Latest / The Paul Barron Crypto Show / Tesla Stock Crash vs Crypto📉🔥with Ross Gerber
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Today we're going to be taking a deep dive into Tesla,
- 0:08Speaker 1: take a look at some of the things that Tesla
- 0:10Speaker 1: is doing around future proofing their strategies, and we're going
- 0:14Speaker 1: to do it with an analyst I think you guys
- 0:16Speaker 1: will like. My name is Paul Berret. Welcome back into
- 0:18Speaker 1: tech Path. Joining me today, of course, is mister Ross
- 0:21Speaker 1: Gerber coming into us from Gerbert Kawasaki. Great to have
- 0:24Speaker 1: you on the show again.
- 0:25Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Paul.
- 0:26Speaker 1: Yeah, last time we had you on, we had a
- 0:29Speaker 1: lot of things happening within the world of Tesla. Of course,
- 0:33Speaker 1: you know, in the world of Tesla, all things are
- 0:36Speaker 1: happening again and a lot of things that I think
- 0:38Speaker 1: that are brewing. I wanted to get your opinion on
- 0:41Speaker 1: a few strategies that are starting to evolve, especially in
- 0:45Speaker 1: the electric vehicle space, and how it pertains to some of
- 0:49Speaker 1: the you know, groundbreaking technology that we've seen. One of
- 0:52Speaker 1: the things that's happening right now is Uber striking a
- 0:56Speaker 1: deal with the China, you know byd So, first of all,
- 0:59Speaker 1: what is your opinion when you first saw this new
- 1:02Speaker 1: story in any of the research behind it.
- 1:05Speaker 2: Well, my first thought, you know, just in disclosure I
- 1:08Speaker 2: own Uber as a stock and it's not a big position,
- 1:11Speaker 2: but I like Uber for autonomy. My original thought process
- 1:16Speaker 2: because Tesla is actually one of Uber's biggest customers because
- 1:20Speaker 2: when you buy a Tesla, like the services center, people
- 1:23Speaker 2: will drop off your car and they'll take an Uber back,
- 1:25Speaker 2: or when you need to take your car service, they
- 1:27Speaker 2: give you Uber and so literally Tesla spends millions of
- 1:30Speaker 2: dollars on Uber. And so I was like, this is
- 1:32Speaker 2: such a natural thing. So if you want to be
- 1:35Speaker 2: a Uber driver, you can go to Uber and they'll
- 1:38Speaker 2: lease you a Tesla and you know, they've always had
- 1:41Speaker 2: this relationship. So in my horror, like part of the
- 1:45Speaker 2: premise for me was that Tesla would go to Uber
- 1:48Speaker 2: and say, hey, listen, we're doing a robotaxi. We want
- 1:51Speaker 2: you to sell these to your drivers. And you know,
- 1:54Speaker 2: the truth is eventually they'll be entrepreneurs because then they
- 1:58Speaker 2: might not even have to drive the car and they'll
- 2:00Speaker 2: own the car and they'll be able to make revenue
- 2:02Speaker 2: from this, and so Uber drivers don't have to become
- 2:05Speaker 2: sort of extinct. They can evolve, And it was like
- 2:09Speaker 2: a perfect partnership in my mind. So when it came
- 2:12Speaker 2: out with the buid thing. It was like getting kicked
- 2:16Speaker 2: in the gut in a way from Tesla, and I
- 2:19Speaker 2: spent weeks thinking about it, you know, like do we
- 2:24Speaker 2: need robotaxis, Like let's just start with that. Like our
- 2:29Speaker 2: driver's so bad that, you know, I need to have
- 2:32Speaker 2: a robo taxi when I can call an uber and
- 2:35Speaker 2: in two minutes there's an uber here. Now, I'm also
- 2:38Speaker 2: in a neighborhood that is served by Weimo And yesterday
- 2:41Speaker 2: when I was driving home in horrendous traffic, beach traffic,
- 2:44Speaker 2: people everywhere Santa Monica, a Waymo drives by me level five,
- 2:49Speaker 2: no driver cruising, and I'm like, dude, Tesla is not
- 2:53Speaker 2: even ahead in this game, okay, because like if you
- 2:57Speaker 2: can drive in Santa Monica, and I used to challenge
- 2:59Speaker 2: Weymo like, oh yeah, you know, you can do San
- 3:01Speaker 2: Francisco in a close circuit, come to Santa Monica where
- 3:04Speaker 2: it's insane and the drivers are crazy, and way Mos
- 3:08Speaker 2: here now and they've mastered it. And I'm still disengaging
- 3:11Speaker 2: my full self driving all the time. And you know,
- 3:14Speaker 2: there's been a big debate about you know, the videos
- 3:17Speaker 2: people post on YouTube and such about full self driving
- 3:21Speaker 2: and how accurate they are to the actual experience. And
- 3:24Speaker 2: I use full self driving all the time, and there's
- 3:26Speaker 2: no doubt in my mind that it's a level two system.
- 3:29Speaker 2: It's not close to level three. I would not put
- 3:31Speaker 2: my child in this and get in the backseat and
- 3:34Speaker 2: let it drive me anywhere anywhere. It's just not there,
- 3:37Speaker 2: Like I don't know how to say it. So BYD's
- 3:41Speaker 2: technology is pretty good, and they're really good at these
- 3:46Speaker 2: things like autonomy and making evs, and they are the
- 3:50Speaker 2: most legitimate competitor to Tesla in the world. And so
- 3:55Speaker 2: with Uber partnering with them, and certainly this is I
- 3:59Speaker 2: think mostly in Asia and euroup thing and right maybe
- 4:02Speaker 2: eventually a US thing. But BYD doesn't really try to
- 4:05Speaker 2: sell their cars in the United States because it's Chinese.
- 4:08Speaker 2: So this is really now standing out as the major
- 4:13Speaker 2: competitor to Tesla's robotaxis dreams, and then secondly by Google
- 4:19Speaker 2: and Weimo. So Tesla's far behind both of these people now,
- 4:22Speaker 2: and I think that that doesn't bode well for pivoting
- 4:26Speaker 2: from selling great evs with great technology to being a
- 4:30Speaker 2: robotaxi company.
- 4:32Speaker 1: With that being the case, and you look at all
- 4:35Speaker 1: of these pressures Tesla continuing to kind of go into
- 4:38Speaker 1: other areas. One of the areas that they also are
- 4:42Speaker 1: starting to venture in from Elon's analysis, is into the
- 4:47Speaker 1: AI playout, right, maybe this is already one as well.
- 4:51Speaker 1: Do you think Tesla's move into AI is I shouldn't
- 4:55Speaker 1: say Tesla, it's really more of a musk companies, And.
- 4:59Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really XAI, which is another really negative valuation
- 5:05Speaker 2: thing for Tesla. Like, obviously we all know that there
- 5:08Speaker 2: is no board of directors at Tesla and they're not
- 5:10Speaker 2: going to protect outside shareholders. The board of directors of
- 5:13Speaker 2: Tesla works for Elon and only cares about Elon's interests.
- 5:16Speaker 2: So I think investors have to understand that when they
- 5:19Speaker 2: invest in Tesla that they're going to do what's best
- 5:21Speaker 2: for Elon. And so they shipped Tesla chips to XAI.
- 5:24Speaker 2: XII is running the AI programs for gro and whatever
- 5:29Speaker 2: else he's building, and Tesla has no AI, you know,
- 5:32Speaker 2: like what's their AI? Their AI is full self driving,
- 5:36Speaker 2: and full self driving is an application of AI which
- 5:39Speaker 2: they haven't mastered yet. So then secondly, he's training this
- 5:42Speaker 2: on data that's flawed, which is another problem. So using
- 5:47Speaker 2: Twitter data for example, as some sort of reality of
- 5:50Speaker 2: something is like fantastical. It's the most corrupted, manipulated database
- 5:57Speaker 2: you could possibly learn from. I can't even imagine how
- 6:00Speaker 2: warped this Twitter based AI is going to be, you know,
- 6:04Speaker 2: like it's going to be super warped, you know, and
- 6:08Speaker 2: Twitter's got more warped than it's ever been now, So
- 6:11Speaker 2: I can only imagine what Gronk is thinking. That said.
- 6:15Speaker 2: Tesla doesn't even have a voice assistant that works in
- 6:18Speaker 2: the car, you know, it's like Siri. So if I'm
- 6:21Speaker 2: in at Tesla, I can't even do it. So there's
- 6:23Speaker 2: a company we're very close to we're watching and it's
- 6:27Speaker 2: called SoundHound, and SoundHound makes AI solutions for cars for
- 6:32Speaker 2: voice activation stillantas just to deal with them, they've built
- 6:35Speaker 2: this already, So like all the competitors are going to
- 6:39Speaker 2: have a better voice assistant than Tesla because they're so
- 6:42Speaker 2: busy building something that's going to tell you the current
- 6:44Speaker 2: events for Twitter instead of building stuff that's going to
- 6:47Speaker 2: help a Tesla driver find the best restaurants and order
- 6:50Speaker 2: the best food on the way to their supercharger. You know,
- 6:54Speaker 2: So nobody at Tesla's building AI. From my perspective of
- 6:58Speaker 2: what would benefit Tesla drivers.
- 7:01Speaker 1: You know, well, I want to play a clip for
- 7:03Speaker 1: you because this I think this also clarifies some areas
- 7:06Speaker 1: that are happening within AI and it could maybe put
- 7:11Speaker 1: a lot of these companies maybe out of business in
- 7:13Speaker 1: the sense of where the future is going.
- 7:15Speaker 2: Let's go to this clip real quick. When you open
- 7:18Speaker 2: source Lama, I thought Lama too was probably the biggest
- 7:22Speaker 2: event in AI last year.
- 7:26Speaker 3: I'm pretty optimistic that of the next generation, the open
- 7:28Speaker 3: ones are going to win. There's just been too many
- 7:30Speaker 3: things that I've tried to build and then you have
- 7:32Speaker 3: just been told now you can't really build that by
- 7:34Speaker 3: the platform provider that at some level, I just like, nah,
- 7:37Speaker 3: fuck that for the next generation?
- 7:39Speaker 2: That where goes are broadcast opportunity? Yeah no, sorry, Age
- 7:42Speaker 2: one hundred, I think you're coming up on six hundred thousand,
- 7:46Speaker 2: and there were good customers.
- 7:51Speaker 3: That's how you get the Jensen Q and A it's sigraph.
- 7:55Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 7:55Speaker 1: The point that he's getting at is that, hey, maybe
- 7:57Speaker 1: this race is already over with open source Lama, which
- 8:01Speaker 1: obviously goes head to head with open AI, and again
- 8:03Speaker 1: back into this Tesla even or Elon even need to
- 8:06Speaker 1: go the direction of building an AI. If we in
- 8:08Speaker 1: fact have these kinds of moves happening already, what are
- 8:11Speaker 1: your thoughts.
- 8:12Speaker 2: I love Nvidio, and I love Jensen and even Mark
- 8:15Speaker 2: Zuckerberg and his weird new look. Is there maybe growing
- 8:19Speaker 2: on me, not just the Harris the chain. So anyways,
- 8:23Speaker 2: I think that there's no reason to build GROM, like
- 8:27Speaker 2: there's already open AI. Chat is great. You know, Google's
- 8:32Speaker 2: working super hard on this stuff. Facebook's working hard on
- 8:34Speaker 2: this stuff. So Elon's just trying to get in front
- 8:37Speaker 2: of the you know, crowd and stay relevant and build something.
- 8:40Speaker 2: But as I said, I think fundamentally he's building something
- 8:44Speaker 2: that doesn't need to exist on bad data. And so
- 8:48Speaker 2: what Zuck is saying is really smart because Facebook also
- 8:51Speaker 2: has a ton of bad data and and old data
- 8:55Speaker 2: and questionable data, and you know, you say, okay, So
- 9:00Speaker 2: he's like, oh, I'm open source and I'm just like
- 9:01Speaker 2: spending tons of money Facebook money. And for Facebook, they
- 9:05Speaker 2: have an application in that I place ads on Facebook
- 9:08Speaker 2: and I can use AI to get better results because
- 9:11Speaker 2: Apple's made it very hard for me to make money
- 9:13Speaker 2: on ads. So for Meta, we saw their earnings report
- 9:17Speaker 2: like in the stock rallied, and we're seeing them a
- 9:21Speaker 2: real beneficiary because they have a platform that now everybody
- 9:24Speaker 2: uses and will stick with, which is Instagram and threads.
- 9:29Speaker 2: And I don't think people use Facebook anymore, really like
- 9:32Speaker 2: young people. But Instagram is still the king. But with
- 9:37Speaker 2: the demise of Twitter, it's made Instagram more relevant. Actually,
- 9:41Speaker 2: so Elon's actually helped Zuckerberg have better data, better situation
- 9:45Speaker 2: and now Zucks go on all in. And you know,
- 9:51Speaker 2: I don't own Meta because morally I think Instagram's just
- 9:54Speaker 2: like cigarettes. But like, but boy, they're doing it the
- 9:58Speaker 2: right way. I think I think they're doing like as
- 10:01Speaker 2: an advertiser, I can get value from this today.
- 10:03Speaker 1: All right, So I want to I want to play
- 10:05Speaker 1: another clip for you because now we're on off of
- 10:07Speaker 1: AI and moving on to what some of the other
- 10:09Speaker 1: automakers are doing. And one of them in particular, is
- 10:14Speaker 1: starting to do something I think that is one innovative
- 10:18Speaker 1: and two is starting to maybe break down some walls
- 10:21Speaker 1: in the blockchain side of things.
- 10:22Speaker 2: Let me play this clip from Toyota.
- 10:25Speaker 5: Japanese automotive giant Toyota is leveraging Ethereum blockchain in designing
- 10:30Speaker 5: vehicle mobility oriented accounts that's now. The design proposes creating
- 10:35Speaker 5: blockchain digital accounts for cars, potentially enabling fully autonomous driving
- 10:41Speaker 5: in the future. Recently unveiled as part of Toyota's Mobility
- 10:44Speaker 5: three point zero concept, the project focuses on exploring mobility
- 10:49Speaker 5: through a smart account on the blockchain. Introducing vehicle mobility
- 10:53Speaker 5: onto public blockchains brings tokenizing rights, making a car function
- 10:57Speaker 5: as a completely independent survey entity.
- 11:01Speaker 6: Using data integrated with infrastructure, you can deliver goods quickly
- 11:06Speaker 6: and efficiently to the customers who order them.
- 11:10Speaker 4: The role of cost will be to connect to society
- 11:13Speaker 4: and expand the possibilities. You'll be able to go shopping
- 11:17Speaker 4: from an in your car after parking. You can share
- 11:21Speaker 4: electricity in energy grid mode to help the community. Is
- 11:27Speaker 4: infinitely customizable depending on the customer's knees.
- 11:32Speaker 6: Arriving in the city, it quickly transforms into a farm
- 11:35Speaker 6: stand in a city square. It can turn into a
- 11:39Speaker 6: coffee shop or a food truck. At night, it can
- 11:43Speaker 6: become a bar. And there will be more new business
- 11:45Speaker 6: possibilities and new partners in the value chain US.
- 11:49Speaker 1: There's Toyota really kind of starting to go out on
- 11:52Speaker 1: the edge a little bit. Yeah, head to head here
- 11:55Speaker 1: with with Tasla. I mean they're building something that is
- 11:57Speaker 1: quite a bit different than the cyber truck, which it
- 11:59Speaker 1: seems to be much more useful at least than the potential,
- 12:03Speaker 1: but also utilizing blockchain of course, trying to tie into
- 12:06Speaker 1: network and potentially the future of how evs are going
- 12:09Speaker 1: to be done. Do you think Tasla has missed the
- 12:13Speaker 1: boat here on innovation?
- 12:15Speaker 2: What the tech people and the business people might think
- 12:18Speaker 2: humans want is often wrong, And the more complicated things are,
- 12:24Speaker 2: the less humans want to deal with that. You know,
- 12:27Speaker 2: we actually prefer simplicity. Like I want to turn on Netflix.
- 12:31Speaker 2: I want to find all my shows, but now I've
- 12:33Speaker 2: got seven apps and that sucks because i can't find
- 12:36Speaker 2: my shows, and so I'll just stick with my Netflix
- 12:39Speaker 2: because it's just easier. And that's the way humans are now. Okay.
- 12:44Speaker 2: The younger generation is the laziest generation that's ever been,
- 12:47Speaker 2: you know, created in America. And I don't mean this
- 12:50Speaker 2: in a negative way. They look at the world differently
- 12:53Speaker 2: than older generation people. They're much more comfortable with less
- 12:58Speaker 2: wealth and income and that's fine with them. But the
- 13:01Speaker 2: idea that we're all going to change our behaviors massively
- 13:05Speaker 2: around technology isn't actually what's going to happen. And it
- 13:09Speaker 2: was sort of like Steve jobs Is brilliance was he
- 13:11Speaker 2: understood what consumers wanted and build technology for that, versus
- 13:16Speaker 2: building technology that you think consumers might want, you know.
- 13:21Speaker 2: And so for example, like mobility, people all want their
- 13:26Speaker 2: own cars. I'm sorry, people want their own cars. They
- 13:29Speaker 2: customize their cars. Even within the Tesla community, you will
- 13:33Speaker 2: find hundreds of different wraps and rims and customized options
- 13:38Speaker 2: because Tesla doesn't offer you anything more than a base car.
- 13:41Speaker 2: And Tesla drivers are not happy just driving a black
- 13:44Speaker 2: Model Y or a white Model Y, and so they're
- 13:46Speaker 2: spending money with lots of great companies like on Plug
- 13:49Speaker 2: Performance and all that customize the cars. A car is
- 13:53Speaker 2: an extension of a person's personality. That's what it is.
- 13:56Speaker 2: And so the idea that we're all going to want
- 13:59Speaker 2: to take the these cabs that are ubiquitous and all
- 14:02Speaker 2: the same and the only purpose of life is to
- 14:05Speaker 2: get from A to B doesn't understand humans at all.
- 14:08Speaker 2: It just doesn't understand humans at all. And and humans
- 14:12Speaker 2: are not giving up driving their cars anytime soon. Okay,
- 14:16Speaker 2: So we will have a ROBOTAXI, we will have technologies
- 14:20Speaker 2: that are super cool. But will that make money? Will
- 14:24Speaker 2: that be a viable business? Probably not. And then when
- 14:28Speaker 2: you extrapol it out, Toyota probably one of the most
- 14:30Speaker 2: confused companies that you could, you know, find in the
- 14:34Speaker 2: last five years about what the future is, you know,
- 14:37Speaker 2: and they just switch leadership, you know, and all this
- 14:40Speaker 2: kind of stuff. They are not the leader of vehicles.
- 14:43Speaker 2: They are catching up now to the leader, which is Tesla.
- 14:47Speaker 2: Tesla owns the crown. Okay, they own the crown, and
- 14:51Speaker 2: they are simply giving up the crown to competitors because
- 14:55Speaker 2: of a lack of focus and because the CEO, Elon Musk,
- 14:59Speaker 2: has decided to curiate basically everybody, you know, So unless
- 15:03Speaker 2: you're basically a white supremacist, he's probably insulted you. Oh
- 15:07Speaker 2: and by the way, the Europeans are a lot like
- 15:09Speaker 2: the people in California. So don't think anybody in Europe
- 15:12Speaker 2: is excited about Tesla clause they're not. And so I'm like,
- 15:15Speaker 2: what is Elon doing? So I call it anti marketing.
- 15:18Speaker 2: Elon's like the anti marketer for Tesla. He convinces people
- 15:22Speaker 2: not to buy the car, despite it being the best
- 15:24Speaker 2: car with the best technology, the best experience, the best
- 15:28Speaker 2: at everything, and they're still selling cars by lowering prices.
- 15:32Speaker 2: But the king of the company all he can do
- 15:35Speaker 2: is piss off all the people who live in the
- 15:37Speaker 2: kingdom every day.
- 15:38Speaker 1: One thing I want to hit on is a clip
- 15:42Speaker 1: from you and I. This was quite some time ago
- 15:44Speaker 1: and we were talking about data. And I want to
- 15:46Speaker 1: present this because I think this hits to your point,
- 15:50Speaker 1: but maybe in the sense that it might change your
- 15:53Speaker 1: opinion on how young people might be willing to do something.
- 15:56Speaker 2: Let me play this clip for you.
- 15:59Speaker 1: What happens if we get an open source element around
- 16:03Speaker 1: data ownership, which could come in Web three And where
- 16:07Speaker 1: would Tesla's position be on that?
- 16:09Speaker 2: So if I make that open source, I lose a
- 16:12Speaker 2: lot of power, you know, But I think from an
- 16:14Speaker 2: idea perspective, open source is amazing.
- 16:16Speaker 7: We're all gonna own it. We gonna own the data.
- 16:20Speaker 7: People thought that I was lookerer in the brain that
- 16:23Speaker 7: will never work well. They are forced to thanks to
- 16:28Speaker 7: the EU Data Act. And how it works is so
- 16:31Speaker 7: they go to a kind of we call it marketplace
- 16:34Speaker 7: and they ask you, hey, mister driver, can you share
- 16:37Speaker 7: your data. I'm gonna give you five tokens in return,
- 16:40Speaker 7: so you get paid now for sharing your own data.
- 16:44Speaker 7: You can use all the tokens that you've got over
- 16:46Speaker 7: here and pay for a portion for the insurance contract
- 16:49Speaker 7: or replacement of tires whatever. On the right side, you
- 16:53Speaker 7: see it. Europe is already part of our shareholder. The
- 16:56Speaker 7: Apple will be released in September.
- 16:59Speaker 1: All right, so this is a blockchain platform. But of course,
- 17:01Speaker 1: looking at the.
- 17:02Speaker 2: Yeah we were much younger than Yeah, we looked good.
- 17:06Speaker 1: But the point was is we talked about this very issue,
- 17:09Speaker 1: is that the open source would eventually occur owners owning
- 17:13Speaker 1: their own data. Now that that drills down into automotive data,
- 17:17Speaker 1: which when you look at the amount of data that
- 17:19Speaker 1: is collected by Tesla, you know, I drive one, you
- 17:22Speaker 1: drive one, you know what our profiles are where you know,
- 17:25Speaker 1: everything about that car is being transmitted back to the mothership.
- 17:29Speaker 1: This could have impact possibly maybe the future of how
- 17:32Speaker 1: data is collected by Tesla, especially in the EU, and
- 17:36Speaker 1: especially if it goes in Okay, especially if it goes
- 17:38Speaker 1: into the driver now retaining ownership of that data and
- 17:42Speaker 1: Tesla no longer having What does that do for Tesla
- 17:45Speaker 1: as a global car company going forward.
- 17:48Speaker 2: Well, you know, you're bringing up some very important and
- 17:51Speaker 2: interesting issues about privacy and data. So our data has
- 17:55Speaker 2: been basically like stolen from us by all these companies
- 17:58Speaker 2: all these years and used for whatever way they want.
- 18:01Speaker 2: And then you know, Europe really was progressive with their laws,
- 18:04Speaker 2: and it's really tough for a lot of these companies
- 18:06Speaker 2: because they have to like protect your data, God forbid, right.
- 18:11Speaker 2: I kind of believe at some point the individual will
- 18:16Speaker 2: have a legal right to protect their data in the
- 18:19Speaker 2: United States in Europe, and companies will have to ask
- 18:23Speaker 2: permission and or compensate people for that data. And if
- 18:27Speaker 2: everybody goes into their Tesla, you can say like, I
- 18:30Speaker 2: don't want to share my data, you know, and if
- 18:33Speaker 2: everybody starts doing that, it's detrimental to the data collectors.
- 18:37Speaker 2: All sure, yeah, And you know, this is exactly what
- 18:40Speaker 2: happened with Apple and Meta when Apple was like, you're
- 18:44Speaker 2: done scraping everything off our phones and shut them down,
- 18:47Speaker 2: and then advertisers couldn't target and for a couple of
- 18:50Speaker 2: quarters they were really eating grow because that just didn't
- 18:53Speaker 2: work as well, it just didn't work hammered. Yeah, So
- 18:56Speaker 2: then they figured out some way around this, I think.
- 18:59Speaker 2: But that said, what we do that data is extremely
- 19:04Speaker 2: valuable to lots of companies, whether it's Netflix and our
- 19:07Speaker 2: viewing habits, to driving where we go Uber, where we
- 19:12Speaker 2: like to go on New Year's Eve, and when's the
- 19:15Speaker 2: busiest timeframes, and you know, like so, open sourcing data
- 19:21Speaker 2: has a lot of advantages for smaller players. You know,
- 19:25Speaker 2: so if I want to have competitors to the big companies,
- 19:28Speaker 2: open source is a great way to do it. So
- 19:31Speaker 2: allowing people to have access to data that aren't Google
- 19:34Speaker 2: and Meta the big companies gives them an equal playing field.
- 19:38Speaker 2: Because what really keeps these monopolies in charge, whether it
- 19:41Speaker 2: be Apple, whatever, is the fact that they do control
- 19:44Speaker 2: your data, and they do know everything about you, and
- 19:46Speaker 2: they can serve ads or sell you products or hardware
- 19:49Speaker 2: and software knowing exactly what you do and what you want,
- 19:52Speaker 2: you know, and that's why they're the most valuable companies
- 19:55Speaker 2: in the world. So if we're going to make the
- 19:57Speaker 2: world a better place, there's a lot of upside to
- 20:00Speaker 2: That's why I'm a big fan of bitcoin and blockchain
- 20:03Speaker 2: technology and sort of open source information. And then how
- 20:09Speaker 2: do we build things that are actually beneficial for society,
- 20:12Speaker 2: not just for commerce, right for sure.
- 20:15Speaker 1: Well, I think the point you're getting at is this
- 20:17Speaker 1: just put a lot more in the consumers and the
- 20:20Speaker 1: individual that you know is actually you know, developing the
- 20:24Speaker 1: data itself on a day and day out basis. One
- 20:26Speaker 1: of the things that we hit on in our last
- 20:29Speaker 1: interview was we were talking about the company hive Mapper.
- 20:32Speaker 1: This is a company that pays you to go out
- 20:35Speaker 1: and map city streets. So you think about this as
- 20:37Speaker 1: Google Maps, you know, it's kind of maybe the next future.
- 20:40Speaker 1: A lot has happened since we last talked.
- 20:43Speaker 7: Ross.
- 20:43Speaker 1: I want to play a clip for you, and then
- 20:45Speaker 1: I want to show you something real quick. You know,
- 20:47Speaker 1: you look at what I think it was, hive Mapper.
- 20:49Speaker 1: Here's another one. Do you think Tesla will ever make
- 20:52Speaker 1: those kinds of leaps forward in terms of Web three
- 20:55Speaker 1: technology integrations?
- 20:56Speaker 2: Well, some of that is just gimmick, you know, it's
- 20:59Speaker 2: like gimmicky. People are really into Web three and it's
- 21:03Speaker 2: the future. Ross, it's the future. It's not the future
- 21:06Speaker 2: five months ago.
- 21:07Speaker 1: What has been done in that period of time about.
- 21:10Speaker 2: To hit six million unique round kilometers mapped.
- 21:13Speaker 7: That's about ten percent of the world roads mapped.
- 21:17Speaker 4: You guys already mapped out twenty percent of the world's
- 21:21Speaker 4: roads and probably a little over eighteen months.
- 21:24Speaker 6: And that's an incredible accomplishment in itself.
- 21:27Speaker 1: So this company a blockchain company, that is, and we've
- 21:30Speaker 1: used these devices, we've checked them out here in our
- 21:33Speaker 1: studio before, some of our tech team does it. Now
- 21:35Speaker 1: twenty five percent global coverage mapping really accelerating. Even me,
- 21:42Speaker 1: I was surprised, and I talked to their CEO a
- 21:45Speaker 1: couple of times at how efficient they've been able to
- 21:48Speaker 1: get this done. They're getting ready to add in a
- 21:51Speaker 1: new camera technology into this device and their system because
- 21:55Speaker 1: they basically pay you, as an individual car owner to
- 21:58Speaker 1: put this camera in your car, go out and bump
- 22:00Speaker 1: all these roads. Now they're going into spatial computing, which
- 22:04Speaker 1: is going to change the dynamics around everything spatial computing.
- 22:08Speaker 1: Why would Elon not go this route with spatial computing
- 22:13Speaker 1: cameras on the front of all these Tesla's if in
- 22:15Speaker 1: fact we could share the data, because that opens up
- 22:18Speaker 1: a whole new layer of potential revenue for Tesla.
- 22:21Speaker 2: What are your thoughts? So the data that Google's collecting
- 22:24Speaker 2: is really really good data on our roads and three
- 22:28Speaker 2: D maps of our roads. And with their mapping history
- 22:33Speaker 2: and their you know, Google Earth satellite history, Google is
- 22:38Speaker 2: a master of these kind of things, you know, like
- 22:41Speaker 2: mapping every road. So so these kind of companies can
- 22:46Speaker 2: go do this, but depending on the kind of cameras
- 22:49Speaker 2: they use and the systems they use, they have to
- 22:52Speaker 2: be able to work with the hardware and the software together,
- 22:55Speaker 2: and so that means all the other people have to
- 22:57Speaker 2: use the camera systems that these people have used. And
- 23:00Speaker 2: one of the issues Tesla has is your camera systems
- 23:04Speaker 2: have to be really good. So when you're putting in
- 23:07Speaker 2: like Hardware three, in Tesla's it uses a certain camera system,
- 23:11Speaker 2: and Hardware four uses a much better camera system, digital
- 23:15Speaker 2: cameras that are much higher quality. And one of the
- 23:17Speaker 2: things Tesla's learning, which they haven't admitted yet, is that
- 23:20Speaker 2: this isn't the best way to do it. Okay, Why well,
- 23:25Speaker 2: because those cameras can't compete with your really your eyes,
- 23:29Speaker 2: they just really just can't. So in the cyber truck,
- 23:31Speaker 2: it has really good cameras and it's really helpful in
- 23:34Speaker 2: driving the cyber truck, especially parking it, and the quality
- 23:38Speaker 2: of the video is super good, but it's not your eye,
- 23:42Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. And so this is the
- 23:44Speaker 2: challenge that all mapping. So so Google spending two hundred
- 23:48Speaker 2: and fifty thousand on these cars that are mapping, and
- 23:51Speaker 2: that's just using tons of tecklidar or whatever. And so
- 23:54Speaker 2: what I fear is that many of the systems that
- 23:58Speaker 2: people perceive will work work are not good enough to
- 24:01Speaker 2: work in real life integrated with human behavior.
- 24:06Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think that I think the key there, though,
- 24:09Speaker 1: ross is going to be the freshness of the data.
- 24:11Speaker 1: You know, the fact that you've got companies.
- 24:12Speaker 2: Out there roads.
- 24:14Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and they're deploying you know, whether it is
- 24:16Speaker 1: the advanced technology. Obviously, as you know in tech, everything
- 24:20Speaker 1: is a race to zero, So the cost of building
- 24:22Speaker 1: spatial computing cameras are going to get lower and lower.
- 24:25Speaker 2: So they're not you know, like spatial computing cameras are
- 24:30Speaker 2: not cheap, you know, and that is true.
- 24:33Speaker 1: I mean, the device that hivemapper sells is fairly pricey.
- 24:37Speaker 1: But at the same time they're you know, they're rewarding
- 24:39Speaker 1: on the back end through a token is system to
- 24:42Speaker 1: be able to get that mapping data in again, decentralized mapping,
- 24:46Speaker 1: which is a benefit for privacy, security, all those kind
- 24:49Speaker 1: of things. And it also doesn't put Google in the
- 24:52Speaker 1: middle of holding everything. Speaking of that, so I'll leave
- 24:56Speaker 1: it at that in the sense of because I think
- 24:59Speaker 1: we are on the same page of the technology that's
- 25:02Speaker 1: required for it to go in that direction. This is
- 25:05Speaker 1: a point in looking at revenue on Tesla and this
- 25:08Speaker 1: surprised me, and this is Tesla is banking billions in
- 25:13Speaker 1: regulatory emission credits. I didn't realize this was happening to
- 25:16Speaker 1: this level, and that is one point seventy nine billion
- 25:20Speaker 1: in regulatory credit revenue last year. The likelihood is we
- 25:24Speaker 1: could see some tokenization of this, and this of course
- 25:27Speaker 1: would all live on what most likely would especially if
- 25:30Speaker 1: you look at how Blackrock and what Securitized has done,
- 25:33Speaker 1: which is their tokenized real world security assets. Could that
- 25:38Speaker 1: play into this for things like regulatory credits in the
- 25:41Speaker 1: future That would of course lean in on things like
- 25:45Speaker 1: ethereum and all of that.
- 25:46Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on.
- 25:48Speaker 1: This as a strategy for Tesla in the future, especially
- 25:51Speaker 1: around these credits.
- 25:53Speaker 2: I think for me, I think the blockchain and I
- 25:57Speaker 2: think using these types of systems makes a lot of
- 26:01Speaker 2: sense in many ways, but it's been very difficult to
- 26:06Speaker 2: apply this actually in actuality. And so I think there's
- 26:11Speaker 2: many things like real estate that can be tokenized and
- 26:15Speaker 2: put on the blockchain and traded, and I just think it's,
- 26:18Speaker 2: like all these technologies, it just takes a long time, Yeah,
- 26:22Speaker 2: for these things to happen.
- 26:23Speaker 1: You're talking about we're encroaching now up to almost two
- 26:26Speaker 1: hundred million people that own crypto in some way. This
- 26:29Speaker 1: is globally, you know, globally that's a significant number.
- 26:32Speaker 7: You know.
- 26:33Speaker 1: Does this go to a billion users over the next decade. Yeah,
- 26:36Speaker 1: I think this is I think curve that we're going
- 26:39Speaker 1: to be on. So to your point, there is a
- 26:42Speaker 1: subset of society that's always going to be kind of lagging.
- 26:44Speaker 1: But one of the areas that is never lagging is
- 26:47Speaker 1: gaming and the gaming culture.
- 26:49Speaker 2: And we've seen this all.
- 26:50Speaker 1: The way back into the in the eighties, the nineties,
- 26:53Speaker 1: the two thousands. Okay, sorry, why has Tesla not gone
- 27:00Speaker 1: the direction of gaming? I was just looking at some
- 27:03Speaker 1: of the things that have been done here already. We
- 27:05Speaker 1: see a lot of gaming in the web three space.
- 27:08Speaker 1: We're continuing to see this. This is just showing some
- 27:10Speaker 1: of the playtron.
- 27:11Speaker 2: You know, I have to disagree with that. I can
- 27:14Speaker 2: go play video games on my Tesla right now. They're
- 27:16Speaker 2: the only car company in the world that I can
- 27:18Speaker 2: play video games in my car right now, localized.
- 27:22Speaker 1: Yes, why not double down on this? If gaming is
- 27:26Speaker 1: such a societal connection, why do you think Tesla has
- 27:30Speaker 1: not really doubled down on this? Why don't we have,
- 27:32Speaker 1: you know, like a remote Tesla steam I mean, I'm
- 27:34Speaker 1: just looking at the things that you could do, like
- 27:37Speaker 1: a steam.
- 27:37Speaker 2: Ball day law. Yeah, you know, I have this this
- 27:41Speaker 2: thing because I want to make it clear. I don't
- 27:43Speaker 2: want to be the CEO of Tesla, but if I
- 27:46Speaker 2: was the CEO of Tesla, things would be very different
- 27:49Speaker 2: than it is today because what I would be doing
- 27:52Speaker 2: is leaning in in exactly that. Yeah. One of the things, So,
- 27:55Speaker 2: I drive a cyber truck and I have a plaid
- 27:58Speaker 2: to Tesla models plaid, and I've been driving the cyber truck.
- 28:01Speaker 2: And one thing is one hundred percent of children love
- 28:03Speaker 2: the cyber truck. You know, fifty percent of adults hate
- 28:06Speaker 2: the cyber truck. One hundred percent of kids love the
- 28:08Speaker 2: cyber truck. I'm more popular than Mickey Mouse when I
- 28:11Speaker 2: drive through the neighborhood. And why do kids love it
- 28:16Speaker 2: so much? It's because it's a vision of the future.
- 28:18Speaker 2: But then they get in the car and the first
- 28:20Speaker 2: thing my kid does is he puts on his YouTube
- 28:23Speaker 2: and starts watching it in the backseat, or they want
- 28:26Speaker 2: a game in my car, and I'm like, it gets
- 28:27Speaker 2: annoying because they won't leave the car. They want to
- 28:30Speaker 2: do the fart sounds. It's the only car that I
- 28:32Speaker 2: know of that has fart sounds. I mean, you know,
- 28:35Speaker 2: you can make fun of it or whatever, but this
- 28:37Speaker 2: is the kind of consumer stuff that sells cars. It
- 28:40Speaker 2: just does. And this was the brilliance of Tesla in
- 28:43Speaker 2: its early days and when Elon was focused and Tesla
- 28:47Speaker 2: was his baby. That's why this happened. Because Elon's a
- 28:50Speaker 2: gamer too. You know, we're the same age. I grew
- 28:52Speaker 2: up gaming. I'm still a gamer. I game a lot,
- 28:54Speaker 2: and you know I found Nvidia, you know, ten plus
- 28:57Speaker 2: years ago thanks to gaming. You know, I had no
- 29:00Speaker 2: idea they'd be building AI chips today. You know, It's
- 29:03Speaker 2: been one of the best investments of my career. But
- 29:05Speaker 2: when you think about what Tesla could be doing is
- 29:07Speaker 2: leaning in on the positive side of the consumer experience
- 29:10Speaker 2: that they've been so successful with Their interface is better,
- 29:13Speaker 2: is better than anybody's. This is the This is my
- 29:16Speaker 2: single greatest source of frustration is that I still think
- 29:20Speaker 2: that they make the best cars with the best interface.
- 29:23Speaker 2: And full self driving is still great and it's helpful
- 29:27Speaker 2: and I use it. Autopilot's great for the freeways. It
- 29:30Speaker 2: can take me all the way to seean Diego without
- 29:33Speaker 2: interve intervention. The communications services in the car, I can
- 29:37Speaker 2: do zoom calls in the car. It's genius. You know.
- 29:41Speaker 2: Whenever I rent a car, it always reminds me how
- 29:44Speaker 2: far ahead Tesla is. Now. I have Rivian now too, Okay,
- 29:48Speaker 2: and Rivian is a great company, and they have good software,
- 29:52Speaker 2: but it's still they don't have fart sounds, they don't
- 29:54Speaker 2: have video games, they don't have the consumer experience even
- 29:57Speaker 2: close yet to what Tesla's at. And so Rivian is
- 30:02Speaker 2: a close second, but that's still got a lot of
- 30:04Speaker 2: work to do. And and so I I think that's
- 30:07Speaker 2: the opportunity in Tesla if somebody came back and showed
- 30:10Speaker 2: it some.
- 30:10Speaker 1: Movate you know, yeah, keep innovating. Well, I think charging
- 30:16Speaker 1: network there's many things I continue.
- 30:18Speaker 2: To see storage, yes.
- 30:20Speaker 1: All the things that we've talked about before around the
- 30:22Speaker 1: future of it, and I think also the promise of
- 30:24Speaker 1: what Tesla really was. Back to your point is that
- 30:27Speaker 1: the innovations at Tesla used to come out by the
- 30:31Speaker 1: dozens every month. It was like you couldn't keep up
- 30:33Speaker 1: with the amount, you know, and I've started to see this.
- 30:36Speaker 1: This This tells you when something's wrong, is when you
- 30:39Speaker 1: see less and less podcasters that were just focused on
- 30:43Speaker 1: Tesla and they've started to deviate onto other things because
- 30:47Speaker 1: there's not enough news.
- 30:48Speaker 2: There's not enough news. Well, they're kind of going out
- 30:50Speaker 2: of business. You know. It's like the way it was
- 30:54Speaker 2: was like all of us Tesla supporters and fans supported
- 30:58Speaker 2: each other, and it was a wonderful community, and it
- 31:00Speaker 2: was kind of based around clean energy, you know, it's
- 31:02Speaker 2: kind of based around the environmental mission, which many of us,
- 31:06Speaker 2: including myself, is the main driver, one of my main
- 31:09Speaker 2: investment themes. But in my personal life, I care about
- 31:12Speaker 2: the environment is one of the most important things from
- 31:14Speaker 2: a charitable perspective and also just from a life perspective.
- 31:17Speaker 2: And so it built a wonderful community and then you
- 31:21Speaker 2: saw all the podcasters grow, and the different websites around
- 31:25Speaker 2: evs and the writers like electric and all these great
- 31:29Speaker 2: blogs about evs. And then when Elon bought Twitter and
- 31:33Speaker 2: pivoted away from being a guy who sells evs and
- 31:36Speaker 2: cares about the environment, who lives in California and is
- 31:38Speaker 2: liberal to a guy who lives in Texas who basically,
- 31:42Speaker 2: you know, is complete opposite of that guy he used
- 31:44Speaker 2: to be. It's shattered the community in many ways. So
- 31:49Speaker 2: it's either you are on elon side or you're a
- 31:51Speaker 2: bad guy, you know. So they've made me into a
- 31:54Speaker 2: bad guy, you know, the guy who was there when
- 31:56Speaker 2: Elon needed help for the last ten years, you know,
- 31:59Speaker 2: investing millions of supporting the company in many ways that
- 32:03Speaker 2: people never saw, you know, behind the scenes. And you know,
- 32:06Speaker 2: I get it, Elon got tired of me saying he
- 32:09Speaker 2: was doing stupid stuff. But I'm sorry, it's my opinion
- 32:12Speaker 2: and he doesn't have to respect it. That's fine. But
- 32:15Speaker 2: I think the stock price, you know, speaks for itself.
- 32:17Speaker 2: It's down forty percent over the last three years, and
- 32:21Speaker 2: it's because of Twitter, and that's the only reason. And
- 32:23Speaker 2: so you know, Elon Musk has tremendous potential when he's
- 32:27Speaker 2: focused on what's important. And I think that fixed Tesla.
- 32:31Speaker 2: But the community is dead now, you know, because it's
- 32:34Speaker 2: basically people arguing all the time that if you say
- 32:37Speaker 2: anything that's critical, then you're a bad guy. And and
- 32:40Speaker 2: and then you know, you've got to make excuses for
- 32:42Speaker 2: everything Elon does every day if you're a blogger. So
- 32:44Speaker 2: it's really hard to be a YouTuber on Tesla now
- 32:47Speaker 2: because you basically have to make excuses every day.
- 32:50Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's a constant scenario. Do you think
- 32:52Speaker 1: the value of the stock right now is on point
- 32:54Speaker 1: with the company and trading it around two oh seven
- 32:57Speaker 1: right now?
- 32:57Speaker 2: No, I think it's vastly overvalued right now, it's still okay, yeah,
- 33:01Speaker 2: oh yeah. I mean, you know, you can look at
- 33:04Speaker 2: a company like I love the cars, I love the company,
- 33:08Speaker 2: and then you can look at a stock, and a
- 33:09Speaker 2: stock has to trade based off what its future earnings
- 33:13Speaker 2: potential is. Okay, it's not what I can invent one
- 33:16Speaker 2: hundred things that don't make money that it's not going
- 33:19Speaker 2: to make the stock go up, you see what I'm saying.
- 33:21Speaker 2: And so stocks go up based off return of capital
- 33:25Speaker 2: and investment and real cash flow, and those numbers are
- 33:29Speaker 2: going down at Tesla. So the question would be what
- 33:32Speaker 2: will get the numbers in Tesla to go up? Okay,
- 33:35Speaker 2: because then the stock should trade it a multiple similar
- 33:37Speaker 2: to in Video or Microsoft, like forty to fifty times
- 33:40Speaker 2: forward earnings, which is a very high multiple. Okay. You know,
- 33:44Speaker 2: once again, these are big numbers, and I you know,
- 33:47Speaker 2: anybody who thinks one hundred pe is something normal is wrong.
- 33:50Speaker 2: You know. My basic premise is twenty pe or less
- 33:53Speaker 2: is what we want to pay for stocks, you know,
- 33:56Speaker 2: and especially with higher growth rates than twenty percent. So
- 33:59Speaker 2: that's what we look for. It's Tesla fall into that
- 34:01Speaker 2: and in no way, shape or form, you know. So
- 34:04Speaker 2: it's not cheap by any means. And so when you say,
- 34:07Speaker 2: how does Tesla get their earnings to double, because that's
- 34:10Speaker 2: what has to happen. So they're at two dollars and
- 34:14Speaker 2: fifty cents a share, how do they get to five
- 34:16Speaker 2: dollars a share? Okay, so let's just chart out that path.
- 34:20Speaker 2: How do they get to five dollars a share in earnings? Well,
- 34:23Speaker 2: two things have to happen. They have to sell more
- 34:25Speaker 2: cars and not lose more margin, you know, so margin
- 34:28Speaker 2: must stay the same. Let's just assume margin is not
- 34:31Speaker 2: going to go up, so margin must stay the same,
- 34:34Speaker 2: and they have to sell more cars, okay, and then
- 34:38Speaker 2: earnings would go up, right, Okay, simple formula. And so
- 34:42Speaker 2: you say, how do we sell more cars than the
- 34:44Speaker 2: same margin? And it's not you know, having street fights
- 34:49Speaker 2: with Madero and Venezuela. That doesn't actually sell cars, as
- 34:54Speaker 2: they said, it's an anti marketing campaign. So Tesla has
- 34:57Speaker 2: to lower margins and the price to sell CA cars
- 35:00Speaker 2: because the people will only buy them based off price. Now,
- 35:03Speaker 2: because it doesn't align with anybody's values. So this is
- 35:06Speaker 2: why I'm like, well, what should test to be Well,
- 35:09Speaker 2: if it does two fifteen earnings and you give it
- 35:10Speaker 2: fifty fifty times, or even if you give him three
- 35:13Speaker 2: dollars an earner, you do fifty times, you're at one fifty,
- 35:16Speaker 2: you know, so you give them even benefit of doubt.
- 35:18Speaker 2: I think estimates for next year's at three twenty, even
- 35:20Speaker 2: though I think that's foolish, you know. So then you
- 35:23Speaker 2: say it's one sixty five or one sixty you know,
- 35:26Speaker 2: so you know Tesla's overvalued by those standards, you know, Yeah, sure,
- 35:30Speaker 2: so do I think they can write the ship. Absolutely.
- 35:33Speaker 2: Do they have great assets and technology, absolutely, But it
- 35:36Speaker 2: just doesn't matter if the CEO doesn't care about selling cars,
- 35:40Speaker 2: and now he's made it clear that he doesn't want
- 35:42Speaker 2: to sell cars. He wants to do robo taxis. He
- 35:45Speaker 2: wants to do robots. And if you want to talk
- 35:47Speaker 2: about robots, I'm not a big believer that people are
- 35:50Speaker 2: going to be having like robots in their houses anytime soon.
- 35:54Speaker 2: So you know that's another problem.
- 35:56Speaker 1: Well we'll get to save that one for another day.
- 35:58Speaker 1: But a Ross gerb great to have you on the
- 36:01Speaker 1: show today. Thank you so much for stopping in. Of course,
- 36:03Speaker 1: if you guys want to learn a little bit more
- 36:04Speaker 1: about what Ross is doing, just go over and visit
- 36:06Speaker 1: Gerber Kawasaki. You can learn a little bit about them.
- 36:09Speaker 1: Thanks again for coming in today.
- 36:10Speaker 2: We appreciate it. Ross. Yeah, thanks for having me. Good
- 36:12Speaker 2: to see you. It's nice to see those It is fun.
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