Introducing: Blood River

Brad Jacobs has made a career of starting, consolidating, and growing whole industries. He did a trucking company. He did a warehouse company. He has a freight brokerage. He created an equipment rental company. His new venture, dubbed QXO, aims to reshape the big and sprawling market for building supplies, which can encompass residential, infrastructure and commercial real estate. And he has $4.5 billion of his and his investors' money to go out and buy and build. In this special episode of the Odd Lots podcast, recorded live at the Bloomberg Invest conference in New York City, he talks about where he is in the new process, and what he plans to do once he's made his acquisitions.

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Does it feel to you like society has gone crazy? Well, you're not alone. There's a general view that all around the world, in the realms of politics, culture, business, and so forth, a lot of people are losing their minds. So if this is true, what's the reason for it? On this episode we speak with Dan Davies, the author of the new book The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions - And How The World Lost Its Mind. Dan talks about the field of study known as cybernetics, and the inevitable outcomes of systems that grow more and more complex. This complexity -- which describes many things in the modern world, and leads to what Dan calls "accountability sinks," or entities that basically exist just to be blamed for things that have gone wrong. Dan walks us through how these emerged in the modern world, where things are headed, and how the trend could theoretically be reversed.

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Neil Dutta, the top economist over at Renaissance Macro, has generally been sunny and optimistic about the economy over the last four years or so. But now he's warning of a possible mistake by the Federal Reserve. In his view, the central bank is waiting too long to get confirmation that inflation is coming back to target. Meanwhile, unemployment is starting to creep up in a meaningful way. As he sees it, if you're still worried about upside risk to inflation at this point, you need to have a theory about where that inflation is going to come from — and it's really hard to come up with an answer for that right now, given the general downward momentum in hiring and the overall economy. In this episode of Lots More, we catch up with Neil to talk about the risk that the Fed will blow the soft landing.

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 From cars to toys to clothes, we're just used to seeing the label "Made In China" on all sorts of things. But how did China become a go-to destination for manufactured goods in the first place? Who actually recognized that there was a huge opportunity to tap the abundant, low-cost labor to sell goods to Western consumers? On this episode of the podcast we speak with Elizabeth Ingleson, a professor at the London School of Economics and the author of the book Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade. Ingleson traces the roots of the US-China trade relationship to a handful of US entrepreneurs in the early 1970s who first went into the country and recognized its opportunity as an export powerhouse. We discuss who these individuals were, the obstacles they had to overcome, and how they reshaped the entire global economy.

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The stock market has had a torrid run in 2024 despite the fact that interest rate cuts haven't materialized in the way people had expected at the start of the year. In fact, outside of a few blips here and there (like spring 2020), US stocks have been phenomenal performers for years. Tom Lee, the founder of Fundstrat and FS Insight has been bullish for a long time, having caught the correct side of this lengthy trend. On this episode, we speak to the former JPMorgan strategist about how he thinks about the market, what he sees happening right now in macro and demographic trends, and why he thinks it’s plausible that the market could roughly triple in the next six years.

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Everyone knows that the AI boom is built upon the voracious consumption of chips (largely sold by Nvidia) and electricity. And while the legacy cloud operators, like Amazon or Microsoft, are in this space, the nature of the computing shift is opening up new space for new players in the market. One of the hottest companies is CoreWeave, a company backed in part by Nvidia, which has grown its datacenter business massively. So how does their business actually work? How do they get energy? Where do they locate operations? How are they financed? What's the difference between a cloud AI and a legacy cloud? On this episode, we speak with CoreWeave's Chief Strategy Officer Brian Venturo about what it takes to build out operations at this scale.

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Virtually everyone, across the ideological spectrum, has the view right now that it's too hard to build things (or get things done generally) in America. New infrastructure is thwarted by red tape and permitting. New housing is thwarted by YIMBYism. Even something that doesn't require much new construction -- like NYC's attempt to impose congestion pricing -- is difficult to get done after years and years of wrangling. What is the core problem? And what can be done to address it? On this episode, we speak with John Arnold, who started his career as an energy trader at Enron, before going on to found a highly successful energy hedge fund. Now in his role as the co-founder of Arnold Ventures, he works on policy solutions to address these key bottlenecks. We discuss how he goes about philanthropy to affect policy change, the problems he's identified, and what solutions could be put in place to improve domestic development.

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Throughout history, financial markets have struggled with the issue of borders. Borders create friction, add cost and cause headaches for anyone who wants to spend money across them. On top of that, various national currencies can be wildly unstable.

Could a borderless, global currency ease friction and enhance financial inclusion and stability around the world? Cryptocurrencies offer an intriguing possible solution to money’s border problem. And a particular kind of cryptocurrency, called stablecoins, could become a powerful medium of exchange for international payments - and offer people around the world increased economic freedom.

This episode is sponsored by Coinbase.

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For much of this year, the S&P 500 has marched steadily higher while measures of stock market volatility, like the VIX, have stayed pretty low. But looking at the headline index only tells you part of the story. Beneath the surface of the S&P 500, individual stocks have been moving up and down a lot. And of course, traders have figured out a way to make money on the difference between the quiet overall index and all that volatility happening in individual stocks. This is the dispersion trade that's gotten quite a bit of attention in recent months. But figuring out exactly who's doing it and how pervasive it is isn't that easy. In this episode, we speak with Michael Purves, CEO and founder of Tallbacken Capital Advisors, and Josh Silva, managing partner and CIO at Passaic Partners, about this new volatility trade and what it means for the overall stock market.

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A few lucky people have made generational wealth trading the ups and downs of the crypto market. And some finance professionals have shifted gears to focus primarily on the space. But what is it like to actually trade these coins day-to-day? How do people pick which ones to buy? How do they analyze the coins themselves? How do they get reliable information? And what is it like, emotionally, to trade such an infamously volatile asset? On this episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Julian Malinak. In his day job, Julian works in healthcare tech. But the rest of the time, he's looking on message boards for the next 100-bagger. At one point he had made enough to retire on. And then it all went poof. But he keeps grinding and trying to improve his craft. Julian — who we found on the Odd Lots Discord server — explains what he does all day, and how the market really works from a trading perspective. 

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Activist Eugene Puryear discusses the underlying problems with gun violence in America that you won't hear on Mainstream Media! Plus a special report from Election Justice USA and so much more!

Deep dive into hot topics surrounding the poignant mini-series When They See Us.  We discuss the risks of being a minority in the US, the dismissive tones of peers, and the lack of movement in civil rights.  We also learn that prison transfers can be a very bad thing.

Sensitive topics so an Explicit rating has been placed here.

/commentarynoaf

/alxisvisions

/carlitoswayxxii

One of my closest friends has been on the board of Exhale to Inhale for years.  As someone who is passionate about women’s rights and leadership, who loves yoga, and who has supported teen survivors as a school counselor, I’ve been inspired by their work and have contributed to the organization.

I was curious to learn more about how this important work came into being, and how it has grown to support more and more survivors of violence over time. This conversation with Zoe, the founder and executive director, is honest and real about what the journey has been and why it’s so important for us as women to courageously show up. 

Enjoy, share with your friends, and please leave a quick review wherever you listen.

We talk about:

• How and why she started a non-profit organization while in college
• The shame and secrecy of domestic violence
• Exploring privilege, access, and opportunity
• How yoga changed her life and yoga as a tool for healing
• The idea of opting-in to leadership, even if you don’t know exactly “how”
• The #metoo and #timesup movements
• Intention vs. impact

About Zoe:

Zoë is proud to be the Founder and Executive Director of Exhale to Inhale. Zoë found personal strength and comfort in yoga before completing her yoga teacher training in 2009. As a senior at Barnard College in 2013, Zoë founded Exhale to Inhale. She created the vision for the organization and ensured the correct individuals and systems were in place to make her vision become a reality. Zoë spent three years as a consultant at a boutique consulting firm in New York City, before gratefully returning full time to Exhale to Inhale. She is committed to curiosity, and to choosing joy and gratitude. Zoë is thankful to all of her teachers both on and off the mat.

Connect with Zoe and Exhale to Inhale:

https://exhaletoinhale.org/

https://www.instagram.com/exhale2inhale/

https://www.instagram.com/zoelepagenyc/

Other resources mentioned:

Allison Malmon’s episode

Erica’s episode

Y12R yoga for recovery

Melody’s episode

"It's cool to hate capitalism because most of us are raised in government schools," says David Gornoski. How can we have a truly free market when the referee is always paid off to rig the game? We need to get the notion out of our heads that saving money to defer consumption is somehow 'greed.' Do we realize that much of what constitutes the criticism of capitalism are justifications for throwing non-violent people into prison? Also, James Kourtides calls in to discuss his YouTube video 21st Century Questions and his thoughts on Rene Girard and Gilles Deleuze. How can we move towards actual solutions without conforming to the political scapegoat mechanism and even our own personal pet-peeve scapegoating? Listen to the full episode to find out.

Follow James Kourtides' channel on YouTube
Email A Neighbor's Choice with a guest suggestion, story tip or question at hello@aneighborschoice.com
Find David Gornoski on YouTube
Visit the A Neighbor's Choice website at aneighborschoice.com