# Why Young Americans Feel Locked Out with the Lemonade Stand Podcast | The Real Eisman Playbook Ep 82

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

Aidan McCaig and Brandon Ewing say young Americans face a difficult start as jobs, housing and AI reshape their prospects.

- Show: The Real Eisman Playbook
- Hosts: [Steve Eisman](https://realalpha.app/people/steve-eisman/)
- Guest: Aidan McCaig · Lemonade Stand
- Guest: [Brandon Ewing](https://realalpha.app/people/brandon-ewing/) · Content creator & co-host, Lemonade Stand
- Published: Nov 2, 2026
- Length: 58 min

## The best minutes

- [33:22](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2002) [Software losses could leave private equity unable to refinance](https://realalpha.app/s/software-losses-could-leave-private-equity-unable-to/) (7 min)
- [27:28](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1648) [AI agents could threaten banks’ deposit funding](https://realalpha.app/s/ai-agents-could-threaten-banks-deposit-funding/) (6 min)
- [19:36](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1176) [CoreWeave’s 15% debt cost threatens data center economics](https://realalpha.app/s/coreweaves-15-debt-cost-threatens-data-center-economics/) (3 min)

## Also worth watching

- [17:02](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1022) [AI exposure spans 65% of the S&P and much of bond issuance](https://realalpha.app/s/ai-exposure-spans-65-of-the-s-p-and-much-of-bond-issuance/) (2 min)
- [42:37](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2557) [Eisman says Walter routed policyholder money to a controlled entity](https://realalpha.app/s/eisman-says-walter-routed-policyholder-money-to-a-controlled/) (6 min)
- [23:41](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1421) [AI firms may use safety rules to block cheaper Chinese models](https://realalpha.app/s/ai-firms-may-use-safety-rules-to-block-cheaper-chinese/) (3 min)

Skip the job and housing discussion, the AI-and-employment discussion, and the podcasting and new-media discussion.

## Full analysis: Steve Eisman says 65% of the S&P faces AI exposure

- Eisman counts 65% of the S&P as AI exposed, with half of this year’s bond issuance tied to AI.
- The figure is his exposure map, not an official index classification, and the episode gives no holding-by-holding method.
- For young savers facing tight job and housing markets, his long-term S&P advice sits beside near-term concentration risk.

Its 7 sections, what it means for you and what to watch are on [the page](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/#analysis), free with an account:

- [2:34](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=154) Young workers face a narrower first rung
- [6:33](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=393) Eisman says homes may stop building wealth
- [18:36](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1116) Retirement indexes carry broad AI exposure
- [20:26](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1226) Rising neocloud debt tests the buildout
- [29:17](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1757) Agents could reroute a valuable cash spread
- [39:55](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2395) Software losses can erase buyout equity
- [41:02](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2462) Eisman keeps the saving rule as costs fall

## Summary

Aidan McCaig and Brandon Ewing host the Lemonade Stand podcast, which they say explains business, politics, news and technology for a younger audience. They discuss the pressures their audience faces in jobs, housing and technology.

McCaig and Ewing describe young adults facing scarce entry-level white-collar roles and housing costs that make homeownership seem out of reach. Eisman argues that high ownership costs and mortgage-rate lock-in make housing an unreliable wealth builder in the near term. He warns that AI has concentrated market exposure and that AI agents could disrupt cash-sweep revenue, while also flagging risks in leveraged private-equity and private-credit portfolios. Eisman dismisses much of the AI existential-risk narrative as commercial and regulatory positioning, recommends steady long-term S&P 500 investing, and sees lower business costs as an opening for entrepreneurs.

### Minute by minute

- [2:07](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=127) **Entry-level jobs are hard to land.** McCaig and Ewing say young adults struggle to picture their financial futures as white-collar entry-level roles become harder to get. They describe friends submitting hundreds of applications, with some passing 1,000, and remaining unemployed for six months or longer before taking whatever job they can find.
- [4:38](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=278) **Homeownership feels out of reach.** McCaig and Ewing say their audience worries it may never be able to afford a home, given prices, mortgage rates, insurance, utilities and property taxes. Eisman says a home may no longer be a reliable source of wealth and predicts national prices could fall.
- [9:10](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=550) **Housing supply may adjust slowly.** Eisman says owners with jobs and 3% mortgages have little reason to sell, so he expects housing supply to change slowly, including as older homeowners die. The guests suggest zoning reform and cite Tokyo's national approach; Eisman says a federal change in the U.S. has zero probability.
- [14:29](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=869) **AI is reshaping entry-level hiring.** McCaig and Ewing say companies are slowing entry-level hiring while they assess AI, even if the technology is not replacing experienced employees. They describe applicants using AI to tailor and submit resumes, which may then be screened and followed up by AI systems.
- [17:11](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1031) **The market is concentrated in AI.** Eisman argues that owning the S&P 500 and bonds may not provide the diversification investors expect. He estimates that AI and related businesses account for about 65% of the S&P 500, and says 15% of investment-grade bonds and 50% of this year's issuance are AI-related.
- [19:21](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1161) **Neoclouds depend on debt markets.** Eisman says a CoreWeave debt issue carried a 9% yield, but its yield rose to 15% as the debt price fell. He says CoreWeave and Nebius depend on debt markets to fund data centers, while established technology companies have other businesses and can cut costs.
- [22:39](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1359) **Eisman sees AI warnings as commercial.** Eisman argues that OpenAI and Anthropic emphasize existential AI risks to seek regulation that could exclude Chinese open-weight models, which he says cost one-tenth as much. He says LLMs do not think and questions claims that artificial general intelligence is near, while acknowledging that the technology's future is uncertain.
- [27:28](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1648) **AI agents could erode cash-sweep revenue.** Eisman says Schwab pays 20 basis points on swept cash while earning about 4.5% on short-term Treasuries. He says an AI agent could move customers' cash into money-market funds automatically, threatening Schwab's biggest revenue item and potentially affecting banks' deposit funding.
- [32:52](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1972) **Private-equity exits are taking longer.** Eisman says private-equity holding periods have stretched from three or four years to seven as higher rates weigh on companies with variable-rate debt. He says retail funds may limit withdrawals to 5% per quarter, while institutional investors generally cannot redeem on demand.
- [37:46](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2266) **Software debt faces refinancing pressure.** Eisman says many software buyouts from 2018 to 2022 used half equity and half debt, and he worries that falling software valuations could wipe out the equity cushion. He expects refinancing to force private-equity owners to contribute more capital or walk away from some companies.
- [40:55](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2455) **Long horizons favor steady investing.** Eisman advises young people to save regularly and buy the S&P 500, saying a 24- or 25-year-old has a long time horizon. He says a recession is possible over the next year but still sees the U.S. economy as dynamic over the long term.
- [42:27](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2547) **Insurance links raise oversight concerns.** Eisman says private equity's use of insurers to match long-term funding with long-term loans is not inherently a problem, but he worries about related-party transactions. He recounts that Mark Walter's insurance businesses disclosed three such transactions while 40 were identified, with exposure about 30 times the permitted percentage.
- [48:48](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2928) **Lean media creates openings.** McCaig and Ewing say small podcast and creator teams can produce work at far lower cost than traditional shoots with dozens of staff. Eisman and the guests argue that cheaper tools and easier distribution could create opportunities for young entrepreneurs, including digital services for established businesses.

## Transcript

The Real Eisman Playbook, hosted by Steve Eisman, with Aidan McCaig and Brandon Ewing.

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[0:01](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1) Hi, this is Steve Eisman, and welcome to another episode of The Real Eisman Playbook. So the podcasting world is kind of an interesting world, and we started April of last year, and not that long afterwards, I went on a bunch of different podcasts to try and drum up some publicity for my podcast, hoping that maybe that would help. I mean, what did I know? And I came across a podcast named Lemonade. I knew nothing. Apparently, this is one of the more successful podcasts out there. What did I know? And we reached out to them and they were kind enough to invite me onto their podcast. So I flew out to LA, went to their studio. Funny story, when you go into Lemonade's studio, their entire studio was surrounded by cans of lemonade. And so what did I do? I took a can of lemonade and I drank it, at which point they told me, you're the first one to do that. First and only. So today I'm returning the favor.

[0:59](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=59) I've invited them onto my podcast. So welcome, Aidan McCaig and Brandon Ewing. Pleasure. Pleasure. Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. So before we, as I joke with almost all my guests, Not that there's anything going on. No, nothing in the news. But tell my audience a little bit about your podcast and who your audience is. Sure, yeah. We're a younger audience, I think. It's called Lemonade Stand. And what we're trying to do is, since there's something in the news every single day. Is there? Yeah, it turns out. And it can get overwhelming, or it can get depressing, or it can get difficult to keep up with that and know what's going on.

[1:36](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=96) We try to make it understandable and entertaining to this audience to keep them informed on the news. That's our goal. So is it politics and business or just business or just everything? Business, politics, news, tech. Tech. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about things that concern your audience and we'll have a nice little dialogue. Okay. That sounds great. Absolutely. So what would you say is like topic numero uno for your audience these days? That is a tough one. It's a tough question. And I would bet you that flips every other day. Yeah. But give me a topic numero uno. I can give you one.

[2:12](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=132) Yeah, unless you have one you want to go for. I mean, I think the undercurrent, especially having, I'm 29, so I have a lot of friends that are still in their early 20s. Right. And I think the undercurrent of. Every problem they have is it's really hard to even imagine what your financial future will look like. So when you're coming out of college, your prospects for walking into an entry-level position are pretty low right now. Are they? Yeah. They really are. That's what you hear from many of your people. Certainly for white-collar. White-collar entry-level feels like an impossible ladder to get on right now for the jobs they wanted.

[2:55](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=175) Like what? I know people, say they came out of college with a relatively general degree or even something specialized, like maybe they did computer engineering, like they're going to be a software engineer. It's been really challenging to get those roles right now. Any administrative or office role, regardless of the field, it seems pretty challenging. I would say most of my friends in that 23 to 28 range, if they don't have a job, they will have submitted hundreds. A couple of them has passed the thousand threshold of job applications. And they will be out of a job for six months to maybe over a year.

[3:35](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=215) I would say usually by that point they find something, but it takes a really long time to just land a basic job. And what are they finding? I feel like the problem is they take what they can get. So they have maybe a specific vision of what they wanted to do coming out of college. Maybe somebody has, I want to work even as an assistant at like an environmental law firm or something like that. They have a, I don't want to say lofty expectation, but a more definitive direction of where they want it to go. But when you start rounding the 500 mark on your job applications, you're kind of taking anything that will hire you.

[4:15](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=255) Lucky you have a computer. Yeah. As opposed to a typewriter. The only thing I can think of is ultimately like they're not I mean, they're not landing at like a farm or in some sort of like specialized trade job or something like that. I would say ultimately they're trying to stick it out in sort of like a white collar world. But they they lose the dreams and end up taking whatever works. And give me your perspective. No. So the thing I hear from my audience a lot, and it's related to that, it's about financial future. It's really often about housing. Housing. Right now, there's this big question mark that has been for the past few years.

[4:56](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=296) whether or not they'll ever be able to own a home, whether it's even in the cards for them. And they look at the cost of housing in their area, and it just feels like no matter what you're saving, it's not on a feasible path. Or you'd have to take on so much debt. With the rates being what they are now and the prices being what they are now, it just does not seem like they can buy. So people often ask, can I buy? Is it a good time to buy? So by the way, I gave a speech at um it was in toronto a couple weeks ago and um it was like 500 people and i was talking about ai and i was talking about the financial crisis your typical stuff yeah and and then it was like question period and and and someone raised their hand and said is this a good time to buy a house and i said no and then i said do you want me to elaborate and then i did yeah but i i i actually think, and my wife Valerie and I have thought this for a long time, that the day, this is what people don't appreciate, leaving aside whether you can afford it.

[6:03](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=363) Sure. Which is, I actually think that in most parts of the country, the days of what Americans used to do, which is you got married, you had a kid, you bought a house, you're 32. Sure. You live in that house for years until maybe you have maybe 10 years or so until you have maybe another kid or another kid. And then the house has appreciated in value significantly. And then you're able to buy another house. I think the days of buying a house under the assumption that that will be a creator of wealth are done for a very long time. In fact, I think probably the next move in housing prices nationally is down.

[6:49](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=409) Oh, yeah. Doesn't it seem like that? It's so unaffordable. And the crazy thing is, just adding to what your viewers have been saying, it's unaffordable not just because rates are higher. That's easy. Yeah. Because if the only issue was rates are higher, we could all say, okay, we'll just wait. Rates will come down one day, and then we'll buy a house. The problem is property and casualty insurance has gone up a lot. Your utility bill has gone up a lot. Your property taxes have gone up a lot. So leaving aside even... the mortgage price, it's probably 50% more expensive today to buy a house than it was five years ago. Yeah. Yeah. And so why would you buy a house? You got to be out of your mind.

[7:38](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=458) Forget it. You can't even afford it. You're probably going to lose money. Yeah. But there's this expectation. There's this- Because we've lived this way for decades upon a day. That's what their parents did. And their parents did. And it's kind of tough to hear that this string of green lights on housing that has been for generations is not going to be there for you, that you can't buy in and get that appreciative wealth and then have it be. So what do you say to viewers about this? When I say what you say, I say, I don't think so. Let's move on. Don't you always know. We move on to the next question.

[8:10](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=490) Yeah, next question, please. Well, we joke on the show a lot about, you know, talking about some monumental problem and then being like, oh, yeah, we'll figure this out and solve this in 90 minutes. but what i think so on so on that point so i had a podcast with with um a woman who does a does a podcast about like corporate she calls it i think corporate gossip but it's basically about bad things about corporations okay and so we had this whole wonderful conversation with all the terrible things about various people have done corporations and she and she was like like sincere like she really wanted me to help the helper and she said so steve is is there something we can do about this and i said i said no i mean it would be funny to have the eureka moment where in one sentence right solve the whole problem uh yeah well i i'm curious when you you think about these problems like you look at something like the like the housing market and like what it would need to do for it to realistically become affordable?

[9:15](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=555) I have an idea. Yeah, yeah. What direction would you ask for it to move in? So my answer is going to sort of amuse you. Okay. This is like bad humor. I'm ready. I'm ready. You ready? I'm ready. Okay. I got my guard up. So the issue currently, as you know, is that in 2021, rates collapsed. It's year or two. Everybody refinance it to a 3%, 3.5% mortgage, and that's who's sitting in the home. The person who's buying the home is getting a 7% to 7% mortgage. And one thing I learned in grammar school... goal is that seven is a lot more than three. And so the housing market is locked. And there's no way to unlock it. Except a lot of the housing stock is owned by older people who are going to die. And basically, it's the older segment of the baby boom, which is a very, very big segment.

[10:21](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=621) So probably over the next 10 years, a lot of houses will come for sale and they'll sell at whatever price because the people who are living in the house will be dead. And their descendants will sell it and they'll just sell it for whatever they can get because they got to pay the estate taxes. That takes time. You don't think there's anything else other than death that could force them to sell? Because right now people are- And employment. But they have jobs. The problem is that, I mean, what you were saying earlier is about entry-level people having a tough time getting jobs. But the overall employment situation is that people have jobs.

[10:58](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=658) The unemployment rate is very, very low. So as long, you know, put it this way, if you're sitting in a house and you have a job and you have a 3% mortgage and somebody offers you a price that's 30% lower than what you paid, you're not selling because you have a job. You don't have to. So unless there's a massive recession, which certainly is possible, but I don't see it anytime soon, the only thing that's going to change is that people are going to die. So what do you think about the cost of housing has been rising for a while, and it rose a lot through an era of low interest rates as well. So when I think about cost of housing, I think about changing zoning laws, building up, especially in cities that are particularly high demand but have a low supply.

[11:42](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=702) When I look at Los Angeles, even versus a place like New York, but especially against international cities, right? Los Angeles is so flat for a city of like the metro area is like 12 million people, right? And if you allowed people to build apartment buildings. It could be 24. Well, maybe you'd be accommodating a lot more people as well. I don't want that traffic. That's a great point. The problem is that that is a local problem. that problem that you just described about los angeles variations of that are in every major locality in the united states of america could i could i posture you this so relative to other major cities one place that has managed to say relatively affordable, I use that word very intentionally, is Tokyo. And Tokyo, in Japan, their zoning laws are dictated at the national level instead of allowing a city or a city council who obviously has a vested interest in no more building happening in their neighborhood. And by dictating it at a national level, they kind of bypass and ignore a lot of that local pressure to not change zoning, to not allow more housing to be built?

[12:54](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=774) Do you think it's reasonable for the state level or the federal level in the U.S. to introduce some sort of change there? So I'm going to take a page out of the movie? Yeah, yeah. The Big Short? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the movie. Zero. Zero probability. Okay. Zero probability of it happening. Oh, that happened. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it would be wonderful if it did, but the probability of it happening is zero. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. There's two things you said that are kind of at odds that I want to drill in on a little bit. Okay. Because you said that insurance is rising. Property taxes are rising.

[13:30](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=810) So these are the things that could force someone to sell. You're saying there's no reason they would have to sell. But if they can't afford insurance, if they can't afford the property taxes, if those are rising, I think in some locales you are seeing small price cuts or bigger prices. People are like- Oh, I think prices are going to come down because of this. Yeah, which means they're motivated in some way. Right, but it's so slow. You just think it's not? Glacial. Okay. It's just glacial. It really is. I had a guest a couple weeks ago. I haven't released it yet. She's like a real housing expert.

[14:03](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=843) I was like, wow, you're negative. She thinks housing prices are going to go down 30%, 50%. Who is it? Her name is Melody Wright. I've interviewed her a dozen times. Oh, yeah. I love Melody Wright. Oh, Melody? Yeah, she's very negative. She's great. Yeah, she's great. I was thinking to myself, I thought I was negative. I walk away from, yeah, she makes me do it. Like, I'm famous for being negative, and she makes me look like the biggest bull in the world. Well, I knew when you said she and negative, I was like, that's Melody. That's very funny. She's good. Yeah, she's great. I don't know if hazard prices are going to go down that much, but they could go down.

[14:33](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=873) They could go down. Yeah. All right, let's go to a different topic. Okay, give me a dollar. Yes, sir. That is topic numero uno, baby. Yeah, sure. Give me another numero uno. Another numero uno. Usually, with those, would be the next one. Yeah. What else do we want to talk about? Maybe like job security? Let's talk about AI or the market, you know. We can talk AI. Okay, all right, yeah. I mean, we talk about AI like. Like, it's water every week. Yeah. There's not a week that goes by now. I mean, you can't talk about the markets without AI. That's all it is. It's all exactly right. The entire market is AI.

[15:04](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=904) But I want to know from, you have kind of a broader audience. Like, what are their concerns about? What do they think about AI? The concerns are everything. Everything. This is, it's such a drastic change. And I think it, like we mentioned with jobs, it's sort of hitting them first because it feels like companies are freezing or slowing at the entry level because they don't know how this is going to shake out. I agree with that. It's not replacing expertise yet, but it's- And it's generally not replacing existing employees. No. But you're right. It means that they're hiring fewer. It's like this low hire, no fire economy.

[15:38](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=938) And so if they're graduating college, it's this disaster. But then additionally, AI allows weird things that didn't exist when we were looking for jobs, or I'm sure when you were looking for jobs, you mentioned a typewriter. You can go on LinkedIn right now and use like AI Easy Apply and apply to a thousand jobs in a, in an instant. Really? Yeah. It's, it's, oh, you can, you can have it create a million different resumes, customized for every job you're doing. And so HR department by AI agents in HR department. Yes. So your, so your AI resume is getting reviewed by an AI HR employee. And if you're lucky enough, you get an interview with an AI HR person. Like it's like you're talking to an AI and they're interviewing you and it records your data. And so it's, it's like this through the looking glass environment where they're they're entering so for them i mean some of them are becoming native to it it's they're they're adapting to it quicker than you know even we are understanding it but it's changing things so quick because you're old yeah you're old all the time all the time so i'm still so young i'm hanging on i've got a few months you got a year left so that's what we're seeing we're seeing it just change everything i mean it's

[16:51](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1011) changing uh music movies tv everything it's it's just a weird time and i don't think anyone at any age knows exactly how it's going to play out but certainly uh you know the thing that most people have if they are stable or have a job they have a 401k and most of it's in sm500 and most of that's an a high and they don't know what does that mean what is it's concentrated you know it's actually worse than that okay it's actually worse people don't understand this might be a dark episode yeah i really really put you like under the table yeah so like some people i mean used to think if i own the sm S&P 500. I'm diversified. So here's your problem now. And then if you would go to, let's say you had some money, so you went to JP Morgan as your wealth advisor. So JP Morgan would take down all your information and spit out the same thing that they spit out to anybody, regardless, which would be you should more or less 60% S&P 500, 40% bonds. Now you're really diversified. Okay, here's your

[17:53](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1073) **Steve Eisman:** problem. It's so crazy, it's almost comedic, which is 40% of the S&P is tech. And then if you add up all the companies like Google and Amazon, which are technically not an infotech anymore, they used

[18:07](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1087) to be, but they move to communication services or consumer discretionary or whatever, you add up all those types of companies, you're at 50%. Then, wait, then add utilities because they're supplying all the power. Sure. That's another 3%, 453. Then add all the investment banks and the alternative asset managers who are lending all the money. Then add all the industrial companies that are building the data centers and all the industrial companies. You get where I'm going. All the industrial companies that supply all the power. Yeah. And you're at 65% of the S&P. Yeah. That sounds diversified. So you own an index.

[18:42](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1122) It's basically AI. Right. That's it. And bonds have been doing so well. And bonds. And wait, no, but the problem with bonds is 15% of investment-grade bonds are AI-related, and 50% of all issuance this year is AI-related. So you're living in this fantasy world where you say, oh, I got a diversified index, 60%, and I own bonds, 40%. If something bad happens, I'm okay. And what I tell people is, if something bad happens, you are not okay. eisman. Ramp.com slash eisman. And that's kind of where we are. Jensen Huang gets hit by a bus. We're all in the poorhouse. Is that what you're telling me? Is that? No. I think that would be easier to survive than OpenAI going back.

[19:30](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1170) Okay. Yeah. I think it's so funny you brought that up because I made these notes before and for questions to ask you literally the consolidation of the market. Are you worried about that? Well, the answer is yes, I am. Okay, but talk about that because so this is what I want to get your expertise. What I'm seeing lately is they're talking about these neoclouds, right? Yes, neoclouds. You know what those are? Yeah, it's these cloud service companies that buy a bunch of GPUs and they rent them to people that want to do AI. They're basically making data centers, but they're not Amazon or Google. It's like WeWork for data centers.

[20:09](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1209) It's CoreWeave and Nebius, the two companies. Yeah, and I see this worrying headline that their credit default swaps, which is a word I know from watching The Big Short, are now underperforming. They're bad. They're bad. They're bad. Right. Or another way to put it is CoreWeave, when they actually raised debt earlier this year, the interest rate was 9%. But the price of that debt has gone down so much that the yield currently is 15%. Right. Which means, of course, that if they had to raise new debt, it would be 15%. Right. And they seem to have to.

[20:45](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1245) **Steve Eisman:** And you ain't building no data center with 15% debt. Forget it. It just doesn't pencil out anymore.

[20:51](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1251) Did it pencil out before? It probably penciled out at 9%. It wasn't 15% before. It was nine, and now it's 15. I mean, at nine, does it make sense? That's the big question, right? I couldn't tell you for sure, but it's certainly a lot better than 15. Because again, in grammar school, I learned 15 is a lot more than nine. That's why you've had big bucks. I really paid attention in grammar school. No, but so, okay. So the next logical step, right? If they can't raise the money, is that they go under. Yes. And so, I mean, you see things like Jensen Wong coming out and kind of like trying to calm the market about Corwee and trying to, what happens next?

[21:24](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1284) Jensen Wong's going, you've been through this. OK, don't panic. You've been through credit default swaps. You're like, what happens next? Doesn't that seem like the next logical step? is that these things go under and then maybe people start looking up the stack at like people that have also borrowed well meta's free cash flow negative yes amazon's free cash flow about meta meta you know they can always cut costs okay the guys like core weave and nebius they don't make money yeah they lose money yeah they've got great business they've got massive commitments and they need the debt markets to behave to function and if the debt markets don't behave, they don't function. That's all there's to it. If Google raised some capital, but at least I don't think he's worried that Google's going to go bankrupt. Maybe they'll cut costs somewhat here and there, but when the fixed income markets start to get shaky, it's the weak hand that gets hurt. But you could be worried. I see what you mean with a meta and a Google, because ultimately they have this other business that's financially supported them for a long time, right? But an An OpenAI or an Anthropic, which is bigger than the companies that you're talking about, are in a vulnerable position because they're not.

[22:34](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1354) They don't have the back stuff that these other companies do. But you don't have to worry about it. You know why you have to worry about it? Because AI is going to destroy the world. So we'll all be dead. And so what difference does it make? Have you read If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies? I haven't read that. We interviewed the author. What did he say? Oh, well, if anyone builds it, everyone will die. He actually thinks it's real. No, it's- He's a true believer. Yeah, he basically- He's a true believer. I think he's out of his mind. He might be. Yeah, yeah, definitely. He could be wrong. I think that both authors, I think it's two authors, right?

[23:10](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1390) Yeah. They build out the case for the way that the underlying technology arrives at decisions is very difficult to understand, even for the engineers working on it. And because of this nature of the process being very vague, and it continually building on itself after a certain point, it will not act against humans intentionally necessarily, but start making decisions that come with the negative externalities that do affect massive portions of humans. Do you know what the problem is? Yeah. Everybody freaking watch Terminator. and you know what I'm actually being perfectly serious it's funny but I'm being perfectly serious by the way I re-watched Terminator 1 Terminator 2 still good Terminator 2 is a classic Terminator 2 is a classic Unbelievable.

[24:03](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1443) But even Terminator 1, which was like a low-budget film, is amazing. But I literally think part of the problem is—well, let me backtrack for a second. Sure. Growing up, I probably read more science fiction than any human being should ever be allowed to read science fiction. I mean, I challenge anyone in terms of the length of the science fiction list. It's not possible. Is she a nerd? But the people of Silicon Valley, they've read almost as much. There's one big difference. They take it totally seriously. Oh, yeah. They really take it serious. They think it's like a roadmap. They really do. And so my thesis about this whole insanity is that OpenAI and Anthropic right now are petrified.

[24:55](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1495) And they're petrified because they have created a business that produces a product that's very expensive. They're LLMs. Yeah.

[25:06](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1506) **Steve Eisman:** And the Chinese open weight models are literally one-tenth the price.

[25:10](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1510) Right. And so they are literally petrified that they're going to lose massive market share and have to cut costs, have to cut price. Yeah. So what they've done is that what they're trying to do is manufacture a crisis. And the crisis is, if you don't regulate us, planet Earth will end. So you better regulate us. Then when they'll regulate them, they'll figure out a way to get the regulators to throw all the Chinese open-weight models out of the country. That's what this is all about. Nothing more. Nothing more than that. What makes you—I don't doubt you when you say that. I feel like that is a very realistic evaluation of the situation.

[25:48](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1548) Why are you so confident about it? Because LLMs don't think. But this whole thing that LLMs are very close to artificial general intelligence, I think it's just wrong. Now, maybe one day we'll get there and we'll have to worry about Terminator, Skynet. When we're all on Arrakis mining the spice, we'll look back on this conversation. Right, that's the moment, the turning point. Turning point, exactly. So I just think it's nonsense. I just think it's utter nonsense. I mean, we can't know. I guess none of us know, Rodney. No, we don't. But you know what? You know what the thing is? I said this on a podcast earlier.

[26:31](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1591) If I was... running one of these companies. And I seriously thought that, I mean, think about the sentence I'm about to say. Sure. That the product that I'm spending hundreds of billions of dollars to create is going to destroy planet Earth? Yeah. My next sentence would not be, oh, by the way, how much of an IPO allocation would you like? Right, but my only thing is, I think you're a better man than somebody else. That's what worries me. I mean, the common analogy is like we, you know, we plowed for it wasn't private companies. I'll give you that. But we plowed forward and like made nuclear weapons.

[27:13](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1633) Yeah. And we're still standing. Some people are equating the consequences. And I agree. I agree with that. Maybe if we approach this problem and treat it in that way and analyze the consequences in the same way, maybe it'll be fine if the threat's real. I mean, OK, we get this one's impossible to solve. Because I've seen a million podcasts, people talk about whether it's going to kill us. There's a practical AI question I want to ask you, which is that I've heard there's a possibility that with people using more of these AI agents to manage their money, for example, that it could start sweeping all their money out of banks.

[27:47](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1667) Oh, I take that very seriously. I'll give you an example from, so my wife and I, my wife, Ali, and I have our money at Schwab. Yeah. What I'm about to say would apply to a savings and checking account. So we have all our money is at Schwab, and almost all of it is in stocks. But some of it's in cash. Let's say before I had the cash, I was 100% invested. And I'll make up a number. Let's say my account is a million dollars. And I decide I'm a little nervous. So I'm going to sell some stock. So I'm going to sell 20% of my positions. So now I have $800,000 in stock and $200,000 in cash. that now sits in my Schwab account as cash.

[28:29](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1709) **Steve Eisman:** If I do nothing, Schwab will pay me 20 basis points on my cash.

[28:37](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1717) Schwab will take my money, sweep it with everybody else's cash, invest it in short-term treasuries, which today are like, let's say, 4.5%. So Schwab makes four and a half percent on my money and pays me 20 basis points. That's what happens. However, if I just touch a couple of buttons, I can buy. A money market fund, I can buy a money market fund with my $200,000 in cash. Now, my cash is in a money market fund, and I make the 4.5%. Schwab gets a little fee. Agentic AI could do that automatically for me. For everyone. For everybody. Yeah. And that would apply to, you know, how much money do you really need in your checking and savings account?

[29:29](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1769) The agentic AI could come in and sweep it and put it into a money market fund. That's what people are petrified about. If I'm Schwab in anthropomorphic form, I'm human Schwab. I'm human Schwab. Mr. Schwab. Thank you. Don't touch me. And I'm looking at this problem. I, Schwab, the anthropomorphic company, also went to grammar school and see clearly- Two experts. Two grammar school experts. That one number is bigger than the other. And if everybody's automating this process, I am seeing a massive loss if this applies across all of my clients. Massive loss. Yeah. Massive. And by the way, for Schwab, it's worse than that because when I covered Schwab in the 90s as a sell-side analyst, their biggest revenue item was commissions.

[30:18](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1818) Today, they don't charge a commission. Their biggest revenue item is that sweeping of cash. Is that a lot of differential? That's their biggest revenue item. Wow. That's almost their entire business is basically sweeping customers' cash and investing it for themselves and getting that spread. And that's all the big banks. Well, no, no, no. The big banks are different. So the way the banks work is you put your money in the bank and you put some of your money in a checking account. Let's say you put some money in a savings account. Yeah. Then the bank takes that money and makes a mortgage loan or makes a consumer loan or makes a corporate loan and makes a spread.

[31:06](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1866) The reason why that checking account and savings account is so important is that it's a lower cost of funds than if the bank went out and borrowed it in the disarmament. So, and it's the most, at least until this agentic AI, the most stable source of funding that a bank can have is deposits. Right. People, you know, people, they don't pull their money out of the bank. You know, you pull your money in the bank because you wrote a check, but then you get paid. You put your more money in the bank. The point here is that how much money do you actually need in your checking and savings account? You could maybe instruct agentic AI to say, I don't want to have more in my checking account than $10,000 at any time.

[31:50](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1910) Anything more than $10,000, go buy a money market fund. I mean, this would never be a service that, you know, Schwab or another bank would provide that service. but they're worried about me as an individual having some sort of AI client that does a bunch of stuff on my computer. So JP Morgan, a couple of weeks ago, made an announcement that said we are not going to let any outside agentic AI into our bank. Forget it. Don't even think about it. Or as Adi Brasco said, forget about it. I mean, I can't help but feel, not to say that that is a bad decision in the short run, But I feel like that opens up an obvious opportunity for some more flexible party who's, like, willing to concede that revenue to pick up users over time.

[32:37](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1957) I think that's probably right. But, you know, the problem is that you're J.P. Morgan, you're Citi, you're Wells Fargo. I mean, you have hundreds of billions in deposits. You don't have the luxury of destroying your franchise. No. I mean, somebody else could do it from scratch. But you don't have the luxury to destroy your franchise. Yeah. Okay, so what about on the other subject, private equity? Because that's the other thing I've heard you speak about as one of the things you're most worried about. Only every other week. Yeah, it's a big thing for you, and I want to hear the risks in that. Because sometimes it feels like you're actually pretty positive.

[33:12](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=1992) For all the things going on, you're more of like... It's not that I'm positive. I just don't think it's Armageddon. Sure, that's fair, yeah. Which these days is being positive. That is being positive. No, honestly. But with private equity, it feels like you're a little more like on the, this is a scary thing. Or there's a problem here. There's definitely a problem. Yeah. So the problem, there's private equity and there's private credit. And private credit lends money to private equity to buy companies. That's like the universe. Sure. What makes it incestuous is that a lot of private credit funds are owned by private equity.

[33:48](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2028) Right. So, you know, this is an example. The largest private credit fund, which is like $80 billion, is called B-Cred. B-Cred is owned by Blackstone. Blackstone is the largest. private equity firm in the country. So it makes it a little incestuous. But what's happened, you know, like if you wanted to ask, you're like, there are two major problems. The first problem is private equity bought a ton of stuff. Yeah. Software. What kind of comes to software? I'm just speaking generically, you know, when rates were nothing. And then they levered the little puppy up. And historically, Historically, like if you were an investor in a private equity fund, you would put your money in and then they'd run the company for a while.

[34:38](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2078) And then three or four years later, they would sell it, all the companies, and you'd get all your money back, plus profit. Nice. This is great. Sounds great. Count me in. Count me in. So now three to four years has become seven. Not so great. Yeah. It's become seven because rates are a lot higher, and these companies are all levered up, and they're levered up mostly with variable rate debt. So the debt interest rate has already gone up. Right. It's variable. And correct me if I'm wrong, if I come to you and say, I don't want to wait anymore, I want my money back, you say no. Too bad. There's a gate up now.

[35:14](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2114) Well, the gate is for these funds that are public for retail. And there you're only allowed to pull out 5% of the total amount per quarter. If you're an institution, too bad. Just too bad. You're a big boy. You knew what you got into. You knew what you got into. Sorry. I'm curious if you can bring some clarity to this for me. So in the situation that you're describing, where people can get paid out this 5%, I have a friend who used to work at the Fed, and he works on his PhD now, and he studies private credit. And he was trying to explain a problem to me where a lot of private credit right now will pay. They are taking on more loans to make these payments to their holders in the short term, but are not disclosing the value of the underlying assets as they are likely falling right now.

[36:10](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2170) But because they're private, they don't have to disclose that information. And it seems like they're sitting on some sort of larger bubble here and this is me poorly explaining what he explained to me and i was wondering if you understand you're allowed to take on a certain amount of leverage yeah when you're a private credit fund so generally it's two to one yeah but let's say you're not two to one let's say you're one and a half to one So let's say you get a redemption. Now, a lot of the redemptions were like 10%, 15% of the entire value of the fund. But the contract says, we only are required to give you up to five.

[36:49](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2209) Okay, so now we got to give you five. So now we have a choice. Do we go out and sell a loan? We got to find the money somewhere. It's not like, you know, it's sitting around. At least you own our liquid, right? You made the loans already. So do we go out and sell a loan? And chances are, given that rates are higher and maybe it's software, that we would take a loss and we haven't marked the thing down. And now we're going to take a real mark and we don't want to do that. Or do we lever the fund from 1.5 to 1.6 and pay people that amount of money? Oh, I see. So you still technically working within the law.

[37:31](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2251) Like, you have room for flexibility. Right. You aren't going over that cap. You're just taking on a little more risk in order to not take the loss on the books in the short term. Correct. All right. The big problem with private credit and private equity, we're going to come to that. Okay, I really want to ask about that. We've had that on the podcast, too. That's okay. But let me just finish with private credit. Yeah, yeah. A lot of their stuff is software. And then, you know, there's what's called the SaaSpocalypse. Have you heard that? Yeah, we did an episode. They're all about Wix and Monday and Adobe.

[38:04](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2284) Oh, yeah, yeah. All those companies are now. So all these companies, you know, other than cybersecurity companies, all these software companies are down like 50%. So if you go back, most of these software buyouts were done between like 2018 and 2022. And they did half equity, half debt. So simple math. if, you know, take Adobe. Adobe is down 60% from the peak. I mean, Adobe is a great company. It's down 60% from the peak. I mean, it's insanity. So, and, you know, people are petrified. The AI is going to destroy Adobe. I mean, I'm not an expert. What the hell do I know? Well, I'll tell you. I want to jump in.

[38:46](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2326) I tried the AI clone of Adobe. Oh, did you really? Because I mentioned it. How was it? I use it for my thumbnails. Was it good? There's no different. I could not tell a difference. I think. See, I mentioned it on my podcast And I said, this guy came out with a free version. I said, I don't know. know how good it is, but free is free. Yeah. And again, I'm not a deep, deep user of the niche. Most people aren't. But I use it for my thumbnails. It's going to be good enough for 95% of people. Good enough. And that was spooky. They made all of their software. So mathematically, if let's say, hypothetically, almost all these companies are down 50%. If it's half equity and half debt, the debt only goes down after the equity has gone to zero.

[39:27](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2367) Well, now the equity is worthless. Think of it this way. A billion dollar deal, 500 million in debt, 500 million in equity. And let's say the value of the company is now only 500 million dollars. The debt doesn't go down a dollar until equity goes to nothing. Then it goes down. So if the value of the company is 500, if the enterprise value is 500 million dollars, the debt's worth 500 million and the equity's worth zero.

[39:55](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2395) **Steve Eisman:** So now all these companies are going to start to refinance starting next year.

[40:00](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2400) So imagine the conversation. Well, the variable rate, they're there already. But just imagine the conversation. So private credit says to private equity, your equity is worthless. If you want to refinance, you need to put another $500 million. And private equity says, screw you. We walk. And that's what I think is going to happen. So these private equity portfolios are going to be awful. The vintage is terrible. I think if you were looking, because we started the episode off by talking about how our younger viewers feel about the future. And you had asked kind of what our outlook or advice is to them when they talk about these problems or we talk about the problems.

[40:44](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2444) I'm kind of wondering what you, because you're laying all these situations out or this is your evaluation of what's going to happen in the future and it's pretty daunting. If I'm a young person coming to you and I'm like, I want to plan my financial future, I have a pretty normal job, what are you telling that person? I tell people pretty much the same thing all the time, which is you put a little bit of money away all the time and just buy the S&P 500. And despite all the AI problems, if you're a young person who's 24, 25 or whatever, your time horizon is very, very long. And so, you know, every month, as you save, put a little bit more in, buy some more S&P 500, and forget it.

[41:29](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2489) Just forget it. And you will find 30... Years from now, you'll be in really good shape. Okay. That's what I tell people. And you still believe that now? I still believe that. I think the, I mean, leaving aside all the problems with AI and is it a bubble or not a bubble, the U.S. economy is the most dynamic economy in the world, period. Ask yourself the following question. Where would you rather live, here or France? Well, maybe not France. He's moving to Sweden. I know he's moving to Sweden. Sweden. But I'm not about to- Sweden's a good choice. I'm not about to move all the money into the Scandinavian stock exchange that they're thinking about.

[42:03](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2523) I might for Switzerland. But yeah, I get what you're saying. I mean, it still spooks me. It still spooks me. I'm not telling you not to be spooked. I'm just saying if you have a very long term, which is what we're talking about. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm thinking like 50 years. I mean, if you're asking me what's going to happen to the market over the next year, I say there's a good possibility we have a recession. I think that's possible. Yeah. I wouldn't stake my life on it, but I certainly think it's certainly possible. So, okay, just back to private equity real quick, because I thought this is...

[42:33](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2553) Yeah, yeah. I want to go back to something you said on our show, October 2025, or the first time you were on, and it was about private equity. You were more optimistic at that time. It was earlier days. Okay. And we asked you what your nightmare scenario was. Things have changed a little bit since I was on your show. A hundred percent. Name one thing. Since we're sailing. Like, I'm talking about, we asked what your nightmare scenario, your worst scenario was. And what did I say? And you said, you're a little bit worried at the time about private equity, not the software part of it, them buying up insurance companies, levering them with debt.

[43:09](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2589) Oh, yes. And then when they fail, whether from software or otherwise, when they fail, it's on the policy holder. And now we have to bail out the insurance companies to bail it. Like, that's, and I don't know if your risk on that is increased or decreased. Oh, it's definitely increased. But it seems – because we're hearing it with, like, the former Lakers owner and all this stuff of, like, they're tied into insurance. I'll tell you a great – so we had on the podcast just an examination of Mark Walter, who we're talking about, and his insurance company. Yeah. Just a whole podcast on that. I've got to watch that one.

[43:42](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2622) It was really good. I'm fascinated. I'm trying to learn more. And what I thought was sort of the most revealing thing was the person who I was interviewing who was an insurance examiner, had been an insurance examiner, pointed out, this part I knew, that in the United States, insurance companies are regulated by the states. There are basically 50 states with insurance regulators, and you get to choose. They're all different. And they're all different, and you basically get the forum shop. Yikes, okay. Because, oh, he's more lenient. We're going here. Right, right. Okay, so Mark Walter has a bunch of insurance companies, and they're not tiny, and they're all based in Delaware.

[44:25](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2665) Okay, I don't find that alarming. Sure. He was coming to the alarming part. So he says, he says, you know, that in Delaware, there's an insurance regulator and the insurance regulator is in an elected official. OK. I said, OK, this is very common. I think California is the same way. OK. And so he says to me, what do you think this guy did? This guy who was now the guy who won the election, the guy who won the election, who's now regulating Mark, Mark Walter's insurance company. what do you think he did before he was the insurance regulator? I'm going to take a stab at it. I think he may have been working at one of the insurance companies. A bit of a revolving door scenario. Good guess, but you were so far off.

[45:08](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2708) Oh, really? Wow. Go ahead. Is he Mark Walters' best friend? No. He was a sheriff. Okay. Wow. Okay. And so I said to him, you know, that's not that crazy. I support my local sheriff. Sure. But I don't support my local sheriff who knows absolutely nothing about financials to be the regulator It's funny the bar is so low for me that I'm like, wait a few while to get it. I was like, as long as there's not a direct tie to the guy, I'll take anybody. Man on the street. Just goes to show you how we've been dumbed down. Yeah, exactly. No, I don't need an expert. I just need someone who's not Mark Walter.

[45:46](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2746) I mean, this has been building and brewing for a long time now because private equity, private credit takes the view, not crazy, that they create very, very long-tailed loans. So therefore, if they could find something that has long-term funding, let's marry the two. That's insurance. Yeah. That was always the concept. Sure. You know, it was basically created by Apollo when they bought Athene, and then everybody started piggybacking on it. I don't have a problem with it in theory. Sure. nothing wrong with it in theory i think the problem is you get people like mark walter so what he so what he did was

[46:32](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2792) **Steve Eisman:** He took policyholder money, he lent it to an entity that he controlled, and that entity bought the L.A. Dodgers and the L.A. Lakers.

[46:45](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2805) Now, you're only allowed to have like a certain percentage of your equity and your assets in what's called related party transactions. Meaning, like, you know, if you were my brother and I ran the insurance company, I can't lend money to you. That would be a related party transaction. Or if I lend money to myself to buy the LA Lakers, that would be a related party transaction. I mean, he's like 30 times higher than he's supposed to be, but he didn't disclose it. Sure. That's the scandal. Okay. But I think there's probably tons of other people out there like that. But then so, and maybe you, I just don't know, why was he forced to sell?

[47:22](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2842) What? Oh, so he was forced to sell because somebody squealed. Okay. And he had basically had only disclosed like three related party transactions. Okay. It turned out that there were 40. And they're massive. Someone who was betting unders on Luka Doncic all last season was like, I'm fucking done. I'm telling. I'm blowing the whistle. I'm blowing the whistle, Mark. So he had to sell stuff to get the percentage down. Okay. So he sold the LA Lakers to raise cash so that that percent, he's still above the percentage, but he keeps selling stuff to get it down. He's trying to get his banning ship, everything off the boat.

[48:00](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2880) And now he's being investigated by the Southern District of New York. Like, that's serious, as opposed to the sheriff in Delaware. Well, him and Shohei can commiserate. You've been investigated, I've been investigated, it's fine. Yeah, it's a Dodgers thing. It's a Dodgers thing. Okay, that actually helps a lot. I was sort of trying to understand, wrap my mind around what was going on there. It doesn't put my mind super at ease, but I do get it. I wasn't trying to put you at ease. Because that's what I'm kind of getting out of this conversation is like, but what about this problem? And you sit across from me, you're like, yeah.

[48:36](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2916) And then I'm like, please give me an answer. And then it's like, no, it could be bad. Probably is. Oh, God, that's funny. So let's switch gears. So we're podcasters. That's what we do. You know, sometimes I go on CNBC and I look at it and I enjoy going on CNBC. You see, you got me wrong. But they have these like fancy schmancy cameras. They've got a whole bunch of different people, you know, technician people walking around. They got reporters. Big office. Big office, you know, big studio. And then I look at our podcast, which is basically me and my CEO, who's my wife. And that's it. And we produce all the content.

[49:29](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=2969) And then we have a nice camera at home when we do the weekly wrap. We have a nice camera that records it. And we have an editor, a couple of other people who work for us, and we're done. You guys were even earlier. Tell me a little about your experience and what lessons people can draw from how you succeeded. Actually, I think there was a really good demonstration of this recently. So I'm working with a friend that's a YouTuber. and he was doing a more traditional shoot with like a corporate funding behind it for a commercial. And they hired out this entire team. Like there's probably 30 people on set, multiple cameras, multiple mics, huge lighting rig.

[50:15](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=3015) And it's not to say that you can't make use of these things, but I remember thinking about the spend of that day on their side, since I knew part of what the spend was. And I'm like, okay, that's just the starting point. And then all the parts I don't know about, I have an idea of like industry rates. And it was all to produce this tiny section of a commercial that in total was like 30 seconds long. And then his part was only a few of those 30. And I compare that to what we shoot in our own studio. With the lemonade cans. With the lemonade cans. Only one of them is drunk. Which means you don't have to buy anything to drink for a long time.

[50:56](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=3056) Yeah, yeah. You have something to drink for you. The only one that drinks it. You can come for the next hundred years. Hundred years. That'll be a bunker if things go wrong. But the difference in producing our own podcast or working among our friends that are YouTubers when we just do normal shoots or game shows or something like that, the cost difference is wild to me. We need way fewer people to pull off a product that ultimately doesn't look very different. And I think there's a degradation for sure. It's like you can scrape the bottom and cut costs even more and make. something genuinely bad, but I think you can get most of the way to that quality with so much less.

[51:40](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=3100) And it's very surprising to me that I described it as almost like this K-shaped media industry right now, where the more institutional money in the space still is willing to spend these six-figure budgets on small shoots, and it's still kind of functioning, but there's this aggressive newer generation of people building competitive media companies that I think are going to eat those guys' lunch, and it's starting to happen. We just did a guest episode with this guy named Anthony, and he runs a media marketing company that he just started. He's 25. They've only been running it for a year and they compete basically on price to get new clients. And they are incredibly successful at online marketing, way, way more successful than their competitors in terms of the actual results they are producing at like a 10th of the cost. And this is because these tools and the generation that has grown up with them, they're so, I mean, they're adults now and they're very capable and they're willing to do it at a way lower cost.

[52:50](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=3170) You know, interesting that I think one positive thing maybe we could take away from all this is that the cost of doing pretty much anything is so much lower than it once was. I mean, it's possible we may be entering like an age of like the young entrepreneur, people starting businesses that would not have made any sense whatsoever years ago because the cost was just too high. Now the costs are one tenth. You can make a real living. And I think you may find a lot of people going out, especially if young people can't find jobs, going out on their own and seeing what they can do. I don't think that's crazy at all.

[53:27](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=3207) I do think that the ability to reach an audience, whether it's through content or with products, is like it's instant now. It's much easier to get distribution. It's much easier to get access. I think a business story that ties in is, I don't know if you've seen, but Netflix stock is not doing so well. Really? I hadn't noticed. They did a big layoff. And I think what they said was, you know, YouTube is now 14% of TV watching. They're only seven. And it's, you know, YouTube spends nothing on content. It's all people creating it. They just shove it on YouTube. But they can't compete on speed. Everyone can make the thing that some audience wants, even if it's not that.

[54:02](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=3242) biggest audience. They can make it quicker and faster. So that's an interesting direction that it's going. The message from the people, like the CEO of Patreon, Jack Conte, the president of Shopify, Harley Finkelstein, that we interviewed a while ago. I think these are guys that have vested interests in their company succeeding, of course, but their outlook on their company's success is based on this premise. It's like, if we build these base platforms for entrepreneurs to build businesses out of at basically no cost to them individually. Anybody who has your ability to like leverage and execute an idea, especially if it has to do with anything digital, is just so easy compared to what it was 20, 30 years ago.

[54:48](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=3288) And there are a ton of like, you know, I've heard there's a ton of traditional businesses that are owned by boomers that are about to retire or die. and all of them could probably do with the update on new technology, you know, getting off the fax machine and starting to use. Ah, the fax machine. So I think these are areas that are also opportunities. I think entrepreneurship is going to have a really big moment. I agree with, you know, not everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. There's different risks there. Not everybody wants to. Guys, thank you. That was great. Oh, man, really appreciate it.

[55:19](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=3319) It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for having us. Absolutely. We'll have you again and hopefully I'll be back on your show again. Yeah, come back to LA. We'll talk again. I need some more lemonade. I'm sure there'll be some more news. Well, you have to drink all the cans. I just thought that was the funniest thing. I mean, there are hundreds of cans on the walls. Why not? I get a can, I start drinking, and you guys are, like, in shock. Like, unrefrigerated set can. Nobody does that. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.

[55:52](https://realalpha.app/v/pTFWpojm1dU/?t=3352) A host and guests may hold positions in stocks discussed, opinions expressed on their own and not recommendations. Please do your own due diligence and consult a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decisions.