January 2, 2025 • 29 mins
As is becoming something of an annual tradition here, we recently asked Odd Lots listeners to send in any questions they have about the show to Tracy and Joe, via voice memo. We took as many as we could, and answered questions on all kinds of things, ranging from our favorite economists to career advice to changes in how the news media operates.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. Uh, Tracy, It's
time for our annual AMA episode.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
The Annual Call In Show. This is my favorite time
of the year, Joe, totally.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's a weird time of year. Actually.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
The thing is, I feel like we're always answering questions
that people ask us. Right, maybe we're too accessible.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
No, I never feel that way. I feel like all
we do is ask questions and no one ever answer
asks us question.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I feel like if people want to ask us questions,
it's pretty easy to do so. But we still have
this call in show.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
It's amazing that your entire job is you ask questions
people multiple times a week, every week for the entire year,
and your main takeaway from the year is that you
answer too many questions. This is really interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
That's very That was not my main takeaway. My main
takeaway was we are question platform agnostic, Like it doesn't
really matter what format the questions come in, whether they're
called in like in this show, or whether they're typed
in via the discord or on Blue Sky or Twitter
or something else.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
This is fair. I like talking to people, I like
answering questions, but I like the call in format. I
missed the old days of you know, it'd be fun
to do a live radio show with callin.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I'd be fun to do it.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
When I was a kid, I called into sports talk
radio sometimes and I sort of missed that platform. And
you don't really get that with podcasts. A wait, what.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Did you say on sports radio?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I don't remember the you know, I think like I,
you know, I usually follow baseball really closely, and I
would like say, like, oh, I think the Toronto Blue
Jays have a lot of momentum down the stretch, and
I think they're gonna, you know, win the American League.
Or it's just some nonsense like that.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Sports and now tell usis in commentary is just something
I really I struggle to get into because it's like
it's either well, the team played well or I think
the team could play better. That's it. Like that's the
sum totality of what people say on those things.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
So yes, we are going to be uh. We invited
listeners to record a voice memo and then email that
to Odd Law too. Bloomberg Dot net and let's take
a listen to some and Tracy and I will do
our best to answer them.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
We'll pretend that we're live.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Yeah, this is Steve from Northville, New Jersey. I would
like Tracy and Jodas set up a cage match type
hardcore debate on the value of cryptocurrency. Every Saint analyst
says it's a pointless scam which uses tons of energy
to create valueless tokens that have been bid up to
insane prices and at the same time greatly facilitate many
criminal transactions. On the other side, there are a host
(02:47):
of promoter promoters that say it is the future of finance.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
First off, Steve, that's not a question, that's request, But
you know what, we'll take it. We'll take what we
can get. I think it's a good request. I would
like to see a cage match on crypto.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
So you know, I've said it before. I have people
from time to time to ask us, you know, we
should do a debate topic, and we may have done
one or two of theirs. I the reason I'm skeptical
about well, I mean, if we're talking about a literal
cage match where people beat people up, that's fine, but
if we're talking about a figurative one where it's some
sort of debate, Debates, to my mind, are only interesting
(03:23):
if the two sides agree on like ninety nine percent
of premises, where they agree on all definitions, et cetera,
and there is a very specific thing. Most debates on
crypto you get some sort of mainstream canesy and economist
and then some sort of you know, crazy laser ezed
person that don't agree on anything and they just talk
past each other. Not a particularly productive use and I
(03:43):
think most debates in public forms are like that. But
if we can find the right guests who largely agree
on and then disagree on something specific, maybe that's a
good twenty twenty five ambition.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I think you're right that that's kind of a difficulty there.
The one other thing I would say when it comes
to crypto, the use case or the envisioned purpose of
cryptocurrency always seems to be changing, right sure, And I
used to think I've written about this, but I used
to think that was a bad thing. That you know,
one day, bitcoin, for instance, would be like a way
(04:14):
to pay for things, and then the next day it
would be a store of value. And it would just
change every day. But I think as time has gone on,
we've kind of seen that that's turned out to be
a strength rather than a weakness. But it does make
it incredibly hard to have a resonable discussion over the
use case totally.
Speaker 6 (04:33):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I would say we did that episode a couple of
months ago with Austin Campbell. I think we're going to
have them back on soon. I'm like coming around to
some of like the stable coin stuff. Maybe anyway, should
we go to the next question?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Next question?
Speaker 7 (04:46):
Hey, Joe and Tracy. My name is Ryan Ross. I'm
based in New Jersey, and I'm curious what have been
your most favorite industries you've learned about in the past,
and also what are you interested in learning about in
twenty twenty five. You've had episode on the tractor supply,
which is interesting, and wood palettes and how those are
logistically moved around in an episode about how car leather
(05:11):
affects the price of gummy bears. I'm curious what's been
most interesting to you in the past in terms of
industries and also what are you interested in learning about
in twenty twenty five?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Hi, Ry, and I like this question. There are a
lot of interesting things that we get to talk about
on the podcast, and at the end of the year
it kind of becomes hard to remember all of them.
I will say one thing I really enjoyed diving into
this year was doing a bit more on agriculture. I
think one of the great things of hosting your own
podcast is that you can sort of to some extent,
(05:42):
tailor the content to your new interests. And you know,
I've kind of become interested in gardening and growing my
own food, and I have some latent prepper tendencies, I guess,
is the way I would put it, And so it's
been really fun to kind of dive into industrial agriculture
and learn more about that.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
There's a good tracy, will you shelter my family in
the event of some disaster? Like do you have enough
stored away?
Speaker 7 (06:08):
You have?
Speaker 6 (06:08):
Note?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Joe, what do you bring to the table other than
other than sparkling conversation, which is.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Really important you're in for the long haul. I don't know.
I fear my kids are very cute.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
This is very true. Yeah, all right, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
So I like learning about agriculture too. So I've said
it before, I really want to do more on Defense
in twenty twenty Well, yeah, of course I want defense spending,
the defense industrial base, and if anyone listening to this
has the perfect guest and anything about how that all works,
which I really know nothing about, shoot me and Tracy
a message, because I would say that's there's a big
(06:46):
that's a big area that it feels wide open and
interesting for me.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Next year Defense is a really good one that crosses
over into financial markets quite a bit, but also is
obviously in the news given the new Trump administration and
Elon Musk and joje and all of that.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
One thing.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
One other thing I would say that I'm interested in
in twenty twenty five that touches on agriculture. I really
want to do a fertilizer episode. Oh yeah, like where
a fertilizer comes from and whether or not all the
headlines you see about the land becoming less fertile, how
serious should we be taking those? So yeah, if anyone
has fertilizer contact contacts, send them our way as well.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Let's do it. Should we go to the next Let's
do it?
Speaker 6 (07:28):
Hey, Tracy, Hey Joe, this is Duncan. I am curious,
what is the most embarrassingly wrong take you've had on
something in popular discourse over the last five years. Love
the show.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Thanks Wait, Joe did duncan say the most embarrassing take
or our most embarrassing.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I think you should the most embarrassingly wrong take that
you've had. But I don't know if it was a
collective our.
Speaker 8 (07:56):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I think it was more specifically, you know, like either
one of us. Man, I mostly have wrong takes. You know,
like I wouldn't have expected crypto to bounce as much
as it had starting in twenty twenty when FTX imploded.
I wouldn't have expected that so quickly, you know. I
(08:19):
remember we did episodes years ago about like China's like
made twenty twenty five stuff, and I wouldn't have expected
it to be as successful as it has. I wouldn't
have expected inflation to persist and be as elevated as
long as it has. What else I mean? I mostly
I mostly get things wrong. I mean, it's harder for
(08:39):
me to think of what I get things right about.
I don't know, Tracy, do you have any Do you
have any.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
I'm trying to think of anything, like really really bad.
I would say I probably wrote my last bitcoin obituary
in like twenty seventeen, and I've written quite a few
at this point before I had my big, like come
to Jesus moment about narrative flexibility and the idea that
as long as the story's there, it almost doesn't matter
(09:05):
what the story is, and there's always going to be
a new one. I'm trying to think.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
I will say, there's just no upside right in writing
another obituary. O, No, what are you going to get
from that?
Speaker 6 (09:16):
No?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
And I will say the last obituary here's a bit
of inside like journalistic navel gazing. But the last obituary
that I wrote on Bitcoin, I made sure to end
it with like the possibility that it could come back.
Having written obituaries before where it did come back, I
learned a little bit. So it's a constant process where
(09:37):
you're trying to improve on your own work. And the
one thing I would say is, and I don't think
people realize this, but journalism everything plays out very publicly, right.
It's like you do your work, you put it in
front of people at the end of every day, and
people get to comment on it and decide if they
like it or not, if they think it's good or not.
And so you're constantly sort of getting that immediate feedback
(10:00):
and trying to go back and improve yourself based on it. Yeah,
it's an iterative process, let's just put it that way.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I'm trying to just think if there's anything else that
you've got, I don't know, is it? I you know what,
I don't think. I don't think I've had many like
embarrassingly mega wrong takes, in part because I don't have
many like takes where I stick my neck out and
say like this.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Oh, I know one. I know one that Joe had.
What about the thing about scooters? How scooters are going
to be like the next motive?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
You know What's funny though, So this is fair. But
someone then reached out to me and said, you know,
you're you're wrong about scooters in the US, but that
in Europe actually they have been highly disruptive. So I'm
actually giving myself a half point this if someone reached
out to me from Paris actually, So I'm going to
take a half uh half credit for that. Anyway. Yeah,
(10:52):
I mostly have like modestly wrong takes rather than anything
incredibly embarrassing. But dun't can thank you for the question.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Duncan I will say, like our takes, we try to
ground them in some like reality with rational analysis and reason,
so hopefully they're never too embarrassing.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
But we sure work right, Yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Show the work. I'm sure we could come up with
some find some if we went back into the archives
that we wouldn't want anyone to see now. But hey,
they're all there, they're all public.
Speaker 9 (11:22):
Next question, Hey, Joe and Tracy, this is Nick or
newsman on Blue Sky. I'd like to know what you
think is the most significant financial story of the year.
I know there's a lot to consider, but there must
be one thing that bubbles up to the top when
you hear this question.
Speaker 8 (11:37):
Thank you for your time.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
I love odd lots, oh man, Nick, there is a
lot to consider. I do think one thing, one thing
that I find really interesting, and I think you could
probably connect it to a bunch of different things that
are going on right now, is the episode that we
did a while back on companies getting smarter about how
(11:59):
they're ing their respective products. And it sounds like an
incremental thing. It's like, okay, well, companies, they're always trying
to charge more and make more money, and now they've
figured out some interesting new ways to do it with
new technology, but I think the level of sophistication and
the way that they're doing it is starting to become
(12:20):
a problem. And the more it comes on people's radars,
I think, the more sense of unfairness there is in
the general American population over the practice. And maybe that's
why you get so much of this anger sort of
boiling up into politics and things like that. So price
pack architecture, I think is a really interesting one.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
I have three stories that I think are the three
biggest stories in the world right now and a varying
time concerns. One is just the incredible amount to which everyone,
every investor is implicitly who has long risk assets is
long tech and long AI specifically concentration concentration in this one.
Bet anyone who has a diversified portfolio is making a
(13:02):
bit in some way on tech and AI. The incredible
rise of China is a manufacturing powerhouse, and the sort
of big questions about whether anything is going to get
built anywhere in the world that's not China, and can
anywhere can anyone be competitive in manufacturing outside of China's borders.
And then the destabilizing effects of mobile technology, which I
think we're sort of you know, social media and how
(13:24):
that's changing politics everywhere. And I think, you know, you
look like Romania recently, like you know, Revert canceled an
election because they claim that there was interference from Russia
via TikTok and so forth, and the sort of like
ways that new technologies are revertebrating across democracies and we
see change and basically everywhere, numerous shocking developments everywhere. I
(13:48):
think in part due to tech. Those to me are
the three big stories right now.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
When do we get to do the drone slash UFO episode?
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Joe, I hope. Let's let's go to the next question.
Speaker 10 (13:58):
Okay, Hey, Joe and Tracy, This is Daniel in Seattle, Washington.
I was just wondering your opinion on AI models being
trained on journalist content across the web, and I feel
free to elaborate on if what your colleagues might think
or who has a bigger bone to pick is it
(14:18):
you as the journalist or the media company.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Oh, this is an interesting question. I think if you
had asked me this like ten years ago, before chat,
GPT and all the other variations of it became a
big thing, I think I would have expected to be
really annoyed at this development, but actually, now that it's happened,
I feel kind of relaxed about this idea that you know,
(14:44):
it trained on basically the entirety of the Internet, and
a big chunk of the Internet is stuff that paid
journalists have been writing for years. I don't know, like,
I don't really feel that upset about it.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
To you, no, I don't, And also I don't know.
Maybe I should like, but I don't. And also I
don't think it's really worth getting upset, Like there are
some things that I think of as the sort of
big historical technological shifts that are happening, and I don't
think our opinions matter very much. So I guess maybe
in some sense I could be convinced to be upset
(15:16):
about it, but in reality, I don't think me being
upset is going to do very much.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
I think a lot of journalists have also probably given
up on the notion of making money from like old
fashioned copy, and so the idea of someone else being
able to make money off of it, even if it's
by training some new generative AI models fair game to them.
Maybe we should all start developing our own AI models.
Maybe that's the way for it.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
We'll try. I actually remind me, Tracy, I have a
research project I want to do in twenty twenty four
or twenty twenty five. I'm going to tell you about it.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
That sounds interesting. Yeah, all right, next question please.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Hello Joan Tracy. This is Mois from Karachi, Pakistan. I'm
a big fan of the show. My question to both
of you is that who are your favorite economists and
why are they your favorite?
Speaker 9 (16:16):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Interesting? Well, hello moys from Karachi, Pakistan. I spent some
time in Pakistan. I was in Islamabad and Lahore. I
never made it to Karachi, though I would have liked
to go there. Favorite economists do you think he means
current or like old school economists?
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Well, you know what we can answer however we want.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Okay, Well, then I'm gonna do like a massive cop
out and I'm just gonna say Canes. And the reason
is like a he's like, you know, a sort of
granddaddy of a lot of modern economics theory. But also
I think he was a really good writer. Yeah, and
he has some amazing quotes that I still like. Every
once in a while when I find myself being very pretentious.
(16:58):
I find myself using like the words are meant to
be a little wild, for they are the what is
it for? They are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.
I think that's it.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, those are some good quotes. He's a good writer,
you know, he wrote, I wasn't recently went back, and
you know, the last few years people have talked about
the so called vibe session, et cetera. He talked about
that quite a bit, in fact.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
But he didn't call it a vibe session.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
He didn't call it the vibe session. But what you said,
I went back and read something I forget. It might
be like a chapter twelve of the General Theory, for.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
The producer says he did call it a viba.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
He didn't. Our producer is trolling us.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, Cale, don't do that. It's Cane's anything that is possible.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
But he went back. I was reading something. He went
I think it's like a chapter twelve, one of the
really good chapters. And he says something about like how
political shifts can change people's perceptions of the economy, which
is sort of intuitive, and we see it in polls
or whatever. But then this thing you said, afterwards is
like there's sort of no point in being upset about this,
(18:04):
Like it's like people get angry. Are these facts about
seeming irrationality, that when the preferred party is in power
out of power, that people shift that then people change
their view about investment and impulse and all the investment
impulse and that like it sort of bothers people intellectually.
And he has like some good lines. I forget exactly
what it is every read it recently, which is like, again,
(18:26):
don't work yourself up trying to like get irritated at
the whims of the public, except that the whims of
the public are the whims of the public, and that
when the political shifts happen, the vibe shift, so to speak.
And this is what it means to sort of understand
the economy, which I thought is really good.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Yeah, that's pretty good. So you're also in the Canes camp.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
I mean, I'll go with Kanes.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
All right, fair enough, Next.
Speaker 11 (18:47):
Question, Hi, Tracy and Joe. My name is Rosalind Loubi
and I live in Westport, Connecticut. My question is whether
the podcast is going to tackle the state of the
venture capital industry as a topic in twenty twenty five.
I teach a class on alternative investments to undergraduate college
(19:10):
kids in an economics department, and I've used your podcast
extensively in my class, and I think this would be
a great topic for you guys to dig your teeth into.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
I agree this would be a great topic. And I
got to say whenever I hear we have a lot
of professors who will often reach out and say that
they use all lots of material to teach their students,
and I always think that, like, the students are learning
a lot more interesting things than I did at university,
Like you guys are learning about like alternative investments, and
I've learned about neoliberalism versus realism and political theory.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
But oh well, well, always more to do about vcs,
for sure, and we have. So we ended the year
with some VC episodes recently, so.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
We were back there. We were recently in San francisc, Go,
and we met with a few vcs while we were
out there. Joe and I enjoyed being in San Francisco.
I think we will probably be back next year. And
I'm just really intrigued, you know, partially by the whole industry,
but also the sort of job lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I guess it seems great.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Yeah, well the idea of you know, you go out,
you meet people who are doing cool things, and you
decide whether or not you want to invest in them
and then kind of take them on as a sort
of mentee. It seems fun.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, No, plenty more to do. And you know the
other thing, we've recently done some episodes, so there's some
big changes. Interest rates have gone up. It's not zerup
any more, obviously, AI sort of the new dimension. I
think the other dimension though, is that since especially post COVID,
so many people are in the game, right, so many
new entrants are trying to get VC, perhaps in part because,
(20:50):
as you say, the lifestyle seems pretty great. You know,
you wear those like sneakers that look very comfortable.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
You just want to wear the hoodies.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
The hoodies is totally fine, Like you don't really have
to like get up, and you like meet really interesting
people in probably a way that you rarely get in
most careers except journalism perhaps, Yeah, who wouldn't want to
be into it? But you have all these changes and
all this competitors, so more to do for sure on that.
And plus you know there's a lot to do on
(21:18):
the fact that there are a lot of tech people
in the new who are going to be entering the
new administration, So that should just be really interesting to
see how that plays out policyized.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Absolutely, all right, Next question, what.
Speaker 8 (21:30):
Are some of the biggest lessons you've learned from your
career that you wish you had known earlier.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
That is a very good question.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Okay, I have an answer. Oh, go ahead, you know
what I really wish I had learned earlier. Something I've
found that when Tracy and I interview people, the people
who are the smartest and have the most intelligent ideas
about things like the sort of best theoreticians, so to speak,
are also the most are frequently among the most detail
oriented and assiduous with the facts and important names, dates, places,
(22:02):
things like that. And I think I wish I had
learned earlier in my career that there is no substitute
for names, dates, and places, having them memorized and using
facts upon which to build ideas.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
That's a good one, because I think when you're sort
of younger, you're you get used to thinking about these
big things who they have these great ideas, but they're
not that detail or technically oriented. But actually you find
that some of the people with the biggest, most interesting
ideas often they have all the numbers and all the facts,
and they can walk you through the entire history of
(22:34):
their path.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
And learning learning facts and history and dates and times
and places and names and acronyms does not seem as
sexy as like learning some interesting theory about how the
world works, et cetera. So when you're young, you're sort
of attracted to the former and or whatever. You know,
you're attracted to the big ideas, But the people who
actually have really good ideas are frequently and I've seen
(22:57):
this over and over again on the podcast, very well
grounded in actual knowledge.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
So speaking of ideas, my lesson that I wish I'd
learned earlier. This is a little bit more tied to journalism.
But you know, when I first went into journalism, it
was like you should be you always want to be first,
and you always want to be original, and that was
how you know, that was success in journalism. And I
(23:22):
think as time has gone on, sort of realized like
the chances of being first to anything. And I'm talking
like kind of a wave from hard news scoops. I'm
talking like scoops of ideas is what we used to
call them, or analysis or something like that. The chances
of being truly first and original to anything are extremely,
(23:42):
extremely low, and so I think as I've gone on,
I've sort of come to appreciate the importance of not
necessarily being first, although if that happens, absolutely fantastic, but
being the person to like pull it all together the best,
or explain it the best, or I don't know, write
it in a new way that like reaches a new audience.
(24:04):
I guess. I guess I've just become a lot more
patient with coming up with things and sort of presenting
them in new ways and not necessarily thinking that just
because something isn't like one hundred percent new and original,
that it's not worth writing.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I think there's a really good lesson. And journalists we're
very prideful people, and so the idea that's like, oh,
someone already said this, or someone sort of said this.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Someone said it in the eighth paragraph of a story
from six months ago, like that doesn't mean that no
one else in the world can ever talk or write
or think about it ever.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Again, there's a really good line in the movie Pulp
Fiction where you know, I can't say it on there,
but he tells them not to let pride mess with
his head. And I think about that a lot with
respect to journalism.
Speaker 8 (24:50):
All right, Next question, what advice would you give to
young professionals looking to make a meaningful impact in the
financial industry?
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Looking to make a meaningful impact, Well, decide what that
impact is going to be. Yeah, first of all, because
there are different ways of having an impact. You know,
maybe you think you would like to reform the financial
industry from the inside out. That would be a pretty
big impact, but also a tall order. But maybe you
think that making an impact is generating wealth for yourself
(25:24):
and your clients. Like I think number one is probably
decide what the goal is exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
You know, Yeah, I would sort of say I might
take a slightly different turn, which is, I don't even
know the idea that any of us, that anyone can
know what it means to have impact in any field,
let alone the financial field. There's a very tall stretch.
The career advice I always sort of give to people, though,
is do whatever you're doing right now, try to do
(25:50):
it well, and that'll the better you're doing at your
job right now. The more likely doors will open for you.
And I'm a big believer in the cliche about how
the best way to make make a plan is to
make God laugh or sorry, the best way to make
God laugh is to make a plan. You really don't
know how the future is going to turn out. If
you have a plan, it's probably not going to unfold
that way, so better to just focus on being good.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
That's good advice to thank you.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
We got one more question.
Speaker 12 (26:16):
Hello Joan Tracy. This is Cynthia from Vancouver, Kata. A
question I have for Tracy is one, if you get
your chicken, what kind of acid clause in market would
you let your chicken trade? It's not kind of all.
What kind of trading strategy would you let them test out?
And do you think they're going to beat the benchmark?
Thank you?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
What kind of asset class would I let my chickens trade?
Do I need to explain this question or does everyone
know that I really want to get chickens?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
One didn't chicken do some trading?
Speaker 3 (26:47):
I'm sure someone has done experiments with chickens trading stuff before.
I'm just gonna go with the coins. I think chickens
trading a variety of shit coins would be would be
an intro one, and I think you could probably you
could probably create some sort of interesting pecking mechanism for
them to choose things. And I would like to watch
(27:09):
that on a day to day basis. I think I'd
find it soothing.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
Was it? There?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Something?
Speaker 7 (27:13):
Though?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Like, there're some artists taught a chicken how to trade?
Am I hallucinating this?
Speaker 10 (27:20):
Like?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
There was some artists and like the and that they
like trained and then it turned out I think the
whole thing was a little bit fake, but that they
I can't I'm like googling it. I'm not seeing it.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Here's a question.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Those were like the beat There were some artists who
tried to see if they could turn it chicken into
a mastered trader by giving it sort of various Pavlovic
shocks when it made a good trade or a bad trade,
and then it put its beat down on a green
or red button. I might be completely hallucinating this.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Uh, maybe Joe, maybe I should stop taking questions.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
All right, that's a good place to end it.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
All right, Well, thank you everyone so much for listening
to all thoughts. This year. Joe and I had an
absolute blast as always, and thank you as well to
everyone who sent in questions. And let's do it all
again next here shall we leave it there?
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Let's leave it there.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
This has been another episode of the Authoughts podcast. I'm
Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.
Follow our producers Carman Rodriguez at Kerman Ermann Dash, Ol
Bennett at Dashbod and kill Brooks at Kilbrooks. And thank
you to our producer Moses Ondem. For more odlogs content,
go to Bloomberg dot com slash odd lots. We have
transcripts of blog and a newsletter and you can chat
about all of these topics twenty four to seven in
our discord discord dot gg slash od loots.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
And if you enjoy au thoughts, if you like it
when we take your call in questions, then please leave
us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember,
if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to
all of our episodes absolutely ad free. All you need
to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts
and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening in
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. Uh, Tracy, It's
time for our annual AMA episode.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
The Annual Call In Show. This is my favorite time
of the year, Joe, totally.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's a weird time of year. Actually.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
The thing is, I feel like we're always answering questions
that people ask us. Right, maybe we're too accessible.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
No, I never feel that way. I feel like all
we do is ask questions and no one ever answer
asks us question.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I feel like if people want to ask us questions,
it's pretty easy to do so. But we still have
this call in show.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
It's amazing that your entire job is you ask questions
people multiple times a week, every week for the entire year,
and your main takeaway from the year is that you
answer too many questions. This is really interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
That's very That was not my main takeaway. My main
takeaway was we are question platform agnostic, Like it doesn't
really matter what format the questions come in, whether they're
called in like in this show, or whether they're typed
in via the discord or on Blue Sky or Twitter
or something else.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
This is fair. I like talking to people, I like
answering questions, but I like the call in format. I
missed the old days of you know, it'd be fun
to do a live radio show with callin.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I'd be fun to do it.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
When I was a kid, I called into sports talk
radio sometimes and I sort of missed that platform. And
you don't really get that with podcasts. A wait, what.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Did you say on sports radio?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I don't remember the you know, I think like I,
you know, I usually follow baseball really closely, and I
would like say, like, oh, I think the Toronto Blue
Jays have a lot of momentum down the stretch, and
I think they're gonna, you know, win the American League.
Or it's just some nonsense like that.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Sports and now tell usis in commentary is just something
I really I struggle to get into because it's like
it's either well, the team played well or I think
the team could play better. That's it. Like that's the
sum totality of what people say on those things.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
So yes, we are going to be uh. We invited
listeners to record a voice memo and then email that
to Odd Law too. Bloomberg Dot net and let's take
a listen to some and Tracy and I will do
our best to answer them.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
We'll pretend that we're live.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Yeah, this is Steve from Northville, New Jersey. I would
like Tracy and Jodas set up a cage match type
hardcore debate on the value of cryptocurrency. Every Saint analyst
says it's a pointless scam which uses tons of energy
to create valueless tokens that have been bid up to
insane prices and at the same time greatly facilitate many
criminal transactions. On the other side, there are a host
(02:47):
of promoter promoters that say it is the future of finance.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
First off, Steve, that's not a question, that's request, But
you know what, we'll take it. We'll take what we
can get. I think it's a good request. I would
like to see a cage match on crypto.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
So you know, I've said it before. I have people
from time to time to ask us, you know, we
should do a debate topic, and we may have done
one or two of theirs. I the reason I'm skeptical
about well, I mean, if we're talking about a literal
cage match where people beat people up, that's fine, but
if we're talking about a figurative one where it's some
sort of debate, Debates, to my mind, are only interesting
(03:23):
if the two sides agree on like ninety nine percent
of premises, where they agree on all definitions, et cetera,
and there is a very specific thing. Most debates on
crypto you get some sort of mainstream canesy and economist
and then some sort of you know, crazy laser ezed
person that don't agree on anything and they just talk
past each other. Not a particularly productive use and I
(03:43):
think most debates in public forms are like that. But
if we can find the right guests who largely agree
on and then disagree on something specific, maybe that's a
good twenty twenty five ambition.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I think you're right that that's kind of a difficulty there.
The one other thing I would say when it comes
to crypto, the use case or the envisioned purpose of
cryptocurrency always seems to be changing, right sure, And I
used to think I've written about this, but I used
to think that was a bad thing. That you know,
one day, bitcoin, for instance, would be like a way
(04:14):
to pay for things, and then the next day it
would be a store of value. And it would just
change every day. But I think as time has gone on,
we've kind of seen that that's turned out to be
a strength rather than a weakness. But it does make
it incredibly hard to have a resonable discussion over the
use case totally.
Speaker 6 (04:33):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I would say we did that episode a couple of
months ago with Austin Campbell. I think we're going to
have them back on soon. I'm like coming around to
some of like the stable coin stuff. Maybe anyway, should
we go to the next question?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Next question?
Speaker 7 (04:46):
Hey, Joe and Tracy. My name is Ryan Ross. I'm
based in New Jersey, and I'm curious what have been
your most favorite industries you've learned about in the past,
and also what are you interested in learning about in
twenty twenty five. You've had episode on the tractor supply,
which is interesting, and wood palettes and how those are
logistically moved around in an episode about how car leather
(05:11):
affects the price of gummy bears. I'm curious what's been
most interesting to you in the past in terms of
industries and also what are you interested in learning about
in twenty twenty five?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Hi, Ry, and I like this question. There are a
lot of interesting things that we get to talk about
on the podcast, and at the end of the year
it kind of becomes hard to remember all of them.
I will say one thing I really enjoyed diving into
this year was doing a bit more on agriculture. I
think one of the great things of hosting your own
podcast is that you can sort of to some extent,
(05:42):
tailor the content to your new interests. And you know,
I've kind of become interested in gardening and growing my
own food, and I have some latent prepper tendencies, I guess,
is the way I would put it, And so it's
been really fun to kind of dive into industrial agriculture
and learn more about that.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
There's a good tracy, will you shelter my family in
the event of some disaster? Like do you have enough
stored away?
Speaker 7 (06:08):
You have?
Speaker 6 (06:08):
Note?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Joe, what do you bring to the table other than
other than sparkling conversation, which is.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Really important you're in for the long haul. I don't know.
I fear my kids are very cute.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
This is very true. Yeah, all right, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
So I like learning about agriculture too. So I've said
it before, I really want to do more on Defense
in twenty twenty Well, yeah, of course I want defense spending,
the defense industrial base, and if anyone listening to this
has the perfect guest and anything about how that all works,
which I really know nothing about, shoot me and Tracy
a message, because I would say that's there's a big
(06:46):
that's a big area that it feels wide open and
interesting for me.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Next year Defense is a really good one that crosses
over into financial markets quite a bit, but also is
obviously in the news given the new Trump administration and
Elon Musk and joje and all of that.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
One thing.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
One other thing I would say that I'm interested in
in twenty twenty five that touches on agriculture. I really
want to do a fertilizer episode. Oh yeah, like where
a fertilizer comes from and whether or not all the
headlines you see about the land becoming less fertile, how
serious should we be taking those? So yeah, if anyone
has fertilizer contact contacts, send them our way as well.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Let's do it. Should we go to the next Let's
do it?
Speaker 6 (07:28):
Hey, Tracy, Hey Joe, this is Duncan. I am curious,
what is the most embarrassingly wrong take you've had on
something in popular discourse over the last five years. Love
the show.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Thanks Wait, Joe did duncan say the most embarrassing take
or our most embarrassing.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I think you should the most embarrassingly wrong take that
you've had. But I don't know if it was a
collective our.
Speaker 8 (07:56):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
I think it was more specifically, you know, like either
one of us. Man, I mostly have wrong takes. You know,
like I wouldn't have expected crypto to bounce as much
as it had starting in twenty twenty when FTX imploded.
I wouldn't have expected that so quickly, you know. I
(08:19):
remember we did episodes years ago about like China's like
made twenty twenty five stuff, and I wouldn't have expected
it to be as successful as it has. I wouldn't
have expected inflation to persist and be as elevated as
long as it has. What else I mean? I mostly
I mostly get things wrong. I mean, it's harder for
(08:39):
me to think of what I get things right about.
I don't know, Tracy, do you have any Do you
have any.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
I'm trying to think of anything, like really really bad.
I would say I probably wrote my last bitcoin obituary
in like twenty seventeen, and I've written quite a few
at this point before I had my big, like come
to Jesus moment about narrative flexibility and the idea that
as long as the story's there, it almost doesn't matter
(09:05):
what the story is, and there's always going to be
a new one. I'm trying to think.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
I will say, there's just no upside right in writing
another obituary. O, No, what are you going to get
from that?
Speaker 6 (09:16):
No?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
And I will say the last obituary here's a bit
of inside like journalistic navel gazing. But the last obituary
that I wrote on Bitcoin, I made sure to end
it with like the possibility that it could come back.
Having written obituaries before where it did come back, I
learned a little bit. So it's a constant process where
(09:37):
you're trying to improve on your own work. And the
one thing I would say is, and I don't think
people realize this, but journalism everything plays out very publicly, right.
It's like you do your work, you put it in
front of people at the end of every day, and
people get to comment on it and decide if they
like it or not, if they think it's good or not.
And so you're constantly sort of getting that immediate feedback
(10:00):
and trying to go back and improve yourself based on it. Yeah,
it's an iterative process, let's just put it that way.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I'm trying to just think if there's anything else that
you've got, I don't know, is it? I you know what,
I don't think. I don't think I've had many like
embarrassingly mega wrong takes, in part because I don't have
many like takes where I stick my neck out and
say like this.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Oh, I know one. I know one that Joe had.
What about the thing about scooters? How scooters are going
to be like the next motive?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
You know What's funny though, So this is fair. But
someone then reached out to me and said, you know,
you're you're wrong about scooters in the US, but that
in Europe actually they have been highly disruptive. So I'm
actually giving myself a half point this if someone reached
out to me from Paris actually, So I'm going to
take a half uh half credit for that. Anyway. Yeah,
(10:52):
I mostly have like modestly wrong takes rather than anything
incredibly embarrassing. But dun't can thank you for the question.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Duncan I will say, like our takes, we try to
ground them in some like reality with rational analysis and reason,
so hopefully they're never too embarrassing.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
But we sure work right, Yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Show the work. I'm sure we could come up with
some find some if we went back into the archives
that we wouldn't want anyone to see now. But hey,
they're all there, they're all public.
Speaker 9 (11:22):
Next question, Hey, Joe and Tracy, this is Nick or
newsman on Blue Sky. I'd like to know what you
think is the most significant financial story of the year.
I know there's a lot to consider, but there must
be one thing that bubbles up to the top when
you hear this question.
Speaker 8 (11:37):
Thank you for your time.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
I love odd lots, oh man, Nick, there is a
lot to consider. I do think one thing, one thing
that I find really interesting, and I think you could
probably connect it to a bunch of different things that
are going on right now, is the episode that we
did a while back on companies getting smarter about how
(11:59):
they're ing their respective products. And it sounds like an
incremental thing. It's like, okay, well, companies, they're always trying
to charge more and make more money, and now they've
figured out some interesting new ways to do it with
new technology, but I think the level of sophistication and
the way that they're doing it is starting to become
(12:20):
a problem. And the more it comes on people's radars,
I think, the more sense of unfairness there is in
the general American population over the practice. And maybe that's
why you get so much of this anger sort of
boiling up into politics and things like that. So price
pack architecture, I think is a really interesting one.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
I have three stories that I think are the three
biggest stories in the world right now and a varying
time concerns. One is just the incredible amount to which everyone,
every investor is implicitly who has long risk assets is
long tech and long AI specifically concentration concentration in this one.
Bet anyone who has a diversified portfolio is making a
(13:02):
bit in some way on tech and AI. The incredible
rise of China is a manufacturing powerhouse, and the sort
of big questions about whether anything is going to get
built anywhere in the world that's not China, and can
anywhere can anyone be competitive in manufacturing outside of China's borders.
And then the destabilizing effects of mobile technology, which I
think we're sort of you know, social media and how
(13:24):
that's changing politics everywhere. And I think, you know, you
look like Romania recently, like you know, Revert canceled an
election because they claim that there was interference from Russia
via TikTok and so forth, and the sort of like
ways that new technologies are revertebrating across democracies and we
see change and basically everywhere, numerous shocking developments everywhere. I
(13:48):
think in part due to tech. Those to me are
the three big stories right now.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
When do we get to do the drone slash UFO episode?
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Joe, I hope. Let's let's go to the next question.
Speaker 10 (13:58):
Okay, Hey, Joe and Tracy, This is Daniel in Seattle, Washington.
I was just wondering your opinion on AI models being
trained on journalist content across the web, and I feel
free to elaborate on if what your colleagues might think
or who has a bigger bone to pick is it
(14:18):
you as the journalist or the media company.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Oh, this is an interesting question. I think if you
had asked me this like ten years ago, before chat,
GPT and all the other variations of it became a
big thing, I think I would have expected to be
really annoyed at this development, but actually, now that it's happened,
I feel kind of relaxed about this idea that you know,
(14:44):
it trained on basically the entirety of the Internet, and
a big chunk of the Internet is stuff that paid
journalists have been writing for years. I don't know, like,
I don't really feel that upset about it.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
To you, no, I don't, And also I don't know.
Maybe I should like, but I don't. And also I
don't think it's really worth getting upset, Like there are
some things that I think of as the sort of
big historical technological shifts that are happening, and I don't
think our opinions matter very much. So I guess maybe
in some sense I could be convinced to be upset
(15:16):
about it, but in reality, I don't think me being
upset is going to do very much.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
I think a lot of journalists have also probably given
up on the notion of making money from like old
fashioned copy, and so the idea of someone else being
able to make money off of it, even if it's
by training some new generative AI models fair game to them.
Maybe we should all start developing our own AI models.
Maybe that's the way for it.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
We'll try. I actually remind me, Tracy, I have a
research project I want to do in twenty twenty four
or twenty twenty five. I'm going to tell you about it.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
That sounds interesting. Yeah, all right, next question please.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Hello Joan Tracy. This is Mois from Karachi, Pakistan. I'm
a big fan of the show. My question to both
of you is that who are your favorite economists and
why are they your favorite?
Speaker 9 (16:16):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Interesting? Well, hello moys from Karachi, Pakistan. I spent some
time in Pakistan. I was in Islamabad and Lahore. I
never made it to Karachi, though I would have liked
to go there. Favorite economists do you think he means
current or like old school economists?
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Well, you know what we can answer however we want.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Okay, Well, then I'm gonna do like a massive cop
out and I'm just gonna say Canes. And the reason
is like a he's like, you know, a sort of
granddaddy of a lot of modern economics theory. But also
I think he was a really good writer. Yeah, and
he has some amazing quotes that I still like. Every
once in a while when I find myself being very pretentious.
(16:58):
I find myself using like the words are meant to
be a little wild, for they are the what is
it for? They are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.
I think that's it.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, those are some good quotes. He's a good writer,
you know, he wrote, I wasn't recently went back, and
you know, the last few years people have talked about
the so called vibe session, et cetera. He talked about
that quite a bit, in fact.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
But he didn't call it a vibe session.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
He didn't call it the vibe session. But what you said,
I went back and read something I forget. It might
be like a chapter twelve of the General Theory, for.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
The producer says he did call it a viba.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
He didn't. Our producer is trolling us.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, Cale, don't do that. It's Cane's anything that is possible.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
But he went back. I was reading something. He went
I think it's like a chapter twelve, one of the
really good chapters. And he says something about like how
political shifts can change people's perceptions of the economy, which
is sort of intuitive, and we see it in polls
or whatever. But then this thing you said, afterwards is
like there's sort of no point in being upset about this,
(18:04):
Like it's like people get angry. Are these facts about
seeming irrationality, that when the preferred party is in power
out of power, that people shift that then people change
their view about investment and impulse and all the investment
impulse and that like it sort of bothers people intellectually.
And he has like some good lines. I forget exactly
what it is every read it recently, which is like, again,
(18:26):
don't work yourself up trying to like get irritated at
the whims of the public, except that the whims of
the public are the whims of the public, and that
when the political shifts happen, the vibe shift, so to speak.
And this is what it means to sort of understand
the economy, which I thought is really good.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Yeah, that's pretty good. So you're also in the Canes camp.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
I mean, I'll go with Kanes.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
All right, fair enough, Next.
Speaker 11 (18:47):
Question, Hi, Tracy and Joe. My name is Rosalind Loubi
and I live in Westport, Connecticut. My question is whether
the podcast is going to tackle the state of the
venture capital industry as a topic in twenty twenty five.
I teach a class on alternative investments to undergraduate college
(19:10):
kids in an economics department, and I've used your podcast
extensively in my class, and I think this would be
a great topic for you guys to dig your teeth into.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
I agree this would be a great topic. And I
got to say whenever I hear we have a lot
of professors who will often reach out and say that
they use all lots of material to teach their students,
and I always think that, like, the students are learning
a lot more interesting things than I did at university,
Like you guys are learning about like alternative investments, and
I've learned about neoliberalism versus realism and political theory.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
But oh well, well, always more to do about vcs,
for sure, and we have. So we ended the year
with some VC episodes recently, so.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
We were back there. We were recently in San francisc, Go,
and we met with a few vcs while we were
out there. Joe and I enjoyed being in San Francisco.
I think we will probably be back next year. And
I'm just really intrigued, you know, partially by the whole industry,
but also the sort of job lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I guess it seems great.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Yeah, well the idea of you know, you go out,
you meet people who are doing cool things, and you
decide whether or not you want to invest in them
and then kind of take them on as a sort
of mentee. It seems fun.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, No, plenty more to do. And you know the
other thing, we've recently done some episodes, so there's some
big changes. Interest rates have gone up. It's not zerup
any more, obviously, AI sort of the new dimension. I
think the other dimension though, is that since especially post COVID,
so many people are in the game, right, so many
new entrants are trying to get VC, perhaps in part because,
(20:50):
as you say, the lifestyle seems pretty great. You know,
you wear those like sneakers that look very comfortable.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
You just want to wear the hoodies.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
The hoodies is totally fine, Like you don't really have
to like get up, and you like meet really interesting
people in probably a way that you rarely get in
most careers except journalism perhaps, Yeah, who wouldn't want to
be into it? But you have all these changes and
all this competitors, so more to do for sure on that.
And plus you know there's a lot to do on
(21:18):
the fact that there are a lot of tech people
in the new who are going to be entering the
new administration, So that should just be really interesting to
see how that plays out policyized.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Absolutely, all right, Next question, what.
Speaker 8 (21:30):
Are some of the biggest lessons you've learned from your
career that you wish you had known earlier.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
That is a very good question.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Okay, I have an answer. Oh, go ahead, you know
what I really wish I had learned earlier. Something I've
found that when Tracy and I interview people, the people
who are the smartest and have the most intelligent ideas
about things like the sort of best theoreticians, so to speak,
are also the most are frequently among the most detail
oriented and assiduous with the facts and important names, dates, places,
(22:02):
things like that. And I think I wish I had
learned earlier in my career that there is no substitute
for names, dates, and places, having them memorized and using
facts upon which to build ideas.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
That's a good one, because I think when you're sort
of younger, you're you get used to thinking about these
big things who they have these great ideas, but they're
not that detail or technically oriented. But actually you find
that some of the people with the biggest, most interesting
ideas often they have all the numbers and all the facts,
and they can walk you through the entire history of
(22:34):
their path.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
And learning learning facts and history and dates and times
and places and names and acronyms does not seem as
sexy as like learning some interesting theory about how the
world works, et cetera. So when you're young, you're sort
of attracted to the former and or whatever. You know,
you're attracted to the big ideas, But the people who
actually have really good ideas are frequently and I've seen
(22:57):
this over and over again on the podcast, very well
grounded in actual knowledge.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
So speaking of ideas, my lesson that I wish I'd
learned earlier. This is a little bit more tied to journalism.
But you know, when I first went into journalism, it
was like you should be you always want to be first,
and you always want to be original, and that was
how you know, that was success in journalism. And I
(23:22):
think as time has gone on, sort of realized like
the chances of being first to anything. And I'm talking
like kind of a wave from hard news scoops. I'm
talking like scoops of ideas is what we used to
call them, or analysis or something like that. The chances
of being truly first and original to anything are extremely,
(23:42):
extremely low, and so I think as I've gone on,
I've sort of come to appreciate the importance of not
necessarily being first, although if that happens, absolutely fantastic, but
being the person to like pull it all together the best,
or explain it the best, or I don't know, write
it in a new way that like reaches a new audience.
(24:04):
I guess. I guess I've just become a lot more
patient with coming up with things and sort of presenting
them in new ways and not necessarily thinking that just
because something isn't like one hundred percent new and original,
that it's not worth writing.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
I think there's a really good lesson. And journalists we're
very prideful people, and so the idea that's like, oh,
someone already said this, or someone sort of said this.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Someone said it in the eighth paragraph of a story
from six months ago, like that doesn't mean that no
one else in the world can ever talk or write
or think about it ever.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Again, there's a really good line in the movie Pulp
Fiction where you know, I can't say it on there,
but he tells them not to let pride mess with
his head. And I think about that a lot with
respect to journalism.
Speaker 8 (24:50):
All right, Next question, what advice would you give to
young professionals looking to make a meaningful impact in the
financial industry?
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Looking to make a meaningful impact, Well, decide what that
impact is going to be. Yeah, first of all, because
there are different ways of having an impact. You know,
maybe you think you would like to reform the financial
industry from the inside out. That would be a pretty
big impact, but also a tall order. But maybe you
think that making an impact is generating wealth for yourself
(25:24):
and your clients. Like I think number one is probably
decide what the goal is exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
You know, Yeah, I would sort of say I might
take a slightly different turn, which is, I don't even
know the idea that any of us, that anyone can
know what it means to have impact in any field,
let alone the financial field. There's a very tall stretch.
The career advice I always sort of give to people, though,
is do whatever you're doing right now, try to do
(25:50):
it well, and that'll the better you're doing at your
job right now. The more likely doors will open for you.
And I'm a big believer in the cliche about how
the best way to make make a plan is to
make God laugh or sorry, the best way to make
God laugh is to make a plan. You really don't
know how the future is going to turn out. If
you have a plan, it's probably not going to unfold
that way, so better to just focus on being good.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
That's good advice to thank you.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
We got one more question.
Speaker 12 (26:16):
Hello Joan Tracy. This is Cynthia from Vancouver, Kata. A
question I have for Tracy is one, if you get
your chicken, what kind of acid clause in market would
you let your chicken trade? It's not kind of all.
What kind of trading strategy would you let them test out?
And do you think they're going to beat the benchmark?
Thank you?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
What kind of asset class would I let my chickens trade?
Do I need to explain this question or does everyone
know that I really want to get chickens?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
One didn't chicken do some trading?
Speaker 3 (26:47):
I'm sure someone has done experiments with chickens trading stuff before.
I'm just gonna go with the coins. I think chickens
trading a variety of shit coins would be would be
an intro one, and I think you could probably you
could probably create some sort of interesting pecking mechanism for
them to choose things. And I would like to watch
(27:09):
that on a day to day basis. I think I'd
find it soothing.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
Was it? There?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Something?
Speaker 7 (27:13):
Though?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Like, there're some artists taught a chicken how to trade?
Am I hallucinating this?
Speaker 10 (27:20):
Like?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
There was some artists and like the and that they
like trained and then it turned out I think the
whole thing was a little bit fake, but that they
I can't I'm like googling it. I'm not seeing it.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Here's a question.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Those were like the beat There were some artists who
tried to see if they could turn it chicken into
a mastered trader by giving it sort of various Pavlovic
shocks when it made a good trade or a bad trade,
and then it put its beat down on a green
or red button. I might be completely hallucinating this.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Uh, maybe Joe, maybe I should stop taking questions.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
All right, that's a good place to end it.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
All right, Well, thank you everyone so much for listening
to all thoughts. This year. Joe and I had an
absolute blast as always, and thank you as well to
everyone who sent in questions. And let's do it all
again next here shall we leave it there?
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Let's leave it there.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
This has been another episode of the Authoughts podcast. I'm
Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.
Follow our producers Carman Rodriguez at Kerman Ermann Dash, Ol
Bennett at Dashbod and kill Brooks at Kilbrooks. And thank
you to our producer Moses Ondem. For more odlogs content,
go to Bloomberg dot com slash odd lots. We have
transcripts of blog and a newsletter and you can chat
about all of these topics twenty four to seven in
our discord discord dot gg slash od loots.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
And if you enjoy au thoughts, if you like it
when we take your call in questions, then please leave
us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember,
if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to
all of our episodes absolutely ad free. All you need
to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts
and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening in
Hosts And Creators
Joe Weisenthal
Tracy Alloway
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