Ex-Rocket Scientist: The Secret to Millionaires' Investment Portfolios

1. 0:00 – 0:51

   Intro – Who is Alex

   1. ALAlex0:00

      big investments that I've made recently have been [beep] like-

   2. MMMarina Mogilko0:02

      So like 40% in a single stock?

   3. ALAlex0:04

      Yes.

   4. MMMarina Mogilko0:04

      This is Alex. He's a money nerd, and he's been paying for his lifestyle with his investments for the past 10 years. When I met him at dinner and he told me about his investing strategy, I realized right away that I need to bring this to you guys, because this is something I'm striving for, and this is something I'd encourage everyone to look at.

   5. ALAlex0:21

      But people are panicking. That's exactly when you wanna be greedy.

   6. MMMarina Mogilko0:24

      In this episode, we're gonna dig deep into his investment strategy. We're gonna break down the AI bubble. We're gonna talk about what he invests in and how he sees the future, and of course, the psychology of smart investing, how not to buy high and not to sell low. Let's dive deeper into this conversation with Alex. For an average investor like me, what would be the ideal portfolio if I want to win in this AI era?

   7. ALAlex0:47

      Yeah. The best thing to do almost always in the stock market is-

2. 0:51 – 2:15

   Are we in an AI bubble?

   1. MMMarina Mogilko0:51

      Hey, guys, welcome to Silicon Valley Girl.

   2. ALAlex0:53

      Yeah.

   3. MMMarina Mogilko0:53

      My first question is, are we in a bubble?

   4. ALAlex0:55

      Are we in a bubble?

   5. MMMarina Mogilko0:56

      Yeah.

   6. ALAlex0:56

      Um, I think certain kinds of stocks are definitely in a bubble, and certain kinds are not. So for example, right now, hardware, you know, the infrastructure for AI is definitely not in a bubble. You know, we're already seeing some revenue returns on the infrastructure for AI, and we're seeing, like, a big explosion in demand for the compute power associated with AI. So I think the underlying infrastructure, you know, the servers, the data centers, the chips, things like that, are definitely not in a bubble. I think we'll see certain software companies that are claiming to be AI software companies today, we'll see their valuation skyrocket and then drop.

   7. MMMarina Mogilko1:34

      Mm-hmm.

   8. ALAlex1:34

      So those might be in a bubble today. I think it'll be a few years before we see the next Facebook, the next Google, the next, uh, big software companies associated with AI.

   9. MMMarina Mogilko1:46

      Interesting-

   10. ALAlex1:46

       So-

   11. MMMarina Mogilko1:46

       ... 'cause a lot of people talk about, like, this dot-com crash-

   12. ALAlex1:49

       Yeah

   13. MMMarina Mogilko1:49

       ... right? When all the valuations were through the roof, and then su- suddenly everything dropped.

   14. ALAlex1:53

       Totally.

   15. MMMarina Mogilko1:53

       Are we gonna see something like that, do you think?

   16. ALAlex1:55

       I don't think so. I think, uh, you know, we will in, in certain sectors, for sure. Maybe not as extreme, but I think what you're... Like, if you look at the balance sheets of a lot of these companies, you'll see that their revenues and their profits are following their valuation.

   17. MMMarina Mogilko2:07

       Mm.

   18. ALAlex2:07

       So, for example, NVIDIA, sky-high price, right? But if you look at their earnings per share, uh, and their PE ratio-

3. 2:15 – 5:09

   What PE ratio really tells you

   1. MMMarina Mogilko2:15

      Can you explain to everyone who's watching what it means, and what's a good number?

   2. ALAlex2:18

      Sure, yeah. So when you think about a stock's price, which is really based on its market cap, so that, that kind of tells you how highly valued the company is, and then, when you look at its earnings, that's literally, you know, you take it's- the number of shares of that company, the number of shares outstanding, and how much money it generates in profit per share, right?

   3. MMMarina Mogilko2:40

      Sure. Mm.

   4. ALAlex2:40

      So the higher that number, the better. So there's kind of two ways to control that number, right? You can earn a lot more money, or you can decrease the amount of shares.

   5. MMMarina Mogilko2:48

      What's a good number?

   6. ALAlex2:49

      Uh, for a PE ratio?

   7. MMMarina Mogilko2:50

      Yeah.

   8. ALAlex2:51

      It kind of depends on the company and, honestly, what kind of PE ratio you're looking at. But I try to look at forward PE ratios, which means a prediction of the next 12 months of earnings. Um, probably under, like, 30 is what I would say.

   9. MMMarina Mogilko3:04

      Mm-hmm.

   10. ALAlex3:04

       And so really, you'll hear different numbers from different people. So, for example, value investors tend to want lower PE ratios, like 15, 12, even 10 sometimes.

   11. MMMarina Mogilko3:13

       Because they're hoping for it to go-

   12. ALAlex3:14

       Because, because they don't wanna pay a high price per earnings-

   13. MMMarina Mogilko3:19

       Yeah

   14. ALAlex3:19

       ... per dollar earned, right? The flip side of that is, if you just look at the PE ratio, what you're really ignoring is the growth of the company. And when you're talking about AI and other, like, pretty relatively new industries, they're growing very fast. So earnings is like a snapshot, right?

   15. MMMarina Mogilko3:34

       Mm-hmm.

   16. ALAlex3:34

       It's like taking a picture of a balance sheet and saying, "This is a number." But in reality, next quarter, those earnings will look very different, and then the quarter after that, and then the quarter after that. So looking at a forward PE ratio and taking, um... like, thinking about what they'll be making next year or in two or three years, or even five years, can sometimes be a better estimate of the value.

   17. MMMarina Mogilko3:55

       And how, how accurate are those?

   18. ALAlex3:56

       So it depends. So the way the industry likes to do it is they look at analyst estimates, and they take the average. Something I've noticed is analysts are usually incorrect, um, usually sometimes by a lot. So and that's part of my job, um, is to sort of understand the science behind the stock, if you will. That's what my YouTube channel is about. Um, and really, what that means is understanding it from a product-first perspective. Because if you back up for a second, we've been talking about earnings, we've been talking about profits, we've been talking about prices, but all of those are really led by a company selling a product or service, right? So by the time they report their earnings, and that news comes out, they've already done a lot of business. So you can actually probably figure things out faster if you understand the product, the service-

   19. MMMarina Mogilko4:41

       Yeah

   20. ALAlex4:41

       ... the experience that company provides. Because then you can make a decision before those numbers even hit the balance sheet, if that makes sense. So that's, that's kind of why I'm at conferences like this, is to look at NVIDIA, look at Amazon Web Services, look at these publicly traded companies, and try to understand more about the products and services they offer.... what that means for their revenue, what's that going to mean for their margins going forward, uh, and make investment decisions so that by the time it hits the news, I'm already invested.

   21. MMMarina Mogilko5:08

       Actually, I've been noticing

4. 5:09 – 7:02

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   1. MMMarina Mogilko5:09

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5. 7:02 – 11:15

   Why these stocks dominate his portfolio

   1. MMMarina Mogilko7:02

      seat using the link in the description below, and let's get back to our interview with Alex. So what are you investing in right now?

   2. ALAlex7:08

      Yeah, so, uh, big investments that I've made recently have been in NVIDIA. Yeah, I've been in NVIDIA.

   3. MMMarina Mogilko7:13

      How, how much of your portfolio is in, is in NVIDIA?

   4. ALAlex7:15

      Um, [sighs] right now, it's down to, like, about 40%, so it used to be like-

   5. MMMarina Mogilko7:19

      So, like, 40% in a single stock?

   6. ALAlex7:21

      Yes. So it used to be even more, and that's-

   7. MMMarina Mogilko7:23

      Wow!

   8. ALAlex7:23

      ... because, so I've been holding NVIDIA stock since 2016, so they've been-

   9. MMMarina Mogilko7:27

      Good for you.

   10. ALAlex7:27

       Yeah, so they-

   11. MMMarina Mogilko7:28

       Are you buying the dip as well, when everything crashed with the terrace, remember?

   12. ALAlex7:31

       Yeah.

   13. MMMarina Mogilko7:31

       Mm.

   14. ALAlex7:31

       I... So I didn't buy that one, but NVIDIA has actually crashed by over 20 or 30% several times in the last maybe 18 months now.

   15. MMMarina Mogilko7:39

       So you track it, and you buy?

   16. ALAlex7:40

       So I track it and, you know, buy, or at least, like, um, slowly average more in. Uh, and then a little while ago, I sold about a third of my shares. Yeah.

   17. MMMarina Mogilko7:51

       Why?

   18. ALAlex7:51

       I, I got married, so I paid for my wedding.

   19. MMMarina Mogilko7:54

       Mm.

   20. ALAlex7:54

       I paid for my honeymoon. Real-life expenses, so-

   21. MMMarina Mogilko7:56

       Yeah

   22. ALAlex7:56

       ... you know, um, I had to adjust my portfolio accordingly. Yeah, so-

   23. MMMarina Mogilko8:00

       How's your hold? Can you-

   24. ALAlex8:01

       Yeah, so-

   25. MMMarina Mogilko8:01

       Give me the overview.

   26. ALAlex8:02

       I've been, I've been, uh, talking about a stock called Palantir for, um, about three years now. So I first started investing in Palantir in 2022 or 2023. Um, I started buying it at about, I wanna say, like, $11 a share. I sold it at around $25 a share. I sold about a third of my position. Ended up buying it back. Uh, you know, I reevaluated my thesis. I actually made videos on both sides. Made a video saying, "Hey, I don't like these few things about the stock." Then a couple people in the Palantir community pointed me towards, like, uh, different things to look at. Decided I was wrong, came out with another video, bought back in at around maybe, like, $28, $32, and now I believe it's at, like, $135 a share.

   27. MMMarina Mogilko8:48

       Wow!

   28. ALAlex8:48

       So it was another, like-

   29. MMMarina Mogilko8:49

       How much of your portfolio is Palantir?

   30. ALAlex8:51

       Yeah, uh, another, like, probably 20, 25%.
6. 11:15 – 15:11

   When to sell (and when to do nothing)

   1. ALAlex11:15

      that I cover.

   2. MMMarina Mogilko11:15

      Is selling ever part of your strategy, apart from personal expenses?

   3. ALAlex11:19

      Absolutely. So, you know, uh, no matter who you are, a stock can get, like, way overheated very fast. Sometimes, you know, Palantir moved, for example, I think it was like... It's up, like, eighty percent this year. That's a little too hot to handle, so I don't really sell out of a stock completely, but I'll trim it over time, right? So NVIDIA's a great example, Palantir is a great example. I might reduce my exposure from, like, forty percent of my portfolio, which is way too much, down to something like twenty-five. So-

   4. MMMarina Mogilko11:48

      And reinvest in Nasdaq or-

   5. ALAlex11:50

      Reinvest in the Nasdaq, yeah. So I try to always make my money work for me instead of work for my money. So typically, if I don't know what to do with it, I'll put it in the indexes, treat that like a cash position, and then what happens is, because some of my shares in these indexes are more than a year old, I can withdraw them and only pay capital gains tax.

   6. MMMarina Mogilko12:08

      Yeah.

   7. ALAlex12:09

      So that's what I use to fund my next investments.

   8. MMMarina Mogilko12:12

      Interesting.

   9. ALAlex12:12

      Exactly.

   10. MMMarina Mogilko12:12

       So when, when you talk about, just so I understand, your income, uh, proportions, m- does most of it come from YouTube now, or stocks are also like a primary-

   11. ALAlex12:21

       Yeah, so about ten percent of my income comes from YouTube, maybe a little more, ten, fifteen, something like that. The rest comes from investing.

   12. MMMarina Mogilko12:28

       So you can say investing is your full-time job, right?

   13. ALAlex12:30

       Investing is definitely my full-time job. So I-

   14. MMMarina Mogilko12:32

       How much time does it take a week?

   15. ALAlex12:34

       Uh, I, you know, I treat it like a real job, so for me, I probably spend forty hours a week researching. And so what I actually do is I try to monetize that research as many ways as I can. So the first and primary way is definitely my own investments. You know, if you shut down my YouTube channel today, I would just be focused on investing for myself. Second way is sharing my research on YouTube, right? So that's my YouTube videos. Third way is I actually advise a couple of family offices-

   16. MMMarina Mogilko12:59

       Nice

   17. ALAlex12:59

       ... pretty small family offices, but same thing, you know. It's, it's just like the content on my YouTube channel, but they're just asking more specific questions about more specific companies, some public, some private. And again, it's all AI and semiconductor focused, so chip focused. Um, and they're just really looking to understand how to protect their wealth in the event of a bubble, right? So, um, you know, does-

   18. MMMarina Mogilko13:21

       What's your advice there?

   19. ALAlex13:22

       Yeah, so, uh, don't have crazy amounts of exposure in one or two publicly traded companies would be a good start.

   20. MMMarina Mogilko13:28

       Which is the opposite of your strategy. [chuckles]

   21. ALAlex13:29

       Yeah, which is the opposite of what I do, right? So I find that people who are, like, very, very wealthy, they're not really looking for, you know, two, three, five, ten X stocks, right? They're looking for safe bets that meet or outperform the market, and what they want to do is minimize their risk, right? So it's a very different strategy for them. You know, they're already diversified across a lot of different asset classes as well. So what they actually end up looking to me for when I get in contact with them is to stress test an existing thesis in a company they already have.

   22. MMMarina Mogilko14:02

       Hmm.

   23. ALAlex14:03

       Like, will Amazon continue powering roughly a third of the internet, or when things move to AI, will the next big cloud service look very different from Amazon Web Services?

   24. MMMarina Mogilko14:11

       What do you think about that? That's a great thing to-

   25. ALAlex14:13

       Yeah, yeah.

   26. MMMarina Mogilko14:14

       What do you think about that?

   27. ALAlex14:14

       So, so I do think that Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, they're, they're putting themselves in a position to kind of have their cake and eat it too. They power a large portion of the traditional internet, and they're investing heavily in AI to power a big portion of the generative internet, right? So I think because they're able to spend the many, many billions of dollars, uh, to build up that infrastructure, they'll be very hard to disrupt no matter what. Because just like family offices, these are really, like, companies that are portfolios of technology, right?

   28. MMMarina Mogilko14:46

       Mm-hmm.

   29. ALAlex14:46

       Google's not just a search engine, it's a cloud service provider, it's the Chrome browser, it's the Android operating system, it's Google DeepMind. You know, there's all these pieces to their portfolio.

   30. MMMarina Mogilko14:57

       Yeah.
7. 15:11 – 18:25

   The “no bonds” portfolio explained

   1. ALAlex15:11

      ways to make that up.

   2. MMMarina Mogilko15:12

      So for an average investor like me, who can't spend all my time investing-

   3. ALAlex15:15

      Yeah, yeah

   4. MMMarina Mogilko15:16

      ... and, like, researching, what would be the ideal portfolio if I want to win in this AI-

   5. ALAlex15:21

      Yeah, so I'm, I'm gonna-

   6. MMMarina Mogilko15:22

      ... not lose everything? [chuckles]

   7. ALAlex15:23

      Sure, sure. So I'm gonna say something a little bit controversial here. So the typical advice, and by the way, I'm not a financial advisor, right? I'm not qualified to give financial advice.

   8. MMMarina Mogilko15:31

      Typical thing you say on YouTube, right? [chuckles]

   9. ALAlex15:32

      Yeah. Yep, yep, and it's very true.

   10. MMMarina Mogilko15:34

       I know.

   11. ALAlex15:34

       So, like, you know, if you were to establish, like, a serious amount of money in an account today, you should go seek a professional and talk to them, right? But if I was in your shoes, what I would do is instead of building... The traditional advice that you would get today is build a sixty-forty portfolio, right? That's sixty percent stocks-

   12. MMMarina Mogilko15:50

       Yeah, like bonds is your age, and the rest is stocks.

   13. ALAlex15:52

       Exactly. And, and that proportion slides as you grow older, right?

   14. MMMarina Mogilko15:56

       Yeah.

   15. ALAlex15:56

       In my opinion, where you want to diversify is outside of stocks, right? So you want to hold some real estate. Maybe you want to hold some crypto or some precious metals or whatever, collectible, whatever, whatever you think is, um, a good asset to hold, right? And inside stocks, what you want to do is decide how much risk you're willing to take, and that really depends on what kind of stocks you want to buy versus how much you should put in indexes. So, for example, instead of a sixty-forty stocks/bonds portfolio, maybe it's a sixty-forty indexes/individual stocks portfolio.

   16. MMMarina Mogilko16:30

       Mm-hmm.

   17. ALAlex16:31

       Right? So the... When my friends ask me what-

   18. MMMarina Mogilko16:34

       So no, no bonds.

   19. ALAlex16:35

       So in my opinion, no bonds, right? Uh, that's certainly not mainstream advice, but what I would do is I would put money in the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq. I-

   20. MMMarina Mogilko16:44

       The proportion.

   21. ALAlex16:45

       Yeah, so I would prefer the Nasdaq, but if you aren't so comfortable with, like, the big ups and downs, that's really... S&P 500 is a great index. It's performed super well, long history and track record of great performance.... um, a little more risky, but a little more rewarding over the long term, would be the Nasdaq 100. Still very diversified, 100 tech companies across a wide variety of different technologies. You know, you got your Nvidias, your Broadcoms, but you also have software companies, cybersecurity companies, really all sorts of different technologies. So I would do the Nasdaq. And then the rest, I like picking individual stocks from, like, the top and the middle of those indexes, because those indexes already have good criteria for a company to be in them.

   22. MMMarina Mogilko17:29

       Mm-hmm.

   23. ALAlex17:29

       So all the individual stocks I hold, like, there's no magic, right? They're at the top of the S&P 500. They're at the top of the Nasdaq.

   24. MMMarina Mogilko17:36

       Yeah.

   25. ALAlex17:37

       And so what I really do is I try to find the losers in those indexes, and by losers, I just mean the historic underperformers, not that they're bad companies, just that their growth in the stock market has underperformed the index, and I just try to avoid those. So there's a good saying, you know, if you wanna be a great gardener, it's not about planting the right plants. It's about stripping away all the things that stop those plants from growing.

   26. MMMarina Mogilko18:01

       Mm.

   27. ALAlex18:01

       So what I try to do is-

   28. MMMarina Mogilko18:03

       Yeah.

   29. ALAlex18:03

       Yeah, so that's it. I'm just looking to, you know, plant my flowers, those are the individual stocks, and try to minimize my exposure to the things that stop them from growing.

   30. MMMarina Mogilko18:11

       So for a 35-year-old, like me-
8. 18:25 – 22:45

   Dollar-cost averaging smartly

   1. ALAlex18:25

      that, you know, you just wanna retire-

   2. MMMarina Mogilko18:26

      Yeah, you still wanna do dollar-cost averaging, right?

   3. ALAlex18:28

      So that's what I would do, but, you know, a lot of people automate that, for example.

   4. MMMarina Mogilko18:32

      Yeah.

   5. ALAlex18:32

      So, like, you know, thou- 100 bucks a month, a thousand bucks a month-

   6. MMMarina Mogilko18:35

      Yeah

   7. ALAlex18:35

      ... whatever you feel appropriate, you know, you're just investing it into this mix.

   8. MMMarina Mogilko18:39

      So what's the mix?

   9. ALAlex18:40

      Yeah, so the mix would be, in my opinion, something like 25% S&P 500, maybe another 40% Nasdaq 100, so that's already two-thirds of your portfolio. Now, you're safe and in the indexes, right? You can rest easy knowing you have 500 companies spread across your portfolio, right?

   10. MMMarina Mogilko18:59

       Yeah.

   11. ALAlex18:59

       And then the other 35%, 30, 35%, I would pick individual stocks, and the way I like to do it is I like to invest in things I know. So my channel is focused on sort of expanding people's knowledge about things so they feel comfortable holding those stocks when they dip 20, 30, 50%, which Nvidia does, Palantir does, Broadcom does. All these high-rewarding stocks, they crash just as much as they go up, right?

   12. MMMarina Mogilko19:24

       Yeah, psychology-

   13. ALAlex19:25

       So they have high volatility

   14. MMMarina Mogilko19:25

       ... is so hard, especially if that's your-

   15. ALAlex19:28

       Yeah

   16. MMMarina Mogilko19:28

       ... uh, single portfolio.

   17. ALAlex19:29

       And whether you're a retail investor, an institution, a family office, whatever, your behavior and your psychology is 90% of your returns. I strongly believe that. The- there was a great study by Fidelity, and they said the top performers in their entire suite... You know, Fidelity manages trillions and trillions of dollars in assets. Guess what they all had in common?

   18. MMMarina Mogilko19:50

       They were over 60 years old? [laughing]

   19. ALAlex19:53

       They were all dead.

   20. MMMarina Mogilko19:54

       Ah.

   21. ALAlex19:54

       They were all dead.

   22. MMMarina Mogilko19:55

       So yeah.

   23. ALAlex19:55

       So they, yeah, they just couldn't touch their portfolio, right? So they let it ride. You know what I mean? They never sold, which means they never panicked.

   24. MMMarina Mogilko20:02

       Yeah.

   25. ALAlex20:02

       So that's a good reminder, that the b- the best thing to do, almost always in the stock market, is nothing. Right?

   26. MMMarina Mogilko20:08

       Wow!

   27. ALAlex20:08

       So even though my channel's about stocks and updates and buy this and buy that, it's because a lot of new people funnel in. They find my channel, they're- they have new money to allocate. They just found me for the first time. But the average viewer I find, that I talk to, they only make one or two investment decisions per year. They'll rebalance maybe quarterly. They'll get into a new stock. They'll decide to sell, sell just like I did because they have a real family expense. They'll watch one of my videos on a stock they were thinking about selling and decide to hold some of it, maybe only sell half what they thought. So it's- it seems action-packed when you're making content about stocks every week, but it really is, like, for the average viewer-

   28. MMMarina Mogilko20:47

       Yeah

   29. ALAlex20:47

       ... supposed to be just a data point, another data point.

   30. MMMarina Mogilko20:50

       Yeah.
9. 22:45 – 25:55

   Fear & Greed Index: how to use it

   1. MMMarina Mogilko22:45

      in the night and think, like, "Hey, maybe we're approaching another 2008 because of the tariffs or whatever is going on in the world?" Do you ever have these thoughts?

   2. ALAlex22:54

      Of course. You know, I, I think, um, that's a real part of the challenge, you know? And then the question is, okay, you have the thought. What are you gonna do about it? Is the answer to-

   3. MMMarina Mogilko23:03

      Sell. [laughing]

   4. ALAlex23:03

      ... Sell everything? Yeah, so, um, since the tariffs-... uh, got announced, and we hit our bottom, right? I believe the market is up something like thirty percent.

   5. MMMarina Mogilko23:14

      Did you buy that? You didn't buy anything?

   6. ALAlex23:15

      So I ended up buying the dip, and I made a bunch of videos about it. You know, as we- I track something called the Fear and Greed Index-

   7. MMMarina Mogilko23:22

      Mm.

   8. ALAlex23:22

      -which is a great index. It's run by CNN, and what it does is it tracks all these different metrics to help determine how fearful or greedy the average investor is in the market-

   9. MMMarina Mogilko23:31

      That's a good-

   10. ALAlex23:31

       -in that moment.

   11. MMMarina Mogilko23:32

       That's a good one. Never heard of that one before.

   12. ALAlex23:33

       Yeah, so Fear and Greed Index, and the thing to know is, like W- Warren Buffett says, right, you wanna be greedy when others are fearful. So it turns out, the bottom of the market when, you know, everything was going on with China tariffs, was also the bottom of this Fear and Greed Index. So I made a video saying: The Fear and Greed Index, it goes from zero to one hundred. It was at a three.

   13. MMMarina Mogilko23:51

       Mm.

   14. ALAlex23:51

       Extreme fear, panic in the market, blood in the streets, right, so to speak. Um, so I was talking about the stocks I was buying, exactly what I was doing in that moment, and the market's up, I wanna say, like, over twenty percent since then.

   15. MMMarina Mogilko24:03

       Fascinating!

   16. ALAlex24:03

       You know? So there, there are all these other indicators you can look at to sort of get an idea, right? And it's not like, if your index is low, go buy, right? We're not trying to time the market. We're just trying to get a little more data before we make a decision either way, right?

   17. MMMarina Mogilko24:15

       Have you ever panic-sold?

   18. ALAlex24:16

       Of course.

   19. MMMarina Mogilko24:17

       Yeah?

   20. ALAlex24:17

       Of course. Yes. I think every good investor... Part of becoming a good investor, it's just like any other skill. You start by being-

   21. MMMarina Mogilko24:25

       Good or bad, like growth

   22. ALAlex24:25

       ... a bad investor.

   23. MMMarina Mogilko24:26

       Yeah.

   24. ALAlex24:26

       You know what I mean? Yeah, so for sure, and you can see in, like, the early days of my channel and even before that, I've lost plenty of money, right?

   25. MMMarina Mogilko24:33

       By selling.

   26. ALAlex24:34

       By selling, by not buying, by... Yeah, of course. I've made every mistake in the book, and I don't-- like, I don't know anyone who's really good at anything who didn't start by being very bad at that thing first, right? So yeah.

   27. MMMarina Mogilko24:46

       What would be your advice for people who are panicking?

   28. ALAlex24:48

       For people who are panicking?

   29. MMMarina Mogilko24:49

       P- th- thinking of selling, for maybe something happens in the next two weeks, and we all have this thought of, like, maybe we should sell.

   30. ALAlex24:54

       Yeah, I, I think there's, there's, like, two really good sets of advice. The first is, if you, if you think prices are gonna go down, right? If I was going to Louis Vuitton tomorrow, and I thought that prices were gonna go down, I would probably be pretty excited, right? Because I'd be getting something I want at a discount.
10. 25:55 – 28:07

    The psychology of panic-selling

    1. ALAlex25:55

       selling, you just, "I can't take it anymore," don't do it all at once, right? So just like you wanna dollar-cost average in, people forget you can also dollar-cost average out.

    2. MMMarina Mogilko26:03

       Oh, yeah.

    3. ALAlex26:04

       Right? So a great thing to do is, "I'm out," great, sell ten percent of your position and then re- reassess. Because the number one thing that I hear from people is right after they hit that sell button, they get seller's remorse, just like when you pull the trigger and you make a purchase, and then all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, my God, why did I just spend all that money?"

    4. MMMarina Mogilko26:21

       Why did I do?

    5. ALAlex26:21

       Same thing on the other side. So sell ten percent. Sell fifteen percent. Don't s-- Never sell one hundred percent of anything all at once.

    6. MMMarina Mogilko26:28

       I love that. What about other stocks? So we talked about giants, right?

    7. ALAlex26:31

       Yeah.

    8. MMMarina Mogilko26:32

       What about the Tesla stock? What about Meta? What about smaller startups who just IPO'd and they're emerging?

    9. ALAlex26:38

       Sure, sure. So, so I would classify the Teslas and the Metas of the world as still giant stocks. I think Tesla is still over a trillion dollars-

    10. MMMarina Mogilko26:45

        Yeah, well

    11. ALAlex26:45

        ... in market cap.

    12. MMMarina Mogilko26:46

        Yeah.

    13. ALAlex26:46

        Facebook, everybody knows.

    14. MMMarina Mogilko26:47

        Just they're so-

    15. ALAlex26:48

        They're... Yeah, and you're gonna see that a lot, right? Like, if it's, if it touches AI, it's gonna be up and down because AI sentiment changes every day, right?

    16. MMMarina Mogilko26:55

        Yeah.

    17. ALAlex26:56

        AI is amazing. AI is a hype cycle. You know, AI cured cancer. AI is just a chatbot. You know what I mean? So it's gonna go up and down. So one of the things that I focus on is, like, deep research, right? Understanding the science behind the stocks. Jensen just gave a great keynote, and he talked a lot about, uh, where the world is heading in terms of data centers. So the Blackwell chips, one thing that's special about them is they require liquid cooling. So you, uh, traditional data centers have these big fans. They push a lot of air through them to keep things cool, but if you can liquid-cool things, you can make things a lot smaller, which means you can pack a lot more compute in, like, a rack-

    18. MMMarina Mogilko27:35

        Yeah

    19. ALAlex27:35

        ... which means each rack can provide a lot more service, a lot more AI, a lot more data, which means you can pack a lot more in a data center, but it requires liquid cooling. So one of the things that I've been looking at lately is a bunch of publicly traded liquid cooling companies. Who are the vendors for Nvidia? Who are the vendors for AMD? Who are the vendors for Qualcomm?

    20. MMMarina Mogilko27:55

        I love that.

    21. ALAlex27:55

        Right? So again, tying this back to not just what are the balance sheets today, but where's the world gonna be tomorrow, right? So liquid cooling is a great example. There's a lot of talks about quantum computing, like-

    22. MMMarina Mogilko28:06

        Robots.

11. 28:07 – 32:32

    Investing in robotics & AI infrastructure

    1. ALAlex28:07

       Robots, yeah.

    2. MMMarina Mogilko28:08

       You don't believe in them.

    3. ALAlex28:09

       Uh, so I don't believe in humanoid robots today, right? I do believe that ultimately, humanoid robots will be something that, you know, they'll be walking out around us. They'll be doing certain manual labor jobs, but I think if you take a step back, the... So the reason people are so gung ho about humanoid robots is the world is built for humans, right? You know, you can imagine somebody manning that camera, a humanoid robot ca- should be able to man that camera. Um, sweeping a floor, a humanoid robot should be able to do anything a human can do, right? But if you take a step back and you look at any task, a human is way overengineered to do almost any task we just talked about.

    4. MMMarina Mogilko28:51

       Mm.

    5. ALAlex28:51

       Right? So, you know, cleaning a floor doesn't require a human. It doesn't-

    6. MMMarina Mogilko28:54

       Yeah, it's like a robot.

    7. ALAlex28:55

       Yeah, you know-

    8. MMMarina Mogilko28:56

       Right

    9. ALAlex28:56

       ... a little robot, a self-cleaning mop, self-cleaning vacuum-

    10. MMMarina Mogilko28:58

        Yeah

    11. ALAlex28:58

        ... and you're done, right? So, you know, you don't wanna build this whole complex brain, opposable thumbs, all these extra joints-

    12. MMMarina Mogilko29:05

        Absolutely

    13. ALAlex29:05

        ... to sweep a-

    14. MMMarina Mogilko29:06

        To mop the floor

    15. ALAlex29:06

        ... uh, to mop a flat surface, right?

    16. MMMarina Mogilko29:08

        Yeah.

    17. ALAlex29:09

        You can think of a lot of these other jobs the same way. Part picking, for example, Amazon, they employ over seven hundred and fifty thousand robots. So they're actually one of the world's biggest employers of robots today, not in the future, already, right?... um, almost none of them look like humans. So that's probably a good sign that, you know, future robots will also mostly not look like humans. For example, car factories, heavily mechanized, right? Car fact- you know, big, heavy parts, assemblies-

    18. MMMarina Mogilko29:37

        Yeah

    19. ALAlex29:37

        ... a lot of things going on. Why don't those robots look like humans?

    20. MMMarina Mogilko29:41

        Beautiful-

    21. ALAlex29:41

        Yeah, because like-

    22. MMMarina Mogilko29:42

        They don't need to.

    23. ALAlex29:42

        Yeah, there are form factors better suited to most of these tasks. It makes most sense. A lot of the tasks are highly repetitive. Serving a drink, why aren't those robots looking like humans? My barista is a human, right? Why isn't the Starbucks robot, the coffee robots, a human?

    24. MMMarina Mogilko29:56

        Mm-hmm. So how do you invest- or do you invest in robots?

    25. ALAlex29:59

        Uh, I try to invest in companies that have a lot of exposure to what's called, like, the robotic stack. So Nvidia's a great one for that. Nvidia has a whole set of hardware-

    26. MMMarina Mogilko30:08

        I feel like Nvidia covers the whole AI. [chuckles]

    27. ALAlex30:10

        It really, it really does.

    28. MMMarina Mogilko30:11

        If you wanna invest in AI, right?

    29. ALAlex30:12

        It really does. It's a great pick for just, "I don't wanna think about or learn AI. You know, there's so much to this. What do I do? I just want one or two companies." Nvidia should be among those, in my opinion.

    30. MMMarina Mogilko30:21

        But could it get disrupted?
12. 32:32 – 35:24

    Crypto, Bitcoin & regrets

    1. ALAlex32:32

       know?

    2. MMMarina Mogilko32:32

       It's gonna be good.

    3. ALAlex32:33

       Yeah.

    4. MMMarina Mogilko32:33

       What about crypto?

    5. ALAlex32:34

       Uh, yeah, so I, I think crypto is, like, really outside the scope of my channel, for example. When, uh, people ask me about crypto, I always point them to the difference between Bitcoin and everything else. So Bitcoin is really treated like a commodity, digital gold, so that tends to be a really good safe bet and a good hedge.

    6. MMMarina Mogilko32:51

       How much of it do you hold?

    7. ALAlex32:52

       I hold zero.

    8. MMMarina Mogilko32:53

       Oh, okay.

    9. ALAlex32:53

       I currently hold zero Bitcoin. Yeah, so-

    10. MMMarina Mogilko32:55

        Why? Have you a regret? [chuckles]

    11. ALAlex32:56

        Uh, I do, yeah.

    12. MMMarina Mogilko32:57

        [chuckles]

    13. ALAlex32:57

        So I actually- believe it or not, so when I was younger, when I was, like, maybe in my late 20s or early 30s, I held six Bitcoin. I had six. I had them at $1,500. I went on a trip to Japan. I sold all six, paid for the trip. So I bought them at 1,500, sold them at 4,500, right? So tripled my money. Thought I was a genius, right? So sold at 4,500-

    14. MMMarina Mogilko33:18

        That was an expensive trip to Japan.

    15. ALAlex33:20

        Yes, it was.

    16. MMMarina Mogilko33:20

        With Bitcoin.

    17. ALAlex33:21

        Yeah, it was awesome. So it was like-

    18. MMMarina Mogilko33:22

        [chuckles] Wow

    19. ALAlex33:23

        ... first class both ways, you know, like, I was like-

    20. MMMarina Mogilko33:24

        Did you stay in the lounge or something? [chuckles]

    21. ALAlex33:25

        Yeah, it was, it was an incredible trip. You know, me and a friend went.

    22. MMMarina Mogilko33:28

        Nice.

    23. ALAlex33:29

        Um, but, you know, so six times five, so I made a little less than $30,000, right?

    24. MMMarina Mogilko33:34

        Mm.

    25. ALAlex33:35

        Living the highlight.

    26. MMMarina Mogilko33:36

        Yeah.

    27. ALAlex33:36

        So of course, today, Bitcoin's, like, well over $100,000 a coin.

    28. MMMarina Mogilko33:41

        A hundred ten? Yeah.

    29. ALAlex33:41

        Yeah, so I mean, selling at 4,500 to 110-

    30. MMMarina Mogilko33:44

        I'd do the same. [chuckles]
13. 35:24 – 39:00

    Best platforms & resources for beginners

    1. MMMarina Mogilko35:24

       For everyone who listened to this and are like: "Okay, great, but how can I start investing?"

    2. ALAlex35:29

       Yeah.

    3. MMMarina Mogilko35:29

       Can you recommend resources, like, top three resources for investing, for getting the information?

    4. ALAlex35:35

       Sure. The best and safest one is gonna be Fidelity, in my opinion. Another great one is Charles Schwab.

    5. MMMarina Mogilko35:40

       Do you use their money market fund, Fidelity?

    6. ALAlex35:42

       Nope.

    7. MMMarina Mogilko35:43

       No?

    8. ALAlex35:43

       Nope. I like to-

    9. MMMarina Mogilko35:44

       So cash is cash.

    10. ALAlex35:45

        Just stick to the-- cash is cash.

    11. MMMarina Mogilko35:46

        Okay.

    12. ALAlex35:46

        Um, they automatically invest it in some sort of, um, reasonable yielding. It's called SPACs.

    13. MMMarina Mogilko35:52

        Yeah, like four percent.

    14. ALAlex35:53

        Yeah, so, like, they, they handle all that for you. They don't let it sit in cash, you know, they-

    15. MMMarina Mogilko35:57

        Oh, okay

    16. ALAlex35:58

        ... they do a great job.

    17. MMMarina Mogilko35:58

        Okay.

    18. ALAlex35:58

        So whenever you sell, it's automatically converted to SPACs, right?

    19. MMMarina Mogilko36:02

        Okay.

    20. ALAlex36:02

        So Fidelity, Charles Schwab. If you're looking for a more mobile-friendly, you know, you're somebody on the go, you like checking your portfolio on your phone, I think Robinhood is excellent. So, and then if you're more of a-- if you like the automation, automatic rebalancing, and you care more about, like, the interface, M1 Finance, I find, is, like, a really, really good-

    21. MMMarina Mogilko36:20

        'Cause you can build your own portfolio and reinvest.

    22. ALAlex36:21

        You can build your own.

    23. MMMarina Mogilko36:22

        Yeah.

    24. ALAlex36:23

        Yeah, it's awesome. So it's got a really great way of visualizing baskets of stocks and then letting you diversify among different baskets without it becoming, like, too confusing. So M1 Finance and Robinhood are very beginner-friendly, and then Fidelity and Charles Schwab are sort of like the big, old institutions that you can be sure are never going away, never kind of getting disrupted. So-

    25. MMMarina Mogilko36:44

        What about-

    26. ALAlex36:44

        those are four great options.

    27. MMMarina Mogilko36:45

        What about market insights?

    28. ALAlex36:47

        Yeah, you know, so I think, um, one of the best places to look, again, is probably YouTube. You know, you're gonna find great YouTubers, e- like, not even gonna pitch my own channel, but...

    29. MMMarina Mogilko36:57

        What about-

    30. ALAlex36:57

        You know
14. 39:00 – 39:21

    Final advice: why patience beats everything

    1. MMMarina Mogilko39:00

       Buffett's net worth-

    2. ALAlex39:01

       Yes, absolutely

    3. MMMarina Mogilko39:02

       ... that it went hockey stick up after he turned sixty-six.

    4. ALAlex39:05

       Yeah, yeah.

    5. MMMarina Mogilko39:06

       Twenty years after he-

    6. ALAlex39:06

       Huge

    7. MMMarina Mogilko39:06

       ... started investing, it was like this, and oh!

    8. ALAlex39:09

       Yeah. So make sure you hit the gym, because, you know-

    9. MMMarina Mogilko39:12

       [chuckles]

    10. ALAlex39:12

        ... if you can live to be ninety-two and then ninety-three-

    11. MMMarina Mogilko39:14

        You're gonna be a billionaire, basically. [chuckles]

    12. ALAlex39:16

        Yeah, you're gonna be a billionaire the longer you live, so-

    13. MMMarina Mogilko39:18

        Yeah

    14. ALAlex39:18

        ... you know.

    15. MMMarina Mogilko39:18

        Thank you so much!

    16. ALAlex39:19

        My pleasure.

    17. MMMarina Mogilko39:20

        Thanks a lot.

    18. ALAlex39:20

        Great speaking to you.

    19. MMMarina Mogilko39:21

        Great having you.

Episode duration: 39:21