Joe Lonsdale: American Optimist
Nearly half of all Americans don't have investment accounts. Financial literacy is the exception, not the norm, in most households. Is it no wonder that so many young Americans distrust capitalism and misunderstand wealth creation?Brad Gerstner is stepping up with a solution: a legislative program called Invest America that would create an investment account seeded with $1,000 from the Treasury Department for each of the 3.7 million children born every year in the U.S. His aim is to educate the next generation on the merits of free markets and give every child a financial upside in American innovation. With nominal recurring contributions starting at birth, a child turning 30 today would have over $250,000 in an Invest America account!Brad is the Founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, a firm he grew from less than $3 million in 2008 to billions of dollars in assets under management today. A leading voice in Silicon Valley, Brad is a four-time founder with a knack for identifying major trends early, from Booking.com, Zillow, and Uber to Snowflake and Mongo. In this episode, he provides his macro outlook on the economy and explains why he believes AI is the next big supercycle but also why being early in a cycle isn't always the right play.