YouSaid · the spoken record

Michael Weisz

lines on the record: 67
first: 2021-07-25
most recent: 2021-07-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“You can follow my professional endeavors on LinkedIn and maybe from time to time some passionate spew of something. Twitter, I'm still trying to get the hang of. And these days it seems like competition is fierce. People have completely figured out how to be brilliant in so few words. But I'm working on my game. So definitely follow me there. Some of my more personal moments are going to be found on Instagram. But I would definitely tell you LinkedIn and Twitter are your places to spend time with me. Gill Street app is amazing. It's going to do a lot of what we spoke about. And follow Yill Street on social. It's a super fun and creative. Sometimes I can't believe the things they post. And B, super informative.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Bend to me because I'm the founder and I can't change just to bend to you because I need you to manage a group. So the question that we have to sit down and talk about is like, what are my core competencies and characteristics and how I work and what are yours? Where do we butt heads? And let's understand like how we work together best, like what's the mode of communication that we need to make sure we're constantly focused on so that we as a team are most effective. I think if you keep those three things in mind being super crisp on your vision, recognizing that you have to always be growing as an individual and always being mindful that different people operate at peak efficiency in a different way. And we need to figure out how to work together. That to me is maybe three good takeaways for this webinar.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of the business. Many ways you hear people saying, like, oh, John was great for us from Series A to B, but not from B to C. Yeah, well, what about Michael? Like, are you stepping up too? And so you need to be really relentlessly self-aware of where you are vis- ⁇-vis what the organization needs and get yourself a coach or read or find a way to constantly be growing. And the third is as you grow in order to build something amazing, you need to bring in a lot of different people with different skill sets. different people with different skill sets mean different working styles if you seek to duplicate yourself over and over only so far could you ever get what that means is that now you have this new person coming in with a whole different way of working and a whole different attitude the goal isn't for you or that person to change and become amenable to the other because i do best working the way i work and you do best working the way you and so you can't change just”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Their art was telling the world a story and a vision and keeping it really simple. And it allowed them to build businesses, losing money for a very, very, very long periods of time. And so the value of your business should not be projected in how complex or how different it is. It should be projected in how simple it is to understand what you're trying to build. That's one. Two is as you grow a business, you individually need to grow with it. And so as an individual, I'm constantly a growth seeker looking to improve and looking to grow because I understand that the organization needs more from me and needs differently from me. What I provided the organization, what I did to the organization day to day in 2016 or 17 is completely different than what I do for the organization today. And so understanding that we individually are on a journey ourselves and we need to keep up with the pace.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Putting me on the spot, so I'm going to say three things that are top of mind to me. I think that's an awesome, awesome conversation to have. The three things I would say is you asked me essentially two and a half questions. One was like, you know, some tips on fundraising and the others was about scaling to a business with this many employees and more. On fundraising, I think the best advice you can think about is how do I short”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Site, you're seeing someone like my portfolio move higher and higher on concentration to putting it at Yale Street because it's not Yield Street that I'm taking risk in. It's understanding that Yale Street's bringing all these other platforms or bringing your product. And so I feel really comfortable continuing to expand the share of wallet that I'm bringing to Yield Street.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Investments. What's changed over the years for me is a migration of investing with others to putting more and more on Yield Street because Yield Street's offering more of those solutions. And so I think you're seeing that happen across the board where people are saying, hey, if it's just real estate and art and shipping, like it's X percent of my portfolio. Wait, now I could do like other managers. Okay, that's like another 5 or 10% of my portfolio because I get diversification by them. Wait, now it's structured notes so I don't have to buy it through some intermediary. Okay, like there's another five percent. And so what Yill Street's message is very different than what most sort of people advisors have been telling you always, which is like their message is like, give me more money. Our message is like, we're giving you more products. You decide if you want to invest more. And naturally they do. They're like, hey, I keep getting more diversified. And so the short answer is as we keep bringing more products to the”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So given my background and given sort of where I traffic as a career, I would say that I've been fortunate to have a lot more access than most, which is kind of how I figured out that, hey, so one story goes, I asked, you know, my old buddy is like, we have like five of us who are being close since like elementary high school. And I'm like, guys, like, this is amazing. What are you investing in? It's like circa 2010. And they gave me the typical answers. And I literally looked at them and I'm like, you guys are missing the boat. I'm crushing it. I'll go finance on this. Like, you guys should come in. And they're like, oh, okay. Like, we'll give you five grand. And I was like, wait, what? Like, I can't do that. And I sort of forgot that in many ways, like doctors and lawyers doing their thing. And I'm working for a number of years and got super lucky and fortunate to have the experience that I had. And so I started to really realize sort of where the access issue was. So for me, I've been really heavily invested in Alts for a long time because I understand it really well. Because I feel comfortable that I impact many of my.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Build the full blown secondary market where there's always real time liquidity. I want to know that across my portfolio, there's going to be moments of liquidity over time. And, you know, hopefully each of those moments, I'm like, okay, I'm good. I don't need the liquidity. Boom, I reinvest. And so I'm constantly re-engaging with yield straight. And as yield street continues to expand what it offers, then I keep investing more. And so where we started this entire conversation about an hour ago, I told you that the reason I started Yieldstree in other ORs is for super selfish reasons because I needed this, right? And my friends needed it. And so here I am continuing to build Yel Street for the things that the people I love and care about need. And that universe just expanded to millions of people who share the same pain. And so you're going to see me doing the same things that, you know, I think most other people are going to do at Yale Street.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let's see. So, I mean, the first answer while my investments are coming up is I'm looking for a diversified portfolio, right? So I'm investing across the board at Yild Street. So I have 29 active investments right now at Yild Street. And that'll range from short-term notes, if I'm not sure exactly where I want to put certain cash or if I'm waiting for more diversification or more product to the different funds that we spoke. I mean, at 29 investments, I'm pretty heavily diversified. You're seeing me in everything from R to shipping to structured notes to single family rentals to legal supply chain. My goal is to be as diversified as possible and to be thematic in nature and to build a rolling portfolio. So if you look at like my durations, I have things that are like maturing in a month or two to, let's say, the aviation fund that's like, you know, long duration private equity fund. And so until”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're about 110 employees. I think we have 30 jobs open looking for awesome people that are passionate about really democratizing access to these types of products, looking for people that get passionate about as crazy as it sounds, like changing people's lives, like giving them a better financial future, like just jacks me up like crazy and just want people that are excited about that mission, looking for people that get invigorated by a big mission, that are smart, that are excited about building and about being impactful in a smaller company. That's where we are.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“World with this incredible audience and bringing those together to create that flywheel. Like to us, that's the holy grail of what we're building is creating that experience for you, the customer. And so in some ways, any asset that has the right risk return profile and that's right for our investor base is in play”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, absolutely. So crypto's on the pipeline. I think you're going to see that a lot sooner than you think. So that's certain. I think for us, we're five years into a 15-year journey, right? I think it's going to be a lifelong journey, but I would say until like I have the totality experience and the markets are always evolving. So like stepping back to one of the things we spoke about earlier as a CIO, my role is to say, hey, I have this ever-growing community who wants to build a holistic portfolio. I need to constantly be looking at the market and understand them so that they could do a better job at creating the portfolio that's best for them in a diversified fashion. And so we're always going to be introducing new products over time. The Yield Street's value is not a function of what we sell. Rather, it's how we sell to whom we sell and our ability to sell. It's leveraging most efficient technology in the world.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“About, hey, why do we raise this money? Where are we going? What's this all about? And in conjunction with that, we put together a video that would really show you a day in the life in Yale Street in two or three years. So we had a video created with all the functionality that we get excited about, real liquidity secondary market, international.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're actually one of the first platforms to have an app. We've had it for a couple years now. The coolest thing is the first investment made on the app was actually in the middle of Lake Michigan. We thought it was like fraud. So we reached out to the guy and we're like, hey, did you make an investment? He's like, yeah, why? We're like, well, we're seeing it in the middle of Michigan. He's like, yeah, it's amazing. I'm out with my grandson fishing. And I was like, this is everything I ever dreamt of, right? And so yes, we have an app. The app is amazing. I use the app all the time. That's primarily how I'm investing on Yield Street is through the app. The app is everything that you would expect it to be and more to your first part of the question, which is like, where are we going? I think the best way to give you a view into where we're going is to say, go to Yill Street's website, look at the resources. Melinda and I published a founder's blog, a brief letter, post series C.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Transparency and we push high value product, and then we stop. And now it's on you, Trey, to read it and say, like, hey, do I feel that this is right for me and can I make that decision? I think that in some ways that manifests itself in sounding like a little overly complex or like a little weird English that I don't particularly love, but it's trying to live within those lines, right? It's like target return. Like, yeah, the rest of the whole presentation says it's 12%, but like we're hedging that risk and being super transparent or like you could expect payments quarterly, hopefully. Like it pays quarterly. You should be fine, right? And so I think we're trying to sell for A, how do we use nomenclature language in a way that you like say, hey, this sounds normal. And like I understand it versus like, how do we be really thoughtful around how we are talking about different attributes of a transaction without making it feel like we're promising or committing to certain things?”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think that we live in a world that's highly regulated with a very high bar of compliance. And so different organizations take a different approach into how they feel about communicating some of these things. So, for example, if we invest in a loan that's paying 12%, we should just be able to say, hey, you'll get 12%. The reality is like you might not. There might be a default. There might be another issue. It may not perform. And so some platforms will say like, hey, we're not going to get so technical. And if it's 12%, it's 12%, like you obviously know it might not, it's not guaranteed. So like, that's on you. I would say our perspective has always been far more cautious. We're much more, I think we behave much more institutional than I think you would see other platforms. I think some other platforms are all about the sell and we're all about the buy. Meaning we don't push products on our customers. We push content. We push education.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The reporting, the transparency, the tax advantages, the distributions, having a digital wallet, like all that stuff that you and I haven't really spoken about, that's the totality of experience that we want to create for you and that we have.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Short answer is yes, there are different advantages for different strategies. I think that's super technical to get into here, like which ones have depreciations, which ones don't. K1 versus 1099, how it's passed through all that. Those are much more specific. But I think the overarching point that I would say is what Guild Street is trying to provide is the experience of the private bank to you, which is we know who you are because you're our client. We care about you. We're going to go out and try to find great opportunities that fit what you're looking for or that at least give you a chance in a curated fashion to pick what you think is best for you. We're going to do our best to drive value to your pocket, right? We're good at risk-reward opportunities. And we're going to keep doing that every day in a digitally native experience with transparency and ease of use. That's the focus and all the things that you would expect to come with it should come with it.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the term is much longer, but you have an option to seek liquidity on a quarterly basis subject to whatever the limitations are, which you'd have to go online really get educated. But essentially what it means is that if I made an investment for X dollars today, that I would be able theoretically to access quarterly liquidity by asking for it, by clicking a button.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exposure to other big managers. So those are like the ones we just mentioned, right? The aviation, et cetera. And the fourth and final one is the person who's like, this is all great. I don't want to do any of what I just said, but I want exposure to the basket of opportunities that Yale Street has fundamentally approved and put on the platform. And so that's going to be that last fund for accredited non-accredit investors, their 40-act fund, where you could make one investment and increase it over time and just keep getting that broad exposure and diversification across the platform deal street. And to me, what's even super interesting about that product is because of the structure of it, it actually has quarterly liquidity. So you can choose how you want to go in and out of that vehicle and not be married to it necessarily as long term, but still get the exposure that you're looking for in a passive fashion and diversify.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I like single family rentals and sort of the growth that's seeing and I believe in it long term or I don't have a way to access legal finance or art or these other things. So I like them all. But I don't have the time or necessarily the interest or expertise to pick individual deals. So what would be greatest for me is if you could have a thematic fund. So Yoshi says, great. We have like the art fund, the legal fund, the real estate fund. And so that gives you the opportunity to be more passive, but be thematic in how you invest. The third type of person is someone who says like, hey, this is all really interesting, but where I want to be as an investor is to be able to invest alongside some really great managers and funds and investors like the harbor group or Avenue Capital or the Aviation One or some of the other stuff that's coming out, like is there a way for me to invest with Yield Street in potentially?”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we think about it a little bit differently, but along similar lines, which is there are different types of people and people have different desires or different goals and want to invest in different ways. So let's break down like four user journeys. So one is, hey, I'm really interested.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Limitations we will put in and really give you the opportunity to have an allocation in a vehicle that's going to have exposure to our real estate shipping commercial consumer, all the stuff we spoke about. And so I would say it's more about how you invest in a particular product than what you could have exposure to, if that makes sense.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Going to be multiple segments that the SEC uses to define different levels, right? There's non-accredited, there's accredited, there's, let's say, QP, qualified purchaser, there's qualified investor, there's a quib, which is like a $100 million net worth. And so the regulators are going to limit what you can sell to whom or maybe said differently how you can sell something to whom. And so for example, there are offerings for accredited and non-accredited investors alike. And that's more around a certain regulatory construct of how an investment is sold. And so in that particular offering, what you'll find is it's a diversified fund structure, like a diversified vehicle where the objective is, hey, if you want to be a passive investor, but you want access to sort of like a Yield Street ETF, almost like here's everything we do, then whatever we can put in subject to the”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Growing the business, but really a longer term play because the incumbents are not going to be the ones to educate the regulators on the innovation that's happening in the ecosystem. It's going to be guys like us. And if we're not willing to dedicate the time, then it's fine for other founders to sort of complain and bitch and moan about regulation. But like someone needs to have a dialogue and explain what we're doing and why it's important to modernize themes. But for the investor and the consumer, I think that the government is very much trying to look out for you. But I also think that there's clearly a trend to loosening regulation and making things more available to you the investor.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Way we need to be comfortable, but not in the same way that we had to. So, for example, like we could have 20,000 investors in an opportunity now and get the same level of reporting that we would if there were only 50. And so how do we modify the law to like not cap it at 99 investors and have more because we could solve for what we needed. So I would say that regulation is trending more reasonable. I think is the right word to use and to be modernized. I think the Jobs Act was big. I think in March, the recent accreditation definition expansion is important. I think, for example, the Department of Labor talking about allowing people to invest 15% of their IRAs into alts, like we're moving in the right direction. We're trending in the right direction. I think that if I was speaking to myself and like other founders, we as a group could do better about dedicating a little more of our time to be with regulators, even though it means that we're not focused on actual.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are like, wait, that wasn't actually as good for me as I thought it was because I could invest in pink sheet stocks, but I can't invest in like a hundred million dollar institutional deal. And so how did this help me? But when you put your mind in the mind of the regulator, you're more about like, that's okay as long as I protected you from the 99 other things. So I think regulation is important. I think regulation over time could benefit from being less reactionary and more proactive. I think businesses are always at the forefront of innovation and regulations a couple years behind. And so like there's this catch-up game that the regulators find themselves playing in many ways. That being said, I will say very comfortably that I feel that especially as it relates to the SEC, that they have recognized a number of years ago to me it's starts with the Jobs Act that we could do better and that times are different and technology allows us to regulate things.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we've built a pretty seamless process around what we call accreditation verification. And so if you're an investor and you want to come join Yold Street and be part of some of those investments, you really want to try and have the most seamless experience, especially when it goes through like, you know, getting improvement, setting up an account, verified as accredited. And so I think that I feel pretty confident that we've done a really good job at making that a seamless process. And I would say that our success hopefully demonstrates that people feel that that process is easy enough to get through. How do I think about regulation? I think regulation is super important and necessary at the end of the day. We want to find a way to protect consumers in America. I think that regulation is often reactionary. So something really bad like 08 happens and someone advocates for hyper-regulation and we get over-regulated broadly. And then as the years go by, people...”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We are pretty active in something called single family rentals, which is SFR. And what we do there is we partner with different folks around the single family rental ecosystem. So for example, we could partner with developers so someone could have land for a thousand lots of land that we're going to partner with them to build those lots and either sell off those homes or turn those homes into a rental community. Or we could partner with people who already own existing homes to generate the cash flow from the renters. We partner with people who build sort of spec houses like luxury spec houses too. And so again, my view is when you're reading headlines countless times that say there's more real estate brokers than real estate available, like you ought to be on the other side of that trade quickly, right? And so you can definitely partake in being a partner in these offerings that we have around the residential real estate.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Real estate is your best bet to inflationary hedge. We used to do that by like mortgage bonds, but then you took rate risk. So now that there's this whole model of fractional ownership in real estate, you could actually be inflation hedge. To me, I think the biggest question might just be inner city office. Is there an oversupply over time? And I think we'll need about 12 months to really see where companies land.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Everyone, like, I'm not sure about that. In some ways, I believe yes. In other ways, I think about it. I think about the decisions that we made at Yild Street, which is much more of a hybrid model. So three days mandatory in office and the other two days you can work around and more flexibility around traveling and holidays and vacations and things like that, just taking into account like, hey, we grew 250% year over year in COVID. It can't be that we can't function outside. We need to sort of recognize that. So I think the office model is interesting. I think industrial is going to keep crushing it pretty much for as long as I can see because last mile delivery and Amazon online all that moving. I think that single family rental, like I'm very, very long housing in the US, I think you're not going to build enough homes over the next five to seven years to give into the demand that people are looking for. And so get your hands on investing around homes. I think that owning homes and owning”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Model was really moving heavily into big cities and providing a solution for major companies to have hubs all around major cities. I think that model is actually going to be more successful now, but not necessarily just in big cities. I think you're seeing people moving out to single family homes. You're seeing people move 30, 40 miles out of the major city, and they may want to have an office near their home. And so I think we all got a little over our skis at how much we want to like abandon suburban lifestyle. Everyone's like, oh, mom, dad, why the white pick offense when you could have a studio and a shared kitchen and a shared movie theater like 72 people? So I'm pretty bullish on real estate generally. I think the office model is going to be interesting and I question it a little bit only because from my experience, at least in a city like New York, you make your money on the 90 to 100% occupancy. Everything below that is really where you're covering your costs. And so like, are we really going to get back to a place where every company is going to be there full-time for?”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Coming in and sort of how things were going to shake out. Today, I think we have a much better understanding of where the market is. The government stimulus really helped a lot, most importantly, it kept people in balance or in workout with loans as opposed to 08 when everything froze up. And so as lending is continuing to be active in many ways even more aggressive, people are able to buy assets at the right values and to do well with them. Second is billions, billions of dollars raised for distress and the level of distress didn't show. And so it's keeping asset values propped up. So I think that like broadly around the investing world. When it comes to real estate, I think maybe one trend that was shifting in the opposite direction that had reversed again might be like this huge view of moving into inner cities. And I think that in many ways, the remote work or like the WeWork type of”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Listen, I was never bearish on real estate. I was in purgatory, meaning you can't make a credit decision if you don't have the right information to make that decision. Then you're making a bet. Bet, I think, is different than an investment decision in some cases. And so depending on how you invest, but like for me, I'm making decisions that are ultimately likely to impact many, many, many people as they choose to then invest in those deals. And so I said to the team like, we're not making a real decision for a couple weeks here. We need to see how this thing shakes out. I think we kind of purged our pipeline for maybe six weeks, maybe more, maybe eight, just as we got information. Listen, I think people have different reactions, especially in a moment of crisis. And the news cycle always needs to keep moving. So people have to find a narrative to talk about or a bite to produce. So I think where we were is a lot of unknowns, especially with the election.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then there's like the opposite side of the spectrum, which is more in the subprime space where people need access to emergency cash that in many ways has dried up over the years as like sort of the local bank model of providing like, you know, the single mom with two jobs, an extra loan just doesn't kind of exist. And so Yield Street steps in when it can find the right partner to provide those types of loans to people. And so we may find ourselves as a $20 million investor in a $100 million financing for a consumer lending business.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So supply chain financing, I would say, is more on like the commercial finance section. So, like, hey, you know, you have these different issues in a supply chain at any time, especially now. So there's always interesting financing opportunities. The consumer stuff that we find ourselves in are usually like specialized consumer products that are brought to us by specific consumer lenders. So one that comes to mind is like we did a point of sale financing solution for motorcycle dealerships. So there's a whole sort of historical trend that goes back decades around loyalty that people have to their bikes. And it's sort of like”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, my feeling, and this is like literally a personal feeling, so you can't hold me to this, I think that the yields that are projected for aviation strategies by sort of the major players are pretty conservative. Like I think a lot of people are like, hey, we're going to do like 11, 12. My guess is with the recovery moving this fast, they're going to do much better than that, much better.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Distress, not an asset level distress. So you're buying a $10 million plane for, let's say, seven or whatever eight. Now the plane's back to being worth $10 or $11. And so you have your cash flow coming in, but you bought it right. You're going to get a pop one day. And because it's not depreciating as fast as it otherwise would have when you bought it at a higher price.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“ones being serviced. And so the engines actually have tremendous, tremendous value, especially when they're maintained the right way. So that's like component number one. Component number two is like the plane itself has a ton of value. And as its age more, the value of the plane declines, which is separate from the engine cases. Then the last piece is like the raw material, like aluminum, has its own value. And so there's never going to be a $1 value because the raw material to just literally go get money for the aluminum is always going to be something. And so like that's your last stop. But what's interesting about planes is that in the strategy around planes, it's well, in many ways it's like a private equity strategy. It also has cash flow because you're getting lease payments right away. So it has a current coupon component to it with a pop over time. And then when you think about COVID, when cash was tight in the beginning, so the value of the plane goes down because there aren't as many people ready to pay for it, right? So it's a situation.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Even more interesting now in COVID was they still owned about 50% of the fleet. That's kind of how it breaks out, like 50-50 because they want to own some of it. And they're like, I need some cash. Like COVID just hit, everything's changing. I need to sell planes. I need to raise cash. But the securitization market was closed. And so it became a really interesting opportunity to quickly invest and be a liquidity solution for the major airlines and to provide sort of that CL lease back strategy. And again, like your biggest players of the world, you name like, you know, $500 billion asset manager and up, they probably have an aviation strategy. And so giving people access to this is super cool. Planes have like multiple components that make them super valuable. This is a whole other discussion. Like the engines have sort of their own life to them. So you move engines around planes all the time. It's not like a car where like you try to keep your engine. So you need like engine maintenance. They won't take a plane out of service. Take the engine out. You get another engine. You put it on that plane while the other”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that's actually much more common than people know. It was also very much a post COVID play and sort of betting on America and betting on people coming back, which has actually worked out far faster than we expected. I think the industry sort of felt that a median comeback would be 2023. I think if you walk into an airport today, you probably will forget that COVID existed. That's how PACT is, right? Play is very simple. So airlines, commercial airlines, people think they own all the planes. They don't. They often have investors own the planes like private equity funds and then they lease them back from you. So similar to taking like a lease on a building, like, hey, Michael, you own 100,000 feet. I'll ground lease the building back from you for 20 years. And so they'll often do it in like seven to 10 year stints or American Airlines will say like, hey, I need this many planes of this type. I don't want to clutter up my balance sheet by owning too many. You own them and I'll pay you a lease rate on those planes. And so what became”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Agree to sell your art through them, but what about if you don't want to sell it, you just want to buy two pieces instead of one, or you want to use five million dollars to invest in your business? And so really creating an asset class and liquidity at a fine art is what Athena started their business for. And we ultimately, as after they grow after a number of years, we bought it for about $170 million from Carlisle. And we grew that over at Yield Street. What was exciting to me was, hey, for the first time, we can help retail investors get access to this product that only Carlisle and other types of major institutions had before.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. I mean, that's exactly what we started. I think in many ways were the pioneers of that. We funded $2 billion in investments before we ever sold them. So we stand behind them in that sense. And we're fractionalizing access to essentially every asset that we provide access to. Athena is the largest privately held art finance company in the world. And what Athena's business model is to provide a financing solution for Blue Chip fine art. If you are an individual or a dealer or an auction house and you had a $10 million piece of art, it hasn't been treated like a true financial asset by anybody else. And so we said, why can't you borrow five million against it? Just like you would if it was a home or a building. And so Athena really pioneered that outside of Sotheby's and Christie's offer some financing solutions. Like if you promise them, you know, sort of like”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you look at the last decade of wealth creation, a tremendous amount has come from startups. I know that technology is a huge disruptor, so I believe that there's value there. I know, I know, I know. And for those reasons, I want to be here. And so when you think of Yield Stream, you look at the asset classes that were in, we're saying like, hey, as a CIO, my job is to recognize that I have an audience of hundreds of thousands of people and growing that are looking to really invest their portfolio in a smart and diversified way. And so like Michael and Yield Street team, can you bring me a few options in each different part of the risk bucket? Like give me a little real estate, show me some art, show me some shipping, et cetera. Can you help find the right prospects for me? And then, yes, I'll make the decision on what I want to invest in. And so that's really how I think of Yillstreet. And I think like in your point about like Ray and this other person, like maybe that's where we sort of thread the needle in the middle there.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“His eBay. Like, it's not a million companies just throwing their different opportunities on this platform. And it's like buyer beware, go figure it out. It's on you. We just provide technology. And there's a place for that in this world for the people that want to go pick that. That's not what I think is important to me. What Yield Street is saying is like, hey, we understand how complex that world is. We think what's a better experience is where you get to pick thematically or a narrative of where you want to be. And I'll explain that in a second, but you want someone to do the curation for you and say, hey, like here are three opportunities. So for example, if you wanted to be invested in venture, the ideal would be like, hey, can I get access?”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's the theme that Ray is talking about is like understanding and identifying particular themes that you want to go long on and stay disciplined on. The reason that the second person probably said, or one of the reasons the second person probably said that's impossible is because most of us have jobs. And so like where are we going to actually find the time to identify what those opportunities are and stick to them? And so the question that I always think about is like, hey, on a very basic level, you go to a hotel and there's housekeeping service, you go to a restaurant, there's a waiter. So like we've gotten really good at least in America at employing people to do things that we don't want to do, whether it's as simple as babysitting or housekeeping or anything else. And so just like I would pay someone to watch my kid if I wanted to go out on a date one night, I would pay someone to find those opportunities that like the raise of the world talk about. And in many ways, like that's how I think about Yield Street. What Yield Street does not”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think what you heard from Ray and your conversation with Bridgewater are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I think there are other books that talk about similar types of investing. So if you think about like 100 bagger or the philosophy of money or some of the other really great books, they touch on two major themes. One is patience, right? And so being a trader and being an investor are two very, very different functions. And you need to be cognizant of that. And so, you know, they'll refer to examples like Amazon dropped a half a dozen or more times more than 60% before it started really taking off. And the point is that if you fundamentally believe in a company or you fundamentally believe in a strategy, so for example, like we could talk about housing in the US as an investment strategy and like why I fundamentally believe in that, irrespective of our home prices might go on a year-over-year basis, more like as a decade, what that means to us. I think like”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that we can actually live to our mission, which is helping millions of people really get into a better place financially. That's one. Two is really identifying the best talent that we can for Yolstreet. If you have the ambitions that myself and Melinda and the management team have, you need to be surrounded by some amazing people. So let's continue to hire great people. Three is similarly focusing on the origination side. Let's continue to develop investment products and expand our investment universe. And lastly, it's thinking about strategic M&A and really focusing on bringing the right components into the broader Yield Street family to make sure that we could honor the promise of really building out sort of the future of how you interact with your money, that digital private bank experience.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Great question. Listen, it's a huge milestone for us and it's super exciting. So thank you for calling that out and recognizing that. For us, this particular race is like super specific on sort of use of proceeds and exactly what we want to do with it. If you couldn't tell, we're pretty relentless and focused. And so for us over the last number of years, we've really focused on building out this just incredible technology and distribution engine. And on the other hand, really solving for a need that this audience has, how do we find a better experience with our money. And so when you look at that, we've built the foundation for that experience by providing multiple types of investment opportunities, but we've never really focused on huge scale, right? I think like at our peak, we were spending, I don't know, seven, eight hundred thousand dollars a month in marketing for an organization of our size, we should really step that up. And so for us here at Yale Street, it's really about increasing the user growth.”
2021-07-25 · We Study Billionaires · TIP364: How to Invest in Alternative Assets w/ Michael Weisz · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT