E163: Market rips, Media RIFs, Texas defies Biden, Fintech reckoning, ARkStorm 2.0 & more

So these publications are just hammering, hemorrhaging cash ... So the economics are just hugely broken, except for subscription businesses, there's a ton of other nuance ... But the math basically does not work.

And that model totally breaks the old media model, which unfortunately has evolved into this untrustworthy, biased and opinionated source to keep the business alive. So it's definitely a breaking that's happening.

The first is that media is really the least relevant it's ever been. And they really are on a lifeline.

I think that there's a glut of publications is all putting out the same official narrative. I think the third thing is there is a go-woke, go-broke dynamic going on.

a lot of, quote, FinTech businesses are looking like Fin businesses without the tech... I think we're in this kind of like realizing the truth, which is that a lot of FinTech businesses are just Fin businesses.

maybe your example of fintech being more fin than tech is a very early sign of what may be happening to the rest of all of these companies that we point to and say, that is a tech company.

I think you're right. It is a reckoning. And the reason for that is because FinTech is one of the hottest spaces during the bubble. I have this saying that the hotter they are, the harder they fall.

You also have what looks like a crash happening in China. The Chinese government took some actions to prop up the stock market there, which is a pretty negative signal.

when we look back 18 to 24 months from now, the market will probably be materially higher because there's just so much money on the sidelines... I think that all roads lead to a continued melt up.

People will take money that's sitting in cash, as you've pointed to, Chamath, there's trillions of dollars sitting in cash. And they want to look for some returns, some alpha. They're going to put it into markets.

your real margin, your real gross profit on that transaction is 25 basis points, 10%. So really, of your 25 million of revenue, you only have 2.5 million of true net revenue.

Well I think Governor Abbott here is probably going to lose in a court of law. But he's going to win in the court of public opinion. The public by a huge majority wants this border enforced.

The majority of people want the border closed. That is across both parties.

These sorts of events, more frequent, more scary, more significant. Hotter oceans are driving these events

I have to take the wood shingles off because we can't get the insurance people to insure.

The majority of people don't want to be involved in foreign wars. That's across both parties.

I still think we get an oil shock in the Middle East. If this situation broadens into a larger regional war, maybe with Iran, you could get a shock in the price of oil

we are now really in the belt-tightening phase of this kind of economic process. So I think that the next probably six to nine months are more of these kinds of things, where folks realize that the amount of discretionary income that people had is less

So we are on track here for the soft landing, it seems like. But yeah, there's definitely potential storm clouds on the horizon.

all of these companies that are massive outliers to these trends are going to go through a process of getting refactored

their margins and their LTV to CAC or their return on invested capital, it looks the same or in some cases worse than the traditional financial services businesses that they're meant to disrupt

That could reveal weakness in the regional banking system. Remember, we had a banking crisis in March of last year that BTFP sort of papered over.

And that's why Trump and RFK are just crushing it in the polls.

every day that interest rates are off, are 1% higher, based on the current federal debt level, we're paying an incremental billion dollars in interest payments per day

So there's still room for that number to move up, even with rate cuts on the front end of the curve.

are we at this inflection point where rates will always be between 2 and 4 percent for a very long time?

it's not clear that the 10-year is going to be going back down to 2%, 3% where it was during the ZERP period. It probably will be around 4%, plus or minus.