MM #275: Oracle’s Stock Explosion, Elon’s Tesla Stock Buyback, Hidden AI Stock Gem & Recession Chances

Summary

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Market Mondays #275: Oracle’s Stock Explosion, Tesla Buybacks, Hidden AI Stock Gem & Recession Odds

EYL Network | September 16, 2025

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Episode Overview

This energetic Market Mondays episode zeroes in on seismic movements in the stock market, with Troy, Rashad, Shy, and special guest Ian Dunlap unpacking Oracle’s meteoric stock run, Elon Musk’s headline-grabbing Tesla buyback, a hidden AI stock gem, and sharpening recession worries. They pepper in actionable investment strategies, spotlight emerging opportunities in AI, and reflect on broader economic and political shifts, all while fielding practical questions to help listeners make sense of market turbulence and opportunity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Tesla Buyback: Elon Flexes with Massive Stock Purchase

[13:16 – 19:39]

• Event: Elon Musk orchestrated a substantial Tesla stock buyback, sending shares surging ~5–6%.
• Analysis:
  • Buybacks remove shares from the market, typically boosting share value and signaling executive confidence.
  • Ian notes the timing: “It was really fascinating because Larry Ellison became the richest person in the world for a day or two. ... This was a little bit of an egotistical move, but good investment for Tesla.” (13:52)
  • The buyback is interpreted as a renewed vote of confidence, aligning with signs that Elon has become laser-focused, especially post-breakup with the White House and controversial distractions.
  • “He’s at [Tesla] headquarters more than he used to be ... rallying the troops since that chip of being in the White House went away.” (16:52, Rashad)
• Investor Guidance: Wait for a pullback before buying in — technical support cited around $388.52 and $406.65.

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2. Rate Cuts Anxiety and Recession Forecasts

[20:07 – 34:35]

• Fed Moves: With the market anticipating an imminent rate cut, hosts discuss if it’ll be a quarter- or half-point cut and ponder potential for a third cut by year-end.
  • Troy: “I think it’s 100% guarantee at this point ... it’s just about how much he’s gonna lower them.” (20:11)
• Recession Odds:
  • Wildly divergent predictions: UBS at 93% odds vs. NY Fed’s 20%.
  • Rashad: “They’re literally changing the rulebook right in front of you.” (23:13) Calls today’s “recession” sector-specific: some industries in trouble, others booming.
  • Noted divergence: Tech is at all-time highs while much of the population, especially those making <$150k, feels like it’s 2008 all over again.
• Labor Market & AI Impact:
  • Job growth is called illusory; more people unemployed than jobs available.
  • AI advances (like Robinhood’s new indicator-building tool) threaten huge swathes of white- and blue-collar jobs.
  • “AI will be a Trojan horse to make the wealth gap wider ... Whatever we go through, the country as a whole is going to go through a few years later.” (33:12, Rashad)
• Global Political Shifts: Host Shy links the surging global right-wing, AI disruption, and government spending to heightened fear and uncertainty.

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3. Investment Guidance for Young (NIL) Earners

[08:37 – 12:12]

• For families of student-athletes who suddenly receive six-figure sums via NIL deals, the hosts recommend:
  • Dollar-cost averaging into broad tech indexes (S&P 500/QQQ or VGT).
  • Focus on sector winners: Microsoft and Nvidia as flagship “proxy” plays for the AI megatrend—especially since OpenAI itself is private.
  • Plan allocations, be patient, and avoid “keeping up” with higher-earning peers recklessly.
  • Quote: “Microsoft is a secondary way to invest in OpenAI ... Into the index or ETF and then split the remaining amongst Microsoft, Nvidia.” (11:30, Rashad)

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4. Oracle’s Cloud/AI Dominance & 'Hidden Gem' Factor

[49:16 – 58:47]

• The Oracle Story:
  • Oracle clinched the TikTok U.S. cloud contract in 2020 and is now the cloud backbone for TikTok and, more recently, OpenAI.
  • Troy traces the inflection point: “In 2020, September ... go look at Oracle’s chart and look what it’s done since that moment.” (49:16)
  • Oracle is now solidly the #4 U.S. cloud provider (behind Amazon, Microsoft, Google)—poised to become essential AI infrastructure.
• Recent Performance: Oracle’s stock spiked from $240 to $345; Larry Ellison briefly dethroned all as the world’s richest.
• Investment Outlook:
  • Rashad’s targets: $408 by ’26-’27; “I wouldn’t be surprised if it hits 510 by 2027.” (54:47)
  • Not a hyper-growth stock, but “the story’s not over.”
• How It Works (The Money Cycle):
  • “Nvidia sells GPUs to Oracle. Oracle builds data centers ... Nvidia rents compute back ... These are money cycles.” (58:57, Troy)

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5. Hidden AI Stock Gem: ASML

[40:26 – 44:45]

• ASML—dominant supplier of high-end chipmaking equipment, key to the AI and semiconductor boom.
  • Troy: “At the top of the food chain ... they produce the machinery ... The demand tells you how much they’re going to be needed going forward.” (40:38)
  • Outlook: “If you're long ASML, I’ll continue to hold for the long-term.” (42:53, Rashad)

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6. Crypto Exposure & MicroStrategy’s Volatile Ride

[34:35 – 39:35; 68:54 – 70:11]

• MicroStrategy: Experienced a significant drawdown, partially due to regulatory headwinds (e.g. Bitcoin-holdings caps and S&P 500 exclusion). Its price action is an accelerated version of Bitcoin’s.
  • “Hyper concentration is the way to go. If it gets down to 298.17, it's a place that I really like it.” (36:48, Rashad)
• On Family Office Reluctance to Crypto:
  • Only 33% have direct exposure. Host consensus: it’s more about risk guardianship/age than legitimacy. “The role of the family office is to preserve generations of wealth.” (70:03, Troy)

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7. Quarterly Earnings: Should the U.S. Switch to Semi-Annual Reports?

[61:31 – 68:02]

• Trump suggested halving reporting frequency to reduce short-termism.
  • Rashad: “I have long thought ... we should report on an annual basis. So for the first time, publicly, I agree with Trump 1,000 percent.” (63:10)
  • Debate: Would it help long-term planning by management or harm transparency and investor fairness?
  • Shy: “The reason why it won’t happen is because it’s harmful for Wall Street ... what's good for traders. Quarterly is going to be better because that just gives more opportunity.” (65:34)

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8. Streaming Wars & The Return of Piracy

[70:40 – 74:53]

• Netflix and Google (YouTube) seen as the only “can’t miss” streaming plays.
• Record high content costs and streaming fragmentation are pushing up consumer bills—higher than cable—and driving audiences back to piracy.
  • “We saw like the largest shutdown of the pirate ... but when something gets banned, something new arises.” (72:16, Troy)
• Disney remains in the turnaround phase; ESPN project uncertainty described as a “disaster.” (74:03, Rashad)

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9. Micron: America’s Homegrown AI Memory Leader

[75:05 – 77:40]

• Micron emerges as the U.S. leader in high-bandwidth memory, essential to AI.
  • “Their earnings is going to be here next week ... The catalyst event is upon us.” (75:54, Troy)
  • Analyst targets up to $200; patience counseled given volatility.

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10. Entrepreneur Spotlight: Damon Frost, CEO of Bevel

[86:49 – 116:28]

• Segment: Bevel announces the winner of their $25,000 Invest Fest vendor marketplace grant: STEM Plugs, a Black-owned youth STEM engagement startup.
• Damon shares how selling a company is often “about executing a mission at scale, not selling out,” and stresses the need for founders to focus sharply, know their ‘why,’ and solve concrete consumer needs.
  • “It’s not about being protective. It’s about delivering what you’re trying to do, based on the vision.” (100:31)

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Notable & Memorable Quotes

• “AI will be a Trojan horse to make the wealth gap wider ... Whatever we go through, the country as a whole is going to seem to go through a few years later.”
  — Rashad (33:12)

• “The market is permanently rigged to stay up. Stop trying to short the market.”
  — Rashad (119:52)

• “Microsoft is a secondary way to invest in OpenAI ... Into the index or ETF and then split the remaining amongst Microsoft, Nvidia.”
  — Rashad (11:30)

• “In 2020, September ... go look at Oracle’s chart and look what it’s done since that moment.”
  — Troy (49:16)

• “Hyper concentration is the way to go. If it gets down to 298.17, it's a place that I really like it.”
  — Rashad (36:48)

• “The anomaly is not the norm. An exception to the rule is not the new rule.”
  — Troy (81:15)

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Segment Timestamps

• [13:16] Tesla’s Buyback explained
• [20:07] Fed rate expectations
• [22:59] Recession indicators and mixed signals
• [34:35] MicroStrategy/BTC microcap discussion
• [40:26] ASML: The AI backbone
• [49:16] Oracle’s rise, TikTok and OpenAI deals
• [61:31] Annual vs. quarterly earnings debate
• [70:40] Streaming business, piracy & platforms
• [75:05] Micron’s “AI moment”
• [86:49] Entrepreneur interview: Bevel CEO & $25,000 STEM grant

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Tone & Style

• Conversational, high-energy, direct—hosts use market lingo, pop culture metaphors, humor, and streetwise analogies alongside technical market analysis.
• They pride themselves on actionable, no-nonsense financial talk, especially focused on serving an audience looking to build generational wealth.

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Conclusion

This episode offers a comprehensive wrap of September 2025’s highest-impact investing stories, balancing hype for AI and tech’s winners with caution about economic storm clouds on the horizon. Listeners walk away with pointed strategies (from dollar-cost averaging to identifying hidden gems early, and understanding buybacks), a keen sense of macro shifts (AI, recession odds, reporting regulations), and the encouragement to keep building—together and strategically.

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For More:

• Tune in to the next class (Wed 10pm, Square episode Thur 6pm)
• For granular investing guidance, consider joining Stock Club via ianinvest.com

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“Let’s build. It feels way better when people are winning with you. Trust me.”
— Troy (13:02)

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Transcript

[Troy]

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[Rashad]

Happy Monday.

[Troy]

Monday indeed. 15th of September, man. It's mid September already.

[Rashad]

I can't believe it.

[Troy]

It's crazy, man.

[Rashad]

Christmas for you know it.

[Troy]

Yeah, big week. Big week. Witching this week. We got the Fed chair this week.

[Rashad]

Hello.

[Troy]

Yep, third quarter's almost over. Billionaires being created. You know.

[Rashad]

Listen, we got to talk about it. Vlad and the AI, what they're doing on the adventure side. And now you can coach your own indicators on Robin Hood. One of a kind. Talk about incredibly resilient. We'll talk about it a little bit later, but probably the most important fintech company for traders in the world right now. We got to give him a lot of credit. Kudos to Vlad. Not just because he friend of the show, but flag. Yeah, I don't make that clear.

[Troy]

Every Time I was trying to figure out, is there another Vlad Vladimir Pooler for sure. That's the big V. We don't call him Vlad.

[Rashad]

We just call him Vladimir the First Trillionaire.

[Troy]

Allegedly. Allegedly.

[Rashad]

Oh, yeah, I'm speaking on Russia business, everybody.

[Troy]

I got nothing to do with that.

[Shy]

A lot to talk about, man. First and foremost, big week for EYL. We have. We back for blackout on Wednesday at 10:00 Eastern Standard Time. Thursday got the Square episode. Want to talk about that?

[Troy]

Yeah, man. Shout out to all of our partners as where we had a dope opportunity to sit down with some entrepreneurs. It was interesting. Usually we sit down on earning leisure with one entrepreneur, maybe with their partner. This time we had the opportunity to sit down with three different businesses and talk about the role that credit and the lack of credit there and financing and all the intricacies that comes with being an entrepreneur. All women. All women shout out to Kika Wise, who was a alumni. She came back, it was a really dope episode. And I was like, this is something we got to do more, right? Just having entrepreneurs in the room and hearing their stories and how they can help each other. So shout out to our people at Square. Shout out to Jenny, who helped us put that together ab the whole team. It's a dope one. Y' all definitely gotta check it out.

[Shy]

Thursday at six o' clock and man, shout out to everybody. New York City over the weekend. And I ran into Shout out to Joey Badass Jordan and his. His wife and he was talking about how they watch market Mondays all the time, so it's love. Shout out to Joey. His family Basswag ran into him.

[Rashad]

Okay.

[Troy]

Shout out to Bay.

[Shy]

Shout out to my boy Bass Wag, Terrence J. Boo the guys.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Troy]

Happy birthday, Slow. Happy birthday, brother. Happy birthday to Slow Birthday Swiss had a birthday, spoke to him the other day, had an interesting conversation. Nas birthday was. Was yesterday. Happy birthday to Nas the great one.

[Rashad]

Related to the Goat.

[Shy]

Two chains. Happy birthday to two chains.

[Troy]

That's a fact, my boy. Yeah.

[Rashad]

Congratulations, Virgos. Yo, a lot of them. Yeah.

[Shy]

Congratulations to Bud Crawford. Eye for sure.

[Rashad]

Put on a master class.

[Shy]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he put on a master.

[Rashad]

Another one.

[Shy]

But kudos to Canelo, you know, didn't make excuses. True champion.

[Troy]

A real champ, man.

[Shy]

Yeah, and yeah, man, that was. That was dope, man. So shout out to. To Bud Undisputed. Pound for pound, world champion.

[Troy]

Yeah. I think the humility that Canelo show is why people really love him. One thing obviously, he's a technician and he's One of the greatest that's ever done it. But his humility, even in winning and defeat is. Is just about the same, man. So shout out to him. Yeah, but talking, man. Talking and walking, man.

[Rashad]

Even Bud's humility to get her belts back to Canelo and show grace and even in the fight build up, you know, they're gonna promote the fight. But it was no disrespect. Like, I love how Bud carries himself, and I'm glad that he finally got his moment to show the world how great he is.

[Troy]

His level of conviction is. It's always the same. Like, they asked him, when did you know during the fight that you had him beat? He was like, as soon as we signed the contract. As soon as he signed that contract, I know I had him.

[Rashad]

But it's different Canelo for not ducking him.

[Troy]

Like, yeah, I mean, I. You make a 100 million, you, but you gonna duck it?

[Rashad]

No, of course not. Kudos to Canelo for being a great business person.

[Troy]

They put that.

[Rashad]

Forget CompuBox, the net worth when that's that to 800 million. I said, what?

[Troy]

Different.

[Rashad]

Different.

[Shy]

Congratulations, Bud. Man, the Prada, Omaha, Nebraska, best in the world, man. Congratulations again, Blackout. Check out Blackout. We're gonna be talking about a lot. We're gonna be talking about Charlie Kirk.

[Troy]

Didn't get the memo.

[Rashad]

So the group text thing.

[Troy]

Still in three dot fees.

[Rashad]

Got you.

[Shy]

If Ian wants to talk about Charlie Kirk, we'll talk about Charlie Kirk. We also will be playing our conversation with Kev on stage.

[Troy]

Shout out to Kev.

[Shy]

That was the set. We're gonna put that into Blackout. That was Blackout Live that we did at Invest Fest VIP night. And, man, there's so many different topics that's out here right now. It's. It's crazy times, so make sure you tap in. All right, Ian, anything you want to say? Oh, also. Also, do remember I'm doing a nil yes. Panel this Sunday at Westchester Community College in Westchester, New York, right outside New York City. Two o' clock is free. Student athletes, serious student athletes from middle school all the way to college is welcome. Coaches, parents, teams. Bringing an NFL agent, the head of Boston College's NIL program, entertainment lawyer and financial advisor. Lunch will be provided so link in bio on Instagram if you're interested in rsv, rsvp. And you must RSVP if you plan on attending. So if you got a student athlete that you know you want, you need information, you want to ask questions, it's going to be question and answer. So that's this Sunday at 2 o'.

[Troy]

Clock. All athletics. All athletics. Keyword.

[Shy]

Yeah, all athletics. Male and female, please.

[Rashad]

You know what, speaking of that, tying into that, I got a question this week before we do announcements. If a person, if their child has come into six figures and they're incredibly nervous, they don't have a financial background, how do we all suggest that they invest it? I talked to a parent this weekend and I can hear the like the terror in their voice of how to manage the money, but the excitement at the same time for the child to have gotten the money. Kudos to you. How would you suggest they invest in money so that it sustains for a long period of time?

[Shy]

I mean, just the same way that, you know, we've already talked about as far as index fund, that's the easiest pathway to put money into the stock market. S P500. You can QQQ invest with Invesco to invest in the top technology companies in the world. That is a very good chance that they're going to continue to be leading the economy for the next 20, 30 years. When you're talking about Meta, when you talk about Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, I mean, you really can't go wrong with that, right? So that's, that's a starting point.

[Troy]

Yeah, I think if that's the question, we're in a good place for sure. Right? Like if we're, if the question is how should we invest it, we're in a great place.

[Rashad]

Great place. Yeah, yeah.

[Troy]

Oh man, that.

[Rashad]

I mean, because 10 years ago maybe.

[Troy]

What should I go buy happened 15 years ago. How, what should we spend it on? Or not even asking the question, yo, I spent it, what should I do now?

[Rashad]

Right?

[Troy]

Like the question is we're running, we're coming into six figures and some of these kids gonna be making seven figures before when they get to college. If the idea of investing is in the mindset already, yo, we're in a good place.

[Shy]

But also dollar cost average people think dollar cost averaging is only for putting money into a monthly. But you can have a lump sum and still dollar cost average. So if you have a hundred thousand dollars, you can put $10,000 a month into the stock market over the next 10 months. That way you're not, you know, just putting all your money in at the top and then the market, you know, falls and now you automatically down $20,000 and then you got to wait to recover that, you know, over the course of time.

[Troy]

Yeah, have the plan, right? Like we always talk about, have a plan. If you if the hundred thousand is what you're getting, are you putting the entire 100,000? Right. There's allocations, percentages that we talk about. Definitely in the book. You deserve to be rich. I think I would start there as well. Educate yourself on that. But again, like you said, all those things that Shoddy just said and the fact that you're having a conversation, but then again surrounding your people who are. Have that same mindset. Right. Because one thing will happen. If you get around people and I know a lot of their teammates are making money and you're watching people, it's almost. It starts to get advantageous. Like, I got to keep up with what they're doing. Right. But that mindset of, hey, I need to invest some of this, because who knows, A lot of kids make it to college, but very few make it pro.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Troy]

So we got to make sure that when we have this lump sum that comes in, take advantage of it by making sure it becomes sustainable.

[Rashad]

Yeah. My suggestion was vgt, Microsoft and Nvidia. The first question was, no, Apple. I'm like, vgt, Microsoft, Nvidia. For everyone who keeps asking, how can I invest in open AI? Unless you can go get private shares, Microsoft is a secondary way to invest in open AI. I don't know how long their relationship may last, but for the time being, Microsoft is a proxy to open AI. Yeah. Into the index or ETF and then split the remaining 25amongst Microsoft, Nvidia.

[Troy]

Not bad.

[Rashad]

Rashad. You got an orange shirt because of the iPhone 17 Pro.

[Troy]

17 is that ice cube at the iPhone 8. He's still rocking with that. I was like, damn. All right, yo, y' all know how this works, man. This is our disclaimer before we go any further. Do your own research. Our content is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. It's very important to do your own analysis before making any investment decision based on your own personal circumstances.

[Rashad]

Your.

[Troy]

You should take independent financial advice from a professional, connection with or independently research and verify any information that you hear on this show and wish to rely upon whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise, people continue to do the research, share the research. Let's build community. Let's build our portfolios. Let's build our brokerage accounts.

[Rashad]

Yes.

[Troy]

Let's go. Let's build. Let's build. Let's build harmony together. Let's do it together. Man. It feels way better when people are winning with you. Trust me. Trust me.

[Rashad]

Big facts.

[Troy]

Love is love. Let's keep Doing this.

[Shy]

All right, let's talk about it. So let's get into Elon Musk. He announced that he's going to be. He brought back substantial amount of shares and Tesla and that sent Tesla stock skyrocketing. So 2525 today. So talk about the strategy and even talk about like corporate buybacks because we haven't spoke about that in a world in a while. So that's something that could be potential education for the audience if they don't, if they're not familiar with. Yeah, corporate buybacks and what that means for a company.

[Rashad]

Corporate buybacks is just the company investing into the shares and taking more shares off the market. I thought the time, it was really fascinating because Larry Ellison became the richest person in the world for a day or two. Kudos to the generational wealth that he's created for him and his sons. But there's. This was a little bit of an egotistical move, but good investment for Tesla. Elon, of course is taking that lead back. Of course. And then also it's a sign of confidence for what's to come. I know he was at a summit this past weekend. Elon looks focused and I've always said focus Elon when he's not. The alternative state is a great leader, great entrepreneur. Will the stock come back down as a result? Eventually, yes. Expiration is on Friday. Be mindful of that. It did send the stock climb, but anytime we have a bounce this much of like 5% or 6% in a day, you are going to revert back to the mean. So I, I think Tesla fall back to maybe 38852 at some point point that would be a good potential buying price and another one is at 406.65. But in terms of buybacks, it is a vote of confidence and I will say ever since he's left the White House and him and Trump Panther kerfuffle, he's had a different level of focus that we hadn't seen maybe in the prior year or two. And him, Vlad 10 of Satya, that elite tech entrepreneurship class, it seems like they're more focused than ever. Going back to the conversation that you guys have with magic, these next three years are incredibly important and it seems like he realizes that as well. So he's focused on Starlink, Neuralink, Tesla. So you have to remain bullish on Tesla for the next three or four.

[Shy]

Years until you say, when you say he's focused, what do you mean we?

[Rashad]

I mean I was critical of the alternative supplement use two years ago. But, and we talked about this before, like when you're doing a SWOT analysis on the threats, you don't want to have the White House and President upset with you. Ever since they broke up, you haven't heard him do anything but really work. And that's an amazing thing. Like it go back to the, to the bud, Terence Crawford thing. You don't hear anything about Terence other than him working out.

[Shy]

Because Elon's been on Twitter. He's still on Twitter every day.

[Rashad]

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Shy]

He's talking about, he's talking about the Charlie Kirk thing non stop. He wants to put billboards in every city. He's talking about the Ukrainian girl. How come that thing like he's, he's still playing that the extreme, but that's on his platform.

[Rashad]

But from what I hear from someone who works at Tesla, he's at headquarters more than he used to be, even prior to being in Washington. So he, he's still doing his soldier boy thing on Twitter for sure, but he's in the office more kind of rallying the troops since that chip of being in the White House is went away. The whole Doge thing is one away.

[Troy]

So yeah, I think it, it definitely is an ego play. And back 2.6 nearly million shares. The largest single private acquisition in the history. I think it was about a billion dollars. So what does that do? I think it speaks to conviction in your company. Right. You should believe in your company. When people see you believe in your company that much. Yeah, that usually shows confidence. So when you see CEOs or you see companies buying back, that's what it is. There's a certain amount of shares that are outstanding. If they take those shares off the market, that raises the value for their existing shares. So that's happened. That's what's happened here with Tesla. I think the focus when we think Tesla, I think that has changed and he's kind of getting away from the idea of it just being the EV company, which is why the sentiment has just been Robo Taxi and Optimus, and that is going to lead it to the future. Even last week when we saw that vote of confidence, they created an actual plan to make him a trillionaire. Right. He has to meet certain incentives. The incentives, some of them were like, yeah, you have to sell this amount of cars. But the other part was like, hey, Optimus has to do this. These other ventures have to do this. And so there's a pathway so that the board at Tesla obviously firmly believes in him. It doesn't matter what he says or what he puts on Twitter.

[Rashad]

Not to cut you off.

[Troy]

I don't even know if it matters. Right. I'm not sure. Because every time they vote, they vote in his favor, correct?

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Troy]

So, I mean, at this point it doesn't, it, it really doesn't matter. But yeah, this is one of those things.

[Rashad]

All right.

[Troy]

I, I'm watching the space, even from a standpoint of, of Larry Ellison like that, that's a partner of his. They do business together.

[Rashad]

They do.

[Troy]

I agree with you. I think the time of it is very interesting. And it's one of those things. We saw Oracle pull back. Now he's number one. It comes a buyback. Let me get some of these. These stakeholders that are inside the company and shareholders, let's make them happy. The stock has kind of been consolidating and trending on the downward. Here's a vote of confidence. I believe in it. This is how much I believe in it.

[Rashad]

Yeah. And also for my technicians, anytime they get from that 412 to 439,59 range, there's usually a pullback of some sort. So be mindful of that. For those of you who are looking to in today. I wouldn't get in today at that price. Wait for a pullback and then you'll be a. Okay.

[Troy]

Yeah, it's sitting right at its December 24th high. We got 421. We saw us obviously pull back and now we're right back at that line. So we'll see if it could break that, that resistance level. Those are always key to watch. Right. Can it break through that 4:45 line? And if it does, where does it go? So we'll see what happens over the next couple of weeks. I like that you said expiration is happening this Friday. Because it is. Yeah, we'll see. But you know, on Thursday, the Fed chair will speak, so we'll see.

[Rashad]

Oh, my God. What do we think is gonna happen on Thursday?

[Troy]

I think it's 100 guarantee at this point that the, they're gonna, he's gonna lower rates. It's just about how much he's gonna lower him at this point.

[Rashad]

How much?

[Troy]

Yeah, is it a quarter or, or is it a half a percent or basis point? Yeah, the, the jobs reports that keep coming back and being revised, they all point to that. That same idea of, hey, the job market is, is slowing down, inflation is going to go up. What are we going to do? I think it's his. It's almost his hand hasn't been forced, but it has been forced. Right. I think it's foregone conclusion that this will happen. What I've seen now, which is interesting is that originally they said that there would be two cuts that'll happen. Now that third one is starting to pop up. People are starting to say, hey, there may be room if we continue on the path with the job numbers. Looking like this CPI came back kind of like at what they had estimated. If they stay like this, then maybe there's a third cut that happens in December. So that'll be interesting to watch.

[Rashad]

Do you think that they invested more into the numbers being released to force his hand a little bit more?

[Troy]

I said that last week. I said that last week. Right when the original numbers came out we were like, don't, that's pretty low. Then they got revised and came back even lower than that. And it was like, well, they're starting to put the billboards up per se. Hey, look at this, look at this, look at this. If you don't react right now, you're not doing your job. And so they've kind of laid the, the path for them.

[Rashad]

Hey, we've been telling you guys forever the job market is in sham. Like the real number is probably three and a half million jobs over four years is not there. All these positive jobs. I'm like, where.

[Troy]

Hospitality, that's what they'll tell you.

[Rashad]

Bottle service maybe. But no, they're not there.

[Troy]

The bottle service.

[Shy]

Well, speaking of that, so Jamie diamond said that it's a weakening in the economy and as you said, nearly 1 million phantom jobs. As far as the, they're saying that the numbers aren't real. Even Jamie diamond said like, you know, the market is still showing the economy is weakening. A lot of things don't make sense. Maybe potentially AI can solve this problem as far as getting real accurate data. But 93 chance of recession. UBS is, is saying in the next year, I believe, or next couple of years. But like I said, the stock market is at all time high, Nasdaq all time high, S P 500 all time high, Gold all time high. Bitcoin is not far from all time high.

[Rashad]

Yep.

[Shy]

So okay, is this a house of cars that is going to come crashing down?

[Rashad]

To be honest, I don't know. Because I don't know even with the, the jobs numbers. Right. I don't know if they didn't want him to cut rates, if the real number would ever came out. So they revised what the definition of a recession was before. And then when I talk to people who are Analysts, they're like, okay. They may start announcing sector specific. I'm like, the hell is that? They're like, well, recession in midsize banks, but not global banks or sas. Economy but not major tech. And I'm like, when did this start happen? I'm like, last three years. So they're literally changing a rule book right in front of you. So do I feel like we've been in recession since maybe 23? A soft one. Pause if it does need it. But I don't know if they'll announce a full blown recession, especially given who's in office and the control that is had at the time. Because that word is so terrifying and sends ramifications throughout the market. And also there's a tale of two economies. Like I was saying this over the weekend, I've never seen the market fly so high. But if you're not invested, it feels like 08 09, 2010. In the economy, at least in 2008, everyone was affected. Whether you were rich or poor. It feels like only the, the. If you're making less than 150, you're going through a recession. If you're making 200 and up, you're not. So there's a divergence in the economy overall. But I don't even know if they'll announce that we are in a recession. That's the scary part. Like the numbers are being released selectively to tell the truth and then selectively being hidden when they don't want that R word to come out.

[Troy]

Yeah, it's, it's a new day and age, man. I think I was going to start with you. You kind of said, and I think we've kind of alluded to this before, that there's a recession happening somewhere in the market. There's always some. Right. Like it's always happening in terms of when we think that we'll see a recession like we did with the pandemic. I don't know. I don't, I don't see the signs.

[Rashad]

Right.

[Troy]

UBS has said something, but the Federal Reserve bank of New York said there's a 20 chance next year.

[Rashad]

And so even look at the gap in that report, 93 versus 20, it's.

[Troy]

Like, what, what's happening here? The. So then you got to look at, at deeper data, right? Yeah. If we look at the economy, if we look at valuations of these companies, if we look at expansion, does that speak to a slowdown? Right. We just watched the company say we're going to provide 30 billion to another company last week I. 300 billion. I'm sorry, I don't even want. I left a zero out. 300 billion. And that's a private company.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Troy]

Right. So the private market is still there. You're still seeing IPOs. We're seeing companies come to the market and they're running technology. Certainly doesn't seem like there's going to be a recession. So it's tough. But there will be one somewhere. Healthcare. It feels like it was in one this year.

[Shy]

Well, I think we're talking about two different things. You talking like the valuation and performance of publicly traded companies. It's not necessarily directly related to the average person as far as living. There's more jobs. We talked about this last week.

[Troy]

Right.

[Shy]

Where there's more jobs, there's more people unemployed than jobs available.

[Rashad]

Right.

[Shy]

That's a. That's a disturbing trend.

[Rashad]

That's scary.

[Troy]

Yep.

[Shy]

Right. So we know that people can't find work by design. And we also know that even more jobs are going to be eliminated or downsized or shortened over the next five to 10 years. That's what we know also.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Shy]

So the signs are there are there for economic trouble. Companies are still doing well some, but the average person is struggling financially. We see that travel is down. We see that. I mean there's a variety of different factors that we can go through. So does the signs are actually pointing towards I think economics.

[Rashad]

But a recession.

[Troy]

I'll argue that. Right. The question was do we see a recession happen in 2026? A recession by definition is two negative quarters. So we can have all like on a personal like. Yes, those things are all true. But if we're going by definition, then the market would have to have two.

[Shy]

Negative quarter by definition, not the market's gdp.

[Troy]

Well, two negative quarters which would be determined by how. What moves. A number of factors.

[Shy]

A number of factors.

[Rashad]

I've always said 27. When we did Breakfast Club a couple years ago, I said 27. But if you look at to Rashad' point, even in this company in recession targets, with the exception of Costco and Walmart.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

Lululemon Destroy. No one's saying anything. And once again we were negative for two quarters before and they changed the definition.

[Shy]

True.

[Rashad]

I've never seen it happen.

[Damon Frost]

Right.

[Troy]

So that's why. And that. That goes back to the point I'm saying it's happening in certain sectors. It is happening. That's why I think when they say it's cyclical. Right. Like. Well, when it's. It goes on the opposite end of the cyclical pattern then that technically is in that recession. Like so you just brought up consumer discretionary and retail. We're seeing it happen right now. There's going to be a vast change that's happening right on the other end. And if we look at energy, where that's headed, you can see that that's coming out of what looks like it could have been recession technology in the semis.

[Rashad]

Right.

[Troy]

They're not in a recession. But we've seen it 2022. But that has been the complete opposite. And they led the NASDAQ to drive down 32. So it, it feels like recessions kind of feel like secular at this point, which is some.

[Rashad]

I'm gonna be very honest. Like a sector specific recession is like cheating on Saturdays and saying that I'm faithful on Monday through Friday. Like what the hell are we talking? Like even economists like Buffalo that they won't tell the truth unless it's for their benefit. And once again I don't think this jobs number would have came out unless they were trying to pressure him to cut rates to send the market flying higher. Even like if we talk about flat 10 of a Robin Hood, the introduction of AI into Robin Hood to be able to make your own indicator. Like we're seeing technological advancement at scale. But anybody that I talk to that is like been a coder, the vibe coding thing is starting to become real. And like Rashad just pointed out, AI is going to kill a lot of jobs. Like there was an industry of coders that made indicators for traders. Robin Hood just ate that market in one announcement.

[Troy]

I think it's part of it.

[Rashad]

I would argue, right.

[Troy]

That that's part of it. Right people? And when we talked about how do we get inflation numbers to come down, the certain metrics that you have to see, right. You have to see that job number come down. Yeah, they've seen that. They made sure that it came down even further than we thought. Right. So now it's pointing to, like I said, they've actually laid out the game plan form. If he doesn't react now, there's going to be tons of pressure.

[Rashad]

And the Warren Buffett indicator, the entire market is strongly overvalued. The ratio is 217. It factors in the U. S stock market value versus the annualized GDP. Like all the signs are flashing. But it's like the halves have found a way to avoid recession while the have nots get double the tsunami of the financial burner. It's scary. And then for those who you are, well to do if you think this is not going to affect you. Oh, it is, right? Oh, it is.

[Troy]

How, how far are we? I guess I'll open this up about everybody. How far are we from a universal basic income?

[Shy]

We're far because of the political structure that we live in in America. But also there's a global, there's going to be a global reset and it's going to be a global recession. Please, you see all the signs is there if you're paying attention politically, there's anti immigration, strong right wing parties that's popping up all over, including Japan.

[Rashad]

Yes, talk about it.

[Shy]

Japan, Australia, we already know. America, Brazil. This is a, this is a global fight back. That's a sign, that's a sign of economic uncertainty and people being scared because when, when times are good, you're not worrying about that. You start worrying. Fear mongering. Fear mongering comes when people are nervous. Then you add artificial intelligence, then you add government spending across the board is insane. So only so long that you can put a band aid on a gunshot wound. Eventually you're gonna have to figure things out.

[Troy]

Does that happen in 26.

[Rashad]

The pullback? No, I, I, I think we'll start to see signs of it in 27.

[Troy]

Okay.

[Rashad]

Yeah, I think we'll see signs of it.

[Shy]

The EU's in shambles. France is on the verge of collapse. Yeah, I mean you can go on and on, Dan, you're not even talking about global uncertainty. As far as Canada, the safety concerns. Safety concerns around the world.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Shy]

Middle east is, is exploding daily. It's, it's not getting any better. It's only getting worse.

[Rashad]

And there seems to be very little collaboration amongst the world leaders besides bricks to even fix some of the debt issues and some of the declines. Like I keep saying it, for the first time in history, we have a billionaire in Ray Dalio and a billionaire in Vlad 10 of telling us scale the ills of American society, that you have to invest is mandatory. Even some people, it's like, well, he's doing that because he wants more use on this platform. For the record, Vlad doesn't need more users. Vlad's already rich as hell. You're seeing more people talk about this because they see that the job market, the job market of the 1990s and 2000s and the United States is never going to come back. Even for those of you who are applying, I said this before and you're improving your resume with AI. They have AI tools that are flagging African American candidates out of the positions for using it. Like at Scale. I keep saying the part of the AI will be a Trojan horse to make the wealth gap wider and it's going to affect us first. But whatever we go through, the country as a whole is going to seem to go through a few years later. So I think we'll start to see a part of that trickle down effect in a negative fashion start to happen in 27.

[Shy]

Okay, let's talk about microstrategy. I know people had asked questions about that last week. We didn't get a chance to cover it. But MicroStrategy had an interesting couple of years. If you followed Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy and you know it's interesting because they're still up year to date. 22. But they've struggled and especially over the last like three months. Yeah, they peaked at 455 and now they're down to like 322. And people, some people can't fully understand that because it's been tied with bitcoin. And bitcoin is, hasn't dropped as drastically as MicroStrategy. Even though it's not at its all time high, Bitcoin is not too far from it. So people have concerns about MicroStrategy. It's a few things to keep in concern. One is that they didn't get accepted into the S P500. That was something that hurt sentiment. Robin Hood took the spot and people, some people thought that that microstrategy was going to be S P500. Michael Saylor gave an interview, he said that that's not a big deal because he wasn't even thinking about the S P500. That usually doesn't happen until a couple of years down the line. So he's playing kind of damage control on that. And then a few other government regulations and even I think they, they try to propose a law, I think they did where they, a company is limited as far as the amount of bitcoin that they can actually hold on their books. So there's been a few things. Yeah, there's been a few things that have hurt MicroStrategy outside of the regular just tracking bitcoin. But Sailor is still pretty bullish on the whole situation. They're still buying bitcoin at tremendous amounts and microstrategy has always been something that, that was a leverage play for bitcoin. Meaning that ideally in a perfect scenario it goes up much faster than bitcoin when bitcoin goes up. But it also goes down faster than bitcoin when bitcoin goes Down. Okay, so where does microstrategy stand right now?

[Rashad]

I think people are incredibly pessimistic at a time when they should be optimistic about it. I've had my, of course, my fair share of thoughts about Michael Sailor, but the lesson on diversification being a myth is clearly illustrated here. Hyper concentration is the way to go. If it gets down to 298.17, it's a place that I really like it. The thing that I am worried about what you illustrated is that regulation of how much bitcoin you can have on the books. And I'm going to be honest, I think it's unfair to do this to him now. Him and Kathy's situation are a little bit different. But I feel as if in that crypto dinner was telling who was at that proverbial table. I think they're picking on him. But I. Michael has been incredibly resilient in having that many bitcoins on their balance sheet is only going to be in their favor. So. But 298 is a price. If they get to that point that I would love to have an entry on it. And I think they're just going through a down cycle now. But ultimately, ultimately they will be okay. I wouldn't worry about this too much. I think people who are also pessimistic may have bought too high and at 375 and above range and it's just coming back to where it should be. But by next year I think they'll definitely be okay. And especially if we start to get into recession talk or economic contraction, I think they're going to benefit incredibly well as a result because all the money is flying to zones of safety like bitcoin. Micro strategy, Nvidia gold. People are trying to park money where they're not. They're going to get a guaranteed return. And on a dark horse side, I think micro strategy leads the pack. Yeah, for sure.

[Troy]

You're still bullish.

[Shy]

Yeah. I mean if you believe in bitcoin, you got to believe.

[Rashad]

Yeah, you can't.

[Shy]

That fates are linked together.

[Rashad]

Yeah. Because this is the ultimate hedge. Like I don't know what he's doing on the tech side outside of this, but to have this much focus on just one asset and now Timely is doing the same thing with Ethereum. Unless you think that the value of bitcoin is going to go to back to 50,000. I don't. Which I see a lot of those reports coming out of a drop in the 72,050. I don't see it there's. Too much institutional and global involvement for it to have that deep of a decline. So Yeah, I think MicroStrategy would be a, a okay.

[Troy]

Yeah, it's just one of these things. If you watch when Bitcoin kind of consolidates, if you track it with, with MicroStrategy, you'll start to see it kind of consolidates as well. And so when it runs up to 125, it pulls back down to 110 or 115 where it's at now. You'll, you'll see MicroStrategy obviously come down a little bit just because of the buying power and the prices that is buying at. So watch those two things, the correlation between the two when it peaks and when it consolidates.

[Rashad]

Michael, better go talk to Donald and Eric and David Sacks though.

[Troy]

All right, Eric, different type of talk now.

[Rashad]

Listen, this is the crypto check in. Yeah, you better go to Washington.

[Troy]

He part of the club now for sure.

[Rashad]

Go, go check in.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Shy]

ASML company that we spoke about several different times, but it's doing well.

[Rashad]

Don't say.

[Troy]

Yeah, man, ASML is been talking about for years now. I feel like in the past three classes has been at the top of the list in terms of how we need to look at this company. I think in, in last month or maybe in July when we did the market Monday's little segment, I showed people exactly what their operation is in this AI revolution in terms of the machinery that they produce, having a monopoly on that machinery and what it's going to mean for all the hyperscalers in the world. The Metas, The Nvidias, the TSMs, they all are part of this. And at the top of the food chain is them because they produce in terms of AI right now. Right. The food chain starts with them in terms of machinery. Then it goes down to tsm and then it goes to the hyperscalers, Nvidia included. So one of the issues that we saw over the past six months is that it not being a US company and tariffs being put on. Yeah, Europe at 30%, I believe that's going to affect the business. And it's tough to predict your bottom line when you don't know what the, the tariffs are going to be going forward. That has kind of eased a little bit the demand for from the hyperscalers. We saw Nvidia report, we saw Broadcom report, we saw Oracle just report that demand tells you that how much they're going to be needed going forward. One of the issues that they had was the price of the little, the LUV machine that they, they make, I think it's like 400 million PER. So I mean, it takes years to build those that is coming. They're figuring out how to make that in a more efficient way and they're taking on more clients. So the debt that they used to spend to try to get the machines done is starting to come down off the books and more clients are coming in, into the, the fold. So ASML has been one that we've been talking, I mean, for years. I feel like in 2020, we were talking about ASML.

[Rashad]

Yeah. Or at least, at least 21 at the latest.

[Troy]

Had a crazy run up past a thousand, pulled back down to 600s. I know a few people grabbed some 600 calls, some 650 calls on the way up, and now we're sitting here over 800. And it's, it's a nice run that it's on. Definitely. Right. Once it. Again, when we talk about support and resistance, once it hits so many support levels and runs through them, you can understand the importance of this company, why it's needed.

[Rashad]

Yeah, absolutely. I have to get into 982 by summer of next year. 982.83. So if you're long ASML, I'll continue to hold for the long term.

[Troy]

Yeah, it's a pricey one too, especially if you're trading options. It's pricey. It's in my big boy heavyweight category. Those are the ones. The, the contracts are sometimes $9,000, $10. It's a big boy. So I don't suggest it for everybody, but we understand the importance of the company. Okay.

[Rashad]

April, though, you got to give them credit. They, they've done a great job. Yeah, yeah.

[Troy]

And that's why I said. And rather than just listening to what we're saying, understand why we're saying it is the big thing. Right. So if you understand the food chain quote unquote, of how semiconductors are leading the economy or leading the market, then you understand the role that this company plays.

[Rashad]

Yeah. And I think the CEO Kristoff is a good CEO, but I think he does need a stronger PR push and take a playbook out of Jensen and. And Vlad 10 of Playbook, because I think the company's too valuable for him to not be known. And I think that will offset some of the tariff international concerns as well.

[Troy]

Yeah. The, the one thing that is a concern if we're looking at it long term, is what role would they play when it switches over to quantum computing so that we Got to just be mindful of.

[Rashad]

Mindful of for sure.

[Troy]

Right? Because like yeah, you can make the, the wafers, right. And you can make the, the three nanometer. After three, maybe it's two. And then after that we probably pretty much go into to quantum computing. What role will they play when the evolution goes to that And I don't know if they have the answer yet. I don't know the answer to it.

[Rashad]

Maybe Apple intelligence will work after we have quantum computing. Back to you, Troy. Rashad.

[Troy]

I'm gonna ask Claude what, what they think.

[Rashad]

Go by Claude. Apple.

[Shy]

You don't think that Apple's the new feature is beneficial?

[Rashad]

What feature? AirPods.

[Troy]

Yeah, yeah, it's cute if you, if.

[Rashad]

You about to go do your.

[Troy]

Come on man.

[Rashad]

Fire. But I mean Meta Glasses had them probably two years ago. Them Samsung earbuds had them. They have some on Tick Tock. I don't know how well they work, but a bunch of guys hit me was like, yo, I got these other Tick Tock shop. I'm like, you're telling too much on yourself about your Jamaica pin. Dr. Trip. I do think that they're innovating on the hardware front. I just think that they're missing.

[Troy]

On the phone.

[Rashad]

Investment and improvement on the phone.

[Troy]

Yeah, they're missing, but. So that's the thing, right? They are missing the phone clear cut. Right. But the stock is still trading over 3. What is it?

[Rashad]

Yeah, the stock is.

[Troy]

That means that there's a part of. When I looked into this, I said there's a piece that we've been missing. We've been missing. We've been harsh but fair. We've been fair about the critique of Apple. But there is a piece that we have missed every time we spoke about them. Yes, the phone has fallen short. They debuted the 17. I don't even, I mean I'm not impressed. The wearables is a business and we told you that could be its own business by itself. Yeah, that has done well. Services has done well. Right? We can't, we have to be fair. Services have done well. The MacBooks have performed well. IPads have performed well. The phone just has not performed well. But here's what they have done. Here's what they. They've taken more control of their own ecosystem that we haven't, we haven't given them credit for. Right. Instead of going out and getting GPUs, they decided we're going to create our own M1, M2. They put that inside even now with their force of manufacturing that the president has put on them right now they're saying, we're going to do that here. They're taking control of their supply chain more and more now. They should be doing more in terms of acquisitions and maybe that will happen before the year's out. I've read some rumors, right. But they are starting to take control of their supply chain, which will help their bottom line long term.

[Rashad]

From a services standpoint, when people give pushback, I'm like, well, the services, I'm like, I know y' all got that data for me. Got you. But you can't keep incrementally increasing prices. Like you guys posted it. The rumor of the prices may go up to 2,000 for the phone. It's like, okay, you can end up pricing yourself out of a market if the feel is not premium, the hardware feels premium. AirPod Max is amazing as you talked about. I think it was a great addition to the new AirPods. But if you look at what OpenAI has created with Chat GPT, it looks like what iOS should be like. Five years ago, Microsoft missed out on investing into TikTok. Made a hell of a rebound by investing into OpenAI. I just haven't seen that kind of move from Apple. And I think as a result, and it's not just my thought, the entire world is now saying it's. It was a miscalculation to not have better. And the miss on the car, the miss on healthcare, they pretty much have given up on that space for the time being. I just think they could calibrate a hell of a lot better.

[Troy]

But investment in the investment in Tick Tock and was in what way?

[Rashad]

Remember when it was like around five years ago when Microsoft was trying to make a bid to get Tick Tock and get it.

[Troy]

Ah, I'm glad.

[Rashad]

But. But they got open AI. Hell of a constellation. You know, they've been more focused than Apple has and I think Apple has gotten a little bit comfortable in just having the ecosystem and not looking at the thing. What is next? And skating to what is next.

[Troy]

I want, I want to revisit this conversation because there's an important company that did win that bid five years ago when the president of the United States, who is also the president now, decided to say that we need to ban tick tock in 2020 of August. A company in September did win the bid. Y', all. Y' all know who the company is.

[Rashad]

Oracle for sure.

[Troy]

So here's what you do. This is your homework right now. For everybody that's watching right now, this is your homework. In 2020, September of 2020, I want you to go look at Oracle's chart and look what it's done. Look what it's done since that moment. Here's why that's important. This is, this is why that deal was so important. Number one, Oracle was not a cloud service. Yet this is the first client that they had to prove that they can actually take on a large database, a social media database and correct. Create the United States data for Tick Tock so people think that China owns it. Your data. No, Oracle actually has your data. When it comes to Tick Tock here in the United States, what they've shown over five years is that they can scale it. They can scale it. Why is that important? Because in June of this year they also got another platform to run data for. That company's name is OpenAI. Right. So if they didn't have the TikTok deal in September of 2020, they don't get the 300 billion from OpenAI this year. They don't have the run that they have this year. When we told you about who's going to be running cloud, obviously we know Amazon, obviously we know Azure, Microsoft, we talked about Google Cloud. I said number four was going to be Oracle. Why? Because they've proven it already. Now here's why this is important. Today the President said that they have a buyer for Tick Tock United States. Buyer. I wonder who it is.

[Rashad]

Power of relationship.

[Troy]

Wonder who.

[Rashad]

Power of relationship.

[Shy]

Well, speaking of Oracle, let's talk about Oracle. Obviously that was the talk of the town last week when Oracle stock went crazy and made Larry Ellison the richest man in the world for that time period. And we posted it about the options that you spoke about before. Yeah, on EY University. And it was a whole, the whole thing. So yeah, talk about the Oracle play.

[Troy]

Well, a part of it was that it actually this is like when you go into those, those rabbit holes of research. Something happened in January of this year when two gentlemen were invited to the White House and a company was missing. And that gentleman was Sam Altman and the other gentleman was Larry Ellison and the CEO SoftBank. They were there to announce Stargate, which made me think, I'm like stargate, that sounds very familiar. Right. If you do the research. Stargate was actually initiative that Microsoft and OpenAI created. They spearheaded. This was their idea, Microsoft and OpenAI, which makes sense, their partners. When they came to announce Stargate, I think it was the day after inauguration. Microsoft wasn't there. And so my mind, this seems pretty funny. How did Larry Ellison get into this position to now be partner with OpenAI. I'm like, okay, well, let's see his ties to the President. So you start going back, which is why I went all the way back to September of 2020 and it was a huge, huge piece on it in the Washington Post about how Oracle is now going to be the cloud provider for TikTok. So then I said, oh, let me go look at the charts. All right, well, the chart showed and you can see it now, right? What is done since that moment? I said, okay, Oracle's onto something, right? They're not just hardware, this is not just a software company. They're going into a space where they've seen Amazon dominate, they've seen Microsoft dominate. They have one of the wealthiest men in the world. At the time, he was number four. I said, they have capital to invest in this space. Lo and behold, in late May, there was rumors that they were going to partner with a company in the AI space. That company, obviously, we know now, was OpenAI. In July when that was announced, I said, oh, this is something that we have to be involved in. They're going to have a moment. They're going to have a moment. I've been saying they're going to have a moment. That moment happened. They became a fourth player inside of the cloud service. And if you know anything about AI, you know, memory is going to be important, right? Cloud service is going to be important, infrastructure is going to be important. And who are the hyperscales that they can work with? Obviously signing that 300 billion. I mean. 300 billion. Yes, it's just absolutely incredible. And so you, you saw the run up because the growth that it looks like out into 2028 is tremendous, tremendous. And so they now have a vertical inside their business that didn't exist seven years ago, but it's here now. And it's only going to grow as OpenAI grows again. Open is not a public company yet, but you can see how it's starting to infiltrate and disrupt plenty of industries. In fact, an industry that their partner Microsoft was dominating in, Right. They are now just announced that they're going to be creating a LinkedIn like product. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, right. So they have a great partner, but they're adding, you know who else they've added. That's why I said Larry, Larry and Elon is pretty interesting because, yep, they are the as well. And so now Nvidia is in talks to add Oracle because, yeah, you can have cloud service, but you can't have Enough. Right. And you want to have a multitude of partners and they've gone into that right space, which is why another company and I, when I say the four, I'm talking about the top four in America because somebody will argue that Alibaba, in terms of the globe is number four. And that's true, they are. When we're talking about American companies in American cloud services, it's clear cut now that Oracle's number four.

[Rashad]

Yeah, for sure.

[Shy]

Okay, so as far as, as far as Oracle, what is the, the outlook as far as the company is concerned? Stock price.

[Rashad]

I mean, I mean, of course I had to rise to 3, 45, 72. Larry's one of the best entrepreneurs definitely in the tech space. Great relationship, man. I can definitely see in a hidden 408 next year, 92. But in terms of the partnerships that he has, and Larry's one of the few people who, he's a shrewd business person but has great relationship with everyone in tech, I wouldn't be surprised if it hits 510 by 2027. So it's going to be a slow burn. It's not going to be a company that gives you 80 return year over year, nothing like that. But I definitely see them get to the 500 range by 27.

[Troy]

Yeah, see, it's a unique situation, It's a unique story. That's why you have to be early on the story. But the story is not over. I think it definitely speaks to about where capex is going when you, when, when you see what they're doing. And it's interesting, like how they've positioned this. I'll, I'll send a post so people can understand how this works, why they're buying Nvidia GPUs, how they're using it to get Cloud and they're also charging it. It's a whole tax incentive. But yeah, the story is far from over. I think it's interesting, last week, you know, we keep telling people, well, what, what should I do when I reach my gains? And I'm like, well, if you had your plan, then you know what to do, right? Like, you're up 100. Some people were up 500. They're like, what should I do? I'm like, what, what, what do you want to do? Like, you're up 500, there's nothing to sneeze at, Be very happy for that, but have the plan of what you're going to do. Then we saw, you know, when it ran up to 331, which was incredible, right? It was at 240 the night before the day. The next day it opened, it was at 2:30. People were saying, wait, it's dropping it. It's getting down to 315. It's getting down to 309. It's under 300. Yeah, well, people are going to take profit when.

[Rashad]

You have to know when it runs. Right.

[Troy]

Of course you have to take profit, but take real clear inventory of where it stopped at. Right. So that becomes that new resistance line. So I remember shout out to Abby, him and NPR actually did a call. I'm like, yo, watch that 290 line. If it, if it goes under 290, we could fall a little bit more. But if it stays above that, let's just mark that line. And it stayed at 292 the entire Friday. And then today, obviously, we saw a spike up again. So, yeah, the story's not over on it. If you miss this run, obviously. All right, the story's not over. You can still get positions. It will have some, some pullback, but.

[Rashad]

It'S here to stay up a hundred bucks.

[Troy]

Yeah, like that. Not me. It's abnormal, bro.

[Rashad]

The largest 23 to 345. Like, of course you're going to have a pullback, but once, like, you have to know your targets. Like 100, 250, 500. Like most investors in any investment, whether it's venture angel, if you get 500% return, that is a clear signal profit.

[Troy]

100% transparency. When they had their earnings, I was on the phone, I said, look, if we open at 267 tomorrow, I'm happy.

[Rashad]

Right?

[Troy]

We were in the 250 call. I'm like, we get to 267 by tomorrow, I'm happy with that. To watch it climb a hundred dollars was like, whoa. Yeah, this is unprecedented. So shout out to everybody else, know your targets. Yeah, we're not done yet, though. We're not done. We got some more companies we gotta talk about.

[Rashad]

Stargate and that partnership with open AI. My Lord, that's. That. That'll take them another five or six years out.

[Troy]

Yeah, so they're talking about out to 2028 with this 300 billion. So that's, I mean, we're in 2025. You got maybe two and a half years to that point. What happens after that point? What will the economy look like at that point? What will AI look like at that point? I mean, it's going to be vastly different than where we are now.

[Rashad]

And if that relationship with Microsoft changes, they may be in pole position B to B side facts.

[Troy]

You want to read this off the structure? Read it. All right, so this is a dope post. And maybe we'll post it. It says one, Nvidia sells GPUs to Oracle. Oracle uses those to power its Data centers. Right. Two, Oracle builds Cloud on those GPUs. Three, Nvidia rents compute back via signed deals with Oracle. So, right. This is that money cycle we're talking about. So Nvidia gets reoccurring revenue from hardware sales and cloud services without owning all the data centers. Oracle turns capex, the buying of the GPUs into open revenue by renting compute to Nvidia, open AI and others. X AI is another one. These are money cycles.

[Rashad]

Stock club over the weekend. Yep.

[Troy]

You saw it? Yeah. Yeah.

[Rashad]

Like power partnership. Follow the money, follow the money. And I keep saying it. This administration, even though it has some ills in it, they're showing you the cap table. Literally. They're not hiding who the power players are going to be in the future. I keep saying Sam Altman was sitting right next to Trump as a non publicly traded CEO. They're telling you what's next. The table is already set. Literally just follow the money of, of who's up there.

[Troy]

And, and think about the family. When we talk about Larry Ellison, last month we were talking about his son purchasing Sky Dance for Paramount.

[Rashad]

Right.

[Troy]

That's a network. Cbs, Cartoon Network, Nickel, entire network. They last week they're in a bid to own Warner Discovery, two networks in two months.

[Rashad]

Yep.

[Troy]

That's. This is different.

[Rashad]

Generational wealth different. Yeah.

[Shy]

So let's, let's, let's talk about. Okay. Speaking of Trump. So Trump has floated the idea that companies no longer. Companies should no longer provide earning report on a quarterly basis and they should switch to semi annually instead. And said on Truth Social, subject to the S. SEC approval, it would save money and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies. Did you ever hear the statement that China has a 50 to 100 year view of management of a company, whereas we run our companies on a quarterly basis? Not good.

[Rashad]

First time in history. I'm gonna say he's on his own. Trump and I, I said three or four years ago we should go to annual reporting.

[Troy]

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[Troy]

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[Troy]

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[Rashad]

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[Shy]

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[Rashad]

Whoa.

[Shy]

When did I get here?

[Troy]

What do you mean? I swear it was just moments ago.

[Rashad]

That I accepted a great offer from Carvana online. I must have time traveled to the future.

[Troy]

It was just moments ago.

[Damon Frost]

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[Troy]

Here's your check for that great offer.

[Rashad]

It is the future. It's.

[Troy]

It's the present and just the convenience of Carvana. Sorry to blow your mind.

[Damon Frost]

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[Rashad]

Happens all the time.

[Troy]

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[Rashad]

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[Troy]

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[Rashad]

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[Rashad]

I think the cycle of focusing on three months at a time when all of our competition is focused on 20 and 50 year cycles is a huge mistake. It was great back in the day because post 1929 through 33, when we had that big crash, there was companies that were of ill repute that relying about the numbers. I think it's easier to track the data now more than ever. But I. I have long thought for the longest, maybe 10 years that we should report on an annual basis. So for the first time, and not first time, but publicly, I agree with Trump a thousand percent. And I think this adjustment should happen immediately. But it probably won't happen to 28 or 20.

[Troy]

You think, you think it'll happen?

[Rashad]

I think that there should be an adjustment at some point.

[Troy]

Yeah. I only ask because it speaks to the. I'm. I partly agree. I. There is some truth into what you're saying and what he's saying. I think the other part of it is the gross negligence of some of these companies and these CEOs. Like, I still remember the Luke and coffee thing, right? Like I Still remember that now that was a Chinese company. But even super micro, even last 2023 coming into this year, 2024 coming into this year, gross mismanagement and, and no disrespect to anybody at Supermico still believe in the company. But yeah, the numbers were fabricated right to the point where they had to say, hey, if you don't show us the numbers, we're going to delist you. So if you report they didn't get delisted, how do you, how do you deal with that? Companies like that?

[Rashad]

I think if there's any misreporting of numbers, I think the falls would be greater as a result. But if the numbers are met on an annual basis, I think the returns would be even higher. And it's interesting to see what the Fed is going to do in terms of interest rates. I, I know it can cause some and for smaller companies it may give a disadvantage. But for the, the companies that move the world, s P500 NASDAQ, I, I think it would be a lot easier just to have annual reporting and a company can focus on things that really matter because even, even for us, we're not planning three months at a time.

[Troy]

Right.

[Shy]

But it's also harmful. But the reason why it won't happen is because it's harmful for Wall street and it's harmful for the company stocks because all right, if you have, if you miss now, you got to wait a whole year to report back. The quarterly has gone back to the gamification and just the trading mentality of stocks in general where it allows. It's like every week there's somebody that's reporting and then you get to bet on that and then if it doesn't work out and three months later you get to, you know, change your bed or it's, it's plays for. Yes. As far as running a company, it's way more efficient to run a company without giving reports at all honestly. Right. And just focus on, just focus on the pathway forward. But yeah, the annual will make a lot more sense as far as what's good for the company, but what's good for Wall street and what's good for traders, not even just investors. What's good for traders. Quarterly is going to be better because that just gives more opportunity.

[Rashad]

I disagree. Okay.

[Troy]

No, I think both things are true. I think what he's saying is true. I think that's why I said some of the things it's saying. I agree.

[Rashad]

I mean most of the trades are algo now 8 out of 10 traders are algorithm.

[Shy]

Yeah, but it's still.

[Troy]

Yeah, it's.

[Shy]

It's a big deal. Right. It's. It's the investing final four where you get to. It's essentially like betting on Crawford. He's right. Like this, this drum.

[Rashad]

It does give big liquidity events. Yeah. But most, most of them ass kicked on them earnings anyway.

[Troy]

But then the, the liquidity event like the focus now becomes December of each year. Right. Like if it was. If they did it by a calendar year and everybody has different fiscal years. Right. Like.

[Rashad]

Yeah, that's true.

[Troy]

Everybody's fiscal year is different. But even if you die, I would say like a come like I'm looking at Palantir's chart now. Right. If you would have looked at it last year, Right. To enter the year we were training at what, 75. You would have to wait to know how it's done this year to even realize the gains that it's had, which would be. I don't know how you would do it.

[Shy]

And from a transparency standpoint, as far as the investor is not fit. SEC would not approve that because it's not fair to the investor because you could just have 10 months of running amok and nobody knows what the hell is going on.

[Troy]

Right.

[Rashad]

It's like it's more transparency and that's why Trump maybe said semi annual.

[Troy]

That. Yeah, maybe, maybe. Yeah, yeah, that's what I said. The gross mismanagement part is the thing. Right. Like we'll run amok and nobody has to know for a year, you know how much are they going to run off with? We wouldn't know that. Hey, CEO sold 10 million shares. Right. We'd have to wait to see all that.

[Shy]

Well, I think you're selling that. That gets reported different than the quarterly earnings.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Troy]

Okay.

[Rashad]

Yeah. But a lot of this to me because I'm only focusing on exceptional companies that are like Mega Cap or Blue Chip. I don't think it would matter as much. But if it's a company like GameStop, AMC, of course there would be some.

[Troy]

Those would be on it. Yeah. The meme stock thing would, wouldn't exist.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Shy]

Only 33 of family offices have exposure to crypto. Is that a sign of deep skepticism or, or what? I personally think that people, they're not. You're not going to invest in something that you, that you're not 100 confident in. And all the family offices already wealthy. They're managing billions of dollars, trillions of dollars. They're not gonna go with something that you. 80 years old, you're a billionaire, you have there's no benefit and you to.

[Rashad]

Put the risk on the table. Yeah.

[Shy]

That doesn't. I think it has nothing to do with the legitimacy of bitcoin. It has more to do with it's all the money that's being managed and they don't want to do something that they don't understand and like you said.

[Rashad]

Like to not put the risk on the table. And they've used PE to get the same kind of returns they got out of bitcoin with with minimum downside. So just because a class of investor doesn't invest in something doesn't mean that they it has no value. But if you can keep the risk off the table and get the same kind of returns in private equity or venture, why. Why do it?

[Troy]

Yeah. The, the, the goal and the role of the family office is to preserve generations of wealth.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Troy]

And I think what shy saying is spot on. There's an ageism that comes with it. Right. Like it's tough to convince even now it's tough to convince people 50, 60 years old that this is an asset you should invest in. Tell that to a 25 year old. Oh it makes perfect sense. 30 years. Like there's an age that that comes with because they've seen, they've seen it during their lifetime and they've seen the growth of it, of the asset. Yeah.

[Rashad]

Oh, the obvious Netflix. Gotta talk about how ever since they had that Mike Tyson fight how everything post that the WWE has been flawless. Of course the, the fight this weekend was amazing. But if we just talking in terms of stock, is there any other company media wise outside of Google that you would invest in other than Netflix.

[Troy]

Media as in publicly traded streaming media? Yeah, I mean Google.

[Rashad]

Yeah, those are the two.

[Troy]

Yeah, I think those are the two. There was an interesting and piece in the Journal about how the idea of streaming was great but the execution of it over the past three years is going to lead us back into piracy.

[Rashad]

Tell me more. That's fascinating.

[Troy]

Right. So the I can we saw like the largest shutdown of of the pirate will leave the name and I was in history but the idea of cable was a prehistoric thing. Right. And so cord cutting became the thing.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Troy]

And that became a cheaper solution for people to have the same content. But if you looked at your bills especially if you have all these streaming services you're paying more than you did when you had cable. Right. So if you got Netflix now that's 24.99. If you got Disney plus now you're at 2129.

[Rashad]

Yep.

[Troy]

Right. If you got prime, there goes another 12.99. If you did Paramount, you're starting to add up. And if you did YouTube TV, now you talk. You're over 200.

[Rashad]

Yeah. And so piracy. Higher, higher now because I can't lie. Even at.

[Troy]

I think we had it back like yesterday.

[Rashad]

Got shut down and it was.

[Troy]

It was like. That was a story that it got shut down. But when you tried to be. We've seen this especially in. In our lifetime, when something gets banned, something new arises. Right. Whether it was Napster that turned into lime Wire. Like.

[Rashad]

Yeah, although.

[Troy]

And then which. Until they figured out how can we control this thing called illegal down. Oh, wait. Boom. Apple Music.

[Rashad]

Right.

[Troy]

So it. We're head as these. And the prices aren't going down because the content keeps getting better. If you look at the Emmys last night and you look at the shows that won, the leaders came from these streaming services, right? Like Apple TV with. With severance. I think they have. Apple TV has a show with Seth Rogan as well. And they, they did. Well, they cleaned up too. So the content is getting better. But the content cost money. In order to do that, sometimes you got to raise prices. You did cord cutting so people can't share their passwords anymore. All these things you're putting in place, people are gonna start saying like, hey, I'm out, man. I'm gonna figure out how to get this for free.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Troy]

Not us though. Law abiding citizens for sure.

[Rashad]

Are you done with Disney?

[Troy]

I'm not. I'm not done with Disney. I think they're turning it around, man. I think they turn it around. I'm still not sure what the ESPN thing is, but.

[Rashad]

A disaster.

[Troy]

Not gonna.

[Rashad]

This is. My thoughts not Troy. My thoughts. A disaster.

[Troy]

This. No, I'm not. I'm not done. I'm not done. I'll say that. I' ma save it because I got something I'm about to do with the. With the people.

[Rashad]

Gotcha.

[Troy]

There's a few companies I'm going to be talking about in the next class that I think is going to be eye opening. Shout out to Disney and shout out to. I think Disney plus just carried Pharrell at the. He was performing at the Vatican. That was on Disney plus.

[Rashad]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[Troy]

Yeah. Clips was there.

[Rashad]

Shout out to them for production.

[Troy]

That was amazing. Yeah, Drone show was incredible.

[Rashad]

Vatican is different, y'. All. Pharrell, call us whatever you gotta hear. What?

[Troy]

Different, different, different.

[Shy]

Shout out to Pharrell Williams. Yeah, okay, okay, okay. What do we feel about.

[Troy]

Nah, you want me to talk about Micron real quick? Let's do it. I'll do Micron real quick because they're having a moment right now. This is a company. I feel like if we go back in market Mondays, I feel like Shy's always asked me under pressure, like, yo, bro, Micron. People talking about Micron. And now they're having a moment and it's gotten like the, the silencers have come out, right? But Micron is a company and I've talked about this. If it's going to be American made and make America great, then find the American companies that are great. I thought last week was very telling when Cheryl McKisnick, when we talked about infrastructure and data centers, when she talked about the company that she's helping build infrastructure for, it was Micron and it's the Syracuse, I think, well, in the Syracuse region, they're building their data centers up there. They obviously have ones in Idaho as well. But we talked about this when we went to GTC for Nvidia about the partnerships that were existing in the building and the ones who had large imprints, Micron being one of them. They are the leader. They are the leader, the United States leader in high bandwidth memory. In order to have GPUs that have inference. And that's important, right? Young ladies and gentlemen, go look up the word inference in terms of AI. If your AI is going to have inference, it needs to have memory, which Claude needs. All of them need. They are the leader in that space. And why they're having a moment is because typically when people look at dram, which is a form of dram, dram, which is a form of memory, the high wind bam is high bandwidth sector has kind of been pretty cyclical. So like it'll spike and it'll come down. We saw Micron do that, ran up to 131, pulled down to like 77, and now we're up here in the 150s. Why? Because the Catalyst event is upon us. Their earnings is going to be here next week or the 23rd. The 23rd. So if you look at some of these Catalyst events and the timing of them, you have quadruple witching which is going to happen this week. But you have the Fed chair, which is going to lower rates. We told how that's going to affect technology companies, specifically in the semiconductor space. Right. The cost of business goes down, the infrastructure prices go down. That's happening before they report on the 23rd. Analysts have raised their number to 175. Some I've seen up as high as 200. They've been consolidating for so long and people have been in this position for so long that I'm happy that Patience P A Y it has paid off for a company that I said would be here and it's doing well and I think it continues to do, is going to continue to do well. So that's my micron story. We got some more stuff but we're gonna save it.

[Rashad]

Yeah, they'll have a pullback in a little bit but I think ultimately they, maybe by March they'll be at 180 and I can definitely see 201 in about a year and a half. So yeah, patience definitely pays off. For sure.

[Troy]

For sure.

[Rashad]

Absolutely. Understanding the ecosystem, do we think Nvidia will have a pullback because trying to say that they broke monopoly laws or do we think it in the grand scheme of things it won't matter.

[Troy]

I think it's all a distraction, man. Yeah, I think it is. I mean it pulled down to 174. This is a, this is a train that's headed to 200 easily. It just is heading there. We could have these little stops and these goals but if you look at when everybody reports the demand that has not changed. The demand has not changed. Blackwell Ultra is about to be on the pipeline coming out. Reuben's coming. We already know Reuben's on the way. Ruben Ultra is on the way.

[Rashad]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

No, no. They keep innovating and getting better and demand is only going to increase. I know we talked about the hyper concentration a number of customers but even then with them figuring out a way to sell a trip to China and I don't, I don't see this company slowing down anytime soon over the next three or four years.

[Troy]

No. It feels like the deep seek moment. You remember. Do we remember that that happened this year? That happened this year and now trying to say hey we don't, we don't need to have Nvidia GPUs. Okay, well we'll, let's see how that works.

[Rashad]

We'll see when that Ruben come out and whatever they're working on next.

[Troy]

Yep. Alibaba I think is making their own.

[Rashad]

Okay.

[Troy]

Will be mindful of it.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Shy]

All right. All right. Okay. What should people expect for the rest of the month? I know you said traditionally that people stocks drop in the September but we're halfway through the month and it hasn't, it's all, all time highs. So is this still going to be some level of buying opportunity or, or.

[Rashad]

Not it's a buying opportunity every week, every back to Invest fest. Go through your time frames, month, week, day. If you look on those charts, you're going to have opportunity to do so. And just because it did not happen this year doesn't mean that the anomaly is the norm. So even if you look at for Microsoft, we may have opportunity, maybe at 491.37 to get in. It's currently a 512. But if the anomaly is not the norm. So this is an exception to the rule, not the new rule. So. Because if that was the case we would even be caring about changing or raising interest rates. But yeah, I think there'll definitely be opportunity. But look, look on your daily charts for quality companies for when we may pull back and on Q. Q. Q. If we get to like that 574. 79 Mark, I think you'll be good. But if you want to know where to get into the market, you can go to and join the stock club. Prices are out. You can. I've been dropping a bunch of stuff in Telegram, probably five different things a day. Stock club prices are out. If I made you money, please put yes in chat. If you want to be a part of the family and never have to guess where to get in or where to get out, go to Ian invest.com and join the stock club.

[Troy]

That was a bar. That's the bar. Like if they're writing notes right now, write that down. The anomaly is not the norm.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Troy]

And exception to the rule is not the new rule.

[Rashad]

Yeah. That one great year. He looked like Jordan.

[Troy]

He had one great dunk contest.

[Rashad]

He had a dope season.

[Troy]

He averaged 12 points in his rookie season. But he. College. He was crazy.

[Rashad]

Yeah. He was tough in college, y'.

[Damon Frost]

All.

[Troy]

College. He was crazy.

[Shy]

What do you think about Trump saying that? No, no. The smart people don't like him.

[Rashad]

Above my pay grade. That's my version of nobody bigger than the program.

[Troy]

That's interesting.

[Rashad]

No, no. Smart people like him. Is that what he said?

[Troy]

Smart people don't.

[Shy]

Smart people don't like him.

[Troy]

Does that say something about your base or like how do you, how do you interpret that? I don't. I'm just asking for a friend.

[Rashad]

Truth.com true social.

[Troy]

Definitely should go to finances. You're right.

[Rashad]

Smart people don't like him. That's interesting to say that. Is that an indictment or.

[Shy]

I mean I think that that's pretty straightforward. It's pretty straightforward. Self explanatory. Self explanatory. Ladies and gentlemen.

[Troy]

I'm gonna spin that one.

[Shy]

Manzani. It's got an endorsement because politics plays a major part.

[Troy]

Hold on. He just got the endorsement from the governor.

[Shy]

Yeah, he got it from the government.

[Troy]

He did, yeah.

[Shy]

But do you think that that's something that people should be concerned about? A socialist?

[Rashad]

You got the call. So you tell. Yeah, I.

[Troy]

Tell us more.

[Shy]

I mean, you know, people's always going to be some level of concern. I don't know. I haven't spoken to him. Mandani, I'm talking about. I haven't spoken to him. So if he would like to come on the show, he's welcome to express his views of what does it actually mean to be a socialist in New York City. And you know how he's going to handle the business community. More than welcome to come on the show and.

[Troy]

You know, we're.

[Shy]

Lay out his. Lay out his vision for the biggest city in America in the capital of capitalism. If he. If he's interested in having the conversation, he's.

[Troy]

He's well ahead right now. Every. Every poll that they've shown. Yeah, he's well ahead. And even in the Republican candidate is like. Like 17 Republican candidates.

[Rashad]

Not.

[Shy]

Not the threat. The threat is Como Cuomo and Adams.

[Troy]

What they say. Adams. He says he's not dropping out, but all signs are showing that it may make sense for you to just.

[Shy]

But call it. Donald Trump already said if Mondani wins, they're gonna potentially take over the city. Federal government.

[Rashad]

Above my pay grade.

[Troy]

I'm not a resident of New York City, but I appreciate.

[Rashad]

New York business. Interesting times, though. And economically, there does need to be a recalibration of how things are run. That's all I'll say. He does seem fearless, though, and he does seem to have the ear of people. So changes may come, and it may be a precursor to what is going to happen in America overall if we keep having these divergences and price disparities scale. Sign of the times for sure. You eloquently stated it. Yep. Sign of the times. This may be what the next election looks like as well.

[Shy]

Yeah, for sure.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Damon Frost]

100.

[Troy]

Man, we still year one. That's crazy.

[Rashad]

It's been a hell of a year.

[Troy]

Longest year one.

[Rashad]

Oh, Lord.

[Troy]

Wow.

[Rashad]

Once again, just from a sentiment standpoint, I've never seen so many rich and wealthy people work so hard, like they're afraid that a financial tsunami is going to come. Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, Altman. Tim Cook. Satya. I've never seen LeBron Brown ain't retired yet.

[Troy]

Oh, yeah, not yet. Not yet.

[Rashad]

Fertitta. I keep Trump working. Eric Trump, David Sachs. Chamath was at the dinner too. I said, yo, there's some coming.

[Shy]

But, yeah. Mandani, if you're interested, please sit down. Sit down. Let's have a conversation. Let's figure this thing out for the betterment of New York City, to move the city forward in the right direction. We want all parties to be on board with this.

[Rashad]

For sure.

[Shy]

He's gonna. If he's gonna be the next leader of our great city.

[Troy]

Great city of New York.

[Rashad]

And if you have a private conversation at Budokan, text me.

[Troy]

We've moved on to finer dining.

[Shy]

All right, let's bring up our guest. We have a special guest that is joining us for a segment.

[Troy]

Let's do this.

[Shy]

We have the CEO of Bevel, Damon Frost. What's going on? Good, brother. How you doing?

[Troy]

Welcome back.

[Damon Frost]

I appreciate y' all having me back on Market Mondays. I'm super excited to be able to, you know, share, you know, for the second year in a row, the Bevel and Best Fest vendor Marketplace grant. So I'm super excited to be here. Appreciate y'.

[Troy]

All. We're happy to have you, my brother.

[Rashad]

Happy to have you here.

[Shy]

Thank you. Okay, so Bevel, like you said, second year in a row took part in Invest Fest as far as $25,000 grant given to a small business inside the vendor marketplace. So first off, can you just talk about that? And then I guess we're going to announce the winner, because we haven't announced the winner yet, right?

[Damon Frost]

Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, we. We're announce the winner. I just want to. First, I want to give y' all a shout out. I had a great time at Invest Fest. I look, all the vibes was there, all the speakers were awesome. You know, the vendor marketplace was dope. I actually walked through. I was super inspired by everything that I saw, all the people. People that I met. I made a bunch of new connections. I saw a bunch of companies that I was actually. I ended up buying a bunch of stuff from and engaging with. So it was super dope, man. So congratulations on that.

[Rashad]

Thank you.

[Troy]

Appreciate it, man. Thank you.

[Damon Frost]

And it was, you know, it was interesting, right, because, you know, the roots of Bevel is kind of came from an entrepreneurial spirit, right? And so, you know, it was awesome to be able to see the different companies and engage with them on the grant. As you know, last year we gave a grant to double Dutch aerobics. Which is all about a new fitness movement. They have over 60 aerobic exercises that are executed as part of double Dutch. They have my whole team out here double Dutching Michelle doing an awesome job. So I want to just congratulate, congratulate them on their success. And we were proud to be able to give them the grip last year. So now for this year, you know, we had over 120 applicants and it was very difficult to choose the winner. And I mean, we had folks from all over empowering youth to advocating for STEM to, you know, women overcoming tragedy and creating their own financial support structure and resources to folks that's like trying to educate our people on their medical situation. So it was impressive, right? But I do want to announce that we chose the winning vendor is STEM Plugs.

[Troy]

So let's fires in the chat for STEM Club.

[Rashad]

Congrats.

[Damon Frost]

Yeah, so it was, listen, when I walked into this brother's booth, it was super impressive. You know, it was a founded, founded by Rich Gillum. This Guy is a TEDx speaker. He's an engineer. He comes from very humble backgrounds. He actually, part of his story is that he had a 1.8 GPA and that inspired him to actually figure out how do you get people more engaged in the STEM arena?

[Rashad]

So.

[Damon Frost]

And his mission is to shape minds into leaders and innovators for tomorrow. You know, I talked to Wayne, we spent some time with him. I talked to him about kind of the different things he's doing, if you think about, I mean, I don't know, when you get a chance, check out his website. He has a really holistic view of how to engage with young people in stem. So going from books to podcasts to. He actually has built kind of a, a Lego like playset, right, where they build a robot, which is incredible, right? And it's actually hydro powered, so I mean, you can make the robot move. So it was really impressive. And I had a lot of heart for, you know, the things he was trying to do. Especially part of my background is coming from, you know, a STEM background. And I, I felt like, you know, and we felt like, look, this guy is really going to make a difference, difference in the community.

[Rashad]

So.

[Damon Frost]

So anyway, we were super excited about being able to award Grant. He's, you know, he has lots of big plans. He's actually part of what he's planning to do with the grant is, you know, he has more books he wants to produce as well. He has some other stuff that he wants to do but build some, create some additional staff to be able to get his story out. So look, I mean, and we give this grant no obligation to Bevel. Like, this is all about, you know, know, continue to fuel entrepreneurship and making sure these business can continue to grow.

[Troy]

Yeah, man. Appreciate that. Shout out to you and shout out to Stem Plug. I actually went to the booth. Yeah. So that's pretty impressive. You said 120 applicants were part of this problem. How difficult was it to come down to this choice?

[Damon Frost]

It was tough. You know, I mean, we had to. Obviously, we go from 120 to. We narrowed down to like five, four, or five. And, you know, just talking to the. To the founders of these companies was really, really difficult. You know, it was almost like, hey, I want to figure out how we can help all of them, which we made some, you know, connections where we can continue to work together. It may not be a grant, but maybe we work together for some other facet. But it was really difficult. There's a lot of folks out there doing some amazing stuff. Again, I'm just. I mean, if you step back from the 120, just walking through the vendor marketplace, I mean, that was like, I was. I got a lot of energy from that. I mean, there's a lot of walking, too, so I had to get a lot of energy, a lot of steps, but I just got a lot of energy from talking to people. They have passion about their businesses, and they're trying to make a difference. And I think, you know, right now, in this current environment, like, you're gonna need. We're gonna need more entrepreneurs and to continue to build and grow.

[Rashad]

From your perspective, walking through and seeing all the businesses and all the vendors, like, what are, like, three things that made Stem Plug stand out the most for you? That made you say, I have to allocate this money here to help this company?

[Damon Frost]

Yeah, I think a couple things. One, he had a very clear vision of what he wanted to achieve. Right.

[Rashad]

So.

[Damon Frost]

And it was very well thought through, I think, number one. The second is he actually, if you looked at the. I mean, again, check out Stem Plug online, right? I think it's stemplug.com he has a very holistic program.

[Rashad]

Right.

[Damon Frost]

And how he's connecting with people. So I'm. Again, you talk about. You have the book, you have the.

[Rashad]

The.

[Damon Frost]

Like the. The educational series. You have the actual. The devices or the. The robots that you can build. And he's thought about it holistically for how to take these kids on a journey where they can build up their confidence to be. To believe. And the third, I Mean, he really had like, he was clear on what were the next things. Right. So, you know, it wasn't like, hey, this is a point in time thing and I don't know what I'm going next. He actually was very clear on what was the future. Like, what's the next 12 months, 18 months, 24 month roadmap for what he wants to do.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Shy]

So for you as somebody that's, you know, CEO, people, people don't know Bevel. Right. So Bevel was a, a grooming company, a male grooming company. Got popularized by the, the wireless blade, as far as shaving blade.

[Rashad]

Life changing.

[Shy]

And then it started by a gentleman named Christian Walker. And then celebrities got on ball, most notably Nas. When he, he had the rap song, he was saying that, you know, my signature fade with the Bevel blade. And shortly after that, Tristan sold the company. Right, To Proctor. Proctor Gamble, right?

[Damon Frost]

Yep, yep.

[Shy]

Told it to Proctor and Gamble. Then you come on as the CEO of the company, running the company now. So I just wanted to give the timeline for people that might not be familiar. Okay, now you're, you're the CEO of a company. What challenges are you facing right now? Just in the landscape? We know that there's political challenges, there's artificial intelligence, and technology has changed drastically in the last couple of years. There's a work shortage as far as, you know, a lot of people out of work. What, what are some of the challenges that you're facing as far as running a company?

[Damon Frost]

Yeah, I mean, you mentioned all of them. Right? But, but here's what I say. I mean, really, we're focused on figuring out how do we make sure that we are able to, number one, deliver the best grooming products for our consumers. Number two, make sure that our consumers actually know about the products.

[Troy]

Right.

[Damon Frost]

So I mean, one of the bigger challenges that we have is making sure that we're in the right places at the right time, whether or not that's in media, because media is super fragmented now. I mean, think about it like before you used to be able to go turn on a TV and a bunch of commercials ran and everybody knew about your product. That ain't happening now.

[Rashad]

Right?

[Damon Frost]

So now you got tick tock, you got meta, you got ott, where, you know, sometimes streaming shows. So how do you make sure that you can get your message out in an authentic message out in the right way to the, to the consumers that should consider your product? That's, that's, I mean, that's really, really. And then the second part is like or the third part is like the.

[Troy]

The.

[Damon Frost]

The changing of the retail landscape. Right? Again, you used to be able to go and make a product and put it on shelf at Walmart and people walk past that aisle and that's what they bought. No, now it's like Amazon. Tick Tock Shop. Every. By the way, every retailer has some sort of marketplace and.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Damon Frost]

Thing that they have going on, right? So just making sure that. I mean, club right now is huge, right? So making sure that we're in the right places to be considered. All the external factors are there, Right. But they'll always be there. And there'll be external factors, like five years from now that are related to business, but really making sure that we hone in on the consumer and giving them what they want and being where they are and telling them our story so that they know that we have the best product on the market for them.

[Troy]

Yeah, you have an incredible product. We've been supporting it since its inception. You guys sent over some new products. I'm like, this is. This is crazy. Again, it speaks about showing up in the right places and understanding the market. I wonder, as you look at the landscape now for. For men's grooming, where are we headed? Like, is there new technology that you see that is out there that is like, wait, this is something we need to capitalize on? Or are you guys creating the new product of the future?

[Damon Frost]

Yeah. So, you know, that's a great question. So, you know, now, as you would imagine, right. I'm super tuned in and honed in on the different trends that are happening. Right. And one of the things that's coming through, at least from my lens, is male grooming is actually becoming popular. Right. And it's becoming more mainstream. So, I mean, if you get on Tick Tock, right, you'll see, like, a bunch of ads for body butters, which. For men. Right? Which is. That's not. I mean, look, two years ago, that wasn't happening, right? That wasn't the thing. Right. I think, number one, like, you think about shaving, but not just shaving on the. Your beard and your face, but also ball. I mean, both of y' all brothers at ball, right? So you know what I'm saying? I. I mean, that's another one where it's becoming. Male grooming is coming more elevated. So what we're trying to do is tap into. Okay, how do Caesar.

[Shy]

I have a Caesar low Caesar.

[Damon Frost]

Okay.

[Shy]

I gotta zoom in on just for clarification.

[Damon Frost]

Yeah, we got the. We got the scroll used to figure.

[Rashad]

Devil Pro for Rashad.

[Damon Frost]

But, you know, so we're trying to. So really, I mean, our all our promise is about elevated grooming. So now it's like, okay, we're going to be part of setting the trends. Right. So there will be a bunch of new things that we're coming out with that we obviously can't share right now, but that is going to continue to elevate grooming for men and be in the spaces where we need to continue to. I mean, look, you can get razor bumps on your head, right? We can't, you know, and that, by the way, that's awful. Right. So, you know, we have the technology where we've started. We've been able to eliminate razor bumps. How do we bring that to the broader category?

[Rashad]

Can you talk to us about the path of entrepreneurship? I think a lot of times in our community, it's either working corporate or entrepreneurship. And there seems to be this great battle. I think you've hit a sweet spot of being a CEO of an amazing company inside of a larger ecosystem for those who aspire to do the same. Like, what's your path to get into where you are now and talk to us about the importance of entrepreneurship as well?

[Damon Frost]

Yeah, you know what? I, so what, I would suggest a couple things. Right. And I just talked about my personal path. Right. Number one, you got to be willing to take risks and try things that make you super uncomfortable. Right. I mean, entrepreneurship is something that is like, it is you going into unknowns. You're learning a bunch of new stuff. I mean, when I took over this business, there was a bunch of things that I had to learn, learn on the fly, like, let's go. And I think you have to be open to that and kind of embrace that idea that, you know what? You're not going to have all the answers. You're not going to know how to do some of the stuff that you're. I mean, you'll figure it out. Right. Everybody learns. Like the thing, you know, I, I, I think Barack Obama said this. I'm not gonna get the quote quite right. Right. But you know, I, one of the things that I realized as I, either A, was working in this larger company or B, took over this role. Like when you walk into some of these rooms and you think these people are incredibly smart and like gifted, and then you interact with them, you realize, you know what? I think I could do that. Like, I could actually do some of this stuff. I mean, I'm not saying that people are not smart and gifted, but it's not as, like, out of reach, not three deviations above. It's not at all. Right? And so my advice to people is like, hey, try stuff and learn. And you know what? Like, if it doesn't work, guess what? You learn from that and go to the next thing and figure out how to apply that learning to the next thing that you do.

[Shy]

As far as the education process for our audience, our demographic. Right. Like I said, Tristan sold his company to Procter and Gamble. Now you're running the company as a CEO. It's under the umbrella of Procter and Gamble. Okay. Educate the audience on the. On how selling a company is not selling out.

[Damon Frost]

Yeah, that's a. That's a great question. So.

[Shy]

So here's.

[Damon Frost]

Here's what I would say, right? Just start with right. Most entrepreneurs, like, I can't speak for all of them, but either, you know, ones I talk to as I talk to Tristan, or whatever, their mission, like, they build their. Their business around a mission. And that mission is not just like, I got to keep this thing for myself. The mission is about how do I make sure this thing that I'm creating, in the case of Bevel, it was million grooming products for color. How do I make that available for everybody who needs that? Right? And in order to do that, you need to have partnerships, right? I mean, listen, you can start things on your own, you can build things on your own, but it requires connectivity. It requires your ability to be able to reach out and connect with people. Okay, so if I start with that. If you start with that as the basis, okay, this is the thing I want to achieve, then you figure out the best way to achieve it. And sometimes the best way to achieve that is to partner with another company, right? To make your products more accessible, to get more marketing dollars, to get more distribution, to go into more stores. Right? To make it global. And that's all about. That's all about delivering the vision of the thing that you're trying to do, right? And it's not. Look, and you have to. Entrepreneurs like, you have to. They all have their own why somebody do things, including why they may, you know, partner with a company for acquisition or why they might stay on their own. I think the key point, though, is it's. It's not about trying to be protective. It's more about how do you get. How do you deliver the thing that you're trying to deliver based on the vision that you have. So I think that's the way we should think about it. Like, look, I. I still stay connected with Tristan and look, I mean I, I think, I don't think he has any regrets. I mean, I think he feels, I mean very comfortable with how we're taking the company. And I think from that perspective, you know, this is again about how do we make, how do we have bevel reaches what his overall goal is, which is again to, to continue to develop solutions for grooming for a men of color.

[Troy]

We appreciate you being here again, appreciate you walking the vendor marketplace because you got to encounter some real authentic entrepreneurship as a CEO of a company. I wonder as you encounter some of these early stages businesses, what are one or two pieces of advice that you would give them? Being in the seat that you sit in and watching them at the beginning for a lot of them of their journey.

[Damon Frost]

Yeah, I, a few things, right. And it actually comes back to part of why we we picked stem plug. But I would say one, I think being very clear about what is the thing that you're trying to solve? Like what's the what, right? So what is that the thing that you want to make a different or different someone, right. Whether or not it's, you know, I mean, the stem plug one was very clear. I think the clearer you can be on that, the better you're not. You may not have it all the way figured out, right. But I think if you can articulate it right, that'll help get people bought into the thing that you're trying to do. So that, that's one thing. I think the second is again, you may not have all the answers from the beginning, but I think having some vision on where you want to take it, right? So you start somewhere and then what's the thing? Like what's the end state you want to get to? Or at least what's the lighthouse you're pointing to is important because again, that helps people connect to. All right, now I understand where you're trying to go. I understand where you are, right, because you got to start somewhere, but I understand where you're trying to go. And then you can start laying out steps for how to get there, right? So there's like, you know, you can say, all right, for this quarter, I'm going to work on this thing. On this quarter I want you to work on this thing. And by the way, for this part of the journey, I need this kind of resource or these kind of relationships. And then that again that as you pull people into your orbit, they can help you get there. So those will be the two things I would say. And then everything, I mean Everything else is just, like, you know, muscle and grit and willpower and blood, sweat and tears, Right?

[Rashad]

Yeah. If a entrepreneur wanted to pitch an idea to you for Bevel to add a product to their product lineup, like, what would you want to see in a pitch or proposal that would make you say, I really like this entrepreneur? I like the product. I like the presentation. Because what I'm trying to do is trying to close the gap from entrepreneurship to see how they can be integrated into a bigger ecosystem. Like, what pictures have you seen that have just caught your attention where you had to look at that idea?

[Damon Frost]

Yeah, I think there's a few things. One is, how is it tied to a consumer? I'm gonna call it consumer, but a user or consumer need, like, what is the thing it's solving?

[Rashad]

Right.

[Damon Frost]

And again, if I come back to, like, how this company was founded, there was a very, very specific problem that Tristan was solving. Right. And so for us, like, as we look at new products or we look at new systems or whatever, what is the problem uniquely that we're solving? And is there technology around it? And so I would say that's number one. The first thing is, like, what is the consumer insight behind the thing? The second is, I think there has to be some level of. I'm gonna call it diligence, research on what is already out there, right? So. Because I do think a lot of times people have ideas, which is awesome. You have ideas, and then there's like, 400 products already out there that do the same thing. Like, so how's your thing going to be different?

[Troy]

Right?

[Damon Frost]

And it doesn't have to be, like, super different. Like, like. But I think you have to be thoughtful about how's it going to be different. So. Because you have to figure out how's it going to stand out?

[Troy]

And.

[Damon Frost]

And for, you know, in this very crowded marketplace of now, you could buy anything anywhere, right? I mean, your store is the phone, right? I mean, literally. So how are you going to stand out? How's the thing that you're creating going to stand out? Or how can we make it stand out? So maybe it's integrated as part of a total system, right? Or a shave system or whatever. But I think that's the other thing I would. I would advise they consider when you.

[Rashad]

Coming out with a bevel AI barber.

[Damon Frost]

I don't know if you want to cut your hair, man. I. I feel like we ain't quite ready for that.

[Rashad]

Like, okay.

[Damon Frost]

Might need, like, two more years.

[Rashad]

Gotcha.

[Troy]

I'll be the test man.

[Shy]

So What? What, what? Where do you think this is going as far as men's grooming? Because we talk about Ulta Beauty and of course, like, you know, publicly traded side. As far as women cosmetic companies have. Have been, you know, huge and continue to grow. We see billionaires made in the space from Kylie, Jenna to Rihanna. So you talked about, like, now it's becoming, you know, more popular. As far as men's grooming, how far do you think it can actually go as far as, like, valuations and companies and. And distribution?

[Damon Frost]

Yeah, I. Listen, I. I mean, it's interesting, right? Because again, like, I. I would argue, even when I took on this role, like, two and a half years ago, whenever it was right, men's grooming was still, like, blooming as something that, you know, like, was getting interesting. I would say now it's crazy. Like, so if you go into Ulta, I don't know if y' all go in Ulta. I go in Ulta because Bevel's in Ulta and I need to go look at these shelves, right? Ulta has a whole men's section now. They don't do a good job branding it, so we got to work on that. But they have a whole men's section, right? And that is, like, happening everywhere, right? So that's happening. I mean, if you go into Target, right, Target has a place, this thing called Men's World, right? I'm suggesting if you.

[Troy]

Before, everybody's safe, man.

[Damon Frost]

But my broader point, though, is this. Men's grooming in general is becoming more elevated. You're seeing more brands being created, right? You're saying. And again, not around function. So I think the big shift is this is less about function and more about almost like, how do you pamper, right? I mean, again, like, I. I pick on, like, being on Tick Tock and now kind of getting served these. These kind of ads, like, most of the ads now are a lot about like, hey, man, you ashy. You need to put lotion on. It's more like, hey, how can you smell like a king? Or how can you, you know, how can you elevate your grooming? Like, you need to look, you know, And I think that's where it's headed. And I think you're. What we're going to find is more and more. Because most men's grooming now is focused on function, right?

[Shy]

Like what? Like. Like when you say function, like hair, Haircuts.

[Damon Frost]

Yes.

[Shy]

Shaving.

[Damon Frost]

You're like, hey, just get the hair off of me.

[Rashad]

Right?

[Damon Frost]

It's not like hey, elevated, like spa like experience. It ain't about sense, right? Again, most men's. Ours is not that way. But. And so I, but you're seeing more and more brands that are more like acting more spa like again for men, like specifically for men. So I think you're going to see more and more of that. I think there's also going to be more celebrities that get in on it. Right? And you're already starting to see that, like, I mean, you know, not to be shouting out, you know, competition, right. But like, you know, you have LeBron with the shop and all that stuff. And again, honestly, personally, I think like the more like we should be building the category out, right? So I'm not. I mean, there's enough space for everybody. There's enough men out here who need grooming products for us all to win, right?

[Troy]

So.

[Damon Frost]

But I think that's what we're going to see, an elevation, a continual elevation of men's grooming. And I think to, to your point, like, and I think it's going to become like companies are going to. Entrepreneurs are going to find like lanes where there's going to become like big businesses, like, to your point, like, like Brianna or like, you know, I'm saying Kylie Jenner or whatever. Like, because, because that's, I mean, men are spending more and more on grooming products. Right? And that's what our research is telling us.

[Troy]

Is that like one of those metrics or one of those points that of emphasis, looking forward to the future is maybe having an influencer or celebrity behind the brand. When you said it made me think of what Fat Joe and kind of Khaled have done for, for Rwanda time and Rwanda. Is that something that you guys actually wrestle with and thought about and just haven't implemented or something you're looking to do in the future? Because I know a couple of guys that actually use the product that, you know, yeah.

[Rashad]

Buy it.

[Troy]

You know, buy and face friendly guys who shave and you know, our instruments.

[Damon Frost]

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, for sure. I mean, we had. And you know, over the last year, Kyle Pitts was one of our influencers, slash ambassadors for, for the brand. Right. He had a good game last night, by the way. But you know, we, we try to balance it. Like, so part of our, like, we want to be super authentic and ingrained in the culture. Right. So if you look at what we do, if you go on our handle, our social handle, get, you know, on Instagram, what you'll see is a lot of connectedness with the Culture like, you know, we did. We're on an HBCU tour right now, so if you, like, look at the stories, you'll see a bunch of college kids, like, you know, engaging with the brand we have, you know, we're connected with Atlanta, a lot of Atlanta activities, so we sponsor scholarships at the Atlanta Barber is to. We're partnering with this semi pro league in Atlanta.

[Rashad]

So.

[Damon Frost]

And we also try to highlight and elevate actually the, The. The less famous people, right, who are doing things. So, you know, we have this series called Faces of Atlanta where we're elevating people who are doing things, big things in Atlanta, kind of showcasing their stories, whether or not it's in sports or it's in arts or it's in business. So. So we, I mean, yeah, we. We've kind of wrestled with it a little bit, but we try to be a little bit more like, like in the, in the culture and like, connected with. With the people so that, you know, we can tell their stories and we can. I mean, and we. I mean, that's kind of our roots, right?

[Rashad]

How do you innovate quicker than your competition ends up copying? Like, I've been buying a blade for a while, then all of a sudden I see everyone in the category making their version. But being in a big ecosystem like Proctor, how do you say, hey, we need to innovate faster so we don't lose market share. Can you talk to us about how you wrestle with that while being in a bigger ecosystem?

[Damon Frost]

Yeah, we. So again, if I. We try to start with identifying consumer insights based on our target consumer. Right. So target consumer being, you know, men of color, black men. Right. So what we try to, like, over the course of, you know, this sometime, we try to identify, all right, what are we learning about how they're using our products, how they're using other products, what are the actual needs, unsaid needs and met needs. And we try to feed that into, like, all right, so how can we bring technology to bear on some of that? Whether or not that's technology that, you know, our, you know, the partner company has png, whether or not that's technology, we go out and get ourselves, right? Because quite honestly, like, sometimes, I mean, we're. We're kind of in a. In a different space where some things that, you know, we might need not necessarily come from the, from the parent company. So.

[Shy]

So.

[Damon Frost]

And then we, like, look, we try to identify it quickly and then we move. We try, we move like a small company. So, I mean, we identify it and then get to the insight, test it. I mean we have a, you know, consumers that are part of our direct consumer site. We can quickly like find ones that we believe have the right attributes for testing this thing. We test it and then we, then we start go to production as we can launch it. Right. So I mean I give you an example of that. Like we recently actually in Ulta now launched our electric shaver, right. Which again is tied to an insight around shaving and ease of shave. Right. And it complements our overall shave kit or shape care regimen. Right. And we have products to go around that. So you know, for our total shave system, you know, we have a set of regimen of products for the electric shaver. We actually also have a set of regimented products to do on the, you know, pre shave gel and then after shave bump control. But again it came from a, it came from an insight and then we tried to move really quickly on it.

[Rashad]

Well, what's the timeline for that?

[Damon Frost]

That's, that's in, that's in market. Go to Ulta. Ulta.com ultabeauty.com or go in the store in the midsection. But yeah, we, and that's, but I mean that's, you know, the, the big thing. I mean we have a really strong partnership with Ulta. They, they have both devices. They have the trimmer and the electric shaver. They have most of our, our SKUs.

[Rashad]

So.

[Damon Frost]

And they're really looking to grow their men's grooming section.

[Shy]

Oh, Damon, man, thank you for coming. Always. Thank you for like I said, the Invest Fest 25000 grant. Any, any last words?

[Damon Frost]

No. Listen, I appreciate you guys having me on. Like I said, congratulations again on a, a super dope Invest Fest. Like I said, I was, I was overwhelmed. I was like again I, I was like this was incredible. I made a lot of connections. I'm looking forward to stay connected actually. I'll tell you. So I was in, I was in line to go. I don't remember where I was going into, but I was talking to some brothers and they were like, listen, I tell my boss this, this, these, these, this weekend is blocked every year. Like they are committed to coming investments which is, I mean I think that's a testament to the, the, the programming you guys have put on and, and what the. The what you've created. So you know, congratulations on that and I appreciate you having me on.

[Troy]

Appreciate you man.

[Rashad]

We need three ambassador contracts too.

[Damon Frost]

We got you. We got you.

[Troy]

It makes too much sense, man.

[Damon Frost]

I agree we own it hard ask 3docusign.

[Rashad]

Gotcha.

[Damon Frost]

There it is.

[Shy]

All right, bro.

[Troy]

Thank you.

[Shy]

Appreciate you. All right.

[Damon Frost]

I'll be good.

[Rashad]

All right.

[Troy]

See us now, man. The market Mondays after.

[Rashad]

Shit, man.

[Troy]

That bevel pro sick. Yeah. And I. I mean, if you've been with the product, you can see, like, the amount of time that they've taken on to make sure that the efficiency is better. I remember when the first one, I was like, damn, this could just stay charged a little bit longer.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Troy]

Now that the charge is even better than the first two. So they've gotten better with each one, man. That's one of those things that you put in the travel kit.

[Rashad]

Amanda. Tory. Mandatory. Yeah. When it's hit the gift box, I'm like, I bought most of this already. Like, man, Little travel light blade shaver. Life saver.

[Troy]

You get into, like, Europe and you try to plug it your clippers in, Keep your electric one on you. You're good, man.

[Rashad]

And talk about scale. Like, I think the total addressable market for men's groom is like 80 billion. Just huge market share, yo.

[Troy]

Yeah, man. Are taking care to take care of that. They. They're grooming. It's important. I mean, they always have. I feel like he's right. Like, you're starting to see more facial creams. You're starting to see more men's products. Lotions, like you said, at least the. The butter, like, it's becoming a thing. Becoming a thing. I think they caught you in ultimate beauty the other day, right?

[Rashad]

Did they? Instacart?

[Shy]

50. 50.

[Troy]

Look, without his mustache, yo, he did a transformation, huh?

[Rashad]

For sure.

[Troy]

Yo, that's dedication. I like the content. He's put like, yo, this is what sacrifice and dedication looks like.

[Rashad]

How much would they have to charge you because you beat a mustache off? Well, what's the rate?

[Troy]

Yo, my son asked me that. He said, dad, you're gonna cut your beer one day. I'm like, it's part of the brand, bro. Part of the brain. It's all they've ever known.

[Rashad]

That wire had to be crazy.

[Troy]

I'm not sure I grew up with Street Fighter. I don't remember his character, though. Like, I remember M. Bison. I don't remember the. He might be like, that's like, part four or something.

[Rashad]

Yeah, maybe three or four or something like that. Shout out to 50, though.

[Troy]

Yeah. You know, that's. That's a great gig. Yeah.

[Shy]

Shout out to 50. All right, ladies and gentlemen.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Shy]

Been real.

[Troy]

It has been, man.

[Rashad]

Tim Cook would love to have you.

[Troy]

On the show, please open door. No pun intended.

[Rashad]

Keith Raboy.

[Troy]

Wow. I don't want to be a Ponzi. I don't want to be a mean stock. Okay, Have a joy. It's been real big week. It's a big week. Like I said, if you're in those September 19th contracts, make sure that you've taken your percentages. Make sure that you. You put some reserves away. Obviously, we talked about September not being the norm, but there's always October. We have seen some October pullbacks, so just. Just be mindful of that starter. Fourth quarter is near, and my prevailing.

[Rashad]

Law is that the market is permanently rigged to stay up. Stop trying to short the market.

[Troy]

Please.

[Shy]

Please, at all times, ladies and gentlemen.

[Troy]

Y' all be good.

[Shy]

10 o' clock Wednesday, we got the Square episode coming out Thursday.

[Troy]

Yep.

[Shy]

At 6 o', clock, nil conference Sunday at 2 o'. Clock. So it's a lot going on happen.

[Troy]

Yeah.

[Rashad]

Tomorrow, 5 Central Link is in Kajabi. See y' all there.

[Troy]

Oh, we got class this week, too. Shout out to everybody that pulled up to Austin's class this week. We got. We got Stormy. So shout out to everybody that tuned into to Stormy's episode. The grand writer, she's going to be doing Eylu. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Investors. I'm sorry. Investor. Svip, you're right. You invest best. Vip. Shout out to everybody. She. I actually got a caller. She dropped so much game. I was like, we gotta have a. I gotta have a meeting. Yeah, she's cold. She's cold. All right, so y' all tap in. Yo, congrats. Chris, my son, he has first football game they won 24 nothing. Yeah, he looking like. He looking like Michael Parsons out there.

[Rashad]

Yeah, he. I saw the highlight. Said, my boy, go easy. You gonna hurt somebody.

[Troy]

You know, that's what I told, man. Like, 100 is the speed, but, like, you don't gotta stay at 100.

[Rashad]

Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Xander won a tournament yesterday. 14, 8. My baby.

[Troy]

Congrats, man. Congrats.

[Rashad]

Yeah.

[Troy]

How you looking out there?

[Rashad]

Good, man. Hit three threes back to back. Said, boys, I was.

[Troy]

I think we was watching NS highlights. I told sh. I'm like, yo, you know, I never hit a three pointer in my life. In a game. Like, in a game. He was like, what? I'm like, nah, bro.

[Rashad]

Shout out to the Voice. What?

[Troy]

Yeah. I tell you, I was a smart player. Like, if there's guys who are better at scoring, why would I give them the ball?

[Rashad]

King maker.

[Troy]

Yo, he could score Better than me. He can score better. Like, bro, let me go do something else. Let me go rebound. Let me go play some defense, like, whatever. Take the win.

[Shy]

One of the few plays that actually took charges in high school.

[Rashad]

Fact, team player.

[Troy]

Yo, yo, whatever, yo, we need to. Let me go lock up.

[Rashad]

Whatever it takes.

[Troy]

Whatever it takes. That was Shane Barry was, like, the player of the year in high school at the time. So I was like, I'm watching him.

[Rashad]

In high school, yo, that's what he was doing. Sounds like, yo, we got that tough in high school.

[Troy]

School record. I got the school record for Charges.

[Shy]

The Coach Van Dava dvd. Yeah, charges is crazy. High school. That's crazy.

[Troy]

New category.

[Shy]

He wasn't taking no charges in high school.

[Troy]

Nah.

[Shy]

But, you know, it's needed.

[Troy]

Yo, somebody gotta do it.

[Shy]

Somebody gotta do it.

[Troy]

Somebody has to do it.

[Rashad]

Somebody.

[Shy]

Dirty work. The dirty work. All right, guys, it's been real. I'll tap in with you.

[Troy]

Love, man. Your business is one of a kind.

[Rashad]

So your website should be, too.

[Troy]

With wix, it's easy, almost too easy.

[Rashad]

To create a website that's perfectly yours.

[Troy]

Just tell AI what kind of site you want to build or choose from.

[Rashad]

Thousands of templates, change whatever you want whenever you want and get everything you need to start running your business your way.

[Troy]

No matter what you sell or what you aspire to be, you can do.

[Rashad]

It all yourself on wix.

[Troy]

Meet Olivia. Hey, what's up? Olivia dreams big. I want to go back to school and get a pet and buy a house and save for retirement and travel the world. That's quite the list. Thank you.

[Damon Frost]

Numerica Credit Union is the perfect partner to help turn Olivia's dreams into reality.

[Rashad]

Really? Yep.

[Troy]

We're all about helping our members create.

[Damon Frost]

A life that feels like theirs.

[Troy]

And we have the tools, expertise, and.

[Damon Frost]

Guidance to make it happen.

[Troy]

I'm in. Let's get started. Money where it matters.

[Damon Frost]

Federally insured by ncua.