0:00

this idea that you have over lights in excess

0:02

doesn't exist. And so we just don't have that

0:05

long term compound in mind

0:07

set that says, how do we set the conditions

0:09

to create the entrepreneurs of the future.

0:12

Rob, what

0:14

is it like managing a hundred and fifty

0:16

billion pounds or dollars of

0:18

other people's money? It's

0:21

a great question. And I look,

0:24

it'd be easy to be crossed by by

0:27

the weight of it. And I I think it's less the amount

0:30

and it's more than it's nine hundred thousand.

0:33

clients with -- Wow. -- so

0:35

nine hundred thousand people -- Nearly a million

0:37

clients. -- nearly million clients from

0:41

babies right the way through to Centinarian. So

0:43

and almost fifty five,

0:45

forty five male, female up and

0:48

down the UK. So twenty

0:51

five, thirty five year old, thirty five, forty five,

0:53

mostly elder

0:55

people because they tend to have more money. But,

0:57

yeah, I think

0:58

when markets are volatile

1:01

or when they're not doing well, you

1:03

obviously get that comeback very, very

1:05

quickly. What's happening with my money a

1:08

lot of fear and panic. And I

1:10

yeah. You

1:11

have to have conviction that, you know, you're doing

1:14

the

1:14

right thing and investing people's money the right way. Otherwise,

1:17

just overwhelming. And

1:20

when

1:20

there's pressure and stress in the markets

1:23

or on you, does that weight

1:25

feel heavier when there's nearly a million

1:27

people and hundreds

1:29

of billions on the line? I you know what

1:31

it's Hedge. is when

1:33

– so we – it

1:35

gets intermediated through our financial advisers.

1:37

So we've got four thousand five hundred. So it sort of tends

1:40

to come up you know, the can't

1:42

will have a difficult conversation with their financial

1:44

adviser. They'll then call me.

1:47

They're trying to pacify them. And when they can't,

1:49

they typically wanna have a conversation with

1:51

me. And so the toughest conversations,

1:53

so when like this

1:55

when you're speaking with an individual. So in a way

1:58

you there's a bit of stadium

2:00

effect where you can't see the faces of

2:02

nine hundred thousand people. But if,

2:04

let's say, in the middle of lockdown in twenty twenty,

2:06

I had to jump on Zoom call with I remember

2:09

very vividly conversation with

2:12

this gentleman who must have been in his eighties and

2:14

his son who was, you know, probably our age.

2:17

Twenty five. A little

2:19

bit older. Yeah. But, yeah,

2:21

that it's conversations like that where Moore Because

2:24

it's really visceral. You're in the room

2:26

or you were on Zoom and you're like, this is someone's

2:28

money. This is someone's livelihood. was

2:31

it's kind of easy to sort of step back, look

2:33

at your dashboard, look at the data, see

2:35

how clients performing on average, and and

2:37

know that you'd overall, you're doing a good

2:39

job, but it's not until you're in the room with

2:41

a client who's

2:43

who's upset,

2:45

who is trust Yeah. All

2:47

of the emotions that you get when you're investing.

2:49

Right? Mhmm. Do you do

2:51

anything differently, strategically, tactically,

2:54

or emotionally? when you're investing other

2:56

people's money and your own money? No.

2:58

I try to be remarkably consistent,

3:01

and I think and I've always tried to

3:05

kind of eat my own cooking, so to speak.

3:07

So I'm a big believer in

3:10

having a clear set of beliefs to

3:12

kind of guide you on

3:14

on on where you're going. So personally, I've always had

3:16

a set of investment beliefs. And

3:18

and when money money, I always had this investment

3:21

beliefs like an anchor that when you get blown

3:23

off course, you you you can Moore back.

3:26

How do you think it's easier when you're managing

3:28

other people's money? Because you you're

3:31

more professional. You force yourself to

3:33

be in guardrails and principles that I think

3:35

stop you from doing stupid stuff. And also you're

3:38

never making decisions on your own. You're making

3:40

you know, you set up committees. We're

3:42

really into what's called pre Moore and

3:45

post mortems. So if

3:47

you've ever read Mathieu Science, Black Box thinking,

3:50

Every investment on show has it. Yep.

3:53

I'm in Hedge. So every

3:55

decision that we would make would

3:57

have a a postmortem and

3:59

one

3:59

of the things that I put in place with this idea

4:02

that every decision would would have a premortem. So

4:04

what are the risks and what I got wrong? which

4:06

is probably not something that

4:08

I'm as disciplined about when

4:10

making my own investment decisions as

4:12

I would be with with running on the people.

4:15

And I think, you know, the the the the key thing I

4:17

I like to sell the story of ulysses

4:20

and the sirens because when it comes to

4:22

investing it's easy

4:24

to get pulled in

4:26

onto the rocks by the sirens. So just

4:28

to sort of tell the story, again,

4:30

you know, ulysses was traveling home

4:32

to see his wife Penelope, and he'd heard this

4:35

story of these beautiful creatures,

4:37

the sirens, with these kind of

4:39

enchanting voices and beauty that could

4:42

only be an imagined. And

4:45

he spoke to Cersei, a source

4:47

for us, a powerful source for us since said, look, if you wanna

4:49

see them, you need to know because they will trip

4:52

ship right you and kill all your men. But

4:54

here's a tip. And so what he What

4:57

he did is as he approached the island

4:59

and the sirens, he got his men to

5:01

put beeswax in their ears. They

5:03

blindfolded themselves. and then he

5:05

got his men to tie into the Talks. And

5:07

he sailed up and he got to

5:09

see and hear the sirens and every senior

5:12

of his body wanted to get free and jump

5:14

in the water and then he sailed

5:16

home and, of course, back home to see Penelope

5:18

his wife. But the point is

5:20

is that markets are

5:23

like the sirens and, you know,

5:25

you just have to scan the news. The

5:27

news is just constantly markets are down. Billions

5:30

wiped out. And even

5:32

right now, you would think that

5:35

markets in a terrible place, but they're still

5:37

hard and they were just two or three years ago.

5:39

And so if you've not if you've

5:41

invested your money for the last decade, you are

5:43

way better off than had you not invested.

5:47

And that is the point about investing. It

5:49

is risky and that the risk

5:51

is to shake people off and people

5:54

make poor decisions and they get whipsawed and that. I mean,

5:56

I've heard you talk about this before. And

5:58

to how do you maintain that discipline?

6:01

for hardest part, and my job is you've got nine

6:03

hundred thousand people who feel all of those emotions

6:06

that then gets siphoned up to four

6:08

and a half thousand you then then get emotional

6:10

and they're sort of taking it on you. So you almost

6:12

become like a psychotherapist of

6:14

of of money where you just try to

6:16

sort of keep keep people

6:18

calm and -- Yeah. -- and not and not panic.

6:20

And as I said, that's why those pre Moore and

6:23

post mortems give you and also

6:25

don't expect to get every decision right. That's

6:27

the other thing. I mean, it's for me, it's about

6:29

how do you compound good decision making?

6:31

Yeah. You said billions

6:33

are wiped out. people always

6:36

wonder, you know, when there's recession's depressions

6:38

and big drops in markets and

6:41

Tesla a hundred billion dollars

6:44

down on their valuation, Amazon

6:46

trillion dollar down on their valuation. Where

6:48

does the money go?

6:50

because surely it doesn't just evaporate into

6:52

the Efer, where does all

6:55

this money go? Yeah.

6:57

It's a it's

6:58

a good question. I mean, the the thing is

7:01

is that

7:02

shares that they're

7:04

all in effect like currencies. So

7:06

you're exchanging cash for

7:10

for for shares. So you could you could think of

7:12

your money as

7:14

either in pounds of dollars or you could think your

7:16

money in an S and P fun red or you

7:18

could think about your money in bricks and mortar.

7:20

And all that's happening is these currencies are

7:23

fluctuating in value relative relative

7:26

to each other. So when you're talking about

7:28

share prices, in effect,

7:30

it hasn't got any

7:32

on it anywhere. The only money that gets

7:34

lost or made is when a company goes

7:36

bankrupt or when their profit

7:38

you know, a company used to make two

7:41

hundred billion pounds of profit and now they only

7:43

make one hundred billion pounds I think that

7:45

the the thing that that that that that people forget

7:47

is what you're trying to tap into is kind

7:49

of economic

7:50

growth. So if you look if you zoomed out and

7:52

you could see the whole of the planet and

7:54

look at GDP growth over the last one hundred

7:57

and twenty years. It's actually been remarkably consistent

7:59

sort of let's say three percent to four percent

8:02

a year average

8:03

over the Worlds, very different from country

8:05

to country and and and and

8:07

over different over different periods. then

8:11

you've got comp. And that is just

8:13

the sum. It's the average of all of those companies

8:15

over time. Right? The problem

8:17

is is that a company has sort

8:19

of three parts, it has revenues, it

8:22

has costs and it has the differential between that

8:24

and that's profit. And when you're investing over

8:27

the long term, you're trying to capture that

8:29

that profit.

8:31

What happens is when growth slows

8:33

down, the revenues

8:36

fall the cost might stay the same or might even

8:38

go higher because of inflation. And that

8:40

profit can collapse very quickly. So that

8:42

profit number is very volatile. And

8:45

then what happens is that when you invest in shares,

8:48

the valuation of company is that profit

8:50

multiplied by a multiple. And when

8:52

things are good, that multiple is big.

8:54

Mhmm. And when things are small, that multiple is

8:56

small. So actually, the valuation isn't

8:58

real money. That's not real money. When

9:00

it starts with your bust. Yeah. What's

9:02

changed is the perception of

9:05

the multiple that's being applied to that business. Now there are

9:07

two things that are happening. Don't get me wrong. The profits

9:10

realized earnings is the language people talk

9:12

about has been depressed,

9:14

but we'll come back. Yeah. I don't know when it

9:16

will come back, but it will come back. That has always been the

9:18

history it shrinks and grows. What

9:21

changes is the multiple. And the key to investing

9:23

is knowing that over the long

9:25

time, there'll be good times. And arguably,

9:28

you might have said that three trillion dollars that was

9:30

the wrong price, but you might have said that

9:33

the truth is somewhere in between the

9:35

two. So you only really lose money

9:39

when you're invested in businesses that go

9:41

to go bankrupt. Yeah. So

9:43

you said earlier, you have a set of beliefs and principles

9:46

which you live by investing yours and other people's

9:48

money. What are they? Well, first

9:50

thing, what are you trying to

9:54

achieve. And so in

9:57

in very simplistic terms, for me,

9:59

I've got a rough goal is I wanna double my money

10:01

every ten years. That's about seven

10:04

percent return. So if I it's seven percent

10:06

compounded. Seven percent compounded. So if

10:08

I could double my money every ten years,

10:10

that's great because for me, I

10:12

wanna be completely financially free. I'm

10:14

so fifty five Doesn't mean I'm gonna

10:17

stop work or not, but I want the freedom to say I don't

10:19

need to work. So in the back of my head, I have

10:21

a number where I know how

10:23

much I want for the rest of my life.

10:26

the And

10:27

roughly speaking, you

10:29

know, let's say, whatever number that is, that might be fifty

10:31

thousand, it might be

10:32

a hundred thousand, modify that

10:34

by thirty. That's how much money you need

10:37

and you

10:37

could basically live off that and

10:38

not Do you factor inflation into that?

10:41

That's allowing for inflation as well. Yeah.

10:42

So that's basically living off

10:45

about three percent plus inflation for the rest of

10:47

your life. So that's my goal.

10:49

For my mom and dad, it's slightly different. They're

10:51

retired now. they can't earn any

10:53

more money. So they have a part of money. They

10:55

don't know how long they're gonna live, and they don't know what inflation

10:57

is gonna be. So they've got a very different problem.

11:00

Yeah. Let's say they might need thirty five grand

11:02

a year between them to live off for the rest of their

11:04

lives. So how how do they invest

11:07

that? So the strategy you build for my

11:09

mom and dad in retirement is

11:11

very different than the strategy you build for

11:13

me. I'm I'm I wanna take a lot more risk

11:15

because I know I'm not gonna touch that money

11:18

was my parents, you know, you might wanna

11:20

you you might wanna change that that risk.

11:22

And arguably, you know, from my daughters who I both

11:24

started pension to life as well from birth,

11:27

you wanna take maximum risk because they're

11:29

not gonna they're not gonna touch that money.

11:31

The second thing is strategic

11:35

asset allocation, which is basically saying,

11:38

don't put all your eggs in one basket. So

11:40

a lot of people have historically invested in

11:42

UK equities. the UK only

11:44

makes up four percent of

11:46

world equity markets. And

11:49

Microsoft market cap market

11:51

cap, bigger than the entire UK.

11:53

Well, in fact, if you took AirPods as

11:56

a standalone company, it'll be the largest

11:58

company in the UK on the fifty one hundred.

11:59

So if you just spun off our pork That's because

12:02

of me having to buy a pair every two

12:04

weeks. Exactly. That's the best business

12:06

model. That's the best business model. You drop them

12:08

in there. Yeah. Yeah. Bathroom is the last ten

12:10

pairs of them. But yeah. I mean,

12:12

you know, they that that is a brilliant

12:15

a brilliant business. So you need to make sure

12:17

you have the right mixture of equities, bond,

12:20

properties. For some people, you might want to

12:22

extend that to to

12:25

to crypto defied, so depending on you

12:27

want to say that, but you want to split that mix. Second thing is

12:29

you want to have different investment stars.

12:32

So in equities, growth companies are like

12:34

Tesla. So what are the companies that are growing

12:37

very, very quickly in a transformed world? They

12:39

were. But but,

12:41

you know, these these things come in cycles.

12:43

Right? Then you have

12:45

value businesses, which are typically businesses

12:48

where their share price doesn't reflect the underlying

12:50

fundamentals. That's really Warren

12:52

Buffett's approach. And

12:55

then you have what's called quality businesses in

12:57

between. quality business has what

13:00

again, someone like one buffer we're called economic

13:02

mode. They say, this business has

13:05

some stuff around it. It means it will be successful

13:07

for a very long

13:10

period of time. Apple is both growth company

13:12

and a quality business. Disney

13:15

is a quality business. It's got an economic

13:17

moat about that that that that's kind of hard

13:19

to break through. And so you wanna have a

13:22

balance of those. Historically in the UK,

13:24

if you go about twenty years, people were very focused

13:26

on value investing and missed out on all

13:28

the growth. They were underweight with Tesla's and

13:31

and the apples and and and and the Amazons.

13:33

So again, don't don't put all your eggs

13:35

in the basket, have have a mixture.

13:38

Third thing, number one rule

13:41

is diversification. Have one is everyone

13:43

wants to pick the winners. Ever and you've been at

13:45

the partnership people like say, yeah, I bought Tesla

13:47

here and I did that. The trick

13:49

to creating long term and I think

13:51

you can outperform seven percent. So actually, it's

13:54

about a reasonable expectation. is

13:56

is is diversification. I

13:59

the

13:59

I happen to believe

14:02

in active ownership that doesn't necessarily you

14:04

mean to have active management, but you want people

14:06

who are engaging with those businesses, making them better

14:08

businesses increasingly

14:10

now in this world that we live in thinking about they can

14:12

be more sustainable and responsible. So

14:15

you wouldn't invest in tobacco companies, for example.

14:18

Volkswagen Buffett does his name. Probably

14:20

not. I mean, you could've asked the question is, how are they

14:22

going to be sustainable, you know,

14:24

fifteen, twenty years from now? Again,

14:27

sorry, all of this is investing. So

14:29

I should have right back at the beginning,

14:31

principle number one is decades and not days.

14:33

Yeah. So when thinking about investing

14:35

all of this stuff, I'm thinking about owning this stuff for ten

14:38

minutes -- Yeah. -- not for a

14:40

handful of days. And people confuse investing

14:43

speculating, and I go, or gambling. Or

14:45

gambling. And I know you you you you you you

14:47

you Talks about this. But yeah. So, yeah, in

14:50

those number one objectives, decades

14:52

not days. Yeah. And actually, when

14:55

it changes what you look at and what you

14:57

buy, doesn't it? When you think like that. Yeah.

15:00

then you're not so you could own, you know, oil and gas

15:02

companies, tobacco companies in the short term,

15:04

you know, we'll make more profit and you can

15:06

make that. And from a trading perspective, makes

15:09

sense. think, you know, from a long term perspective,

15:11

you go someone

15:14

who's basically making a product that kills

15:17

people? What's the long term sustainable

15:20

advantage

15:20

of

15:22

that business? Now

15:24

in the UK, smoking people

15:26

who smoke between two thousand and

15:29

now has just been on long term to terminal decline.

15:31

The only reason that's been offset is emerging markets.

15:33

are are smoking Moore, but you, you know, one

15:35

might assume that that plays out. Then

15:39

this idea of disciplined research, which

15:41

is you won't get everything right

15:44

in that whole idea of sort of pre Moore

15:46

and post mortems. What could go wrong?

15:49

If if I invested in the US, what can

15:51

what can happen to the US dollar if I did

15:53

this or I did that? And then

15:55

when it does go wrong or when it does go

15:57

right, a post mortem and and understand

15:59

that. And that's really again, that's that

16:01

decade's not days. That's about how

16:04

do you just marginal gains improve

16:07

your decision making? And then one that I

16:10

that that I have and that that and

16:13

both personally and professionally is

16:15

that in the long run, companies

16:18

that are sustainable

16:20

in their revenues and their supply chains

16:23

will win and good businesses

16:26

or good business is good business. Now

16:28

not everyone agrees with that

16:32

last statement and in a way Moore – the tobacco

16:35

conversation is good example. Oil

16:37

and gas, how do you bridge gambling? gambling,

16:41

again, it's hard to argue

16:43

that that is is good business

16:45

because you're preying on people's, you

16:48

know Of course,

16:49

you've got like responsible gaming and all the rest.

16:52

There's nothing inherently wrong with gambling.

16:54

But then, you know, where are people making the money

16:56

from gambling? They're not making money

16:58

from people

16:59

just having a punt on the football every now and again.

17:01

Their tip literally making money. You are the

17:03

addicts. We have the person on

17:05

the show. They've given twenty five thousand

17:08

pound free bets to gain. back

17:11

in betting.

17:13

So,

17:15

yeah, you've gotta III always

17:17

think you've gotta ask yourself the question with the

17:19

world if this company didn't exist,

17:21

would the world miss it? Yeah. It's quite an interesting

17:24

question when you start asking

17:25

yourself that question. Yeah. And

17:27

then

17:27

you don't have to invest in everything. Right?

17:29

That's that's the point. Yeah. Who

17:32

do you think controls the money in the Worlds?

17:35

Like,

17:35

there must be a few companies. Oh,

17:37

thank god. I don't know. But who

17:39

controls the money in the world? That's

17:42

good. I mean, that has been

17:44

the big shift over the last twenty years.

17:46

I think – or even in – let's say since

17:48

the global financial crisis, because I think people probably

17:50

thought it was the banks but it really

17:52

has been the rise of the asset

17:54

managers and really it's the big ones. It's

17:56

the BlackRock's.

17:58

It's the Gardner

17:59

it's the state streets because they control

18:02

trillions. I mean, you know,

18:04

the the kind of asset management industry

18:06

controls over a hundred

18:08

trillion dollars. Wow. Yeah.

18:10

I mean, so and you started

18:13

to see that in into

18:16

so they're more powerful than the Talks, think, I think

18:18

they yeah. They're they're happy. And you've but you've

18:20

you've seen number of people writing about this,

18:23

you know, in the Feet and the Times about

18:25

the rise of, you know, how Larry Fink he's

18:27

the CEO of Black Rock is is arguably,

18:29

you know, more powerful. Whereas if you'd

18:31

gone back to 0809 you'd have named

18:34

the CEOs of Goldman Sachs. --

18:36

Yeah. -- Moore Lynch short. Now Bank of America

18:38

Moore Lynch, they're still very powerful, but

18:40

it's these -- Yeah. -- large

18:43

global asset managers that I mean,

18:45

just to put in context just in the UK, I think

18:47

legal and general investment management

18:49

own two and a half percent of

18:51

every single equity in the UK. Right. Right. average.

18:54

Yeah. Yeah.

18:56

And do you think those

18:59

big powerhouses are a net

19:02

benefit to society? Yeah.

19:04

No. I mean, at the end of the day, for

19:08

economies to grow, we need

19:10

businesses And I think businesses have

19:12

two purposes. They should be personally,

19:14

I think they should be solving problems worse than businesses

19:17

that solve problems, I think, will be

19:19

the most successful in the long run. And second of all,

19:21

they need to be make money and that is a discipline,

19:23

that is a skill managing your

19:25

revenues and your costs and managing your profit.

19:28

Some businesses start the second and then

19:30

try and figure out what problem they're solving.

19:33

But those businesses need capital. At

19:36

the other end of the spectrum, people

19:38

need to save and invest for their future. And

19:40

so the asset management industry

19:42

provides an important role

19:44

and deploying that capital for people,

19:48

like, you know, me, probably most of

19:50

the listeners on this table who are saving and investing

19:52

for their future, So taking pounds

19:54

and dollars and putting it into shares.

19:57

And there's companies that need that capital

19:59

to grow. So I I think they they

20:02

they they performing, you know, as

20:04

an industry, an incredibly important

20:07

role in the kind of the supply

20:09

a management and efficient allocation of

20:12

capital. That doesn't mean they've always

20:14

allocated

20:14

it efficiently. And I would say

20:16

right now, the a bit discombobulated

20:19

on what is that efficient allocation of capital

20:21

and what's in low level. If you

20:23

earned all the money in the world, you

20:26

were

20:27

BlackRock Gardner the Big

20:29

Central Talks. What would you do differently

20:31

with the way you run the

20:34

monetary system than the current

20:36

system is? Yeah.

20:38

I mean, again, this is just

20:41

a personal belief,

20:43

which is I think some

20:46

of these industries and I think, yeah, BlackRock's caught

20:48

between it where it's trying to not

20:51

upset anyone. And that's always a tricky

20:53

place. So just

20:56

to bring that alive, the Texas pension funds

20:58

will also you know, if you divest some oil

21:00

and gas companies and all the rest will fire

21:02

you, you've then got the California pension

21:04

funds and saying if you invest in oil and gas companies

21:06

and don't start investing in all the stuff that

21:08

will

21:09

move us to a a more sustainable and

21:11

healthy planet will fire you.

21:14

And Flat Roll's to achieve both of

21:16

those clients. Yeah. happy. think

21:18

you've got to pick a side. I I personally

21:20

pick a side of we need to move fast.

21:22

I mean, I was I was in Egypt just two weeks

21:24

ago for for COP twenty seven, I was

21:26

in Glasgow last year.

21:29

We are on

21:31

a pathway to a really

21:34

unhealthy planet. and we kind

21:36

of need to end our drug addiction on oil and

21:38

gas. And the crazy thing is the technology exists

21:40

to get all the energy we need. So this is not about

21:43

This is not anti capitalist. I think we can be

21:45

really capitalist. But

21:47

in world where enough energy hits our

21:49

planet, in just a matter of minutes

21:51

to power all of our energy needs. The

21:53

world and economic growth needs cheap energy,

21:56

and

21:56

that cheap energy can come from other places. We

21:58

just need to mobilize that capital

22:01

faster. So if that tech exists, why

22:03

isn't it being used? Well, that's my point. There isn't

22:05

an efficient allocation of

22:07

of capital. There's a company called

22:10

Xlynx Oxbridge Ventures who've

22:12

invested in there. They want to build a cable

22:14

for Morocco to the UK, that Worlds provide

22:16

seven percent of our energy needs. And

22:19

yet, our government hasn't found

22:21

a way to unlock

22:23

that. and people go on renewable doesn't

22:25

work because you don't, you know, it you know, you don't have

22:27

an energy at night. This is the genius thing. So

22:30

it's solar panels during the day. And

22:32

at night, it's very windy. So what happens because it's

22:34

the desert it found. So you end up with this onshore

22:36

or offshore breeze effect. So you have wind power

22:39

at night and you have solar during

22:41

the day. again any drawback.

22:44

Five, six years ago, had this similar idea

22:46

to put a cable between us and Iceland

22:48

geothermal. In twenty eighteen,

22:50

there was a plan to build basically

22:54

a title barreage across the Ripper seven year

22:56

Bristol that would have provided, again,

22:59

sort of seven percent of our energy needs.

23:01

Again,

23:02

every day, the

23:03

tide goes up and down. So you solve

23:06

the the the storage problem. So that

23:09

in this space right now, there is very

23:12

inefficient allocation of

23:15

capital. And so

23:18

that that that needs to that needs to

23:20

breakdown. And the the thing that I get

23:22

excited about is the technology exists to

23:24

do just so many cool things. I mean, there's

23:26

Bismarck came across which is growing a

23:29

type of seagrass that you

23:31

can feed to cattle that reduces their method.

23:33

So you know, it was all about like cutting out meat and

23:35

all the rest and some people know why I

23:37

don't wanna give up meat. I like meat, but

23:39

I'm guessing if there's a way to do that without

23:42

just drawing the planet, that sounds pretty good. Like

23:45

how do we mobilize that capital

23:47

fast enough?

23:50

So there's this theory

23:53

about how central banks work

23:56

and the economy in general where

23:59

they rely on the populace

24:02

being financially uneducated

24:06

so that they can convince them

24:08

to do things like save money even

24:10

though there's a negative return on savings

24:13

most of the time.

24:16

And then the central banks can

24:18

lend and invest that money out, get it off their

24:20

balance sheet. I think

24:22

the central banks know that cash is a liability.

24:27

the prevailing narrative is

24:29

that cash is king

24:32

and then want your money

24:34

is in the savings account and they've

24:36

factorized it by a multiplier of ten

24:38

hour into the markets and they're profiting

24:41

on your cash and your cash is going down in value.

24:44

And then you're stuck so you need to borrow money from

24:46

them in the form of mortgages and loans.

24:49

And then you're paying hundreds of thousands

24:51

in your life and interest in your

24:54

again dependent on them. And

24:56

then you've got the governments who are supposed

24:58

to be decentralized from central

25:00

banks, but I'm not sure that they are who

25:02

then have you employed in the tax system

25:05

and they take nearly half of your money, your whole

25:07

life or obviously goes up and down

25:09

of how much that is. Is

25:11

that a conspiracy theory or is there some

25:14

truth in that theory of how

25:16

central banks work?

25:18

Well, so,

25:19

again,

25:21

Talks

25:22

the taxation point aside because I think taxation

25:25

is a good thing. There's a separate question about what people

25:28

are Let's cover them both then. Let's do that.

25:30

the the central bank thing,

25:32

you're you're right. People

25:34

don't realize that

25:37

a pound note is an IOU.

25:40

And

25:40

you've got remember that it's debt. Yeah.

25:42

You've got a you

25:45

know, I Worlds near the Bank of England.

25:47

I walk past it every every

25:49

every day. And there's

25:51

no gold in the bank of England. So, you know,

25:53

money used to be shelves, then

25:56

it used to be money made of gold and silver,

25:59

Then people said, well, well, people used

26:01

to shave the coins and so quite

26:03

trust that. And people want to die. Put

26:05

gold in the bank. and then

26:07

you'd issue a currency backed

26:09

by that. And then

26:11

we now have a system that someone has

26:14

a note, a twenty pound note,

26:16

that is just a promise to pay you, but there's

26:18

nothing there if you wanna, you

26:20

know, if you wanna get it. There's no gold in the bank

26:22

mainland. And

26:26

what what's been happening is banks

26:29

since two thousand and eight nine at the global financial

26:31

crisis and then on steroids,

26:33

in COVID basically realized they

26:35

they could print

26:36

they could print money. And

26:38

the the terms of printing money is

26:40

that is deflating the value

26:42

of your cash. So if you've got your

26:44

money in cash, it

26:46

is worth a lot less. And and so, you

26:48

know, I was

26:50

at Uni in the late nineties, early two thousand.

26:52

So I remember you could get out on a night out with a tenor.

26:55

I remember when I started just

26:58

about twenty years ago, you

27:00

could buy a pint of beer for like two

27:03

maybe two pounds fifty in London. I mean, you can't even buy

27:05

kind of beer for five quid in London.

27:07

Maybe if you had to a weather experience, but,

27:09

you know, so your your money even

27:11

before the of living crisis and inflation

27:14

over the last twelve months

27:15

is halving every twenty years.

27:18

And

27:18

Controls

27:20

Talks knew that

27:22

they could issue this money and borrow

27:24

money below the rate of inflation. And that's

27:26

called But

27:29

basically, the government gets to borrow negative

27:31

interest rates because

27:34

it knows that it all flayed away its debt.

27:38

lower than that interest rates.

27:40

And it's kind of got addicted to that.

27:42

I don't think it's a conspiracy theory. I think it

27:44

was probably the right thing to do

27:46

in 0809I think probably everyone

27:48

got a little bit punched drunk on it during

27:51

COVID and, hey, this is easy. modern

27:53

monetary. Yeah. So that's probably

27:55

why we, you know, is one of the reasons contributing

27:58

to this kind of inflation. There are supply side issues

28:00

to do with COVID and lockdown. But

28:02

it it you you know, there was a knock on

28:04

effect to this what felt like

28:06

for free. What do you think about

28:09

just jumping in the theory that you

28:11

know, the mass printing of money as a way to backdoor

28:13

reduce their debt instead of actually paying

28:16

it off. No. That is so that is exactly that's got

28:18

financial impression that you either pay

28:20

it back or you default or

28:22

you do that, which basically goes over twenty

28:25

years. I know it's half as much and like what's some

28:27

interest about. So if you run what's called negative

28:29

real interest rate, is what I told that. So if you've got

28:32

before this, inflation running at three percent four

28:34

percent and you're borrowing money at zero point five percent

28:36

you're

28:36

laughing. Yeah. The

28:38

flip side, if you feel financially

28:40

confident and you wanna buy assets,

28:42

is you should be using debt

28:44

to buy assets. So IIII think

28:47

it's getting wiped off by inflation. Yeah. So I disagree

28:49

on the mortgages. don't think mortgages are

28:51

a bad if you're buying an asset that's going

28:53

up in value. And I've got

28:55

a rate of interest that's below the rate of inflation.

28:57

And if think it's back to decades or not days,

28:59

if I think the value of my home will

29:02

grow more over the next ten years

29:04

than the industry. Why wouldn't

29:06

you do that? Why wouldn't you get taught that

29:08

though? No. No. Why? So that's a separate

29:11

Yeah. You'll come to that. You'll come

29:13

you'll come to that. You know, that's something I'm I'm I'm

29:15

I'm passionate about. So is

29:17

it a conspiracy see

29:20

no. Have they told people

29:23

that

29:23

to keep your money in cash? No. think

29:25

they want to keep people spending. So if you look at savings

29:27

rates, savings rates have been on the long term

29:30

annual decline. Right? So

29:32

if anything we want, countries

29:34

and governments want people to spend.

29:37

the the

29:39

issue is no one tells everyone. It's like right

29:41

now I'll take the budget. What

29:44

people don't realize is when they freeze the

29:46

tax limit, so and a half grand tax

29:49

free and the different thresholds.

29:52

Because people don't really understand inflation.

29:54

They're real so no one's actually pushed

29:57

the tax up. What they've done is they've changed the

29:59

they they're not changing

29:59

their thresholds. They should increase their thresholds

30:02

with inflation. Standard due to. They

30:04

didn't put that up for decades,

30:07

which is essentially putting it up

30:09

because of inflation. Yeah. So

30:12

these are these sort of,

30:14

I said, conspiracies there you all about. It's just

30:16

because people don't know it. So if I turn around and say,

30:18

I'm gonna increase it,

30:20

bit outraged. But people

30:22

don't really thinking, well, actually, you know, ten years

30:25

ago I was earning fifty grand and now I'm earning

30:27

some five grand, but the thresholds haven't changed.

30:29

And I'm paying more tax than ten years ago.

30:32

It it just creeps up on people.

30:34

Yeah. And people don't really realize

30:38

and and and understand that. And of course, there'll be a

30:40

bunch of people who write about it when there's a budget,

30:42

but who reads and understands that. Yeah. So

30:45

that that is the so Controls

30:48

understand understand

30:50

financial

30:51

financial depression, which is run, keep

30:53

interest rates lower than inflation. And that's the

30:55

best way. You can keep basically borrowing money,

30:58

and it's cheaper to do it. The reason why

31:00

the government got in trouble a few weeks ago is

31:02

that that only works if you can borrow money.

31:04

Mhmm. And basically, you

31:06

know, when we had You're talking about Lish Truss,

31:08

are you? Yeah. And yeah. It was a part time incident.

31:10

Yeah. Once you look at the pound, you know,

31:12

almost reached one with the dollar. Yeah.

31:15

deal rate shot up. And then

31:17

suddenly, what's called the debt management

31:20

offices were like, oh, we

31:21

we can't borrow

31:22

money. So you

31:24

know, countries are no different from individuals.

31:27

If you lose your credibility to borrow money, then

31:29

you can get yourself in difficulty. And what

31:31

happens if the

31:32

pound or the dollar loses its credibility.

31:34

Oh, well, that was you end up in a horrible and

31:36

that this is the this is coming. Is

31:38

it not?

31:39

Well, arguably, this is why Jeremy

31:42

Hunt and all the rest are trying to stabilize

31:44

things, but you can end up in this horrible track

31:47

where, you know, the pound weakens

31:49

against the dollar, you're

31:51

forced to push up interest rates because of

31:53

inflation. then as you if you want

31:55

to attract foreign investment, giving it good

31:57

return. And inflation is going up because

31:59

the cost of buying stuff in dollars

32:02

or euros is is is going up. So

32:05

so you could have this shit storm

32:08

effect of high inflation and high

32:10

interest rates for a short time. Yeah.

32:12

Which linking back to my other point is

32:14

that when you invest in US equities, invest

32:16

in US equities and don't hedge the currency.

32:19

So some people sometimes invest in overseas

32:22

equities and try and hedge it back to pounds.

32:24

Right. But you wanna have the

32:26

other reason for investing around the world isn't just

32:28

that you wanna have diversification, but

32:31

you also effectively then get exposed to

32:33

a basket of currencies -- Yeah. -- rather than having all

32:35

your money in pounds. Yeah. So

32:38

if you're a UK investor and you've been invested

32:41

in US dollars, and let's say the market's

32:43

down twenty percent, actually, in pound amount,

32:45

you're not down that because the pound's weakened

32:47

so much. So you've made money on your dollar exposure. Yeah.

32:50

So

32:50

those people won't have realized. Yeah. So

32:53

We'll come to the tax part in a moment. I'm

32:55

torn on this. Party

32:58

thinks the central Talks.

33:01

don't necessarily have to be completely

33:03

open about how they run and operate

33:06

because you might have

33:08

a smart investing algorithm that you built

33:10

up your whole life. You don't have to share that.

33:12

Why should you have to share that? So is it

33:15

the governments and central bank's responsibility for

33:17

us to really understand how

33:20

the economy works and how they make money. Part

33:22

me thinks, well, no. But

33:24

then part me thinks that maybe

33:27

some of the education certainly in schools

33:29

and the financial education is being repressed.

33:32

And so therefore, to a certain degree,

33:34

we are a slave

33:36

to this system, you know, your Talks,

33:39

work hard, save your money,

33:41

get a job, you

33:43

know, pay your taxes, be a good citizen.

33:46

And then when they tell you to stay

33:48

at home for a good few months because

33:51

they mandated that you know, you're

33:53

supposed to stand in line and do what you're

33:55

told. But actually, really

33:57

successful entrepreneurs are slightly rebellious

34:00

and Controls. and you

34:02

don't make big returns and grow big companies

34:04

by being

34:06

a drone or a clone in

34:09

in that system? So,

34:11

well, I mean, there there are a couple of things. I

34:13

mean,

34:15

I think countries need

34:18

to be open and transparent. So I would be open

34:20

and transparent. I think Malcolm Jaguar

34:22

always Talks about, you

34:24

know, paying tax and In

34:26

the UK and the US, we pay tax because

34:28

I trust the UK. Yeah. Just quick one. If they

34:30

were all open and transparent, no one would

34:32

save money in the banks. It's one like the one of the

34:34

worst places to put your money, isn't it? whenever your

34:37

to pay taxes isn't saving you money. That's just

34:39

like No. No. That's so you said open

34:41

and transparent. So I was meaning gone from a taxation

34:43

perspective. No. No. I could not not not

34:45

the banks. Yeah. Banks are private institutions. I

34:47

think, you know, governments, we have to trust

34:49

them. Right? Because if we don't trust them,

34:52

We we What what are we doing? We have to

34:54

trust them. Do we? We

34:56

have to live you know, we have to live somewhere. You know, we've got

34:58

Worlds, we've got scots. So there's an accountability of

35:01

knowing they tax this much money

35:03

and they're using it. And then you can say, well, how much

35:05

are you spending on military defense, how much are you spending

35:07

on education, how much are you spending on hospitals

35:10

and all the rest? And there's a choice like, we can.

35:12

If you don't like it, move to Sweden. If you don't like

35:14

it, move to Singapore. If you don't like it, move to Dubai,

35:17

then Penitux is that it's not like,

35:19

people don't move. I'm sure that people listen on

35:21

this podcast who who who haven't made that move.

35:23

Who moved to Dubai, who moved to Singapore.

35:26

either pay no taxes, pay fifteen percent but

35:28

there are pros and cons with everything. Got it.

35:31

And so that's what I'm meaning about being from

35:33

a gun perspective, be and transparency. This

35:35

is the problem with in Greece, is that no one

35:37

no one knows if you're paying taxes or not.

35:39

And at least in the US, in the UK,

35:42

everyone

35:43

trusts

35:44

that individuals are are

35:46

are are paying the right And that is how how does

35:48

that? How do you mean

35:50

we trust that we're paying the right tax in the UK?

35:53

Well,

35:53

because if you're not paying

35:56

tax, they'll come after you. So you

35:58

mean everyone trust that paying

36:00

some tax is the right thing.

36:02

what, at a base level, I trust

36:04

that pretty much, let's call it, ninety

36:07

nine percent of all adults

36:09

in the UK are paying the right level of tax.

36:11

Of course, there'll be people. And the same in the US.

36:13

There are other countries in the world where no one has

36:15

banned the right tax, and it's all because

36:17

they're not because

36:18

they're That's not It's not a destination.

36:21

Yeah. Yeah. It's not police. It's not Hedge

36:23

to account and all the rest. It's not that people

36:25

don't try and do that in the UK, but

36:27

it does get plant down and people

36:30

at HRC will come after

36:32

you. But that twenty percent

36:35

now I know that's not Talks you

36:37

pay when you sell products, but it's attach you

36:39

pay when you buy products. Corporation

36:42

tax up from nineteen to twenty five

36:44

percent. higher rate of income tax forty

36:46

five percent forced to pay on

36:48

state pension contributions, national

36:51

insurance. too

36:53

fucking much. Okay. But then I

36:56

mean, that's fifty five percent. And

36:58

then and then you've got what you buy.

37:01

where you'd sometimes die on fuel, you'd double

37:03

and triple Talks often. And so

37:05

you could, like, if you actually looked

37:07

at it, you could be paying sixty

37:09

five percent of all your earning and spending in tax.

37:11

I mean, that

37:12

that's at the bottom end of the alpha curve,

37:15

not in the middle. I could but that's it. So I

37:17

don't agree with our taxation policy, but, you know,

37:19

you and I could get up and move move to Dubai, move

37:21

to Singapore.

37:22

That's moved to Hong Kong.

37:24

Is that do you think it's too much, first of

37:26

all? Yeah.

37:27

So I'm with you on the left. I would have

37:29

a lower I think tax is good, so

37:32

I'm definitely -- Yeah. -- in the no Talks.

37:35

but I agree

37:37

that if

37:38

you set tax too high, there is ultimately

37:40

an incentive to move abroad. And

37:42

we don't auto evade. Auto

37:45

evade. Yeah. think

37:46

it's hard to evade in the UK. It's hard to evade

37:48

in the US. You all get caught eventually. all

37:51

the work you know, all the US's worst gangsters

37:53

and -- Yeah. -- people never got done for the crime

37:55

they did. They got done for tax evasion. Yeah.

37:57

Yeah. Yeah. You forget yeah, Al Capone,

37:59

all all, you know, all these guys, it was

38:02

Talks, not not not the underlying crimes

38:04

that that they get done for. So

38:07

You know, the thing about Ireland

38:10

is that very successfully post 0809

38:12

made itself a lower tax.

38:16

Haven -- Yeah. -- for the super

38:18

rich. Well, no. No. But small business

38:20

owners couldn't relocate to Ireland and run their

38:22

companies. No. They can't. No. But

38:24

Amazon. Yeah. Amazon, Facebook.

38:26

No. They've all set up their Europe. All

38:28

of the big global tech companies all have their European

38:31

headquarters in in Dublin.

38:34

And that's been a very successful

38:36

taxation policy by by

38:38

Ireland, right, to attract foreign

38:40

direct investment. And that that is a

38:43

a choice. And I think what people forget

38:45

is that, you know, half of the economy is

38:47

SMEs. Yeah. And it's not the Tesco's

38:49

and the HSBC's It's a small business. It's

38:51

a small business on their businesses. And

38:54

I I think part of the challenge. I think what

38:56

what is good is that Jeremy Hunt actually was an entrepreneur

38:59

actually did build business and sold a business. So

39:01

he he he at least he understands half

39:03

of it. Whereas, I think, you know, a lot of

39:05

politicians have been career politicians

39:07

and don't know what it is to build

39:09

a business, what it is to have muscle muscle, what

39:11

it is to fight to get class, what it is the manager

39:14

class, what it is to pay people to far people,

39:16

to Moore people. Yeah. Being

39:18

an entrepreneur, being a business owner is

39:21

is hard. So why don't the government give

39:23

the SMEs a bit more relief and

39:25

support and just take an extra five percent

39:28

off the super rich in the big corporation. Moore,

39:30

that is a great way to fire up the economy.

39:33

Yeah. No. And I think that's you know,

39:35

if every time, you know, Jeremy Hunt talks

39:37

about trying to be, you know, how

39:40

do we be more circle and valley? You know, we're sat on

39:42

so much intellectual property with Oxford University

39:44

Cambridge, LSC, Kings College. We've

39:47

got some of the best universities in

39:49

the Worlds, why aren't we more

39:51

like Silicon Valley? Well,

39:53

we haven't been. Moore not a million miles away from

39:55

Old Street, Silicon Roundabout. And I

39:57

mean, UK is more fintech

39:59

and more techie than the rest of Europe,

40:02

which is, hey, great. We're better than the rest of Europe.

40:04

But

40:05

Compared to the US, we are

40:07

nowhere. So I do think the UK

40:09

is not firing on all cylinders when it comes

40:12

to unlocking the talent that we have, unlocking

40:14

the intellectual capital and

40:16

incentivizing sort

40:18

of business owners. And one of my

40:20

frustrations, and I've built two businesses,

40:22

and I'm about to start a third. is

40:25

I think our EIS and SEIS

40:27

system, which is a way to allow you to invest in

40:29

early stage investors and get good I actually

40:31

think that's quite a good tet system. But

40:34

the mechanism isn't in place in the

40:36

UK to build unicorns. You

40:38

know,

40:40

how are UK gonna build the next Google,

40:42

the next Tesla, the next Facebook? I

40:44

I just can't

40:46

under the current framework. I can't see

40:48

that we're set up to do that. And that seems to me,

40:50

that's a real show. And

40:52

it is

40:53

is are you talking infrastructure or are you

40:56

talking about It's Talks. It's

40:58

back to your point about getting the tax right. It's

41:00

about setting the incentives. Not enough incentives.

41:02

Having the creditors, removing friction,

41:05

giving support. because what happens is

41:07

most entrepreneurs get to a point, they might

41:09

turn their business over, get it to like fifty minute

41:11

quid and select someone else.

41:13

Yeah. I mean, lose us as a good entrepreneurally

41:15

for which you don't have it. Yeah.

41:18

Yeah. Exactly. It used to be ten million quid. Yeah.

41:20

It's ten percent of one.

41:22

So you get you you work hard.

41:24

You build your business and say, well, okay. Well, I might

41:26

as well just I'll stop there. What's my incentive

41:29

to keep going? What's my incentive to

41:32

to take risk. A good friend of mine

41:35

who used to work for me at Reading

41:39

to the company I founded. he left

41:41

to start a business called Save With Oinkie, which

41:43

is one of these automated saving businesses. And

41:45

then he pivoted into the whole

41:48

Defyze

41:48

Space. So you've built a business called

41:51

MoonPay and has

41:53

since raised two point four billion dollars. So he's

41:55

like twenty nine. He's a billionaire. live

41:57

in the US. So said, what's and

42:00

he's built another business called Hypermen. And

42:03

I said, what's the difference between the UK

42:05

and the US? He says, I worked with

42:07

some of the smartest people I've ever worked with

42:09

in the UK. The difference is just

42:11

the risk the appetite to take

42:13

risk. in the US is

42:16

just so different and more

42:18

supportive. The bankruptcy laws in

42:20

the US are way more supportive than they

42:22

are in the UK. it's

42:24

still seen as a bit shameful to kind

42:26

of start a business and go bankrupt in the

42:28

UK,

42:28

whereas, you know, in the US, it's

42:31

almost not a badger on that. Yeah. It is.

42:33

You sometimes you're more investable when you've gone back

42:35

back a couple of times. Exactly. Well, you know what

42:37

it's like to to to do it.

42:39

And so there's no As

42:41

I said, there's no there's no shape. So the for

42:44

me, it's it's a shift.

42:46

It's a taxation point.

42:48

and it's an incentivization point and it recognizes.

42:52

But the problem is you need to take a long term view.

42:54

Right? Everyone talks about Tesla now. People forget,

42:56

you know, it

42:57

It started fifteen, sixteen

42:59

years ago. It almost went bust in two thousand

43:02

thirteen. Mhmm. You know,

43:03

people don't realize that, you know, SpaceX was

43:05

started twenty years know. Yeah.

43:07

Back to decades or days, people

43:10

want quick results and you you

43:12

don't get

43:14

this idea that you have overnight success

43:18

doesn't

43:19

doesn't exist. And so we just don't have that

43:21

long term compounding mindset

43:23

that says, how do we set the conditions

43:28

to create the entrepreneurs of the future?

43:30

not just for the kind of capital creation, but because

43:32

actually that creates jobs, that creates prosperity,

43:35

that, you know, there are a whole load of other

43:37

benefits that go with that.

43:38

And actually, I think that's why Talks is good because creating

43:40

more jobs and paying

43:41

people paying taxes is a good thing. So it

43:43

it actually benefits Yeah.

43:45

I I don't think many or any even

43:48

hardcore capitalists would say that

43:51

tax is unfair. because

43:54

if you go to to buy, you pay twice the price

43:56

of everything. So

43:58

one of the downsides of paying lower tax

44:00

will be higher cost of living. I

44:03

just think people wanna feel like it's fair

44:05

and it's transparent. You talked about transparency.

44:08

I'm not sure our UK tax code

44:11

anyone understands it.

44:13

My accountant told me it's thousands of pages

44:15

long. Why can't we just have flat rate of time? Yes.

44:18

Because then a big portion of

44:20

the Civil servants,

44:22

the public

44:24

sector wouldn't be needed.

44:26

So

44:28

How do we have radical reform?

44:31

What is a way to

44:33

fire up the UK economy again?

44:35

because I feel like our government only

44:37

know how to generate revenue one way

44:40

tax. The one

44:42

person who showed us glimmer of desire

44:44

to fire up the economy through growth was

44:46

Lish Talks, and she lasted

44:48

forty five days. And now, like you said,

44:50

Jeremy Hunt's coming in and basically saying,

44:52

we're cutting spending and we're increasing

44:55

taxes. How's that going to fire up the

44:57

economy? All that's going to do is

45:00

stop their dead rock Yeah.

45:02

I mean, this

45:03

trust and lose her job because she

45:05

was trying to fire up growth. She lost it because

45:07

she put in place will

45:10

immunize everyone from the price

45:12

of oil and gas. They created a huge liability

45:15

and didn't explain to financial markets how

45:17

that was funded. So it wasn't this kind

45:19

of idea of let's grow our revenue. I mean, that's

45:21

Moore right. If if you think of the UK as a

45:24

company, you've grow the revenues

45:26

faster than your costs, so UK, your costs. And

45:28

what

45:29

she and quasi Controls trying to do

45:32

was say, okay, let's grow our revenues

45:35

faster. at the same time,

45:37

she said, I'm gonna kind of immunize everyone from

45:40

the the energy crisis and kept

45:42

your stuff out. And everyone said, how are you gonna

45:44

fund that? Yeah. And that was what kind

45:46

of

45:47

caught her off guard, the guilt market. And

45:50

and also the cons on it, the messaging was

45:52

I think the underlying strategy was okay.

45:55

Yeah. But

45:56

the pace that of which he rolled it out,

45:59

the comms,

46:00

could have been could have been for Nest.

46:02

So we're now going into the other one, which is more

46:04

the CFO thing, which is let's cut costs,

46:06

let's regain credibility. I

46:10

do and maybe I'm being overly helpful.

46:12

I do think Jeremy Hunt does because

46:14

he wasn't, as I say, he was a entrepreneur, does

46:16

get that this

46:18

is probably short term stabilized credibility

46:21

with financial markets. The pound is now back

46:23

up at like one hundred and eighteen. I mean, it was down at like

46:25

one hundred and five. So

46:27

that's a good thing. Gilt rates have come back

46:29

down. Gilt rates have below US

46:31

treasury yield. The thing is, do

46:33

we stay like that? Or do we go, okay.

46:36

Well, now how do we bring back some

46:38

of that growth agenda? The

46:41

UK is not on a tax percent. It's not

46:43

transparent because it's trying to hire people. It's Trzyberg

46:45

because it's not Trzyberg because it's so bloody complicated.

46:47

Yeah. It's just that. Like, no one I mean, I I kind

46:49

of work in well, management,

46:51

I should understand it, but I have to

46:53

get an accountant and financial adviser to

46:56

to help

46:56

I understand the basic headline ones and

46:59

how to make best use of it. But companies

47:01

like us have to hire a proportion of our staff

47:03

just to work for the government just to try

47:05

and figure out how to pay all the tax. It's

47:07

not there. It's it's friction. Where's

47:09

the speed? No. And that and that's where somewhere

47:11

like Singapore

47:13

the

47:14

has just has a flat rate of tax. Mhmm.

47:16

So flat rate taxation would be a

47:19

much much fairer and transparent

47:22

system. And they won't understand Okay.

47:24

Fine. And then you go, okay. We pay that tax.

47:26

So what are we getting return? We get roads. We get police.

47:28

We get hospitals. Yeah. Okay. That's right

47:30

enough. Yeah. because in the UK,

47:33

we have a really good legal system. We have pretty

47:35

good infrastructure. Sometimes we take that stuff

47:37

a grant. We do. I mean, our legal system, you

47:39

and I trust that if I'm if I buy

47:41

a house of you or If I sell my

47:43

business, you know, that's not true

47:45

of -- Yeah. -- many places around the world.

47:47

So our our, you know, English law is

47:49

not something to

47:50

to take for to to take

47:53

for granted. The

47:54

thing is how the

47:57

how do you get a politician who

47:59

can come in and have twenty years and

48:01

make a Well, that means

48:03

that an argument that political system is

48:05

not even set up. for long

48:08

term view. It's not. So how do you how

48:10

do you put in place? because the problem

48:12

is is that everyone's like, what do we need to do

48:14

to win the election in eighteen months years time. Yeah.

48:16

So that is your window. Rather

48:19

than saying ten, twenty years from now, how do

48:21

we make the UK you

48:23

know, succeed, punch above its way,

48:26

you know, we're not gonna be the US because we're

48:28

not, you know, we're sixty, seventy million people. But

48:30

for a country to seventy million people. How

48:33

do we make the UK,

48:35

the economy, it could be, it should be?

48:37

What are the foundation of success and Worlds backwards

48:40

on that. But none of that long term strategic

48:42

planning happens. There are none of those investment

48:44

releases. All tactics. I mean, you asked me at the beginning,

48:47

I have very little tactical stuff.

48:50

It's mostly all strategy.

48:53

And I

48:54

think my politics to the opposite is all

48:56

tactics. It's all hand to mouth. And

48:58

we've been distracted for the last six years. We've breaks

49:01

it. I mean, Mark Carney said that, you know, when

49:03

twenty sixteen, the UK economy ninety

49:05

percent of the German economy today were seventy

49:07

percent.

49:07

They're going backwards. Yeah. In the in the

49:09

in the economic cup, we are

49:13

We

49:13

are not doing very well. Yeah. Yeah.

49:16

Is

49:16

a massive crash coming? Is it a recession?

49:18

Is it a depression? What's happening? No.

49:21

I mean, this is not 0809 That

49:23

that was a big that was a big crash. So

49:25

you think this is not as big? No.

49:28

No. How?

49:29

what what we've had is

49:32

probably more akin to

49:35

two

49:35

thousand and one, two thousand and two,

49:37

markets have been in this world where they

49:39

fall, they bounce, they fall.

49:42

But every time they bounce, they don't go back. So

49:44

you end up with this of trend

49:46

line going lower.

49:49

Could markets for another

49:52

ten percent from here. I'm not saying

49:54

they can't fall further, but

49:58

earlier we talked about long term

49:59

GDP growth, we talked about companies

50:02

that effectively have this leverage position on profit.

50:05

Actually, underlying earnings has

50:10

been pretty stable. And I think

50:14

that's

50:15

what I don't think markets will fall

50:18

out of embed the way they didn't know 8090809

50:21

was bad. That

50:22

way, you know, markets fell fifty percent,

50:25

but the underlying fundamentals of the economy

50:27

fell through the roof. You know,

50:29

One of the key measures is

50:32

employment rates. Unemployment

50:34

is very

50:35

low. Companies still have problems

50:37

with hiring people. It's only been recently

50:40

that tech companies, the Amazons, and the Facebooks

50:42

have even -- Yeah. -- talked about letting people

50:44

go. And and it it sounds scary when you read them in the

50:46

headlines, but they're tiny. You know, in the context

50:48

of America, three hundred million people,

50:50

tens of thousands is is tiny. So if

50:53

you look around the world and you look at the UK

50:55

unemployment exceptionally low,

50:58

you know, eight or nine, the unemployment went through

51:00

the Worlds. that

51:02

that is the fundamental difference. And

51:04

the other thing is is that we

51:07

said inflation is partly being caused by

51:09

all the quantitative reasoning that happened during twenty

51:11

twenty, twenty twenty one. partly been

51:13

because of the supply chain issues around

51:16

COVID and -- I understand. -- Moore that's

51:18

gotta have a big impact though. It's

51:20

coming off. You just have to look at, like, the cost

51:22

of shipping

51:25

a crate from Shanghai to Los Angeles

51:27

has just collapsed. It's like four eighty

51:30

percent that the the

51:32

commodity costs are falling. So

51:34

this so asset prices

51:36

are definitely starting to drop, aren't they? Well, no.

51:38

No. If inflation equities

51:41

and asset prices will go up again because all

51:43

of this has been driven by an inflationary fear

51:46

and pushing up interest rates. So what happened a few

51:48

weeks ago was

51:50

when the US inflation had come off

51:52

a little bit. And people were like, why are you

51:54

if inflation's coming off? And we saw the equity

51:57

markets rebound a little bit.

51:59

The the the

51:59

big question is, will

52:01

inflation keep coming off? And

52:03

therefore, the central banks, the Fed,

52:05

the Bank of England, they need to raise interest rates

52:07

in March, and

52:08

will markets recover? And as I say, unemployment

52:11

or, you know, employment levels have been

52:14

incredibly incredibly

52:16

resilient. So

52:18

in my mind, if you go back to it,

52:21

GDP

52:21

growth has slowed. Companies

52:24

have taken den, multiples have

52:26

killer apps. But

52:28

a lot of businesses are still

52:31

healthy and and

52:34

carrying on. And so to

52:36

me, it feels very different from from

52:38

'eight or 'nine or - and very different from like the

52:40

stock market crash of the nineteen twenties? Yeah,

52:43

interesting. Neither

52:45

you nor I can predict the future. And

52:48

often when we think things in the past have

52:51

happened that might drive future

52:53

markets or we don't take into account

52:56

is the reactions to current things

52:58

today, which change variables for the future.

53:01

But I've never seen secondhand car

53:03

prices so high. They were unbelievably high.

53:05

I guess, because of reduced supply. I

53:08

mean, a

53:09

nine eleven turbo s with peaked at two twenty

53:12

plus. It's now down to about one hundred and sixty five, one

53:14

hundred and seventy. watches. I'm a big watches

53:16

fan and some Talks and Rolex

53:18

and Michelle Meals went double,

53:20

triple, quadruple, on the gray

53:23

market. Now they're all starting

53:25

to soften because maybe

53:27

you've got supply up again or gray

53:29

Moore, secondhand dealers haven't got

53:31

the leverage anymore property. I

53:33

never thought the lockdown would force prices

53:36

up because I've never seen it before, but lockdown forced

53:38

prices up there was no supply

53:40

chain. There was nothing being sold. So properties

53:42

soared in price. And

53:45

to me, that's just I couldn't call it

53:47

a bubble because it happened, so it happened.

53:49

But it's irregular

53:52

circumstances that aren't normal of

53:54

a Moore. has that

53:56

not got to create some kind

53:58

of correction? Yeah.

54:00

But I think what you're highlighting

54:03

is that these things are

54:05

decorrelated from each other. And that goes back to

54:07

my point about diversification. So,

54:09

you know, if you have money in property, you are making

54:11

money in property when equity markets were falling.

54:14

that that's why, you know, you

54:17

the fund you know, you said, what are your

54:19

beliefs at the beginning? Have a

54:22

bit in all of these pockets because

54:25

they will go they will go up

54:27

and down. A lot of it, that multiplier

54:29

effect is a function of

54:31

supply and demand. So the reason why your luxury

54:34

cars and your luxury watches was

54:36

just a supply and demand Is that

54:38

supplying the Moore? Yeah. It's because it's gray

54:40

market dealers. Secondhand, you

54:43

know, forcing up. Like, it's

54:45

full. created by supply and demand,

54:47

but then they push it up

54:49

too much.

54:51

Yep. But

54:51

I'm guessing that

54:54

that works until people

54:56

say I'm not buying at this. That was Because that's when they were

54:58

pushing and someone's at one prepared to pay that price. I'm

55:00

prepared to pay that price. And in supply, increases

55:02

again. And then and then like, you know what? And

55:05

then then -- Yeah. -- and then it collapses.

55:07

That that that always that

55:10

always happens. So that is my point

55:12

that the quantitative

55:14

easing

55:15

does have a knot on affect all of the things.

55:17

What we don't understand is I think it can push asset

55:20

prices up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What

55:23

the the problem is is all of this thing is

55:25

way too complicated, and we don't under and

55:27

and understand the unintended consequences. And

55:29

I think that was what

55:31

caused court

55:32

dis trust and quasi

55:34

cartel. They never understood

55:37

the impact on financial markets and

55:41

And,

55:41

you know, I I'm not sure politicians understand

55:43

how important it is to control your guilt rates,

55:45

to have confidence to issue bonds, the

55:48

impact on why it's in important to

55:50

have stability in your in your currency.

55:52

And when that goes, again, you take these

55:54

things for granted. We take for granted in

55:56

the UK that and

55:59

we had that credibility, and we lost a lot

56:01

of that in a matter of weeks. There are other countries

56:03

around the Worlds, emerging market countries that don't

56:05

have that risk. And they they don't they don't have

56:07

that credibility and they over time pay

56:09

a higher price for that. So why are the people

56:11

who are leading our world have no understanding

56:14

of markets and no understanding of business

56:16

Well, that that that is good yeah. I

56:18

mean, that is a good challenge. I mean,

56:20

that you

56:22

know, one of

56:25

if

56:25

you have a company, you're meant

56:27

to have good governance and have a board and

56:30

you should have diverse board of directors who

56:32

have complementary

56:34

but diverse skills. I think And you have to

56:36

trade solidly. Yeah. And

56:39

and I think, you know, the question is, should our

56:42

political leaders have, you know,

56:45

not be career politicians, but have

56:47

people who understand that. I mean, yeah, that's

56:49

regardless of what you think of individuals

56:51

like Richesonique or Jeremy

56:55

Hunt, at least they've got previous credibility.

56:57

Right? You know, he worked at Goldman Sachs.

56:59

He he he understands money.

57:02

He he he has a background on that.

57:04

It's not someone who spent twenty,

57:06

thirty years of their life working

57:09

up through a through a political system.

57:12

And so No. That's okay

57:14

if you don't. But how do you introduce smart

57:16

people around the table to say, you

57:19

know, is there a better way of doing this? take

57:22

energy in the UK. I mean, obviously, you've got

57:24

octopus business that's trying

57:26

to sort of say, there's a better way of doing energy

57:28

in the UK. How

57:31

Are we saying that we think the way Ofgem

57:33

and our electricity is generated

57:36

and distributed is as efficient as could

57:38

be. How just think how much value

57:40

could be unlocked if you if

57:42

you

57:42

did that better. And that's, know, obviously, ought to put

57:44

set themselves up to try and disrupt that marketplace.

57:47

And they have to today. Yeah. But that

57:49

doesn't mean that say the market's anywhere near

57:51

where it could be. Yeah.

57:53

That doesn't mean everyone. Let's do a

57:55

quick fire round. Okay? We like to

57:58

have a bit of fun towards

58:00

the end of our episodes. So

58:02

your challenge

58:04

if you

58:05

are ready to accept is

58:08

fifteen seconds ideally thirty seconds

58:11

max. on

58:13

on these answers. And what

58:18

makes a great investor?

58:22

one

58:22

who thinks long term, one who has

58:25

clear set of beliefs, one

58:27

who doesn't get overcome by their emotions.

58:29

Is crypto or Bitcoin

58:32

going to go to zero? I

58:34

don't I don't think so. I think,

58:36

again, don't invest in what you don't understand.

58:39

think people have got confused about why people

58:41

lost money on FTX. Again,

58:44

good investors do their research and understand stuff.

58:46

So I

58:48

think crypto has some fundamental

58:51

principles and technology that

58:54

will be really interesting. There's a separate

58:56

point about centralized versus decentralized realized.

58:59

But

58:59

III think it's

59:01

here to stay, and

59:03

this is a good kind of correction

59:06

clear out of bad behaviors and

59:08

people will take the good stuff and it will be a headstep.

59:12

do you think there'll be a central

59:15

digital currency? And if there is

59:17

a UF fan Yeah.

59:19

This is where we disagree. I I think there

59:21

will be. And I think, Adi, that will be

59:24

bring stability to digital

59:27

Moore, Sweden, UK, the

59:29

FCA all want to regulate this stuff,

59:31

which is why I was trying to separate out this kind

59:34

of technology from the centralized

59:36

versus decentralized belief.

59:38

I think central banks for all

59:41

the reasons about controlling their currency

59:43

reducing crime will so

59:47

I think by two thousand and thirty, most

59:49

big economies will have a

59:51

centralized digital currency.

59:54

It's

59:54

my prediction.

59:56

I'm gonna keep my mouth

59:58

shut. I knew that. I knew that was

1:00:00

done. Does that not part No. I wouldn't

1:00:02

say wind me up. Scare me. Okay.

1:00:06

Let me ask you this. What's the downside

1:00:08

of a central digital currency? or

1:00:11

downsides. I

1:00:13

mean,

1:00:16

we've had a centralized currencies

1:00:18

for a long time. Right? I I actually think

1:00:20

it it's a better system

1:00:22

of what we have today. I

1:00:25

think I think

1:00:27

I I think we have both worlds. I think

1:00:29

I'm neither cats or dogs, you

1:00:32

know, they're both good. And

1:00:34

they both have their strengths and weaknesses, and I think they need

1:00:36

to coexist. And I think decentralized currencies

1:00:39

will keep decentralized currencies honest. So

1:00:41

I think you need both. Right.

1:00:43

So what you're not saying is

1:00:45

one central digital currency, a

1:00:47

no decentralized currency, another.

1:00:50

Moore saying currency, free

1:00:52

market competition, essentially. Yeah. And

1:00:54

I think actually that's different. Yeah. But

1:00:56

I think the decentralized gives

1:00:59

the competition and Hedge that to account

1:01:01

and makes it better.

1:01:02

then And

1:01:03

going back to investing at the beginning,

1:01:07

you know, I wouldn't say I'm an expert in this space,

1:01:09

but I've invested to have skin in the game to learn.

1:01:11

The main reason I invested is to learn. Everything

1:01:13

I bought, I've lost money technically, but I'm

1:01:15

not selling in everything I bought decades a lot

1:01:17

of days. And

1:01:20

so for me, there is value

1:01:22

in both of them and it will improve

1:01:24

customer money over time. And you want diversification.

1:01:27

So it's good. Quicker

1:01:28

side, that raises one point, which

1:01:30

it maybe we see

1:01:33

the same one. Many

1:01:35

great investors will say never

1:01:38

invest in anything you don't understand. But

1:01:42

you've just said you invest to learn and I

1:01:44

sometimes invest to learn i e,

1:01:46

it

1:01:46

might take me too long to understand it.

1:01:48

But if I've got money in I'm now interested

1:01:50

in it. So I'm actually investing to

1:01:53

learn before I earn. What

1:01:55

do you think about that? So that's my

1:01:58

personal philosophy. I think when people say

1:01:59

don't invest in what you don't understand, they're talking

1:02:02

about people who've

1:02:04

not done the basics, not done their isis and

1:02:06

pensions and all you know what? Equities

1:02:08

is too boring for me. Understood. I mean, crypto

1:02:11

have invested. Don't really understand

1:02:13

proof of state versus proof of works. Don't

1:02:15

actually understand that difference between

1:02:18

owning Bitcoin on a wallet versus owning

1:02:20

it on an exchange. And then just so I So

1:02:22

if ex goes back And so that's just

1:02:25

not the rest. And they put all of their -- Yeah.

1:02:27

Yeah. -- their money in their a hundred grand or

1:02:29

so forth. And so for

1:02:31

for me, It it's like food,

1:02:34

like Moore your pensions and your icers.

1:02:36

It's just like having your veg and -- Yeah.

1:02:39

-- you feel bad. It might be boring, but

1:02:41

do that. that doesn't stop you

1:02:43

trying you interesting food on the sideline,

1:02:45

but that doesn't become your main diet. Yeah.

1:02:47

So for me, I always take two to three

1:02:49

percent of money that I know I can afford

1:02:51

to lose. Yes. And if it goes to zero,

1:02:54

I'm like fine because I treat it

1:02:57

as my cost of learning. is

1:02:59

it for me SCIS investing in start

1:03:01

ups? Often I invest in start ups,

1:03:03

not because I think they're gonna go to the moon because

1:03:05

I know I'm gonna learn so much about

1:03:07

entrepreneur. They see something I can't see.

1:03:10

Yeah. And by being

1:03:11

an early stage investor, I get

1:03:14

ringside sea of of what they're up

1:03:16

to. And it's the same, you know,

1:03:18

had I not started investing in

1:03:21

digital

1:03:22

assets. I wouldn't have understood it. And

1:03:24

then my entire narrative would be driven by

1:03:26

what other people write about it rather than

1:03:28

what I understand about it. So for me,

1:03:31

investor

1:03:31

learn, but it's about rightsizing. Yeah.

1:03:35

Great.

1:03:35

So in fifteen seconds

1:03:37

or less, what's the best financial advice you ever

1:03:39

remember receiving?

1:03:42

the

1:03:44

To to begin with it, this money by mom and dad

1:03:46

would be, you know, saved twenty percent.

1:03:48

But back to the conversation, the

1:03:50

worst pair of devices they weren't good investors.

1:03:53

So you've got to invest your money.

1:03:55

And so my whole cap

1:03:57

raises earn it keep it, grow it. You've got

1:03:59

to earn some money. You've got to keep some money, which

1:04:02

my mom and dad taught me. But unless

1:04:04

you're growing it, unless you're diversifying away

1:04:06

from cash, unless you earn some equities, some property,

1:04:09

some other assets, you are gonna lose

1:04:11

money in the long run.

1:04:13

What's the worst financial advice

1:04:15

you ever remember receiving?

1:04:18

put all your money in insert

1:04:20

crappy digital currency. There's

1:04:23

things going to the moon. missing

1:04:25

out. Yeah. Yeah.

1:04:28

Yeah. What's the best investment

1:04:30

you've ever made?

1:04:33

Getting Moore. What's

1:04:36

the non politically correct for your

1:04:38

wife answer? There's

1:04:41

started my own business -- Yeah.

1:04:43

-- starting Redington

1:04:45

sixteen years ago, started my other business

1:04:47

manager. Mhmm. What's the worst

1:04:49

investment you've ever made?

1:04:51

I invested in a three time

1:04:54

levered fund of hedge funds before

1:04:56

809 actually

1:04:59

worst, I panicked and I and I and I sold all

1:05:01

my stocks and I've ever made that mistake

1:05:03

again, back to that kind of all

1:05:05

of the sirens. I lost my nerve. Right.

1:05:07

And I sold a lot of stuff. And actually, if I'd hold

1:05:10

on, it would have all recovered. Mhmm.

1:05:12

Buy Worlds

1:05:14

Yeah.

1:05:16

And

1:05:18

what's a great investment right now?

1:05:20

I know it's not financial advice, so I'll do that

1:05:22

disclaimer for you. But you know, what are you

1:05:24

like in right now?

1:05:25

One class or one thing that's

1:05:28

on the upward. I

1:05:31

mean, I think there's

1:05:33

going to be a massive shift of

1:05:35

capital to this a

1:05:38

more sustainable world. whether

1:05:40

it's the energy transition. Right

1:05:44

now, I've decided to start a new business in investing

1:05:46

in nature and ecosystem services.

1:05:48

So that that

1:05:50

has to be because I've decided to pivot

1:05:52

my entire career to go all

1:05:54

in on, you

1:05:55

know, nature based capital.

1:05:58

Wow. So

1:05:59

let's go there for a minute before I

1:06:02

ask the last two.

1:06:04

You so you're not diversifying

1:06:06

your career. You're going on in.

1:06:08

I am. Yeah. wow. So

1:06:11

what's behind this then? What what belief

1:06:13

and what shift has happened to you? Okay.

1:06:15

Actually, so the step that links

1:06:18

that one of the things I started investing in is

1:06:21

carbon credits. So I believe

1:06:23

that basically the price of carbon is

1:06:27

is mispriced. So companies,

1:06:30

the particular carbon have to to

1:06:33

buy carbon credits to offset. And

1:06:36

I started investing in

1:06:38

at about forty dollars a ton.

1:06:40

Last year, it reached eighty. It's down back at sixty.

1:06:43

but just a few years ago was ten or twenty.

1:06:46

Economists

1:06:46

would argue that the price is anywhere

1:06:48

between hundred dollars to two hundred dollars a ton,

1:06:50

and unless we kind of solved

1:06:53

climate change could push up to a thousand. So

1:06:56

started investing about

1:06:58

a year ago in what's called EU

1:07:00

emissions trading scheme. you've

1:07:03

in the US, you've got the sink called the Californian CCAs.

1:07:06

the But

1:07:07

then once you link to that, anything

1:07:09

that captures carbon rather than produces

1:07:12

carbon has value. So elephants

1:07:14

get killed for forty thousand dollars every

1:07:16

fifteen minutes. But because of

1:07:18

the way they live, they capture carbon. They sequester

1:07:20

carbon. and alive those elephants

1:07:23

are worth about one point seven five million dollars to

1:07:25

two million dollars Now,

1:07:27

whales even more Seagrass, Calp,

1:07:30

So right now, I'm focused on

1:07:33

anything that naturally captures carbon

1:07:35

seagrops, calcarellers, elephants,

1:07:38

whales. and basically how

1:07:40

can you create a digital token on

1:07:42

a blockchain where you can invest and

1:07:44

know that I have a stake in a herd of elephants and

1:07:46

it's carbon. And then you can sell

1:07:48

those carbon credits to companies that want to

1:07:50

offset.

1:07:52

So that's what I'm doing in my business. But

1:07:54

the investment that started before that was I started

1:07:56

investing in the price of carbon and thinking

1:07:58

that this is

1:07:59

structurally over the next ten years

1:08:02

going a lot. It's

1:08:03

going to be volatile. So decades

1:08:05

not days. Yeah. Interesting.

1:08:06

If you only add

1:08:08

ten thousand dollars or pounds, what

1:08:11

would you invest in or how would you split it?

1:08:15

Now all when I was like twenty five or

1:08:18

I

1:08:19

mean, now I've already done all the basics.

1:08:21

Right? I've done my ices. I've done my pensions. I've

1:08:23

got Yeah. Global X. So you could

1:08:25

sell in an ISA.

1:08:27

No. But I've only that's what I'm trying

1:08:29

to understand. I see what you mean now. Is this a new Are

1:08:31

you You've only

1:08:33

got ten thousand dollars. You haven't

1:08:36

got all of your bases covered of your phone

1:08:38

rentals, but you do have your knowledge of investing.

1:08:41

And I'm my early

1:08:43

forties. Yeah. Yeah. I yeah. I mean,

1:08:45

I would put it a

1:08:46

hundred percent in globally diversified equities.

1:08:49

Right. Maybe actually,

1:08:52

what? Maybe ninety ninety percent

1:08:54

and then ten percent in something a bit

1:08:57

interesting or or spicier to give me

1:08:59

a bit of diversification. Yeah. But I would

1:09:01

I would make sure that I have

1:09:03

good exposure to my

1:09:06

Microsoft, my Amazon's, my Tesla's,

1:09:09

my JPMorgan's, yeah, BMW's.

1:09:12

And I

1:09:12

would just do that by investing in a in

1:09:14

a fund that that Talks the

1:09:17

MSCI award index, which is the five

1:09:19

thousand largest companies in the world. Right?

1:09:22

Something

1:09:22

I don't really hear any or

1:09:24

many investors talk about are

1:09:26

things. So when

1:09:28

I was twenty

1:09:30

six twenty seven, that

1:09:32

was at the high of my addiction

1:09:36

to consumerism. And

1:09:38

I didn't understand about investing and I'd

1:09:40

buy retail price clothes and retail

1:09:42

price electronics. And

1:09:45

and that desire for nice things

1:09:47

has never really gone. But how

1:09:49

I've managed to keep

1:09:52

that desire, but

1:09:55

turning into an asset not liability is

1:09:57

I learned about asset classes

1:09:59

of

1:09:59

things I like.

1:10:01

So I have a nice Ferrari testeros

1:10:03

so that's done quite well. I've got a good

1:10:05

watch collection and never done really

1:10:08

well. I

1:10:10

buy the right kind of clothes in

1:10:12

the

1:10:13

private sales that I get invited to

1:10:16

so at least they might have not liked it to go

1:10:18

up, but they won't drop. And there's

1:10:20

there's other things if you like wine, if you

1:10:22

like art. And I don't think that's really talked

1:10:24

about, but that makes investing

1:10:26

really enjoyable. because even

1:10:28

though I've got a sense of humanity

1:10:31

thinking about investing in herd of elephants.

1:10:34

I can't enjoy it, but

1:10:36

I'm really fucking undrawn with this. What do you think

1:10:38

about that? Yeah. So when

1:10:40

I think about asset classes, I think they

1:10:42

like a venn diagram, they have one

1:10:44

or all of these three characteristics. Talks have

1:10:47

a utility, they

1:10:49

have a cash flow, and they have scarcity

1:10:51

value. What gives value to

1:10:53

all of the things you Talks about is scarcity value.

1:10:57

So I started investing

1:11:00

in wine back

1:11:02

in OA and I. Just putting

1:11:04

some money away and buying it on bond

1:11:07

because I remember being

1:11:08

friends with someone a lot older than me who had this

1:11:10

amazing wine and and getting it out. And I said,

1:11:12

how can you afford that? He says, I bought this wine

1:11:14

twenty, thirty years ago. And

1:11:16

what happened is I sell half of it.

1:11:19

Yeah. I'm trying to sell half of it, but I think half

1:11:21

again. I'm like that's the thing Hedge. So

1:11:23

get drunk for free. You know, you

1:11:25

know, III started that

1:11:28

And and probably now, you get to start

1:11:30

enjoying that. Right? Because you need to put it, you're

1:11:32

buying on premise,

1:11:34

which means you can't drink it for a long

1:11:36

time. So you can only really start to sort of

1:11:38

benefit from that now and a lot of wine I

1:11:41

bought

1:11:42

a long time ago is worth a lot of a

1:11:44

lot of money. III

1:11:48

don't understand watches and I don't understand

1:11:50

cars, but I completely agree with

1:11:52

you. And I know lots of people

1:11:54

who do that. Another thing about a watch is you can

1:11:56

grab it. So

1:11:57

it's fun job. You can use it. You can use

1:11:59

it.

1:11:59

You could grab a bunch of watches and go to another

1:12:02

country and sell it. So And if

1:12:04

there is doomsday in the economy, you've

1:12:06

got things of value. So I've always said

1:12:08

to my wife,

1:12:10

if you wanna buy Chanel handbags, I treat them

1:12:12

as an asset, not a car No. because

1:12:14

I know every Chanel handbag that we've ever

1:12:16

bought has only gone up in back. Yeah. Chanel handbags

1:12:19

have gone up like four x. Mad. Yeah. And

1:12:21

if you can be on the like

1:12:23

you are for the private viewings.

1:12:25

Once, you know, the with all of these brands,

1:12:27

you need to be buying to

1:12:29

do it. Like, if you wanna buy a nice Porsche.

1:12:31

You need to have been buying ten porsches. If

1:12:33

you if you want a nice Rolex, you need to have

1:12:35

been a good Rolex customer. So

1:12:39

I completely understand that. And

1:12:41

that's why I see, as I say,

1:12:44

Chanel handbag It's

1:12:46

like a no brainer. For me, personally, let's

1:12:49

have a Garmin watch. So I'm not that

1:12:51

that doesn't that doesn't

1:12:53

that doesn't float my

1:12:55

doesn't like float my boat. When

1:12:57

when Ferraris start making electric Ferraris,

1:13:00

I will be with you one hundred percent of the way.

1:13:02

Until It comes to this to

1:13:04

my Airbus. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. I it's

1:13:06

coming. No, isn't it? It's coming. Yeah. Yeah. The pricing

1:13:09

Talks. Brilliant. Yeah. Yeah.

1:13:11

So I'm very jealous of yours. Yeah.

1:13:14

Well, when I was in my dreams, when I was a kid,

1:13:16

the testarossa for me was the car. So

1:13:18

-- -- there's also you

1:13:20

know, people think that physical materialism

1:13:23

is kind of

1:13:25

a grotesque. You

1:13:27

know, it's it's

1:13:29

not a good way to live, but actually

1:13:31

if you buy something that you dreamt about for

1:13:33

twenty five years and you

1:13:36

create it an enterprise that

1:13:38

that's good in the world and your little profit

1:13:41

margin helped you buy that car. That's,

1:13:44

you know, Talks Philippe. You

1:13:46

know, watchmaker has probably spent five years

1:13:48

of his life making this.

1:13:51

So it's not just a material item,

1:13:53

is it? It's craying

1:13:55

economy jobs growth.

1:13:58

Yeah. And and at the same

1:13:59

time, that is an asset that is fungible. I

1:14:02

think people you talked about consumerism

1:14:05

there's difference between understanding the stuff

1:14:07

that you buy has an asset value or will go

1:14:09

up in value versus you

1:14:12

could easily buy some expensive

1:14:14

watches that aren't the right watches or some clothes

1:14:17

that aren't too low. And

1:14:19

the wrong brands Yeah. And and not and

1:14:21

probably ninety five percent go down. And

1:14:24

and so that again, if,

1:14:27

you know, follow the did the advice

1:14:29

you're talking about earlier. I just haven't had

1:14:31

that interest and haven't gone to

1:14:33

pursue it that way, but I

1:14:35

was to say that would have been in line and

1:14:38

when it comes to Chanel handbags, there is

1:14:40

fully fully onboard. Yeah.

1:14:44

Lucky wife. This

1:14:48

show is called disruptors. What

1:14:50

does the word disruptive mean to you?

1:14:53

Change the game.

1:14:54

Change gear. Shift it up. Right.

1:14:56

And I see it as a positive. I think some people

1:14:58

see disruption as a bad thing. You

1:15:00

know,

1:15:02

Disruptors

1:15:05

For me, it's like the Crosby flop, nineteen

1:15:07

sixty eight Olympics. People were doing this as a

1:15:09

jump, and then some crazy guy came

1:15:11

along and jumped over backwards and

1:15:13

just changed people's view

1:15:16

on on how you can do it or

1:15:19

Roger Ballast of breaking the four minute Moore, right,

1:15:21

that we have these mental blocks until

1:15:23

someone does it. Elon Musk is probably the greatest

1:15:26

disruptor of our lives. Right? He's just

1:15:28

disrupted everything

1:15:30

from, you know, back to PayPal, SpaceX.

1:15:33

You know, he's taken the

1:15:35

cost of putting people

1:15:37

and payload into space down by ten

1:15:39

x. Wow.

1:15:41

No. So NASA would cost him, like, a billion

1:15:43

dollars to put something up in space. He can do

1:15:45

it for a hundred million dollars. Okay. The way he's

1:15:47

built his rockets that can can

1:15:49

land. I mean Tesla has

1:15:51

disrupted the

1:15:54

entire way we think about the

1:15:56

transportation industry. He's

1:15:59

disrupted

1:16:00

batteries. So and now

1:16:02

watch out social media. Yeah. Now

1:16:04

I was very excited when he bought Twitter.

1:16:07

Yeah. because I think social media

1:16:09

needs disruption now.

1:16:11

Yeah. He will he will definitely he is definitely he's

1:16:13

disrupting it already. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:16:15

Yeah. I know a lot of people saying he's gonna destroy

1:16:18

it. I think he's doing exactly that. He's disrupting

1:16:20

it, and he'll he'll

1:16:21

turn that around. And,

1:16:24

Rob, what about you? Where can we follow you?

1:16:27

What's

1:16:27

your vision? If people want

1:16:29

to get in touch with you?

1:16:31

where can they go and what

1:16:33

are you working on now?

1:16:34

Yeah. So what

1:16:37

am I working on right now is rebalance

1:16:40

earth the idea that you can invest

1:16:42

in nature, that you can

1:16:45

earn money from protecting nature. That's

1:16:48

That's my goal. That's my that's my vision.

1:16:50

I suppose my vision is financial

1:16:52

well-being in a world worth living in. So

1:16:54

I I want everyone to understand

1:16:57

how to earn money, keep money,

1:16:59

and grow money to have freedom in the truest

1:17:02

sense of freedom. At the same time,

1:17:04

I think businesses and money can be a force

1:17:06

for So that is my my my

1:17:08

my vision and that's a circular,

1:17:10

self reinforcing thing. I'm

1:17:13

probably more traditional. So LinkedIn is

1:17:16

my

1:17:17

my thing. So LinkedIn, Robert

1:17:19

Gardner, but I'm also

1:17:21

on Twitter and Instagram at

1:17:24

Robert Gardner, and Gardner

1:17:26

is GARDNER Rob,

1:17:29

this has been fun. Thank you very much. Talks, Rob.

1:17:31

Bye bye.