How to Get Rich in 2025! $25M Property Portfolio vs $560M Startup - Real Estate or Business? Jack Henderson vs Charlie Gearside Debate!

Most people have no idea what the fuck they're doing in their own life. So if they make dumb personal decisions, imagine what it's like in business. Things are completely fine, things are growing, until they're not. The market will correct itself. Whatever mistakes had been made will be fixed. Pretty easy to say that when you've built the empire, the people that are two or three properties and are absolutely over the heads, they're not going to walk away, Scott Freelo. You're 18 years old right now. Like, what is the best way that I can grow my wealth and be set up for success in life? What is that? The property boats past. The size of the deposit is massive. 5% for a 30 grand. You need more than 30 grand to start a business. No, I don't think so. I think today's the best time in history to start a business. That's not the decision most 18-year-olds are making. Should I buy a house or should I start a business? The average first home buyer is 37. The fuck are they doing from 18 to 37? It's like, if you are born into a location, you buy where you can afford. Yeah, and what's the impact of people not being able to live near their family? The societal cost. That's called life. It's not life though, like life can be better. Don't you think that life is more interesting when you don't have enclaves of like the super rich people and then everyone else sort of has to live 100Ks from the beach? Not really, no. Regardless if it's property or not property, people in Australia hate people that are successful. And that's why I hold out so much hope for this like generation coming through is that they're starting to wake up. Australia's economy is geared towards real estate regardless if you like it or not. Right now, your start a business, that's the fact. You've clicked on this video and you're asking yourself the question, how do I get ahead in 2025? There are so many options and so many people talk about the wealth that's created in property or the wealth that's created in business. But what is the better option? Today I have Charlie Geasside, a founder of Eucalyptus with over hundreds of millions of dollars and Jack Henderson notoriously known for his over $30 million property portfolio. We get deep in the debate, how do you get ahead in 2025? Is it property or business? Where I want to start, set the scene. Charlie, who are you and what do you do? That's a great question. Well, I'm unemployed at the moment, so there's the start. I suppose I'm a founder of companies. One I started six, seven years ago, Eucalyptus has done all right. And before that was a creative director, software developer. And now I've become a passionate person on the internet that has lots of opinions. So, yeah, some resume has both. That's perfect. Jack, who are you? What do you do? Mate, I'm a man of the people, really, if I was to summarize it in one word. I'm a passionate property advocate and, yeah, I run a few businesses. And I haven't made the rich list yet and unfortunately left that off his resume. So, in this rebuttal today, yeah, just... If there was an asset rich list, I'm sure you'd feel. Just remember that. Everything I say is unfounded because I haven't made your rich list and the other guy has. So, I want to start with you, Charlie. There's no two ways around it. Australia is obsessed with property. Why is that a problem? We are obsessed with property. I mean, apart from it being, I think, increasingly boring, especially for my, like, primetime Channel 9 viewing habits, it's just... it's serving us. It's sort of like we're at the end of the lifespan of Australia's sort of... of how much wealth we can squeeze out of property and the future is looking bleak for our kids, our grandchildren. Basically, you know, the mine is dry and Australia's property obsession, it's going to come home to roost in the next decade or two. Why is that? Well, basically, our economy is hollowing out in front of us. We're not really... We have this industry of... We've got a primary industry of mining and agriculture. We've got this tertiary industry of knowledge work, so, like, banks. I mean, anything that people work in an office. In terms of the middle where we actually produce things, we innovate, new ideas, new businesses. We're pretty... we're pretty empty. I think we rank the lowest in the OECD for R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP. We've... I think we're the worst in that same category for manufacturing. And all the capital that could have gone into those future-orientated industries has gone into property. People getting their first investment property, smart people, putting all their money and energy into this non-productive asset. And eventually, that's going to come around to bite us. And I think we're seeing signs of it with our productivity levels, etc. Now, Jack, one of the things that I called out on that video was this idea of a non-productive asset. And I think when I talked about that, and although, you know, you can never fully explain things in a 60-seconds reel, because everybody's like, "Fank, you're boring!" and they skip past, right? But it's a really interesting concern, right? And it's thinking about from a macro lens, from, like, the entire of Australia. And so, for the viewers and the listeners, a non-productive asset, meaning the entire country is fixated and focused and putting their money into property, and therefore, we're not, you know, instead of investing in business which, you know, hires more people and all of the positive ramifications that come from it, it's tied up in these things. But you've got a point here which is, you know, most people, and I quote, "Most people should definitely not start a business because they suck at business." Most people suck at life, let alone business. Like, that's the reality. You've only got to look on social media to look at a large enough sample size of the population and understand that if most people start a business, you think we're unproductive now. Imagine what that would look like, you know? But the counter to that, right, and my job here today is, I'm Switzerland. I am Switzerland, so you're a rich asset. So neither of you could be able to upset me. But I guess the counter to that, Jack, is if you think again from that macro sense, yes, you know, some might argue like the 80/20 rule, like 80% of people are not going to be exceptional and 20% are. However, if we have a fascination from a country standpoint, you will have a lot of fantastic, amazing people that could have started incredible businesses that have fallen into the trap of just paying down their 30-year mortgage. Potentially, yeah. I mean, people just... Like, the reason people invest in property is because it's been a reinforcing thing. It's made people a lot of money. So it's like, well, if it's made my parents a lot of money and my grandparents a lot of money, then it would be silly of me not to do what they have done. You know, if you look at somewhere maybe like the US, I'm not an economist, but like the US's economy is geared towards people investing in the S&P 500. I would say more people invest in that than they probably do in property. It's different in Australia. And I actually talked to Jay Wright about this recently on a podcast. It's like the Australian economy is geared towards real estate and things that fall off that, right? It's like trades, it's the banking sector. That's why CBA is the biggest, you know, company in Australia. It's like people love real estate and it's made people a lot of money. So, you know, it's unproductive in an asset when it's just sitting there because it's an asset that will continue to grow and make or build wealth. But it doesn't just get to that point, right? Like there's a lot of things that happen to get to need to get a dwelling somewhere. You need to develop land that creates jobs through the building and construction of real estate. And then it's the ongoing maintenance of real estate. Like people need to work in banks to keep people, you know, or people's debt happening. It's still productive in a way, but it's not productive like, hey, I got a business, here's a job. So to Charlie's point, like, do you see the taps running out? Or will this growth that we've been seeing over 25 years, does that just continue exponentially? Well, it's not 25 years, it's like since inception of Australia. That's how long real estate's been growing for. I think you've only got to look at more developed economies to see that there is, we're not expensive. Like, people think it's expensive. I just got back from the south of France. We're not expensive, I can assure you, you know? And, you know, big markets like New York and LA and Tokyo and Hong Kong and all these places, like, it's way more expensive. The populations are way more dense than they are in Australia. Like, we're still a very young country. And I'm assuming that lots of people from around the world, again, want to continue to live here. That's obviously why our immigration rates are so high. And I think that's a good thing and people need somewhere to live. So, not saying it's going to continue like it has, because I don't know that for the truth. But if people think it's not going to continue because of where prices are right now, to say it's expensive in comparison to the rest of the world, it's just not factually true. - Charlie? - Yeah. I mean, people have been predicting a property market crash for the last 15 years, right? So, I think it's... I'm not going to argue the reason for why I think it's around the corner. I think so many people have done that for so long. - I've made that mistake. - But things are completely fine. Things are growing until they're not. And, yes, I mean, Japan's a really interesting example, right? Because Japan sort of had the most expensive real estate in the world and sort of crashed and now they've got a shrinking population, which I suppose Australia doesn't have. But it's so cheap to get property over there. I mean, there's Aussies buying what he skis, shall we? He's left, right and centre in Japan for cheap. So, yeah, I think we do have the binders on as a society if we think that it's not... If the good times are going to keep rolling. And, you know, I think immigration is the thing that's propping Australia up. And if you look at New Zealand, they had a little downturn recently. Immigration has propped that up. But I'd be... I mean, if I was levered to the tits, I'd actually be quite, quite nervy about the blacks one. (LAUGHTER) So, Jack, to use Charlie's words, I'd say you'd lever to the tits. Yeah, that'd be fair to say. My motto in life is leverage up and hold on. - So, there we go. - Oh, good. It's not even a raising capital in a company, though. Like, at the end of the day, you're using someone else's money to get an outcome. Not quite the same. So, raising capital and money in a business, you're exchanging equity for that money. - And if everything goes wrong... - Or debt, one of the two. Yeah, that's different, right? So, if you're using debt, then, yes, it is the same. But if you're doing equity and you're raising, let's take Charlie's example of eucalyptus. You know, if, for example, the business had collapsed, there was no... You know, the directors and shareholders are not beholden to pay that debt back. Sure. But you've also got a valuation that was once X that is now Y. So, you still lost whatever perceived value was there, which is what happens in real estate, right? You think it's worth X, the market corrects, and it's now worth Y. And if you're over-leveraged like what happened in the US, there's a correction. But, like, even if there is a correction, I agree, there will be eventually a correction. Who knows when it's going to be next year, next month, or in 10 years' time. The market will correct itself. And whatever mistakes had been made will be fixed and will be off to the races again. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty easy to say that when you sort of have, like, built the empire and have the cash flow businesses. But, you know, the people that have, you know, two or three properties and are absolutely over the heads, I mean, they're not going to walk away scot-free, are they? No, absolutely not. But, like, same in business, when people go bankrupt in business, people don't walk away scot-free. So, I think there's, like, there's good times and bad times. That's just a fact. And if there was a correction in the real estate market and people are over-leveraged, like, to say the market's over-leveraged is not factually true anyway. We've got a $10 trillion real estate market and there's $3 trillion in debt tied to it. So, let's assume that the market come off by 30%, 40%, whatever you want to say. So, it's gone from $10 trillion to $6 trillion. We've still only got $3 trillion with the debt, so we're 50% leveraged. Assuming that $3 trillion of debt is with a, you know, a segment of the market, probably newer people who have entered the market because they're more highly leveraged than someone who's been in the market for, say, 10-plus years, they're going to be the ones most affected. But we're also going through a time now where we've got an aging population and there's going to be this huge wealth transfer from mum and dad and auntie and uncles or nan and pops who have owned properties for many, many, many years. They're debt-free. People are going to inherit that and they're going to inherit a lot of wealth that maybe don't have wealth right now. So, there's so many things at play that, like, no one actually knows what's going to happen. And again, all we can go of is what history has shown us. And even when there has been mega corrections around the world, Japan's obviously an extreme example of where it hasn't worked. But again, there's other things at play other than just the real estate market. So, let's stay there right. So, I think for the people listening today, they've read the tagline, How to Get Rich in 2025. And the reason we're having this discussion is they're making these life decisions. And it's like, how do I get that next step up? On one hand, you've just mentioned this idea of inheritance. There's a stark reality of lots of people that that will not happen for. And then there's this wealth transfer that happens. And I guess there's versions where if those wealth transfer happens and there's not people to soak in and buy, that's one moment for a potential correction. But I guess my question is like, in your words, Jack, you're 18 years old right now and you're trying to decide like, what is the best way that I can grow my wealth and be set up for success in life? What is that? I would ask the question as like, what is wealth mean to you? Because if you want a billion dollar company, real estate is not going to get you there. Like there's not a chance in the world that you're going to have a portfolio worth a billion dollars. Or even in a gross asset value worth a billion dollars, a net asset value. But if you want to live a normal life and a secure life, like there's arguably nothing better than real estate. I'm trying to get debt now inside of a business, right, to acquire businesses. And if I wasn't real estate backed, there is this much chance that I'm getting anything from the banks. Which is exactly the problem though, you see. So from Australia. But is that a problem? Oh, because they're securitising against the business that if you don't know how to operate it is worth what you're paying today, but is worth zero in two years time when you fucking run it into the ground. But from a like systemic point of view, right? So if we have like, that's the way we've been, and that's one of my great arguments towards this whole debate is, I remember we were doing multiple millions of dollars in revenue. We had cash in bank and we went to A&Z and we said, "Hey, can we grab a 50 grand overdraft fucking zero chance?" Right, and it took so long. But like same time, Jacques and I were looking at a property and they're like, "Yeah, do you want a one and a half million dollar mortgage?" No dramas, like literally zero dramas. And so the problem is like to your exact point, that's because that's the way Australia's functions. And therefore it actually handicaps your ability to get into property. I'm sorry, like into business in that sense. But back to, I guess, to Charlie, what would you say for that 18 year old who's trying to get ahead? What should they be doing? Yeah, well, I'd say that the property boats past. Like the size of the deposit is massive. Five percent? Well, it's for a 30 grand. Do you need more than 30 grand to start a business? Well, no, I don't think so. I think today is the best time in history to start a business and take bets on yourself. It's never been cheaper, like whether you're making a physical product, a software product, running things like Lean with AI. It's there's never been a better time in history to sort of bet on yourself. And I think it's just a much more optimistic take that as an 18 year old, you want to be thinking about how can I sort of shoot the lights out here? How can I look after my family, which I think to your point earlier, it's like, yeah, you can build a billion dollar business. But if you if you miss, you're still doing really, really well in a business. And I just think it's more optimistic from the nation as well. Like, you know, you take other people with you. You take you like a great 80 percent of people shouldn't start a business. But more than 80 percent, like how many businesses shut down in the first five years? Well, that starts really interesting because that starts basically take the ABS publishers that start and and it's even if you're a bricklayer that goes from being a subcontractor with their own ABN to working. Yeah, but they still then go into the new business. It's like the X amount of business to start X amount of business is finished. Right. So they were going from one business to another. Well, I mean, joining their contractor that employs them is basically the flip-flop between being a sole trader and working for a company that happens all the time. And those get counted as failed businesses. So yeah, I basically question that stat. Like people always love to like roll out that stat. I agree that the majority of people shouldn't start businesses, but I reckon if let's just say one in 10 Australians started business currently. And 50 percent of people want to or thought about it. And then maybe 20 percent of people have like the the psychometric profile to be able to do it to a decent level. Then I think that 10 percent delta is what we should be like shooting for. It's basically get more people in thinking about that, thinking about that, because then the whole country will benefit. I agree. I agree. But I don't really, I don't believe real estate is the reason people are not doing that. Why? Well, because that's not the decision most 18 year olds are making. Should I buy a house or should I start a business? Like the average first home buyer is 37. The fuck are they doing from 18 to 37? They're not thinking about should I buy real estate or should I buy a business or start a business? Most people just suck. That's the reality. Like that is my strong belief. It is like most people don't want to fail. Most people have parents that have never done anything in their life and they want to be safe. Most people are scared about the judgment of everyone else. Like that is what holds people back more than whether someone should invest in real estate or not. Where do you get the the view that most people suck? Like what's your data to drive that? I've just seen a large enough sample size of like the Australian population through social media and through just day to day life. And when I say most people suck, I don't mean like one like they just suck at life. It's like most people have no idea what the fuck they're doing in their own lives. They can't make a decision with confidence. They follow the masses and what everyone else is doing. Like they can't think independently. They don't take risks. Like that's just proven. And when you're like my content reaches 10 million people a month. So I see enough comments and posts and we get enough messages to like get a read on I think of relatively large sample size. Like I speak to 60 year old people and I speak to 18 year old people. You know, it's like and I see a lot of people's financial situations through our business. And most people aren't crushing it, you know, like most people are not crushing it. And then you look at like the data that's readily available. Like most people live week to week. I have no money in the bank. It's not because world's hard. It's because I make dumb decisions. So if I make dumb person or decision, imagine what it's like in business. One of the things you've called up in a lot of your content is this idea, you know, people will look at the cost to acquire a home now in terms of a deposit compared to what it was now compared to 25 years ago. And I've heard your argument is suggesting, you know, yes, it's harder, but actually relatively it's it all makes sense. However, it's like it is significantly takes a lot longer to get a deposit, right? Yeah, for a median price. That's another thing that they're like, they're using median price property in a city, right, as their metric that they track, right? So like you think about how many suburbs are in the median of Sydney? Fuck divano. Like I think Sydney goes to like Kronala or it's out to Penrith. Like they're using this, the same metric that they've used for however long, median price in Brisbane, median price in Sydney, median price in Melbourne. And it's like, I think it's a data point and they also use houses. I think it's a data point that doesn't really reflect how it should be looked at. Because Sydney a hundred years ago is not the same Sydney as today. Sydney a hundred years ago probably had half the population that it does right now. So like suburbs like we're in right now weren't as competitive. People didn't want to live, you know, as close as it was and as many people. So now to include this same suburb, which is one like as an affluent suburb, which is what happens is as locations gentrify and the populations get larger, it's not an accurate representation. And that's why I said, like when you're born in the US, you don't go, "Oh fuck, the median price of a property in New York is $10 million. I can't afford to buy there." Well, of course you can't because it's New York. But that's not a data metric that's tracked because they're not fucking dumb. It's like, if you are born into a location, you buy where you can afford. And as you get older as a nation, unfortunately, what history shows us is the wealth gap gets larger. Like see you either get with that or you don't get with that. But to track that, we keep tracking the same city that, of course, is one of the wealthiest cities in the world. It's just not accurate to say that we can't afford to buy in Sydney. So it's expensive. Of course it's expensive. Sydney. But you can afford to buy in lots of other locations around the country that are less expensive and are more relative to maybe 20 years ago. But it's just not the same location. So people just need to keep up with the times as opposed to tracking the same number that their parents tracked fucking 40 years ago and going, "Oh, that's upsetting." So when you buy a house in Launceston, do you ever think about it as, "Hey, I'm maybe pricing out a first home buy here?" We don't buy a house in Launceston. So I've never thought that. Oh, it's up and coming. Do we ever think about first home buys priced out? No. No. No, because that's probably pretty low on the list of things, right? So it's like, if you're a property investor, you've got your own house, right? Maybe you're getting your second or third property here. But the cost of that, societally, you're pretty clear, right? Is that you're basically driving the price up for the people that you talk about sucking at life that can't hold a job down. I was a first home buyer 10 years ago. And I never had someone give me the money to go and do it. I fucking found a solution. I didn't buy a house. My parents bought a house. I bought an apartment in a location that I could afford in a great suburb. And we buy hundreds of properties a year for first home buyers now. So you're saying anyone could do it if they put their mind to it? Anyone can do it. Just like anyone can start a business, anyone can go and buy a property. What stops people from buying property is they go, well, I can't afford to buy a property with my parents bought their first property. I don't want to live 50Ks from wherever. I don't want to do this. I don't want to sacrifice. Yeah. And what's the impact of people not being able to live near their family, do you reckon, like, societally? Impacts. Like, for example, if you need, you know, let's just take an example that like affects me personally. Is that I've got, I've got kids and immediate family that now are starting to live all over the city. And so child care is obviously a difficult, a difficult thing. It's not easy. I wouldn't be shocked if you actually had a child care business. But, you know, like people get spread or spread out all over the place. But that's, that's a societal cost. That's called life. That's what that is. It's, it's not life though. Like life can be better. Don't you think? Yeah, life, it gets better when you make it better. But to say that, oh, it's a societal issue because I unfortunately can't live near my family because they don't do as well as maybe I do. That's just life. Like that's, we can't just have like one price for everywhere so everyone can live close to where they want to live. Like, unfortunately, it's not how the world works. No, and I don't think, I don't think that's the suggestion. We can like wealthy people can choose not to live in wealthy locations and go live with the poorest member of their family. So life's easier for everyone. Well, it's kind of like, you know, those, you know, those like back in the day, how they used to like put housing commission all through the, all, all suburbs. Idiots. You know, like the, like the rich tapestry of life. Don't you, don't you think that life is more interesting when you don't have enclaves of like the super rich people and then, you know, everyone else sort of has to live, you know, a hundred Ks from the, from the beach, that kind of. Not really. No, I think like when you live with people that you have more in common with, it's better. Like where I grew up, it's not with wealthy people, but there's not a chance in the world I would live there now. It's not because they're bad people. Let's just start it. Yeah. You've moved up. You've socially, socially moved up. It's not what, you know, I wouldn't go to barbecues with people and talk about shit that doesn't interest me. Like just like I wouldn't start a business in, inside of a, an industry that doesn't interest me. So I understand like, yeah, seeing other parts of the world and, and, you know, I mean, no one in Australia is actually poor in comparison to other parts of, of the world. But to think that there shouldn't be like more wealthy parts of the world and, you know, less wealthy parts. You know, my car got stolen under my driver the other day. Like you can get stolen by someone in fucking Bronte. I can assure you, like, I don't want to live near those people. So let's move to a question for you, Charlie. You see the, you know, that, that step for this young person, buying a property as like a trap. Why is that? Well, I think most people view, that the majority of people don't necessarily view property as the game to get ahead. Like say, Jack and they lock themselves in. They think that, oh, I need to buy a property because property only goes up. I need security. And essentially that what they are doing is locking themselves into like a 30 year mortgage and all their equity, which like, oh, wow, this big thing equity is sort of just like, locked within the walls of this unproductive asset. They miss out on the optionality of being able to do interesting things with their lives. They miss out on like the cash flow, being able to, yeah, give them all these options of how to live. And yeah, I just think it's, it's almost like business is a, is a secret in Australia and those that know about it. I, I saw in on it and then everyone else doesn't really know about it or they don't talk about it because it's culturally been one of these things that you're not really allowed to beat your chest about. And yeah, I think that's the opportunity that's ahead of Australia as things start to get tough. And like people start to feel the bite of like the costal living and all that kind of stuff. One of the things, Jack, that I think is blaringly obvious, right, in terms of like your property portfolio is you have a mega good business. Like you have a, you have a solid business that is generating cash and generating opportunity and therefore you can buy. Does that change your view? Because you know, if we're talking to that average punter, they don't have the cash machine that you have. Is it still the same? 100%. I say like, there's two things you need to grow wealth. It is an asset to grow it with and you need money. You need to be able to earn money. So you've either got to do that through a job or you've got to do it through a business. And the reason I say most people suck is because like the reality of most people getting into jobs is like some people stay in the whole, most people stay in like a similar role for their whole life. It's not like they're exceeding, like they're going from earning 67, you know, 60,000 to 80,000 to 200,000 to 400,000. Like they're not progressing through the ranks. It's like people just get jobs and they stay there forever. And I agree with what you said around like people tie themselves to a 30 year mortgage and you know, security and all the rest of it. Like people shouldn't do that. And that's why I always talk about rent vesting and like you should view real estate as an investment versus a security because that's just like this construct we've built up. I think that owning our home is safer than renting it when it's fucking bullshit. But yeah, like you're not going to build any sort of wealth regardless if it's through property or through another asset unless you generate cash flow. And I've seen a lot of P&Ls in businesses and most of them are not very good. You know, so most of them are probably worse than having a job. At least with a job, you don't have any actual expenses for the business year. You can get yourself into a lot of trouble, you know, in a relatively short period of time, you know, raking ATO debts and fucking, you know, debts to suppliers and all the rest of it. Like if you are good at business, it is incredible. There is so many tax advantages. There is so many, you know, cash flow advantages. Like it's 100% the thing you should do if you're good. But there is way more people that suck at it than that are good. And, you know, I think if we were to turn the, let's say, 80% of people got into business and 20% of people didn't, there'd be way less wealth in Australia than if that was 80% of people just got into real estate. Because that money, we just get evaporated. It's gone. I don't know if that's true, right? So like, we don't know. So we're all doing this. But like, if you said like systemically, Australia was built in a different way, what would happen is like our fixation, our focus on shit, like CBA would be the number one company in Australia, that's for sure, right? There would be a lot more competition. There would be a lot more jobs that are created. There would be a lot more people that you can see that have been successful. You know, like one of the amazing companies in Australia, like we have Canvas, we have Atlassians. We don't really have that many. So you don't really have that many to look through and go like, they can do it, I can do it. You know, if I reflect like sometimes with us in our business, like you've got like a small couple of handfuls, like they've done it so we can do it. The more of that you have, the more people that like are inspired, the more that are working with good executors, the more they learn, these things that have roll on effects. Do we know like data, like let's use the US, like it's probably the major economy where they've got major success in business. Like how many businesses are started per capita, for example? I think it's, I think it's 10 times the amount. In the US, yeah. And what's like the success versus failure, right? Because I know they have a huge amount of success in mega companies, but they've also got 15 times the population. I think I'm sure like they would have a like a failure rate. I'm not saying the Australian failure rate starts right, but I would imagine things are roughly the same. I just think, yeah, the US would probably have like a larger number of like growth businesses with more than like several employees or a bigger middle. Because you notice Australians love like working at the big end of town. Yeah, I think that maybe that's just the culturally how it works in the States. I mean, a key one there is called the economic complexity score. And so a country is measured by the complexity of its economics. And Australia is one of the lowest where America has, because you're dispersed, you don't just have like one sector like mining or this or that. It makes it a much more complex economy. And the reason that's beneficial is because you don't have like one or two levers where if they go down, the whole place is fucked. You know what I mean? Like you have a lot more levers to work with that keeps you through stable times. One of the things you mentioned before, Jack, which I really like, which is this concept of, you know, we're talking about using a data point and we've got to get with the times. And I fully agree. But I guess it counts to that right is like we are in 2025. And one thing that I can't agree more with Charlie is this concept of right now is the single best time to build a business in history. As far as I'm aware, it is right now. And I'll give you a great example. So the three young guns behind you, two weeks ago, I said to the team, okay, we're going to do a go to market strategy for Kinso. This is their first careers, right? They've never done that, right? So I said, great, everybody jump onto AI, do deep research, come back to me with a plan, and we're going to do a go to market strategy. And so they did. And now we have this all of this wealth of knowledge. It doesn't mean just listen to AI and do whatever it says, but you've accumulated all of this knowledge that previously would have been years and years. You would have been underneath a certain person as a gatekeeper to this knowledge, but now you have it at your fingertips. And so I think one of the things, when I think about this discussion, it's like, is the property journey that made perfect sense? But now thinking about the times and what's available to people and actually the risk to reward from a business sense is far lower than it once was. You don't need hundreds of thousands of dollars of capital. You only need a few subscriptions here and there, find a good problem, and you can make money. What do you think about that? I agree, totally. Doesn't mean people don't suck. It'd be interesting to be like, how many people are even using AI in Australia? It'd be a very, very low percentage from the people I speak to that are not in business. And again, that's like, it's got nothing to do with buying property or not. It's got to do with just culturally. People would rather fucking put shit on other people, watch dumb shit on TV, and do things that are easy and put your head in the sand. So 100% people can go out there and if they're good, they could create lots and lots of opportunity for themselves and other people. But they will not do it. And it has nothing to do with property. There are, regardless of your own property or not own property, it's like, it's just culturally, maybe it's not just Australians, it's everyone, but like people just don't do the work. I guess the counter argument that comes to my mind right is, some of these things, like the hitter block, which is like culturally, that's where we are. But the reality is like, the way something is doesn't mean there's a way or will be going forward. And the only way you change things like this, you know, this synthetic culture idea is by having voices and having people to look to and things like that, that has to be changed if it no longer is relevant. Charlie? Yeah, I mean like, we have to watch Primetime Telly and watch the fucking block, or watch the footy and see this one, sponsoredbyrealestate.com.au and recognise that Australia has like a property obsession. To use one show on television, like the block or anything is like... I mean, there's like several shows. Let's assume there's like 100 shows on TV, less than 10% of them would be property-related shows and 90% of them would be drama and just shit. Sure. And then like sponsor the same thing, it's like realestate.com is one sponsor, but it's like, there's a lot of other sponsors that are like... Well, how far do you want to go? We can go banking, like banking's built on property, right? And that's like, yeah, the biggest company in Australia, a huge chunk of the ASX, right? Like property-adjacent industry. I suppose you can economically, it's a thing, and culturally, it's a massive thing. Yeah. I mean, how often do people talk with their parents or their family about the property, property is property art? Like, I fucking find it so boring. I'm sure you're not bored of it because it's... Oh, I actually like talking about it when people are here. Fuck, I'm going to tell you something. I'm not going to listen anyway, so that's the point. So it's like, I guess the question is, is culturally, do our role models have to be, you know, interior designers who judge people on the block, or could they be actually people that want to... The believe in business, the believe in taking risks. And I think Australia is like, we're still so property-fixated. The media has a huge chunk. I have a little, sorry to interrupt, but like, let's assume that they did have an interest in business. And we have this thing, tall poppy syndrome. I don't know if that's globally or not. Like, what was it? A big, big Australia thing. But it's like, again, regardless if it's property or not property, people in Australia hate people that are successful. If anyone is successful, even if they like them for a minute, they will find a reason to fucking try and destroy that person. Like, it's happened so many times. Like, you can only get to a certain level in Australia before someone wants to try and fuck you over. Yes, someone who find really interesting is Adrian Portelli. I'm like, the business he's built, and he helps people. But like, for some reason, I just have this thing in my hand. I'm like, I wonder what the thing's going to be where someone's going to, like, all of a sudden turn from him being, like, this hero. And what he's done is incredible to, like, try to destroy him. Because I just have this belief that it'll, like, they will do that eventually, right? There's always an angle where someone's trying to, like, fuck someone else because they've done well. Yeah. I think that's, like, that's historically been the case. I think what we're seeing is a shift with the younger generations because, like, basically, when society, I think tall poppies is a product of a young society that was created on the other side of the world, like a colonial outpost. Everyone sort of had to stick together. And we're having this, like, essentially it's being cut in two with the haves and the have-nots. And I think that the people that have not are essentially feeling disenfranchised to the point where they're, like, fuck it, I'll be cringe. I'll, like, get after it. And that's why I hold out so much hope for this, like, generation coming through, is that I honestly don't think they give a fuck about tall poppies. And that, to your point earlier, just because things have been done that way before doesn't mean they'll have to keep doing it. And I hope, I'm optimistic that in Australia that, like, we'll get back to some kind of inventiveness. You know, like, people talk about, oh, the Australian inventions, the hills hoist and the Wi-Fi and the cochlear implant and all that kind of shit. That was, like, 50 years ago. Like, we need some new inventions. But we've got it in our DNA. So I'm, I'm optimistic, I take an optimistic point of view. Thing is crossed. Thing is crossed. Now, Jack, you've mentioned here something, which is, you know, every person who makes big money in business ends up hedging it with real estate. In Australia. In Australia. That, you know, that has been a common thing. Talk to me about that. Because that was one of your rebuttals to me on social media. You know, you said to the, to the video, you know, look, don't do what Frank says. Look at his, you know, portfolio. Look what he's done with the money. Look at where we're recording. Look at where we're recording with you on the ocean. You know, if he really cared about business that much, surely he wouldn't have reinvested into property. Talk to me about that. You know, well, again, it's like, I just watched what wealthy people do. And it's like, anytime anyone has liquidity moment in business, and it'll be interesting to see what you're doing in the future. They go and drive it into a big fucking house, or they dream home, or they go and buy multiple properties. And again, it's not, like, I think there's a few reasons, because they think it's safe. It's like a safe place to put your money. There's good tax advantages. Capital gains tax free for your own home. No land tax, all that jazz. And people love to have a nice home, you know, like there's something fulfilling. It's like, you could have went and bet, you have tens of millions of dollars in, not even bought a home. Just went and punted it on more businesses. Business is amazing. Let's go invest in more businesses. But like, the reality of someone starting a business, selling it for a lot of money, and then starting another business, and being able to do that again, I don't know too many people who have been able to do it. Like, doing it once is very, very hard. Doing it multiple times is even harder. And I haven't even done it fucking once yet, so I can't talk, but like, you know, I think people think it's like a safe, slow growth asset that Australia's economy is geared towards it. There's no denying that our tax system's geared towards it. That's great. Like, don't hate the play-up. Get good at playing the game. But I've observed it. Like, well, I know lots of people. Jay Wright, first thing he did, the guys from White Fox, $150 million in all clues. Like, Ian Malou fucking, I don't know, 100 million. Like, every single person has recently Toby Pearce. Like, all those guys, it's real estate. It's the first thing they do. They get cash in the bank, Simon Beard, bought this fucking penthouse, built a big house on the water. It's like any younger person that I know that sold a business recently for tens of millions, the first thing they do is like, "I can't wait to buy a big house." I just think that's funny, you know? So what all do they want? They don't make their money there. That's the key. And I did say that. You're never going to make that type of money in real estate unless you're, you know, using real estate as a business. But when they make it, that's where it goes. So it's like, watch where the money goes. And it's the same in the US. Like, all the, not as close to it over there, but like, I don't know, fucking saying that many stories. Jeff Bezos bought this, this person buys this. Even though it's a very small percentage of their overall wealth. Like, when it's not in their own business, it's generally going into hard assets. So I think the thing I'll add there, right, for the people listening, because they might go, "Okay, they've done that. So I'll bypass the business step. I'll go straight to the creation of the property portfolio." I think the reality here is that there's no two ways around it. Like, building a business is incredibly hard and it's fraught with risks. Making money is hard. Spending money is easy. And so I think if I were to, you know, be in the minds of all those people who've done that, including myself, it's based on this. It's like, you've done a certain amount. You're now locking that away and storing it into one of many different asset types. And I think the difference is, you know, if you like, call out those people, you're like, "Yours, the home is the trophy that usually makes his way on the internet. The boring, you know, they don't talk about Frank's debt funds that he's in or his fishery farm in New Zealand." That's not really that interesting, but the house on the beach is quite interesting. And so I think I wouldn't, as a listener, like, read or look too much into that. I think there's no way that denying that probably is a good place, a good place to store value. However, I think it's just like one part of the equation. For sure, but it's generally a big chunk of an exit. It goes into it, even though it is a chunk, not a wall. Most people put, like, a big, big bit of that cash into real estate. And it depends on the level we're talking, right? Like, if you're worth billions of dollars and you own a $100 million house, $150 million house, it's like pennies on the dollar in comparison to your net worth. But if you own a $30 million house and you're worth $100 million bucks, it's 30% of your net worth. It's still a lot of dough, right? And then very rarely do you see that person hit it out of the park again. They're investing their money because the part of it's got to go into capital depreciation, a part of it's going to go into cash flow, and a part of it's probably going to sit in something that's relatively liquid. But, yeah, I mean, again, they do it once. And I don't know, I've never seen it happen again where it's like, oh, there's another exit. There's another exit. It's like, it happens once. I'll keep you posted. Yeah. Kind of. But like, even in your situation, you look at the business you've started now, and it's like, at the end of the day, if it doesn't work, it's a sunk cost. Yeah, of course. And I have 100% belief it's going to work. But if it doesn't work, it's like, oh, fuck. I've done it once. I've ultra successful in doing it. And then I tried it again, and it didn't work like the way I thought it was going to work. Because there's a lot of things that... Go into building success. I'm not naive to that. Like, you need to be good. That's one thing. You need to have luck on your side. Like, there's timing. You need to have momentum. There's so many things that need to happen to have a successful business that actually gives you a good life. Like, you can start a business. You can go open a bakery. You can fucking run a butcher shop. You can go and do a brick and mortar business. Like, the vast majority of businesses are not sexy, and the vast majority of businesses don't give you a life that the AFR Rich List presents, right? The majority of businesses don't make that much money, and you just buy yourself a full-time job. Sure, there are the 1% as like your canvas, or like, people are going to start these new AI companies and have fucking, you know, like, lovable. What was that, like, fastest company to 100 million ARR? Like, that is absolutely that can happen. Just like in real estate, you could buy a block of land. You could get rezoned, and now it's worth 10 times what you paid for it. But it's the minority versus the majority. Most businesses are a slog. They're fucking hard. You have really good years, and you have exceptionally, you know, hard years. And there's no denying that most people are not built for that. Let's talk about sweat equity, Charlie, as another lever to, you know, again, for these young people looking like, "Okay, if property is the only way I can get ahead, you know, let's talk about sweat equity." Yeah, I think sweat equity is interesting from a perspective. If you believe this idea that there's a huge chunk of the population that won't start businesses or can't start businesses, it's like there are assets that you can own that aren't actually houses, and that is literally being given equity-- - Helicopter. - Jet. - Jet ski. Yeah, so there's assets that you can own by trading your time for equity rather than necessarily lining up in the bank and buying a house. And I think that's a really attractive option for people starting from zero. I mean, I certainly-- that was my first experience with ownership of anything was being given shares in a company in Kuala. And for those that don't go on to start a company, it's a great education in how business actually works. It's a great way to align people to actually economic output and actually start building a nest egg that isn't just, you know, "I want to be a landlord." I like it. I think it's great. Would you do it for your businesses? We do, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's a big part of what I've discussed with Frank is like being able to allow people to either earn equity or use their salary to be able to buy equity over time. I think it's a no-brainer, both for staff retention and allows them to build wealth. But again, it's different to starting a business. Totally. You know, like, yeah, you've got some equity, but at the end of the day, it doesn't work out. You haven't really got any of your own capital or your own pride into it. Business fucking hits the shit, and you don't get another job somewhere else. So I think there's a slight difference, obviously. Yeah, it's like a gateway drug. Yeah, I think it's like, yeah, you can make more money than what you could make if you were just an employee. I like the concept you just mentioned, a gateway drug. Expand on that. Yeah, it's like, yeah, I suppose it's like, it's the weed of ownership. It's like, it's like, you can have a part with money. You don't get up. You don't get to the hard stuff. I mean, founding a company is definitely ice. Don't sleep for a day alone. Yeah, I mean, it's a nice little taster to this idea of like, hey, I can actually own this thing. And oh, what do you mean? It's actually gone up in value. Oh, yeah, the business is doing really well. Oh, yeah, I know heaps about how the company's working. I can see the number going up and to the right. Oh, wait, now I'm like wealthier. This is a great little high. And you look at like the extremes about like, in the video, I think it was like one in two employers in the video are worth 25 million US plus, which is like out of this world, right? Yeah. And I think like, it's a good point you make about like, that being such a rare thing, but it's like, yeah, they're statistical anomalies. It happens. But what if we doubled the pool of that? Yeah. Or tripled the pool of that? All of a sudden, like downstream at the very bottom of that funnel, you've got instead of just Canva and Alasin, you've got like four or five more. All of a sudden, each of those companies is employing 20,000 people. But I think, I don't know the exact statistic, but of the Australian economy, it's like a very large percentage of it is made up by Australian small business in terms of like employers and GDP. Do you know, I've got the statistic on that. I don't have that. It's like, it's high. Yeah, it's high. Yeah. It's the vast majority. It's like the bread and butter of the economy. It's like, there's a lot of small businesses in Australia, obviously, just a lot of them aren't that good. Like the raising at Alasin in Canva and Alasin in Canva is because it's very hard to be those people, obviously. But I think there's all, and we won't like rehash too much, but there's a number of forces at play, right? Because as an example, I know this intermittently, because when we had our early days of business, also had an investment property, which meant you're trapped from a ability to kind of, you had to keep paying that bad boy. And so therefore, you can't do anything beyond the means of that mortgage that you have. And if you think of that from like a population standpoint, we just made the decision, fuck it, we're going to sell these puppies so that we don't have any, we're not beholden to any mortgages. Not encouraging just everybody to do that. But like, I think those things are a lot at play there with how much we have trapped into. I think about it sometimes, trust me. I love real estate and it's good when you do a big equity release and you get a couple of million bucks out. But also, I hate fucking paying the mortgages every month. Like it's annoying, it's really annoying. But you're doing it for a greater reason, right? Like assuming you were just investing in the S&P 500 and you were doing that same amount of money, even if it wasn't get paid to a mortgage, it's getting paid into another investment account. You're still using that cash flow for something versus potentially putting it into your business. And it's the risk thing, right? Like that's another thing is like, imagine people had that money to be able to do it. They've still got to back themselves, which I think is the biggest thing people won't do. - Yeah, it comes back to the earlier point. It's like the idea is not everybody's gonna do it, but as a society, more people are doing it, there's more to look to and more to be inspired. - Do you reckon that's more... - Again, it's like we're talking about real estate versus business here. It's like, do you think real estate is the reason more people won't do it? It's just that people won't do it. - No, no, I do. I think so. I think as a country in Australia, because it's all about that. Like there's one thing that's common amongst all of my friends, regardless of the thing. Anybody will happily talk about property. There is one thing in common with amongst all of my friends. They'll not all talk about business. I've got about two of those. And the rest is just like, I don't care, but I could easily just start a conversation about let's talk about this apartment and the value of that home. Australia's obsessed. - So what we're saying is, start a business in the property sector. - So I guess it's been an hour. We've had some good discussion. - So really? It has. - Time's melted away. No one's yelled at each other saying you're a fucking dickhead. So that's good outcome. Because I like you guys both. Any closing remarks? - All right, you can have the last word. I think to take it up a level, it's like step back. I guess we want to ask ourselves, like what kind of country we want to live in. And I think that it's good to, you know, you hear real estate people talk about location, this community that-- - Equity. - You know. - Asset rich. - It's all about living, right? And it's all about what a great lifestyle one can live. And I just find it funny that in the-- It's ironic in a way that in pursuing property investing and being a landlord, we're potentially impacting living standards for our descendants. We're actually getting in the way of the thing that people flock to property in the first place for what they always talk about. And so, yeah, I guess I want to ask what kind of country do we want to live in? Do we want to turn into Argentina and have crazy high inflation and have, like, poor people, but a lot more poor people. Like, we're talking really poor people getting around. I know you'll be insulated in your integrated community. - Can't keep them away from that. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's like the opportunity here is for Australia to, like, shift. And I'm really excited about the prospect of that. And I think that young people are starting to, like, real up-- they're starting to wake up. - Jack. - Keep the poor people away from that, that's what I'm saying. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Look, I think, like, it's all awesome to have these, these, like, discussions. But there's also the reality of the world. And it's, like, assuming that no one even thought about buying real estate now when they're 18 years old, 100 people are going to try and start a business. 99.9% of those are going to fail. And they're going to go back to getting a job and doing what is safe. Like, it's just a reality. So I think the 0.1% who should, you know, do it, they should definitely go and do it. But, like, Australia's economy is geared towards real estate regardless if you like it or not. A tax system is geared towards real estate whether you like it or not. Getting debt to do anything in business generally is tied towards real estate if you don't like it or not. And assume those things are going to change in the future. Right now, you start a business, that's the fact. So, you know, not having real estate as part of your overall portfolio, whether you do that at the start or whether you do it after you've built a successful business, I think is silly. And, look, I've got a good business. It makes me a lot of money. It makes me more money than my real estate makes me on a yearly basis. But if my business went to zero tomorrow, my real estate's still going to be there. And I'm going to be able to leverage off that or sell it and have capital there. And I was only talking to my accountant about this the other day. Like, he had a client, had an engineering business, very large engineering business all in on this business. Grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. Something didn't go to plan. And that engineering business that was, you know, mega business was zero. And they had nothing outside of it. So, I think even when you're in business to hedge off the table, just like we spoke about, you know, all these guys who sell their businesses, they realize that what they did was extremely rare and extremely hard. So not to take some money off the table to put into other assets, I think, is silly. And around, you know, we spoke about the correction at the start, it's like, that's going to happen eventually. Like, I'm 100% confident. Trust me, I don't want it to happen. That'll be annoying. But it's just the reality of the market and the free market. It'll crash and something will happen. And then guess what? We're human beings and we fucking work it out. So, and then all of a sudden, we're off to the races and maybe I'll get a hat that says asset poor for a little bit from then. And then hopefully I get a new one that says that's it rich in the future. But yeah, most people are not good at business. So they should definitely stay away from it. Or don't believe me and try and start a business and then suck and then fail and then have ATO debt and go bankrupt and then you'd be fucked for a bit. And then I should have listened to that Jack guy. That sounds, that's a really nice positive way to end us, Jack. Thank you very much. It fills my heart with warmth. I'm sure the people listening are like, Oh God, that felt good, Jack. Thank you. I suck. We've heard a lot about this idea of people sucking. I think the reality is... Let me just get that clear. I'm not saying people suck in general. I'm just saying like to business is hard. Yeah, totally. My business almost went to zero a few years ago. It's fucking hard. So I could have been a person who sucked. I'm just a realist with things. It's like most people suck at things that are extremely hard that you have to be disciplined. You have to be all in. You can't do anything else. You can't like, it's hard. And like most people are not ready for the hard. So like you can suck and be in a job and earn a fuckload of money and build a good life for yourself and not suck that much. But yeah. That's a course I'd pay for. All right, fellas, I'll cut us off there. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you. I appreciate that. Hopefully everybody enjoyed that one. Let's do it again. Thanks, Frank. You're way more successful than I am as well. So people can definitely listen to you know it.