Micro strategy, which is currently sitting on over $5 billion in Bitcoin,
stock seems to be mirroring some of the moves in the popular cryptocurrency.
So what is micro strategy's long-term crypto plan? Joining us now, Michael Saylor, founder and CEO of Micro Strategy.
When I think of Bitcoin enthusiasts and mega believers, Michael, I think of you.
Does your faith ever get shaken, especially during these very volatile periods,
where Bitcoin has had a steep sell-off?
No, in my entire career, I've never seen anything that's compelling and unstoppable as Bitcoin.
Extraordinary enthusiastic. There are 8 billion people on the planet that need digital property,
and Bitcoin is the dominant digital property network. So if you zoom out and you ask the question,
how are you going to provide economic prosperity to billions of people at the speed of light over
a computer network? There's no better idea than Bitcoin.
We'll dive into that in a moment, but clearly you put your money where your mouth is,
you've issued debt to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet of the company.
Sometimes I almost forget that it's a company, it's a software company that does what?
Data intelligence, does that become harder as a core business when you are in these periods,
where Bitcoin is not going up and when you're seeing big losses there on the balance sheet?
Micro strategy stocks up by a factor of four. Our customers are delighted, our shareholders have
made billions of dollars, our employees are all shareholders in the company, our attrition rates
at an all-time low. It's actually great for our brand and great for our customers and great for
the enterprise. No complaints at all. So is a long-term strategy just to keep this business
as is and continue to add Bitcoin?
Look, our long-term strategy is kind of like Harvard University. We're running a university,
but we have an endowment. Micro strategy is selling enterprise software. We generate a
hundred million dollars in cash flow a year and a good year. We're reinvesting that cash
in our endowment. Our endowment is 100% Bitcoin. So the balance sheet strategy is acquired
in whole Bitcoin. The operating strategy is sell enterprise software everywhere else in the world.
So you mentioned your vision and why you're so bullish on Bitcoin. We just heard from Sam
Bankman, Fred, who is welcoming regulation, starting hopefully he says out of the US this year.
Is that your feeling or do you worry that regulators could ultimately regulate it out of
existence? China, for instance, banning Bitcoin mining.
I think actually regulation and clarity is going to be great for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is
universally acknowledged as digital property. It's common property. All the question marks are
around currencies and securities and platforms and exchanges. One thing that's clear is everybody
on earth wants to own property. And if you live in Africa or South America or Asia, what property
would you rather own than Bitcoin? So the regulatory clarity is going to accelerate institutional adoption
of Bitcoin. And you're going to see large flows of capital into the asset class as this continues.
But here's the difference with Bitcoin and property. Michael, you can value it. You can see the
location and the neighbors and what it's worth. How do you know? How can one determine what
Bitcoin is worth? There's no balance sheet. And it really hasn't been a long term proven asset.
If you lived in Zimbabwe, what piece of property would you rather own than Bitcoin?
If you lived in Argentina and there's 80% inflation rate, what piece of property would you rather
own than Bitcoin? Maybe the US dollar. Actually not. The US dollar is losing 20% of its value a year.
And Bitcoin is going up in value every year. So the real important thing to note about Bitcoin
is that Bitcoin is a global monetary asset, which means everybody on earth is going to have a
need for that property. And it's a scarce desirable asset. Currencies are designed to lose value.
The dollar is the strongest currency. But if you look at the Lyra, take the Argentine peso,
the blue dollar rate hit 209 today. It was 15 about four years ago. So you can't save your
money in a currency. You have to actually invest in a property. And for three quarters of the world,
they can't buy the S&T index. So it's not an academic question of whether or not you buy stocks or
you buy Bitcoin. You can't buy stocks when you live in the middle of Africa or Egypt or Turkey or
Lebanon. So really? You need property. I get it. I get what you're saying about the developing world.
Finally, I'm very quickly, Michael. What do you tell people out there who are now? And this
course is growing a little bit louder saying, Bitcoin's a bubble. The liquidity from the Fed that
that big tide is coming in and it is proving to be just a speculative investment. And it's popping.
Yeah, people are skeptical of Amazon and Google and Facebook. But the next digital transformation
is the digital transformation of property, money and energy. And Bitcoin represents that transformation.
So eight billion people are going to want to move money at the speed of light on a mobile phone.
What I would tell them is Bitcoin is the asset. Bitcoin is the network to move money at the speed
of light. There is no other open permissionless protocol to do it. So technology is on our side.
This is the future of the internet. Michael Saylor, it's good to have you on the show.
But wouldn't be crypto-night in America without you. Founder and CEO of MicroStrategy, we appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.