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Hi, I'm Jim O'Shaughnessy and welcome to Infinite Loops.
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Sometimes we get caught up in what feel like infinite loops when trying to figure things out.
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Markets go up and down, research is presented and then refuted, and we find ourselves right back where we started.
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The goal of this podcast is to learn how we can reset our thinking on issues that hopefully leaves us with a better understanding as to why we think the way we think and how we might be able to change that to avoid going in infinite loops of thought.
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We hope to offer our listeners a fresh perspective on a variety of issues and look at them through a multifaceted lens — including history, philosophy, art, science, linguistics, and yes, also through quantitative analysis.
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And through these discussions help you not only become a better investor, but also become a more nuanced thinker.
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With each episode we hope to bring you along with us as we learn together.
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Thanks for joining us, now please enjoy this episode of Infinite Loops.
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Disclaimer: Jim O'Shaughnessy is chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management, where Jamie Catherwood is an associate.
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All opinions expressed by Jim, Jamie and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management.
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This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
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Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: Well, hello everyone. It's Jim O'Shaughnessy.
1:53
And wait a minute, some mysterious individual showed up- Douglas Boneparth: Uh-oh.
2:01
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Who used to do this podcast with me, I think three years ago.
2:01
What's your name again, kids? It's...
2:08
Douglas Boneparth: Jamie O'Shaughnessy.
2:10
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Jamie. Oh, that's it. No, not O'Shaughnessy. Ah, Mr. Catherwood. How are you? Welcome son.
2:14
And I am delighted to have my friend Doug Boneparth, who is the head of Bone Fide Wealth, which specializes in trying to help out millennials and zoomers.
2:24
Are we going to talk about that? Douglas Boneparth: Yeah.
2:30
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Are you [crosstalk] for consumers?
2:32
Douglas Boneparth: We're going...
2:32
It's turtles all the way down.
2:34
We're going all the way down...
2:34
All the way down the generational spectrum here.
2:38
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And you too, chose to write a book.
2:41
Very good way to tell people what you're all about.
2:41
The Millennial Money Fix.
2:41
Now you wrote that with your wife, Heather, right? Douglas Boneparth: Yeah.
2:49
You want to have a fun experiment?
2:49
Write a book with your spouse.
2:53
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah, so my wife edited all of my books.
2:53
So the first time that this happened, we got into almost a fist fight on the Metro North going into New York.
3:09
And I don't think I've ever been madder.
3:09
And she was just fucking pummeling me.
3:16
This is horrible, passive voice, [inaudible]. Douglas Boneparth: Oh.
3:20
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And it's just like, "Ah!"
3:20
Douglas Boneparth: That sounds worse than what I did.
3:23
And look, I don't know if I would do the whole write a book with your spouse thing ever again.
3:28
And it was a success all the way around and we're glad we did it.
3:35
Our kids will look back at that.
3:35
But what you're describing sounds far worse, because you've created the whole work and then passed it off to be brutally assaulted by your city, by your better half. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yes.
3:45
Douglas Boneparth: I'm at least getting destroyed in real time on daily.
3:46
So, it wasn't a shock, it's just perpetual you're terrible. Because she's the best.
3:51
She's not only smarter, but the better writer.
3:51
So I'm just like, "Okay, I see where the..."
3:56
My expectations were set from day one. And...
4:00
Jamie Catherwood: Jim, do you remember what the most painful argument was about?
4:05
What section you wrote- Jim O'Shaughnessy: Oh.
4:08
Jamie Catherwood: That she said bad?
4:08
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Actually, Jamie, I do.
4:09
And it wasn't even the book yet.
4:09
It was the article I wrote for Barron's on the Dogs of the Dow.
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And I wrote that in 1992.
4:15
And I had noticed that there were three books about the Dogs of the Dow, but they only took the Dow back to 1973 in one and then 1950 in another.
4:28
And I thought, well, it's been around since the twenties.
4:34
So I should go and look up every stock that was ever in the Dow and take this back all the way to the twenties.
4:39
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I did that and wrote an article on spec.
4:42
They didn't ask me to write it for Barron's.
4:42
And I gave her the first article and literally, Jamie, she just surgically removed my ego from me. Crushed me.
4:56
Just trash underneath her heel.
4:56
Douglas Boneparth: An entire red pen was used that day.
5:01
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah, it really was.
5:04
And God dammit, every change she made was better.
5:04
Now she graduated summa cum laude with a journalism degree. And here, Mr.
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Barely has a BA in Economics. Douglas Boneparth: Same.
5:16
Heather was summa cum laude from a J school.
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And I embarrassingly also graduated from a journalism school and had to figured out how to write coherently.
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So I know exactly what you dealt with there, Jim. We're survivors.
5:33
Jim O'Shaughnessy: We are. We are.
5:33
But it was an actually an excellent exercise for me because it was one of those wake up calls that I had gotten.
5:42
I was the editor of my school newspaper. I wrote all the time.
5:42
I write all the time in journals and I hadn't been writing for an audience, right?
5:49
Douglas Boneparth: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
5:51
Jim O'Shaughnessy: For years.
5:52
And so I was like, "She's right.
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I really fucking suck at this."
5:52
So I went back and I got Strunk and White out again.
5:59
I got Zinsser on Writing Well again. I reread them all.
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And as Jamie knows, Jamie's a good writer.
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Writing is a craft that you can learn to get better at. Douglas Boneparth: Yes. A hundred percent.
6:13
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And I needed to get better, Jamie. What do you think?
6:15
Jamie Catherwood: Zinsser's book?
6:17
My mom gave that to me when I was in high school, I think. Going into college.
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And I absolutely love that book.
6:22
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Amazing, right?
6:24
Jamie Catherwood: It's just so much of what he says is exactly how I do my writing process.
6:24
Which is kind of get all the words on the page.
6:29
And then you ultimately write 90% of what actually gets finalized when you're going through it with a red pen.
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And [crosstalk] everything. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
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Missy, my wife calls it, killing your darlings.
6:41
And so- Jamie Catherwood: Yeah.
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: She's a professional photographer.
6:44
She did a book for Aperture. It sold out.
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I mean, and she's now being listed as one of the best photographers in the world.
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Which I think is awesomely cool.
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But she does it with her photos too.
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Her ability to ruthlessly edit both me, but also herself is...
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I was looking at, she was removing one of the photos, which was one of my favorites, right?
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And I'm like, "Don't take that one out."
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And she's just like, "Nope, it's just too much."
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And I'm like, "Okay-" [crosstalk] Douglas Boneparth: It's taken me years to truly write something, know I'm going to go to Heather for editing or suggestions and just humble myself and be okay that what's about to come my way is likely the demolition crew for whatever it is I just did. Knowing...
7:39
And it got to the point where I would even hesitate before bringing it to her because I had a really good measure on how lazy I was being before doing that.
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Douglas Boneparth: And that would almost set the tone or dictate how much abuse I was willing to take that afternoon and what kind of fight you were going to get ourselves into.
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And it's just one of those things where you know you're wrong. You have no leverage.
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You have nothing other than yourself- Jim O'Shaughnessy: You are- Douglas Boneparth: To blame for whatever's going to happen.
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: You are totally a supplicant and you got to take what they dish out. Listen.
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Let's get into topic number one.
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Because I'm fascinated by you for several reasons. One of which is humor.
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We've known each other for a while.
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We know each other in real life and everything.
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But so you have perfected, I think...
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You have 170,000 followers on Twitter and you use humor extensively in your Twitter feed.
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Which presumably, is also part of your digital marketing strategy, right?
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Douglas Boneparth: Absolutely.
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: And so, as you know, I love humor.
8:48
I think if you're not entertaining people, watch out, man.
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Unless you're a doctor giving a lecture, people like to be a little entertained.
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But my question for you, Doug, is so I'm going to read two of your tweets.
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The first one I think is hysterical.
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And I think any client would read this and laugh. Right?
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And you put it up, I think today.
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Googling why Google had such great earnings is why Google had such great earnings. Okay. Really funny.
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I love the way it works. It works as a joke. You could do...
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my daughter is a standup comedian. Douglas Boneparth: Yeah. She's good.
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: She could do this, right?
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You get three point seven thousand likes. Or 3,700 likes.
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Douglas Boneparth: So far.
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Jim O'Shaughnessy: All right.
9:39
So here's the next one, though.
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“So the most important part of investing is to keep improving. Last week, I lost 20%.
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This week, I'm going for 40.
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” I think that is hysterical, but my question is, is this just playing to the other advisors on there?
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And are they the guys who are smashing the like button?
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Douglas Boneparth: That's a really good question. Who the audience is.
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At least on the second one.
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So is that pandering to other professionals?
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I think a really big chunk of my audience is financial service professionals.
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And I think a lot of that has to do with those self-deprecation type humorous tweets there.
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I mean, that's what it is. It's self-deprecation.
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It's a sentiment check as well.
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I know there was hurt last month and I know misery loves company.
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Douglas Boneparth: And if you throw your...
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If I said you lost money, I get pushback.
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If I said I lost money, people were like, "He sucks, too." So come join the party.
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That's almost a WallStreetBets mentality.
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They specialize in that kind of humor.
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I don't know the last time I went deep into my analytics to try and tease out.
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Because it does tell you by profession who your audience is.
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Douglas Boneparth: It's probably worth taking a peak.
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I wouldn't be shocked to learn 47% to 60% is likely financial services.
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But then I'm never going to know of that whose CFPs or CFAs.
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Because I would tell you I'm not here to market towards fellow CFPs.
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I'm here to give them humor and give them this notion that they're not alone out there.
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Because I know how lonely it can be being a financial advisor.
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That's more Doug's story.
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But I don't really care if it's going to other financial advisors because that could set up an opportunity where someone wants to pick my brain for 30 minutes.
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And I love giving back to younger advisors who are on the come up and they want to know how I built this or how I did that.
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Douglas Boneparth: It sets up those opportunities.
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I mean, there's dopamine hits.
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Doug, you make me laugh every day. I need that in my life.
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That's why I'm doing this most of the time.
11:52
So is it really just giving laughs to people in financial services?
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I would say the majority, yeah.
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But it's such a big audience now where even if you took a minority portion of that crowd and were giving jokes to people who potentially could be clients or have nothing to do with financial services, that's still likely tens of thousands of people. So it doesn't matter. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
12:14
So how many clients do you think that you could directly attribute to say Twitter or other social media or you have a deal with CNBC where you're on there quite a bit.
12:30
Do you do that kind of segmentation? And now I'm a quad. I can't help it. I'm sorry.
12:33
Douglas Boneparth: Yeah, no, no.
12:33
These are the right questions.
12:36
Getting the data to determine where they came from is obviously the question we asked during a prospect meeting is “How did you find us?
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” Sometimes, they'll tell us directly.
12:42
If it's through Twitter, I usually get a, "Hey, I like your feed." At the end.
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And they'll be [inaudible] about it the entire time.
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And that's usually a great indication that they're going to sign on because they came in as fans and someone who really enjoys your content.
13:00
Douglas Boneparth: And now they're going to the next step of wanting to potentially hire you.
13:02
I always think that is a warmer lead then someone who just found you by a Google search.
13:08
And SEO is a huge part of what we're doing here, right? Winning those keywords.
13:14
So there was a lot of time and at one point money being invested in making sure millennial financial advisor in New York, these combinations brought you to me on first page of Google.
13:26
Douglas Boneparth: I know how important that is to really pull the kind of business we're looking for.
13:29
Far greater of importance than people DMing me saying, "Hey, can we set up a consult?"
13:35
Or setting up a consult through the website and saying, "Hey, I like your feed."
13:39
So if I would break it out for you, I would say over the last 12 months, there's probably I could count on two hands that are directly related to I'm a fan of your Twitter feed.
13:51
And I could count on multiple sets of hands through some combination of SEO derived from either first party content that I've created or third party content where I'm a source.
14:03
Douglas Boneparth: And there's a huge part of the SEO online marketing play that is constantly being in the news.
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So through CNBC and beyond one of my biggest assets is a huge network of writers, editors, producers across all of financial media.
14:19
And that still to this day helps us keep the ball rolling on what can be a very competitive landscape on the SEO online marketing side.
14:25
Jim O'Shaughnessy: So that leads me to the next and somewhat obvious question.
14:29
I mean, how do you scale this? Is that a possibility? Do you expand?
14:37
Do you hire other advisors? What's the plan? Douglas Boneparth: Yeah.
14:42
We just hired our first associate last summer.
14:45
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Congratulations.
14:46
Douglas Boneparth: So that's... Thank you. Mr.
14:46
Clifford Cornell has come to us straight out of...
14:50
Want to know what a risky proposition is?
14:50
Hiring a 22 year old out of college.
14:56
That's a risky proposition.
14:56
And somewhat- Jim O'Shaughnessy: I'm also hiring a 24 year old. Douglas Boneparth: Yeah. [inaudible] Jamie.
15:01
Jim O'Shaughnessy: [crosstalk] Jamie.
15:02
Douglas Boneparth: Who would be so stupid? Jim O'Shaughnessy: God. Some moron, no doubt.
15:05
Douglas Boneparth: Jamie showed up. Yeah.
15:08
Jamie showed up in my office one day before you hired him and- Jim O'Shaughnessy: Good at that.
15:13
Douglas Boneparth: I think- Jim O'Shaughnessy: He's good at that. Douglas Boneparth: Yeah.
15:15
He's really good at that.
15:15
I think he was seeing you that day, as well. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
15:20
Douglas Boneparth: And I think that was literally the start of your collaboration together.
15:22
So- Jamie Catherwood: Yeah. It actually was.
15:24
Douglas Boneparth: I would like to say I... It was, right? Jamie Catherwood: Yeah.
15:27
Douglas Boneparth: I was there for it. I was one of the faces. Jamie Catherwood: You...
15:30
Yeah, you should get a finder's fee.
15:30
Jim O'Shaughnessy: No, he shouldn't.
15:32
No, he actually should not get a finder's fee.
15:32
In fact- Douglas Boneparth: Thank you, Jamie. I appreciate that.
15:37
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I'm going to charge him a foisting fee.
15:43
Douglas Boneparth: So your question about how does it scale.
15:45
At the end of the day, it's a fairly traditional financial planning firm or boutique wealth management shop that would scale in the same way is probably have an easier time scaling because we rely more on technology.
15:55
Our clients don't care where we are. Zoom is native to us.
16:01
I'm working with a 28 to 42 year old demographic here.
16:01
Literally very, very busy people who would prefer not to schlep my office to go do something when we can just do this right here.
16:13
And COVID only further demonstrated that was indeed a fact. But you hired.
16:13
We have a new associate guy is now invested and passes exam, setting a CFP.
16:19
Now I can pass on my cookie cutter model that I think really is going to work for next generation advisors to a real body here.
16:33
Douglas Boneparth: And to see that happen and to know I was ready to do that, how can we get a 22 year old ready to produce short order?
16:34
Because there's a big component of this is...
16:41
In our field year, you just need to live some life and get real life experience under your belt.
16:46
You're going to do comprehensive financial planning for 30, 40 year olds. And you're 22.
16:52
And what do you know about life? You don't know shit.
16:58
And now you're going to go... And I've been there.
16:58
So I've been doing this since 19.
16:58
So I know what it's like to get the stink eye.
17:02
To get the, "Who are you?"
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Sit in the meetings where when I was early in my career working with my father, I remember just clients being uncomfortable I was there.
17:12
And it's, "Why is he here? Is he touching money? What's going on?"
17:19
Douglas Boneparth: But that was where the real...
17:21
That's where the early lessons were that helped create the guy that you're talking you right now.
17:26
So we can scale it that way.
17:26
The question is, how far do I want to?
17:26
Clearly, I am showing indication of wanting to continue to grow, right?
17:32
If I hit a capacity constraint because it's all Doug and his VP, and now we have another advisor, how much capacity did we just allow ourselves? Right?
17:43
And not only that, we're kind of laying the bricks under our feet as we grow.
17:43
Because I have someone that needs to be molded and shaped.
17:48
Reminds me of the boiler and seeing where they're like, "We don't hire series that is so antithetical to the way we do business."
17:52
But we don't hire [series seven] to retrain them.
17:58
I'm like, "We don't hire CFPs. We train them."
18:02
Jim O'Shaughnessy: So I'm going to be the guy to prove a point that what I think I don't deal with end clients, as you know.
18:07
I deal with people like you and other advisors, et cetera.
18:13
But I have dealt with end clients.
18:13
And one of the things that I recall being the number one problem, especially if it was a couple.
18:19
And I knew the wife had questions and the husband, like what I would say, do you understand what this is? He would say, "Yes."
18:33
Jim O'Shaughnessy: The look on her face would say, no.
18:35
And so I just got in the habit of spelling out everything.
18:43
Because, so I'm going to ask the dumb question.
18:43
Doug, I mean, gosh, what's the difference between, I interviewed a CFP, a certified financial planner, but then I heard about a guy who's a CFA, a certified financial analyst.
18:55
And then I heard about an RI, a firm. What the fuck? Douglas Boneparth: Yeah.
19:01
We've made this really easy for the public to understand who's what.
19:04
I mean, no, we've done an absolutely terrible job with the amount of jargon, not just in our respective crafts, right? In financial services.
19:10
But even within personal finance or corporate finance or you can get lost in the sauce very quickly.
19:16
The great part about being a certified financial planner and someone who deals with people's personal finances is the education requirement or the duty you have to educate your clients.
19:28
Not just on how to simplify jargon into terms they understand, but how to simplify their financial lives into helping them make effective and prudent financial decisions.
19:38
I think it's literally a part of the...
19:43
Good planners know that this is part of your job.
19:43
And I don't think you're going to be very effective developing business if you're unable to break it down to a relatable level.
19:56
And I think in their lives, the key it's about relatability.
19:56
And when you think about Bone Fide Wealth in my business, what we've been very effective at.
20:01
Not just being a first mover in getting an underserved demograph...
20:06
you go back six years saying you're going to go work for millennials.
20:10
Any manager at a shop would laugh at you and say, "Go home.
20:10
Think about what you just said.
20:16
And don't bother coming back if you can't figure out that they don't have any money.
20:22
We make our money on managing money."
20:22
And I'm thinking we also make money providing financial advice and planning.
20:28
We can get to assets down the road.
20:28
Let's go invest in people who have bright futures that need help today, right? So yeah.
20:33
Think like a capitalist, but have a little bit of a heart of a social worker here, at least when you're approaching this thing.
20:38
And if it was the CFA, it would be someone doing a completely different function.
20:44
You'd see a CFA as far as wealth management goes.
20:51
Douglas Boneparth: I would have you in the firm here to help run portfolio, to help you or to help my clients build out the asset management side of things.
20:58
I wouldn't bring you in to discuss how your trusts are integrating with your tax planning and why we need to gift them right now.
21:03
You'd be like "Yeah, I'm looking for alpha".
21:08
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah, what the hell are you talking about? Trust here, man. Douglas Boneparth: Yeah.
21:14
I just bought the dip Doug, I need a bonus.
21:17
Jim O'Shaughnessy: That was another one of your tweets that I loved. Did I sell the bottom? Yes.
21:22
But did I also buy the top? Also yes.
21:22
To me, obviously, because I'm in this industry, I find it really funny.
21:32
Sense of humor, I'm an old timer around here and Wall Street always had the best sense of humor, always.
21:40
And it was always not kosher.
21:40
It was- Douglas Boneparth: Yeah, go back 30 years. Not going to be good.
21:50
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Honestly, I was moving house when the challenger exploded.
21:53
My business phone rang, and I picked it up and it was a guy at undisclosed brokerage who said, "I said bud light."
22:02
Literally I didn't even know that the challenger had exploded.
22:10
And he's already on the phone making jokes and I'm like, "This is [crosstalk]." Douglas Boneparth: Yeah.
22:20
Pretty bad, pretty messed up.
22:20
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I'm a bull on all of, what I'm calling the great reshuffle, on all of the ability to leverage technology.
22:36
But also I'm a bull on the fact that Wall Street has really cleaned up its act.
22:42
It's still got more it can do but from the old days, oh my God.
22:49
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Which I think is great and I think it's transformational.
22:50
I also think that there's a lot more people who like you, helping people because money's the last taboo, it seems to me.
22:57
And people will openly talk about their sex lives but man, you try to get them talk about money and there's just so many things lurking in the demon dwelling area there. Douglas Boneparth: Yeah.
23:18
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And you had mentioned we have a mutual friend Morgan Housel, and you said you really like him.
23:23
And one of the things, I despise Morgan. He knows it. No, I love Morgan. He [crosstalk].
23:31
Douglas Boneparth: My biggest enemy.
23:33
Jim O'Shaughnessy: He's my nemesis. Yes.
23:33
And that's why I have all the photos of him from when he was a kid.
23:36
Douglas Boneparth: I love to do that.
23:38
Jim O'Shaughnessy: His wife is on my side. Take that Morgan.
23:39
Douglas Boneparth: For sure.
23:42
You post that, I texted him to tweet immediately.
23:42
And I am like, "Having a great day buddy?" Just file on.
23:48
Jim O'Shaughnessy: He also happens to be a great writer.
23:51
He sold a million books and I think he shares something with you, which is like, it's pretty simple.
23:57
Consistency, goals, repeat.
24:03
Douglas Boneparth: It's easy to say, but doing it, humans are terrible at this.
24:07
Particularly with money, I'm numb to my marrow when it comes to market volatility.
24:14
You do personal finance long enough, and I've been doing it 17 years.
24:23
You're going to find yourself knee deep in a lot of unsavory type of life events that ...
24:29
I mean, there was a day in my career, I acted all up.
24:29
Went home, hugged my wife and sat in my room alone.
24:37
Douglas Boneparth: It was just a back to back life event from clients.
24:39
And that's how, as sad as it was, it was involved death of a child.
24:46
And I've traumatized myself so much, I've probably blocked what the other event was.
24:52
And it was back to back deaths.
24:52
One of a child and the other of a adult client leaving a young child behind.
24:58
Douglas Boneparth: And the second one was of the child.
25:01
And I looked to my staff, I said I'm going home, and I went home and nearly lost it.
25:08
I've dealt with death in practice before and another as an associator or a partner of other practices, but never my own. And it was sobering.
25:15
These are probably not even the words I really want to use to describe how I felt in that moment.
25:28
Douglas Boneparth: And I bring this up because it really does play into why I use humor, not just on Twitter.
25:31
What you see there is what you get here.
25:31
It's what you get when signing up to be a client.
25:37
I have to talk to you about death and incapacitation, life insurance.
25:45
I have to talk about what happens if you can't be there for your kids or your spouse.
25:50
Douglas Boneparth: And I got to tell you, getting some humor in there to soothe out what is a morbid conversation or a pretty dark matter, goes a long, long, long way.
26:01
I credit humor to helping me navigate client relationships a great, great deal.
26:01
It's probably the best tool in my tool belt.
26:09
Apparently you can see this play out on a Twitter feed.
26:15
Douglas Boneparth: But imagine how I'm able to use in practice and more importantly, in life with my own friendships and my own family.
26:19
I think I just go insane if I wasn't able to laugh at stuff.
26:23
You could do the cliche of life's too short. The world's fucked up. All of these things.
26:31
You better find a chuckle or some pharmaceuticals or not pharmaceuticals.
26:39
Some drugs to help you out here.
26:39
Douglas Boneparth: By the way, none are mutually exclusive. But that's it.
26:41
When you say, and Morgan who I love and he'll deny that we're good friends to the help, but we are.
26:48
And I have the pleasure of speaking with him.
26:52
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I actually texted him before this and I said, "Do you know Doug at all?"
26:54
And he goes, "That guy, I have a restraining order on him." Douglas Boneparth: Yeah. That's okay.
27:01
There's a mutually assured destruction option that we could deploy.
27:08
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Listeners, I am kidding.
27:11
Morgan does not have a restraining order on Doug.
27:11
Douglas Boneparth: No, he does not.
27:13
And we give him a hard time because we love him so much. But enough of that guy.
27:18
But yeah, he breaks it down to pretty simplistically in his book and in his writing.
27:24
And I think the thing we probably say together is 70% just made up statistic.
27:24
70, 80% of personal finance is to your point.
27:29
And you said a second ago, what you spend your money on, increasing what you make, and enjoying what you got.
27:37
Douglas Boneparth: And if you figure these things out.
27:37
But just like anything in life, if you're going to get good at something, you got to practice it.
27:45
And when you think of me as a professional in the context of an accountability buddy, as someone who regularly checks in, has a written document and a plan to follow in place to handle ...
27:51
Look the plans, numbers and letters on a piece of paper.
27:56
Douglas Boneparth: This is the art and the dance and the conversations and the way you can extract value from words and numbers into real life decisions.
28:05
That is something that likely can never be replaced by robos at least. Yeah, never say never.
28:11
But it's not anything I'm going to see get replaced anytime soon.
28:15
So you better build your value on that, not the piece that is or anything that could become commoditized.
28:20
And there's a lot of things that have become commoditized. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
28:27
I've said often that arbitraging human nature is the last sustainable edge.
28:27
And it sounds to me also like what you just said, "People want to talk to people."
28:34
Early in my career, there was this big fight going on between load funds and no load funds.
28:42
The youngsters probably won't even know what a load fund is.
28:48
Douglas Boneparth: A-shares, C-shares, [crosstalk]. Rights of accumulation.
28:51
Now I- Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
28:55
Literally, they would charge you a huge fee to buy the fund.
28:59
Douglas Boneparth: Five and three quarters under 50 grand or something like that.
29:06
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Absolutely insane.
29:06
I have enumerated the many, many, many mistakes I have made and probably I'm going to go on to some real whoppers.
29:18
But one of the ones I made was Merrill Lynch, I had an arrangement with them.
29:18
I was a consultant of Merrill, providing them with stocks for one of their unit investment trusts which are fixed investment vehicles that I don't think exist anymore.
29:30
They might, I don't know.
29:34
Douglas Boneparth: They do.
29:34
Don't know the last time I've seen it, but they show up every now and then. Some inherited account.
29:40
Jim O'Shaughnessy: But here's Jim, and we're going to launch some mutual funds.
29:44
And the Merrill guys are like, "Jim, just launch our load funds.
29:44
We'll put them on the Merrill system."
29:50
And I'm like, "No, no, no. No, no.
29:50
No loads are the future my friends." Douglas Boneparth: Yeah.
29:57
You didn't make any friends at the bank that day.
30:00
Jim O'Shaughnessy: But you know what?
30:02
Now I'm glad that all those crazy fees are gone.
30:02
But there was an argument that I scoffed at and I changed my mind about dramatically.
30:09
And that was that after a certain level, whatever that level happens to be.
30:17
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Human beings, trying to figure out finances, if that's not their thing, they need another human to deal with.
30:29
And believe me, I started things like Netfolio, I loved robos.
30:29
I thought they were all great.
30:35
But I really changed my mind on that idea just because time and time and time again, the people I saw not freaking out had advisors, the people I saw freaking out did not.
30:49
Douglas Boneparth: There it is. That's right there.
30:49
And I got to sharpen my saw on that in 2008, 2009.
30:54
Left South Florida, moved to New York city.
30:54
I got off the planet at JFK when Lehman literally collapsed and I'm like, "Shit, going home tomorrow."
31:08
The worst possible time to move to New York city and work in finance would be October, 2008.
31:14
Douglas Boneparth: Find a worst time.
31:14
That right there is get ready for free fall, here we go.
31:17
If you had a life jacket, you were lucky. Literally dark days.
31:22
That shaped me as a professional and got it in my mind that I'll likely see this again.
31:32
Maybe not a credit crisis in that regard in the housing market.
31:38
I had no idea 2020 would be a health ...
31:38
It could have been a health crisis, could have been a commodity crisis, could a bank. It didn't matter.
31:43
I'd see something stupid.
31:46
Douglas Boneparth: I remember us having lunch.
31:47
It's like, "Where is it, Jim?"
31:47
And you were right, but also wrong because we had no idea what it was.
31:52
And I don't think either of us, we would've bet a financial boo boo or a geopolitical scuffle or something.
31:58
Not sure a pandemic that probably was not on our bingo card.
32:04
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Damn it.
32:05
Douglas Boneparth: But yeah.
32:06
And it went deeper than, I think where we were discussing, but we would also never have guessed it would've bounced back with that much stimulus.
32:12
Anyways, the point being here, I got it in my mind I would deal with this again.
32:16
For literally 13 years of shaping and building myself into the advisor and the firm that I have today, I was prepping clients in the conversations finessing how to not terrorize anyone with the doom is coming.
32:31
Then you're a bear, I'm a bull.
32:37
Douglas Boneparth: Then you're a bear and you'll be right eventually, and probably erode your reputation if you say it too long.
32:40
You never spot, you want to really be in here.
32:44
And here it was, it happened.
32:44
It happened in the form of a 33% draw down in a matter of what seemed like minutes. And game time Doug.
32:51
You've trained for this.
32:51
Let's go make sure no one sells.
33:00
Because worst thing you could do.
33:00
Douglas Boneparth: Let's find out who's willing to rebalance at a minimum.
33:02
That's one way to buy a dip.
33:02
Who's feeling risk on, that's a second way to buy a dip.
33:06
And the third is who's got the brass and the guts to go take fresh capital and throw it into these discounts here.
33:12
That's meaning hey, you got you.
33:17
And we were always preaching nine to 12 month cash reserves, not three to six.
33:22
Douglas Boneparth: That was Doug's trauma and stigma from 08, 09 showing up in practice to give, I'm thinking 20, 30 something year olds trying to buy their home, start their families.
33:32
They need to sleep well at night and have security in order to do all the things I want them to do.
33:37
Douglas Boneparth: And here's what I learned.
33:39
I thought I was going to be very effective given I had a decade to prep, train plan around an event like this.
33:45
And I thought I could get a lot more people than I did to take that dry powder to really go by with fresh capital.
33:50
I got done what needed to get done, which was no one panicking and selling out of their positions and really just blowing up the strategy.
34:01
Douglas Boneparth: I got a lot of folks to do the simple stuff like rebalance and maybe get a little bit more risk on.
34:04
And while I did get at some people to say, "Hey, let's go take advantage of this."
34:10
It was far below what I thought it would be.
34:10
Maybe like 20% of the practice, I was probably shooting for double to two and a half times that.
34:15
And it just goes to show, bring out the Mike Tyson quote, "Everyone's got a plan until you're punched in the face."
34:26
Douglas Boneparth: And in dealing with a pandemic, kids now at home, daycare shut down. People were grateful.
34:31
Clients were grateful, I brought it up, but they had no appetite for something like that at the moment.
34:36
And that was, I think the biggest lesson here, because it was the behavioral lesson.
34:41
You're really getting to see how well you train them up.
34:48
Douglas Boneparth: And I pat myself on the back.
34:48
I'm not trying to flex hard here, I'm just trying to say.
34:52
I'm actually trying to humble myself.
34:52
It was great, but it wasn't all star status where I could tell you yeah, 80% of the practice, I forced them to buy that dip.
35:04
That would just be terrible. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
35:07
And listen, again, not my first rodeo.
35:07
When you see it time and time and time again, and you see human beings behaving exactly the same way, I never ...
35:17
As you know, I'm not a market forecaster, I'm a infinite time horizon guy.
35:24
I have children and grandchildren and charities that I want to give money to.
35:30
My time horizon is forever.
35:30
I would never sell the United States short. So it's easy for me.
35:37
But I'm not disinterested in what people who react emotionally.
35:50
And other than this long term forecast, I almost never make a forecast.
35:57
Now I did in March of 2009.
35:57
I wrote a thing called a generational buying opportunity.
36:04
Not because I had any insight, but because the numbers were screaming this at me and crickets man.
36:12
I actually went down to one of our longest term advisors in Washington, D. C.
36:20
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And I was with my rep who normally would call on him.
36:26
We step into his office and I'm really not kidding, in a very nice office.
36:32
He'd been with us for years and years and years.
36:32
I take one step into his office and he's sitting at his desk with his hand up like this.
36:37
"Jim do not come any further."
36:43
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And he goes, "What do you got in that briefcase?"
36:48
I've got a report I want to show you man.
36:48
And he goes, "No, no, no.
36:48
What you've got in that brief case, is you've got 15 charts and tables telling me categorically, why this is the very best time to buy and that's and you're fucking lying. And I don't believe it."
37:03
And this was a guy who could tell our story better than me.
37:09
And people during those crunch times- Douglas Boneparth: He got shook? Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
37:18
If you can say people during those times man, you've earned your feet 10 times over, I think.
37:22
Let's change courses here to, you've got a new venture where like almost building in public.
37:32
We want to talk about crypto drip.
37:37
Is this a joke or is this real?
37:37
Douglas Boneparth: No, it's very real and congratulations on your auction.
37:39
You're out in front here. It's very, very real.
37:50
And thank you for giving me an opportunity to pump my bags here.
37:55
Jim O'Shaughnessy: There you go.
37:57
Douglas Boneparth: I've been indoctrinated in the world of crypto specifically, Bitcoin.
37:59
I had a really smart friend who I love very dearly call me up one day shortly after getting married in 2013, going on about hash rates and digital space money, and Bitcoin.
38:18
I've never in my life heard these terms, ever.
38:18
But I do know when someone's about to ask for money, it's what I do.
38:26
Jim O'Shaughnessy: You're right.
38:29
Douglas Boneparth: So I said, "Cut to the chase, bud."
38:30
They're like, "What do you want?"
38:32
And he is just like, " 3000 bucks each.
38:32
We're going to go buy this miner and get these Bitcoins."
38:37
And I'm like, I know how to get them off the phone.
38:37
Just got married, literally didn't pay the honeymoon bill yet.
38:41
And I'm like, "Hey Heth, I got Seth on the phone.
38:46
He wants three Gs for some computer. What do you think?"
38:51
Douglas Boneparth: He's like, "Seth. Yeah, smart guy. Yeah. Give him the money."
38:53
And it just backfired on me right there.
38:53
Props to Heather, we ended up wiring him three, $3,000.
38:59
We probably didn't have at the time.
38:59
And he secured us this miner.
39:06
Here's a cool part of this story.
39:06
Right to the reservation we had for putting our deposit down, we're going on eBay for $10,000.
39:11
Douglas Boneparth: It is an option. I'm like, "Wow.
39:15
This is a nice call option we got here."
39:15
I call my friend up, I said, "Don't be stupid.
39:20
Sell our rights, go take the money and go buy your stupid coins."
39:20
And we would've made two grand each for doing nothing and same spot because that miner is going to turn obsolete in six months. It's hashing power.
39:33
It degrades as the algorithm gets harder to solve or the equation gets harder to solve.
39:38
Douglas Boneparth: And he was just like, "No.
39:41
You said you're limited partner, I'm general partner. I call the shots.
39:41
I just need your money, shut up."
39:48
And I'm just like, "You're an idiot." But I owe him a lot. He's a good friend.
39:53
I figured he wanted to set it up, he wanted to run it, he wanted to do it. Fine.
39:59
Got it up and running, put us in a pool. Hey Doug.
39:59
I visited him Austin, Texas.
39:59
We set up a digital wallet. This is all weird.
40:05
Douglas Boneparth: My tag is don't ever lose this passphrase. What's he talking about?
40:11
And sure enough, every week we would get our reward of Bitcoins and I would see some Satoshis and some Bitcoin start to go into a digital wallet. And this is 2014. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Wow.
40:21
Douglas Boneparth: Didn't think about it for literally three years until everyone learned what Bitcoin was by November, 2017. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
40:28
Douglas Boneparth: And I remember going home for Thanksgiving and my friends looking at me, "Don't you have this?"
40:29
And I was like this is getting real.
40:35
And then the other proxy was seeing clients, young clients, obviously as Sarah come in the door asking one in 10, five years ago, four years ago, one in 10 would come in with questions for some kind of exposure.
40:45
Douglas Boneparth: I remember a young couple coming in, having made half a million dollars on Ethereum.
40:52
And that was a game changer for them. Can you only imagine?
40:52
Not clients anymore, I can only imagine if they held any of that or a good portion of that where they are now. Douglas Boneparth: Wow. That was a while back.
41:05
Anyways, going long here, I've been playing around in this space for eight years and observing.
41:05
And then these NFTs come along.
41:12
Last year, I got a call from Financial Times, they're saying, "Hey, we're doing a documentary on NFTs.
41:18
We'd love to have you in it."
41:21
Douglas Boneparth: I'm like, "Absolutely."
41:21
We'll come out to your neighborhood, and now I'm in it.
41:24
And I didn't even own an NFT at that particular point, but I knew enough about it.
41:30
And then I said this has to stop. I learn by doing.
41:30
Not a lot of people do, got to get your hands dirty.
41:37
And I don't think I could have really scratch the itch effectively without having gone out and bought one. So I did.
41:41
I spent three days on open sea looking at one particular collection of pixelated toads that looked very groovy and had a cool vibe.
41:52
Douglas Boneparth: And I'm just like, "What am I doing here?"
41:53
And then the price started to go from like half an Eth to two, and I panic bought.
41:53
My three days of due diligence was getting blown to pieces on price action.
41:59
And I totally FOMO a floor CrypToad.
42:07
And I watched it go from two to 14 and obviously didn't sell.
42:07
Diamond hand that thing all the way back down to two.
42:14
You can't sell your boy.
42:14
It's your toad for crying out loud.
42:14
I'm like, "Wow, I'm an idiot." Douglas Boneparth: Yeah. I'm an idiot.
42:22
I was like, okay, I get it. I think I get it.
42:22
Wait, I think what I get is that if this is really about ...
42:30
This is what I did know.
42:30
If it's about flipping JPEGs and trade action, price action, you're missing it.
42:36
Because I knew that was two surface level.
42:44
I knew that's what everyone was looking at.
42:44
Douglas Boneparth: I knew if you saw a 6 million Eth Rock or CryptoPunk or Bored Ape or these blue chip top tier millions of dollars in fiat worth of Eth going towards this, you're missing it because we still didn't have utility.
42:58
The word utility being floated around, which is now even getting and cringy and we got to get a bet.
43:02
All these words are tough to swallow now.
43:06
Douglas Boneparth: I said, "All right, I kind of get it."
43:09
And then what happened with the crypto project?
43:09
If you were an owner of any of these amphibious wordy creatures on your screen, someone ...
43:15
And what's cool about this project, it's a CCO project. It's in a public domain.
43:21
I love projects like that.
43:21
I guess they don't want to make money. That's cool.
43:26
But at the end of the day, you can make a derivative work of it.
43:26
And someone got the idea to do a dow around toad socks, where you by being an owner could [crosstalk] another NFT that you could burn at any time and get a real pair of socks drop shipped to you with toads on it.
43:44
You're laughing, it sounds so silly, but that was the light bulb that went off in my head. I go, oh, shit, Web 2. 0/Web 3.
43:50
0 bridge, people are going to love this.
43:50
Because you never go full DeFi.
43:56
You can't get masses into this space under the whole, like we won't dork out about it. We'll nerd out about it.
44:02
You go tell someone who has no idea what we're doing, and here's a point in case, Heather wanted to go by her first NFT, women empowerment project.
44:06
She has a boss beauty, which is on the run right now.
44:12
She really knows how I guess how to pick them.
44:12
But that was a cool project she wanted to get behind because it had something she could relate to.
44:21
Douglas Boneparth: And I said, she said, Doug, could you buy this one for me?
44:22
And I said, no, we need, I'm curious how, how, she's good.
44:22
And I know she would figure it out.
44:28
Like, I'll stand over your shoulder, but here's what you need to do, let's see if you can do it.
44:32
And I want your feedback on how this goes.
44:32
She did it all, looked at me, she said, there's not a girlfriend I have that would ever, ever, ever, ever do what I just did.
44:40
And she's going to write a piece about it, because she's a great writer.
44:40
And she's like, let me break that down.
44:44
I said, yeah, that's a UX/UI. It's a big, big problem.
44:44
And then my, another light bulb went off here.
44:49
Again, having done all of these things, saw toad sock, bought a toad, watched my wife do it.
44:54
Douglas Boneparth: Of course, we got how to go build, Jim.
44:55
It wouldn't be in our nature not to go try and build something.
45:00
This is what happens when you put super computers in everyone's hands.
45:00
And that's kind of the commentary here.
45:04
We've given everyone super computers in the palm of their hands.
45:04
We've maxed out the Web 2.
45:10
0 experience and now we're going to integrate our real lives with our digital lives.
45:14
Douglas Boneparth: Everyone thinks it's Ready Player One metaverse out, it's not that. It's not that.
45:15
I saw really good tweet threads about it.
45:22
Just think integration digital to real world.
45:22
And that requires bridges between the two.
45:26
Because no one's jumping into the decentralized arena, feet, you know, head first. Right?
45:30
They need to walk across some kind of connector here.
45:30
It's only been 10 years of most people playing around with a smartphone or having their own super computer here.
45:40
Douglas Boneparth: Even PCs for that matter.
45:40
So we built, so we build and where do I exist?
45:43
I exist at the intersection of personal finance coffee, you know my shtick, right?
45:50
And crypto, because I'm an OG and I've been in the space for eight years.
45:50
I thought to myself, what would be a, there could probably be no better bridge from helping people understand and learn about this space than through coffee.
46:02
Because I know if you're going to build something, go after big markets.
46:06
So let's talk about that market for one quick second, you got 1 billion unique coffee drinkers a day.
46:10
So we got something that's one eighth of the global population happening.
46:17
They're doing your thing daily, not just once a day, 2.
46:17
25 billion drinks per person.
46:26
Jim O'Shaughnessy: So that's a huge...
46:27
Douglas Boneparth: Huge, huge.
46:27
Gambling fits in this category, you know caffeine is a drug, no wonder it's here in this category you know, it scales up, but people have no problem with caffeine as they would gambling or sex work or these more sinful-type activities.
46:44
Douglas Boneparth: So you're safe with coffee.
46:45
Not that I was going to do the other two.
46:48
So you're safe with coffee here.
46:48
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I'm going to edit this to, it seemed like you were going...
46:51
specifically Douglas Boneparth: Said that specifically.
46:54
Yeah, we were thinking sex work, we were thinking gambling...
46:56
Jim O'Shaughnessy: We want gambling.
46:59
We want the most worries we want. We want drama.
46:59
We want the alcohol makers. Douglas Boneparth: Yeah.
47:03
We're we're going to [crosstalk] decentralize bullets in the crematorium.
47:05
That's what we're doing here.
47:07
Jim O'Shaughnessy: 3-D printer.
47:08
We're going to figure out how you do the gun and the bullets on the 3-D printer. Douglas Boneparth: Yeah.
47:13
So it is going to be fun editing here. I'm done. I'm getting canceled.
47:15
So this was the thing I'm like I can build.
47:20
I got someone who can make graphic design.
47:20
And I started drawing sketches of what a, you're following the blueprint of the generative 5,000-10,000 collections, which were all the PFP projects that were all, and maybe even getting a little bit sick of these days, but you know, that was kind of what everybody was doing.
47:37
Douglas Boneparth: And I'm like, all right, maybe we'll do something coffee around that.
47:39
And I was just about to pull the trigger on what I had built.
47:45
It was going to be 20 NFTs, small batch collection.
47:45
And I was just going to put it out there and see what the response is.
47:53
I have no problem you know, I try jokes all day long.
47:57
Douglas Boneparth: I've written a blog for two years straight.
47:59
You just got to get good at putting stuff out there.
48:04
And knowing 80% of it's going to suck, and this could have, this could have sucked. Stars align.
48:08
Heather has a connection from childhood who's knee-deep in the space.
48:14
And she's says, hey, what are you guys up to?
48:14
I follow you on Twitter.?
48:14
And I'm just like, let me show you a project I've been working on.
48:19
And she says, wow, this is super cool.
48:23
Is this what you really want it to look like?
48:23
I said, no, my hands are kind of tied with graphic designers here, I'm using what I got.
48:28
She's like, well, I got full stack. Tell me more about it. Can I show you? You know what? Launch it.
48:33
I'll show you some stuff later on.
48:39
Douglas Boneparth: Calls me the next day, is like, don't launch it.
48:41
Let me show you some things.
48:41
And I'm like, okay, fine.
48:41
I would have it look vapor wave.
48:41
I'd go in the purples and the blues.
48:46
And you know, this is what I would truly want it to be if I had that kind of ammunition.
48:50
And she's like here, what do you think of this? And my jaw dropped.
48:50
She like, all right, let's sit in this for a second.
48:56
Let's think of all the ways that this could go.
48:56
And now keep in mind, this is over the course of five months.
49:01
And if you've been following NFT and Ethereum type stuff for the last five months, it might as well be 10 years.
49:06
That's how fast things have been changing. Right?
49:11
And we saw the first stake-to-earn game.
49:11
You know, wolf game came out, and now staking was a thing to yield a token that was getting converted to Eth and someone was making $100,000 and they shut the game down.
49:22
Douglas Boneparth: But what's happening here in the sandbox of building and decentralized is everyone's building their castles.
49:31
And then someone opens a door to something that hasn't been done.
49:31
And everyone's like, holy shit, it can do this.
49:37
And everyone goes towards that.
49:37
So all of a sudden, everyone wants to build a play-to-earn game.
49:43
They don't know the first thing about developing a game.
49:43
They don't even think through the fact at like, you can't do it mobile.
49:49
Apple's not going to support this.
49:49
And you also just don't know anything about developing a game.
49:56
The people who do are probably, have already been building something in this space well before you, because they're a lot smarter at it than you, but it shouldn't stop you from taking.
50:04
Douglas Boneparth: So what we're then doing is, in real time, looking at all the directions thing can go.
50:06
And I actually started to get a little frustrated, because I'm like, this is getting so far away from where I was five months ago.
50:18
And just putting something out there and seeing what kind of response I get.
50:22
And I can't do play-to-earn gaming yet.
50:22
Douglas Boneparth: I can't do tokenomics in the Dow yet.
50:24
You know, what can I practically do?
50:24
And it came full circle back to, why isn't coffee the utility?
50:30
Why can't we show people that utility?
50:36
Isn't something that's not tangible. People love stuff.
50:36
They want stuff forever and ever will shit and stuff. And they love it. Right?
50:41
You go to any conference here, take this pressure ball, these pet [crosstalk] love it.
50:47
The wholesalers know it. You get it.
50:47
You come home, give your kids, eight notebooks with asset management firms branded on it.
50:55
Douglas Boneparth: They go to town.
50:55
And there needs to be more of that.
50:57
There needs to be more things like that.
50:57
So I thought, what better on-ramp, what better bridge into decentralized in terms of, and decentralized and that people would understand and than coffee.
51:07
So Crypto Drip was made here.
51:07
We're going to auction 20 unique pieces of coffee-related art that I think look fantastic.
51:13
And each one of them is going to come with a unique coffee experience delivered to your door.
51:20
You are going to, if you're into coffee or want to get into coffee, and a lot of people are and do, this is going to be super cool as an exposition of how NFTs piece can provide you something in the real world and educate you at the same time.
51:36
As the first step, before we get into generative collections of 5,000 to 10,000, ultimately, where I want to get this is to a point where we can create a universal coffee rewards system that sits on top of all of coffee.
51:49
Douglas Boneparth: Imagine Starbucks rewards, but for anything having to do with coffee.
51:52
You could go to your local shop in your town, fly across the country, go to another shop and be able to use these points for, earning them for what you ordinarily do.
52:03
Buy coffee, drink coffee.
52:03
You can now do, if you worked out augmented reality experiences.
52:08
So you start to scale it out into things that maybe aren't here today.
52:13
But now I've created like three levels of Crypto Drip that are practical, that can be done, that can demonstrate real in-life utility while the infrastructure is being built underneath our feet.
52:26
And that's kind of one of the things I've learned here is everybody wants to build stuff where there's not a road paved for you to go down.
52:31
So you've got to wait for the bricks to come up under feet before you do that.
52:35
Douglas Boneparth: Layer two, you know, gas is a problem.
52:38
The user interface and experience is a big, big problem.
52:44
Discord servers and people getting, clicking on stuff that robs them of their wallet is a massive problem.
52:49
This isn't stuff you want to get your sister, brother, and father to mess around in this space.
52:55
And that's very exclusive.
52:55
We need it to be inclusive and I'm bullish on this space and I can't be bullish and not say we got to get people in here.
53:08
Douglas Boneparth: And I think, in all of crypto, not just NFT, is one of the worst things I see is maximalist type thinking, which is likely the most toxic and exclusive behavior out there.
53:16
Even the best biggest religions in the world figured out that you should probably be nice to people when recruiting them.
53:22
You know, I'll pro I'll promise you I'll promise miss you heaven.
53:28
You know, I got a congregation of people who think like you and want to be here, let's have a party, maximalist Bitcoin or otherwise are like, you for not knowing what we know. We don't want you here.
53:43
It's like, you're trying to grow this thing, right?
53:43
Because you basically are punching people in the face.
53:49
We're showing up at the doorstep.
53:49
You know, that's not going to work, ease up on the destruction of the US dollar and financial system as we know it.
53:53
That's probably not we want to do.
53:58
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I agree.
53:58
However, there is a section in Cialdini that is a viable strategy for a very, very tiny segment of the market, right?
54:01
That Douglas Boneparth: This isn't it. Yeah. And this isn't it.
54:11
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I, but I also feel compelled to ask you, do you have in this coffee venture, do you have one of our portfolio companies, which is called Bottomless?
54:17
Douglas Boneparth: I am a big fan of Bottomless.
54:20
So one of the pleasures that I've had at this stage of the game is reaching out to all the brands and roasters and equipment manufacturers that I use and love and approach them from a, hey, come take a look at what we're building over here, because that's a big facet of it.
54:35
You know, this isn't, I'm building this, not for the crypto people.
54:41
I'm building this for coffee people. Right? I'm going around.
54:41
If you just build it for the silo, you're never escaping the silo.
54:47
So we're building it for, for the coffee population and showing ultimately how roaster's businesses can tap into something like Starbucks announced, they're doing Web 3.
54:58
9 blockchain, something or another probably around their points system or rewards.
55:03
That's so not native to them.
55:03
Douglas Boneparth: And it doesn't get outside of just their Starbucks customers.
55:05
And they got the scale to spend the money and deal with their own customer base.
55:08
And they'll be all, all right.
55:12
It won't really do anything.
55:12
But if you're thinking decentralized, this has to be something for all shops.
55:15
So Bottomless is someone I would love to work with [home tear] is someone I'd love to work with because we're wanting to create a bridge between Web 3.
55:24
0 and all of these amazing brands, especially when we think about a universal reward system, the ability to white label coffee, or collaborate our own coffee brand with real roasters.
55:35
So they can tap into a new customer base.
55:35
And we can get to the point of really building out that re that drip token. Right?
55:40
And basically you can earn coffee anywhere doing the things you do.
55:46
What if you finished a 5k run up the East side river and said, congratulations, here's some drip in four locations to go get yourself an iced coffee after that run. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah. That's great.
55:57
Douglas Boneparth: You were going to run anyways.
55:58
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And, and do you find that the crossover between your planning business and this which is obviously a much different type of business, which I would expect, and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, but that you would probably advise that if they make any investment at all in this type of space, that it be de minimus or, or are you very bullish and advise them to get in?
56:23
Douglas Boneparth: No, no.
56:26
I advise them to educate themselves on what this space is all about and to get the language down, I would advise, take five, 10 bucks and put it in an exchange so you figure out the mechanics of it.
56:39
I really do think you're going to get an edge if you just play around in a harmless way.
56:44
I think reading and reading articles only go so far.
56:44
We spent whole last segment talking about my desire to do something.
56:50
No one wants to build a Web 3. 0.
56:50
My clients don't want to build a Web 3. 0 Project.
56:54
They can however, deposit $10 into their coin base Gemini account.
56:54
For the first time experience that, go buy a token, learn to trust the trustless system.
57:00
There's no 1-800-BLOCKCHAIN to call.
57:07
You got to, you got to you trust math now should by the way, probably always trust math and science, but that can be a big concept.
57:13
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Big fan of math and science here.
57:15
Douglas Boneparth: I'm sure when you saw, what this was, you're like, oh, this speaks to the, every fiber of my body, you know, goodbye.
57:23
Douglas Boneparth: Love it. Yeah.
57:24
I don't need to deal with idiots.
57:24
I can deal with smart math and it's always going to be there for me.
57:30
And that, by the way, talk about human behavior.
57:30
We've been trusting trust, you know, systems you need to trust versus systems that you don't need to trust because that element's now removed.
57:39
Do you know what a paradigm shift that is?
57:39
And you're asking everyone to just jump into, you know, de-.
57:45
This is a reason when people say the term, we are so early, right?
57:52
You hear this all the time. We're so early.
57:52
Most people have the connotation so early to make a big bag of money. Shh wrong.
57:57
Douglas Boneparth: We're so early because the rails are being built because the capitol is being allocated because yes, price action too.
58:07
And also you're, you know, you're early, because most of these are going to suck and you're going to lose all your money, 95% of them going to zero that I want people to understand that's why we're so early.
58:17
And to really start to break down these almost cliche expressions, we've been, few understand. If you understand what?
58:23
You know, like tell me what it is that they're not understanding.
58:28
And I want to be able to then educate them around that.
58:32
So clients come to me three ways with it, either coming with questions, have I heard about this?
58:37
Can you get me up to speed?
58:37
Or I've already allocated to this now, what do I do? Right? Yeah.
58:43
So it could be [crosstalk] Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yep, that's a different kind of question.
58:45
Douglas Boneparth: It could be anything, it could be negative.
58:48
Like, all right, we got to go do wash.
58:48
You know, there's no wash sale here.
58:51
Let's go get these losses on the books to, oh shit, that's a couple, seven figures worth of value you've generated.
58:58
And what do you want this to do for you?
58:58
Like, what's the divestiture schedule around this let's to go change your life and not be an idiot about it.
59:03
You know, you've got goals.
59:08
And then there's the Doug, can you help allocate to me?
59:08
And this is where for all the regulators listening to this show, we don't have a good roadmap and I would feel very uncomfortable.
59:20
And I know my ENO won't support it.
59:20
The solicitation of the purchase or sale of Anything cryptocurrency-related, I think the most I could go or do is take an unsolicited order for like gray scale, Bitcoin trust for some and props to Michael and their whole team.
59:39
Douglas Boneparth: And they've obviously blown that thing way, way up into the sky in terms of AUM.
59:41
But I'm a, I'm a purist.
59:41
If you're going to hold the coin, hold the coin because that's the way that I came up into it.
59:45
So, no, I mean, I'm dying inside that the Bitcoin ETF is getting punt.
59:51
The spot ETF is getting punted here. It's reminiscent.
59:51
You probably remember GLD you know I do, but JP did JP Morgan just settle their commodities manipulation ahead of GLD coming out?
1:00:05
I don't know the numbers, but it's like $40 billion in profit and a $4 billion, legal, slap on the wrist.
1:00:09
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Easy peasy, baby.
1:00:12
Douglas Boneparth: What a change?? Douglas Boneparth: Mr.
1:00:16
JD knows what he is doing.
1:00:16
They know these guys know what they're doing here. Yeah. And yet, guess what?
1:00:20
You know, history repeats itself. Always here. It is again.
1:00:20
So, Jim O'Shaughnessy: So let, that leads me to another question for you.
1:00:28
So I am of the opinion, having watched this stuff forever and ever that the whole, the whole AMC/GameStock thing. Yeah. Okay. People.
1:00:36
And, and so I look at, I watch the narrative, right?
1:00:45
Narratives follow price, not the other way around. Correct.
1:00:49
And, and the narrative is the little guy stuck it to the big guy.
1:00:57
So every of my naivete bells is going and I'm like, that is fucking bullshit.
1:01:08
Like I personally know that there were in their little chat room, half those guys worked for hedge funds and they were what we used to call in the old days, painting the tape. All right. So you agree, right?
1:01:22
I mean, you don't book, you don't buy into the yeah.
1:01:22
The little guy really, really stuck it the big guy here.
1:01:27
Douglas Boneparth: I had. No. So I agree with you.
1:01:29
I think, and the thing is, you'll, you'll never know who silent institutions, where a few guys dox themselves are like, look, you know, they had best year on record.
1:01:41
You you've never heard of us, but now you will know our name.
1:01:41
Cause you made a couple billion, you know? Yeah.
1:01:46
Doing exactly what wallstreetbets was doing.
1:01:46
You think we're, you think all, this narrative that all the hedge, but you know, the fervor against, so want to dissect this.
1:01:56
Cause I actually had, God knows how many reporters and articles and videos, went on over the last two years where I got an opportunity to share my thoughts.
1:02:02
I was, I was knee-deep in it from a financial media point of view.
1:02:06
I really needed to know, know what I was talking about.
1:02:10
Douglas Boneparth: And wow.
1:02:10
It, it was truthfully on the sideline.
1:02:15
I made a few bucks, full and fair disclosure, had a buddy called me up.
1:02:15
He's like AMC, I think it was pandemic.
1:02:20
We were locked in the house. I was in Ruby's room. She's crawling around.
1:02:20
He is like bored out of my mind.
1:02:25
I'm like, all right, I'll put $5,000 in AMC at like four bucks sold at like 20. Got that wrong.
1:02:31
It sold for $14,000 today, go Doug.
1:02:31
It's like, oh, I could have $100,000 here.
1:02:41
So there's that whole thing. But no.
1:02:41
The part that was most interesting, wasn't even the populous narrative, right?
1:02:48
The David verses Goliath, which has its drum beat from, it reminded me of Zucotti Park and Occupy Wall Street. Yeah.
1:02:56
It was the second coming of that type of feeling.
1:03:02
I really heard that come back ironic, that's where crypto was really born out of.
1:03:08
Douglas Boneparth: So now you have more of the emergence of decentralization or decentralized finance.
1:03:14
And now here's the second coming of Occupy Wall Street.
1:03:14
There was that, then there was, let's go take a look at our current infrastructure here in the financial world, because we have a system that created friction.
1:03:25
The way that the system got jammed up in a pipe bursting and water going everywhere is one of the best analogies I heard.
1:03:34
That's why Robinhood had to say, look, we can't do, we can't fulfill these trades anymore, unless we want to go out of business. It's too expensive. Right.
1:03:45
Meanwhile, Schwab and Fidelity are like, no problems over here, boss.
1:03:53
You know, you fill your horror story, not an issue.
1:03:53
We got better connections.
1:03:57
Douglas Boneparth: So, and then the Robin, front and center is Robinhood hood and whose team they were on and the about face the optics, really just the optics of the whole thing.
1:04:07
And there's a whole other part of this.
1:04:07
That's how awful they were at coms and communication and investor relations.
1:04:13
And I'm an investor PR guy by academia.
1:04:19
I'm just like, wow, they're really screwing this entire thing up on coms alone.
1:04:27
Like every communication to their users was terrible, horrible, terrible. I'm like, wow, wow, bad.
1:04:32
I'm like, I'm surprised people aren't leaving in droves here.
1:04:32
I mean, go check their recent stock price.
1:04:38
It's, it's kind of coming back to haunt them here. Right.
1:04:38
So, no, I didn't, I didn't buy it.
1:04:43
And you got to believe that this, it was the perfect mix of network communication, because we didn't have of 10 years ago, million person forums like wallstreetbets and Twitter.
1:04:59
Douglas Boneparth: So now communication can flow freely.
1:05:02
We have frictionless trading, zero cost and platforms to do it. And we had liquidity.
1:05:02
We had access to margin, checks in people's hands.
1:05:09
So that's how I viewed it.
1:05:09
Like these three things all coming together at the right time to create this whole GameStop/AMC thing.
1:05:25
And I'm just like, God, how is this going to end?
1:05:25
And you know how it's going to end and it's going on still.
1:05:31
But you know, then you get in the memes and the videos, the so, and then you're here for the content.
1:05:41
You're like the guy who has like $1,000 AMC.
1:05:41
I'm like last I checked, there weren't new movie theaters being built on the corner.
1:05:46
Last I checked those new theaters weren't sold out every show.
1:05:50
Douglas Boneparth: What the hell are you talking about?
1:05:52
This is biggest dislocation I've ever seen.
1:05:58
And ironically, AMC's got the best shot and it's GameStop that's like, this is just a terrible business through and through.
1:06:04
There's no saving this thing.
1:06:04
And these guys are calling for a trillion dollar market cap with whatever stock prices saying what I've learned.
1:06:10
Most importantly, a guy who jokes about whatever the narrative is of the day, usually at his own expense on Twitter.
1:06:20
I won't make a joke about GameStop or AMC ever again.
1:06:20
If you want to be pummeled, if you want to booze a battle, go dunk on that.
1:06:26
And you will have quite a base to contend with.
1:06:35
They're not here for your humor. Jim O'Shaughnessy: No.
1:06:38
And the challenge that I feel is that A, I want to do everything I can and support guys like you who are helping young people understand that investing for their future is so important, right?
1:06:58
Jim O'Shaughnessy: So on the one hand, there's that message.
1:07:00
It's a boring message, frankly.
1:07:00
It's a very boring message, and- Douglas Boneparth: By the way, you hit it out of the park by just admitting that.
1:07:10
That the boring stuff nobody wants to...
1:07:10
The non-sexy, non-sizzle, non-action stuff, ooh, that's where the fortune's made.
1:07:18
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Absolutely, absolutely.
1:07:21
Douglas Boneparth: All day. All day.
1:07:23
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And so that message, which I think is the most important message.
1:07:25
How fucked up does it get from these guys who got inducted into these cults, like AMC and Diamond Hands?
1:07:41
Jim O'Shaughnessy: They really believed this shit.
1:07:43
And they really believed that, "Yes, of course, AMC can become a trillion dollar company."
1:07:49
So to me- Douglas Boneparth: Really believe it.
1:07:50
Jim O'Shaughnessy: So that shows, again, maybe I'm being too harsh, but that shows a moronic idiocy that is irredeemable.
1:08:02
And what I worry about is there's got to be a lot of people in there who just, they're looking at their phone and they're bored and they say, "What the heck is going on here?"
1:08:16
And they jump in, and my point is, how do you corral the ones who are not just idiots, but who are attracted by this kind of casino-like atmosphere and then convert them to the boring message? Douglas Boneparth: Yeah.
1:08:36
I mean, they get converted when it blows up and they hopefully get a learning lesson that doesn't remove them from the game altogether.
1:08:41
That's what as someone...
1:08:41
Let's be very, very clear. I want everyone to win.
1:08:48
I want everyone to make money. Guess what's also true?
1:08:54
Not everyone's going to win and not everyone's going to make money.
1:08:54
But I'm not going to root for anyone to lose.
1:08:59
I don't care if you're AMC, GME and I personally believe you're out of your mind to think that. I hope you win.
1:09:04
Douglas Boneparth: I have no doubt, and also I'm not shorting the position. I'm neutral.
1:09:07
I got no fight here, and I'm a human being and I want you to win.
1:09:13
Douglas Boneparth: If you're that passionate and have that much conviction, the last thing you want to hear is some CNBC guy who you probably want to rip their head off anyways, tell you otherwise.
1:09:24
And I don't care- Jim O'Shaughnessy: So, let me jump in there.
1:09:26
I mean yeah, okay, that makes sense.
1:09:26
But, again, I'm a fiduciary.
1:09:26
I've been a fiduciary since I was in my 20s.
1:09:37
Being a fiduciary means that I put other people's interests ahead of my own.
1:09:42
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And sometimes it means that I tell other people, "Don't fucking do that because that's going to lead to bad things." Okay? Douglas Boneparth: Yep.
1:09:52
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And I like you.
1:09:52
I would love it if there was some great game that could be really fun to play, and that everyone started when they were 18.
1:10:02
And by the time they were 28, they were already investing money and they didn't even know it. That'd be great.
1:10:11
Douglas Boneparth: You would think we would've cracked that by now.
1:10:15
Jim O'Shaughnessy: And we haven't.
1:10:15
Douglas Boneparth: And I can tell you... Yeah.
1:10:16
As someone who's created, God knows how much content around personal finance.
1:10:16
You're a big supporter of my blog.
1:10:21
One of the most sour parts of the whole pandemic experience to me was 80 weeks in a row shut down because I had to deal with my family and I wrote a few pieces in between.
1:10:31
By the way, one of them happened to been a blog post titled, The Story of Robinhood.
1:10:36
And I decided that that was a significant enough of an event, because I was watching my peers and younger do exactly what you said.
1:10:42
Douglas Boneparth: So, I'm just not here on your pad.
1:10:44
I mean, I took action in the best way I knew how, using my platform to get the word out there.
1:10:48
And what triggered me was when you learned about someone in our community's cousin, a 20 year old who died, or excuse me, committed suicide, because he read a $730,000 margin debt on his Robinhood account and it just didn't refresh over the overnight cycle and he killed him.
1:11:08
Douglas Boneparth: And I was like, "Fuck that!"
1:11:09
That is the worst possible thing that could have ever happened.
1:11:09
It's both tragic and rare.
1:11:16
16% of suicides occur in the US because of a response to a financial problem.
1:11:16
So it's not that uncommon, but it's still fairly uncommon.
1:11:25
Douglas Boneparth: And I started to really think about it heavily.
1:11:28
And I said, "Geez, this is what happens when there's access without knowledge.
1:11:34
This is what happens when you give people powerful tools, whether it's related to their health, their finances or their family.
1:11:40
And if they're not educated appropriately on it, they could..."
1:11:44
Douglas Boneparth: You saw the worst possible thing play out.
1:11:47
And they didn't even lose seven... It wasn't even a 730... It wasn't even real. It wasn't even real.
1:11:51
They thought they were in over their head.
1:11:58
I was extremely critical of Robinhood here.
1:11:58
Now pairing the way that they were communicating to its user base, the way that they were marketing.
1:12:03
There was one, "Be fearful when others are fearful, and greedy when others are greedy. Byron, UCLA, freshmen." Bro, it's not funny.
1:12:14
It's not funny, actually.
1:12:14
I run that joke all the time in a way that is funny and not...
1:12:14
That hopefully has an education component to the joke.
1:12:22
Douglas Boneparth: These guys are just playing right into it.
1:12:24
That was when you had Dave Portnoy, pulling scrabble tiles out of the bag.
1:12:29
Hyper trivializing the consequences of investing into nothing more than a casino game.
1:12:35
Roll the dice, change your life.
1:12:35
And ironically, he runs a gambling company.
1:12:41
So that makes sense, I guess.
1:12:41
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Exactly. Again, I agree entirely.
1:12:44
I had that person on my podcast to talk about his cousin.
1:12:52
Douglas Boneparth: Yes you did.
1:12:54
Jim O'Shaughnessy: It's Bill Brewster. I mean...
1:12:55
Douglas Boneparth: Yeah, its Bill [crosstalk]- Jim O'Shaughnessy: It's Bill. He does a great job.
1:12:58
He's got a great podcast and he does [crosstalk]- Douglas Boneparth: He's a great guy.
1:13:03
Jim O'Shaughnessy: He great guy. Like him very much. Know him pretty well.
1:13:06
And he struggles- Douglas Boneparth: I saw his pain. Yeah. Saw his pain.
1:13:09
I'm like, "Oh hell no, this is one of our own where it hit home."
1:13:14
And I was just like, Aha ah." And I talked to him.
1:13:14
I said, "Bill, can I write this thing?
1:13:18
I want to make sure I'm not..." He's like, no, no. We need that. Go for it."
1:13:18
Got his blessing on that because I wanted to obviously to keep his feeling in mind and it's just like, you just said, you've been a fiduciary since 20 same here since passing my CFP in my early 20's.
1:13:34
We don't know any other way to conduct business, to be honest with you.
1:13:34
But you need to keep that in mind.
1:13:39
Robinhood's not a fiduciary.
1:13:39
Brokerage platforms are not fiduciary.
1:13:39
You want to know what their goal is? To make money.
1:13:43
Douglas Boneparth: That's their goal.
1:13:45
They're responsible to their stakeholders and their shareholders and their investors, period.
1:13:49
And that was pre IPO, Robinhood.
1:13:49
They had their eye on the prize and what's their motivation to educate their user base.
1:13:55
They're probably going to view that as putting a stumbling block between the dollars. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Sure. Yeah.
1:14:05
Douglas Boneparth: "Hey, warning, you're about to do a trade on margin.
1:14:06
Click this article to figure out more about it before you do it."
1:14:11
Well, what's easier for getting the dollars in the door, having that message there or not?
1:14:14
And you have no legal obligation to do it, so no message is going to appear. Ta-da.
1:14:19
Jim O'Shaughnessy: That fits also really well with your idea of earning the right to invest.
1:14:22
I love that, because it's a challenge.
1:14:32
It's like, "No dumb fuck, you don't have the right to invest.
1:14:32
Here's what you got to learn first." And that's ballsy, man.
1:14:39
Douglas Boneparth: I get slack for that one.
1:14:45
And I'll call out my dear brother and friend by name.
1:14:45
Tyrone, who's one of your first guests and a good friend of both of us.
1:14:51
Tyrone and I have gotten into heated arguments on my earn the right to invest.
1:14:56
And he'll come from the stance that access above all else.
1:15:02
And he'll be like, "That's not what I said."
1:15:02
And it's probably not the way he said it, but the access is so important for a demographic that he is so passionate about.
1:15:12
Where just giving that opportunity as a game changer.
1:15:12
And I want to honor that opinion.
1:15:18
But I'm going to stick to my guns because I'm the one saying earn the right to invest here.
1:15:18
This is, the point of investing is to stay invested and you can't stay invested if you don't build the foundation that allows you to stay invested.
1:15:31
Douglas Boneparth: Even a market portfolio, 80/20 index, one stocks the branch.
1:15:37
Forget YOLO-ing options and crazy stuff you can do that was done.
1:15:44
I'm going to buy Dogecoin on Robinhood. Good luck with that. I hope you win. I sincerely do.
1:15:49
But even the boring stuff, you can't stick with it unless you got what?
1:15:57
You understand how money comes in and out of your life. [inaudible].
1:15:57
Well, unless you protect risk in your life, insurance.
1:16:01
Unless you have a big understanding of the direction you're going, financial independence planning.
1:16:06
And then if you got all that figured out, if you know cash, if you master your cash well, build your cash reserve, get those matching contributions, take care of short term goals like buying a home, family, starting businesses, get in your cash mode.
1:16:20
Don't talk here, your risk is on you, you're placing those bets on you.
1:16:25
Douglas Boneparth: That's everyone in their like late 20's to 30's.
1:16:27
Then you finally, and I see this in practice.
1:16:27
I've been doing it forever.
1:16:31
You finally get folks to a point where they have the reserve, they got the house, they got the kids.
1:16:37
Everything's starting to get to a point where those big cast drawdowns are no longer around.
1:16:42
You're hitting your stride and getting into peak earning years and it's asset accumulation time.
1:16:47
And if you did that all right, and you did it step by step carefully, and you built out that foundation, you are going to stay invested.
1:16:52
You've earned the right to invest.
1:16:58
So that's where it's coming from.
1:16:58
Do the foundational stuff, the boring stuff, the stuff you're don't want to hear about.
1:17:03
And the news probably doesn't want to talk about, get that in there first, go do a Yolo trade every now and then, that's cool. That's fine.
1:17:07
You want five, 10% of your allocation.
1:17:15
Do whatever the hell you want, rock on.
1:17:15
You're going to learn a lot.
1:17:19
Hopefully you make money too.
1:17:19
And if you don't, it's not going to bankrupt you because you got 89% of your wealth in a strategy you can stick with.
1:17:24
And then you have assets and protection pieces in place to fall back on, earn the right to invest.
1:17:30
Everybody wants to jump into the hot, sexy sizzle zero commission, free trading platforms with Confetti...
1:17:40
Douglas Boneparth: I know they don't do that anymore. It's a good joke.
1:17:41
But Confetti following from the screen or a platform that's been around for decades, doesn't matter, just giving you the keys to that.
1:17:46
It's like, "Hey, here's keys to the car.
1:17:51
Don't worry about a driver's license."
1:17:51
I wonder what's going to happen.
1:17:57
Jim O'Shaughnessy: It's like the PJ O'Rourke joke about senators and Congressman, giving them the right to tax is like giving whiskey and car keys to underage kids.
1:18:09
Douglas Boneparth: And that is a really, really good and a little knee slap of an analogy towards what are the bad things.
1:18:12
And I debated heavily is just people getting their fingers on something related to personal [inaudible] but will this transition, the trading and the Robinhood modification type stuff, is it still a net positive for turning people on to giving a damn about their financial life?
1:18:41
Can we pull a silver lining out of it to where like, guys like you and I would be like, "Okay, that grew, financial literacy went up 10%, despite all this ridiculousness that we just saw."
1:18:48
Would we say, "I'll take it?
1:18:54
I'll take it because that is so, so important and creates a better society."
1:19:00
And we'll go pat ourselves on the back and be like, "we were responsible." Yeah.
1:19:00
We had our hand in doing that and time will tell, but I also know this, we're not going to stop pushing the ball in what we think is the right direction.
1:19:12
So people can become empowered and change their lives.
1:19:19
I never want to rob an organization or a person who's coming from a place of financial responsibility and financial literacy to fire movement.
1:19:25
Like, "I find it cringy, but these guys are preaching what?" Watch what you spend. Save.
1:19:34
I mean, maybe it's a little overboard, but not bad.
1:19:43
It's good, it's rooted in the right thing. Jim O'Shaughnessy: Okay.
1:19:46
So, we're running out of time and I got to get Twitter tips from you.
1:19:46
Because, so I share with you the sentiment that, Twitter is really hard to be good at.
1:20:01
It is really easy to suck at Twitter.
1:20:01
And so I believe in Twitter and switched everything over to social media from traditional media in about 2018, because I believed that we were creating a global intelligence network.
1:20:19
And that right now the probabilities, even now, the probabilities are that it's Twitter, unless they just massively fuck up.
1:20:25
And they have tried, they have really tried to- Douglas Boneparth: Yes, they have.
1:20:35
Jim O'Shaughnessy: [crosstalk] Things up by kicking the wrong people, but- Douglas Boneparth: But it's durable.
1:20:38
It's durable because they failed that. So it's a good thing.
1:20:40
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Very anti fragile.
1:20:42
Anda so, there's somebody out there listening to this and he understands the global network function of Twitter.
1:20:54
He understands or she understands that like, this is how people are going to know me.
1:21:01
So I want to get out there.
1:21:01
Give them just a couple of tips on how not to suck on Twitter.
1:21:09
Douglas Boneparth: Oh wow.
1:21:13
How much time do we have left?
1:21:13
No, I'll definitely give you a few tips.
1:21:19
I think one of my hottest takes is to build something first.
1:21:19
Like I built Bone Fide Wealth and became somewhat of a fixture in the financial media before...
1:21:28
I took care of business first, but like "What are you doing on Twitter all day?"
1:21:28
It's like, yeah, I grinded out my business for 13 years.
1:21:32
I've earned the right to go mess around on Twitter.
1:21:37
And if you think I'm just messing around, you're obviously not getting it.
1:21:37
So find out what you're really good at.
1:21:42
And here's, I guess, tip number two.
1:21:42
So let's kind of pseudo tip number one.
1:21:48
What do you do better than most people?
1:21:48
I know after blogging for two and a half years that I go to your analytics, I had maybe three absolute stunners, a handful of really good, you were very helpful in helping me understand what I was good at, because if I wrote something good, Jim responded, the feedback loop is instantaneous.
1:22:09
Douglas Boneparth: Figure out what you're good at and focus on that, kind of concentrate.
1:22:14
You get wealthy by concentrating, not diversifying.
1:22:20
So you probably want to find out what you're particularly good at.
1:22:24
I learned very quickly, I'm never going to write like some of our friends and peers who are absolutely amazing at it.
1:22:28
Like they're going to write like Morgan, right?
1:22:28
And by the way, that's what he literally does for a living.
1:22:32
So unless I plan on changing careers, I'm probably never going to get there.
1:22:35
And even if, then probably not.
1:22:35
I'm not the best trader, I'm not a chartist.
1:22:40
I'm not going to be showing that, I can do great videos, blah, blah, blah. I found comedy. I found comedy.
1:22:47
So that's what I did, double, triple, quadruple down on that.
1:22:53
Thanks to guys like Ramp and the parody account.
1:22:53
Douglas Boneparth: Here's all these anonymous parity accounts and I'm thinking they're funny.
1:22:55
Like I really do enjoy their humor. I'm way funnier.
1:23:00
And I'm not in real life. Sorry. No, he's a great guy. We're all friends.
1:23:09
I'm way funnier and I'm not anonymous.
1:23:09
Like that was the thing, I turned the whole...
1:23:17
That's what I did different in that group.
1:23:17
I could have been anonym comedy account, curse and say things that were not politically correct and keep my job.
1:23:21
And that's why a lot of them are anonymous.
1:23:25
They don't want to lose their job. They don't work ... Of course I get it. Totally cool.
1:23:29
But now it's like, people are like, "You're a real person?
1:23:29
I thought that was like a fake photo."
1:23:34
Shows you how well to execute on that.
1:23:34
Find out what you're good at and make that your thing, build something first, find out what you're good at in what you're building.
1:23:45
And then translate that over to being good at that very thing on twitter. com.
1:23:50
Douglas Boneparth: And the other thing I could tell you as an immediate tip, is before you dive into that thing you think you're good at, I literally networked my way into fin tweet, like shamelessly slide... I mean, it was work. I found you.
1:24:05
I thought of you all as Pokemon at one point, "Got to catch them all."
1:24:05
Like I got to get these fixtures that already exist here.
1:24:12
How can I get that follow? How can I engage?
1:24:12
And luckily, so that's in my nature as an extrovert to be a social butterfly.
1:24:19
That's always been natural to me.
1:24:23
Again, things you're good at.
1:24:23
So when you think about networking, because it is a social network.
1:24:27
What elements of networking are you good at?
1:24:27
Also know what you're bad at, so you don't go pursue those things and go waste your time.
1:24:32
Douglas Boneparth: And also you don't need 160, 200, 800,000 followers to make a really good use of this tool.
1:24:42
If you had a thousand followers of people, you respect with knowledge that have a network for you to access, you're winning, you are winning and it's very easy to get caught up in a, "Got to get a hundred..." I play that game.
1:24:53
It's a toxic, messed up game. I'm really good at it.
1:24:59
But I didn't get a thousand likes. That's sick.
1:25:03
That's sick behavior, Jim.
1:25:03
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I agree.
1:25:06
Douglas Boneparth: It creeps in.
1:25:07
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I agree.
1:25:09
And total number of followers, I could care less.
1:25:09
Likes, I could care less.
1:25:21
Douglas Boneparth: I'm jealous of that.
1:25:22
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I just have no optimization for that.
1:25:22
I mean, I do everything wrong on Twitter and it works, oddly.
1:25:26
Douglas Boneparth: No, look, you did Gifts now you're doing Two Thoughts.
1:25:32
The thing about you is the depth of knowledge that you have.
1:25:42
I mean, talk about Renaissance type thinking from you.
1:25:42
This is what we expect from you.
1:25:46
I hardly read, I need to be reading more books.
1:25:46
Only books I read are usually the ones throughout the year, I'll be like, "All right, what did Jim say I absolutely have to read this year?"
1:25:54
And it's usually a banger.
1:25:54
And I know we've gotten to the point where I know I can DM you if I need something.
1:25:59
But you have developed multiple sticks.
1:26:05
You have developed multiple things that we come to rely on you for, to either make us smarter, make us laugh, to engage us.
1:26:10
I've seen you go down all of these roads because I'm addicted to this thing.
1:26:15
I know what everyone's doing.
1:26:15
Douglas Boneparth: And by the way, if you do build a following that's big for whatever it is you're good at.
1:26:18
I think the most powerful part of it is seeing narratives.
1:26:23
Like it becomes almost matrix like.
1:26:30
You can see sentiment and narratives.
1:26:30
I'm not even kidding because it's statistics, right?
1:26:36
You now have 170,000 people in a particular field, mostly finance.
1:26:36
And you're doing it all day long.
1:26:44
So if you haven't evolved to the point of breathing it, that's why my jokes hit.
1:26:49
Because I now know where everyone's had...
1:26:49
I can do a instantaneous sentiment check and nail the joke because jokes are timing, comedic timing.
1:26:55
I'm winning because I got the timing down, pat.
1:27:02
The jokes themselves are 40 formats that I know always work.
1:27:02
And I call that pandering jokes versus the Google one you did at the beginning of this. That was just whimsical. Like, "Oh cool." Circular loop joke. Love it.
1:27:17
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I'm a sucker for those. Douglas Boneparth: Yeah.
1:27:21
That's the analyst’s joke. Right?
1:27:21
Versus the low hanging fruit.
1:27:21
"Oh, he's doing the car..."
1:27:31
I remember when you said like, "Doug that's the coffee stuff." It's a heart.
1:27:31
So people were like "We want coffee jokes."
1:27:37
I'm like, no, "You got one a week. You got one a week." Jim O'Shaughnessy: Yeah.
1:27:39
Animals- Douglas Boneparth: Right? Yeah. Come on.
1:27:44
Jim O'Shaughnessy: Here's what we're going to do, this has been a lot of fun.
1:27:45
Douglas Boneparth: Thank you.
1:27:46
Jim O'Shaughnessy: At the end of each of these, I make everyone emperor for a day. You can't kill anybody.
1:27:53
You can't order anybody to do anything.
1:27:53
You can't reeducate them, but you can accept them.
1:28:00
And they go to sleep at night and they wake up the next morning with two new thoughts or behaviors or ideas.
1:28:07
They came from you, but they think that they thought it up and they start doing it.
1:28:07
What two do you got for me?
1:28:14
Douglas Boneparth: I'm going to give a shit about my financial life. And that starts today.
1:28:16
And- Jim O'Shaughnessy: That's a good one.
1:28:23
Douglas Boneparth: And I need to maximize my time because this is the most precious commodity that I have.
1:28:34
I wanted to say, make your coffee at home just to stay on brand here.
1:28:34
But those two are very real and something I truly believe in.
1:28:42
Jim O'Shaughnessy: I love them.
1:28:44
Doug, thank you for coming on.
1:28:44
Always fun to chat with you.
1:28:48
Douglas Boneparth: Thank you for having me. This was great.