YouSaid · the spoken record

Spencer Jakab

lines on the record: 135
first: 2022-07-08
most recent: 2022-07-08
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

“But I mean, I was always like, you know, trying to handicap things and worry about things. I just really shouldn't have. You know, I mean, that's. You're always trying to be too smart”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wish that I had had that wisdom because I've done fine, but if I had just basically just done like literally those three words, just keep buying, don't worry about it, don't keep checking. Don't worry. There have been, what, forbear markets since I've been in old enough to or had any money to invest?”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wish that I had just agonized over things a bit less in terms of investing my own money. You have a colleague, Nick Bajuli, who wrote a great book recently. Just keep buying. Just keep buying. And that is really...”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And just, and that money gives you freedom. So use it. I use the freedom to do this dumb thing. To do, which I've been doing for almost 20 years now. And I'm glad I did it. I'm glad it was in that order.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know, which is, I'm glad that I did it that way because I think people here's the lesson okay so that's the attitude you should have is like this is just totally unrealistic the amount of money you're being paid if you're a young person in finance if you want to need to make money or want to make money or want to have that cushion treat it like a cushion don't go out and you know be frugal treat it like a stupid stupid thing that you're being paid so much because it is stupid you're being paid so much and don't get your ego wrapped up in it because I saw so many people I used to work with eventually you know just have to go to a less prestigious less lucrative job and it kind of really really hurt them their egos and don't ever think that you deserve that amount of money you know and a little”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They'll hire you. They're going to privatize everything. So just take as many finance classes as you can at Columbia Business School you're allowed to in accounting and then you'll get hired and he was right. And I like the finance classes. I like finance. I find finance interesting. I never thought that I would. And I really am still fascinated by it. I think it's the most fascinating thing. It's like my sports, you know, like just watching what happens. all these people sort of this 24-7 365 day a year struggle over money and people computing power and brains and all this stuff and so I liked it but the entire time that I worked in an investment bank and I was I think I was the youngest managing director in the equity department in my my bank eventually you know I felt like I'm just pinching myself this can't this amount of money that they're paying they're paying me like four or five times what my professors you know who are much smarter than me were earning like this makes no sense and I always like like”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And but I was also very anxious about money. If your parents come here with nothing that tends to be the case. The first thing he told me is how much he made, which was that got me right away, eye popping in the 80s working for Bankers' Trust. How do I do that? And he said, Well, you know, I was bilingual and Hungarian and I had studied German and Russian. And he said, they're going to privatize everything in Eastern Europe. The Iron Curtain has fallen.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I was like, excuse my ignorance, what's an investment bank? Like, you know, I've heard the word, but I just can you just explain to me like a dummy what it is.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll give you finance. The way that I got into finance was totally by accident. I was gonna, you know, I got an application to a program at Columbia University that was not a finance program. And I got it by accident, mentioned it to my undergraduate advisor who teaches Carol Savits. She still is on faculty at MIT. And she told me like, oh yeah, I went there. And you should do that. She kind of saw that I probably shouldn't be an academic as I was planning on being. I didn't really have the kind of temperament for it. first or second day at this program at Columbia University. I met a kid who's now 56 year old kid who told me he had been an investment banker and I was like, you know, I just didn't, my parents were immigrants here and their 20s. Nobody we knew was on Wall Street.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Totally, and such a complicated character. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I read a lot of things. I have a lot of friends and colleagues that write books. And so I wound up reading, you know, I feel like I have to read them. And so I read a lot of those, but I read a lot of history and biography too.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, bad blood is a great, great book. Another book that's non fiction. I read a book recently by one of your recent guests about Peter Thiel, The Contrarian by Max Chafka, which I like that book a lot. Really interesting. I enjoy it.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“His book is Very important book to read now, very entertaining book. Both of those books, but especially freezing order, you don't have to read the first one if you read the second one about the torture and murder of his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, the Magnitsky laws that he's passed to sort of seize ill-gotten gains from human rights abusers around the world, not just in Russia. And this guy is, he is. Such a brave man people have been murdered by Vladimir Putin for less and he's an outspoken advocate for justice in Russia. And basically he just shows you what Vladimir Putin's Russia is, which is a mafia state. The thugocracy with nuclear weapons and poison and acts with impunity around the world. I highly recommend that.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I just recently finished Bill Browder's book, the second book, which one I just called Freezing Order and Red Notice was his first book. I actually, because I worked in emerging markets, I knew Bill a very little bit. When he's a little older than me, but so he got started a few years before me in this wild east of Eastern Europe. This was before he founded his firm Hermitage.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think. I think about the good bosses that I've had, and very much about him, about what they were like with me and how to be decent to people, how to get people excited, how to make people really love coming into work. I mean, I loved working for him. And, you know, I just always felt like he had my back and I learned a lot from him. But, I mean, not that he's not smart. There were smarter people I encountered in my time in finance, but I just loved, you know, kind of being under his wing. I was really sad, you know, when he left and then he went to go work for, you know, Ron Robertson Stevens and was tempted to go there really just because of him. So he had a big influence on me.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, he became CEO of Robertson Stevens later. Oh, that's okay. And yeah, and he's just a really good guy. And just because now I manage people, I manage a global team of columnists that heard on the street.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I feel like I should mention somebody at the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and I've had a lot of great editors. I have a great editor now, a great boss, I should say, who runs the money and investing section. But I'm going to mention somebody who, when I spent a decade in finance, and my boss for the longest period of that time was a guy who really influenced me, taught me a lot. I think I worked harder for him. His name is John Conlin than anyone I've ever worked for. It was so hard for sure.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yet, in his forties. So he's one of the fittest men in America. And so I listen to a bunch of his podcasts now. So, yeah, that's the kind of thing that I listen to. And then I like hardcore history a lot, Dan Carlin.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then on the podcast, I'm more of a pot go for a walk, listen to a podcast. I listen to your podcast a lot. I'm a big fan of yours. I like Shane Parrish, Dimitri Cofinis, Tim Ferris. There's a guy actually I heard on maybe just a few months back on Tim Ferris, who I'm really into listening to now, Rich Roll, who's into doing ultra endurance sports. I just read his book after I heard the podcast called Finding Ultra. It was just this fascinating story about how he went from being in alcohol. We still as an alcoholic, but in recovery. Ultimately,”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The socialite? Yeah, she's the Anna Delvey was her name, and she is her name. She's still alive. And she basically convinced all these wealthy people to sort of finance her luxurious lifestyle. And, you know, and she just was a fake heiress, you know, and she almost got a bunch of money from some investment firms to buy a building and start a foundation and all this crazy stuff. And it's just the kind of, I've really always been interested in comment. I want to watch Super Pumped. I want to watch We Crashed. I'm trying lobbying. I just started.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I have never been a big TV watcher, and then during the pandemic, I guess I started more, kind of became more of like a family social activity. But I'll watch a football game by myself, but I don't really watch. Things by myself. So, like I always try to like if I can get three sons, if I can get at least one of my sons and my wife to watch something with me, then I'll watch it. It's like a matter of negotiation. So the thing we just finished watching was inventing Anna. Oh, really? Which I really liked. And I'm always just...”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Open up their first brokerage account. I hear Wall Street bets as a place to go for advice. Not only it's not like they're going to see your advice and my advice. They're only going to see my advice. They're not going to see your advice because yours is not going to get upvoted. Yours is boring and mine is exciting. And so mine gets upvoted. Mine is funny and gets upvoted and yours is invisible. And so that is different about social media today. That's why people compare it to Yahoo Finance Message Board. But I naively did. And this is different.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You have a very measured long cerebral post about something with some good information and insight. And then I go on there and you say I put 5% of my portfolio into the stock. And then I go on there and I say I put 100% of my portfolio into the stock all into out-of-the-money call options, mortgage my house, did all this crazy stuff to the moon, you know, rocket ships. I'm going to get a lot more attention. So now a third person goes on to there and says, well, I'm a young person who just”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so basically the study shows that people who are less accurate but more confident with just a lot of certitude get a lot more followers than the people who wound up being right. But in this algorithmically charged social media, you're not seeing both of those posts anymore, right? So you go on Reddit, which has a human algorithm. People upvote and downvote things. Okay, so let's say. Barry, that you go on Wall Street bets and”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's a really important thing to understand about finance and life generally. And social media. And then I'll just go one step further on that because”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I get these, and you're a shill. Well, you know what? I gave up a very lucrative job on Wall Street to become a financial journalist.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, which is crazy. Yeah. And there have been a lot of studies showing that. And this specifically, so I wrote that, you know, which I thought was like a kind of a smart thing to point out to readers. So you get the hate. I get the hate mail.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, exactly. And so if you really, really pretty confident in something happening. Like, you know, you might be wrong, but let's say you really are confident and you have reason to think you're confident. You don't bet all your wealth. These people are going all in. People are like, I mortgage my house. I'm out in the street, but I still am keeping my AMC because it's going to 500K. Like if it's going to 500K, how many, what do you need? Two shares Two shares of AMC for $26. And then if you're right, then you're rich. And if you're wrong, and there's not 100% chance. That you're right, then you didn't lose a lot of money. And so it's like”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but The thing that you have to realize, and I'm going to give credit to Victor Hagani of Elm Wealth, who pointed this out, I mean, it's kind of common sense, but he actually studied and kind of ran the numbers and did scenarios. And he said, if you are really sure, if you really have a high degree of confidence, I just went back to the Kelly betting criteria. Right. This is a sport.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Crypto and meme stock saying, like, there's some people have a $500,000 price target for AMC, or I don't know, like a million dollar price target for Bitcoin. And I wrote about $50.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is part of it. That definitely is part of it for some of the people involved for sure. And they don't mind making money in the process. It's like the George Costanza, like just do the opposite of what, right? I mean, and that's what like, oh, the smart person on TV, the Spencer Jacob at the Wall Street Journal said, don't do that. I mean, I'll write an article like pointing out, for example, I wrote an article about...”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look at me. I'm doing this totally dangerous thing, and maybe some of them are getting out. So a lot of the people I spoke with who were involved in this were more sort of the savvy playing the greater fool. I see this thing going up and I think I'm going to be able to hop and they mainly did succeed.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, it just boggles the mind, right? So, you know, there's no, I mean, I think the only way to explain it, I mean, obviously there are people who are not well informed, but I think there are people who are just nihilistic, who are like, ha ha, look what I'm doing, I'm burning up my money. Or I'm doing this thing where I should. I think so. I think psychologically that's like, that's also one outgrowth of the pandemic is people are just saying.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, it's the greater fool theory to some extent, but it's also like LOL. This thing is going up. I'm going to buy it. And this serious person on TV said I shouldn't buy it because it's worth a fraction of it. Let's show him. So I'm going to show him and I'm going to buy more.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, I do. I do every time. So, I think the meme stocks have chewed up a lot of people's wealth and enthusiasm for the market, so I think it's just going to be, you're having kind of. Echoes of what you had originally. I don't think that you could have what you had originally, but you've had some really dumb stuff go up. Like you had Red Box Entertainment, the people who have those, they write these sell the DVDs, right? It was being bought for the equivalent of 64 cents and it went up to $15 just because I don't know why, you know, right? I mean, and stuff like that. Well, you thought someone...”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think the shine has come off a little bit from the bad financial advice, but it just never goes out of style and it comes back again and again. But yeah, they definitely have become less influential. Of course, like anytime I put something, even if it has nothing to do with crypto, if you have this, like you put something on Twitter and then somebody replies to you says, oh, I'm investing with it. It just looks some normal looking person's picture. I'm investing with so-and-so, my crypto coach. Like, you know, there's just so much spam. That's just spot spam.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get you to a billion But it wouldn't, it just would have been the truth. I own this stock. And then just the reaction alone. And that's the less successfully is that what people are doing every day on TikTok is saying, I bought the stock. And I think it's doing it.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And what X of your money he already had $50 million in value. If you had made that by 50 twice and tell me what number you get to. Right, right.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Nope. And I don't think it would have been illegal in his case either. Maybe he would have faced some slap on the wrist, but he could have made hundreds of millions of dollars. He could have made one of the, maybe not the wealthiest people in America, but he could have been close to a billionaire, I think, just by doing that a few times. Just think about it, right? I mean, just pick some option in some obscure company.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Maybe that would have been investigated, but it probably would have been okay because he's not saying, hey, body. Right, he's legitimately showing. So, yeah, I actually did own it. All I did was.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you know, if he had wanted, so you had Elon Musk come into this and other people and a lot of opportunists come into this, if he had said on that Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday, or any point thereafter, shown up and had a screenshot of his E-Trade account and said, now I own deep out of the money options in XYZ company. Everyone would have jumped into XYZ company. He would have made 100 times as money. Although”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As of April 2021, when it had fallen quite a bit. So I'd have to look it up. But I mean, it's in the tens of millions. So he's a rich man. I mean, I don't know if he sold or not. And by the way, just to say, like, you know, there are people who sort of are out there using social proof for manipulation. I don't think that he ever manipulated anyone. He was actually investigated personally. One of the only people investigated in this whole thing. And totally clear.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In front of an audience and a Bentley and his big house, and it's probably not really his Bentley or his house, but whatever. Or his bentley. Right? Right. But that is a very well understood concept. Like somebody just like you, by the way, someone, an ordinary guy who now doesn't have to work, and gee, we used to have to worry about Bill, Bob, but tell him we bought Joe's system and now, you know, flipped real estate and we're making $50,000 a week. And so that's what really hooks people is this sort of, if they did it, then I can do it too.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and it's called, that's a concept called social proof. You know, someone is making money doing something, and unfortunately there are like a lot of people on the internet who have claimed to have or actually have made money doing something because they got lucky. But the fact that someone, you know, it's like when you turn on, if you ever can't sleep and you turn on an infomercial and you see some guy with like two blondes under each arm in front of an audience.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And just the fact that he hadn't sold. And people are like, if he's not selling, I'm not selling. If he's in, I'm still in.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the basement, I spoke with the photographer who was there taking the shots of him, and I spoke with them, of course. And there's a lot of things that fell to the cutting room floor. So a really fascinating story. All the kind of, this is the lair where he operated that you saw on the YouTube videos. And he became a hero. And basically what... He did what was at that point, what he was doing every day was just once a day after the market closed, he posted a screenshot of his VTrade account, obviously not with his account number or his name.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he was a very unusual person to be in this group at all, right? The fact that so people, when they started getting excited about GameStop and the possibility of a short squeeze, then he was discovered. Then he became, he went from being this kind of laughing stock to being a celebrity. And his posts changed then too. His posts were built posts of memes and things like that. He was talking about Ryan Cohen on his YouTube channel. People still didn't know his identity. They didn't know his identity until two Wall Street other people could figure it out. I mean, like, you know, but until Two Wall Street... Journal reporters interviewed him and published the interview on the 29th, which is the day after trading was halted, 29th of January 2021. It was a great interview with him, iconic picture. The pictures of my book.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It would have lost 95% of its value, but you. You know, for weeks or even months in Robin Hood, right? So they would have been wiped out, the vast majority of them.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And their customers were so angry at not being able to buy these stocks. And what they don't realize is had they been allowed to buy them, not only were they not destroyed, they would have got, not only were they gotten lost a lot of money because their money would have been locked up for weeks, by which point.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, they had about a $700 million line of credit they drew down. They had already had $700 million on deposit at DTCC. And then they said, how about if we don't allow our customers to buy any more of these? We'll only let them sell. And even then, they really bent the rules to keep them in business.”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Even as hot as things were in early 2021, people don't drop $3 billion on you in three hours when they're all asleep, right?”
2022-07-08 · Masters in Business · Spencer Jakab on the Death of Meme Stocks · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source