Masters in Business: Stockwits Howard Lindzon (Audio)

of angel and venture investing. I know Howard for a good couple of years, primarily from his time when he was running the stock Twits network, which was the largest financial social network out there, as well as a number of other investments that he's made over the years that I've been familiar with in the technology space. Howard is a Canadian, so that makes him nicer than most people, but also gives him a slightly different perspective on how

things are here in the States. And and we've seen a number of different Canadians like Howard and Paul Couldraw, you know, there's such folks come down from Canada and just you know, have a slightly different perspective which lets them see things a little bit differently. And I think you'll find this and amusing and interesting conversation with no further ado. Here's my conversation with Howard Linson. This is

Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. My guest this week is Howard Linsen, entrepreneur, angel investor, hedge fund manager. What what else can we add to your curriculum? Vitae married nineteen years, two kids, two dogs, two kids, two dogs. I get my best ideas from the dogs and the kids. You know. I read somewhere that your hobbies are driving your kids around and staying awake, and I will save the answer to what that actually means

till till later. So let's talk a little bit. Remind me, resumet and sleep are two big absolutely, So let's talk a little bit about your background. You grew up in Canada, in Toronto, and then not like it's like New York considered Canada, Montreal's Canada, Yukon territories as Canada. So you don't think growing up north of the border impacted the way you view the economy, economic activities, and technology. Good question.

I think Toronto's boomed for so long that I don't think we were subject to some of the some of the stuff that probably happened in the United States. Tront has just been in such a long boom. Maybe it's because they couldn't leverage themselves. I feel the city has become like in l A without an ocean. So I'm not I'm not barish on Torona. I don't like it as much as I used to in it. But I moved away when I was young. I moved to Arizona when I was nineteen. So but you still effectively grew

up north of the border. Oh yeah, I grew up love the city. All my friends were there. I grew up in a wealthy neighborhood, so I was lucky. Uh And so maybe I just didn't see the differences as much as you know. We grew up watching CBS affiliates Buffalo. We saw Buffalo burn during the seven News. Everybody was burning down Buffalo. Cheek to Wauga, Tonawanda. Those our news in Buffalo. And the Bills. We were bills, and I don't know we were bill. So you moved to Arizona.

You get an undergraduate degree in Canada, graduate degree in UM the United States? How did you find your way to angel technology investing? The I came out of a school called Thunderbird right after the Gulf War, whose logo looks like it's right from the trans never really cared about my degree, never mattered to mean, that's worthless. That logo looked it was right off of the Transformers movie. It was right off the Transfort So the dean was Optimus Prime and and I didn't know. They went why

how does the school go bankrupt? How mismanaged is their endowment? They just college doesn't have TARP. That's why to go bankrupt. There you go no bailouts. But there's no bailout from Howard's graduate school. Listen, it was a dual degree with a s U and Thunderbird, which is not So it's a good question. I don't know, because you could give yourself a doctorate if they don't assist anymore, you could promote yourself. I gotta be honest. Is this a funny story?

The But I'll go quickly because there's more important things to talk about. I think I had missed two classes and we were in a fight over whether my degree was there. I waited a couple of years, walked in really dumb and asked for my degree one time, and they gave it to me. So I do have that degree. But more importantly, I don't know I think it's still I don't know. I you know, I don't I know. I have the most Twitter followers because they invited me

to school. They never liked me, but I got invited social I got the claim to fame. The dean called me, who's now a George Mason who was a really good guy to President Angel Cabrera, not the baseball player, And uh he called me one day, goes, oh, we're very interested in social media and you are the so so how did you become the man? How? Let's start first, how did you find your way to angel investing? Yeah? What a? What a? What a? First of all, very I think a lot of angel investing is uh, first

of all passion. Second of all, it's no different than anybody with domain expertise, little luck, little passion um. But that's how do you be successful once you're there? Okay, how do you go from I'm a business major? Two, I have an idea. Why don't I seed a bunch of startups? Well? I only seeded one. I graduated. I was illegal in the States. It was hard to work. I didn't have it was the Gulf War we had. And do you want to graduate from school? Uh? The

country was at war. I was um. It was a recession. You had Charles keating, Phoenix was a mess s and l Christis was the center of the mess. And you know I the only job I could get was as a stockbroker for the Principal Group, which became Eppler became many things. Principal Group. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But when I was doing I was cold calling. It was the only job I could get. They sponsored me and I cold called this kid Mark scatter Day and he had

invented a product called the grip. It was a stress ball to two meetings later, I realized he didn't have money, so I wasn't gonna get him as a client. But I had invested in twenty five grand hard during twenty five grand, I went to my dad's and Dad backed me. We got this great product. Blah blah blah. He asked for a business plan. It's a business plan. This is just yeah, this is just a home run product. Come on, and uh, Unfortunately was probably one of the last times

I talked to my dad. So you failed backwards into through through this product in events are investing exactly. This product became the pet Rock. It's in the QBC Hall of Fame. Uh. It was giant success, giant success, forty million in revenue. Um really got me going in my hedge fund world because Mark and I had all this cash to manage, and the nineties were point what a boom time. It was roll up city and UH in our business, which was the specialty business, it became you know,

I had learned about roll ups. I learned about the healthcare indstory, fight Corps and all these uh healthcare roll ups if you can remember. And it was a bullmarket of like a epic proportions in the night. It was a low vall bowl market, and I thought I knew what I was doing. It was just a good lucky first Angel investment. And really the core of that Angel investment was, oh my god, this is the best product I had ever felt. Earlier, I used a quote of yours and I want to repeat it. And have you

explained it a little bit? You recently said in print There's never been a better time to build the business in America than today. Explain I say it every time I get asked. November my favorite, the best time I ever said it was in front of a bunch of Canate Torontonians and two after I'd sold wall Strip and it was the crash VIX was a hundred. I posted a chart to the SMP on the VIX and I said, what are you people doing watching me? You should be

a building a business. That's really when I started plunking down a lot of my money. But today I say the same thing. Here's what Well, let me just back up. Wall Strip was one of your earlier investments. It was a satirical um sort of like the Daily Show for finance, only online and three to five minutes segments. You had lindsay correct, Libell threw was terrific, right, and um you sold that to CBS for a nice jump to change. Yeah, we started six months. I cold called Fred Wilson, who

would backed Cramer at the Street dot com. Fred gave me my first fifty K, introducing me to a bunch of other vcs. I used the term loosely because they all invested without meeting me. Twenty five Grand Brad Feld, Mark Pinkas. It was a who's who at the maybe not at the time on Fred's phone call, the funniest being Mark Pinkas, who said no at first and said tell Fred to stop giving up my phone number. Mark went to under starred Zinga but he it has been

a big success. But he did invest, but never really give me any at kudos. Marks a pretty tough kid. So but so by the way, Fred Wilson runs at hopefully we get him in here, hopefully we so. So just a little background, Fred runs Venture from my mentor. He started Union Score Venture, which has been wildly successful. I would say the best East Coast media VC of

all time. Right and after he's made people enough money at a certain point, he calls up and says, hey, I'm putting some money into this throw or fifty and most people don't even He looked at it as an art project. Obviously YouTube it just started. We had chatted on his blog for a long time. I never really needed anything. I was taking ideas from him. Term sheets. Had to build a term sheet. This was you know, this was my way into the into the truly learned,

real education. For it was Fred the school. Fred was this is who's going to pay the teamsters type stuff from Rodney Danger Phil. So I would cut and pay stuff from their blog and build term sheets. And I was so grateful. And there's oh five and the uh when I saw YouTube. I said, it's time to disrupt them. See let's build a show reverse it cramer, a female

cramer that there's nothing about the markets. Let's see if we can educate her and teach her about trend Following Fred plunked down, we put our first show on online. It was really funny. The Apple Show was the original show. It was like, let's get long Apple. Obviously continue to be long Apple probably a probably about twenty bucks counting for oh now it splits, it's probably like six bucks, five six bucks, So home run idea. We covered Nike

next to Paul Day's companies that I felt. The idea was stocks making all time highs that I felt were in trends that were everlasting. Obviously what not quite ever lasting, but long long lasting, everlasting themes. But the point is, yeah, trying to find companies that you didn't have to day trade. So uh. We raised six hunder grand sold to CBS for five million in six months. Now, so I became a little bit of a almost ten x and six

times that came a little bit of a celebrity. So that was kind of the fun little interlude to started parlaying that money into Angel investment. The comment, there's never been a better time to build. Here's here's here's what I said. Go ahead. In nineteen eighty when I started a company, it was you had to spend three grand on a box, just a box. To get a telephone in your room, you had to spend a rent with your name on it. You had, um, you had. You had to buy PCs for four or five grand. Uh.

It was just ridiculous. Today you do it at Starbucks with the laptop that you can let your parents you Now, anybody can start a product. The other thing is number one way to get into business by yourself, to start a franchise. Right, Okay, so so even today, UH to toot one of my portfolio companies. We you know, with Lending Club going public and on Deck Capital going public. Now we're going to see the verticalization of these platforms

were getting money. I invest in a company called apple Pie Capital, which helps franchise e s UH crowdsource money to open their first UH franchise operations. So the franchise ors are now because the banks aren't lending going on these platforms or someone being apple poecat like a kick Starter for angeling starter but in a very specific niche of franchisees. Yeah, which is business in America. It's the

it's the it's the pulse of America. Fran I want to open to McDonald's saying McDonald's because we're not doing business with me yet. But companies in the Midwest, whether they're like this big jewelry franchise or a pizza franchise where it's approven franchise, if you follow the instructions, you can make the money. Uh, and they can't. Banks can't fund them. So now you know that's a great yield type play for institutions. So put two hundred thousand across

a diversified portfolio of franchises. So when I say never been a better time to start a business, you go start a franchise company right now. A business you can go start, You go get a job anywhere you've got Craigslist LinkedIn. Uh, there's no excuse not to be able to just show up at a company and just approve yourself. Yeah, you can go learn to code for thirteen grand and one of these private schools and Nila, build a game.

Build I'm not saying you have to go build something because there's a lot more skills and marketing and sales and getting your first customers and figuring out all that to do. But you can get your skills free. You get your skills for basically free. It's more than just the basic technology, it's everything that surrounds coming up with an idea, making it sellable, and then doing everything surrounding it beyond the technology. And you can do this while

you have a job. So, I mean, you know, I always recommend people don't take the leap until you really are committed to being an entrepreneur. A lot of people call themselves entrepreneurs. I think we're at a stage where there's a lot of entrepreneurs. There's these people that you know, have a job, they think they have another business. You don't have a business until you're doing it full time.

You're not committed. Uh no real investors going to give you money if you haven't taken the leap away from or at least guys like me aren't. But um, you know, it's never been a better time to take that leap to do research. All these things that used to be behind needs now in the wall are now there. Uh. Your phone is forty bucks a month, eighty bucks a month.

That is your your your business. You've got relate i Q. You can go build a CRM product, you go use a CRM product on your own, start your business Gmail, relate i Q. That sounds like it's all very straightforward stuff, not a lot of out of pocket cost. One of the things I wanted to talk specifically about today. You know, we always hear about the the idea, here's a world changing idea. But as an investor in startups, I want to throw five bullets out and you tell me what's important,

what's less important, what's not important? The founders, the idea, the technology, the business model, or the valuation. What are those things matter most? I see them and getting so I would throw out a technology doesn't not important, Well I don't think so. So over the tech behind Uber not significant doesn't work unless there was Google Maps. That's theoretically it's not even their technology. Well it is, but I mean you gotta blend it with Google Maps. Where

would over show up? They wouldn't know where to show up. So you know, I can talk about that with all the things that I do. You know, a mashing just like speech up. So I think Tommy domain expertise in the founders matter. You know, I'm forty nine years old. I'm not writing checks like a surpriad chicken anymore. This gray and prey. I'm looking for founders with domain expertise, because you're gonna have to get You're gonna get hit over the head. There's gonna be false starts, there's gonna

be all kinds of issues. I think we're you know, uh still called Valley has been fanatical about these young kids. I think as the market boom matures, uh, you know, having some domain experience matters. So founders matter. The idea obviously matters because with the founders they have to have passion around the idea and some knowledge around the idea. So um, it's a founders first, uh value technology lass

valuation second last. Because if the founders are great, the market idea is great, and the idea is great, you're not gonna have that much choice over what the valuation is. My biggest mistakes so far have been in passing based on valuation Twitters and Twitter at twenty million valuation in two thousands and seemed crazy. Luckily, I am an investor through Bitley and tweet Deck and many other companies in that system they bought. They bought some Eyes, which was

the search engine of Twitter. So luckily I ended up with a lot of Twitter shares and then a very low profect the same valuation. And I basically tweet deck as well, the same thing. So I backed into a lot of Twitter shares. But and and Twitter inspired me to start stock Twitter, which is now, like you said, the largest social network for traders. So founders idea, um, business model matters. I think as we get late in the boom, you gotta have a thought about how you're

going to do business. So you now just hinted it. My next question as we get like technology last and valuation last. So here's the other question. So is the startup market frothy? We've been here for five years, Ah, Silicon Valley, it's a bubble, it's this Is it frothy? Does it? Is it? Always? Is this abnormal? Tell us the state of technology investing in Well, like I said, I don't think there's enough entrepreneurs. There's there's Cash has

become a commodity. Uh. Platforms to invest, whether it's angel List or Kickstarter or apple Pie Capital or lending Club, have become helped cash become a commodity interest rate to zero or forcing people to invest. So that's where the bubble is. The bubble is in the commodity of cash, I mean bubble cash that they've created another one. Bitcoin capital isn't as valuable as it once was because there's so much. There's so much of it and leields are

so low. So don't kid yourself what we are shortage of our great entrepreneurs, but domain experience. Who knows anything about But you go back a kid or to do a blockchain or a bitcoin thing. They may know a little bit about tech, they know nothing about how the regulations work in the industry works. So there's a huge disconnect there. The second disconnect is, you know, there's a lot of great ideas, but good luck finding an entrepreneur the execute soup to nuts on that. Including myself, it's

very hard to do that. I haven't turned out to be able to do everything I wanted with stock twids because there's a lot of moving parts to how all these things work and timing in raising the right capital, etcetera. It's a very subtle thing to be a great entrepreneur. And so I'm biased in the sense that my big

winds have come from great entrepreneurs. So when we look at when we look at the issue of of the bubble, is this just too much cash taste chasing too few entrepreneurs or do you think this is a full blown bubble that ends the two thousand ended? And no, this is not. I mean, let's let's let's really look at this market. And I see crashes and oil, I see

crashes and currencies. I see crashes in Russia, and I say, well, you know, the bubbles have never been like this, where this SMP continues to rise through it and race continue to decline. So I would say I went down almost from the peak. I don't I think what we have a bubble in h is this idea of being an entrepreneur and that's dangers. So it's it's not it's you know, similar to nineties and everybody said, hey, I could be

a day trader. Similar, exactly similar. And when people thought they could be a day trader, everybody thinks they can start a company. And I'm saying, if you have a good job, don't kiss a goodbye so quickly. And if you don't have a good job, absolutely start looking to build your network. I mean now anybody can build their network. My fund is called social leverage. The whole premise based on financial leverage was a bubble that was the last true bubble and then ended in two thousand eight, and

we still are paying the price for that. But social leverage is a brand new boom, and that's people using the networks LinkedIn Twitter, Facebook to accelerate themselves, kind of like the peloton, to accelerate themselves through learning curves, mentorship, what I did with Fred and Brad in terms shoots, and what you can do on stock, Twits and Twitter now to accelerate yourself. I want to talk a little bit about some of the lessons learned from investing. You

mentioned earlier you passed on Twitter. That's a giant mess. You ended up backdooring into a lot of Twitter shares. But how does one deal with, Hey, this is a good investment and it turns out not to be or this is a band investment it turns out to be great. What do you learn from that process? What do you take away from that? Oh? You know the number one question. I guess if you're gonna call me a master in business, it would be because it goes down to the basics, right,

you can learn all this stuff and textbooks. Um, and I have a kid's fifteen and seventeen. I wonder if I want them even go into business school because it really comes down to pie, right, how do you slice the pie? And then it comes down to foundation. How

do you structure the company? You know at the beginning, because the mistakes you make at the beginning over those simple things of understanding how you're splitting up a pie and what you really own, the type of shares you own, the type of shares everybody else owns, and the way you structure the company. Meaning if then then that, if this, then that you have to assume you've been through this.

You have to assume how you're gonna fight with your partners mathematically, you have to assume you're gonna back looking at this cap table. You know all the time this weekend on that exact subject. And I remember saying to somebody, Dude, you're doing this twenty years. You haven't figured out the cap structure is significant. It was, It drives stud paying, it drives all the pain here. I've made so many mistakes, meaning the capitalization structure, who owns? What? What happens when

you fight all those basics you're talking. If we're talking masters of business, learn that understand what you own always goes back to understanding what you own. We buy public stocks. I look at public stocks. Is I think, I'm it's the worst piece of paper you could possibly own in a company. Yeah. So I prefer to own the most high momentum, high pe things because they're liquid and I can change my mind. But I'm betting on catalysts, which are products and not people. I'm betting on products and

themes at the public company. In public companies the earliest stage, I am trying to control the cap table and make sure everybody understands because my job is as a maestro of all this is making sure the founders have structured themselves right. Uh do they get along? Are they going to get along? How does the cap table look? What are my rights? What are my investor rights? Because those are the mistakes that I've made the most. Do I have follow on rights to what happens if a founder

hates another founder? Let me let me interrupt you right here. You said, do you learn more from your failures or your success? You don't learn from winning the grip? The grip my squeezeball company. I didn't learn a damn thing. We were smoking cigars, buying cars at lunch, orders were coming in over the fax machine. Gross margins. You don't learn from having gross margins. You learn from having tem percent gross margins. Going the hell am I doing with

teen percent gross margins? Shut this business down? Uh? So I can say that all my growth has come from failure. Uh, it's painful. I don't recommend it. I don't think you have to have failure. I mean the grip was the grip. I should have just retired and and done nothing. But what what are then we wouldn't be having this conversation. So what are your biggest failure and what were the lessons from those? The biggest failures I have and you

can get specific. Yeah, I mean it's just putting myself in business with the wrong people and not really understanding the business that I myself was involved. And I was in a brokerage business in the late nineties. I thought it was a great idea, as a hedge fun guy to own my brokerage to cut my commissions. I got myself in bed with a nastack guy who I thought it was the right guy to be in business with.

And let me just tell you, I didn't understand what a broker dealer really how much trouble you could get yourself into at a broker dealer. Long story short. He was putting winning accounts in his personal account and and bad and bad winning trades in his personal account, bad trades in the air. How do you that it was impossible to discover their Stearns never called him out on this, and then ran up a six million dollar air account.

I would say that was a local six and you know the power by arbitration, so I couldn't even really win. And then nine eleven happens, of course, and most are counts are a few thousand dollars five rand max. And we bought, we bought a little too much of this and moved against us client argues about the price and your that's insane. It was insane. It was the worst. Yeah, yeah, and he dollar fine still works at a hedge fund. Criminal. You know, the sec is so broken. The NS used

to trust them. When we started stock Twits, we went at a disadvantage because I said, you know what, I don't want to be a broker dealer. You know, I could probably build a big business if I was actually in charge of the trades. But you know, I've just tried to figure out how to do business without even getting myself involved with FINRA, an E s D and the N s D. Uh they're sloppy. Uh. They don't work for the people that matter. Uh. They work for

the wealth and they work for the wealthy. It's just broken, you know. So combat struggled with disrupting this this industry because they don't. Google don't even want to be involved the one industry. Google doesn't really want to put it himself involved in his money, and actually that is Google is the smartest people in the world. All they do is feed brains and they go, you know what, let's avoid the N s D, SEC and FINRA because you know what they're they're wild cards. They're the worst part

of the government. That's really fascinating you. I know you personally, I don't know these people. I know, I know you're friendly with Mark Cuban. When we did the interview with Mark, you're basically quoting from his playbook. He went off on a on a jihad for ten he has more reason. Right, I was involved criminal. They didn't mean no wrong. The finn run any s D, I, like an idiot, take full responsibility for not understanding what I was doing. I

wasn't a criminal. I was involved with the criminal. So this is a different reason. I just look at it as like Google, the greatest company we've ever seen, refuses to challenge Bloomberg or the or nasdak cme the market makers are the biggest market maker in the world. I don't think with the sec and finright, we want to be we don't want to go there. That is how I would decide that. That's the difference between East Coast and West coast. And that's why nastac that story. That's

why it's still combat. But it's coming, man, it is coming. And by the way, there's end a rounds with bitcoin in the blockchain. Uh. Google's an investor with me and robin Hood and many financial startups. Now they're getting so buch sort of financial startups. Data Fox, which is kind of like a which I'm an investor company. No, no, no, it's just a way to organize private company information. So it's kind of like a NASDAC for private companies. That's interesting,

very interesting. Uh, they're involved in robin Hood with me, which is a broker dealer, a mobile broker deal I call it the Uber of trading, which is my favorite startup at the moment. They are involved in Lending Club, They're involved in Uber, they are involved in uh so many financial startups that you don't know, and Uber being and Lending comb being two of the biggest ones. So

they're backdooring into this space. They're they're buying their time patiently, and uh you know, it's going to be exciting next ten fifteen years in finance. I'm very bullish on fintech. So so let's talk So there's fintech, let's talk about a couple of other technologies, wearables, you mentioned bitcoin, nano genomics, biotech. What what space coming down the road is really exciting beyond fintech. Well, they talk about big data and fintech.

I think that's a bit of a Bologna maneuver. I think Bloomberg has got a great handle on big data on markets. I think big data as it applies to genetics is obviously the cloud computing. So so all this technology applied to you're seeing the biotech. Nobody understands them, nobody owns them, right, it's been a five year bull run.

They were, they've had a huge understand But when people really start owning these things, they're still not talked about, Like on CNBC, BBC still shutters on Fanny May, City Bank old analysts that Google Apple, When was the last time they really dug in for months? On biotech it's coming, I'm not that's a bubble. That's the closest we have to a bubble is what is biotech but a time But nobody's talking about biotech. But I'm saying they can

double during that last phase. But they've you know, they've definitely had a great run, you know, the leader since the bottom of aile way. The the amazing thing about biotech is any one of these companies can easily put out a billion dollar product if it hits. And the traditional way of putting out a new drug is you're spending three four five million dollars in R and D and but no, you don't have to and and so

you buy one dollar. Company could come from biotech. You know, everybody's focused on Apple and Google, but let's face it, it could come from a biotech company. Someone who can help us live to a hundred heart company you know a global company that solves you know, helps me live ten years longer. Uh is could be a trillion dollars?

How far off are we to a cure not for cancer with a capital C, but your cancer that we take your genomic reading and identify exactly what we need to do to kill your specific runaway cells that are unique to you. You and I are yeah, I'm a little older. Yes, so we're screwed. But our kids may live till they're hundred very easily. And that goes to why I'm investing in fintech. My kid's generation doesn't like what's retirement. I have a mobile phone, I have have Uber.

I'm gonna live till I'm a hundred. You're the idiots. Uh you know this is uh, this is why you have to rethink how things are done. We have this long Schwab generation, which I'm bullish on Schwab but and I own the stock. But they don't understand how to think like a fifteen year old whose whole life is on a phone. Every message disappears in snapchat, every car is on demand. They can get shows up and then Netflix for all my content that is my life and

my iPhone or in my droid. So if you think you can understand what's going through a millennial's head, you're just lying to yourself, and that's a beautiful opportunity. I've been speaking with Howard Linson of Social Leverage. He's an angel investor and venture capitalist. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure and check out our podcast extras, where we continue speaking at great length about these and other subjects. You can also check out the entire archive of past podcasts.

You can find that at Bloomberg dot com or on Apple iTunes. Be sure and follow me on Twitter at Ridholts. Check out my daily blog at Ridholtz dot com, or read my daily column on Bloomberg View dot com. I'm Barry Ridholts. You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Barry Ridholts, and you're

listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. This is my favorite part where I don't have to worry about reminding you that there are no commercials or anything else. My guest is an old friend today, Howard Lindson, have Aldwie, how weird, how weird? How weird? So I know Howie for a long time. Um, what is it about people like you and Kedroski coming down here from Canada trying to eat our launch here in the States. What he truly he's from Vancouver. That's as opposed to Toronto, which

is merely situated across the border. State right, it's the it's I mean, Paul is an academic, a good investor in a smart cookie. Um, I think I think we're explorers, right or anybody who explores, uh is not going to choose the Yukon. They're going to choose California. So a Canadian explorers prefer to come south people better weather, Yeah, more more, You're not just doing oil and timber. And And that was the one guy from my friends that just just wanted to come to the States. I love

the desert. I moved to Arizona and now I love the beach. I think a mayor, as a Canadian in America, I look at politics and it disappoints me because we have so much good that we could do, and I just you know, it's been so good to me living in America. With the size of a market, it's always disappointing to see the negative news. I don't watch TV anymore because it's impossible to gauge the negativity. It's just

negative two seven. Can I tell you I haven't watched live TV to be fair, and my wife flips on um CBS to get the weather in the morning and when I'm sitting at my desk at four thirty writing the morning commentary. But other than that, we never watch live TV. Watch the watch TV. Any of the top investors if they're watching TV and be shocked, it's either something that I wanted to see that I DV yard or something that I specifically hunted. By the way, so

I've used Apple TV. Everything on Apple TV is it's net flicks, put every plus everything else. But where I live up in the Woods, we have Dish instead of cable, and now Dish has Netflix built into them. You're lucky. I'm stuck on Tyre Moarner from the moment. I don't think there's a work. You can move to Dish if you want, you can move to satellite of you. It's like it's like Wells Fargo. I cannot believe what they

put me through yesterday with fraud. You know, I'm in New York trying to spend money at Lululu Iman then they've decided my card to stolen despite you purchasing a plane ticket to come to New York City. So I think you talk about big data. That's dumb day small data. No, they can't do small data like pick up the phone. They have my cell number, call me uh and then I give Wells Fargo, my name, my social my shoe size, and they asked for my They asked for my Internet online. Yes,

some number, would I know? I don't know. Driving in a car trying to spend money at Lulu with your credit card? Can I get my money? No? Can I tell you what I found? Very effective? The systems are okay, this is what makes me bullish. So so never I will do everything I can to talk badly about Wells far going to with TARP money, holding me iron zero interest, holding me hostage while I try to try and spend money in the economy. So we know what. So we

have two separate in our house. In our household, we have two separate um JP Morgan Chase accounts. The first one began as the Dime, which was brought by Chemical, which was brought by Manny Have and it ultimately ended up in JP Morgan. The second was Washington Mutual, which in the middle of the financial collapse, the fd I c auctioned off to JP Morris. So now all of our cancer JP Morgan, and we we know that we're

gonna get this headache. So anytime we travel abroad, we go to Chase and we say, look, we're gonna be in this country or this island, and this isn't fraud, it's us. Hi, here's our I D it's US. So expect from the fifth to the tenth or whatever it is, the first of the eighth, we're gonna be sitting on a beach and here's the hotel, and don't be surprised when you get thinks. So what happens We go to

the hotel, give them the card immediately. What bounces back is UM, you have to contact the bank they have a I did this previously, So now what I've started doing is when that happens, I pull out the Amex and then when I don't get the transaction through UM Chase, I then call him up and say, hey, I just want to let you know we dropped ten grand on Amex because you idiots. Despite me saying I'm gonna be on I'm gonna be in this island at this date.

And here's the hotel. You still kick the charge back, embarrassing me at the desk, and the m X went right through. Well, they're not embarrassing you, because now that happens to everybody, But it's annoying. You're annoying me if not. And here's what happens. I Meanwhile, I'm I tweet I hate Wells Fargo. What do I get today? A d M or a question from Wells Fargo? Pack the freaking phone. Oh no, that's tree twittering. So let me tell you you're gonna do I don't want to talk to them

ever again. They're done. So one of the great advantages of working hard in this country and getting lucky a few times is we're in this age where everything's robot. Oh you gotta cut fees. You gotta cut fees. I say, the number one thing you should pay for is financial advice and for I mean obviously gotta find the right financial advice and for service. I just the greatest gift I've ever had is having a uh high net worth Morgan Stanley account. I pick up the phone. Yea, I

need a wired that it's done. Okay, I don't care what they're charging me. I just wanted to want it done professionally, on time, on demand. I want my trades done on demand. I want I want to talk to somebody. I don't want to any But one of the benefits of of working hard, that is the difference between the robo advisors and the other robo advisor is geared to

be very inexpensive. In my office lift Off, we set up a row Bowl advisor because we have clients that and we have potential clients that don't want to pay that. Not if they're paying, you know, they still think they can call you. And I believe in it at many levels. I'm just saying one of the greatest we and we enough. Have you called Amazon to have No, you can't. That's part of the reason it's so an expense. No, I understand, you know, pick up the phone and call PayPal to

complain about a mistake, and it can happen. That's why it's so biggest change coming is fintech, Wells, Fargo, all these banks they got their free paths and two eight they maybe they've been unfairly punished, uh and fines would be interesting thing about the fines is it's been a distraction for the banks, and so as much as they've had the cash to pay these things, they the gramlins are loose, whether it's payments or whether it's now transfer wise,

it's just raised money. So you can do uh wires inter country without the money ever crossing border genius friend of mine investor Roger in Berg, or whether it's Robin Hood or whether it's bitcoin, or whether it's just Apple Pay, which still is not quite there because the banks are still involved, and so I refused to use it. Well, Apple has all these credit cards to Apple Pay because it could have been exactly what I want them to have a bank. Yeah, I understand they don't want to

mean anything to me. Well, they need to do it. And that's so I said about the banking. Google and Apples still have that. That's not what they do, that's not what they're interesting to understand. But there's got to be another There's gotta be something better than seeing the Chase logo. I don't want them to see a nickel of my money. I don't trust them. They don't pay me. Uh, they waste money on real estate and services that I don't want, so you effectively invented the cash tag on Twitter.

It's called the hashtag, it's called the cash. They they have now stolen that idea and called it the cash like it hasn't heard us. We've been growing really fast, but you know, it's not something that we felt that we could patent. All they're signed in front of a symbol and was a language that when Twitter started, I was inspired to start to start stock twits. I called Fred Wilson. I said, Fred, what do you think? He goes, this is genius, but I can't invest because I first

see this is where Fred's genius comes in. He could see the future and say, you know, I'm gonna be in a board meeting a Twitter and they're gonna be like, you know, I just don't wanna I foresee a prom So he passed. But also it was very bullish on the idea. Twitter didn't think it was interesting. So we started, you know, using a couple hundred thousand people, right, it's a lot of half a million people, a hundred thousand

regular lunatics. Every month, I've been doing the digging, like really, our training tickers really means something because of our messages today are on just stock twits. They don't see the light of day. On Twitter. Sixty one percent of our messages on a daily basis now have the cash text. So there's really a lot of intent on stock twits. You know, May you may not like day trading, but the traders are the market makers. They are the ones that talk about what's important. So our job is to

surface that stuff. But let's get to some questions on stuff that we um we missed earlier. Um, I'm gonna throw some stuff out you and I feel free to go as longer as short as you want on any of these. So we briefly touched on this, but we didn't spend a lot of time on it. What are some of the similarities and differences between startup investing and buying regular stocks? Yeah, one of my favorite subjects. So started a complete opposite the way I look at it.

You know, I think I've dropped earlier that if if I'm looking at stock I assume my paper is the worst paper in the world, I wipe my butt with it. I don't want the paper out of one, I don't want the searchs. I just assume everything's corrupt. So when I buy a stock, I think the world's were against me. First of all, I don't care about the information that I'm getting. I have a catalyst in mind. I look

at price and volume characteristics of stocks. I like to buy stocks that are at or near all time highs or five year highs, which means that frowned upon the word momentumus, which means that, which means when we're in a correction or sessions and you're just anything well, and I get hurt at the end of a run, and I take my lumps at the end of a run, but you're missing that whole down down, I hope if I'm doing my job right, I'm missing the whole most

of it, anything and and and in markets like this, it's been difficult because last February I got stopped out of a lot of things you had pullback in last year, and I haven't really found a good my portfolio. I haven't found you know, I've had occasional winds, but it's been choppy and whatever. So you want a trending market, not a range bound sadways, yeah, two steps forward, one step back, everybody gets panicking. I mean, cash is not

a dirty word to me. My investors have known me a long time, and I'm patient and I'm busy, So like, I like easy markets, and I don't think we're in an easy market no longer and easy an easy market for bond people because it's been trending for twenty years, but they're not a bond guy. So I've missed that.

I definitely have missed biotech. I mean, I don't understand the catalysts, and I don't understand the valuations, and I don't use the products, and I'm too old, so I mean, you can only be an expertise in a few things. So for stocks, I like to keep it simple. I like to understand the catalyst. For me, Nike has been a huge winner. Uh for me, Apple and Google have been huge winners. There's been deep corrections along the way, but I've stuck with them in one um. In the

private market is completely different. Private market, all I care about, rightly or wrongly, as the team and the management and the valuation, even the evaluation I said earlier, sometimes it's important to me it matters because I can't get out. I mean, I'm gonna be in this. It's a combination of both. But in the public markets, I want to pay. I want the most liquid securities, right, I want to see in And that matters to me. I don't care about the valuation. I care about can I get out?

And the private markets I care. I know I can't get out. So what matters to me is is this management team wanted to get hit in the head for six or seven years, because that's what it takes. You know, now that I've been doing this for six years to Mogil an example, being like, I don't know about twenty I don't know if I want to be in companies

that take twenty years. No, No, you you've been doing this, yeah, but I mean I've been in deals now and I have It's like investing in horses, are investing in seeds, right, you have to continually invest in crops to make money, right, because it's gonna be wipeouts. There's gonna be a year of a group of bad investors, are going to be a group where everybody got the technology wrong, and you know,

so you have to continually place bets. And that's different building the ladder, building an angel investing ladder, I call it a ladder, or I call it crops. You know, you can't be biased. Right, when my investors give me money, it should be for three or four funds. It shouldn't be for one fund because then they're cherry picking. And yeah, they're cherry picking. And technology changes, so you know, the

social wave of his past, what's the new wave? You know, I'm not so much doing hardware a wearables um, but I'm more focused on fintech, okay, and I'm learning quickly that I've evolved from social to fintech and even and social right now. But it's a much small or niche, you know. It's you're not going to get billion dollar companies and niches, so you have to accordingly adjust your expectations and evaluations and all that stuff according to the niche that you're in. But I think we're in an

era of the mega niche where mega nie. Yeah, we're in China, we chat dominates, Twitter doesn't dominate, or Facebook doesn't dominate, and the rest of the world Facebook dominates, Twitter dominates in certain other areas, LinkedIn dominates. But now we get into the air where with all those networks proliferating, now you've got to focus on drilling deep. Let's talk about linked In a second, Yeah, they're I think they're the best of the of the business networks because I

I find that LinkedIn for me personally. Now, obviously you're not hiring, well, we have hired from LinkedIn. The problem is the other eleven months when we're not putting out a request for we need a new setifically, the other eleven months people are just bearing me with resumes that I have no interest in. Hi, can can you be

in my network? Now? That person who doesn't listen to you and say you're not if when you're not using a network and people are still hitting you over the head, they're not using the network properly, so they're probably not. Isn't that endemic to LinkedIn and many other networks? It's not, but that's the mistake that people make. They make fun of LinkedIn because of that, but they're not understanding that. Really, it's really uh the other way scenario. The companies that

are hiring are using it like crazy. Can I tell you something? So you have every time we've made a major higher all of our hires have come from Lincoln And if you're a growth company, that's what you live on. Yeah, No, it's terrific. The problem is. So. The nice thing is when you say don't know how to use social, some people will walk up to you on the street and like immediately a costume. Do they know Social? They're idiots. So there's idiots out there, like people know how to

use the tools you mentioned as far ago. Ye, they're m when they could have just called me, well, they can't DM me, you're not following, damn me. But they're

now publicly embarrassing themselves. Every want to with every now and again, I will be so I take the same train ride back and forth to work every day, and I'm my little Verizon modem which I plug into my laptop, which is fantastic because I get basically, i could leave an hour early because I'm working on the train, I mean on the way home, on the way in if I want to come in later. I'm at work at wherever I am with the laptop, and every there's a

couple of dead spots. You would think in New York City, perhaps not Manhattan proper, but within the border of New York City, my data service should be flawless. I know we're not Singapore or other countries that have a good infrastructure, but so every now and then I just get so frustrated and I'll tweet about how angry I'm about how terrible VERI Verizon Wireless is. The last time I did it,

a T and T Wireless comes at me. If so, I turned to I responded back to them, I go, no, no, I'm with Verizon Wireless because you guys are so awful. I went to that they're the tallest midget in the room. They're the best, but only because the rest of you are so Often if these companies new And by the way, I haven't made a lot of money in my private investing along customer support. So one of my other well my other thing was customer support. When social came along,

I thought Twitter would be a great customer serce. So we invested in Buddy Media, which got bought by a Salesforce eight d s. Salesforce is an unbelievable company. Unbelievable company. Some people hate the product. But I'm using relate i Q, which is the dumb down version that they just played quarterbillion for. It's a great product. Um that changed my life. Semantic act in the eighties change remember that. So I am big believer in contact management and Benny Off running

the table. Uh's he's pretty much. This is who Mark Beneof has been on how to choose the table sales t is Salesforce found sales. So luckily for me, they bought four companies of of mine over the years because I believe in customer support as they've got a billion dollars on companies that I was an angel investor, and so I'm very grateful to them. But the media assistly go instant. They've invested in in Bedley, on and on and on, great great vision. For whatever they can't build,

they buy um, which a smart way. Here's what corporate America doesn't know. They don't know how to use these tools, right. Why are they not using the They use the tweets when they should be using the phone. They use the phone when they should be using the tweets. They're there's you know what I mean. They don't have instinct. So so I don't want to talk to Verizon or my airline. I want to vent on Twitter. Doesn't mean they shouldn't

interrupt my vent. They should listen. And by the way, if they really want to do something, if you really have a voice, don't talk to me, send me ten bucks in a coupon because I'm a good customer, or or asking why you unhappy? Never asked me why if I'm kid? How about fix what's not? I can't, of course they can. They don't want to. You're on the train, You're respected to be done by the time I get into the understand. All they could say is Verizon is

a good example. Hey, if I'm complaining about this, put some guy in a train, follow that and see where the weak spots are and throw another damn tower. Okay, but they can that, Hey, we heard you. But they can also win a d M or or at messaging. Barry, I see you know. They know that you have a lot of followers, They know you have a lot of influence. They could easily buy a service that would allow that and send you ten bucks for your aggravation. I don't want.

I want the product to work the way it works in Singapore, in London, in Berlin, you go anywhere outside of the United States, the internet is faster and chief the cell phone services. I think you should move. I like Berlin. I enjoy every time I go to Berlin. I have a great time. But probably probably the hippest, hottest city in Europe right and has been for some time. It's also the cheapest of all the European cities outside of Greece. So um, But that's not the issue. The

issue is you try a lot of America. What isn't the stats something like one in four Americans have a passport you travel abroad, And even though in many ways we live in a great country, we've allowed a lot of other people, a lot of other countries to pass us. We're the forrest country that had this spectacular national highway system which is now falling into disrepair, and everybody else leapt fraud us because they started twenty thirty years after us.

Everything we have is on a relative basis. Are two flaws are uh not keeping our infrastructure up to speed? Tremendous? Okay, so that's number one money wasted on that. We're not helping the poor hare we're helping everybody else. The second thing is education we're taking I look at my kids and in their special kids in my opinion, but they're all thrown in the same funnel to the wider the funnel at the tops getting wider in and the testing

gets weirder, meaning more kids are different. Kids have Google today, the testing does well because kids have Google today. To have any test in an era of Google that's the same as twenty years ago is ridiculous. Right, My kid shouldn't be punished for understanding how to use Google. It just changed education and they have It's going to be a decade long understand. But you're asking what the really

big issue? And then the third one is banded with I don't understand how country this great can't have the best band with elsewhere. Canswer it true that calls itself democratic and free to be trailering and anything Internet. Well, the answer is when you go to Singapore, you go to Hong Kong, the rule is, oh, you want to be an Internet provider. These are the minimum require absolutely, and we look at that as a nanny state in

the United States. But it's like certain, why right, Sorry, hey, listen, You're free to do whatever you want as long as it's one gigabyte up and down, anything that get to it. Anything less than that, we're not interested. Here's the floor. Now, everybody compete with this floor. Were not that complicated. We're on the same page here. If you give people the tools, the smart people will use them, and the country will

explode the peloton situation. Everybody will nothing wrong. I mean, you know, you gotta watch out for the blood doping, and you gotta watch out for the tricks, and you gotta watch up for the criminals, the outliers, and you punish the outliers. You don't, you know, we live in a country where we're not punishing the outliers and we're not encouraging the peloton. So let's you know, and I and I and I and I relate everything to sports because it's pure right. Other than the blood doping. Peloton

has been the same since the race started. You the great riders figure out when strategically to break free. But the peloton is the pelotoni United States, our peloton of internet system is behind. Everybody else's behind the keep up, no excuse for that and the money wasted on Why is there not a San Francisco l a train, a

bullet train. There is no excuse period. Why can't I get there's no so since mentioned blood doping, let's let's talk a little bit about the Federal Reserve because um, you you had not a great subject of mind because I don't really understand. But well, but here's the question. So you mentioned earlier rates are at zero. You know ZERP quantitative easing, the FED has tilted the playing field. Let's bring it back to the area of your expertise. With money effectively at no cost, what does that do

to start up investing? What does that do to start ups? And how does that change the entire venture market. I think I can talk to that well. I'll talk to first about the markets and my experience lately with the markets. I think that's so good, that too good, But you're not getting a bubble this time. You're getting You're getting really weird behavior because everybody knows it's overvalued, so the game is being played to not be a ninety No,

I don't know if everybody knows it's overvalue. The smart money is like very fidgety myself, but that's what I'm saying. It makes it very hard even in a glow interest rate environment. What I'm saying is the market should just be relentless. And although it looks relentless on the SMP, there's been massive rotation because everybody fidgetty trying to find cheap things because it's so crazy out there. So we've

avoided the bubble. Because everybody's pulling money out of things as soon as they feel like a bubble into the non bubble idea. So guys who have been in the market for forty year and fifty years, guys like Jeff s Out and Laslow Burrini, and they've all said that this reminds them very much of the early nine eighties, where you had just come off of a sixteen year bear market. The negativity could be cut with a knife.

People's muscle memory was, hey, every time there was a pullback and I bought it, it was a rally and I got killed. So this is this is just like we're going back to the crash. But they said it took a full five six seven years after the bear market ended for people to wrap the head around that, hey, this is a different secular market. Even the eight seven crash, we still finished the europe one and everybody used the

eighty seven. Let me rephrase that. The people who were unwilling to accept that the bear market, oh it was over, use the eighty seven crash as a c I told you, But again they missed. They avoided the drop, but missed move up. I try not to think I let the market get me into positions. The private market is interesting because companies that I was investing in an oh ay to two million valuation, those same founders and companies are getting ten to twelve million dollar valuations to start, and

so the math really starts hurting. You know that two to twelve You know that's different than the market being up. So so I think that's what makes me nervous. You know, when you're investing in a company that everything can go wrong at a start up phase, right, you know, two million, I'm sure it might have sounded cheap, but it's still like for a company that don't have anything going on, Like I'm still in my head the old guy in the industry where I'm complaining that I can't pay ten

million valuation for three kids in a room. But earlier you were saying valuation is your least important thing. It's it's just it's it's just something that I've never gotten comfortable with. That's why Fred Wilson is the best, and I'm just so he's willing to take a chance ignore the value he thinks, like I did with Robin Hood in certain companies. I'm starting to get more comfortable and become a better investor, because if price is the only reason you do not want to do a private investment,

you should do that in the public markets. Know, if price is the only reason to not do something, it's also a mistake because you can get liquidity the next day, so price drives every next day. But that we're talking quarters and years, not hours and days. Sure, absolutely, but that's a trade. Not if you don't want to buy Google because you think it's pricey, and and your answer is, but you can sell it tomorrow. Most most people these days is aren't looking at day trade Google. They're looking

to buy a tech company. Look at Apple as a perfect example. You know, it was seven and change. It's split, it's a huge split, and here we are we're now over that prior pre split high. But when you spoke to people at Apple at six fifty Apple, oh that's crazy. Yeah, I mean, I just I'll use it more at the private market. What if price is the absolute reason you're passing on an investment and you really feel good about every other aspect team market everything, will hold your nose

and it and own it. Okay, Um, that's a very hard hurdle for the average, even good investor. That I was at the beginning to get over. I have definitely learned to live with that. In this disk Us evaluation, Twitter and Zingle two giant home runs, I know, but his Zingle was twenty million valuation when a poker room at the time. What Zingle worth today, I don't know, but I mean it definitely was a mistake on Twitter. We know Twitter as a multibillion dollar times but you

learn it's not like I'm perfect. I mean, like I said, you know on my if you go to my blog or if you go to my our website at social leverage, I'm proud of those misses. What am I doing there? At least I was in the batter's box. The biggest crime is for my investors is not to see those deals. So if they pay me the two and a half and twenty, which they do and half and half, and

that's standard in it's in the in the industry. I mean, the middle of our third fund raising and you know we're we're raising capital, but I mean that is standard, right, there's certain standards. It's richer than funds fee structure. Yeah, I mean because two point five yeah, and it's like that those are ten years of these things that standard. I mean, listen, if you're if you're gonna write me a check for ten million, you're probably going to negotiate fees.

I've never had that happened negotiation, but it can happen. So those are you listening? If you got ten million for Howard, you could cut a deal. Yes, the sounds good to me. The Jerry picks up the difference, the it's good to be the GP Is that what you today? No? But this this the thing about this style of investing is the Twitter. I'm embarrassed about in hindsight Twitter and think it looked like unbelievable gaffs. And you could laugh at me for that, but it would be worse to

not be seeing the deals. My job is to get into the flow. You got good deal flow, but you looked at these valuations and said a little rich for me. Well and I and I looked at the products and I wasn't using the products. The other thing is I got to use the products Twitter. At the time I was laughing at we were on our blackberries. Remember two thousand seven blackberries market crash, twenty million valuation in an era of two million valuations. By the way, you could

have bought Apple and Google and tripled your money. Whatever not not. Twitter obviously returns because it was a mistake. But I'm really proud because by being in the market, I caught an Uber at four million valuations. So you have to be in the market, meaning I'm gonna make mistakes. I didn't know. I didn't know that outside return, Twitter was the nil brain or Uber was the hardest thing.

That's fascinating to me. Tell me why, because when Uber first came around, it's like, wait, and he used my phone to call a cab. I walked down to the street. I waved my hand. There's a cab. Tell me what made you think the magic of it? I live in Coronado and I could just push a button and the car would come over the It wasn't it was fifteen minutes, five years ago a cab. Don't trust the cab. I mean, I don't trust the system. You know, the medallion system

was broken. It deserves disrupted. Weren't investing in their infrastructure. Okay, no, this is the problem I have with the Listen, it's not fair. Let's talk about it right up front. It's not fair. It's not fair. They're breaking some rules and Uber is not fair, and well, I'm just saying they don't have their licenses and they've they've been creative. Let's say, and I say this offer a more creative Let's just

think how broken the medallion system is. One dude making all the money or one woman making all the money at the top. They're not investing in technology. The drivers are unhappy, the customers are unhappy. Everything's broken. There's no trust in the system. It was due to be disrupted in hindset. Okay, so what and then we're looking at Zinga. I'm going on, I don't play mobile games. Uh, twenty millions crazy, the markets crashing, and so as a non user of the product, ever still not to this day.

You know, it was such a leap of faith. But market played angry Birds or anything like that. But Mark Pinkas was the outlier. Actually just invested in him because he was going to do anything, gonna be a billion. He wanted to do anything to be ability. So back to Uber and so the people you look at this and say, here's an entire infrastructure right to be disrupted.

We've seen four million valuation, I mean and New York City taxis the medallions have dropped value just as a reflection of how broken and if the city was going to do its job, whoever is a mayor would step in and say, listen, we're going to train people on Uber. We're going to train people how to use their iPhones, and we're going to give people. You don't have to train people to use it, That's what I'm saying. Like, so that's why they And you know, I'll tell you

a funny Uber story. So last week, we're in Seattle and I'll spay you. What's that. That's in the US, not too far from Vancouver, And I'm on the Microsoft campus, which, by the way, you know i'm Microsoft. You know, I'm an Apple guy, was never a giant Microsoft fan. It is astonishing. The campus is I'm insane. Number it goes as far as the I can see. You can get in a car and keep driving. So we we call an uber to get back into into Seattle proper. The place is so big and the way the maps work

because it's not like roads. So we had a haunt a make a left. I'm on the phone with one phone, looking at the Uber with the other phone. All right, look make a left. It took us fifty minutes for the guy to find New York, Seattle, London. Uber doesn't work perfectly because subtleties to the road. I've never had issues in Manhattan having had a driver didn't know the shortcuts. So one other, one other personal story. So we have a client who happens to be the guy who turns

Google Maps into Google Map app. That's a client of us. So one day someone's going to meet the office and meeting us and they're late, and I was like, how are you late? Well, google Maps sent me to not too so our addresses a Park Avenue South address. I'm sorry, our addresses park having you proper and it sent them to Park Avenue South, and so where are you? I'm down now, we're all the way. We're by Grand Central. Well google Maps sent me to Park Avenue South, not

Park Avenue. I sorry, I'll take care of it. They thought I was joking and send send an email a client. Hey, here's the issue with Google Maps. Here's the fix. Oh no, it was by the time the person got to office. I go search for Google Maps, search for address. He's like, how did you do that? I go, which is really a hilarious. So the key is flow my customers or my partners. Uh, the way I do them wrong is to be out of every deal. Just so batter's boxing.

You've got to be swinging. I'm not happy I made. Here's what a mistake I made was Zinga. I passed on a great founder. The stake I made in Twitter was, uh, well, this price was my only reason for not doing it. It was I was using it and I didn't get the valuation. Although you're still not happy with the product, and you're not happy with the phenomenal, you're not happy with the business around the product. Well, I'm just you know,

they've created all these pressures the market. The public markets are all about pressure. You can delay ratification, you can push off evaluation. Amazon's done that successful. Twitter hasn't done a good job of talking to the street and explaining their vision, let's face it. But at the same time, it's an incredible product. It's an incredible company to build so fast. But they're obviously having trouble living within the

market cap that they've been given. They have to figure out how to monitor, they need to figure out how to communicate the vision. Yet, yeah, and so, so you and I can talk about it is the core product. I think it's the greatest product ever created for guys. Can I tell you I was never a very active booker. It was always like, I don't care about the pictures of your kids. I don't care about your vaca. It's like everybody's the minutia of everybody's life without the wit

and charm of Seinfeld. That's that's so. And then it's the same LinkedIn thing. You start to friend everybody and the next thing you know, it's it's it's completely worthless. Twitter. On the other hands, what I love about Twitter is I get to say I'm going to effectively higher the smartest people I know to be my research to point. That's exactly it. It's completely complete expert network. And but it's not free in the sense that it's just magically

going to work for you. It's free, you have to invest. The investment is time, not money, and that's and curation and get what you put it in stock Twitch, which we created, was just a pew Alton for finance and a peloton of traders and investors define peloton for research for listeners who may not be bike racing fans. Well, I mean, if we watch the Tour de France, which bores most people. It's because it is a peloton most

of the time. That's just a beautiful looks like a bumblebee, looks like a hive of bees, a group of people, which is really hard to stay in if you're that's the That's why people love it is because it is beautiful to see two people who so close together riding at forty. There is an art to that, but there art too. Winning the race is deciding when you're going to break free. When when you linked, I mean, Twitter is the greatest mental and and educational and mind expanding peloton.

You're hanging out with the smartest people in the world just flipping the news or and it is your job to curate. That's a that's a that's an overwhelming to most people. Lazy people's Oh, I want this to magically work. We're in a world of Netflix, and this is where Twitter could really do something interesting. I could start a business tomorrow called Twitter, and I could put five people in the room and start shipping and and have you

called me to tell you how to use Twitter. Twitter should have had a much bigger support test to help people get to the peloton stage. Faster. Hey I'm interested in beer. Okay, I'll send you a list in ten minutes of the five people that will give you the best links and the best brains on beer. And how is that for Twitter to set up a dozen verticals and say if if you're an entrepreneur, you should do it like I've often thought of starting a Twitter helped deak,

So just play it with that. You take the daily sections of the New York Times, so it's it's it's business and investing, it's sports, its metropolitan, it's food, it's theater, it's film, it's going down the list, sports and dining, and travel and hauntamobiles. Those are your verticals. You come up with variations of each of those verticals and say, hey, you follow this, here click this, and here are those you're following the hundred people in the space who cover this.

We invested. I invested with Mark Cuban in a company called Get Little Bird that does that. So it's just a matter of when we execute on this. But Mercia Kirkpatrick, it's called get Little Bird dot Com and it's you know, people are solving these problems, just not Twitter. Sawing. Now with Twitter buys these companies that will be interesting. But this is this is what people don't understand about a Twitter is it's got so much potential. And that's what's

exciting about stock twitch at the same level. Why why we're so excited about stock twits, the same thing for finance. So we're gonna I'm gonna interrupt you here because you and I have been talking now for ninety minutes. We could go for another two hours. I know you have places to go and things to do, so I'm gonna wrap this up. Howard. I really appreciate you coming in and speaking with us for for so long. I hope listeners can parse um son of the subtleties in our

conversation and actually pull something out. I've been listening, You've been listening. I've been speaking with You've been listening to Howard Lindzen of Social Leverage, stock Twits, and a variety of other companies. He's an angel investor and venture capitalist. Be sure and check out our previous UM previous podcasts. If you're listening to this, you probably know where our podcasts are there on iTunes, in Bloomberg dot com. Uh my, follow me on Twitter. What is your Twitter handle at?

Howard That's gonna be That's gonna be tough. Remember at Howard Lindzen. You can follow me at rid Holts or check out my daily column at Bloomberg View dot com. I'm Barry rid Holts. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. You're listening to Masters in Business with Barry rid Holts on Bloomberg Radio.