CEOInterviews.AITheStockGuy Explains His Journey in a Talk with Twitch CEO Dan Clancy

I

Interviewer0:00

Living in Delaware now. So, you know, I mean, it's.

J

Jason0:02

Florida to Delaware.

I

Interviewer0:03

Yeah. Florida to Delaware. Wow. That's a big change.

Well, you know, a lot of times we start these things with hearing your background and all that, but one of the things I wanted to chat about, and I'm going to jump into that. I'll just jump in because sometimes it's fun to kind of go with the flow on this. One thing that I find interesting about Jason, he's not your typical streamer. We're going to get to what he does, but one way where he's not the typical streamer is, you know, you might think of streamers as 20-something, single. Jason's got himself a family that he takes care of, and that's a big part of his life. So, why don't you talk about that decision to move? What made you move, and how's that going?

J

Jason0:50

I mean, you know, obviously, I think it's pretty obvious. I came to Delaware to avoid taxes as much as possible. No, the reason I came was my wife. Family is huge for me. I like to call myself a part-time streamer, full-time dad. My wife really wanted the kids to experience seasons and wanted to be still somewhat near the coast and be near cities for her job and be away from it. So I did a lot of research looking into the area, something that was still winter but more mild, a lot of open space for family, and just kind of landed on Delaware. I've been here for six months and can't find a house yet. So I'm renting out another man's basement until next month, and then hopefully we'll have a house soon.

I

Interviewer1:42

All right. All right. Well, now I guess we should go ahead and kick it off and tell people what it is you do on stream. We're going to chat about that before we get into how you got into it because I think it's kind of unique what you do on stream. So, why don't you tell us what you do on stream?

J

Jason1:58

What I do on stream, I mean, basically in a nutshell, I educate and entertain about money, finance, economics. I try to teach people about investing, markets, how money works — everything from credit cards to financing to buying a house — and understanding it, but doing it in a fun, engaging way, trying to make it stick and actually teach people stuff.

I

Interviewer2:26

All right. And by the way, I will add this, Jason. He's one of my highlights of TwitchCon. I think I've seen him at almost every TwitchCon. He is a regular there, and it's always great to see him. It's a great breath of fresh air. Maybe I will get him to give me some investing advice later on in this show since he is wonderful at capturing stuff and simplifying it down. So maybe later on we'll pick what you think are the best topics. I know I have some in my mind that I've seen you talk about, but we'll go to that later. So you can have that in your mind. But let's start with how you got into this because I do think that is very interesting in terms of how you became a streamer, how your life led you down this path.

J

Jason3:20

I used to trade stocks a little bit more, and I used to do it in the mornings. I worked overnight at the time. I used to run a big resort in Hollywood, Florida. I used to get off in the morning, had time, the markets were open, and I was okay at trading, but it was more of an interesting thing for me. I was kind of lonely, and I thought, maybe there are other people out there who also trade stocks and keep up with the markets. I could hang out and BS with them. But it was Wall Street Bets, Fin Twit, and a bunch of places that were just selling and pumping stocks. I said, 'That's not really my thing.' So I thought, what happens if I go live? Maybe other people would find me, and we could just hang out. That was really what started it. I had a $5 microphone, no camera, and I heard about Twitch because of some Fortnite streamer.

I

Interviewer4:12

2018.

Okay.

And you were at the time doing your own investing, but you weren't funding your life through your investing. Obviously, it helped you, but you had a day job — or it sounds like a night job — in terms of supporting your family. You were working somewhere else, and you were trading, and then you started streaming while you were trading.

J

Jason4:35

Yeah. I had my job. After I got sober and whatnot, I got back on my feet and started working at Burger King. I worked my way up through hotels from a bellman all the way up to a resort manager. Through the time, I loved money, I understood it, I understood how things work. So I started putting money aside side hustles and started investing. My investments grew. Then I started trading. Like every new trader, I went in thinking I'm going to be that guy who trades a bunch of stocks and becomes a millionaire. Of course, I lost my money the first time and blew it up. Then I realized this isn't what it is. You don't trade stocks to make money; you use the market to grow money, not make money. I still traded some on the side for fun and try to find undervalued companies. But streaming was just a hobby. It was like, hey, I'm going to find other people to hang out with when I do this stuff.

I

Interviewer5:26

Well, I think one of the great things about your story is this idea. People so often think of stock trading as working on Wall Street or going to this school and becoming an expert. I think you're a great example of someone who is just a normal guy that figured it all out. So, talk about that transition when you worked your way up and figuring that out, and also how you thought of yourself while you were going through that journey because I think there are a lot of people that can relate to that journey you lived as you found who you were.

J

Jason6:11

You mean the journey from like when I got sober up or like from...

I

Interviewer6:15

Came to streaming? Like, in other words, you were like so often when you think of someone who's an investor, you think they worked on Wall Street, went to this school, and you were an investor that just did it on your own and kind of built it up as you were talking about. Your journey before even before you started streaming.

J

Jason6:35

Well, I don't have it all figured out. There's no such thing as having it all figured out. I always remind myself, I jokingly call myself an idiot with a camera. But the figuring it out part is when you...

I

Interviewer6:46

I called you an idiot, Jason, but—

J

Jason6:49

I completely agree with you. Trust me. But the market is rigged. It's rigged, but it's rigged in your favor. The best thing people can do when it comes to investing is just get out of their own way. Just buy into it. When you realize that markets are long-term horizons and you drown out the noise, whether it's an individual company or the market overall, it's more about understanding how the dynamics work. Stop trying to figure it out and just go with what's proven. It took me a while to understand that because you get in thinking you've got the edge, you're going to be that next one. The way I learned it was just, okay, this is how the market operates. It goes up over time. It's about supply and demand. When it comes to individual companies, I don't promote day trading and gambling, even though I do day trade. It's more about being smart and understanding what you're looking at. Sometimes it takes time to develop the ability to read balance sheets and all that boring stuff.

I

Interviewer8:00

Did you do a lot of reading of traditional investment books or anything like that as you were educating yourself, or how did you learn about it?

J

Jason8:10

Honestly, this is going to sound funny. The reason I got interested was a movie that came out a long time called Zeitgeist. I'm not going to get into the whole movie, but there was one little part I watched at someone's house one day. I was kind of zoned out, but then I heard this thing about the Federal Reserve. It got me interested, and I was like, 'I want to learn about how money works.' So I learned about monetary policy, and it got me into learning about economics and trade. It just became something I nerded out about, and I kept evolving with it. It's like somebody likes Warhammer or something. I like money.

I

Interviewer8:48

Money, you know.

So, one of the things when I was asking about this journey is, I think especially as younger people watching this, there's a lot of this idea of who you are going to be and you have to get this job to become who you're going to be. Of course, your path has taken you down lots of paths. If I talked to you 25 years ago, you never would have envisioned who you've become. So just talk about that as you're thinking about other people trying to figure out where they want to go. How often I think people limit themselves, and I think that's probably something you had to do a lot on this journey — challenge your preconceived ideas of who you were and not limit who you could be. Does that make sense?

J

Jason9:34

Absolutely. I think if you're 24 years old and you have your life figured out, you're miserable. There is absolutely no way you should have your life planned out for the rest of it at 23 or 24. You're still understanding who you are. But society has put immense pressure on us to be here when you're 25, here when you're 30, here when you're 40 as how we define success. You're still figuring out who you are when you're 22, 23. You're not supposed to know what you're doing the rest of your life. You're supposed to make mistakes, experiment, live life. You don't have to be at a certain place at a certain time to measure success. People always tell me, 'Hey, you're 41 years old, you can't make those jokes.' Says who? You seem miserable telling me how I should act. So I'm enjoying who I am. When you're younger, when it comes to careers and life, stop allowing society to force you into a career to measure your success. It's something a lot of times we don't understand until it might be too late to go back.

I

Interviewer10:50

Right. And I think it's good for people to see someone like yourself because when you see that, you're like, 'Oh, this is okay. I can still become this person. I don't have to be that person now.' So, talk about streaming now. You started in 2018. When you started, you were doing it because you were like, 'Let me stream.' How many people were watching you in the first few months?

J

Jason11:14

Surprisingly, I actually had a couple more people than the average because I was doing something niche. There wasn't a lot of people streaming about the stock market. There was one guy in Argentina who had like a hundred viewers, and a couple other people. When I got on, it was still an interesting topic. My first week, I averaged like two or three viewers. Within a month, I was up to like eight viewers. I was like, 'Oh my god, I'm in the top 0.05%.' Then it was kind of steady for the first six months, averaging 20 viewers or so. But I wasn't doing it as a job. It was just for fun. I didn't really focus on the viewers. It was like, 'Wow, I've got people to hang out with.' That's what made it possible for me to get to the next level because I didn't go in with a sense of impending time limit like I have to get this much or else I'm a failure.

I

Interviewer12:13

Yeah. I'm a big believer whenever I talk to people who are starting streaming. I think one of the mistakes you can make is if you start streaming focusing on 'I want to be X in terms of where I can fund my whole life' versus 'I'm doing this because I enjoy it.' I would be doing this anyway. To have people watching me while I invest, that's pretty darn cool. That allows you to keep growing. Early on, you have to do it because you love it because it takes a lot of time.

J

Jason12:57

Absolutely. A lot of people go in thinking, 'What do I got to do to be a successful streamer or make this a living?' You give yourself unrealistic expectations by seeing the giant streamers and thinking that's where you measure success.

I

Interviewer13:14

Yep. So, how long before it became your main thing?

J

Jason13:23

So, that's interesting. I was streaming through 2018 to 2019. In the spring of 2019, I looked at my wife and said, 'I have 45 average viewers.' Now, please do not do what I did, just like I say when it comes to trading stocks. This is just my story. I was working at this hotel. I didn't get a promotion to an operations level, and I was a little upset. I looked at her and said, 'This streaming thing, I'm averaging about 40 to 50 viewers. If I went outside now and started talking about money and finance, and 50 people just sat there and listened to me concurrently, maybe there's something there.' By the end of a stream, there were 2,000 people that listened to you — 50 at any given time, but a thousand to 2,000 passed through. So I said, maybe if I gave it serious thought and effort, it'll work. I have the GI Bill, never finished college. Maybe I'll go back to college for two years, do the streaming thing and night classes. At the end of two years, if I'm making at least 50% of what I was making at the hotel, I'll keep doing this. If not, I got a degree. Everyone said I was insane. 'No one is going to watch someone talk about the stock market and credit card rates on a gaming platform.' You're quitting your first real job, you don't have a degree, you're a recovering addict. It's never going to work. My wife was the only one — she said, 'I don't know if this is going to work, it sounds crazy, but if anybody could do it, I know it's you.' So I quit my job, and starting the next day, I became a full-time streamer.

I

Interviewer15:31

And then it built from there. The funny thing is, six months later, COVID happened.

J

Jason15:36

If I would have stayed at my hotel, I would have lost my job.

I

Interviewer15:38

You would have lost your job anyway.

J

Jason15:40

But instead, I was averaging over 1,000 viewers, and my income went up by 4x the following year than what I had made at my hotel.

I

Interviewer15:50

Right. Right. You took the step off, and for you it worked. Sometimes people step off and it doesn't work, and that's okay too.

J

Jason15:57

I failed many times. This wasn't my first go, trust me.

I

Interviewer16:01

You were an expert at failing.

J

Jason16:04

Honestly, Thomas Edison has nothing on me when it comes to failing.

I

Interviewer16:09

Right. Right. Very skilled at failure. All right. So now you've also been evolving your content lately. Talk about that in terms of how your content has changed and evolved over time, particularly recently. It seems like you're broadening out the scope of things you talk about.

J

Jason16:31

Yeah. So, trading was fun and that's what started the stream. It was a lot of fun, but it wasn't just what I wanted to do because trading is just a small little thing I do. It's like trying to put puzzle pieces together. Then GameStop happened.

And then the whole world came to my stream. I still don't know why they chose me. It was a blast. I wasn't prepared for it, but I don't think anybody really was. I wish there were some things I could go back and handle better, but I did the best I could. Then that got me thinking, 'Oh, people want to see trading.' But then the viewership died.

I

Interviewer17:18

Actually, did you go on to the GameStop? Okay. When we get back to then how it's evolved. So, for you, what happened during GameStop?

J

Jason17:27

Well, we were following it about a month before. I actually bought AMC stock, and we were following the whole thing, keeping up with the updates, watching it live. It was gaining traction in the mainstream media. People wanted to watch it live, and not everybody was covering it. So people said, 'Hey, there's this guy on Twitch talking about it throughout the day.' So we built that, and eventually everybody started talking about it, and they all came to my stream.

I

Interviewer18:04

I assume at that point, because I'm sure especially given COVID during GameStop, your average concurrent viewers was probably off the chart for you.

J

Jason18:17

Dan, no one in the history of Twitch has had a faster falling off than I have from that. It's okay. I peaked at 75,000 viewers that day, and for that whole week, I was peaking around 30,000 plus. It was wild. I didn't know about ads back then. I wish I did.

I

Interviewer18:34

Oh, wow. When everyone was watching.

J

Jason18:36

Yeah, let's not talk about that number. I did the math.

I

Interviewer18:40

Yeah. Well, we can keep our fingers crossed and hope there's a big financial crisis or something because that would be great for you.

J

Jason18:50

Dan, Dan, we got— I just got done spending 30 minutes telling people they should invest now and not wait for a crash. I don't think so, but I'm not worried about that.

I

Interviewer18:59

All right. Well, I'm just saying, but you're right. The views would be amazing.

J

Jason19:03

The views, the views. All right. Now, let's talk about that evolution over the last year or two.

So, 2022 was a bear market. We had a recession, and a lot of people who were caught up in GameStop and trading were new to it and got wiped out because they didn't understand that markets can go down. People got bored with the GameStop thing, got into their lives. I was forcing myself to trade when I didn't want to, doing it all day because I thought that's what people wanted to see. It was wearing on me, killing me. I found out about a really aggressive autoimmune condition, and my health was failing. So I said, maybe I just do what I want to do and have fun. I don't care if the viewers drop. So I started focusing more on the stock market overall, looking at companies, trends, economic headlines, talking about how they affect us, answering questions about housing rates, mortgage rates, credit cards, and just interacting with my chat. I love streaming again. There was a time I didn't like it because I was doing what I thought other people wanted me to do. I learned younger in life to not try to do what I think other people want me to do, and I'll be happier. I said, why not do that in my career? Now I'm having the best time of my life, and my viewership is back at an all-time high because people are having a good time with me.

I

Interviewer20:58

And by the way, there was a question in chat, and it's almost like you were answering it as they were asking. They said you were changing your jobs a lot before. Do you think you'll pivot to something other than trading later? Do you think you'll finally get settled? And the reality is no. He was just as this person asked this question. It was great because you were talking about how trading is part of what you do, but really the questions people have are so much more than trading. Even though you're the stock guy, you help them think about things they have to deal with in life, many of them financial, but not all financial either.

J

Jason21:35

No, we get a lot of talks. I have call-ins on Fridays that are great. We had somebody call in to ask about how to deal with a loss of a family member financially. Sometimes people call in, one guy called about wanting to have kids and he's with somebody who clearly is not. We got to talking, not as a therapist, but we realized he needs to work on himself. We talk about addiction a lot because I'm a recovering addict. Men's mental health is huge for me because I think we're afraid to talk about it as men. I like to talk about that and be bigger on that. I explain everything I do in my life because it helps other people. I'm dealing with a terminal condition, buying a house, have kids. Talking about what's going on and being real and raw helps other people who may be dealing with something similar and don't feel comfortable asking for help.

I

Interviewer22:55

Yeah. It's interesting. One of the things I've thought about you is that in some ways, you have to overcome your channel name.

J

Jason23:03

Yeah, it's true. I wanted to change it, but it still shows up more in Google search, so I'll just keep it.

I

Interviewer23:10

Yeah. It's so interesting. You have not been limited by your chat. You have not put yourself in the box that your channel name puts you in. You've let yourself evolve. Of course, the name is still there, and when people watch, they go, 'Oh, he's not just the stock guy.' In some ways, there's a music festival in San Francisco called Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and people think it's bluegrass, but it's hardly strictly bluegrass. In some ways, you could play a game on that even though your channel is 'The Stock Guy'.

J

Jason23:44

Well, the blurry guy right now — it's going on my camera.

I

Interviewer23:48

Wow.

J

Jason23:48

I'm in like 10p right now.

I

Interviewer23:50

But you're not just the stock guy.

J

Jason23:53

Not just the stock guy is the way I think of you now. In some ways, a lot of people talk about Joe Rogan and left and right. I think what they often miss is the appealing part of Joe Rogan is just an everyman that talks about things. He may have different views, but people respond. I find you share that — you try to be an everyman, people listen to you and watch you, then you talk about your experiences and your views on whatever topic might be interesting. Not necessarily the right answer, but just sharing your thoughts.

Yeah. I think people appreciate — right or wrong — that I'm being honest about it. I've been through so much in my life — dealt a very rough hand when I was born. It's been one unfortunate situation my entire life — what I was born into, grew up into the military, addiction, recovery, losing all my family members in one year, and now streamer, marriage, kids. I've been through a lot, so I have no reason to sugarcoat things. If you ask me, I'll tell you the honest opinion. It may not be the best, but I'm going to be honest. I think some people appreciate that.

I

Interviewer25:24

And you've lately been investing a lot more in your short form content. You've been intentional about that. Talk to me about how you think about short form content now.

J

Jason25:38

Short form content — again, I wasn't brought up with tech. I didn't really understand how a lot of this works. I never used social media too much. During GameStop, I didn't take advantage of that. But over time, I saw people's clips and how I discovered them. I said, maybe I don't know how to do this, but maybe somebody else can. We tried long form YouTube, didn't take off. So we tried short form. We went through a couple people, found an editor, and put it out there. It really took off. I think it's because we evolved from just finance and investing to also history whiteboards, funny incidents in life, news headlines in a really interesting way. YouTube, TikTok did really well. YouTube shorts did well. Instagram last year was insane. I finally got approved on Facebook. I'm still trying to learn what clipping is and how that ecosystem works. I get a thousand emails a week from people who want to clip my stuff. I think it's a very important thing for streamers to consider because it gets your face out there and your brand out there.

I

Interviewer27:05

Well, I think the interesting thing I often tell people thinking about it — some people who create short form content, if you had to just create short form content and you weren't live streaming, my money says it would be hard for you.

J

Jason27:20

I couldn't do it.

I

Interviewer27:21

But in fact, because you're live streaming, you can just be going, and then you figure out, oh, here's—

I

Interviewer27:27

The interesting things that I did in that two hours. That's good for short form and it seems to work really well. This idea that live streaming really is just an upstream mechanism of doing lots of stuff and then you find the 10 things from that stream that are, you know, interesting.

J

Jason27:47

Yeah, I that's why I think you like you said some like more short form there's probably a lot per stream but the truth is that my content is not me. My chat, my community is 100% carries my stream. I mean, I'm not even going to joke. They carry me because it's just us back and forth and it leads to so many impromptu moments and so many random things and I think that's where it is. So I'm just the glue that holds them together. They're just a bunch of people that should be working that aren't because they're losing productivity watching and chatting but we have a good time and they're really it's just that interaction I think is what is the best part of my stream and I think for a lot of streams.

I

Interviewer28:25

Yeah. By the way, and I don't want to go through it now and I don't but I'm curious because someone in chat I was noticing was talking about copyright. Have you ever talked about copyright on your stream? I'm curious.

J

Jason28:34

Copyright in what sense? Like my... just the history of copyright, how it came to be, what matters and all that. Uh, not we haven't done a whiteboard on copyright. We've done some...

I

Interviewer28:44

Be a good one for you. I really do think that because a lot of people, it's the thing that I like about what you've been doing now is you take these complex things that people don't fully understand and in your whiteboard clips then you say okay let me explain why this exists, let me explain what this is and you make it simple, right? And then people like oh now I get it and so put that on your list of good things to talk about because I think it's one of those things that's fairly complicated, that's nuanced, that a lot of people don't get.

J

Jason29:13

It'll end up your strength. Yeah, it'll end up diving into some tinfoil hat hack because it's me, but we'll make it work. Yeah.

I

Interviewer29:20

Okay. So, so let's pick now if you had to say of those kind of questions that people have, you know, I want you to come up with your top two or three or the ones that top out like the biggest sort of questions that people have that you've talked about that they repeatedly come to you about and then give everyone the simple answer, not the complex, not the long story. I mean the [laughter] Dan knows it.

J

Jason29:47

I know I'm thinking of some that I think are the common ones. I'm curious which ones you will pick.

I

Interviewer29:51

Well, I think the number one is should I invest in the stock market? And I think that's the answer is yes. Yes. When now? You know what I mean? Like this idea that trying to time it. You know people will say the stock investing in the stock market is gambling. Most people don't know what they're talking about. Gambling is when you're going against the odds. The chances of the stock market falling and never coming back up are almost zero. So, by not investing, you're actually gambling.

J

Jason30:22

Well, buying individual stocks, it's very complex to look at like a proven name versus like a gamble, like a penny stock. But the more individualized you do, the more risk you're taking because if you buy something, you have to be right about it. You have to hope that they continue doing what they're doing. So if you just invest in a total S&P 500, then you're not gambling. If you buy into a MAG 7 company, you're gambling in the long run because there may be something, I mean Enron, right? You know, or others. If you're investing in a speculative stock, yes, you're gambling in penny stocks. It's just a slot machine, right? So there's different levels. I mean, and you give yourself different odds, right? Like it's like think of it playing poker, right? You're playing poker. You're technically gambling, but you're not really playing against the house. The house is getting a rake each time, but you're playing against someone else. And you can be a better poker player, whether it's, you know, not necessarily knowing how to bluff, but knowing positioning and knowing sizing, it gives you a slight advantage, but you're still gambling at the end of the day. So, when it comes to buying individual companies, I have those for my own reason, but I also keep up with them. And I noticed if the company is continuing to grow, if it's losing space, if it's doing bad, but for the average person, you're just getting in your own way. Sure, everybody wants to have the next Nvidia or the next Bitcoin, the next whatever, but the chances of you getting that versus you losing money... or when or once you sell it moons, you know.

I

Interviewer31:45

All right, so first question was, should I invest in... I know I was supposed to keep the answer short. Should I invest in the stock market? Yes. When now? Okay, question two. I'll give you the one up top. Rent or buy?

J

Jason31:58

Oh, you. Oh, Dan, I knew you were going to do something like this. [sighs] Oh, god. Dan. All right, short answer. Rent or buy? Okay, I have questions for you. Are you single? Um, do you have a family? And like, where is the location?

I

Interviewer32:15

Well, I'm not going to go through all my life right now.

J

Jason32:17

No, not you. I mean, for the average person, you know, here's the thing. The reason that it's a difficult thing is everybody's been always told always buy, never rent. And the reason is that every single person who is involved in selling a house is making money off of you. So there's never a reason for anyone to tell you otherwise. They're only going to glaze the well, you're paying yourself equity and you're instead of paying someone else's mortgage, you're paying your own or this because everyone's making money off you. No one explains that a $500, $600,000 house at 7% interest, you know, you're going to pay, you know, the bank because first off, if you have a mortgage, you're not a homeowner. You're renting to own. I mean, if you think you're a homeowner, miss a few mortgage payments, the bank will take it. And you pay the bank first. People don't understand how amortization works. They don't understand how interest works. And so they're thinking, 'Well, I'm paying myself equity.' Well, if you pay $6,000 that month, you pay yourself $200 equity. The other $5,800 is gone forever. It doesn't come back to you. You could rent for $3,000 a month. And guess what? Now you have $4,000 left over instead of $200, which is equity. You're putting in a high yield savings account. You build that up for a year or two. Now you have a down payment on the house, which means you pay less. But I'll just refinance. Well, I will tell you the thing that I often tell people because the reality shockingly from a financial perspective, it's not clear because of all the things like there's value in both. I always say if you want to spend time improving something and you're going to put your sweat into it and get it so it's just right for you, then buying can be good because then when you decide you want to build a deck, you want this, you want that, right? Then you're investing in your quality of life.

I

Interviewer33:58

Yeah. Well, long-term buying is always the answer. Long-term buying is always the answer. But right, you know, in the short term right now with the way rates are high and prices are high, you're, you know, in my opinion, unless you find the right house and you don't care, that's why I say throw a couple hundred extra dollars at your principal every month and just cut years off of your thing. And there's so many other nuances like non-returnable capital and refinancing and stuff.

All right. All right. Those are the two questions I thought were should I be in this?

J

Jason34:26

You knew that you were gonna get me on those two, especially the...

I

Interviewer34:28

House giving. So, okay. So, talk about like one of the things you talked about earlier, talking to some representatives in Congress and other folks. So, talk about how you have, what was that like as you bring guests on your show and how's that been?

J

Jason34:47

I mean, it was difficult in the beginning because a lot of people, I don't know why my joint chat just went off. A lot of people in Congress and in there were a little bit afraid of coming on Twitch for whatever reasons. They were a little bit not afraid but concerned about, you know, different political topics, but then I talked to them and said, I'm the finance guy. And so it was nice to be able to get some of them in. And it's nice because I like to, you know, I don't do a political slant. I don't have a you're good, you're bad, you're this. I mean, I have my own personal things, but that's not what people watch me for. And by doing that, I think people understand that I may make them uncomfortable. I may have hard-hitting questions, but there's no agenda. So, I've had a lot of them on here. I had Brian De, who was the former National Economic Council head under Obama and did the bailout for the cars. I had Ro Kana on and then I had him on. Then I saw a bunch of the streamers also got him on as well. We've had AOC on here. We've had CEOs, we've had comedians. I think it's really awesome because it gives the Twitch community the ability to hear from these people and hear what they have to say, but not somebody who's either going to be just trying to tell them they're bad or just trying to fluff them up. And so I think it's a different way and a different perspective and I keep it more about the finance side rather than like, you know, what are your intentions for that, so that's nice. And also one of my focuses is always on their failures. I find that as somebody who fails a lot. Ask my wife. That we learn more from our failures than we do from our successes. And I think whenever you talk to somebody in the business world, politics, finance, finding out where they failed and what they learned from that is very beneficial to the audience as well.

I

Interviewer36:33

So I, by the way, I'm a big believer in that too. And I'm going to give you a suggestion because your kids are much younger than mine, but I didn't, I heard this suggestion after my kids were too old for me to benefit from it. But this one person, what they did was every day when their kids came home, they asked them, 'How did you fail today?'

J

Jason36:57

That just out the gate like that.

I

Interviewer36:59

Every day they asked, 'What did you do today that didn't work out?' That's what they did. How did you fail today? With the idea of normalizing failure and accepting failure and leaning into taking risks.

J

Jason37:09

Okay. Okay. Yeah. I do, what I do now is when I pick them up, I say, 'What was your favorite thing that happened today at school? What was your least favorite thing that happened? And is there anything you learned?' But maybe I could switch it up to be like, 'How did you fail today?' And and...

I

Interviewer37:22

How did you fail? Part of it was it normalizes it. And I think this idea so often we don't even realize it when we because we get ecstatic about their accomplishments. Oh my gosh, you got this, right? And it was David Brooks recently who I saw something that was talking about this where he said every time you get ecstatic about their accomplishments, that is implicitly sort of, you know, implying that, oh, I love you because of these accomplishments, of course, is not true, right? I love you whether you get this or whether you try and you fail. And I do think one of the biggest challenges we all have to face is embracing and accepting failure and leaning into it as opposed to fearing it because I think that's more true now than ever that I think we're in a world where people worry about failing and what that means.

J

Jason38:13

Well, that's what holds so many people back. Everyone's so scared of failing and it's like, you know, it's why people stay in jobs that they, you know, I always say, you know, quitting your job to go do something that, you know, that you want that's better for you, whether it's mentally or, you know, or it's money or whatever. But everybody doesn't do it because they're afraid of failing. And I say, you know what? You know what's scarier than the unknown is seeing what you do every day or the way you are or whatever the relationship is or the job or the lifestyle or the health and knowing that's your life every day for the rest of your life and being miserable. That's scarier to me than taking a chance. And part of the reason people don't take chances is because they're afraid to fail. But the thing is failure is inevitable. It's going to happen. You can't be afraid of it. You know what I mean? It's like I got to get to pick up the kids from school, but there's black ice on my driveway and I don't want to walk on it because I might slip and fall. Well, yeah, you might slip and fall, but you're going to get up. And if you slip and fall again, you get up and you just learn where not to walk and you get to the car to go do something. Otherwise, you stay in your house forever. Like, you can't be afraid to fail. And if you do fail, you learn from it and you pick it up. People think success looks like this. It doesn't. It looks like this. I know, you know, it's a family-friendly thing and I don't like to talk about sobriety and addiction, but I relapsed a lot of times before I got sober, you know, and but I did it and each time I didn't say, 'Oh, I'm a failure.' I said, 'Okay, I slipped up.' But what was my trigger? What did I do that got me that did that? Let me not do that again. And eventually I found success. And I think it's like that.

I

Interviewer39:46

How many years has it been now?

J

Jason39:48

For what? For completely sober.

I

Interviewer39:51

Yeah.

J

Jason39:51

Uh, January 26, 2019. So we're going on seven years now. Very nice.

I

Interviewer39:56

How's my wedding day?

J

Jason39:57

Very nice.

I

Interviewer39:58

Yeah,

J

Jason39:58

my wedding was the last day I got trashed.

I

Interviewer40:01

Wow, that's great. That's great.

J

Jason40:04

You know, yeah, that's something to and that's a good example of, you know, you having to go through that kind of built that resilience.

I

Interviewer40:13

Well, that in life, I mean, you know, that year was tough because I got sober in January of 2019 and then two months later my dad died. Two months later, my brother died, then my mother died, and then we lost our first child. So, the fact that it's like the universe was like, 'Hey, you think you're good now. Let me see how you handle it.' And I was able to get through that year. But then the funny thing was the crazy thing was that was the hardest year of my life. And then the next year was the best year I ever had in my entire life because that was when COVID happened. Not that COVID was good, but my stream became successful. This became my job and my daughter was born.

J

Jason40:49

That's great. Sometimes that, you know, that saying is, you know, in Batman, it's like sometimes the night is darkest before the dawn. And that's kind of how it felt.

I

Interviewer40:58

All right. Okay. So, look, this has been great. Yep. So, Jason, thank you for joining. So, everyone, thank you for tuning into the podcast. We stream it on Twitch with a live audience. So, join us at twitch.tv/twitch for the next show where you can participate in chat. Follow at Twitch for social for announcements, timing, and guests for future shows. Don't forget to rate and review. And thank you again to Jason and see you in chat.

All right, Jason. Now we're...

J

Jason41:29

Hold on. We're live on my stream still. Okay.

I

Interviewer41:31

No, no, no. We're live on ours, too. Okay. I forgot to tell you. The way this works is we wrap up the podcast, but then we still have five or 10 minutes where we can chat where you can ask me questions where it's not on the podcast. So, we can go, we don't have to keep chatting. Okay.

J

Jason41:50

Oh, we can, I don't mind. I mean, I'm usually off stream like an hour. This is overtime for me. Matter of fact, let me hit them with an ad while we're talking, you know, get these plebs to pay me.

I

Interviewer42:00

Since if you see Mike today, tell them ask them where my money is, by the way. He knows the joke. It's okay. But no, hey, how's the podcast been going? How many people have you had on already?

J

Jason42:11

It's like eight or nine or something like that. It's been good. I find it, it's been good. You know, the objective to do it was just really the value of like what we just did and not get interestingly not get caught up in how many people see this, but we love it when chat's here and talking about it. And I think it's a great way to kind of spotlight certain streamers to get more attention to them and so it's been fun. It's been fun and so been enjoying it.

I

Interviewer42:43

Yeah. I wasn't sure what direction you wanted to go with it today. So I was like I'll just let him curate it. Don't let me get too much off on a tangent.

J

Jason42:50

Well, it does occur to me we've never, I would in fact I was going to give you a hard time during it. I was going to jokingly give you a hard time. You said well you've never invited me to be on your stream.

I

Interviewer42:58

Yes, I have. Is that because you don't like me?

J

Jason43:00

I just had you on my stream, what was it? Like the last year, the year before when you had the, there was a big thing with ads on Twitch and then you were supposed to come on my stream to be the first one to talk about it, but then some guy on Twitter got you first, Jake Luke or something.

I

Interviewer43:17

Oh, okay. That was that was a that was shortly after I became CEO.

J

Jason43:22

Yeah, I invited you on.

I

Interviewer43:26

Okay. And then I then I invited you on again about a year and a half ago to talk about, what was it? Oh god, there was some other thing that was happening, oh when I got, when the ad thing happened during the before the election last year and I got demonetized and I was all over the news because I was the one who got caught up in it without knowing and then I went I asked if you could come on and they're like no and I was like okay okay [laughter] so

J

Jason43:52

Oh, that's because you asked, oh now I realize you probably didn't ask me, you asked comes. So, the trick is you just ask me, Jason.

I

Interviewer43:59

Oh, okay. I'll just text you be like, 'Dan, I need you to come on and tell me where's my money.'

J

Jason44:03

Yeah. No, this is what we should do. Not so much about one particular issue. You know how you do your shows? We should do one where I just go on just to have a general chat as opposed to let's talk about this issue because I think we'll enjoy talking about all sorts of things.

I

Interviewer44:18

Well, yeah. I'd love to get to pick your brain about ads right now and some hot button topics. You'd obviously have to talk to your team before you talked about it.

Jason, part of what I'm thinking of, we could talk about the hot button Twitch topics, but part of me is just I think one of the things you do is talk more generally about things and I'd love, I spend a lot of time talking more generally about things. I do a lot of reading outside of my Twitch job and so I think we could have a lot of fun just talking about your content and other topics and all that, you know.

J

Jason44:51

Got one for you. Are you a history guy, too, right?

I

Interviewer44:54

A little bit. Yeah.

J

Jason44:55

Okay. I do a lot of history whiteboards. I love them. I nerd out. And I'm kind of thinking because I'm trying to think what's a good one to incorporate now. I'm thinking about doing a couple other ones. I just did one on the Siege of Malta. I did one on other ones. What's a really interesting historical maybe finance or battle or something like that that you think is not really talked about that would make a great whiteboard?

I

Interviewer45:18

That is a good question. Um, actually this is, I think looking at the different approaches of the east versus the west in terms of exploration of the world...

J

Jason45:41

Exploration is in like colonization and other things, you know. In other words, there's this very interesting how, you know, the one reason Western influence spread so much is because the Westerners, they did have this tendency to send ships out to, you know, conquer and to like, have as part of their government, but that wasn't the case. They had the technology, but that wasn't the case in terms of how Asia approached exploration.

I

Interviewer46:14

Yeah. Well, I mean, Asia also was a much bigger like inward land mass before you got to the mountain.

J

Jason46:21

No, I agree. I think that's a huge reason that Europe was broken up into these small countries and they had limitations on their expansion due to the other European countries and like China was a big and with large land mass and so all these European countries when they wanted to expand they went out. Well, to be honest, another big reason why China was a little bit slowed down was Genghis Khan and the Mongols really took a, they were kind of busy in China with that because he pushed that empire all the way to the sea and then they had all the infighting of the different things as opposed to Europe who for a while was kind of like on board with Christianity as opposed to that.

I

Interviewer47:01

Anyway, I think that is an interesting topic.

J

Jason47:03

Okay, I'll think about that. What about the female Chinese pirate, the lady pirate who had one of the greatest pirate fleets in history? What was her name?

I

Interviewer47:12

Oh, I do not, I know who you're talking about.

J

Jason47:13

Her husband died and she took over and she was like the most cutthroat pirate in history of Asia.

I

Interviewer47:17

I think that's a great one. That's great. By the way, I have a new thread of stuff you should do in your whiteboarding with.

J

Jason47:23

Talk to me.

I

Interviewer47:24

Um, and I have some books, basically social sciences, why we do the things we do.

J

Jason47:34

And I have a book that's gonna be a... Huh?

I

Interviewer47:37

Huh, go ahead.

J

Jason47:38

Why we do the things we do. There's a lot of stuff in social sciences about system one and system two thinking, about what drives happiness. I have a good book for you, I recommend this often, but I bet it's a good book that you can take pieces of it and make it simple. It's called The Happiness Hypothesis.

I

Interviewer47:56

Happiness and okay, let me quick let me put a new one up.

J

Jason48:01

Well, let me, I can do it as good of a job as ChatGPT. It's by Jonathan Haidt and he goes through these traditional sayings that go back in time and then he goes through the research about why those sayings are true.

I

Interviewer48:15

Mhm.

J

Jason48:16

Okay. Um, and so...

I

Interviewer48:19

Send me the name of it so I can actually look into it because I'm always looking for little ideas out there.

J

Jason48:23

The Happiness Hypothesis is the name of the book by Jonathan Haidt.

I

Interviewer48:26

Okay.

J

Jason48:27

Okay. The Happiness.

I

Interviewer48:29

There will be a ton of ideas because basically every chapter will be a good thing for you and it basically goes into the social sciences research that talks about what drives happiness and why do we do the things we do.

J

Jason48:43

I mean that's an interesting thing. I wonder if these things get updated as society changes because like, you know, what drove us to be happy, what gave us happiness 200 years ago before the invention of technology. I wonder if those things, and I don't mean like short-term dopamine and endorphins from doom scrolling and short form content and stuff like that, but I mean like I wonder if the way we kind of envision, I mean the truth is that a lot of it's...

I

Interviewer49:10

You know what the interesting thing as you read about it is obviously our biology is the exact same as it was 2,000 years ago.

J

Jason49:20

Yeah. I mean we...

I

Interviewer49:21

Our DNA, if you take someone who was born, except for being taller or something like that, these natural biological things we have not evolved. Our DNA has not evolved much in 2,000 years. That just is not the speed with which evolution occurs. It's over a much longer period. Of course, the environment has changed radically, so how we respond to the environment is different, but our biological drives are the same.

J

Jason49:49

Which is, if you look at it from an evolutionary standpoint, it's very basic, especially for men and different things because it's just like we're the same drive that we were with cavemen. We just have different tools and things available to us. It's really just reproduction and familial things if you look at it like survival, you know, and...

I

Interviewer49:58

You know, we have different like tools and things available to us. It's really just reproduction and familial things if you look at it like survival, you know, and...

J

Jason50:10

Well, and community, which comes to, I mean, we have this biological need to commune with other people. And anyway, I know you, I think I had some at one. I think you had some or I'm in central time, so we should go.

Dan, if you got to go, it's cool. I got you. I know. But I'm actually, this is my favorite part so far. We should have been doing this the whole time because I like nerding out.

I

Interviewer50:30

That's what I mean. We should do a stream where we just nerd out, not talk about ads or something like that. I think we could have fun. I'll come with interesting topics and you come with interesting topics and we just have fun.

J

Jason50:45

All right. How much am I getting paid for this segment again?

I

Interviewer50:48

Yeah, you're not getting paid any ton of them. [laughter]

Wait, hold up. Wait, wait, wait. Jason, I don't know. Ask your community. Come on, man. Okay.

J

Jason50:55

No, my community, they're not allowed to do that because it's bad financial decisions and we don't make bad financial decisions here. I know Twitch has always said, every time I get my, like they stopped doing it, but I used to get like a yearly like, 'Hey, let's see how you've been doing through the year.' And I found out that I was the least sub to of anybody in the top 1,000, especially the top 500 streamers, the amount of concurrent views to subs. [laughter] They were always like, 'WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?' LIKE, CUZ I TELL, I can't tell people to sub to me. I'm a finance streamer. Number one, I don't want to look broke. And number two, it's a bad, you know, I can't like tell somebody to do that. But, you know, I just pump them enough ads they'll sub eventually.

There you go. All right. Dan, great chatting as always. And for those in Twitch, thank you for being here. Appreciate it. And Dan, we need a yolo.

I

Interviewer51:42

Huh?

J

Jason51:42

You can't leave until you give us a yolo. Every time we have somebody on, we have to ask them for a yolo. You don't have to give us the name of a company if you don't want. You just give us three random letters. Because I have everybody in this chat right now. I got them. I have my wife will probably watch this. I know my stepsister watches. My daughter's going to say, 'How was your stream today?' But it doesn't matter. We have to have a yolo at the end of the stream.

I

Interviewer52:05

Okay. So,

J

Jason52:06

Random three letters.

I

Interviewer52:08

Random three letters. Okay, that's what I think, your random three letters is J, L, and P.

J

Jason52:16

JLP. Let me see what stock that is. All right, let's see. JLP. Anybody got the ticker up right now so I don't have to pull it up? JLP. JLP. The JLP. I don't even have, oh, there it is right there. Let's see. JLP. What stock is this? What am I putting my children's 529 in? JLP is not a stock, but there's got to be something close to it. So, I'm going to look it up and tell you what it is as soon as I find out because they're going to find it if I don't. And let's see what JLP is. I got it. Somebody in chat probably has it. I'll take a look at them and they'll tell us exactly what it is. Jubilee Medals Group is the closest. So, I guess we're all going in. Jubilee Medals Group. Thank you, Dan. I'll let you know if my kids go to community college or Harvard by the end of the day.

I

Interviewer52:56

That's what Gemini says. Jubilee Medals Group. So, there we go.

J

Jason53:00

It's a UK stock. Oh, no. All right.

I

Interviewer53:03

It's from the UK, so we're going to have to pray that they don't shut it down on us.

J

Jason53:09

Are you going to Twitch in Europe or not?

I

Interviewer53:10

You know what's funny is, I'm planning on going still. I'm really excited to because they actually for the first time ever they've invited me to a game show. Like I always tell them I say I never get invited to any of these like events or like panels or talks. I said I whatever. I got my first one this past time. I did a panel like at the last of day and they said it went really well. So, they invited me. Now, we're finding out that we have to leave this house to rent someplace else while we're looking to close on another house. And on top of that, my in-laws are out. So, we're still planning on going, but there's a slight chance that, for example, if we do close on a house at that weekend that I may be late getting there, but otherwise, I do plan on going. Yeah.

J

Jason53:48

All right. Well, then I'm sure I'll see you.

I

Interviewer53:50

Yeah. Oh, by the way, they told me to talk to you. I need my flight and my hotel covered. They said talk to Dan about that.

J

Jason53:58

They said talk to Dan about that.

I

Interviewer54:00

Yeah. Mike told me to talk to you about it.

J

Jason54:02

Okay. Okay. Just send me that message and I'll get right back to you.

I

Interviewer54:06

Oh, okay. Okay. I'll call Mike right after this.

J

Jason54:08

All right. Thanks, Dan. Take it easy.

TheStockGuy Explains His Journey in a Talk with Twitch CEO Dan Clancy

About Dan Clancy