#30: SPACs, Influencer Investing, and 2020's Wild Market Swings, with Jaime Lester

The Razor’s Edge

This week’s episode is a conversation with Jaime Lester. Jaime has been a professional investor for more than two decades, has a lot of experience with short selling, as evidenced from our conversation with him back on episode #3, on Invitae. We revisit Invitae during this conversation, but we're more focused on the overall macro picture. Whatever happens in the last 8 weeks of the year, it's been a wild ride, and it's worth taking a wider view to understand everything.

We cover SPACs, influencer investing, the manic element, the line between fraud and pivoting, and why this does not resemble the great financial crisis.

Topics covered

• 2:20 minute mark – high level take on what makes this market different
• 11:00 – Blowing up the GFC comparison
• 21:30 – Fundamental restructuring
• 27:30 – The manic trading element
• 33:45 – Why the new traders are winning
• 41:30 – Staying out of the way
• 52:30 – The SPAC phenomenon and what is fraud in the current market?
• 1:03:30 – Influencer Investing and Invitae
• 1:17:30 – The cult of the founder
• 1:24:30 – TAMs: Valuations as compared to TAMs, how much do TAMs mean for a business’s prospects over time?