The Exchanges

Q What do you think are the biggest misunderstandings or misnomers that people have or carry towards SPACs?

A I still think the biggest one is nobody understands this, this, or not nobody. Few appreciated the reality that you're giving away an option on your company for an extended period of time, and it became so clear, it becomes crystal clear in volatile markets. But, and it's also like, oh, it, well, like options are, it's a, it's sort of a one-way option, which is if things are going up, you gave away the option too cheap. If things are going down, you get it back. And so it's, it's in every case, Worse for you. But there was a good that came out of SPACs, which is a lot of these companies that did SPAC now have to confront the public markets, now confront more sort of realistic, uh, valuations, and I think that's an opportunity for people with capital to find real opportunities.

AI assessment note: “Few appreciated the reality that you're giving away an option on your company”

Q How do you manage that morale internally? Because it is nerve-wracking for a lot of younger people who've never seen this before. Um, you know, you're a silver fox in the room with wisdom. Um, how do you manage their morale and talk to them when they are shitting themselves about what could be their first working recession?

A Well, we have a, uh, we're, we're lucky to have something at IAC, which is a lot of people with tenure. So they both are very familiar with IAC and the way we operate. And they've been through a lot of different cycles and markets and environments. And so you have a mix of people like that and people who have not had that experience. And I think having that mix in an organization is Is really helpful for, for striking balance and learning, because if it's all the people who haven't experienced those things and then sort of one person who has the knowledge or did the research or has the experience, then it's, it could be, well, that person's out on an island and, and they don't get us and they don't get what's going on. But if you have a mix of those things, then I think you're, you've got a breadth of point of views where people can interact and have a dialogue around that.

AI assessment note: “having that mix in an organization is Is really helpful for, for striking balance”

Q fearful when others are greedy. The trouble is, if you want to be greedy when others are fearful, you need other people, if you're reliant on cash, to share that greed, and what I'm seeing now is there's a lot of opportunities, but people aren't willing to fund them because they share everyone else's fear. How do you think about having the courage to be greedy when others are fearful?

A Well, you've, you've Hit on a very important point, which is you need capital to be greedy when others are fearful. And that means that you need to have been preparing for that moment in advance. Uh, now no one can time those things right, but you need to have been operating in a way where you have the ability in the capital to, to be greedy in those moments. And that's a very hard thing to do, but you're right. Everybody right now is talking about, oh, there's so many opportunities. There's so many things that I want to buy. I just don't have enough. I just don't have enough capital to do it. Well, of course, that's what's happening. When capital is scarce, things are cheap, and when capital is abundant, things are expensive. Where the, the opportunity is, is when you've built up capital and been able to hold on to it through those periods to, to be able to take advantage of the moments to be greedy.

AI assessment note: “you need to have been operating in a way where you have the ability”

Q Can I ask you, you know, we, we see a lot of changes in markets. Uh, one thing I would like to discuss is also changes just in, in you as well. And over time, we have changes to our financial profiles, and one that's always an interesting one is kind of one's relationship to money, I find. How do you think about your own relationship to money today, Joey?

A It certainly evolved over time, but somebody I knew well once said to me, ah, money is around, sometimes it rolls towards you, sometimes it rolls away from you. And you gotta remember that that's true. I mean, never did I have a more distorted sense of my net worth than, than probably in November of twenty-twenty-one. And, you know, you look at things on paper, and then you, things change, and, and I always sort of had a Sense or the knowledge that that was possible, if not likely that, you know, things go up and down. But when it happened so severely and so quickly, you, you appreciate how real that, uh, truism is. And I do, but also, you know, you gotta put things in perspective. I remember the first time I made money, I was running a business for IAC and I had a deal where I got, uh, paid a certain amount if we hit a certain amount of metrics. And Or a certain level of metrics, and when we did that, I and my colleagues got paid very well, and that was very exciting, and I felt like the, the richest person on earth. And I did a fun weekend with my friends, and, and I said, this is like top of the world. And then, you know, you go on to do more things, and you earn some more, and, but then you, you have this crash, and you say, oh, I, I feel like I've been crushed, and whatever. But if I look back, I say, well, I'm doing much better now than I was when I felt like I was the ri…

AI assessment note: “if you put those things in perspective, I think you can get a little more, uh, relaxed”

Q What do you think are the biggest mistakes that people make that you see around you in failing to simplify?

A Taking on too many projects at once. That's a huge one. Um, you know, people say, oh, I mean, they're, all people cared about, if we go back to the prior market, all people cared about was TAM, Total Addressable Market. And they said, my TAM is so big that I can do so much in this TAM, and I have to get all of this TAM, and I have to launch all of these products to tackle the TAM. That mistake was spreading yourself too thin, taking on too many competitors or markets at once, and I, we saw a lot of people do that when they had too much capital to overextend themselves and complexify rather than simplify.

AI assessment note: “Taking on too many projects at once. That's a huge one.”

Q We mentioned kind of opportunities that one should or could take. An opportunity that many took over the last couple of years was to SPAC, um, obviously an alternative mechanism of going public. And when you look at SPACs today, I think, like, 98% are trading abysmally below, you know, trading price originally. Why did they not work as a mechanism, Joey?

A There's a bunch of concepts in the SPAC that are flawed, but the most underrated in, in my mind, but also the biggest flaw was the way the SPAC works. And we looked at this with one of our, uh, companies that we're involved in. The way it works is you, you build a company for as long as it takes you to build a company, you get it to a position where you think it, it can maybe endure the public markets. And then in that critical moment, You give somebody else who doesn't know your company at all a free option on effectively selling that company to the public for three months. That is completely insane. That does not make sense, I don't think, for any great company. It can make sense for other things, but I don't think it makes sense for any great company. It can make sense for, uh, an idea where you need somebody to help go fund an idea for you, so these, these Things, actually, a lot of the things that went out early that are sort of ideas are a little bit more than an advanced idea, but have no business yet, haven't built a business around it. That's just saying we need help fundraising, go figure out how to fundraise this for, for us so that we can continue building this idea into something that may be a business. But if you have a business, you'd be crazy to give somebody a three month or multi month option on Selling your story to a new set of investors.

AI assessment note: “There's a bunch of concepts in the SPAC that are flawed, but the most underrated”

Q Can I ask you, you know, we, we see a lot of changes in markets. Uh, one thing I would like to discuss is also changes just in, in you as well. And over time, we have changes to our financial profiles, and one that's always an interesting one is kind of one's relationship to money, I find. How do you think about your own relationship to money today, Joey?

A It certainly evolved over time, but somebody I knew well once said to me, ah, money is around, sometimes it rolls towards you, sometimes it rolls away from you. And you gotta remember that that's true. I mean, never did I have a more distorted sense of my net worth than, than probably in November of twenty-twenty-one. And, you know, you look at things on paper, and then you, things change, and, and I always sort of had a Sense or the knowledge that that was possible, if not likely that, you know, things go up and down. But when it happened so severely and so quickly, you, you appreciate how real that, uh, truism is. And I do, but also, you know, you gotta put things in perspective. I remember the first time I made money, I was running a business for IAC and I had a deal where I got, uh, paid a certain amount if we hit a certain amount of metrics. And Or a certain level of metrics, and when we did that, I and my colleagues got paid very well, and that was very exciting, and I felt like the, the richest person on earth. And I did a fun weekend with my friends, and, and I said, this is like top of the world. And then, you know, you go on to do more things, and you earn some more, and, but then you, you have this crash, and you say, oh, I, I feel like I've been crushed, and whatever. But if I look back, I say, well, I'm doing much better now than I was when I felt like I was the ri…

AI assessment note: “put those things in perspective, I think you can get a little more, uh, relaxed”

Q How do you manage that morale internally? Because it is nerve-wracking for a lot of younger people who've never seen this before. Um, you know, you're a silver fox in the room with wisdom. Um, how do you manage their morale and talk to them when they are shitting themselves about what could be their first working recession?

A Well, we have a, uh, we're, we're lucky to have something at IAC, which is a lot of people with tenure. So they both are very familiar with IAC and the way we operate. And they've been through a lot of different cycles and markets and environments. And so you have a mix of people like that and people who have not had that experience. And I think having that mix in an organization is Is really helpful for, for striking balance and learning, because if it's all the people who haven't experienced those things and then sort of one person who has the knowledge or did the research or has the experience, then it's, it could be, well, that person's out on an island and, and they don't get us and they don't get what's going on. But if you have a mix of those things, then I think you're, you've got a breadth of point of views where people can interact and have a dialogue around that.

AI assessment note: “breadth of point of views where people can interact and have a dialogue around that”