MM #260: Invest in Africa, Bitcoin Is Booming, Apple in Trouble, OpenAI Takeover & Real Estate Hack

Summary

Market Mondays #260: Invest in Africa, Bitcoin Is Booming, Apple in Trouble, OpenAI Takeover & Real Estate Hack

Release Date: May 27, 2025
Host/Authors: EYL Network (Ian, Rashad, and Troy)

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Introduction

In episode #260 of Market Mondays, hosts Ian, Rashad, and Troy delve into a myriad of pressing financial and investment topics. From the burgeoning opportunities in African markets to the seismic shifts in the tech industry, including Bitcoin's ascent and Apple facing unprecedented challenges. This detailed summary captures the essence of their discussions, enriched with notable quotes and timestamps for reference.

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1. Real Estate & Mortgage Rates Spike

The episode opens with an incisive discussion on the dramatic rise in mortgage rates. With 30-year mortgage rates soaring to 7.5%, levels unseen in decades, the hosts explore the early signs of a looming housing affordability crisis.

• Rashad reflects on the shift:
  "I remember being in the pandemic and saying, man, 2.85. That's incredible. And now we're here at seven and a half, just a few years later." [09:39]

• Troy highlights the broader economic implications:
  "There's $350 billion in interest we're going to have to pay if we don't end up refinancing... We're going to be paying $5 trillion in interest over the next 10 years." [08:34]

Investment Strategies: Cash-Out Refinancing

Ian shares a personal strategy involving a cash-out refinance:

• "If you own a property, you could still refi a property that you don't have a mortgage on. If everything goes according to plan, I'm not done yet. I'll update you when it's over. But it looks like I could potentially maybe get slightly more or at least around the same that I actually paid for the property." [12:29]

This approach allows investors to leverage property equity without existing mortgage constraints, providing capital for further investments.

---

2. Investing in Africa

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the hosts' ongoing tour of Africa, focusing on Rwanda and Kenya. They emphasize the continent's untapped investment potential and the impressive infrastructural developments observed.

• Ian shares his admiration for Rwanda:
  "They don't allow plastic bags inside the country... There's no trash on the streets. Streets are immaculate." [26:47]

Opportunities in Real Estate Development

Rashad recounts meeting Fatima, an entrepreneur spearheading real estate development in Rwanda:

• "There's a lot of opportunity for sure... she owns a lot of property in Rwanda as well... have you bought property out here yet? I need you to tell your people in America." [28:10]

Tech Hubs and Entrepreneurship

The hosts explore tech hubs in Kigali, unveiling innovations that address continental challenges:

• "This tech hub is pretty much solving the problems for the continent... creating infrastructure that has that paperwork." [36:34]

Promoting Invest Fest

Ian emphasizes the importance of Invest Fest in fostering African investment:

• "We're working to get representation from the continent at Invest Fest... promote investment on the continent because, you know, it's crazy." [27:01]

---

3. Bitcoin Is Booming

Bitcoin's meteoric rise is a central theme, with the hosts discussing its long-term potential and strategies amidst its current boom.

• Troy expresses bullish sentiments:
  "I think it's realistic within, I don't know, three years to probably be at 200,000... hold Bitcoin for at least a five or ten year period no matter what." [50:30]

• Rashad concurs, adding:
  "If you don't have it as a part of your portfolio and you're not suggesting it... it's a mistake." [52:16]

Market Cycles and Long-Term Holding

Both hosts advocate for a long-term investment approach, acknowledging potential short-term pullbacks but emphasizing Bitcoin's enduring value.

• "It's one of those investments that if you don't have it as a part of your portfolio and you're not suggesting it right. It's a mistake and it's a disservice it feels like at this point." [52:16]

---

4. Apple in Trouble & OpenAI Takeover

A contentious topic arises with the acquisition of Johnny Ive's company by OpenAI for $6.5 billion. The hosts dissect the implications for Apple, questioning its leadership and future innovation trajectory.

• Ian introduces the acquisition:
  "Johnny Ive... OpenAI just purchased his company for $6.5 billion and a groundbreaking deal." [56:37]

Critique of Tim Cook's Leadership

Troy and Rashad critically assess Apple's current leadership under Tim Cook, suggesting a decline in innovation compared to Steve Jobs' era.

• Troy laments:
  "The AirPods came from Steve Jobs acquisition of Beats... Apple's culture has been allowed to thrive a little bit more at Microsoft." [65:40]

• Rashad adds:
  "They reduced Steve to theater on campus... they don't even have a Steve flag on that campus." [66:15]

Comparisons with Microsoft

Contrasting Apple with Microsoft, the hosts praise Microsoft's proactive integration of AI and effective leadership under Satya Nadella.

• Troy commends Microsoft:
  "Satya Nadella is one of the best CEOs I've seen... Copilot is getting better." [78:52]

---

5. Microsoft’s Strategic Moves

Microsoft's advancements, particularly in AI integration, receive high praise. The hosts highlight Microsoft's capability to adapt and lead in the evolving tech landscape.

• Troy notes:
  "Google released a suite of AI products... Microsoft, their event was pretty solid as well." [78:52]

• Rashad underscores Microsoft's growth:
  "Azure has grown over the past 10 years like phenomenal." [78:51]

---

6. Insider Moves: AMD & Palantir

The discussion shifts to insider trading activities, focusing on AMD's significant insider buybacks versus Palantir's insiders selling large portions of their holdings.

• Rashad observes:
  "AMD has seen the largest insider buyback since 2016 while Palantir insiders are cashing out big." [80:27]

Implications for Institutional Confidence

• Troy interprets these moves as indicators of market confidence:
  "If you see people start selling shares... it's an interesting case study in human psychology." [87:56]

• Rashad adds insights on sustainability:
  "Palantir has government contracts... this is a sustainable model." [82:48]

AMD’s Positive Outlook

• Rashad shares optimism about AMD:
  "I think the next month will be very telling for AMD... target price is now going up to like 135." [83:18]

---

7. Additional Discussions

Invest Fest Promotions

The hosts advocate for Invest Fest, highlighting its significance in connecting entrepreneurs and investors, especially within African markets.

• Rashad emphasizes:
  "Invest Fest exists because people need to understand that they deserve all these things. They deserve to be rich." [42:58]

Pop Culture and Personal Remarks

Interspersed within the financial discussions are snippets of personal conversations and pop culture references, including mentions of celebrities and personal anecdotes. While these add a relatable touch to the podcast, the core focus remains on financial literacy and investment strategies.

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Conclusion

In this comprehensive episode of Market Mondays, Ian, Rashad, and Troy provide listeners with a wealth of insights into current investment trends and challenges. From the promising but complex landscape of African investments to the high-stakes world of cryptocurrencies and the shifting dynamics within tech giants like Apple and Microsoft, the hosts offer nuanced perspectives backed by personal experiences and expert opinions. Their candid discussions on real estate strategies amidst rising mortgage rates and the critical analysis of insider trading behaviors further enrich the conversation, making this episode a valuable resource for both seasoned investors and those new to the financial arena.

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Note: Timestamps correspond to the transcript provided and serve to highlight key moments in the discussion.

Transcript

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[Ian]

Yo, yo, yo.

[Rashad]

We here. We laugh.

[Troy]

Yes.

[Rashad]

What's good?

[Troy]

Happy Monday.

[Rashad]

Happy Monday. The market is closed, but you know who is open? The glorious, illustrious. Come on, man. Come on, man. On. On a holiday weekend is. How you acting up, man?

[Troy]

Listen, man. Whoa, whoa. The Punisher.

[Ian]

Is.

[Rashad]

Wow. That man. Yo. The Punisher is wild.

[Troy]

Pause. Crazy.

[Rashad]

No, that's crazy. Happy Monday, though. Hopefully, everybody.

[Troy]

Happy Monday, everybody.

[Rashad]

A wonderful day. Has some nice. Some nice cookouts.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

Time with the family. Some nice tunes. Enjoyed it all. Enjoyed it all.

[Ian]

That's a fact. We live from Kenya right now.

[Rashad]

Oh, update.

[Ian]

We've been moving around, I see, doing a variety of different things. So, yeah, right now, we live from Kenya. So we'll talk about that later on. But shout out to everybody out there, everybody that's, you know, on the continent that's been showing us love. Yeah, yeah, for sure. A lot of love out there.

[Rashad]

A lot of love.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

I mean, everywhere you go. Ran to a random couple at dinner the other night that was just a fan of the show and wanted to express their extreme gratitude for us being in Kigali the other night. And when we got here in Kenya, shout out to everybody in Nairobi, they were like, wait, we saw you were coming. We're happy to have you. So that's dope, man. That. That's impact. When we talk about what you should do and where you should go. Go follow the impact and add value.

[Ian]

Yeah, for sure. So blackout this Wednesday at 10 o' clock Eastern Standard Time. Vitally important, always entertaining, always educational. Shout out to. To the whole Blackout crew. As far as everybody that follows and. And has championed blackout from the beginning. It's turned into a quite the cultural phenomenon these days. Ian, any announcements?

[Troy]

Yeah, tune in the Blackout. Anytime I talk to somebody, they're like, y' all love market Mondays. But Blackout boy, shout out to the. To the fellas who can't say nothing publicly, but privately, you watch every week. If you want to get rich from the market, go to ianvest.com where to get in, where to get out. The best companies, where to buy groundbreaking information. Stock Club told you, Johnny. I Partnership open. AI coming soon. Here we are. We'll talk about it. Amazing stock club call we just had. And when y' all run for prime minister or something, please let me know. And y' all right on time with the me. Two men versus one gorilla. He looked like he didn't want no smoke, you know.

[Rashad]

Oh, it is.

[Troy]

I would have passed out. I ain't gonna lie.

[Rashad]

Oh, yeah, that's been the consensus. People would passed out. A bunch of people saying, why didn't y' all run? We'll get into that.

[Ian]

We're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about that on Blackout. As far as the debate about 100 men versus one gorilla, because I think I could speak from firsthand experience now, so I know that that's been a trending topic on social media. So I think Blackout, we can have a educated think tank conversation about this for sure.

[Rashad]

Yeah. I got colon. I got a calling.

[Troy]

Please do that. Wasn't it the other expert opinion. Shout the math. But this is the other expert opinion.

[Rashad]

Yeah. Shout out to Math. Shout out to everybody that checked that episode. That was pretty dope. Yeah, it was. It was an experience, man. It was an experience.

[Troy]

How fast is your heart racing?

[Rashad]

You know what? My heart slowed down when that happened. My heart was racing because we were climbing in the jungle for an hour and a half in mud. So that's why my heart was.

[Ian]

That's.

[Rashad]

My heart was racing. But surprisingly, when we saw the silverback, everything kind of slowed down for me. Like, wow, we're in the presence of this. This is. This is a moment.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Ian]

Yep. Yep. I will say this, too, for Invest Fest. So previously, we were under. We were under the impression that there was no food or drinks vendors in the marketplace. And a lot of people have food businesses, but we actually got some recent information, so you actually can bring food and drink if they. If it's sampled and packaged in a certain way. So if you do have. Long story short, if you want to be a vendor at Invest Fest and you had a. And you have a food or beverage beverage company, it's not like serving fresh food, but like, let's say it's jarred or you can apply and, and we, we, you know, you might. I don't want to guarantee that you'll be accepted, but you may actually be accepted because there is some information that we received that we didn't know previously. So it's still. You still can't, like, fry fish inside of. In the marketplace. But there are some. There are some things that you can actually do with food and beverage inside the vendor marketplace at a vendor booth. So go to investors.com long story short, go to invest fest.com and go to the vendor section. Fill out the vendor form. If you're interested in being a vendor and you have a food or beverage company.

[Rashad]

Yeah. And that's one of those, like, great marketing strategic ways to promote your business. I remember we used to be in the mall and every time there were samples outside, we go and grab the samples. But by the time we grab a sample, it's like, this is really good. We got to go try it. So that's definitely a dope way to promote your business. So make sure y' all apply. I'm looking forward to seeing some of y' all, not all of y' all pescatarians.

[Troy]

Oh, okay.

[Ian]

Okay. Did you speak yet about.

[Troy]

Yes.

[Ian]

Okay. Disclaimer.

[Rashad]

Y' all know how this works, man. Do your own research. Shout out to everybody that has done so and has benefited from it. Our content is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. It's very important that you do your own analysis before making any investment based on your own personal circumstances. You should take independent financial advice from a professional in connection with or independently research and verify any information that you find on our show and wish to rely upon whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise continue to do the research. Share the research. When it's good, give credit to where you found it. Love is love. Let's build community. Let's build wealth. And shout out to Eyl University. This week. I'm back. We back Eyl University. We got a special class. We talk about research. We're gonna go into an in depth look on how to do some research. I know the market has been shaky over the second quarter. We saw some rebounds. Second quarter is coming to an end. Summer is always a month where things get really tight now. So you got to be real strategic. So the research has to be in depth and we're gonna have a special class on it. So make sure y' all pull up.

[Troy]

For the second week in a row. Google, I owe you an apology. Public service announcement. Google is doing everything I wish Apple would do. So Sundar, whole AI team, the whole product suite team.

[Rashad]

Yeah, we're gonna have a moment for Google for sure. Yeah, we got some data. Some data was sent shout out to them.

[Ian]

So let's get into it. Okay, so mortgage rate Spike. With the 30 year mortgage rates now hovering around 7.5% levels unseen in decades, are we seeing and the early ages, the early st. Challenges of a housing affordability crisis?

[Troy]

I don't know. We would have to ask Matt. But given the bond crisis that I've been talking about for a while, a couple interesting things. There's $350 billion in interest we're going to have to pay if we don't end up refinancing. And then when they had the treasury auction last week, not no one, but virtually no one wanted to buy our bonds. So as a result, I think that rate will stay for a while. If I was the Fed chair, I would not want to have this job right now. But the Japanese bond market is going through a crisis. So are we. We can talk about the bill or if DOGE is being dismantled through this bill now. But there are a couple of things on the table where I'm like, I don't see how we begin to correct this. So over the next, I think they said 10 years, we're going to be paying $5 trillion in interest. I don't know how you correct that. AI is partially a small part of the answer, but we have to get this under control before we lose our lead permanently. What do you guys think?

[Rashad]

I mean, it's our highest rate since the early 2000s. I remember being in the pandemic and saying, man, 2.85. That's incredible. And now we're here at seven and a half, just a few years later. It's a tough position, right? Like the affordability situation in America is becoming almost unsustainable.

[Troy]

Right.

[Rashad]

When you're talking about who's going to be buying homes, what demographic of the population is going to be incoming coming into home buying if wages aren't increased and and housing prices going up, that doesn't make for a great formula. On the other end, when you're talking about people who are selling homes when interest rates or Even refinancing, when interest rates are this high, you find that people aren't doing any of those things. So the supply becomes an issue, affordability becomes an issue, because wages are an issue. The only way I see going fit going forward to be fit with the situation is policy is going to have to be put in place, whether it's going to be a new declaration on how interest rates are going to be levied over 5, 10 year span. Because if we're looking at debt like you just brought up from an institutional standpoint, but even from an individual standpoint, like the amount of debt that people are accruing from college, from credit, those numbers are going to start to creep in over the next two or three years. I know it's kind of been hitting back and obviously student loan was on deferment for a few years here, but that number is going to be accounted for very shortly. And so when you add that into this problem, housing, it's going to be an issue unless new policy is put.

[Troy]

In place, like what affordable big cities are there for people to live in. When the cost of housing, like you said, is going up so high and everything needs to be refinanced at scale. It's very scary. One more note, the Japanese bond auction was the worst since 1987, which is that Black Friday crash. There's a lot of things on the board right now that are just incredibly scary and I don't know if anyone has planned correctly on how to fix it.

[Ian]

Yeah, for sure. And I will say this, when it comes to mortgages, shout out to Matt. Shout out to Matt. Because yeah, he's definitely a talented mortgage broker and he's one of these people that actually does the business. Like he's not just a social media influencer. So like even me, like he's helping me out. I think I might have mentioned this before, but I actually have a property that I purchased in cash and I'm doing a cash out refi. So this is information for anybody that's interested. If you own a property, you could still refi a property that you don't have a mortgage on. And the benefit with that is that you. So it's like I got this property at auction. Well, kinda. It's a long story, but it was way under market value.

[Troy]

Wait, you invested in another piece of real estate after telling people not to invest in real estate?

[Rashad]

Shame.

[Ian]

The Jamie Dimon play.

[Rashad]

Oh, shame.

[Ian]

So I was able to get a property way under market value.

[Troy]

That's amazing.

[Ian]

With the cash out refi. Thanks when they do an appraisal, they appraise it at what the current price is. So long story short, if everything goes according to plan, I'm not done yet. I'll update you when it's over. But it looks like I could potentially maybe get more, slightly more or at the very least like around the same that I actually paid for the property.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Ian]

So that's helpful because that's like, you know, if you buy a property for 280 and then it's worth 400, then you actually can get 280 back or 300,000. Right. That's, that's beneficial because now, I mean, of course you, now you actually have a mortgage on it, so you got to pay monthly. But if you have a tenant, then they could pay that via their rent. But even if you don't, you're able to have capital that you can do other things with, deploy into the market, reinvest, buy more real estate if you're interested. So cash out refi. I don't think we, I don't think we spoke about that before, but that was something that I wasn't fully aware of and he actually educated me on it. So once again, shout out to Matt. But that's pretty powerful tool in the disposal when it comes to real estate. So you always have options when it comes to real estate.

[Rashad]

Does the interest rate become higher because it's a cash out refi?

[Ian]

Well, remember, I don't have an interest rate right now because when you do it, it's whatever the interest rate is, it's not, it's not like, it's like, it's like buying a new home.

[Rashad]

Okay. So like if it's seven and a half is the rate right now, then seven and a half is the rate that you're getting.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

Okay.

[Ian]

So yeah, yeah. Matt definitely is somebody that's extremely knowledgeable when it comes to real estate home buying. And there's so many different things, right. Like there's so many different stuff that we're not educated on. That's why the home buyer's blueprint is vitally important. Ey University. But that when I found that out, I was like, damn, that's kind of crazy. Like, because imagine if you could just go around buying auction properties at low prices.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Ian]

Then doing some, some quick or even like fix her up. Right. Then increasing their value very, very quickly and then doing cash out refis and then getting more money than you actually pay for it. Put a tenant in there, have the tenant pay the rent, which is covering the cost. Of the actual new mortgage that you actually have. But now you have new money that you can buy new property with. Right. Like you can scale a real. In my mind, you can scale a real estate portfolio relative relatively quickly in that type of scenario.

[Troy]

Yeah. Especially if you have cash or you're a high net worth individual. Yeah, it's a good way to scale.

[Ian]

Yeah, yeah.

[Rashad]

And solid credit too. Right. Because if your credit.

[Ian]

Oh yeah, you got to have credit.

[Rashad]

That seven and a half is going to look a lot higher than that.

[Ian]

Well, you, I mean at this point in time, nobody's credit should be in shambles.

[Troy]

You would be surprised.

[Ian]

No, no, I'm saying as far as the information, like we have enough information out there to clean your credit. Right. Like, yeah, the bad credit epidemic should be coming to an end.

[Rashad]

I hope so for some. I got, I got a few calls over the past couple of weeks from entrepreneurs.

[Troy]

Yeah, I was gonna say you'll be surprised in entrepreneur class.

[Rashad]

Yeah. And, but even the other part of it is this, this student loan, these people who are now just graduating. I know we spoke about graduating last year, but I mean last episode. But think about it now, like the kids who have come out of college over the past two or three years who have been in deferment, who, who had their student loan suspended and now are having to pay what that effect will be on their credit going forward. Right. If they default on that.

[Troy]

So yeah, I mean, in addition to credit card debt.

[Rashad]

Yeah. The education process never stops.

[Troy]

Man card note. Yep. And that's a great point no matter how, because you may have a plan now, but as you scale and that lifestyle creep seeps in, it's a lot of people that are owing 30 and 40 thousand dollars a month. You'll be surprised.

[Ian]

Yeah, yeah. So, okay, okay. Let's talk about the mysterious buyer. The mysterious Trader has placed 3 billion dollar bet on a stock market rally through 2027. What does this tell you about institutional conviction when it comes to the stock market?

[Troy]

He must have been at that Saudi meeting with Trump. Listen, there are signs and I like when people vote with their dollars. We'll talk about if you should short sell the American market, maybe after this. But when a person puts this amount of capital into the market, they're not doing so gambling. They have a probability of what the outcome is going to be. They probably ran enough simulations to know in worst case scenario what's going to happen in their favor. And one of my favorite scenario ratios is 1 to 5, lowest 1 to 3. So if they put in 3. By 2027, they're expecting probably 9 billion out. This is definitely a sign of a person that's probably in an institution or has institutional ties who heard some information that is going to cause the market to soar. This is not gambling. This is a guaranteed, damn near investment that they're making.

[Rashad]

So here's the, here's the interesting part. In it, it said a rally to 2027, which means that there would may be a pullback because we've gotten back to even from the beginning of the year. And so I'm interested. When that bet was placed, was that in early April or was that place.

[Troy]

You would think so.

[Rashad]

You would think, right, because they have a rally, you would have to be in a negative territory. And currently we're on. But 3 billion? I mean, yeah, there's got to be some type of certainty. I mean, I guess if you look at the averages of how the market has moved over the past 85 to 100 years, it feels like a safe bet. But when you have that type of capital allocated to it, it feels like, all right, they know something for sure.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

And it's everybody who's invested for sure.

[Troy]

Hold for the long term. If you're looking to. I would tell this person probably get out in either March or June before that summertime drought hits. But I'm sure they factor that in. A great piece of advice is to know in every scenario, worst case scenario, best case, mid tier, to run enough simulations to know what the outcome is going to be. So you're not guessing, like I'm assuming on the lawyer, they'll probably walk away with 9 billion, but probably as high as 12 up to 15. This is a well placed bet and I think you'll see a lot more institutions place this kind of run into the 2027 season to make up for what could be a deep pullback at the second half of 2027, which we told you when we was on Breakfast Club like three or four years ago.

[Ian]

For the record, just so we're clear, and I will say this too, the Trump meeting, I know we, we talked before about the lack of, you know, diversity, but there was a black person there, at least one that I saw that we didn't mention. So Aliko Dangote was in attendance. Remember his name, guys? He's the richest black person in the world out of Nigeria. So I actually, recently, I didn't see him before. He's not American, so he wouldn't be in that, in that group photo that they took. But he actually Was there, I seen, I saw him talking to Trump and the Crown Prince. So okay, Dangote was there. He was there. So that's important. Makes a lot of sense, that's important to keep in mind. So let's, let's, let's do this. Since we just talked about how the market was expected to go up, right on the other, on the other hat, on the other shoe, that bank of America just put an advisory to short the S P500 stating a global shift away from US equities. So and then we looked at the bond degrading of credit rating when it comes to the bond market and there's been a lot of talk of that. So is the era of USA exceptionalism over and how will that of impact the future of the stock market?

[Troy]

Exceptionalism, maybe for the country or our credit rating, the equity side? No, like one of our best companies hasn't even went public yet. Like even though I'm not the biggest fan of Palantir, Palantir is kicking ass too. So you have open AI Palantir, Anderil. That's a big three. That's like three LeBrons that we got. It's not even IPO'd yet. While Nvidia is going to pick up the bag in Saudi Arabia and they got approved for the non Blackwell derivative to go to China. I love everyone at bank of America. Shout out to everyone in Charlotte, shorting the bond market would be a better move. I think shorting U S equities, that's one of the few assets that we have that are still going in our favor is a tremendous mistake. And I think they may have put out this advisory a little bit around the April drought, which is a great, well, it's a great lesson in not making emotional decisions in a momentary drop. Because if I told you, hey, in a year or a year and a half, the company that is altering technology in Silicon Valley is going public. Why would I want to short that market it to me it makes no sense. So no, I would not short the market at this time or anytime in the future, especially with the like Microsoft Open AI Nvidia. Elon even made a declaration. I'm going back to sleeping in the conference rooms now. When he listen, I want to be clear. When he's focused and off the other stuff and he's in the conference room and sleeping next to the server. Elon's a different entrepreneur. I would not want to bet against that man. So whether he had to talk with the little baby mamas, hey, I'm locked in the next 100 days. Fellas, you gotta have a talk once in a while. It's hard to bet against Tesla until then. Another great company, Starlink, is publicly traded. I would not want to go against that and go against the trend of betting against us.

[Rashad]

I'm, I'm glad you said that. I 100 agree with you. I almost thought like is he ain't gonna. I'm glad you did that because when it comes to innovation, especially in equities market, I mean the leader is clear. We can see it from Nvidia, we can see it from Microsoft. I'm glad you brought up OpenAI and what they're going to be doing and now in consumer tech, which is going to be a huge, huge market for them and going to cripple a couple of other companies that we might mention later on tonight. But yeah, I mean you got to throw Meta in that conversation, obviously from a data standpoint, but also from a broadband standpoint and what they're doing in terms of technology. We talked about the W project a few months ago, but you don't want to forget that. Right. When what Starlink is doing in the air, you know, Meta is doing underground, underneath the water. So innovation is still there. Palantir, you talked about biotech is still. Is a space that we're innovating in. I would not. I would not. Again, history shows us what the United States equities market will do over the course of time. Definitely. I would not be shorting it.

[Ian]

Yes.

[Troy]

And even with the debt being at a record high, we have to look at some of these countries like kingdoms. I don't think it's fair to just say that they're companies inside, like they're. The revenue that they're making is higher than the GDP of some countries, like major countries.

[Rashad]

Major. Yeah.

[Troy]

So like even you talking about the W project that was used to be reserved for hedge funds. Meta is the hedge fund. If you own all the, the cable for all the connectivities, that's a huge asset to have for sure. So no. 0.

[Rashad]

And on top of that, to add to it, if you look at the connectivity of that, look at where it's located. Right. It's running from North America, going around the coast of South Africa and it's going through India too. So that's a key component to infrastructure, especially from the AI standpoint, where data centers will be put internationally. What's the connectivity to them? You got to watch those key steps and start putting the dots together.

[Ian]

Yeah, for sure, for sure. All right. Can you talk about Africa for sure?

[Rashad]

Well, yeah, let's do it.

[Ian]

So let's talk about Africa. Vitally important. Where do I start? So if you're not familiar, if you haven't been following us on social media, we are taking a tour of Africa. We are in our second country. We started in Rwanda and it coincided with the NBA Africa League. And now we are in Kenya. Nairobi, Kenya. Shout out to all the Kenya diaspora. So we're. We're gonna hit a couple other countries before we leave. It's an extended. Extended trip. And we're here to talk to dignitaries, entrepreneurs and further our reach inside the continent.

[Troy]

Well played.

[Ian]

Gotta do it.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Ian]

So first let's. Man. Rwanda country. I don't think a lot of people are really understand, like, the level of.

[Rashad]

Nope.

[Ian]

Infrastructure that they have. Man. They run this country. They run that country on a very efficient model is Everybody told us it was the cleanest country in Africa. When I got there, I realized why they said that. Because there's no trash. They don't even have. They don't allow plastic bags inside the country.

[Troy]

Yes.

[Ian]

It's like. It's like the Rwanda. Like, for real. Like, they don't allow plastic bags inside the country.

[Rashad]

And plastic bottles will be out by next year. The last crop of plastic bottles are now being distributed and they won't be anymore going forward.

[Ian]

There's no. There's no trash on the streets. Streets is immaculate. I didn't see any homelessness when I was there. I didn't see any. Any people begging for. Is super tight everywhere you go. Very militant. Very impressive. Extremely. And it's beautiful too. They got mountains. It looks like Switzerland or something. Like, it's like. It's all on the hills. Mountains green. Very lush green. You know, we went to see the gorillas. So they got. There's a bunch of different things to do in Rwanda, but okay. Now when we go to Rwanda, we meet a variety of different people. And everybody man child to Fatima. It's too many people to name, but Fatima, she's important. We'll get her on market Mondays soon. She's an entrepreneur that's actually building a real estate development out there. She kind of like laid out a whole itinerary for us and everything. But we met a lot of great people with like, NBA Africa. Met a lot of great people in the government. A lot of opportunity for sure. Khalees actually owns a lot of property in Rwanda. Really?

[Troy]

Okay.

[Ian]

Police. Lives in Kenya. She moved to Kenya, but she was in Rwanda. And she was telling Us, she owns a lot of property in Rwanda as well. So she's all over Africa just buying up land and doing a variety of different things. We gotta talk to her. We gotta talk to her eventually too. But they were very impressed about Invest Festival. And we are here working on behalf of Invest Fest also. I'll say that we're here working to try to get people to come speak at Invest Fest for sure. Stay tuned, stay tuned, stay tuned. And we're also working on behalf of, trying to get just representation from the continent at Invest Fest. So there will be panels about investing in Africa at Invest Fest. There will be pre. There will be a presence inside Defender Marketplace at a high level. Let's just say that to promote investment on the continent because, you know, it's crazy. We, we went to a restaurant yesterday and when we was in Rwanda and shout out to Tuma and he, he told us, like a local restaurant. So we met, we met an entrepreneur and older gentleman. But you can tell, like, he's like a very well respected, savvy entrepreneur. He's like one of those guys and he has a variety of different businesses outside of just being a restaurateur. But after, after we, we ate, we, we had a conversation with him and he said, he said, I need you. He said, and quote, he said, well, first he said, he said, he said, this is. He said, how. Yeah, I like it. How you like Rwanda? You like Africa? I'm like, we know, we love it. He's like, this is your continent. This is your continent. He's like, he's like, have you bought property out here yet? I'm like, he's like, what you waiting for? I'm like, I'm like, you know, we're just trying to figure it out. He's like, this is your continent. He's like, now I want you to tell your people in America, this is what he says. I need you to tell your people in America. He said. And it was a very respectful way. But he was like, like the chains that you have on your neck. He was like, he was like, cash. He was like, just cash those chains in and buy property. He's like, invest in Africa. He's like, invest. He's like, anywhere. But he was like, you know, since we're in Rwanda, that was. He was champion app. He's like, anywhere on the continent. He was like, look. He was like, just try it out. Just buy one property. Like, he was like, literally like going. He was like, look. He's like, why would you. Why are you staying There, like, why are you in a country that doesn't want you? He's like, yo, we need you here. Like, he's like, tell. He's like, tell your people. He's like, take the chains, like cash in the chains and buy a house in Africa, you know, like, he broke.

[Rashad]

It down to a science. He was like, yo, how much would a house cost you? Let's say in Atlanta? Like maybe 400, 000. He's like, how much rental income would you get for that? Like, I don't know, maybe three thousand, three, five hundred. He was like, I could buy a hundred and twenty five thousand dollar house and get the same rent here. Why would you waste the money?

[Ian]

Yeah. And houses in Atlanta is way more than that. Now's in Atlanta 1.1 million, $2.2 million. But yeah, he's very educated on, on the geopolitical landscape because he used to live in Canada.

[Rashad]

Yep.

[Ian]

Okay. He was, we had a conversation about the political landscape currently in America. We had a conversation about real estate prices in Atlanta. We had a conversation about minerals in Africa. And he was a very, he's very educated person when it comes to the world. But his, his, his thing was, why are you wasting your time over there? He's like, even if you don't come full time, like, just have something. He was like, he's like, he's like, I want you to know and I want your audience to know that this is your continent.

[Rashad]

Straight up.

[Troy]

Say it again, please, because they may not have heard it the first time. And this is coming from a person who's in, in Africa, right? Because I know they're trying to put up.

[Ian]

This is coming from an African that's living in Africa. Now when he say it's your content, not to say, like, it's not his too, but he's saying like, it's ours. So he's like, look, why are you not here? Why, why don't, why don't come? Like, why don't come here? He's like, we got the infrastructure. We got everything. We running the government. He's like, he's like, why, why, why, why aren't more people not coming?

[Rashad]

I'll just add to, to being in Rwanda outside of it. Yes. Being. I feel like it was the safest. I don't think I felt any safer anywhere that I've been in the world. Definitely one of the safest places. Definitely one of the, the cleanest places as well. But how government works with the private sector and works with its citizens is pretty impressive. Like, everybody has the same vision to make sure that they promote Rwanda to be the brightest and be it full of opportunity. Everybody's on that same mission, no matter what. If it's the restaurant, if you. You're going, you're walking down the store, if you're in the car with the driver. Everybody has that same vision of loving the government, but loving what they can help do in terms of infrastructure. So we went to a few properties and shout out to Fatima again. But she brought. She brought us to her development, which was affordable housing, which is incredible because sustainability that they've been able to create. We're sitting here like, why are we doing this here in America? Like, why? What kind of codes are they passing in infrastructure and technology? Are they creating that? They're able to do this at scale in a very short amount of time. And then we saw luxury housing. I know everybody's like, the first thing when they think of Africa is not luxury, but why wouldn't you? Right? Like, there's people who have wealth and there's people who are. Want to obtain it. And so when we went to the luxury part was like, man, this is incredible. Like, real cities. And so a couple of things that I noticed was like, obviously, who's running it, who's the architect, who's the engineer, who's the interior designer, all look like us. But on top of it, it was like, everybody's pretty young that's doing this. The, the. The team that we met, I mean, maybe mid-40s or younger, which is incredible.

[Troy]

That's incredible.

[Rashad]

And we've seen. We've seen a few Americans that have gone there and said, like, what? There's no need for us to go back.

[Ian]

Well, there's a bunch of Americans that expats that have moved there. There's a bunch of people that was living in America that moved back or got educated in America. Fatima, she actually went to war in school of business and came back. So there's a lot of people that are, like, not really pressed about trying to just live in America. Like they had. They could have the option to live there if they want to, but it's like too much money, too much opportunity, too friendly, too peaceful, anything. The thing about the country, too, is that they had the genocide that happened 30 years ago. So if you've seen that movie Hotel in Rwanda, which. They have very strong views about that. But.

[Troy]

What were the views? Not to cut you off. They said it was some, Some.

[Rashad]

Some truths and some falsehoods.

[Ian]

Yeah, they said, they said, they said a Lot of creative license. Yeah. A lot of misrepresentation.

[Rashad]

A lot of misrepresentation.

[Ian]

A lot of misrepresentation was done in that. On there. That's what they say. But it's like Singapore. There's no smoking. So I asked them yesterday. There's no you. There's no. There's no drugs in Rwanda, and you can't smoke weed, so you're not going to see nobody. It's a very militant place. Like, if you've been to Singapore, you can kind of. You understand what I'm saying? Like, it's. It reminds me of Singapore. Like, it's is. It's very militant. The nightlife is. They don't really have, like, it's not like on the west side. Like, they don't party to, like, you know, but everybody's not a partier. So some people just want to just have a peaceful, just quiet life and just enjoy their life. Right. So that's. That's. That's Rwanda. Now we're in Kenya.

[Rashad]

Hold on, before we leave, because you talked about entrepreneurs, and we be remiss if we didn't say that. We went to a tech hub inside of Kigali. And when you want to talk about just brilliance. So this tech hub is pretty much solving the problems for the continent. And so a lot of people are coming here, investors are coming here, but a lot of the billion minds of the continent are coming here. We spoke to a gentleman, and we'll probably have him on market Mondays as well, who's creating infrastructure for. I guess it would be like W9 workers, in a sense, right?

[Ian]

No contracted workers, no gig economy. The gig economy, like Uber drivers.

[Rashad]

Oh. Oh, well, yes.

[Ian]

And.

[Rashad]

But that was part of it. It was the Uber economy, obviously, from people getting jobs. But the people who do a lot of the contracting was like, how do you know how. How much they've worked? How do you know the projects that they worked on? There's no data set for it, which is not a problem. Like, we don't think about that, but, like, that's a real issue. If you have a lot of infrastructure and you have a lot of people that are working for it, it would be like when you go to the side of the road and you pick up somebody who's. And you're like, I need you to fix something. Like, there's a country that's doing that, but nobody's getting documented. And when they go to banks or institutions to try to get loans or try to have credit, there's no paperwork on Them. So how do you create the infrastructure that has that paperwork? And now when they go to an institution to say, hey, this is the body of work I've done, here's my work history, here's how much I've made, here's what I need, that becomes more of an easier process, which is not something that sitting there thinking about. I'm like, wow, that makes a lot of sense. How many countries need something like that? I mean just, just a lot of brilliance that's happening.

[Ian]

And Fatima. So Fatima was the one that orchestrated pretty much a variety of different things for us in Rwanda. She's tied in everywhere and she's not even from Rwanda. That's another thing. There's a lot of people that are from different countries in Africa that live in Rwanda. She's actually from Somalia, but grew up in Gambia and now lives in Rwanda. But the interesting thing to tie it into what we do is Alvin. Alvin's our guy. You always see us with. Some people say he looks like Rick Ross, but he.

[Rashad]

That's not Ross.

[Ian]

Yeah, he's the guy from. Not. He's the guy from Ghana who actually opened up all the doors for us in Africa. He's like our, he's our plug to Africa and that's our partner in Somber City. He. How we got connected with him is through Invest Fest. I think we've told this story a few times, but he came to Invest Fest, was so impressed by Invest Press, wanted to just connect with us. And then one thing led to the next. Fatima came to Invest Fest last year on her own. I didn't nobody, we didn't know her. And they actually ran into Alvin at InvestFest. They had knew each other from Africa, but she didn't, they didn't know that they was going to be in Atlanta together. So Fatima comes to Invest Fest once again, highly impressed by the situation. Meets 19 keys. A bunch of other people shock a bars. So when we, we have the commonality through Invest Fest because she's already seen it. So now when she's telling people like high up officials, government stuff like that about Invest Fest, she's speaking for first hand experience. And now it's all coming together. It's connecting dots. I say that to say, man, I don't know why you guys, why would you not want to go to Invest Fest? It's literally life changing.

[Troy]

It's fear. It's the only reason at this point. Fear.

[Ian]

Yeah. Because it's like you're going to track.

[Troy]

Record of 5 years if it's 250.

[Ian]

For a ticket, Right? You're gonna, you're gonna go to a concert. A musical concert is not changing your life. It's not. But I mean, how many. The proof of concept is already set, right? And this is from real world experience. You're gonna meet at least two people that could potentially change your life over the course of a weekend. If there's 30, 000 people in one venue, what do you think the odds are that you can actually double the amount of money that you pay for a ticket? Right. Whether it's a VIP ticket, whether it's general admission ticket, it's almost impossible not to recoup debt. Plus travel plus more. That's impossible. So it's like, why would you not want to go? It's just. Yeah, I don't know. Fear.

[Troy]

Yeah, fear.

[Rashad]

Unpack that for me though, really being uncomfortable, being of change. What, what type of fear?

[Troy]

Fear of comp. Being uncomfortable and fear of success. It has nothing to do with the, like, I'm gonna be real. You're going to get your money back. Just listen to me. If I made you money, please put yes in chat. But I, I, we had these conversations all the time, like, I don't know how y' all plan this out for you because I wouldn't do it. That's why I haven't done it. Cool. The headache is too big. But all the people that you get to meet. And I think it's a great lesson in you have to create something amazing for other amazing connections to come to you. So if you're in the place and you just ask, hey, what can I do to help you? Or you tell people, hey, I want to invest in Africa where I want to get into tech. There are people there who can walk you through that for sure. But a lot of times we will say, well, I don't know if it's worth the investment because we're really afraid of, am I prepared for the opportunity if I meet somebody from Nvidia or Microsoft or Google or BlackRock or Citadel, it's like, maybe I didn't do the work all year how I was supposed to do it. But I would say get over the fear because you don't have a choice. We're seeing the biggest concentration in capital go to a few companies and it's not going to change. The world we lived in in 2005 and 2007 is never going to come back. I don't even think we're ever going to have housing affordability ever again at scale. Can't Afford it. When all the PE and all the venture companies have overrides and capital institutions have overrides on the rental market, that's not going to change. I'm sorry. And if we are going to hover at 5 and a half to 7% interest rates, there's no affordability.

[Ian]

And you bring a good point. And like you said, we said this before, but this is really the most important year for Invest Fest because it's like, okay, Africa. We're talking about that. We're talking about the political landscape. You know, everything that's changed as far as cutbacks and dei. And we talked about that. So you. And then we talk about artificial intelligence for sure.

[Rashad]

Right?

[Ian]

And we'll let alone we even talk about real estate. Like you just said, there's a housing shortage. There may never be a time where you can actually get an affordable home after the next three years. And then we're talking about unprecedented opportunities in the stock market. How many. How many reasons like, this is pivotal. This is a pivotal time in human history. You got to take advantage of it. And it's like, man, sometimes in life you take things for granted. If you. If you live in the United States of America, right? And you're just thinking like, okay, this is just a cool event like this. We on the other side of the world, and people is telling us, like, they're trying to figure out how you get that many black people to come together to learn about entrepreneurship. That's. That's unbelievable. That's unbelievable.

[Rashad]

And, Ian, I'll give you your credit here, and I've done it before, but the power of your performance at Invest Fest speaks volumes, man. We go to a lot of places, and even if they don't remember the name of the person, like, we were at dinner the other night, and they were like, there was this guy who just kept reiterating things about the mindset and how they need.

[Ian]

Oh, Fatima. Fatima, right?

[Rashad]

I was like, oh, yeah, that's Ian. She was like, my gosh, he was phenomenal. I'm like, damn. Like, your name is being. Well, not even your name. Your performance is speaking in rooms that you're not even in. So congrats to you on that, man. But it's the mindset. And this is why, you know, Invest Fest exists, because people need to understand that they deserve all these things. Right? They deserve to be rich.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

They need to be around people with that similar mindset, man. So make sure y' all there.

[Ian]

She actually said my favorite part. She said. She brought up three moments she brought up meeting 19 keys. Shout out to 19 in the vendor marketplace. She was like, this one guy was just making a bunch of money in the vendor marketplace. He's selling all these crowns. I'm like, oh, 19.

[Troy]

She's like, yeah, get into it.

[Ian]

She brought up 19 keys. She brought up 50 cents. She's like, I had to watch that. The 50 cent thing. She's like, that guy is just impressive all the way around. And then she was like. And she was like, but my favorite part. She's like, there was this guy, and when he spoke, everybody just stopped. And then he had these mantras and then he was going in and out and he was talking about investing. And she's like, I didn't even know everything that he was saying, but I was just hooked on it.

[Rashad]

She was like, I believed it.

[Ian]

I'm like. I'm like. I'm like. She was like. She's like. She was like. She's like, his name was Dunlap. I'm like, oh, Ian. Ian. She's like, yes, yes. So you never know who's watching. You never know who's watching.

[Troy]

And that's always a like for. I told y' all going into it, I'm like, damn, I'm competing with 50, one of my favorite artists all time. I gotta find a way to eclipse that. But also, too, I think too many people get an opportunity and take for granted. I'm gonna get another shot. No, every shot's game winner. You never know who may be in the building to watch and say, or even if it was performance is terrible. That changes the scope of the relationship. People may say it won't, but it's a different. Like, the thing that I. I loved about learning from, like, WWE is that the biggest performer always had the most money at the end of the year. You couldn't run away from that Steve Austin moment. You don't remember what Brooklyn Brawler did. Shout to you if you're still living. My thing is, even in this market, you're not going to get another 88, 89 Nvidia entry. It's over. This Africa run that you got. Like, y' all are manifesting what Nas said at the end of Belly. You aren't going to get this in 15 years. Like, even this weekend, I was working on investing. Google dropped this ultra plan. I have to revise my whole AI segment of what I was going to talk about in the Best Festival. Please put in chat. Every shot is a game winning shot.

[Ian]

Every shot is a game winner. And a lot of y' all show.

[Troy]

Up, too, to other events and prep the day off. Nah, baby boy. Four, four or five months here, and.

[Ian]

It shows, but it shows that you're, You're. You're. Your level of diligence shows. Because that was something that, like I said, we. We in. And we didn't tell her. Yeah, like, you know, I mean, like, that was. She brought that up on her by herself.

[Rashad]

And that's not the first time.

[Troy]

That's.

[Rashad]

That's happened numerous times. People have spoken about that, man. So just want to give you your flowers in front of the world, man, because you deserve them.

[Ian]

For sure. For sure.

[Troy]

Y' all do, too, for doing this event every year. I would have been done year one.

[Ian]

And I'll say this too, before we leave Africa. So now we're in Kenya, and Kenya is an interesting place because it's the tech hub of Africa. And they have a company called Impeco, which actually revolutionized. Which actually revolutionized mobile payments. Hopefully we can go to their office. But I actually saw them on 60 Minutes like, five years ago, so that's crazy. But the, the tech. Every. All of the tech stuff that's happening on the continent right now is coming out of Kenya for the most part. Like, they're leading in a way. And that's something that people don't know a lot about either. Like, when you think of Africa, you think of resources a lot. Like, you think of, like, gold, copper, you know, diamonds, all that stuff which. That. That is a major part of the continent. But a lot of people don't associate technology with Africa. But there is a lot. There's a lot happening on the continent right now in the world of tech, artificial int. Artificial intelligence. All kinds of different technologies being developed in Africa right now. And there's a lot of smart people that starting companies. A lot of startups are being started. There's a lot of Americans here. We met up. We met a lady at the airport that was from America that's saying that she. She's. She brings Middle east capital to. To Africa for startup companies.

[Troy]

That's a good business to be in and get on the ground early. Listen, every. Every major company on earth is going to Africa but us. The NFL's there, Meta's there. Amazon started to make that move after the indie investment. Like, you just have to pay attention. I know in the public and propaganda, they still try and demonize Africa as a place not to invest in a third world, but there's a reason why they do that and then park the capital There.

[Rashad]

Oh, part. Yeah. And just, you could just look, look up the, the companies that have branches or headquarters on the continent. You, you. There should be some companies that you're very familiar with.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Ian]

I mean, it's common sense. If you got reservations at this point, you deserve to be broke. You deserve to be broke. Generation, generational poverty.

[Rashad]

Stay tuned.

[Ian]

Generation, generational poverty. For sure. That's, that's what's going to lead to.

[Troy]

And honestly, if you don't go, you can never say anything about the information being get kept.

[Ian]

That's a fact. That is a fact. Well, okay. Well, that's our Africa review. We'll update you next week when we have the second leg of our tour. Yeah, done a couple more countries, but so far so good. So far so good. So, yeah, not yet. That's pending. Pending membership.

[Troy]

People make up an exotic lot. I wouldn't watch that video the other day. I'm like, boy, y' all are crazy. You scripted this out in your head. That's crazy. Jesus.

[Ian]

Shout out to Billy. But yeah. Get your tickets to Invest Fest, ladies and gentlemen. Go to investfest.com. if you're in Red Panda, you got a discount code. Get your tickets to Invest fest. Go to invest fest.com.

[Troy]

Yes.

[Ian]

August 22nd in Atlanta, Georgia. Life changing experience. Okay, we got to talk about bitcoin. It's on a generational run right now and people want to know what's the deal? What's the deal? Is it, is it something that could potentially pull back and they have opportunities to buy again? Do you just got to catch it now and just, you know, do you gotta, you know, call Chris Johnson and hope that you can get a consultation? Like, what is the deal with bitcoin right now?

[Troy]

Hell of a return since that area. I call it 20,000. Y' all want to do the Mandela effect and wipe away history, but we're not going to do that. If I made you Monday, please put yes in chat. There's always going to be a good place to buy. As far as where it's going to go, I think it's realistic within, I don't know, three years to probably be at 200,000. I think 20, 27. Even though they've established their dominance, if we have that crash in 27 that I predicted, bitcoin probably will take off even more. But I can see bitcoin sliding back to 94,000, 95,000 and then taking back off again. For everybody in the crypto community who are having debates on which to own, please write this down. Everybody in chat. The goal is to own every asset on earth. Stop with the gang war of XRP verse, own them all. Real estate, housing, commercial tech, intellectual property, waterway rights. Own everything. Because I don't think the debate long term is helpful because there's a bunch of ways to skin a cat. But I think that the more coins and more shares you own aggregate is great but I definitely see it sliding back over the next two months or so. And a great lesson to learn for every investor. Price always pulls back. I don't care what the asset is. If anything goes up 700 is usually going to correct at least 350%, 300% down. So yeah, we'll have a time to get in but hold for the long term. I think everyone's plan should be to hold Bitcoin for at least a five or ten year period no matter what. Even if you don't like it, hold it.

[Rashad]

Yeah, there's going to be a time and we've gone over the cycles of bitcoin and we've gone over the having and, and the dates for that and based on that four year cycle going into 2026 that should be a year where it pulls back. So. Pulls back a little, sure. But after it does that we're going to see it appreciate even further. We talked about a legislation happening on May 8 and what to be looking for around that legislation again. Shout out to Austin out Eyl University. I mean he laid it out pretty clear for the, for the public. Mayh was a big day and if you look at Bitcoin's chart since that date, I mean it hit its all time high of 111 so there's always going to be a good time. I agree with you. I think it's something that you have to hold long term and add to the portfolio. Right. As you see it, pull back, add to it. This is one of those investments that if you don't have it as a part of your portfolio and you're not suggesting it right. It's a mistake and it's a disservice it feels like at this point. So Yeah, I think 150 is something that we, we could see before the end of this year. It looks like it can hit that mark but definitely we'll have some, some pullbacks and it'll, it'll rise again.

[Troy]

For those of you who are in the creators of ETFs and most index funds, you're going to have to find a way to get more edge by 2030 because if the institutions which Gives it validity. Continue to print 20 to 25 return. That 7 to 10 is out the window. Are we past 30 minutes for the YouTube restriction? Like.

[Rashad]

Conversation the other day with somebody and I was talking about like they had a. A banker running a portfolio and it was like what I asked what did they promise 7 to 10 return. It's like, yeah, I'm like, yeah, yeah.

[Troy]

You get 7% in a week sometimes in Bitcoin. Like and I'm definitely with having hyper concentration and some diversity. But if I'm just looking at the landscape from a strategic standpoint and some. And you're promising 7 to 10 and this one is given 25 to 40% in a great year you're going to have. Because you can't even place it as safety if the institutions are heavily invested into it. So. Oh, for the record, the banks who want to make your own stable coin. Listen it. Stop, stop. You can't demonize an asset and then try to make a stable coin after Bitcoin has had you wiped down for five or six years. Like invest. And this is why investing in an asset or even a country early is important. You get all the benefit of the upside. Like if they would have did this in 2018, imagine how much this would have moved. Bank of America's market cap up no one wants a stable coin from bank of America in Countrywide. I know they did. This is a joke. But from three banks coming together to make a stable coin. You don't want that. It's too late. It's too late. That's like me coming out like a forex trading plan. Now it's too late. Shout out to the forex traders. I know George Soros that one trade in 73.

[Rashad]

I was gonna say Jamie, Jamie diamond has changed his tune just a little bit. I'm calling it just a completely bogus asset class to saying that they're gonna have allow people have access to it. What's your thoughts around that?

[Troy]

Do we want to get in trouble or no, I'll go on the ledge. Effort to allow someone to have access to an asset that is given high returns, then the company you run is crazy. It's about percentage of capital allocated in the portfolio. I get it, but you can't outrun a great technology. That's why when everyone's like, oh, I don't want to use open AI chat GPT. You don't have a choice. It's going to run you regardless. I'm sorry. Some technologies are too big to fail. Bitcoin is one of them OpenAI chatbots are another. So Apple. Wish you would have done something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rashad]

Good old Apple.

[Troy]

Siri won't even set my alarms properly.

[Rashad]

Tough week in them. They had a tough week. They had a tough one.

[Troy]

Has a president ever put a tariff on an individual company in the us I'm not a historian, Rashad. That's your bag. I don't remember Eisenhower doing this to US Steel back in the day though.

[Ian]

Trump. You never know what to expect with Trump.

[Troy]

Never know.

[Ian]

Never know. But speaking of Apple, one of their X stars, Johnny I've OpenAI just purchased his company for $6.5 billion and a ground groundbreaking deal. So what do we think about this?

[Troy]

This acquisition, it further cements the new generation of tech and I'll say Fang is dead. They're going to have to restructure what the top five or four is after they go public. I've been calling for them to reconcile with Johnny for the longest time. It was brilliant that they launched this after the Google IO conference. But there's a lot of clash in Apple's culture that is preventing them from getting some of those former star players back together. And Sam Altman did a great job. I was telling Red panted maybe for at least three months, four months that they were going to team up and who we are. I don't like the idea of that. That circular pin that they want to put out as a first product. From what I have heard though, they have built their operating system first which is brilliant. Which tells me they could start to attack this thing eventually. So the first product they put out is incredibly important. But in terms of partnership like Microsoft, once again stock of the decade is going to benefit greatly from this partnership. But you can see the writing on the wall to see where Sam is trying to have his contingency plan to then get away so he can be the new tech darling in that space. I think brilliant partnership. The trailer was amazing. Whenever I see like two white men walk into a bar in San Francisco and they smiling a lot of money on the table. Billions of dollars. Multi. Billions of dollars. And as people are getting tired of the iPhone, it was a brilliant idea to partner with someone who cares about product a lot when it seemed like Apple doesn't care about it anymore.

[Rashad]

All right, let's. Let's run down the list of the things that John I've has helped design or create himself.

[Troy]

Yep.

[Rashad]

1998, the iMac. 2001 the iPod. 2007 the iPhone. 2010 the iPad.

[Troy]

Hello.

[Rashad]

2008 the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 2015, the Apple Watch and 2013, the redesign of the iOS system.

[Troy]

You probably should have kept that relationship together.

[Rashad]

Yeah, it's one of those. I read an interesting article. They were saying that OpenAI purchasing next, which is his company, feels like a move that Apple would have done in the past, back in the day.

[Troy]

Yep.

[Rashad]

You saw a company that had technology and had infrastructure that you need and could be a competitor, so you went and acquired it. The fact that it came from somebody that was internal, in house and you let it go, it speaks volumes. Because there's a lot of talk, especially you know, I'm reading like gadget.com the talk is that the gadget economy, the iPad, the iPhone and the MacBook watches.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

That is slowly going to deteriorate and make way for a new form of consumer technology which would be the Artificial Intelligence Assistant. And so having Johnny I've there with OpenAI technology, that first product, I'm interested in seeing what that does to Apple's infrastructure.

[Troy]

Because they're going to change the hardware.

[Rashad]

Because that's what I'm thinking, like what they're basing on talking about 50% of the revenue was coming from an iPhone. Well, if the iPhone is not a thing that people are using in the next five to 10 years, then what's the product? It's not the thing that we're going to be using in terms of how it communicates and how it functions with artificial intelligence. What is the product? Having the guy that helped develop those things with the technology that's going to lead the future is a dangerous proposition for them.

[Ian]

Well then also for people because for full context, because they might not even know what the company is. So IO is a hardware and design firm focused on AI integration devices. And like we said, it is acquired by OpenAI for 6.5 billion. And when you do the stock, cash considerations. But it was designed to help build consumer facing AI products with intuitive screenless next generation interfaces. So there's an actual, a picture of it if you want to look on our Instagram because we posted yesterday, we posted about it on Instagram yesterday. So when he says, when Troy says the personal AI assistant, that's something that Robert Smith has spoke to us about and a lot of people have been talking about like at some point in time in the near future, everybody's gonna have their own, their own AI assistant that will plan your life. Like if you want to book a flight, if you want to, you know, go to movies, you gotta pick your Son up from school and remind you you gotta, you know, call parent teacher night conference virtually. So this. Yeah, I guess that'll be the next thing. Now what we have to see is is will this have some level of communication?

[Troy]

I believe so.

[Ian]

If it does, then that could potentially be a threat to the I. And being that he comes from a background of dealing with iPhones, will open AI have a communication device which might be the next iteration of what a phone is.

[Rashad]

I don't even.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

I think that's what. That's what I'm alluding to is that that next piece of consumer technology, it's it. It will cut into that iPhone lead.

[Troy]

Yeah. And yeah.

[Rashad]

And maybe it's not a phone anymore. Right. We don't.

[Troy]

That shouldn't be.

[Rashad]

That first product is so important. The fact there's part of it. Right. And he probably will never admit to it. But them not coming back. Right. Them not seeing him as a valuable.

[Troy]

Put a chip on the shoulder.

[Rashad]

There's a chip. And the fact that he did with a company. Right. We talked about Apple AI. Has anybody used it? Has it been official?

[Troy]

Underwhelming.

[Rashad]

Right. Look at what chat GBT is doing on a monthly basis, on a daily basis.

[Troy]

Co pilot is getting better. Copilot is better than Apple's intelligence.

[Rashad]

Yeah. I mean Microsoft, if Copilot doesn't get better, you still have 50 of this open AI company.

[Troy]

Sure. They're short.

[Rashad]

It was. It was a tough week for apple outside of the 25 tariff. This HAP. This news happening. It's tough.

[Troy]

And on top of that, it's going to put a lot of pressure on Alexa series too in Amazon. And I'm gonna say it clearly, Tim Cook needs to be replaced. For all of you who gonna say, hey, you're going too far, stop talking. I hate the fact that I'll say these things about the Apple iPhone dominance waning and then somebody white said and y' all agree with it. I'm telling you now Tim Cook needs to go. He can be chairman greatest operator in the history of Silicon Valley. I posed a question in stock club. I'll ask you guys, who's the better CEO? Tim Cook or an AI version of Steve Jobs right now? Hooked up to that Blackwell.

[Rashad]

No, he. They hooked up to Ruben.

[Troy]

Like what bro? You the. The Vision Pro mistake. Apple intelligence mistake. Acquisition of OpenAI mistake. You should have. That should have been number one priority when Sam wanted it for nothing. It's too much culture clash of Tim trying to be. And I get it, you don't want to be in someone's shadow, but you have to do what's best for the company. And I don't think that's currently being done.

[Ian]

Well, okay, let's talk about Apple. But just, just to play the other side of the fence here, Tim Cook's one of the greatest CEOs that we've ever seen.

[Troy]

Greatest operators for sure.

[Ian]

Apple's market cap soared from 348 billion in 2011 to 3 trillion.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Ian]

Now that's, that's 14x he 14x the market cap product innovation. In his reign. You got Apple watch, you got AirPods, Apple Music, Apple TV.

[Troy]

The AirPods came from Steve Jobs acquisition of Beats.

[Ian]

It's under his, it's under his reign. As far as the, the rise of AirPods, I, I, you know, he, he's.

[Troy]

Greatest operator in the history of Silicon Valley.

[Rashad]

What you're saying is true. Both things can be true. I think both these. Yes. In terms of raising the market cap of a company. You're talking about the first 3 trillion dollar company. Yes. The important pieces inside that is that the guy who helped create those products that helped you raise that market cap is no longer there. And since he's left, what has been the product that has succeeded?

[Troy]

And my issue is the degradation of culture at Apple. Under his leadership, they reduced Steve to theater on campus, the campus that he built. They won't even put up a Steve flag on that campus. You guys can say that I'm wrong. Not y' all the audience at large, but I'm the one who put y' all in Apple. So maybe. And I've been. I had Apple too, at my grandma's house on Guthrie Street. Trust me, I'm right. But y' all can say I'm wrong. That's fine. What's a better company right now? OpenAI who is not publicly traded or Apple. All that ecosystem that y' all love the audience. Nacho was created by Steve and Johnny.

[Rashad]

As of today, Ian, I'm still, I gotta take Apple because it's not public trade and they don't have a consumer product that's going to lead the future yet. So as of today and that announcement could come. But today.

[Ian]

So Open AI also also lives off the back of Apple.

[Troy]

In part, yes.

[Rashad]

So in terms of the device that people are using on.

[Ian]

Yeah.

[Troy]

Until Johnny getting that lab like Iron.

[Ian]

Man, I said last year, I think Open AI is going to be one of the greatest companies in human history and it's going to be a top 5 company for sure. Very short period. Of time. So OpenAI. I don't think any. I don't think anybody does is going against Open AI. It's just Apple is still a necessary company. Yes, I agree.

[Troy]

It doesn't mean that leadership change is not needed.

[Rashad]

Innovation is needed.

[Troy]

And it's hard to have innovation when you won't allow the culture the thing. Even though Steve was a hard driver as a leader, he allowed brilliant people to thrive. There's some brilliant people at Apple who I talk to that have ideas that can change a lot of this around. Oh they're being stifled. That glass ceiling tough.

[Ian]

So okay, okay.

[Troy]

No, it doesn't change.2Tech2 index. No, don't put in chat. Listen to me. Listen to me. They need new leadership. I don't want to say who I think should be.

[Ian]

Your thoughts put in chat. Your thoughts for sure on Apple.

[Rashad]

Yo.

[Troy]

Ian. Trippy.

[Rashad]

Nah, he said two tech man. Apple was one.

[Troy]

You need at least 25000 shares and something like one company to tell me I'm wrong. And I've talked to a bunch of people at Apple who just afraid that he treat like. Like he should. You kid. You could have bought open AI for little or nothing. Meanwhile you got $22 billion parked in bonds or whatever. I get the. But the innovation part.

[Rashad]

We can't ignore that. But you can't run from that fact. The cash reserves are ridiculous.

[Troy]

They don't use them correctly.

[Rashad]

But they could use them.

[Troy]

But they have not.

[Rashad]

They haven't. And maybe that's part of the leadership. Prior it was like we got to make sure we find the right company to acquire.

[Troy]

I think he would be a better chairman. I really do.

[Rashad]

But having that treasure chest does.

[Troy]

It does matter. It doesn't mean that they don't need better leadership.

[Rashad]

That's fair.

[Ian]

Well speaking. Okay, speaking of that.

[Troy]

Real quick, there's some other AI companies that he could buy, but you gotta kind of move fast before the valuations. Okay. Apple, if they deployed this right, the capital right could have saved us from the China versus America war. They're choosing to rest on their laurels and not be on the offense. It's like playing Four Corners. It works. Until now. You got to make a big shot. Now you can't make a big shot. You don't think. Johnny. I've thought through the partnership with Open AI knowing he can go directly to Microsoft and they have more devices in the landscape than Apple.

[Rashad]

We'Ll see operating cash flow of 110 billion.

[Ian]

How will it. How will it. How will the tariffs impact Apple we talked about, you know, this before, but for full context, Trump has threatened tariffs on Apple and he said that he's disappointed with Tim Cook and Apple decision to manufacturer in India, which is a workaround from the China situation. But he wants it to be all done in America. And he's, he's spoke publicly about, he said he wrote them a letter, he's threatened to, to put tariffs on, on them as an individual company. So is the India workaround something that could potentially happen? Is globalization something that is still workable under the Trump administration? Or do they, everybody just has to stay in America for the next three years?

[Troy]

I don't know, whatever that, that big that Trump wants, they just have to pay. You better call Don Jr. And get that Mastermind membership card. Go, go buy you 10 gold cards. And maybe, I don't know, I feel like he hasn't worked that relationship well enough because Trump won't say it, but he needs American companies to thrive for him and the MAGA regime to work over the next 12 years. They're not just worried about the next four him, Elon going back to Tesla. That is very talent to lose such a monumental piece. And then this bill, which ends up being a disaster. I think his name is on it. So if this bill doesn't go well, so at least if he's making these campaign promises, he has to at least have one dominant company come back. Now, we talked about it before. How long is it going to take for you to build a plant that actually be able to create these iPhones? And then what would the cost be?

[Rashad]

Right?

[Troy]

The idea is great. Execution is poorly planned. And that's my thing in terms of leadership across the board politically and in terms of tech, I don't think people are planning for 10 years. I think they're looking maybe two or three years out and it's a little bit short sighted.

[Rashad]

I think Tim Cook was doing that too. We talked about this too, almost, maybe two years ago when they were building the first Apple store in India and one of the people brought him a gift of the first Macintosh computer. And that was, that was pre this, this presidential campaign that Trump has been on. So they've already looked at it from a standpoint of what is the next space we can now build infrastructure in. And instead of maybe having the product now, we're just spreading from a global standpoint where India is a market that we can now creep into and see some of those numbers that were starting to decrease in China start to increase in a new economy. But it's crazy man. Like, like you said the time it would take to get these factories up and running, it just wouldn't, it wouldn't even be done in his term. No, it'd have to be five years, almost five to seven years out. So Trump's saying like if you build them here, there's no tariff.

[Troy]

Yeah, Right.

[Rashad]

But if you build them in India, we're going to put a 25 tariff on it.

[Troy]

Since saying I, I've never heard this be done to one company. Like I said, put it in chat if you know. Yeah.

[Rashad]

Relationship with him. There was, there was the part where he talks about they had an understanding that he wouldn't be doing this. But if you look at the history of Apple, they were already constructed in India prior to all this.

[Troy]

Prior to.

[Rashad]

So the news just feels kind of, it's like again, I mean he did.

[Troy]

Tell him I want you to build here. And I think Tim thought that just right. India was okay. Yep.

[Rashad]

They said they're gonna, they, they agreed to the 500 billion dollar investment in AI infrastructure over the next five years, which was the largest out of all of the. The mag sevens or the quote unquote max sevens. They had the largest acclamation of funds to it. And so on top of that they're still building the factories. But now, I mean, I think they said they lost over 900 million last quarter, which is not, I mean when you have 110 billion.

[Troy]

But software from Sam. But yeah, this is what happens when you have temperamental leadership. Like at least with a rigid leader or militant leader, you at least know what cards you're dealing with. They're not adjusting on a three months. Like I can like imagine Tim waking up and then hearing the news because I'm sure he found out on the news and not directly from Trump. It's like what the. I made this investment and now I'm still going to get a tax directly on my company knowing that I can't build that. Like, like you said, it'll be six years before they are able to build in Chicago or Ohio to get a plant fully functional.

[Rashad]

Yeah, it'll be in Texas. It'll be in a state where the state tax is going to. Texas is probably.

[Troy]

I hope so the hub.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

So what do you think? Leaving? We're in 2025 now. Are we leaving 2025 with Apple on the chessboard as one of those two tech two index in the portfolio?

[Troy]

It always. I said it's a stock club privately. Apple will become by 2030 a high value index fund year over year, return wise.

[Rashad]

Gotcha.

[Troy]

So I call it a spade and I've been telling I can't wait for the degradation of Apple so I can tell you yo, I'm gonna keep it a bean. You're like you love Apple so much. No, I actually have loved Microsoft way longer than but Apple was just a superior company and I think anytime you do your analysis you can't let the emotion of it cloud cloud you. Yes, greatest operator in the history of Silicon Valley got him to 3 trillion dollar market cap. A lot of that was built off the blood of what Steve and Johnny created though.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Ian]

Well speaking of Microsoft, let's talk about Microsoft. They have said that 30% of their code now is being written by artificial intelligence. So you have expressed your views about micro, about Apple and its CEO. But what about the direction of Microsoft and its CEO?

[Troy]

I wish he ran Apple, I really do. I really do. Like you ever get like well I'm be kind but on this fine Monday but sometimes I wish you can do like a CEO trade I would do cash considerations and equity for sure to get satya over to fix the problems of Apple because brand wise Apple is a superior company but the culture has been allowed to thrive a little bit more at Microsoft. So I appreciate the candor. I think him, Zuckerberg, Sundar at Google have done an amazing job but he's, he's one of the best CEOs I've seen the last 20 or 30 years that he just stays focused on the mission of the company and puts together great team the hot the executes at a high level because when Copilot first came out I hated it. They made improvements there Even for those who may be critical in the comments tonight like well you felt the same way about Google but then Google released something that made me change sentiment. I didn't change because I felt like it like they released this and even if you look at Apple opposed to Google just improving Gemini, they released a suite of products. So now I'm fighting from five angles with Flex and VO and Gemini like and what has Apple done? So I think Microsoft, their event was pretty solid as well. But just the integration of what you can do on their workspaces and operating system I think has been incredibly impressive.

[Rashad]

Yeah I think this next phase of tech won't be who builds the most but who will learn the fastest. And I think Microsoft has shown based over the last two to three years that they're learning at an expedited rate. Right. They're seeing the Landscape, they're implementing product right, they're building interface and they're making the right acquisitions. They're not trying at the right time. And so all those signs again I'm gonna go with you on that. Shows great leadership but it shows great innovation. Even from the cloud server, from Azure, like where that has grown over the past 10 years has been like phenomenal.

[Troy]

Incredible.

[Rashad]

It used to just be AWS situation and now, all right, you got Google Cloud, you got, it's a, it's a three dog race now right. Every quarter, every year you start to see a little bit more market share leaving aws. They've, they've, they've just been doing a great job and so we, we got to give credit to the leader of the company. But yeah it's it, it does fail in comparison to what is happening in, at the other company.

[Troy]

Yeah, it's the night in the comparison. Even in areas you wouldn't expect like Microsoft Aurora can predict weather patterns, typhoons, air quality. Like I've been telling stock club for the last year and a half, like that's going to be really important. Even just in like on the Bloomberg terminals you can look and see what oil samples are based on acidity rates. Like to predict that, to know where you're going to make your next investments even in commodities. Like Microsoft is just clicking on all scales right now where it feels like Apple is kind of resting. And I know they've attempted to do things with AI, but it's like you worked on that car for 10 years. They don't bring that up on his resume. That car was a dumb idea for a 10 year period for it to not come out.

[Rashad]

I gave up on that.

[Troy]

The crypto wallet, they had a brilliant crypto wallet idea. What like you could have just integrated things into your ecosystem. What is fanatic as the crypto community is you would have had a win just by validating some people that didn't do it. Drop the ball. So, but what do I know? Y' all can do what y' all want. Two years don't.

[Ian]

Yeah, well, okay, so interesting perspective when it comes to Microsoft and Apple. But staying in the, in the tech related world when it comes to, you know, inside moves that's being done and a lot of a lot can be determined by inside moves. Amd a company that we talk about a lot, they've seen the largest Insider buyback since 2016 while Palantir insiders are cashing out big. So what do these inside moves really tell us about leadership and confidence?

[Troy]

I think that the meeting in Saudi Arabia was beneficial for sure. So I think business will be well over the next three or four years and, and it's a pretty decent time to, to buy amd. If you're looking to get some exposure and you don't want to deal with the volatility of Nvidia. Like if they got in that 106 or 108, they're riding it up to 159. That's going to work out pretty well. I think the insider and Palantir is exiting because of how quickly it has risen. But I want to be clear, I don't think Palantir is going to fall apart. I don't know. People are calling for like a 40 correction in Palantir and I'm like, well, if you look at the government contracts that they're receiving, I'm not seeing it. I'm not the biggest fan of, of Palantir. But if you look and just at what is done on a price basis, you can argue with that company. So if you have to take the emotions out of it. If he exited at 1:10 or 115 and let's say they held it from 35, that's a hell of a, hell of an exit.

[Rashad]

Yeah. I mean when you, when you see a company appreciate like Palantir has done that you're going to take profit, right? Like CEOs, they're going to take profit. I think one of those key factors is the government contracting, like you said. I think last quarter they saw an increase actually of 13, which tells you like this is a sustainable model. Right. The government is going to be paying the contracts for defense, artificial intelligence.

[Troy]

It's there.

[Rashad]

The AMD situation, we are on the record for sure, for sure on the record. And I'd have to defend this company for a few months now, but I'm with you. I think Lisa being in, Lisa sue, the CEO being in Saudi Arabia definitely helped. I think the pullback in some of the restrictions in China for GPUs, how that's affected Nvidia. Right. Has actually maybe helped AMD.

[Ian]

Right.

[Rashad]

You saw now that Jenset is now creating a product specifically for China, that the price points are substantially lower.

[Troy]

Right.

[Rashad]

We're talking about between 5,000 to $12,000 for GPUs, obviously not the Blackwell product. I think they're going to be using Hopper, but still they want to have some of that Chinese market, so they're going to create a product specifically for them. What that means is that, hey, there's a price point that there are, there is a segment of the population that still wants to get it at a relatively cheaper which is what AMD actually offers obviously from that side. But the, the CPU side again they, they took over number one and they've released new products. I think the next month will be very telling for AMD. They have their AI summit on June 12th. So circle that on your calendars to see what type of innovation that they will be leading to Announce more partnerships. That Saudi one was, was a definitely a game changer. But I expect more. I'm starting to see analysts that that tick is starting to move up. That target price is now going up to like 135.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

Which is a good sign. So. Yeah.

[Troy]

You think there should be export controls on our CPU and GPU to China?

[Rashad]

I'm not, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I, I understand it from a business standpoint of you need that market to have growth inside the company.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

The other side from, from the government stand point is hey, if we put this chance is going to help them expedite that race and AI and potentially pass us. It's a tough call. This is tough.

[Troy]

What do you think?

[Ian]

Well, I'll say this outside of amd, Palantir will be okay. Palantir is gonna be fine.

[Troy]

Yeah, Palantir can be fine for sure.

[Ian]

There's always a need for arms and one, one thing that we can guarantee is that throughout human history wars will continue to be fought.

[Troy]

Sure.

[Ian]

And so when you're talking about technology, I mean to my Enderil but Palantir is definitely a major player when it comes to artificial intelligence and the new age wars that's being fought. They obviously have political favor with Donald Trump during they're in Saudi Arabia for a reason. Saudi Arabia wants a nuclear weapon. That's the reason why they, they doing a variety of different things that Trump because Saudi Arabia wasn't going to get a political, wasn't going to get a nuclear weapon under the Biden administration unless they fully recognized Abraham Accord which would have made them acknowledge is Israel as a state. That was something that they couldn't really. They didn't want to do that. But now Trump took that off the table. He said allegedly that acknowledging Israel as a state is not, it's not a deal breaker for the Abraham Accord as far as them getting them be being able to acquire a nuclear weapon. So Saudi Arabia definitely wants a nuclear weapon. Yeah. Saudi Arabia gets a nuclear weapon. That's a game changer for already powerful country. That is they're this powerful without a nuclear weapon. To put it in perspective, countries like Pakistan, Pakistan has like a hundred nuclear weapons.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Ian]

And India has a bunch of nuclear weapons also. So I say that to say Palantir. I think it's gonna be fine. Amd for sure. But I will say this too. Whenever you see people start selling shares, Charlie Lee comes to mind. Legendary Charlie Lee, the founder of Litecoin. Litecoin is the crypto that had a lot of attention in the crypto boom of 2017. Litecoin was one of the top three coins. At one point it was bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin. And on December 20th of 2017, Charlie Lee announced that he sold or gave away to charity almost every single one of the litecoins that he owned at that particular moment in history. Litecoin was trading for $330. The next day after he announced went up to $375. It's currently trading at $95.

[Rashad]

95.

[Troy]

One of the greatest exes in crypto history.

[Rashad]

They're going to take profit. Like I said, they're going to take profit.

[Ian]

Well that's a little bit more than taking profit. That's, that's abandoning the ship.

[Rashad]

So what a huge bag.

[Troy]

And we're going to talk about this charity scam one day where I'm giving all my money to charity.

[Ian]

But the key, the key to that, the key. There's, there's a few key lessons here. He sold when he announced that he sold all of his. Because he actually said that he sold it a few weeks before. But he, when the data. He announced he sold it. Every single one. This is the founder that owned billions of it. He, he sold 99 of it. His whole portfolio. It was at 3:30 the next day it went to 375. That's an interesting case study in human psychology because they pumped it up. The next people was bullish on the fact that he actually sold it. Why? I have no idea why he actually he. So he told you that he sold. So it hasn't never hit anywhere close to 375 ever since. Said 95. Eight years later it's at 95. So that's an interesting case study in human psychology that the leader of a company would sell every single thing that he owns liquidates over $20 billion almost and people would actually be greedy enough to continue to buy after that. Read the tea leaves.

[Rashad]

For which company? No, for AMD or penalty? What are you saying?

[Ian]

In life.

[Rashad]

Back to one of those.

[Ian]

Two sometimes in life, you just got to have life lessons. Market Monday. Sometimes we just give life lessons, life gems.

[Rashad]

Because I was. Because Alex corp actually sold shares, that's why.

[Ian]

Yeah, but he didn't sell 99.

[Rashad]

No, of course not.

[Ian]

Yeah, it's different from hedging, but I'm just saying. Okay, life. This is bigger than stock. This is a life lesson. Read. Sometimes in life you got to read the tea leaves.

[Troy]

What does that mean? For those who don't know.

[Ian]

The writing's on the wall and you have to be able to decode the message in real time when it's actually happening. For instance, we're in Africa for an extended period of time. We've told you this. This is a tea leaf that you should read.

[Troy]

Yep.

[Rashad]

This episode for sure.

[Troy]

I'm trying international exposure.

[Ian]

Like, I'm not just trying to pitch in best fest because I want to just, you know, have people there. Read the tea leaf. Sometimes in life you gotta say the writing's on the wall. You know what? Okay, I understand it now. As lethal. Shout out to lethal shooter. I understand it. I understand it now.

[Troy]

Yep. Every shot is a game winning shot. Shots Elite. The shooter.

[Rashad]

Solid. Solid, bro. He was out here as well. Shout out to him.

[Ian]

Lethal shooter is a real one. Shout out to him. Read the tea leaves. Ladies and gentlemen, a great investment will.

[Troy]

Not always be on the table.

[Ian]

When, when, when it's time to bail. Don't be the last one holding the bag.

[Troy]

Being on the Titanic. Singer.

[Ian]

When Warren Buffett exited his portfolio six months ago.

[Troy]

Read the tea leaves.

[Ian]

When the u. S. Senate Buys sells 60 of their portfolio two weeks before. COVID and get shut. Read the tea leaves.

[Troy]

Yep. In 2022, when Bezos the e line liquidated Zuckerberg same week.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Ian]

When on the inverse of that. When you see tremendous amounts of inflows from institutional buyers. When blackrock starts to buy bitcoin at an unprecedented level few years ago. Read the tea leaves. They're not. They're not stupid. They. They have. They manage more money than anybody else in the world. If they're buying something at unprecedented levels now, when they start selling that unprecedented level, then that would be a. That would be a different conversation. But as of now, that hasn't happened. Read the tea leaves.

[Troy]

When I tell y' all a price, quit saying, yo, it ain't never gonna hit that price. You're right. Because one day we're gonna say, ain't no show. What is it?

[Rashad]

Signing off.

[Ian]

Freed the teammate. But Charlie Lee, legendary legendary exit. Legendary exit. That should be A case study one day for people to actually man what he did with that, with that coin. Why would you want to buy something that the leader doesn't believe in?

[Troy]

That's a fact. That is a fact. Mistake.

[Rashad]

I'm going.

[Troy]

Yep.

[Ian]

All right, before we leave. Before we leave, let's talk about. Let's talk about Google. Since you said that you actually got inspired by a recent move that they did. You want to talk about that?

[Troy]

Yeah. Google dropped the bomb and had the conference. And Gemini app has improved. You have Flow, which is the AI filmmaking tool, and VO3, which is amazing. Whisk Notebook. LM Ty was using that. He was telling me about it. And it's. It's the tech version of 20v1. So, like, when Apple isn't innovating, they're not just trying to create a chatbot. They released a bunch of AI projects in combination, which is absolutely fantastic. I went through and used all of them, and I'm like, had they struck six months earlier, there would be no room for a lot of these other companies to talk. But I wanted to give Sundar tremendous credit for bouncing back at a time when a lot of people in tech had the same sentiment. They were not advancing or innovating fast enough. And I wished Apple would do the same thing that Google did. Just put their heads down, hear the criticism, and say, no. Okay, great. Not only am I going to give you one great technology tool, I'm going to bundle five or six of them together and let you pick how you want to have these integrate. The integration with Google Drive looks amazing. The integration with Gmail looks amazing. And that's the thing about criticism. I say it all the time. A complaint can turn into a cash flow for you if you execute the right way. And I want to give them full credit for bouncing back and executing this how they should.

[Rashad]

Yeah, and we got to also give them credit. We talked about search last year declining for the first time ever. Yeah, we pulled out the numbers, man. And so the numbers are pretty impressive. When you talk about monthly visits. The number one site for monthly visits is google.com.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

With over 82 billion monthly visits. Number two is YouTube company owned by Google. Great acquisition with 28 billion. So you're talking about a hundred billion monthly visits from a company. Number three is. Is actually Facebook at 11 billion.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

So think about the. The drastic difference in about. That's a. That's a whole lot of traffic.

[Ian]

Chat.

[Rashad]

GBT is actually in the top, I think 5 or 6 at 5 billion. But they're Only one of the only companies that had increase in month over month traffic. Yeah, Google was down about 3% and YouTube was about down 2%. But a hundred billion monthly visits is.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

Advertising dollars that, that probably runs through that. It's just, I mean astronomical.

[Troy]

And if you think about it, even with Apple, not to belabor this point, they didn't acquire open AI. But if Zuckerberg had permission to do so and I had that block on Congress from, from acquiring things over a certain amount, he for surely would have because he was early on this integration of coin on social platform and AI, they just wouldn't let him execute it like so I want to give him credit as well.

[Rashad]

People forgot about the Libra going.

[Troy]

Yeah, he was, it was a 2011.

[Rashad]

2012 that was huge news. Like Libra coin was a huge news and, and obviously it didn't pan out, but yeah, he was ahead of the curve. Thinking about how we're going to create a digital coin.

[Ian]

Yeah, that's a fact. All right. Remy Ma says her new man makes $250,000 a year and has 800 credit score.

[Rashad]

Why she say that?

[Ian]

Because papoose.

[Rashad]

Oh, they're going back. Oh, that's nasty word.

[Troy]

Anytime you do that, you're not over. You're not over. Who you talking about?

[Rashad]

That's the dude.

[Ian]

Yeah. What's his name?

[Troy]

Easy to block. Captain shot to him. But if you in her league, half that money coming from her.

[Ian]

I mean excursion, that's like, that's a blackout conversation. Would you want your girl to tell you how much money you make? She's, I guess she's, you know, she's saying that he got an 800 credit score.

[Rashad]

Congrats to him.

[Ian]

Because she's trying to say like, you know, he got his, his, his Life in order. He 800 credit score made 250 and he treats her better. According to her.

[Troy]

Then why are you online talking about me? Yeah, I hate when I'm little. Bitter exes do that. Oh, I'm so much happy. Why are you bringing me up there?

[Rashad]

I saw something. It was like your black love was your idea. I'm like, why? What do you mean? Like he loved his wife.

[Troy]

That's a great lesson. You can't love him too much. She needs to love you more than you love her.

[Rashad]

This man moved 15 minutes outside the penitentiary to visit her every day.

[Troy]

Mistake.

[Ian]

And that's a mistake? That's a mistake. You learned that in the basics. She cheated on him multiple times and he went to therapy.

[Troy]

Mistake.

[Ian]

Where they do that or was it.

[Rashad]

Just a learning lesson?

[Ian]

Where they do that at?

[Rashad]

You gotta learn from that. You learn from it. I think he says these in love. Now they trying to get engaged to the. To the.

[Troy]

You gotta be in love with somebody who can knock you out, man.

[Ian]

Public service announcement.

[Rashad]

Some. Some doesn't need to be the same as publicly.

[Ian]

If you watch Blackout, you can actually help yourself tremendously. Because all these conversations we had on Blackout, we've had this financial conversation. We had the cheating conversation. We had that your girl makes money than you conversation. Oh, she said that she made more money than him. That's a direct financial. You might say, okay, we being messy. No, this is the direct financial conversation to save you money, to elevate your career going forward. It's not going to work.

[Troy]

Yep.

[Ian]

Not going to work. And this is. This is living proof of that, because she's going to throw it in your face when it's all said and done.

[Rashad]

They're gonna be like, a real woman wouldn't do that.

[Troy]

Y' all saying, Remy, not a real woman. That's crazy to say. When she busts her gun like the allegedly paused.

[Rashad]

Like that make a real. Does that make it real? Shout out to the Bronx. Shout out to Remy, shout out to Pat. Hopefully.

[Troy]

You can't love them too much.

[Rashad]

Yo, love yours, man.

[Troy]

That ratio gotta be like, you can't love her five times more than she loves you.

[Ian]

Where they do that? And I'll say this, too.

[Rashad]

What's the appropriate ratio? What is it?

[Troy]

Three to one in my favor.

[Ian]

I'll say this, too. You know, we talk about a lot of the messy commentaries a lot of times, but salute to Ja Rule. I saw that his daughter got married. He walked his daughter down the aisle. I thought that was really dope.

[Troy]

Well, that's fine.

[Ian]

That's got to be something that, you know, is a highlight in his life. And I think that that's something that every father would. Would want to participate in. And to all of you, that's going to be like, well, getting married is not an accomplishment. Like, I just feel like, you know, we'll save that for Blackout. But, yeah, I'm sure that that's one of them, if not the highlight, like, one of the most highlights of his life so far. Actually, I thought that was really dope because we don't really get a chance to see that hip hop, like, I mean, like, for sure. Hip hop star walking his daughter down the aisle. It speaks to a variety of different things. It speaks to parenting. It speaks to aging. It speaks to Mature in the black community. That's important. Like, even being out here, like, you know, Africa. One thing that they've been able to keep, even through colonialism in almost every country is the institution of marriage. This people get married at high levels. That's important. Yeah, that's important. So shout out to Ja Rule. Congratulations to his daughter. But I saw Shame had posted that. Good, good job. Shavo for posting that. But I thought that that was a pretty dope thing to see.

[Rashad]

Shout out to John.

[Troy]

Multiple times. Crazy. And going to therapy over. Shut that.

[Ian]

But right after that. Right after it.

[Rashad]

Damn, man. We just couldn't get a moment, man.

[Ian]

Right after it.

[Rashad]

I'm sorry to that, brother, man.

[Troy]

But. Yeah.

[Ian]

You getting cheated on multiple times. Oh, disrespect, alleged. That's what he said.

[Troy]

Crazy.

[Ian]

Why would you want to lie about getting cheated on?

[Rashad]

She said that. That.

[Ian]

But why would you lie?

[Rashad]

I'm saying he said it. She did.

[Ian]

He said she cheated on him. They went to therapy.

[Rashad]

And the only reason.

[Troy]

Well, what if she cheated back, though? That's some of the women gonna say.

[Rashad]

You know what? It don't. It's not even.

[Ian]

We ain't even.

[Rashad]

Figured out. Figure it out, y' all.

[Troy]

Ain't no figuring out.

[Rashad]

Pack your bags, Blackout, before we get out of here. Happy birthday to my brother. Today's his birthday.

[Ian]

Happy birthday.

[Troy]

Hey, happy birthday.

[Ian]

Salute.

[Rashad]

Yeah. My oldest brother, man. Yeah, it is more. More life, more love, more success, more joy this year, every year, my brother. And yeah, man, shout out to everybody. That's. That's rocking with us on this Africa journey. It has been absolutely incredible. If you are in a country, keep sending those dms of where we need to go next.

[Ian]

Oh, yeah. You know the vibes.

[Troy]

I love it.

[Ian]

Look, man, Blackout. We back. We got a lot to talk about. Obviously.

[Troy]

If you.

[Rashad]

If you.

[Troy]

Rashad, if you were somebody and she get online and talk about an extra two hours, what you doing? These are investment lessons, y' all. Into your peace and serenity and happiness.

[Rashad]

That's part of it, right? Yeah.

[Ian]

Financial literacy. That's the other side of financial literacy.

[Troy]

That is not talked about enough. Yep.

[Rashad]

There's why seesaw.

[Ian]

It's why the seesaw theory. Everything. Everything that I've championed is coming to light to be true.

[Troy]

Sure.

[Ian]

The seesaw theory, the not making less theory. Yeah.

[Troy]

You can't just. As protection. That's insurance. Don't.

[Ian]

You can't cover call by a girl and take her back theory. All of these theories are getting proven true.

[Troy]

I don't see some Of y' all girls hug somebody too long. 38 seconds. That's a long hug, boy. Not to give me a hug. Let me give you a hug.

[Ian]

Give me a hug. Give me a hug. Give me a hug.

[Rashad]

Count down.

[Troy]

You're toxic. You're. You're not married. I'm peaceful and happy. Been free, been rich, been wealthy. Crazy. And kudos to him for saying something. There's a lot of brothers who'd be suffering in silence, though. And then you gotta go buy a G wagon to make up for it.

[Rashad]

I want to just say hello to everybody that is having a. A beautiful marriage and loving.

[Troy]

Yeah, I aspire, too. But until then, I' ma still tell the truth, man, the hell with the wife.

[Rashad]

Don't discuss them. That is the golden rule.

[Troy]

Y' all gotta quit drinking out of plastic bottles and let it affect your hormone levels.

[Ian]

Yeah, man.

[Rashad]

Should be handled internally, man. It's. It's unfortunate that this has turned into a public fiasco with public opinion when it could have been private, but it is what it is. Hopefully people will learn from this, and I hope so. And see, like, yo, we got. We should go a different route than this. This is why children are involved. It's nasty.

[Troy]

I know that. Kids. Oh, yeah. That's crazy.

[Rashad]

Yo, yo.

[Ian]

Oh, wait.

[Rashad]

Shout out to Mara Brock Akil. She's the. The.

[Troy]

For sure.

[Rashad]

The creator of Forever. One of the best shows that I've seen. Yeah, it's really that good. It. It's authentic story from the teenage standpoint, which we have. We saw kind of in Euphoria, which is a little bit different, but it's Black Teens. It's la. It's. It's. It's dope. I'm actually. I just completed the series, and I'd highly recommend it if you're a parent or if even if you're like, a teen, that the struggle and the difficulties that come with being a teenager, sometimes we kind of forget that we have to go through those things. But navigating in. In this type of world is a lot different. So if y' all didn't check that out, go check it out. Forever. Dope. Eight episodes. Take a flight. Go watch it.

[Ian]

Facts, though. Yo, it's been real, man. Hold your head. Yeah, everybody out there, everybody that's locked up. Hold your head. Yeah, you deserve to be rich. Circulating within the correctional facilities. Stay safe. Memorial Day weekend, Monday. Since it is Monday, as far as, like, you know, this is the start of the summer.

[Rashad]

So the official.

[Ian]

Stay focused.

[Troy]

Oh, it is okay.

[Ian]

You know, don't let the summer distract you. Want the summer distract you. A lot of y' all, you know, get distracted every summer, and then it's like back to reality every winter. Sometimes you gotta take a summer off, grandmo. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah, more with that. So, you know, enjoy it. Enjoy. Enjoy the time that you have with your family. But more importantly, playing, because it's about to get spooky hours out here, I'll tell you that much. We're gonna talk about it later on and blackout and, and throughout the course of the next couple of months. But what's, what's. What's coming down the pipeline as far as this artificial intelligence and scary globalization and how they, they, they, they coming together, all these countries coming together. And, and man, it's a lot. It's so much stuff, man.

[Troy]

And chat GBT ain't even activated God mode yet. Like, in the beginning, they had it, but they, they have governors on certain data. Imagine if they just took all the governors and let you know everything when you prompted.

[Ian]

Yo, it's.

[Troy]

Oh, I'll say this too. For those of you who are uploading your proprietary data into chat GPT, be careful. The new scams, the hackers using the bot to hack your data out of your chat GPT. That's what I was accident about. Crowd strike. Like, have they focused solely on AI. It's a bunch of those farms over in India where they're going into American entrepreneurs chat GPT and hacking their data and building the same company over there.

[Rashad]

That's the goal. The date is the goal.

[Troy]

Yep. Rashad, what's your ratio before we wrap? How much they got to love you versus how much you love them?

[Rashad]

You said. He said three to one. What you got? See, one to one.

[Troy]

We're not doing one to one. Thank you. I ain't put in 100 to get 260, 40.

[Ian]

I need a 60 40.

[Rashad]

I'm gaslighting.

[Ian]

I need that 60, 40.

[Rashad]

That's, that's, that might be the word of the year.

[Ian]

Percentages. Numbers. Shout out to Larry June numbers. 64 split 70, 30 is a good. A good john because you don't want to go.

[Troy]

I need diddy percent.

[Ian]

No, because that's when it gets psycho.

[Rashad]

That's psycho.

[Ian]

That's when you get that. That's dangerous. 80, 20, 90, 10 is dangerous with 70.

[Rashad]

Take that back, man.

[Ian]

6040 is a good show. That's a good job. Come on.

[Rashad]

This is how you ending it.

[Ian]

6040 is a good show.

[Troy]

I'm funny, yo.

[Ian]

60, 40, 6040 is a good job. That's a good job.

[Rashad]

60. 40.

[Troy]

That's a good ratio. Y' all may say it's toxic. You change your life lessons.

[Ian]

No, no.

[Troy]

You did a little bit.

[Ian]

There's a power ratio.

[Troy]

Oh, okay.

[Ian]

What did you say?

[Troy]

Okay. Power ratio.

[Ian]

Yeah, there's a power ratio.

[Troy]

Power. Okay.

[Ian]

We never talked about. We never talked about the love ratio. The love ratio and the power ratio are not directly related.

[Rashad]

How does that. How is that measurable? How do you measure, like, I love you? 60? Like, how does.

[Ian]

Market Monday. Market Monday is not the show to talk about this.

[Rashad]

I'm just throwing it out there so.

[Ian]

That it's a lot of corporate people that watch this show. We can't.

[Troy]

That's a fact.

[Rashad]

Don't taint the audience, please.

[Ian]

We can't. We can't. You know, let's just keep Market Mondays at a PG13 level.

[Troy]

Yes.

[Ian]

Blackout. Blackout. This is a pre. If you haven't watched Blackout, you're doing yourself a disservice.

[Troy]

Yes. The PR ratio. Power and love ratio.

[Ian]

Tremendous disservice. If you're not.

[Troy]

This is a great part. You can take a block of text from the last month, right? All jokes aside, put in GPT and you can ask, hey, who loves who more in this dynamic? Please tell me. And then they map it out for you. Statistically, is this person toxic? Do they truly love me or are they gaslighting fire somebody?

[Rashad]

So I forget some celebrities saying that they was watching their kid and they're asking chat GBT how to, like, talk to a girl.

[Ian]

Oh, everybody's doing that.

[Rashad]

Like, asking the questions.

[Ian]

Everybody. Everybody.

[Rashad]

But they've taken the. The chat. The text messages and throwing them in there.

[Ian]

Based on that, everybody said, I've done that before.

[Rashad]

You take your whole text message?

[Ian]

No, no, I just asked, like, yo.

[Rashad]

No, no, I'm talking about they taking their. Like, he just said that. The. The text message thread. Putting it in chat GPT. Like, yo, how should I respond to this? How should I. What do I do next?

[Ian]

But I don't think you put the whole thread. You put a message in like, okay.

[Troy]

I like a preponderance of data.

[Rashad]

Yeah, you need a strong data set. One message is not a good data set.

[Ian]

No, but it gives you an idea of what to say.

[Rashad]

That's what I'm like, that's interesting.

[Ian]

Ddg.

[Troy]

You need to download it for India.

[Rashad]

What's going on over there?

[Ian]

That's Dirty Mac. We're gonna talk about that, but there's a lot to talk about.

[Troy]

It's a lot to talk about.

[Rashad]

You think that stays?

[Ian]

I don't care if it's stage or not.

[Troy]

I don't think so.

[Ian]

I ain't going out like that. I'm not going out. But ladies and gentlemen, it's been real. We greatly appreciate you. Get your tickets to invest fest. Invest.com vendors are welcomed. We got some big news. We're gonna drop names pretty soon, but it don't even matter. The names don't even matter. Information.

[Rashad]

That's what matters.

[Ian]

Information. Ladies and gentlemen, it's key, man. It's been real. Invest in Africa. Invest in Africa. Vitally important. And have your exit plan, because you never know.

[Troy]

Yep. But for sure by 2026, because you're gonna need to activate it by 2027.

[Ian]

That's a fact.

[Troy]

For sure.

[Rashad]

All right.

[Ian]

Hi, guys.

[Rashad]

Love is love, y' all. Be good to each other. Be safe.

[Troy]

You know how bad it got to be for Elon to sleep back in office? And he's the richest African American history.

[Rashad]

Yo. Be good to each other, man. Traveling mercies to everybody that's out there. And everybody's praying for us on our journey. We'll catch y' all Wednesday. Peace.

[Troy]

Peace.

[Rashad]

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[Ian]

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[Rashad]

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[Ian]

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[Rashad]

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[Rashad]

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[Troy]

By Smart Travel, a new podcast from NerdWallet. Smart travel doesn't just cover points and miles. They break down all the financial aspects of your trip, whether that's the best.

[Rashad]

Days to book, how to avoid hidden.

[Troy]

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