Americans Take Weight-Loss Drugs, Eat Salty Snacks

Summary

Detailed Summary of Motley Fool Money Episode: "Americans Take Weight-Loss Drugs, Eat Salty Snacks" Release Date: February 6, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of Motley Fool Money, hosts Ricky Mulvey, Dylan Lewis, and Mary Long engage in an insightful discussion with guest Bill Barker. The conversation delves into significant market events, corporate earnings reports, and evolving investment landscapes influenced by consumer behavior and technological advancements.

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1. The Deep Seek Market Crash

Overview: The episode opens with Ricky Mulvey revisiting the recent tumultuous event in the financial markets—the Deep Seek crash—a $1 trillion market downturn triggered by the emergence of a new large language model (LLM) developed by a Chinese hedge fund.

Key Discussion Points:

• Event Recap: Deep Seek's release caused panic among investors, leading to massive sell-offs in tech giants like Taiwan Semiconductor and Nvidia.
• Market Reaction: Bill Barker analyzes whether the market's response was justified, overblown, or balanced.

Notable Quotes:

• Ricky Mulvey [00:19]:

  "Fewer than two weeks ago, the market panicked when this large language model that was released by a Chinese hedge fund went into the open world. The company claimed that it has trained its model for less than 6 million. And this revelation created basically a $1 trillion market wipeout hitting companies like Taiwan Semiconductor and Nvidia."

• Bill Barker [01:02]:

  "I think it was a large reaction fueled by not enough information and too many people trading as if they understood the story in the moment, which was impossible given the parts of the story that were left out."

Insights:

• Incomplete Information: The rapid dissemination of incomplete details about Deep Seek led to uninformed trading behaviors.
• Market Tempering: Over the subsequent two weeks, the market began to stabilize as more information emerged, though Barker cautions that the story isn't entirely settled.

Regulatory and Corporate Responses:

• OpenAI's Stance: OpenAI expressed concerns over Deep Seek potentially utilizing its technology without authorization.
• Legislative Actions: Lawmakers introduced the "No Deep Seek on Government Devices Act," aiming to ban the application on official devices.
• Corporate Security Measures: Cybersecurity firm Armis reported that approximately 70% of its corporate clients have requested blocks on Deep Seek, reflecting global corporate apprehensions.

Investment Strategies Amid Volatility:

• Diversification: Barker emphasizes the importance of a diversified portfolio to mitigate risks associated with sector-specific volatility.
• Long-Term Perspective: Investors are encouraged to remain disciplined and avoid reactive trading based on fleeting market sentiments.

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2. Hershey’s Surprising Earnings Performance

Overview: Hershey Inc. defied expectations by reporting a 9% increase in sales on a constant currency basis, alongside a doubling of net income. This performance challenges the anticipated negative impact of rising health consciousness and weight loss drug usage on confectionery sales.

Key Discussion Points:

• Sales Growth Drivers: Despite trends towards healthier eating, Hershey saw robust sales growth, particularly in salty snacks.
• Strategic Acquisitions: Hershey's acquisitions in the salty snack sector, including Pirate Booty, contributed significantly to revenue increases.
• Domestic Focus: The company's primary market remains North America, with limited international expansion.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Barker [05:22]:

  "I don't think that healthy eating is going to be something that ever in our lifetimes replaces eating for taste and enjoyment. It may supplement it, it may make some inroads."

• Bill Barker [07:00]:

  "But these are some companies that Hershey acquired, not major brands in the salty snack space. And Hershey's distribution has improved sales there."

Insights:

• Consumer Behavior: The enduring American preference for chocolate and salty snacks remains a cornerstone of Hershey’s success.
• Market Share Expansion: Hershey's strategic acquisitions have allowed it to capture greater market share in the salty snacks segment, evidenced by a 36% sales increase.
• Future Outlook: While diversification has provided short-term growth, Hershey anticipates that cocoa and sugar costs will play a more significant role in future profitability.

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3. Hershey’s Unique Ownership Structure

Overview: The conversation shifts to Hershey's distinctive ownership model, which significantly influences its strategic decisions and long-term objectives.

Key Discussion Points:

• Milton Hershey School Trust: Established by Milton Hershey a century ago, the trust holds the majority of Hershey’s voting stock.
• Endowment Value: The trust boasts an endowment of approximately $14-15 billion, positioning it among the top U.S. educational endowments.
• Corporate Priorities: Unlike typical corporations focused solely on profit maximization, the trust prioritizes educational and philanthropic missions.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Barker [08:04]:

  "The majority of the voting stock is controlled by the school. And it just has very different priorities than maximizing profits."

• Bill Barker [09:00]:

  "It's got the legacy of Milton Hershey to look through. And in terms of, for instance, it's turning down the offer for Mondelez at the end of last year."

Insights:

• Long-Term Stability: The trust's ownership ensures a focus on long-term sustainability and community impact over short-term financial gains.
• Strategic Decisions: The trust's influence is evident in Hershey's decision to reject acquisition offers, maintaining independence to uphold its foundational values.

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4. Eli Lilly’s Remarkable Revenue Growth

Overview: Eli Lilly reported a striking 45% year-over-year revenue growth, primarily driven by its portfolio of weight-loss drugs. This performance places it alongside younger, high-growth companies in terms of revenue expansion.

Key Discussion Points:

• Revenue Comparison: Eli Lilly’s growth is compared to companies like Toast (26%), Palantir (36%), and Rocket Lab (55%).
• Sustainability of Growth: Barker discusses whether this surge is a one-time event or indicative of sustained growth.
• Valuation Concerns: Despite impressive growth, Eli Lilly trades at a high price-to-earnings ratio (~90-95), raising questions about future valuation sustainability.

Notable Quotes:

• Ricky Mulvey [11:47]:

  "When you see this company, this 19th-century pharmaceutical company in the context of these younger, hungrier growth companies, what do you think when you see lights out numbers like that?"

• Bill Barker [13:03]:

  "You want to look at the trailing couple of years and the fact that for instance, net income doubled this year."

Insights:

• Blockbuster Drugs: The substantial revenue is a result of Eli Lilly’s successful GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which have transformed the company's market position.
• Future Projections: While current growth is impressive, sustainability depends on continued drug efficacy, patent stability, and competition within the pharmaceutical sector.

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5. Broader Investing Themes and Lessons

Overview: The episode synthesizes the discussions on Hershey and Eli Lilly to extract broader investment lessons, particularly how contrasting trends in consumer behavior can coexist and even complement each other.

Key Discussion Points:

• Junk Food vs. Weight-Loss Drugs: Contrary to expectations, the rise in popularity of weight-loss drugs has not diminished the demand for indulgent snacks and treats.
• Strategic Opportunities: Potential collaborations between pharmaceutical companies and snack manufacturers could emerge, balancing health trends with consumer appetites.

Notable Quotes:

• Bill Barker [16:57]:

  "Whoever comes up with that drug, I think is going to be celebrated by Hershey and Mondelez and others and may or may not be the big winner."

Insights:

• Market Resilience: Consumer demand for both indulgent snacks and health-oriented drugs highlights the complexity of market dynamics and the resilience of diverse product categories.
• Investment Strategy: Investors are encouraged to recognize and leverage the coexistence of these trends, identifying opportunities that benefit from both health advancements and sustained consumer preferences for treats.

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Conclusion

This episode of Motley Fool Money underscores the intricate interplay between consumer behavior, technological advancements, and corporate strategies. While market events like the Deep Seek crash highlight the volatility induced by rapid technological developments, earnings reports from established companies like Hershey and Eli Lilly reveal the enduring power of strategic diversification and innovation. The discussion offers valuable insights for investors navigating a landscape where traditional industries and emerging trends coexist, presenting both challenges and opportunities for savvy investment decisions.

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Prepared for listeners who seek a comprehensive understanding of the episode without having accessed the original content.

Transcript

[Ricky Mulvey]

Foreign Remember that Deep Seek crash? You're listening to Motley Fool Money. I'm Ricky Mulvey, joined today by Bill Barker. Bill, good to see you. Thanks for being here.

[Bill Barker]

Thanks for having me.

[Ricky Mulvey]

So I want to get back to this Deep Seat story because this 1 trillion dollar market crash seems to be not really talked about anymore. Fewer than two weeks ago, the market panicked when this large language model that was released by a Chinese hedge fund went into the open world. The company claimed that it has trained its model for less than 6 million. And this revelation created basically a $1 trillion market wipeout hitting companies like Taiwan Semiconductor and Nvidia. Now we're a little under two weeks away. I think it's time to do a retrospective and look back on this. Bill, was this an overreaction, an underreaction, or did we find the porridge just right on this reaction?

[Bill Barker]

Well, I think it was a large reaction fueled by not enough information and too many people trading as if they understood the story in the moment, which was impossible given the parts of the story that were left out and the inadequacy and unpreparedness for most people to take in the details of what is going on in AI models. So I think that there are parts of the story which entirely deserved a large and significant stock reaction and parts which did not. And we're two weeks away and those things have sorted each other out far better than they did in the moment. But I don't think that we're exactly finished with this story.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Yeah, I think one of my favorite reactions was from OpenAI, who was upset that possibly Deepseek used some of its technology to train its model and they didn't do it with OpenAI's permission. They were very upset about that. But the news today is that lawmakers are looking to ban deepseek on government devices under the appropriately titled no Deep Seek on Government Devices Act. You're also seeing corporations, not just the United States, but across the world, concerned about having this application on their employees phones. One cybersecurity firm, Armis, said that roughly 70%, 70% of its corporate clients requested blocks. I think what we're going to see is a, the technology seems to be catching up and the costs seem to be going down. But as you mentioned, this story is developing really rapidly and investors seem to be reacting as if they know when they don't have all the information. So taking all of this into consideration, how do you think investors can prepare for a, what I would describe a more volatile, a more violent market with Stories that seem to be quickly moved on from.

[Bill Barker]

Well, you can always be better prepared from the risk of volatility by being more disciplined in having holdings across many sectors and being more diversified. So if everything you own is AI or approximate to it, then you're going to enjoy increased volatility going forward. But I think that the story that there was potential massive improvements on OpenAI's work through, through just tweaking some of the algorithms or not tweaking, a lot of work goes into these things and that there are efficiencies out there that were not in any way being pursued, and now they will be pursued, is a big part of the story that, that, you know, deep seek used. OpenAI's work seems to be the most obvious thing possible to start with. Looking into. And I also think that the government and corporate reaction to we don't need Deep Seek immediately. Today there are any number of AI programs from non Chinese entities that we can use on our computers, on our phones. Why don't we do that until we know more? And I think that the reaction is in part fueled by how impossible it is to do things later, as exemplified by TikTok, which has too many users, too many passionate users to effectively shut down without massive disruptions to many voters, really. And so if Deepseek were allowed to be as entrenched in people's lives as TikTok, when perhaps it doesn't need in the short term to be, why not just act out of abundance of caution, both as a government and as a corporate entity and, you know, keep it off the systems today and when it's proven that it's safe, come back to it.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Nip it in the bud early. Let's get into some earnings coverage. Hershey reported this morning. Big headlines, Bill. Americans still like chocolate and salty snacks. Hershey reported that sales are up 9% on a constant currency basis. Net income more than doubled. This was a little bit of a surprise for me because, Bill, I thought healthier eating and weight loss drugs were going to sink demand for Hershey. What's happening here?

[Bill Barker]

Welcome to America, I suppose. I don't think that healthy eating is going to be something that ever in our lifetimes replaces eating for taste and enjoyment. It may supplement it, it may make some inroads. And GLP1 drugs have certainly impacted what the future of this company looks to be. But at the moment, people are eating about the same amount of chocolate as last year, a little bit better. They've had some acquisitions that fueled some of that 9% top line increase that you're talking about on the revenue side, also a little bit of inflation. You subtract those things. The growth is pretty modest as one would expect it to be with a, a mature company like this that really has very little inroads in the international markets. Hershey's is almost entirely an American story. Europeans turn their noses up at Hershey's chocolate and you know, it's really impacted going forward by the costs of cocoa and sugar, which are extremely impactful as one might imagine to chocolate.

[Ricky Mulvey]

The new information was the popularity of salty snacks, things like Dot's pretzels. This is actually one where not even tongue in cheek, I would have expected a, a larger pullback given the, the interest in healthier eating and weight loss drugs. Chocolate's more of the treat. These are the, the hyper palatable foods that a lot of these weight loss drugs are alleviating the cravings for. And yet Hershey grew sales of North American salty snacks by more than a third 36%. I was wrong. What did Hershey get right here?

[Bill Barker]

A little bit of market share. These are some companies that Hershey acquired not, you know, major brands in the salty snack space. And Hershey's distribution has improved sales there. So it's good diversification acquisition for Hershey's also is the owner now of the pirate snacks, Pirate Booty, if you've got kids that love that stuff. So it's not all chocolate, despite the name and the salty snacks had a better year and their availability to grow market share given Hershey's many, many distribution channels. But still, as you can see from the guidance for next year, it's going to be the cocoa and sugar. Chocolate is going to be the biggest driver of the bottom line for this company.

[Ricky Mulvey]

I know you also like to talk about Hershey's unique ownership structure because it's unlike a lot of other companies. So how is the ownership structure of Hershey set up? Why is it interesting to you?

[Bill Barker]

Well, it's a great story. Milton Hershey passed away about 100 years ago, didn't have children and gave his fortune really to establish a school, the Milton Hershey School. At the time it was for orphan boys, I think, and over the years it's expanded beyond that. But this is basically they've held onto the stock for 100 years and as you can imagine, the compounding on that's pretty good. And the endowment for this school, 2,000 students out in central Pennsylvania around Hershey has got an endowment that I think 14 or 15 billion would place it in terms of US universities in or near the top 10, I think, right between University of Michigan and Duke. And so it's got more money than Duke, which for those that don't like Duke probably comes as good news. But other than that, it points to the ownership and that's the majority of the voting stock is controlled by the school. And it just has very different priorities than maximizing profits. It's got the legacy of Milton Hershey to look through. And in terms of, for instance, it's turning down the offer for Mondelez at the end of last year. Maybe the concept of Hershey being owned by somebody other than the entities in and around Hershey, Pennsylvania just don't jibe with the trust's understanding of its ownership responsibilities. But I definitely think that if you're investing alongside the Milton Hershey School, the Milton Hershey Trust, which oversees this, you're investing alongside a voting entity which has priorities which are not strictly capitalism.

[Ricky Mulvey]

That's the long term look. Anything else from the quarter? The failed Mondelez deal, junk food trends you want to hit with Hershey before we move on?

[Bill Barker]

I mean, I think it's not a stock that's going to have major moves in my estimation, unless it opens itself up to being acquired, but it'll continue to pay a great dividend. The school will benefit from what Milton Hershey did 100 years ago, but it's not terribly exciting as an investment.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Beyond that, let's talk about a company that was founded in 1876. That, Bill, is looking a lot like a growth stock. So Eli Lilly reported this morning, I want to talk about their revenue growth number. And I'm going to put it in some context of some younger growth stocks. So these are the yearly revenue growth numbers of a few companies. Toast, which does the payment platform for restaurants that you've seen when you get a few questions, when you pick up a cup of coffee, it's 26% year over year revenue growth. The hottest band in the world was KISS. The hottest stock on the market is Palantir, 36% year over year, revenue growth up by more than a third. That's good air is catching on. Eli Lilly with the weight loss drugs. Revenue growth up 45% year over year. And then the one that's beating it is my beloved Rocket lab at about 55%. Bill, when you see this company, this 19th century pharmaceutical company in the context of these younger, hungrier growth companies, what do you think when you see lights out numbers like that?

[Bill Barker]

I see a number of things. One is that it's been a phenomenal year for Lilly and that the growth that you're pointing to is very much being enjoyed in the moment. 2024, a couple of expansions of the GLP1 drugs into the market. Phenomenal. You know, you go back the previous couple of years and Lilly was not growing at the pace that it grew in 2024. And 2025 is looking to be a very good year too. You can sort of make pretty good educated guesses about drug sales based on what's in the market and when the patents roll off and, and all that. So it's a, it's a great moment for Lilly and the moment was created by decades of work. So I don't want to imply that it's short term in some way, but I don't think that the, that that this year's revenue growth is the only number that you should look at to identify what the longer term growth is likely to be.

[Ricky Mulvey]

It's getting more profitable. Net income is up more than 100%. What are the numbers I should be looking at then, Bill?

[Bill Barker]

Well, as I say, you want to look at the trailing couple of years and the fact that for instance, net income doubled this year. Total net income I think came in around 11.7 billion, up from 5.7 billion in 2023. That's great. The income was above 7 billion in 2020, 2021, 2022. So 2023 was an off year for the total net income this year. It's sort of Inc. That built up R and D that came out on the market that is going to flow into next year as well. I just would caution against thinking this is despite the fact that it's trading at a PE of 90, 95 right now. Something like that. And that implies the sort of growth that the company has enjoyed this year and is slated to next year. That given the nature of blockbuster drugs which don't come on a, you know, a regular cadence every year to just keep that part in mind.

[Ricky Mulvey]

I appreciate it. I appreciate you zooming out in the blockbuster drugs that investors are excited for. One is a weight loss drug. Weight loss pill, not an injection in a mid stage trial helped patients lose about 15 of their weight. And they also have a next gen weight loss drug that has helped patients lose more than 24% of their weight in a. These are mid stage trials not approved by, by the fda. But I'm looking at these blockbuster drugs. I think they're going to be massive. I think the more people see people they know getting dramatic results on weight Loss drugs, the more that people are going to take them. I own some Eli Lilly. It's not a big position because this is not well within my circle of competence. But you've mentioned caution, Bill. What could wreck my thesis in this as I look to the years ahead?

[Bill Barker]

Of course somebody else doing the same thing other than Eli Lilly would be, if not a wreck of the thesis, it would be impacting on it dramatically. Inova Nordisk is pursuing the same weight loss pill and that will be, I agree, a big, big chunk of money for somebody and probably more than one company. There will probably be some competing versions that have slightly different the side effect characteristics and slightly different efficacies. And you can look at those two as being the most likely to hit that jackpot. Some of that jackpot is being priced into Lilly today and it'll either get as much or more of that jackpot as it's being priced in or less of it. So it could just be as simple as that. As simple as the failure of the, the next stage of the clinical trial to be successful. Regulatory slowdown. There are a lot of things for us, a company that is doing great work and reaping the benefits of it and is trading at a PE of 90. There are a lot of things it could be trading. Why not at 60? The market could, could. That's still a big reward for a drug company. And if it were trading at 60, you wouldn't say, well, market just doesn't believe in this company. You know, it believes in it a whole lot today and with good reason. But it doesn't take a lot to take, you know, 20% off of that level of optimism.

[Ricky Mulvey]

We'll see if we can tie it together. A few themes from, from this discussion today is that junk food continues to be popular. Interest in weight loss drugs continues to soar. We thought these would come at the expense of each other a lot on Wall street did. But any broader investing lessons from this as we look at the earnings from both Hershey and Eli Lilly?

[Bill Barker]

Well, certainly if chocolate, solly, snacks and the drug companies could all get together in a room and come up with the way where you can just take the drugs and maintain a huge appetite for snacks, certainly the snack companies would be all in on that. And the problem for them with GLP1 is the reduction of the appetite for those snacks rather than the ability to just eat whatever you want and keep the weight off. So whoever comes up with that drug, I think is going to be celebrated by Hershey and Mondelez and others and may or may not be the big winner.

[Ricky Mulvey]

I think you've got a biotech business Bruin. Bill Barker, appreciate you being here. Thanks for your time and your insight.

[Bill Barker]

Thanks for having me.

[Ricky Mulvey]

All right, up next, what it's like getting stuff made in Hollywood right now. You may have heard Jordan Harper on the show yesterday discussing black bag public relations and how it impacts the news you read and watch. But he's also worked in Hollywood for years, years producing and writing for shows including Gotham and the Mentalist. Harper has had a front row seat to the transition from broadcast television to streaming, and he joined me to talk about what streaming executives really want in new shows, how it impacts what you watch, and why it's fundamentally different from commercial tv. For a lot of viewers right now, television viewers, it doesn't seem like things have changed that much from, you know, a few years ago. I'm watching stuff on streaming. There's still new television shows coming out, there's still movies coming out. You hear about a dip, but it's not immediately apparent. I think for a lot of, a lot of just regular consumers and viewers of television, you've been on the inside for a while. For the viewing audience at home, those who aren't in Hollywood, what have you noticed about what's different trying to get TV made in 2025 versus, you know, 2018, 2019?

[Jordan Harper]

Well, you know, I think we're seeing the kind of end game of trends that started a little earlier than that. Streaming is not a friendly medium for art, and that's what we're learning. And everybody's going to immediately come up with, with counter examples to that, and there are counterexamples to that. But the actual golden age of television that we refer to actually died around the same time that streaming was born. Shows like, you know, the Sopranos and Mad Men and Breaking Bad all kind of the air right as Netflix started making television. So they kind of rode the wave of being connected to these shows that they had no, no real relationship to. But what's changing is it's just, you know, the contradictions are heightening the emphasis that has always existed on making IP intellectual property. You know, stuff based on movies, based on books, that is, that is growing. You know, these episodes are getting shorter, the episode orders are getting shorter. It takes longer to make. And so we're kind of reaching this strange place where in very essential ways, television is not being made to be watched any longer. And I'll explain that because the whole gig started with television, with commercials. And so it was in the interest of the people who made money off television to make people actually watch it, because we tracked that they watched it, and ad sales were based on that. We now live in a subscription world where if you sign up for a subscription and never watch the channel once, or you watch it in the background while you're, you know, cleaning your toes or whatever you do, they make the same amount of money. I've been explicitly told this by an executive at a streamer who, who told me, in what I would say is a very dispiriting meeting, that he said, I don't make TV shows, I make posters. He said, don't come to me with a pitch, come to me with a poster. Because what I need is a, you know, a placard that we can put on a person's TV screen that has a photo of a famous person and a TV show idea that they can grasp by looking at it. He specifically used Denzel as an example. He said, you know, if we've got Denzel in the show, maybe it's as good as Training Day, maybe it's as bad as virtuosity, but it doesn't matter because they already signed up and they paid the $10 a month. And I said, well, but if they don't watch it, won't they unsubscribe? And he's like, do you. And that's the world that we're living in. And it is an incredibly unfriendly environment for people who are trying to make good art that is also entertaining. It's incredibly unfriendly. And that unfriendliness is more visible now than it was before. They're kind of anti art stance. And again, art doesn't have to stand in opposition to entertainment. You know, there's been amazing TV that has been made all the way from the Twilight Zone through Twin Peaks, through NYPD Blue, you know, through the Sopranos and the Shield and all of those great shows. And there have been great shows on streaming as well, but it's not the same. I think it is, frankly, ultra processed. If I can do a callback, and I, in our. Our position from coming out of the strike as writers is that we're in an environment that feels frankly antagonistic.

[Ricky Mulvey]

I was watching one of your episodes of the Mentalist last night to prepare for this conversation. And one of the things I noticed from network TV is I'm sure there was an ask of writers to sort of reset the audience, right? Like, if you have a character relationship, they need to know if this is someone's dad. If this is someone's boss, like, where do these characters stand in relation to each other? And in some ways, they are explaining their position. Right. And you also see writers criticizing Netflix for saying Netflix executives want characters to explain what they're doing. What's different about now versus what was asked of network television in that.

[Jordan Harper]

Well, you know, I think that's a pretty valid point. And I would say that, yes, you know, the Mentalist, which I'm very grateful to for teaching me a lot about storytelling, was a network procedural that was kind of aimed in a lowest common denominator way. And so we would get those notes, can we lay into the dialogue how long this couple's been married? Can we lay into the dialogue that this is that? And those notes could be frustrating for us as well. And I think that what I would say is those notes were put there oftentimes because of commercial breaks, which are involuntary gaps in the show that are put there by the network in order to make money. But what is being described now is literally, you have to prep your audience for them to not consume the product at all, to kind of encourage not taking a break during a commercial break, but to encourage actively doing something else while watching the TV show. And that's a very hard note to take. And, you know, I'll also say, just to close off that we did complain about those notes. I think that I had a trick on the Mentalist where if an executive asked me to do something like that, I would very often write it in the script. In Jane, that's Simon Baker's character, the main character, because I knew Simon didn't like to deliver that kind of pointless dialogue and oftentimes would ask if we could cut the line. So I would kind of build in a way to cut as much of that dialogue as I could, just to kind of escape those notes. But I do think there is something different and darker about these notes today.

[Ricky Mulvey]

And I wasn't trying to be clear. I wasn't trying to be gotcha with it. I watched. You know, I was grateful for the note. As someone who hadn't, maybe not grateful for the note. I appreciated it is someone who was watching, like, a random episode in season two, season three, and not someone who had watched the series in its entirety. There's an immense amount of cynicism. You do have a movie that's getting made right now in she Rides Shotgun. Based off your book, I guess, generally, how are you trying to sell stuff in Hollywood right now, then, given this sort of cynical and antagonistic landscape.

[Jordan Harper]

Well, I mean, if you notice, several times at the beginning of this conversation, I referred to my Hollywood career as being in the past. It is not. But I am kind of looking at other paths. I find that features are a better place. Movies are more creative. They always have been. But there was a brief time when we thought that TV could rise up to what film can do. I think we're learning that that's really not the case. There's great tv, but film is a more exciting art form, I think. And it's more wide open. There are independent films still being made. She Ride Shotgun is an independent feature. And so I am exploring that. I actually just sold a movie pitch. I'm going to start writing a screenplay soon, and then I'm working on my books because I do think that my friends who are just authors, complain about the, you know, the corporate structures of publishing. And I try and tell them, you have no idea, like, this is the promised land. And so I do, I do try to remove myself from television if I can, but it's what I've done for 15 years. So I'm sure, you know, when the mortgage comes calling, I will, I will definitely come back at some point, but I'm trying to remove myself.

[Ricky Mulvey]

Jordan Harper, thank you so much for your time, your insight and your wonderful books. I've had a great time reading them. I can already recommend the Last King of California. I'm 50 pages into it. Been ripping through it. Thanks for coming on Motley Fool Money. I really appreciate it.

[Jordan Harper]

Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

[Ricky Mulvey]

As always. People on the program may have interests in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley fool editorial standards and are not approved by advertisers. The Motley fool only picks products that it would personally recommend to friends like you. I'm Ricky Mulvey. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.