This year, Father's Day was smaller than usual. My wife, Jennifer, is in Indonesia, and my older son is on the west coast.
Meanwhile, my younger son, Zach, took me to one of our favorite Asian restaurants with his new Fiancée, Sloane.
I've been calling her my daughter-in-law since he brought her home (because some things are inevitable and easy to recognize).
Reflecting on the past year, I'm grateful for my granddaughter (from my married son, Ben, and his wife). And, I'm also grateful that Zach and Sloane got engaged and started to plan the rest of their lives together (and hopefully more grandchildren for me).
As a father, having great kids is a double blessing. On one hand, it's nice to be proud of who your kids are and the things they do. On the other hand, it's also nice to feel proud of the small part you played in helping them become who they are.
Of course, I also look back ... and spent some time thinking about my father and his terrific influence on so many lives.
My Dad believed in setting high standards. He explained that most people's lives are defined by their minimum standards. Why? Because once those standards are met, it is easy to get distracted by other things (and figuring out how to meet the minimum standards for them as well).
He was also my best friend.
I see so much of him in myself, and in my children, and many of the aphorisms I teach come from him. I'm grateful that I can still see his impact on the world.
OK, it is just a survey - still, that's staggering information.
The younger generation is getting advice from places like TikTok and YouTube (decidedly not The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, or even LinkedIn).
However, social media is a great place to start conversations - or to gain some perspective or context. It is even a good place to figure out some questions to get you thinking about your future better.
The wisdom of the crowd is good. But expert advice is considered "expert" for a reason. And, often, it makes sense to seek it out specifically.
I doubt I'm currently reaching many Gen Z'ers ... but if you're reading this ... please expand your sources for getting financial advice beyond TikTok and YouTube.
For the older crowd ... I have found it hard enough to change myself, so I don't often expect to change others. With that in mind, it may be time to adjust your communication strategy to include TikTok and YouTube. If you can't change them, you might as well meet them where they are.
I just launched a TikTok channel called BotheringMyBoss. It's run by that research assistant. It's a bit outside of my comfort zone. But, hopefully, it opens a communication channel with a younger audience.
Humans are notoriously bad at large numbers. It's hard to wrap our minds around something of that scale. We're wired to think locally and linearly, not exponentially (it's one of the reasons I love AI so much). Here are a couple of ways to help you understand a billion dollars.
First, let's look at spending over time. If you were to spend a dollar every second for an entire day, you would spend $86,400 per day. If you have a million dollars, you can do that for approximately twelve days. With a billion dollars, you can do that for over 31 years. Ignoring the difference between net worth and cash, Jeff Bezos could spend $9M per day for over 31 years.
If you make $100k a year, you can earn $1 million in 10 years. At the same rate, it would take you 10,000 years to make $1 billion.
For another example, let's think about spending money. Imagine making $50k a year as the base, and imagine buying a laptop, a car, or a house. Now we're going to shrink the cost of those items, instead of increasing your pay. If you were a millionaire, a laptop might cost the equivalent of $100 dollars, a Porsche, $3,000 dollars, a house, $25,000. Now, let's say you're Mike Bloomberg and you're worth $60B. A laptop is literally worth pennies, a Porsche is less than 60 cents, and your mansion would cost around 500 dollars. You could have everything you ever wanted for a minute fraction of your wealth.
Okay, last one before I show a video ...
Let's try explaining it through time. 50,000 seconds is just under 14 hours. A million seconds was 11 days ago. A billion seconds ago from today? 1988. Pretty crazy.
Here's a video from the 1970s that helps you understand scale through the power of tens, and an exploration of our universe.
Late last year, the FTX exchange collapsed. During the collapse, there was evidence of a Ponzi scheme, overleveraging, and solvency issues. Before it crashed, it was the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange with over a million users. FTX's collapse shook the volatile crypto market, which lost billions at the time, falling below a $1 trillion valuation, and supposedly millions of coins were stolen during the downfall.
This was a massive hit for the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency. Since then, crypto has been slowly fighting its way forward - and I know many people with interesting opportunities and ventures planned for this space.
Meanwhile, the SEC sued Coinbase, this past week, for potentially operating an unregistered securities platform and brokerage service. The SEC alleged that Coinbase made billions as the middleman between buyers and sellers without giving investors the lawful protections they should as a broker. That lawsuit came only a day after the SEC filed charges against the largest crypto exchange, Binance, for misusing investor funds, operating as an unregistered exchange, and violating many U.S. securities laws.
Here's a quote from Binance's CCO (recorded in the SEC complaint)
“We are operating as a f*king unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.”
It is no surprise that Coinbase's stock price plunged almost 20% due to the news.
I don't want to bog you down with the details of the various cases, but ultimately, Binance was supposed to split their business so that their U.S. company would be subject to U.S. regulations and legally allowed to be an exchange in the U.S. But, instead, there was an improper "comingling" of funds. Binance subverted its controls to allow certain high-value customers to continue trading on the non-U.S. platform.
So, this begs the question ... what does this all mean for cryptocurrencies, exchanges, and the stakeholders?
My Thoughts
These recent enforcement actions suggest that the SEC will target firms it sees as bypassing regulation (either by blurring the distinction between on-and-offshore services or by trading unregulated securities).
It's clear that regulators are worried about the security of the American taxpayers' money. Both the FDIC and SEC are cracking down.
Just like with the banking issues before, the issues we're dealing with here shouldn't be particularly surprising if you have been paying attention. We're getting mixed messages on how involved and regulated the government wants these securities to be.
Are more regulations required to ensure trust in the American financial system? Or is this a free market where pain and pleasure point out the evolutionary path?
Finally, there's an even more fundamental question ... are cryptocurrencies truly something new (which requires a unique regulatory approach), or are they simply a new medium of pre-existing financial instruments that the SEC already has rules and regulations for?
Initially, some of the attractive aspects of cryptocurrency were its decentralized nature and its potential to have its own rules and regulations separate from a national governing body.
On the other hand, we've seen what happened in the past when other alternative investments, like Hedge Funds, were unregulated.
Currently, two roads are available to cryptocurrency as an industry - and perhaps it can take both. First, it can become subject to all the regulations of its predecessors and become a mainstream and stable option for the masses. Or, it can remain a "fringe" option that subverts the governing bodies around it, forcing its relatively small group of loyalists to deal with the uncertainty and volatility – but maintain the autonomy it can.
There is nothing wrong with your television. We will control all that you see and hear. We can deluge you with a thousand channels or expand one single image to crystal clarity and beyond. We can shape your vision to anything our imagination can conceive. Enjoy ....
There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image; make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to the outer limits.
We believe what we want to believe, so it can be very hard to change a belief, even in the face of contrary evidence.
Since the past election cycle, we've seen a massive uptick in distrust toward news agencies, big companies, the government, and basically anyone with a particularly large reach.
To a certain degree, this is understandable and justified. Here is an example of the power of the media focused on a message. Click to watch.
Propaganda has always been an issue, and almost everyone does it; governments, companies, etc. Luckily, it's easier to see today than in the past, but unluckily it's also more pervasive and insidious than before.
It's to the point where if you watch the news you're misinformed, and if you don't watch the news you're uninformed.
The above segment portrays a rosy picture of Amazon's efforts to protect its workers while delivering essentials to the struggling homebound masses. This comes while Amazon has come under massive fire for removing some of its protections.
Honestly, I use Amazon and, in my opinion, this isn't a massive breach of trust. News stations have a lot of time to fill, they often have sponsored content.
That being said, it's something to be cognizant of - not necessarily offended by.
Personally, I believe I am reasonably aware and somewhat immune from propaganda. That probably isn't as true as I'd like to believe.
It used to be true that winners wrote history (think empires, wars, etc.). Now, the one that delivers the most broadcast narratives shapes the emotional and seemingly logical responses to what we perceive to be happening around us.
The result impacts elections, financial markets, buying choices, and countless other areas of our life.
It's a great reminder that what you're seeing and hearing is carefully manufactured, and hopefully, it encourages you to get outside your bubble.
I think one of the worst consequences of the past few years is the unwillingness of mass swaths of Americans to listen to voices they disagree with. The internet has already created echo chambers, but it's being exacerbated by vitriol. As a result, I think we're seeing the fringe of both parties move further away from the middle.
It's unsurprising that Google and social media top the list, but it is interesting to see OpenAI becoming the 17th most visited site last month - with 1.8 billion visits - despite being very new to the scene in comparison to its competitors.
Easy to forget, but also unsurprising is the prevalence of adult websites on this list. One of my most popular articles ever was titled "How Long Does It Take To Get To 50 Million Users?" in it, the takeaway was that Pornhub did it 19 days - faster than anyone else ... up until ChatGPT. Part of the popularity of that article is because Pornhub has very in-depth statistics about its yearly use.
Many of our best decisions, timeliest course corrections, or most significant innovations occur after a seemingly disastrous occurrence. That's why many psychologists and self-help gurus encourage people to focus on the hidden gift that many of these experiences provide.
It's there if you look for it. That painful event becomes the catalyst for either something new, a better way, or a level-up.
Of course, that's not the case for everyone or every event ... It takes the right mindset and the right actions to turn a trial into a triumph.
As we come out of a massive world transformation, and into a new one with the surge in A.I., I think back to 2008 and how a prior incarnation of algorithms fared against it (spoiler alert: not nearly as well as this time). They say the things that don't kill you make you stronger. Here's my trial into triumph story about that.
Too many people become a victim of their circumstances instead of choosing to be the master of their destinies.
Life's harder for people that live a life of least resistance. Doing the hard things, and making the most of bad times, makes your life not only better ... but, ultimately, easier.
Tony Robbins calls this Threshold of Control. If you push through the fear and the struggle ... as you persevere, eventually, what was scary becomes easy. You've increased your threshold, and that's often a permanent improvement.
Examining several instances from my past, here is a list of the seven steps I use to transform almost any situation.
Seven Best Practices for Uncertain Times.
Accept Reality: We are where we are. Focus on being complete with what happened before this – and think about this as a new beginning with an even bigger future.
Do Something Positive: Take action and build momentum and confidence. Big wins are great. Yet, in scary times, even small items are worth noting, building upon, and stacking. Let progress build positive momentum for you.
Take Care of Yourself: Increase your physical activity, meditation, and massage. Take time to eat and sleep well. Many studies show decision-making suffers when you're stressed. Taking care of yourself goes a long way to making many other things better.
Communicate More: The natural tendency is to hide or to recuperate in private. Instead, be open and receptive to help and ideas from friends, partners, or wherever it may come.
Creative Destruction: The old game and the old ways of thinking are over. Shift your energy to what is working. Commit to the result you want rather than the process.
Increase Your Options: It often takes a different level of thinking to solve a problem than the level of thinking that got you there in the first place. So, be open to new opportunities, new possibilities, and more ways to win.
Choose a Bigger Future: Instead of resigning yourself to playing small and doing with less, recognize that a clearing creates space for something even better. Choose what you want and call it into existence through your thoughts and actions.
They say everything happens for a reason. The secret is that you get to choose the reason, what it means to you, and what you're going to do about it. Choose well, and someday you could look back on this time as one of the best things that ever happened to you.
Surface-level statistics - like whether something goes up or down over time - are helpful but don't explain much. I love looking at the patterns and statistics one step deeper.
This example isn't too deep, but it's helpful nonetheless.
VisualCapitalist compiled a chart covering what moved the S&P 500 so far in 2023.
The top 20 stocks accounted for 7.08% out of the 7.55% gain in 2023, but only 29% of the weight of the S&P.
If we look one step deeper than that, we realize that the majority of those stocks are not only Tech stocks, but they are stocks driving the rapid growth in AI. On top of the obvious ones, like Nvidia and AMD, you also have companies like Alphabet and Microsoft investing billions into OpenAI as they begin to leverage ChatGPT into their own chatbots.
The math gets even crazier, though. According to Rowan Cheung, editor of the RunDown AI newsletter, the S&P 500 would be up only 1.4% without the AI-led rally as of May 17, 2023.
One of the things we look for in understanding the performance of indexes like this is market breadth. If many of the S&P 500 companies are performing well, that's a sign of safety. When the market is positive due to the performance of only a few companies, it means you should understand and pay attention to the distinction between the market, as a whole, and the companies (or industries) driving the change. In this scenario, the AI-companies are masking the actual performance of the S&P. How long that can stay true (with banking uncertainty, debt ceiling issues, and more) remains to be seen.
Pornhub via 
Where Gen Z Gets Financial Advice ...
I recently hired a new research assistant and brought her to a conference where I gave two speeches and a breakout session.
After I spoke, I asked her what she thought, and her answer surprised me.
She said there were many opportunities for improvement, and she didn't know why I wasn't already doing it.
She said I ignored the young people in the room ... And that my material, language, and attention were targeted toward older people (like me).
As annoying as it was - she had a point.
Take a look at this survey from Vericast.
OK, it is just a survey - still, that's staggering information.
The younger generation is getting advice from places like TikTok and YouTube (decidedly not The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, or even LinkedIn).
While I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube (and even TikTok), those are not places I would search for detailed financial advice.
However, social media is a great place to start conversations - or to gain some perspective or context. It is even a good place to figure out some questions to get you thinking about your future better.
The wisdom of the crowd is good. But expert advice is considered "expert" for a reason. And, often, it makes sense to seek it out specifically.
I doubt I'm currently reaching many Gen Z'ers ... but if you're reading this ... please expand your sources for getting financial advice beyond TikTok and YouTube.
For the older crowd ... I have found it hard enough to change myself, so I don't often expect to change others. With that in mind, it may be time to adjust your communication strategy to include TikTok and YouTube. If you can't change them, you might as well meet them where they are.
I just launched a TikTok channel called BotheringMyBoss. It's run by that research assistant. It's a bit outside of my comfort zone. But, hopefully, it opens a communication channel with a younger audience.
Let me know what you think.
Posted at 05:25 PM in Business, Current Affairs, Ideas, Market Commentary, Trading, Writing | Permalink | Comments (0)
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