How I Invest with David Weisburd
00:51:01 · David Weisburd
[00:51:01] S0: Yeah. That... And you see this across all of finance. Philadelphia is famous for bringing New York New York City transplants, and it's a model that works. So that... Seeing what greatness looks like, it's one of those things that you lock in. It's one of my thesis around the PayPal Mafia, around your friends, is that just seeing that early on, seeing what hard work looks like, seeing what intelligence looks like. There's so many different degrees to all these things. You have to lock that in to see the gap. Even with podcasting, I I had Jason Gallican. It's, like, episode 10 or so. And I immediately just saw the skill gap between us. I'm like, holy crap. This is both incredibly humbling and that he's, like, 10 x better than me and also incredibly motivating because I see, like, I see I see the the path to that. Another friend of ours, Eric Anderson Mhmm. From Alloy. He's been my mentor for seventeen years. I I met him at at Dartmouth. And when I met him, I'm like, holy crap. There's a gap between us. And, like, I need to figure out, like, what he does, and he's one of these other people that wakes up at 04:30AM and and just just grinds. And it... And now he started $4,000,000,000 plus companies. But just seeing that gap is such, I think, not only powerful, but such a necessary component to greatness.
00:52:10 · Jack Selby
[00:52:10] S1: Totally agree. I totally agree. And that's... Again, to give it fairness and balance and having spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley, just the the grandiosity, it... It's just... It's inspiring. And I think, honestly, it it... It's what makes... Not to be corny about this, but it... What... It's truly the superpower of The United States. Like, we are such a risk on culture, and Silicon Valley takes it to the nth degree, It's a great thing. And that it inspires the rest of us. And, again, I just want my noncultural entrepreneurs to have a little bit more of it at times.
00:52:38 · David Weisburd, Jack Selby
[00:52:38] S0: Going back to the beginning of the conversation when we talked about... I I followed this company, EyeSocket, into San Francisco. Mhmm. And I was 22 years old at the time, and I I slept on John Ramey's couch, and I was in the office and just seeing people create stuff. But, also, just in San Francisco proper, and you're just standing around. You're talking to people even at a coffee shop, and they're like, yeah. I started this company. I raised 5,000,000. And you see that enough, your brain starts to believe that it's not some crazy thing. It's almost like inevitable. Of course, you go out and raise a pre seed based on some crazy idea. Of course, you raised $5,000,000 on, you know, $500,000 in revenue. Of course, then you have to raise a series. It becomes almost this... Instead of this preposterous dream everywhere but San Francisco... This was the early two thousands, so Silicon Valley culture was not yet as pervasive across the entire country. But there's something just powerful about just being there and literally, like, touching people that that have raised money. It's it's hard to put in words, but it it is something. [00:53:34] S1: It's inspirational. It's, it's truly a national superpower. Our risk on culture is better than anywhere else in the world. It's amazing, and we should embrace it. [00:53:45] S0: You also cofounded Clarium with Peter Thiel, which is a macro hedge fund. I don't oftentimes have macro investors on the podcast, you and Cliff Asness and a few others. What's your view on the macro climate today?
00:53:45 · David Weisburd, Jack Selby
[00:53:45] S0: You also cofounded Clarium with Peter Thiel, which is a macro hedge fund. I don't oftentimes have macro investors on the podcast, you and Cliff Asness and a few others. What's your view on the macro climate today? [00:54:00] S1: I think macro's back. I think, volatility's back. You know, thirteen plus years after the GFC and interest rates were bolted to the floor. We live in a very different world now, I think, whether it's geopolitical, volatility, across the board. So it doesn't mean it's easier. That's for sure. But if you're smart and you can come up with some good theses, in the macro world, I think this is a great opportunity to potentially make money. So I think this is a... I think macro has a... Finally has an opportunity to be in back and being more in vogue. [00:54:30] S0: And kind of the pendulum, you believe, will swing from more passive to more active?
00:54:30 · David Weisburd, Jack Selby
[00:54:30] S0: And kind of the pendulum, you believe, will swing from more passive to more active? [00:54:35] S1: I think so. And, again, with emphasis, it doesn't mean it's easier. But I think the opportunity set is is better now than what it had been for so long. Because after the financial crisis, you know, macro is basically trying to read the tea leaves in so many respects of, you know, what is the Fed gonna do, or what is, you know, some aspect of government gonna do, and that's just impossible. Like, there's no amount of fundamental research you can do to kinda come to any sort of informed conclusion. But now volatility is back. We live in a very different geopolitical world. Traditional trade relationships seem to be breaking down. Geopolitical global order seems to be shifting. So if you can put together an informed perspective on that, that might give you a trading edge. [00:55:12] S0: What do you think about these pot shops that have hundreds of billions of dollars leverage, and some some people believe they're almost like policymakers. You know, they're they're bailing out funds like situational awareness with what Ken Griffin did. What's their role in the market, and how do other investors compete with these pot shops and their resources?
00:55:12 · David Weisburd, Jack Selby
[00:55:12] S0: What do you think about these pot shops that have hundreds of billions of dollars leverage, and some some people believe they're almost like policymakers. You know, they're they're bailing out funds like situational awareness with what Ken Griffin did. What's their role in the market, and how do other investors compete with these pot shops and their resources? [00:55:31] S1: Talent rules everything, kinda going back to my venture capital analogy. And so I think a pawnshop perhaps is a great place to kinda get a career started. But if you're a world class, you know, Ken Griffin aspirant, and you put in your time at a pawnshop, you should spin out and go run your own fund. And why would you stick around? And so so I think they serve a purpose, but I think there's also a degree of kind of adverse selection, and that's a tricky balance. [00:55:55] S0: You've had one of the most fascinating careers spanning PayPal, Clarium, now Copper Sky. If you give yourself one piece of advice, going back to starting out PayPal and the day before you started PayPal, you can give yourself one piece of advice for the rest of your career, what would that be?