SvB #99 - The Disney Bob Swtich and FTX Collapse The Business Run Amok Pod

Theo does a deep dive on the scandals of the past [Digging in the Crates - 1:46 ] before discussing the latest  [News - 9:06 ]  and [SvB Feature - 14:44]  on the new Disney CEO and FTX Collapse 

 ----------

Show vs. Business is your weekly take on Pop Culture from two very different perspectives. Your hosts Theo and  Mr. Benja provide all the relevant info to get your week started right.

----------

Follow us on Instagram - https://instagram.com/show_vs_business

Follow us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/showvsbusiness

Like us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ShowVsBusiness

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuwni8la5WRGj25uqjbRwdQ/featured

----------

Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Transcript

Theo: Welcome, welcome, welcome to Show Versus Business, your weekly take on pop culture from two very different perspectives. I'm your host, Theo, and unfortunately not on the line as my cohost, Mr. Benja. So look, today we're doing this. Special pod this is an emergency pod. It's all about the business, all about the Benjamins.

And so I kind of wanted to do this one because we need to get it out a little bit sooner. So we wanted to give you guys a lay and greatest what we're seeing, the big news stories around what's happening at Disney with the Bob Switch. Bob Iger is coming back and at FTX collapsed over the last couple of weeks.

The huge cryptocurrency trading company. We'll talk about that as well in this pod, but I wanted to welcome you all to this pod. We're excited to get into it. Also, you'll notice a little numbering change. So look we've done a lot of these show versus business podcasts, and one of the things I'm excited about is that we're nearing episode 100.

So look, just like comic book, comic book fans know this they will renu comic books and if it hits a special milestone, they'll go specifically to that number and get you prepared for that milestone. So what's happening here is. Actually episode show versus business episode number 99. So the next episode we do will be episode 100.

So be on a lookout. We're gonna do some big things on social media. Remind folks, get you guys excited. So please come check it out. Show versus business the pod. So with that being said, let's begin with digging in the crate.

Okay, everyone. So typically on this one we go into a little bit about, you know, what you know, me and Mr. Bender kind of like what we've seen in the past being together friends for like, for so long. So one of the things that I wanted to bring up is like business collapses of my lifetime, right?

And so one of the major ones was Iran. And Ron happened in the nineties. It was a huge oil trading company that. That started, I think in the 2000 or two thousands, right? And it was created by a Kenneth Le who basically created this kind of entity that was allowed you to trade oil and gas, but it imploded because basically the the guys used faulty accounting efforts.

And so they, they just failed and went, had to declare a bankruptcy and had to reorg. Their whole company. So basically it was one of those things where the, the accounting was faulty. They basically were not telling the truth on how they were trading these old futures and things of that nature. And so it just really just ended up just being a mess and really was one of the largest you know, bankruptcy declares and And over, you know, as in my lifetime, right?

It was just, you know, a massive issue. I mean, it was before my time to really get into the business side of things. One of the things that happened was it had achieved a share price around 90,000, 75 cents per share. And it, I plummeted. And that was the beginning of November of tw of uh, 2001.

But then by end of November, 2001, it was our, the share price was at a dollar. Look, Enron was huge. It was definitely up there, and that was in the early two thousands, so that was one major kind of, you know, collapse. The other one recently, they just finally had a conclusion on it was the theos trial with Elizabeth Holmes.

If you haven't heard, she recently just recently received a judgment on her case. For those that don't know, theos was a company that was started in the mid 2000 tens and it, the division was a healthcare company where they could basically use a. Prick of your blood, a piece, a drop of your blood in order to diagnose you with any disease set.

Right? And so this is supposed to be a revolution technology. So she raised billions of dollars, you know, from, you know invest investors and, and really went out and saying, Hey, this, this, this technology, were. Revitalized the whole world. Unfortunately, she was a fraud because that technology was not nonexistent.

And they typically, they would get the, they got all these different trials at CVS and other type of companies, and what happened was they would do the blood drop. Then they would send that information to a lab instead of using on their box. And so they defrauded, you know, tons of folks. And it ended up basically she, you know, the company imploded and then she and her co-founder end up going to jail.

She just got sentenced list week for 11 years for defrauding her investors. So reason why I'm talking about this is like, look, business is. As someone who is in business, but this is very crazy time. In two weeks, basically this month of November, we've seen two big changes with Disney changing their CEO and with what's happening with the ftx, right?

The whole crypto market industry, if you will. So we wanna dig into that, but like I said, this is, this is not a story we haven't seen before, and we'll probably see more of it again in the future. So, so more to come on that. So with that being said, let's keep it moving. Look, this is a solo pod, emergency pod.

So we're gonna go into the next section where we're kind of talk a little bit about you know, what you, what you, what you checking out. . And so for me one of the things I'm checking out interesting on f on Netflix is called Manifest It. It was a show, I think it debuted on nbc. I gotta look that up.

But I think that it, it showed up and it was about a group of passengers that just disappeared. Yeah, it was on NBC started in 2018. Group of passengers who were on a flight. The flight you know, looks like. Mysteriously disappeared for five years and the passengers came back and. Yeah. And so it's kind of a story about what happened to these passengers, what happened to these individuals and what's, you know, what the storylines of how they're kind of living their lives.

And then they came back, obviously a little changed. And so it was one of those things that kind of, you know, kind of took on fire on nbc, but they got canceled. And then Netflix. You know, basically the buyer of last resort for a lot of these failed television shows, jumped in and, and brought it to Netflix in recently for season four.

And so I kind of wanna check it out to see what was driving folks to kind of wanna watch this show and what was the big thing about it. And so so I get it a little bit, you know, I think there's some interesting things about it. But you know, for the most part it's one of those things that I do fast forward a lot.

At times because some of the metal dramatic elements, you know, gets a little boring. But then I think the overarching story is pretty interesting. And they do some Judeo-Christian, you know beliefs thrown in their light with things around scripture, Bible, scripture and things of that nature. So if you into that, that's definitely, you know, a, a component of it.

But you know, it was really more kind of, Case of the week because they got so many passengers and so many agendas and you know, do you have a brother and sister team are trying to solve it? Kind of like, I think they were trying to go for one of the earlier episodes is like, you know, she's the believer and he's a skeptic cuz he's a a, a math professor and she's a cop and they kind of solving these mysteries.

And so I think they were trying to go for this XFiles kind of vibe, but I think they kind of went away from that. And they're more kind of thinking about more of this as a. What is it more of a ensemble cast and like big mysteries and, and what's really driving all this? So we'll see. Like I said, I'm in the second season now, so I might kind of skip through it during a holiday break.

Thanksgiving, it's coming up here soon. So, but go check it out and let me know what you think as you kinda look at what's some of your holiday viewing things. Also I may go check out this is a preview. I may go check out the Wednesday, which is the latest. Iteration of the Adams family.

Adams family have been around forever, and so in some form or another from cartoons, comic book strips to you know, video games, to movies. You know, I grew up on the movies in the nineties, so now it's back. And my daughter and I may go check out Wednesday and see if that's anything interest to her.

See what she would like to check that out, so, so that's kinda like what I've been checking out and what I am gonna check out for the holiday sea season. So anyway, let's move on and get into the news. All right, so the news today really look, there's really big two news stories that's been driving the last two weeks.

The first one just literally happened you know, recording this in midweek. But this happened like late Sunday night, and it basically was the case where you saw. Bob Chopik got replaced by a new CEO , but that new CEO is the same as old CEO, Bob Iger. Which was shocking news. First of all Bob Chopik as we.

Talked about on this podcast many times before. Basically it just got re, you know, got a vote of confidence. He has his contract was up and they voted him back in the board, voted him back in to stay extent for another, I think it was another two years at Disney cuz he, I think he started in 2020. And during like a February, 2020 when a pandemic just hit.

So, you know, they gave him a voter conference even though he made some, some, some, some mistakes. We talked about it with the fight with Scarlet Johansson over, you know, her, her money. You know, the don't say gay bill, the fight with Ron DeSantis. But really what kind of did him in, we talked about it a couple podcasts ago.

Did the earnings call and it was disastrous. I mean, yes, he talked about like, we're going, there's gonna be profitability when it comes to the when it is gonna come to the streaming service. But the way he did it was very crass and wasn't. Very performative that Bob Iger used to do even when there was bad news.

So, so yeah, he's out and Bob Iger is in, which is unusual. I mean, well, it's not too, not unusual be sometimes CEOs do come back, but this, this dude so suddenly was very shocked. And it came out Sunday night and all the pods have been talking about it since Wednesday. So I get into a little bit later in the future.

But that was kind of a shocking news. And then finally, the other relevant news is FTX Implosion. Look, this is something that was a shock as well. It literally happened I think the week of November seventh, right? I think there was rumblings, I think it was midweek of like November 9th that the ceo Sam Bank, Bankman Freed, also known as s bf, he.

Was in a liquidity crunch. Basically, he needed money to handle all the, the, the money, the money that was taking out of his, his, his the exchange. And so when everybody heard about that, they were like, what's going on? And there was, so, there was rumors that he was trying to show up this, this deficit, which was $8 billion with one of his big rivals.

The CEO of by Binance. And they were trying to get him buy-in to buy ftx. It did not go well. And unfortunately, ftx had to file for bankruptcy and SPF saying BANKMAN free, the CEO of FTX ended up resigning. So this was. Shock to everyone. Cuz if you remember, FTX was kinda like trying to be JP Morgan and buy all these other crypto companies when the crypto winter hit earlier this year.

So he was buying these companies up, he was going on Wal. He was going to Congress and talking about like, we need regulation for, for crypto. and he was also you know, on the forefront of like, Hey, I'm on this you know, with the, with the you know, this altruism you know, market where basically I'm gonna give away all, all my money away.

Right. You know, and he was a big believer in that. And, and how, you know, he's making his money so he can you know, I think it's called effective altruism, excuse me. And that he was looking to. Make as much money as he could so he can give it away. Right? And so, so he kinda came undercover of darkness and was like, Hey, you know, this is why I'm making money.

Some people's, he was humble. I'm trying to, you know, make crypto regulated. So people trusted that, but, Under the Shamma night, we'll get into it. He was doing something that you should never do with customers money. And so it collapsed. And so, you know, there's a lot of stuff that's folding from that, so we'll kind of get into that a little bit later.

But yeah, so those are big news stories that just hit recently, like bang bang in the last couple weeks in the business world. And, you know, how is this gonna affect the show side of things? Obviously Disney with the new Bob that's gonna be interesting to see what happens there with All the plans for Disney Plus and what they're trying to do there.

If you know they're spending so much money, I think it's like 8 billion in. In that Disney content verse, you know, create ft to create all the content that they need there. Yeah, but they're losing 1.5 billion, so that can't sustain itself. And so Bob Iger is definitely gonna make some changes.

And the Fdx implosion, so, FD has hands on a lot of different things. So one of the things on the show side is basically all the celebrities that you know basically did Super Bowl ads. We've seen Tom Brady, the Super Bowl quarterback, super Bowl winning quarterback of Tampa Bay. Woo. And then of course Seth Curry, you know, was also involved in this.

So we'll talk a little bit about that later. But yeah, so. Pretty much for the news. So look, we're gonna get right into, we're just moving along today with a solo pod, so we're, it is gonna be a quick emergency pod, so we're gonna keep it moving. So with that being said, let's get into the feature.

All right. So this feature is really about what in the world is going on in business. So look, we kind of hinted at, you know, the two things that, you know, I wanna kind of deep dive in today. But let, let's. Talk a little bit about what's happening. So Disney , so bye Iger is back. So is this a good thing, bad thing?

So I've been reading a lot of stuff on the news and, and just listening to a lot of podcasts and just really understanding what bus, you know, business Disney's in. So, I think so three things to kind of think about here for, for why Bob Chopik is out and then Bob Iger is in, Bob Chopik was perceived even before he became the head of, of Disney, the CEO of Disney as being a number cruncher, right.

And he came from the parks. And even then, back before he became the ceo, there was rumblings that, you know, the way he treated the parks was just terrible. and that's, you know, of all the businesses in the world, Disney is very personal. A lot of folks, I mean, it's been around for a hundred years. I personally, you know, have a good relationship with Disney and just, you know, with my kids going there, you know you know, once a month of our passes and so I get it right.

The people spend, you know, their, their, their, they one year, once a year spend a lot of money to go and visit from across the world, even to Disney World and Disneyland. And so the way Bob was treating Disney, Parks even before he became co, was like a money bag. Right? You know, how can we lower costs? Right?

How, you know, basically not make the best experience. How can we, you know, do different things to, to, to extract as much revenue as possible? You know, the most profit is profit for profit is possible from these parks. So, you know, I think that's one thing. He kind of came in with a miser, you know, for a miser need kind of a.

A role of someone who was a penny pincher, right? So when he became the top job, everyone was shocked because now he was replacing someone who's a little bit Bob Iger a little bit smoother by ier, start his career as a weatherman. So he came from creative side, he ran ABC before ABC was bought by Disney.

So he understands creative, or at least perceives as that. You know, he's just very smooth. I mean, you know, I read his book and just, you know, just understanding his concepts about how you choose creatives and, and, and I think he really does have a heart for Disney and what it, what it means to people. And some of the things, choices he's made over the year, 15 years, he was previously ceo.

So the thing was interesting was that The replacement for Bob Iger. Bob Iger was supposed to be gone like maybe about four or five years ago, but he kept delaying it. Couple other lieutenants were coming to come trying to make their way, but then they were gone. And so finally it was time for him to leave and he picked Bob Chopik, who's the complete opposite and probably because he thought he could, probably could control him.

So that was one, that was the other thing. So Bob Chap, it came in with under the, someone who was, you know, perceived as being cheap, but also someone who was. Dang, this guy is nothing like the previous guy at all. So he came in with two strikes, right? And then the third strike was just the way he handled his business.

I think that's what did him in. Ultimately it wasn't so it was, you know, little mistakes, which I think is, I mean, if you read. i's book, Bob i's book. He talks about this. He actually Eisner, who was the the CEO previously Eisner didn't like Bob. I didn't like Bob Iger, either and Michael Eisner, who was the ceo.

And there he was. He Bob Iger had a tough time to, to, to, to, to run Disney as well. Initially he made some mistakes in Folies. But you know, he was such a smooth, you know, operator maybe coming from his years as being on TV that he was able to kind of smooth things over and, and kind of get over the hump.

But You know, Chopik, you know, just could not get over these, these humble, you know, these missteps. I mean, obviously we talked about it with the, the public fight right? Over scholar Johan's salary on Black Widow, that was nasty. The whole you know, Florida fiasco you know, standing against the, you know, standing forward, you know, and then against it because it's Disney folks.

Rebelled against the, don't say gay bill here in Florida. And, and then, you know, then because he kind of went forward first with, you know, with Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, and then went against it because his staff and his team members at Disney were like, Hey, Disney's is a, a place of diversity and, and, and all ideas.

Then Rhonda said this saw there's a chance to decree theater and went after Bob jp. And so he, Bob JP ended up having fire his communications officer. Right. Because of that. So those, you know, just those missteps, right. Just one after other. Right. And then, then, but the big mast mistake was just really that earnings call where, you know, yes.

They talked about they're going in 2020, they talked about this. They were gonna just, you know, go all in on Disney Plus. And to their credit, Disney Plus has pretty much, you know, is the fastest growing streaming service is pretty much Overtake Net has overtaken Netflix. If you count Hulu and ESPN and all that.

Disney Plus from a streaming standpoint. And you, and. US and worldwide is number one. And so Bob Shaik did it right. And now to be honest, this is all strategies that Bob Iger put in place. He was the one that bought BAM Technologies to make a streaming search for Disney. So instead of licensing all their content, their Marvel content to Netflix, which, you know, if you remember back in the day, we could watch all the, the Marvel movies on Netflix, he slowly started taking that away.

But that was revenue because Netflix had to pay Disney a license to kind of. Show those movies. So because they were moving to the streaming service, they had to lose all that revenue, plus they had to spend billions of dollars, create their own content and build their own technology. And so it was gonna be a cost driver.

And that was something that Bob Bob Iger, the first, the first Bob created. And so Champion was just executing that vision, especially when the pandemic hit. He had no choice but to figure out how to get streaming. Movie theaters were shut down, the parks were shut down. Two big revenue sources were shut down.

So the only way they could make money was basically driving people to a streaming service. And at the time, wall Street loved streaming services, right? They were like, Hey, Netflix, you know, you guys are worth, you know, 400, 500 share, right? Because people just sitting at home, Netflix is in chill, right?

Remember those days when we used to watch Queens Gambit? And squid game, right during the height of the pandemic, you know, we loved it. So Disney knew they had to do the same thing. So Bob did what he should have done. Right? And he, and then I think I saw the investor presentation where he went in detail all the different shows, right?

We saw that it was just like a shock and awe presentation where he's like, These are all the Marvel shows, right? And he talked about, you know, Andor, he talked about the acolyte. He talked about, you know know, that Star Wars, he talked about Un Marvels, she hawk, you know Hawkeye, he talked about Moonlight.

And so people were just like, oh my goodness, it's too much content. So he was just like getting people excited about going to Disney Plus and signing up. He was priced cheaply at that point. think 6 99 is going up this month. It was perfect time to, to get into the market and make it happen. So that was one of the things that he did that to kind of really make things happen and, and move it forward.

But I think, you know, what happened was when he was pushing that at the same time to pay for all this $8 billion a lot of money. Even for Disney he said, well, let's go back to my old ways. I know the parks and know how to make money in the parks. And so this is when, so as a Disney passport, I kind of saw this happening cuz he because of the pandemic, you know, and Florida really never locked down.

Let's just be honest here during the covid crisis. But you. They started opening it up, I think mid 2020 and they started introducing this reservation system. I was like, what is this? Because before it's passholder, you can go anytime later. I can go like today, just show up. But they introduced this Passholder system to kind of quote, unquote, verify you got checked, or, you know, making sure it's not overcrowded and all that.

They kept that , that has never went away. And because now they have a reservation system, they also introduce now, and so basically it's an app that you use to kind of reserve your site, you know, your place in line to go to Disney because they have that. They also introduced, they already had a fast pass system.

They also do something called the Genie. And basically you can use Fast Pass and all that, but now it is gonna cost you. So if you wanna ride a ride faster and not stay in line for about an hour to ride Space Mountain you would have to pay basically. So there's two ways you can do it. The first way is for Genie, you pay for like the whole day.

It's like, And I think extra $15 per person. Mind you, this is after, if you're already went to pay for Disney trip, it's like 150 bucks or something like that per person, right? So once you're in, you can, you don't have to pay anything else, but you can stand in line for like, you know, hour, two hours, you know, for all these different rides.

But if you don't wanna stand in line, you can get a generalized, you know, fast pass. For like $15 per person. So a family of four, you know, what's that actually? 60 bucks in addition to what? 150 that you paid for each person. So now you're like, okay, cool. Now I can go just a couple of these rides, but the hottest of hottest rides.

So if you wanna ride I guess what's that one? The the new guardians of the Galaxy Ride at Epcot. Guess what? That's his own fast pass system. So you, you literally have to go ahead and pay for that ride separately in addition to you already paid, you know, 150, get in $30 for all the other rides, and then those special hot rides, maybe two or three each park, you gotta pay another like 12 bucks.

So, so, so you see he was just getting, coming and going. And then recently there was announcements that they were gonna have more increase. And the pricing to entry, I think it's up to 1 98 per person, which is almost 200 bucks to go to Disney. So look, it was a lot of upset people out there, be honest with you about the park experience.

And so you, you paying, you know, people are just getting nickling and dime for everything, right? And and, but Chap just going back to what he knew how to make money from the parks to kind of help offset that and, and, and, and put into streaming. And especially now that the streaming market has changed, where Netflix stock has gone down.

Cuz now Wall Street wants to see profitability and to be honest with you, only streaming service that's profitable is Netflix. They're only ones that making money at this point. Everyone else is a scale game and they're losing money and they gotta stop the bleeding. And so that's, that was Bob jps strategy.

But the Ernie's call recently, he was saying, Hey, We're still losing 1.5 billion on streaming and, but we should get the profit boot by 2024. People did not believe that, cuz the way he presented it, he just kind of like, just glossed over it. And he just went on to talk about what's happening at the parks and I think people, you know that that was the.

And, and then the stock was already down. It was in the, in the nineties at that point. Right. Even before he announced. And it just went down further. And so I think that's when the, the writing was on the wall. So they said within 10 days of that they had emergency meeting on Sun this past Sunday. And guess what?

Bob Chopik was out and Iger was in . And so, yeah. So I think he just made those missteps. Right. Just, you know, coming in already not liked being, not liked by, you know, You know, being so different from Iger and then just the way he. Made those mistakes. One after the other, doing the best he could, you know, to be fair, but making mistake after mistake and then being the one who just got fell on the sword when he did the earnings announcement.

So those three things led to the board just saying, you know, it's enough's enough, you got to go. And so agers back in. So is he gonna turn the ship around? You know, I mean the stock is up, what, 6%, which is good. You know, I got Disney stock. Full disclosure. I mean, it's okay. I just don't know what i's gonna do.

Claim of fame was, he was a, a merger guy, right? He bought companies, he bought Pixar, right? He bought, he got Pixar into the Loop, which created all these winning Toy Story and things like that. He brought Marvel and then he brought Star Wars. So, you know, he created these IP ju knocks. I mean, is there another big deal he can do?

And it's a climate where there's. High inflation. I don't know. There's rumors of Netflix, there's rumors of Apple or merging with Apple. There's rumors of buying a gang company. I don't know. It's, but it seems tough to do. Right? And then also he's gotta think about his successor, cuz the last successor for him did not go well.

So he's gotta pick someone that's gonna, gotta smooth and, and really has, you know, love for the company. So, so anyway, more to come on that. But I just, you know, I thought that was interesting to kinda see how fast he, they just, you. This business world man business is tough and entertainment world. Will we see any visible change on the show side?

I think so. Definitely on the parts. I think you, you know, Bob Iger realizes, I, I read, when you read his book, he talked about this with Steve Jobs. He, Steve Jobs went to visit all the different resorts. And Steve Jobs went to one of the low end resorts that they have, I think it was our Rock and roll hotel.

And Steve Jobs was like, you know, this is trash. This is not good. You know, Steve Jobs was about, you know, beautiful and form and function, right. You know, hot looks and how do you use it? And he is like, this is not how it should be. I mean, but then Bob Iger pushed back. He said, look, you know, yes. If you want that top tier experience, we have that for you.

But then for a family of four who just came from the Midwest, look, we just want them to have the experience they have here. And that was true too. I, you know, Walt Disney, I kind of started reading some of his storyline. He was all about building experience for everybody, right? I mean, you know, he was, that was really his, his goal and what he wanted to do.

So I think Bob Iger takes that to heart. So I think we'll see you know, some of 'em are, The price gouging slow down. I mean, I'm sure some of that stuff will stay around. I mean, he's still a business man at the end of the day, but we'll start seeing a price gouging at the parks kind of slow down.

We'll also maybe see some of the What's going to a Disney plus, maybe they may slow down some of that production. We'll see. You know, because, you know, 8 billion, a lot of money. Right. So they gotta spend those losses. Will the price increase happen here in December? Absolutely. I think they have to.

The average revenue per user is. Still too high. And so they need to kind of go lower on that. So I mean, they need to go higher higher on that still too low. And so they need to make more money from users. And so the only way you do is raise prices. So and they got a lot of good content, right?

So they're gonna try to, you know, raise prices on their. . But yeah, I mean, you know, the movie decisions and stuff, you know, I think those are still kind of set in stone for next two. And be honest with you, I think, you know, IRA is just probably just there to kind of stabilize everything next 18 months, get it over, get us through the hump get Disney through the hump of the the recession.

You know, it's gonna be a pretty bad recession, 2023, and then definitely look for that success in 2024. So, so like I said, I don't think it's gonna be any. Per se, maybe to the parks, but not to the movie business. And we'll see what's happening there. So with that being said, the finally last, but you know not least is ftx.

So yes this was a huge news story. I mean, so many different ways we can go into FTX and what's happening there. I mean, look, it collapsed and. Like I mentioned earlier in the news story when Sam Bankman Freed or spf, the ceo. So what happened there was they needed about 8 billion to cover losses from the exchange because people, there was a run on the bank basically for the exchange.

People were taking all their money out and FTX unfortunately did not have the capital to give people back their money. And so that's why they were looking to get a buyer to kinda. Money and get the people the money that they wanted. So what happened was . So there was an instance where SPF also owned, not just ftx exchange where customers put money into it to do, you know, exchanges to buy crypto and all that, but they also owned a hedge fund, Almita Capital, and this was run by his ex-girlfriend

And so, So at the time, no one thought or Almeda research, excuse me, at the time, no one thought about it, right? But it looks like Almeda, which is a hedge fund, which is supposed to just invest their money into speculative deals. Irrespective what FTX does, and FTX is exchanged. They're not supposed to connect together, but looks like what happened was ftx was Ashley.

Giving money to FTX to cover their losses in some of their huge speculative vets that went bad. So, and how they did that was basically using a made up coin by FTX called ftt. So there was a news story that came out, I think at the end of beginning of November that said Amita had a large amount of ftt, this fake coin that FTX created on their balance sheet.

So basically that's how much they had just sitting there. Saying, Hey, this ftt now again, this is made up, is worth, you know, 26 billion. So we got 26 billion sitting in our bank ready to go. Well when people read that, one of the big ones who read that was um, sh p Chow, who was the CEO of Bance. When he saw that, he was just like, you know what, that's just too much risk there.

I'm gonna just take my money out of ftx. And when he did, People saw, and he had like billions of dollars in there. People saw that. They took it out and it, and it was a run on the bank. And then that's when if JX was like, oh crap, you know, the, the, you know, the, the, the story is out and so, so yeah, so, so it's just been a mess because now A crash obviously, cuz they didn't have any money then FTX didn't have any money because now, you know, people are making Ronald Bay taking all their, taking their monies out of the exchange.

And now you just had FTX just out. And so they had to file for bankruptcy. So when they went to bankruptcy and they had a you know, advisor in the bankruptcy that came in, It was a mess. The balance sheet was a mess. You didn't know who owned what you didn't know where the money was going. There was, there was a big hack where, you know, million, hundreds of millions of dollars was stolen.

People who had money in FTX don't see it. They're probably not expecting to see it anytime soon. But it was just, I mean, it was basically, They, and they just recently raised millions of dollars, billions of dollars from investors like big time investors like Sequoia Capital NBA teams, and you know, some of celebrities like Tom Brady and Steph Curry.

It was huge. And so it was like one of those things where, you know, did anyone do, do any due diligence on the, the, the coziness between EDA and. Ftx, I don't think they did. And so so yeah, so they, you know, raised tons of money. And still, you know, and so I think everybody's out and Sequoia is taking 150 million loss.

You know, there's lawsuits against Tom Brady and Steph Curry. It's just, it's just a mess. And so, you know, so it is just the inner crypto as we know it, perhaps, I mean, you know, the centralized story and you know, the success of it. I think they've shown that this is not You know, something that's of value.

And, you know, they need to be regulated. I think you know, well, you know, Elizabeth Warren just said, Hey, you know, crypto needs to be changed. So this is in addition to the, the crypto winner we experienced, what, a couple months ago, right? So literally last year's time, I can remember, you know, everybody had that e h on their Twitter handle, right?

And so we didn't begin to Twitter, that's collapsing as well, thanks to Eli Musk. But you remember everybody had that e. On their Twitter handle. I don't see that too much anymore. I don't see too many people talking about nfx NFTs, that was a big thing. End of 2020 and 2021, it is just disappeared.

And then now crypto crashing. There's Block fives, another one that this RA class because Block FFI was supposed to be bought by ftx, so they're kind disappearing. You know, Coinbase should be okay because, you know, they're, you know, being traded on the. Traded on you know, stock exchange, but you know, they're, they're down significantly.

And so and they're, you know, backed by. Some contracts and us, you know, funding and stuff, they're backed by, you know, they're supposed to have the same amount of money in their bank in order to cover any any customer deposits. But, you know, they're hanging by a thread because, you know, the stock is down and so they can't do anything with it.

So I think there's gonna be a lot of interesting things to see what's happen to crypto. I think crypto is, as we know, Dead. I mean Bitcoin will still be around, you know, ether still ether. Ethereum will still be around, but it's just, you know, all those, you know, coins and, and, and with the stable coins we're backed by these companies.

I think a lot of that's going away for right now. And they're gonna figure out how to kind of make this a stable, you know, financial system. But it goes to show you that, you know, decentralized finance may, may not be the best thing because. Especially if it's unregulated. And, and to be fair, this is how it was in the twenties in, in the 1920s.

Right now we're in the 2020s. There's a new finance system, stocks and stuff. It was all great and wonderful until, you know Something like this happens and contagion reaches out far wide. So, so anyway, crypto may not be dead, but it would vastly be changed for what it was. So, so those are kind of like the biggest news stories of the day.

On the entertainment side, like I said, you know, celebrities that kind of, Push this. They're already starting to regulate that. I think there was a a scam that that, not a scam, but just a, a, a crap coin that I guess Kim Kardashian pumped out there on Instagram. Without knowing everything, the CC went down hard on her finder.

I mean, it's pennies to her. I think it was a couple million dollars, but it's, it's sending a message. You know, celebrities don't just put your name to these the, this these Financial instruments without understanding something of it, or, you know, not even going down that path. Miami Arena, which where the heat Miami heat play it.

Originally it had a, FTX had a marketing deal to call it FTX Stadium for 135 million. They paid 105 35 million for 10 years, over 10 years to get that renaming right. They quickly removed that. It's no longer Miami, it's no longer Fdx Stadium. It's back to the Miami Stadium where the Miami Heat play.

So, so yeah. So like I said, that's on the show side. Think you know the investments he's made and then I don't even talk about the implosion what's happening on the political side. He was one of the biggest donors to Democratic Party, and so his implosion, you know, is really. You know, shape fundraising for, you know, 2024 race.

And so that's gonna be interesting. I mean, he, he promised all this money and some he gave some, he did not. And so now, you know what he was, I'm just, you know, the, the, the impressiveness. I don't know. You know, and I, it is something that I've been thinking about, like, you know, people say about money, you know, is it real?

Is it tangible? I think money is based on faith. It's basically based on what people believe. And he was able to make people believe that STS was. Institution as far as for what in less than 18 months. I mean, the company's created in 2019 and it imploded in less than, you know, not too long after that. So that was the fastest way you can grow make wealth and lose wealth.

He's lost something like 60 billion in less than, in less than what, three months? So I just saying this. Wow, this is the case. That's, I mean, I wonder we're gonna see faster you know, you know, faster people, people make money faster, but also lose money faster. Like, this is this the harbinger for, for other things to happen.

So, so it's gonna be interesting to see. So anyway, so those are kind of things that we wanna talk about. Yeah. So, But yeah, so I think you know, we're excited about, you know, show versus business and where we're going for the future. So Mr. Bender should be joining for our hundredth pod and we'll celebrate and get you guys excited about what the next version of what show versus business is gonna bring to you.

But yeah, I hope you enjoyed this. Solo pod, emergency pod. It's a quick pod, just one to kind of get into it. Yeah, did a solo with all the co a cohost, so. Definitely thank you guys for listening. I appreciate it. So look, please, like, subscribe and comment at show versus business on Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.

Listen to us at Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Visit us at on our website show versus business. But if you wanna hear us live, please check us out around 96 specific Wednesdays on IG Live at Mr. Bender, do his a d d experience where we go over all the news from the week. Right?

Everyone, take care. Peace.