Now, in today’s age, you download an app, you go on Reddit, you’re part of that community. If dogecoin went from less than a penny to $0.18 and you bought $10 worth, that’s a significant change in your net worth as a 20-year-old living at home with your parents. Let’s say a material percentage are people of color and they don’t have as many options. They are not in the banking system. Now someone [in the government] says, “No, these are all securities and we’re going to make all of these worthless,” well, that’s going to affect them.
Photo: Michelle Grosskopf
You were pro-FTX.
I was not pro-FTX. I thought Sam [Bankman-Fried] he was smart. I haven’t talked to him that much. I talked to him once.
And you didn’t get any vibes?
I never met him in person or anything. But no matter how big of a crook he turned out to be, if the SEC had put in place the same collateral and fund-splitting requirements that Japan has, he wouldn’t have been able to steal it.
What is your biggest concern about Donald Trump?
When I talk to Trumpers, I’m like, “Look, the guy is robbing hardworking Americans and he’s proud of it. Is that what you want? Man does not believe in climate change. Are you 100 percent sure about climate change? no? Well, maybe there’s a 1 percent chance. Are you willing to take a 1 percent chance that your kids will be screwed, your grandkids will be screwed?”
Is there anything that makes you feel your own mortality these days?
Oh, yes. Every day I wake up and it hurts. I do everything, I check my blood every three or four months and it gives me indicators. But it sure makes me feel my mortality. You’re getting old. Your parents are dying. Mortality is all around you.
But one thing I learned from my father: When you turn 40, you think you’re old. When you turn 50, you think you’re old. When you turn 60, you think you’re old. But when you look back at 40…
It looks pretty good.
It looks very good. So that’s the attitude I take. When I hit 80, I’ll say… 60 looked really, really, really good.
Maybe the reason I keep asking about a midlife crisis is because I might be having one. And maybe we shouldn’t call it a crisis anymore.
Yeah, I mean, you can call it what you want, but at different times in your life, you go through it.
For me right now, I don’t need to be more famous. I don’t need to be richer. Now I think more about my children and their health and what could go wrong there, which terrifies me every day. It’s not so much my own mortality that scares me. These are the people I love.
You can overcome your own midlife crisis, your own mortality. Because you get to the point where you realize, “Hey, if I’ve got 20 years, 30 years left, that’s fine — and I’m not going to screw it up.”
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