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- [00:01]
Chris Camillo
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- [00:33]
Austin
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- [00:37]
Chris Camillo
get the best of both worlds.
- [00:40]
Austin
Get the Unreal college deal everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more@windows.com studentoffer while supplies last ends June 30th terms at aka mscollegepc. Hey everyone and welcome back to the Rich Habits podcast, a top 10 business podcast on Spotify brought to you by public.com this is one of those episodes that I've been excited to record all year long, because today we're talking about one of the most fascinating and misunderstood areas of investing venture capital. We're talking about what it actually looks like to spend 20 years making venture investments, backing founders, chasing trends, making mistakes, losing money and finding winners, as well as building conviction over multiple market cycles.
- [01:36]
Robert Croak
Yeah, I have lived this life for the past 20 years myself and I couldn't be more excited about our friend and guest today, Chris Camillo. If you know Chris, you probably know him as one of the most successful investors of our generation. He famously turned roughly $20,000 into more than $80 million through a strategy he calls social arbitrage trading. This is where he identifies trends in the real world before Wall street catches on. His results were independently verified by Jack Schwager in Unknown Market Wizards, where Chris posted a remarkable 77% annualized return over a 14 year period. You heard that correctly. But today we're focusing on something many people know far less about. Over the last two decades, Chris has quietly built a portfolio over of roughly 160 venture investments. Some became massive winners, some went to zero. And along the way he's invested in companies like Robin Hood, Colossal, SpaceX, figure Eptronic and many others while developing a venture investing philosophy that has evolved dramatically over time.
- [02:43]
Austin
And joining me today are my co hosts Robert Croak and Christian Blackwell. You guys obviously know Robert Season, Entrepreneur, Investor, co host here on the Rich Habits Podcast. But for those of you in the Rich Habits Network, you might recognize Christian's name. He's the president of the Rich Habits Podcast and the person many of you interact with every single day inside our community, constantly helping source opportunities, answer questions, keep the network running behind the scenes. And this is actually Christian's very first time stepping in front of the camera here with us. So we're very excited for you all to finally meet the guy many of you have been talking to for years now. Together we're going to unpack the lessons that made Chris Camillo tens of millions of dollars and the mistake that cost him millions along the way.
- [03:26]
Robert Croak
That's right. We're going to talk about concent versus diversification. We're going to talk about AI agents, humanoid robots, figure eptronic, Amazon secondaries, SPVs, and the specific themes Chris is putting real money behind today. Beyond that, this is the very first time that we've taken questions from a live audience during an episode, and it was a blast. These topics range from the intersection of AI and higher education, differentiating between fads and investable trends, and why Gen Z hates data centers and AI so much.
- [03:59]
Austin
But Robert, before jump into today's conversation, I do want to take a moment to acknowledge someone whose impact is almost impossible to ignore in Austin, Texas and beyond. This episode was filmed at Capital Factory, the backbone of venture capital in the state of Texas. Capital Factory is one of the most influential startup communities in the country, connecting entrepreneurs with the capital, mentorship and relationships needed to turn ambitious ideas into reality. The impact it's had on Austin, Texas and the broader innovation economy is difficult to overstate. Since launching starting in 2009, Capital Factory has helped support more than 800 startups across the state of Texas, becoming one of the most active early stage investors in the state. On a consistent basis, they've been hosting people like Tim Cook, President Obama, Mark Cuban, and countless other business leaders, politicians and thought leaders. And on June 17th, we learned about the tragic passing of Capital Factory's founder, Joshua Baer.
- [04:58]
Robert Croak
We weren't fortunate enough to know Josh as well as many people in the room that day did. But over the last week, we've spent a lot of time reading about his life and trying to understand the magnitude of what he actually built. And what has become very clear for us is that Josh wasn't just building companies, he was building people. He's helped thousands of founders take their first meeting, raise their first round of capital, make their first hire, and believe their idea was worth pursuing in the first place. When people talk about startup ecosystems, they usually talk about buildings, capital, universities, or talent. But ecosystems don't really start with those things. They start with individuals who dedicate their lives to connecting people and creating opportunities for others. And Josh was one of those people.
- [05:43]
Austin
Long before Austin became one of the most important technology hubs in America, Josh was helping founders, investors, engineers, operators and dreamers find each other and build something meaningful together. The reason we're inside Capital Factory in this episode today to discuss venture capital, artificial intelligence, robotics, and the future is because Josh dedicated his life to fostering a place where those conversations could happen. So before we begin, I'd like to extend our deepest condolences to Josh's wife, Amy, their three children, his extended family, friends, and of course, the entire Capital Factory team. His legacy will live on through the companies he helped build, the entrepreneurs he inspired, and the community he created in Austin, Texas. With that said, Robert, let's get into today's conversation with Chris Camillo. Let's start here. Walk us through the single investment that you made over the last 20 years that taught you the most, the one where you learned exactly where venture investments fit into your specific portfolio. Because if I'm not mistaken here, your perspective on venture investing has evolved dramatically over the last couple of years. Here I've got my own set of parameters that have shaped how I invest, but I want to know, you know, specifically your outlook and how that one investment really taught you. Okay, venture is this, but it's not that.
- [07:10]
Chris Camillo
Yeah, I've been thinking about this my whole drive down here from Dallas this morning. You know, I have been an early stage venture investor for almost 20 years and before that I was an early stage founder and operator and still am.
- [07:25]
Robert Croak
And
- [07:28]
Chris Camillo
I speak to people all the time that are younger venture investors. And I'm just thinking, geez, I like if you knew what I knew, like, I like you're going to make so many mistakes, like so many mistakes. And it just, it's weird. Like, why do we keep making the same mistakes? Like, like, so like I really want to share today, like I said, some of like the biggest lessons. I did not get any of these questions in advance. So like I'm going to do my best.
- [07:50]
Austin
That's, that's the point.
- [07:54]
Chris Camillo
So I'm going to take that question and kind of twist it, my answer into something I feel is really important to talk about. I'll say there are two investments which are currently tracking to be the biggest wins that I've ever Made. One of them is pretty obvious. It's Avtronic. And the other investment is in another equally crazy company, probably crazier. It's colossal. It's Ben Lam's company. It's, it's the, you know, the, the,
- [08:23]
Austin
the,
- [08:27]
Chris Camillo
oh my God, what do you call it?
- [08:29]
Austin
They take like the DNA and like create.
- [08:33]
Chris Camillo
He's bringing back the woolly mammoth. You've probably seen the story. The extinction company. There we go. And what's so interesting about both of these companies is that both of them made zero sense to me at all, especially in the early days. Uh, but, but the reason why I want to talk about these two companies is not because they were the biggest winners because they were both born out of very deep, long standing relationships. I think the way I would think about being a venture investor today to get the most out of it because I just generally don't like private investing anymore. You know that like, I'm not a huge fan of it in terms of ROI relative to at least what I can do in the public market. So I'm not making a lot of private investments anymore. But the one thing is indisputable and I tell people I probably gave up half a billion dollars because I took all my money out of my public portfolio every year the last 18 years and put it into venture investments that are generating about 10 to 15% annualized return as opposed to the 70 plus percent annualized return I get in my public portfolio that probably cost me half a billion dollars. But I would do it all over again.
- [09:44]
Austin
The whole.
- [09:45]
Chris Camillo
I would do it all over again. I would make the same mistake because venture investing brought so many amazing relationships into my life. And you know what? A couple of them might end up playing out to where I don't feel as bad about that decision if electronic ends up playing out the way that I think it will. And so what I mean by this is you should be thinking about venture investing not necessarily for the roi, but you should be thinking about it for, as a lifestyle.
- [10:11]
Robert Croak
Okay.
- [10:12]
Chris Camillo
The fact that all of you are actually in this room and that you flew here. I feel comfortable saying this because you already know enough that you knew it was worth your time or money. I don't know anything about this thing, but like they actually get here because this is what it's all about. The fact that I have developed the most insane relationship with Capital factory over 15 years and that they introduced me to this crazy guy that was building a robot eight and a half years ago that I thought was the dumbest thing in the world. And then they kept twisting my arm to meet with them every year. And I eventually ended up being basically the co lead of their institutional round and essentially they're IR guy. Today with investing hundreds of millions into the company through multiple funds is insane. But it's because it became a deep part of my life. I've met thousands of people through the venture investing world and these people are so invaluable that like without me being an early stage venture investor, meeting hundreds of founders, going to so many events like this because all the venture funds I'm involved with are GP'd by close friends of mine. And they all have stuff like this where they do things in the desert or they get all the LPs together once a year. And now every time I go I get 30 or 40 new LP relationships and 10 new founder relationships even if I'm not investing in those companies direct. These are the smartest, most ambitious, most networked people on earth. And your only means to develop deep relationships with this world is to start venture investing. Investing in a fund that does stuff like this.
- [11:51]
Robert Croak
Totally.
- [11:51]
Chris Camillo
You know that like brings you out to connect with all of us, right?
- [11:54]
Austin
Yeah.
- [11:55]
Chris Camillo
So that and getting to the Ben. The Ben Lamb story is so good. I gotta tell it. You guys probably don't know this, but like the, the de Extinction company. Ben brought me to lunch one day and said, Chris, you're gonna just not talk for 20 minutes. You're gonna listen to me and I'm gonna tell you the craziest thing you've ever heard in your life. And at the end of the conversation, you're gon $100,000 check. I think he told me to bring my checkbook to lunch. And it was during the pandemic, during like one of the best years I've ever had in finding in like the public equity market. I was like so much money that I was like willing to do what he asked me to do and just write it down to zero. But he told me about his crazy idea that he'd been working on for years and he was going to quit his current job and company and put his whole life into this new thing. He was going to bring back the woolly mammoth and bring back all these other animals and it was going to be the world's most valuable company and all this crap like you're out of your. This is crazy. And then I wrote him the hundred thousand dollar check and going down to zero. And did you do it at the lunch? At the lunch. And so, and I just Wrote down to zero. And I was like, nobody knew who the hell Ben Lamb was outside of us and capital. I mean he had a successful business. Kind of like it wasn't like he would. Now he's on Joe Rogan. He's on all these shows. The $100,000 is worth 12 million at the current valuation. And this is like three years ago. 100,012 million. And it's like. But it only was because of the personal relationship. That was it. So the biggest takeaway I have on all of this is not what you would think I'd be talking about with like. And I am going to talk about actual venture investments. But, but it, it, it's think of this as a lifestyle because it's the greatest lifestyle that's going to open up career. It could open up the door for your next job. You know what I'm saying? Like have nothing to do with a company that you end up investing in. So I just challenge you to think about this journey of being a vent as something way bigger and broader than just getting in good deals.
- [13:50]
Austin
I love that perspective so much. I really do. Yeah.
- [13:53]
Robert Croak
The biggest takeaway for me is access. You know, build those relationships, become an lp, even if you're a small LP writing small checks. Because over time you're going to get more deal flow and more access to the people like Capital Factory and Chris and the deals that we do within the rich habits network. So my next question is, you've done 160 of these venture investments. Looking back, what would you say the percentage of your returns came from the top two, three, four investments? Because we always talk about so many of them are going to go to zero. And how has that changed how you invest for the future in venture? Because you said you're starting to get away from it more and more. Walk us through that.
- [14:32]
Chris Camillo
Yeah. Ten names basically returned, you know, everything. This has been a rough Road of 160 investments. I made a commitment with Capital Factory and Josh and Brian and a couple other guys back in the day that all we were going to basically spearhead the Texas early stage venture ecosystem before it existed. And we were going to ride and die Texas founders. And it cost me a lot of money. Not because Texas founders aren't great. It cost Josh and Capital Factory tremendous amounts of money in the early years. It's not because they weren't great. It's because there was a lack of cap A venture community here that was willing to fund B stage C stage company. So every time we'd get a winner, there'd be a winner in Silicon Valley and they would get a huge B round and a C round. There might be three or four or five companies in the same space. And our Texas founder was spending 90% of their time flying around trying to get checks instead of managing their business. It was, it was really tough. So everything has come from a few winners. Almost. So many losers, guys. So many, so many losers. I, he, he saw my notes here. I have something. I'm like, just quick takeaways. Just put this seed in your. Just put it in your head. There's always exceptions to every rule.
- [15:50]
Robert Croak
Okay?
- [15:51]
Chris Camillo
But in my opinion, I will never invest in another consumer package good company ever again. Ever again. Unless it's for just, just, just something that I think is interesting or I love the founder or something like that. I went in very deep on cpg. I probably know as much CPG than anyone in the world and it's just not a great area to throw your money into. Big ice cream guy. You know, like the, the way that I think about investments now, like if I was, if I was doing venture investing right now, here's how I think about it. The barbell theory. I, I always talk about a barbell theory for a lot of different things, but I would think about barbell for venture investing. And what I mean by that is there's two types of investments I think are really interesting in venture. One is actually not even really venture, but they're companies that are just meaningful, potentially cash flowing companies. They have the capacity to really cash flow in something that might not even be that exciting. And so it's not like a huge winner for you in terms of being a 20, 30, 40x or maybe it can be, but it's a company that so obviously is going to cash flow that it's really de. Risked. One of my biggest wins that you guys can read about it was. Came out last week. I invested a chunk of money in a, in a traveling trade show called CollectCon which is. Was the world's biggest. Became the world's biggest Pokemon trade show. And we started out of a hotel banquet room four years ago. And it was the craziest investment, but I just knew, I knew it would cash flow. I knew it would cash flow enough to pay me back my money and a little bit of interest. Well, as it ends up it not only. And I knew it had also had a high end too. So this is not a conventional venture investment. So you know, we sold it to Aria Manual who owns, you know, wwa like all the, all the big Stuff, right? But we sold it last week for an insane amount, just an obnoxious amount of money. It's actually one of the biggest exits I've ever had. But the cool thing was it was cash flowing from year one, right? So that's on one side of the cash flow. One side of the barbell, excuse me, the other side, the barbell is just taking really, really big swings. Really big swings. Things like Apptronic, right? Things where the TAM is immense. You know, the competition's going to be tough, but man, if you time it right, a team executes, you're going to be the next anthropic, right? And I'll put something else here. There's a third piece of this, which I love. You're right. Today, venture is all about access. The deal that's been really hot the last three or four years, I think will continue to be hot the next three or four years is simply access deals. Getting into deals like Anthropic, oai. All the stuff, right? All the stuff that everybody wants to get into. Three years ago, getting into SpaceX or even a year and a half ago getting into SpaceX, doing all this stuff. So those deals are really cool because you basically just need a wedge. You need to be affiliated with somebody in the VC world. Or you guys, it's these three, right? Someone who has enough leverage, enough of a brand, enough connection points that they're also partnered with people like Capital Factory 2 and other VCs where they are, they are not getting pitched the deal, which is what VC has always been historically. Everybody's going after the same deal and your guy has enough access and reputation to get a piece of it somehow, some way, and has an LP base broad enough that you guys could collectively meet the minimum, whether it's a quarter of a million dollars, a hundred thousand dollars, some deals it's half a million dollars. But you can get in that deal, you trust that person. That's important because so many of these deals are like quasi fraud deals and you don't know if you can trust the person. Like you're like, how did I get anthropic? And it's like this weird fun. It's like, can you even, even trust them? Are they parking the money? Right? Like, so that's a third piece of VC that I think is really interesting. So those are the three things I would hone in on from a. You know, just if you're. If today, today, because this world has changed so much since I was in it the last 20 years. Like the world I was living in in VC is dead. Dead. I mean, because like, in AI world, a technology world, all this other stuff we used to look at all the time is so dangerous. It's so risky. We don't know what the world's gonna be like.
- [20:30]
Austin
Two things. The first thing is what you just
- [20:32]
Chris Camillo
said is absolutely correct. Like, we get. We get message by so many people
- [20:36]
Austin
in this room every single week.
- [20:37]
Chris Camillo
Like, can we get into anthropic? Can we get into and.
- [20:40]
Austin
Or whatever it is? It's like, yeah, we can get you in it.
- [20:42]
Chris Camillo
Like, there's. We're gonna find a way, but if we're not bringing it to you, it's because you're getting screwed. Like, it's horrible fees.
- [20:49]
Austin
We don't trust the people.
- [20:50]
Chris Camillo
So, like, it's really changed where, like,
- [20:52]
Austin
we've gotten to a high level of access, but there's a lot of bad actors. The other thing I wanted to ask is, especially with Collecticon, I hadn't even thought about this.
- [21:01]
Chris Camillo
Like, you always talk about social arbitrage,
- [21:04]
Austin
which maybe you could explain again to them.
- [21:05]
Chris Camillo
I think you might have earlier, but
- [21:07]
Austin
do you approach that in private markets as well?
- [21:10]
Chris Camillo
Absolutely. And how does that work in your mind? It's the one time that I would still invest in private markets. So Social Arb is essentially trying to surface change in the world quickly. Cultural shifts, consumer behavioral shifts, technology shifts, political shifts, weather shifts, any shift, any change. You're trying to surface it as it's happening quickly, and then you're trying to connect the dots to sectors or companies that would either benefit or be harmed by that change. It's that simple, guys. It's that simple. And so often you will find something really big. But there's no publicly traded company where that thing is a needle mover for them, right? So it's only like 1% of the company or something like that, right? So, like, oh, the company that would benefit from this is private. So what do you do? You got to go try to invest in the private company. So what do you do? You either do it yourself. You either get your friends together, you pull money. You're on the phone, you're trying to find Series A shareholders. Do you have the rights to sell? Can we do a contract on the side? I've done. I did this with Robinhood. I don't remember this. Like, when I, I, I passed up on Robin Hood. Like, I was there when Vlad pitched Robin Hood for the first time. And I thought he was. I thought it was. He's psychotic. I thought it was the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I. I told the. I told Howard Lindsin, who was the first check, that he was wasting the money of the fund that I was invested in because this guy's a crackhead. There's no way this is ever going to work. But. And thank God he did it anyway. And then a few years later, I'm like, oh, my God, I got to get more money in Robinhood Direct. And so I'm literally calling every Series Seed shareholder, which are the only shares that you could transfer with a buddy of mine. And we. Everyone said no. The last one owned a winery up in San Francisco and said, I'll sell you a million bucks. And so four of us went in, we bought a million bucks of Robinhood together. We did all the legal contracts, and, you know, we ended up selling on the ipo, and it was awesome. Do you know what valuation that was at? We ended up about 5xing on the IPO from where we bought it from. And it was, like, only a year ago or so. Wow. And then. So. But like, yes. So it was like, sometimes it's going to be a private company. Okay. So. And you're tracking, like. Like, Topo Chico is one I tried to invest in when it was private. And they barely speak English to me on the phone in Mexico. And I was like, do you need money? I'm gonna give you money. It was blowing up in Austin and Dallas. No one else knew. Yeah. It's so like. And then they end up selling two or three years later to Coke or Pepsi or whatever. By the way, one more cash flow company I thought was really cool. Also relationship based. I love these stories because, like. Because I'm always out there. I'm having dinners and drinks. Everybody, all the time. The last 20 years, my whole life has been just network, network, network, network. I'm having a dinner in New York. A guy gets invited to dinner by one of my VC buddies. And. And he was the son of the guy who was. Was CEO of Pepsi China. So he. He just knew stuff. And I was like, dude, what are you doing? He's like, I got a coconut farm in. In. In Thailand, and I got the best pink coconuts in the world on my farm. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna literally own all the world's pink coconuts. Those are my farm. It's gonna be the biggest. And my buddy's like, yeah, we're invested. And I was like, shoot. I was like, this could make. He's like, we're Gonna do a fun trip out there. I was like, I'll just do it for the story. I'm like, let me invested. This is like, like eight years ago. I invested in this coconut farm. This guy now has the largest coconut farm operation in the world. Costco 7 11. All the coconut water you think about that's high end that they care about. The quality of the coconuts comes from his young. I know more about young pink, pink coconuts than you would ever imagine. And so you could only get them from a certain region of Thailand. And yeah, now he has like, has all these crazy offers to buy the company and like it's just absolutely wild. But again, relationships, just getting out there and meeting with cool, interesting people. That's what it's all about.
- [25:17]
Austin
I love that story. I don't know anything about coconut.
- [25:20]
Chris Camillo
I'm pissed off. If he sells the company, I'm gonna be pissed because like I invested specifically so that I would have a reason to go to Thailand that's more than just a regular person. I'd be like, oh, I got a coconut. I'm gonna. Yeah, my own private of the whole facility. That'd be really fun. I'd take some people but then I, you know, my kids, I don't have time to do anything. So I was like, my kids are graduating in two years. I think it'd be so fun to get a bunch of people and just go to the coconut farm. But he might not even own it.
- [25:47]
Austin
Is it bad that I didn't know that there were pink coconuts?
- [25:49]
Chris Camillo
Is that like dumb of me? No, nobody would know, but it's mad. Oh, by the way, I was getting a little self conscious. I thought of this story because you said social art. Yes, massive social arb story I missed because I'm so busy lately. Is that a guy in my community? My social arb community. Nailed it. And I'm just too busy even pay attention. But if you go today, go on Google Trends 5, resort it to a five year Google Trend and just type in the word coconut water. Something happened in the last three months, four months and I'm just too busy to see it. These days, even though I'm like the king of social art runs too busy. Coconut water went nuts. Something is going insanely nuts with coconut water. Well, Vita Coco just had earnings this week. Blew it out. Completely blew it out. Up like 23% on earnings.
- [26:41]
Austin
Wow.
- [26:41]
Chris Camillo
Coconut water is going insane. Insane right now. But yeah, it's all about just knowing when something's popping right. Something's happening.
- [26:48]
Austin
Well I think for the last two years you've been the guy that, that knows that humanoids are popping and will be popping. So what's the elevator pitch for why this is going to be one of the defining investment themes for the next decade?
- [27:02]
Chris Camillo
Infinite labor machine. Okay, so I'll tell you this. I'm about 900 hours into deep dive robotic research, right. Like I've spent the last three years of my life and it was pretty a weird story because, you know, I'm also a YouTuber, content creator. Like these guys and I saw these Tesla guys back in the day and I was like, they were nobodies and like they were just the first people to start talking about ev. And all of a sudden they got millions of followers and they're like gurus. And not to mention the fact they're making insane amounts of money off of Tesla because they were in it early on. Yeah. And they just built a great life for themselves and so fun. I was like, oh man, I wish I would have, I wish I would have gotten into damn test. I wish I would have just got into Somebody's Tesla in 2016, 17, so I could have experienced what the hell was going on. I would have been one of those guys. If something else happens that's that big, I am not going to be left out of it. I want to be ground zero of that movement that's so exciting and so fun and so, and so money making. Right? And like it's going to be a big part of my content too because like I want to be part of something that's just awesome. And so, you know, when I was following the robot story avtronic for 5, 6 years and it didn't go anywhere and then it went somewhere huge. I was on the ground floor like, this is it. This is the next ev. It's robots. And it's so much bigger and cooler than EV could ever be. Robots, man, robots, robots. Bipedal humanoid robots. Not only is it an infinite labor machine that will literally change everything we've ever known about economies and humanity and the world and theoretically make, bring the entire third world out of the third world and make everything about life better. Not only that, robots, man, they grew up during the Jetsons, okay. Like, it's just so wickedly cool. And so I was like, I knew nothing about robots. I'm like, I am going to know everything about. I am going to be the biggest, biggest expert in robots. And I just started studying and studying and studying.
- [29:13]
Austin
Well, I'll talk about that for a second. So let's say someone here has a deep thesis about something cool and they want to start study, study, study. How did you start study, study, study into this? Was it interviewing people? Was it chat, GPT? Was it research papers?
- [29:24]
Chris Camillo
It was people, people and research, but mainly people. Yeah. I found people, other guys that were investing in the robot space that introduced me. Other guys. Then I would meet roboticists themselves. I ended up meeting one crazy roboticist and me and him became like, best friends. And he's a lifelong roboticist, an investor. He's like, Scott Walter. You probably know him if you follow all the YouTube videos on robots. He's really big in all the robot videos. Me and him are like, best friend. We're on. I was talking to him yesterday, like, he visits every robot company on Earth. I got involved with other guys that invest in robots that traveled all of China and visit every robot company. We have all the alpha on every single company in the world. There's nothing going on in the robot space that we don't know about. I'll give you some alpha. Everybody's wrong about robots right now. Everybody that's talking about robots, that's posting about robots, that has theories on robots, all the smartest people in vc, all the big talking heads on Twitter, everybody's wrong. The timelines are way off. These robots are not yet commercially scalably viable. There's not one company that has a commercially scalable robot right now. We are still a full generation away from the com, the first commercially scalable robot that will actually have a good chance at meeting all of the KPIs to be viable. Meaning the amount of uptime, is it 80%, 90%, 20%. Right. Like, the speed, the break rate, the cost. Like, there's like. There's like 12 KPIs and you got to meet all of them to be commercially scalable. So we're not there yet. So everybody thinks all. Everything that Elon has been saying is a complete lie for the past three years. Everything some of the other CEOs have been saying is a complete lie. And it's okay. Okay. It's okay. My best thesis on what's going to happen in this sector, and I could be wrong, but my best. My best thesis right now is that we are going. Actually, there's a story yesterday on Hyundai potentially spinning, which I've known for a long time, spinning out Boston Dynamics in an ipo. Pretty soon, I think we're going to have a hype window for IPOs in the robot space. I think it will be 2027 or 2028. I think there will be a small number of companies that, that by then we'll be able to show at minimum a prototype of a fully commercialized, production ready, scalable robot, even though they haven't scaled yet. Along with POS from the world's biggest companies. That will show that this is the biggest TAM on earth. That will show the biggest companies on earth are literally ready to spend billions a year for robots.
- [32:26]
Austin
Are they right now?
- [32:27]
Chris Camillo
Yes. They're prepared to do it if and when someone has the robot.
- [32:32]
Austin
Yeah.
- [32:33]
Chris Camillo
And could actually scale the robot. Which is not what you think it means. Because when I say scale, you think manufacturer. That's not what it means. The manufacturing actually isn't the hard part. The deployment is the hard part. It's really easy to deploy five robots at Walmart or like UPS. Unbelievably hard to deploy 50. Almost impossible. Okay. Because the closest analogy to it is when IBM came up with the mainframe in the 80s, they didn't just send, you know, Macy's and mainframes. This is going to control all of your company right now. Now, now you're digital. No, it was like a 10 year deployment of. We're going to change everything in your business to eventually be able to run off of a mainframe as opposed to paper and files. It's a 10 year window just for one company. So we're going to go through something similar in robotics and very few people are going to talk about it because it's not sexy, it's not interesting, it's not positive in the short run. And all the CEOs are going to lie to you and they're not going to really focus on that because everybody wants to get their big money. They're going to get their IPO and all the stuff. Right. Then there's going to be a delay. What does it sound like? Have we seen this before? EVs?
- [33:52]
Robert Croak
Yeah.
- [33:52]
Austin
Yeah.
- [33:53]
Chris Camillo
Autonomous. Autonomous driving.
- [33:55]
Robert Croak
No infrastructure.
- [33:55]
Chris Camillo
Yeah, Autonomous driving taking longer. I mean, do you think Elon actually thought there were going to be robo taxis 11 years ago? No, but he knew that he had to sell the dream to get the money, to get the traction, to get. He's an evil maniacal genius, you know, like. But at the end of the day, he knew that's what had to happen. It was for the benefit of everybody. Because this is an important problem to fix. Right?
- [34:18]
Robert Croak
Right.
- [34:18]
Chris Camillo
And then it doesn't ultimately matter because once people realize that it's definitely going to happen, it's just delayed from where we all thought it was going to be. Yeah, as long as you were one of the few that was able to get the money. Because this takes a lot of money. We're talking billions. You have to have billions in cash to be a viable generalized robotics company. Billions. You have to have years and years and years of, of intense software development just for the operational system that you're building, for the deployment at ups.
- [34:52]
Austin
Can you talk about, you just use the term general autonomous robot. What's the difference between that and these kung fu robots we're seeing in China? Or you know, like, like we're specifically talking about teleoperated, actually. Autonomous. There's, I feel like there's a lot
- [35:09]
Chris Camillo
of confusion out there.
- [35:10]
Austin
Timmy out there, he's. Timmy's a robot, right. But like there's a lot of confusion.
- [35:13]
Chris Camillo
The entire, entire robotic sector is basically a lot of smoke and mirrors, innocent smoke and mirrors. A lot of like, not really telling you the nuances of what's happening. So you'll see a video of, I'm not going to call it any companies, right, like China this. But like you'll see a company with an incredible video of a robot doing things. They'll be like, hey, that was not programmed. That was actually autonomous. It did on its own own. Like, okay, theoretically. Is that true? It might be true, but what they're not telling you is the 15 things you just saw that robot doing in a video that were unbelievable. Like, holy crap, we're, we're there. Like, let's. I want one right now. Each of those things took like a hundred hours of fine tuning. AI doing that exact 15 second clip to where, yes, it was autonomous, but it was so finely tuned to do that one thing that it was essentially programmed.
- [36:11]
Austin
Got it. Okay.
- [36:12]
Chris Camillo
In a perfect environment. In a perfect, in the, in that environment, like if you take the robot and place it on the other side and change the shirt from red to blue and this and that, like, it's just not gonna do it. They do this, they take these clips, they put them together in a video, they edit them with the best editors in the world and you're like, holy, that is awesome. But we're not, we're not there yet. It's trickery. So in China you see a lot of insane stuff, but very similar. Like, like the dexterity is like large dexterity. We don't really have the fine movement moment. Things we don't have. You know, you might see a robot doing something incredible for 30 minutes, but then the next day all of its actuators are blown because, like, you can't, like, actually run a mile on actuators like that, you know, like, so there's just so many problems that need to be fixed in this space that, like, no one's going to, like, talk about because truthfully, like, they're all smallish engineering problems. Like, right now, the coolest part about robotics is that there are no big issues left that people, like, I don't know for sure will solve it. Like, I think on the AI side, meaning the brain of the robot, which is the. Which is the neural network foundation models that like, Google's working on for Optronic and other companies are working on. Like Meta just bought a company doing that. Right. Like, that everybody thinks is about 15 to 18 months away from being where it needs to be.
- [37:44]
Austin
Really?
- [37:45]
Chris Camillo
Yeah. And I think that we're probably at a similar place in terms of, like, the hardware. Like, even Brett Adcock, for all his showmanship at figure AI. And I'm an early figure AI investor too. Like, and those are cool robots that I've been telling everyone it's not scalable. Like, the robot is not his. He's like making one an hour or something. Like, he's making one an hour for training because he needs a bunch to train and he needs a lot to, like, you know, for showmanship and stuff. But, like, he even came out very recently yesterday and basically admitted. And I was waiting for him to say his Gen4 robot is going to be robot, the one he's working on now. So, like, that all these Gen 3s are basically just for show and tell and training. That's fine. That's totally fine. But, like, that's not your perception of them. Like, if you're watching these videos last week, you're thinking, oh, we're ready. Robot Revolution, here we go.
- [38:38]
Austin
Right?
- [38:39]
Chris Camillo
Like, no, he's one full generation off from where he thinks he needs to be for the actual scalable robot that doesn't cost $200,000, that actually has scalable parts in it and all the stuff. Right. That can meet the KPIs. I would say Apptronic. No one's seen Apptronic scalable robot yet. They're working on it. We think we're very close. Like, it's going to be exciting. Like, we'll see. So, like, in Boston Dynamics, same thing. They're not there. And Optimus, I could talk about Optimus forever. But yeah, Optimus is definitely not there. At Tesla, which I've known for a long time. We're all waiting to see Optimus 3. But the truth is there's just lots of issues with Optimus 3. So they're, they're working through that. I'm not even sure that Optimus 3 will be the scalable one when Elon presents it whenever the. That is. He said it was going to be March. I knew it was going to be March. But like it might be Optimus 4. That's actually theoretically scalable. And once you have a running robot, like a prototype, you need like 18 months to hard cycle that to get an iteration before you could start scaling it. That's why I say 18 months is like that magic window. So like where are we right now? Like at the end of 2027, we. We should be really cooking.
- [39:55]
Austin
Got it.
- [39:55]
Chris Camillo
In this space.
- [39:56]
Austin
Okay, so that real quick because I'm dying. I know.
- [40:01]
Chris Camillo
Let's.
- [40:01]
Austin
Let's fast forward 18 months. We're clicking. Things are cool. I'm over here looking around like, wait, how can I social arb invest into the robot revolution for the next 20 years? Is it the actuators? Is it the, the sensors? Is it the batteries? Is it the fabric? Is it the underlying LLM training companies
- [40:20]
Chris Camillo
that are like ups?
- [40:22]
Austin
Yeah, yeah. Is it the companies that are adopting us?
- [40:24]
Chris Camillo
Is it the ones that are most robot.
- [40:26]
Austin
Or do I get the crane shares COID ETF and close my eyes. Like, I don't know.
- [40:31]
Chris Camillo
I. I think there will be some money to be made along the supply chain. There always is. But it's not sex. It's not too interesting for me. I mean like that. It's, it's mostly. It's just commoditized for the most part. I don't like it. I most historically most of the money in many in machinery. Because it really is machinery. That's what we're talking about here. And we could talk about the consumer side too. Most of the money has been made in the deployment. Okay. So almost all the money in the value chain has been made in the people that actually deploy the robots into the factories into. Because there's. It's so much work involved in deployment. That's where all the margin is. So now don't get me wrong, if Google's the brain of all these robots, they will make insane amounts of money at scale, but they will make a tiny piece of money off every robot. Right?
- [41:21]
Robert Croak
Yeah.
- [41:22]
Chris Camillo
The people actually deploying the robots at FedEx, at American Airlines, at all these places, at every company in the world, the margins will be thick and nasty from those companies. And that's why I'm invested in the actual. I'm betting on a horse. My big horse is Apptronic. We'll see. And maybe Tesla if they can get their act together with Optimus. I'm holding off on my Tesla bet until I hear what's actually happening with Optimus. But besides that, I think the biggest beneficiary will actually be the companies that will benefit most from it, which you were just touching on. I call it the AI efficiency wave. So it's partially the companies that will benefit from AI and the companies that will benefit from embodied AI and automation and robotics. And, you know, it all comes full circle. Anybody, if anybody listen to anything I've been saying for months and months and months? It's definitely, definitely Amazon and other companies as well. But Amazon is the most aggressive, the most ambitious company that is just going down this road really aggressively. Not even about making their own robots because they don't care. They're just like everything in Amazon will be roboticized and automated.
- [42:46]
Austin
Hold on, Robert. Before we ask Chris our next question, we gotta remind everyone what's taking place on July 10, Friday at noon, we're so excited. We'll be hosting an AI agent workshop alongside Stephen Sykes, the chief operating officer over@public.com. so if you're over at Public, you got a public portfolio, you're rocking your rolling and you're saying, listen, these AI agents have come out, but I don't know how to use it, I don't know what to program it to do. What, what's it capable of? What's it not capable of? Help me understand this. Austin and Robert, you are in luck. July 10 link in the show notes below. We'll be building agents live with Steven. We'll lay out a strategy menu walking through Public's most compelling pre built agents. We'll talk about what they can't do. But the best part is we're going to be building them live there. So literally we're going to bring people up on stage virtually to say, I've got this idea. Here's what I want to do with an agent, Stephen. Build it for us right here so everyone can see it's an awesome workshop. It's going to be collaborative, Robert. It's going to be, it's going to be great. So, July 10th, it's a Friday at noon Eastern time. Link in the show notes below to register for that webinar. It's going to be a crowdcast link. Hit register and we're going to see you there. Robert. I'm so pumped.
- [43:58]
Robert Croak
Yeah, I think this is probably the coolest webinar we've ever done in all the years we've been working together. And it's going to teach so many people that want to get that start in AI and how to build an agent and how to have that agent help them with their investing. So I'm super excited. Stephen is a beast. We love Public and this tool, I've been using it now for months. I know you've been building stuff Austin as well. It's incredible. And I can't wait. So remember, Friday, July 10th, noon Eastern time. Be there. Sign up in the link below because this is a free webinar. We're not going to sell you anything. And you make sure you don't want to miss this one.
- [44:35]
Austin
I just want to emphasize that again, free webinar, we're not selling you anything. We want to teach you how to use AI agents in your portfolio so you're actually able to to take advantage of this new technology called artificial intelligence. Link in the show notes below. July 10th. It's a Friday noon Eastern time. We'll see you there. Back to our conversation with Chris.
- [44:54]
Robert Croak
So I want to set the room at zero. That was fantastic. But when we look at Optimus, Tesla, we look at figure AI, Eptronic, Boston Dynamics, if they spin off from Hyundai, how does the average person in this room and the people that follow along in the rich habits network, how do we define who the winners are? Or are we betting on the lot, the entire sector, and trying to play our cards that way to find the best winners? Or do you see a clear path right now, let's say three, four, five years down the road of who you believe the two biggest winners are through all of that? Because we also have China, we have one X, we have some other ones. Agility is pretty strong in China. Where does it go from here? So people can kind of know where to point the arrow in this sector of where the winners could be.
- [45:47]
Chris Camillo
So it's too early for sure to pick the winners, but I think I could pick who the winners could be. So like it could be Tesla. And by the way, this is like not like mutually exclusive. Like the companies that have all of the elements, meaning the talent, the talent. So important companies that have the talent, that have the money, the capital, that have the big client relationships and have all the IP existing, meaning the IP that's not sexy that you don't know about. Like Avtronic has had now Optronics had like a hundred plus employees working on operations software for Four years. Like no one's talking about that in the robot space. Right. But like that stuff, Tesla's doing the same thing. Figures, doing the same thing. So Boston Dynamics, we would like to think is they're a little behind, but they should be the same. Those four companies all potentially theoretically could be big winners. 1x. I've gone back and forth, I've spent some time with Bernd. It's a highly controversial company. Yes, I would put him in that mix too. 1x could be one of those companies. And that's the 5. I don't think there's any European companies at all right now that are in that leadership pack. But I think we need another year, okay. I think we need another year to kind of say with conviction that that company is very likely to be a winner. I just know that those are the only five companies I'm aware of outside of China, because China gets a little muddy. It's a little weird. It's a different market that I think really have capacity to be full generalized bipedal and wheeled humanoid trade winners in the US markets. But how do you get invested? I mean, listen, you can invest through secondary, right? Like that's, it's definitely an option. I think the best way to invest in these companies is to keep. You have to, you have to have a prepared mind of knowing what you think that pivot point is for when they go from could be a big winner to very likely. So like a company like Apptronic, for example, when they eventually release their kind of next generation robot to the world and what it's capable of doing, if you were to be prepared whenever that happens and you see it and then you immediately go buy. If you like what you see, you go buy shares the next day in the secondary. Whatever it takes, right? You don't wait, wait three weeks, six weeks, nine, you know, three months. This market moves really slowly. So it's like a private market. There are people in the know you do have a window where you can arb intelligence and as long as your mind's mentally prepared, like those are the four companies. Like I'm doing this with Tesla right now. I'll give you a perfect example. I might know about Optimus before you do. If you follow me, tell us all. If you follow me on X and YouTube, I'll probably give hints right when I find out, but I do not have any money invested in Tesla right now. Zero. If I hear something or see something or get intel that they've had a breakthrough with Optimus and holy crap, I will go in so heavy on Tesla at that moment in time, but I'm prepared to do that and I know what I'm looking for and so I'm just going to wait for that, that and then if and when it happens I'll go all in. What are you looking for or are you not? I'm looking for a, an actual robot hardware and, and foundation model because they're doing everything in house that is showing me or someone that I know that it has the ability to meet the KPIs or come very close to meeting those 12 KPIs right. You know stuff like, you know downtime and you know, performance metrics of all, like how it can perform on some, its cost of production, like all, all the stuff, how many humans it needs to monitor it, you know, all that stuff. So I would just have a prepared mind, study the space, follow all the people that are intelligent in the space and just wait, you got time and then like because you don't want money sitting there in something that might not even, something that might not even result in a winner. 100%. Yeah, you're totally right.
- [50:11]
Austin
I want to continue this conversation now from the embodied AI perspective to just the AI perspective. Let's get rid of the physical, let's just go software, let's think agents, right? AI agents have gone from a research curiosity to a real product category in only 18 months. I couldn't spell agent 18 months ago. Now I've got my openclaw doing some really cool stuff for me. So tools like OpenClaw, the new anthropic and OpenAI agent products, browser based agents, they can actually do things completely on your behalf. Now I want people in this room to understand. I hope you can help me iterate this 2022 ChatGPT is not 2026 chat GPT agents Codex like we have come in the last four years leaps and bounds more it's just, it's unrecognizable technology now. So what's your perspective on this technology as it stands today and what should people be doing with this information in 2026? They should go, you know, build a company. They need to go what, what should they do knowing this technology now exists?
- [51:18]
Chris Camillo
Yeah, I think it's really important as investors that you get to the ground truth of what's happening. Because I have never experience a sector with more just, just bad information every day people that are stuck in their silos as being like pro AI, anti AI pro this AI company and negative about this one. And there's it's insane. I think the most important thing is you have two options. You could either do what Austin did it and actually get hands on using it yourself. That's probably the best. Okay. And you should do that to whatever capacity you're comfortable. I have not started my journey. I'm about to start the journey that Austin took with, you know, setting up agents and doing all this stuff. I was enlightened a week ago by someone that literally melted my mind. He has, he's probably one of the most sophisticated guys in this world. He has 12 agents working for him. And we were, were sitting at the edge of a cliff in Hawaii over looking at surfers and I gave him my Mom's, she's like 80, her website, which is horrible. And he ran it through this thing he had built to assess and he gave it an F. And it said what her website should look like based on best practices of communication from all these books and studies and psychological stuff. Right?
- [52:45]
Austin
Yeah.
- [52:46]
Chris Camillo
He's like, I was like, holy crap, that's an insane website. I, I, that's insane. He goes, do you want me to build it for her right now while we're hanging out here? It's like, what do you mean? He goes, I have a team of agents that will build it for her. Within an hour. I was like. From his cell phone he got on and from his home computer he's like, just get me her. She's on wix, you know. And so it got her the WIX login. He just gave me her WIX login. I got on the WIX login. He had his agents read the WIX manual and how to code in WIX and do all this stuff. And literally in 45 minutes, it reconstructed an entirely new working website with links and everything, perfectly matching what his other system said would be the perfect website for her. I almost pissed my pants, dude. It was the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life. Anyway, you either need to do it yourself so you can experience what's actually real and see the change, or you could do what I've been doing, which is spending a lot of time reading and watching other people who are knee deep in the weeds, either at their job as developers or starting companies who are posting every single day about the good, the bad, the ugly of what agentic AI is and isn't capable of doing on a day to day basis. Go to the source. Don't read articles and people's opinions about what this crap can or can't do. Go to the people that are actually doing stuff with it or not and determine what it can do. I've done that and I've come to the conclusion that, yes, this is as real as real gets and we don't ever need to have AGI or whatever. It's completely irrelevant to me. If AGI literally never happens, it won't matter to me. This will still be the biggest thing we've ever experienced and I think the biggest investment opportunity ever. And I think think it's just astonishing how big the opportunity is now. One of my favorite trades that I made recently on the space was a company called. Oh, my God, it's out of Ragaku.
- [54:56]
Austin
Oh, the one with the.
- [54:57]
Chris Camillo
Yeah, yeah. In Japan. And it was just a random company in Japan that was like a health tech company that had these machines that they repurposed to basically do 3D imaging of AI chips and memory chips so that they could identify if there were any circuitry breaks in them. And so, you know, if you put. The AI chips are getting so dense and high right now that, like, once you put them in a data center, if it goes down because there's one little error in it, it takes the whole rack down. That could cost you $2 million that week in downtime. So all these hyperscalers and chip manufacturers, everybody's getting every chip scanned, like 3D scan before it gets delivered right and installed. And this is like one of only two companies in the world that makes that. But no one even knew that they made the machine because they weren't a tech company. They were like a healthcare company in Japan. And the Japanese are not as. They're not as loud as us when it comes to, oh, dude, we got something big. We're an AI company now. Let's pump our valuation. They're literally the opposite. They're are afraid to talk about it because they don't want to be, like, seen as taking advantage of something. So, like, my guy was literally. One of my analysts was literally in Japan and like, found the company, did a big report on them. Long story short, yeah, the company's up in, like, the last month and a half. Like 60 or 70%, you know, maybe 80% in the last couple just because, you know, I found it first through my friend, and you couldn't even invest in it in the US Like, I had to get Schwab to add the ticker to the global Schwab account so that we could actually invest in it. But I love these. That's how much opportunity there is here. You know, like, we're still early. There's still companies like that that would benefit. But, you know, even going back to AI, I'm trying to figure out where are the lower risk companies. And I still think it's just data centers. Computer dude picks and jumbles do compute. Yeah, it's just, it's just compute. You know, I'm really fortunate. I've been speaking to a lot of, like, guys who run some of the biggest data centers on Earth. I've just been, like, asking them, like, like, what am I missing? Like, what should be looking at? I. I think what's been happening. They've been telling me, you know, how everybody was starting up a data center.
- [57:15]
Austin
Like, everybody know Larry has one now.
- [57:16]
Chris Camillo
Yeah. Like every, everyone is like, oh, I gotta do every real estate guy, commercial real estate guys, data center center. They were telling me that, like, that, like, whole phase is kind of been run through a little bit. And there's so many issues with those data centers that are being run not by triple a list talent, putting them together. And there's. So there's so many nuances that the, the people that actually have the big money to acquire the compute and get the compute in, they're going back to really only wanting to work with like a list company. Amazon, Google, you know, the companies that actually have the ability to get these data centers up relatively on time to control the compute that can, like, handle like.
- [58:02]
Austin
Yeah.
- [58:02]
Chris Camillo
So that we're going through that part of the cycle right now. Which is why I'm even more amped on big tech, because, like, they're getting, you know, and some of the big public companies, too, that are just data center companies that they're doing well too.
- [58:15]
Austin
So. I know, I'm sure y' all have a ton of questions that you want to ask. We've got 30 minutes, 32 minutes left with him.
- [58:22]
Robert Croak
Yeah.
- [58:22]
Austin
Should we just jump straight to Q A or. Robert, do you want to lead us off with a final question for Chris before we jump to Q and A?
- [58:28]
Robert Croak
Yeah, let me do a hybrid of three questions.
- [58:31]
Austin
Okay.
- [58:32]
Robert Croak
Because I think it'll play really well into the Q and A. So you talk about this conviction. You've been very vocal about putting 20 to 40% of your capital kind of into AI and robotics over the next two, three, four years and recently as well. So that's the first part of it. But then secondarily, for the average person out there, that is not where you're at financially in your investment journey. How should they look at it from their own risk perspective of how much of their money should they be willing to risk in these secular growth trends like humanoid robotics and AI and all that? Because you know, some of us can take that risk and go 40% on one conviction and it really wouldn't change our lives, but the average person can't do that. And then also give me an idea of where you think someone should be financially before they would go all in on a big bet like that of 20, 30, 40%.
- [59:27]
Chris Camillo
Yeah, that's one of my favorite topics actually. I think it's probably one of the biggest lessons that an investor can learn, and it's one of the biggest things that most investors miss is that I think every investor, every single investor needs to have a big, I call it a big money account, right? It's a high risk, higher reward account. And you know, you could even break that out to a couple different. One is really high risk, high reward. One is just generally invested in high growth equity, which is like, I just think high growth equities are the most important thing in the world to be invested in. Always. Always. It's not the stock market. It's literally saying I want to put a lot of money to ride along with the most ambitious, most aggressive, smartest humans and companies on earth. I mean, why would you not want to do that, right? Like, it's insane not to do that. So I think we need to start thinking of like I tell people, think of every dollar as potentially being $100, which if you're investing like extraordinarily aggressively with leverage into like concentrated, the, the most ambitious companies on earth over the course of your lifetime, you have a really good shot at making 100 extra money if you only hit 50x. Still, it's a huge number. If you start thinking like that, you will find money in, in all over the place. And what I mean by that is you'll start finding trade offs in your life to where, you know, maybe you're the type that would never clip a 50 cent coupon, but if that coupon was $50, which is exactly what it is, if you, you invested aggressively, all of a sudden it makes sense as like a professional adult to start clipping coupons on Saturdays. You know, like, it sounds dumb, but like stuff like that starts to become really fun and meaningful and relevant when you're trying to fund a baller account to be able to invest in really cool crap. That's like high risk, high reward, concentrated levered margin options, all the above. Like you're never going to do that unless you have a big Money account. But everybody could have a big money account. And once you do this, all the stuff, like the stuff that Graham Stephan talks about, like, oh, make your own coffee at home to save $4 a day. Like, no, I want, I want to go to the coffee shop. Well, for $400 a day, I'm making coffee at home, you know, like, like you want to, like, you know, maybe you like getting a haircut every four weeks. Maybe if you can cut it to every five weeks, your hair looks not quite as good for one week, you know, ten times a year. But you end up saving, you know, I don't know, 150 bucks a year, not worth it, but 100, that's like 15,000 a year now. 15,000 a year, it's worth it. Same thing. Mow your own lawn, do this. Like, don't buy the new TV for another eight months or 12 months. And the money, however much money the TV came down in that 12 month period that you were going to buy 12 months earlier, that you watch your old probably fine TV for an extra 12 months if you saved a hundred bucks, which is like ten thousand, that hundred dollars goes in the big money account when you actually buy the tv, right? Like, so you have to commit to the money that you save or earn through trade offs goes in that account. It's other people's money, it's not yours. So you're not going to freak out when you do something really aggressive with it. And like, that mentality is a game changer. It's a game changer. You might need to open up a separate brokerage account just to keep it totally separate or not. It's up to you, everybody's different. But once you start thinking like this, then like, you know, when these guys send out a notice that, all right, we got this crazy investment, it could be the one probably going to go out of business, but it could be the one, right? It could be the one you're like. And they're like $10,000 minimum, $5,000 minimum, whatever it is, you know, you got it. You're like, dude, this is the one. I want to do it, I want to do it. I want to do this one from the big money account. And that's fun. And that's fun because, like, you get to invest the way I do. You get to invest the way super, super wealthy people do because they don't care, right? They're not worried about it. It.
- [63:46]
Robert Croak
Yeah, we did an episode actually a while back and we talked about if you're in your early 20s just on a standard 9, 10% return. In your early 20s, every dollar you don't invest and you waste is worth $77 in retirement. And in your early 30s, at that same 9% return, it's like $27 in retirement. And that's very similar to your analogy of taking that money, putting into the big money account and then through that multiple of what that actually creates, not what it looks like on paper.
- [64:15]
Chris Camillo
Yeah. I, I got married 21 years ago and I forever could not stop thinking about the amount of. Well, don't even bring that up. About the, the amount of money that we. And we're fine. So it's all good. But like that we would have had if she would have just let me buy a fake diamond instead of a real one.
- [64:40]
Robert Croak
Oh, yeah, Yeah.
- [64:41]
Chris Camillo
I was like, I was like, you don't even know the, the, the, the purses that you would be able to buy right now. Like all the other stupid stuff that you'd be able to buy. Like, no one would have known. No one would have known. And that money compounded the way that I invest.
- [64:59]
Austin
Yeah.
- [65:00]
Chris Camillo
We're starting to play dangerous game.
- [65:02]
Austin
Yeah.
- [65:06]
Chris Camillo
More than this guy was at my wedding like six months ago and he's saying this. Yeah. And like, fortunately back then, like at some point during the, between when I got engaged and when you got engaged, somebody shifted it from two months to three months salary. Like that was never a thing. It was only two months. Somebody just turned up the dial.
- [65:29]
Robert Croak
Yeah. And the crazy part is I had this exact conversation with my then fiance. And then I went on to be the fool's bet and spent $74,000 on the wedding ring. And I was just like. And then you know, you know what happens after that.
- [65:44]
Chris Camillo
But yeah, it's a lot of silly bands. That's a lot of silly. Yes, it is.
- [65:48]
Austin
Yes.
- [65:49]
Chris Camillo
Well, so do you want to jump to questions?
- [65:52]
Austin
I think we should.
- [65:53]
Robert Croak
Yeah, let's go.
- [65:54]
Chris Camillo
Let's do it.
- [65:55]
Austin
Yeah, let's. I'm sure.
- [65:56]
Robert Croak
Isaiah, let's go.
- [65:58]
Chris Camillo
So during the break, like Brian and I were talking about higher education kind of where things are going. Obviously with a lot of the human capital changing like you're talking about with humanoid robotics. What does education need to do to respond? So we prepare people to kind of work in this new environment with, without over committing. I know you said you don't want to absolutely commit to one position, but
- [66:16]
Austin
what do we need to be doing
- [66:17]
Chris Camillo
in terms of universities and colleges to help prepare kids today? How do we need to change? Burn them Burn them down. No, like for real.
- [66:25]
Robert Croak
Wow.
- [66:25]
Chris Camillo
I know, like they're worthless. Don't film. I know. So even, even, you know how you have these, you know, these like collegiate education content creator influencers that, that's all they study and talk about. Their whole career is made off of helping people figure out what university to go to. They're on my algo probably because my kids are two years away from going to college and they're really fun to follow. Well, one of them this week, I was stunned because you know, they have, they have all the incentives to protect the college world. She came out and said that there are only 20 colleges worth going to as of right now. And then she's like you, if you can get into one of these 20 schools, you're still going to gain enough from going there from, from the credibility and from various things and networking. But anything below that 20 tier, she said you should instead consider going on a sabbatical for a year. Kind of get it out of your system, right? Like you can still have that fun. Instead of having fun that first year of college, you can go on a fun sabbatical with friends, live the world, see the world, have a college like experience in a different way. Because the call, it's all changing. Whether you like it, it, we're changing, right? And then after that year you can go to either a technical school or a trade school or get an internship and explore some other alternative route towards a profession, which is where all this is going to go anyway. So you kind of get to grow up a little bit and you're not going to regret not having an experience. And you could still. And they're just about to be better ways. Self train yourself through AI. Like all this stuff, right? There's a billion ways to do this now. I think you just have to radically think carefully about what the right thing is for you. But I will say this. The one thing that's undeniable, undeniable is you must become hyper proficient with AI as a user. I mean you need to be spending, if you're young and you're in high school, beyond using AI to cheat on your tests and all this stuff, stuff you need to spend I think at least 30 minutes a day learning about AI. Follow people like, at minimum follow people like Nate, Nate's the guy on TikTok. He's like the Mr. Rogers of AI. I always say 60 seconds will tell you what's happening that day. Get involved with the tool sets, build an agentic system on open cloud, just do something for fun. If you are a young person and you become hyper proficient, utilizing AI to build anything, to do anything, and you're doing it every day, you're gold. You are at your gold. I don't care what career you want to go in, what sector you want to work in, you will have a job guaranteed because you will step into that interview and confidently say that you are 10 employees worth of an employee be because you spent three years becoming hyper proficient, top 1% globally and utilizing AI tools to solve problems. That's it. That, that, that's the answer right there. And then whatever sector you want to go in, whatever company you want to work for, you literally have the world's like cheat code just because you decided to be hyper efficient in using AI tools. Good question.
- [70:12]
Austin
As there over to you, Axel. How do you distinguish between viral hype
- [70:18]
Chris Camillo
and real cultural change when you, when you are doing social arbitrage?
- [70:23]
Austin
Like how do you distinguish between.
- [70:24]
Chris Camillo
That's just a fad versus what is
- [70:27]
Austin
actually
- [70:30]
Chris Camillo
okay, the difference between like a fad and a durable shift in behavior, culture, technology. Right. Like, like it can be really important sometimes initially it might not matter that much. You know, in my, in my, in my backpack I have a squishy toy. It's a neato. I was just showing these guys is one of my social arb trades. It's tbd. Whether this is going to be kind of a fad that lasts a few months or more, it's still going to be a fad but or something that kind of lasts a year or two years. A trend, right?
- [71:11]
Robert Croak
Yep.
- [71:11]
Chris Camillo
And I think as long as you know that and you're, you're monitoring the situation and, and you stay flexible to be able to change your mind and get out of the position, it doesn't really matter because like with neato, I just know that if they can maintain because they're still maintaining, I think they're like like six, six of the top 20 toys on Amazon right now are neato squishies selling at triple the rate. If they can maintain to the holiday season, it's game over. I think there'll be a needle mover for the publicly traded holding co that owns that company. And I think they'll see a 30 to 40% lift in their net income as a result of that. If they can just survive to the holiday, this holiday season and if not, if it falls apart, it. I'll just get out of the trade. I'll see it falling apart because I'm monitoring it like every few days. But it's sometimes you don't know, like for a long time. And you just, you just have to get to the ground truth, which changes every day. So for a long time, investors, institutional snobby investors, thought that Crocs was a fad. And they didn't realize the moment that it became something more than a fad, which was when we were in the pandemic and we were going through a cultural shift to people wearing things that were just more comfortable. At the same time, the company made some genius moves in marketing to do these super celebrity collaborations. So every couple of weeks they were coming out with a new pair of crocs that was keeping the brand cool. Bieber's wearing Crocs, this person's wearing Crocs. The biggest fashion brand in the world is doing a Collab and it's $800 crocs now. They never sold that many of those collabs, but it kept the brand cool. So they were hitting on a super cycle that was happening in the world of comfort trends. Wearing things that are comfortable to you and also cool. And so instead of being this thing that was about to fall apart at any moment and Wall street gave it the lowest PE ever because they're like in any month that they're going to miss earnings. So every earnings, there was an assumption that there was a 50, 50 chance that this was going to be the earnings, that it just fell apart because they were too lazy to do the work to see that it's definitely hasn't fallen apart this quarter. So no, there's a zero percent chance that this is going to be the quarter. And then if you get to a point where you're like the search trends are falling apart. I'm not seeing people, they're not buzz on TikTok about Crocs right now. The middle school kids are falling out of favor. Like they're losing that market. Well, the nurses are still wearing them, but I'm not sure if that's enough.
- [73:54]
Robert Croak
Right.
- [73:55]
Chris Camillo
Like, like if it starts to enter an area of doubt, is this like, are they kind of losing it? Is it becoming like a little less of a trend though? And then you can get out of the trade or hedge your trade.
- [74:06]
Austin
So as a follow up to that though, we just talked about a fad, a trend, a squishy, right? Something like that. But you were also talking about GLP1s and peptides. That is something that is that considered then a trend? And how do you differentiate between a Squishy and a Croc versus like, like Peptides which are going to be, in my opinion, 100 billion dollar companies.
- [74:31]
Chris Camillo
By the way, I have a better way to answer your question, which is don't try to predict the future. Because that's what you were asking. And this is literally my whole thesis revolves around don't predict the future or think that you can just be amazing at properly assessing what's happening in the present every day. Okay, so you don't need to determine if this is going to be a trend or a fad. You just need to be perfect at assessing. Is it still on fire today? All right, GLP1s that I think, although I never wanted to like predict the future on that, I felt strongly, strongly that that was going to be. Be way more than just like a fad.
- [75:21]
Austin
And do you feel the same way about Peptides?
- [75:23]
Chris Camillo
Absolutely.
- [75:24]
Austin
Because give us a sneak peek, we'll think about the.
- [75:26]
Chris Camillo
The underlying current of this is just so. And I feel the same way. As controversial as he is clavicular and looks maxing. And I said this. It's undeniable. Yeah. That looking better, whether you're doing that, that through grooming or lifting weights or eating better or better style translates to more opportunity in every part of your life, whether it's business, social dating, anything undeniable. It's a fact. Now I'm not saying to go smash your face like that lunatic does every day. There's a line where the risk reward doesn't make any sense anymore, Right. But it's undeniable. And GLP1s and peptides are simply part of that. Who doesn't want to feel better, look better, be more productive? I mean, come on, like, it's just the most obvious thing in the world. I mean, when I saw what GLP1s were capable of years ago, I was like, dude, this is literally going to be. I tweeted this years ago. I said this might be. Be the biggest drug in the history of humanity.
- [76:43]
Austin
And it is.
- [76:44]
Chris Camillo
Yeah, it is.
- [76:45]
Robert Croak
Yeah.
- [76:45]
Chris Camillo
And if they could just come up with the pill to grow hair back, that might eclipse it. But until that happens. Yeah, like that's the only until that happens. Like this is it. Like this is it.
- [76:58]
Austin
So not to put you on the spot with the Peptides, but like as we think about them, I think, you know, hims and hers because they've got this really cool peptide compound pharmacy I think in California and then Eli Lilly with Reddit, True Tide and what they're working on. But maybe from your perspective, there's something that, that we're not Seeing Novo Nordisk too is, I don't know, just there,
- [77:18]
Chris Camillo
there, there are, there are some other companies that are touching the peptide supply chain and platform, which we will dive into in our next episode of Dumb Money Live, our peptide episode. The reason why we didn't do the episode this week is because I think got distracted and didn't have the time to properly research the companies. So I can't speak to it until. Not holding back. I just really. I. I have the list of the companies. I just don't. I haven't researched them yet. Totally, totally. I think HIMS is an obvious one that everyone's pointing to and it's one of these things where it's like. But everybody already knows that him. So like, where's the arb? Okay, then you have to make a decision and I haven't made it yet on hims of listen, if HIMSS is going to truly be a beneficiary of this and, and if you believe they have the moats, because unlike in the past, like, everyone's going to want to get a piece of this. This peptides are going to be massive. Massive. So can HIMS re. Do they have enough moats in peptides to really retain the value of the super cycle we're about to get into? But I am basically now convinced with certainty that peptides are going to be just absolutely massive. And we use this word peptides, but it means a lot of different things. I don't know which peptides are going to be the ones that like float to the top, that are truly meaningfully beneficial and which ones people are be like, nah, but. But we're getting into a new age of it's vitamins that work or it's supplements that work. That's really all it is. Right? Like, we don't have to overthink it. Think about how big the supplement industry has been the last 50 years. Like, it's just simply supplement. It's supplements that work better, that have like higher moes. So there's more profitability in them across the supply chain. It's interesting, man. And then you also have like the truth of how much will they benefit to. How much will. Will other investors think they're going to benefit? Because even if you ultimately come to the determination that, you know what, I just don't think HIMS or who, whatever the company is, is going to benefit that much that they're going to. Their valuation should triple in size. But if other people think they are, they're going to pop. So you get into that Trade. Right. And then you exit after it pops, knowing that I just don't think they're going to actually fulfill the promise, but of being meaningfully ramped up on this whole peptide thing from an earnings perspective. So we've got a hard stop in 10 minutes. Yeah, you next? All right, cool. We'll just try to rapid fire for 10 minutes. What happens if Amazon comes out and it's like, hey, love what you're doing in peptides. Himss. We're going all in on peptides. That would be a devastating day to be a HIMS shareholder. Older. If we have to teach a 10
- [80:15]
Robert Croak
year old or 10 plus year old about finances going forward with the rapidly evolving landscape, how would you approach that?
- [80:22]
Chris Camillo
Yeah, I. I think three ways. One is I would utilize AI. Quite honestly, I love AI learning. I'm a big fan of like Alpha School here in Austin and what they're doing with AI learning. I would use AI learning to teach kids about finance because it's probably going to communicate finance in a way that's more tolerable to them than anyone else could. Also, I would identify content creators on YouTube or TikTok that are actually trustworthy. There's a lot in finance. Very few that I trust. These guys for sure. I'm comfortable with myself as a finance creator. I trust myself. Guys like Graham Stephan. Right. The guys that are just in it for the right reasons, that are good messaging and figure out which one your kid relates to the most because they love YouTube. And then the third thing is you just have to do it in finance to the degree that your kids it expresses an interest. Even if it's starting with a $10 account. Have them open the account, have them buy a stock, tell them why you're buying it. Just have them do the things. Don't overthink it, have fun with it. Don't worry about it being good or bad. We're talking about small dollars here. Those are the three ways that I would go about. Just really quick, you mentioned not to predict the future, but what resources do you have or do you go to that you trust to be really good at making the decision on the moment and just kind of tracking along what happens daily.
- [82:23]
Robert Croak
Where do you go to?
- [82:24]
Chris Camillo
What are the voices that you hear that, that you listen to, resources that you trust to make the decisions on a daily basis? Just following the trends and seeing what's kind of discerning, what's going on? Yeah, great question. There's a massive matrix of sources. There's a lot of ways that I Surface opportunities. And I create a thesis around that opportunity. Often I'll surface an opportunity by studying conversational data, which is, you know, know comments on TikTok videos mostly because that's where people are most raw and expressive and it's most real time and it's a robust data set. I love it. It's the gold standard for alpha. So you might discover something like coconut. Why is everyone talking about coconut water? It's been really popular. And then you got to figure out, okay, is that real? So then you. There's a lot of things you can do. I talk about it in my book Unknown Market Wizards. The chapter he wrote on me is great. I've done like tons of podcasts on this. It would be a lengthy conversation. But, you know, you go to Google Trends are people searching for it. You go to the store, speak to clerks about it at the store, right? Maybe go. I mean, there's so many different pockets of information and different pieces of data. Like, I'll then look at the website data of the company making the product. Is that showing a lift? And what I want to see is, you know, so, you know, I, I don't want to see just one piece of data that's supporting my thesis. I want to see a lot of different data points that are unconnected, that are all supporting my data. People are talking about it, people are searching for it, their website traffic is going up. The clerk in the store says he's never seen anything like it. Right? Like, and, and so there, there's all kinds of different places you should look at. And if you really get into social arb investing and trading and you start, you know, following me and my community and stuff, you're going to learn all. It's endless. It's endless, quite honestly. Channel checks, there's just all kinds of things that you can do that are both digital and in the offline world, but it's no one thing. And the more data you get to sync up, the higher your conviction level gets in the bed. And, and that a lot of times that defines how aggressive you are in the investment or how levered you go into the investment is how many data sources are fully aligned.
- [84:47]
Austin
Now, before we take our final question from our live audience member there, want to give a shout out to NEOS investments. NEOs offers ETFs that seek high levels of monthly income with a keen focus on tax efficiency while providing core portfolio exposure across equities, fixed income, real estate, cryptocurrency and cash alternatives like t bills. Their ETFs may be especially interesting for investors looking to generate tax efficient monthly income inside of their investment portfolios. Their funds may serve as a compelling income focused alternative or complement to many of the investments already inside of investor portfolios.
- [85:23]
Robert Croak
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- [86:10]
Austin
All right, Robert, let's go hear from that last live audience member. Back to our conversation.
- [86:16]
Chris Camillo
One more first of all, my key
- [86:18]
Austin
takeaway from all this is I will never take my diamond ring off in
- [86:22]
Chris Camillo
front of my husband. So thanks for that. But you've, you've helped a lot with
- [86:27]
Austin
talking about how we can encourage young
- [86:30]
Chris Camillo
people and teach them. But Ron and I have children ranging from well, early 20s on up to like mid to late 30s.
- [86:39]
Robert Croak
I'm well and older, but I'm just
- [86:41]
Chris Camillo
speaking of AI and trying to encourage
- [86:44]
Austin
them to learn more about it.
- [86:46]
Chris Camillo
And I'm shocked that a lot of them have like kind of a really
- [86:51]
Robert Croak
negative attitude about data centers.
- [86:55]
Chris Camillo
It's taking all of our natural resources
- [86:57]
Robert Croak
and the water that's one part of
- [86:59]
Austin
it, but also just almost like an
- [87:02]
Chris Camillo
angry fear of it.
- [87:04]
Austin
And it's going to take all of our jobs.
- [87:06]
Chris Camillo
It's going to ruin everything. And I mean we have a daughter who's a pharmacist, she has her doctorate and she's just terrified of it taking her job and we try to encourage her to learn about AI and she
- [87:17]
Austin
has her doctorate but she's scared to learn about it.
- [87:19]
Chris Camillo
It's what can we tell them? Yeah, so, so we live in a digital world or click cell and unfortunately the easiest way to clicks is fear based content. Whether you're making it or not doesn't matter because the algo naturally drives the most engaged engaged content to the most people. So we are seeing nothing but that fear based content and it is brainwashing all of us. If you look at the data, the actual ground truth on water and data centers, if any of you have done this, you quickly realize the entire story is made up, right? Like, like they're the. If you look at the water usage for everything, like data center doesn't even make the top 100 list of things we should be concerned about when it comes to water. But it was a story that went viral because it's very catchy and it kind of makes, you know, like it's so it's, it's hard. I think we just have to have these, these pragmatic conversations with our kids. Use a couple examples like that you can pull the water one and just show them that, hey, you know, the entire digital ecosystem is, it runs in such a way that it always shows us fear based things. Almost everything that we see today is less than 100% true. And it's exceptionally important. Not just as an investor, right, who needs to be a critical thinker, but in every part of your life as a critical thinker for your mental health, to fact check every single thing that you come across that you think is concerning before you act on it or before you allow it to impact your mental health. Because the truth is, if you actually do the research, there is way more evidence that will point you in a direction that this will result in meaningfully more and better employment for humans than the opposite story. It doesn't mean it's guaranteed to happen that way, but there's way more evidence pointing to that historically, no matter how you look at it, no matter how you slice it up. So I'm not concerned when it comes to jobs jobs. I am concerned with bad actors. I'm concerned with AI blowing up the world. AI viruses, AI hacks. I actually think the world in an AI world is more fragile than it's ever been. That's what keeps me up at night. So there actually are legitimate things that we should all be super concerned about and losing sleep over. Unfortunately, what is crazy to me is that virtually nobody is focused on fixing those things. The actual real dangers that AI is bringing, no one's talking about it. We're talking about all this stuff like job loss. It's probably, probably not going to happen. And if you've seen some of the recent data, there's actually more demand on the jobs that we're saying are most at risk, coders. And yet there's more demand for coders right now than there was a year ago. Go. I mean, but that's not a sexy story that doesn't get clicks. Okay, I know you have a heart out at four. Sorry guys. Oh, I have to run
- [90:48]
Austin
up. Yeah.
- [90:49]
Chris Camillo
Thanks guys.
- [90:50]
Austin
Everybody, thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of the Rich Habits Podcast. If you learned something, please consider sharing it with a friend. If you don't already, follow us on Instagram at Rich Habits Podcast. What are you waiting for? If you have questions for Q and A episodes that take place on Thursdays, email us atrich habits podcastmail.com and don't forget, we're still running a seven day free trial to join the Rich Habits Network, our community. For our biggest fans. We host a weekly live stream every Tuesday night. It's two hours long. There's so much fun. We've also started hosting Friday Office Hours, a little hour hangout with Robert and myself. It's. It's fun, it's cool. But go join the Rich Habits Network. We're having so much fun inside of there.
- [91:34]
Robert Croak
Yeah, you took the words out of my mouth. Because if this episode really excites people out there that haven't gone down the road of venture investing yet, the Rich Habits Network is the place to be. We're doing all this cool stuff, investing in all these companies that we talk about and you can have access to that by joining us in the Rich Habits Network. So check out that seven day free trial.
- [91:54]
Austin
Thanks everyone and we'll see you on Thursday.
- [92:23]
Chris Camillo
This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome?
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Robert Croak
That's new.
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Chris Camillo
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