YouSaid · the spoken record

Ross Gerber

lines on the record: 63
first: 2021-07-02
most recent: 2021-07-02
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

“Yeah, so you can always find us at our website Gerberkawasaki.com, or you can find our ETF at advisorshares.com, as well as you can follow me on Twitter at Gerber Kawasaki. We also have an Instagram page and a YouTube page. We put out a lot of content on YouTube at Gerber Kawasaki for all different types of investors. We've got a bunch of different shows, young people. We have a woman of wealth show now. We've got all kinds of stuff going on in YouTube too. We're really focused on educating and empowering people to change their lives in the positive and build a financial future. So if you're looking to get financial advice to have more confidence in the decisions you're making with regard to your finances, we work with anybody and everybody as long as you're a good person. And so feel free to reach out.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was the biggest battle I've had to fight in my career way bigger than I ever planned, you know. And it was also the most profitable thing I've done. So it worked out.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For sure, for sure. In fact, I appreciated these relationships with short sellers that were real short sellers, not these goofballs on Twitter. And they wanted to know what I was thinking actually too, which was very interesting. And that's why we were sharing information. They were very concerned about me because they were like, what does this guy know that we don't know? And I was really concerned about them. I'm like, what do these guys know that I'm missing? And in the end, I was right. So it was good.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You got to read it. You might not like what it is. Well, it's online gambling. It wouldn't surprise me if part of that business is shaped. It wouldn't surprise me at all. So why is everybody, oh, this can't be right. Buy more DraftKings. That's not really listening to the song. So listen to the music. Maybe you're going to learn something you might not like. You got to be open-minded to it. You got to be flexible. You got to move on. You push a button, you sell, you move on.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I want to listen to what they're playing and how that affects what I'm playing. And that's very important in the investment process is listening to everybody else around you's ideas, including the short sellers, including the people. See, a lot of people don't know that like I have relationships with certain short sellers and I read and listen to their stuff. And they know I do. And I respect their work, even if I disagree. But I read it because why would I not want to see the worst things that people can come up with? So if I'm drafting so I don't own stock and draft kings, I read Hindenburg. They do good stuff. They get sued if they're wrong. So far, they've been pretty right on a lot of stocks that they are against. I've had my issues with the way DraftKings runs their business. They put out a report like this. You can't just discount it. You got to read it.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that's where jazz music and being a musician, I think, gives, if you're an investor too, gives you that sort of open-mindedness that you need, especially when you're wrong. I'm wrong. I wish I could say I'm always right. I'm certainly not. And I try to limit my losses. That's a very important rule of investors. You know, sell your losers. Do you have losers in your portfolio right now? Just sell them. They're not going to turn into winners. And, you know, I thought, you know, Funko Toys was going to do well, it didn't do well, and we lose money. We sold. You know, they misled us. We lost. So you move on. But you've got to be flexible that your ideas might be wrong. You've got to be willing to play with the other musicians. So I don't play, I'm not a solo artist. I play with a band and I have a band here of other people, other advisors, other analysts, all not only in the firm outside the firm. And I play with them.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Gold guy, he will never not be the gold guy. It doesn't matter what you say to Peter. And I know, Peter, I've met him. I hung out with him. I think he's a smart guy. I like him. I have nothing against him. But I'm like, Peter, I get your shtick. You know, you're the gold guy. But those days have come and gone. You know, like it's like gold is never going to. And if he was smart, that's what he would have done. He wouldn't be so wedded to gold. And he'd realize that Bitcoin is digital gold. That's all it is. He should be the biggest Bitcoin guy. But he's so wedded in his thought process that he can't open his mind to it. And that's where the psychedelic therapy might be beneficial to Peter”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, I'm sure you know that many great investors have music background. You have, let's say, a chord structure and then you have solos over these chord structures. And it's completely improvisational. I'm an improvisational musician, unlike most musicians. So I play by ear and I can hear music and I can play it and I can kind of play with anybody. So it's really fun. And I have both educations by ear and by school. So what I think is that investing is very similar. Things constantly change. So you have the chords of the song, but you're playing the solo around these chords. And as the changes happen, you have to be able to play around these changes. And that flexibility is so key to being a good investor. Where most investors fail is in rigidity and thought, where they believe a certain thing and they're just stuck and wetted in that thought process and they ride that to the end. It's kind of like the Peter Schiff stuff. He's the gold guy. He'll always be the”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That I can trade all day with these things and not create taxes for my clients. Huge advantage of ETFs, all ETFs have this, but none of them trade. None of them trade within the ETF. Maybe they rebalance once a month or once a quarter. Well, this is a huge plus. So yeah, it launches July 2nd on the New York Stock Exchange. You know, the symbol is going to be GK, and you can find all the information about it and the prospectus at advisorshares.com.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“July 2nd, you can find the information on advisories.com. They are the ETF provider. I'm the portfolio manager. They asked me to do it for this fund. It's a actively managed multi-thematic fund. I realized that there was a huge tax advantage with ETFs. There's a huge tax advantage. So I can buy and sell stocks on the ETF, but those clients of the ETF won't have to pay capital gains taxes because it's in an ETF structure. We only pay taxes on an ETF when you buy and sell the ETF itself. Well, every year, I got to sell some of my Tesla. I got to sell some of my Apple. I buy some new ideas. I create taxes. Well, now I can do this for my clients and not have any tax consequences. So the ETF was created mostly around passive investments. And that's why it has this tax advantage. And these are the first active funds. I think I'm one of the only active managers in the world that have figured this out.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Make a lot less money charging a fee versus a commission. You just make a lot less money, but you get paid over time. So I started this. And so when the financial crisis happened and I started GK, the idea from the beginning was we aren't going to have commissions. We're going to go away from commissions, be advisory only, fiduciary, do what's best for the clients, no products, you know, build our assets. We started with, I think it was like 30 million in assets under management. And now we're at like 1.9 billion. So it's been a good ride. And that's what clients want. They want to just pay a fee for services and not be preyed on with products.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We've gone from a brokerage commission sales, like they probably were like, how good are you on the phone? Like, how good of a salesperson are you? That's UBS and Merrill Lynch. And basically now they just sell loans, to be honest. They're just like, oh, I'll get you a mortgage. You got to move your money over, though. Sorry, can't get a mortgage unless you move your money over. It's so freaking corrupt, right? So that's how brokers work. And then this whole investment thing started called fiduciary registered investment advisors. And it kind of started in the late 2000s. And we were originally in the old days, we only could sell on commission, you know, mutual funds. We get paid a commission. So when advisory came out, I loved it. I was like, this is way better way. And so I started doing that in 2003. I was one of the first people around doing it. And I was managing a big company of advisors then. So I could afford to make a lot less money because you.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Most brokerage firms get paid on commission. So if you go to a UBS broker, the clients I was just seeing before this have a huge account of UBS and it's a brokerage account and they get charged like a $200 commission for every trade or something and they're done with these people and they're being sold products. That's how these firms, they develop products and then they sell them to their wealthy clients and that's how they make money. And it's a complete conflict of interest. So when you're a fiduciary investment advisor like myself or any of the independent investment advisors, we have an obligation to our clients. So we don't have products to sell. We don't create products to sell. Everything must be disclosed, all conflicts disclosed. We get paid based off the amount of money we manage. So if I make my clients money and they add to their accounts, I make more money. So it's in my incentive to see my clients make money not to get commissions on products. So that's what's really happened in our industry.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's exactly the opposite. So we say, how many people do you know? Because we can work with anybody. Now, fortunately for us, we get tons of leads every day. So whether you know people or not, it doesn't matter. We just have so much demand. That's pretty rare in our business. And it's taken me a while to get to that stage, you know, 11 years here. But we're there. So for our people, they have a huge advantage working at my firm because we just have this flow of clients. Like, we need help. But really, truthfully, if you come work at our firm, we're like, who do you know? You can work with anybody. What's a great niche for you? You know, maybe that you came from technology, so you're good with tech people or you're an engineer. So what we really try to do is build a marketing plan around those people. Secondly, we don't have a product. Well, now we have kind of a product with our ETF, but it's not our ETF. I'm an advisor on an advisor shares ETF. But we're advisors. So we get paid based off the amount of money we manage. In the old days, and still for me.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really hard to get when you're young. So there's lots of solutions now. People are now taking these opportunities, and it's great because that's what's going to solve wealth inequality is that everybody needs to participate in the stock market.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For the last 28 years since Dot Com, and it's super fun to see so many people excited about investing because that is the key to having something in this world. And you talk about wealth and equality. It's not really that it's rigged against you. It's just you don't know how to use it to rig it for you. And that's the stock market. That's all these rich people have that you don't have is they know to invest in the stock market. And that's always been available to people, but not the information. And now with the internet, the information's there. I'm the only firm that you can work with and get financial advice. There's no other high quality financial advisors that will meet with somebody with 5,000 dollars. My advisors are like, now they're like, we should have minimums. We're getting exhausted. I go, we will not have minimums at this firm. If you're too freaking tired, I'll hire another guy. We just hired three more guys and gals because it's just like, you know, the demand is huge for financial advice.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that's why I don't like Robin Hood, they lie, their trades aren't free. B, they try to encourage people to do things that's bad for them. And C, they don't care. If you lose, they're happy. They don't care. See, for me, I care. None of my clients leave. Market's gone up for years and years and years. Nobody should be losing. You see what I'm saying? In a way, I have the easiest job in the world. You buy Microsoft and you go home. So what's happening now has been great for my business and I think is great for people, which is for the first time since I was a kid and started in the business, people care about the stock market. Again, my musician friends are asking you about stocks, shocking. My high school friends want to talk about stocks, which they would avoid like cancer before. You know, I go anywhere. People are like talking about stocks, you know. And for me, it's super exciting time because, you know, I sort of have been toiling in obscure.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're going to lose eventually. I can show you how to build wealth over time. It's not as sexy, but it works every time. I've been doing it for 30 years. And it takes time, but you'll build a solid level of wealth over a decade, and your life will never be the same. You'll be so much happier with financial security. I don't understand the desire for financial insecurity. I sleep well every night. If I'm not sleeping well, you know, like you shouldn't be up going, oh my God, if GameStop goes down tomorrow, I'm going to get wiped out.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I hate Robin Hood because they're trying to get people to take risks. But I work with public.com and I have no financial relationship with them. But I love their app. And see, that's why I started the ETF. Not everybody wants a financial advisor. Not everybody wants them. Now, I think everybody should have one, and my firm will work with anybody. That's what we do. But not everybody wants that. I think it's 60% of people do it themselves. And we wanted to create a way for them to invest with us. And so platforms like public, which is like Robin Hood and you can buy and sell stocks on it, but they added like a Twitter feed for stocks and they added like a clubhouse within one app. And so they're really trying to educate people. It's like acorns and all these companies, like really trying to educate you, not just like get you to like burn your savings yOing options. You know, like this whole like YOLO, I'm going to put all my money into something and fucking cash out. That's like the dumbest philosophy in the world because”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it's going to be about 40 stocks right now. I'm looking at the mandate is between 21 and 50 stocks, so it's concentrated. So you'll get the most volatility, obviously, if you just own our top 40 stocks. But maybe you're a little bit more conservative. So you could buy like a bond fund, like a muni bond fund for 20% of your assets and our ETF for 80. That construction is very much a personal thing. Some of my clients are young and they're super conservative. Some of my clients are old and they're really aggressive. So it's just every person's different and that's where meeting with a financial planner and working on an investment strategy for you is much more important than per se portfolio construction because unless I know what you really want out of your portfolio, because we can all fantasize about the upside. But what matters is when COVID hits and we're down 35%, do you want to be down 35% or do you want to be down 20%? And that's.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Over pets. I mean, the dog is king, and most people's house. So we're investors. Actually, I've never lost money in the pet business. So that's one of our sectors. It's not as business technology, but it's one of our nine themes that pets live like humans now. We got a profit off of it. Portfolio construction for us is very much based around risk because what we think is in bull markets, everybody wants to take more risk than they're comfortable with. And then when the bear market comes, they cry. So we're generally more conservative building portfolios for people than what they per se want, but then they're really happy about it. The way we limit risk is through diversification into different asset classes, as well as using bonds and other types of assets to create stability depending on how much up and down you want. So what we're really trying to do is determine how much volatility a client's comfortable with. So like for the ETF, it's 100% stocks.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, portfolio construction for clients is a little bit different than the ETF because the ETF's equity only, it's really meant to replicate the equity exposure we have for our clients so that people in the general public can take advantage of our stock picking and add a core diversified growth portfolio to their funds. You got a lot of guys out there who own Tesla and GameStop and some crypto. And I'm like, you know, that's great and that might work out well, but you're going to have a very volatile ride here. You know, maybe you need a core growth portfolio to add to your IRA or something because you don't want to just take risks with everything you have. You know, what we're saying is we're trying to earn a very good return for clients better than the market, but without taking a ridiculous level of risk like an ARC fund, for example. Like, for example, we're up on the year while ARC's down. Why? Because we don't just own innovation. One of the sectors we own is in the pet care industry. I'm a big investor in the pet care industry. People have lost their minds.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because mostly it's super early. The companies are pre staged non profitable. I have mixed feelings about psychedelics because in my experience with them in my life, I saw negative outcomes too, not just positive outcomes. Although for me it was a positive outcome, it's not for everybody. And so I think there's a place for psychotherapy. And I think for a lot of people, if they tripped, it would be really illuminating for them and maybe very helpful. But it's also not as open and shut of a thing.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The tubes since they got rid of Steve Wynne. Blackstone owns the rest of the hotel's in Vegas, but they don't have an online business. So MGM is in a great spot. It's an international business. Online gambling is going state to state to state. It's easy money. You know, I do draft kings. I bet on Phil Michelson and John Rom or whatever for the US Open. I put $10 in. It's fun. It makes it more interesting to watch the games. So I'm all for it. It's kind of a merger of sports, gambling, and entertainment in casinos. So we like that business. And I think MGM.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Businesses, profitable businesses. It's a great business. It's just a great business. So we just have a very high allocation to cannabis at this time. That being said, I think online gambling is like cannabis where so many people do it and they just do it illegally through these like Bermuda apps or whatever. So I do think gambling is worse than cannabis, actually. I look at his entertainment. You need to be responsible. I think there needs to be limits like in the apps to prevent people from blowing all their money. But where big investors in MGM, that's our number one pick in the space. Why? Because we love Vegas. It's a reopening play. It's such a well-run business. Great management. I've been investing in Vegas since 89 when they opened the Mirage, you know. And I still own stock in the Mirage. So MGM is really the leader. Wynn used to be a great business and it's gone down.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It expunged in six months. But if you're an African American kid and don't have the means, you have to live with this on your record forever and you can't get a job. Now cannabis is legal. They just signed Connecticut again. So the fact the federal government is still dragging its feet is just absurd. It's just beyond absurd. So in cannabis, we like several companies that are very well run. All of them trade only in Canada because of the absurdity of the law. But I think the best three companies in Cannabis are Terra Sen with Jason Wilde. We've got True Leave with Kim Rivers, who's just amazing. And then you've got Green Thumb with Ben. Ben Kovlar, who's also amazing. So those three companies were heavily invested in as much as we can because we have lots of limitations where we can buy these stocks still. But once the ridiculous laws change and these stocks can list on the New York Stock Exchange, they will double in value for sure. But they're well run.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, cannabis is one of my favorite industries. So, what we've learned over the last 30 years is that POT is a harmless drug. It does not have any severe effects on people and has lots of benefits. Most of the benefits are mild, but they're benefits. And when you look at a society that allows drinking and cigarettes and Advil, and it seems just completely hypocritical. So pot laws are Jim Crow laws. There's no logic behind them other than to jail African-American and minorities, immigrants. It's always been used that way. It's one of the most wrong Jim Crow laws ever. And they've used it in countries all around the world for oppression. And so if you look at all these young kids in jail for pot, I would think the vast majority of them are African American and it's time this stops. It's just got to stop. So we've got Juneteenth now as a holiday. That's a step. That's nice, but we got to get these kids out of prison for doing something that is ridiculous, right? And it ruins people's lives. You know, you get a paw conviction and you're a white kid.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is the IP thing, so I'm not going to tell you the IP at Google isn't good enough or this or that, but I think Google has proven that they're not good at doing other things than Google. So you got YouTube, which is the best asset Google has. Why are you worried about chips? You're not going to make great chips. You know, Apple's made some great chips, but that's kind of in their hardware expertise. Google is not a hardware company. They don't make hardware well. They just don't. So to me chip makers are very focused, very capital intensive, very difficult business and NVIDIA in a way has monopoly.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Crypto came around and then the demand for NVIDIA chips was huge. And then when crypto died, they had that overhang and NVIDIA was down 50%. It was a great opportunity to buy NVIDIA back then because we knew crypto was just either was going to come back or some other business would grow. So then there was AI and data centers, right? So then that grew. So they're in that business too, right? So I'm like, what area are they in that isn't phenomenal? So every business they're in is growing like crazy. The demand is well greater than supply. I know gamers in back alleys with cash trying to get a new NVIDIA chip. Seriously, I'm not kidding. Like with cash, like I'll buy a chip for you for a thousand bucks, you know.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, they're constrained, and you can only make so many chips a year, so that would be the downside, right? They're actually throttling back chips so that people don't use them for crypto. So they're not even close to meeting demand because they serve every market that's booming. So it started with gaming. That's when I originally got involved with NVIDIA because I'm a gamer. And so I've owned Nvidia for a long time, well before they got into the autonomous driving game, which was really the second big driver of our investment in NVIDIA was their autonomous driving chips, which was what Tesla was using before they developed their own chips. So I was like, well, you know, so you had mobile i and you had nvidia and mobile i got bought out and then we were like oh you know nvidia yeah they make gaming chips but like autonomous driving chips is like every car is going to use this not just tesla and then tesla made their own and i was like that's fine for tesla but everybody still needs the video chips and they're great and then”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and then the second is technology frontiers, they say, or what I like to say AI and fintech. So the way Bitcoin and the way AI is changing technology, we're making strategic investments in those areas. So tech will always be a main sector.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This opportunity is as good or better than Tesla. The only reason I don't think it's better than Tesla is I think Tesla will execute better than these battery companies and the GMs of the world. So right now they're equal in my portfolios. So if I have a 5% position in Tesla, I have a 5% position in lithium, LIT.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Marked minerals, which are some of the leaders in getting lithium and other supplies for battery companies. So I have access to the smartest people in batteries. So they started educating me. I go, I can't go up to battery day and not know when an anode and a cathode and all this stuff does. So they're educating me. This isn't my thing. I'm a finance guy. I'm a music guy. Oh, so Tesla reinvented the cell, the battery cell. And when this works for real, it's the biggest game changing technology there is. So all the other companies need battery cells. And Tesla isn't going to supply any of them to anybody else because they need everyone they make. So the demand for the three battery companies that exist today, maybe a four if there's a private company called Northvolt, which I wish I could invest in, which is a fourth battery company. But there's basically three battery companies. Then there's a few main Lithium companies. And basically these companies dominate the battery market. And I think.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I went up for battery day, I was lucky enough to ask a question. And my question was if Tesla succeeds at everything it does, what impact will this have on climate? Will it have a measurable impact? And he basically danced around the question and said, no. Basically, if I achieve every goal in my life, it's barely a tip in the iceberg for what needs to be done. And that the purpose of Tesla is to push the advent of sustainable transportation, not solve climate change. Every gig of factory, there's 10 of them open. They're making 20 million cars a year. It's just the tip of the iceberg of what needs to be done. Then he puts me in his cell factory. So I'm one of the few humans that's actually been at the new Tesla cell factory. And I walked that entire floor. This is like, this was really cool. This was like kind of like going on a spaceship. You know, it's like they all wear spacesuits in there. And I didn't know much about batteries at the time. And then I started working with a company called Bench.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where we're investing millions and millions of dollars every day in battery technology, commodities around the battery technology and the processes around making batteries.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that was my thing this week. You know, when you really assess, especially on the EV side, like who's going to scale EV production to 500,000 units the soonest and compete with Tesla? And there's nobody that can do that. There's nobody. So I think they've got the Ford Mach E might do 30 or 40,000 a year. I don't think they can make 100,000 of these. So everybody can make an EVE. Everybody can have Magna produce a EV or ask Foxconn, but nobody's done it in scale. And I know how hard it is. See, that's the difference between me and everybody else. I know how hard it is to scale EV production because I saw how hard it was myself at the time. And it almost killed Elon. Like, I don't think these CEOs have the wherewithal of Elon to do this. And I think it's going to be really hard to scale. With that, it's because of cell technology and batteries. That's what makes it hard. And that's where the opportunity.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Probably the biggest driving theme for investors besides technology over the next decade. Why? Because we have no other choice. And so when you talk about energy, a lot of that is renewable energy and storage. And then when you talk about transportation, it's electric vehicles. Obviously starting with Tesla is the king of all of this because they are energy and transportation. And they are the innovative leaders here in both of these sectors. This is super rare. You know, it's like Apple and Microsoft being in the same company. So Tesla has unlimited potential and absolutely should be in your portfolio no matter how crazy Elon can be.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's no water. I'm scared to death of the fire season. We have no more time to solve this problem. And yet it's incredibly profitable and economically beneficial to solve it. The only reason we're not is because the forces that be in the oil industry, in the car industry, they don't want this solution because it's money over lives. So if you're an Exxon, it's money over lives. I need money today, no matter how bad. And now we've seen the boards being rebuked and changed because these companies have to adapt like Nextera Energy figure that out. They were Florida Power and Light and they're like, oh, we're natural gas power company like we should go into renewables. Now the largest renewable energy company in the world made us a lot of money. Great investment. You know, you got to love Nextera. And that's what energy companies need to be doing. So we're investing in climate for energy and transportation. And I think this is going to be.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My experience in life as an investor, I look at it as decades. So this is my third decade now coming on my third decade. So I've been doing this for 28 years. And when I started, it was the PC. And I looked around and I said, there's going to be a PC on every desk. And people were like, ah, you're crazy, Ross. These machines, they'll never work. And I bought Dell and Gateway and AOL. And that was like my first big score in dot-com of Microsoft. And then it was cell phones. And I was like, one day Apple's going to sell 200 million cell phones a year. And people were like, oh, you're crazy, Ross, blah, blah, blah. And we rode the Apple train for a long time. And then it was social media and search and how we use the internet. And now we are entering a new stage. So it's a new decade and there's new themes. And my number one theme right now, really it's two themes, but is climate change. And so, you know, right now we haven't had rain for 14 months here in California.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why is this kid hassling? It was like $200 a trade, you know. So I think that's a skill set that they don't have. Over time, it's more like an index, like where Coinbase, I'm sure, will be a good stock over time. But I would rather buy it today than when they bought it. But we're stock traders. So we look at the markets differently. I'm closer to a Warren Buffett than I am a Kathy Wood as far as style.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we taught Ark their playbook. I mean, they came to us, you know, was like, wow, you guys are doing all this stuff on Twitter. And they started tweeting. I love ARC and the team there. Super sharp. We've worked together during the Tesla days, you know, because there was only three of us that were supporting Tesla, us, Ark and Ron Barron. And so we did have communications, you know, sharing information and our beliefs. So I'm a big fan, but we're very different investors. They're intellectuals there. So they hire the smartest people they can find going back to the IP value. Their IP value is huge, right? Like the research they do is phenomenally good. And I read it all. But they're not stock traders there. You know, they're not guys like me, you know, it's like, I'm a stock guy first. When I grew up, I grew up in like a stock in my hand. So like I was thinking about the stock market when I was 15. I was like getting newspapers and trading like at my mom Smith Barty broker. It was like.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Guy works nonstop. He's a relentless cost cutter. He's burned out. And they get tired of it and they leave. And he made $90 million. He sold his stock. He made $90 million. And it's a loss for Tesla. But I'm sure the young guys there have jumped in and they're probably going to do a great job. But it doesn't make me happy.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I think they'll be fine without them. But so I don't like this philosophy, and it's not just Tesla. This happens at Netflix all the time too. It happens at tech companies. And there's this philosophy at tech companies that by firing or getting rid of some of the established players, it mixes it up and creates more innovation and opportunity. And there's some truth to that, but it also is very disruptive to teams and very disruptive to the flow and to morale. And I don't think tech people have as much EQ as they do IQ. And so they don't value the happiness of their team and the emotional parts of managing a business as much as the technical. And so I think what happens to Tesla, like with Jerome is the same thing that's happened when they launched Model 3 and they burned people out. You know, it's like the expectations are so high there. It's crazy. He's got these Texas factories. He's got the China factory up.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Learned a lot from Buffett, and I think it's very similar. And I would say where I'm most different with Buffett is I'm not wedded to valuations and the Graham and Dodd model of finance, which I think isn't relevant anymore. So the way I look at the world and value isn't created by hard assets. In fact, it's the exact opposite. Hard assets have no value at all. And the value is all IP and intellect. So the value of your firm isn't your desks and your building. It's the people in it. And that, I think, is where I differ from Buffett. But when you're looking at buy and hold, own great businesses, look for cash flow increases, dividends, valuations do matter to me. I just do it differently.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Great at what they do. They're so smart and they execute their business so well. It's just like why I still own Apple even though they haven't innovated anything is that Tim Cook just executes so well. They have such a good business. They make such good products. Whether you like it or not, even though it's not an innovation story, it's a consumer product story. And they make just amazing consumer products and execute so well. So you have to know Tim Cook. You have to know the people. And that's where I spend a lot of time is getting to know CEOs, staff, talking to employees. We have a lot of clients who work at companies. So, you know, are you happy or sad? You know, things like that.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Went to Tesla. I literally walked the entire factory. Like they opened it all up to me, which that was part of it. I was like, you know, I want to see everybody. I want to meet everybody. And I saw incredible things there, just incredible things. I was like, dude, I don't care what anybody on Wall Street says, they don't get it. And we invested more money at that point. It was my biggest score in my career. I think we've made $150 million on Tesla for our clients. And it was because of the people and not Elon. Elon was part of it, but he was also the problem, just like he is now. So, you know, there's just great people at Tesla. And although one of them left recently, I'm really sad to see Jerome Gillian leave. So any company I'm investing in, I really want to know the people involved, like Nvidia, you know, we're big investors in NVIDIA. We're in a huge rally right now in NVIDIA. I've been an investor for a long time in this company. It's the management team there led by Jensen. It's just, they're.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's an interesting question or way to look at it. So, I do things differently here. So most analysts focus so much on financials and past performance of a company, which is important. And I study fundamental analysis. I read lots of analyst reports that are so overly thorough over every metric of a company. It's unbelievable. And they literally pay people to figure out all this stuff. Much of which is valuable and much of which is overkill. The best way to learn about a company is understanding the people involved. I've always looked at this business as I'm betting on people. I'm betting on a team. Is this group of people really innovating? Are they really executing their business? I mean, a perfect example was Elon when we bet on Tesla and it was down and we were down millions at that point in 18. And I went up and met with the team. That was what I did. I didn't like go read more research reports.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He just moved to cash. You know, I've done this long enough when the Fed starts really moving. It's just a matter of time. You know, there used to be this old saying, it's like after the third rate, you're done, you know. And I think that still kind of holds. So maybe he raises his race three times and I'm out. And so you move to cash. You just wait and you just be patient. It happens once a decade. It'll happen this decade for sure. We'll have a bear market this decade and it'll be when the Fed chooses. I think that's years away.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and it's the same issue. So if I buy a stock that trades at, let's say, 35 PE, it's going to go to a 25 PE, so you better be ready. The way we look at it, the only thing I'm watching right now as an investor is the Fed. So when you started the question is, should we hang on every word? He says, I don't really care what he says that much. What I want to see is the actions. And if they start taking actions, and I'm not talking about bond stuff. That's just going to create volatility. When the Fed actually raises rate, maybe that's 2023, second or third rate hike, I'm out. I'll call you in a year.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and no. I mean, yes, in the sense of it's an inflation hedge. So as long as government keeps doing this, you make 10% a year, right? No, when they raise rates, real estate goes straight down just like the stock market. So if you know your asset is completely pumped up because of rates, you've got to be a little concerned because at this point, they can only go up. So I would say there's parts of the real estate market I really like, but it's not per se buying residential real estate thinking I'm going to make a lot of money because you're not.”
2021-07-02 · We Study Billionaires · TIP357: The New Era of Investing w/ Ross Gerber · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT