Re-writing the Zillenial Money Scripts w/ Ed Elson

What do you think one thing is that Gen Z is actually getting right about like work and money? Um. Ooh. [laughter] You're sort of like the op of Gen Z. I know, I know, right? [laughter] [upbeat music] This is Financial Tea. [upbeat music] Hello, I'm Simon Mayo, and I'm Mark Kermod. What a great episode we have for you lined up. Mark, what are you doing on the latest take? It's a packed show. We have reviews of Heart of the Beast, Brad Pitt, and a dog, her private hell. The new film from Nick Winding Reffen, a "Borman of the Devil", a documentary about the worst film ever made and sense and sensibility with our super special guest, Gorgeous George McKay. Don't miss a single second of the latest take. Some evil thing happened here. I mean, how did you come in here? Three people die in a quiet suburb in Mississauga, Canada. It's not a coincidence. One after the other. In the same house. Is this bad luck or something more sinister? The worst investigative mess I've ever encountered. A long simmering what took you so fucking long to get here. From Sony Music Entertainment, this is What Happened to the Harrison's. I'm Amy Dempsey-Raven. What happened to the Harrison's is available now on the binge. Search for it wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. Subscribers to the binge can listen to all episodes. All at once. Add free. Okay, welcome back to Financial Tea. This is the podcast where I teach you how to build wealth with the side of market drama, money scandals, and of course, financial pop culture. Today, we have Ed Elson in the house. Ed, welcome to the Financial Tea. Thank you. Great to be here. But first, let's get into the MDJ market report. What's up, Sippers? Welcome back to the MDJ market report where I cover the top stories you need to know to see where the money is moving this week. And if this market report feels a little different, it's because it is the first one I am recording as a New York Times bestselling author. And I just want to say to my Sippers, thank you so much. If you are watching or listening or following me like this happened because of you. And I just feel so grateful. It was my biggest dream. And I also just feel so strongly about everything I wrote in the book. So I think what makes me the most emotional is just knowing that so many of you now have it and can utilize it and are going to be taking control of your money. So I'm not crying. You're crying. But let's get into it because I do have really good stories for this week. But I just wanted to really say thank you because it couldn't have happened without you. Okay. So for the first story, I want to talk about a pattern that is showing up in women's dating lives that was just written about in the Guardian. And I've named it. I want to call it the new dowry problem. But let me explain. So basically single women now make up 25% of first time home buyers in the US, which is more than twice the rate of single men. So just to be clear, women are building wealth, buying property and basically doing everything right at record numbers and a specific subset of men. And I want to be clear, it is a subset is penalizing them for it when they go out on dates. And of course, we're talking about the men who lose interest the moment that they find out a woman owns her home, instead of like thinking it's cool, like, and these men get defensive. They even might get hostile, like one woman was interviewed by the Guardian and had a man tell her on a date, good luck finding somebody as good as me when you are misindependent because she was buying a house. So here's what I think is actually happening because this is obviously crazy. Do you remember the dowry system like, you know, back in the old and days, a woman basically had to arrive at a relationship with assets that she would transfer to a man. And I have a theory that this did not disappear. In the case of the dowry system, like her wealth wasn't a sign of independence. It was a price basically of admission into a partnership where she would then be financially dependent on that man. And we've changed a lot since then, right? Like the system legally, like, I feel like that system sort of dismantled as recently as 1974 when women gained the right to apply for credit cards in our own, in our own names. But even though the legal architecture is gone, I think a certain type of man, especially those who are radicalized by all this manosphere content and like obsessed with this provider identity have sort of rebuilt it culturally. And yes, I am blaming in cell technology and red pill content because I feel like the rise of women's economic independence has also risen with that. And they're sort of like competing against each other. And that's not a coincidence. I feel like it is a backlash because for this, for these men, a woman who is already financially whole is a threat. Not because men universally can't handle it. Not because like all men suck and we should quit dating and all this stuff. Most can, but because this specific profile of man has built his entire sense of masculinity around being needed financially. And if you take that away and he has nothing to offer, then he has nothing. So if you're wondering what to do, I'm not telling you to like hide your assets or place small and dates. Like that's obviously the worst investment that you can make. You're just going to attract a man whose like comfort requires your diminishment, which is a liability. But I just want to be real that like the new dowry problem is real. These guys exist, but unlike with the original dowry, you get to decide whether you actually pay. So just be strategic about that. And by the way, these men didn't emerge by accident. Like I really feel like the rise of in cell ideology and like red pill content sort of rose the same time as like women's economic independence, which I don't think it's a coincidence. I do think it's a backlash. And I'm also speaking from personal opinion because I know that it is hard to be successful as a woman and date because it's sort of seen as feminine to need to be helped. But I just think that like for these men who are scared of you and they want you to not be financially whole and can't handle it, it's not because that's wrong. It's because they have built an entire sense of masculinity around being needed financially and there's a lot of women who buy into that. And so if you take that away and he has nothing to offer, then he doesn't feel like as much of a man, which honestly tells you everything. But I do also just want to remind you that financial independence was never supposed to be like a personality flaw. It's sort of just the whole point. Like don't let anyone on a date on a dating app like in your own head, convince you that building wealth makes you less lovable. The only thing that building wealth does is make you less controllable. And those are not the same thing and any person who wants you to be controllable is not someone that you should want to be in a relationship with. But I am sorry for you guys because I know that it is hard out there to find a good man who's down for a woman who wants to own a house. But if I swung the other way, I'd date you myself. Okay. Our next story is about Everlane selling to Sheen. This is a crazy story because Everlane was that brand that everyone was obsessed with. I think I still have a gift card to them that spent a decade telling you like exactly what their clues cost to make and like why ethical fashion was worth paying more for. And now they are selling to Sheen for a hundred million dollars. Yes. Sheen. Like the brand that Yale researchers called the biggest polluter in fast fashion, credibly accused of forced labor, anti-Semites, like that Sheen. And look, a lot of people are writing about this story. I saw Sammy Cohen talk, did a really great video about it on Instagram. And they're talking about what this basically means for millennial idealism. And it because it is sort of like this death of the ethical consumer era, which I get. But that is not the angle that I want to take. I want to talk about the values premium because I think that this is really important for us all to sort of think about as consumers because you paid it with Everlane, I paid it with Everlane. And I think we need to call it what it actually was, which is a bad investment. Like and here's what the values premium actually is. It's basically the extra money that you spend on a product because you believe in what the brand stands for. So maybe you're going to Whole Foods and you're buying like that special organic honey because you follow the founder on Instagram and like they went through cancer and honey saved them and you want to support them or with Everlane, they charge more than classic fast fashion because of like radical price transparency and ethical factories and sustainable materials. And millions of millennials, including myself, paid for it because we weren't just buying a t-shirt. We were buying the story. We were buying the identity. We were buying this feeling that our spending was actually doing something. But the problem is that values don't compound. Values do not build equity. Values do not protect you when private equity or she incomes knocking to acquire you. And this is actually the same mistake that we make in a lot of financial decisions. Like we often conflate how something feels with what it's worth. So Everlane felt like the responsible choice. It felt aligned with our values, but those feelings aren't a hedge against a hundred million dollar exit to like the company that you were supposedly boycotting. Meanwhile we've got she and which is the brand that we were all morally opposed. two, acquiring one of our favorite ethical companies for a fraction of what it was probably worth at the peak, which has then expanded their market share in the process, like the fast, fashion company one, and it almost always does. So I'm not saying that I don't have values. I definitely have values, but I am saying that values alone are not a financial strategy, and you have to watch out as a consumer, because brands love to sell you your own values back to you at a markup, and they are not your allies. They're actually your most expensive purchase. So the real lesson from Everlane isn't that millennials were naive. It's just like the market doesn't reward virtue. It just rewards margin. And when the two come into conflict, you already know which one is going to win. Obviously, it's always going to be about margins. And maybe if we learned anything from this, it's to not outsource our ethics to like direct to consumer startups back by private equity. Okay. And for our final story, let's talk about Omer Pige, Odomar Pige, I always feel poor when I pronounce fancy watch names. So please just bear with me. But they collaborate with Swatch to drop a $400 pocket watch on a lanyard. I just want to be clear. Effectively, that is a key chain. And I would say it looks closest to something that you would hang your work ID on. I saw a few commenters said it looked like a happy meal toy. I don't think that they're wrong. But I also know that it's going to sell out by Saturday morning, like people are obsessed. And here's why people don't actually want the watch. They want what the watch means. Like they want the AP logo. They want the association of this really rich brand. They want the ability to say that you have a piece of Odomar Pige. Yeah, I nailed it. Like the object is beside the point. This is just the whole looking rich versus being rich problem in a single product drop. Luxury brands have figured out that aspirational consumers will are going to pay a premium for a gsonc to a brand they can't actually afford. So like not a $50,000 watch, a $400 key chain, which is a feeling and feelings don't appreciate. Like the real Royal Oak holds value. I mean, certain models have outperformed the S&P 500 over the last decade. Do I think that this lanyard version is going to do that? No, I think that it's going to be in a drawer by 2027. I'm not confused about that. And I don't think that the luxury brands are confused about this either. Like they designed it that way. The Royal Pop isn't for the person who can afford the AP or who even like wants to build wealth from the AP. It's just for the person who wants to look like they can. So before you camp out, I just want you to ask yourself whether you are building wealth or performing it. Because this is something that's really hard to get right in today's consumer culture. Okay, that was the market report. Now let's get into our episode with Ed Elsen. Okay, so I always start with three rapid-fire questions. Watch out. First one's coming at you. What gives you the financial egg? My financial egg is probably crypto at this point. I have just so many people in my generation, just so obsessed with cryptocurrencies, everyone thinks that they have the next hot old coin. What they don't realize is that most of these people are actually losing money on crypto. I don't find it interesting. I don't find it exciting. I find the fact that, I mean, when you just look at my generation, twice as many of us are actually owning cryptocurrencies as opposed to stocks, which I just find ridiculous. So I think my financial egg would have to be crypto. We can get into more and to wide, but rapid-fire crypto. Rapid-fire crypto. Okay, what's your best purchase of the week? It's Friday. Best purchase of the week would have to be went to dinner with a group of friends, had a few drinks, and ended up just randomly deciding, I'm going to pay for everyone, felt really good, probably because I got the drink, but that was a great purchase. Everyone's very happy about it. I love that. And then my last question is, do you feel rich today? I feel I'm getting there. I feel that I'm getting there. The podcast is going really well. I feel that I'm learning so much from doing this podcast, speaking with investors, speaking with experts, living in New York is kind of insane, but that's sort of the hand we've been dealt. And I love this city. I love who I'm meeting. I also just love the professional opportunity that it provides me. For me, I'm well on my way, and everything's going to pay off. I just need to keep working super hard, keep learning as much as possible, keep grinding essentially. So how old are you? 27 now. 27. So I feel like these, that is exactly what your 20s are all about, is sort of like trying things, getting your career in place, and just trying to get your money in the market so that you can start compounding. That's right. That's what it's all about. You've had this crazy career trajectory. Like walk us through it a little bit because you were obsessed with Scott Galway in college, and then became his intern. Then became his research assistant. Now you're his freaking co-host. It's you and Cara Swisher. Those are the two people that he's on the mic with every week. So how like walk us through this? How did you make this happen? Well, you kind of nailed it right there. I mean, I was obsessed with Scott Galway in college. I listened to his podcast and I wanted to do anything to reach out to him. So I was trying to find all these different connections. I found one through actually my roommate and I learned that he had a connection to Scott Galway. So I emailed Scott Galway and I said, "Hey, I just really want to work for you." And he took my call and we had a phone call and he said, "I'll let you intern for me." That's what I did my senior year of college. Then he hired me out of college. I was his research assistant doing his decks, doing his research, helping him write his books, et cetera. And then about two and a half or three years ago, he said, "Let's start a podcast." And so I said, "Okay, let's do it." Didn't really know what I was doing, but I just went for it. We started with once a week and then we went to twice a week and now we're doing it every day, every every week day at least. And it's just kind of grown from there. And then in a couple of weeks we're going on tour. So we'll be going to San Francisco, LA, Chicago, Miami, we'll end in New York, which will be awesome. So fun. It's been kind of a rocket ship that I'm just kind of like wrapping my head around, but it's been so much fun and so rewarding. I love that. And you know, it's so crazy is like we both work in the financial space, but rather was studied finance. Like I studied film, you were a classics major. That's right. What do you sort of make of the ROI of a liberal arts degree? Like, do you think you need to study finance to work in finance? Like, no, I don't think so. I mean, yeah. So just for the context, I mean, I took some economics courses, I took some finance courses, but my major was classics. I was studying like ancient Greek and talking about ancient classical storytelling. I completely different thing. But what was so helpful about that education is I learned the art of storytelling. And essentially that is what the job is. What we're trying to do with our podcast is take complex and what many would consider to be boring topics, making them exciting, making them interesting, telling the story of what's happening on Wall Street. And that's a lot of what jobs are today as well. I mean, especially I think this is becoming clearer for people in an age of AI, where AI can do all of the boring tasks for you. What can it not do? It's not that great at drawing connections between interesting stories from history and making analogies and doing the hard work of telling the stories that are interesting to people. So for me, I'm like, that was the best education I could have gotten. It trained me for exactly the kinds of things that I need and that will help me in my career. So I'm very, very bullish on liberal arts educations right now. I don't think that college is just sort of a one and done. You have to go to college. It's the only way to be successful. And what we know about college educated kids right now is that they're struggling to get jobs. But if it's, I mean, liberal arts was sort of downplayed for so many years. It's useless. It doesn't matter. You have to study computer science instead. That just turned out to not be true at all. I always believed that that was going to be the case. So I'm pro on pro liberal arts. Pro liberal arts. And even now, I think there's so many 18 year olds who are looking at like student debt. And they're like, I don't know if I should go to college. And it's like, I agree. I think that it's still really worth it. Yeah. I think it depends on your situation. I think the trouble is we were sold this story for basically decades that you have to go to college. If you don't go to college, then you're useless, you're worthless, and you know, you're not going to get a real job. That was not true at all. You can, I mean, we're literally seeing that employment, if you didn't go to college, if you for college grad aged people, if you didn't go to college, the employment rate is actually higher than if you did go to college. First time we've seen that in a really long time. If you're taking out huge amounts of debt to go to college, that's a different story. There's a different ROI depending on where you're going. That should have been communicated to us. We should know that, you know, you need to look at the college that you've been accepted to. If it's a great college, if it's like an Ivy League, if it's like top 10, that does matter to employers. It still matters. And yes, maybe you should take out a significant amount of debt to go to that college. It really depends on the situation. I think that we should have been trained from an earlier age. Like, this is a nuanced conversation. It's not black or white. It isn't binary. That's not what we were taught at growing up. I mean, literally the American dream is such a lie. Like I talk about that in my book, like the American dream is dead. Like everything that they said, like we should have and should sort of for it doesn't work. Yes. And I feel like the most, the antidote to that is not to give up, but it's more just to run the numbers. Yeah. Like, that's literally the thesis. And work harder. I mean, that's the thing that upsets me about young people today is, yes, we would definitely sold something that didn't turn out to be true. Our parents and our grandparents, like, this is how you're going to do it. This is the way I got a job, and this is the way the economy works. And we live in a completely different economy. We live in a world where housing prices, just as an example, are seven times average annual income today. So my parents, it was four times for my grandparents, it was three times when they were my age. So it's a completely different economy. It's a completely different world we're living in, not to mention the fact that we're dominated by our screens and we have to juggle that at the same time. And so we can't use the playbook that other generations have used. It just doesn't work for us anymore. But what we also can't do is say, oh, it's screwed up. The system is completely rigged. And so I'm just going to give up, and I'm just going to sit at home, I'm going to live in my parents' basement. I'm going to watch YouTube. I'm going to order a dash, et cetera, et cetera, which we're increasing. Watch porn. Yeah. That's how I'm going to spend my time. Yeah, day trade. Day trade. Day trade. Campbell. Polymarket. Polymarket. Kalshi, et cetera. It's like, this is not this is not the way we're going to build that. No. In my view, I'm totally with you. Like, there is a lot of reason to want to feel that you should give up and that the system just doesn't work for you. But okay, have fun giving up. Like, you could also take the alternative route, which is you could really get your shit together, work super hard, recognize that you are actually going to have to work harder than previous generations did. You are going to have to grind. You're going to have to be really conscious and careful about how you spend your money, what you're investing in, how you build your career. Like, these are very hard questions that meant to be hard. And so we need to acknowledge that, recognize that, and then get our act together and do something about it. Then, after the other, in the same house, is this bad luck or something more sinister? Long simmering what took you so fucking long to get here. Next to the binge can listen to all episodes, all at once, add free. Cricket doctors have launched their most ambitious fraud yet worth over $1 billion. From Sony Music Entertainment and Western Sound, this is Dr. Billions. Coming October 1st to the binge, listen wherever you get your podcasts. When I look at you, you're someone who's Gen Z, and you know, when you say work harder, it's hard, I think, for someone who's a little bit lost in their career to know where to put the fire. Like, oh, I want to figure it out. I want to have that career that's going to, like, take me to the next level, but I don't know where any opportunities are. I don't have a network, and the job that I'm in sucks, I think what you said is the, like, the most, like, that's so important to just be like, yeah, it's supposed to be hard. Yes. Like, oh, it's totally figure out a ball, but it's, like, it's definitely going to take some work. Like, no one is going to hand you anything. And by the way, that's capitalism, baby. Yes. Like, you know, cream rises to the top, and you're only going to become cream if, like, you're working really hard. Exactly. I think one thing is that Gen Z is actually getting right about, like, work and money. You're sort of like the op of Gen Z. I know. I know. When I look at our situation, I don't, I generally, I don't feel that optimistic. And as you can tell, I'm, like, kind of generally sort of lean towards pessimism, which is not the way to be. I mean, I think it's clear that what we're, what we're incredibly good at is technology and using technology to come up with creative solutions to problems. I am bullish on AI. I think that AI is going to be transformative for a lot of, for a lot of people. And I think it's going to create a lot of wealth. But I also have concerns about how that wealth is going to be distributed, where it's going to be concentrated into. And so that, to me, is also going to be a problem for us. I mean, the trouble for Gen Z is we've come up with all of these. We've recognized correctly that the traditional ways of building wealth and creating value and creating a base, an economic base, an economic security for yourself and for your family, they don't really work anymore. You can't just. Neural about building wealth, baby. Exactly. Thank you, Ed, for selling my book. That's so nice. Exactly. And by the way, you should buy this book. Yes. No, I've unloaded him for that. Yeah. Continue. It's not paid. I've talked about housing. I've talked about the cost of college, which was a real problem. I should also recognize that stocks are expensive today too. You have a world where stocks are very expensive. It's hard to get into that. How's it very expensive? You spend all this money on college, like the traditional ways to build wealth. They're not very accessible in a way that they used to be. And so on the one hand, you have to respect that young people have come up with these creative ideas and creative solutions to getting around that. And they have come up with things of what I call casino assets. That would be cryptocurrencies. That would be options trading, which is very, very popular for Gen Z right now. And it would also be just kind of flat out gambling, which we're seeing in the form of prediction markets. So in a way. They want to get rich quick. And in a way, you have to respect that because there's a hustle mindset. There's a work around like, hey, these things don't work. So let's come up with our own solutions. In that sense, I respect it. On the other hand, we should also recognize that there is a very, very, very small percentage, very small handful of people who are actually building wealth via these assets. Most people who are trading crypto are losing money. Most people who are trading options, especially zero-day options, which are these options that expire within 24 hours. It is essentially gambling. Most of those people are losing money. And our generation, we're the ones who do that stuff the most. We're the most interesting crypto. More than a third of us are trading options. That's the highest of any generation by far, far higher than millennials, far higher than Gen X, far higher than boomers. We're obsessed with trading. And then, of course, there's the gambling prediction markets are on the rise. Also, general traditional gambling is also on the rise. Half of young men today have an online sports book, which, to me, is a concern because if you look at the numbers, if you look at your odds, your odds of making money gambling are actually lower than your odds of getting bit by a dog. Oh, my God. So your odds are not very good. No. And then I look at prediction markets. And actually, the return, this is a new study that we saw, the return on prediction markets is actually lower than your return, your average return, on traditional gambling. No. The average return is negative 7 percent on prediction markets trading. And the reason it's so bad is because you have 0.1 percent of the traders on those platforms who are making all of the money, probably because they have inside information. In fact, we're now seeing a report or a investigation of the DOJ, which is proving that that is the case. And then the rest of us are thinking, maybe this will work. Maybe it's going to happen. I think one of the problems is that we've come up with all of these sophisticated financial terms to describe these things. Like zero day options and altcoins, yield farming and events contracts. That's what the legal term for prediction markets contracts are, events contracts. And we're kind of making it sound sophisticated and exciting to invest in this stuff. But I just think we should be very clear about what is investing and what is gambling. And the distinction between those two things is so essential and it's sort of, it's the difference between building wealth in a sustainable way that's actually going to work out few over the long term, versus just yolowing into things and hoping and praying, crossing your fingers that it's going to work out, which is what so many young people are doing. Again, I don't blame us because this is what we were sold. Like we were told this story and we've had these companies that have invested billions of dollars into perfectly concocting that story and manicuring it, such that it is compelling to us. But I do worry about where it's leading us and I think eventually we're going to wake up and have that moment and realize, oh, this was all kind of a grift. Like none of this really made sense and the ways that we should have been investing were the traditional ways and tough luck at the entry point is more expensive. So just to be clear, we don't think that Gen Z is getting anything right about work with money. Well, so let me clarify, because I don't think that it's that Gen Z sucks with money. I think it's that we were handed in a very different hand. And so I sort of like treading water, like trying to figure out like, what can we do? opportunity. Yeah. How do we build wealth? Yeah. I mean, this isn't I made it, maybe it's this. And, and the answer is most of the time, the answer is actually, no, it's not that. And so I just, I should be clear, I guess, I don't blame Gen Z for our problems. We saw the same thing with millennials where it's like, millennials, all they do is buy their avocado toast and they don't know how to build. And it's sort of like, that's, that's a very reductive way of framing the way that millennials are approaching money and the fact that they are working hard and they are trying to figure things out. I don't think that Gen Z is a bunch of lazy, entitled people who just they're, they're stupid. They don't know what they're going to think that. I just think that the situation that we were placed into is a very difficult one. And the idea of getting it right is almost harder than ever. Like, it's very hard to not mess up financially in a situation that we're in today, which is why we need more podcasts like this to talk about this. We need more books like this to talk about it because it's harder today. I'm, I feel very passionate about it. I think it's a real thing. I mean, I, I have a presentation that I give to companies and one of the quotes that I have in my deck where I talk about this is it's a quote from Alexander Hamilton. It literally said that there should be a line between mere unprincipled gambling and respectable stock holding basically saying like this distinction between investing and gambling is, is quite important and it can get blurry and it can get confusing and it can be a real sink hole for people financially. So this guy was saying this like literally like 200 years ago talking about how we need to have that distinction. It's been around forever. But I feel that that today, especially the distinction is being blurred and it's really confusing for people. I hear stories from young people where they'll call in or they'll send an email and they'll talk about how they learned about this meme coin on on Twitter or on X or on social media and they literally took like their grandmother's savings and they said I'm just I'm so sure about the grandma's savings. This was a story that was told. That ain't right. It's terrible. Teap your hands off of grandma's. By the way, grandma needs to be investing. Yeah, I'm worried about grandma. Stay away from grandma. 100%. She knows what you do to you. Exactly. But it's sad as well. Like it makes me it makes me upset and and these kids are upset about it too because there's a sense of shame and regret and guilt. But like, you know, we have these people like we have Andrew Tate on our phones every three seconds with his Lamborghinis and his and his weird compounds in Romania talking about this is how you're going to get rich. Like the misinformation out there, the education that we're getting is just it's so bad that again, I don't blame the kid. I don't blame him for doing that. I blame the situation that he was dealt. Hello, it's Elizabeth Day from How To Fail Here. My next guest is the pioneering British fashion designer renowned for his signature classic with a twist aesthetic. Sir Paul Smith. They say, oh, Paul's job. Yes. Head of happiness. That's my job. What a great job. I do close as well. Yeah. Listen to How To Fail, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Simon Mayo and I'm Mark Kermod. What a great episode we have for you, lined up. It's a packed show. We have reviews of Heart of the Beast, Brad Pitt, and a dog, her private hell, the new film from Nick Winding Reffen, a Bournemon and the Devil, a documentary about the worst film ever made and sense and sensibility with our super special guest, gorgeous George Mackay. Okay. So you work for a man who's like, obviously so upset about Mill loneliness, epidemic, the end style. It's this whole thing. You probably research the book. It's a big thing in your office. Meanwhile, you are over here just like being fully in a relationship. And I don't know. I feel like as a sort of profgy markets head, I would love to know a little bit of the romantic tea ad. And I want to know about how you split money with your partner because I know you guys love to go out to eat. Are you throwing down that card for her always? Are you, you know, is chivalry dead? Chivalry is probably dying. I like to do it. Whenever I can, I put the card down and I buy the dinner. But sometimes she'll say, I want to do this and she'll put the card down too. So, but that's nice because what I like about that is there's an emphasis on like we're always trying to be helpful. Like you're always trying to be nice to the other person. And this kind of goes back to what I was saying before, which is usually if you do that, if you're always trying and striving to make your partner's life better, easier, more comfortable in some way, then you're going to get that back in return. And so, that's sort of, you know, we're doing that. But it's exactly, it's an investment. I mean, I think generally speaking men should be paying, or at least you should be trying to pay. And, you know, if it's a conversation, they say, no, I really want to get this then okay, but you should definitely be striving to do that. What I think is getting becoming to be a problem is there is a culture of, you know, all that matters is how much money you have and how much you spend on the date. Like dating is getting more and more expensive and Gen Z is actually spending more than the average in America today on dates than any other demographic. We're spending more than 200 dollars per date. That's on average. That's a lot of money. For average is crazy. Like that's not even just in New York. It's not, this is not a New York. This was a survey of the United States. Are they going to like Disney? Like, how many activities are you doing? Like, you just got a mocky role and like split some beer like what the hell? Exactly. Or you go like you go on a walk or you do that. Yeah, that's better. Go get sushi. Yeah, you can get cheap sushi. No, for sure, gone. But I also agree. I'm a financial expert. But I totally agree. When you're in your 20s, you are so often wanting to be a sheep and wolf's clothing. Yes. Right? Because you are sort of appropriating adulthood and you want to feel like, okay, you're doing it right. And so much of how we're seeing people do that now is with money. But actually when you were talking at about like maybe the right way to go about things, it's like much more modest and sort of just gritty. Yeah. You know, but like, and so, and I talk about this in my book to you, I'm like, move home with your parents. Right. Like in your 20s, like feel free to like be cheap with your friends. Like, why are you at Chip Riani? Like, there are only so many times that you can go to Nobu or Chip Riani without actually having the money to afford it. And so what is so much more impressive. I think you're attracted to people is like, yeah, come up with your own thing that actually makes sense for you. Like don't bankrupt yourself trying to go to these ridiculous places. Like come up with something that is affordable for you. Shows that you have taste, you have interest, you're making an effort. So give us some examples, Ed. Like you, you've romance successfully, right? Like, you got it to the finish line. You've moved in with a girl. Like that is done. That's big time. Like, you know, it gives your tips and tricks. Like when you were, when you were rolling out that red carpet at the beginning of the relationship, trying to like, you know, seduce this lady, or I would like to note, I'm meeting on Monday. Um, what was, what was the nice thing for us is that we were really good friends. And so I think that was another thing that really helped us. It's like, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't me trying to sort of flaunt something or be flash. You'll be really cool for her. It was like, our relationship was built off of originally being friends with each other and having this, this sense of like genuine trust, companionship, friendship. So I guess my, what I would say is like, instead of going into a date and thinking like, how do I convince this person that I'm the coolest person that's ever existed? Scott, the way Scott puts it is like, a lot of people go on dates and they show up with a representative of themselves as opposed to themselves. Yeah. Which is so true. Like, why don't you show up as yourself and see, does do we have a connection? I think that's the way to do it. Yeah. It's so true. We have to talk about AI. Yeah. Because you recently spoke to Cal Newport and Derek Thompson about AI. So what would you say is the most surprising thing that you took away from that conversation? It's a really interesting conversation. Cal Newport, who was a neuroscientist and Derek Thompson, who's a great writer for the Atlantic. Basically, we talked about this idea that AI is making us dumber. So again, to be clear, I think AI is going to be incredibly productive. We're seeing huge amounts of wealth, huge amounts of productivity. It's incredible for enterprises. I'm not someone who thinks that AI is a giant scam, which is a lot, what some, a lot of people seem to think. However, AI in schools is a real problem. Oh, that's crazy. Because what we're seeing is that every student today is using AI to cheat, just flat out, cheating to do their homework, cheating to do their essay assignments. A study was done where they looked at young students using AI to do their homework and they had a control group of students who were not using AI. They found that the students who used the AI tools like chat, GPT, like Claude, to do their homework, they did brain scans and they found that their brain activity was suppressed by 55% when they used the AI tools. That's crazy. And they also noted, which I love that they pointed this out, that that is actually lower brain activity, higher suppression than people who are twice over the legal alcohol limit drunk drivers. So essentially, you have a whole generation of kids who are basically drunk drivers, doing that homework. But the difference is, these are our formative years. This is where our brain is being developed. And teachers don't know what to do about this. College professors don't know what to do about this. The technology is advancing so much faster than anything else. And in fact, the thing that was really upsetting is that OpenAI developed an AI tool that was actually able to detect cheating, AI cheating. We had 99.9% efficacy. And they decided to actually pull that tool because they realized this is going to decrease usage among the younger population. They need young people, which is driving a lot of the usage today, to be using AI to help them do their homework. And in most cases, to do the homework for them. So I worry that we have a generation of kids that are getting also, I mean, we talked about loneliness, the anxiety, troubling things with the depression, but also literacy, math scores, science scores. I'm sorry. This is just the data. This is the data. Oh my gosh. I'm trying to. I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to be a dream. You got to give us like a, this is how we fix it. This is how we fix it. Tell us know how. My view on how we fix it, you got to start with the root problem, which is the screens and the phones at a very early age. Get rid of the phones in schools, ban them, flat out, make sure that we're strict about it. I might sound like a lot I owe technologies a problem. We're already seeing the evidence. It's a problem for children. And then we should also just age gate social media. Very simple, very easy solution. Australia has done it. Lots of countries in Europe are doing it. Just say we need to verify your age before you get an Instagram or a TikTok account. And there's your solution right there. That way we'll develop a sense of understanding of how to socialize with people, how to go through that productive struggle that we talked about. And then once you are a fully formed adult, once you've gone through your education, once you've learned about the world, then you get the phone, then you get on the social media. And there are great things about social media. We got to connect because of social media. My whole career is really about using social media to get messages out there to get my podcast out there. Of course, there's so much great stuff. But we should at least just recognize the downsides and the vices of social media, which are way more way more emphatic way more intense from an early age for young people specifically. Totally. And we are like in a niche on social media too, where we're not like doing the nefarious influencing. Well, by the way, yeah, this is why we need more people like you. Yeah. And like you know, because I mean, the alternatives, a lot of people say, oh, you know, scrolling, social media, that's it's like, no, this is where people are spending their time. This is where they're learning about the world. This is where they're learning everything from how to cook, from how to invest, how to get a job. This is where we're being trained. And so the alternative is you could say, oh, I don't like social media. I don't want to be on that. But if you have something productive to offer to the conversation, you should be on social media as much as possible. We need to compete with particular and Andrew take clavicular guys. And I woke up this morning. He used his hammer. And that's why he looks so, so chisel. My peptides hammered to the face. Hammered to the face. So smashing. So important. Well, Ed, thank you so much for coming on the financial tee. I think this is going to be the first of many appearances. You're going to be our Gen Z correspondent. We love that. Just, you know, boots on the ground. Thank you. Thank you so much. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. And, you know, I'd stay rich. I will. I'll try. Thank you. Thank you.