Marc Cohodes - An Independent Investor
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[The Business Brew theme] Bill: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Business Brew. I'm your host, Bill Brewster. Shoutout to previous sponsors, Koyfin, Stream by AlphaSense and Bastiat Partners. If you're interested in sponsoring the show, drop me a line @billbrewstertbb on Twitter. And you can also get in touch with me through the website, thebusinessbrew.com. This episode features Marc Cohodes. Marc is a very enthusiastic person. I don't know how else to describe him. I think he's one of a kind. This is a very entertaining episode. I'm going to reiterate a word of caution to the casual listener or the person that thinks that they hear something on a podcast, and therefore, that's due diligence. Do your work, Marc has done his work. Anything he talks about is an idea that he's put immense amount of time into, and following a podcast and ideas is an absolutely terrible way to invest. So, please remember that none of this is financial advice. All of the information contained in this program is for entertainment purposes only. Please consult your financial advisor before making investment decisions and do your own due diligence. I cannot say it enough. All right, with that out of the way, enjoy the episode. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Business Brew. I am thrilled to be joined by Marc Cohodes, who I was first introduced to at a Grant's conference. Jim Grant referred to you as an analyst analyst. He proceeded to walk up Donna Canadian jacket of some sort and dismantle Home Capital Group. And if I'm not mistaken, what was it? Concordia? Marc: Yeah, Concordia. Yeah, that piece of garbage. Bill: Yeah. I then saw Home Capital pretty much get decimated until Buffett threw him a lifeline there at the end. I don't know how much of a lifeline it was or not. And then I subsequently have watched you through the mimetics. I guess scandal is the best way to put it. I watched you put somebody basically behind bars. And something that I wanted to say publicly was you were somebody that I reached out to for advice when I was going through the Robinhood thing and you were in my ear a little bit about maintaining my emotions, and managing them, and staying calm in the process. I want to thank you for that. I don't know how you have the energy to do what you do, because one week of that pretty much burnt me out, but there were other emotions I was dealing with, I think. So, long story short, it's a long intro, but I have a lot of respect for what you do the passion that you do it with and thanks for saying yes to coming on. Marc: I've been wanting to do this for quite some time. I'm feeling good and plenty to say. So, why not? Let's let it go. Bill: [laughs] All right. Marc: Let's make some magic here. Let's roll up your sleeves and let's just do it. Bill: That makes sense. If it's okay, I want to start with something before I really let you go, and I don't know where it's going. One thing that I am very curious about, you are extraordinarily good at sourcing information. And I guess, for lack of a better term, sources. I admire how you do the due diligence. So how do you get ingrained in the information flow that you do? Is it a combination of reputation and repetition or how do you get to where you need to be to get the information you need? Marc: That's really a good question. No one's ever started off something like this with that. By this business is years. I'm 62, which in dog years is God knows how much and I've been through a lot and I've seen a lot. I started at the Northern Trust in Chicago in 1982. So, that's 40 years ago. And I don't have a fund. I just do it all this stuff myself. And I like to say, "Do it for the love of the game." I'm one of the few people who really, really, really enjoys this and I would do it for free, because I enjoy it so much. But the fact that I've made a decent living and live plenty fine doing it is great. When you do it for that long, you've come across a lot of people, a lot of people you've tangled with good, bad, or indifferent, a lot of people you've met. You learn again over time, who's good, who you can trust, who's not good, and they're all kinds of indicators. People who are awful, and people who are really dumb, and people who are bad at this are as good an indicator as people who are really, really good, because you can just take the opposite point of view and people have good information. Meaning, they do their work, and they have great sources and people have horrible information. So, I always go with bet the jockey not the horse. So, I think I have a really good record of an awful lot of worldwide jockeys out there. I view myself as a stalker in a very non-pervy, violent way. I probably at any point in time have-- Bill: [laughs] Marc: I'm telling you the truth. You ask a question, I'm giving an answer. Bill: I appreciate it. I like the way you said it. [laughs] Marc: I probably have 400 to 500 to 600 names in my head at any given time. I'm not good in insurance. So, insurance is out. I'm not good at biotech. Biotech is out. I try to stay away from pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceuticals are out. Tech, the stuff I understand is fair game. But other than that, I think I'm live and have really good sources in these various spots, where if something comes across that I find interesting, I can call someone and say, "Who knows something about wound healing?" And then not too long, I think I can bump into someone who's really, really good at wound healing and I go from there. I'm pretty active on my Twitter. It's at all they're laying eggs. And I'm a data miner and a researcher at heart. Twitter to me is really good is, there's a lot of people lurking on Twitter. And if I put a name out there, a lot of people DM me with information, or they know this person, or someone who used to work there, someone use the product and it doesn't work or works great, however it is and one thing leads to another to a brother to a mother. and I can figure things out really quickly, if I can get plugged into people who I think know or don't know their shit. So, it's a process, but the process builds on me making a call to someone who I think would know the space. And there are some people who are out there who are outstanding. There's a guy who works in a very small firm in Louisiana called Rice, Voelker. Tim Rice, he's a horse guy, but he's a tremendous stock guy. There's an analyst there, Cory Armand. And the guy is just lights out good. All he does is he digs. If I hear an oddball name, I call him up and I said, "Have you ever heard his name?" He will have heard something or have known somebody, and he just started. Labor intensive in it's work, but I love doing it and it's like a giant puzzle. I don't use charts. I say that I trade like old people fuck, which is poorly. Bill: [laughs] Marc: I'm not a trader. I'm an investor and I have a perspective. And I'm not a smash and grab guy. I don't say, "I think this is bad, and it goes down, and cover" like Carson, and all those other clowns. All those guys are getting investigated by the DOJ. I hate what those guys have done to the short selling business. They've given everyone a really bad name and I think they're terrible and we'll see what comes their way. But you start cracking rocks and you'll see where it all goes. I take it very seriously, I take what I do seriously, and I take what I say seriously. So, I'm a serious ass guy and I try to get it right. If I can't get it right, I shouldn't be doing it, because it's dangerous as all hell. So, if you can't get it right, you probably shouldn't be in the name or be doing this. It's hard. But I like that it's hard. I don't mind it. I don't walk away from a challenge. Bill: I remember at that conference, you said that you take positions that are so concentrated, they should make normal people sick or something like that. And when you said that I realized, the man standing in front of me was a man that was convicted that he was right, forget about things he was right. Marc: Well, if you're going to put in the time, and you're going to put in the energy, and you're going to spend the time to figure it out. I'm not a Warren Buffett guy. But where he's right is, if you haven't figured it out, you really shouldn't be diversified. You should have enough confidence in your ability to go the distance and make a big bet. If anyone's listening to this, that's how you make real money at this. You don't make real money in 40 stocks, you don't make money in ETFs. You can make money and all those names. But then it just becomes a market bet and I have no sense of market, or economy, or rates, or shit like that. I leave it to the smart folks to figure that out. I'm just a stock guy. But I will swing and I will swing hard. I'll take 20% to 40% positions in things. Not in shorts, but in long sightlines that I think I have jump. Bill: Yeah. From the outside observing you, one of the names that I think has been interesting to watch was Overstock because of the volatility in that. And I remember, I believe you pitch that at a Grant's conference also, when tZERO was pretty nascent. And I'm pretty sure that people came at you for pumping and dumping or whatever. And at some point, you were like, "I wish I had sold shares higher." I did not sell a share. I may be wrong on that, but when you have a big bet and it's contrarian like that, and for people that don't know, Overstock was very volatile. I think you wrote like a 4x up and then it came back to where it was. How do you divorce emotions from a position like that and when do you know how to exit and overstaying your welcome? Marc: Well, first of all, it's an emotional business. Anyone who says, it's not emotions is full of shit or I wouldn't want my money with them. Bill: [laughs] Marc: And they also say, "Don't take it personally." And I think they're full of shit too to say that, because anyone who doesn't take it personally, whether it's your own money or someone else's money, I wouldn't want to dine with them either. I take everything personally, because it's me against whoever. And sometimes, it's against the world. If you don't have confidence in your ability to see it through, again, some of the attacks I've had, you will just wilt and get killed. You will be nothing. And I'm still doing this at 62 at a very high level, because I don't wilt and I haven't gotten killed. They've tried and it's gotten close, but they failed. On Overstock, I believe it and I'm still long a ton of Overstock. In round one, the thing went 15. I talked about it a Grant's at 30. Then it went to 90. And it went all the way down to four. And I didn't sell any on the way up and I didn't sell on the on the way down and I wish I did. But the problem is, I actually believe it. When it got down to four-- And I have a funny story with this. The CEO who bought stock, well, it actually got down to three and change. He bought stock at four. I bought, God even knows how much it for, an awful lot to average the thing in. And I'm pals with the musical group, Collective Soul, I'm pals with those guys. I'm mainly pals with the lead singer. I told those guys on the way down from, 12 that this thing is going to be something. They're in at a 12, they're in at 10, they're in at eight. They call me up at five. They say, "This thing is going under." I said, "I don't think it's gone under, because I got six bucks net a cash. So, at four, it's pretty good." To make a long story short, it went to a 130. And at 100, they didn't have spaces back then. They had periscopes. I told everyone, I said, "Look--" I said, "I'm taking some off the table here. I recommend you do as well. I think the stock's going higher and I think it's gone a lot higher. But I've had one of these 30s to 90s the fours before and I don't want anyone who's followed me to say, whatever. So, everyone's on their own. Everyone do whatever you want to do." That was at 100 and it went to 130. "And whatever everyone wants to do, I'm not responsible for anyone other than me." But being in Collective Soul, Ed's brother, the guitar player, he literally called me up and he was crying, because he said, he made life changing money in Overstock, where he was able to buy a house, or his mom's house, or something like that with cash from what he made on Overstock and I have a lot of those. And that makes me happier than me making money that I was actually able to help someone for free. I don't have a business, I don't have a service, I don't charge anyone. I'm not like those YouTube guys. It's just free. I'm just trying to help people, who understand and like my program and conversely. If you don't like my program and want to bet against me, I try to destroy you. Bill: [laughs] Marc: I'm happy for people who believed in this one. In the last round of Overstock, it got to 130. I think people did really well and now, it's back to 26 or whatever. But I liked the thing a ton. I like it a ton and I think it's going to have another one of those moves one day. But as you said, I don't shy away from concentration, I don't shy away from challenge, I don't shy away from volatility. It's just the way it is in an absolutely crazy world in a world and in a market that I think is as mad as I've ever seen and I've seen some shit my day. I've seen stuff, but this is not as nuts can be right now. Bill: Something that I have struggled with, and my ideas are not as good as yours, which makes it even harder. How do you balance being public about an idea and telling people, do your own damn due diligence and don't just follow me in blindly, with the responsibility that comes with knowing that somebody is bound to follow you into something? Marc: On my Twitter, I only really talk about 5% to 10% of what I know, because I also have, I think it's up to 17,000 people blocked right now and you never know. Bill: [laughs] Marc: That's true. Bill: You and Andreessen, you're going to have a runoff as to who has more people blocked. [laughs] Marc: He has me blocked and I've never even said anything to him. But that's fine. Bill: [laughs] That sounds about right. Marc: I'm careful what I put out there and I try to talk more in big picture assuming everyone's going to follow me. And I just simply say, "Here are my concepts. Here's what I believe in. Here's what I think makes sense. Now, you guys figure it all out for yourselves." But again, when you block a whole lot of people, some of these guys who follow me and girls are really, really smart and they know a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff. And people chip in things and if I can verify it that it's true, I put it back out there. So, I'm crazy about this battery company, I'm crazy about Overstock, I've been crazy about Camping World. Those are my three real long's that I own. I only really own three things. Just as things become additive, I just layer it on in helping people figure it out for yourself. And I always say that if you can't explain it in a paragraph or less to a sophomore, you probably shouldn't really be in it, long or short. I'm loath to talk about shorts. I only talk about non-squeezable ones. I tell people, I think that Ryan Cohen himself is a person, probably the best short on the board, because that guy is just an asshat and a walking disaster. Bill: [laughs] Marc: But people can do that as they wish. It's more that if you can think something through and be patient and not really traded, I think you have a legitimate shot, especially against these institutions and guys who don't know they're asking first base. I think if I explain something, and people get it, and they play along, I'm with them. And if I make a mistake, I say, I make a mistake. I say, I fucked it up. I say, I got it wrong and I say, got out. It is what it is. And Nolan Ryan is a great, great, great, great pitcher. He's first all times in wins, first all times in losses, first all time in strikeouts, first all time in walks, first all time in homeruns. I'm 62. I've been doing this a very long time. I could have a space as call a day for a month of the mistakes I've made, because I've made a lot of them, a lot of them. But I try to learn from them and people don't like me, because they say, I come across as arrogant, or an ego or this, that, and the other. But I'm Marc Cohodes. I've done a fucking lot. I've put a lot of people in jail. There's been a lot of guys left in my wake. I've done some great things. I've done some really stupid things. But I've done it. I've been to and won the World Series, and MVP, and [unintelligible [00:18:20]. So, others dream of what I've done. But when you do it and you know you've done it, I'm not going to listen to shit from some clown, who's never done a goddamn thing, who doesn't know a goddamn thing. So, I'm not politically correct, and I'm not necessarily polite, and I don't suffer fools gladly. I'm not interested in the disrespect that's thrown my way, if I know something and people give me shit. So, there's a whole lot to it. And again, I think you either really liked my program or you hate my program and I'm not down the middle. There's nothing about me that's down the middle or someone says. "That guy's okay." They either think, I'm the greatest or they just think, I'm just an arrogant ass. And I don't think I'm the greatest and I don't think I'm an arrogant ass. So, it's probably somewhere in between. Bill: Well, something I've noticed in life is, people that are observing from the outside rarely observe the truth. If you're polarizing, you're probably doing something right. It's interesting, because I listened to you talk, and I was just listening to the podcast before we hopped on, and you were talking about how the rip and run shorts really piss you off, because they take advantage of the little guy. I saw you in a lot of AMC Spaces and that is a situation that I can't really figure out. What was going on with you in the AMC apes and what were you trying to help them with? Marc: I'm glad you brought that up. My thing on the Apes or however that all goes when that January 8th came down, where they suspended the trading and Robinhood, they pulled the buy button when GME was going through the roof and all the meme stocks? Bill: Yeah. Marc: I thought that was horrifically wrong. I thought that Citadel was on the wrong side of the coin and I think they had huge business problems in Melvin and others. And I think the government basically force Robinhood and Robinhood was probably about ready to go under to pull this buy button. I thought that was so bad. I was on a Portnoy podcast, and I spoke against it. I was on another one, I spoke against it. I wrote a letter and sent it to the Senate and the House that I speak or testify, if they want about this treating and basically skinning Joe Sixpack. I thought it was awful what went on, because a lot of those people lost to ship pot full of money. At my heart, I'm for the average guy, because I think the average guy gets picked off and screwed. So, that was my core belief. I then on AMC in particular, I'm involved in a company called tZERO, which trades alternative securities. Let's just call that ATS. And one of the securities they can trade are something called STOs, which are security tokens. I thought a great way for AMC to solve their issues, money issue, the short issue, who has the stock issue is to issue an STO and trade it on tZERO. And I thought the idea was foolproof. I emailed Adam Aron directly, and him and I were going back six or seven times, and I brought it up on Spaces call or a few Spaces calls to see how the average person thought of it and they all liked it. And the idea really started catching some momentum at which point, Adam Aron completely shouted down and said," It's borderline illegal." A, he's wrong, B, it pissed me off to no end, C, I own the stock, because I thought the STO thing was a good idea. I then sold my stock. I told people, I sold my stock. I took a loss and it just completely and utterly sucked. So, I thought the solution for the problem they had was this STO idea, which was shot down and the stock hasn't seen the light of day since and now, I'm pissed off at Adam Aron, because I think he's an imbecile and I think he's going to dilute the living fuck out of people, and he should have taken my idea and it would have worked. I think this STO idea that I had after I was doing this stuff with AMC, I put together the deal with Overstock, tZERO, a nice intercontinental exchange and they brought in the CEO, who they brought in David Goone. Bill: Huh. Marc: That's my guy. And I think people are going to hear a lot about tZERO going forward and Adam Aron, if he still has a job in a year will wish he did that STO idea. I was thinking out of the box, I was trying to help people, I was filmed in a movie that's yet to come out a documentary about what went on January 8th, and it's caught up pretty soon. So, I was very familiar with payment for flow, and the game Citadel plays, and then how they skinned the average person. And I really, I guess, empathize with people and I find it to be fascinating with how this is all happened. I got some stuff I can't get into right now coming down the line about this, but I think this meme stock is going to go down as a tremendous sociological experiment of exactly how it went on. And the thing that I'm really interested in now is, why certain people completely understand what goes on and certain people are just naive and follow these Panamera and Ryan Cohen type are completely over the cliff. I think eventually, I'm working with a major educational place, who maybe do a study or a case on how that's happened, or what's to be learned from it, or how not to repeat this in the future, because I think there's a lot to it. Joe Sixpack needs to have a seat at the table. Joe Sixpack is viewed by brokerage firms, hedge fund guys, and people like Citadel is the-- [audio cut] But a lot of these people are pretty good. Some of these people are smart and have things figured out. I'm trying to figure out a way to give everyone the same chance of making it not just guys like Citadel who sees order flow and sees the book before everyone else, and basically, guaranteed to win. I eventually want to see the field level, which may be optimistic, but we'll see. Bill: When you say that they have things figured out, it's hard to look at at least where AMC is trading and the fundamentals of the business and say, "Hey, I really think this is a great fundamental investment," at least for me. Have they figured out the market structure issue that's going on or have they figured out fundamentals better? What has Joe Sixpack figured out that they've been screwed out of in this particular instance? Marc: Let's unpack that a bit. From a hedge fund standpoint, I could never stand the guy. I was friends with Julian. I've known Julian forever. May he rest in peace. Julian Robertson, that is. But I think Chase Coleman is a clown. I thought Chase Coleman was a clown from when I first met him and he did his whole thing in privates, etc. But some of the stuff the Tiger cubs were playing was as stretched valuation wise as AMC ever won. Some of those names they were playing Carvana at 300, never generating a dime, losing their ass, highly leveraged. It went from 300 to 20. Quickly. And that decline far steeper than AMCs decline and no one other than me and a couple of guys are dragging Cliff Sosin, who had more than half his funding the thing. No one's dragging him down. People get excited about content. I'm excited about Overstock. Overstock went from 130 to 26 and that to me professionally is an embarrassment. I'm embarrassed Overstock went from that high to low. Now, I sold some and I told people, I was selling some. But never did I thought it would go to 26, again, with 12 bucks a share in cash. So, people, including myself, get carried away with names and they think they can go higher. The problem with the Apes is their whole basis was short squeeze and the stock got carried away on short squeeze, but no one thought GameStop was going to go from four to 40, let alone 480. And if they didn't pull the button at 480, it could have gone to 4,080. You just don't know how up is up. Bill: Yeah. Marc: But what I'm intrigued about is, some of the apes have realized that Adam Aron is going to pull it [unintelligible [00:27:15] when I said, all this guy is doing is he's in it for himself. He doesn't take a great idea, which was my idea, and he sold a ton of stock, and he's going to dilute the fuck out of people. Some of these guys have figured it out and they've done tremendous research, really good research. And so, Adam Aron, the structure he can use. Bill: Huh. Marc: And where I'm really intrigued, really intrigued is one of the guys who I think is really, really good and I think he goes by @lurkingghost on Twitter, this guy is a diesel oil field mechanic in North Dakota. This guy is not a Harvard guy. He's not a Stanford guy. But if you didn't know, if you didn't know him, you think this guy went to Harvard Business School and has a finance major. His stuff is that good. So, people have the ability to dig in when they're focused and figure it out. People have the ability, if they're in the medical field or consumer with toys or good. People know right from wrong, and they can use a common sense approach to get it right. And what I want to try to figure out is, why can certain people figure it out and certain people can't? One guy I talked to, he worked in a mine, where you go and ground in Canada. This guy has no background in finance or things like that, hasn't completely figured out. Completely figured out. Far more figured out than Chase Coleman, or the Ivy League crowd, or the hedge fund mafia, or what have you. And I think that I only have so many years left where I have all my wits about me. I think if there can be a way to figure out how the average thinking guy has a chance in the market, that would be like a really good thing other than just playing an ETF listening to these mutants on YouTube or listening to these pump and dump guys, and things like that. I have plenty of money. I'm not doing this, because I need to make money. I do it, because I love this business. But at some point, you want to give something back to make this thing better, because the market keeps going at the rate it's going, it's just a complete function. This thing is so fucked up. So you might as well have some people trying to help others to try to figure this thing out, because at the rate going, it's not going to be safe, if you're a professional or you're an amateur. It's just a complete shit show. That's just my opinion. Bill: Yeah, no, I agree. Well, I think I agree. How fucked is this market relative to what you've seen? You've been in the market for, if I recall, what, 43, 50 years, something like that, you were 16, now you're 61? What is different this time? Marc: Well, I think when I boil it down, where it gets different is, back when I first started doing this, there wasn't anywhere close to the leverage in the system that there is today. So, now, the system is beyond leveraged and you can get all the leverage you want. A big hedge fund back in the day used to be a couple hundred million. Now, it's probably $60 billion. And if you throw leverage on top of that, it gets crazy. Bill: Hmm. Marc: But I think what's really fucked it up over time is computers and very low commission. And the computers, people are so used to fast execution. In this instant action, it's created volatility on top of leverage, on top of no check and balance, and you've destroyed the entire investment concept. Because when things go up, everyone needs to own it. When things go down, everyone needs to sell it. And it used to be there was a back and forth, there was a given a take. Things used to be slower. So, if something would move, people would actually have a few minutes to actually think. So, I think the volatility combined with the leveraged, combined with easy money from the government, combined with stocks becoming infomercial ask with the Cartoon Network, AKA CNBC- Bill: [laughs] Marc: -you've brought everything home to make it very easy to trade, and make, and lose a ton of money. Bill: Yeah. Marc: The real problem on top of all that is no one wants to think anymore. No one wants to take their time and think. And the greatest job I've ever had was, I was a camp counselor at Camp Horseshoe in Minong, Wisconsin for four summers. And I made $700 a summer and I was a higher up. And the camp director was the greatest man I've ever known, Bob Mercer. And he used to say, "When all hell is breaking loose, don't just do something stand there." And I've used that probably tens of thousands of times in my life that when something is going awry, or fast, or changing, whatever you do reaction wise 99% is the wrong action. If you just take a few extra seconds or a minute to see what's going on, actually think of what's going on and adjust to it, that's the right decision. And none of that's going on anymore. Bill: Yeah. Marc: Its reaction to a sound bite in Jackson Hole, or reaction to another guy, or reaction to 75 over 50, or some stupid inflation print. The government can't count the numbers to begin with. Bill: [laughs] Marc: So, everyone's reacting on shit, which is made up and the Federal Reserve has gotten everything wrong for the last blank years. Holding these people out and hanging on their word, you're much better off hanging on the word of my oilfield mechanic, who at least can figure it out. Bill: Yeah. Marc: When you say, what's wrong or what's changed, it's a little bit of everything. And it's forcing everyone to adjust in a world that no one can figure out. And it used to be, if a name would go 10% against you, someone would say, "You should do more," because he gets a better price. Bill: Yeah. Marc: Now, the reaction is, you should cover it, because you need to take loss control. If you don't cover your losses, you can be put out of business. Well, yeah, but then it circles back into you're supposed to fucking know what you're in and why you're in it. And if you have conviction, lean into it, because I've had should go against me so many times. It's such a crazy race, it's not even funny and I'm still alive. I'm still here to talk about it. So, it's like playing baseball in the 70s when you didn't have batting gloves. You just had pine tar and you played in double knit jerseys. Now, you have batting gloves, you can wear protection on your arm, you can wear body armor, you can do all sorts of stuff. It's a completely different game. Bill: Yeah. Marc: It's just not the same is what it was. But I was damn, damn, damn good back when I'm still pretty fucking good. Now, but it's a completely different gig. It's totally different. Bill: Yeah. Marc: And my fear is, if they don't slow this thing down and make it okay to lose and deleverage the system, I don't know what the next so-called meltdown actually looks like, because the leverage is extreme and interest rates have to go up. So, as interest rates go up against the leverage, funny things can happen, accidents happen, and then you got the Russians, or Ukraine, or China, or Taiwan, whatever. I try to pay as little attention to that shit as I can. Bill: When we were talking about Robinhood back when I was going through that I said, I'm pretty sure I said it to you. I just said it on another podcast. I was like, "This is fucking DraftKings all over again." You get this free stock, right? Okay, well, why are they giving you a free stock? They're giving you something that you don't want, so that you realize how easy it is to sell it and you can replace it. It's almost giving somebody the first hit of heroin and rather than engendering, like, you own this and you should know it. It's like, here's just some piece of paper. And by the way, when you want to get it, you scratch it off your phone, which is as if you're going to a gas station and then you make a buy or a sell and there's fucking confetti, and you see the fastest moving stocks, and they ping you when the stocks move 5%. It's like, this thing is designed for dopamine. And then what really pisses me off about all this shit is, it's in a limited liability structure. Everybody exits the public markets and the people that are trading on it hold the bag and aren't we geniuses and billionaires. And then they're fucking worship, like, they actually did something in life. It drives me insane. Marc: Well, on top of that, you have Citadel paying them $400 million a year to see the orders and if Citadels paying them $400 million a year, Citadel is probably making a billion too just running in front of the trades. Bill: Yeah. Marc: And it's designed again for Joe Sixpack to fail. They knew they had a margin issue. They just didn't tell the truth. And the problem is, in the too big to fail world, which we're in, Joe Sixpack always ends up with the short end of the stick. Always. Bill: Yeah. Marc: They always end up with the short end of the stick and I felt bad there, because these guys were on the right side of the trade. And if Melvin or whatever his name is Gabe, Plotkin, and Griffin, if they had the wrong trade, they should have been carried out like other people get carried out. They shouldn't have been able to run short exams, and be short the thing on the halt, and not the stocks in the ground, because a lot of people lost the ship ton full of money that they didn't deserve to lose, and they didn't have to lose, and they got margined into oblivion. But guy like me who wants to take up the fight for that person, there's nothing in it for me. It's not I'm getting paid. It's not they're paying me by the hour. It's not I'm in any other stuff, but I just felt really bad for them and there's no one who sticks up for him, because everyone's interested in how fast they can make $1. Everyone's interested in how fast they can make as much as they can, and they don't give a rat's ass about the process. Bill: Yeah. Marc: And we've lost all process in this business. There's no process. You can talk about a process, but when all hell breaks loose, people don't stick to it, and people don't stick to their guns, and they say, "It's too volatile" or whatever story there is, and then they come up with the next three times leveraged ETF. And you get guys like Cuban, who I've known, but I've lost a shit ton full respect for pushing all these worthless cryptos to people just because they're celebrities. And it's bad. I can't fight all the fights. Bill: Yeah. Marc: I can't stop all the bad shit that goes on. The next time someone wants to get down on me, because they think I'm trying to pick off X, Y, Z, or short this stupid stock, I try to help the person who needs fucking help. I try to help the person who has no one singing for me. The SEC sure is not singing for him. We have the fucking CFO of Bed Bath & Beyond jumping out of a window committing suicide a day after they raised half a billion dollars and everyone goes on like, it's their merry way like nothing's going on. 99% chance the numbers at Bed Bath & Beyond are completely cooked, because a 52-year-old guy with two kids and a wife just doesn't jump out of the window on a Saturday for shits and giggles. All of the signs are there that this thing is a complete fuck show, that the markets are broken, that there's no oversight, that there's way too much leverage and things like that. But again, all I can do is my little thing to advertise what I like, don't like, and how things need to change, and everyone can go from there. Bill: This could be an ignorant question. If it is, I apologize. But how do you reconcile some of the shit coin pumping in crypto and your position in tZERO? Doesn't benefit from some of that or not really? Marc: I own tZERO through Overstock, because Overstock now owns 55% of tZERO. And I own some tZERO tokens, which trade on tZERO. So, I own that. Also, because I put together the deal, I also own some tZERO privately, because I didn't ask for a fee. I just asked to participate in the financing. Bill: Wow. That's cool. So, you held the risk? Marc: Yeah, I put my own money in at the same rate that I just invested. Bill: Yeah, that's cool. Marc: They didn't pay me-- My fee was the ability to invest with ICE. Bill: Yeah. Marc: How do I reconcile it? Because I think tZERO is going to change the world and tZERO knocks all the fuckery out of the market. If you trade stocks on blockchain and same day settlement and individuals are part of it, by design, you don't have failed. By design, you don't have naked shorts. By design, you don't have short exams. What you do is, you take the middleman out and you basically make it man on man, or woman on woman, or however it is and things trade clear and do everything instantly. I think it's where the future is going to be. Bill: That makes sense. Marc: So, how do I reconcile with it? I make it very clear that I'm deeply involved in tZERO, but if Adam Aron would have done this thing on tZERO, the economic benefit to me would have been a number anywhere from zero to 10 cents. But I will say this that TZEROs, probably 20% partner is ICE, which owns the New York Stock Exchange. And the New York Stock Exchange is not investing in tZERO for shits and giggles. I think they see where this thing is going to go and tZERO's SEC approved and it's FINRA approved, and they're the only ones like that, and I think it's going to be the future. Right now, it's been a whole lot of nothing. But if I think that's where it's going, and I'm not like a paid guy, it's not they're sending me a check, I was there when they rang the bell on the New York Stock Exchange, I paid my own way to go to New York, I paid my own way to get the stock, I paid my own way to get Overstock stock. I've done a whole lot of work there and I've asked for nothing. So, I'm a huge advocate. I don't hide that I'm a huge advocate. I know the markets fucked up and I think they're the solution. And I'll say this. The guy who I recruited to be the CEO, his name is David Goone. He's my age. So, let's say, he's 61. He was a top guy at ICE, Intercontinental Exchange. And he was getting paid in the proxy $5 million a year. $5 million a year, plus option. Now, $5 million a year is real money. So, he left ICE getting paid $5 million a year and options to go be the CEO of tZERO. Let's say, he's making 400 grand a year at tZERO or half a million. And let's say, he has equity for 5% to 7% of the company. He's betting that he's going to knock it out of the fucking park. He's betting he's going to put it on the roof. Because there are very few 62-year-old guys who walk from $5 million a year guaranteed to be the CEO of that company. Bill: Yeah. Marc: And that's just a flat-out fact. That's what he believes. If that guy believes that, I'll line up with that guy any day, because if this does change the way things are done, and you can securitize and tokenize illiquid assets. Everyone who is alive is going to say, "I remember when that guy wearing that goofy green shirt on Brewster Podcast was talking about tZERO." Bill: [laughs] Marc: So, fuck, yeah, I believe it. I believe it. Bill: Yeah. Marc: I'm not Matt Damon getting paid to push something or Tom Brady doing this stupid FTX commercials, which I think's a complete scam. I believe this. I believe it wholeheartedly and I think I'm going to make 30 to 60 times my money on what I put in on tZERO. And if I do, I'll deserve every penny, because I'll have had the vision and took the risk. I have zero waffle on tZERO. And the one risk and the one thing which made me scratch my head when this was all going on as I said to him, "You have FTX out there, you got Coinbase out there, you got Voyager out there, you got all these guys out there in the alternative digital form, it's going to cost a fortune to break in and to get on the map." That to me was the big risk. And since I said that, all of these guys have either gone out of business are they're on the fucking disabled list. So, the war of attrition before tZERO even clears their throat, they've won the war, because 90% of their competitors are out of business and have gone out of business, which to me is great. And they're sitting there with a ton of cash with the New York Stock Exchange as their partner and they've yet to throw the first pitch or throw the first punch. Bill: That's interesting. When you're thinking about sizing, something like that, are you looking at the current year--? It's almost like tZEROs, this huge, embedded option within Overstock, right? Marc: Yeah. Bill: And then you got the correct bet on the option as well. Marc: Yeah. Bill: But as you said, you swing hard. So, how are you swinging hard to add an option? Is it just a payoff bet that you believe in the jockey, the jockeys align you put together the vision, like, it doesn't matter, if the option doesn't come to fruition, because the payoff could be so huge? I'm just curious how you're thinking about bet sizing on something like that. Marc: I have a ridiculously big position in Overstock. OSTK trades about 26. Ridiculously big. Probably 25% of my worth in Overstock. I have a much smaller position in this tZROP, which is their tokens. These are our tokens. And for an investment in a private company which is tZERO, I have a pretty big bet, nowhere close to where the Overstock is, but this thing can go up 40 to 60 times. Bill: Yeah, that makes sense. Marc: And if it goes up 40 to 60 times, I'll own half the state of Montana. Bill: That would be nice. Marc: Yeah-- [crosstalk] Bill: Can I come visit? I'd like to visit. Marc: Yeah, you could come visit and I'll name a town after you. Bill: [laughs] All right. Cool. I'll take it. Marc: We'll call it Brewster. Bill: I like it. Marc: But the good thing is, I have a seat at the tZERO table. I am not passive. I have a seat at the table. So, not only do I believe in the jockey who's Goone, not only do I believe in the partner, who's ICE, not only do I believe in what they're doing, they can call me and do call me and say, "We're thinking of doing this. What do you think or how can we do it better?" Bill: Yeah. Marc: And I have a say and they value my opinion. And they're working on some ridiculously large stuff and I can't wait for it to happen, or them to announce it, or to go, because it will or could be nuts. It could be mind changing the way things are. For example, PayPal started as a payment vehicle for eBay. That's all it was. You buy something on eBay and you pay for it with PayPal. That's how it all started. Now, what it's turned into is something that no one could have ever seen other than the real guys that Pay Pal with how they do things. Bill: Yeah. Marc: And the stocks up, I don't know, hundred times, something like that from where they first came out. It's a fuck ton. And I think tZERO has the chance of being something like that. And it 26 bucks, which is a billion to market cap in Overstock with Overstock having $450 million of cash and no debt, and a retail business that does $2 billion in sales that makes money and generates cash, and things like tZERO and bid everything thrown in, they're basically paying you to take tZERO, the bits valued at nothing. So, something's valued at nothing, nothing is valued at nothing, your risk is nothing. So, we'll see. I don't give a fuck, if people want to piss on it or say, "It's this in there." I don't care. If you don't like the story, short until the cows come home. If you like it, trade five days a week from 9:30. Eastern to 4 o'clock Eastern. It's really easy. Bill: Yeah. Marc: I spend time on it. I've never had a problem betting on me. If I can bet on me, I'll bet on me, and I've left a real path of people who've wanted to bet against me. Bill: [laughs] Marc: There's a whole cemetery filled with guys and one guy currently is in prison. So, if everyone wants to step up, go right ahead. I have zero problem with it. Bill: Well, I'll tell you what I think is really cool about this for you, as an interested observer and someone that is a fan of you, three years ago, I believe-- It had to be three years ago, because you were at a Grant's conference, unless it was video, but you said like, "I'm long Overstock and have you heard of crypto. There's this thing tZERO and I think it's going to be a big deal," something like that. I may be paraphrasing. But here we are three years later, and you're intimately involved, and you've continued to do the work, and you got yourself to the place where you could structure a deal and you bring in real players to the table. It's cool for me to see you do that, because it's clearly something that means a lot to you and it's you at the top of your game. So, I hope it works out for you. That would be very cool. Marc: I hope it works out too, but I practice what I preach and that's why I'm credible, because I believe in what I do. And if I have to work my ass off and not get paid for it, which I'm not, I'll do it, because I believe in what goes on. I'm not some guy in an ivory tower talking about X, Y, Z to move a stock to sell it and say, "Oh, yeah, that was right, but I got out long ago and I go for the next shiny object." I'm not a shiny object guy. Bill: Yeah. Marc: I believe, if I'm going to start the game, I'm going to try to finish the game. This is where we're at. I'm a huge believer, but we'll see what happens. Bill: Now, Camping World is also owned, and I should say also, Marcus Lemonis is in charge of it and has a huge ownership percentage. I don't know what the top of my head, but it seems as though, my N is only two, but I suspect it's true. You're looking for alignment of incentives when you're looking at longs. Is that fair? Marc: That's right and I bet the jockey. I think Lemonis, who gets a bad rap, I think the guy's outstanding. He works his ass off, he doesn't pay himself, he takes stock, he's nastier than shit. I would never want to be his enemy or compete with him, because he is just a nasty, nasty motherfucker competing against him. Bill: [laughs] Marc: He's exactly who you want to own stock in, and I bought it during the pandemic deal, and I bought it between 360 and five. Bill: Oh, wow. Marc: And Just with the dividends, the guy has paid out since I've owned it. My cost is 54 cents. Bill: Wow, nice. Marc: My cost in Camping World is 54 cents and the guy is paying $2.50 a year in dividends. He's beaten numbers. He's going to have an off year this year, but the guy is still generating $600 million a cash and he's just throwing his competition. Bill: Yeah. Marc: And what people don't realize is, everyone looks down at the Camping or RV business, he makes the least amount of money selling the iron and makes the most amount of money selling services, and insurance, and rates, and septic cleaner, and toilet paper, and things like that. So, I like him, I know him, I have great respect for him. He's charitable as hell, he's the guy who emigrated when he was an orphan from Lebanon, I think, and he was adopted by people in Miami. So, this guy was never handed anything. Never handed a thing. Everything he's done, he has worked his ass for. And I admire guys like that. I admire him greatly. He went to Marquette University and the guy works his ass off. Why do people not like him? Because he's on TV and they think he could be flashy. Or, why are you on TV when you could be running the company? Well, it's his fucking time. He probably sleeps as much or less than me, which is zero or very little. Bill: [laughs] Marc: He works his ass off and I admire him to the moon and back. And I think in the next cycle, this guy's going to earn a lot of money and it's going to be a huge, huge, huge stock. A huge stock. So, I like it. What can I say? I like it. It doesn't have the breakaway that a tZERO or an Overstock has, but they're paying me $2.50 a year and a dividend, plus he's doing fine, plus he's taken share, plus he's generating cash. It's fine. I was crazy about it during the pandemic. I was nuts about it, and everyone wants to attack me on it, and they wanted to short it, and they're fucking buried them. They got buried alive. Bill: [laughs] Marc: They got buried alive so badly in Camping World when they started talking like sand came out of their mouths. Bill: [laughs] Marc: And again, in this world, if the best you can do is short Camping World, or Overstock, or this other thing I like, knock your fucking selves out. I don't care. I just don't care. Bill: I got to ask you why you're not a Buffet guy, but that's the next question. But what I think is cool about talking to you about this is, you come from the hedge fund background, you know how to short sell, we are arguably going into a recession with higher rates, and there's a thousand different reasons to say, "Camping World is clearly going to miss consensus estimates and the acceleration, deceleration is garbage, and here you are long going into all that," because you believe in the jockey, and you believe in the strategy, and you're in it for the next cycle. And to me, that's a real ownership mentality and I respect that. I don't see how any fundamental investor can. Marc: You want me to tell you really why Camping World's great? I mean, great, great and why? If the recession comes in and it's deep and I don't know, because I'm not an economist, I'm not making a bet, because this guy competes against people who can't compete against him. And Home Depot has Lowe's in every regional chain. Bill: Yeah, and he's going to gobble it up. Marc: Target has Walmart, and Kohl's, and other regional guys. There's other national sporting chains other than Dick's. Who does Camping World fucking compete against? They compete against Auroras RV in Iowa in Minnesota who has six sites. They compete against Brewster camping and RV in central Virginia in North Carolina, who has 10 stores. And you guys don't have the money, the capital, the ability to negotiate, the ability to hire, the ability to service that this guy has. And he can go to you and say, "I want to expand into Virginia in North Carolina. I'd like to buy your business." And you'll say, "We're not for sale." And he'd say, "Okay, Bill, I'm going to offer you a fair price. I'm going to offer you three times EBITDA, okay? And that's a really good business. " Bill: [laughs] Marc: "No, no, no, your family is going to make $9 million, and I knew your grandpa, and he was a great man, and he'd be very happy, if I bought you for $9 million to do it." "We're not for sale." Bill: Yeah, we're going to do this once and then I'm going to bury you, if you say no. [laughs] Marc: Well, here's the thing, Bill. This is a demographic, and this is a geography we want. If we're not going to buy you, we're going to organically expand here. And if we organically expand here- [crosstalk] Bill: That's right. Yeah. Marc: -it's just us being who we are, and how we can merchandise, and how we can service, your business probably goes down 70%. Bill: Yeah. Marc: So, I'm just telling you the facts of life, "We want to be in your area- Bill: [laughs] Marc: -and I want to give you a fair price for your business. So, I'll repeat, we'll pay you $9 million for your business." And you'll say, "Give me 24 hours to think about it" and you say, "You know what, I do not want to compete against this motherfucker. The economy is uncertain, we may head to a recession and if we head to a recession and he's in my grill, I'll look back at this $9 million as $9 million I should have taken." Bill: Yeah. Marc: And in an economic downturn, he's going to go from 218 scores to 320. And then when the cycle kicks back up again, instead of him making $5.40, he'll make $10.70. The stock will sell at 15 times or 170 bucks and you'll be happy owned at a 32. Bill: That's exactly right. Marc: Now, it couldn't go to 25, sure. In the meantime, my cost is 54 cents and I'm getting a $2.50 cent dividend. And if the economy gets bad, I can always sell calls against it or do a whole lot of things. But I believe in him so much, because he's a chippy competitive motherfucker. I know the next cycle, he's going to make a shit ton of money and then when everyone says, he should sell it a above market multiple and the stocks 180 or whatever it is, I'll either donate my stock to charity or sell it and move on to something else. Bill: Yeah. Marc: But over the worries I have in life, he's not one of them. Marcus Lemonis is not a guy I worry about. He's wonderful. And I've had him call me at 1:30 in the morning, I've had them call me at five in the morning, I've had them call me at 10 at night, two in the afternoon. This guy is driven. What people don't know is how driven and focused he is on his business, because they watch whatever TV show he does. When I met him, I didn't even know he did the stupid TV show, because I refuse to watch the fucking Cartoon Network. Bill: Yeah, he is on the Cartoon Network, isn't he? Marc: Yeah, he's on Cartoon. So, I don't play on Cartoon. Bill: They got a couple of good people over there, but I do agree. I think on average, that channel makes me dumber when I watch it. But there's an occasional good interview and there are some good interviewers. I will say that. Marc: Yeah. Bill: It's interesting. That's really cool. I guess, I didn't know as much about your philosophy on the long side. I think your shorts are a little bit louder and certainly, the FBI showing up at your house, they don't do that over being long Camping World, right? They're doing that over stuff that they don't want you to uncover. Marc: You and I are going to have a hell of a podcast on my stuff when that comes out and then it'll come out. I promise you. Bill: All right. Well, I look forward to it. Marc: You want to know what I like more than Overstock and Camping World that I own more of than Overstock and Camping World? Bill: Sure. If you want to have people come at you as pumping your stuff, I'm happy to have you do it here. I've enjoyed this conversation. Marc: Well, again, everyone can do their own work. I can tell you how I got there. The thing I own the most of is something called the Enovix, which is ENVX. It's a SPAC, which is the SPAC and it's about 20 bucks. It's one of the .000002 SPAC that's actually worked that successful. They're in silicon batteries for wearables. Now, that's either a watch, it will be goggles, AR VR goggles, potentially phones, which I think phones. And they've publicly said, "They're going to have an EV joint venture." Now, the reason I'm in the stock and you're talking about betting the jockey not the horse is I have great respect for a guy named T.J. Rodgers, and he's the chairman of Enovix, and he owns $20 million shares. And he just bought another 400,000 shares when the stock was nine. Bill: Huh? Marc: Now, it's 20. He owns $20.4 million shares. He's a 75-year-old man. I've known him for a long time. I know some other guys on the board namely Dan Mccranie. He's a 70, some odd year-old guy. And both these guys, Marcus Lemonis does look like a nun. Bill: [laughs] Makes Lemonis look like he works in a church. That's how hardcore and driven these guys are. Bill: If I can just personify this, they're basically you and you have a short that you really get amped up against. They're just that every single day in their business. Marc: Yes. as creators. Bill: Yeah. Interesting. Marc: T.J. is my friend. No doubt about it. And since he's my friend, he won't mind me telling the story. From his career at Cypress to when he retired, let's say, 70, he made $50 million over his career, which is a lot of money. Bill: Yes, it is. That's a lot. Marc: It's a lot of money by anyone's standard. From 70. To 76, he's made about billion seven. Bill: That's a lot more. Marc: That's a lot more. That's greater than, right? Bill: [laughs] Marc: And the bulk of it was in a company called Enphase, where he's the Chairman. And Enphase was a troubled solar inverter company and when he came in, the stock was somewhere between $1 and $2. And they needed money bad, and he put in his own money and got stock, and he brought in the right people, the right plan, the right engineers, and today, the stock closed at $315. $315. Bill: Wow. Marc: That's 300 times your money in about five years. Bill: Wow. Marc: And he told me, because he knows I'm interested to know Enovix or he is the chairman. He thinks Enovix can be bigger than Enphase. When you have a guy who I respect, who make Lemonis look like a pussy- Bill: [laughs] Marc: -and he's taken Enphase from $1 to $300, and he thinks Enovix with their battery and battery design, and this isn't [unintelligible [01:03:20]. They're producing batteries and they're shipping batteries commercially. He thinks Enovix can be bigger than Enphase, I fucking pay attention and I dig in. And Mccranie, when I saw him, and Mccranie is an engineer guy sort of by background. He told me that he thinks the Enovix battery is the biggest thing he's ever seen in his history in Silicon Valley. And this guy was around when Intel developed the 8080. Bill: Oh, wow. Marc: The first processor that goes into computers. He thinks their battery is bigger than that. Bill: huh. Marc: When I have two guys who I hold very dear, who have won triple crowns, and our bad ass men, these are bad ass guys. When both of them, they didn't solicit me. When I asked him about this thing, because I know they're on the board, I then pay fucking attention. I pay serious attention to this thing. I think it is going to be something. And Musk, whether you like him or hate him says, "Battery is the next oil. There's a whole lot out there that you can read about battery wars against the Chinese." Enovix said on their last conference calls, they're in the final stages with the US government, with the Army, Navy, with the DOD about troops having batteries and they think it could be $300 million a year. If I'm right, it's just going to change the way things are done in terms of battery. And T.J. has a YouTube video out there that they released during the conference call, where basically, they put a nail through a lithium-ion battery and the thing completely explodes and catches on fire. When you put a nail through their battery, it doesn't do anything. It doesn't catch on fire. Bill: Interesting. Marc: For EV and other devices, battery and battery flammability is a huge deal. And again, they don't need money. The thing trades like water $20 stock $150 million shares out. They have commercial revenue. This thing can turn into a big deal. I know what my risk is, I think their last conference call, I would pull up whoever's listening or interested, just listen to the transcript and do some work on it and check out T.J. rogers in Enphase. But I think this thing can be something. And each of these names, essentially, with Lemonis, which is what makes him idiosyncratic. I think a key theme that people miss is, it's okay to have longs in this fucked up environment, if they're idiosyncratic. If Enovix is going to work with the silicon battery, they don't give a fuck on interest rates, they don't give a fuck on oil, they don't give a fuck on the war with Ukraine. Nothing matters other than their execution in designing and rolling out the battery. If tZERO is going to work and become the next big thing in terms of digital blockchain on the exchange, interest rates aren't going to matter, oil is not going to matter, or Russian wars not going to matter. It's strictly on execution with Goone and ICE and then bringing digital assets into the platform to trade. And my thing with Lemonis is big a downturn or recession as you get, the better it's going to be for him on the back side, because everyone else is going to be in his space is going to be done. Bill: Yeah. Marc: Everyone else is going to be leveraged, is going to be finished, can't withstand a 20% downturn, they lose everybody, which is just more for him. I've been doing it long enough. You know there's always tomorrow and you know tomorrow comes. So, I don't know if we're having a recession, depression, slow landing, soft landing, goalie loss. I don't give a fuck. What I do know is I think I'm on three really, really, really good jockeys and they're going to get me there. And if they don't, it's all on me. I have no one to blame, but me. I won't blame T.J., I won't blame Lemonis, I won't blame Goone. But again, for whoever's listening to this with Goone, put yourself in their head of a 62-year-old guy who's walking from $5 million a year to go run tZERO. You're married, I'm married. If I go to my wife and say, "Hey, honey, I'm leaving my $5 million a year job to go be the CEO of tZERO, which doesn't have much revenue in this new digital blockchain exchange." She'd say, "You're fucking nuts." And I'd say, "I know I'm nuts. But I believe this is going to work." Bill: Yeah. Marc: And if silicon batteries instead of the lithium happen Enovix Is the next envidia or bigger, because he thinks it's bigger than Enphase in best wins. If they have the best battery, best always wins. Starbucks is the best coffee shop house or whatever and they've put the Corner Guy out of business. Bill: Yeah, the best posts scale. Marc: Enphase is the best inverter. Yeah, best wins. So, I'm in it. I'm not selling it and it just gives people a start of how I think. And if you like the way I think and you think this in battery or digital securities makes sense, there's plenty out there for anyone who listens to figure this out and go from there. I'm not paid by anybody. I just believe it and I believe it wholeheartedly. Bill: Yeah. Marc: And I'm in. This isn't one of 40 names. I'm in three names. So, I am swinging the fucking back here. Bill: Yeah, I saw you in the AMC rooms. I had pinged you and I didn't know from the outside what you were doing. And I guess, what I would encourage people to the extent they can do it and I think it's tough at times. But if you work hard enough, things will open up and lanes will open up is to really-- If you see something that doesn't make sense, ping the person that's doing it and ask them, "What are you doing?" Marc: Yeah. Bill: There's a lot of, I don't know, if it's happened recently or not, or if I'm noticing it more, or whatever, but there's just a lot of opinions about what people are doing. I don't know, the more I realized like, this conversation has been great for me, man. I didn't expect to have conversations about the longs. I think the sexier stuff to talk to you about is the short stuff, but I've gotten more out of this conversation just hearing how you break downs situations and how you think about the longs, then I think I would have doing another short side podcast and I hope you did too. Marc: It's great. We can do a short thing one day. I've always wanted to do it, but there's certain points in time that I have things to say. The other thing is, my DMs and my Twitter are open. And again, I have 17,000 people blocked, because I'm not into the disrespect, or calling me names, or swearing at me, or making threats. I'm not into that. If someone has something to say, if you want to say to my face, I'll kick your fucking ass and they'll carry you out in a fucking pine box. Even with one bad arm, I will kick your fucking ass. Everyone's a tough guy behind the computer. But the thing is, it's the process that this whole thing is lacking. And if you get into process and you understand, if you like it, it's for you. If you don't like it, you've wasted however long we're doing this. But it doesn't cost anyone anything and it's just my thought and I'm out there, and if I can help people, great. If I can help you, you're beyond help to what it is. Bill: Can I ask you two questions and I'll let you go, and I may be repeating myself, but I don't think I am? You are so passionate. And when I watched you with my medics, you turned out right and maybe that's the damn answer. But do you ever wonder am I wrong and if you are, how do you manage how committed you are to what you're doing and also, keeping an open mind to the idea that, "Hey, there are maybe something I don't see here?" Marc: Yeah, that's quite the question. As you may or may not know, I am suing the DOJ and I'm suing the FBI on a FOIA thing on what exactly happened with that visit. And just for shits and giggles, the FBI and the DOJ said there are four pages on me, and they'll have the information to me before I shoot them in between four months and four years. So, we said, "Fuck that. We're going to sue you--" [crosstalk] Bill: Four years. That's ridiculous. Marc: Right. We're suing them for it. They come back and there's 1,068 pages on me. They said four. There's 1,068. Bill: Oh, my. Marc: Oh, my is right. I have them and it's been a huge fight on getting things redacted or unredacted and I'm just about done with that and I'm suing my medics and I'm suing private eye they hired who they paid $25,000 a month for two years to hack me, and tape me, and another guy who put them up to it. So, when all that comes out, it'd be quite a story. But basically, it was my medics. It was either me or it was them. And it wasn't going to be me. So, it was them and the guys in fucking prison. Bill: That's terrifying. Marc: And the company is going to go out of business. Bill: [laughs] Marc: Well, yeah, but again, if it's me or them, it ain't going to me, then it's going to be them. Bill: Yeah, no doubt. Marc: When you say, how do you know, there is no turning back. When you're in a deathmatch, you either kill them or they will kill you. I knew I had them and eventually, when this FOIA and the lawsuit play out, if it wasn't a fact and it is not on a government thing with emails, no one would ever believe me on what really went on. Bill: Yeah. Marc: No one has a clue what really, really, really went on. So, that one was a given. The other stuff with conviction, it's just a matter of work confidence, experience, and what rodeos you've been to, and how the horses come to jump. I'm very that the jockey not the horse. I like shorting losers or habitual losers, and guys who failed before. And of course, balance sheets matter, and of course, their competitor's matter, and of course, accounting matters, and of course, setups matter, and I can be wrong. And if I'm wrong or I get involved in the mania, well, let me say it a different way. This is really going to come across bad. Bill: [laughs] Marc: This is really going to come across awful. Bill: Yeah, thank you for the warning. [laughs] Marc: Okay. This is a warning. It's going to be great. In terms of research, and figuring it out in my mosaic, I'm never wrong. If I'm wrong, it is rare. I'm never wrong. Where I'm wrong is timing, where I'm wrong is how long they can keep the scam going, where wrong is how far they'll go to keep the scam going, where I'm wrong as I'm sure it's something in a bear market that turns into a bull market and people don't care about the fundamentals. But in terms of the organic structure of or when I short something, I'm never wrong. I won't get in it unless I know I'm right. And someone can say, that's very cocky and very arrogant. But when you've seen it first so long, there are only so many types of flight patterns. There's only so many ways you can fly from San Francisco to Boston. You can take the northern route, the central route, the southern route. You're not going down to Mexico and then coming up. So, there's only so many ways you can get rat fucked. I get fucked on the market, I can get rat fucked on macro on interest rates. I get macro and get fucked that someone takes them over. But I'm not going to get rat fucked on the fundamental reason to be in some. I'm just not. And by tend to get involved in more fraudy, more going out of business, more bad balance sheety, the more bad guy stuff, where I know someone's going to put an X in someone's head. Bill: Yeah. Marc: I know, because I know the parties involved. I'm not short Bed Bath & Beyond. Brian Cornell, the guy who runs Target is my friend. I've known him from when he ran stores at Safeway. I've never long target stock, because I never want anyone to ever think anything's weird. So, I've never been in Target stock. But the guy's my friend. Target itself without him telling me a thing will completely and utterly destroyed Bed Bath & Beyond. You don't even have to worry. I don't give a fuck what loan to own financing Bed Bath has. Guys like Target will put them out of fucking business just because they're better operators, they're better merchants, they have a better balance sheet, they have better locations. They're just better. And best, strongest balance sheet wins. Now, I don't know the timeframe, I don't know how Ryan Cohen can manipulate the stock, or how things go, but it's just power football where you see the dynamics going, where you know someone has a better mousetrap, and they're going to rat fuck these guys into oblivion. And that's a good short. You know something is going to happen, but you have to be very conscious of the intangibles. Who else is shorted, is it too noisy, is it hard to borrow, can it become a meme stock, all that stuff? And I avoid stuff. And I'm short stuff. I won't even talk about in my sleep, because I don't want it to ever get crowded or people in it and the shits work great. Bill: Yeah. Marc: It's just fallen straight from the heaven, because no one knows I'm in it. And I can be loud, I can be quiet, I can be strong, I could do read, I could be anything I want to be on things. I can be tough, I can be sweet. But what I always do is I always tell the truth. I am not afraid of anyone out there. I don't give a fuck. I'll tell someone I will kick their ass and I'll tell some-- I told Ryan Cohen that he should shut his mouth and just execute. And the guy had me banned from Twitter for a week and I didn't even give a shit. And now, I'm focused on him, because I said after they put me on vacation for a week, I'm going to focus on this motherfucker. Bill: [laughs] Marc: If you want to get me on Twitter for a week, he then becomes on the top of the list of motherfuckers I'm going to go after. Bill: [laughs] Marc: I'm serious. Bill: I know you are. I know you are. Marc: I know it many times. Bill: I'm laughing, because I know it's true and I just got to know how you think. Marc: I told all my friends, I said, "I'm going to go after this motherfucker." I said, "When the time was right, this guy's going to know exactly who I am." Because I don't need to be suspended on Twitter by that motherfucker at any point in time or anyone. Bill: Yeah. Well, especially for saying that you told the guy to execute like, "Come on. It's not some micro aggression or something." Marc: No. Bill: It's ridiculous. Marc: Yeah. Bill: Twitter's nuts. How'd they do that? Marc: They banned me, I appealed it, they actually rejected my appeal, and I said, "Okay, fine. I'll remember this. I will remember this." Bill: [laughs] Now, Twitter is on the list to somehow. Marc: No, Twitter's Twitter. You know just what interstate you're on and you know what neighborhood you're in. So, it's easy. Bill: Yeah, no doubt. Well, I was going to ask you, if the public fights are worth it, but after what you said about my medics, I know you've hung it up. I've wondered whether or not you're going to take one more up, but I suspect probably not given the pain that that may have brought to your life. So, I'm sorry. You had to go through it. I'm glad that you were right and thanks for getting somebody behind bars, man. It was a service to the country. Marc: Yes. Better story coming and everyone will know why I'm done with that. Bill: Well, we'll do a follow up sometime, if you don't mind. Marc: Yeah, but this is good. Bill: Yeah, I've had a great time. Thank you so much for saying yes. Best to you and your family. I hope your son's doing well and we'll talk soon. Marc: Everyone's good. Thank you and we'll do it again. Be in touch. [Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]