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- [00:01]
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- [00:31]
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- [01:00]
Austin Hankwitz
per month this interview, it's awesome. We just wrapped it up with Ben Miller. You guys are going to love it, but I think we need a little preamble before we jump into the episode. Fundrise, as the real estate platform has done a wonderful job of building, I don't know Robert, billions of dollars of real estate, making it easy for people to invest in their real estate endeavors over the last decade, decade and a half. And we've been investors in fundrise, the real estate stuff for a long time. But then in 2022, fundrise came out with a new product that was a venture fund where their existing investors could invest into venture companies. Venture backed companies like OpenAI, Anthropic Anduril Databricks, SpaceX, all these at the time companies no one ever really heard of. But Ben Miller, the CEO of fundrise said, no, I want to own equity in these companies because I think they're going to change the world. Fast forward three, four years into the future. And I mean we learned during this interview the venture fund performed 85% in the last 12 months, just year to date. I mean it's unbelievable how well this fund has performed and now they're taking that venture fund that a hundred thousand investors on fundrise put their money into, including myself and Robert and probably many of you listening right now. And they're listing it on the New York Stock Exchange. We're filming this on March 18th right now. This comes out the following week and it's now listed on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol vcx. So this whole interview is our deep dive into vcx. How it came to be, why they decided to list it, the democratization, why these companies are staying private for longer, how they're trying to make it easier for the everyday Americans like us listening and participating here can invest and participate in these specific companies and see the upside. Like imagine if the Mag 7 never went public. Imagine if Google or Amazon or Microsoft or Tesla was still privately held companies. Like, that's the problem they're trying to solve right now, because that is the reality. SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, they're all still privately held. But if you participated into VCX since 2022, you saw some upside from that. And they want to make sure as more companies stay private over the next five, 10 years, the everyday American can experience that upside. That's the interview we have here with Ben Miller. We're so excited about it. We'll talk about some terms and some things that might go over some heads. But I think we do a decent job of kind of double clicking, going back and making sure that everyone's on the same page.
- [03:32]
Robert Kroke
VCX is democratizing and allowing the everyday investor to get involved and own pieces of these companies. And to me, it's all about leveling the playing field for the everyday investor. We talk about in the episode how it used to be to get into these companies, you had to write these massive checks, sometimes millions of dollars, just to participate. And now with Fundrise's VCX ticker, you will be able to own pieces of these top companies that are still private through this ticker and just do it every day like you're investing in an ETF or a stock. I'm so excited for everyone watching this episode to take a look at VCX and understand what it's doing for the future of retail investors. I couldn't be more excited.
- [04:17]
Austin Hankwitz
So you guys are going to love this interview. So with that being said, let's jump right in with Ben Miller. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Rich Habits podcast, a top 10 business podcast on Spotify brought to you by Public. Com. By the end of today's episode, you're going to understand what why some of the biggest investment gains of the last decade happened before companies ever reached the public markets. Exactly how our friends at fundrise built a venture capital fund with exposure to these companies like OpenAI, SpaceX and Anthropic. And why their new ticker VCX, could represent a major shift in how everyday investors access private technology companies. My name's Austin Hankwitz and I'm joined by my co host, Robert Kroke. Robert is a seasoned entrepreneur with lifetime revenues over 300 million. And I'm a multimillionaire in my late 20s with a background in finance and economics. As the show name might suggest, every episode we talk about Rich habits as they relate to business, finance and mindset. So, Robert, what we talking about in today's episode?
- [05:18]
Robert Kroke
In today's episode, we're talking about something that I think many investors have felt for years, even if they couldn't fully explain it. It seems like some of the most important and anticipated companies in the world go public only after the majority of their value has already been created and captured by those early venture investors. Think about companies like OpenAI, SpaceX or Anthropic. The technology shaping the future are often built and funded for years, if not over a decade, in the private markets before the public ever has a chance to participate. That's why we're excited to welcome Ben Miller, co founder and CEO of Fundrise. Fundrise has spent more than a decade building products designed to give retail investors access to asset classes, specifically real estate, that were traditionally reserved for institutions and the ultra wealthy. And now they're taking that same mission into venture capital.
- [06:12]
Austin Hankwitz
Back In July of 2022, fundrise launched what they called the Innovation Fund. This was a venture capital fund designed to invest in leading private technology companies across sectors like artificial intelligence, aerospace, infrastructure, software and fintech. Since the launch of the Innovation Fund, the fund has built a portfolio that includes companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, Anduril and RAMP, and has grown to over $600 million in assets under management. Now here we are in March of 2026 and fundrise plans to take the next step by listing the fund on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker vcx, what they call the public ticker for private tech. Joining us today, of course, Ben Miller to talk about the launch and pull the curtain back on everything happening behind the scenes with vcx, the public tick private tech. Ben, welcome to the Rich Habits podcast.
- [07:08]
Ben Miller
Thanks for having me.
- [07:09]
Austin Hankwitz
So, before we jump in, quick congratulations to you and the entire fundrise team because fundrise was recently recognized as one of Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 winners, joining an elite list of companies that have shown extraordinary growth and innovation over the last several years. This list includes some pretty famous names like Google and ebay and Tesla. They've all been recognized in the past. So really cool to see you guys on that list as well. So one of the big ideas behind VCX is that everyday investors have been largely blocked out of private tech investing and that a huge portion of modern wealth creation now happens before companies ever reach the public markets. Why did this shift happen? And why are the most important technology companies staying private for longer than ever in history?
- [07:59]
Ben Miller
Yeah, that's a great question. Over the last 30 years there's been this dramatic shift. And so if you go back to the 90s, Amazon went public after it had been in business for three years and it went public at a $438 million valuation and is now worth like I think 1.8 trillion or 2 trillion or something. Ridiculous. All that wealth was created in the public markets for everyday investors. So everybody's 401 has been doing shockingly well despite some economic headwinds in the economy because the mag7 has been almost single handedly building all of the wealth in the stock market. So that's Google, that's Amazon, that's Nvidia. And those companies went public back in the day because that was the playbook. If you wanted to build a big company, you wanted access to a lot of capital. That's how you did it. There were two sort of shocks to the system over the last really, I mean honestly you can even go three. But there was the 2008 financial crisis, there was a Covid crisis and you might throw in 2001 stock market bubble if you want. Each one of those crises, what happened was public markets basically overcorrected. They crashed worse than they should have and the private markets essentially were less volatile. They don't price daily way or even price minute to minute. And so the private markets has been growing very steadily for the last 20 years and it's now tens of trillions of dollars. And so what's really happened is not that the public markets have changed that much, they've gotten a little bit more of. We talk about what's changed in the public markets, but it's mostly that the private markets went from basically non existent in the 90s to being a massive, massive sector. And now companies don't have to go public to get access to capital.
- [10:01]
Austin Hankwitz
I love that answer. Right, because that's what it comes down to. The question being why are most of these very important technology companies staying private longer than ever? It's because to your point back in, I think it was 97 or 98 when Amazon did IPO and when Nvidia IPO'd in Tesla, Tesla IPO'd at a 2 billion dollar valuation. Right. Like the only way to get back into the 90s and early 2000s, billions of dollars of cash was to go through the IP. But to your point, now there's access to capital with venture investing and it's very abundant. So I appreciate you walking us through that little bit of a history lesson.
- [10:34]
Ben Miller
Yeah, let me just go a little further because I love this type of stuff and hopefully it's not too far off topic for you guys but like it's not just you can get access to capital, company get access to capital, which today, I mean if you look at what happened last year, more money was raised for tech companies in the private markets than the public markets. Think about the tens of billions of dollars funding into OpenAI anthropic and, and XAI. So there's not just capital formation. The big development in the last couple years is that companies have stayed private and their employees and their pre existing investors can get liquidity through these tender offers. So now not only do you have access to fundraising for the company, but investors who bought into the companies or people who worked the companies like Stripe Revolut, these companies that are, you know, worth tens of billions of dollars every quarter or every six months they, they do a tender and employees can sell their shares at market price and investors can buy in. So which is really an alternative to the, to the public market. So essentially you can, you can get liquidity and capital without any of the burdens, the drama, the complexity, the headaches, the, you know, if you're in the public markets, right, you have activists, you have a lot of drama. Like if you look at what's happened over the last few years, like the public markets have really changed in terms of, as more and more people become passive investors, the market gets made by a smaller and smaller share of investors, the retail investors, hedge funds. And so like this is where I'm, I'm, you know, I'm not an expert on public markets. I know a lot more about private markets. But like most people I know, this is more anecdotal, most people I know who are executives in these public companies, if you're not in the index, if you're not getting the capital flows from passive investors, you're essentially orphaned and you're essentially going to die. You can't get anybody but hedge funds and traders into Your stock if you're not in the index, bottom line is the private market says fulfilled most of the functions of the public markets without most of the negatives.
- [12:45]
Robert Kroke
Yeah. What I love about this framing is you're not just pointing out a problem, you're actually building a solution around it. VCX is being described as the public ticker for private tech. So for someone that's listening, following along and hearing about this for the first time, walk our listeners through exactly what VCX is, how it works, and what makes it different from a traditional venture capital fund.
- [13:10]
Ben Miller
Venture capital funds are very different for the investor. So the venture capital fund has two customers, the investor and the company they invest in. And so the investor typically writes a multimillion dollar check. A typical venture fund has to have less than 100 investors. In practice, you typically have to be a qualified purchaser, which means you have a net worth of more than $5 million. It's typically a, a big investor, an institution, a pension fund, a very large family office. They commit. To a venture fund, the commitment's typically 10 years. You say, okay, I'm going to make a 10 year commitment to this strategy, to this fund manager. They will draw down that. So let's say I'm committing a million dollars. They draw that down over two years. As they invest it. They draw it, or they call the capital invest in companies that, that take a while to mature. When you invest in a company, you usually don't see good outcomes for two to five years. It takes a while for a company to get built. It takes a while to actually not just get built, but then see the economics and the valuations go up. And so they invest it over two years, they let the company mature over five years, and then they start to sell it down in the last seven to 10 years. And so that's a very different thing than what people are used to in the public markets where they can invest, they can invest whenever they want and they can sell whenever they want. People are focused on being able to sell whenever they want, but actually being able to invest whenever you want. It doesn't exist in the private markets. If you want to invest in anthropic today, or if you want to invest in Anduril today, you could not, you couldn't get it, you can't buy it, it's not available. A lot of people have been trying to solve this problem for a lot of years and they've come up with a lot of different solutions and some of those solutions are still out there. And we can talk about the different people trying this because you've seen some ETFs try to do this. Our belief is that you have to meet the private markets where they are the private markets. The primary investor, I'm going to say more than 90% of all investors in these big private tech companies are venture capital funds. And if you are a world class private tech company, you can take money from anybody. Everybody wants to give you money. And so you need to look like and behave like what they want from an investor. And what they want is a single investor that represents a large amount of capital, who they know personally, usually has a good reputation and is a long term holder. And so we built VCX to deliver that for the companies you want to be a counterparty that companies want to have as an investor. So on the private side we look like a venture fund and then when we list on the public side we look a lot like an etf. I think we look like a fund or mutual fund. It's technically a 40 act fund. It's closed ended listed fund. And that fund you can buy and sell whenever you want. And it trades at whatever price the market decides. The investor gets something that's liquid, that's a portfolio that looks again like a, a mutual fund, but the company gets what they want, which is what looks like a venture fund. That's why we call it vcx, a venture capital exchange.
- [16:31]
Austin Hankwitz
Oh my gosh, I love that. I didn't even know that was the acronym. Let's go. That's incredible. Now a couple key terms here that you mentioned that I want to clarify on. You mentioned closed end fund. What exactly does that mean? And then also I'm assuming when it comes to the closed end fund, there's an acronym nav, Net asset value. I'm assuming you guys are going to be kind of moving around with some of those, those acronyms. So maybe talk a little bit more about what a closed end fund is and why NAV is important for investors to think about whenever they're looking at vcx.
- [17:00]
Ben Miller
Yeah, one of the things I love is different sectors. We use the same name for, for different things. So in the private markets a closed end fund is a fund that invests and has a life that is, that is finite. It lasts seven to 10 years. It's it closed end because at the end of the life of the fund it, it winds down as opposed to an open ended fund which is, that is, it can exist forever. Okay. That's what people think. In the private markets we say closed end fund in the public markets closed end fund is something totally different. It's a 40 act designation. And the main difference, this gets a little technical, but it helps people understand why some of these ETFs who've bought private funds have not worked. So let me just do an etf. How an ETF works is you buy and sell the ETF and the ETF during the day. Let's say that it's a $100 million fund that owns 10% Nvidia. And during that day a lot of money flows into the fund. They have to keep buying Nvidia to keep Nvidia at 10%. And so it's called the create redeem function. And so the ETF is creating and redeeming, or let's say $100 million left the fund. They have to sell down a percentage of their Nvidia so they can maintain their same ratios. So the ETF is selling and buying shares every day to sort of keep the ratios the same. Closed end fund is more or less a static fund, a static pool. So for us, for example, it might be 20% anthropic, 10% OpenAI, 15% databricks. And if you're buying and selling that fund, that ratio hasn't changed. The price of the fund may change as more people buy it or more people sell it, but it's closed, not open. So our belief is that if you want to give the public access to private companies, you can't do it in an open ended wrapper because what's happened to some of these companies who tried to buy SpaceX as an example is they bought SpaceX, they saw a lot of capital flows because everybody likes that idea. And then they couldn't buy more SpaceX because you can't get a hold of it, right? It's very hard to get a hold of. To get a hold of it you had to pay huge premiums and huge transaction costs. And then essentially the mechanism of an ETF destroyed the economic value of buying the SpaceX. And so I believe it has to be in a closed ended wrapper for it to work.
- [19:28]
Austin Hankwitz
I completely agree with you. I think it makes a ton of sense. Can you explain? Because I'm sure people are going to see this. I talk about closed end wrapper here, like Let round numbers, $100 million VCX day one. Let's just say that's what's inside of it here. And you mentioned let's say 20% anthropic, 20% data bricks and 20% OpenAI. So at that time that means 20 million here, 20 million there, 20 million there. But as more money flows into VCX, you are not adding that, you know, the 20 million does not magically turn into a $24 million position of OpenAI or a $29 million position of ANT still marked the same 20 million because that's the mark to market kind of, you know, value of those positions where with an etf, as more money flows into it, they have to sort of do those redemptions and you know, to Keep that same 10% Nvidia, they got to go buy more Nvidia, so they're buying more of it. I just want to make sure people are understanding that.
- [20:24]
Ben Miller
Yeah, let me. Just because you said something, I'd kind of modify it. So when you buy shares of vcx, the money's not flowing into vcx, Right. It's just, it's trading. If. If Robert owned shares of VCX and Austin bought it, you're buying it from Austin. In a traditional sense, the trade is pricing the fund, but the dollars aren't flowing into the fund while the etf, the dollars essentially go into the fund to create or redeem out more of the underlying assets. So that's one, and then two. You said, what is nav? You say, okay, when you list the fund. Again, if you list a closed end fund and you say, okay, it's $100 million fund, what it means that each position in the fund is worth a certain amount. As you said, let's just say we owned 20% of the fund in SpaceX. Let's just say that was a fund and that fund marked it at whatever SpaceX last round valuation. So you typically mark a position based on the private pricing of a company and that's usually where it raised money most recently. So like Stripe just did a tender offer. They raised at I think $148 billion valuation. Actually, we own some shares of Stripe. If you bought into vcx, the NAV would be at Stripe's last round valuation. So the net asset value is the value of all of the underlying assets priced, typically priced by the private market pricing of each company. Each private company. The thing that's going to be interesting and the thing that's like, is that the public will price that fund, that portfolio of private companies, probably differently.
- [22:07]
Austin Hankwitz
Yes, that is the, that's, that's the important part to think about. Absolutely. Because they might say, oh, I'm willing to pay a premium to have access to this, or there's a lot of volatility in the markets. I don't want this at all in my portfolio and that the difference between the underlying value of those positions and how it's priced by the market, it could vary.
- [22:28]
Ben Miller
Yeah. And will vary. And so it could trade at a discount because there's war in Iran and everybody's freaking out, everybody's selling and everybody's negative about the future. That's an example of why it might price it at discount. It could price at a premium because you say, oh, this company raised money. Last time they raised money, their revenue was a lot lower and the revenue's growing like crazy. And so I think that the next time it raises money it's going to have this huge markup. And so I'm going to buy this at a premium. I think AI is going to replace half of the white collar workers and I want to own part of that, you know, whatever, whatever your theory is. So there's a lot of reasons why people buy and sell things and I think over time that the fund would likely trade at a discount and a premium. But it's definitely like highly regulated. And so I can't say and I don't know how it will trade.
- [23:17]
Robert Kroke
Another thing that stood out to me about the Innovation Fund is the multi stage investment approach. You're not just investing in early stage startups, you're investing across the life cycle of private companies from early stage all the way through late stage, even beyond ipo. So why is it important to take that broader approach when investing in private technology companies as opposed to traditional sources
- [23:41]
Ben Miller
like in the dream world. Right. You'd want to invest in the best tech company at the beginning. No one knows what the best tech company is going to be when a company ends up being the sort of the rocket ship. Once it becomes clear that that company is a rocket ship, it's almost impossible to get access to the company. Company. So let's say you, there's like, I mean, I'll take, I, I don't know if you know this about Anthropic, but Anthropic. When they tried to raise money on Sand Hill Road way back, I think 2019, every venture fund turned them down. They ended up raising money, I think from Eric Schmidt's office, family office. Like it was, they were totally and absolutely out of favor and they did not come into favor for a number of years. Now everybody wants shares in Anthropic and you, and you can't get it like literally to get shares of Anthropic, you have to have a really close relationship with the executive team and same thing with OpenAI, the minimum check size to invest in these big companies. I think OpenAI's last round, the one that was like six months ago, the minimum check size was a quarter billion. And so to get into these companies, you can't get into these companies. Yeah, what you'd want to do, what everybody want to do is they just want to wait till it's really clear and you come in at the end and it's impossible. So you have like this balancing act. You want to come in early enough that you get access, but not too early that you end up like, you know, picking the wrong horse. Right. And that's the name of the game. It's really hard to do. And we were fortunate enough to do it in the last three years with vcx. We invested in most of these companies in our portfolio back three years ago. No one knew at the time we suspected that they were going to be world class companies. But like you didn't know three years ago, three years ago, just to remind everybody, Silicon Valley bank had just blown up. Everybody was freaking out about the tech like decline. San Francisco was in deep decline because of COVID too and everybody was negative on tech. That's when we were sort of like most successful. We did a lot of great investments during that period.
- [25:50]
Austin Hankwitz
I think that's a testament though to the market is a pendulum, right. It swings from excitement and overhype to depression and despair. And in 2022 it was certainly swinging the other way, especially in the private markets. Right. SVB blew up like you had mentioned. But you know, the S and P and the NASDAQ fell By I think 30 or 35% in 2022, right from the top down to the end of October and then ChatGPT came out at the end of November and that sort of reinvigorated things the other way. But it's, it's really, it's a testament to your ability to go against the curve and, and find these opportunities and have deep conviction into your ideas. Ben. And I think that bleeds over, I'm sure from fundrise and the same sort of strategy you have used over the last couple years, several years now with commercial real estate being all over the place that it has been. You guys have done such a wonderful job identifying these deep opportunities and you took that strategy and said I'm going to go do that now for venture because this is the biggest, no brainer of all time. And you guys, I mean OpenAI, SpaceX, anthropic databricks, all these cool companies, you've mentioned and getting into them, I was just doing some math. I want to say anthropic is up 70 or 80x since its 2023 raise. I mean, they, they $380 billion valuation right now. It's, it's unbelievable. OpenAI was, I don't know, 30x since the release of chat GPT. And it's so cool that you guys were able to jump in that and identify them. Maybe take to explain, you know, how you identified these companies. You said like, hey, we had this idea that they were going to be category defining. Like, what was that deep in your soul? That was like, I, I really believe in this stuff.
- [27:30]
Ben Miller
I have a, we have a financial advisor, an advisor who used to be a senior executive at a big financial house. And he was saying to me, you know, you need to explain your process because, you know, was it, was it like expertise or was it lucky? And I look at our portfolio and we have like nine of the top, I don't know, 10 or like 15 companies in the world. Our performance, like in the last 12 months is like, I think our, I think the fund's up 65% approximately. Can you flip a coin nine times and get. And call it every single time like, like it? I, I was just sort of like luck and, and clearly everything is luck, right? I'm not trying to say that there isn't like a ton of luck in everything we did. We were lucky that we were active when the market was so negative. And I definitely think it was part luck, no question. But was it only luck? I was just like, come on here, give me a break. So anyways, I kind of feel like the market will continue to disbelieve it because part of the problem with the market, all financial markets is they want everything to look like a pigeonhole. When you walk into the room, you need to look like, like a financial manager wearing a suit. You need to have a certain mba. And I think all that is bs. Everybody believes that somehow if you follow a process, you'll get great outcomes. And that's not my experience. Building fundrise over the last 15 years and building businesses and investing over the last 25 years, that's just like a story you tell to raise institutional money. So anyways, I'm a super. I'm very skeptical of all institutional bs. How did we do it? And then the question is, how can we keep doing it? But how we did it was that we, you know, fundrise has 100 software engineers and technical people have built, you know, fundrise over the last 15 years. Like we've built a lot of software. You know something about software. I've been in finance and investing for a long time. There were things companies we chased. So we did it kind of opposite venture fund. A lot of venture funds, they are reactive. They sort of like, they try to like, like some people call it spray and pray, but you try to have cast as wide net. And we had sort of the opposite of approach, which is we hunted down the companies we wanted and we said we want this company, like how do we get it? And the way we decided what we wanted usually was like we were using the software. And the software, if it was revolutionary to our business, like we built a real estate AI product called real AI. And real AI showed me that Anthropic was the best AI platform for enterprises. And so we hunted down Anthropic and invested in them. So it's a combination of technical capabilities. Another thing I believe, and this is like you could debate this, but mostly I believe that you're a price taker in markets and not a price maker and that people believe that somehow when you're investing in, in a company, the price is what the magic. And I would sort of say like every time, every investment you made in Nvidia over the last probably five years seemed expensive. I'm much more of a believer in you get the right thematic, you get the right team, get the right product. And we invested in Anthropic, we invested in OpenAI, we invested in Anduril, we invested in databricks. They seemed expensive. People thought, thought, thought it was expensive. Oh, I remember every single time.
- [30:59]
Austin Hankwitz
Every time, Every single time. Well, it reminds me, you know, Robert and I had this conversation two years ago. Robert was invited to invest in XAI at a $5 billion valuation. And he's like, man, this seems really expensive. Like it's just an idea. And it's 5 billion. This doesn't make any sense. XAI is now a quarter trillion dollar company. And you know, to your point, it's like, oh yeah, OpenAI at 400 something billion seemed really expensive, but now they just did a raise at 880. It's like it, it seems really expensive at that time. To your point. But then you make this decision because you have this deep conviction in the company or you're a customer or you see those things and you're like, wait a second, exactly to what you were saying. 100%.
- [31:36]
Ben Miller
Yeah. And just the nature of exponential investments is that you're much better off. I mean, this is our view and then people, different views. But on tech you're much better off investing in the best company at an expensive price than a mediocre company at a great price. It's not like real estate. Real estate is a value investment. You really want to buy value. It's the opposite of tech. It's hard to do two things that are opposite and especially with AI, I mean this is like AI is the, like the penultimate of exponentials. And I, I believe, and I've been saying this for a while, I think the market's starting to wake up to it. I mean it's going to, it's going to do 20, 30, 40, 50% of the, of the white collar jobs. I mean this is tens of millions of jobs in America, hundreds of millions of jobs in the world. We can't fathom that amount of change. I mean people are scared of it. I keep saying the only way you can protect yourself. Well, there are two ways you can protect yourself. You can be as active as possible in learning and you can own a piece of it.
- [32:37]
Austin Hankwitz
I like that. And that's hopefully what everyone can do that's listening to the show right now can do with vcx.
- [32:42]
Ben Miller
That's my hope. And somebody says how do you, you keep doing it. My hope is that we can build the brand for being how you democratize investing into these great companies, you democratize ownership and the companies recognize that's important, recognize that that's a win win for them and we make it possible in a low fee wrapper. So that's the hope is that if people, if the population says like yes, then we can continue to build that bridge and the companies embrace that because I don't think they want to go public. I think that's a really big challenge for them. Yeah, the public markets are a double edged sword.
- [33:22]
Robert Kroke
Yeah, I agree with all of it. This is such a great conversations and one of the things that really stood out to me reading through your CEO letter was the historical perspective you gave. You talked about how the American financial system was built around the idea of broad ownership and that every day people should have the ability to own pieces of the companies building the future. But today many of those companies are still being built entirely in the private markets. So you've talked about democratizing. How important is that to access private markets not just financially, but from a broader economic perspective. Because I love every bit of what you guys are doing because you're leveling the playing field for the everyday person that doesn't get locked out of these investments until Long after the ipo when most of the profits are eaten up already.
- [34:11]
Ben Miller
Yeah, let me do a counterfactual because it helps paint a picture of why this is so important. Can you imagine if Google, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla, go down the list. The Mag 7 had never gone public.
- [34:23]
Austin Hankwitz
Oh my gosh, man, no. Oh my gosh.
- [34:26]
Ben Miller
What would our society be like today if all of that economic wealth, all that wealth accrued to basically, I don't know, top 0.1%, it's 20, 22 trillion
- [34:39]
Austin Hankwitz
dollars of market value. 22 trillion.
- [34:41]
Ben Miller
And all the growth. Growth, yeah, all the growth. If you didn't have growth in wealth over the last 20 years and it was all going to small group of people, our society would crumble. And so the democratic ownership is one of the key pillars of a capitalist democracy. We have to maintain that. But I mean for private companies, just way better to raise and stay private. I mean it's just so much better. Better. Being public is brutal. It's brutal. I mean it undermines. I need to talk to someone who's really a public market expert and say tell me a company who's built in the public markets from basically $200 million of market cap to scale in the last five years. I think zero, I don't think you can build in the public markets anymore. Are, it's, they're, they're, they're too messed up.
- [35:37]
Austin Hankwitz
No, I completely agree now. Now as we round off this conversation, Ben and again, dude, this has been so fun. I love talking about this stuff because it's never been more important for everyday Americans because you rewind to think about the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the early 2000s, and how easy it was to just buy the S, P, buy these mutual funds, get in the markets because companies that were building the future were publicly traded. It's a different story now, specifically since the pandemic. And as we think about exactly two sort of counter antidote there, which was like imagine if the MAG7 never entered the public markets. I mean that's 40% value of the S&P just within these seven to 10 companies, depending on how you want to roll the dice there. It is so much wealth generation that absolutely wiped out. I remember listening to an interview with Jeff Bezos. He's got 10% of Amazon, let's call it a $1.5 trillion company. And someone asked him like hey, you're this multi billionaire, I'm, we should be mad at you, all this stuff. And he goes, I don't think about it like That I think I made a hundred billion while I investors 1.35 trillion. Right. I made everyone else all that trillion while I took a, you know, 100 billion for myself. And that to me is what you guys are solving here with VCX and why I'm so excited about it. If you can't hear my voice. But let's just quickly touch on and round off this interview about the risk associated with private tech investing. So everyone as they think about, does this fit in my own portfolio? They're going into it eyes wide open and they've got the right expectations laid out for them.
- [37:07]
Ben Miller
Yeah, there's so many risks, it's hard to go through them all. But let me just start with the first risk is our existing investors and then I can talk about the future investors. So we have the fundrise innovation fund or VCX. When we list, we'll have about 100,000
- [37:26]
Austin Hankwitz
investors, including two right here on the show.
- [37:29]
Ben Miller
Oh, sweet, sweet. Okay. And so when we were going through this process, we had a lot of challenges because everyone involved, all of the lawyers and exchanges and all these had never seen a company or fund go public with 100,000 basically, effectively private investors, they don't hold shares in their brokerage accounts. You have to move them to your transfer agent. And so it's created a lot of logistical challenges. So for those 100,000 investors, the way I try to explain the risk to them, so the risk is that it doesn't trade well, trades down, down. And I say to them, okay, we're up 65% in the last 12 months, 64.8% or something in the last 12 months. And we're up almost like, I think 85% in the last two years, something like that. So I sort of say like, okay, well if we have to pay a liquidity premium to go public and you have this world class portfolio of companies, like last year the weighted average growth rate of QQQ was 25% annual growth, growth. And last year the weighted average annual growth of VCX portfolio companies was 193%. So these companies are growing way, way faster. And you, you hold this portfolio and soon you, soon after we list, you'll have liquidity. You can sell, you don't have to sell. I feel like we delivered for our 100,000 investors.
- [38:47]
Austin Hankwitz
I feel like you absolutely did. You said, hey, listen, it's 2022. We've got conviction. Join us for the ride. I joined you for the ride. Robert joined you for the ride. I look at my insane gains in My own Fundrise Innovation Fund account on. I'm like, oh, my gosh, these guys crushed it. And now you guys are saying, cool, A hundred thousand of you joined us for the ride. If you want liquidity, here's how you can get it. And if you've not yet joined us for the ride, and maybe this is the next part of the answer, which is the risk for people that are not part of that, a hundred thousand, but want to now get involved that it's public. So people that are not joining us for the ride or have been, you guys can jump on board now too.
- [39:22]
Ben Miller
Yeah, yeah. So there's a risk for our existing investors that, that we give them liquidity and there's a cost to that and that's a risk. I think that's like clear. Then there's a version if we traded a premium, the next investor has sort of two different risks. Right. One is the underlying portfolio and two is like, is basically how it trades. And so the underlying portfolio, some of these companies would already be some of the biggest companies in the world. So. But I mean, you know, anything can happen. The way I think about private markets is you're get faster growth and way more growth. They're younger companies and they're potentially riskier. And you can get more mature, slower growing companies that are older in the public markets. So you're just creating access to a part of the world that's faster growth, younger, more risky. And so that's the risk, I think, of the underlying portfolio and then how it trades. Like, ask me the weather today. Yeah, it's just the weather's going to change. How it's going to trade is going to change the war. I just, you know, I'm old. I've seen like, I've seen over 20 years, like, who cares how it trades any one day? Like, it's about this like seismic shift. It's about AI. I think people no longer arguing AI is a bubble. I think they're not worried about that. Literally, like, I mean, last year it was like, AI is a bubble. And now people are like, oh, AI is like it's something else, whatever it is. So it's. But it could still, you know, who knows, maybe it's a bubble. So that's a risk. So I don't know. There's a lot of risks in the world. You can't avoid them. I think of this, I'm hoping that people start thinking of it as a part of their portfolio. VCX is like qqq. It's like spiders, like Spy. You have it as part of your portfolio. Own chunk of your portfolio in private markets. It's a long term hold. Sometimes private markets are hot, sometimes they're cold over 20 years. I think it's a growing important part of portfolio management and how it trades. Like, I just sort of like think that should be irrelevant in the short term.
- [41:31]
Austin Hankwitz
No, I love how you put that. Right. It should be a complement to a well diversified portfolio that already exists. Just as you would, you know, have a little bit of cryptocurrency or a little bit of real estate or a little bit of commodities. Right. Maybe you want to have a little bit of venture in your portfolio that complements everything else inside of it. Ben, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the Rich Habits Podcast. Knocked it out of the park again and so excited to hopefully have you back again in the future.
- [41:57]
Ben Miller
Yeah, thanks guys.
- [41:58]
Austin Hankwitz
Robert, I mean, do we even need to have a takeaway from that? I, I just, I genuinely hope that everyone understands and hears how sincere Ben is about solving this problem. And it's a problem that has made me so angry. And it's a problem we're trying to solve in the Rich Habits network by offering investments to you all, all the time over there. It's just like I have, I've made millions of dollars investing into privately held companies over the last six to seven years. Now that would have never been able to be to anybody on the stock market because they're, they're still privately held companies still. And the only reason I was able to get involved is because Ben alluded to it. I, you know, oh, you have to know the executives at this company. I've known executives at a couple companies. I got lucky, right? VCX is solving that problem for so many people. I love how they are democratizing this access and it's never been more important. With this K shaped economy, you can't just silo all this wealth to the top, top 1% of venture investors. You've got to let the everyday American have a piece of the pie, wet their beak.
- [43:01]
Robert Kroke
Yeah. And with AI, I think there's two things to it. You need to be actively learning to stay ahead of it and you need to be actively investing in owning pieces of it. And VCX allows that. I think this episode should be a game changer for tens of thousands of listeners out there if they really dig deep, take some notes, and really understand the importance of VCX moving forward. So what an incredible opportunity for us and all of the Rich Habits podcast listeners and followers to be able to have the deep dive from the man himself at fundrise and really explain the importance of this moving forward.
- [43:38]
Austin Hankwitz
With that being said, Robert, let's jump to our Q and A section of this episode. Before we jump to that first question, Robert, let's remind everyone of the special announcement we made a couple weeks ago. We built the Rich Habits Money Map for both personal and business finances. Shout out to those side hustlers who are listening, because this is for you as well. It's a plug and play setup that reflects exactly how we think about money, which is save first, invest consistently and let the systems do the work for you. The name of our podcast is Rich Habits for a reason, because we know what to do with your money is only half the battle. The real key to building wealth is making sure those money habits actually happen consistently without having to rely on willpower. That's why we partnered with GetSequence IO. GetSequence IO is how you turn your money habits into automatic systems so your money saves, invests and works for you all in the background in real time. With GetSequence IO, you create simple rules for your money and when something happens, like getting paid from your employer or maybe even revenue hitting your business bank account, those rules execute automatically. Saving, investing, taxes, debt. All of it's handled automatically without you even having to think about it.
- [44:51]
Robert Kroke
We at Rich Habits teach you what the right moves are for your money using GetSequence IO. It makes you follow a system without relying on discipline or manual training, transfers, or any of the hassles that go with it. GetSequence IO takes your entire financial life, personal accounts, business accounts, credit cards, loans and organizes them all into one clean money map. From there, sequence actually helps you set everything up and tailor it to your situation. Want to save first every paycheck? Done. Want to invest consistently without timing the market? Done. Want to automatically set aside money for taxes or optimize your debt repayment? GetSequence IO can do that too. And if you're a business owner, this is huge because you can automate your taxes, expenses, payroll and cash reserves without spreadsheets or manual transfers. If you want your rich habits to actually happen automatically, check out the Rich Habits money map at getsequence IO front/rich Habits Podcast and take the stress out of managing your own money.
- [45:54]
Austin Hankwitz
All right Robert, let's now jump to our first question. As you guys know, every episode of the Rich Habits podcast, we try and answer your questions. We've got our Thursday episodes, which are completely dedicated to answering questions that you guys ask us on Instagram at Rich Habits Podcast on Instagram in those dms, which is where all of these questions today are coming from. Or you can ask us questions via email at rich habits podcastmail.com now this question is coming from Adam on Instagram. Adam says, hey guys, I love the podcast. I'd love to get some advice as I'm a recent college graduate about eight months into my first full time job. I'm 24 years old and I started contributing to my Roth IRA IRA about seven or eight months ago doing $580 a month into Voo. I've only contributed $2900 all of 2025 and now my contributions are counting toward 2026. But here's my question. Should I contribute the remaining $4100 that I am allowed to for 2025? I currently have 23,000 in a checking account and 4,000 more in a high yield savings and I'm adding $500 a month to that that lump sum of cash. I'm still living with my parents so saving up is pretty easy for me, especially as I think about moving into my own apartment as well as perhaps even getting a new car in 26 or 27. I also have $25,000 of student loan debt. My monthly payment is $291. Would love to hear Yalls perspective. Robert what advice can you give our friend Adam?
- [47:26]
Robert Kroke
Well, I would first say Adam is crushing it. I love seeing people that are young and hungry and out there doing the thing, getting the thing set set up, seeing the Roth IRA set up and all that. But to break it down tactically, I think Adam is sitting on way too much money in a checking account at 24 years old. There's no reason to be sitting on that much cash when you already have the high yield savings account. So I would love to see him go back and max out the Roth IRA for 2025 and get as much as he can to max out in 2026 and trim that back a little bit bit. I really like that idea. And then when it comes to the student loan debt he's paying on them right now, probably paying the minimum at 291amonth depending on the interest rate there. I'm assuming if they're five and a half or less percent on those student loans, I would keep rocking and rolling and paying on those and seeing if the government extends any new programs in the future to maybe lower the interest and help make those easier to pay payoff. But I like where he's at. I would just like to see some of that money go towards getting those Roth IRAs maxed out. And maybe what I would do too with VOO is additionally add QQQ in the mix as well in the Roth ira. So that would be what I would do tactically if I were Adam at 24 years old.
- [48:44]
Austin Hankwitz
There we go. Adam, you've got $27,000 between your checking account and your high yield savings, and you're adding 500 bucks a month to that lump sum of 27,000. I think it makes a ton of Sense to take 4,100 of that 27,000 and use that to kind of contribute to that Roth IRA back toward 2025. Assuming you've not yet filed your taxes for 2025, go max out that Roth IRA for 2025 and continue contributing here in 2026. That's going to leave you $22,900 of cash. If I were in your shoes, because, you know, I'm assuming you've got so much cash because one, you're trying to save for an apartment, which is first and last month's rent, and two, you mentioned you're trying to buy a new car in 26 or 27 or something like that. If I were you, I would love to see you spend and maybe allocate here more money toward investing, be a little bit more comfortable living at home. Maybe be, you know, you're 24, maybe you live at home for the next 18 to 24 months, allowing you to really turbocharge your investing beyond just the Roth ira. Right? Think about, I mean, you, you, you've got eight months into a job. Are you investing up to the match? I hope you're doing that right. Match beats Roth, beats taxable. But then, like, even, let's say you don't have a 401k beyond that. Like, let's open up a taxable brokerage account on public and just start putting another five or seven hundred dollars a month into that, investing that to the s and P500. We always like to see people have the or more of their student loans invested before they start making extra payments on it. I'm only seeing you've got, you know, a couple thousand dollars here. You said 2,900 contributed last year for the Roth, and you're maxing it out here. We're on pace two in 2026. So if you had four grand, five grand in this Roth IRA, you're saving a lot every single month. You've got all this cash, I'd love to see you take maybe even more of this cash. Invest, invest it, get it working for you while you're young, and then say, okay, how much money do I need to get that first and last month's rent? Do I really need a new car right now? Is this really more important to me than, you know, getting an extra $10,000 invested at 24? Because, Robert, I think the stat is every dollar invested in your 20s turns into 70 in retirement. So think about that for a second, Adam. Every dollar you invest right now in your 20s will be $70 in retirement. You're telling me you want to go buy a new car? You're telling me you want. Want to go, you know, not live with your parents for an extra 12 months because your friends are making fun of you? Dude, screw your friends. Go get that extra money in your retirement. That's what I'm thinking.
- [51:22]
Robert Kroke
I love that takeaway and I love that stat, because so many people do it backwards. They spend their 20s and 30s out screwing around, buying things, depreciating assets, buying clothes they don't need, getting a new iPhone every single time, not realizing the power of compound interest. If they just set aside money early when they're in their 20s and early 30s and let it ride forever. And everyone can retire a multimillionaire if they did that.
- [51:49]
Austin Hankwitz
So our next question on Instagram comes from rj. RJ says, hey, all, I love your podcast and I can't get enough. I'm 62 and I'm currently renting from a family member. Here's my question. Should I buy a $425,000 condo in cash or mortgage it with a 20% down payment? This is a 55 and older community with a golf course and many other incredible, incredible amenities. So the HOA is around $1200 a month. I have $600,000 in stocks and savings. I plan on working until I'm 70, so I can save in my Roth. Robert, what's your perspective here? What advice can you give RJ for someone who in their 60s should probably be looking toward retiring without a mortgage, but with only 600,000? Maybe there's a different way to think about this.
- [52:37]
Robert Kroke
Yeah, RJ, I think it's a horrible idea. You have 600k right now making you money, building towards RET. You're 62 years old as it is. I think it would be a really bad idea to go plunk down $425,000, which is over 80% of what you have saved for retirement to Buy this condo and then still have the $1200 per month for the HOA fees. I would rather see you continue to rent. But if you're trying to improve your lifestyle, maybe see if you can find one of those same condos, but just for rent at a reasonable price so you can keep letting your money grow towards retirement without depleting all of what you've built. Because already, even if you're going to work for an additional eight years, you're still on that fence where you don't have enough for retirement as it is. And buying a condo which aren't traditionally great investments. Yes, the amenities are great. Yes, that's fun and cool and helps your lifestyle, which I appreciate, but they're not great investments in most instances is. So I would rather see you keep rocking and rolling, try to rent, not put all that money down or pay cash for the condo for certain. Keep the money building towards your future and figure it out and try to continue renting.
- [53:54]
Austin Hankwitz
Yeah, I think there's, you know, sort of a fork in the road here. Maybe there's, there's three alternatives. R.J. just talked about. The first one, which we can agree is probably not the way to go here. Rj, you'd be wiping out your retirement savings. You would be only having, call it 150, $175,000 left to your name at 62 years old as your nest egg, but like a paid off place to live. And that paid off place is not really paid off because they're going to come at you with 1200 bucks a month just to live there like that, to me right now is the, the, the road that we're not going down. Now let's think about the absolute opposite of that. The opposite is you have $600,000 in stocks and savings. You are renting right now from a family member member, which probably comes with some favorable rents, I would imagine your family member wants to see you live comfortably so they're not raising rents on you and it's not crazy. So the other side, the complete opposite is you continue to rent from 62 to 70. Because you said, I plan on working until I'm 70. So rock and roll, you're gonna work. Let's, let's be really, really smart about this. Then the next eight years, let's say you're now renting from this family member for the next eight years. Years. You were 600, 000 in stocks in savings. The Rule of 72 tells us the stock market doubles every seven years. Your 600, 000 is probably not aggressively invested at your age. Right. You're more on the capital preservation side. So it's probably not going to double in the next seven or eight years, but it could increase by 50, 60, 70%. So now we have a million 900,001.1. Right, is what this 600, 000 of stocks and savings turns into at 70. Now you're 70 years old, you've got a million dollars in your stocks and savings. And now maybe you can say, cool, I want to go spend 300, 400 something thousand of that because again, we don't want people to go into retirement with a monthly mortgage payment. But again, you got this hoa. So it's kind of a trade off. But that is coming from a position of strength, right? Hey, I've got a million bucks. I can go put 400,000 toward a condo or 350 toward a condo. That makes a lot of sense for me. I've got my Social Security that's probably paying me $2,000 a month and after everything's said and done, another 700ish, maybe $600,000 nest egg, which at the 4% rule, we're talking about another maybe two, $3,000 a month on top of the 2,000 Social Security. So now you got a paid off mortgage with $5,000 a month of income. Yeah, you could probably retire with something like that. But you absolutely can't retire by taking 600,000 here, putting 425 into cash and then still having this $1,200 payment. It's just going to eat you up alive if you plan to work until you're 70, RJ, I would think about that as a very strategic plan. Stay the course here. Rent from the family member, have this 600,000 in stocks and savings grow for you over the next eight years into 800-900-A-Million 1.1, depending on how it's invested. I would also ensure you're perhaps working with a financial advisor that's going to put you in these different types of, you know, you got your growth and a little bit of fixed income, stuff like that, given your age. Age. But that's how I would approach it. And then the final piece of advice I can give you, R.J. is think about, okay, you're 70, right? Are you really just gonna sit around at the pool all day? Is that truly. Are you just gonna golf every day? Is that how you want to spend your. I mean, the average person, I would argue in eight years, modern medicine is going to be Even better, you're probably going to live another 15, perhaps 20 years beyond this. 78. Are you going to sit at the pool for 15 years? Probably not. Maybe you want to give back. Maybe you want to have a little part time job, work at the pet store. Maybe you're really into dogs or hamsters to. I don't know what you're into rj. But regardless, you got a part time job that that could also supplement some of this, right? So a lot of ways to think about this, but at that 70 years old, what could that encore career turn into as well? Now before we answer the final question for today's episode, got to give a shout out to public.com the investing platform for those who take it seriously. Because on public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index using AI.
- [57:55]
Robert Kroke
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- [58:15]
Austin Hankwitz
Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities. They're completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. So go to public.com rich habits and earn an unique uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com rich habits paid for by Public Investing.
- [58:34]
Robert Kroke
Full disclosure in the podcast description.
- [58:36]
Austin Hankwitz
All right Robert, let's now answer this final question. So our last question comes from Raymond on Instagram. Raymond says, hey Austin And Robert, I'm 48 and my wife is 53. We make $250,000 a year in W2 income and about 150 of that comes from my import slash distribution produce business. We have maxed out both of our Roth IRAs last three years because we've listened to your show and I have about 150,000 in my 401k. We have two investment properties. One is completely paid for which is worth about 600,000 and generates $28,000 per year after associations and taxes. And the other is a duplex that we still owe about 150,000 on. It's worth 400 and it generates 20,000 per year net. Additionally, we both have brokerage accounts with about $350,000 combined inside of them. We don't have any debt other than a $70,000 SBA loan at 3% and two car loans at about 4 to 5%, totaling $60,000. We still owe about 300,000 in our current home in Fort Lauderdale, and it's worth about 1.5 million. Here's our question. I just received $200,000 from an inheritance. What would be the best use of this money, given my age and financial situation, because I truly feel behind for retirement. Thank you so much. So much, Raymond C. Robert, you want to kick off this question from Raymond?
- [59:58]
Robert Kroke
Sure. Raymond's doing a great job and I like everything I see. You know, it's a little weird having the $70,000 SBA loan, but only 3%. I probably wouldn't chunk the money in there and pay that off because, you know, it is low interest debt. We like to see that. What I don't see in this question, in this breakdown, is anything to do with investing in kind of these private companies and, you know, venture capital and that kind of investment strategy, like we do in the Rich Habits Network, finding those private companies that are looking to raise capital. So I would say that in additional real estate is probably where I would go. But also I would like to see, and maybe they already have it and didn't allude to it, but I would like to see a portion of this going into some of these commodities that we like, because I still believe that there's a lot of room to grow, grow in silver, gold, potash, copper, some of that. So I would probably get a little bit more diversified outside of the traditional scope of things, doing this strategy with some of the 200k and then go from there to give a little bit more upside potential and growth aside from the traditional investments they already have.
- [61:10]
Austin Hankwitz
So, Raymond, you've got about $550,000 in the markets right now. You mentioned three years of Roth IRA for you and your wife. That's 14ish thousand a year plus a little bit of growth. You mentioned 350,000 in brokerage accounts, 150,000 in your 401k. So you're about 550 right now. You mentioned that. I feel I am behind for retirement, first off. No, you're not. You are not behind for retirement. Rule of 72 tells us anything invested in the stock market that's growing at this 10% per year is going to double every seven years. Your 550 combined in seven years be worth million a million. Seven years after that, 2 million, and seven years after that, 4 million. So if you genuinely feel behind and you're like, guys, I don't know what to do. I feel like really behind about all this stuff, like maybe that's coming from a place of payments. Maybe you see money come in like this 20,000 per year you're making with the duplex or the 28,000 per year you're making with your paid off investment property, and you're like, oh, I'm making this, this money, but it's going out the door to payments for this car, payments for this car, payments for this loan. Like, maybe that's where that feeling comes from. And I would argue as millionaires, you have enough money and liquidity in your brain to say, yeah, if I emotionally want to take 130 of this 200,000 and use it to wipe out this debt because I emotionally feel like I'm behind for retirement, you can do that. That's going to help you sleep better at night, maybe.
- [62:37]
Ben Miller
Or.
- [62:37]
Austin Hankwitz
Right. It's like personal finance is personal. Make the decision that makes best sense for you and your situation and what you are sensitive to. And if you are sensitive to debt, if it's an SBA loan against your business or these car loans, like whatever, sure, you can use it for that. But I don't think that that is the best use of this 200,000. I would rather genuinely just see you take all 200,000, add it to the 350,000 you have in these brokerage accounts, and if you want to diversify that into some index funds, maybe some international, maybe, maybe some Dow Jones S and P, Nasdaq, maybe some commodities, like if you want to have a little bit of exposure to some fixed income, like I don't know what you're into, but to take that 200,000 and invest it knowing that it will double into 4 and then 8, then 1.6 over the next couple decades. So you really are not behind on retirement. You can absolutely do that. It comes down to having that conversation with yourself. And hopefully we can encourage you to have that conversation if you've not had it yet, because obviously, obviously you, you do seem a little risk averse when it comes to debt. You do have an investment property worth 600,000 completely paid off. Right? You did do that. So maybe this means, listen, guys, I've got this SBA loan and these two car loans and I just got this inheritance and you know, it's no sweat off my back to take 130 of the 200 and use it to pay off some of this debt because I can't sleep at night thinking that I'm behind on Retirement. If that's you, Raymond, do it. Do it. It's your money, it's you. Are you are allowed to do anything you want with it? And we're just here to kind of help you understand the pros and cons of any decision you end up making. Now if that is your case, do it. Rock and roll. Make it the right decision. Take the 70,000, add it to the 3:50, the 70,000 delta, right? Add it to the 350, invest that, you're off to the races. Or take all 200, invest it to that 350 taxable brokerage account and congrats, you're going to have like 4 to 8 million to your name in your 60s and 70s.
- [64:32]
Robert Kroke
That's a great breakdown and I really like it. I'm with you. I would invest all 200, get some more diversification, take on a little more risk, and just let those lower interest loans rock and roll. But some people do have that mindset that any debt is bad debt, and I just don't agree with it. The wealthiest people I know have debt and carry debt as long as it's favorable to them from an interest rate perspective. So great breakdown. Austin.
- [64:55]
Austin Hankwitz
Let's talk about it a little bit further because he's done a wonderful job. Job of take, because there's like two types of debt, right? There's good debt and there's bad debt. The bad debt is the car debt, right? Let's go into debt to buy depreciating assets. Well, that doesn't make any sense. Not only are you paying interest to the bank, but you're also losing value on what the money, you know, went toward went to go purchase where there's good debt. And good debt in your situation, Raymond, is a $70,000 SBA loan that I'm sure has allowed you now to generate that $150,000 of profits from your import and distribution produce business. So maybe without that loan, you wouldn't have been generate these profits. So Raymond knows how to use debt properly to generate more upside on his life. Same thing here with the investment property. You've got $20,000 per year net on this duplex, and you owe 150,000 of it against that 400,000 total value of the duplex. Like you're using debt correctly in this, in this situation, Raymond. It's not just the, you know, to Robert's point, some people feel so visceral against it, but I think they feel so visceral because they don't understand that by carrying the debt depending on again, what kind of debt it is, good debt or bad debt that it turns into something worth more. Right? It's a, it's a, it's a way to amplify upside. Just like again, the $70,000 has turned into 150,000 per year in business profits.
- [66:19]
Robert Kroke
Yeah. And one thing, one last thing on this. The median net net worth of a 48 year old male that's married in the United States right now is $247,000. That's the median. So you're way, way ahead of that by four or fivefold. So keep that in mind. You're not behind, you're just making really smart moves. And we're here to help you figure out that last piece, which is this recent $200,000 inheritance.
- [66:47]
Austin Hankwitz
Everybody. Thanks so much for tuning into this week's episode of the Rich Habits podcast. We've really enjoyed the conversation with Ben Miller, the CEO and co founder of Rise. Go check out vcx, the public ticker for private tech. Go type it in on your brokerage account, on public or whatever you use. VCX is awesome. I've been an investor in VCX since they started the Innovation Fund back in July of 2022. I'm up like 70%, which is crazy. I wish I put more money in back then, but I'm definitely interested into it now. More that it is publicly traded and available for everybody. It's so exciting. So again, major shout out to Fundrise, Ben Russell, the whole team for orchestrating this conversation.
- [67:26]
Robert Kroke
Thanks everyone and we'll see you on Thursday. Abes solo kirisuna buena historia and TikTok
- [67:56]
Austin Hankwitz
and contradas short dramas, emotionalis rapidos edificiles,
- [68:01]
Robert Kroke
dehar descarga TikTok aura.