Cathie Wood on Tesla, robotaxis and a $1.5M Bitcoin forecast

1. 0:00 – 2:16

   Intro

   1. SBSteven Bartlett0:00

      I've read through a decade of your research to figure out what the best investment is, so anyone can get rich in the future. And you've predicted that this will grow by at least 5000%.

   2. CWCathie Wood0:10

      Yes. And my conviction is so high because of what I do on a day-to-day basis.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett0:15

      Is there a woman on planet Earth that manages more money from an investing capacity than you?

   4. CWCathie Wood0:20

      Maybe not. I'm overseeing nearly $30 billion.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett0:24

      Okay, so I might have $500. What should I be doing with that?

   6. CWCathie Wood0:27

      So this is all you need to know.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett0:29

      Cathie Wood built a multi-billion dollar fund by spotting trends before anyone else. And now, with over 40 years of market insight, she's showing you how and where to invest too.

   8. CWCathie Wood0:39

      AI is the biggest technological disruption in history, and this incredible rate of change is making people uncomfortable. But if you are on the right side of change, investment opportunities and job opportunities are going to be enormous. But people don't know what to do. For example, many people think Apple is a very safe investment. It is probably going to be disrupted by artificial intelligence, but yet Tesla's going to be the biggest.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett1:06

      You've invested just over two billion in Tesla?

   10. CWCathie Wood1:09

       Yeah, because Tesla is the largest AI project on Earth. So, AI has to be a top priority, not an afterthought.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett1:19

       So, I've got questions. What's your top 10 public stocks that anybody can invest in? What's the philosophy towards investing that will make one rich over time? And then if I wanna invest in AI, how should I be investing my money?

   12. CWCathie Wood1:30

       According to our research, these investments will go up more than tenfold in the next five to 10 years, and create incredible opportunities for investors. So, number one...

   13. SBSteven Bartlett1:44

       This has always blown my mind a little bit. 53% of you that listen to this show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the show. So could I ask you for a favor before we start? If you like the show and you like what we do here and you wanna support us, the free, simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the subscribe button. And my commitment to you is if you do that, then I'll do everything in my power, me and my team, to make sure that this show is better for you every single week. We'll listen to your feedback, we'll find the guests that you want me to speak to, and we'll continue to do what we do. Thank you so much.

2. 2:16 – 5:33

   Investing in the Most Disruptive Industries

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:16

      Cathie Wood, is there a woman on planet Earth that manages more money from an investing capacity than you?

   2. CWCathie Wood2:23

      Well, there's probably not someone overseeing, yes, th- nearly $30 billion, uh, but I know there are teams out there, including women-

   3. SBSteven Bartlett2:35

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWCathie Wood2:35

      ... that manage maybe a lot more than that.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett2:38

      What is it that you do?

   6. CWCathie Wood2:40

      Invest in companies that are going to... that are technologically enabled and that, that are going to transform the world as we know it. Robotics-

   7. SBSteven Bartlett2:52

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CWCathie Wood2:52

      ... energy storage, artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and multi-omic sequencing in the life science space. The last is the most complicated.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett3:05

      And how long have you been an, an investor?

   10. CWCathie Wood3:07

       I started when I was 20 years old at a company called Capital Group, and I was introduced to the firm by Art Laffer. Now, Art Laffer, he's one of the most important economists of our time. He created something called the Laffer Curve. He's advised most presidents since President Nixon, and he's ad- advising President Trump as well.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett3:31

       And how is these five big innovation platforms that you speak of, how is that going to have an impact on the average person's life? Like, why do they need to know this stuff? How is it gonna-

   12. CWCathie Wood3:44

       It's, it, it is-

   13. SBSteven Bartlett3:44

       ... you know, change their decision-making and change their career and...

   14. CWCathie Wood3:47

       Now that the world is moving so quickly into this new world, uh, and Bitcoin has become, uh, so successful a- an investment, many people are trying to figure out, "Okay, how, how do I get involved with the new world?"

   15. SBSteven Bartlett4:06

       Mm-hmm.

   16. CWCathie Wood4:06

       And when I say get on the right side of change, we think there's going to be a lot of disruption to the traditional world order. When I say that, uh, in terms of people understanding what I mean, I think many people think Apple is a very safe investment because huge hoard of cash, very successful smartphone, you know, number one market share o- of smartphones in terms of profitability by far, and yet we can tell you... And this was one of what's called the Mag 6 that led the stock market over the last few years.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett4:44

       The top six stocks.

   18. CWCathie Wood4:45

       The top six stocks. The market was very narrowly focused on this ilk of stock. And we were saying, "You know what? Apple is probably going to be disrupted by artificial intelligence." And one of the reasons we started asking questions very early is, what is the ultimate mobile device? Ultimately, it's going to be an autonomous vehicle. Apple should have been all over that, and they were trying, and we saw one management turnover after another. This is an AI project, and what we were learning as they were turning that team over, uh, time and again, is they, they weren't getting AI right. They were not positioning correctly.

3. 5:33 – 6:09

   Big Companies Will Crash If They Don’t Adapt Quickly

   1. CWCathie Wood5:33

   2. SBSteven Bartlett5:33

      You're concerned for Apple?

   3. CWCathie Wood5:36

      I think Apple, it has so much cash, it has such a loyal customer base, uh, it will be fine, but maybe... I- its revenue growth has slowed to almost nothing.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett5:48

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWCathie Wood5:49

      And so maybe it'll be a mature cash cow. That's not what we do. We invest in technologically enabled disruptive innovation. AI is the biggest dis- technological disruption in history.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett6:04

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWCathie Wood6:05

      And if they're not going to get it right, we're not going to be there.

4. 6:09 – 8:52

   Where to Invest to Be Rich in the Next 10 Years

   1. CWCathie Wood6:09

   2. SBSteven Bartlett6:09

      So if I wanna invest in AI, if I agree with you, Cathie, and I say, "Do you know what? I think you're, I think you're right, that AI is the biggest technological wave coming into shore and the biggest opportunity," w-How, how should I be investing my money? In, in, in your view? How are you investing your money to capitalize on AI?

   3. CWCathie Wood6:25

      Many people used to invest in AI through one stock, that was NVIDIA. That was the check the box, "I own the GPU," the chip manufacturer, which is the most important, uh, chip manufacturer in the AI age. And its valuation, meaning its, uh, price relative to earnings, um, really got up to very heady levels. And we were saying at the time, "Well, if NVIDIA's valuation is correct, there are g- there are m- there are going to be a lot of other winners." Who are they? Uh, well, our largest position in the flagship strategy, ARKK, is Tesla. And as we were trying to help people understand why we were swapping away from NVIDIA to stocks like Tesla and Palantir, which is a software provider, um, we were trying to explain that this new world around AI is gonna happen very quickly, and, uh, Tesla is the largest AI project on Earth. Uh, I posted that on X, and Elon liked it, so it must be true. (laughs)

   4. SBSteven Bartlett7:41

      (laughs)

   5. CWCathie Wood7:42

      But it is true if our research is correct. Uh, we believe that, um, the entire ecosystem associated with autonomous, uh, taxi networks is going to be worth $8 to $10 trillion in terms of revenue generation in the next five to 10 years. And if you wanna put that in context, the, the entire GDP of the world today is about 130 trillion. So, $10 trillion is going to move the needle.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett8:15

      Tesla are launching their first cyber taxi, I believe, in Austin in June, potentially?

   7. CWCathie Wood8:20

      Yes, it, uh, so the cyber cabs will launch next year, but in Austin in June, those will be Model Ys. And I'm looking to buy another Model Y because it will in- in effect be a cyber cab.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett8:35

      Okay.

   9. CWCathie Wood8:35

      And if I chose to, I could have my Model Y drive me to work and then let it out for the day and earn money on it, have it pick me up at the end of the night, and some people will do that. And Tesla will provide the platform for that.

5. 8:52 – 9:59

   The Biggest Employer in the World

   1. SBSteven Bartlett8:52

      I think a lot of people don't realize just how much of the economy is about driving.

   2. CWCathie Wood8:56

      Yes.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett8:57

      So, taxis, deliveries-

   4. CWCathie Wood8:59

      Yes.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett8:59

      ... all these kinds of things. It's a hu- is it the single- I think it's the single biggest employer in the world?

   6. CWCathie Wood9:03

      Yes.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett9:03

      Driving-

   8. CWCathie Wood9:04

      Transportation-

   9. SBSteven Bartlett9:04

      Transportation, right?

   10. CWCathie Wood9:05

       ... uh, broadly defined, yes. And, and it's not just on the ground, of course. Uh, as we've studied, uh, autonomous taxis, uh, moving forward, uh, we believe the cost of transportation will come down fairly dramatically. So, uh, in the US today, an Uber costs roughly f- $2 to $4 per mile.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett9:28

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CWCathie Wood9:30

       Um, at scale, now this may not be for five to 10 years, but this is the direction that Tesla certainly is headed, uh, we believe that Tesla will be able to offer a service for 25 cents per mile. And because of that, we think there will be much more congestion in the roads. When you cut the price of something, you get more of it.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett9:53

       Yeah.

   14. CWCathie Wood9:53

       And that led us into the air, and so we've been studer- studying EVTALS,

6. 9:59 – 10:47

   Flying Cars and EV Tools Will Shape the Future

   1. CWCathie Wood9:59

      um-

   2. SBSteven Bartlett9:59

      What's an EVTAL?

   3. CWCathie Wood10:00

      EVTOL is an electric vehicle takeoff and landing.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett10:05

      Like a drone type thing?

   5. CWCathie Wood10:05

      A drone but for, for people.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett10:08

      Yeah.

   7. CWCathie Wood10:09

      So we own Archer in our portfolio. And of course, AI is a part of this new world as well, um, and it's a part of the defense world as well, as we are trying to save our soldiers and, um, and move out there with autonomous drones. So, autonomous, uh, mobility on the ground, in the skies, ultimately on the water.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett10:35

      So, so Tesla?

   9. CWCathie Wood10:36

      So that's one big, we, we think that's going to be the biggest in the short term in terms of revenue generation, the biggest application of AI. We

7. 10:47 – 12:46

   Investing in AI Companies in the Health Care Industry

   1. CWCathie Wood10:47

      think the most profound application of AI is going to be in healthcare. Because of AI, and this is already beginning to happen, uh, we are able to diagnose cancer with a blood test in stage one. Think about that. If you discover cancer in stage one, you can save most people.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett11:12

      Crazy.

   3. CWCathie Wood11:12

      Right? And maybe even before stage one. Why? This is the convergence of sequencing technologies, so DNA, RNA, protein sequencing, uh, technologies, and then the third, uh, technology that is breakthrough and already making a difference is CRISPR gene editing. The convergence of those three technologies is beginning to cure disease. So, uh, a company called CRISPR Therapeutics, which is one of the largest in our ARKG fund, and in the top 10 in our ARKK fund, uh, has developed a therapy, uh, to cure sickle cell disease with, and beta thalassemia, both of those are blood-related diseases, with one treatment. Think about that. Now, the preconditioning for that is gruesome. It's, it's, uh, it involves, it's almost like chemotherapy, uh, which is going to change. Uh, but nonetheless, there's huge demand for it because, you know, these people go to the emergency room-... 10 to 20 times per year for blood transfusions to save their lives.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett12:32

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWCathie Wood12:32

      Of course, they're going to go through a tough regimen. They want to live a more normal life. Uh, so it's already generating revenue. Both, both of those are already generating revenue for CRISPR Therapeutics and a company called Vertex.

8. 12:46 – 15:13

   Why Tesla Will 10x in the Next 5 Years

   1. CWCathie Wood12:46

   2. SBSteven Bartlett12:46

      So there's, there's... Well, there's three or four different companies you've mentioned here, Tesla. The other one was Archer.

   3. CWCathie Wood12:51

      Archer is the eVTOL company, yes.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett12:53

      Which is your flying cars basically, your drone cars.

   5. CWCathie Wood12:56

      Yes. (laughs)

   6. SBSteven Bartlett12:56

      And CRISPR and Tesla. So if I start with Tesla, you were bullish on Tesla. You were making big predictions about Tesla before pretty much anyone else out there, I think in 2015.

   7. CWCathie Wood13:07

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett13:07

      And at the time in 2015, you said that you believed the stock would get above 4,000 roughly.

   9. CWCathie Wood13:13

      Right, on the old stock.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett13:14

       Yeah, on the... Before the stock split.

   11. CWCathie Wood13:16

       Yes.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett13:16

       And you were right by some significant margin. Um, I think you predicted it would be 4,000 before the stock, stock splits. And I think at its peak, that equates to about 18,000, maybe 12,000 at its peak.

   13. CWCathie Wood13:29

       Yes. Well-

   14. SBSteven Bartlett13:30

       In that region.

   15. CWCathie Wood13:31

       ... w- we, we were right about two earl- years, or Tesla w- got to where we believed it would go two years before most expected. You know, in 2018 and '19, many people as Elon was disc- discussing and describing production hell for the Model 3-

   16. SBSteven Bartlett13:54

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWCathie Wood13:54

       ... um, many people thought the company would go bankrupt. And, uh, and yet we knew that if Elon Musk could create a reusable rocket that could land on a barge in the water, he would be able to figure out how to produce, at scale, the Model 3. That was, to us, a simple, um, conclusion. Now as, in hindsight, as we're learning from Tesla, production hell, and they themselves were worried. That's why Elon slept on the floor in the production factory and just became maniacally involved, which is how he works, uh, as, uh... So yes. And now our prediction, the stock is, I'm not gonna be exactly right on this, 270, 280, uh, dollars. Uh, our prediction in five years is 2,600. And 90% of that valuation comes not from the electric vehicle, but from this robotaxi platform. Uh, because the electric car, if you think about it, is, you know, a one-shot sale. You know, sell and hope they come back when they're replacing their car.

9. 15:13 – 18:30

   Your Autonomous Car Will Make You Money

   1. CWCathie Wood15:13

   2. SBSteven Bartlett15:13

      This essentially means that we'll be driving cars that we can click a button and the, then it becomes an autonomous taxi. So I go on holiday, I have my, my Tesla car at my house. When I go on holiday, the car turns into a taxi and starts chauffeuring people around. It makes me money, but also from the consumer's perspective that are trying to hail a taxi, at any point I can go on my Tesla app, press a button, a autonomous car comes to me with no one driving it, and it takes me to my destination with no driver at all.

   3. CWCathie Wood15:42

      Right.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett15:42

      Um, and then the recurring revenue model, I believe is you subs- you subscribe-

   5. CWCathie Wood15:47

      It, it probably could... It, it-

   6. SBSteven Bartlett15:49

      ... to a network?

   7. CWCathie Wood15:49

      ... it could be a sub- you could subscribe to the network or they could, uh, you know, maybe it could be either or, subscription-

   8. SBSteven Bartlett15:57

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWCathie Wood15:57

      ... or a la carte if you don't think you're gonna use it that much. So now when I'm here in the UK and Europe, many people do not believe what, what you just said. And, and they don't because your regulators have not allowed FSD here. I think they might s- I, I... Uh, somewhere in Europe I think they're beginning to consider it. Maybe even in the UK here they ha- ha- are considering it. Um, in St. Petersburg, Florida where we're based, um, I can go from my house to anywhere and flawlessly the car will take me there. Now we still have to sit in the driver's seat for now, but in June, uh, or soon thereafter when they turn the system on if regulators permit... Right now we're state by state. I think that's going to change so that we'll have federal regulations so that this can happen a lot faster. One other thing about Tesla though, in that $2,600 number, we do not include much for humanoid robots. Now I, w- this... And, and this is happening faster than we thought. Um, h- and the reason it's happening faster is humanoid robots, th- they are the convergence of the same three technologies or innovation platforms as robotaxis, ro- robots, robotics-

   10. SBSteven Bartlett17:31

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWCathie Wood17:31

       ... so actuators and so forth, getting them to work, energy storage, battery operated, and AI.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett17:38

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWCathie Wood17:39

       So Tesla's way ahead of the game on humanoid robots, and yet we have very little. Now Elon thinks that the humanoid robot business is going to dwarf the robotaxi business, and we think he's right, uh, but longer term. So as I mentioned, we expect all in around the world, including China, not just Tesla but the entire ecosystem, an eight to, uh, $10 trillion market, uh, in the next five to 10 years. For humanoid robots, uh, we expect a $26 trillion revenue market. Now that's going to be a little further along. Uh, robotaxis will happen faster, but it may not be as distant as we were once thinking.

10. 18:30 – 21:29

    How Humanoid Robots Will Free Our Time

    1. SBSteven Bartlett18:30

       For anyone that doesn't know, humanoid robots are basically robots that we'll have in our home and at work.

    2. CWCathie Wood18:35

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett18:36

       So these are... There was a video that, I think, um, Elon retweeted the other day showing one of the human, humanoid robots dancing.

    4. CWCathie Wood18:41

       Dancing, yes.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett18:42

       Was that real? I was, like, looking at that video thinking, "Surely that's not real." But he confirmed, I believe, that it was real.

    6. CWCathie Wood18:46

       Yes. Yes. Now, w- when we went to the CyberCab event, uh, there were some humanoid robots dancing there. But they were tethered, and they were remotely controlled.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett18:58

       Yeah.

    8. CWCathie Wood18:58

       Uh, now, CyberCab, I think, was, uh-

    9. SBSteven Bartlett19:01

       About a year ago.

    10. CWCathie Wood19:02

        Yes, maybe. So since then, they've been able to untether them, and, uh, I do believe that those, that dancing robot was, was, um, not tethered and not remotely controlled.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett19:16

        It was quite shocking to see a robot doing that. Because if a robot can have that dexterity and mobility, and then you overlay that with the AI technologies that are accelerating rapidly, it begs the question, and the question is quite clear, which is, what about humans?

    12. CWCathie Wood19:33

        Yes. Um, and just to put a finer t- uh, you know, note on this, um, Elon will not be satisfied until these robots can thread a needle.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett19:46

        Mm-hmm.

    14. CWCathie Wood19:46

        So that's where we're going.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett19:48

        What does that mean for humans?

    16. CWCathie Wood19:50

        So, you know, the history of technology is that it has been a net job creator throughout history. But humanoid robots are getting awfully close to what we do, right?

    17. SBSteven Bartlett20:04

        Yeah.

    18. CWCathie Wood20:04

        So it's a good question. I, I think creativity is a big part of that, ingenuity and creativity. And, you know, I think there's gonna be a, there are gonna be a lot of new inventions, uh, in the future. So let's see what those are. But even today, there's something called vibe coding.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett20:22

        Yeah.

    20. CWCathie Wood20:22

        Have you heard of it? Okay. Because we've moved into the world of natural language programming-

    21. SBSteven Bartlett20:32

        What is vibe coding for someone that doesn't know? It's...

    22. CWCathie Wood20:34

        Vibe coding means you know a natural language. I know, we all know a natural language. Ours is English for the most part, but it could be any language. Um, we're going to be able to go to ChatGPT or t- especially now, they just launched, I think, last week something called-

    23. SBSteven Bartlett20:54

        Codex.

    24. CWCathie Wood20:55

        ... Codex, Replit, uh, and Anthropics, fantastic for, for, um, programming, and we'll say, "This is what I'm attempting to do," in English language. And I, and I've seen demos of this just internally. We, we're going to replace some of our software that we're buying from outsiders and customize it for us because, you know, we don't have to buy off the shelf anymore, one size fits all. I think there's gonna be a lot more customization and personalization and creativity explosion here.

11. 21:29 – 25:24

    No Code Will Be Written by Humans

    1. CWCathie Wood21:29

       You know, it's interesting that this is happening when the demographic profile of the developed world is as it is. Uh, we have a very low unemployment rate in the US. I know the unemployment rates in Europe and the UK have been dropping to much lower levels than w- where they were stuck for years. I remember thinking, "Wow, double digits." Uh, we have a demographic issue. I mean, if you, if you watch what, uh, Elon Musk worries about the most, he, he worries about the population implosion, uh, because-

    2. SBSteven Bartlett22:04

       Collapse.

    3. CWCathie Wood22:05

       Collapse. Collapse in population in the developed world, um, because we're not, uh, uh, we're not producing children above the fertility rate. We're, we are setting up for a shrinkage with China's going there, Japan is going there. And so we're going to need productivity, uh, eh, w- productivity to help us if we can't find human beings.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett22:32

       Ah, okay. So you're s- so you're saying that the ro- robotics and AI could actually fill the gap that we lose in terms of productivity because our society's gonna be like an inverted pyramid. It's gonna be m- more, um, elderly people and less young people?

    5. CWCathie Wood22:44

       Yes. Yes.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett22:46

       So the robots are gonna... (laughs)

    7. CWCathie Wood22:47

       Yes, absolutely. It's, uh, productivity is going to be essential. So as we're looking at real growth ahead, and w- w- when you think about real growth, uh, you should be thinking, okay, somebody's benefiting from this. Um, and I'm going to set what I'm... I'm gonna set up the number here, uh, by describing what has happened historically. If you look from 1500 to 1900, and you try and figure out what real GDP growth was back then, real economic growth, um, as best as, uh, Brett Winton, our chief futurist, in consultation with academics, can determine, it was roughly 0.6% per year. And then we had the Industrial Revolution. Uh, we had the internal combustion engine, telephone, electricity. And for the past 125 years, real GDP growth has been 3%. And, and most li- living standards have gone up over time. Some more than others, I know that's a debate, but most have gone up. If we, as we look forward, based on the five innovation platforms around which we have centered our research and investing, if we're right, real GDP growth, in the next five years, could accelerate to 7.3%. And that gives you a sense of, uh, the economic ac- uh, activity, wealth generation out there. And w- when we are...... presenting to investors, we are actually presenting to them not only because they're investors, but because they have children or grandchildren who need to adapt to this new world. And our mantra in giving away our research, which we do, is get on the right side of change. We also do podcasts. Um, we, we try, uh, we do a lot of outreach because we think this is a very important moment in time. Uh, seize the moment, grab hold of these new technologies, because that growth rate is more than twice where we've been, and if you are on the right side of change, we think the opportunities are going to be enormous. Uh, investment opportunities and job opportunities.

12. 25:24 – 29:53

    The Companies That Will Make Money in the AI Era

    1. CWCathie Wood25:25

    2. SBSteven Bartlett25:25

       Yeah. I, I feel like I've, I feel like, um, I feel like I can't figure out what, how the displacement rate m- meets the creation rate. So the destruction rate of, of current jobs will meet the creation rate of new jobs, because many of these new jobs, I g- I guess, there's some of them we can't predict yet, I, I understand that, but even the ones that we can't predict yet would need to be inherently human, i.e. need the skills of a human for them to be occupied by, by humans. Um, so what category of stuff is that? Like, my, my girlfriend's a breathwork practitioner. She's upstairs now with 10 women, and she's teaching them breathwork.

    3. CWCathie Wood26:08

       Okay.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett26:08

       So she's fine.

    5. CWCathie Wood26:09

       Yeah.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett26:09

       Like, 'cause they're doing that in person, what, whatever. She's fine.

    7. CWCathie Wood26:12

       Well, and, uh, uh, maybe she's not if people decide that-

    8. SBSteven Bartlett26:15

       To do it on ChatGPT. (laughs)

    9. CWCathie Wood26:16

       Yeah, on ChatGPT. But-

    10. SBSteven Bartlett26:17

        (laughs)

    11. CWCathie Wood26:18

        But if they want to be with a group of women-

    12. SBSteven Bartlett26:22

        Yeah.

    13. CWCathie Wood26:23

        ... and, you know, learn from an expert whom they respect, uh, there's as much the social experience. That's gonna become more important. Relationships are gonna become more important. Many people in our business, I think are going to be out of jobs because, uh, the business has become really nothing, uh, I shouldn't be this disrespectful, and it's n- not, not quite right, but, uh, at all, uh, but, uh, you know, so many are just hugging benchmarks, uh, whether it's S&P 500 or MSCI World or the NASDAQ, that a machine can do that. A machine can do that easily, and that is what passive investing is, is machines doing it. I think, in order to earn a place in the new world, you've got to add a lot of value, more value than a machine can. So, in our case, we're saying, "Okay, well, our stocks are not in those benchmarks." Uh, and therefore, uh, you know, they're, they're, w- we are doing original research trying to figure out w- who they are and where they are, these, these companies that are going to transform the world.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett27:35

        Why can't AI replace what you're doing in terms of-

    15. CWCathie Wood27:38

        So, and we think about that all the time. So AI can use pattern recognition. It's all based on history, right? Uh, it can use pattern recognition, maybe, to do what we're doing. What are the three characteristics that define an innovation platform for us? The most important one is they follow something called Wright's law, which measures the learning curve, how fast the costs are gonna decline f- with this new technology. Technology is deflationary. Costs fall over time, and they're passed through into lower prices or better performance, one or the other. Um, that is the most important. A machine can figure that out, I'm sure. But asking the questions, uh, are going to be important. Like, there h- wasn't before 2014 when we started Arc much on autonomous mobility or eVTOLS or for that matter, AI. AI had become science fiction. There weren't any breakthroughs in recent years. But then we got some breakthroughs. So could, uh, so Wright's law is the first. Figure out that cost curve decline and, and see how quickly the technology can prolificate, uh, proliferate across sectors. That's the other criteria, c- criterion here. The technologies that we are following are going to cut across economic sectors and apply, uh, to more than one group of people. And then the third is that these technologies serve as launching pads for new technologies. So in the case of DNA sequencing, which was the base technology, we needed that before CRISPR gene editing, uh, could be created. We needed to be able to understand what was mutating in the genome, where the programming errors were so that gene editing could come in and edit out those programming errors.

13. 29:53 – 37:08

    Will Unemployment Be Higher in 5 Years?

    1. CWCathie Wood29:53

    2. SBSteven Bartlett29:53

       And do you think in five, 10 years from now that e- unemployment is gonna be higher or lower?

    3. CWCathie Wood29:58

       In five or 10 years, um, let's, let's assume we don't have a policy mistake an- and a recession, so just, just steady state, I think it will be the same or lower. And most of this is because those Baby Boomers are retiring. Uh, they're-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett30:19

       So they come out of the employment.

    5. CWCathie Wood30:20

       They come out of the labor force, and, uh, and the generations following them are smaller. Even now what's happening is, uh, we're, we're passing through the Baby Boom echo, meaning the children of the Baby Boom, that cohort was-Yeah, I don't think it was any bigger than the baby boom, uh, the baby boom population.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett30:46

       Do you think there's, because of the speed of, and the acceleration of AI, the, like, the s-, the length of careers has radically reduced? Because you would go to sc-, like, you would go to school, then you'd go to university, you'd qualify as, I don't know, an, an accountant, and that's like a 10 to 15 year process. You get a job as an accountant, you start working your way up. But now with AI coming in, these, some of these jobs are being completely annihilated v-, extremely quickly.

    7. CWCathie Wood31:12

       At the same time, vibe coding-

    8. SBSteven Bartlett31:14

       Yeah.

    9. CWCathie Wood31:15

       ... is booming.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett31:17

        Mm-hmm.

    11. CWCathie Wood31:17

        So I think what's going to happen, and this will be very healthy for productivity, we're going to have a lot more experimentation and people taking risks on themselves. Uh, and maybe this idea of a corporation as we know it is going to change radically. You know, crypto is enabling distributed autonomous organizations. Uh, just like Bitcoin, there's, there's no, no one governing it, right? Uh, the, it's a distributed network and, you know, let's see how these do and how vibe code- coding and AI integrate into the crypto, I, I, and I'm gonna stop calling it crypto because this really should be called digital assets world, which legitimizes it more. Crypto sounds nefarious.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett32:09

        Yeah.

    13. CWCathie Wood32:09

        Digital assets is where, you know, more than, uh, y- young people and, uh, I'll say young people are spending more than half of their discretionary, their free time online. And so property ownership online is becoming more important. It's, it's being legitimized by the way people are spending their time.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett32:31

        On this point of robotics and AI, your, your biggest position I believe is Tesla.

    15. CWCathie Wood32:35

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett32:35

        Isn't it, in your fund?

    17. CWCathie Wood32:36

        Yes.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett32:36

        Um, but obviously Elon decided that he wanted to go into politics.

    19. CWCathie Wood32:41

        (laughs)

    20. SBSteven Bartlett32:41

        And he wanted to do-

    21. CWCathie Wood32:42

        Oh, Elon.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett32:43

        ... the Department of Government Efficiency called DOGE, so teaming up with Trump to try and eliminate government waste. Now as an investor-

    23. CWCathie Wood32:50

        Mm-hmm.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett32:51

        ... you must (laughs) not love that.

    25. CWCathie Wood32:55

        Well, the, I, I have two, um, I have-

    26. SBSteven Bartlett32:59

        'Cause it did impact-

    27. CWCathie Wood32:59

        ... two points of view.

    28. SBSteven Bartlett33:00

        ... the performance of the company. Do you know, I have, I drive a Tesla when I go to America and it was the first time ever on the last trip to America in January, I live in LA now-

    29. CWCathie Wood33:08

        Oh.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett33:08

        ... um, wh- where I'm driving my, you know, s-, my Cybertruck, it's w-, the full self-driving, it's incredible. But for, it was the first time ever I thought, "Shi-, I th-, like, I could be attacked, so I probably shouldn't get a Cybertruck. I should probably get something else." 'Cause I heard of all these reports of people being attacked.
14. 37:08 – 40:36

    Meeting Elon Musk

    1. CWCathie Wood37:08

    2. SBSteven Bartlett37:08

       Have you met him?

    3. CWCathie Wood37:09

       Oh, yes. We did, actually. Our f- uh, first podcast with him was in 2019-

    4. SBSteven Bartlett37:15

       Oh, I saw that one actually.

    5. CWCathie Wood37:15

       ... during, during Production Hell.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett37:17

       Yeah.

    7. CWCathie Wood37:18

       And, uh, we were so happy. So as you know, we have a social strategy, so we push our research out through social media as we give it away, or as we're evolving it. And, uh, he liked a piece of research that Tasha Keeny had put out on autonomous back then. And I was on a phone call, I couldn't get off, but I heard this whooping and screaming through the office, and I, I, I thought it sounded good. It wasn't an emergency, so I, I didn't have to leave that call. But I got out, I said, "What happened?" "Elon." And I said, "Okay, ask him if we can do a podcast."

    8. SBSteven Bartlett37:57

       (laughs)

    9. CWCathie Wood37:57

       And we were there the next week.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett37:59

        Oh, incredible.

    11. CWCathie Wood37:59

        Yeah.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett38:00

        What do you think of him as a entrepreneur?

    13. CWCathie Wood38:03

        I think he's the Thomas E- Edison of our age in terms of, uh, in terms of his, um, in- innovative ingenuity. And I also think having met him a number of times, I think he's a very good person. He wants to do the right thing. If I had to say one thing, he wants to do the right thing to transform the lot of most of humanity. And he started, uh, w- with Tesla, SpaceX and Tesla. Sp- uh, Tesla, you know, was a, a, an environmental move, which I think a lot of people attacking his cars, who are probably very, um supportive-

    14. SBSteven Bartlett38:51

        Mm-hmm.

    15. CWCathie Wood38:51

        ... of, uh, the environmental movement, uh, they, they've forgotten. Sending, uh, uh, a rocket to Mars and with humanoid robots and ultimately people, um, he thinks will transform life on Earth as well. Because as we've learned from space history, uh, what we learn a- about material science and technologies that help us break through into these very difficult, uh, uh, problems to solve is going to help us here on Earth as well. Uh, so I think he's a very good person and wants to do the right thing. Th- if I had to describe him, that's what I'd say. O- other than genius of our time.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett39:39

        I often wonder, uh, you know, because he's had such profound impact on the world in many, many ways through the companies he's started, I think the, uh, the biggest risk really is just his own, his own health. Doesn't seem to sleep much. I've heard him say <|agent|><|en|>

    17. CWCathie Wood39:50

        You know, though, he, he says that he does sleep.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett39:52

        Oh, really?

    19. CWCathie Wood39:52

        I think he, he, he recommends, I think, if I'm right on this, getting seven hours sleep, uh, a night. Uh, uh, and yes, but when, when he is focused, uh, you know it.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett40:07

        Mm-hmm.

    21. CWCathie Wood40:07

        I- I mean, people even look, they, they, there were many pictures of him, whether it was standing, you know, with other policy makers, and then he zones into something, and you know he's zoned in-

    22. SBSteven Bartlett40:21

        Mm-hmm.

    23. CWCathie Wood40:21

        ... and thinking about only that, and a problem that he wants to solve, so...

    24. SBSteven Bartlett40:26

        You've invested, what, just over 2 billion in Tesla?

    25. CWCathie Wood40:29

        Let's see. So it w- would be roughly, yes.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett40:33

        In that region?

    27. CWCathie Wood40:33

        Mm-hmm.

    28. SBSteven Bartlett40:35

        Bitcoin.

    29. CWCathie Wood40:35

        Mm-hmm.

15. 40:36 – 43:36

    Investing in Bitcoin at the Very Start

    1. CWCathie Wood40:36

    2. SBSteven Bartlett40:36

       You've invested in Bitcoin very, very early. What was the, the first price w-, that you bought Bitcoin for in, I think it was 2015?

    3. CWCathie Wood40:44

       Yes. Uh, it was in, um, the summer of 2015. Uh, we got in at roughly $250. Uh, today it's $104,000, I think, roughly. So we did get in very early, and we knew we were onto something, uh, really when people were making fun of us saying, "Okay, that's a marketing trick. You're, you're new to our business and, you know, new to our, to the new fund world, and, uh, you're trying to attract attention." And we were thinking, "Wow, they have no idea how much research we've done on this." And Art Laffer, uh, my professor, again, from USC, we had him, uh, we had him read our first white paper on Bitcoin. Bitcoin, could it serve the three roles of money? So means of exchange, what we use every day, uh, to, to buy things. Uh, store of value, uh, like gold, and unit of account. Would prices be quoted in terms of Bitcoin? Chris Burniske was our first analyst on Bitcoin, wrote the paper. Art read it, and you know, fr- a- added to it enormously in terms of economic theory, which was great for us. And then he said to us, he said, "This is what I've been waiting for since the US closed the gold window in 1971. A rules-based global monetary system, like Bretton Woods, under the Gold Exchange Standard." And I said, "Art, that's a very big idea. Uh, how big is it?" And he said, "Well, how big is the, uh, the monetary base of the US?" Back then, it was four and a half trillion, and Bitcoin's market cap or network value was six billion. And I said, "Okay, that's a very big idea."... and we were trying to get it into our portfolios. Regulators were hesitant, and, uh, but I bought it right then for, for myself, and haven't sold it, and I'm very happy with it.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett43:03

       You bought it for yourself personally?

    5. CWCathie Wood43:05

       Personally, beca-

    6. SBSteven Bartlett43:05

       At what price?

    7. CWCathie Wood43:05

       We couldn't buy it. $250. So we couldn't buy it back then, but we finally got through the regulatory process, and we were able to put... The New York Stock Exchange said, "Okay, you can put a 1% position in the portfolio," and it was of a grantor trust called GBTC. So we did, and we just never sold it. They didn't tell us we had to keep it at se- at 1%, so...

    8. SBSteven Bartlett43:32

       Oh, it's risen to be more?

    9. CWCathie Wood43:33

       Oh, yes, it, it ballooned.

16. 43:36 – 46:05

    How Much of Your Portfolio Is Bitcoin?

    1. CWCathie Wood43:36

    2. SBSteven Bartlett43:36

       And what is it about bitcoin that you believe was, and is still, a, a good investment opportunity for the average person?

    3. CWCathie Wood43:45

       Yes. So at this, at this price, it's about a $2 trillion, uh, market cap, and so halfway to that original four and a half trillion. But our price target actually has expanded since then, um, because it's not just a global monetary system. It is a new asset class, and that's a very big idea as well. What makes a new asset class? And we haven't had one truly since, uh, equities in the 1600s.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett44:24

       When you say a new asset class, you mean a completely new category of-

    5. CWCathie Wood44:28

       Of funding companies, yes.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett44:30

       ... asset.

    7. CWCathie Wood44:30

       Right? And-

    8. SBSteven Bartlett44:31

       So an asset class would be something like technology's an asset class, right?

    9. CWCathie Wood44:35

       No. It would be like stocks, bonds, commodities, real estate. This is a new asset class, and most people will agree with that, we, we did a study on it, if this asset does not perform like other assets. In other words, it provides diversification for funds. And because it is behaving differently, institutions have to consider it, uh, because they're competing against each other, and if one puts it in, they all know they're competing against each other, so others have to consider it. And, uh, we believe that part of the opportunity has not been tapped. And just to put some numbers on this, right now, we're approaching 20 million bitcoin outstanding.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett45:32

        Which means?

    11. CWCathie Wood45:33

        The number of bitcoin that ha- uh, have been minted over time, uh, by bitcoin miners.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett45:42

        So there's 21 million in total, right?

    13. CWCathie Wood45:44

        There will be at the end of the minting process-

    14. SBSteven Bartlett45:48

        Mm-hmm.

    15. CWCathie Wood45:49

        ... 21 million. So we have only one million to go.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett45:53

        Yeah.

    17. CWCathie Wood45:54

        Uh, one million would be, what is that? That would be $100 billion worth, a little more than that right now.

17. 46:05 – 50:33

    Bitcoin Mining

    1. SBSteven Bartlett46:05

       So just for someone that might not know much about bitcoin, bitcoin is mined using computers, and so far, they've mined 20 million of them, and there's one million of them left to mine?

    2. CWCathie Wood46:14

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett46:14

       Yeah.

    4. CWCathie Wood46:15

       So institutions really just started considering bitcoin 'cause the SEC gave the gr- uh, the, the green light, uh, to b- bitcoin with, uh, the, the approval of the spot bitcoin ETF in January of last year. And it takes awhile for in- institutions to do their research and, and commit. Uh, and so they're just now committing, and there's only $100 billion of new m- market cap, uh, that is going to be created, whereas they have trillions of dollars under management. Um, and so we think there will be a lot of incremental demand, and, uh, to satisfy a lot of that demand, someone's going to have to sell, and-

    5. SBSteven Bartlett47:11

       Which means the price goes up.

    6. CWCathie Wood47:12

       Which, yeah. If people don't want to sell, because bitcoin's been awfully good... And our forecast, right now it's, um... Right now, the- bitcoin's around 100, 105,000. Our forecast, uh, for 2030 is $1.5 million dollars, and we do that, uh, uh, uh, r- or the building blocks for that, the three biggest building blocks are institutional, which has barely started, uh, store of value, or digital gold. Young people are much more, uh, comfortable with digital gold than gold.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett47:58

       So on the institutional s- side, that means institutions, investment institutions start investing in it.

    8. CWCathie Wood48:03

       Mm-hmm.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett48:04

       Young people start investing it, in it as a way to s- save and store their money?

    10. CWCathie Wood48:07

        Yes. Yes. And then, uh, the, the, the, the, the very important use case that many people do not discuss is how important bitcoin and stablecoins, which are backed by US treasuries, are going to become to the emerging markets. Uh, in emerging markets, many of them are at the whim of policymakers who, uh, show no discipline in fiscal or monetary policy, and so they, they're used to going through booms and busts and booms and bailed out by the IMF, and they need an insurance policy.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett48:51

        So if you're in Venezuela, you need a currency that's gonna be stable?

    12. CWCathie Wood48:54

        Exactly.... is, well, this, bitcoin is, uh, so stable coins are stable vis-a-vis, uh, the dollar. Uh, bitcoin is more of an investment because it does appreciate over time. Now, you go through, it's volatile. No question. And that's the first (laughs) thing people have to know about it. Uh, but it is becoming less volatile as more and more investors hold it.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett49:23

        So you think bitcoin will potentially multiply in value by 15 times in the next five years?

    14. CWCathie Wood49:30

        Mm-hmm.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett49:32

        Wow, that'd be pretty crazy.

    16. CWCathie Wood49:34

        It's a very big idea because it is a new asset class. It does represent a global monetary system unlike any other digital asset out there. Um, it is backed by the largest computer network in the world. The, the layer one, which is the base layer, has not been hacked. Think about that. Since 2009 when it was released, not been hacked. How many h- how many systems can say that? And it is a technology. It is native to the internet. And again, digital assets or any, bitcoin, Ether, Solana, all of them exist because they're vying to be the native currencies to the internet, and to, to enable smart contracts and really transform the f- financial services industry.

18. 50:33 – 54:56

    Why Invest in Coinbase

    1. CWCathie Wood50:33

    2. SBSteven Bartlett50:33

       Why did you invest in Coinbase?

    3. CWCathie Wood50:36

       Coinbase is, um, a- an exchange for, for digital assets and, uh, and increasingly derivatives. It has j- it has gone global. It just bought Deribit, which is the largest options, uh, exchange out there. Uh, and it owns a Futures. So it's really going after, uh, the derivatives market where there's a huge amount of activity, which is fantastic because it's all legitimizing digital assets and it is the most regulatory compliant exchange in the world. Um, Binance is, uh, another major exchange, but has had more run-ins with regulators around the world and really hasn't been allowed into the United States. It also wants to become part of the new payments infrastructure, and so is evolving strategies that way as well. Um, we've gotten to know management very well. They fought the fight against regulators in a magnificent way, and they have educated policymakers, um, importantly who understand that this innovation, we almost lost this innovation to the rest of the world because of our regulatory stance.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett52:01

       Mm-hmm.

    5. CWCathie Wood52:01

       Uh, they've helped policymakers understand that, hey, you know, this pa-, this infrastructure is what developers did not build into the internet in the early '90s 'cause they didn't know finance or commerce would take place. That's all this is. It's that simple, right?

    6. SBSteven Bartlett52:23

       So if I'm trying to invest in, just to summarize then, if I'm trying to invest in AI, the, your key positions there and your key thoughts are companies like Tesla. I heard you invest in Twilio.

    7. CWCathie Wood52:32

       Uh, we, we had invested in Twilio. They had a me- uh, they had a management turnover, so we moved away from that. But, uh, Palantir.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett52:41

       Palantir.

    9. CWCathie Wood52:42

       Yes. Palantir is a platform as a service company, which we think, uh, is not only going to help governance move, governments move into the digital age, like our Defense Department, and now it's moving into other departments, but also these huge, huge enterprises because it's not forcing them to rip and replace anything. They'll build on top of whatever technology infrastructure is there and over time just usurp, usurp the role of the legacy technologies. So very important company we think in, uh, the digital age. It's had a very big run. We have taken profits and, you know, while it was having a big run, NVIDIA was selling off. It was down more than 50%. So we put some of our Palantir proceeds I- uh, back into NVIDIA.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett53:34

        Is there anything else in the AI bucket when you're thinking about stocks?

    11. CWCathie Wood53:38

        Well, when you are thinking about, uh, chip companies in particular, uh, TSM is the platform for chip manufacturing. It doesn't matter who wins. We, we do think there are going to be many more competitors to NVIDIA. NVIDIA's still number one.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett53:58

        Have you heard about Groq?

    13. CWCathie Wood54:00

        Oh, yes. Groq-

    14. SBSteven Bartlett54:01

        Or Q.

    15. CWCathie Wood54:01

        ... we are invested in in our, um, in, in our private fund.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett54:06

        Oh, okay. So, um, wha- just for people that might be confused.

    17. CWCathie Wood54:09

        Do you mean Grok?

    18. SBSteven Bartlett54:09

        Groq with a Q.

    19. CWCathie Wood54:10

        Yes. That's, that's in our private fund.

    20. SBSteven Bartlett54:12

        Okay.

    21. CWCathie Wood54:12

        We own, we do own Groq, and that's a very important company on the inference side-

    22. SBSteven Bartlett54:18

        Yeah.

    23. CWCathie Wood54:18

        ... of, um, of the equation. But-

    24. SBSteven Bartlett54:21

        I've invested in Groq as well.

    25. CWCathie Wood54:22

        Yeah.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett54:22

        I should probably disclaim that.

    27. CWCathie Wood54:24

        Well, I think, I think you're gonna do very well. Um, so TSM though is where all the chip manufacturers go, uh, for production. It is the most sophisticated manufacturer of chips, uh, in the world. Uh, there is geopolitical risk there. Most of its business is in Taiwan. It is diversifying into, uh, uh, certainly into the US and I think even into Europe. Uh, so I think, uh, that will continue to be a very important company as well.

19. 54:56 – 57:50

    Top 10 Public Investments People Should Consider

    1. CWCathie Wood54:56

    2. SBSteven Bartlett54:56

       So what are the, what are your, what's your top 10?... in terms of public stocks that anybody can invest in, if you had to give me your top 10.

    3. CWCathie Wood55:03

       So I'd have to give you, uh, and they're listed on our website, and I won't go in order, I'm sure, but, of course, Tesla, Coinbase, uh, Robinhood. Uh, Roku is, uh, an operating system for connected TVs.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett55:21

       Mm-hmm.

    5. CWCathie Wood55:22

       Highly misunderstood stock. CRISPR Therapeutics, which, uh, is the-

    6. SBSteven Bartlett55:28

       Gene, gene editing?

    7. CWCathie Wood55:28

       Gene editing for sickle cell disease and, uh, beta thalassemia. Uh, Palantir, I think I've mentioned-

    8. SBSteven Bartlett55:36

       Mm-hmm.

    9. CWCathie Wood55:36

       ... uh, in the AI software space. Archer just moved into the top 10. It's the EVTOL company which, and it also signed a deal, an exclusive deal on both sides, which was quite impressive, uh, with Anduril, which i- Anduril, which is the, um, most sophisticated defense tech play, uh, and is growing like gangbusters. So, so that's terrific. Shopify, uh, which is a shopping platform backend and re- really using, uh, AI.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett56:15

        Roblox? Do you know-

    11. CWCathie Wood56:16

        Oh, that's the one we're missing. Roblox. Roblox.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett56:19

        Roblox, which is a game, right?

    13. CWCathie Wood56:21

        Yes. It's a user-generated gaming company. Uh, fascinating, and it's also a social platform. Uh, it started, uh, for children younger than 13 years old. And what's interesting about it is, uh, they've stayed with it, because 60% of its user base now is above 13.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett56:42

        Mm-hmm.

    15. CWCathie Wood56:42

        Which is very interesting. It's the largest user-generated, uh, um, content provider out there. And what is fascinating about it is, I know one of, uh, my friend's daughter has started her own dress shop on-

    16. SBSteven Bartlett56:59

        (laughs)

    17. CWCathie Wood56:59

        ... Roblox, and what she doesn't understand is that she's got, she's learning about business, but she's also learning how to code, especially in this new vibe coding world. So, I think it's gonna be a very important, uh, company going forward. Uh, the, the interesting thing about gaming and, and technology transitions is that it is the only entertainment median, medium that has not fallen apart with technology transitions.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett57:31

        (laughs)

    19. CWCathie Wood57:31

        Um, it has actually grown, because those who love their games from 25 years ago still play them. It's grown with each technology revolution, so, uh, and user-generated content in gaming is, um, the next big thing.

20. 57:50 – 59:34

    Ads

    1. CWCathie Wood57:50

       (page turns)

    2. SBSteven Bartlett57:50

       A business is only as good as the people inside it. So how do you make sure you're hiring the best? Our sponsor, LinkedIn, can help you find these applicants quickly. I believe in taking time to hire slowly. But I also understand that once you've decided to hire, you wanna get the ball rolling and get the best candidates in front of you to start interviewing, and that's where paying to promote your role on LinkedIn makes all the difference, because you'll get applicants seven times faster than if you post your job for free. And even though slower, more considered hiring is important, you never want your hiring platforms to be what's holding you back. LinkedIn keeps pace. It takes care of the heavy lifting, sending you highly skilled candidates that you wouldn't find anywhere else. So when the time comes to make your next hire, make it count and promote your job on LinkedIn. Head to linkedin.com/doac. That's linkedin.com/doac and terms and conditions apply. (page turns) Make sure you keep what I'm about to say to yourself. I'm inviting 10,000 of you to come even deeper into the Diary of a CEO. Welcome to my Inner Circle. This is a brand new private community that I'm launching to the world. We have so many incredible things that happen that you are never shown. We have the briefs that are on my iPad when I'm recording the conversation. We have clips we've never released. We have behind the scenes conversations with the guests, and also the episodes that we've never, ever released, and so much more. In the Circle, you'll have direct access to me. You can tell us what you want this show to be, who you want us to interview, and the types of conversations you would love us to have. But remember, for now, we're only inviting the first 10,000 people that join before it closes. So if you wanna join our private closed community, head to the link in the description below or go to doaccircle.com. I will speak to you there.

21. 59:34 – 1:01:46

    Where Would You Invest $1,000?

    1. SBSteven Bartlett59:34

       (page turns) If you had $1,000 to invest-

    2. CWCathie Wood59:36

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett59:37

       ... and you had to invest it somewhere, where would you be investing it?

    4. CWCathie Wood59:43

       Well-

    5. SBSteven Bartlett59:44

       And how would you be, like, the general philosophy towards wealth creation at such a stage? If you had $1,000, how would you be thinking about creating wealth for yourself?

    6. CWCathie Wood59:54

       A couple of things. Averaging into, um, either an ETF-

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:03

       What's an ETF?

    8. CWCathie Wood1:00:04

       ETF, exchange traded fund. So it treats a group of stocks like one stock.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:12

       Mm-hmm.

    10. CWCathie Wood1:00:12

        So ARKK is, it's nearly, it's 35, 36 stocks-

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:20

        Mm-hmm.

    12. CWCathie Wood1:00:21

        ... but you can buy them by purchasing ARKK.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:26

        And you can do that on your mobile phone by downloading-

    14. CWCathie Wood1:00:27

        You can do it on your mobile phone.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:29

        ... a bunch of different apps that allow you to just buy that one ETF, which means you own 35 stocks.

    16. CWCathie Wood1:00:33

        Yes. And-

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:35

        And your team are basically choosing what those 35 stocks are-

    18. CWCathie Wood1:00:38

        Yes.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:39

        ... based on your research.

    20. CWCathie Wood1:00:40

        Right. And ARKK are, are, are highest conviction stocks, uh, and they, they, they offer an exposure to all of the innovation platforms that we've talked about. Whereas ARKI here in Europe is focused primarily on artificial intelligence and robotics, because we think that convergence is gonna be pretty explosive. What you don't get there...Uh, and you do get in ARKK. We also have an another very focused fund, ARKG, which is really healthcare applications of AI, um, and, and other healthcare, other healthcare names that we think, uh, are going to be pretty transformative in the new world as regulators really understand how important AI is going to become to, uh, discovery, uh, research, trials, development, uh, to diagnostic tests, and to curing disease.

22. 1:01:46 – 1:03:16

    Investing in Other Cryptocurrencies Apart From Bitcoin

    1. CWCathie Wood1:01:46

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:46

       Another question popped up, which is about Ethereum and these other cryptocurrencies.

    3. CWCathie Wood1:01:49

       Yes.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:49

       Do you invest in any of thes- these others?

    5. CWCathie Wood1:01:51

       Yes. We have, uh, we have pr- well, e- in our public funds, we've put them, uh, I don't think we can own them here in the UK yet, but in the, in the US, uh, we have them in, um, some of our funds, both of them.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:06

       Mm-hmm.

    7. CWCathie Wood1:02:06

       They're key to the financial services re- revolution. So, um, to get people to understand and feel comfortable with that, uh, we don't call it the crypto r- r- revolution. It's the digital a- assets revolution, and it's simply the Finternet, the financial internet. Okay. So that... So we do. We do.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:26

       A- and do you believe... Are you more bullish on the price potential of Bitcoin than Ethereum?

    9. CWCathie Wood1:02:31

       Uh, yes. We think Bitcoin is the biggest idea. V- it serves the three, three revolutions. Global monetary system, they do not. Um, new asset class, they are part of a new asset class, but Bitcoin's gonna be the biggest. And new technology, it's the most secure, uh, blockchain technology out there.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:53

        What about all these other, Solana and all these other...

    11. CWCathie Wood1:02:55

        So Ether and Solana... So the big three are the, are, are, are, th- those are the, the big three. Um, and we think they'll all be successful, all three of them, Bitcoin the most. We're very interested in stablecoins, but that's just like cash. Uh, and you know, there are millions of crypto assets out there. We think most of them

23. 1:03:16 – 1:03:46

    How to Invest in Stablecoins

    1. CWCathie Wood1:03:16

       die.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:16

       Is there any way to invest in stablecoins? Like how do you invest them in, in a stablecoin?

    3. CWCathie Wood1:03:21

       So indirectly right now, it is through Coinbase. They have a deal with Circle. Um, any, any revenue that Circle generates, it's, it's, it's stablecoin is USDC.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:35

       Yeah.

    5. CWCathie Wood1:03:36

       Any revenue, they split 50/50-

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:37

       Okay.

    7. CWCathie Wood1:03:38

       ... uh, in, in the US. Uh, Circle itself has announced that it is going public, and so we're looking forward to that.

24. 1:03:46 – 1:06:53

    The Mentality of a Good Investor

    1. CWCathie Wood1:03:46

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:46

       And what's, what's the, the sort of psychology or mentality one has to adopt to be a good investor?

    3. CWCathie Wood1:03:52

       Depends what you've bought. If you buy a strategy like ours, which would be in the aggressive growth strategy, put it i- you know, averaging in over time, just like with Bitcoin as I mentioned earlier, uh, averaging in over time.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:04:08

       What does averaging in mean?

    5. CWCathie Wood1:04:09

       Averaging in means, you know, buy a little, uh, every month. So maybe every payday. And I think one of my daughters was buying Bitcoin every week, but not a Bitcoin, she couldn't do that, a Satoshi (laughs) , you know? So... And close your eyes. D- like you're... this is a long term investment if we're right, uh, according to our analysis. Now you, you... this is our research, our analysis, no promises. We can't do that. But according to our research, the technologies around which we have centered our research, uh, and which have focused our investments, they b- we believe will go up more than tenfold in the next 5 to 10 years. And, uh, that's how much explosive growth we have ahead of us as these technologies converge and create incredible opportunities for investors. And you know, I'm hearing a lot of invest... a lot of people, um, as they get into investing, of course, they have their day jobs, but once they have accrued enough, you know, they're making choices about dialing down their day jobs and spending more time investing. You asked, what are some of the jobs of the future gonna be? I think individual investors are going to be providing for themselves if they are investing on the right side of change.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:41

       So if you're right, that means that by investing in your fund, I would make 1,000% return roughly?

    7. CWCathie Wood1:05:46

       Yes. No promises, but this is all based on research and you can find it in our Big Ideas. Uh, Big Ideas 2025 is on our website, uh, ark-invest.com. Uh, and you can find a lot more, uh, f- information about our funds on ark-funds, uh, .com.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:10

       And I should probably say this is not i- investing advice.

    9. CWCathie Wood1:06:13

       It is not. And I, and I wanna make sure-

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:16

        Do your own research.

    11. CWCathie Wood1:06:17

        Do your own research.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:17

        And you can lose all of your money.

    13. CWCathie Wood1:06:18

        Yes.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:18

        You can lose all of it if you decide to-

    15. CWCathie Wood1:06:20

        Yes.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:20

        ... do any of these things, so.

    17. CWCathie Wood1:06:21

        But that's why we put ark-invest separate from the fund site because that's just research. Learn, learn what you're investing in or learn w- why we've invested, uh, the, the way we have, you know? That's, that's what we do all day long is we try and help... well, first of all we're doing the research. We are making the investments, but I think one of the most important things we do is communicate what we're doing and why we're doing it.

25. 1:06:53 – 1:11:38

    Trump’s Tariffs

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:53

       What do you think of Trump tariffs, everything that's going on in America at the moment? What's... you know, for the average person, should they be concerned? Are you bullish? Do you think Trump's got it right?

    2. CWCathie Wood1:07:04

       If you look at what happened to the equity market when Trump was elected.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:08

       The stock market.

    4. CWCathie Wood1:07:09

       Uh, yes, the stock market. It went crazy to the upside as did our strategy. And why?... the promise was deregulation, and that, I think, is underestimated, uh, how important it is, because we're strangling in regulation. It's just, th- this is not our DNA. We've, we've gotta get o- out from under this. Lower taxes, l- lower interest rates is what he wants, of course, um, and lower tariffs. What he didn't tell us (laughs) was exactly how he was going to go about that process, and it has, it has felt chaotic. And I've had to go out and explain what's going on, try to explain what's going on. And, uh, I have to tell you, it, it scared me silly to see what was going on, because I knew that businesses were paralyzed and that we could have a mess on our hands. And I certainly com- communicated through my channels. Art communicated through his channels. In fact, I think in one publication he said, "I have never been more scared in my career." We were trying to really get into Trump's head, and, and I know President Trump listens to Art, but he also listens to a lot of other people, one of whom was Peter Navarro, who seemed to have a hold on Trump a- when it came to tariffs. And yet, when I saw Treasury Secretary Bessant really push aside Navarro, and that could only happen with Trump, I knew we were gonna be okay. I knew we were gonna be okay, because throughout all of this chaos, I think what he is trying to do is not only get tariffs on the US down throughout the world, but maybe more important, get non-tariff trade barriers down. Like for example, uh, I didn't even know the UK would not accept our beef or ethanol. Well, now you're accepting our beef and ethanol. I, I don't know if... I don't know if people in the supermarkets will buy it, but, uh, anyway, this w- But other countries, much, many, many more non-tariff trade barriers, and so he is just trying to bust that up, you know, make it more visible. You know, for example, Canada, I think they charged a 250% tariff on our milk, and one of President Trump's promises was to take care of the farmers. Okay, that's why you, you see the rhetoric around Canada. Now, do I agree with his style? I would never do it that way. I'd never do it that way. I, and it was unfathomable, you know, for me, because he is sensitive to business, and he must have known that everything was gonna stop, and, uh... But he also knows that he has to sound crazy for other people to take him seriously, and he has... And people have to believe he will do crazy things in order for people to take him seriously, and he does do crazy things.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:43

       So do you think it's gonna work out?

    6. CWCathie Wood1:10:44

       I do.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:45

       You do.

    8. CWCathie Wood1:10:45

       And I think the stock market is beginning to smell it.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:48

       If I, if I just had to invest in one stock right now, what stock would you recommend I invested in?

    10. CWCathie Wood1:10:54

        Okay, well, I have to give you our-

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:56

        Your portfolio.

    12. CWCathie Wood1:10:57

        ... topic.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:57

        So it would be Tesla?

    14. CWCathie Wood1:10:58

        It would be Tesla if I, if I had to give you one stock.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:01

        Okay. Interesting.

    16. CWCathie Wood1:11:03

        Because think about it, it i- it is a convergence among three of our major platforms, so robo- robots, energy storage, AI, and it's not stopping with robo-taxis. There's a story beyond that with humanoid robots, and our $2,600 number has nothing for humanoid robots. We just thought it'd be an investment period, and you know, the re- But I think he's going to start generating not only productivity gains internally, but revenues from humanoid robots.

26. 1:11:38 – 1:16:47

    What Keeps You Up at Night in the Current Situation

    1. CWCathie Wood1:11:38

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:38

       What are you concerned about in terms of the way that the world is going and everything that's happening? What are the things that keep you up at night? I've got many a concern, so I've got many unanswered questions and worries about how things might play out, but keen to hear yours.

    3. CWCathie Wood1:11:53

       I am such an optimist. I really do have to dig down deeply. I, if you had asked me this a few weeks ago, I would have said, you know, uh, uh, "This tariff situation is gonna blow the global economy up if we're, if we're not careful." So I'm much more settled about that right now. I'd have to say I am concerned that there are going to be people caught out, um, by these new technologies, uh, and for whatever reason, not willing to adapt, because there are gonna be huge opportunities if they do. And so one of the reasons we give away our research, you know, I'm very honored to do a podcast like this, is to get that word out. There is so much information available. You can just go to our site and listen to our podcasts, and if anything inspires you...... go for it, because it's going, the opportunities are going to be enormous.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:12:55

       When you say you're concerned people might get caught out.

    5. CWCathie Wood1:12:58

       Caught out in d- d- you know, disrupted industries. I mean, we think the whole transportation industry is going to be disrupted. Um, we think retail as we know it's going to be disrupted as we all-

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:13

       Retail as in, like, shops and stuff and...

    7. CWCathie Wood1:13:15

       Yes. Although, if they adapt with more social personal experiences, I think that, anything physical you'll want to have a social dynamic associated with it. But in terms of, uh, what I think is going to happen to retail is we're going to have our personal shopping assistants, and they're going to, they're gonna anticipate what we want, which I can't wait, I hate shopping, uh, anticipate what we want, uh, or basically flag something that they know we would like if we knew it were available, and they'll be disintermediating all of the traditional sources, because they can go anywhere in the world. Um, so just think about, al- almost every sector is going to be disrupted. Healthcare is going to be disrupted enormously, I think, for the better, for the better, but those who are wedded to doing things the old way are probably going to be disrupted, you know?

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:16

       Yeah, that is my concern as well, and, and just how we handle that as a society.

    9. CWCathie Wood1:14:21

       But I think if we can help people understand that they have a lot of control over this, if they're willing to learn, and dream-

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:33

        Not everybody is.

    11. CWCathie Wood1:14:33

        ... and use their imaginations.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:35

        Not everybody is though, as you know.

    13. CWCathie Wood1:14:36

        Yes. But they have to do it for their children at least, right?

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:39

        If we took the general population in a London and said, "100 people, how many of you understand what AI is?" Or n- "How many of you use ChatGPT?" We'd have a certain percentage, maybe, I don't know, 50% or more. If I went to the countryside-

    15. CWCathie Wood1:14:53

        Yes.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:54

        ... and I stopped a lovely person shopping at, in their local village and said, "Do you use ChatGPT?" It'd probably be significantly lower percentage.

    17. CWCathie Wood1:15:03

        Yes.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:03

        They'd be, they wouldn't, they wouldn't care about that, what is that? Whatever. Um, I, I won- wonder about the inequality of, like, education, but just initiative, and how those that really do have a pro- proclivity to lean in, and to experiment, and to mess around, and to learn, because maybe there's an incentive because they work in a city and their employer's asking them to. Will be off to the races with this disruptive technology, and there's just, like, a lot of the rest of society, of Middle America, and the countrysides, and those types of people who are just not even gonna see it coming.

    19. CWCathie Wood1:15:37

        But that's why we're out there. And the, the important word that you used was initiative, because I really think, uh, you know, when people hear the word inequality, uh, they like to blame something, right?

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:52

        Yeah.

    21. CWCathie Wood1:15:52

        There will be no reason for this. Uh, I'm sure someone's gonna come back at me for saying that, but, um, uh, of course there are people who, who we have to help along the way, no question about it. But for those who are healthy and, uh, are listening to this podcast, and are saying, "Uh, you know, I don't, I don't know exactly what she's talking about, but I'm gonna start reading up on some of these new ways of doing things, and make sure to at least understand it," I think within that kind of initiative, they'll find it. They just will find it. There's gonna be so much opportunity. It's gonna be so exciting. And, I think, again, creativity, and, uh, you know, especially young people using their imaginations, you know, they're, they're not held back by any preconceived notions. So...

27. 1:16:47 – 1:25:27

    How to Hire in the Era of AI

    1. CWCathie Wood1:16:47

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:47

       I ask all the questions I ask because I'm trying to, like, solve little question marks I have in my head about the future, and it's really difficult at this time to see around the corner because so much is changing so quickly.

    3. CWCathie Wood1:16:55

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:56

       And there's all of these converging technologies as you described-

    5. CWCathie Wood1:16:58

       Yes.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:16:58

       ... like robotics and AI, and then when I put robotics and AI together, I go, "Fuck."

    7. CWCathie Wood1:17:02

       (laughs)

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:04

       Because I... (laughs) You know? Do you know what I mean? 'Cause I go, and I'm just like, there's like o- I keep coming back to this question of, like, what am I gonna do? And, uh, not in, I'm just gonna sit-

    9. CWCathie Wood1:17:12

       You know what's good about that? You know what's really good about that? That will motivate you.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:17

        It does.

    11. CWCathie Wood1:17:18

        Of course it does. It's great.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:20

        It-

    13. CWCathie Wood1:17:20

        It's great.

    14. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:20

        It motivates me to ask people like you the question-

    15. CWCathie Wood1:17:22

        Yes.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:22

        ... 17 times in a row-

    17. CWCathie Wood1:17:23

        Yeah.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:23

        ... trying to find the answer.

    19. CWCathie Wood1:17:25

        There you go. (laughs)

    20. SBSteven Bartlett1:17:26

        But it's a real point, 'cause I run businesses. We have, at our headquarters, which is around the corner, it's about 25,000 square foot office. We have, you know, hundreds of people in that building, and I'm thinking about the roles that we're hiring for, and I'm, we're now looking at them through the lens of agentic AIs, so AI agents, and, and then if I overlay that with robotics and AI, you know, I'm going, "Oh, there's, what roles would we need to hire in the future?" Because, theoretically, like, can you name a single role in a media company that would, one I'm talking about in the robotics era, that would really need to be done by human? I guess other than one could say human-to-human sales will still have some kind of element of human touch to them.

    21. CWCathie Wood1:18:08

        You know, though, uh, I mean, we've learned a lot from the ancient game of Go.

    22. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:15

        Yeah.

    23. CWCathie Wood1:18:15

        So, you've heard about AlphaGo, which was, uh, Alphabet, Google, um, basically devising a program to compete against the Go champions. Go is much more complicated than chess.

    24. SBSteven Bartlett1:18:33

        Yeah. It's like a game, a board game, basically.

    25. CWCathie Wood1:18:35

        Right. Uh, so I think the cr- the champion of the world at the time was a South Korean, and he was sure he was gonna beat this machi- machine. Well, the machine be- beat him, and he was crestfallen, and then he got his...... chutzpah, to use a New York word, back and said, "Wait a minute. I'm gonna start playing against machines." And so now, he's playing against machines, his game is so much better that when he competes against humans, and those competitions are the more important ones, right? When he competes against other human beings, the machine has kept him at his champion. And of course, everyone's using the machine. So we're all- we're going to... Artificial intelligence, we-

    26. SBSteven Bartlett1:19:30

        But he still can't beat a machine, can he? He still can't beat the best machine in the world.

    27. CWCathie Wood1:19:34

        No, he can't.

    28. SBSteven Bartlett1:19:35

        And- and-

    29. CWCathie Wood1:19:36

        But- but I mean, he can occasionally. But- but people don't want to go see machines competing against machines.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett1:19:43

        I get that in... Because human- humans like human error and they like to be able to relate and to aspire. But as it relates to the world of work, the incentive is productivity.
28. 1:25:27 – 1:30:20

    Advice to Young People

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:25:27

       to you straight after. You know, when I asked ChatGPT earlier, I said, "Who is the number one woman in the world in investing?" It repeatedly said your name.

    2. CWCathie Wood1:25:35

       Hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:25:36

       So that's a pretty remarkable thing to have accomplished, especially in a male-dominated industry where there isn't many women that manage to rise to the top of that industry. So w- what is it about you, in hindsight... You know, it's difficult to be objective about oneself, but what is it about you that meant that you were successful in a male-dominated industry, in an industry that's incredibly difficult to be successful in?

    4. CWCathie Wood1:26:02

       My advice to all young people getting into their first job especially, but even later jobs, is, my mission when I started was to make my boss look brilliant. Now, why do I, why do I say that? It's much more applicable today, and possible today, than it was back when there were no computers and no cell phones, which is (laughs) when I started, right? But what did I do? My boss wanted to communicate... He was an economist. Wanted to communicate in charts that, you know, he couldn't find. So I w- figured out a way. I went to our time-sharing system. That's all you could do back then. Time-sharing is an ancient mainframe technology. And I figured out a way to make these charts and delight him. And, uh, a- and, and I loved doing it and I loved learning. I loved learning about technology, I learned tech, uh, and about economics, uh, through him. So that was the first thing. And then-

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:27:09

       Why is it important to make your boss look good?

    6. CWCathie Wood1:27:13

       Well, I think because if you do make him look good, um, first of all, you should... you owe him a debt of, uh, o- of gratitude if he turns around and gives you more gr- growth opportunities. So, but if he or she doesn't, then you know it's time to go to the next place where you make that next boss look brilliant and maybe you have the growth trajectory. I had bosses who they, they loved the fact that I loved what I was doing, that I had such high conviction in what I was doing. And I, and I'm gonna give Art Laffer a lot of credit for that. When I walked into the financial world, I knew more about economics than most of the people in the room, and that was a great source of confidence, a great source of confidence. And when I was leaving that firm, uh, someone said... my m- boss at the time said... I was moving from LA to New York, my m- boss said, "You've only been doing this for three years. You're not ready to become their economist." And, um, and I just thought I was ready, and more important, the f- company to which I was going thought I was ready. And as I was leaving, um, both he and, and others said, "Remember, you know more about economics than anyone else in the room. You'll... So take that with you." And I did. And I think that sense of confidence and understanding the way the world works from a macroeconomic v- uh, point of view was critically important. Now, when I got to New York, I could not even speak Art Lather- uh, Laffer's name, because the Laffer curve says if you cut tax rates that are too high, you will get more revenue.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:29:05

       Hmm.

    8. CWCathie Wood1:29:05

       And what had happened is Ronald Reagan had cut tax rates, but Paul Volcker at the Fed was trying to starve the economy of inflation, so we were in back-to-back recessions. And no, the government wasn't getting more revenue, so, uh, e- Art Laffer was, you know, on... I, I couldn't say anything. But, you know, that was fine. Uh, I knew he was gonna be right, and we were right. That was the story of the '80s and '90s. And that's why, uh, Jennison Associates and the chief investment officer there, uh, Sig Siggalis, um, gave me an opportunity to get into equity research. I wanted to grow. I loved the stock market. And he loved my conviction, and so he started me on cyclical companies, which, of course, I would know a lot about. But Jennison was primarily a tech-oriented firm, and of course, knowing that, I wanted to delight the boss. I wanted to get into the technologies, and I made it my business to know as much about them and, and I was the only one willing to, uh, research stocks outside the US. Think about that now.

29. 1:30:20 – 1:36:50

    Gratitude Letter From Cathie’s Mentor

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:30:20

       Art Laffer. Arthur Laffer?

    2. CWCathie Wood1:30:23

       Yes.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:30:24

       He wrote this letter.

    4. CWCathie Wood1:30:25

       Oh, he did?

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:30:26

       He wrote this letter describing you.

    6. CWCathie Wood1:30:28

       Oh, t- to you?

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:30:30

       A- to me.

    8. CWCathie Wood1:30:30

       Oh!

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:30:32

       He said, "There was this young lady named Cathie Duddy..."

    10. CWCathie Wood1:30:35

        (laughs)

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:30:35

        "Later Cathie Wood, whose face was the map of Ireland and whose ambition was over the moon. I was a tough teacher and grader, and Cathie's first steps were shaky, but in short order, she rose to the occasion and aced the course. Impressed as I was, and believe me, I was very impressed, I helped Cathie land her first job at Capital Group in LA, and from that point in time, it was game on. I followed her career closely after Capital Group, then on to Tepilo and her final job as an employee at..."... at-

    12. CWCathie Wood1:31:03

        Alliance Bernstein.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:31:04

        ... Alliance Bernstein?

    14. CWCathie Wood1:31:04

        Mm-hmm.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:31:05

        As you may imagine, she was the star investor at each stage. And in 2014, Kathy took a giant e- entrepreneurial leap in the founding and funding of Ark Invest. And the letter goes on to say, "She's a mega success, and God bless her. She never has forgotten her now aged professor."

    16. CWCathie Wood1:31:24

        Well, oh, that was very nice of him. Um, (sighs) uh, so he, he has been so important to my career. Now I'm gonna get a little weepy, but, um, I gave him one percent of my company when I started it. And, uh, so he deserved it. He deserved it because he gave me my big, big break. He believed in me first.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:31:49

        Why does that make you emotional?

    18. CWCathie Wood1:31:51

        I don't know. W- we have, we've gone through our life together. And what's so interesting now is, um, (laughs) s- uh, so interesting and, and fun is Bitcoin has rejuvenated Art. He's 85 years old, or 84, and I'm seeing his excitement, and he wants to spread the word around the world. And now we're going into stable coins together. And he just started an account on X. He has a flip phone.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:32:27

        Mm-hmm.

    20. CWCathie Wood1:32:28

        He doesn't do email, and yet he has just started an account on X. And so we now have this technology relationship, because he wasn't going to technology. But he knows, he's seen, like, uh, Arc altogether, we have 3.3 million followers. And he's seen the reach that X has, and he's also, I think the other thing, and I'm, I'm, haven't answered your question, it was just very nice of him to do that, you know? And I see it's a typed one page-

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:32:59

        Yeah. (laughs)

    22. CWCathie Wood1:32:59

        ... and very sweet.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:33:01

        We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for. And the question left for you is, hmm, great question for you: what is the craziest idea you ever had that turned out to be right?

    24. CWCathie Wood1:33:17

        Well, there are just a, a few, uh, one thing that it's, it's not that crazy, but it just gives you a sense of how not obvious in the early days, uh, of Arc. I remember saying, I remember saying, "Well, you know, autonomous vehicles are robots." And I was in a research meeting, and everybody said, "No, they're not." And of course, they are. You know, it's a crazy idea, but... And there was something, I mean, there are th- some things I'll say, uh, and the reason that's important from our point of view is this convergence idea. Robotics, AI, energy storage. So wait a minute, this is a very big idea. So it seemed, it seems like, "No, uh, uh..." I was like, "I think it is." And, and so it was, uh, like we were, we were s- you know, f- feeling our way in the dark, 'cause that was 2014, and nobody was really talking about them. And there's something like that very recently. Oh, we were talking about, it's not a crazy idea, it's, it's just we're trying to solve problems, um, someone, uh, w- as we were going on and on at our brainstorm on Friday about humanoid robots, uh, someone, h- he's, he's our, um, what do we call him? What do you, curmudgeon? Uh, no good way, in a good way.

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:34:42

        I don't even know what curmudgeon means.

    26. CWCathie Wood1:34:43

        Curmudgeon means kind of-

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:34:45

        Contrarian or...

    28. CWCathie Wood1:34:47

        G- g- curmudgeon like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not gonna work, you know? Uh, um, he, humanoid robots, he say, uh, he said, "I don't think that's gonna be a thing." He said, "We really need robots that are going to be able to carry a lot more in terms of weight than those things will on those stilts." And in my mind kind of flashed, um, transformer robots. They'd have legs and all of that. You'd be able to fold them up so they look like a tamp, tank.

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:35:21

        Mm-hmm.

    30. CWCathie Wood1:35:21

        And so that's what I said on, uh... I know this doesn't sound so crazy to you, but, uh, I don't, I just imagining the future, going to Disneyland when I'm 11 years old, we had just come over, uh, from Ireland, and seeing someone holding a phone on the Carousel for Progress and, you know, saying, "I'm gonna have one of those." Um, it sounded crazy at the time, and I felt a little crazy. But always, al-
30. 1:36:50 – 1:37:48

    If Elon Dies, Will It Impact the Progress of Human Evolution?

    1. CWCathie Wood1:36:50

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:36:50

       I wonder if, if Elon dies before we get to Mars or if he just dies in the next 10 years from anything, from any cause-

    3. CWCathie Wood1:36:55

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:36:56

       ... how much of an impact that will have on our rate of progress generally with space and electric vehicles and humanoid robots? Could be quite profound.

    5. CWCathie Wood1:37:03

       Well, he is getting us so far along that, you know, there's just going to be a runway he's created for years and years. Think about it, Mars 2040, '50, you know?

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:37:17

       Kathy, thank you. Thank you for doing what you do, and, um, that's a, a sort of multifaceted point of gratitude because you do so much. Um, you do so much in educating all of us in terms of innovation, investing, and what the future looks like. But also from your fund's perspective and your company's perspective, you do so much in open sourcing and putting the research and the work that you guys do out into the world when you don't necessarily have to. But, a- as I've heard you say, it's a great benefit both to the world, but also, you do it because it also brings people to your fund, right?

Episode duration: 1:41:06