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[00:03]
Bethany McLean
Your index fund isn't your index fund anymore, meaning that the s and P500 index funds are heavily weighted toward the hyperscaler. So your index fund is a bet on the AI economy. So if you think that your index fund is still helping you profit from a broad swath of the market, it's not.
[00:29]
Rachel Warren
That was Bethany McLean, veteran investigative journalist, analyst, and co author of the Smartest Guys in the Room. I'm Motley fool analyst Rachel Warren. Last week, Bethany and I talked through the psychology of corporate fraud, the red flags investors miss, and what really separates a visionary CEO from a fraudster. This week in part two, we turn the lens on the market. Right now, the AI trade. What's happening to the free cash flow of the biggest companies in the world, and why the investment you think is keeping you safe may not be doing what you think it is. We hope you enjoy your book. The Big Fail talked about what the pandemic revealed about who America's financial systems tend to protect. And I'd like to talk about this from a market perspective. How did factors like government bailouts, Fed interventions break that natural kind of market cycle of creative destruction and what we see now?
[01:18]
Bethany McLean
Yeah, and I think it's a really important issue for today because it's one that Kevin Wash, the new Fed chair, is going to have to contend with. There's much discussed is this issue of political independence, the Fed being independent from politicians. Less discussed is the issue of financial dependence, the Fed being independent from Wall Street. And the reality is, is that the Fed did not intend it this way. But over the past couple of decades, going back to maybe even earlier, the bailout of this big hedge fund called Long Term Capital Management, the Fed has been more and more a captive of Wall street in that the Fed is afraid to let the market, let the market break. And so the pandemic, you can argue that's exactly what the Fed needed to do because the market was breaking. But nonetheless, it provided reassurance to Wall street that when, when the proverbial whatever hits the fan, the Fed will always step in. And that kind of belief in a backstop is what people call moral hazard. And I think that it is not great, and I think it is a big risk for our financial system because every time the Fed pushes the boundaries of what it can do and pushes them further and further and further, and the question is, how much further can they be pushed? Because the bailouts keep getting bigger in size. So I think that's a real risk. And the problem with that sort of policy is that it does benefit the big and the well off, not the small and the less well off. So Fed policy really benefited big corporations that needed access to the debt market in the pandemic. It benefited well off individuals who, because the stock market soared obviously in the wake of the Fed's actions. So people who had exposure to the stock market did really, really well. It benefited small companies who didn't have access to the capital markets, not at all. And the government obviously tried to come up with a lending plan for them that was much better than nothing. But it doesn't benefit small companies and then it allows the big to consolidate, which makes life even more hard on the small. And this action really didn't benefit consumers who are less or citizens who are less well off who don't have exposure to the market because it helped cause inflation. The debate of how much Fed policy contributed to the inflation we, we experienced and are still experiencing is a raging debate. But it definitely didn't help matters. And inflation hurts people at the lower end of the income spectrum a lot, while the gains in asset prices don't do much to help them.
[03:43]
Rachel Warren
You know, we, we live in an era of a lot of hype in the markets. You know, here at the Motley fool, obviously we talk a lot about the quality businesses to invest in, but certainly it's also a time of, you know, we've seen meme st retail options trading, financial influencers. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how the democratization of market data mixed with Internet hype has really changed the speed at which corporate narratives inflating and collapse and really the ways to determine the hype from the value in that environment.
[04:10]
Bethany McLean
Yeah, that's funny. It's just something I'm thinking about now, especially with the IPO of SpaceX and the possible coming big IPOs of OpenAI and anthropic because this retailization of the market is a really interesting phenomenon, I think. One thing that concerns me, although you know, it is true of professional investors as well, that I just wrote a piece for the New York Times on SpaceX and I used my favorite F. Scott Fitzgerald quote, which I'm going to mangle as I try to paraphrase it, that the true mark of genius is being able to hold two competing notions in your mind at the same time and not go crazy. And it is something that people are less and less capable of doing. And so if you're going to be a really good investor, you should be able to hold one thought in your mind which is that say SpaceX might be this, it might rule the world, right? But you should be able to hold the other thought in your mind too, which is that this company has a ton of debt and needs a ton of debt and there's, there's a lot of danger here and people are just increasingly vehement and monomaniacal about one side of the equation and that's not being a good, good investor. And people don't. If, if, if a short seller says something, oh that idiot, they're biased, they're instead of, wait, okay, what does this person say? Does it make sense? Should I, should I think about this? And you should think about the reality is you think about everything, think about every piece of information. If only then to say I understand this point of view, but I, but I don't agree with it, but you should have intellectually grounded means of dismissing points of view that you don't like. Not just a reactionary one. And I worry about the reactionary tendency in the market and by the way, I see it from, from professional investors too. Nobody likes to be told that something that they believe in may not be worthy of the belief.
[05:54]
Rachel Warren
When you wrote the smartest guys in the room information moved much slower than it does now, right. And today a short report or other news can go viral in minutes. It can wipe out billions in market cap. I'm curious now, does this hyperspeed environment, do you think it makes markets more efficient at finding truth or just more chaotic? I think that's a question that weighs on a lot of investors mind these days.
[06:16]
Bethany McLean
I think it makes it more chaotic. I don't think it necessarily makes it more efficient because there's just this reaction and it can be totally outsized and it doesn't do a lot to sort out what, what truth is. But you know, the market has never really been efficient in that way that, that people think and I think about. There's Enron for instance. The skepticism was out there. A lot of big smart hedge funds were short Enron for years before its coll and of course they weren't putting out there. There wasn't a vehicle in which they could disseminate their point of view. But they were right nonetheless. It took years for Enron to collapse. A more compelling recent example is Wirecard, this big European company that ended up going bankrupt and was a total scam. There was a really convincing piece in the ft. I don't know, maybe a decade, seven years or so before Wirecard was revealed to be a fraud that laid it all out and no one cared until they did. So there's also this tendency to dismiss red flags because the market isn't incorporating those red flags into its view of the price. So therefore the red flags must be wrong. And if you look at history, you see that's, it's, it's, it's not, that's just not correct. And so you, you can't dismiss a red flag because the market doesn't seem to care. You may decide that you believe and so therefore you're going to keep the red flag in your back pocket but continue to invest. Or you may decide that the red flag isn't really a red flag and that you think the person who raised it is is wrong. But you still need to pay attention.
[07:59]
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[08:31]
Rachel Warren
well, one of the things that's interesting, you know, we are living in a time of a lot of information that's constantly coming towards investors in the AI revolution and the AI build out. Now obviously there are particularly the big companies, they are generating real sustainable cash flow and profits from a lot of the ways. Well and maybe you can share your thoughts on that as well. But you know, there are the most kind of investable areas of the market. Right. Which are the big tech companies. We're also seeing of course in some of these smaller companies the role of private debt that we talked about a bit earlier. But across the board there is astronomical capex that's going towards AI data, data centers and chips. So I wonder, you know, talk about obviously your thoughts, you know, how can also a retail investor separate companies generating real growth, real potential from, from this, these tailwinds from those that are just telling a great story.
[09:19]
Bethany McLean
Yeah, it's, it's really hard because I think AI is without question real. Right? The question but the real question is whether the economic value it generates arrives on a schedule or arrives at all in time to justify the valuations of, of the companies. And so many, many times throughout history there's a timing lag. Right. And it's really hard to see also whether the companies that are making the big investments today are those that are going to profit from the Revolution when it comes. And those are two really, really different things. And so there are some questions here. The capex is massive and I made a face when you said sustainable cash flows because right now even the Magnificent seven, the hyperscalers among the Mag seven that have been investing so heavily in capex, their free cash flow is turning negative. And so they're going from these massive cash generators to these companies with, with negative free cash flow as they spend everything on the AI revolution. That's a different business model than they had in the past. It is still in part because OpenAI and Anthropic aren't public. It is really hard to see what the actual end use, end user demand is for a lot of, a lot of this stuff. And that really is the key question. What is the end user demand and what are end users willing, willing to pay, what AI can do? And I don't think we, we know the answer to that yet. The circular financing within the AI ecosystem makes it really difficult to see because no one breaks out clearly. Well, this percentage of my revenues came from Google who gave me this amount of cash in order to do this. You can't see how much is coming from within the ecosystem versus how much say Caterpillar is paying OpenAI for access for AI tools. And so I think there are just a lot of questions about this. And so I am a believer in AI, but I am somewhat skeptical about its ability to generate the profits on the schedule that make all this happen without some gigantic hiccup. And I think the complexity of the debt structures, financing some of these data centers and the complexity of the circular revenue stream leaves open the possibility of a nasty surprise. And one of the really key things in the market is confidence. Even today, nobody can actually lay out exactly why problems in subprime mortgages caused the problems that they did. I mean, there's a theoretical big picture answer to that, but if you try to absolutely track it down, why did this cause this, cause this, cause this? The answer that it comes back to is people lost confidence. And so what you never know when there's the potential for a big hiccup is how much confidence that causes people to lose and then what the spillover effects of the lack of confidence end up being. And that's what concerns me about, about where we are now.
[12:17]
Rachel Warren
Well, and I think that's the big question, right, because you know, some of these companies, you know, you mentioned these are some of the most, you know, financially fortified companies in the world by far. And they of course are seeing some Strain on margins already in some cases, you know, and maybe you're already doing this, but if you were assigned to write the definitive, definitive investigative piece on the AI, boom, what are the corners of the market that you would be wanting to dig into first? What are you watching right now?
[12:43]
Bethany McLean
If I could really understand. I don't think you can do this. You might be able to, but if I could go out to the 200 biggest companies in America and do a survey and understand exactly how they're using AI and exactly what they're paying for it, and exactly what they see they're going to continue to be willing to pay for it. That's something I would really want to understand. And if I could see inside of OpenAI and Anthropic and understand exactly where their revenues were coming from, if they broke out their revenues by the top 50 customers, that would be another way of being able to get at that. And I'd like for any company with exposure to this to be to lay out exactly not just the debt on their balance sheet, but the off balance sheet obligations that they might have if everything goes completely haywire. And one example of that is this data center that Meta financed off balance sheet called Hyperion. And that debt could come back on Meta's balance sheet in a worst case scenario. And I'd want to understand that for every company, but not just what the balance sheet makes you show, but what else is out there that you, that you, that is harder to see. But all those things are really, really difficult.
[13:59]
Rachel Warren
Yeah, yeah, that's definitely part of the opacity there. I want to talk a little bit about short sellers. You have a somewhat nuanced view of short sellers. You've seen them be right with and run wrong elsewhere. What is the role you think they play in keeping the markets honest and how should retail investors view them?
[14:15]
Bethany McLean
So I think they play a really good role in keeping the market honest because they're the only people who are incentivized to point out problems. And you know, Charlie Munger used to say, show me an incentive and I'll show you the outcome. And everybody is incentivized to want things to go up because that's how people make, make money. And that means that the market isn't quite this intellectually honest system that we all think it is because most people who are saying things are inclined to say positive things. So you want the person who's willing to say negative things because you want to understand that point of view. That doesn't mean it's always Right. But you want to understand what it, what it is. The game has changed a lot because back in the old days when I wrote for Fortune, if a short seller came to me with an idea or said, you should look into this, nobody knew when Fortune was being published. There was no online publishing. And the magazine kind of slowly dribbled out from, you know, New York City newsstands to places around the country. So there was no way to trade on a story that I was publishing. So I didn't have to worry about that. The incentives are really, really different today. And so you do have to be more careful about why somebody is saying something and what impact they're trying to have in the market and how that's, that's being disclosed. And that is really different. I have seen chart sellers be wrong about their thesis and I've seen short sellers simply be wrong about the timing. Which, you know, back to my point about Wirecard, doesn't mean they're wrong, but things don't always happen. Just because you have this great realization about the flaw in a company doesn't mean the market cares. They may not care this year, they may not care year, they may not care for five years. So I think that's a question. What I don't understand is the move today, and it was true back in the old days too. For people to say, this person is short, therefore they are biased. Therefore I'm not going to listen to what they have to say. It's a market, everybody's biased. The person who's telling you to buy the stock is biased too. Listen, decide for yourself.
[16:13]
Rachel Warren
We are also very much in a time where, you know, capitalism in the public markets are shifting exponentially. And I'm curious, as you look at all of this, on the one hand, what do you think are some of the biggest long term structural threats to the future of individual retail investors? And what do you think are the greatest advantages that we can tap into?
[16:33]
Bethany McLean
That's a big question. I worry a lot about the way capitalists are undermining capitalism itself. I still am a big believer in capitalism, but I'm not a big believer in the way it's been practiced in the last decade. Plus, you know, the financial crisis was a big moment in time because the rich and well off got bailed out and the small and not so well off did not. And while that's there are understandable reasons for why it happened that way, it still was capitalism for the least well off and socialism for the most well off. And I worry more and more that the most privileged in our society are finding ways to make sure that, that they have to be bailed out, because if they're not, the whole system collapses. I also think that this increase in income and wealth inequality is just not a great thing for the structure of our society. Back in the 1950s, when a similar thing was happening, there was a movement in corporate America to say, let's take less, just to make sure that the system continues to work. And you don't see anybody doing that today and saying, let me take less because I am invested in our American system and I want this to continue to work. And I understand that the way forces are going means that I can earn a billion or a trillion dollars, but that's not stable for the country. That in the society that made all of this possible for me. You just don't see that kind of, of, of long term thinking. And that's what I mean about the, the, the capitalists breaking capitalism or in some of the terrible private equity deals we've seen, like this hospital deal steward that I mentioned, where the private equity firm Cerberus made hundreds of millions of dollars and hospitals that needy patients depended on ended up bankrupt. That's just, it's not a great outcome in the micro and it's not a great outcome in the macro because you don't need many examples of that for people to say, this system doesn't work for me. And we don't want people saying that we want our country to be stable. And I think we want, I think we want, we want our system to be stable. So I think that' one of the biggest risks that I see. And I worry a lot about private credit in this respect because I do think that if there are problems in private credit, the government will have to bail it out again. And I think once again there will be a reason for doing that. It might even be a correct reason that the outcome would be worse if the government didn't step in. But once again, it's just going to be wildly unfair.
[19:08]
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[20:59]
Rachel Warren
I think you've touched on this a little bit earlier in our conversation, but just to probe a bit more, how do you think retail investors should weigh the long term cash generation of the old economy businesses against sort of the massive premiums that we see Wall street paying these hypergrowth tech stories right now? Because we've seen obviously a lot of volatility in the markets even though many stocks are still doing incredibly well. And we also will sometimes see what looks like irrational responses even to companies that are reporting really quality earnings and cash flow across a variety of industries. So I'm curious your thoughts on how investors should view that. How you view that specifically?
[21:37]
Bethany McLean
Oh dear. You know, I've never been great at investment advice, but I guess what I would do is to have as broad an exposure to the market as you can own an index fund. It's heavily weighted now toward the hyperscaler. So you're effectively if you own an index fund, you're making a bet on AI and then own something that is as separate from AI as you possibly can so that you're somewhat so that you're somewhat hedged, so that you have some capacity for some cushion if the AI trade does go badly. But I think the most important thing to realize is that your index fund isn't your index fund Anymore, meaning that The S&P 500 index funds are heavily weighted toward the hyperscalers. So your index fund is a bet on the AI economy. So if you think that your index fund is still helping you profit from a broad swath of the market, it's not. And so I think that's something to be aware of.
[22:33]
Rachel Warren
1 and as you look at sort of the state of the market over the next three to five years, I wonder if there's any themes that you find really interesting or exciting. And which ones are you watching with the most caution?
[22:45]
Bethany McLean
I mean, unfortunately, I think that the direction of the AI trade is going to determine a lot because it is so big now and the spending is so big as a percentage of US GDP that if that goes south, I'm not sure anything else really matters that much. It's going to have. If that goes wildly south, it would pull our economy into a recession, in which case all bets aren't off, but they're all different. So maybe biotech, as risky as it is, stands apart from that in some ways. But even that if there's a recession in the market, craters that will drag biotech stocks that need funding down with it too. So I think for better or for worse, we are all massively exposed to the AI trade. Even if you're steering clear of all AI investments, I'm sure somebody who is more of an investment strategist than I am could suggest where you could put money that would be safe from the AI trade. But that's not really. I'm not an investment advice person, so I just don't know the answer to that.
[23:53]
Rachel Warren
One final question for you, I mean, looking back at your history of reporting and all of the companies and the boom and busts that you have reported on, what are kind of the most important traits that you've seen in leaders that succeed versus those that ultimately fail?
[24:11]
Bethany McLean
So I think it still is this old school ability to do what you say you're going to do. Despite what I said earlier about the importance of hype, and I understand why it is important in today's market so that you can maintain access to capital. And access to capital is in and of itself a competitive advantage. But this old school, let the results speak for themselves is still important in a background kind of way. And CEOs who do what they say they're going to do, it's really important. There has to be, there has to be reality at some, at some point in time. And it is one of the things that worries me about Musk Elon Musk. It's really hard to tell with him because there have been a lot of things he has said that has have not come true and have not materialized on the schedule in which he says they're going to materialize. And yet there are very, very big things that he has indisputably done. So he shows how this can be, how this can be really, really complicated. But, you know, the results do matter at some point. And so you want somebody who can, who can deliver results.
[25:17]
Rachel Warren
Well, so much that I think you've left our listeners and viewers to think about. Bethany and I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk with me today.
[25:25]
Bethany McLean
I hope so. It was really fun. Thank you.
[25:27]
Rachel Warren
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 is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. For the Motley Fool Hidden Gems investing team, I'm Rachel Warren. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

Summary7 min read

Podcast Summary: Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing

Episode: Part 2: Your Index Fund Is a Bet on AI — Whether You Know It or Not

Date: August 2, 2026
Host: Rachel Warren
Guest: Bethany McLean (investigative journalist, co-author of "The Smartest Guys in the Room")

Overview

In this episode, Rachel Warren and Bethany McLean dive into today’s market realities, focusing on how AI has fundamentally reshaped investment landscapes, especially for index fund investors. They discuss the unprecedented dominance of tech hyperscalers in the S&P 500, the consequences of massive AI-driven capital expenditures, the potential risks of “creative destruction” suppressed by government and Federal Reserve interventions, and the importance—and complications—of discerning real economic value amidst AI hype cycles. The conversation also explores the evolving roles of short sellers, major structural risks to retail investors, and the essential qualities of enduring corporate leadership.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Your Index Fund Is Not as Diversified as You Think

[00:03, 21:36]

Main Point: The S&P 500—and thus many index funds—are now heavily dominated by large tech companies engaged in the AI arms race.
- Quote [21:36, Bethany McLean]:
  
  "Your index fund isn't your index fund anymore, meaning that the S&P 500 index funds are heavily weighted toward the hyperscalers. So your index fund is a bet on the AI economy."
Implication: Investors seeking broad market exposure need to recognize they are, in effect, making a concentrated bet on AI and Big Tech.
- Quote [21:36, Bethany McLean]:
  
  "If you own an index fund, you're making a bet on AI, and then own something that is as separate from AI as you possibly can so that you're somewhat hedged."

2. Fed Intervention: Protecting the Big Over the Small

[01:17]

Bethany outlines how government bailouts and Fed interventions have increasingly prioritized Wall Street and large corporations, exacerbating inequality:
- The “moral hazard” of repeated bailouts encourages risk-taking among the big.
- The pandemic interventions benefited big corporations and the wealthy, at the expense of small businesses and less well-off citizens.
- Quote [02:33, Bethany McLean]:
  
  "The problem with that sort of policy is that it does benefit the big and the well off, not the small and the less well off... It doesn't benefit small companies... and then it allows the big to consolidate, which makes life even more hard on the small."

3. Hype, Information Flows, and Market Chaos

[04:10, 05:54]

Narratives inflate and collapse faster than ever, fueled by the "retailization" of the market, meme stocks, and viral reports.
- The influx of retail investors and internet hype makes investors more "reactionary", often unable to weigh both optimism and skepticism.
- Quote [04:10, Bethany McLean]:
  
  "If you're going to be a really good investor, you should be able to hold one thought...this company might rule the world...You should be able to hold the other thought in your mind too, which is that this company has a ton of debt and there's a lot of danger here."
- Skepticism is often dismissed—even when it's warranted.
- Quote [05:54, Bethany McLean]:
  
  "I think [the hyperspeed flow of information] makes it more chaotic. I don't think it necessarily makes it more efficient… there's just this reaction and it can be totally outsized."

4. AI’s Economic Realities: Real Revolution or Future Reckoning?

[08:30, 09:18]

Enormous capex spending on AI and chips is straining even the “Magnificent Seven” Big Tech firms—turning former cash machines into companies with negative free cash flow.
- Quote [09:18, Bethany McLean]:
  
  "Even the Magnificent Seven, the hyperscalers...their free cash flow is turning negative...That's a different business model than they had in the past."
The actual end-user demand and willingness to pay for AI remains opaque—all compounded by complex, circular revenue flows within the AI ecosystem.
- Quote [09:18, Bethany McLean]:
  
  "It is really hard to see what the actual end user demand is...What is the end user demand and what are end users willing to pay...I don't think we know the answer to that yet."
- The market’s faith in AI profits is unproven and could be vulnerable to confidence shocks, similar to subprime mortgage crisis dominoes.

5. Investigating the AI Boom: Where’s the Real Value?

[12:42]

Bethany’s investigative wish list for the sector:
- Understand precisely how the biggest companies use and pay for AI.
- Obtain revenue breakdowns from leading private AI firms by top customers.
- Examine all off-balance-sheet obligations and hidden financial risks, citing Meta's data center financing as an example.

6. The Role and Perception of Short Sellers

[13:58, 14:14]

Short sellers are essential to market honesty—they’re among the few with incentives to seek out and report problems.
- Quote [14:14, Bethany McLean]:
  
  "They're the only people who are incentivized to point out problems...Most people who are saying things are inclined to say positive things. So you want the person who's willing to say negative things...Listen, decide for yourself."
- Timing can make even correct skeptics look wrong for years, as seen in Enron and Wirecard cases.
- Suspicion of short sellers' motives is misplaced—everyone in the market is “biased.”

7. The Systemic Risks and Shifting Capitalism

[16:32]

Bethany warns of increasing bailouts for the privileged, worsening wealth inequality, and capitalism’s self-sabotage—especially through unfair private equity practices.
- Quote [16:32, Bethany McLean]:
  
  "I worry a lot about the way capitalists are undermining capitalism itself...The financial crisis was a big moment in time because the rich and well off got bailed out and the small and not so well off did not...We want our system to be stable."
- Private credit is a major area of concern: if it falters, another round of government bailouts may be inevitable.

8. Hedging and Diversifying as a Retail Investor

[20:59, 21:36]

True diversification is harder to achieve, since index funds are dominated by the AI-driven tech giants.
- Bethany suggests owning both index funds (AI-weighted by default) and assets as far removed from AI as possible to hedge exposure.

9. The Future: AI’s Determining Power and Residual Risks

[22:45]

AI’s performance will likely dictate market and economic fortunes over the next 3–5 years; a negative turn could pull the entire economy into recession.
- Biotech may have some relative insulation, but in a recession even those stocks would be pressured.

10. Leadership Success: What Separates Visionaries from Fraudsters?

[24:10]

Integrity—delivering on promises—remains the hallmark of great leaders. Hype is necessary for capital, but reality must catch up.
- Elon Musk cited as a “complicated” example—his hype often misses timelines, but he's also delivered big real successes.
- Quote [24:10, Bethany McLean]:
  
  "Let the results speak for themselves is still important in a background kind of way...You want somebody who can deliver results."

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

"Your index fund isn't your index fund anymore...your index fund is a bet on the AI economy."
— Bethany McLean [00:03, 21:36]
"The Fed...over the past couple of decades...has been more and more a captive of Wall Street..."
— Bethany McLean [01:17]
"If you're going to be a really good investor, you should be able to hold one thought in your mind...and also the competing thought."
— Bethany McLean [04:10]
"Short sellers...are the only people who are incentivized to point out problems."
— Bethany McLean [14:14]
"I worry a lot about the way capitalists are undermining capitalism itself."
— Bethany McLean [16:32]
"We are all massively exposed to the AI trade. Even if you're steering clear of all AI investments."
— Bethany McLean [22:45]
"Let the results speak for themselves is still important in a background kind of way."
— Bethany McLean [24:10]

Useful Timestamps

[00:03] – Index funds as AI bets
[01:17] – Fed interventions & moral hazard
[04:10] – Retail hype, narrative speed, investor psychology
[05:54] – Market efficiency vs. chaos in the digital age
[09:18] – AI capex, free cash flow strain, and economic realities
[12:42] – Investigative focus for the AI boom
[14:14] – Role of short sellers
[16:32] – Capitalism’s structural risks and private credit
[21:36] – How to hedge and diversify as an investor
[22:45] – AI's outsize influence on the economic future
[24:10] – Leadership, reality vs. hype

Conclusion

This episode offers a sober look at the real risks and surprising concentrations beneath today’s market surface, especially for retail investors trusting in index diversification. With AI and tech hyperscalers wielding unprecedented influence, Bethany McLean's insights challenge listeners to question easy narratives, seek out red flags, maintain intellectual flexibility, and rethink what it means to truly diversify. Capitalism’s future stability—and your own investment returns—may depend on it.

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Transcript26 lines

[00:03]
Bethany McLean
Your index fund isn't your index fund anymore, meaning that the s and P500 index funds are heavily weighted toward the hyperscaler. So your index fund is a bet on the AI economy. So if you think that your index fund is still helping you profit from a broad swath of the market, it's not.
[00:29]
Rachel Warren
That was Bethany McLean, veteran investigative journalist, analyst, and co author of the Smartest Guys in the Room. I'm Motley fool analyst Rachel Warren. Last week, Bethany and I talked through the psychology of corporate fraud, the red flags investors miss, and what really separates a visionary CEO from a fraudster. This week in part two, we turn the lens on the market. Right now, the AI trade. What's happening to the free cash flow of the biggest companies in the world, and why the investment you think is keeping you safe may not be doing what you think it is. We hope you enjoy your book. The Big Fail talked about what the pandemic revealed about who America's financial systems tend to protect. And I'd like to talk about this from a market perspective. How did factors like government bailouts, Fed interventions break that natural kind of market cycle of creative destruction and what we see now?
[01:18]
Bethany McLean
Yeah, and I think it's a really important issue for today because it's one that Kevin Wash, the new Fed chair, is going to have to contend with. There's much discussed is this issue of political independence, the Fed being independent from politicians. Less discussed is the issue of financial dependence, the Fed being independent from Wall Street. And the reality is, is that the Fed did not intend it this way. But over the past couple of decades, going back to maybe even earlier, the bailout of this big hedge fund called Long Term Capital Management, the Fed has been more and more a captive of Wall street in that the Fed is afraid to let the market, let the market break. And so the pandemic, you can argue that's exactly what the Fed needed to do because the market was breaking. But nonetheless, it provided reassurance to Wall street that when, when the proverbial whatever hits the fan, the Fed will always step in. And that kind of belief in a backstop is what people call moral hazard. And I think that it is not great, and I think it is a big risk for our financial system because every time the Fed pushes the boundaries of what it can do and pushes them further and further and further, and the question is, how much further can they be pushed? Because the bailouts keep getting bigger in size. So I think that's a real risk. And the problem with that sort of policy is that it does benefit the big and the well off, not the small and the less well off. So Fed policy really benefited big corporations that needed access to the debt market in the pandemic. It benefited well off individuals who, because the stock market soared obviously in the wake of the Fed's actions. So people who had exposure to the stock market did really, really well. It benefited small companies who didn't have access to the capital markets, not at all. And the government obviously tried to come up with a lending plan for them that was much better than nothing. But it doesn't benefit small companies and then it allows the big to consolidate, which makes life even more hard on the small. And this action really didn't benefit consumers who are less or citizens who are less well off who don't have exposure to the market because it helped cause inflation. The debate of how much Fed policy contributed to the inflation we, we experienced and are still experiencing is a raging debate. But it definitely didn't help matters. And inflation hurts people at the lower end of the income spectrum a lot, while the gains in asset prices don't do much to help them.
[03:43]
Rachel Warren
You know, we, we live in an era of a lot of hype in the markets. You know, here at the Motley fool, obviously we talk a lot about the quality businesses to invest in, but certainly it's also a time of, you know, we've seen meme st retail options trading, financial influencers. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how the democratization of market data mixed with Internet hype has really changed the speed at which corporate narratives inflating and collapse and really the ways to determine the hype from the value in that environment.
[04:10]
Bethany McLean
Yeah, that's funny. It's just something I'm thinking about now, especially with the IPO of SpaceX and the possible coming big IPOs of OpenAI and anthropic because this retailization of the market is a really interesting phenomenon, I think. One thing that concerns me, although you know, it is true of professional investors as well, that I just wrote a piece for the New York Times on SpaceX and I used my favorite F. Scott Fitzgerald quote, which I'm going to mangle as I try to paraphrase it, that the true mark of genius is being able to hold two competing notions in your mind at the same time and not go crazy. And it is something that people are less and less capable of doing. And so if you're going to be a really good investor, you should be able to hold one thought in your mind which is that say SpaceX might be this, it might rule the world, right? But you should be able to hold the other thought in your mind too, which is that this company has a ton of debt and needs a ton of debt and there's, there's a lot of danger here and people are just increasingly vehement and monomaniacal about one side of the equation and that's not being a good, good investor. And people don't. If, if, if a short seller says something, oh that idiot, they're biased, they're instead of, wait, okay, what does this person say? Does it make sense? Should I, should I think about this? And you should think about the reality is you think about everything, think about every piece of information. If only then to say I understand this point of view, but I, but I don't agree with it, but you should have intellectually grounded means of dismissing points of view that you don't like. Not just a reactionary one. And I worry about the reactionary tendency in the market and by the way, I see it from, from professional investors too. Nobody likes to be told that something that they believe in may not be worthy of the belief.
[05:54]
Rachel Warren
When you wrote the smartest guys in the room information moved much slower than it does now, right. And today a short report or other news can go viral in minutes. It can wipe out billions in market cap. I'm curious now, does this hyperspeed environment, do you think it makes markets more efficient at finding truth or just more chaotic? I think that's a question that weighs on a lot of investors mind these days.
[06:16]
Bethany McLean
I think it makes it more chaotic. I don't think it necessarily makes it more efficient because there's just this reaction and it can be totally outsized and it doesn't do a lot to sort out what, what truth is. But you know, the market has never really been efficient in that way that, that people think and I think about. There's Enron for instance. The skepticism was out there. A lot of big smart hedge funds were short Enron for years before its coll and of course they weren't putting out there. There wasn't a vehicle in which they could disseminate their point of view. But they were right nonetheless. It took years for Enron to collapse. A more compelling recent example is Wirecard, this big European company that ended up going bankrupt and was a total scam. There was a really convincing piece in the ft. I don't know, maybe a decade, seven years or so before Wirecard was revealed to be a fraud that laid it all out and no one cared until they did. So there's also this tendency to dismiss red flags because the market isn't incorporating those red flags into its view of the price. So therefore the red flags must be wrong. And if you look at history, you see that's, it's, it's, it's not, that's just not correct. And so you, you can't dismiss a red flag because the market doesn't seem to care. You may decide that you believe and so therefore you're going to keep the red flag in your back pocket but continue to invest. Or you may decide that the red flag isn't really a red flag and that you think the person who raised it is is wrong. But you still need to pay attention.
[07:59]
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[08:31]
Rachel Warren
well, one of the things that's interesting, you know, we are living in a time of a lot of information that's constantly coming towards investors in the AI revolution and the AI build out. Now obviously there are particularly the big companies, they are generating real sustainable cash flow and profits from a lot of the ways. Well and maybe you can share your thoughts on that as well. But you know, there are the most kind of investable areas of the market. Right. Which are the big tech companies. We're also seeing of course in some of these smaller companies the role of private debt that we talked about a bit earlier. But across the board there is astronomical capex that's going towards AI data, data centers and chips. So I wonder, you know, talk about obviously your thoughts, you know, how can also a retail investor separate companies generating real growth, real potential from, from this, these tailwinds from those that are just telling a great story.
[09:19]
Bethany McLean
Yeah, it's, it's really hard because I think AI is without question real. Right? The question but the real question is whether the economic value it generates arrives on a schedule or arrives at all in time to justify the valuations of, of the companies. And so many, many times throughout history there's a timing lag. Right. And it's really hard to see also whether the companies that are making the big investments today are those that are going to profit from the Revolution when it comes. And those are two really, really different things. And so there are some questions here. The capex is massive and I made a face when you said sustainable cash flows because right now even the Magnificent seven, the hyperscalers among the Mag seven that have been investing so heavily in capex, their free cash flow is turning negative. And so they're going from these massive cash generators to these companies with, with negative free cash flow as they spend everything on the AI revolution. That's a different business model than they had in the past. It is still in part because OpenAI and Anthropic aren't public. It is really hard to see what the actual end use, end user demand is for a lot of, a lot of this stuff. And that really is the key question. What is the end user demand and what are end users willing, willing to pay, what AI can do? And I don't think we, we know the answer to that yet. The circular financing within the AI ecosystem makes it really difficult to see because no one breaks out clearly. Well, this percentage of my revenues came from Google who gave me this amount of cash in order to do this. You can't see how much is coming from within the ecosystem versus how much say Caterpillar is paying OpenAI for access for AI tools. And so I think there are just a lot of questions about this. And so I am a believer in AI, but I am somewhat skeptical about its ability to generate the profits on the schedule that make all this happen without some gigantic hiccup. And I think the complexity of the debt structures, financing some of these data centers and the complexity of the circular revenue stream leaves open the possibility of a nasty surprise. And one of the really key things in the market is confidence. Even today, nobody can actually lay out exactly why problems in subprime mortgages caused the problems that they did. I mean, there's a theoretical big picture answer to that, but if you try to absolutely track it down, why did this cause this, cause this, cause this? The answer that it comes back to is people lost confidence. And so what you never know when there's the potential for a big hiccup is how much confidence that causes people to lose and then what the spillover effects of the lack of confidence end up being. And that's what concerns me about, about where we are now.
[12:17]
Rachel Warren
Well, and I think that's the big question, right, because you know, some of these companies, you know, you mentioned these are some of the most, you know, financially fortified companies in the world by far. And they of course are seeing some Strain on margins already in some cases, you know, and maybe you're already doing this, but if you were assigned to write the definitive, definitive investigative piece on the AI, boom, what are the corners of the market that you would be wanting to dig into first? What are you watching right now?
[12:43]
Bethany McLean
If I could really understand. I don't think you can do this. You might be able to, but if I could go out to the 200 biggest companies in America and do a survey and understand exactly how they're using AI and exactly what they're paying for it, and exactly what they see they're going to continue to be willing to pay for it. That's something I would really want to understand. And if I could see inside of OpenAI and Anthropic and understand exactly where their revenues were coming from, if they broke out their revenues by the top 50 customers, that would be another way of being able to get at that. And I'd like for any company with exposure to this to be to lay out exactly not just the debt on their balance sheet, but the off balance sheet obligations that they might have if everything goes completely haywire. And one example of that is this data center that Meta financed off balance sheet called Hyperion. And that debt could come back on Meta's balance sheet in a worst case scenario. And I'd want to understand that for every company, but not just what the balance sheet makes you show, but what else is out there that you, that you, that is harder to see. But all those things are really, really difficult.
[13:59]
Rachel Warren
Yeah, yeah, that's definitely part of the opacity there. I want to talk a little bit about short sellers. You have a somewhat nuanced view of short sellers. You've seen them be right with and run wrong elsewhere. What is the role you think they play in keeping the markets honest and how should retail investors view them?
[14:15]
Bethany McLean
So I think they play a really good role in keeping the market honest because they're the only people who are incentivized to point out problems. And you know, Charlie Munger used to say, show me an incentive and I'll show you the outcome. And everybody is incentivized to want things to go up because that's how people make, make money. And that means that the market isn't quite this intellectually honest system that we all think it is because most people who are saying things are inclined to say positive things. So you want the person who's willing to say negative things because you want to understand that point of view. That doesn't mean it's always Right. But you want to understand what it, what it is. The game has changed a lot because back in the old days when I wrote for Fortune, if a short seller came to me with an idea or said, you should look into this, nobody knew when Fortune was being published. There was no online publishing. And the magazine kind of slowly dribbled out from, you know, New York City newsstands to places around the country. So there was no way to trade on a story that I was publishing. So I didn't have to worry about that. The incentives are really, really different today. And so you do have to be more careful about why somebody is saying something and what impact they're trying to have in the market and how that's, that's being disclosed. And that is really different. I have seen chart sellers be wrong about their thesis and I've seen short sellers simply be wrong about the timing. Which, you know, back to my point about Wirecard, doesn't mean they're wrong, but things don't always happen. Just because you have this great realization about the flaw in a company doesn't mean the market cares. They may not care this year, they may not care year, they may not care for five years. So I think that's a question. What I don't understand is the move today, and it was true back in the old days too. For people to say, this person is short, therefore they are biased. Therefore I'm not going to listen to what they have to say. It's a market, everybody's biased. The person who's telling you to buy the stock is biased too. Listen, decide for yourself.
[16:13]
Rachel Warren
We are also very much in a time where, you know, capitalism in the public markets are shifting exponentially. And I'm curious, as you look at all of this, on the one hand, what do you think are some of the biggest long term structural threats to the future of individual retail investors? And what do you think are the greatest advantages that we can tap into?
[16:33]
Bethany McLean
That's a big question. I worry a lot about the way capitalists are undermining capitalism itself. I still am a big believer in capitalism, but I'm not a big believer in the way it's been practiced in the last decade. Plus, you know, the financial crisis was a big moment in time because the rich and well off got bailed out and the small and not so well off did not. And while that's there are understandable reasons for why it happened that way, it still was capitalism for the least well off and socialism for the most well off. And I worry more and more that the most privileged in our society are finding ways to make sure that, that they have to be bailed out, because if they're not, the whole system collapses. I also think that this increase in income and wealth inequality is just not a great thing for the structure of our society. Back in the 1950s, when a similar thing was happening, there was a movement in corporate America to say, let's take less, just to make sure that the system continues to work. And you don't see anybody doing that today and saying, let me take less because I am invested in our American system and I want this to continue to work. And I understand that the way forces are going means that I can earn a billion or a trillion dollars, but that's not stable for the country. That in the society that made all of this possible for me. You just don't see that kind of, of, of long term thinking. And that's what I mean about the, the, the capitalists breaking capitalism or in some of the terrible private equity deals we've seen, like this hospital deal steward that I mentioned, where the private equity firm Cerberus made hundreds of millions of dollars and hospitals that needy patients depended on ended up bankrupt. That's just, it's not a great outcome in the micro and it's not a great outcome in the macro because you don't need many examples of that for people to say, this system doesn't work for me. And we don't want people saying that we want our country to be stable. And I think we want, I think we want, we want our system to be stable. So I think that' one of the biggest risks that I see. And I worry a lot about private credit in this respect because I do think that if there are problems in private credit, the government will have to bail it out again. And I think once again there will be a reason for doing that. It might even be a correct reason that the outcome would be worse if the government didn't step in. But once again, it's just going to be wildly unfair.
[19:08]
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[20:59]
Rachel Warren
I think you've touched on this a little bit earlier in our conversation, but just to probe a bit more, how do you think retail investors should weigh the long term cash generation of the old economy businesses against sort of the massive premiums that we see Wall street paying these hypergrowth tech stories right now? Because we've seen obviously a lot of volatility in the markets even though many stocks are still doing incredibly well. And we also will sometimes see what looks like irrational responses even to companies that are reporting really quality earnings and cash flow across a variety of industries. So I'm curious your thoughts on how investors should view that. How you view that specifically?
[21:37]
Bethany McLean
Oh dear. You know, I've never been great at investment advice, but I guess what I would do is to have as broad an exposure to the market as you can own an index fund. It's heavily weighted now toward the hyperscaler. So you're effectively if you own an index fund, you're making a bet on AI and then own something that is as separate from AI as you possibly can so that you're somewhat so that you're somewhat hedged, so that you have some capacity for some cushion if the AI trade does go badly. But I think the most important thing to realize is that your index fund isn't your index fund Anymore, meaning that The S&P 500 index funds are heavily weighted toward the hyperscalers. So your index fund is a bet on the AI economy. So if you think that your index fund is still helping you profit from a broad swath of the market, it's not. And so I think that's something to be aware of.
[22:33]
Rachel Warren
1 and as you look at sort of the state of the market over the next three to five years, I wonder if there's any themes that you find really interesting or exciting. And which ones are you watching with the most caution?
[22:45]
Bethany McLean
I mean, unfortunately, I think that the direction of the AI trade is going to determine a lot because it is so big now and the spending is so big as a percentage of US GDP that if that goes south, I'm not sure anything else really matters that much. It's going to have. If that goes wildly south, it would pull our economy into a recession, in which case all bets aren't off, but they're all different. So maybe biotech, as risky as it is, stands apart from that in some ways. But even that if there's a recession in the market, craters that will drag biotech stocks that need funding down with it too. So I think for better or for worse, we are all massively exposed to the AI trade. Even if you're steering clear of all AI investments, I'm sure somebody who is more of an investment strategist than I am could suggest where you could put money that would be safe from the AI trade. But that's not really. I'm not an investment advice person, so I just don't know the answer to that.
[23:53]
Rachel Warren
One final question for you, I mean, looking back at your history of reporting and all of the companies and the boom and busts that you have reported on, what are kind of the most important traits that you've seen in leaders that succeed versus those that ultimately fail?
[24:11]
Bethany McLean
So I think it still is this old school ability to do what you say you're going to do. Despite what I said earlier about the importance of hype, and I understand why it is important in today's market so that you can maintain access to capital. And access to capital is in and of itself a competitive advantage. But this old school, let the results speak for themselves is still important in a background kind of way. And CEOs who do what they say they're going to do, it's really important. There has to be, there has to be reality at some, at some point in time. And it is one of the things that worries me about Musk Elon Musk. It's really hard to tell with him because there have been a lot of things he has said that has have not come true and have not materialized on the schedule in which he says they're going to materialize. And yet there are very, very big things that he has indisputably done. So he shows how this can be, how this can be really, really complicated. But, you know, the results do matter at some point. And so you want somebody who can, who can deliver results.
[25:17]
Rachel Warren
Well, so much that I think you've left our listeners and viewers to think about. Bethany and I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk with me today.
[25:25]
Bethany McLean
I hope so. It was really fun. Thank you.
[25:27]
Rachel Warren
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 is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. For the Motley Fool Hidden Gems investing team, I'm Rachel Warren. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.