The Odd Lots AMA Episode: Tracy and Joe Answer Listener Questions

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. Uh, Tracy, It's time for our annual AMA episode.

The Annual Call In Show. This is my favorite time of the year, Joe, totally.

It's a weird time of year. Actually.

The thing is, I feel like we're always answering questions that people ask us. Right, maybe we're too accessible.

No, I never feel that way. I feel like all we do is ask questions and no one ever answer asks us question.

I feel like if people want to ask us questions, it's pretty easy to do so. But we still have this call in show.

It's amazing that your entire job is you ask questions people multiple times a week, every week for the entire year, and your main takeaway from the year is that you answer too many questions. This is really interesting.

That's very That was not my main takeaway. My main takeaway was we are question platform agnostic, Like it doesn't really matter what format the questions come in, whether they're called in like in this show, or whether they're typed in via the discord or on Blue Sky or Twitter or something else.

This is fair. I like talking to people, I like answering questions, but I like the call in format. I missed the old days of you know, it'd be fun to do a live radio show with callin.

I'd be fun to do it.

When I was a kid, I called into sports talk radio sometimes and I sort of missed that platform. And you don't really get that with podcasts. A wait, what.

Did you say on sports radio?

I don't remember the you know, I think like I, you know, I usually follow baseball really closely, and I would like say, like, oh, I think the Toronto Blue Jays have a lot of momentum down the stretch, and I think they're gonna, you know, win the American League. Or it's just some nonsense like that.

Sports and now tell usis in commentary is just something I really I struggle to get into because it's like it's either well, the team played well or I think the team could play better. That's it. Like that's the sum totality of what people say on those things.

So yes, we are going to be uh. We invited listeners to record a voice memo and then email that to Odd Law too. Bloomberg Dot net and let's take a listen to some and Tracy and I will do our best to answer them.

We'll pretend that we're live.

Yeah, this is Steve from Northville, New Jersey. I would like Tracy and Jodas set up a cage match type hardcore debate on the value of cryptocurrency. Every Saint analyst says it's a pointless scam which uses tons of energy to create valueless tokens that have been bid up to insane prices and at the same time greatly facilitate many criminal transactions. On the other side, there are a host of promoter promoters that say it is the future of finance.

First off, Steve, that's not a question, that's request, But you know what, we'll take it. We'll take what we can get. I think it's a good request. I would like to see a cage match on crypto.

Yeah.

So you know, I've said it before. I have people from time to time to ask us, you know, we should do a debate topic, and we may have done

I think you're right that that's kind of a difficulty there. The one other thing I would say when it comes to crypto, the use case or the envisioned purpose of cryptocurrency always seems to be changing, right sure, And I used to think I've written about this, but I used to think that was a bad thing. That you know, one day, bitcoin, for instance, would be like a way to pay for things, and then the next day it would be a store of value. And it would just

You know.

I would say we did that episode a couple of months ago with Austin Campbell. I think we're going to have them back on soon. I'm like coming around to some of like the stable coin stuff. Maybe anyway, should we go to the next question?

Next question?

Hey, Joe and Tracy. My name is Ryan Ross. I'm based in New Jersey, and I'm curious what have been your most favorite industries you've learned about in the past, and also what are you interested in learning about in twenty twenty five. You've had episode on the tractor supply, which is interesting, and wood palettes and how those are logistically moved around in an episode about how car leather

Hi, Ry, and I like this question. There are a lot of interesting things that we get to talk about on the podcast, and at the end of the year it kind of becomes hard to remember all of them. I will say one thing I really enjoyed diving into this year was doing a bit more on agriculture. I think one of the great things of hosting your own podcast is that you can sort of to some extent,

There's a good tracy, will you shelter my family in the event of some disaster? Like do you have enough stored away?

You have?

Note?

Joe, what do you bring to the table other than other than sparkling conversation, which is.

Really important you're in for the long haul. I don't know. I fear my kids are very cute.

This is very true. Yeah, all right, you know.

So I like learning about agriculture too. So I've said it before, I really want to do more on Defense in twenty twenty Well, yeah, of course I want defense spending, the defense industrial base, and if anyone listening to this has the perfect guest and anything about how that all works, which I really know nothing about, shoot me and Tracy a message, because I would say that's there's a big that's a big area that it feels wide open and interesting for me.

Next year Defense is a really good one that crosses over into financial markets quite a bit, but also is obviously in the news given the new Trump administration and Elon Musk and joje and all of that.

One thing.

One other thing I would say that I'm interested in in twenty twenty five that touches on agriculture. I really want to do a fertilizer episode. Oh yeah, like where a fertilizer comes from and whether or not all the headlines you see about the land becoming less fertile, how serious should we be taking those? So yeah, if anyone has fertilizer contact contacts, send them our way as well.

Let's do it. Should we go to the next Let's do it?

Hey, Tracy, Hey Joe, this is Duncan. I am curious, what is the most embarrassingly wrong take you've had on something in popular discourse over the last five years. Love the show.

Thanks Wait, Joe did duncan say the most embarrassing take or our most embarrassing.

I think you should the most embarrassingly wrong take that you've had. But I don't know if it was a collective our.

Oh.

I think it was more specifically, you know, like either one of us. Man, I mostly have wrong takes. You know, like I wouldn't have expected crypto to bounce as much as it had starting in twenty twenty when FTX imploded. I wouldn't have expected that so quickly, you know. I remember we did episodes years ago about like China's like made twenty twenty five stuff, and I wouldn't have expected it to be as successful as it has. I wouldn't have expected inflation to persist and be as elevated as

I'm trying to think of anything, like really really bad. I would say I probably wrote my last bitcoin obituary in like twenty seventeen, and I've written quite a few at this point before I had my big, like come to Jesus moment about narrative flexibility and the idea that as long as the story's there, it almost doesn't matter what the story is, and there's always going to be a new one. I'm trying to think.

I will say, there's just no upside right in writing another obituary. O, No, what are you going to get from that?

No?

And I will say the last obituary here's a bit of inside like journalistic navel gazing. But the last obituary that I wrote on Bitcoin, I made sure to end it with like the possibility that it could come back. Having written obituaries before where it did come back, I learned a little bit. So it's a constant process where you're trying to improve on your own work. And the one thing I would say is, and I don't think people realize this, but journalism everything plays out very publicly, right.

I'm trying to just think if there's anything else that you've got, I don't know, is it? I you know what, I don't think. I don't think I've had many like embarrassingly mega wrong takes, in part because I don't have many like takes where I stick my neck out and say like this.

Oh, I know one. I know one that Joe had. What about the thing about scooters? How scooters are going to be like the next motive?

You know What's funny though, So this is fair. But someone then reached out to me and said, you know, you're you're wrong about scooters in the US, but that in Europe actually they have been highly disruptive. So I'm actually giving myself a half point this if someone reached out to me from Paris actually, So I'm going to take a half uh half credit for that. Anyway. Yeah, I mostly have like modestly wrong takes rather than anything

Duncan I will say, like our takes, we try to ground them in some like reality with rational analysis and reason, so hopefully they're never too embarrassing.

But we sure work right, Yeah, we.

Show the work. I'm sure we could come up with some find some if we went back into the archives that we wouldn't want anyone to see now. But hey, they're all there, they're all public.

Next question, Hey, Joe and Tracy, this is Nick or newsman on Blue Sky. I'd like to know what you think is the most significant financial story of the year. I know there's a lot to consider, but there must be one thing that bubbles up to the top when you hear this question.

Thank you for your time.

I love odd lots, oh man, Nick, there is a lot to consider. I do think one thing, one thing that I find really interesting, and I think you could probably connect it to a bunch of different things that are going on right now, is the episode that we did a while back on companies getting smarter about how they're ing their respective products. And it sounds like an

I have three stories that I think are the three biggest stories in the world right now and a varying time concerns. One is just the incredible amount to which everyone, every investor is implicitly who has long risk assets is long tech and long AI specifically concentration concentration in this one. Bet anyone who has a diversified portfolio is making a

When do we get to do the drone slash UFO episode?

Joe, I hope. Let's let's go to the next question.

Okay, Hey, Joe and Tracy, This is Daniel in Seattle, Washington. I was just wondering your opinion on AI models being trained on journalist content across the web, and I feel free to elaborate on if what your colleagues might think or who has a bigger bone to pick is it you as the journalist or the media company.

Oh, this is an interesting question. I think if you had asked me this like ten years ago, before chat, GPT and all the other variations of it became a big thing, I think I would have expected to be really annoyed at this development, but actually, now that it's happened, I feel kind of relaxed about this idea that you know, it trained on basically the entirety of the Internet, and a big chunk of the Internet is stuff that paid

To you, no, I don't, And also I don't know. Maybe I should like, but I don't. And also I don't think it's really worth getting upset, Like there are some things that I think of as the sort of big historical technological shifts that are happening, and I don't think our opinions matter very much. So I guess maybe in some sense I could be convinced to be upset about it, but in reality, I don't think me being upset is going to do very much.

I think a lot of journalists have also probably given up on the notion of making money from like old fashioned copy, and so the idea of someone else being able to make money off of it, even if it's by training some new generative AI models fair game to them. Maybe we should all start developing our own AI models. Maybe that's the way for it.

We'll try. I actually remind me, Tracy, I have a research project I want to do in twenty twenty four or twenty twenty five. I'm going to tell you about it.

That sounds interesting. Yeah, all right, next question please.

Hello Joan Tracy. This is Mois from Karachi, Pakistan. I'm a big fan of the show. My question to both of you is that who are your favorite economists and why are they your favorite?

Oh?

Interesting? Well, hello moys from Karachi, Pakistan. I spent some time in Pakistan. I was in Islamabad and Lahore. I never made it to Karachi, though I would have liked to go there. Favorite economists do you think he means current or like old school economists?

Well, you know what we can answer however we want.

Okay, Well, then I'm gonna do like a massive cop out and I'm just gonna say Canes. And the reason is like a he's like, you know, a sort of granddaddy of a lot of modern economics theory. But also I think he was a really good writer. Yeah, and he has some amazing quotes that I still like. Every once in a while when I find myself being very pretentious. I find myself using like the words are meant to be a little wild, for they are the what is

Yeah, those are some good quotes. He's a good writer, you know, he wrote, I wasn't recently went back, and you know, the last few years people have talked about the so called vibe session, et cetera. He talked about that quite a bit, in fact.

But he didn't call it a vibe session.

He didn't call it the vibe session. But what you said, I went back and read something I forget. It might be like a chapter twelve of the General Theory, for.

The producer says he did call it a viba.

He didn't. Our producer is trolling us.

Yeah, Cale, don't do that. It's Cane's anything that is possible.

But he went back. I was reading something. He went I think it's like a chapter twelve, one of the really good chapters. And he says something about like how political shifts can change people's perceptions of the economy, which is sort of intuitive, and we see it in polls or whatever. But then this thing you said, afterwards is like there's sort of no point in being upset about this,

Yeah, that's pretty good. So you're also in the Canes camp.

I mean, I'll go with Kanes.

All right, fair enough, Next.

Question, Hi, Tracy and Joe. My name is Rosalind Loubi and I live in Westport, Connecticut. My question is whether the podcast is going to tackle the state of the venture capital industry as a topic in twenty twenty five. I teach a class on alternative investments to undergraduate college kids in an economics department, and I've used your podcast extensively in my class, and I think this would be a great topic for you guys to dig your teeth into.

Thank you.

I agree this would be a great topic. And I got to say whenever I hear we have a lot of professors who will often reach out and say that they use all lots of material to teach their students, and I always think that, like, the students are learning a lot more interesting things than I did at university, Like you guys are learning about like alternative investments, and I've learned about neoliberalism versus realism and political theory.

But oh well, well, always more to do about vcs, for sure, and we have. So we ended the year with some VC episodes recently, so.

We were back there. We were recently in San francisc, Go, and we met with a few vcs while we were out there. Joe and I enjoyed being in San Francisco. I think we will probably be back next year. And I'm just really intrigued, you know, partially by the whole industry, but also the sort of job lifestyle.

I guess it seems great.

Yeah, well the idea of you know, you go out, you meet people who are doing cool things, and you decide whether or not you want to invest in them and then kind of take them on as a sort of mentee. It seems fun.

Yeah, No, plenty more to do. And you know the other thing, we've recently done some episodes, so there's some big changes. Interest rates have gone up. It's not zerup any more, obviously, AI sort of the new dimension. I think the other dimension though, is that since especially post COVID, so many people are in the game, right, so many new entrants are trying to get VC, perhaps in part because,

You just want to wear the hoodies.

The hoodies is totally fine, Like you don't really have to like get up, and you like meet really interesting people in probably a way that you rarely get in most careers except journalism perhaps, Yeah, who wouldn't want to be into it? But you have all these changes and all this competitors, so more to do for sure on that.

Absolutely, all right, Next question, what.

Are some of the biggest lessons you've learned from your career that you wish you had known earlier.

That is a very good question.

Okay, I have an answer. Oh, go ahead, you know what I really wish I had learned earlier. Something I've found that when Tracy and I interview people, the people who are the smartest and have the most intelligent ideas about things like the sort of best theoreticians, so to speak, are also the most are frequently among the most detail oriented and assiduous with the facts and important names, dates, places,

That's a good one, because I think when you're sort of younger, you're you get used to thinking about these big things who they have these great ideas, but they're not that detail or technically oriented. But actually you find that some of the people with the biggest, most interesting ideas often they have all the numbers and all the facts, and they can walk you through the entire history of their path.

And learning learning facts and history and dates and times and places and names and acronyms does not seem as sexy as like learning some interesting theory about how the world works, et cetera. So when you're young, you're sort of attracted to the former and or whatever. You know, you're attracted to the big ideas, But the people who actually have really good ideas are frequently and I've seen this over and over again on the podcast, very well grounded in actual knowledge.

So speaking of ideas, my lesson that I wish I'd learned earlier. This is a little bit more tied to journalism. But you know, when I first went into journalism, it was like you should be you always want to be first, and you always want to be original, and that was how you know, that was success in journalism. And I think as time has gone on, sort of realized like the chances of being first to anything. And I'm talking

I think there's a really good lesson. And journalists we're very prideful people, and so the idea that's like, oh, someone already said this, or someone sort of said this.

Someone said it in the eighth paragraph of a story from six months ago, like that doesn't mean that no one else in the world can ever talk or write or think about it ever.

Again, there's a really good line in the movie Pulp Fiction where you know, I can't say it on there, but he tells them not to let pride mess with his head. And I think about that a lot with respect to journalism.

All right, Next question, what advice would you give to young professionals looking to make a meaningful impact in the financial industry?

Looking to make a meaningful impact, Well, decide what that impact is going to be. Yeah, first of all, because there are different ways of having an impact. You know, maybe you think you would like to reform the financial industry from the inside out. That would be a pretty big impact, but also a tall order. But maybe you think that making an impact is generating wealth for yourself and your clients. Like I think number one is probably decide what the goal is exactly.

You know, Yeah, I would sort of say I might take a slightly different turn, which is, I don't even know the idea that any of us, that anyone can know what it means to have impact in any field, let alone the financial field. There's a very tall stretch. The career advice I always sort of give to people, though, is do whatever you're doing right now, try to do it well, and that'll the better you're doing at your job right now. The more likely doors will open for you.

That's good advice to thank you.

We got one more question.

Hello Joan Tracy. This is Cynthia from Vancouver, Kata. A question I have for Tracy is one, if you get your chicken, what kind of acid clause in market would you let your chicken trade? It's not kind of all. What kind of trading strategy would you let them test out? And do you think they're going to beat the benchmark? Thank you?

What kind of asset class would I let my chickens trade? Do I need to explain this question or does everyone know that I really want to get chickens?

One didn't chicken do some trading?

I'm sure someone has done experiments with chickens trading stuff before. I'm just gonna go with the coins. I think chickens trading a variety of shit coins would be would be an intro one, and I think you could probably you could probably create some sort of interesting pecking mechanism for them to choose things. And I would like to watch that on a day to day basis. I think I'd find it soothing.

Was it? There?

Something?

Though?

Like, there're some artists taught a chicken how to trade? Am I hallucinating this?

Like?

There was some artists and like the and that they like trained and then it turned out I think the whole thing was a little bit fake, but that they I can't I'm like googling it. I'm not seeing it.

Here's a question.

Those were like the beat There were some artists who tried to see if they could turn it chicken into a mastered trader by giving it sort of various Pavlovic shocks when it made a good trade or a bad trade, and then it put its beat down on a green or red button. I might be completely hallucinating this.

Uh, maybe Joe, maybe I should stop taking questions.

All right, that's a good place to end it.

All right, Well, thank you everyone so much for listening to all thoughts. This year. Joe and I had an absolute blast as always, and thank you as well to everyone who sent in questions. And let's do it all again next here shall we leave it there?

Let's leave it there.

This has been another episode of the Authoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.

And I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart. Follow our producers Carman Rodriguez at Kerman Ermann Dash, Ol Bennett at Dashbod and kill Brooks at Kilbrooks. And thank you to our producer Moses Ondem. For more odlogs content, go to Bloomberg dot com slash odd lots. We have transcripts of blog and a newsletter and you can chat about all of these topics twenty four to seven in our discord discord dot gg slash od loots.

And if you enjoy au thoughts, if you like it when we take your call in questions, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad free. All you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening in