Happy New Year! We kick off 2025 with bold predictions and a touch of drama. After reflecting on our 2024 forecasting showdown (spoiler: eggnog-fueled chaos), we dive into the biggest investing and stock market trends and opportunities for 2025!
We also open the box on quantum computing and analyse two hot names in this sector!
💹 S&P 500 in 2025 – Bullish, bearish, or just plain sideways?
📈 Small-Cap Comeback – Are the underdogs finally ready to shine, and is this the end of the Magnificent 7?
🖥 Quantum Computing’s Breakthrough – Will Google’s advances redefine the future of tech?
💡 AI in Action – Which company will dominate practical applications of AI?
🪙 Crypto Showdown – Bitcoin vs. Chainlink: Which one will soar higher?
🚗 Tesla RoboTaxis – Can Austin lead the driverless revolution in 2025?
🌎 Global Recession? – Will 2025 bring a soft landing or economic turbulence?
🚀 Space Innovation – Which company will lead the charge into the stars?
💼 Biggest Tech M&A – Could Apple, Tesla, or another giant make a game-changing acquisition?
Stick around for a surprise discussion about investing resolutions, portfolio decluttering, and why balancing fun with financial wisdom is the ultimate strategy for 2025!
📌 Don’t miss this episode packed with insights, humor, and hot takes that could reshape your investing portfolio!
Sources:
Link to Wait But Why article on Neuralink and the brain: https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html
Segments:
00:00 Introduction
00:39 Recap of our 2024 Predictions
01:30 Patreon Shoutout and Behind the Scenes
03:10 2025 Predictions
03:38 Q1. S&P 500 Prediction
05:40 Q2. Magnificent Seven vs Small Caps
07:49 Q3. Global Recession Concerns
10:46 Q4. Crypto Predictions: Bitcoin vs Chainlink
13:24 Q5. AI Domination: Tech Giants
17:05 Q6. Largest Tech Acquisition of 2025
23:15 Q7. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)
26:28 Q8. Space Exploration Predictions
29:06 Q9. Tesla RoboTaxis in Austin
32:00 Q10. Groundbreaking Invention
36:18 Q11. Groundbreaking Medical Treatment
39:15 Q12. Best and Worst Portfolio Performers
45:20 Investing Resolutions for 2025
57:59 Quantum Computing: The Next Frontier?
01:05:14 Analyzing Two Quantum Computing Companies
01:14:04 Final Thoughts and Advice for Investors
E61 New Year Predictions
[00:00:00] Luke: It’s nice to be early as an investor, but if you’re too early, you just, you’re at the top of the hype curve and you just get wiped out when the market wakes up and goes, Oh, actually this is nonsense.
And we got like a whole ton of years of research to do before we actually start creating economic value with this stuff.
Happy New Year and welcome to Wall Street Wildlife Investing Podcast with your hosts, Luke and Krzysztof. In today’s episode, we’re making hot predictions for 2025. Krzysztof kicked my butt in the 2024 predictions episode. And we’re going to take a look at quantum computing, this hot topic that everybody’s talking about right now.
And we both looked at a company that’s alphabet to see what we thought. Hold on for that at the end of the episode.
[00:00:52] Krzysztof: You’re very gracious to say I kicked your butt. I squeezed by a marginal victory. [00:01:00] Uh, but we sure had a lot of fun drinking eggnog and Santa’s pants and Santa’s panties.
[00:01:06] Luke: You know, I, I edited that episode because I didn’t dare send it to our editors because it was such a shit show of chaos and nonsense. Uh, I didn’t want to lose a face, face in their eyes, but in editing it, I realized how drunk you were before we even started recording. What the hell?
[00:01:28] Krzysztof: my goodness. Yeah, we had a lot of fun. Thank you to all our patreons. Check out patreon. com slash wallstreetwildlife. That’s where we were posting all kinds of, uh, nonsense and behind the scenes. Wallstreetwildlife treasure. Treasure.
[00:01:47] Luke: of months into this Patreon journey, but I feel like we’re like threading the needle quite well between like good quality conversations and due diligence and chats about stocks that we love and complete [00:02:00] garbage. And hopefully we’re balancing those, that seesaw of fun and serious stuff.
[00:02:05] Krzysztof: Right. Well, like I said before, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. So, again, thank you to all our patrons. You’re making a big difference for us. So, uh, check us out there. Uh, yeah.
[00:02:19] Luke: Now you did kick my butt. Uh, it was, we were, we were doing shot for shot whenever we got a question wrong in the 2024 predictions. So I’ve taken my predictions for this year even more seriously in the hope that I, uh, I catch up because you, I think we finished something like, Five and a half points to four and a half points.
Also, I didn’t keep cracking the whip over you, but you didn’t drink all your shots. But, uh, if you had drunk all of your penalty shots and I drank all mine, probably wouldn’t have finished the episode. You just slipped off that chair into oblivion.
[00:02:52] Krzysztof: So I’m in shot debt to you. And I couldn’t remember what our investing slogan was at [00:03:00] the end. So it’s probably a good idea. I didn’t take those extra shots. I would have fallen out of my tree.
[00:03:08] Luke: There we go. Uh, right. So let’s get straight into our 2025 predictions, shall we, Krzysztof?
[00:03:15] Krzysztof: Indeed.
[00:03:16] Luke: following a similar format to last year, I think the first question, we’ve got 12 questions. We’re going to talk about macroeconomics. We’ll talk about some specific companies we own, and we’re going to try and make some, uh, big predictions about what’s going to happen in the world.
And we will come back. Uh, this time next year and we’ll review where we got to. But the first one is a question we posed last year because it’s a good starting point. And that is, where will the S& P 500 be at the end of 2025? And at the time of recording, it’s about 5, 970 plus or minus a bit.
[00:03:52] Krzysztof: All right, Badger, uh, I’m saying that it will end at 6, 250, [00:04:00] which is a way of saying it’s kind of mostly going to be sideways, a sideways year, and I think that’s because the run up in 2024 was so big. And I don’t think at this moment that, um, the cards will come tumbling down, maybe the optimism of the new administration, uh, but it’s not gonna have much, much room to, to grow much higher.
[00:04:27] Luke: I think we’re both, we’re both thinking upside. I’m a bit more bullish. Like everything for me right now is influenced by. Like Musk being in bed with Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency. And like all the things that are probably going to happen and I oiled the wheels of commerce in the US and like the country might make some take some actions, take some decisions that are not good for the long term health of the country, like trying to focus on clearing the debt and getting [00:05:00] a bit more under fiscal control and tidying the belt is probably what the US should be doing.
But I think. It’s going to be a good year for investors. And so I’m predicting a nice round 7, 000 at year end.
[00:05:12] Krzysztof: That would be quite a, quite another bump from, from where we are. So you’re way more bullish than I am. All right.
[00:05:19] Luke: And let’s be
[00:05:20] Krzysztof: luck. I hope you’re right.
[00:05:21] Luke: in my real, I mean, I, yeah, I hope I’m right to be in my real portfolio. Like I’m hedging the heck out of my holdings on something like 25 percent cash. And I’m going to continue to go. Further and further to cash just because I want to, like, protect my lifestyle, uh, but yeah, why not? Why not be optimistic for next year?
[00:05:38] Krzysztof: Yeah, all right.
[00:05:40] Luke: Now, Krzysztof, the Magnificent Seven had a magnificent 2024 and they were up big time. We made a prediction in our last predictions episode about which of the Magnificent Seven would perform the best and which would underperform.
I think I hilariously predicted that NVIDIA would be the big underperformer [00:06:00] and they were, they blew the roof off yet again. Um, but I do remember, I think it was Microsoft and they were the worst performer of 2024 and they still did like 17%, something like that. That’s a great. performance when you’re at that kind of market cap.
Um, so yeah, big year for the Magnificent Seven. Are they going to have another big year or are they going to fall to the S& P small cap 600, which is a bit like the S& P 500, but it’s companies that have a market cap up to, I think it’s 6. 7 billion dollars. Some weird number like that. Um, yeah. So essentially like small crafts, small cap growth stocks.
So who’s going to outperform S and P 600 or the max seven.
[00:06:48] Krzysztof: I have fairly high confidence in this, to me, it’s, it’s, uh, small caps by a mile, I see Apple actually going down, so [00:07:00] Apple is the world’s largest company that would weigh on the Magnificent Seven Index, if you will, and I think it’s perfectly ripe time for, uh, a lot of the more reasonably valued companies to take center stage.
So SMP 600 for the win.
[00:07:18] Luke: Yeah, I’m with you on that one. Um, if interest rates continue to come down, it’s going to be a good macro environment for smaller companies. And I, I can only imagine like, uh, Vivek and Musk outfit are going to make 2025 like, A year that’s easier for commerce for all companies. And so that should open up the floodgates a little bit for smaller disruptors to have their day.
So yeah, also, uh, also going with small caps, 600 prediction three, will there be a global recession in [00:08:00] 2025?
[00:08:00] Krzysztof: This is a one I’m worried about Badger. And that’s because last year I was wearing a full size bear outfit. And what happened? The exact opposite. Now, I’m feeling a lot more safe, you know? Uh, and I’m suspecting that the opposite is going to happen. So that we’re going to get a recession, but nonetheless, I’m going with no recession.
So I’m not going to out, I’m not going to psych myself out with my own PsyOps operation.
[00:08:33] Luke: Yeah, . Uh,
[00:08:36] Krzysztof: going with, I’m going with some semblance of the soft landing ish scenario playing out. yeah, no crash.
[00:08:44] Luke: I can’t, I sort of think the same. I think we’re probably gonna get like a bunch of recessionary impacts, but it probably won’t be a technical recession. And I think I could have this slightly wrong. I think a technical recession is two quarters of negative GDP growth [00:09:00] back to back,
[00:09:01] Krzysztof: yeah. That’s that sounds. Yeah,
[00:09:04] Luke: get that, but I think we are gonna see. Like the man in the street is probably going to feel the pinch a little bit like unemployment is probably going to continue to rise. Um, I think rate cuts probably continue, but we’ve seen them slow and they’re probably slow even more. So, you know, maybe that bucks against what I was just saying with like a good year for the S and P 500, but I’m trying to be a bit moderate hedging my bets a little bit.
So, yeah, I think we’re both agreeing no technical recession, but, um, but I still think there will be some speed bumps.
[00:09:37] Krzysztof: and by speed bumps, uh, my translation of that would be expect volatility and there might be some nice bargains to be had on some of those maybe deeper red days or consecutive red days where people start to panic. So definitely not, I don’t expect an easy ride, but, but nothing catastrophic because catastrophic could be bad.
I don’t think that’s what, [00:10:00] that’s what’s going to happen.
[00:10:01] Luke: Yeah, like there’s a, there’s catastrophe is kind of baked into the system right now, right? With like, pretty high valuations. It’s probably probably not quite at 2021 levels, but we’re pretty close across the board. So, yeah, you know, doom is coming at some point. Well, you know, But what was I saying that we reflected on with Rad DeLong quite a few episodes ago?
Uh, the, uh, the chaps who predicted like nine out of the last five recessions. like if you keep making recessionary predictions, eventually you’ll be right, but it’s going to cost you a ton of cash or a ton of gains in the interim. You might as well just stay the course.
[00:10:44] Krzysztof: Next prediction. Let’s enter the world of crypto. Bitcoin versus Chainlink at the end of 2025, which, uh, so let’s do in two parts. What do you think the, uh, Bitcoin year end [00:11:00] price will be?
[00:11:01] Luke: Oh, well, where are we at now? Like just sub a hundred thousand dollars on Bitcoin.
[00:11:06] Krzysztof: Well today, there’s a little bit of a drop. So right now we are at 91, 500.
[00:11:12] Luke: Okay. Uh, like I think it’s going to be a good year of crypto with like pro crypto, Mr. Trump in the White House, back in the White House. so I think we’re going to see both LINK and BTC rise, but I think LINK is going to rise more magnificently. And we have recorded an excellent episode, with a Chainlink expert.
So I think that’s going to come out next week. Because we got caught up in all of the Christmas chaos. But, um, yeah, that conversation really got me quite bullish about Link among the mix of cryptos. Oh, I’m still not a crypto guy. So anyway, I’ll make some predictions. Link to outgrow Bitcoin over the course of next year, and Link to 2x from wherever it is.
I’ve got no idea, but a double. And I would say Bitcoin, if it’s at 90, 000, 91, 000 bucks [00:12:00] today, let’s say to 115, 000.
[00:12:03] Krzysztof: Okay. All right. I’m remaining bullish on Bitcoin. I think it’s gonna get to about 150, 000 by year end But I’m even way way way more supremely bullish on Chainlink and I think it has a chance Well, of course it has a chance, but I think it’s actually going to Go for X from here. it’s at 20 now. So, um, I’m calling about 80, uh, by year’s end.
And that’s on the back of the fact that actual production cases with all the banks that they’ve networked with are going to start in 2025. So once the crypto community. Begins to get their heads out of their asses from the circus and meme coin nonsense and realizes that this is an actual utility The utility in the world of crypto there might be all kinds of you know, buying pressures and me [00:13:00] chasing price and what and whatnot.
And, and so from, uh, chain links, current valuation is around 15 billion. I think it has a shot to get close to a hundred billion similar to kind of a theorem like run. That happened in whatever it was, 2017, 2018.
[00:13:18] Luke: hmm. Okay. Like it.
[00:13:20] Krzysztof: All right. So, next question for you, Badger. AI domination. Which tech giant, will make the most significant advancement in practical AI applications by year end? Uh, and we’re here considering factors like public accessibility, real world use cases, and ethical implications.
[00:13:44] Luke: I don’t know specifically. In which domain, because they’re making such incredible progress in so many domains. But I’m Google for the win, Alphabet for the win here. and I feel nicely justified because I [00:14:00] think our colleague Anubhan Mahanty was a big apple bull. For quite a long time when we both worked at seven investing and I was the alphabet bull and both companies are done.
Okay, but I’m good. But we are really seeing alphabet Google’s dominance right now in so many different fields. And like I always said, like, if you’re counting them out. Your predictions of my death are unsubstantiated, whatever that Mark Twain quote was. They were never not going to become at least like top two, uh, in the AI wars.
And I think they’re probably just gonna, they’re gonna outstrip OpenAI and, uh, all the other guys and like, not even just Gemini, like all of their other stuff. I think I’ve had a failed prediction in 2024 was that on my. Pixel phone, I’d have like a full featured, essentially like virtual, digital, [00:15:00] personal assistant.
Like I think we’re getting close to that. I think. I’m going to throw that back in as a specific prediction. I think that’s the kind of capabilities they’re going to roll out. And at the same time, Apple are trying to do the same stuff with what they call Apple intelligence. But from what I’m hearing, it’s kind of a hot mess.
so we’ll probably see continued erosion of iPhone market share as all these Apple acolytes realize that they’ve chained themselves to the wrong pony.
[00:15:27] Krzysztof: Uh, all that makes sense. I’m hearing the same thing about Apple. That’s why I have not yet updated my, uh, Apple phone or, uh, chase the Apple AI stuff. It seems like they went for the first, unlike Apple, you know, they released a product that wasn’t yet ready, which is very, yeah, uh, Steve jobs is rolling over in his grave.
But my answer is probably no surprise to any of our listeners. Uh, Tesla is, I would say the world’s [00:16:00] or on the way to be the world’s most dominant AI company and the way my car now drives. Under the auspices of a I is already staggering. And I think this is the year in 25 that autonomous driving becomes clearly and obviously a matter of what’s called regulatory negotiations.
And so to solve that problem using a I, I think, is the most important problem, maybe in the world, thinking of all the deaths it could save, yada, yada. So I think Tesla is going to pull it off.
[00:16:41] Luke: I hope so. I don’t expect them to make any progress in the UK or Europe though. like we’re still so far behind, uh, even though we’ve got some of the regulations in place now, at least theoretically, we’re so far behind having even like beta versions of the full self driving be even used by, as far as [00:17:00] I know, being used by like Tesla employees.
I don’t think that’s even happening in the UK yet.
[00:17:04] Krzysztof: Yeah. So, uh, if things are, I guess, uh, if they do launch in the U S that might make it easier for Europe once the data is in hand, you know, so, uh, but fingers crossed badger, tell me what will be the largest tech acquisition of 2025, will this year remain, uh, merger and acquisition unfriendly given the valuation.
[00:17:30] Luke: I reckon. Like, is Lina Khan out yet? She’s not out from being, like, head of the FTC, like, she’s on the way out, like, I understand. And Trump and Musk and Co are going to be incredibly tech friendly, and they just unblock a lot of stuff. So I think we’ll probably see like the US stick two fingers up at the EU to some extent, and then just allow stuff to happen, even if it’s blocked in Europe.
I think we’re already seeing that in some small ways [00:18:00] where certain capabilities are a bit like FSD alive in the US, but apps and things that you can’t have in the UK. but in terms of a specific acquisition, I’m not convinced they’ll do this. Yeah. But I’m going to jump on the back of your Tesla prediction around them to win with AI.
I
So in terms of a specific prediction, I think Tesla might acquire Lyft, the, uh, the Uber competitor. Like Uber’s massive in the rest of the world. but you don’t, you don’t, as far as I know, I’ve never seen Lyft anywhere outside North America. Even when I go to North America, like I struggle To use Lyft, I’m just getting authenticated and stuff, but anyway, it seems to, what I can tell, they seem to be relatively similar in terms of like the capabilities.
but Lyft don’t have anything like the global footprint. So this could be like a win win acquisition for them because there are Teslas all over the world. [00:19:00] Tesla could, and they evidently have developed their own, like, Uh, well, they’ve certainly got mapping and routing, because that’s part of the car anyway.
But I gather they have developed their own, like, ride hail platform, which is being used internally. But they haven’t really got distribution, like, they haven’t really got the market share. And I don’t mean, like, certainly Tesla owners, they’ve got distribution to them straight away. But in terms of getting an app onto, like, the rider’s phone.
It’s going to be a little harder and that’ll be an uphill battle for them. But if they were, and assuming they get FSD working in the U S first, like they could instantly buy distribution if they bought a company like Lyft or something similar, probably I’ll say Lyft though, because the Lyft app is on, I guess, tens or hundreds of millions of American’s phones.
And so then suddenly they can start using that to book, uh, their ride hail journeys by incorporating it directly into the Tesla app.
[00:19:56] Krzysztof: Interesting. Uh, I see your thought process there. [00:20:00] I think I disagree 100%. only for the reason that I can’t imagine Musk, the way he thinks about ground up businesses, wanting to take on what’s probably some bloaty thing. So just on that principle alone, I’m, I’m thinking he’s going to hire whatever engineers he needs and just, you know, Or they probably already have, uh, but we just don’t know about it behind closed doors.
So, um, though I do like Lyft, by the way, and I use Lyft is what I use in Austin rather than Uber. So just doesn’t, doesn’t, uh, doesn’t square with Musk, oil and water, I think in this case. Um, my. Uh, prediction here’s odd. This caught me by surprise. I don’t know if you kept tabs on Spotify, but at some point I know when we were at 7investing, uh, we were trying to, you know, think through Spotify.
You had a bearish call on Spotify, [00:21:00] correct?
[00:21:00] Luke: I did, yeah.
[00:21:00] Krzysztof: And when I looked at the chart, that kind of really flew off my chair because that company has become massively, uh, it’s become a huge company. It’s gone up hundreds of percent. And simultaneously, I came across two very deep, long form pieces about some horribly shady practices over at Spotify.
In fact, it’s this month’s cover story at Harper’s Magazine about basically Spotify ghostwriting songs and basically tricking people into listening to songs that have fake names under like, it’s basically become like an AI, uh, music farm, so to speak, but there’s all kinds of issues with real musicians and payment loyalties and so on and so forth.
Uh, it’s a mess. It’s a mess. And they shot up to my top shorting idea for, actionable, but cost of a lot of [00:22:00] this was that believe it or not, uh, it beat Apple. at its own game. So Apple, you know, has this big music ecosystem. Music has been part of its DNA and Spotify kind of fought it and won. David Verth’s Goliath.
So I’m predicting that there’s going to be some sort of Apple slash Spotify truce in quotes and maybe some acquisition of and maybe an acquisition in some shape or form where Apple takes over Spotify or makes it a subsidiary or something like that to, um, wave the white flag because the ethical stuff that seems to be happening, can’t go on for much longer.
Once people start finding out about it, I think,
[00:22:46] Luke: Okay, fair enough. It doesn’t seem super likely to me either. It’s not out of the question, I suppose.
[00:22:53] Krzysztof: yeah, I mean, anytime one giant, you know, when, anytime you have gigantic companies, it’s unlikely. So [00:23:00] I’m not saying it’s probable,
[00:23:01] Luke: It sounds like we both think it’s going to be an M& A or more M& A friendly environment though going forwards, at least for the next four year term.
[00:23:09] Krzysztof: could be, yeah.
[00:23:11] Luke: All right, should we stick with, um, what’s happening in politics? Because we’ve talked about the Department of Government Efficiency a couple of times, DOGE. Um, so make a DOGE prediction for us, Krzysztof, and more specifically, Shall we say by the end of next year, will the initiative have demonstrably reduced federal spending and if so, by how much,
[00:23:35] Krzysztof: So this is one of those things where I went. to see just how big the federal deficit is. And you have to really count the commas because that’s one very long, long number. And I am predicting that for the first time in a long time, the budget won’t balloon as rapidly as it has been. It’s at [00:24:00] 1 trillion, I believe 1 trillion, 250 billion, 252 billion.
So my prediction, Badger, Is that Musk and company will actually reduce. The deficit by about 52 billion, which, which kind of makes it, you know, the reduction is really tiny relatively, but at least it’ll start making the numbers go the other way. It’s funny to say, to hear myself say reducing a budget by 52 billion is barely, you know, it was like a drop in the bucket, but, uh, yes, a reverse of trend.
[00:24:39] Luke: uh, so I’m, I’ve got another bit of sort of hedging prediction here, which kind of goes against some of the stuff I’ve said already in this discussion, I think, there’s not really going to be any material impact. And to, in fact, keep it clear, I’ll say. that the deficit will increase as opposed to decrease over the course of 2025 [00:25:00] by a dollar, let’s say.
And, uh, and further to that, probably the Trump Musk buddy buddy relationship will have Like, we’ll start to see the seams in that, that’ll have some sort of spat or falling out on X, no doubt, before the end of, let’s say, before the end of Q1.
[00:25:19] Krzysztof: That’s that’s good drama. That’ll make for good drama. I think I think Musk is smarter than that in this case, even though they both have their ego, you know, I we don’t need to, right. But I think Musk is, is the better. I think he’ll do whatever he needs to do to keep his companies, you know, at the forefront of the regular, the lucent regulatory Permission, uh, environment.
And so he’s not going to antagonize Trump. He’ll figure out a way to thread this particular needle. So, but the drama would be, can you, can you imagine the fire? Can [00:26:00] you imagine the fireworks? If, uh, if one of the other, if one sours on the other, my goodness.
[00:26:07] Luke: Let’s, uh, yeah, let’s see. I agree. I look forward to sitting back, but I hope, I hope you’re right, because as, like, a Tesla and SpaceX shareholder, like, I, I want Musk to have all of the, like, tailwinds he could possibly have for next year. But, uh, yeah, I’ll be bemused to see if that all falls apart.
[00:26:27] Krzysztof: Okay. Speaking of falling apart or hopefully not falling apart with, uh, with the Increasing private sector involvement in space exploration. Make a space prediction for 2025. Badger, you’re a Rocket Lab shareholder. Yes, you’re top king of the jungle position. You got something for me?
[00:26:48] Luke: Yeah, Rocket Lab’s now my second biggest position in my real money portfolio. Like I could, I could definitely play for a couple of seats on a, like a trip to the moon with the allocation I’ve got to that. [00:27:00] Uh, So they’re going to transition to their Neutron program next year, like, uh, and we will see some, I think it’s pretty predicted for like middle of next year where they’ll try and do first flight and they’re going to try and jump straight into commercialization.
I think they’re going to have like a commercial payload on that first attempt. Presumably it will be, uh, you know, heavily insured in some way or another. So I’m going to go fingers crossed and predict confidently. That, uh, Neutron’s first attempt at getting to orbit is successful.
[00:27:32] Krzysztof: Cool. Awesome. Good luck because the company I’m talking about, ASTS, as I go deeper and deeper in this company, and I believe we’ll return to it in a future prediction, I’m getting more and more enamored with what I’m seeing on the, on all, across all the layers of that company. And, Uh, we, we need all the rocket companies to do their part to send our bluebirds up into space.
So, [00:28:00] fingers crossed for Rocket Lab. My prediction is that ASTS has all kinds of catalysts that could happen pretty much any day now. And that we will see the Bluebird satellites actually begin operations in 2025, making this theoretical cellular broadband and the actual reality. and on the back of the, this prediction badger, just this morning, I added ASTS shares in my real life portfolio because I’m out of cash dollars in the king of the jungle. Uh, but I think 25 will be a huge year for ASTS.
[00:28:38] Luke: Awesome, good, well, fingers crossed for you on that one. Uh, and you’ve only, you’ve only got, oh wait, in fact we’re recording on the 30th of December, you’ve only got to wait two days and you can add like another 200 bucks to your King of the Jungle portfolio. So, there you go.
[00:28:51] Krzysztof: Yep, and I for sure have another share of ASTS earmarked for, for those cash dollars.
[00:28:58] Luke: Okay, well, let’s [00:29:00] bring it back down to earth with our prediction. Number nine, which is, uh, going back to Tesla. So you mentioned in the recent episode that, um, Austin might be the first city in the U S to have like real Tesla robo taxis running around separate. Question, yes, no prediction. Is that going to happen in 2025?
Will you be able to, or like a pilot customer, be able to book a real Tesla RoboTaxi and ride it in Austin?
[00:29:31] Krzysztof: This was such a good question, because, obviously, I want the answer to be yes, and it’s so weird to be living in the epicenter where this is And given Musk’s, I guess, financial pull on Austin, I don’t know, obviously, I don’t know the intricate details, but when the Tesla plant is here and all the jobs it’s creating for Austin, there’s no doubt he has more pull with Austin regulatory people the [00:30:00] most. And nonetheless, I think the regular regulatory hurdles that still need to be massaged over.
will simply take longer than an extra year. So I think the technology will be ready, but Austin won’t be, and there won’t be much Musk will be able to do to speed it up. So unfortunately, I’m going with no, but 26, I’m calling it.
[00:30:26] Luke: And if we took Austin out of the equation, like will there be real Tesla RoboTaxis on the road with no drivers in them anywhere in the world next year? We still don’t know. Yeah.
[00:30:37] Krzysztof: If not in Austin, then nowhere.
[00:30:38] Luke: Yeah, yeah, fair enough. I agree. I think we’re basically saying the same thing here. I know Waymo are already in Austin, but might be in Pilot.
Like, I imagine we’ll see that go, like, full rollout, so you’ll be able to ride like a riderless, driverless Waymo next year. I think that’s, that’s a pretty confident prediction I’ll make, but yeah, I don’t think we’re going to see Tesla doing it [00:31:00] for real next year.
[00:31:01] Krzysztof: Is your confidence because Waymo is much less sophisticated in terms of the geo fencing of where they could go? So they’ll just kind of have riderless, um, uh, cars kind of. patrolling a tiny little sector is that so that’s good enough for you, right?
[00:31:17] Luke: Yeah, they’ve, well, they’ve proven themselves in a bunch of cities already, right? Maybe five or six cities, and I think they are in pilot, in Austin, and hey, like, you’ve driven me around Austin, like, you’re a terrible driver. If you can navigate Austin, all right, I’m sure Waymo will be just fine.
[00:31:32] Krzysztof: Yeah, no, I see those little I see those little buggers and no listeners. I am not a terrible driver. Rogers just being crotchety. But yes, I see them. Yeah, I see them more and more. Just I’m not, I’m not that enthused about them. Maybe, I don’t know why, maybe it’s my Tesla bias, or maybe it’s because it doesn’t seem like it’s real autonomous driving if they can’t legitimately go anywhere.
Uh, but maybe, maybe simpler problems get solved first, [00:32:00] so.
[00:32:00] Luke: Prediction 10, what will be the most groundbreaking technological invention or discovery for next year and how is it going to impact society?
[00:32:10] Krzysztof: All right, I went with, Some some version having to do with carbon capture, slash, uh, coming up with better recycling material. So kind of global warming, climate change kind of stuff. And that’s because. shout out to one of our patrons and forgive me for not recalling who it was. You could, you could thrash me on our patron, but, um, there’s a company, uh, called, Lanza Tech, and they have a subsidiary called Lanza Jet.
I picked up some shares on the back of some department of energy, uh, funds going their way and they work in the carbon capture realm. So basically take carbon out of the air and then take that carbon and transform [00:33:00] it into other useful products. So that’s a cool technology and I think we’ll see some action in 2025 around that.
By the way, the stock is up. Quite cheap. It’s fallen from severe heights because of delays. I’ll probably be talking about in the future stock safari. So thanks for the heads up. the other company I wanted to mention is origin, another future stock safari company. They’re making better at the moment.
They’re the problem. They’re solving is making bottle caps for beverages that are recyclable or way more environmental friendly. And apparently it’s a big problem. Think of all the bottles around the world and all the waste that comes from it. yeah,
[00:33:49] Luke: if you buy like a plastic, like a Coke or like a sparkling water or something like the, the cap doesn’t come off, it stays attached. I thought I was like an imbecile. I didn’t realize that it happened. And I’m like, I can’t get [00:34:00] this fricking thing open. Now I’ve realized that obviously it’s not supposed to come off.
[00:34:03] Krzysztof: no, it’s a big thing. And for just to be timely, the ticker is, uh, O. R. G. N. And just this morning, I’m sorry. It was announced this morning because the market was closed over the weekend. The co CEO bought 700, 000 in shares. So big inside, uh, purchase. So stock is up, uh, 14 percent this morning as we speak, uh, carbon capture.
[00:34:30] Luke: Great. So, so, okay. So you had like two there, like carbon capture and plastic, but something like environmentally. Yeah, that’s cool. That’d be great. I’d like to see something like that. I’m going, you know, within for my prediction in this space. So we just saw the excellent team at Alphabet’s DeepMind recently win a Nobel Prize for AlphaFold3 or their work in, um, like computational biology and working out like the proteome and doing like some really incredible stuff there.[00:35:00]
I think we’re going to see on the back of That excellent work, plus good work done by Meta and a bunch of other companies. A real AI designed protein or drug or therapy getting commercialized next year. Because this stuff should start to happen much faster now that we actually have all this stuff mapped out.
[00:35:19] Krzysztof: And I, I would, uh, I can’t hold my tongue badger, but. Um, there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors in this domain, and by smoke and mirrors, I don’t mean, sorry, it’s, that’s overstating it. It’s not like there’s anything fraudulent, but what you’re talking about is actually fairly commonplace ish, given that it’s public domain and whatnot.
So another little bit of an endorsement for Relay Therapeutics as the main company that has a legit, what you’re talking about, plus a way to bring these proteins to commercialization. They’re the world’s leader. So anybody [00:36:00] sleeping on relay therapeutics, take a look at some of the stuff I’ve talked about.
Um, so I think you’re right. It’s closer than we think, but people are overlooking the source.
[00:36:10] Luke: Very good. All right, Krzysztof, uh, prediction 11, then you can bring us home with the final one. Um, what groundbreaking medical treatment will gain FDA approval next year?
[00:36:24] Krzysztof: Okay. So, uh, I’m taking a flyer, even though the timing was probably going to be off because FDA approval, uh, I’m just guessing it won’t happen. Soon enough in 25. So fingers crossed. But right now, the big, uh, thing in, in medicine, at least over the last year was a zempic, right? And weight loss. But most people don’t realize that the deaths that happened from cancer often, I think, to the tune of 30 percent happened because of weight.
uh, too much weight weight loss. So cancer patients [00:37:00] need to gain weight. And there is lots of progress being made by Pfizer with a drug called Ponce mograb. I don’t know if I’m butchering that or not. And so my guess is that that drug goes to market and then saves many cancer patients lives.
[00:37:21] Luke: Okay, very specific. Mine’s a bit more general, but I’m going to take everything in the world of brain computer interfaces, because we’ve seen that incredible stuff that Neuralink are doing. With, uh, like that severely disabled guy who can now essentially control his computer, play video games, like type, and I think we’re going to see just more advances in that world.
So I don’t know about FDA approval, like it’s a bit hard to say, but like this stuff is going to still be pretty niche in 2025, but maybe we’ll see some sort of device at least being piloted for like, In home use. I understand like [00:38:00] we’re looking at things like stroke rehabilitation with this sort of technology, maybe something like that.
I mean, maybe nothing to do with FDA and approval, but perhaps more excitingly, I think we’re probably going to see like significant progress in laboratories in terms of like reading human thoughts in real time at a higher resolution. Like I don’t think we’ll be sticking like The thing on your head and you can like literally read someone’s mind and see what they’re dreaming and thinking about, but like intentional thought, I think we’re going to see, like, very significant steps forward, like, almost certainly beyond what we’re doing today with, um, like typing and controlling like the mouse on the screen.
[00:38:41] Krzysztof: And to that end, I don’t know if you’ve read it yourself, Badger, but there was a brilliant, absolutely brilliant post by Tim Urban, the guy who writes Wait, But Why. on his conversation with Musk about Neuralink some years ago. It’s a truly magnificent read. We’ll put it in the show notes. Um, if you have [00:39:00] any interest about this, this kind of realm and technology, it’s just absolutely fascinating.
So, the, the essay is called Neuralink and the Brain’s Magical Future. Check it out. It’s just, Wild, wild stuff.
[00:39:13] Luke: Awesome. So what’s our final prediction for 2025? 2025.
[00:39:18] Krzysztof: Okay, so this one is, uh, is fun. Which of the other animals, King of the Jungle Holdings, will be their best and worst performer? All right, Badger, so you gotta, you gotta support one of Monkey’s and you gotta bash one of Monkey’s Holdings. What you got?
[00:39:36] Luke: I mean, the bashing is easy. The support is going to be a little more tricky, because you own a lot of junk in my view. I don’t really believe that, but I’ve got to tease you, right? Uh, I think your best performer is probably going to be Link. Like, you predicted a 4x, I predicted a 2x. I don’t see a significant downside for them from the current valuation in a very [00:40:00] crypto friendly environment.
So it’s probably not a terrible holding just in terms of downside risk and the upside could be significant. So I’m going to give you that as my guess as your best performer for the year. I’m afraid. Much as I love space, I’m not, I don’t know enough about it, but I’m going to go with ASTS as your worst performer.
Maybe you haven’t actually added it to your King of the Jungle though. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but I think you’re about to add it. So if you’ll allow me, I’m going to take that as your worst performer. like I don’t know enough about the company and you can set me straight in a future episode, but if they are essentially trying to put, like mobile connectivity, those sorts of satellites up.
It’s just gonna be an uphill battle if they don’t have their own launch capability. Like Starlink is going to be massive, uh, and the cost is going to come down and they’re going to set a baseline that’s going to be very hard to compete with. And even Rocket Lab are talking about putting their own constellation.
Like if you’re launching stuff, it’s just gonna be [00:41:00] so much cheaper to launch your own comm satellites than it will be for someone to buy that capacity from you.
[00:41:07] Krzysztof: Oh, this is great. This is great. You were wrong in all the ways. is brilliant. So for future episode, I think maybe we’ll do a deep dive. I think this is the I told you before that this feels to me like a future like obsessive company that I’m really gonna go wild about. So not for this episode. We’ll do that in the future show.
But the briefer joinder is that the launching stuff will be commoditized and that’s just no longer an issue for them. The real issue is does the tech work and the licensing between the major providers, but, I think badger that. Your worst holding will be Palantir. And that’s, I mean, either, I guess AI does [00:42:00] like continues the exponential thing and they’re the company that, and there’s no competitors and they get all the contracts and they become like a trillion dollar company, or it’s just the, one of the biggest valuation bubbles that I’ve seen in recent times.
And that’s what I’m betting on. I mean, almost it’s so it’s. Like this binary thing, and I doubt it’s the former. So, in fact, as you know, I’m playing with shorting it. and your best will be Mellie because Mercado Libre, because I love that company. and I think it’s one of the few in your portfolio that seems reasonably valued, ish.
And, as long as the macro holds up, I think that’s going to be a great success in 2025 for you.
[00:42:47] Luke: Yeah, I think they’re both good shouts, I think. Uh, I’ve trimmed Palantir in my real portfolio, and I think in the King of the Jungle. And it’s egregiously valued. I was going to, it’s interesting actually, I was going to trim it [00:43:00] again. I think I said that a couple of episodes ago, and I definitely said it on the Patreon.
And I held off on that, and I think I’m not going to trim it anymore. Because they seem to have a lot of wind in their sails with like some of the regulatory stuff that’s happening. And I saw, I don’t know how substantiated they are, I saw some rumors that there was gonna be like an Angeril Palantir partnership, like Angeril, like a sort of defense tech startup making They have their own software platforms, but it makes absolute sense to me.
I’m trying to buy, like, a private stake in Android if I can. I haven’t managed to yet. Makes absolute sense that they’re, um, They’re like hardware centric environment with their gadgets and they’re like drones and different devices could plug into, uh, Palantir’s, uh, intelligence network, like software heavy ecosystem.
So yeah, like much as I hope we’re going to see a diffusing of these wars, like defense is going [00:44:00] into like the AI age. And so this just, I mean, they could be huge. They could be like future mag seven, potentially. Um, but so which is why I’m not trimming it, but I agree with your rationale around why it’s the worst and
[00:44:15] Krzysztof: I think, you know, this reminds me, Badger, of the same situation we were with NVIDIA. Like, you know, already huge, already, like, we get it. It’s But how much bigger can it get, you know, and we were wrong with, uh, regarding NVIDIA. So maybe Palantir could be it? Again, I just don’t, I think the odds are low, uh, or lower than they are that it’s a bubble.
But, you know, we shall see a year from now, one of us, I think based on this question alone, one of us will be stupidly drunk. I mean, maybe even even worse than our inaugural episode because,
[00:44:51] Luke: is prediction 12. So like between us, we should have drunk 11 shots by the time we get to this point.
[00:44:56] Krzysztof: yeah, oh my
[00:44:57] Luke: yeah.
[00:44:58] Krzysztof: maybe we might need [00:45:00] to, we might need to spare our livers and go half shots just to stay alive. But anyhow, all right.
[00:45:06] Luke: you can just keep making your shots with like milk and chocolate and all the other crap you’re sticking in that food, you’re, you’re basically doing a cookery episode, you weren’t making drinks back there.
[00:45:16] Krzysztof: So badger, this is, uh, it’s december 30th. for me, New Year’s resolutions are something I take very, very seriously. And for any of our audience members, I think you, some of you know that I write a philosophy sub stack, uh, in my other life. And this is a post that just, uh, went out this morning on fire philosophy.
So, um, ask me how to find it if you care, but I wrote all about resolutions and this got me thinking, you know, investing is also a way of life. And I thought it’d be fun if we shared three investing related resolutions going into 2025. So, uh, shall I start? Shall we? Let’s go back and [00:46:00] forth. Let’s do one and one.
[00:46:01] Luke: Uh, I guess I’ve got two that are investing and one that’s kind of lifestyle y.
[00:46:06] Krzysztof: Oh yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Fair.
[00:46:07] Luke: I mean, if I have any, any resolution for you, it’s like, if you want to stick stuff that we want to talk about on the podcast, give me like more than 10 minutes notice, Monday is a busy day. Like I’m playing tennis and I’m doing all sorts of stuff. I don’t know. My number
[00:46:21] Krzysztof: you’ve asked before, you’ve asked kindly, you’ve asked nicely like 10 times. I don’t think it’s in my nature, Badger.
[00:46:28] Luke: I think you’re just going to get a half assed answer to the
[00:46:31] Krzysztof: Yeah,
[00:46:32] Luke: So 10 minutes before we recorded. So, uh, my number one, um, resolution is I think, so I’ve already have like a substantial cash allocation in my real money portfolio because it pays the bills and like, it makes me Confident, like, I’m not gonna, like, leave my wife, like, living in a ditch if I completely screw up.
so I think I should, it would be sensible though, I know there’s like, say, 5 percent of that money, I will never [00:47:00] reinvest, it’s gonna stay in, like, cash and fixed income, because it’s like emergency fund and lifestyle, so I’m just gonna carve that out in all of my spreadsheets and tracking, and, uh, when I continue to report my CAGA, I’ll announce this more clearly on Twitter.
I’m just going to report on like the real money that’s being invested. Cause I’ve realized like my, my compound growth is coming down a bit unfairly because I’m now in this retired mode where I should probably just hive off that money and say, that’s not actually investment money, it’s life money.
[00:47:30] Krzysztof: I like that. I like that. By the way, CAGR, uh, means compound annual growth rate. So, and that’s where the magic of compounding comes in. Goes in, if that rate is high, then, uh, as badgers is, then, uh, that’s really the golden number to check out. So, my top New Year’s resolution is do not sell EOS. And I say that this is serious though.
This is serious. I don’t know if you saw on Patreon [00:48:00] my latest post, but over the weekend, over the weekend, I Posted that, uh, into in the context of EOS, because it’s up massively that one of the biggest mistakes investors get is they start getting cute and they start like, you know, sloshing funds around, you know, all kinds of market timing stuff.
And then another person in the EOS community, wrote something like six minutes later, how he sold some amount, but then it dropped and then he’s bought back and then he, this kind of messy thing. And then the third person saw these posts back to back. Like my prediction of don’t get too cute came true for this other guy.
Um, I think EOS has Some of the best tailwinds I’ve ever seen in my investing career. And I know ahead of time, as the stock, you know, probably from my perspective keeps going up, the temptation to mess with that [00:49:00] position will be extraordinarily high. And I’m begging myself on record to like, take my hands, stick them firmly under my ass cheeks and just do not touch that position.
Kind of like you. Uh, willed yourself not to touch, uh, intuitive surgical, maybe,
[00:49:19] Luke: Intuitive is still like a 16 percent allocation for me, and I know if it gets to 20 percent of my net worth, essentially, I’ve got to trim it. Like EOS is already more than 20 percent of your investment portfolio, is it?
[00:49:33] Krzysztof: yeah, in my real world, I think it’s 22 because of the massive growth recently. So that is a, that, that is unfortunately the, the dark side of this resolution. So as the year goes on, we’ll obviously talk about this problem and see how I handle it. But anyway, that’s my resolution. That’s what I, it’s, it’s what I hope I get to do is never not sell a single share.
[00:49:55] Luke: Okay, well here we are on day one of the resolution with me encouraging you to break it, but there we [00:50:00] go. Uh, my number two resolution, which is also investing you related, like I’m doing a bit more venture capital stuff and I want to ramp that up a little bit more. I managed to get a chunk of SpaceX. I bought another little company.
Uh, probably shouldn’t talk about, but I’m going to do a few more of those through 2025. It was kind of put me off because. Uh, in the UK, we have this really great tax incentive scheme called EIS, Enterprise Incentive Scheme, I think. And I no longer, it no longer benefits me because I don’t pay income tax.
And it’s like a massive income tax and capital gains tax, tax relief. Like I’m essentially like a tax free lifestyle. So that put me off doing. Like a bunch of VC stuff, but, um, like screw it. Like I, I just need to get on with this stuff. I can’t let like tax prevent me from doing the real thing. So, um, so yeah, more VC from me.
[00:50:58] Krzysztof: And I would like [00:51:00] to say publicly that in a future episode this year, I would love to hear more kind of directive ways for our listeners to potentially, if they too wanted to look into VC related stuff, um, how they could follow you on this journey, because it’s. Very different than investing in the public markets.
And sometimes you need connections or know who to talk, you know, that kind of stuff. So please help us out. my second resolution. is borders on lifestyle. It has to do with the way I do research. And I’ve noticed badger that my tab, the number of tabs I have open on my computer is out of control. I have a very powerful laptop, so it’s able to handle, uh, immense amount of tabs.
But this is a problem because, because we all know that good research, you [00:52:00] have to go deep. You have to like, Not get distracted, but you know, link goes on to link and all of a sudden I have 17 links and then it’s just a mess and then I need to get my shit together. and keep saying my, my research tabs to call a maximum of 10 at a time.
And if there’s ever an 11th, I just forced myself to close one of the previous ones and keep my life sane because it’s, it’s, it just gives me a headache to think about it. And that’s what I did last night. You will be so proud of me last night. I stayed up and I closed 98 percent of my links and you know, actually I found the life hack.
You know how I did this? Because I was actually, you know, like you find a story and you want to read it and blah, blah, blah. I took all the links I haven’t gotten to and I dumped them in my second, in my, what’s it called? Like, um, I use Rome research, like, uh, it’s a program that basically is all my notes, all kind of like notion, right?
And I created one large [00:53:00] tab. I mean, one large category called unread 2024 tabs. So that once I close them, I know in my subconscious that they, I could still find them by kind of off sourcing them to the second, you know, brain, uh, note, cool. Notation system. So anyway, fewer tabs.
[00:53:20] Luke: That’s good. Like I’ve got a open question for you. What does your inbox look like right now? Your email
[00:53:27] Krzysztof: hack. Uh, I have, uh, 130, 000 unread messages. And I, I just don’t all, I don’t, I’ve given up. It’s not obviously. Right. So I just pin the messages I need to respond to and leave everything.
[00:53:51] Luke: it hurts my eyes. Oh, you can use like, I don’t know what you use for your email, but like Gemini in. Gmail now and you can say like [00:54:00] that, tell me, show me the most important things and it will read everything for you and you can do stuff like that. I’m sure Apple’s got something similar. Like my, uh, like I, if I sit over Katrina’s shoulder and she’s on the computer, like I don’t know, in Chrome, we both use Chrome because like Google is life.
And, uh, you see like how many tabs you have and like you have like a number. She doesn’t even have a number. She just has this like smiley face. Cause Google’s like, I know you’re like a fucking lunatic. So I’m, I’m just laughing at how even the app, the browser is laughing at how many open tabs she has.
[00:54:32] Krzysztof: Yeah, right.
[00:54:33] Luke: that’s not, that’s not efficient.
That’s not the way to live. How do you know what you’re doing?
[00:54:37] Krzysztof: Right. And you know what, as a Zen guy, it’s like, uh, it’s my last awful habit. That is the antithesis of Zen, which is doing a bunch of stuff poorly rather than one thing. Well, and the tabs are like, it’s like a bunch of hives. So I can’t wait to talk about this, uh, in a year from now, when you ask me like how my [00:55:00] tab problem, uh, went,
[00:55:02] Luke: my, my third and final prediction is actually like directly tied to that, but in the real world, like I’m actually quite good at saying no. to stuff. I say no to a lot, but I’ve still, my life is still full of like admin and minutia and like mostly sat in front of the computer kind of clutter.
Like I’m so organized. I have this massive to do list and I can, I’ve still got like hours I can do to chip away at my to do list because there’s always so many things. I want to do, but I’m going to try and be even more ruthless and like declutter, like just kill a load of stuff that are not like core, like, like main mission, get rid of some of these side missions and say no more frequently and just make, force myself to do the things I want to do, even though I kind of enjoy the admin, but I shouldn’t do it.
It’s not good use of time.
[00:55:50] Krzysztof: Yeah, decluttering is so key. It’s so key to, like letting yourself breathe. I wish you luck. You are incredibly organized, so I can’t even imagine like [00:56:00] what, clutter kind of feels like for you. even though I’m a minimalist in general, except for books, but, anyway, or try to be a minimalist.
my own personal life, resolution is one I’ve been struggling with all year, Badger, and that’s because, It revolves around Jiujitsu And I think I’ve told you, it’s like the hardest thing I do. it’s so challenging and it’s so. hard in psychologically and physically, but I realized like, if I don’t really like get serious now, my body, you know, I’m getting older every year and so on.
Um, it’s either, you know, shit or get off the pot kind of moment for me. And I think in order to do this, I have to dial down my running because I can’t do doubles anymore. I can’t run and do jujitsu and all the other stuff or I’d fall apart. So, uh, I ran almost every single day last year, and I [00:57:00] think I’m going to have to, basically go on fewer runs and, go the more classes.
And so anyway, that’s my resolution. More jujitsu, less running. If I’m always bitching and moaning about a broken arm or rib or whatever, forgive me ahead of time.
[00:57:21] Luke: great. That’s cool. I mean, yeah, as you say, right, you can only do so much, so you might as well, uh, do the things you want to do.
[00:57:28] Krzysztof: I don’t really want to do jujitsu just, just to make that clear, but it’s the best thing for me. So it’s like, yeah, eat your vegetables, kids.
[00:57:39] Luke: Very good. All right. Apart from your EOS resolution, they’re all excellent, and I hope we succeed for them.
[00:57:45] Krzysztof: Likewise, badger. So to all your other animals, uh, we wish you the most
[00:57:51] Luke: Oh, no, don’t, don’t be, don’t be saying goodbye just yet. We want to talk about quantum computing.
[00:57:56] Krzysztof: Oh, okay.
[00:57:58] Luke: Ah, quantum computing. You went [00:58:00] all, you went all quantized there and you were both ending the episode and not ending the episode at the same time. I’ve managed to pull you out of the box.
[00:58:07] Krzysztof: That’s right. Lead us into quantum computing, Badger.
[00:58:10] Luke: Yeah, well, I mean, uh, like everyone’s talking about it, right? Because Google just had like a mass. I’m not Mr. Google, Google, Google this episode. I know I love the company, but like, yes, like it’s another domain where they’re really succeeding. And, uh, they had like a major breakthrough. Where, uh, like sort of scale, the ability to scale up quantum computers.
it wasn’t certain that we would be able to scale up this technology, but I think with their paper in Nature recently, I’m not like a mathematician to go and read it with any kind of acuity, but evidently they have demonstrated, like the ability to, as you add more qubits, more bits to the computer, it becomes more accurate.
Up until Google demonstrated this successfully, they would become less accurate as you scale them up. And then [00:59:00] you’ve got this great idea, but you can’t actually use it. I think they’ve now proven that if what they’ve said is correct, that they can scale. And now it’s just like an engineering challenge to build bigger and bigger quantum computers and then do amazing things with them.
Do you want to tell us what is quantum computing though, Krzysztof? Why is this important? Well, how’s it different to like regular computing?
[00:59:24] Krzysztof: Yeah, sure. So, I have a bit of a physics, quantum physics, uh, side project, side hobby. I’ve read maybe, I don’t know, 20 books, you know, on, on quantum stuff. sadly, that’s a sort of tangent because none of that helps me understand quantum computing itself. other than to say that there’s something called super super position or super imposition, I can’t even remember. In quantum that means, particles can be in multiple places at the same time, as weird as that sounds. So if you take, Uh, [01:00:00] the way current computing works, it’s binary, it’s, everything’s a zero or one done via transistors, and the, the, call it bit or piece of information can only go to one or two places, and then you need to stack the zeros and ones, sort of like you would bricks, uh, and that’s why size and strength is what, you know, the limits are, you can only stack so many bricks in a certain space, right?
Quantum bits. Are not zeros and ones, but they’re sort of like everywhere. So you could have way more of them, so to speak, doing the same kind of information. processing. So if you could get a handle on all those bits, then instead of linear, you get, call it network ish effects. and so if you could harness that, your computing power just, uh, it, it’ll shame, all the computing we’ve ever used as a species once we can harness [01:01:00] it.
[01:01:00] Luke: Yeah, and they’re only useful for certain types of computation, but it’s that scaling, like essentially sort of exponential scaling, that makes this technology really, really exciting. Like you can’t use it for everything, for like deterministic processing. Like if you want to, you know, if you want to play like a computer game and you have like a graphics card and it’s like rendering the game, like you wouldn’t use it for that kind of stuff.
It’s not helpful for that. But if you’re solving certain kinds of problem, That essentially like stuff that involves probabilities, then like if I took a regular computer and I added like one bit, one extra like ability to measure a one or a zero. It would make no discernible difference because my regular computer I’m sat next to right now has like trillions and trillions of bits.
So having like a trillion and one doesn’t make a big difference. If I had my quantum computer and I add one qubit, a quantum bit, I double the power of my regular computer. Every time you add another qubit, essentially you’re doubling its power. [01:02:00] So you don’t need a whole lot of qubits to suddenly be rivaling like traditional quantum like supercomputers for certain kinds of processing, and that’s why it’s very exciting.
[01:02:12] Krzysztof: Right. And we’re talking about solving problems of the highest complexity levels. So there was a little bit of a freak out in the Bitcoin community, for example, because the cryptographic people said this is guaranteed to be safe, but they were thinking in terms of current computing powers, quantum computing powers can solve, I think in a matter of days or call it weeks, whether it would take tens of thousands of years for linear computers to, to solve sort of by brute force.
So we’re talking about, A kind of paradigm leap, uh, so the question becomes, what are, what are the world’s most complex and sophisticated problems? And that’s where the quantum stuff is going to go. I can’t see, right, [01:03:00] our laptops being replaced by quantum stuff because we just don’t need that kind of juice, right?
Or at least not in the near term, right? Not by near term, like not in the next 10, 20 years, right? Would there be like, personal quantum computers? No need for
[01:03:16] Luke: Yeah, but I suppose it’s always, you end up with egg on your face at some point if you say there’s no need to do something in the tech world, like who knows. But you’re right, like, so there are companies that have, I think, D Wave, one of the OGs in the quantum computing world, they’ve been around for like a bunch of years, like you can log in and up, like, you know, I don’t know if it’s easy as like, just stick on your credit card, like other companies can buy.
Computing time through the cloud and D Wave have one of their quantum computers doing like the stuff behind the scenes, so you wouldn’t need it, on your phone or in your, in your home, but then like, who knows, like today, if you want to have a quantum computer, like there’s different technologies, some use something called trapped [01:04:00] ion technology, like the majority of them, or like certainly Alphabet’s one, Google’s one.
like it has to have ultra cooled processors, so like these qubits, this stuff only works at like, uh, like a thousandth of a degree above absolute zero, like the coldest temperatures in the universe, uh, like in Google’s laboratories, as far as like, certainly on planet Earth, where, and other manufacturers as well, where they’re using like, like freezing stuff down to that temperature.
to get quantum effects actually happening and then to be able to create qubits which only last today for like a fraction of a second, but to do something useful with them. So, um, yeah, we’re a long way from having that stuff in our pocket, but Just like, like today, most computers have like a CPU, uh, which does like your sort of heavy lifting processing.
And now most of us all have like a GPU, which is like highly paralyzed processing, which is being used for things like AI. You know, [01:05:00] maybe one day there will be like a QPU quantum processing unit that are in like maybe regular everyday computers, who knows.
[01:05:07] Krzysztof: Yep, indeed. So should we talk about the two individual companies?
[01:05:12] Luke: Yeah, we, at somewhat, somewhat random, we both kind of picked a ticker in this space and we thought we’d take a look and just see what we thought. And I picked a company called Rigetti, Rigetti Computing, ticker R G T I, and who did you pick?
[01:05:28] Krzysztof: I picked Q U B T, Quantum Computing Incorporated.
[01:05:33] Luke: Great stuff. Alright. Um, I don’t know what your one does, but my Rigetti, so they’re, they’re like a small ball player. Doing the same kind of thing, like the ultra cooled technologies and they, their mission, like it’s so early for them. They’ve been around a couple of years, but their mission is to build the world’s most powerful quantum computers.
And they see themselves as being this like full stack developer, like end to [01:06:00] end. So they actually build quantum computers today. They, to their credit, they have actually sold two of these things to, I Like government organization, uh, and they’re manufacturing more. And at some point in the future, I listened to an interview with that CEO.
They next three to five years, they plan to sell. like quantum capacity via the cloud. So you’d be able to buy like processing as well as buying the hardware off them. But it is really early for them. Like I said, they’ve literally sold like two of these things. So they’re essentially pre revenue today.
You can’t use any kind of sensible valuation metrics to look at them. I’ve got, I’ve got a thought on this overall sector. Do you want to talk about yours or should we just get into it?
[01:06:50] Krzysztof: well, I need to talk about mine because, uh, this is, there’s an important lesson here, I think. [01:07:00] After the Google announcement, if you look at any quantum computing chart, It’s like hundreds or sometimes thousand, like triple digit gains, quantum computing, the ticker I’m looking at QBT, as far as I could tell, does literally nothing. And it’s current valuation Badger is 2. 3 billion. So even though that’s nothing compared, you know, compared to mega caps, it’s still say two times as large as EOS.
[01:07:37] Luke: Yeah.
[01:07:38] Krzysztof: They, they, so the lesson here is that, uh, from my, I’m making the case that this is an actual fraud, that this used to be when I dug deep into this company.
They started as a beverage company and then they changed names and there’s all kinds of, you know, [01:08:00] like Scammy stuff that happens. And so at this point, this is where these guys are at I think this is a company that actually has a couple’s quantum physicists on the company ledgers, right and that these guys they got a consulting gig with NASA for something like 26, 000 And I bet you they, they actually did consult for a few hours about some technical quantum physics thing.
And it’s probably useful to some extent. Uh, their revenue is like, yeah, it’s, it’s in the thousands. In the thousands. They don’t make anything. They have this foundry foundry in Arizona somewhere where they’re like, you know, working on some project, but this is like, this is a front, and they chose quantum computing incorporated as the [01:09:00] name, and the stock is up.
Yeah, like from 70 cents in. in November or October to 17 now. And I officially took a short position on this for the king of the jungle. I bought a put for 10, I had 10 in the account is burning a hole in my pockets badger. I couldn’t help myself. So I bought a put dated for April, uh, a 1 strike price for 10 betting that the stock will collapse from 17 back to under a dollar within the next four months.
Although, would have been your best performer in my predictions. Clearly. Oh, that’s. Yeah.
granted, it’s not so easy because if we remember the whole GameStop stuff, because we’re dealing with a scam and whatever, this is now pure market manipulation stuff. And we don’t know, I can’t know for sure whether the next four months is enough time for [01:10:00] this shell game to be revealed. So it’s a, it’s a pure gamble, but by year’s end, this is going to be close to zero.
Yeah, much better. I don’t, I certainly don’t think it’s a scam, but they have a real product that they are selling, but the revenue is just not material. It’s like a, But the revenue, like 12 million dollars revenue in the last, Uh, so also I guess it’s like 6 million each device and maybe a bit of consulting there as well.
[01:10:29] Luke: Who knows? And their stock price has done the same hockey stick. They’re up from, you said November. So it looks like they’re about 1, pretty similar to your company back in like a few months ago. And they’re now 16 and a half dollars. So yeah, you made a lot. Bank, if you were jumping on the bandwagon there, um, but like, while I don’t think this is fraud, like they are so far from actual commercialization, even though Google just proved the technology in essence, like if this company is successful, [01:11:00] they’re going to have to dilute the heck out themselves over the next couple of years.
Like in the podcast, I listened to the CEO Basically said that he’s like, we’re, you know, we’re going to raise money in the public markets over the next two to four years to sustain the company. Like that means dilution. If you buy stock today at 17 bucks, like not withstanding all the other stuff that’s probably going to fall apart, just the value of like, they’re going to, they’re going to have to.
I don’t know, probably raise at least another 50 percent of the capitalization over the next two years, three years to sustain the company, like a billion dollars plus I would have thought. Um, and so, uh, yeah, you know, you’re just getting diluted away in the hope that they get to a product product.
Eventually it reminds me a little bit about, you know, we had those conversations about new scale power. and Oak, Oaklar, like the, the, the small modular reactor energy guys. Like these are good technologies that probably [01:12:00] will have their day, but they’re a couple of years out from being commercially real.
So, um, like it’s just too early for some of this stuff. I got bitten by getting into 3d printing years ago, too early. Um, So yeah, like it’s nice to be early as an investor, but if you’re too early, you just, you’re at the top of the hype curve and you just get wiped out when the market wakes up and goes, Oh, actually this is nonsense.
And we got like a whole ton of years of research to do before we actually start creating economic value with this stuff.
[01:12:31] Krzysztof: and this will no doubt be a future segment, but there is one company in the quantum space that I believe is, uh, from what I’ve read, the most call it, uh, firm and, uh, legit. And that’s I O N Q. Uh, their stock did the same thing. It’s gone up massively. It has close to a 10 billion valuation. But I think that’s a real, real serious player.
It’s just a [01:13:00] question of, right, there’s still pre revenue. It’s still years away, but given how massive, you know, the, uh, when this happens, it could be, you know, world’s most valuable company. Therefore people are starting to bet on it. Now. Um, I myself for full transparency bought one share and I own Q because, you know, active watch list, uh, that I do.
But compare that to Qubit, which is, uh, pre revenue and will remain pre revenue because it’s a scam, like, you know, so listeners don’t, here’s the lesson that I really want to make explicit. This happens all the time in the market, and it’s easy to be fooled. So when a hypey thing comes up, go slow, do your due diligence, and even the quote unquote real companies are still years away.
So be patient and don’t get overly excited.
[01:13:59] Luke: [01:14:00] So I got a, I got a prediction for you, a prediction I’m highly confident in, because we make a couple of YouTube shorts from each of our episodes, and we will almost certainly make a YouTube short from, like, some of our snarky comments about this sector, because it’s interesting conversation. I guarantee we will get some muppet out there on X or in YouTube telling us we’re idiots, because, like, we’re negative on this sector.
Yeah, whatever, you clowns, like, just go have fun. Good luck. Good luck.
[01:14:29] Krzysztof: Yeah. I, uh, I hope we return to this in the year end prediction episode, actually next year, we should make a note to see where our quantum stocks ended up in terms of price. And so maybe for the record, uh, I just want to point out that at this moment, Qubit, my, my fraud scam is selling for 18, 18 right now.
[01:14:54] Luke: Well, actually just let me note the market cap because they’re going to dilute themselves to heck. So we need to
[01:14:58] Krzysztof: Uh, [01:15:00] mine, uh, so, uh, it is, it is Qubits market cap is 2. 33 billion.
[01:15:09] Luke: Great stuff. And, uh, Rejetti, their market cap is 4. 78 billion.
[01:15:16] Krzysztof: Okay. Man, at least see when you said they have several million in revenue, you’re laughing at that because it’s so pre revenue. My guys have 24, 000. No disrespect. No disrespect.
[01:15:35] Luke: There is, there is some, I don’t know who it is, there is some company out there that got slammed this year, because they claimed some revenue, but it was literally the CEO paying the company for use of the private jet or something, it was like so, yeah. Anyway, there’s a, like, it’s a dangerous place. Like, if you listen to the Wall Street Wildlife podcast every week, we talk about this stuff every [01:16:00] week.
There are people, like, a lot of these systems are set up to confuse you, exploit you. leverage your fear and your greed, your emotions, and get you to do things that are like negative for your longterm wealth. Like there are ways to be an investor that are successful, beat the market, and don’t have to take you near any of this cowboy stuff.
Some people will make a ton of cash. Anyone who’s invested in these two quantum companies, like back in November, made a ton of cash, but you can’t run a portfolio over the longterm, over decades, like Where the basis is just getting lucky and getting lucky time and time again.
[01:16:40] Krzysztof: Yes, trust us as your guides.
[01:16:44] Luke: Very soft. Well, that’s probably a good place to leave today’s episode. Uh, are you ready to become a beast of an investor?
[01:16:51] Krzysztof: Your journey starts here.
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