309: Daryl Morey On Using Data To Make Decisions

Daryl Morey is the general manager of the Houston Rockets of the NBA. He is a strong proponent of analytical methods, having created the true shooting percentage statistic, and co-founded the annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. In this conversation, we discuss the latest NBA update, how the Rockets use advanced analytics to make decisions, why Daryl spends so much time supporting civil liberties, what he thinks of SpaceX, and why he has been a proponent of Bitcoin since 2011. =============================== Pomp writes a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy to understand language, while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at pompletter.com

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off. Daryl Morey is the General Manager of the Houston Rockets in the National Basketball Association. He's a strong proponent of analytical methods, having created the true shooting percentage statistic, and co-founded the annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. In this conversation, we discuss the latest NBA update, how the Rockets use advanced analytics to make decisions, why Daryl spends so much time supporting civil liberties, what he thinks of SpaceX and other technologies, and why he has been a proponent of Bitcoin since 2011.

• 0:44Anthony Pompliano?

  I really enjoyed this conversation with Daryl, and I hope you do as well. Don't forget that I write a daily letter to over 50,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. I break down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at pompletter.com. Again, pompletter.com, or go into the description of this episode and you can click on the link there. Alright, let's get into this episode with Daryl. I hope you guys like this one. Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion

• 1:28Anthony Pompliano?

  expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. Alright guys, bang, bang, I've got Daryl here. Thanks for doing this, sir. Thanks for having me on, I appreciate it. For sure. For the very few people listening who don't know who you are, let's just start with your background, and how do you get to be the General Manager of the Houston Rockets?

• 1:57Speaker 01

  I'll tell the quick, least boring version. Probably the easiest way to think about it is I worked in baseball for a bunch of years at a company called Stats Inc. Where if people have seen the movie Moneyball, he and John Dewan and some others founded Stats Inc. And I worked there and I worked in baseball because that's where the data was. I always loved using data to get an edge. Either with my friends gambling or or playing stratimetic baseball. And so that's how I got my start. I played basketball. It wasn't very good, but I played basketball in high school.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  And when the Moneyball revolution came, I got fortunate to, you know, get a job with the Celtics initially, working with Danny Ainge. And then the prior owner of the Rockets wanted to make a change. The GM was retiring, wanted to go in sort of a data moneyball direction. And I got my shot down here in Houston in oh six and I've been doing it ever since, which somehow I made it this far. So.

• 3:02Anthony Pompliano?

  14 years means you gotta be doing something right.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  We have a losing season now. Of course, we haven't won the title, but unfortunately they don't give you a trophy for no losing seasons. Or someone just did the did the Vegas odds for the team that had the highest odds to win the title, but didn't, of course, that's us too. So, but you know, sadly, maybe this year we got, I think we're the fourth highest odds going in, going in this year. So.

• 3:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And maybe just give us an update on the NBA and kind of like, what's the plan as of right now? We'll caveat the whole thing with it could change. It feels like at any moment, but just kind of what's the plan to finish the season?

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't say too much publicly until it's been officially announced, but I think people are seeing the news and we're all excited for the restart. It does look likely that that will happen. And I think the plan is as good as it can be, given all the constraints that have been thrown at the teams and league office and the players. But we should be playing games in not too, not too long. And like I mentioned, someone, they put enough of the plan out that Vegas just made odds on it. So that, you know, fourth best odds, I wish it was first, but you know, you want to go in with a healthy chance to win and we have that.

• 4:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that's awesome. How much does this, does the data play into decisions in these environments? Right? So like everyone, for the most part, has an understanding that look, there's data being, or data is driving a lot of the decision-making in a regular season. Now you kind of have this like outside force that has completely changed what a season looks like, players kind of being in the, you know, rhythm of the season, all of these existential factors. Like, how do you think about data playing into that?

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, so first off, all those outside factors, if you're not one of the favorites, they generally going to favor you. They just add more variance. So that's a good thing for us. In terms of like on the restart, you know, the eight games are going to be not too material.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  You know, if going into the playoffs, the playoffs then are going to be similar. There, it looks like it's going to likely be seven game series like, like normal. And so it's really going to be who you match up with and what order and winning those series. And yeah, the, the data involved with a playoff series is a huge order. It's like two orders of magnitude bigger than you do on a regular season game.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  We're not like football where you have a week between games. We generally have a tight window. And things change with players being in and out. So you can't overly prepare for each regular season game. And they have less meaning than each NFL game. But the playoff games are different. The amount of data and analysis broken down to a very minute level is massive for a playoff series. And then the adjustments between games become pretty significant in the playoffs as well. And actually, one of the big things in the playoffs is how to not over-adjust between games. Because what happens is every time someone's going to lose, and they're always blaming issue X or Y that they lost in the last game.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  But you could have still had the right plan to win a war. You just didn't, you know, it still could have been right to double down on 11, right? You just got a three and, you know, the dealer had 20, so you're, you're done. But, um, so you, a lot of times it's try not to over-adjust in a playoff series.

• 6:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and for those that have seen Moneyball, obviously, they're, you know, Billy Bean and and the other characters are literally calculating this stuff with like hand calculators and pieces of paper. I'm assuming you guys aren't doing that. Maybe kind of help us understand how much technology and what we would consider more cutting-edge analytics is going into the crunching of all those data points versus what's, you know, shown in a movie like that that's based years ago?

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, not a lot of calculators. I mean, except the CPU, which does a billion of those a second. But yeah, you'd be, I think people would be surprised just how how advanced it is, at least at the analysis level. The decision-making level tends to sometimes be, you know, caught up in the vagaries of human decision-making. But I would say the analysis level 25 times a second, both prior to the playoffs and in the playoffs, you get the position of the players in three dimensions, the ball in three dimensions, even the refs in three dimensions. And you can imagine that firehose of data that all gets flowed into analyzing, you know, what plays you pick, what shots you take, how you run your

• 7:51Speaker 01

  defense, all that. And, you know, literally the job of myself and our group and the coach and even the players ultimately on the floor is how do you boil that data down into something that's going to make the biggest material difference? And often, just like anything in life, that ends up being just a few, two or three key things. And a lot of what you're doing with data is being able to discard things that aren't going to be material and ignore the things that are just noise and keep it only the signal.

• 8:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And the data collection, obviously, is probably one of the big inflection points for you guys being able to do this. Is that hardware and technology that's integrated into every stadium and both teams get that? Or is it on a stadium by stadium basis? Or do you guys travel with equipment? Like, how does that work?

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're making a big, good point that you don't really get an edge unless you have differential data. I mean, you got better analysis, but differential data is the best. We used to at a time have differential data where we had some of that overhead data, other teams didn't. That was a huge edge. The NBA, right or wrong, and you could easily argue right, has given that technology to every team. So every team has similar data. You know, we still have some proprietary data sets, some other teams I'm sure do as well. But that marginal edge from better data has not changed. It really is down to, you know, how do you best analyze that data? And then, and then flow it from analysis to coaching to players to hopefully winning on the floor.

• 9:28Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. And then maybe let's just talk about the various, you know, stakeholders here and how they use the data. So the players themselves, I'm assuming they watch film, right? And then they're kind of aware of what I would consider, you know, that type of data. How much are they digging into actual analytics and understanding, you know, on this spot on the floor? This person shoots this percentage and I've got to push them here to a different spot on the floor. Do they get kind of that level of granularity? Or is it more of they're aware of more, you know, higher level trends and don't worry so much about the actual analytics?

• 10:00Speaker 01

  It's a spectrum. So on one extreme, you can read Michael Lewis's article on Shane Battier. He's still to this day is, he wanted the most information and he was able to read it all process. That he was truly like a coach on the floor and analyzing data at that level and executing at that level. To be fair to most players, that's not even actually optimal. With most players, the game is a little bit closer to people who go, I don't really golf, but I've golfed. So I get this, I've had to take golf lessons. It's a frustrating game when you're first starting. When you're first starting, you're given like a hundred instructions of where to put your elbow and shift your weight and everything. And if you go up there thinking about, thinking about all the.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Sorry, I'm gonna kill that. If you go up there thinking about all the things you need to think about to hit that golf shot, you're gonna, you're not gonna do very well. Like, you need to, on the actual time to actually hit the ball and play, you need to, you need to think about only, you know, getting into flow, right? And most players are like that. So, so I would say most of our players, we try to put them in the situation where they can succeed and where they don't have to be conscious of all this data behind it. The right plays, the right sets, the right structures. Then we also have a very veteran, smart team that sort of gets how everything works.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  And then, you know, and then on top of that, we select players that already are playing in a way that works with Coach Dantoni and how he wants to play. So, we sort of make it happen that way versus firehosing the players with the information. That is generally the way we do it.

• 11:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And I'm assuming a lot of that, maybe filter mechanism is at the coaching level where they're the ones calling the plays and trying to put people in position. So they're probably much more aware of what the analytics are telling them?

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're always aware of whatever they need. And they ask a lot of questions, which, you know, where you can do custom looks at, you know, if I do this against that team, how has it worked in the past? And then the coaches will narrow it down. And then they know that like, you've got to boil it down into the two or three to four most important things for each player and at the team level for the players to make sure we're doing the important things and executing very well.

• 12:27Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And then I asked people for questions beforehand. And one of the questions I thought was really interesting was at the GM level, you obviously are well-known for using a lot of this data and kind of seeking it out. How do you use it specifically around like contract negotiations, right? So everyone knows that, okay, hey, look, it's great to go get the players that best fit your system and you can use analytics to kind of pick who you want. The next step is really just how do you actually pay these players? And what kind of analytics goes into that in that contract negotiation?

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, and I think as people sell at Moneyball, that is the job. You basically have a budget set by the collective bargaining agreement of what you can spend on players. And your job is to shove as many good players as possible into that bucket and win the championship. And you have to be better than all 30, so you gotta take, you gotta, you gotta take risks. And obviously, the rubber meets the road there. Like in Moneyball, you've got to find players that, you know, are gonna improve greatly so that their contract, they're probably worth more than their contract. And players, obviously, understandably, would like to make what they're worth, or something close to it, or even more than what they're worth.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  And so that, that is the, the core challenge. And yeah, for sure, we do a lot of analysis to find these undervalued players, right? Um, and what's, what would surprise a lot of people, but anyone who's like into a, a deal, like anyone who does, is like an M and A guy, or a deal guy, or even a, even a real estate broker, right? Um, the data underpins everything, but what sets the market is really supply and demand. So you don't really have a market until you've got, you know, probably two people on each side, uh, you know, either buying or selling or negotiating a deal that have mul-, you gotta have multiple, multi-party interests.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Um, and yeah, even though the fundamentals underpin it, the actual amount you end up paying a player comes down to like, yeah, I want a, I want a three and D wing this year. There's seven teams looking for one and only two good ones. So no matter what you think that guy's worth, his price is probably gonna get driven up. Um, just like, uh, you know, just like if you buy, you know, if you, uh, you know, if you buy a house and you do all the comparables, it doesn't matter when 10 people show up and are all bidding, right? So, so you have to be willing to dynamically adjust in the moment, and you have to keep those fundamentals in mind.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  But if you only are driven off what the spreadsheet tells you or whatever, you're not gonna end up actually getting to an optimal answer.

• 15:04Anthony Pompliano?

  And, and when you're negotiating with, uh, I'm assuming usually it's the agents, right? Um, are you using the data? Like, are you actually saying, hey, uh, here's the analysis that we've done, and this is why we're anchoring on a price? Or is that too in the weeds for the actual negotiation itself?

• 15:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, that doesn't come up too often, right? Because again, on both sides, most players have a very experienced agent and most of the GMs are pretty experienced. So you, you know, sometimes agents will give you a big book of what they think a guy's worth. But it's irrelevant. It would be as irrelevant if I gave them a book of our analysis, right? At the end of the day, do they have two or more people interested in their services or not? If it's just one, you know, then they're probably in a not a great situation. Uh, if it's multiple, then they've got, they've got the teams in a better situation. It, you know, as you know, it, it always comes down to supply and demand. It's not really about, uh, the analysis going in. The analysis sets like maybe your own limits and when you walk away for both sides.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Uh, but it doesn't really drive the negotiation.

• 16:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Um, another question that we got from people was, uh, with James Harden. They were like, look, he's this mega global superstar, uh, but he's also pretty reserved in, in a lot of ways that other, uh, stars aren't. Um, anything that you can kind of share just about like what he, he's like as a person, kind of off the court and, and your, um, interactions with him? That would maybe shed a light more on, uh, outside the superstar, um, kind of fandom that people have for him?

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think this is why he gets a little bit, I don't think the media is super fair with him, but you know, people say that all the time. So you can take that for what it is, but I really don't. And, but I think part of it is he, he has a tight circle of people that, uh, that he trusts. Uh, and with those people who he knows have his best interests at heart. And he's had a, uh, and he's had a history with, um, they, um, you know, he's very gregarious, very open, very smart. Like just this great guy. And with everyone else, he's not the opposite. He's just, he's just reserved.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  He is not, he's not a, you know, someone who, you know, is going to be a big media guy or things like that. So I think that hurts him a little bit, but I can, yeah, I can tell you privately, he's like a basketball genius. Uh, he's a great quality human being and, you know, we've worked together for eight or nine years now. And I couldn't have a better partner, uh, to try and win a title with. And in fact, most days I wake up saying, I've let him down because I haven't gotten him, got him the right players to win a title.

• 17:46Anthony Pompliano?

  I love that. When you do win a title, any idea what you will do the next day?

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Well, I'm pretty sure just that I know myself, I'm probably not gonna enjoy it as much as I should. I'll probably just be, because actually the NBA schedule and anyone who's won knows this because I know it because you get like three days before the draft generally after you win. So yeah, you're probably not gonna enjoy it until maybe 10 years later when you're on your porch and you're finally fired or whatever you've retired. And you're sipping the cognac or something, but I think at the time I'll, I'll, I'll just be, I'll just not appreciate it like I should because it is very difficult. Very few teams have done it. We have the most concentrated titles. It's the hardest to win a title in the NBA.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  There's less variance. The favorites have a much bigger edge because you, you know, we, it's a funny thing. On an individual game basis, an NBA game is generally the most predictable of all the major sports, MLB, NFL, whatever. And just to make sure the right team wins, we play seven times. Like we should be one and done and the NFL should play seven times. For example, if you wanted to try and balance out the, the general variance and we, in my opinion, we should have shorter series. So there's more variance injected. Because right now it's, it's too deterministic, you know, it's why you'll see teams win six times and in eight years or, or three times in five years, you know, that's happened many times and

• 19:20Speaker 01

  or, or in pairs like Miami did. It's, it's rarely you just win one because once you get a systemic edge, which has happened many times, it's usually you have the best player in the league. You, you end up, you end up winning multiple times.

• 19:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Obviously the world is chaotic. That's part of the reason why the NBA is not playing right now. You have an owner that has this amazing business. That just happens to be in a sector that's been hit the hardest around hospitality, all of that. How has that been just as an organization kind of knowing that the owner of the team's got, you know, other things going on and has to deal with, you know, trying to take care of thousands of other employees outside of your organization. What's that been like?

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, so at a high level, it's been very positive in that he has these businesses that are visible. And really, you know, helpful to be able to talk about in things like free agency, like. He owns car dealerships, he owns casinos that are top casinos, he owns. Top food restaurants, you know, some of the ones that are the most prestigious ones in their cities, so. Those kinds of things helped me in my job in terms of selling free agents that. So as usual, I, you know, I focus on what what helps me in terms of like how he's been impacted, it's obviously been material and he's. Had his own comments on that, but but I never feel it to to his credit.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  You know, he's come in and, you know, his history is like, look, I'm going to be successful no matter what I do. And often that means having to change out leadership and things like that. Uh, he did a lot of research coming in. And that research, again, as far as I know, it sure seems like a given, he could have made a change. He kept myself, he kept Ted Brown, the CEO, he kept all our key people because. We've had such a great track record. And I've always appreciated that, so he he's only made my job easier. And in terms of the issues that he's faced, which I know are material, he that we've been shielded from that and that. Um, you know, he's been very busy on all those things, but.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  He's let us sort of run things um throughout um this whole time.

• 21:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that's awesome, um, and, uh, you know, sign of a great leader, right, who can kind of shield us people if they don't need to be impacted by it. Um, maybe kind of share thoughts on just like the world is different right now. Um, and and obviously there's everything from the coronavirus to the economic crisis. Uh, to now the the protest around police brutality, kind of how do you um outside of your day job, just think about, you know, what the world's. Going through or we're experiencing right now.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I always think about the fact that I have a real platform and so do players and so do our coaches and and how to use that. One thing that really hit me yesterday actually was, you know, one of my main jobs is to be able to take data, information, news, process it and make good decisions. And honestly, I've even had trouble processing all the world news. Uh, it's been and and it just shows the challenge that, you know, everyone that it shows the challenge that everyone is probably facing right now. How to get your bearings on all these very important things that are that are happening,

• 22:45Speaker 01

  that are happening at once. And so I think if if, you know, if our players and myself and others are having issues, then I think, you know, everyone's having issues. And in terms of using the platform, I've always used it very heavily from a civil liberties perspective. I think one of the reasons I'm on this is because I I'm a I believe in, you know, people to be able to uh, lead the life they want to live. And I mentioned earlier why I like Houston. Uh, it's a big reason I love Bitcoin. It's a big reason I have been big on free speech and freedom of assembly and voting rights and all the things I've done with the ACLU.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Um, and to make sure that the, you know, you can never have um fairness of outcomes, but you can have, you can try to get to as fair fairness of people to be who they want to be, right? And clearly, that's never going to be fair, but you can try to create systems and structures and paths for people to make it as fair as you can. And I think Free speech is big on that, is, is big for that. Uh, and I think, you know, even freedom of money, which, which, uh, maybe we'll get into and, um, and, and obviously, I mean, voting like just to call out Houston and I've talked to the ACLU heavily.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  We might have the worst, just to give Houston some negative props. We have the worst voting machines in the country as far as I can tell. Um, they were put in a while ago. You go into the voting booth, I'm not kidding. Anthony, you vote, you, it's a computerized thing, you vote and it says, "Congrats, you voted." And then it's like, "That's it." You don't get anything, you don't get, there's no receipt, there's no like certified, you know, what you voted for. You, you could have hit the wrong buttons, you wouldn't even know. Right? You don't know how it's recorded. They're super hackable. So I was a computer science major, so I'm really, uh, obviously, uh, someone who has a lot of interest in technology. That was where I came from prior to basketball.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  And these are super hackable machines. And so, uh, you know, I've given a lot of money to ACLU to, to help fix those machines, but it takes political action. So anyway, that was probably too long of an answer to your, your original questions.

• 25:10Anthony Pompliano?

  No, loo- look, you and I have talked, you know, obviously a lot about the investing stuff, uh, previously, but, but I think part of, um, what's so interesting is, uh, a lot of the protests obviously are happening under the, um, um, kind of the, the message of anti-police brutality, right? But what we're seeing is actually the, uh, exposure towards a lot of the civil liberties stuff that you're talking about, right? In terms of free speech, in terms of the freedom of assembly and, and, um, in the world that we live in today with social media platforms and kind of access to information, we get to see, maybe it's not as, um, you know, kind of open and free and democratic a- as we like to think of ourselves, right?

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And I thought our Rocket's statement was, was really good and it, and it, uh, it ended with, you know, Martin Luther King's quote, which I think is maybe one of the best ever, which isn't justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And, you know, if you're gonna have justice, you gotta have voting systems, you gotta have court systems, you gotta have freedom of speech, you gotta have freedom of press, has been a real issue in the last few days, um. And and so all the like, people take a lot of infrastructure for granted. And we do more or less have it in in the United States. But that infrastructure is critical if you're going to try and create a way for people to flourish in the United States and around the world.

• 26:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and and obviously for you, it's a little bit of a weird situation, right? In the sense of you can speak for Daryl, you can speak for the Rockets. And then there's the NBA stuff. And and obviously, there was the tweet that you had and kind of all of the the chaos, I think, around that. How did that experience change the way you think now about? When you speak out on things, especially in the United States? And and you know, you donate money, which is to me always like, that's the ultimate act of support. Right? It's like.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  I think actually, to be fair, I've thought about that a lot because I donate a lot of money. I'm very lucky to have it. I mean, like, not obviously. I actually think the ultimate act is donating your time. And that's incredibly hard for certain people. But I would put donating your time, one, and then money, two, just me personally, as I've thought about it.

• 27:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Fair. So donate time, then money, and then kind of all the talk comes after that. Yeah, and I guess just the experience with the the original tweet around Hong Kong and all of that. Like, how has that changed the way that you think about voicing, you know, the the things that you care about, really?

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, in terms of like, the issues I care about, those haven't changed. And, you know, I do know lots of people around the world that haven't graduated from MIT, where like forty percent of of my class is is overseas and and and in a lot of key places and financial centers and places like that. So it does give you a big worldview. Plus, with my job, I'm very fortunate to travel to a massive number of countries. Because one of the great things about the NBA is how multicultural it is. How, you know, great players come from, you know, from all over the world. Dallas, you know, having multiple ones, you know, the the recent young stars that, you know, Dallas stole from New York. So in terms of what has changed, it's really just maybe.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  You know, I, I would speak up on lots of issues, mostly civil liberties. Uh, and you know, I always hoped that they would make an impact. Uh, but then obviously, uh, recently one made a big impact and, uh, you know, I think, uh, there's just a general awareness of, um, you know, the, the, that the, the potential for impact is, is even bigger than I understood. Yeah, that, that's part of the beauty and the curse of, of the social platforms, right? Yeah, I think it's mostly a beauty, uh, but it, it can be a curse if used poorly. I think there's some very prominent examples using their social media poorly lately, so, um,

• 29:09Speaker 01

  and, and, and to be very, uh, somewhat controversial, like I, I am very nervous about how social media, you know, either regulation by government or regulation by themselves or regulation by the crowd could lead to suboptimal outcomes. I think a lot of people want easy answers to why is, why are people allowed to tweet this and their real material issue there is because like bad info does spread faster. I mean, I think, you know, that's been established in the past, but I think people feel it and know it even more now. Um, and people want easy answers. They want like, I don't like what that guy's saying. I want it

• 29:49Speaker 01

  down, but the ACLU has was founded on, you know, um, making sure that people can say what they mean and let the competition of ideas, and that's an oversimplified view, but social media companies have more of a responsibility to handle this and do things like damp down how quickly negative viral info maybe spreads. But some of the, some of the easy solutions that people want, which is like that they're removed, um, and things like that, I think are almost as dangerous as the bad information itself.

• 30:24Anthony Pompliano?

  You know, look, I spent a couple of years in the military and I know either your father or grandfather did as well. And one of the things that

• 30:30Speaker 01

  My father, yeah.

• 30:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And so one of the things that always, I think people don't realize is a lot of guys, I was in the military, some all guys always would say is like, look, part of the beauty of free speech is I actually did something so that you have the right to say things I disagree with. Right? Like, like, that is the whole point of free speech is that it's not whether I agree with it or not, it's just that you can say what you want to say.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  When I try to preserve that culture of the Rockets, I don't think good decisions are made until you have passionate people. Hopefully, you know, as smart as you can, as smart and informed as you can. Getting to something where each of them disagree because that's where the learning happens. You don't really learn anything. Until two people who thought deeply about an issue come to a different answer. That could be with draft picks, free agents, or it could be with how to handle tweets that aren't the best tweets that are out there. Until you have that disagreement, there's no opportunity for learning. So we have a pretty combative culture. And, you know, and I've heard that Microsoft is similar and some of these other great companies where I've studied.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  People from there and talked to them. I do think you want very passionate people who come to strong opinions, although weakly held, meaning if they hear something that's better, they'll quickly shift. But you want them coming in, having thought about it, and you get to better answers that way. But if you start to push down dissent by not letting people put out things that are potentially offensive or potentially that don't agree with you, that's, that's worse than letting it, you know, unfortunately, get to maybe the wrong people and have it create bad outcomes because you're trying to create a system that lasts for a long time. And I think the United States at its founding

• 32:18Speaker 01

  created probably the best system that's ever been designed. Now, you could come up with better if charter cities happen or charter countries happen, as people are talking about, but but you want to look at that infrastructure and make sure that the Bill of Rights is preserved. And the basic freedoms are preserved because otherwise you could, you can steer a whole country into ditch pretty quickly. And I think you've seen how that's happened to some countries around the world.

• 32:45Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. You not only are a big proponent of data and analytics, but also of just technology in general. Two technologies I want to talk about, one is the SpaceX launch just happened, and then we'll get to Bitcoin itself. But just, I saw you tweeting a bunch about SpaceX and the launch, and I didn't know that one of the astronauts up at the ISS is a Rockets fan. So kind of talk a little bit about what that experience was like watching.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's amazing. So Chris Cassidy, who I joke with, he's a good friend, he's a Rockets fan. He's actually from Boston originally. He, I call him the most, there's been more invested in him than any person on the planet by the United States government. He's a Navy SEAL, and he's an astronaut. So you can imagine the level of investment we put in this guy. And we've gotten 100X what we put in. The guy is like, I always feel like completely lame compared to him when I'm around him, because he's so amazing. And yeah, he's up in space again, his third time. He's gonna be there for, I think, about six months. He just welcomed the SpaceX crew. He had to launch off Soyuz every time he's been up, because we did not

• 33:51Speaker 01

  have a launch vehicle, which was sort of a bit of a national embarrassment. So credit to SpaceX and Elon Musk for putting that together. I don't, it doesn't feel like they're getting enough credit. Honestly, the government got a little bit more abund with the space program. And, you know, thank goodness for the entrepreneurs of this country and around the world for pushing innovation in that area. And, and it was, to me, it was a great moment. It was, it showed like, well, we can still do. And, and then we're gonna go to the moon, and then, and then Mars, which I think, you know, even though you can definitely argue the spending there maybe isn't optimal, I think you need to, one thing that humans

• 34:36Speaker 01

  really, really do well, and helps us advance as, as a civilization, is having these sort of big, big projects that push technology forward, push hope forward, push dreaming forward. I think that money is very, very well spent, even though it's, it's obviously significant. And you could argue it could go to social programs and things like that.

• 35:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's one of these things where, you know, look, we've launched people to space before, right? But the fact that a private company has now done it at a much lower cost and the way that they do it, you really are building the foundation for, as you mentioned, moon, the Mars and all this kind of stuff. And I saw a bunch of videos online of, you know, young kids, right? I mean, we're talking 10 or 10 years or younger, watching America launch people into space. And you could just tell, like, look, these kids are into it, right? And maybe they don't want to go do rocket launches or be astronauts. But if we can get them to be into science and technology and innovation, like, that ultimately is a net positive for not only the United States, but globally for innovation in general.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, this, I'll be frank, like, this time period feels like the same. I didn't live in the 60s, but I always asked my dad about it. Because he'd study in history. I was like, Ted, you had like, the civil rights movement, the space program, the assassination of a president, Vietnam, you know, like, it seemed like so much was happening in the 60s. I was always like, asking him, what was it like being in the middle of, and he had a Cold War, people thought they were gonna, like, it was crazy to me, when he talked about the 60s. Honestly, the 60s still are crushing now. As much as, like, you know, people want this time to be crazy, the 60s was way more crazy, in my opinion. You know, even with this pandemic, which was pretty, pretty predictable, and I was getting a lot

• 36:27Speaker 01

  of shit from my friends for, like, hoarding in late December, because I thought, I mean, there's gonna be a pandemic that could be really, really bad, where, like, young people die, and a high percentage die. And that was a real possibility, that something I worried about, and I'm sure many others have worried about. And early on, we didn't know how bad the virus was gonna be. So I was like, stacking of food, thinking we might lose electricity. I was like, one of these crazy, I was like, why not? Like, it's a precautionary principle. And then when, when, when we learned more about it, I was less worried. I thought we would just be in this period, which is tragic, because of all the people who died. But it's,

• 37:10Speaker 01

  it's definitely less tragic than other pandemics in history. So anyway, long, long answer that, like, it feels like this is probably gonna be the most crazy time of, you know, since I was born in the early 70s, and closest to the 60s that I've seen.

• 37:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Based on what you just said, would we put you in the prepper category? Or was it more of a just response to this specific virus?

• 37:35Speaker 01

  I don't have the money to be one of those create like super preppers where they have like a they have like a silo like Hugh Howie's book wall like they have like a silo already picked out and stuff and an island they're gonna get helicoptered to but uh but no, I mean I'm a prepper in that I'm a pretty long range thinker. I've always tried to be a couple moves ahead, don't always succeed, but I try to be. Um, so I actually, when I was doing the hoarding and my wife was like getting pissed at me because I was bringing home like canned goods and stuff that we'll just never eat if we don't. I was like, well, yeah, if the supply chain goes, we're gonna need this. Like, she's like, why don't we place a store it? What are you doing?

• 38:16Speaker 01

  And so, um, yeah, I, I'd probably be 90%. I'm like two Z's on the prepper, but not the four Z's like the Silicon Valley guys.

• 38:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I'm just imagining you walking in every day with canned beans and then bags of rice and

• 38:30Speaker 01

  I literally canned beans and bag of rice because I was like, well, if we lose the supply chain, I think about this stuff. I'm in Vegas a lot because we play a lot of basketball, there. Vegas to me, if the power went out in Vegas, it would be the zombie apocalypse in like 36 hours. Like, the infrastructure, like, humans can't live in Vegas, really, without like so much infrastructure that makes it like this crazy place that we put a a whole society. Like, the water would go quick, it's too hot, the, you know, nothing works. None of that infrastructure will work unless we have our basic utilities. And if that goes, which it could go in a pandemic and a major power outage, like, it would

• 39:12Speaker 01

  get ugly in Vegas fast. Like, that kind of, that's the kind of crazy stuff I think about.

• 39:18Anthony Pompliano?

  You're probably not wrong. Um, you, you also, uh, spent a lot of time thinking about financial markets, right? Either both personally or just because there's so much analytics and and data there. Um, maybe just give us a quick overview of like how you've thought about the economic crisis that's come off the back of, uh, coronavirus and then we can, uh, get into, uh, your, your deep interest in the, in Bitcoin specifically.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I've been fortunate, like I thought the market was pretty overbought, like you don't know. So I'm mostly dollar cost averaging in because the reality is the one thing I know is that I have no idea. I don't have time to study this, maybe you do. So I'm mostly like a boggle, just ETF dollar cost average in and like, don't worry about it because I don't have time, but it hit where I thought it was too expensive where I was just like, you know, holding Bitcoin and holding, uh, holding like cash basically because didn't have any other idea what to do. And so, you know, when this hit, um, it was tragic, but I was like, well, even though I don't know what's going to happen and it could have had a lot of inflection points,

• 40:22Speaker 01

  way worse and still could honestly, like it's, we're still in the middle of this. Uh, I thought it was a buying opportunity, so I used it as a time to get in, which has so far been right, but again, this, I mean, the economic devastation at the ground level was so significant and so severe. And obviously the market's looking multiple years out and, and in an irrational and rational way. Um, it, it, you know, right now it looks good, but this thing could still go down significantly. I'm not betting in any material way right now. I don't feel like I have any idea. I generally don't sell winners because I don't want the tax impact. Hopefully this isn't super boring, but this is like, yeah, and I'm in a lot of hedge funds as you, I like, so I,

• 41:06Speaker 01

  I try to learn from all the analytics guys on Wall Street because they have, you know, we have very good people, but they have as good, maybe better, maybe in the same range. And so, you know, I work a lot with a lot of these market neutral hedge funds. Um, and then a lot of their problems are very, they're hard, they actually have harder problems than us. Like trying to predict markets and time series with multiple sophisticated uh, actors is, is actually much harder to forecast. The only thing that's different is if you beat the S and P consistently by 5%, everyone loves you. If I beat the S and P average by 5%, I'm like the seventh seed and I lose in the first round. So I have to take more risks than basketball.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  But, uh, generally, um, yeah, I, you know, just, uh, just popping off. I don't know if I answered your question. Hopefully I did.

• 41:54Anthony Pompliano?

  No, no, I, I think people are just fascinated by, especially given your, uh, interest so much in data analytics in sports, right? That perspective on the finance markets are really interesting. When was the first time you ever heard about Bitcoin? You remember?

• 42:08Speaker 01

  It was a long time ago, and in fact, I laughed because I, when I first was at the, I'm pretty sure it was in 11. I had a tweet, so I probably was, I probably had a position in 2010 in Bitcoin. I'm almost certain because in 2011, as a giveaway, so we have this open ideas line at the rocket. It's just ideas at rockabel.com. People can still use it. Um, where if people just want to send us ideas, well, look, who knows? And to get people to do it, I gave away one, like 1.0 Bitcoin back when it was like $4? I don't know. I just thought it was like, why not? It'd be fun and it'll get like, I figured the right people who would give us good answers on ideas were probably the people ahead and like looking at things like Bitcoin.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  So I gave away one Bitcoin in 2011 and when Bitcoin was like 25 grand, I was tweeting like, well, yeah, the idea we got was not worth 25 grand.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  So yeah, I've been using, I mean, I've been using it so long. I'm in the Japanese bankruptcy case because I was an idiot. This is actually how dumb I was at the beginning on the security of it. And that's something people became more aware in the last five years, six years, was I, I wanted to hold my Bitcoin on exchange because it was like, well, what if my computer died or whatever? And obviously if you have the passwords, you're fine, but whatever. Um, I was putting it on, you know, MTG Ox, like Mt. Gox, right? So I was like this and it, I didn't know until they were hacked that that was actually originally a Magic the Gathering exchange. Like I had no idea. I didn't know. I had just read like, hey, if you want to trade Bitcoin, go to this MTG Ox.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  I didn't do any research. I mean, at the time, honestly, I'm holding like, who knows? Like, I don't even remember like 50 to 150 Bitcoin at $5. Like, who cares? Like, I didn't really give a shit at the time. I, I was just holding it because why not? I wanted to like, understand it more or less. And then, uh, and then obviously things, things took off from there. And the one thing that made me really intrigued about Bitcoin, I can tell you initially is I have a lot of economist friends. They all hated it and that made me more intrigued than anything. I was like, I was like, wait a minute. I've thought a lot about money. It really is just a means of exchange. And if you really think deeply about money, it's really messed up.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Like, it makes no sense that it works at some level. It only works because everyone says it works. That's true of all money. Whether it be, you know, government issued money or Bitcoin, it only works because everyone agrees it works. But at any moment that could end, that's true of all money. But if you talk to economists, they had developed so many theories and methods about what it had to be, that they couldn't get out of their own headspace, honestly. And I was like, all it is is a technology. And it's a technology that facilitates exchange. It, you don't have to call it money. Call it something else. Like, it's a technology that facilitates exchange.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  So it doesn't fit all your theories. That's your problem. That's not, that's not this. It's like a technology platform for exchange. It's not supposed to handle like money supply and it's not supposed to handle all that. They, they totally, in my mind, didn't understand it, which made me way more intrigued. I love, you know, I think anyone who gets into Bitcoin or you're, you're naturally constrained and you have to fight it sometimes because sometimes you just do things because you just want to be different. Uh, but in this case, I felt pretty good that they were off.

• 45:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Now, when you bought Bitcoin in 2010, 2011, did you go tell them that you bought it as kind of like, uh, when, when this works, I'm going to come back and remind you of this conversation?

• 45:52Speaker 01

  I thought it in my head, but like, whenever you say that, you like the karma, you know, the karma comes back. So, um, I've met, you know, like, Thaler is like a big guy that I've mentioned. He still thinks it's all idiotic and going to crash. So, I mean, whatever. My favorite was that Goldman Sachs report was like, it was like, you know, it was like someone, they unearthed someone from 2014 and was like, write a report. It was, it was pretty entertaining, actually, uh, to, to read that thing. So.

• 46:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Look, I, I think it's kind of one of these things where if you're sitting at a large investment bank and you know that you're going to write a negative report on an asset, what do you do? You go to kind of the comments, the, you know, the lowest common denominator arguments that the older, uh, wealthy clients that you have that are going to watch will immediately just say, yeah, of course that's right. You know, they, they just kind of buy into that because they haven't heard them, uh, dispelled yet, I guess, right?

• 46:50Speaker 01

  Well, and I'd almost agree with them. That it's probably not the investment for most people like you have to know what you're getting into and why. So yeah, no, I would not recommend it for most people. I'd have to ask them their investment goals and what are they trying to achieve? And what are their plans for it before I could recommend it or not? But yeah, I, I wouldn't think, you, you know, I don't think it's necessarily everyone should have it as part of a diversified portfolio, which is also bullshit. But, but, but I, I have it because I, I think it's a, I think it's a strong potential future platform. And generally all the issues that people see with it, you usually using technology can, can improve over time.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Put layers on top of it, all those things that people are already doing. And I don't want to pass myself off as a Bitcoin expert because it's probably clear I'm not even based on how I'm talking. But I, I am pretty good at like, you know, gambling. I, I, I like to put markers down on all future technology because the history is like, everyone writes it off early and then it improves over time. All the Clay Christians and stuff is pretty true with new technologies.

• 48:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And then I guess the last part of this is there, there's the technology aspect. There's the, you know, money or economy side, but also there's a big overlap between Bitcoin and, you know, all the civil liberty type stuff that you really care about. And you mentioned earlier, kind of this idea of free money, not in the sense of cost, but in terms of freedom to the, the money. Maybe talk a little bit about how you think about that.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. And actually I was going to ask you a question on that, which is, um, one thing that would really help the world is an unblockable satellite driven internet. And I've heard, and I, I'm curious if you've done more research into this. I've done only the very high level cursory because I want it to happen, but I've never read anything reliable, which is, is that coming? Is it online? Like if we could get an internet that where someone in a failed state could bypass the infrastructure in their country by going to a satellite internet that's more free and open. Is that close? Cause if that's close, that then Bitcoin's got another inflection point right there.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Cause you can bypass your home country's issues.

• 49:13Anthony Pompliano?

  So I'll answer this in two ways and I'll be kind of a little cagey on the second half. But on the first half is the simplest answer is while it isn't the quote unquote internet, there are people who will write into the blocks on, let's say, the Bitcoin or the Ethereum blockchain. Right? So we saw in the past, there was like a Chinese dissident who wrote some things into the Ethereum blockchain. I think it was, and they basically were trying to make a record immutable, right? And if I remember all the details correctly, it was like something like there was a sexual assault case at a university. They felt like the government was trying to cover it up. They write it into the blockchain. Anyone in the world can go and read it.

• 49:51Anthony Pompliano?

  So like there's that type of stuff, which is less internet functionality and more of just a way to keep an immutable record of a specific message. Then there's also a number of companies that are doing all kinds of different things. And so a couple are things like unstoppable domains. You've got this company Namebase, you've got an entire protocol called Handshake. And what they all are doing in their own various kind of methodology is trying to create an unsensible internet. Right? And the way that they do it is a little bit different each way. But really what you end up doing is you end up rebuilding all of the functionality and all the layers that make the internet, the internet.

• 50:33Anthony Pompliano?

  You just do it in a way where now it's got decentralized ownership and no one government can step in and take it down. You can imagine that's awesome when you look at it from the civil liberties lens and kind of all of these authoritarian countries and stuff. Obviously, on the other side, there's plenty of people who, you know, that scares the hell out of them, right? And they're like, oh, my God, every, you know, child pornographer is going to go and use this and, you know, the world's going to end. Right? And so, you know, there's, there's probably weight in both arguments. But at the same time, you know, the internet's been a net positive for the world. I think it's pretty hard to argue against that and there's still people who do bad things on it. And, you know, we should stop them and kind of all of that. But I do think that we will see some sort of internet like that.

• 51:16Anthony Pompliano?

  The big question is just do consumers adopt it, right? I always go to like, you and I aren't going to go do you something that's decentralized just because it's decentralized. It's got to be a better product experience than the centralized version of it.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Right, and it seems like, and maybe you were alluding to this, the key thing is, you've got to be able to get some ability to flow zeros and ones to a household that is, you know, using some electromagnetic spectrum that's unblockable. That's like the basic thing you need, and I don't, again, I don't know how close we are to that, because without that, people in, yeah, failed states can, can be, you know, that don't have civil liberties can be blocked, right, can be, can be kept off of the blockchains or whatever technology you might want to talk about.

• 52:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and the way that I look at it, and maybe this is the right way, maybe it's not just the way I've used, is if you think of Bitcoin as that exchange of value type platform, right? It's very similar to building other types of technologies for other use cases, but you use same blockchain type stuff. You know, one of the examples that really caught my eye was in Venezuela. Everyone always likes to talk about like the failed currency and all of that, but there was actually at one point a nationwide shutdown of the electrical grid. And I think it was only for a couple of days, and this is maybe like two years ago, year and a half ago. And somebody basically had a generator at their home. They were able to get their electricity back on through the generator, and then they were able to make a connection.

• 52:53Anthony Pompliano?

  And I can't remember if it was through a mesh network or a satellite, but somehow they were able to get access to the Bitcoin network, and they confirmed a transaction, right? They actually were able to do it. And so their whole thing was like, look, in a traditional society, you know, like in, let's say, Las Vegas, if the power goes down and you want to access money, you actually are dependent on the national grid or the citywide grid to get access to your bank, to the ATM, whatever it is. Here, as long as you yourself can get access to the internet, you don't have to be relying on anybody else, because you can get out to this network that's running everywhere else. And so again, like, that's such an edge case that I think a lot of people write that off, and they're like, oh, that's not important. But when you then apply it to that functionality, to so many different, you know, positions.

• 53:38Anthony Pompliano?

  In life, whether you're an authoritarian government or the power grid goes out or actually you just want accessibility, right? How many currencies fail around the world and people want dollars but can't get them? Right? To be able to literally just use an internet connection to get access to a currency is pretty powerful by itself. And so, you know, I'm with you. I think that this is, uh, the writings on the wall, like we're headed that direction. The big question is, you know, what technologies win? What companies win? How long does it take? All of those details really matter because that's ultimately, you know, what determines the winners. But trend wise, I think this is, uh, this is kind of a foregone conclusion.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, we sort of know and I, I make that point a lot to, to people even in the NBA where I say, you know, they'll ask me about the Elam ending, which is like, uh, you know, it's just, it's honestly just a better ending to a basketball game. You don't have all the weird time distortions and they go like, yeah, do you see them in the NBA? And I'm like, yeah, I mean, I don't know when, but like, I, like, why in a hundred years? There's no chance in a hundred years. We're not finishing the games better. We're not doing one free throw like we do at the D. Like all these basic changes for sure. They're going to happen. It's just like, we just don't know exactly what year, exactly what it'll get approved. But you know, for sure. And it was like early on when we were at the Rockets, like we already knew that three pointers were much better to shoot.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  And, you know, on our D league team, we were shooting like 70 of them some games. So it's like, you knew directionally, this was where the league was going to go. It was just like how fast and when you're going to be there. I think that's, uh, you know, that's something, that's something that you learn from chess. Like sometimes when you're studying chess positions, you don't really actually worry about which moves get you there. But you say like, okay, if you can get that piece there, you know, that's going to be optimal. And, and I think that's, that's how, when I think about the future, because if you look at a lot of the prediction markets and you look at a lot of the, the people who use Brier scores and the people who are systematic about how well they're, they're, they're at forecasting.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  You realize that really nobody's very good at it in any time period past like two to three years. But you can, you can say like, Look, I know it's gonna look like we're gonna have robot cars that takes us around. I mean, I'm mad because I Ubered everywhere, right? So I was like Uber's, I didn't have a car. I was Uber's number one client. I'm probably not gonna Uber for a little while. And we knew that the human Ubers were gonna get replaced by robot Ubers. You knew that was gonna happen. It just didn't happen fast enough. I needed it faster so I could, now I'm gonna have to buy a car, which I don't wanna do at all. I'm gonna have to buy a damn car, which I don't want. So I'm pissed that the robot Ubers didn't come fast enough for me.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Um, but we know that, we know that in the future, for sure, everyone's just gonna get in a robot Uber. And that's gonna happen. Is it 10 years? I don't know. Is it 15? Is it 20? But everyone's gonna be taking robot Ubers everywhere.

• 56:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and, and I think part of this is, uh, you know, whether it's Bitcoin, whether it's robot Ubers, or, or the way the NBA games end. It's like when you know that that's the foregone conclusion, uh, there is a sense of frustration because it's not here today. Uh, but also there's, uh, the work that needs to be done, right? And that, and going back to kind of the SpaceX and entrepreneur type stuff. To me at least, it's like, look, I'm glad somebody's working on that stuff, right? Because I'm not gonna go build it. You're not gonna go build it, but I sure wanna ride in one. That, that's gonna be awesome.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think all the time I'm wasting my time working on a round ball that bounces. And I mean, I try to make myself feel better that it's all for entertainment, which is important. At the end of the day, I think it's all about being happy. I've been, and people make that oversimplified. But if you study the Greek philosophers, like being happy has a, has a regimented structure, basically. And so if we can, if we can make people happy, and maybe basketball is part of that. But sometimes, you know, and I think, you know, all the people working in the NBA, when, when big events happen, like is happening in the country now, you go, you know what? Here I am, working on an orange ball that gets bounced, and maybe, maybe I could be doing different things.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  But, uh, but, uh, you know, luckily, luckily, I love what I do, so it's pretty.

• 57:48Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. I've got three questions to wrap up. One's from somebody in the audience and then two that ask everybody. The first is the move from the kind of big man era of the NBA into more of the three-point era that you mentioned. Do you feel like that has increased or decreased the entertainment value of the NBA? Like, how do you think about that from the fan experience?

• 58:12Speaker 01

  Well, I can ask for myself and the league office. I know from a league perspective, they think it's increased it greatly. I think that survey-wise consistently, what fans want is the greatest athletes in the world, which I do think the NBA has. We pay the most. We get the greatest. We just do. I think people see that. They want to see them making plays that humans really shouldn't be able to make on a court in amazing ways. And in our amazing game and close games, hopefully, that's what they want to see. So, open court play, transition play, that's increased over time.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  The spacing again allows our athletes to make these athletic, amazing finishes at the basket. So, in terms of like surveying in the league office, I know that people think it's much better. I share that view. I've seen all the counter arguments and generally you look at any, any major sport that has been around for a while. You have, you have analysts who are going to figure out and coaches and everyone who are going to figure out like, here's a, here's a way to play that's better than another way. And generally, the right answer is like, do the thing that works until someone stops you.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  And so, you know, I think people are feeling like maybe there's a homogeneity in how we're playing. I don't share that, but I at least understand the argument.

• 59:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Do you think more NBA players could go play in the NFL or more NFL players would, could come and play in the NBA? And the reason I ask is this is the greatest debate my friends and I had growing up, which was which league could send more to the other league and be successful?

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I'm biased, so it's sort of unfair to ask, but I think it's not, I honestly don't think it's close. The NBA, you know, could send for, for, basically what, the way, the evidence of that would be pretty straightforward. There's a very, there's a very few number of people on this earth who can play at a pro level in multiple sports. I mean, you have to be five standard deviations to the right to make a pro sport. But if you are one of these unique guys, you could play multiple and people know him from history. Almost always they're gonna choose basketball, career longevity, money, uh, career, you know, money off the court and on the court. I mean, it's just massive. So when they have

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  a marginal choice, which a lot of them do, like which one they're gonna commit to, they almost always choose the NBA.

• 1:00:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, of course, you would have a data-driven argument back. I love it. What's the most, what's the most important book that you've ever read?

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Most important book I've ever read is not even close, actually, and it's somewhat embarrassing in that, you know, since I've gone to business school, everyone like thinks it's a shitty book. But I, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I read that. When I was young, I was like not a good student in high school. I was a bit of a troublemaker. And, you know, and I, I honestly read this book at the right time when I was in my early twenties and, you know, it, it basically takes a lot of like other people's writing, whether it be historic philosophical figures or even Ben Franklin and Victor Frankl and basically steals all their ideas but puts it into one book and does it in a very good

• 1:01:40Speaker 01

  way. And I read it at the right time for me and it's been pretty good underpinning. And the nice thing is it's a whole, it's wholesome too. It says, you know, basically be good to your neighbor is a big message there, so.

• 1:01:51Anthony Pompliano?

  I love it. Last question is a fun one. Aliens, believer or non-believer and why?

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  I think it's almost no question there's aliens. I mean, it seems like almost impossible there isn't. Um, even if you say, you know, the Drake equation, I think of there's a Drake.

• 1:02:12Anthony Pompliano?

  For me paradox, yeah, Drake equation, Drake equation.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  And then what's the equation? I forget the.

• 1:02:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Drake.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Oh, Drake, I got it right. Okay. It's been a while since I've thought about it. Um. Yeah, but but that that's only in the known universe. Like, there could be, I mean, like, if you're saying aliens and and by aliens, are you saying like? Life form of some level of intelligence of ours or greater. Um, it seems like almost a hundred percent there. Like, it doesn't. Now, if we're inside of a simulation, which I think is sadly a reasonable probability, as much as I'm a computer science guy, I don't love the idea where live, but you have to. Say that's got a pretty likely probability. Then I think then you're at a hundred percent with that, too, because someone made the simulation. So I I don't know. I.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  I would say extremely high. Now, can they get here and will we ever meet them? Who knows?

• 1:03:07Anthony Pompliano?

  I I've asked this question to, you know, over three hundred people, and it always is funny to me. The people who have thought about it before have the best answers, and it's almost always. Uh, one, data driven, uh, in terms of something, you know, hey, the universe is so big. But, uh, two is they've gone down the rabbit holes like the simulations, or, uh, do we want to meet them? Or should we go find them before they find us? And, you know, you kind of get into.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  A lot of that science fiction on that and and and there's there's pretty good evidence that we don't want to meet them. Uh, I think that's I think that's the preponderance of the evidence is on. We probably don't want to meet the aliens. Uh, but but, yeah, I've sadly thought. I think anyone who's like a truth seeker, who's science driven, you at least are contemplating all these questions at some point in your life. For better or worse, what's the best? There's no aliens argument. I've I've yet to hear one.

• 1:03:59Anthony Pompliano?

  I'll give you a serious one and then a ridiculous one. A guy Josh Brown from Ritz Hold's Wealth Management came on and said that it's more likely that ghosts are real than aliens. And I almost, I almost shut down the interview and threw him out. That's ridiculous. But no, probably the best argument. It's like the simple argument, right? It's just like, hey, we've got tons of technology. Humans been around for a really long time. And we can't prove that they're there. So like, until there's some signal or some sign of it, you know, then the likelihood has to be low. Again, you know, you can kind of pick holes in it pretty quickly. I'm biased because I think they're aliens. But I think that

• 1:04:41Anthony Pompliano?

  that's probably the, the best argument, although it's not a great one, right? It's just like, hey, until we find them, then, you know, we can speculate all we want.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  So have you taken the time? So apparently there was some alien encounter. It looked like clickbaits. I didn't even like spend the time to look at that. Like, was that anything? It seemed like it had to be nonsense. I didn't even read it.

• 1:05:04Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. So in, don't hold me to the exact details, but in like 2015, of course Reddit, somehow, these videos started to go viral on Reddit of, you know, quote unquote UFOs. And they were, you know, kind of weird things moving through the air. And, you know, if you want to really kind of investigate them, it would be very easy to dismiss it. But if you wanted to believe, then, you know, hey, aliens were already here type thing. And so those videos, eventually, people started to say they came from the Department of Defense. And, you know, there was kind of all the conspiracies running wild. Those are the videos that were just released during the middle of the pandemic. They were confirmed

• 1:05:46Anthony Pompliano?

  by, basically by the US government saying, hey, these are authentic. Now,

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  Meaning they were from the video recording capture of a actual fighter pilot or something?

• 1:05:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Exactly. So basically saying, hey, you know, these videos were recorded by military personnel. Yes, the audio is authentic and all of that. What is

• 1:06:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Interesting about it is, one, the reaction wasn't nearly what you would expect because people had already seen the videos before. So it was kind of like the error had been taken out of it a little bit. But two is, the only thing that I always kind of go back to with the whole UFO thing is, I'm interested in the truth behind it because it's a physics problem, right? The whole idea is that it's a UFO because they can't explain the physical movement of the object. And so, you know, there was a period in time where we didn't understand what you and I consider modern physics today, right? And over time, scientific process worked and we figured it out.

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  Understand physics.

• 1:06:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Right, but like at some point, we'll have better understanding, better understanding. And maybe we'll be able to explain it at that point when we have, you know, more knowledge. Or maybe it will still continue to be this thing that we can't explain. And so, you know, to me, it's one fascinating that the government chose in the middle of the pandemic to decide that, hey, now we're gonna say this is authentic. But two is, look, there's video of something that, you know, people way smarter than me can't explain. And so, either it means that we've got to learn more to explain it. Or two, you know, there's something out there that has quote unquote, "visited." I'm not ready to go that far, but there's video.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  I may, I may have to look at it. I'm sure someone on Reddit has done this, or someone analyzed, make sure it's not some deep, deep fake. Or, you know, and, and that it does violate at least apparently some sort of physics that we think we understand.

• 1:07:39Anthony Pompliano?

  So the, the one that I heard, and I think there's three or four videos. I basically spent, you know, half an hour looking at one of them and kind of the pilot and what they said and audio, what the government said and all this kind of stuff. And essentially what happened is, in some weird way, it's going in one direction and then immediately goes in a different direction with such velocity and acceleration, that they're just like, look.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  The G would be like insane, but.

• 1:08:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Doesn't have to, it doesn't have to have anything that would be sensitive to G.

• 1:08:12Anthony Pompliano?

  So that's the other piece of it is not only, if I remember correctly, not only is the the change of direction, the velocity, the acceleration, so kind of, you know, eye catching, but also then there's no exhaust. So kind of like what what's actually driving the the movement? Again, I I'm not an expert, so I I kind of like.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  There's a lot of things like, you know, David, you know, Penn and Teller stuff where like, you know, there's two of them when it appears there's one and I just seem like I wasn't gonna learn anything, so I didn't look at it. So maybe I maybe I should have.

• 1:08:48Anthony Pompliano?

  I will I will say that out of everything I've ever seen on the aliens, UFOs, all this kind of stuff that that really just had me thinking is there's this gentleman Bob Lazar. He's been on, you know, Joe Rogan, he's got a Netflix documentary that was eventually made, whatever. I don't know if there's been any kind of counter arguments to him, but he essentially says that he worked at Area 51 and gives like pretty detailed overview from a very scientific standpoint of they were doing research on things that they couldn't explain. So not necessarily going as far as like, hey, you know, there's aliens, but just saying, look, there's, you know, things that moved in the air that we had in our possession that we couldn't explain

• 1:09:30Anthony Pompliano?

  how they did what they did. And to me, like, that's a much more realistic view of, you know, how science works than just like, oh, I think I saw an alien because there's a light in the sky. Like, you know.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  Oh, wait till it's in Scientific American or something.

• 1:09:47Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. Well, listen, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Where can people go find out more about you and the work that you guys are doing with the Rockets?

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, just obviously Twitter does D-Mori, so pretty, pretty easy. D-M-O-R-I-Y is where I'm the most active, for better or worse, so.

• 1:10:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome. Well, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. You've been you've been fantastic in terms of your viewpoint of the world, so keep it up.

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  And the Rockets, obviously, it's Houston Rockets Twitter, so. But appreciate it, and I don't know if I'd have done if I'd done the Yankees app, but it's all good. I enjoy other stuff. I appreciate having me on so much. Thank you.