somebody's gonna have shit,

00:44:01 ◼   ► somebody's gonna have shit hands is what they're gonna have.

00:44:03 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:44:05 ◼   ► - Somebody's gonna have to wipe their ass

00:44:08 ◼   ► with the free newspaper at the corner

00:44:12 ◼   ► 'cause they can't buy toilet paper anymore.

00:44:15 ◼   ► So I guess they would have shit hands.

00:44:16 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:44:17 ◼   ► - I never thought of that as like a last ditch,

00:44:21 ◼   ► get the free newspaper.

00:44:22 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:44:23 ◼   ► - Well, you know, I mean, it'd be hard for me

00:44:25 ◼   ► 'cause I'd have to walk far, but I could do it.

00:44:28 ◼   ► - Remember when we couldn't buy toilet paper?

00:44:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know, yeah.

00:44:32 ◼   ► - Wasn't that a thing you'd never expected

00:44:34 ◼   ► in life in America?

00:44:36 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:44:38 ◼   ► - A mass toilet paper shortage.

00:44:40 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm.

00:44:41 ◼   ► - But you know what, though?

00:44:43 ◼   ► It was a similar mania, though, right?

00:44:45 ◼   ► It's like that herd mentality.

00:44:48 ◼   ► 'Cause people bought, and I have members of my family,

00:44:51 ◼   ► and when we wound up placing enough orders,

00:44:54 ◼   ► we didn't, we were at the tail end of it.

00:44:56 ◼   ► You know, like we didn't load up early,

00:44:58 ◼   ► but once we had trouble getting toilet paper,

00:45:01 ◼   ► we placed orders, you know,

00:45:02 ◼   ► like walmart.com and amazon.com,

00:45:05 ◼   ► and it was at a time when they were saying,

00:45:07 ◼   ► "Don't even leave the house."

00:45:08 ◼   ► And we wound up getting more toilet paper

00:45:10 ◼   ► to keep in the basement than we'd normally have,

00:45:14 ◼   ► but not massive amounts.

00:45:15 ◼   ► But I have family members who went to Costco

00:45:18 ◼   ► and loaded up their SUVs with toilet paper.

00:45:21 ◼   ► And we're like, you know, like Amy would be like,

00:45:24 ◼   ► "I don't think you need that much."

00:45:25 ◼   ► - What do you think is gonna happen?

00:45:27 ◼   ► Like people are pooping more?

00:45:29 ◼   ► I don't... (laughs)

00:45:30 ◼   ► - Well, no, I think somehow it was just this weird cycle of

00:45:34 ◼   ► everybody's saying there's a toilet paper shortage,

00:45:38 ◼   ► and somebody went to a store,

00:45:39 ◼   ► and they literally were out of toilet paper,

00:45:42 ◼   ► had nothing but the worst toilet paper imaginable,

00:45:46 ◼   ► like brand name, worst toilet paper. (laughs)

00:45:49 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Prison toilet paper.

00:45:49 ◼   ► - And that happened, that did happen to us.

00:45:51 ◼   ► We had, at one point there was like,

00:45:54 ◼   ► we had some toilet paper that was kind of sketchy,

00:45:55 ◼   ► but that was the worst, you know,

00:45:57 ◼   ► that was the worst that happened.

00:45:59 ◼   ► And because we, you know, 'cause we go to Costco,

00:46:02 ◼   ► and so we get it at Costco,

00:46:03 ◼   ► and so we usually have way more toilet paper

00:46:06 ◼   ► than we really need at any given moment. (laughs)

00:46:07 ◼   ► - But there were people buying pickup trucks full of it.

00:46:10 ◼   ► And then, you know, like I remember early on,

00:46:12 ◼   ► like when this was happening,

00:46:13 ◼   ► I had to go pick up a prescription.

00:46:14 ◼   ► And so I was at our CVS down the street.

00:46:17 ◼   ► And I went to, you know, I was like,

00:46:19 ◼   ► well, let's see if they have any toilet paper,

00:46:20 ◼   ► maybe I'll pick some up, you know, 'cause,

00:46:22 ◼   ► and I went, and they literally had nothing but like,

00:46:26 ◼   ► you know, like one sketchy roll.

00:46:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, Soviet toilet paper, yeah.

00:46:30 ◼   ► - We have some paper towels too,

00:46:32 ◼   ► 'cause paper towels were running low.

00:46:34 ◼   ► And we got some really bad paper towels.

00:46:37 ◼   ► And then, you know, now everything normal, normal out,

00:46:40 ◼   ► and we don't have, but we still have some of this

00:46:43 ◼   ► really cheap paper towels that we use for cleaning.

00:46:46 ◼   ► You know, it's like, well, you know,

00:46:47 ◼   ► let's not let it go to waste.

00:46:48 ◼   ► But these paper towels, when they get wet, they dissolve.

00:46:53 ◼   ► Like they're not just bad paper towels.

00:46:56 ◼   ► They're like, what are you supposed to use it for

00:47:00 ◼   ► if getting it wet at all makes it dissolve?

00:47:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:47:04 ◼   ► Do you ever have, did you ever get those,

00:47:06 ◼   ► there's like eco-friendly packing material

00:47:09 ◼   ► that they even tell you, you can put it,

00:47:11 ◼   ► if you'd like to, you can just put it in a bucket,

00:47:13 ◼   ► fill it with water, and it'll dissolve.

00:47:14 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:47:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I ate one of those.

00:47:17 ◼   ► - I did too, 'cause they said you can.

00:47:19 ◼   ► - 'Cause they said you could eat it.

00:47:20 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:47:21 ◼   ► - I gave one to the dog too.

00:47:22 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:47:25 ◼   ► - This is why we're pals.

00:47:26 ◼   ► My wife was like, what are you doing?

00:47:29 ◼   ► If you get sick, if you get sick,

00:47:32 ◼   ► I'm never gonna let you forget this.

00:47:34 ◼   ► And I'm like, well, they say you can eat it.

00:47:35 ◼   ► And you know, but that's what these paper towels

00:47:38 ◼   ► are made out of.

00:47:39 ◼   ► You just get 'em wet.

00:47:40 ◼   ► And like, all we ever do with paper towels

00:47:42 ◼   ► is clean up spills, you know?

00:47:44 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:47:45 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:47:48 ◼   ► Well anyway, then it leads us to,

00:47:50 ◼   ► we gotta talk about this Robin Hood company,

00:47:52 ◼   ► Jiminy Christ.

00:47:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:47:53 ◼   ► Do we need a disclosure?

00:47:55 ◼   ► They used to advertise on one of my podcasts

00:47:58 ◼   ► that long time ago.

00:47:59 ◼   ► - Well, that's fair enough.

00:48:00 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:48:01 ◼   ► They'd never advertise with me though,

00:48:02 ◼   ► so screw, it's the hell with them.

00:48:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:48:06 ◼   ► Even if they had, I'd still be,

00:48:11 ◼   ► it's such a bizarre story.

00:48:12 ◼   ► They're heading towards an IPO.

00:48:14 ◼   ► They're well-funded.

00:48:15 ◼   ► They're very popular.

00:48:16 ◼   ► They apparently have a very good app,

00:48:18 ◼   ► which I haven't been able to use.

00:48:21 ◼   ► So I signed up for a Robin Hood account five years ago.

00:48:24 ◼   ► And I think it was when they were first new.

00:48:26 ◼   ► There was like a, our friend Adam Lisagor's sandwich video

00:48:29 ◼   ► did a nice sandwich video for them.

00:48:31 ◼   ► And it sounded like a cool thing.

00:48:33 ◼   ► So I signed up and it never actually used it though.

00:48:37 ◼   ► And then the other day,

00:48:38 ◼   ► when I was thinking about getting in on this GameStop,

00:48:41 ◼   ► before the Robin Hood blockade,

00:48:43 ◼   ► I thought, well, maybe if I'm just gonna goof around

00:48:45 ◼   ► instead of using my real investment account,

00:48:47 ◼   ► where I don't play day trading at all,

00:48:50 ◼   ► I just buy some stocks and hold and never look at them,

00:48:53 ◼   ► just index, you know, S&P 500 index funds.

00:48:56 ◼   ► Why don't I just, why don't I try this Robin Hood thing too?

00:48:58 ◼   ► I'll put, you know, put a couple hundred bucks in there

00:49:01 ◼   ► and play with that.

00:49:02 ◼   ► And I couldn't sign in 'cause they,

00:49:05 ◼   ► I had my username and password and my email address,

00:49:08 ◼   ► but they said they wanted to send me an SMS

00:49:10 ◼   ► because I hadn't signed in for a long time.

00:49:13 ◼   ► And I said, okay, and it just said, it's just a button.

00:49:15 ◼   ► How, they were like,

00:49:16 ◼   ► how would you like to confirm your account, colon.

00:49:18 ◼   ► And there's only one option, SMS.

00:49:21 ◼   ► And I hit yes and my phone never got an SMS.

00:49:25 ◼   ► - Nothing happens.

00:49:25 ◼   ► - And my, I have a Google Voice that I was like,

00:49:28 ◼   ► maybe I use the Google Voice.

00:49:29 ◼   ► I often use that, which is a great way to have like

00:49:32 ◼   ► a throwaway account that can get and send SMS

00:49:35 ◼   ► without having to give people your real cell phone number.

00:49:38 ◼   ► Nope, nothing.

00:49:39 ◼   ► So my guess is when I signed up,

00:49:41 ◼   ► I gave them our landline number,

00:49:44 ◼   ► which is what I typically give, you know,

00:49:46 ◼   ► that they ask for a phone number.

00:49:47 ◼   ► - They're trying to send a text message

00:49:49 ◼   ► to your landline number, yeah.

00:49:50 ◼   ► - Right, which literally isn't even hooked up.

00:49:52 ◼   ► We don't even have a phone connected to it.

00:49:55 ◼   ► We just have this number and we can use it for, you know,

00:49:58 ◼   ► billing purposes with no risk of, 'cause I, you know what,

00:50:01 ◼   ► I don't want a phone call from them, but I sent them.

00:50:05 ◼   ► So they're like, all right, so if you can't log in,

00:50:08 ◼   ► what do you need to do?

00:50:09 ◼   ► You gotta send them an email to support.

00:50:11 ◼   ► My guess is that my request to have this SMS situation

00:50:16 ◼   ► straightened out.

00:50:20 ◼   ► - Is not high on their list right now?

00:50:23 ◼   ► - I'm guessing they might have a lot of emails in that.

00:50:27 ◼   ► - You'll get that, you'll get that response to that

00:50:30 ◼   ► when you get a COVID vaccine.

00:50:32 ◼   ► - Exactly, so I was not able to use it,

00:50:35 ◼   ► but apparently what people say,

00:50:36 ◼   ► and I have friends who have a counselor,

00:50:37 ◼   ► they say it is a very nice app.

00:50:40 ◼   ► I use E-Trade, I have an E-Trade,

00:50:42 ◼   ► and E-Trade's apps are, how do you say it?

00:50:47 ◼   ► Not good.

00:50:48 ◼   ► - Not good. - Not good.

00:50:49 ◼   ► I tried using their iPad app,

00:50:52 ◼   ► and I don't know how this is even possible,

00:50:54 ◼   ► but it seems like the fields,

00:50:56 ◼   ► like when it says how many shares would you,

00:50:58 ◼   ► you know, what stock, GME, how many shares, you know, 30.

00:51:06 ◼   ► The fields don't really align with the tap targets.

00:51:09 ◼   ► It's like you have to tap above the,

00:51:12 ◼   ► how do you, I don't even know how you do that in an iOS app,

00:51:15 ◼   ► and then the iOS app crashed,

00:51:17 ◼   ► and I haven't had an app crash in a long time.

00:51:20 ◼   ► It just, or at least on iOS,

00:51:22 ◼   ► it just doesn't seem to be a big thing anymore.

00:51:25 ◼   ► It's clearly, E-Trade is still,

00:51:27 ◼   ► and then I went to my Mac and just did it on the web,

00:51:29 ◼   ► and their website, it's not, it's very,

00:51:31 ◼   ► they have a lot going on, but it works,

00:51:34 ◼   ► and I can understand it, and it's a lot faster than an app.

00:51:36 ◼   ► It's just clearly meant to be an app,

00:51:40 ◼   ► and I mean a website, not an app,

00:51:42 ◼   ► whereas Robinhood is app first.

00:51:44 ◼   ► It's meant to be on the phone,

00:51:46 ◼   ► and you know, so I could see why that's appealing

00:51:49 ◼   ► to the kids, and especially these kids who are betting,

00:51:52 ◼   ► right, who aren't just buying and holding, you know,

00:51:55 ◼   ► once a month, put some more money into your fund

00:51:57 ◼   ► and buy an index fund and build an investment nest.

00:52:01 ◼   ► Kids who are sitting there in Reddit all day long

00:52:04 ◼   ► buying and selling and dumping and, you know.

00:52:06 ◼   ► - But the big thing, right, is they don't have fees, right?

00:52:10 ◼   ► - Well, E-Trade doesn't have fees anymore either.

00:52:13 ◼   ► Fees, you know, I think once some of these brokerages

00:52:16 ◼   ► went to no fee, everybody kinda had to go to no fee,

00:52:21 ◼   ► 'cause the whole, the fees thing turned out to be a racket.

00:52:24 ◼   ► It was sorta like ATM fees, right?

00:52:27 ◼   ► And it's like, imagine like,

00:52:29 ◼   ► but you're a customer of theirs,

00:52:31 ◼   ► and so like, even if you still pay ATM fees

00:52:34 ◼   ► when you go like, out of your bank's network,

00:52:37 ◼   ► it would be crazy if your own bank charged you an ATM fee.

00:52:41 ◼   ► Right, that's, I think, I don't know,

00:52:43 ◼   ► maybe other people have fees,

00:52:45 ◼   ► but E-Trade doesn't charge fees anymore either.

00:52:47 ◼   ► - Okay, I don't know, yeah,

00:52:48 ◼   ► but I don't know E-Trade's business model,

00:52:50 ◼   ► but Robinhood is basically making money

00:52:53 ◼   ► off of selling all the information.

00:52:54 ◼   ► - Right, right, so their customers for money

00:52:58 ◼   ► is that they allow, you know, they have hedge funds

00:53:01 ◼   ► that they allow to get access to the fire hose

00:53:05 ◼   ► of the trade information, and what's it called?

00:53:09 ◼   ► High frequency trading.

00:53:10 ◼   ► Where, and it's sort of like trying to think about

00:53:14 ◼   ► how computers work these days,

00:53:16 ◼   ► and you know, how many computations per se,

00:53:19 ◼   ► like when Apple tells you that when you take a photo

00:53:22 ◼   ► with your iPhone, and it does three trillion operations

00:53:26 ◼   ► in the instant you hit the shutter,

00:53:28 ◼   ► and it's like, how is that even, three trillion, what?

00:53:31 ◼   ► It's like, how is that even possible?

00:53:34 ◼   ► And it's hard to wrap your mind around it,

00:53:36 ◼   ► but it's like these high frequency trade things,

00:53:40 ◼   ► it's like when they have access to the fire hose,

00:53:42 ◼   ► basically, I think this is a fair description,

00:53:44 ◼   ► and it's like, just John Molt's joke consumer

00:53:48 ◼   ► decides to buy 10 shares of GameStop at $300 even,

00:53:56 ◼   ► and the fire hose could see that somebody else

00:54:01 ◼   ► is selling ones at $299.75,

00:54:07 ◼   ► and so they can quick buy those shares at 299.75,

00:54:14 ◼   ► and then sell those to you for 300,

00:54:16 ◼   ► and make, you know, a couple of pennies.

00:54:18 ◼   ► And it's probably even smaller, I'm saying a quarter,

00:54:21 ◼   ► maybe it's like a penny, like, you know,

00:54:23 ◼   ► but if you do this at the thousands of times per second scale

00:54:28 ◼   ► you can make a large sum of money

00:54:31 ◼   ► with the arbitrage of just a--

00:54:33 ◼   ► - It's the change bank.

00:54:33 ◼   ► - Right, it is, it's the change bank.

00:54:36 ◼   ► I made that joke.

00:54:37 ◼   ► I saw Kevin Nealon on Twitter say that that still

00:54:43 ◼   ► is one of his all-time favorite SNL skits.

00:54:45 ◼   ► - It's great.

00:54:46 ◼   ► - But it's like, yeah, it's like the change bank

00:54:50 ◼   ► come to life and somehow, you know,

00:54:55 ◼   ► if two $10 bills are sometimes worth $20 and a penny,

00:55:00 ◼   ► that you, you know, it doesn't make sense with cash,

00:55:05 ◼   ► but if that's, you know, in stocks it's like

00:55:07 ◼   ► all of a sudden two $10 bills are temporarily worth $20

00:55:11 ◼   ► and one cent, you quick buy those and turn them

00:55:14 ◼   ► into a $20 bill and you pocket the penny.

00:55:17 ◼   ► Anyway, that's how these guys make money.

00:55:20 ◼   ► But it still isn't clear.

00:55:23 ◼   ► So anyway, this whole thing with Robinhood,

00:55:26 ◼   ► and the basic idea is, you know, you put money

00:55:28 ◼   ► in your account and then with your money

00:55:30 ◼   ► you can buy stocks and, you know, these options

00:55:33 ◼   ► and the other stuff, but they all have prices

00:55:35 ◼   ► and you can buy as many as you are allowed to buy.

00:55:38 ◼   ► And you buy them and sell them and you do things

00:55:41 ◼   ► and all of a sudden Robinhood said to these people who are,

00:55:46 ◼   ► and this is where it really gets interesting

00:55:48 ◼   ► 'cause it's not like, so for example,

00:55:50 ◼   ► E-Trade, the one I use, apparently stopped allowing people

00:55:54 ◼   ► to buy GameStop at like 3.30 in the after,

00:55:57 ◼   ► like a half hour before trading closed on Thursday.

00:56:00 ◼   ► Nobody, you don't see any articles about it

00:56:02 ◼   ► because people weren't really using E-Trade for this.

00:56:05 ◼   ► And it was only for half an hour.

00:56:06 ◼   ► And it was just sort of, you know,

00:56:08 ◼   ► it actually seems much more reasonable.

00:56:10 ◼   ► It was just sort of like, we don't even know what's going on.

00:56:12 ◼   ► Just give us a break, give us a chance to catch our breath.

00:56:15 ◼   ► Whereas Robinhood just said, you can't buy it anymore.

00:56:19 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:56:20 ◼   ► - And they're-

00:56:20 ◼   ► - Didn't they, I mean, they had some sort of fiduciary

00:56:22 ◼   ► problem with it, right?

00:56:23 ◼   ► Because they couldn't, there was so much trading going on

00:56:26 ◼   ► that it couldn't cover the amounts.

00:56:29 ◼   ► - Something like that.

00:56:30 ◼   ► I mean, it's still unclear.

00:56:32 ◼   ► - And it gets, you know, it gets to the SEC rules about,

00:56:36 ◼   ► you have to have a certain amount of money

00:56:38 ◼   ► in order to be able to execute these trades.

00:56:41 ◼   ► You can't just like, as an individual,

00:56:43 ◼   ► I can't walk in there and say,

00:56:44 ◼   ► I wanna trade a million shares of Apple.

00:56:47 ◼   ► It's like, no, you can't do that.

00:56:49 ◼   ► You don't, if it goes sour, you'll go bankrupt.

00:56:52 ◼   ► And then, you know, the whole thing will fall apart.

00:56:55 ◼   ► So you have to have a certain amount of money in the bank

00:56:58 ◼   ► in order to be able to do certain kinds of large trades.

00:57:01 ◼   ► And they didn't have enough money

00:57:03 ◼   ► because there was so much going on.

00:57:05 ◼   ► - One of the weird things about Robinhood

00:57:07 ◼   ► that I didn't realize, and even before last week,

00:57:12 ◼   ► but one of the knocks against Robinhood

00:57:14 ◼   ► was that they promote this gambling mentality.

00:57:18 ◼   ► And they know, and everybody knows their,

00:57:21 ◼   ► you know, their target audience is younger,

00:57:23 ◼   ► and that this isn't a good idea, you know,

00:57:25 ◼   ► that it's perhaps dangerous in sort of promoting the idea

00:57:29 ◼   ► that you can't lose, whereas, you know,

00:57:31 ◼   ► you definitely can lose.

00:57:33 ◼   ► But one of the weird things about it

00:57:34 ◼   ► is that the default account for,

00:57:36 ◼   ► if you just go through the default

00:57:39 ◼   ► of setting up a new Robinhood account,

00:57:42 ◼   ► your default is a margin account, not a cash account.

00:57:46 ◼   ► Whereas a cash account is, okay, like E-Trade,

00:57:48 ◼   ► you go there, sign up, you wire E-Trade $1,000,

00:57:53 ◼   ► and then when that clears, you know,

00:57:55 ◼   ► I guess maybe if it's a wire transfer,

00:57:57 ◼   ► it can clear instantly.

00:57:58 ◼   ► If you do like a regular bank transfer,

00:58:00 ◼   ► maybe it takes two days.

00:58:01 ◼   ► Then you have $1,000 in your E-Trade account,

00:58:04 ◼   ► and you can buy $1,000 worth of stock.

00:58:08 ◼   ► - Stock, yeah.

00:58:09 ◼   ► - Whereas a margin account is like buying on credit.

00:58:11 ◼   ► Do you understand?

00:58:12 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure I understand how that works,

00:58:14 ◼   ► but effectively-- - I don't know.

00:58:15 ◼   ► I don't understand it any better than that.

00:58:17 ◼   ► - Right.

00:58:18 ◼   ► But it's, you know, I understand how casinos

00:58:20 ◼   ► work much better.

00:58:21 ◼   ► You know, casinos, you can play,

00:58:24 ◼   ► but you can step up to a blackjack table

00:58:26 ◼   ► and put $1,000 in cash down and say,

00:58:29 ◼   ► "I would like $1,000 in chips,"

00:58:31 ◼   ► and then they'll count out the money for the camera,

00:58:33 ◼   ► and then they'll give you $1,000 in chips,

00:58:35 ◼   ► and then you can play.

00:58:36 ◼   ► But you can also get a marker.

00:58:38 ◼   ► Now, you have to, first thing you have to do

00:58:40 ◼   ► is you can't just walk up in a new casino and say,

00:58:42 ◼   ► "Give me a marker for $1,000."

00:58:45 ◼   ► You, there's a place in the casino,

00:58:48 ◼   ► like it's usually labeled casino credit,

00:58:50 ◼   ► and you go over there and wait,

00:58:52 ◼   ► and you give 'em your driver's license

00:58:55 ◼   ► and give 'em some information and fill out a form.

00:58:57 ◼   ► And I don't even know how long it usually takes,

00:59:01 ◼   ► but you could do it online now,

00:59:02 ◼   ► like if you know you're traveling to Las Vegas or something,

00:59:05 ◼   ► you could fill it out in advance,

00:59:07 ◼   ► and then you could say,

00:59:08 ◼   ► "I would like to be cleared for like $10,000 in credit."

00:59:12 ◼   ► At your casino.

00:59:14 ◼   ► And then they do some kind of check,

00:59:16 ◼   ► and then they'll say yes or no,

00:59:18 ◼   ► and then when you go there,

00:59:19 ◼   ► you can use your casino player's card

00:59:22 ◼   ► or just your driver's license,

00:59:24 ◼   ► come up to the table.

00:59:25 ◼   ► Once you have credit at a casino,

00:59:27 ◼   ► you can say, "Give me a $1,000 marker."

00:59:30 ◼   ► And then a pit boss will walk away,

00:59:31 ◼   ► and a minute or two later come over.

00:59:33 ◼   ► It looks like a check.

00:59:34 ◼   ► And you sign your name,

00:59:37 ◼   ► and it says you owe this casino $1,000,

00:59:39 ◼   ► and you haven't given them a dollar of real money,

00:59:42 ◼   ► and they'll give you $1,000 in chips,

00:59:44 ◼   ► but you do owe them $1,000.

00:59:47 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:59:49 ◼   ► Margin account is sort of like that.

00:59:54 ◼   ► You can buy stuff that you don't have cash for effectively.

00:59:58 ◼   ► But the thing about when,

01:00:00 ◼   ► so A, I think that is a very strange default,

01:00:05 ◼   ► and seems like it could get people into trouble.

01:00:08 ◼   ► 'Cause for example, the default at a real casino

01:00:11 ◼   ► is cash, right?

01:00:13 ◼   ► You put real money into a real slot machine,

01:00:16 ◼   ► or you put real greenbacks down on the table

01:00:21 ◼   ► to play a table game,

01:00:22 ◼   ► and then you lose, you can only lose whatever you--

01:00:26 ◼   ► - Whatever you put in.

01:00:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, you've already handed them the money.

01:00:29 ◼   ► You've already put money on the table,

01:00:31 ◼   ► and they take it away and put it down the chute,

01:00:34 ◼   ► and give you these fun little chips that are a lot more,

01:00:38 ◼   ► they're a lot more fun to lose and win

01:00:41 ◼   ► than cash.

01:00:42 ◼   ► But you've already given them the cash,

01:00:44 ◼   ► and that's the most you can lose.

01:00:45 ◼   ► Whereas when you're playing with markers,

01:00:48 ◼   ► you could get into real trouble.

01:00:50 ◼   ► I guess when you play at a legitimate casino,

01:00:53 ◼   ► it's not quite like an episode of The Sopranos,

01:00:55 ◼   ► but they're gonna get their money.

01:00:57 ◼   ► Defaulting to a margin account is weird,

01:01:02 ◼   ► but the thing you have to understand with The Robin Hood

01:01:04 ◼   ► is they've blocked everybody from buying GameStop,

01:01:07 ◼   ► even if you had a cash account.

01:01:09 ◼   ► So if you gave them $1,000 in cash,

01:01:12 ◼   ► and they had it, and it's in your account,

01:01:14 ◼   ► you could not use that account to buy GameStop.

01:01:17 ◼   ► And it seems to be some kind of liquidity crisis

01:01:21 ◼   ► with Robin Hood, where it's not the relationship

01:01:25 ◼   ► between you, the user, and Robin Hood.

01:01:30 ◼   ► It's that Robin Hood as an institution

01:01:33 ◼   ► didn't have the funds to cover these trades

01:01:38 ◼   ► behind the scenes, because they don't actually

01:01:40 ◼   ► buy the stocks, they go to a middle person,

01:01:42 ◼   ► and I guess it takes two days for these things to clear.

01:01:45 ◼   ► And people were looking at it, and they're like,

01:01:48 ◼   ► you don't, you can't do this.

01:01:50 ◼   ► And that's a bad look for a brokerage.

01:01:54 ◼   ► - Well, I don't know.

01:02:00 ◼   ► I mean, I guess it's bad, yeah, it's bad to,

01:02:04 ◼   ► I mean, it's bad to the front end user, it seems bad.

01:02:08 ◼   ► But you've gotta, if you wanna play in that casino,

01:02:13 ◼   ► you have to make nice with the casino owner.

01:02:19 ◼   ► You can't just walk around doing things willy-nilly.

01:02:23 ◼   ► I mean, there are certain rules involved.

01:02:25 ◼   ► And I mean, it's a government thing as well.

01:02:30 ◼   ► It's not just like trying to make it good

01:02:33 ◼   ► for Fidelity or whoever they're doing the trade through.

01:02:37 ◼   ► It's a government requirement.

01:02:41 ◼   ► And I mean, I think there are few enough requirements

01:02:46 ◼   ► placed on this stuff as it is.

01:02:47 ◼   ► It's nice to see somebody actually,

01:02:49 ◼   ► to see one that's at least maybe working.

01:02:52 ◼   ► - Well, then now Robin Hood's open to suspicions

01:02:57 ◼   ► of chicanery though, because this idea that,

01:03:00 ◼   ► hey, they're in bed with these hedge funds

01:03:03 ◼   ► who have shorted the stock,

01:03:05 ◼   ► and therefore in the hedge fund's interest,

01:03:07 ◼   ► and they're the ones who actually pay Robin Hood

01:03:09 ◼   ► for this access to the high-frequency trading information.

01:03:14 ◼   ► It's in their interest for GameStop's stock,

01:03:19 ◼   ► there I go trying to call it GameStop,

01:03:21 ◼   ► GameStop stock to go down.

01:03:24 ◼   ► And the way to keep it from going down

01:03:26 ◼   ► is to have people buying it,

01:03:27 ◼   ► and the people who are most interested in buying it

01:03:30 ◼   ► are blocked out.

01:03:31 ◼   ► And it looks bad.

01:03:34 ◼   ► And I don't know if that's really what was going on.

01:03:37 ◼   ► Nobody seems to really know,

01:03:38 ◼   ► but it certainly, it passes the sniff test

01:03:42 ◼   ► of being credible, right?

01:03:44 ◼   ► It is a very, you know, again,

01:03:45 ◼   ► it's like the basic story against GameStop.

01:03:48 ◼   ► COVID equals retail bad, people buying digital downloads,

01:03:51 ◼   ► it means disks are bad, GameStop's in trouble.

01:03:54 ◼   ► Here, the basic story is hedge funds,

01:03:57 ◼   ► certain hedge funds want GameStop to go down.

01:04:01 ◼   ► The way to keep it from going down

01:04:02 ◼   ► is to have people like us buy it,

01:04:05 ◼   ► and we can't buy it,

01:04:07 ◼   ► and Robin Hood's in the middle of this.

01:04:09 ◼   ► - Right, yeah.

01:04:11 ◼   ► I mean, the whole thing is definitely,

01:04:13 ◼   ► you know, it's a big test of whether or not

01:04:15 ◼   ► the rules of the casino apply to everybody,

01:04:17 ◼   ► or if there are different sets of rules

01:04:19 ◼   ► for one group of people

01:04:21 ◼   ► and another set of rules for other people.

01:04:23 ◼   ► - Right, and that's what it looks like,

01:04:25 ◼   ► you know, it really does.

01:04:26 ◼   ► You know, it's like the hedge funds

01:04:27 ◼   ► aren't cut off from shorting it even further.

01:04:32 ◼   ► It's just a fascinating story.

01:04:34 ◼   ► - And so far, the bailouts that have happened

01:04:36 ◼   ► have come from other people in the industry, right?

01:04:39 ◼   ► So I think, I forget the name of the one

01:04:42 ◼   ► that was heavily leveraged on this,

01:04:45 ◼   ► and like lost like a third of their value

01:04:47 ◼   ► or something like that.

01:04:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, they got killed.

01:04:49 ◼   ► It's like Melvin or something like that.

01:04:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, it started with an M, right?

01:04:52 ◼   ► I couldn't remember the name of it.

01:04:53 ◼   ► But somebody, another company stepped in

01:04:55 ◼   ► and like bailed them out.

01:04:57 ◼   ► And the thing that I was afraid of happening was,

01:05:00 ◼   ► and you heard some of these jerks

01:05:03 ◼   ► on like the financial networks,

01:05:07 ◼   ► you know, getting on the air

01:05:09 ◼   ► and calling for like government bailouts

01:05:11 ◼   ► of these companies.

01:05:12 ◼   ► It's like, no, no, absolutely not.

01:05:17 ◼   ► - No, it is, and you know, it does get to the heart

01:05:21 ◼   ► of the broader outrage is the sense that

01:05:25 ◼   ► if you're in the suit and tie wearing industry

01:05:28 ◼   ► and you have a job and you regularly appear on CNBC

01:05:32 ◼   ► and they call you an analyst

01:05:34 ◼   ► and you work at a firm or whatever,

01:05:36 ◼   ► it's a tails I win, heads you lose.

01:05:43 ◼   ► That's the way I think Paul Krugman has put it.

01:05:47 ◼   ► Where the idea is if the stuff you've bought goes up,

01:05:50 ◼   ► you win because it went up.

01:05:52 ◼   ► And if it goes down, the public loses

01:05:55 ◼   ► because the government comes in and bails them out

01:05:57 ◼   ► and makes you right.

01:05:59 ◼   ► Right, I mean, basically there's a lot more people

01:06:02 ◼   ► should have lost everything in the 2008 financial crisis.

01:06:07 ◼   ► It really should be considered criminal.

01:06:09 ◼   ► It's criminal that it wasn't criminal, right?

01:06:13 ◼   ► But there were an awful lot of people who got bailed out

01:06:16 ◼   ► and whereas the whole game was, no, you're gambling.

01:06:20 ◼   ► You should be able to lose, you know?

01:06:22 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:06:23 ◼   ► - And the public shouldn't be the one to fund making it.

01:06:26 ◼   ► - Right.

01:06:27 ◼   ► - It seems so obvious.

01:06:29 ◼   ► - It does, but they justify it.

01:06:31 ◼   ► And it's almost like you could see

01:06:33 ◼   ► that they believe it somehow, right?

01:06:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, this is, yeah, it's,

01:06:39 ◼   ► yeah, I could go on for a while about this, but.

01:06:42 ◼   ► - All right, let me take a break.

01:06:45 ◼   ► - I mean, I'll do one story real quick,

01:06:48 ◼   ► but I was talking to a CEO years ago

01:06:50 ◼   ► about like, you know, he was incensed about the fact

01:06:53 ◼   ► that he had to sign these things

01:06:55 ◼   ► that's, you know, for the government that said,

01:06:56 ◼   ► this is amounts that we made, these are our tax returns,

01:07:00 ◼   ► this is verifiable, and he was like,

01:07:02 ◼   ► I don't know how, I don't know if this is true.

01:07:03 ◼   ► Somebody in our accounting firm came up with this.

01:07:05 ◼   ► I don't know, I can't, and yet I have to sign these

01:07:07 ◼   ► and take personal responsibility.

01:07:09 ◼   ► I was like, well, maybe that's why they pay me so much.

01:07:12 ◼   ► I mean, like, you can't just like, you can't say like,

01:07:15 ◼   ► you know, I make a lot of money

01:07:17 ◼   ► because I take all these big risks

01:07:18 ◼   ► and then just try and mitigate the risks away completely.

01:07:21 ◼   ► Anyway.

01:07:23 ◼   ► - I don't know if these numbers are accurate.

01:07:25 ◼   ► - Exactly.

01:07:26 ◼   ► - I'm just the CEO.

01:07:28 ◼   ► Like as though you just asked like the night custodian,

01:07:35 ◼   ► you know, like.

01:07:35 ◼   ► - You're right, I just walked in here.

01:07:37 ◼   ► I don't know what's going on.

01:07:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, put your name on this.

01:07:40 ◼   ► You're on the hook with the FCC.

01:07:43 ◼   ► - Sorry, Rodney Dangerfield, you're the CEO.

01:07:47 ◼   ► - And if the numbers don't add up,

01:07:48 ◼   ► they just come in and whisk.

01:07:49 ◼   ► - Wait, right, well, we'll make it good.

01:07:52 ◼   ► Well, just, you know, the government will come in

01:07:55 ◼   ► and the entire country will pay for any mistakes you make.

01:07:58 ◼   ► - All right, let me take a break

01:08:01 ◼   ► and thank our next sponsor.

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01:08:29 ◼   ► right up my alley that is going on

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01:10:11 ◼   ► What else we got on the agenda here?

01:10:17 ◼   ► Apple's quarterly results.

01:10:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess we might as well follow on the,

01:10:20 ◼   ► our, put on, keep our shirts and ties on.

01:10:23 ◼   ► I never know what to do.

01:10:27 ◼   ► This is one of those things where it's like,

01:10:29 ◼   ► I always mention the quarterly results,

01:10:32 ◼   ► but I never know how much, right?

01:10:33 ◼   ► 'Cause it's not, that's not really what I'm interested in.

01:10:36 ◼   ► I mean, if something truly profound happened,

01:10:39 ◼   ► you know, you wanna know, you know, like,

01:10:42 ◼   ► you know, if you're really in trouble.

01:10:44 ◼   ► It'd be more of interest to me if there were trouble

01:10:48 ◼   ► than when they have a good quarter

01:10:49 ◼   ► and they just had, I think, a great quarter.

01:10:53 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, for a first fiscal quarter, it was amazing.

01:10:59 ◼   ► And I guess, you know, the thing I take away from it

01:11:03 ◼   ► as somebody who's almost solely interested in Apple

01:11:06 ◼   ► for the products and services, I guess, now that they make,

01:11:10 ◼   ► and not as an investor.

01:11:11 ◼   ► I do not own Apple stock for the reason

01:11:15 ◼   ► that I think it would, you know, be a conflict of interest.

01:11:18 ◼   ► I just don't want the hassle.

01:11:19 ◼   ► So I'm not, and I know, you know,

01:11:21 ◼   ► Daring Fireball is not an Apple investors site,

01:11:24 ◼   ► but it is interesting to me how the results interact

01:11:28 ◼   ► with how I feel about how their products are going.

01:11:30 ◼   ► And I feel like everything is in pretty good shape

01:11:32 ◼   ► and the results reflect it.

01:11:34 ◼   ► It was a great quarter for the iPhone,

01:11:35 ◼   ► a great quarter for the Mac, pretty good for iPad,

01:11:40 ◼   ► and the services are on a slow, steady,

01:11:43 ◼   ► consistent march upward.

01:11:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, and for years, the whole thing was like,

01:11:49 ◼   ► oh, Apple is too dependent on iPhone revenue.

01:11:53 ◼   ► - Right.

01:11:53 ◼   ► - And now the services revenue and the wearables revenue

01:11:58 ◼   ► has really grown to the point where it, I mean,

01:12:00 ◼   ► you can't really say that's much of a concern anymore.

01:12:02 ◼   ► - I saw a tweet this morning, I think it was a tweet.

01:12:06 ◼   ► It was on a Philip Elmer DeWitt's PED30 site

01:12:11 ◼   ► from Horace Dedue.

01:12:12 ◼   ► But as Horace graphed it, Apple's,

01:12:16 ◼   ► if you subtract the iPhone from Apple's quarter,

01:12:20 ◼   ► the rest of the company is now at the size

01:12:23 ◼   ► that all of Apple was at in either 2012 or 2013

01:12:28 ◼   ► or something like that.

01:12:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I thought it was, yeah, I think I saw that.

01:12:30 ◼   ► I thought it was 2012, but yeah.

01:12:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, so and 2012 was sort of at the height of,

01:12:36 ◼   ► hey, this iPhone thing is clearly fantastic,

01:12:40 ◼   ► but they're too dependent on it.

01:12:43 ◼   ► It's like, it's like Apple stock for some reason

01:12:49 ◼   ► has always attracted these Debbie Downers.

01:12:51 ◼   ► Oh, so they've got the most profitable product

01:12:57 ◼   ► in the history of consumer goods.

01:13:02 ◼   ► Too dependent on it.

01:13:03 ◼   ► - Can't last.

01:13:03 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, right, right.

01:13:04 ◼   ► That's the way of finding, I mean, in the whole,

01:13:08 ◼   ► the idea is so ludicrous on the face of it.

01:13:11 ◼   ► I mean, the idea, what is the concern?

01:13:14 ◼   ► Is the concern that the iPhone

01:13:16 ◼   ► is simply just going to go away?

01:13:18 ◼   ► I mean, it's not like you're gonna wake up tomorrow

01:13:22 ◼   ► and there's not gonna be an iPhone.

01:13:25 ◼   ► - Right, and it's hard to, yeah, as opposed to,

01:13:29 ◼   ► and it's a great testimony to the idea

01:13:32 ◼   ► of cannibalizing your own product.

01:13:34 ◼   ► I mentioned the iPod earlier in the show,

01:13:36 ◼   ► and nobody buys, they don't even sell iPods anymore.

01:13:38 ◼   ► I guess they have the iPod Touch.

01:13:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, the Touch, yeah.

01:13:42 ◼   ► Do they have the Shuffle still?

01:13:43 ◼   ► They had the Shuffle for a while.

01:13:44 ◼   ► - I don't think they do.

01:13:46 ◼   ► Well, we'll find out.

01:13:47 ◼   ► I'm sure we'll find out on Twitter after the show airs,

01:13:50 ◼   ► but I don't think they do.

01:13:51 ◼   ► I do not think they still sell the Shuffle.

01:13:57 ◼   ► But the iPod was a very big hit,

01:13:59 ◼   ► and it was very successful,

01:14:01 ◼   ► and they made the iPhone such that

01:14:05 ◼   ► one of the first three things that Steve Jobs said it did

01:14:08 ◼   ► was it was a great, what, widescreen video-playing iPod.

01:14:13 ◼   ► And nobody, you know, and I guess if you go young enough now

01:14:20 ◼   ► like if, like our sons, if we tried to convince our sons

01:14:24 ◼   ► that they should buy a $400 device to put in their pocket

01:14:28 ◼   ► that plays music.

01:14:29 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:14:31 ◼   ► - And does the hard drive, a physical hard drive.

01:14:37 ◼   ► - And doesn't stream music.

01:14:38 ◼   ► You gotta load all the songs onto the device.

01:14:42 ◼   ► You gotta have 'em on there.

01:14:44 ◼   ► They would, you know, look at us like we're nuts,

01:14:46 ◼   ► because why would you do that

01:14:47 ◼   ► when you already have a device in your pocket

01:14:49 ◼   ► that plays all of your music and can have, you know,

01:14:53 ◼   ► does have a network connection and streams,

01:14:56 ◼   ► which is the only way they know how to play music.

01:14:59 ◼   ► - Looks like there's no touch.

01:15:00 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Yeah.

01:15:01 ◼   ► - You mean no shuffle?

01:15:02 ◼   ► - No shuffle, shuffle, yeah.

01:15:03 ◼   ► - You know, so they cannibalized it.

01:15:07 ◼   ► But it was easy to imagine how hypothetically,

01:15:10 ◼   ► like if in 2006, the year before the iPhone was announced,

01:15:13 ◼   ► and maybe we even did, I don't know,

01:15:16 ◼   ► maybe you and I did have a podcast where we talked about it,

01:15:19 ◼   ► but somebody could have easily imagined a future where,

01:15:22 ◼   ► hey, I think MP, standalone MP3 players are gonna go away.

01:15:27 ◼   ► I think phones, you know, maybe this rocker isn't it,

01:15:30 ◼   ► but the idea that you only need one electronic device

01:15:34 ◼   ► in your pocket and it can play music

01:15:36 ◼   ► in addition to make your phone calls

01:15:37 ◼   ► and send your text messages

01:15:39 ◼   ► or whatever we thought phones did in 2006,

01:15:42 ◼   ► you know, it can play the snake game.

01:15:45 ◼   ► You only need one device, right?

01:15:48 ◼   ► That argument makes sense, right?

01:15:50 ◼   ► And it's credible.

01:15:51 ◼   ► Whereas at this point, even now, 15 years,

01:15:56 ◼   ► or almost, you know, 14 years into the iPhone era,

01:16:01 ◼   ► it's very hard to imagine a near term.

01:16:07 ◼   ► I mean, do I think everybody's gonna have iPhones

01:16:10 ◼   ► in 20 years?

01:16:11 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:16:12 ◼   ► Maybe, you know?

01:16:14 ◼   ► I mean, the Mac has had a life like that.

01:16:16 ◼   ► But certainly for the next five to 10 years,

01:16:19 ◼   ► it's very difficult to imagine a world

01:16:21 ◼   ► where people don't have phones.

01:16:22 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:16:23 ◼   ► - It's just almost impossible.

01:16:26 ◼   ► I mean, what?

01:16:28 ◼   ► I mean, I guess in theory, glasses or something

01:16:30 ◼   ► could replace it, but even then--

01:16:32 ◼   ► - I suppose.

01:16:33 ◼   ► - I don't see it replacing the phone though.

01:16:35 ◼   ► It's like even these glasses, I think,

01:16:37 ◼   ► would be like the watch where, you know,

01:16:39 ◼   ► they're tethered to your phone.

01:16:41 ◼   ► You've got your little pocket computer

01:16:42 ◼   ► and it wirelessly communicates

01:16:45 ◼   ► to these other devices that you wear.

01:16:47 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:16:50 ◼   ► - So anyway, good quarter for the iPhone.

01:16:52 ◼   ► iPhone 12 seems to be a hit.

01:16:54 ◼   ► Good quarter for the Mac.

01:16:55 ◼   ► iPad, I don't know what else to say, you know?

01:17:00 ◼   ► Good quarter.

01:17:01 ◼   ► - And I think there used to be,

01:17:02 ◼   ► I mean, when they released unit sales,

01:17:06 ◼   ► there was a little bit more to talk about

01:17:09 ◼   ► based on comparisons to previous quarters

01:17:11 ◼   ► and stuff like that, and they don't do that anymore, so.

01:17:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, and you know, I don't blame them.

01:17:16 ◼   ► I guess it was more fun when they did, but--

01:17:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, but nobody else did.

01:17:19 ◼   ► - No, and you know, and you could see

01:17:21 ◼   ► how that was highly competitive information, you know?

01:17:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, right.

01:17:25 ◼   ► And you know, and people would nitpick it, right?

01:17:28 ◼   ► I mean, they would, oh, you know,

01:17:30 ◼   ► stayed flat or it didn't go up as much as we thought,

01:17:33 ◼   ► or I mean, just forget it.

01:17:36 ◼   ► They can, and I don't think they massage the numbers,

01:17:43 ◼   ► but they've gone to great lengths

01:17:46 ◼   ► to smooth out their revenue streams, right?

01:17:48 ◼   ► Because they've moved everybody,

01:17:50 ◼   ► they're trying to move everybody to subscriptions

01:17:52 ◼   ► for, and paying in, you know, the purchase plans

01:17:57 ◼   ► and things like that, so that they're not getting the money

01:18:01 ◼   ► in one quarter and then having to deal with the fact

01:18:05 ◼   ► that their money is not, that their income is uneven.

01:18:10 ◼   ► - Right, like the overall spike for the holiday quarter

01:18:13 ◼   ► is no longer, it doesn't seem to be as disproportionate

01:18:15 ◼   ► as it used to be, and everybody understands

01:18:18 ◼   ► that it's the basic nature that Apple makes devices

01:18:23 ◼   ► that are natural holiday gifts is, you know,

01:18:28 ◼   ► even if you're stupid, you could see that, right?

01:18:31 ◼   ► I mean, I thought it was interesting,

01:18:36 ◼   ► I wrote about it on Daring Faribault,

01:18:37 ◼   ► I thought it was interesting that the max sales

01:18:39 ◼   ► actually went down a little bit from the previous quarter,

01:18:42 ◼   ► which seems to be a little bit of column A,

01:18:45 ◼   ► which is that the July, September quarter is back to school,

01:18:50 ◼   ► and which is always a good quarter for the Mac,

01:18:53 ◼   ► and then a little bit of column B,

01:18:55 ◼   ► which is that Macs were supply constrained,

01:18:59 ◼   ► probably for COVID-related supply chain reasons,

01:19:03 ◼   ► and maybe because Apple Silicon's new in--

01:19:07 ◼   ► - I would think it's, yeah, gotta be that, right?

01:19:09 ◼   ► - Just, you know, but there, you know,

01:19:10 ◼   ► and a couple people were like, yeah,

01:19:11 ◼   ► I tried to buy, you know, there are certain configurations

01:19:13 ◼   ► of the new Apple Silicon Macs that are like 30 days out,

01:19:18 ◼   ► you know, no. - Yeah, you could,

01:19:19 ◼   ► 'cause I ordered mine the day after Christmas,

01:19:23 ◼   ► and I just got it the other day.

01:19:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, there you go, that's literally 30 days, right?

01:19:29 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:19:30 ◼   ► Yeah, and I configured it, and I think you could get

01:19:34 ◼   ► the non-configured ones relatively,

01:19:38 ◼   ► well, I don't know about how quick,

01:19:39 ◼   ► but you could get them faster for sure.

01:19:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, so that makes sense.

01:19:43 ◼   ► I think that the back-to-school thing is really,

01:19:46 ◼   ► it's sort of like the holiday quarter

01:19:50 ◼   ► was a little bit good for the Mac

01:19:51 ◼   ► because these Apple Silicon machines,

01:19:53 ◼   ► a lot of people were waiting for them,

01:19:56 ◼   ► and they were universally well-regarded.

01:19:59 ◼   ► We'll get to talking about yours by the end of the show,

01:20:02 ◼   ► but I think that the back-to-school factor

01:20:05 ◼   ► in this COVID year was a bigger factor

01:20:09 ◼   ► than even Apple Silicon was

01:20:11 ◼   ► to pump up that back-to-school quarter

01:20:13 ◼   ► because it's like kids of all ages globally, right?

01:20:18 ◼   ► It's not just a US thing.

01:20:20 ◼   ► It's not just a high school or college thing.

01:20:23 ◼   ► It's like middle school kids,

01:20:24 ◼   ► any kids who might need a computer at home,

01:20:27 ◼   ► just how many, and the fact that adults

01:20:31 ◼   ► were working at home.

01:20:32 ◼   ► I mean, I know this firsthand

01:20:35 ◼   ► from our immediate greater family

01:20:37 ◼   ► that most families aren't like the Gruber household

01:20:41 ◼   ► where we have more Macs than people at any given time.

01:20:46 ◼   ► That's a highly unusual ratio.

01:20:48 ◼   ► There's an awful lot of families that,

01:20:50 ◼   ► in normal times when there's not a pandemic

01:20:52 ◼   ► that's locking everybody at home,

01:20:54 ◼   ► have shared computers, shared for multiple kids,

01:20:57 ◼   ► shared between adults and kids,

01:21:00 ◼   ► and a longstanding complaint about iPads

01:21:02 ◼   ► is that they do not support multi-user

01:21:05 ◼   ► in the way that Macs do,

01:21:07 ◼   ► where you can each, different family members,

01:21:09 ◼   ► there's a nice friendly menu up in the menu bar,

01:21:12 ◼   ► and you just switch it down to your name,

01:21:14 ◼   ► and now you're in your account.

01:21:17 ◼   ► And that doesn't work when you've got two kids in school

01:21:21 ◼   ► at the same time and up to two adults

01:21:24 ◼   ► who might be working at the same time

01:21:27 ◼   ► and all need computers.

01:21:28 ◼   ► People bought an awful lot.

01:21:30 ◼   ► You can see it in Tim Cook's remarks.

01:21:32 ◼   ► There's almost like an apology for how,

01:21:36 ◼   ► he does seem to be, I know he has a taste for profits,

01:21:39 ◼   ► and he is the capitalist CEO

01:21:41 ◼   ► of the most profitable company in the world,

01:21:43 ◼   ► but you can almost see it in his remarks.

01:21:46 ◼   ► It's like, this is terrible

01:21:48 ◼   ► that we're making all this money.

01:21:50 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:21:52 ◼   ► 'Cause you can--

01:21:53 ◼   ► - I feel just awful about this.

01:21:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, I honestly think that if he could wish away,

01:21:58 ◼   ► if he had one wish and could be used

01:22:01 ◼   ► to make it so that COVID didn't happen,

01:22:03 ◼   ► knowing that it would mean that Apple

01:22:04 ◼   ► would have had a somewhat less successful year,

01:22:08 ◼   ► I don't think he would hesitate to do it.

01:22:10 ◼   ► I feel like he feels bad about that trade-off,

01:22:12 ◼   ► whereas some people might be like,

01:22:14 ◼   ► wow, this COVID is the best thing that ever happened to us.

01:22:16 ◼   ► - It's working out for me, yeah.

01:22:17 ◼   ► - Right.

01:22:18 ◼   ► But I think the Mac in particular

01:22:20 ◼   ► really, really benefited from that in Q3.

01:22:23 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:22:24 ◼   ► - Anything else from the Apple quarterly results?

01:22:27 ◼   ► I didn't really, I guess there's some question.

01:22:31 ◼   ► I don't wanna go too far into it with the Apple report card,

01:22:34 ◼   ► but the one product that is so weird of all of 'em

01:22:38 ◼   ► is the Apple TV, right?

01:22:40 ◼   ► Like, Snell released his Apple report card yesterday,

01:22:43 ◼   ► and it's like, everybody has the same marks.

01:22:46 ◼   ► It's like, and it's bizarre.

01:22:48 ◼   ► Like, my quip on it for the report card is just,

01:22:51 ◼   ► it is just, it's not necessarily bizarre

01:22:54 ◼   ► that Apple isn't interested in selling set-top TV boxes.

01:22:57 ◼   ► Like, their living room hardware interest

01:23:01 ◼   ► has always clearly been a hobby, right?

01:23:03 ◼   ► It goes, I think literally goes back

01:23:05 ◼   ► to the Steve Jobs era of calling it a hobby.

01:23:07 ◼   ► But their overall interest in living room now

01:23:11 ◼   ► is very high because they are all in on Apple TV+

01:23:15 ◼   ► as a service.

01:23:16 ◼   ► - Right.

01:23:17 ◼   ► - The city of Philadelphia, all the billboard space

01:23:20 ◼   ► here in Center City, Philadelphia is all servant.

01:23:24 ◼   ► It's the M Night Shyamalan show

01:23:27 ◼   ► that actually takes place here in Philadelphia.

01:23:29 ◼   ► But I don't think that's why, probably nationwide.

01:23:31 ◼   ► But they've been advertising shows.

01:23:34 ◼   ► They had Ted Lasso advertisements.

01:23:36 ◼   ► You know, they're all in on this service.

01:23:40 ◼   ► But their hardware interest seems like,

01:23:44 ◼   ► oh yeah, do we, oh yeah, we still sell a box, yeah.

01:23:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:23:49 ◼   ► How do you like the remote?

01:23:49 ◼   ► - Occasionally, they occasionally sell a box.

01:23:52 ◼   ► They haven't up, I mean, that one's been out

01:23:54 ◼   ► for a few years now, right?

01:23:55 ◼   ► And there's been a rumor of a new one coming soon,

01:23:58 ◼   ► but I think it seemed like it was gonna come this past year,

01:24:01 ◼   ► but it didn't. - Right.

01:24:03 ◼   ► - And now it's been kicked to this year, supposedly.

01:24:05 ◼   ► - Right, and it--

01:24:06 ◼   ► - But, yeah, I mean, I have, so I have a TV in my office,

01:24:10 ◼   ► which is a bad idea, but, and I have not the Apple TV 4K,

01:24:15 ◼   ► but the Apple TV 4, yeah, attached to it.

01:24:19 ◼   ► And I have Apple Arcade, and I was gonna go play,

01:24:22 ◼   ► I was, you know, 'cause I figure, this is, you know,

01:24:25 ◼   ► what I do, I can justify it by doing it in my office.

01:24:28 ◼   ► (laughing)