The Liquidity Event Podcast: Episode 88

 

Episode 88: Let’s Not Die Rich

It's another episode of the Liquidity Event. We've got taxes on NFTs and real-life Star Wars! Space X is trying to throw 30,000 satellites into orbit and justify their 140 billion dollar valuation. We've also got word that Apple launched its own buy now, pay later service, but don't worry, you still have plenty of other options to go into debt with. Bad news for ChatGPT out of Italy, which banned the beloved bot. Finally, we unravel the mystery behind a $7 billion dollar estate tax payment, because that's just pocket change. It's tax season folks, let's ride!

Read the Full Transcript:

Presenter:

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered tax or investment advice. Welcome to The Liquidity Event, a show about all things personal finance with a laser focus on equity compensation, hosted by AJ and Shane of Brooklyn FI, each episode will take you through the week's news on FinTech, IPOs, SPACs, founder wins and fails, crypto, and whatever else these nerds think is interesting. Learn more and subscribe today at brooklynfi.com.

AJ:

Hello, good morning. Welcome to The Liquidity Event, we're your hosts AJ.

Shane:

And I'm Shane.

AJ:

And this is episode 88 being recorded on April 5th, airing on Friday, April 7th. This week we've got a great show for you folks. We've got Instacart back in the news with a increased valuation. We've got some real life Star Wars, some satellite wars going on, and of course we have some ChatGPT news for you as well. How you doing, Shane today?

Shane:

Oh, it's the middle of Xanax season. I mean, tax season. So, we're a little bit busy, yeah.

AJ:

Yeah, yeah. This is our busiest, most stressful week of the whole year, would you say?

Shane:

I would say that each year has gotten better and better, but yeah, it's just unfortunate the way that our government has structured this way that we submit our financial data as individuals, with these deadlines and a lot of complexity. And yeah, every year it gets a little bit better in terms of communicating with folks and ... et cetera. But yeah, it's always stressful. Taxes stress people out, so dealing with that.

AJ:

Sure. Yeah, a lot of stress from our side, from client side. "What's going on? I need to get filed by the deadline. Help." We hear you guys, it's stressful. Filing taxes is a very stressful thing, but not as stressful as watching The Mandalorian, which I am.

Shane:

I asked you for no spoilers. Am I going to get spoilers here?

AJ:

No, no spoilers. I just wanted to tell you that I'm caught up now. I was not caught up, but it's because they release new episodes every Wednesday, so I have no more episodes to watch except for tonight.

Shane:

Oh, oh, got you. It's not a Netflix dump. They do the HBO method of keeping it in-

AJ:

No, they do the HBO slow drip, slow drip.

Shane:

And here we are talking about it. Would we be slow drip versus the dump? Your thoughts?

AJ:

Slow drip is the way to go, to keep the conversation going, for sure, just like The Liquidity Event.

Shane:

The water cooler podcast conversation. Right on. Where were you going?

AJ:

I have a personal shout out. Longtime listener. Rachel, thank you so much for filling out our podcast survey, which new listeners and old listeners can also fill out for the chance to score a tent ... Sorry, not the chance, you get a $10 Amazon gift card if you fill out the damn survey. It's not a drawing, you just get it if you fill out the survey. So, would love your feedback, folks. Just a reminder, if you've been listening for a while or our new listener, what do you want to hear on the show? And again, who do you want to replace Shane with as my new co-host? Just kidding, we love Shane. That's all I've got. Should we jump into some news?

Shane:

Got a lot of articles this week. Let's get to it.

AJ:

Awesome. So yeah, first off the jump, in a reversal, Instacart hikes its valuation 18%. So, we have seen valuations of private tech companies be slashed over the past 12-ish months, and this is one of our first reversals that's actually up 18% from where it was at the end of last year. Is that what's going on? It was a Q1 bump. Still down, still way down, from its pandemic height. So, it's not all good news.

If you had been granted options of Instacart in early 2021, your options are likely still underwater, but things are trending in the right direction. What's your take here?

Shane:

Yeah, three quick things here. I think what makes a successful IPO is what people are worried about when they're heading into 409A evaluations. And I think one thing that's going to help with buoying all boats is a reduction in interest rates. When interest rates come down, generally through a discounted cashflow model, the value of equities and risk assets goes up. So I think this is them saying, "Hey, I think interest rates can't get any higher, and they're calling the top here." So, that's part of it. I mean, they're valued by a third party, so the third party is the one that's going to set the valuation. They are-

AJ:

Going to factor this in? Yeah.

Shane:

Yeah. I mean, they're one of the biggest IPOs targeted for 2023. Second is if they do experience a recession, which is usually when interest rates come down and increase the value of a company, I guess they're expecting that their price will continue to rise, that their business model will do well during a recession.

I don't know much about their business model. I do know that while reading through this article, a large percentage of their assets have shifted, or revenue has shifted, towards advertising revenue. I'm assuming that's coming from the grocery stores and other companies that are promoting their products for the ultimate consumer. I think that's really easy to scale, as opposed to actually delivery and getting human beings involved in sending or actually getting the damn groceries to your door. So, with Facebook and Instagram, you can see how that would be a viable flywheel cashflow item for them, and they're being valued at 4X revenue, which isn't a Zoom 30X revenue we saw in 2021, but it's still a lot better than a Facebook during the pits of their VR days.

AJ:

Yeah, it's interesting. So who are the competitors to Instacart? Gopuff, Gorillas? This is a space where it's like-

Shane:

DoorDash.

AJ:

... DoorDash, you need something now and someone will get paid a minimum wage to bring it to you. This space seems pretty stacked already, and you have Amazon doing instant delivery through their own grocery platform and Whole Foods. Is this in different markets? To me, this is a highly stacked market already. I don't know about this. I don't know if they're going to make it.

Shane:

It's crowded. Yeah, they're going to need to see some consolidation at some point. Speaking of crowded-

AJ:

I was waiting for you.

Shane:

... skies are getting crowded.

AJ:

I was waiting for you. I set you up and you bought.

Shane:

Thank you. Thank you. That was a layup. Speaking of crowded, sure is getting crowded up there in space, babe. Hey, we got 10,000 satellites already floating around. You would think 10,000 satellites really isn't that many, I mean, there's ... considering that-

AJ:

That's a lot of satellites.

Shane:

... well, I mean if you think about the physics of the ... The surface of Earth is how I like to think about it. The surface of Earth, if it had 10,000 satellites, we're talking about SpaceX here people.

AJ:

Here we go, okay.

Shane:

What?

AJ:

Basically, we want to have satellites blanketing the Earth enough so that we can have high speed internet in all corners of the Earth. That's what SpaceX is trying to do here, and they're trying to sell that, and they are by far the leader in this space. There are other companies trying to do this, but they're already way ahead and they are proposing that they're going to throw up another 30,000 satellites into orbit. That's the background here.

Shane:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then there's apparently a lot of competitors as well. Amazon's got, I don't know how to pronounce this, Cooper? Kuiper? Peter Thiel's got something called Ravada. And then the US, the United States government, obviously has their own satellites, and then there's there's other countries and other companies that have their own satellites up there. I guess the big fear here is that we're moving too fast and astronomers are asking us not to throw any more satellites up into space. And then again, we've got Starlink and SpaceX going hand in hand. SpaceX's valuation is $140 billion, which is all based on their ability to continue to get satellites into the skies, and capitalism is not anticipating a slowdown when it comes to ... I didn't know that SpaceX was the most highly valued private company.

AJ:

Yeah, it's so funny. I feel like we've been talking about Stripe so much, but yeah, Stripe's ... with its latest valuation, it was only 50 billion. So SpaceX is well, well, well ahead of them. But again, that's based on them basically having a monopoly on space to provide wireless internet. Considering how far ahead, they're from their competitors.

Well, there's a sci-fi angle to this, or real life science and science fiction, which are my two favorite things. If you throw up too many satellites in space, you could run into something called the Kessler Syndrome, which is basically the debris from one satellite failing because everything's moving so fast and they're all orbiting around the Earth. One satellite debris could set off this horrible chain reaction and basically take down all the satellites in orbit. If you're curious to see how that plays out, you can see the excellent George Clooney and Sandy Bullock film Gravity, which came out a few years ago. That is an over-hyped dramatization of the Kessler Effect, IRL.

Shane:

Yeah, movie was cool. Not a second watch for me, but ...

AJ:

It's no Moonfall, let's be serious. Which is my favorite movie of the decade.

Shane:

I don't even remember what Moonfall is. What is it?

AJ:

Oh, it's so good. No spoilers, but it's about ... it's a funny action climate horror movie. Highly recommend.

Shane:

All right. Wait, did you see that movie Ad Astra where there was moon pirates and they-

AJ:

No.

Shane:

Yeah, it's like Robert De ... or no, what's his name? Oh no, editors, help me out here.

AJ:

All right, we're going to help you out. We'll throw up the face.

Shane:

Anyway, he is Brad Pitt's dad, and he's like on this place from ... He's on this satellite off Jupiter, like shooting beams of energy at the earth and they have to go ... Brad Pitt has to go to the moon as a jump off, as a slingshot to go to Jupiter. But there's like these moon pirates and there's like this sick-

AJ:

Oh no.

Shane:

... scene where they're trying to hijack, I don't know ... just being a moon pirate, [inaudible 00:09:57].

AJ:

Yeah, my favorite moon movie is Moon.

Shane:

Oh yeah, incredible.

AJ:

With what's his name?

Shane:

That's the most spoiler-

AJ:

Yeah, that's my favorite-

Shane:

... you can't talk about Moon.

AJ:

Oh yeah, yeah. Can't talk about that. Just watch it if you haven't. I'm sure I've talked about that on this [inaudible 00:10:08].

Shane:

Required reading for sci-fi heads, for sure. Required watching.

AJ:

Speaking of launching, Apple launched its own by now, pay later product to compete with the Affirms, Afterpays, Klarnas and PayPals of the world. I mean, this was inevitable, right? If you have an iPhone, you use Apple Pay, so why not cut out the competition and just offer it yourself? Interesting. How many people do you think own an iPhones versus Android?

Shane:

Oh, I'm going to go ... In America, I'm going to go 25% iPhone versus 75% Android.

AJ:

Wrong. It's the opposite. I mean, I didn't deep-

Shane:

Really?

AJ:

... I didn't delve too deeply, but a quick Google basically said Apple's market share is between 55% and 70% versus the opposite for Android. So, there are more Apple users now at this point, which is cool.

Shane:

Oh, interesting. Well, it is the wealthiest country in the world, so it makes sense. I would wager that the rest of the world is reverse.

AJ:

Is Android, yeah.

Shane:

Yeah. I think this is a brand degradation if you ask me. I don't know why they have to get involved in buy now, pay later. To me, I don't understand why, that's got my head cocked to the side. I guess there's gold in them there hills, but I feel like this ... How much money can there be involved in buy now, pay later? Do you really want to-

AJ:

I mean, I guess it's for the merchants, I guess they're collecting, there's some sort of ... I assume that merchants are paying for the service because there's no interest rates being charged. You can pay for your purchases over a six week period, right? That's the monetization. It's not the interest rate. It's actually charging the merchants a little bit more.

Shane:

Yeah. This has given me Goldman Sachs vibes when they tried to get into retail banking for consumers and that just didn't work. So, I don't know what Apple's playing at here. It seems like-

AJ:

You're scared for the brand, just like Marcus was bad for Goldman Sachs. You think this is going to be ...

Shane:

How bad was Marcus for Goldman Sachs? I mean, most people don't even know that Marcus is owned by Goldman Sachs, so yeah, I doubt that-

AJ:

As tax preparers, we sure do lot. Lots of 1099s from Marcus this year.

Shane:

Indeed, indeed.

AJ:

It was a good year for interest rates for all of you sitting with a bunch of cash in your ... sitting with too much cash in your Marcus accounts.

Shane:

I mean, who would you rather owe money to? Would you rather owe it to Apple or any other corporation?

AJ:

Apple.

Shane:

Yeah, right? I guess you can expect some sort of high quality customer experience when it comes to getting-

AJ:

At least it'll look good. At least my debt collector notices will have beautiful interface.

Shane:

On your credit score. You're applying for a house and you're like, "Oh, we got a couple dings here in the credit. Oh, it's Apple. Oh, you're all good." [inaudible 00:12:45].

AJ:

Oh, you're fine. Oh, it's pretty. Look, it's all white and shiny. Little silver rim around it.

Shane:

You're an aspirational consumer. You can have the house.

AJ:

Oh, my God.

Shane:

Oh, okay. A left turn here. We do have ChatGPT heading into the AI space. We can't go a week without mentioning ChatGPT AJ, can we?

AJ:

No, I can't go a day without using it.

Shane:

Oh yeah, also that.

AJ:

I use it for everything.

Shane:

By the way, I sent you that great South Park ... I guess South Park did a chat GPT episode. Apparently the kids in Colorado are using ChatGPT as boyfriend bot, just to respond to their girlfriend's texts.

AJ:

I wanted to do this for so long and yeah, ChatGPT is I guess the answer, but yes, my idea is that you have boyfriend bot, or girlfriend bot, or mom bot, and basically it will learn your messaging style and will remind you three times a day to send your significant other, or someone that you should text ... And you want to text them, it's not that you don't want to text them, you just forget and it'll prompt you and say, "Hey, Shane, do you want to send, 'How's your day going, babe? What's for dinner?' Do you want to send this? Yes/no?" And you would say, "Yes." So, if anyone wants to steal that idea and give me credit, that would be great, because I'm never going to do it, but someone should.

Shane:

Yeah. Well, file that under great startup ideas that were actually implemented by other folks. I'm sure we all do. Every listener here has had a big idea.

AJ:

Oh yeah, happens every day.

Shane:

Yeah. So apparently, anyway-

AJ:

Speaking of ChatGPT-

Shane:

Thank you.

AJ:

... you can't chat your bella in Italy anymore because Italy, or Garante, which is Italy's data protection authority, has said that ChatGPT is not welcome in Italy because it is scraping your data. As we all know, the EU has much more stringent protections for its citizens' data than the rest of the world. So, Italy is the first country to block ChatGPT. I don't know. I guess, at a certain point, how do you stop this? If you're signing up for something, you're agreeing to those privacy documents. You're just hitting, "Yes, I accept. Yes, I accept." I don't know. I want science and machine learning to move forward.

Shane:

Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I don't know what's going on here. I mean, just thinking about the landscape of ChatGPT versus Bard versus some other AIs, I'm surprised ... I mean, if China or Russia releases their own AI bots, I mean, there's an AI Cold War going on here, would then Italy release its ability for folks ... Or they're just going to say no AI at all is going to be able to-

AJ:

To all, yeah.

Shane:

... yeah. I mean, because the idea here is that whoever gets access to the most amount of data, whatever large language model does, will be the most sophisticated and the most useful one will be the most used. So with ChatGPT's ability now to search the web, because the old issue with ChatGPT is that you can only get answers from 2021 or before. That's a part of its data set. But now it has the ability to search the web, it has the ability, hopefully in the near term, to go and actually not just search for things, but also execute actions such as book my reservation, book my airline travel, now that you know me, et cetera. The dream that was Siri and the dream that was the other Amazon voice bots, it will have access to potentially all of our ... I mean, I thought about using ChatGPT to analyze our own clients' information to look for, I don't know, some sort of trends in when clients fire us or when clients hire us for certain things, et cetera. And then you realize, oh, if you give that information to ChatGPT, it is helpful to the tool. It's why it doesn't cost that much to use it, but it is learning. And that will go into its database and it's a release of the information.

So, now that ChatGPT can access the internet and can access other people's databases via APIs, of course, not every company releases its API. Facebook doesn't have an API, you can access its data. Other big companies, because that's very important data ... This is why I think Italy is saying, "All right, this thing doesn't just live in Palo Alto anymore. It's coming into our databases and aggregating it like a sponge." So, I'm assuming Italy won't be the only country that does this. I'm sorry, what was your ... That's all I just wanted to get out. What were you saying?

AJ:

Yeah, for sure. I was going to say, do you remember Google Assistant? Which was literally bullshit.

Shane:

No.

AJ:

You would say, "Book a reservation for me," and you would think that it would actually book a reservation for you. What it would do is literally just call the restaurant, call the phone number as a bot and be like, "Hello, I would like to make a reservation for ... " so it never worked at all, and it was just this huge fake out, and it was like that for years. So, I agree with you on the optimization, book my dentist appointment.

Shane:

The dream.

AJ:

Why are we still playing phone tag, Dr. T? Tell me.

Shane:

Yeah, yeah. The dream. We have some stuff about Google's new travel release, later we'll circle back to AI.

AJ:

Oh yeah, let's pop down to life hacks. Yeah, let's go down there. Let's talk about it.

Shane:

Okay. Okay, yeah. Do you want to intro the article?

AJ:

Yeah, so we've got ... Google Search has some new travel features, which is basically a price guarantee. So, if you find a great flight price on Google ... By the way, if you're not using Google Flights to book your flights, at least as a starting point, what are you even doing? That is the first place you should be going to book travel. They have a new feature, so there'll be a price guarantee, and if you book it through them, if that price changes, they'll refund you the difference. So, they're basically saying, "We have analyzed all this data. We think this is the lowest price. Go ahead and grab it. If it goes down for whatever reason, we'll Venmo you the difference," or whatever. Google pay you the difference.

Shane:

Venmo you the difference.

AJ:

Have you used this yet?

Shane:

No. I do use Google Flights. I get a Google Flight email every day because I set up flights that I'm aspirational about, and they let me know when the price dips, and then I never book them anyway. So, I just get 4,000 excess emails.

AJ:

Emails all the time that you need to archive.

Shane:

Shoot myself in the dick. So, why the hell does Google want ... I mean, it's already got ... Thinking about ai, it wants more data points. So, I think that the refunds it'll be issuing for travel here are a loss leader for getting people to use travel more often. And with its release of Bard, again large language models and these AI tools, however much data they can get, whether it's from YouTube, from Google Sheets, from travel, it's just going to feed the beast to Bard, so they can catch up to OpenAI's eight-year head start that they have here on ChatGPT three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 that we'll be seeing be released. And really hopefully, if Bard does work, and we do see the bridge from search to AI chatbots, to actually implementing some actions on behalf of the people typing boxes in AKA opentable.com, access its API, book a reservation for me and let me know when it is. And also how many calories I'll be eating tonight if I pop in some ... All kinds of cool use cases for the ability of these chatbots and AIs, to actually use the internet and access other people's APIs via integrations. It's really exciting.

AJ:

Yeah. Also, don't you think the data that they're trying to get is consumer data. Okay, at what point do people actually book travel? Because so much of search is going to something. Google's information about when when do people actually make a purchase? That's very valuable. That's the data that they're going to be able to sell to the airlines, to the Kayaks of the world to say, "Hey, this is the kind of person that you need to target because they have money and they're actually going to click the button." So to me, that's the carrot here. Speaking of carrots.

Shane:

Exciting times.

AJ:

Speaking of carrots, got an article called The Health Commandos from The Information about a health tech startup that you can pay 12 grand for a three-month consultation to basically completely optimize your workout routine, what you're eating, what supplements you're taking, what drugs you're taking. This is a fun, light article. The company's called Font, Fount?

Shane:

Fount.

AJ:

Fount. Fount, like Fountain of Youth?

Shane:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

AJ:

Cool, cool, cool, cool. So, they pair clients with performance advisors who deliver a completely personalized training, exercise and eating regimen for you. We love The Information, a lot of smart reporters there. This is part of a new series called Show Us Everything, a weekend feature that will share founders' ... give you an intimate glimpse into the everyday lives of founders. Shane, would you participate in an intimate glimpse into the life of you as a founder? And what do you think our listeners would learn about you?

Shane:

Oh God. Yeah, for sure. I'm a transparent person. I love transparency, although I don't think it makes anyone look good. Any of these-

AJ:

No, I don't think it ... yeah, every-

Shane:

... I think founders are freaks. And when we get the ... I mean, guys in this are ... What are they eating for breakfast? Olive oil and almond butter for breakfast?

AJ:

Yeah, it's a pint glass full of olive oil with a scoop of non-salted almond butter.

Shane:

Every founder is a psycho. I'm sorry.

AJ:

What's a fun psycho thing about you?

Shane:

I have been trying to recently keep track of all the things I do for efficiencies purposes that make my house look like a disaster area. I have to refill this thing all the time, so I just leave the water pitcher right next to it so that I remember to refill. I'm like, you add all those things up and it looks like I have an insane looking house. Nothing's put away and-

AJ:

Right, interesting.

Shane:

... I might wear that shirt.

AJ:

Interesting.

Shane:

I'm going to wear that shirt tomorrow morning, so I leave it on the ... I have all these little idiosyncrasies.

AJ:

Oh my God, that's what I've been telling my husband for years. That's what I do too. It's all about optimization. I'm not a slob.

Shane:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

AJ:

I didn't put my shoes away because I'm going to wear them tomorrow.

Shane:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot more of them. I've just started to try to categorize or catalog them recently because I am procrastinating reviewing tax returns.

AJ:

Indeed, indeed.

Shane:

What about you?

AJ:

My kooky thing, well, I just started tracking things. I have to do ... I have health issues. I have to take this drug every day and I just won't because I'm scatterbrained and have a million things going on, like running our company. So, I started this app Habit that we've talked about before, which has been really awesome. But I got this new app that my friend Michelle told me about called Fantasy Hike, and basically some guy on Reddit built ... It's nothing fancy. It's literally like a steps ... it's hooked into your health tracker or your steps tracker app. But if you're the Lord Of The Rings fan, it basically takes you on a quest to Mount Fire. I don't think he got the rights to call it Mount Doom. And basically every day as you walk with your phone, it'll tell you, "You, Mr. Frodo, are closer to Hafflington today because you walked eight miles. Congratulations."

So, it's pretty fun. I've been enjoying it a lot. So if you have trouble getting out of your house and walking, it gamifies it a little bit. Any time we can gamify anything, I'm happy to pay $5 for your app. Just by the way.

Shane:

Gamify at all, gamify ... Another crazy thing about ... I've not been to a grocery store in six months. I just have all my groceries delivered. Is that weird? It's not weird, is it? Why are people going to grocery stores?

AJ:

I love going to grocery stores. It's my happy place. That's my weird thing. It's where I meditate, at the grocery store.

Shane:

You don't think it's a waste of time?

AJ:

No, not at all.

Shane:

You can literally get it all on your phone. It comes right to your door. You don't have to carry it.

AJ:

That's how I get ... I go out, I talk to people, I find out, "Oh, the turbo looks good this week and the shrimp doesn't. I'm going to make that tonight with a caper butter glaze." I love going to the grocery store. I get inspiration.

Shane:

That's your inefficient thing that you enjoy.

AJ:

Yeah. It's not efficient at all but it brings me great pleasure and is a great wind down from other chaotic, stressful things in my life.

Shane:

Okay, all right. Speaking of stressful.

AJ:

Speaking [inaudible 00:24:54].

Shane:

You pick an article, they're all stressful.

AJ:

Speaking of chaotic, stressful things in our lives, it's tax season. So, we've got four articles for you folks about taxes. The first one, this was a CNBC article. The IRS plans to tax some NFTs, remember NFTs, remember those, as collectibles, meaning that they would be subject to the 28% collectible rate as opposed to the capital gains rate, which could be lower. But I thought all NFTs are worthless, so there is no gain to tax for NFTs, right? No?

Shane:

Yeah. I mean, I just have a shrug emoji here. NFTs are so 2021, dog. I don't even know what to say.

AJ:

I mean, yeah, they should tax them, but I don't know what gains there are to tax at this point.

Shane:

No, no, no. I mean, yeah, of course the IRS are two years late here on the tax rate.

AJ:

Really missed the boat on-

Shane:

Thanks for the clarity, IRS.

AJ:

... really missed the boat, yeah. They definitely needed to employ some zillennials at the IRS.

Shane:

Zillennial.

AJ:

I just think the IRS tax commissioner, what, should be like 32. I think that should be the maximum age you can be when you're in charge of the IRS, anyways, in other tax news, there was a $7 billion estimated tax payment made. This was picked up by a policy group in ... connected to some university, I forget. But basically this was a big ... I don't even want to call it a red flag. It's just an interesting flag, that someone had made so much money that they needed to pay an estimated tax payment of $7 billion. So, whatever their tax rate was, they obviously had a ton of billions. What's up?

Shane:

Quick clarifier there. Actually, it's an estate tax payment.

AJ:

Estate tax payment, I'm sorry. Thank you for clarifying. So, there was a secret billionaire.

Shane:

Which means somebody ... Right, somebody died that we didn't know about, and you don't pay $7 billion in estate taxes unless your estate ... divide by 0.4. It's like $15 billion, $20 billion.

AJ:

Yeah. They talked to a bunch of experts and basically they were saying, they estimate that this estate was $24.5 billion dollars. So, someone got left off the Forbes list. Someone was flying under the radar.

Shane:

Yeah, file this under life goals for being rich and anonymous and you won at capitalism.

AJ:

Yes, for sure, I honestly don't ... anyways.

Shane:

You don't want to be that rich?

AJ:

Yeah, I don't want to be that rich. I was thinking about this. I don't want to be that rich. I don't want to be [inaudible 00:27:25].

Shane:

You don't have to be. You know what? If you get that rich, you can give it away. Did you know that?

AJ:

Right, but I'd rather give it away along the way, you know?

Shane:

That's what I'm saying, yeah. You would not ever be that rich. You would never be $15 billion rich because you would have given it away before you died.

AJ:

To bring me personal ... if I'm going to work that hard to get that rich, to be personally fulfilled in life, I would want it to do something that I could see.

Shane:

Yeah. This reminds me of a conversation that we had about being a good billionaire last summer, two summers ago?

AJ:

Yeah.

Shane:

I have a question. I would love a listener's opinion on what the definition of a good billionaire is. Because my argument that I had was that yes, you can be a billionaire. A lot of the billionaires on the list, their wealth is tied up in the companies that they're currently running. So, if they were to try to give it away, they would be literally giving away control of their company while they're running it. So with that in mind, dear listener, I want to hear your opinion of a good billionaire.

AJ:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the thing is when we're talking about numbers this big, these are companies, or I don't want to ... Real estate, but real estate to the tune of I own a true estate, or I own so many farms that I basically own the entire state of Louisiana, or whatever.

Shane:

Was that a Southern dig? Was that a dig at me?

AJ:

No, it wasn't a Southern dig. I was actually going to say ... I was going to say Montana, and then I was like, are there farms in Montana? It's more like cattle and ranch land. So that was the next one on my list of states.

Shane:

There you go, yeah.

AJ:

Anyways, speaking of cattle. Accountants' salaries are rising, but it may not add up to more accountants.

Shane:

Everyone thinks I'm going to be the one canceled on this podcast. If you go through the records, AJ is the one. [inaudible 00:29:13].

AJ:

What do you mean? I'm making a joke about the herds of accountants. I'm not canceled, that's a perfectly ... that's a dad ... I just made a dad joke. I'm not going to get canceled. Anyways, accountants are dying, they're retiring. We don't have enough of them. Nobody wants to be an accountant. It's not sexy. It doesn't pay enough, boohoo, I don't know. Hot take here, CPA.

Shane:

Yeah, there's this one firm that decided to raise the retirement age-

AJ:

Oh yeah. I love it.

Shane:

... from 67 to 85. as Their way of averting this crisis. Just holding on to the oldest boomers possible.

AJ:

Can you imagine?

Shane:

Oy vey, this is not how we fix it.

AJ:

You're this 65-year-old guy, you've been working really hard for a long time, and now they say you literally can't retire until you're 85. What if I told you that, Shane?

Shane:

Well no, they raised the cap. So, the thing is, when you're at that age, you're not really doing a lot of the work anymore. You're just collecting checks and mentoring. So, what they've done is they say, "Actually, now you don't have to retire until you're 85."

AJ:

Oh my gosh.

Shane:

Incredible. They just need someone ... I've worked with accountants in their 70s and 80s. Let me tell you, you don't want them reviewing the work, they're not the people ...

AJ:

And with that, Shane, I'm sending you back to review tax returns. So, we will wrap it up this week. Thank you folks for listening to The Liquidity Event. As always, you can find show notes at brooklynfi.com/ episode88. You can leave us a voicemail at memo.fm/liquidityevent. Tell Shane what you think makes a good billionaire. Fill out our podcast survey. We'll see you next week, later.

Shane:

Bye.

Presenter:

Thanks for listening to The Liquidity Event, hosted by AJ and Shane of Brooklyn FI. Head on over to brooklynfi.com, where you can subscribe to the podcast or YouTube channel, or if you want to learn about their full service financial planning, tax, and investment firm, specializing in tech professionals and creatives on the path to financial independence. We'll see you next time, on The Liquidity Event.