"PREPARE NOW!" - This Is Your LAST CHANCE To Become A MILLIONAIRE In 2025 | Michael Saylor

so when all of this kicked off I'm a

relatively bright guy but when all of

this kicked off

um I told my and this being covet I told

my money manager I said look I want to

be as close to my money being buried in

the backyard as humanly possible and she

just kept saying you don't understand

inflation like this is going to be a

problem like your money will go down in

value and I was like I get it but I feel

like it's happening slowly enough that

I've got time to like get my head

together like this is so disruptive and

so

um you know Bill Gates predicted it so I

won't say it was unpredictable but it

was so surprising and unlike anything I

had ever lived through I just didn't

know what was going to happen and I

didn't understand money markets well

enough or Finance in general I'd always

better myself as an entrepreneur so I

understand how to build business I

understand how to create wealth but

maintaining it is like a whole nother

thing that honestly I know a little bit

about now I knew nothing about it then

so I just kept saying look get me as

close to buried in the backyard as I can

then I come across you and and you talk

about hurdle rate

and then I was like oh my God this isn't

something I've got 30 years to figure

out this is something I have four years

to figure out to get to like a halfway

point to where I've already lost 50 of

my wealth so I was like whoa now I have

to take action so now I start

researching like crazy okay is it going

to be crypto is it going to be

specifically Bitcoin is it going to be

something else and this idea of creating

basically turning sunlight into

cryptographically protected money is a a

very interesting idea and so I'd like to

know now so those are all the reasons

why like there's you can protect

yourself from the government but you

have a compelling argument as to why I

should be willing to stomach sort of

short-term volatility and why because

that's like the argument if I'm the

average person on the street I'm like yo

literally last week this lost like 30 or

40 percent of its value so that's

terrifying so why would I be better off

in that then you know even a bond with a

negative yield at least like I'm

bleeding to death more slowly than the

35 loss or whatever that I just took

over the last week well bitcoin's the

best performing asset for the past

decade and it's you know it's 100x

better than gold and it's 10x better

than uh Equity portfolios so the

volatility is the price you pay for the

performance that you get

and uh oftentimes the best investment

idea isn't the most comfortable

investment idea

um I I think um if I told you there's a

hundred percent certainty you're going

to lose seven percent of your money over

the course of a year

you might think well you know I have a

decade before I lose half of my money I

have time to think about it that's

that's the status quo when monetary

inflation seven percent

if I told you there's a hundred percent

probability that you're going to lose 20

percent of your money over the next year

and half of your money over the next

three years

well I mean you might think you need to

move faster well what if I told you

you're going to lose all your money what

if I told you the currency is going to

collapse to zero

in three months

which is kind of what it did in Zimbabwe

and Venezuela or what have I told you

we're going to have 95 inflation I think

the unofficial inflation rate in

Argentina is like 85 percent this year

what have I told you we're going to have

hyperinflation

everything will be twice as expensive

next year

now how long would you wait before you

took a risk

I I can you know if I really want to you

know get you to jump out of the pot

right I could just make it simple next

Tuesday I'm seizing all your money

or you can spend it between now and next

Tuesday right what I mean that really uh

what is the word focus is one right

right it strengthens one it stiffens

one's spine and focuses one if I just

made it very black and white I'm just

going to take all your money next

Tuesday or you can spend it between now

and then so

how do you actually

um

get comfortable with the volatility well

I think first you have to get you have

to understand how big your problem is

and the second thing is one of time

Horizon and what do you what's your

aspirational goal for example

if you're if you don't aspire to change

your lifestyle one iota and you know

you're going to watch Netflix let's take

a stream you're going to live in your

parents basement watch Netflix order

Domino's pizza and stream YouTube video

for the rest of your life do you have an

inflation problem coming

probably not

if you wanna if you want to buy your own

house you have a bigger inflation

problem because housing went up 15 if

you want to get married buy a house have

three kids and if you know if you want

to take expensive vacations and have a

have a house on the lake you have a big

inflation problem guess what luxury

homes on the lake went up in price a lot

same with education if I plan to send

those kids to school I'm really in

trouble yeah so it really comes down to

what is your aspiration and that that

determines your hurdle rate I mean what

you want determines your inflation rate

and your inflation rate determines your

hurdle rate and that makes a difference

I think

in terms of historic metaphors I mean

there's plenty for example my family

came to um

to the United States in 1736 on a wooden

ship

okay and if you if you want to go study

those voyages they spent eight weeks

have you ever tried there's not a single

person that's like probably got in a

wooden ship with three sales for eight

weeks to cross the North Atlantic in

order to come to America the mortality

rate is like

two to five percent on that trip the

mortality rate to go from Europe to the

Far East is like 35 percent it's insane

like one out of three people that

started the journey dies on the trip

whoa

okay so you know we talk about

volatility is Bitcoin bumpy is crypto

we're just talking about Bitcoin yeah

Bitcoin is Bumpy what else is Bumpy yeah

Wooden Ships and 15 foot Seas if you

want the definition of a rocky ride the

the rocky ride was was leaving Europe so

why'd they do it so you're saying that

the Bold are the ones rewarded if you

choose correctly

right I mean the ones that move too soon

you know went to certain colonies you

know that on the Potomac River and the

James River and they died right so

there's a lot of early settlers took

arrows in their back you know in the

1600s on the other hand uh by the mid 17

1700s by 1736 you know people have been

living in North America and you had

Philadelphia and and you had

Massachusetts successful colony and the

like so if you choose the right decision

or make the right decision at the right

time you can have a better life but

there's still risk

right so why'd the people come from

Europe they came for property rights and

civil rights right they either couldn't

exercise their religion or there was no

hope for them all the property was owned

by someone else

and the you know property rights matter

if I a lot of people don't realize this

they think that they they think the

property rights are nice to have

property rights are nice to have the

same way that that fat on your frame or

an insulin are nice to have if I strip

away your insulin you're a type 1

diabetic you can't form fat

if you can't form fat you can eat all

day long and you're going to starve to

death

it's not a nice to have to store to

store energy over time fat is an organic

energy battery and property is a social

energy battery so being able to store

property means I can go three months

without a job and not starve

and live and live a life there is no

hope for a Civil Life without property

so you know people went from Europe to

the US for property when they got to the

east coast they went West it's in the

American ethos was there a bumpy ride

taking a wagon train over the Rocky

Mountains you ever fly over the Rocky

Mountains and look down

before they had the railroad and before

they had the highways and then you asked

how did people actually cover the turf

it's like

yes it was a bumpy ride

there was a volatility along the way

you know I think the risk and the

discomfort today of owning Bitcoin is a

heck of a lot less and then the risk and

the discomfort of getting in a ship or

getting on a horse

or you know getting on a wagon or

walking

right or settling

and doing what you need to in order to

secure your civil rights and your

property rights and your freedom

but um there is an analogy

um the only way you make the volatility

go away is you make the opportunity go

away

that yeah

the reason you went West was because

people weren't living there and you

wanted thousands of acres to yourself to

live a better life right

and when you got there you found that

there was no one that had come before

you to you know to clear the thing you

know and build a house for you and give

you running water and hand the keys to

you and do your bidding

because you know you're going to a new

place that was where the opportunity was

so I think it's very

it's very uh quintessential to the

American Spirit or that or the

entrepreneurial Spirit or or just the

human spirit

you know what about immigrants a nation

made of immigrants people went from a

country where they had nothing to a

country where they could have something

that's the story that you see over and

over again

is it volatility is there a risk

yeah always right

um is there opportunity

yeah when do you leave look I mean the

rich first sons of the Nobles in Europe

didn't come

yeah it was the poor disenfranchised the

the people that uh that didn't have a

choice that came

right that the Protestants left Catholic

countries the Catholics left Protestant

countries the poor left every country

those who are you know hoping for a

better life came

and you know if you're if you're sitting

wealthy with lots and lots of stuff and

a comfortable life

style and a comfortable portfolio you

might not see the same impedance right

you wouldn't have the same inspiration

to do something it's interesting so the

humanitarian side of this is one of the

things that I find more fascinating

about the Bitcoin movement there is

something very encouraging about the

fact that all the people in my life that

came to me with this saying Tom you

really have to look at this we're young

people

um you know the level of awareness that

they have had that and I have a lot of

employees that sort of straddle are they

the low low end of

um gen Millennials are they the upper

end of gen Z you know I guess it depends

on where you split it but there are sort

of early 20s and uh you know they're

looking at this as like hey this is this

is the opportunity our generation has

been looking for there's finally a

moment where we can really capture some

upside we're young enough that if we

sort of invest poorly it should be fine

that we should be able to make this

money back up they buy into the ethos of

only invest what you're prepared to lose

you know these aren't guys that are

doing things on Leverage and so that is

is very helpful you know when you talk

about the beginning of the pandemic was

this well transferred to people that

basically owned bonds and assets and now

with you know hopefully the sort of

prolonged and I think that's an

important thing to note is yes there's

volatility to Bitcoin in the short term

I've heard you say if you're looking at

a number and anything less than a

four-year increment it's just noise and

that once you extend out to four years

and Beyond suddenly it actually becomes

a story of you know growing I think it's

like 200 percent year over year which is

you know pretty thrilling

um how far does when you think about

this being sort of the Apex property

how much goes into just the the fact

that it's taking sunlight and turning it

into something that's cryptographically

protected and how much of that stance is

that this evens the playing field

you know I think a Bitcoin is like

that shining City in cyberspace where

billions of people will eventually want

to live

right instead of moving from Europe to

America or moving from the old world to

the new world or whatever or moving from

the planet to cyberspace we can't move

to outer space yet I can't get a billion

people off the planet and settle on a

better Earth but I can move a billion

people to cyberspace

Bitcoin is property and cyberspace it's

21 million city blocks in cyber

Manhattan

um

the people that moved there first

right get to buy the land cheapest

and then event you know how many people

will eventually want to live there

well unlike Manhattan where there's a

limit there's really no limit why

wouldn't everybody want to live there

right I mean

I don't know that there won't be other

cities in cyberspace that that might

meet other needs I mean I suppose if the

Chinese you know made it illegal to own

Bitcoin but there was a Chinese Bitcoin

there might be a Chinese version of

Bitcoin in cyberspace kind of like

Alibaba you know and ant and and WeChat

kind of branched off from Facebook and

Google and Amazon

so there might be some other digital

dominant monetary networks or dominant

monitoring networks but but Bitcoin is

the greatest

um monetary Network that the human race

has ever developed and it's certainly

the dominant one right now and it looks

like it's going to be continue to be the

dominant one

for as long as we live

so um what makes it uh dominant

well I mean clearly the architecture is

a proof of work or in other words

throwing up a wall of encrypted energy

right it's all of uh the crypto hash

power that's channeling energy through

the hashing function which creates uh

creates the stability and the security

and so it's based upon the architecture

but um but ultimately the appeal of it

is that it's an open permissionless

protocol that everybody on Earth can

engage in anybody can mine it anybody

can so anybody can contribute security

to the network

and anybody can run their own node and

anybody can own it and then any company

uh can plug into it

and so there's nothing that open there

is no there is no monetary protocol or

asset or currency that is so open

as the Bitcoin asset and so that's

what's driving its value right now

it's it's an opportunity for people that

are that have little

that have uh little to lose and much to

gain it's an option for everybody though

I mean the way I think of it is it's a

moral imperative a technical imperative

and an economic imperative

morally it's an imperative because it's

it's the best hope for eight billion

people to secure their property rights

if I give you a 50 Android phone you can

carry around in the Android wallet your

property and no bank or no hostile

regime can seize it

and we've never and that's the best

property right you're ever going to get

I think it's a technical imperative for

the same reason you've got eight billion

mobile phones that will all have

property and so what's more important

storing your photos and your videos on

your mobile phone or storing all your

money

all your life Fork on your mobile phone

I mean you're worried about losing the

photos you took on your iPhone are you

worried about losing your life savings

clearly it's more valuable so so it's a

it's a technology imperative for an

apple and Amazon and Google and Facebook

and companies like square and PayPal and

binance and coinbase are already

extraordinarily Successful by embracing

that you can see that right now

and finally it's an economic imperative

because there's 500 trillion dollars

worth of uh Fiat derivatives cash and

bonds and stocks and real estate that's

valued based upon cash flows and all of

those things are being devalued at one

percent a month something so we can go

back and forth over what's the rate of

currency expansion but

you know it's it's not that hard to see

that this is a 25 to 50 trillion dollar

a year problem for anybody with assets

on Earth it's very rare that you find it

a technology that's the solution to

every rich person's problem and every

poor person's problem simultaneously

what do you say to people that that say

um the pushback I've seen on bitcoin is

hey guys sorry I get why you're excited

about it but it's the Netscape of crypto

and uh you know just as a technological

layer it was early cool yay thanks for

sort of proving the model but this is

Never Gonna Last people will build

something way better

yeah well Netscape didn't make it to a

trillion dollars in market value in 10

years

right uh if we if we calculate the

amount of monetary energy on the network

Bitcoin would be more successful than

Google Facebook Amazon apple or

Microsoft in fact it would be more and

it's you know

much more successful than than Netscape

or AOL or anything from that genre

those things never got to 1 100th

right I think Netscape you know at its

peak you know

was maybe 120th one thirtieth one

fortieth of what we're seeing in front

of us right now

and uh

the the difference really is

there is no other uh there is no

technology an architecture that's uh

that's appropriate to replace it the

solution to the issue of long duration

asset

or long duration Safe Haven store of

value is is a very secure crypto asset

Network and so Bitcoin is the single

most secure network in the world

it's the most secure database in the

world it's the most secure asset in the

world the way that you make it secure is

through the extraordinary

decentralization

combined with uh the way that it uh that

it converts energy into very special

specialized Shaw 256 hash function

so in order to attack that Network it

would take extraordinary time and effort

and energy and resources it's it's

pretty much the most secure thing we've

got in the cyberspace and what about

people that look at that and go yes cool

you've built this amazing protective

layer but it comes at the cost of the

environment the actual cost is

um you know nominally 0.1 percent of the

energy used in the world but the

economic value of the energy is not even

10 basis points it's like three basis

points so you're talking about like it's

almost if you put it on a sheet of paper

it would be like a couple of dots but

you can't even see it

the uh the overall energy generated and

the in the economy is like a hundred and

sixty thousand terawatt hours and the

wasted energy is 50 000 terawatt hours

and Bitcoin is

120 out of 50 000 wasted energy so it

really is insignificant as an energy

load on the environment

but if you dig a bit deeper you'll find

that actually Bitcoin is much cleaner

energy than all the rest of the

applications cars Planes Trains

automobiles it's pretty obvious uh

planes use fossil fuels

there's no hope for them not to

Bitcoin doesn't Bitcoin is actually

something that runs on electricity it

doesn't run on fossil fuels you know

most cars still use fossil fuels and

even electric cars are charged at

charging stations that are charged with

fossil fuels so

so the environmentalists ultimately are

going to focus upon the energy grid and

if they want to shut down fossil fuels

or change the Energy Mix away from coal

or something they'll do that Bitcoin is

the highest value application of energy

on a wholesale basis that we have in the

world there's nothing

nothing more valuable there's no more

valuable use of energy than Bitcoin the

latest generation of Shaw 256 miners

they will generate almost 45 cents a

kilowatt hour in value which means you

can take them anywhere on Earth to the

North Pole you can put a nuclear reactor

on the North Pole and run and run

Bitcoin mining from it you can plug them

into wind generators a thousand miles

out into a desert you can plug them into

geothermal on an island like Iceland and

you can generate 45 cents a kilowatt

hour

the typical residential electricity cost

is 13 cents a kilowatt hour industrial

usage in the first world is 11 cents a

kilowatt hour

and all that energy has to be co-located

with the factories and the people

right we don't you know we don't have an

application an industrial application of

energy like Bitcoin that you can put

anywhere on Earth so what's the result

the result is that Bitcoin is used to

recycle stranded energy or wasted energy

if you have um if you have a

hydroelectric Dam and you have a lot of

energy but you don't have people to use

it well the dam is generating energy

year round but the people don't need it

but maybe a few months a year or maybe

they don't need it in the evening they

just need it during the day to run their

air conditioners like air conditioning

is a great example of a cycling energy

use Bitcoin is perfect a perfect energy

uh battery because you can run it at

night while the people are asleep and

the air conditioning is off and so you

level out energy consumption on the grid

thereby driving on the cost of energy

for everybody on Earth

and for any any plant that would

otherwise be decommissioned you have a

use for it if you don't want to

decommission it

and of course as you can imagine uh the

sun shines in the desert where people

don't live and the wind blows in places

where people don't live and volcanoes

you know and geothermal energy exists

where people don't want to live

those are three sources of energy

they're all sustainable renewable energy

but

if you know anything about a power

engineering you know you can't move

electricity more than 500 miles on a

grid

period it's a hard stop a hard limit if

you happen to find geothermal energy

more than 500 miles from Manhattan we

don't need it and and news flash we've

already got too much energy right so

even if you found geothermal energy in

the middle of Central Park we still

don't need it

and so what if I told you Tom I've

actually got infinite free sustainable

energy and it's a thousand miles away

from a city

what are you going to do with it well I

mean the only obvious thing to do with

is Bitcoin mining

so Bitcoin is migrating to the ends of

the Earth

to the most sustainable energy which is

also the cheapest energy which is also

the greenest energy

and um and it's a solution to the

problem of how do we catalyze

sustainable energy how do we get green

it's also a solution to every country's

problem you know you're in the middle of

Africa with a waterfall and no industry

what's your best how are you going to

lift your people out of poverty

you plug you know a turbine into your

waterfall you plug Bitcoin mining into

the turbine and now you have cheap uh

cheap energy plug that's green that's

plugged into a clean

hard currency exporter that pays taxes

that elevates you out of poverty that's

environmentally friendly

so I I think it's a good story here

people just don't they don't understand

right just how powerful Bitcoin is as a

force for for energy sustainability the

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description alright my friend back to

today's episode yeah I would agree with

that like the the attacks upon it from

an environmental standpoint are

Relentless and to be honest I just sort

of brushed them off based on the facts

that you've given it seemed like wait

people just don't understand the

narrative or they don't understand the

facts they've fallen for a narrative and

until Elon Musk who's sort of the king

of clean energy for the love of God uh

came out and expressed concerns over the

environmental impact of Bitcoin

um how is it possible if everything that

you just said is true that somebody's so

into the world of clean energy could be

against it

we got a lot of Education

hasn't published um transparent

statistics about the nature of the

energy usage in Bitcoin mining because

the Bitcoin miners are very

decentralized

and so and so

um

encouraging transparency and Gathering

all the data and Publishing it that will

be helpful because

because there's a good story here I

think that uh that the the mining uh the

energy usage is not well understood

for example three years ago someone

thought that energy was used in

transactions and then they thought since

energy is used in transactions if we

scale up the number of transactions

eventually Bitcoin will boil the ocean

and uh that wasn't true either

because the Bitcoin Network never

increases the number of transactions and

then the energy usage is unrelated to

transactions and in fact the energy

usage is decreasing exponentially

as as the transactions scale and

efficiency exponentially but the model

was flawed and so people picked it up

and no one's published a better model so

so we need to and if you only spend an

hour

thinking about it or spend a few hours

you might not understand the nuances so

I think that the industry needs to do a

better job of transparently

communicating the current usage of

energy and transparently communicating

how it's going to change over the next

20 years

have you read Matt Ridley's book The

Evolution of everything

no I haven't

it's really interesting I don't know if

you're familiar with him as an author

but he wrote a book called the rational

Optimist another really great book He's

written a few I think he also was the

one that wrote the Red Queen which is

basically evolution is about running as

fast as you can to effectively stay in

place and

in the book he he goes into

why the basically you have two ways to

look at the world you have a a

creationist

point of view where it's like a top-down

God created the or the universe you know

let there be light and everything went

into motion and so hey top down that

works and then you've got an

evolutionary lens where everything is

bottom up and he goes and makes a very

credible case why a lot of the things

that we think of as being

um top down were really bottom up and

I've heard you talk a lot about in

drawing parallels to bitcoin you've

talked a lot about like hey if you look

at any City that's you know a couple

hundred years old the buildings are all

six stories tall and they're six stories

tall because that's what masonry and a

wood frame is going to get you and

people without electricity are not going

to be able to go up more than six

flights of stairs and so you hypothesize

that hey if you went and looked at Rome

my guess is that in Rome they're

probably going to be six feet tall

there's just a materials problem and so

you end up getting skyscrapers the way

that we think of them now as the steel

comes along and now steel can build

bigger buildings you've got electricity

so you can do an elevator and so

steel wasn't this moment of or

skyscrapers not a moment of pure genius

by an architect it's the ground up of

like oh look steel becomes the thing

electricity becomes a thing Architects

are learning something and so this one

thing is probably more a reflection of

its time than it is this Staggering

Genius where somebody lurches us forward

and so he looks at all these classic

cases where we thought it was one person

that really did this thing like there's

something like seven people uh in

different countries that came up with a

light bulb but almost exactly the same

time and so in the west we of course

hear about Thomas Edison but in reality

he's saying no no this was just an idea

whose time had come

and it really gave me a very visceral

understanding of the difference between

somebody that just the subroutine

running in the back of their mind is

creationist in origin that I view

everything through the lens of uh a

particular genius Sparks and then

something moves forward versus all the

things you mistake for that including

the universe itself is actually a

bottom-up phenomenon and once you flip

your thinking over to everything evolves

everything comes from the bottom up you

begin to come up with

solutions that are more effective right

and so going back to the old adage I

forget who it was that came Yeltsin

maybe that came from Russia and was

doing a tour of a grocery store and he

just could not believe like the shelves

are all full and he's like but who

decides the price of bread and they're

like what do you mean like it's just set

locally at the local store

and that is top down thinking where it's

so embedded into your psyche you can't

even conceive of another way to do it

versus us where you know we wouldn't

think to have somebody tell us it's like

well you just set the price based on

what somebody can control there but I

feel as somebody who's just old enough

to

you know I was a kid when Reagan was

President and now I can feel everything

shifting in the opposite direction which

brings me to the question I really want

to ask you point blank

what what do you think it uh so I'll

I'll lead you down a Garden Path I think

the problem is that the reality of the

market is it leaves some people behind

some businesses collapse and that's

painful some people will lose their

Generations worth of wealth in a bad

decision

and if you're not willing to let some

people uh get eaten by the lion

you got to go top down the problem is

you then crush them you you cuddle them

to death

what's your thought on that

I I think that if you're an individual

looking for the rational path forward

what you want to do is embrace

Technologies or ideologies

that um

that reinforce individual sovereignty

and freedom

and uh and they're rational so so hence

Bitcoin right like if you're gonna if

you have

um a bunch of money and you have a

choice are you gonna buy a million

dollars of gold and put it in a bank of

a centralized institution that will

seize it are you going to buy a million

dollars of land in the middle of Beijing

where the government of China could just

take it from you are you going to buy a

million dollars worth of a stock in a

Chinese company how about American

company how about an Argentinian company

or are you going to buy a million

dollars worth of a crypto asset that's

in cyberspace beyond the reach

of a government or a corporation

and so clearly that the answer is if you

take all of your money and all of your

power and you put it in the middle of

Beijing

right they own you and what if you're if

your life is not consistent with the

policies of that government then you

lose everything when you put if you took

all your money and you you invested it

in New York City the mayor of New York

could just take it and if if New York if

you took all your money and you put it

in New Zealand and New Zealand locked

down the economy for a year

right then they own you

so so if you're looking for sovereignty

and freedom or a rational path forward

where you get a choice then you need to

actually put your property beyond the

reach of a government that might be

irrational

or uh that might be capricious and you

need to put it beyond the reach of a

corporation that might be influenced by

said government

do you think though even with Bitcoin so

as I as I run this experiment in my own

mind

I always come down to but the government

could still say if you own Bitcoin

you're going to pay this tax and at that

point I just have to leave the [ __ ]

country I mean that seems like the only

solution like this ultimately does come

down to any government could act however

they want they can put whatever mandate

on you they want and I think part of

where people's the average person's

willingness to adopt Bitcoin comes down

to that thought of like Jesus man if the

government is coming after me and they

could

foreign

do I really want to flee like so I think

well like let's come back to that so

let's say that let's make this easier

what if you were in Zimbabwe right now

and you had a million dollars well it's

easy for me as an American to be like

yeah of course I'd flee Zimbabwe well

let me turn around why don't why don't

you just go it doesn't matter you're not

going to want to flee why don't you just

go ahead and invest it in the Town

Square in the middle of a village in

Zimbabwe

I mean the point because that definitely

does feel riskier I'm now I'm you know

gluing something down so I'll give you

even in my own life in fact I'll be like

why don't we just Why Don't We sync you

up to your knees in concrete in the Town

Square in Zimbabwe I mean while we're on

that suburb the point really is

is

you have a physical presence in this

world and so ultimately maybe they won't

let you out through the airport right

what if I just tell you I'm going to

murder you next Monday will you leave

will you stay right maybe you can't

leave right but the point is is

um there are a whole set of decisions

you can make in life where you don't

have the choice

if you make the decision to invest your

family's life savings in a building in a

country in Africa run by a dictator

you have given up the option

to live in Europe you've given up the

option to leave you've got the option to

do anything so the question really is

do you want the option or do you want to

give up the option because one is the

choice of death the other is a choice of

Life there is no guarantee if you leave

Africa and come to the US it seems like

it's pretty obvious to me like the truth

is everybody in the world would leave a

weak country and come to a strong

country everybody that's why we have a

border issue right everybody wants to be

in America so that's not a hard sell if

you come back to the issue of well I'm

an entitled American will I ever want to

leave America maybe you won't but the

point there is

if you had a choice between being rich

and living in Texas or being destitute

and living in California

would you cling to California and be

destitute or would you be rich and live

in Texas because that doesn't seem so

controversial either

it seems pretty obvious that if you can

go to one state where you can live

happily of what if I told you you're

going to be locked in your bedroom for

the next decade if you live in one state

and you're going to starve to death or

you can move to another state and you

can live a normal life

you're like well

isn't it obvious that you would like the

option to live in the place that will

allow you to breed the air freely and

conduct your business

right when when one place says you can't

sit at dinner with your family and the

other place says you can have dinner

with your family you're going to want to

leave from point A to point B so you

won't be able to do it

if your property is fixed

right I mean a lot of people a lot of

Jews died in Nazi Germany in the 30s

because their property was fixed in

Germany they didn't want to leave and

they got trapped there if their property

had been in a crypto asset like Bitcoin

and they could have left

they'd be alive

and and uh it's not that hard to make

that point and you can you can you can

illustrate that with every expatriate

and every immigrant uh fleeing you know

every war zone just go to

ask the Cubans right that fled Cuba and

came to Florida you know after Castro

came to power

about what they lost and how they feel

about it

so my point really is you can't fix the

political problem in a country like

Zimbabwe has been getting squeezed

progressively for the past 50 years

and Cuba is the same way you might not

be able to change an entire regime but

you do have a choice as to whether or

not you will uh you will commit yourself

or allow yourself to be owned by the

regime and when you actually choose to

put money like for example when you

choose to save your money in the peso

you accept the inflation of the peso

would you take all your money right now

sell the dollars and go buy Zimbabwe

currency would you do that

probably not right it'd be seemed pretty

foolish would you take everything you

own would you take your family and would

you ship them to a hostile Nation would

you move everybody to North Korea no

probably not

but I mean it's it's such a silly

observation it it kind of illustrates

the point right now you have a choice as

to where you put yourself physically and

maybe you've decided physically the

safest places the U.S now you've got to

choose the state now you've got to

choose the city now you've got to choose

the house

you also have a choice of as to where

you put yourself economically your

wealth your balance sheet if you choose

the dollar you're losing seven to twenty

percent a year if you lose the peso

you're losing 50 a year if you choose

the Bolivar you're losing 95 percent of

it a year you have that choice and third

you have a choice as to where you put

your livelihood

you can choose to work as a YouTube

streamer you know what you depend upon

YouTube If you say something that causes

YouTube to rip your channel off your

livelihood goes to zero so if you choose

to make your livelihood on YouTube you

should pay attention to their policies

and act accordingly if your livelihood

is a hot dog stand in Beijing

active if your livelihood is in Moscow

downtown

think about the Russian policy you act

accordingly everybody has a choice as to

where they will place their livelihood

what Corporation they'll be dependent

upon what regulator they will be

dependent upon what government they will

be dependent upon

right you have a lot of choices today

just be rational you I can't fix you

know all of these problems in the world

all I can do is say some places

are more permissive than others on the

margin I would guess that your odds of

being able to operate your business in

in the face of a potential pandemic or

higher in Texas than they are in certain

left-leaning States

on the margin Florida probably higher or

if the if the governor says I'm never

going to shut down a business you have a

right to work

probably you have a higher right there

so you get to choose but that changes

every month and every year right

so public policy is changing economic

policy is changing one thing is clear

though

if you put your money in Gold it'll

probably be seized by the by the

counterparty and if it isn't seized

you're going to lose half of it every 30

years

if you put your money in a currency

you're going to lose half of it every

five to ten years if you put your money

into a weak currency you lose half of it

every five to ten months

if you put your money into an equity

you're going to have to trust the

management team but the management team

is going to dilute you in their in their

pursuit of their plans and strategies

and

if the equity is valued on cash flows

what if I gave you the most profitable

company in Zimbabwe right now

like how much is the equity worth over

the next decade what are the cash flows

worth for a company that generates

Zimbabwe dollars for the next decade if

the dollar crashes in Zimbabwe so you

have to be aware that you are trusting

your balance sheet

to some macroeconomic Force and and

you're putting yourself in that frame of

reference

you're trusting your p l to a different

set of macronomic forces

right you're a Chinese company and you

do work in China and you sell food in

China but you save in the US dollar you

see

you have dollar exposure

and then you have Chinese Chinese

commercial exposure

when you're a Saudi Arabian oil company

you have you're selling uh oil and so

you have that business energy exposure

but then you're saving in dollars you

have that exposure and you can't easily

move the oil fields out of the country

you're in so you have that political

exposure

so ultimately I think the lesson I mean

the big idea of the last two years is

every individual needs to become macro

economically sophisticated and

politically sophisticated if you ran a

yoga studio in New York and you didn't