SPEAKER_00 0:02

Everyone, welcome back to Energy Captains. It's been a while since we recorded. Um turns out that Cam, my lovely co-host who's back with me today, had a baby. Well it's like so before we dive in and introduce our guest, um, can you please share the amazing news? Because, you know, I've gotten be with you when you were dating Eronique, and then you got engaged. I was at your wedding. And so, like, it's basically our baby at this point, like all of us. Um, so anyway, uh, turns out that babies are time consuming. So that's why there's been a delay, but please tell everyone the amazing news.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Yeah, Wendy, I appreciate that. Uh, baby Luna is here. I got a photo of her right here uh at the beach. She's a cutie. Um, she's five months old as of yesterday. So um it's it's been a blessing. It's the hardest thing I've done and the most rewarding thing. So I'm excited to talk about fatherhood, of course, with our with our amazing guests. And yeah, it's been a journey, Whitney. I'm excited for her to meet the family as well. I know you met her already, but I'm excited for her to meet the other Tampa family. And we're here now, energy captains in the flesh, excited to pod with you, Whitney.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Okay, and before we dive into the amazing guests that we have today, I have to ask, at what age do parents stop introducing their kids by number of months? So, like people are like, you know, this is my son, he's 137 months. I'm like, okay, so is he five or 15? Like, what age do we stop start like just seeing it in years so I can understand how old your kid is?

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Well, really, when she reaches 12 months, that's when I'll stop. Once she hits 12 months, I'll stop there. But um, like I said, I we'll probably get more advice from our guests, Whitney, because he mentioned his child is uh 36, three and a half, 36 months. So excited to see.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

What I'm saying, it's just been a burning question in my mind. I can only ask a parent because it becomes its own language. Like I'll run into someone, they're like, my kid is 72 months. I'm like, what? So how old? How old is it? Like you speak a language I understand. Anyway, okay, to dive into our amazing guest. Um, we are so excited to welcome Spencer Garris. Um, Spencer has and is currently living a number of lives all in one. Um, I will let him dive in and tell his own story. But just as a quick overview, he was instrumental in building a ton of key products at Robin Hood. He owns his own brick and mortar business. Um, he's working on a venture capital firm. And on top of it all, he's building, and this is why I want to bring you guys together today, he's building a really cool new platform that's gonna be such a game changer. It's called Market. Um, the URL is InvestINAthletes.com. And it's basically a stock market for athletes. So the way that you can normally like go on e-Trade or one of those companies and um, you know, say that I think this company's stock is gonna rise, you're gonna be able to do the same thing on market, um, should be launching late summer, early fall. And the cool part is that the athletes themselves benefit. So in most, you know, sports betting these days, people win or lose, but the athletes who are the reason why these platforms exist don't benefit at all. But the really cool part of market is that athletes um get paid for their participation. And I know, Kim, for you, you know, we we always worked on building your brand off the field, trying to create as many revenue streams as possible. So for someone like me, me, who's such an advocate for athletes and um, you know, the the people that they are and making money outside of sports, I was really excited to hear about everything that um this company is bringing together. So, Spencer, why don't you jump in and tell us a little bit about your journey? Um, we can always chime in if we have any follow-up questions, and then um I will let Cam take it from there.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Yeah, thanks, Whitney. Thanks, Cam. Thanks so thanks so much for having me on the pod. This is my first podcast, so I'm super excited.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

You're already killing it.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

First pod in my life, hopefully of many. Um Whitney, you nailed the intro. Um, and I think the 18-month mark is where you you've got to give it to a year and a half. Uh just to nail the icebreaker. So, in terms of you know, my history, I grew up in Indiana and then went to Arizona State, studied finance, and I started my career at Vanguard in fund management. And uh then I went to Robinhood in 2021, and as you mentioned, built a ton of crazy products at Robinhood. So co-founded Robinhood Derivatives LLC with a great team. We built Futures Prediction Markets, the fastest growing business in Robinhood's history, led a bunch of product and engineering teams through other builds like equity shorting, launched futures in the UK, so did some international operations as well. And uh all the while was building my family. I've got an amazing wife, Amy, I've got a three and a half-year-old son, Alex. Uh, we've been in Chicago, Dallas, all over. We're we're in Texas now. And in December, I joined Blockchain Market Inc., the company you were explaining market, and we're building a really exciting platform where fans can invest directly in athletes. And as you said, finally, when fans win, athletes win too, which is really exciting. Uh, building an athlete first platform and excited to hear Cam's take on it. Uh, we've we've heard lots of great feedback from from current players. I'm curious, kind of post facto off the field, uh, how Cam feels about it and and maybe what he would have uh done with the company back in the day. So uh I'll pause there and we can kick things off. Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Congrats on that. Um, couple things as an athlete. You mentioned moving to Texas. I wonder if you moved to Texas for the tax purposes. That's that's my question. One is that the reason why you moved to Texas?

SPEAKER_01 6:07

It was a big part of it. I do love the tax regime in Texas, definitely better than the Chicago area. Um, my wife's family is from Texas. The weather's wonderful down here, so we like Texas. Nice. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

My pops is in Houston. So I feel you, even though Houston, I think it's the hottest place I've been in, besides Miami, Miami, Houston, like Arizona, top three hottest places. But um, no, that's really cool. And you mentioned the future space. And I just saw, I know Whitney worked at the MLB before, but the MLB just signed a deal with Polymarket. You talk about futures. Can you can you break that down? You're talking about working at Robin Hood, the future space. Like, what is that?

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Yeah, really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

I have to I have to apologize before you move on because I didn't nail the intro. I also left out that you're in the army on top of like you're like a cat who has nine lives, but instead of sequential, they're just all at once. So um, you know, thank you for your service and all you've done. Especially, you know, we know what's going on in the world now, and so we just want you to know we appreciate you. And please tell us, you know, about that side of your life too. I don't understand how you do all these things at once, but also it would be helpful if you could just walk us through how market works and what it looks like, especially compared to some of these other platforms that Cam has mentioned.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Definitely. Uh several questions there, so I'll try to remember to hit all of them. I did forget to say I'm a captain in the Army Reserve, been in for 10 years. Uh I'm wrapping up my first book, so that should be uh live in April. It's uh about a 200-page chapter book called Mental Models. And I'm I want others to have the tools that I've had to achieve the things that I have, uh, which are yeah, thanks, Gam. Comes down to the the mental models, really. Um in the subtitles, how to how to think, act and win.

SPEAKER_02 7:57

Um Whitney has a book too, by the way. Sorry, I should plug that in. Whitney has a book too, and there might be a second one on the way, but I just wanted to plug that in really quickly.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Thank you. Actually, Spencer already ordered it.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Yeah, you're you're the first you great book. Um, love that. And Cam, to answer your question on futures, MLB CFTC uh agreement was really interesting. MLB is really leading the charge uh on the innovation side, and we like MLB for market as well because the contracts are guaranteed income, which is different from football. So it's uh less risky, if you will, for retail investors just because it's more clear what the earnings will look like. So futures are derivative contracts. Uh they're regulated by the CFTC and NFA. And what are those? Sorry, CFTC NFA, sorry, what are those? Yeah, CFTC is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It's the derivative equivalent of the SEC. Got it. And then NFA's National Futures Association, they regulated as well. That's the securities equivalent of FINRA. So, anyways, uh highly regulated businesses and futures started because corn farmers wanted to hedge their risk. If they were gonna harvest in six months, they wanted to lock in prices today. So it's a contract with a future expiry and a future price. So uh I won't I won't bore you guys with uh too many of the details, but it was a really complicated build, and um prediction markets is quite a bit simpler, which is why I think they've become so popular with retail investors, just a binary contract. You you trade yes or no, and uh the outcome's quite simple. So um I feel oh the last question, market. So you're asking more about how market works. So I'll keep it as simple as possible. We're uh IPOing athletes, so retail investors can purchase shares in what's called an athlete stock company. So when Cam was on the field balling out, if we would have entered an agreement, we could have said, hey Cam, we want to buy 30% of your income for the next three years. And as you earn that income, you would pay the money to the athlete stock company and the retail investors' uh athlete stock company investment would go up in value. And what does Cam get for that? When we enter this agreement, Cam's gonna de-risk all of his future income because we're gonna give him a cash advance today. In football, there's a lot of there's injury risk, there's career risk. The average career is 3.3 years. It's much longer for a top 10 draft pick, it's about 9.4 years. So being able to de-risk trade risk, uh injury risk, and get that cash today is huge, especially because so many more athletes are getting sophisticated, starting their own ventures, and really building a life off the field and after the field. And that allows athletes to pull that timeline in. So it's it's pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

So, Spencer, essentially, say Cam is still on the Rams or the Bucs. Let's go with the Bucs because they're in Tampa. Um that's that's where we met. So he comes to you and he says, Hey, I'm interested in you know having my stock on the platform on market. Then what happens after that? Does he get a check? And then what is his stock based on whether it goes up or down?

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah, great questions. So if Cam engaged, first we need to underwrite Cam because we need to figure out what his deal size is. So we would project out his income uh out up to 10 years, and then we determine how many years Cam wants to enter an income purchase agreement for, and what percent of income he wants to do that with. So we can do 10 to 49%. We really want the athlete to be able to have control over what the terms are. So we're flexible on our side. Three to 10 years, 10 to 49%. And based on their projected income, based on comps for their position, et cetera, then we can make an IPO offer. And that includes a cash advance for their on-the-field income. We protect the off-the-field income, so we we aren't touching their ventures, real estate investments, endorsements, even just on-the-field salaries and bonuses. Then we have a marketing fee because our platform is gonna grow by being in partnership with these athletes, and they already, you know, Cam's got an audience, so we see value in that. We pay a marketing fee to the athlete as well. So it's in a sense, um it's a marketing deal too. And then the last piece is executive compensation. I mentioned how athletes are becoming more sophisticated earlier. We really want to give them a chance, you know, to be a board member on that athlete stock company and get that experience and and we compensate them as their athlete stock does well. So there's three components to it. When the athlete agrees to the IPO offer, we file a registration statement with the SEC. The SEC has to qualify the offering because these are SEC regulated products. Once the SEC approves it, we list it on the platform, and then the retail public buys those shares of camp stock. Once the IPO is fully subscribed, it begins secondary market trading. So buyers and sellers can trade the stock between themselves.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

Wow. So I wanted to ask you this when it comes to the unions, um, do you have to navigate the sport league unions? And then, second to that, like in IOs here with college athletes, are you gonna have to deal with NCAA? Like, what does that space look like?

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Yeah, great question. So for listeners who aren't aware of uh NFLPA, MLBPA, MBAPA, no surprise, those are the big three sports that we're interested in first. Uh there's collective bargaining agreements or rules. Um, they're uh structured as unions. So uh Cam, to answer your question more directly with that context. The uh the team is not able to pay uh the athlete stock company directly. The team plays pays the player still. So the player is still getting a standard payment, then the player pays a trust, and the trust has a trustee, and the trustee ensures that the accurate percentage of the athlete's earning goes to the athlete stock company. So it allows us to work you know in compliance with the collective bargaining agreements, and it also ensures that the investors are getting the accurate percentage of earnings. So that's how we're working uh with within compliance with the the PAs and unions. And then on the NIL side, it it is uh you know it's gotten way more liberal than it used to be. It's incredible that college athletes are being able to begin earning uh you know 18 to 20 years old while they're in in school. And in a lot of ways, it encourages them to finish school. You know, back in the days, you remember, you know, you'd you'd uh declare for the draft and you'd get drafted before you'd finish college. And then you got someone, you know, Jerome Bettis, an incredible player, goes back to Notre Dame after he finishes his time in the league, which is a beautiful story too. Uh, but I think it's you know, it's it's great seeing what NIL has done for empowering students to make money, especially because these athletic departments have been making tons of money off of their performance for so long. So it's great that athletes are able to get some of that too. And uh we're we're constantly working within the the rules of the respective leagues and you know, NIL or PAs, et cetera, because without regulatory compliance, you know, we can't sustain ourselves as a business. So it's definitely top of mind. Got it. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

And one thing I loved about um, you know, when I first met Spencer and learned about the company is that um not only are they really amazing human beings doing cool things, but um they make sure first and foremost to do everything the right way. And I think a lot of things that are thrown an athlete's way, you know, don't always smell right, or a lot of stuff out there just uh doesn't follow proper compliance rules. And I think it's this is a game changer because it's it they're making sure that they're doing everything the right way.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Definitely. Yeah, you mentioned an interesting point, and the way we've been thinking about the business too and the evolution over time is we really want to empower them to be successful human beings. And once we give them this huge cash advance, we want to make sure that they do well with that. So we're exploring other offerings too, whether that's advisory services, while they're playing insurance services, disability, whatever it may be, because we want to make sure the athlete is covered from a risk standpoint. And then when you get you know$20 to$50 million offer, how do we help the athlete turn that into$100,$250 million instead of squander it, you know, on Lamborghini's and ice, uh, if you will.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

So it's definitely something we care about. No, that's that's awesome. And and you mentioned something interesting, right? You mentioned that the players put the money towards a trust. So essentially, it seems like that trust is protecting everybody. And I know Whitney's in a family full of lawyers, and so can you just describe like why the trust and um when and you mentioned a cool thing too, right? Athletes having some advisory support and everything like that, but why the trust for to protect everybody? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Yeah, the trust is a is a critical piece. And um, if you studied really wealthy families, they almost always have family trust. So, in a you know, in a sense, we're inadvertently setting that athlete up if they don't already have a trust with a family trust, which is critical for them ensuring that again, once they get this huge cash advance, they're thinking about structuring things for growth as opposed to just spinning it lavishly. Um and so it in an altruistic way, it helps the athlete and their family, but also for a retail investor, um, you know, they're they're putting up their money as well to invest in the athlete. And the trustee is ensuring, as a trustee does, that all parties in their agreements are being honored. So um it's just a piece that has to be there. That's awesome. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

And uh sorry, Spencer, one more question. Um, so you know how sports betting has become legal in these past few years. Sometimes athletes, you know, they'd be at a bar or a restaurant, and a fan will come up and be like, man, you know, I bet on this game that you would do business and that. You didn't do it, and there would be some type of conflict. When it comes to market, when it comes to um you mentioned retail investors investing in some of the athletes' stocks. Do you foresee any of that? That those issues in public uh and people investing and putting their money, their hard-earned money, on some of these athletes' futures.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

I like to think that we won't have that happening. Um, a big part of that, so betting in sports betting and prediction markets, there's sort of they're zero sum games. Meaning, if you wager$100 on it and you're wrong, you lose 100% of your principal. So zero sum outcome. Um, in they're generally short expirations, meaning on that game on Sunday, if uh Patty Mahomes doesn't throw four touchdowns, he only throws three, and you're mad at him for it, that that's not gonna happen in this case because if Patty Mahomes throws three touchdowns on Sunday, his stock value is gonna be going up. Uh and it's intended to be more of an invest and hold instrument, and it doesn't expire until they retire. So you know, there there may be intra season, intra game downside volatility. If Patty Mahomes throws two picks and fumbles it, you know, it it might slide 0.8, 1.2%, but you're not gonna lose 100% of your principal off of that. So I think in general, uh the people that are putting their money behind these athletes sh should experience less uh less anger if if it doesn't personally well.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

It's actually way safer for athletes because a bad day doesn't define you or affect um the person who's investing um because it's really it's like you can lose the battle but still win the war.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Um no pun intended, since I know we're that might be a little quote, a quote line for you right there, Spencer. That's why Whitney, that's why you get paid the big bucks because you come with those one-liners. That's that was excellent, actually.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Thank you. Well, and no pun intended since he's actually in the military. But um, you know, you you can have you know a really, really horrific day on the field, but it's this particular company really represents the athlete for who they are over the entirety of their career. So one one bad day doesn't mess up a parlay like sport like a sports betting app would. It's about saying, hey, I think I I really see that the future is going to be bright for this particular athlete.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Absolutely. And you know a key difference too, if the investor or trader or better hits on a bet or they win on a prediction play, they make money, but guess what? Athlete gets nothing. In this scenario, with what we're offering, when the investor wins, the athlete's making money. For the first time, we're offering an instrument. Where the first person who gets paid is the athlete, which is super groundbreaking, and that's what gets me excited.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

So, Spencer, tell us like I mean, it's probably obvious to you, but for people who are listening who may not know, what dictates whether an athlete stock goes up or down?

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Yeah. So in any in any market where there's trading between buyers and sellers, really the market price is determined by supply and demand. Meaning if there's more buyers than sellers, the price goes up. If there's more sellers than buyers, the price goes down. So that's just market price dynamics. Um in terms of the intrinsic value of the actual athlete stock company, um, of course, as the athlete's earning money, that's coming back to the athlete stock company and it's increasing what's called the nav or the net asset value. So a holder in the stock could redeem their shares with the athlete stock company and not sell it to a buyer. So that's actually increasing in value. Um there's also accounts receivable, meaning the expected future earnings of the athlete, which is reflected in what we call the GAB or gross asset value. And then two other pieces. Um we have what's called the brand equity index, which is a proprietary algo. And that's where I was mentioning as you know, in the Patty Mahomes example, um, depending on you know, completions, yardage, touchdowns, or on the downside fumbles, interceptions, it'll change the gross asset value depending on that player's performance because it does imply their future earnings, right? Because if if they continuously have good games, you can assume that they're gonna get an extension contract that's larger. If they have bad games continuously, you could assume that that's not gonna be the case. Um, and the last piece is what we call a popularity index. It's a really cool piece of the product that we've built, also really altruistic. And this is where uh trading, you know, we charge trading fees, and as we collect trading fees, we're actually kicking some of those back to the athlete stock company. So the more popular the athlete stock gets trading wise, the value is actually going up with the athlete stock company that they're investing in as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

So also pretty too humble because when he says all these things that we've built, what he means is that I've built.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

That's real. And Spencer, so there's a couple of terms that have flown across this screen. I'm like, oh, let me Google that, let me look that up. So I'm curious, two things. One, what's the masterclass gonna look like? Like trading one-on-one for like an athlete who does who knows nothing about the stock market, who knows nothing about some of these terms. What's the educational the education portion look like for this for the space?

SPEAKER_01 25:04

For capital markets and stocks in general, or for market and what we're building? For for market and for market and what you're building. So we really try to educate the athlete while we're going through the deal process, and uh you'll be able to appreciate this. You know, there's agents involved, there's generally a financial advisor involved, and often a lawyer involved. And if they're close with their family, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, uncles, whoever it is. And so, you know, when when you approach market initially, it's not uh a quick LOI signature and then we're IPOing. Generally, it's multiple in-depth conversations where we're walking you through all of the granular details, uh, answering your questions about risk, answering your questions about mechanics, because um we want to make sure that the athlete and and their loved ones and support system and advisors are all fully bought into this. Um, so it's it's a team, it's a team game and it's a robust conversation.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

And if I say, you know, I bought stock of you know some quarterback that was going up against Cam and I'm like, nope, Cam's my guy. I hate this quarterback, and I want to sell their stock because I'm team Cam, how quickly do I get my money back?

SPEAKER_01 26:28

If you're redeeming for nav for what if you're redeeming your shares for the nav or net asset value, okay, generally we'll we'll do that within one business day. So we keep cash in the athlete stock company so that like a bank, uh, when people come to withdraw funds, they want to the bank has to keep money for that. Same principle, the athlete stock company custodies cash so that we can redeem uh within one business day. If you want to sell in the market to a buyer, you should, assuming there's liquidity in the market, you should be able to sell you know real time, and then you would the funds would settle and you would get the cash.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

And are there unlimited shares of stock for each athlete? Like can as many people buy stock or does it close out of a particular particular athlete?

SPEAKER_01 27:25

So the limit per athlete based on reggae plus tier two, which is the SEC rule, uh, is$75 million. And there's uh we're gonna be IPOing a million shares. So$75 per share would be the max price at IPO. And then of course it could go up from there. Uh so to answer your question, a million shares, there will be fractional shares as well. So if you don't want to buy or sell one whole share, you could buy or sell in dollars. So as little as one dollar.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Wow. And I know that you know, we mentioned that the platform is going live uh late summer, early fall, hopefully in time for football season. So what can people do now if they're interested in um maybe being first in line or um just you know get as soon as you guys are are ready to launch, that they're able to dive in and start purchasing?

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Yeah, great question. Our wait list is live, and we also have a great referral program set up. The top prize is uh all expenses paid trip to the Super Bowl, which is quite exciting. Yeah. In LA next year, yeah, in LA, so it's gonna be a good one too. We were in San Fran uh this past year, and I love San Francisco, but I I think maybe I'm more excited for LA. Uh it looks like you agree. So, anyways, the the wait list is live. You can go to investinathletes.com and join the wait list, refer your friends. We really, really appreciate the support. Uh, and then as soon as we go live, uh you'll be the first to know.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

Wow, wow. Yeah, and uh, my my last question. I know we could talk all day about this. I have so many questions, especially about some of the acronyms, but you mentioned um, so I just looked it up the the stock exchange, right? It's open from Monday to Friday from 9 to what 4 p.m., 9:30 to 4 p.m., whatever it is. And so for this space, do the athlete stocks go up or down even during the offseason? So you think about Max Crosby's situation, right? Play for the Raiders, he goes to the Ravens about to sign, but they don't sign him because his knee is hurt. Like, does the stock drop immediately after that? Like, how what what's the time frame for the for people to uh cash in or cash out?

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Great question. It's gonna trade all year round. So, yes, if you got injured uh or in trouble in the offseason, or if you got a contract extension or traded, whatever it may be, your your GAV uh would increase or decrease and your market price as well. If buyers rush into the market or if sellers rush into the market, that market price would change. We're not only gonna support trading during the season, we're gonna trade year round. And you alluded to market trading hours. Uh, we definitely want to have 24-hour trading, so it's trading around the clock, too. Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

I have one follow-up question for each of you. Cam, I'll start with you. If Spencer came to you as what you were playing and you know, explained what market is and now everything you know now, what would be your reaction?

SPEAKER_02 30:37

I'd be like, this is awesome. I think I would also ask about you mentioned the 30 up to 30% of the check. And so um, is that 30% is that mandatory? Like, hey, we need 30% of your check, or can you do any amount of your check from from the team?

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Any amount we can do as little as 10%, and we can do up to 49%. So I I suppose if you were really passionate about wanting to go above that, we could, but part of our messaging is that we don't ever want to take more than half of your check. Um, and and really it's up to the athlete. Uh, in a sense, how much of a cash advance do you want today? And how much do you want to de-risk your future earnings? And so the minimum's 10%, max is 49%. And then the minimum number of years is three years, max number of years is is 10 years.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

Got it. Of max minimum number of years, that means them being in the league for uh minimum number of years for the contract would be three years. Oh, got you. Okay, got it. Okay, yeah, that that that's a question I would ask. And then at that point, um, you know, I'm a little bit more conservative, so I'm like, hey, put me in for the 10%, and then as that time progresses, then I would uh add some more for sure.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

And just just curious to follow up um before I dive into my last question question for Spencer What would something like this have meant to you at the beginning of your career or throughout your career, just knowing there was sort of a backup plan.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

Yeah, it'd been it would have been great because you mentioned a trust, having something for my family. We're actually looking to get a trust going for ourselves right now. We're in a real estate space, we want to get the trust going. So the fact that I would the fact that market would be able to put me in that mindset as a rookie would be amazing. Like you mentioned, instead of buying ice or buying the Lambo, put your money in market, and then that money can then feed your family's family. So I think that's number one for me. And then I think second, I mean, like you mentioned, your stock can go up or down during the offseason. I think that's even more um more incentive for athletes to really act right. So for example, a lot of times during OTAs, spring football, the coaches says, hey, um, work out, have a good time, but don't end up on the ticker tape. And so I'd imagine if people are people end up on the ticker tape, that means their stock drops. So um I think market could be a great incentive for guys to to really act right during the offseason and not end up on the news. So I like it.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Accountability system, that's good. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Yeah, it's like it's like a babysitter for athletes. Um okay, Spencer, my last question for you. And then I know everyone has busy lives and little kids, so we won't keep you for too long. We're uh I've learned a lot. So super appreciative um of your time and coming on. And it's this is a whole new ball game, and it's just cool that we can find another avenue for advocating for athletes and looking out for them. Um, but I'm I guess I have a two-part question for you. How are you building this company? You're in the army, you have a small child, how are you doing this all at once? Is my first question. And my second question is you've had the ability to see the forest through the trees and really be an innovator in your career and to join and build companies that are going to the moon for lack of a better analogy. And so what was it about market that drew you to them? And what like why are you so passionate about them, considering your history of like really keying in on innovative companies?

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Yeah, great questions. The first one, you got to be a little crazy. Uh an entrepreneur or a builder and uh innovator, you have to be a little crazy. And that's um, you know, setting your mind on something and doing whatever it takes to achieve what you set out to do. Uh, time management is intense. You see my calendar, Whitney, and every you know, 15, 30 minutes is blocked off from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Uh, and I I care about being a great dad and husband. So outside of work, it's the same way. I take that very seriously. Um, and the second piece, um, I always try to see around the corner. I think that's critical, you know, as a trader, investor, in managing your career. You got to see around the corner. And um, you know, building futures, building prediction markets within Robinhood, that was because of seeing around the corner and and putting myself in a position to do those things. And um, you know, I was building prediction markets in my basement before they were cool, and now everyone knows about them. And so hopefully market will be the same way. And it what got me excited was you know, my my co-founder Ben, he was pitching me on the vision and what he wanted to build, and it seems sufficiently crazy and innovative. Uh, and I really need a crazy innovative vision, and it has to sound really hard. I I run towards huge challenges. So um it just got me super excited to build something that the world has never seen before.

SPEAKER_02 35:51

That's cool. And my last one, you mentioned seeing around the corner with your career. I'm currently going through that right now, right? There's a lot of re-orgs, there's different things going on, so I'm trying to stay ahead of the game. You mentioned seeing around the corner. What's the prep look like to see around the corner? What's like that consistent daily task that you do to kind of see around the corner?

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Good question.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Thanks. Great question. I think um cable stakes, you have to have your finger on the pulse. Like you mentioned, the MLB and in prediction markets or CFTC deal. Like you only know about those things if you're constantly reading on the what's the latest. If you don't know what the latest happening is, you're just inadvertently gonna fall behind. The second piece, uh constant deep research. Like you mentioned, looking up the acronyms. Like I spend hours and hours of my day just doing deep research, ask why, then why, then why, second, third order. And then the third piece is the strategic foresight and applying what's currently happening, what's the deep research, and how can I position myself, you know, put yourself in a better fighting position so that not just now you're you're in an advantageous spot, but in three, six months, you're gonna be in an advantageous spot.

SPEAKER_02 37:10

Man, I'm looking forward to reading your book. That it's gonna be a good read. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Will you come back on when your your book comes out? And you know, like since you're like such a big deal in all these different realms, just don't forget about us. Like hopefully you'll come come back and and still be willing to be seen with us.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

I will always come back to to my first podcast. Uh I would love that. That sounds great.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

You you would never know this is your first one, your natural first of many.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

Yeah, I hope so. It's been amazing.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Well, thanks for being our teacher today. And it sounds like you don't do boring and also kids do your homework. That was the advice I took away from you. Um so appreciate your time. And yeah, everyone can go to investnathletes.com and click on the wait list, sign up, and you know, you're you're only gaining things by doing that um and by referring, and uh you have nothing to lose, and then you can you can see all that Spencer's done. You can see his uh the artwork of Picasso over here.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

And the book when it comes out.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 38:12

Yeah, thanks, Whitney.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Thanks for joining Spencer.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Cheers, have a good one.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Take care.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

Cheers.