The Exchanges

Q I'm not talking about equity. I'm talking about the assets that you hold with relatively lower risk, like gold and treasury and Bitcoin, which is not you taking a bet on a particular industry, but some place to park money. What else would you do?

A I see. In other words, you're, you're not asking whether there's equities in the portfolio or bonds or what country or anything like that. You're just saying that piece of equities. Okay. Then you think about, um, that on that storeholder wealth, you start to think about what that nature of that thing is. There aren't many. Some might say there are gems. Some might say there are works of art. I mean, basically when they say these things, they're going through criteria, which is, uh, can I move them around? Um, are they storeholds of wealth that are recognized in different places? They're not like real estate. Real estate is something that's nailed down in a location. It's easy to tax. It's not transferable and so on. So it's, you know, those kinds of things.

AI assessment note: “Some might say there are gems. Some might say there are works of art.”

Q No, thank you for doing this. Everybody knows you, but if we could go through, like, the big events of your life, and very briefly, just to set context again, could you tell us how you look at your life from the very beginning, from when you were younger up until today?

A Okay. Um, my dad was a jazz musician. My mom Uh, was a sort of saved on mom. Uh, I was raised, and uh, I didn't have any brothers or sisters. Um, it was a loving family. Um, it was, um, not poor, not, it was lower middle class. Um, I did jobs when I was young. Uh, I, one of those jobs was caddying for, at a golf course. And because I caddied at a golf course at the time when there was a stock market boom, The people I caddied with, I would have conversations with, and I took the money I earned, six dollars a bag, I carried two bags, 12 dollars for a round. When I got 50 dollars, I would put it in the stock market. And so I started, um, playing around in the stock market, much like you're describing our audience does. And, um, the first stock I bought I bought only because it was the only company I ever heard of that was selling for less than five dollars a share. And I thought, well, then I can buy more shares. So if it goes up, I'll make more money, which of course made no sense. But it was a company that, uh, was about to go bankrupt, but another company acquired it and it tripled in value. And I thought, this is easy. It's not easy. But I got hooked on the markets at 12.

AI assessment note: “my dad was a jazz musician. My mom Uh, was a sort of saved”

Q You've spoken about karma and meditation, and does that play a role in your investor career? It makes you a better investor?

A Oh, it's a, it's a, These are dominant things. Meditation has been the biggest source of success that I, um, have. It's given me an equanimity. It's given me, um, when you transcend, I do transcendental meditation, this and that. When you transcend, you're going into your subconscious, and as you go into your subconscious, it helps align your subconscious with your conscious. It brings back a creativity. I bring back a flow because like creativity, if you go take a hot shower and you, you're relaxed and so on, ideas can come to you much better perhaps than if you try to muscle them out. So meditation has played an important role. And then karma, I, I, I believe in the, the reality is, um, is that, um, by people mutually helping each other, Or, and not just people, but operating in a way that's also helpful to nature and the world, that there is this greater, um, there's this greater good. And that what happens is it's very functional because a little things that won't take much for me to help somebody else can make a life difference to them. And then they, um, when they do something, Whether it's to me or whether others you might create an environment like that, you create a better environment. So not only is it practical, it also has the effect of creating this wonderful, uh, environment. Um, you look at, um, studies of history and you find in studies of history, uh, what brin…

AI assessment note: “These are dominant things. Meditation has been the biggest source of success that I, um, have.”

Q replicated today, I mean, there are people who are talking about it as a by-product of fusion and how they will create it like they did lab-grown diamonds. I don't want to extrapolate that far. But with gold, isn't it based on faith? Isn't it a bit like religion? Because gold inherently, I get that it's a great place to store value, but does gold have enough utility in isolation?

A Money doesn't have much utility, generally speaking, right? If you're carrying around cash, it's paper, it doesn't have much utility. So I don't think it's utility. I think you got to get out of the utility perspective of gold. Um, every, every thing that's money Could be a risk. Does it stay money? So for example, in the history of gold, when there were great discoveries of gold, then the value of gold is affected by the quantity of those discoveries. And if they could replicate gold, like they'd been replicating diamonds, then that becomes a risk of gold. So there are all risks to all monies that are of a similar nature in terms of Uh, replicating the, the supply of them or also, um, the acceptance of them as a money, you know, there became, um, gold fell out of fashion as a money and bonds fell into fashion. But the historic thing to know is that throughout history, there is always the temptation. What, uh, when, when, when you, uh, there's a fiat money, which easily could be produced. And then there's the temptation of the interest rate. Okay. Gold doesn't have an interest rate. Okay. No interest rate.

AI assessment note: “Money doesn't have much utility, generally speaking... get out of the utility perspective of gold.”

Q I think everybody wants to play the game, and they're attempting to play the game, but what will be really cool is if we can get an insight from you of how to play the game. Like, if I were to be looking to begin today, should I look at, is value in public markets, in private markets, should I be?

A I, I, I think it's more like the opposite. What happens is, You find your thing. Okay. There are many different games. If you look around you, there are many different games. You know, it's, um, I have my grandchildren, um, sell, um, hot cider in the winter in a park. And that was, and then they understand capital formation. I have to buy the, the, the flask. I have to buy the table. Okay. That's capital formation. Then they understand when they go out That, okay, if I can, uh, produce it, what's my incremental cost? I mean, unit cost for producing it relative to, I could sell it at this. I have a margin of this. Then they understand margin. And then they understand that they make money when that overcomes their capital cost. Okay. The play in the game, they start to think about that way. Then they start speaking with others. Gee, can I, where can I get the cider Cheaper, or whatever, and, and so on. So, there are all these games around you, ok? And start to play, then you'll ask the questions, then you'll dig, and so on. Or, yeah, you can find somebody who'll help you, and they might say, hey, here's this little job that you can do. Whatever it is, it is that little germination that then creates, um, Empires. That, that, that's the process of going from wherever you are in India to, or wherever you are. For me, caddying on a golf course in the United States. That's the process…

AI assessment note: “I think it's more like the opposite. What happens is, You find your thing.”

Q And also, how does India fit into this? What can we do better?

A Um, I think the technology war is the most important war that almost whoever wins the technology war will win almost everything. I think that right now you have a situation where they recognize that the each side can do harm to them and actually is using techniques. And so there we're now in a period of time of inter eliminate or reduce interdependencies. That there's a list that both countries or all countries are going on, and they say, how can I squeeze the other? What dependency do they have that I can use to squeeze the other? Or what dependency do I have that might be used against me to create squeezes? And that's in capital as well as trade and so on. So everybody's now going to kind of this independence and, you know, minimizing interdependence. Because that's the smart thing to do, whatever, because I will be squeezed if I can be, it'll be used against me. So that's where we are on that and then compete to become most effective, most powerful, most rich, most powerful. They're both doing that and technology will be important. So I think that over those periods of time, you're going to see, um, that dynamic. Um, I think China, uh, they're ahead and behind in different ways. Um, for example, the inventiveness of new chips, um, and the most advanced chips, um, the United States is a bit ahead, is, is ahead. Um, and then, uh, but the application to use the chips, whatever …

AI assessment note: “I think the technology war is the most important war that almost whoever wins”