Panic with Friends - Howard Lindzon

I brought back Yoni Assia for another guest appearance on Panic with Friends. He is a good friend of mine who's been in the crypto space for a while now. Recently, I even got to catch up with him in Miami, which you can read about on my blog. I first met Yoni back in 2010. He was one of the first people to talk to me about Bitcoin, and I was immediately sold on the brokerage he was starting, eToro. Back then, I was telling all the venture capitalists I knew eToro was like “Zynga, but for men.” So, we invested. And I’m glad I did. eToro is now an over $10 billion Israeli social trading and multi-asset brokerage. They recently added 3.1 million new users in the first quarter of 2021 and clocked in 5.2 million users for the full year 2020. In total, eToro has reported 20 million registered users. In this episode, Yoni and I talk about Dogecoin, the most interesting characters in crypto space, eToro, capital markets, the rise of retail investors, “fashionology,” blockchain, SPACs, trends, liquidity, art, and more. Enjoy! 

Guest - Yoni Assia, Co-Founder and CEO at eToro 

howardlindzon.com, eToro.com 

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @yoniassia, @eToro, @eToroUS, @eToroX @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/yoniassia 

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance

JC Parets is a good friend of mine who I first met back when I started Stocktwits, and he’s back for his second Panic with Friends episode. As the founder of All Star Charts, JC lives and breathes all things charts. If there’s a chart in front of him, you can bet he’ll have a strong opinion about it. His company All Star Charts is a technical analysis publication for everyone from hedge funds, to financial advisors, to individual investors. I was more than happy to bring JC back on to get his perspective on the markets and have a few laughs with him in the process. It’s fun to have market pros with such infectious energy like JC on that I can talk to for free, but I’d be happy to pay for his ideas and thoughts too. In this episode, JC and I go deep on the bull market, option strategy, the best technical indicator, gold, risk management, data, paying for ideas, and more. Enjoy! 

Guest - JC Parets, CMT, President and Founder at Allstarcharts.com 

howardlindzon.com, Allstarcharts.com 

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @Allstarcharts, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jcparetscmt 

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance

For this week’s episode, we’re chatting with Sam Bankman-Fried. He’s a 29-year-old vegan living in Hong Kong. Oh, and he’s also a crypto billionaire with a huge cult following of fans around the world. Sam is the founder of two impressive companies: Alameda and FTX. His claim to fame came after capitalizing on the South Korean crypto kimchi premium (not the fermented food) and building FTX. Founded just a few years ago in 2017, FTX is one of the fastest growing digital asset exchanges in the world. I’ve had my eye on FTX for a while now and was excited to sit down with Sam to get his thoughts on the state of crypto markets and where he sees it going. In this week’s episode, Sam and I talk about his background, how he gets it all done, his preferred way to relax, living in Hong Kong versus the United States, stablecoins (and why they matter), crypto, defi, blockchain, derivatives, regulations, who he looks up to in the crypto space, and more. Enjoy! 

Guest - Sam Bankman-Fried, Founder and CEO of FTX 

howardlindzon.com, ftx.com 

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @SBF_Alameda, @FTX_Official, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-bankman-fried-8367a346

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance

On this week’s episode we brought on Michael Sonnenshein. He is the CEO of Grayscale Investments, a company that entered the world of crypto back in its earliest days. Starting as an account executive in 2014, Michael worked his way up under the guidance of Grayscale founder Barry Silbert and recently took the reins as their CEO earlier this year. He is an impressive, driven, and smart guy with formidable experience. Grayscale Investments is a big player in the crypto space, with the largest bitcoin investment product ($GBTC) and plans to ramp up an ETF. Grayscale is the world’s largest digital currency asset manager, which currently has $40 billion in assets under management and 14 different investment funds. They’re making crypto mainstream and helping everyday investors looking to buy Bitcoin on the stock market. In this episode, Michael and I talk about Grayscale’s success, crypto, retail investing, security, ETFs, decentralized finance, volatility, and more. Enjoy! 

Guest - Michael Sonnenshein, CEO at Grayscale Investments 

howardlindzon.com, grayscale.co 

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @sonnenshein, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 

linkedin.com/in/michaelsonnenshein 

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance

Ben Hunt is back for his third Panic with Friends appearance. Ben is co-founder and writer for Epsilon Theory, a newsletter and website that examines markets through game theory and history. He is is a great writer, investor, and an activist for people to stop being dumb (my words, not his). Ben wants you to invest with your head on straight, which is something I am a strong supporter of. He has helped navigate us through the ups and downs of the crypto space in his past appearances, and this episode is no exception. You can listen to his first and second appearances anywhere you get podcasts. This time around – and following our crypto conversation with Vinny Lingham from last week’s episode – Ben is giving his take on the bitcoin narrative. In this episode, I talked with Ben about his farm, raccoons (the real and financial kind), decentralization, the markets, how the bitcoin narrative has changed posts-crash, gold, the influence of Elon Musk, pricing power, why inflation is here to stay, and more. Enjoy! 

Guest - Ben Hunt, Co-Founder and Partner at Second Foundation Partners, Author and Co-Founder at Epsilon Theory 

howardlindzon.com, epsilontheory.com 

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @epsilontheory, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 

linkedin.com/in/bhunt 

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance

In this week’s episode, I brought on Vinny Lingham – an entrepreneur, founder, prolific crypto investor, and decentralization pied piper. Vinny is an old friend who I first met back at a fintech conference in Ireland. We quickly hit it off after a round of golf and idea pitching. He has been in the crypto space since the beginning and has even been called a crypto ‘oracle’ due to his accurate bitcoin predictions. I figured he would be the perfect person to catch up with and get a point of view from following the recent epic crash in crypto. Vinny puts his crypto knowledge to use as co-founder and CEO of Civic, a blockchain-powered tech company that Social Leverage was also an early investor in. I truly believe in Vinny and the work he’s doing. In addition to his work at Civic, Vinny is a general partner at Multicoin Capital (a name you may recognize from past Panic guest Kyle Samani) and co-founder of the South African VC Newtown Partners. In this episode, Vinny and I talk about decentralization, crypto, the long-term scalability of bitcoin, blockchain, virtual intelligence, data privacy, and more. Enjoy! 

Guest - Vinny Lingham, CEO & Co-Founder of Civic 

howardlindzon.com, civic.com 

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @VinnyLingham, @civickey, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17  

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinnylingham 

https://www.linkedin.com/companies/civic-technologies 

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance

For this week’s episode, I brought on my friend Jeff Richards for his third Panic with Friends appearance. In case you can’t tell, I never get tired of talking to him. Jeff is a great friend and an even greater thinker. And he just keeps picking winners. Jeff is managing partner at GGV Capital, a $9 billion global venture firm. He focuses mainly on enterprise, cloud, and marketplace investments. It’s been great having him on the podcast during different stages of the pandemic to get his thoughts and assess where we’re going. In Jeff’s first Panic appearance, he offered a sense of much needed calm back when everyone was panicking. In his second appearance, Jeff gave insight into the fintech boom and the post-COVID future of investing. This time around, I wanted to check back in with him about tech, growth, and the future. In this episode, I chatted with Jeff about infrastructure, fintech, the digital economy, crypto, cloud, ecommerce, and categories and trends coming strong out of the pandemic. And of course we had to talk about golf for a bit too. Enjoy!

Guest - Jeff Richards, Managing partner GGV Capital 

howardlindzon.com, ggvc.com 

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @jrichlive, @GGVCapital, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 

linkedin.com/in/jeffrichards 

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance

This episode we’re talking about a subject near and dear to my heart: watches. Watches continue to be a timeless investment piece synonymous with value. And as someone who has collected over 50 watches, I was super excited to bring on Justin Reis of WatchBox to learn more about the growing tech-enabled luxury commerce market. WatchBox is the world’s leading platform for the buying, selling, and trading of pre-owned luxury watches, with offices in the U.S., Hong Kong, Switzerland, Singapore, and Dubai. In this episode, Justin talks with my co-hosts and I all about the luxury commerce market, WatchBox’s hybrid high-tech high-touch model, how their service works, the typical WatchBox customer, having value in brand equity, WatchBox TV, collectability, the rise in Apple and other tech watches, NFTS, and more. I also offered up some great dating tips this episode, which I know everyone was dying to hear about! 

Guest - Justin Reis, Co-Founder and Global CEO at WatchBox 

howardlindzon.com, thewatchbox.com 

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @watchbox_global, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-reis-633925188 

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance

Jim Lanzone is somewhat of a legend in the internet industry. He’s racked up over 20 years of experience in the space, with former CEO titles at companies like Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves), Clicker Media (which he founded) and CBS Interactive (where he was my boss for a brief moment). Currently, he is the CEO of the popular online dating and networking app, Tinder. It was great to have someone like Jim on to not only offer his insights on all things media, streaming, and the internet – but also help give some tips to our Panic co-host Nikita on her own adventures into the world of online dating. In this episode, we chatted with Jim about branding, growth, the early days of video, his experiences as a CEO, content consumption, generational trends in dating, brands he’s rooting for and more. Enjoy! 

Guest - Jim Lanzone, CEO of Tinder 

howardlindzon.com, tinder.com 

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @jlanzone, @Tinder, @knutjensen @Nikita_Arora17 

linkedin.com/in/jimlanzone 

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance

My good friend Charlie Bilello is back for his second episode of Panic with Friends. He originally came on way back for episode two of our show and offered insights on the markets during peak COVID panic. If you go back and listen, you’ll see Charlie actually got a lot right. So now I figured it would be a good time to check back in with him as we make our way out of the COVID panic. Charlie has over a decade of experience as an analyst, lawyer, CPA, and overall nerd about the markets and money. But he’s more than just my crazy smart friend, I’ve also partnered with Charlie at his company Compound Capital Advisors. There, he oversees all facets of the firm, from research, to portfolio management, to product development, to content creation, to investor relationships. In this episode, we talk about inflation, the markets, crypto, shifts in trends, SPACs, irrational exuberance, bonds, the next generation of investors, and more. Enjoy! 

Guest - Charlie Bilello, Founder and CEO at Compound Capital Advisors 

howardlindzon.com, compoundadvisors.com, compoundadvisors.com/newsletter 

Twitter: @howardlindzon, @charliebilello, @knutjensen, @Nikita_Arora17 

#fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance