Paul Tudor Jones

“It's such a great question because the kindest thing was also my very, very, very first childhood memory. I was probably two and a half or three. It's probably 1957, and I was with my mother at this place called the Curb Market. I got separated from my mother. And, boy, you can imagine being two and a half years old and separated from your mother. You're terror stricken. This elderly black gentleman came up, and I was sitting there bawling my eyes out because I thought my mother had left me and said, what's the matter, little boy? And I said, I lost my mama. And he said, hey. Don't you worry. We're gonna find her.”

“So I got up there, and I looked on the dais, and I was like, 20 people over 50 or 60. How many do you remember your college commencement address? None of them. Not one of them can remember. I love to hunt and fish. So I go through and I talk about the normal challenges they're gonna face in life. And I also talked about how going through this process, I wanted to make sure I was gonna say something that was memorable. So right there at the end, I said, so whatever you do and I pulled out my bow, and I knocked an arrow. I said, so whatever you do, aim high and shoot straight.”

“Bunker says, well, I think this silver here is the most valuable asset and resource on Earth. Someone asked him, what are you gonna do with all that silver? And he goes, I'm a bury it. I'm a bury it. In fact, what I'm a do is I'm a buy 20,000,000 more ounces, and then we'll bury that too. So he buys 20,000,000 ounces at $35. And when that happened, it just woah. It just roofed. Goes to $50. So at $50 now, he's worth about 11,000,000,000, and he's got a multiple of five or six on the next closest guy. I just couldn't even believe what I'd seen and how much money that this guy had made anyway.”

“I was listening to the acquired podcast on Berkshire Hathaway. And for the first time, I learned that at nine years old, nine years old, he understood the power of compound interest. And, actually, when I listened to that podcast, I just went, oh my god. This guy is a genius, and I have been the greatest fool. I've always wanted to write a book called what I realize now, which should go through the success of mistakes of beliefs that I've had in my lifetime. What I realize now is what an idiot I was. That guy is a flipping genius because he understood the power of compound interest, which I somehow managed brilliantly to avoid my entire career.”

“The biggest problem with AI is that if you think about the way AI is being practiced and deployed right now, it's the build, break, iterate model. Build it, break it, fix it, and iterate. That's been the invention model since the beginning of man, build, break, iterate. But we've never been in a situation where the tail event could be hundreds of millions, if not billions, of lives. What's so scary when I was at this conference, which is only about 35 or 40 people with one modeler from the four biggest model companies. When I was able to ask them pointedly, how do you think that AI safety gets resolved? Pretty much the consensus answer is, I think we'll finally do something about when fifty or a hundred million people die of an accident.”

“Let's start with boxing because you have an opponent. In this case, it's the market. You know you're going into the ring with this opponent who's after you the whole time, and I'm thinking more of a classic one as opposed to a Mike Tyson one. But you're kind of pairing, jabbing, feeling each other out, looking for an opening. And then every now and then, you'll have a great opening, and you take a big shot. And you may land one. If I think about big shots, Bitcoin 2,020, a knockout, two year rates, 2022, knockout. You have these incredible opportunities at times if you just sit and wait.”

“I have long maintained that better than a business school degree, journalism one zero one should be a mandatory subject in every college, which is newspaper running in particular. It was so important to my development. So my father had a really small trade finance legal paper in Memphis, 2,500 person subscription. I would be the copy editor, the front page editor, and then I would write for it and took journalism classes. And what newspaper writing does is it teaches you you have to write where the conclusion comes first.”

“My new, new thing, I love to find peak spring and peak fall. It doesn't have to be Africa. You can find that day in a neighborhood and in Peak Spring when the colors are vibrant and when the fragrance is just overwhelming, you can find it to the minute in the right place. And I've never felt so alive in my life. And I look for that. I now travel United States for that moment because I know when Peak Spring is in Georgia. I know where Peak Spring is in Tennessee, and I know where it is in New York City. And I know when it is North Of New York City because New York City's normally a week behind, this place I go to in Upstate.”

“It was such a great question because the kindest thing was also my very, very, very first childhood memory. I was probably two and a half or three. It was probably 1957, something like that. And I was with my mother at this place called the Curb Market. And uh I got separated from my mother. And boy, you can imagine being 2 and 1/2 years old and separated from your mother. You just it's it's you're terror stricken. And this elderly black gentleman came up and I was sitting there balling my eyes out cuz I thought my mother had left me and said, "What's the matter, little boy?" And I said, "I lost my mama." And he said, "Here, don't you worry. we're going to find her."”

“Bunker Hunt was squeezing silver at the time and he bought about 200 million ounces at an average price of about three 12 bucks. And between 1976 and 1980, we had crazy monetary policy. Inflation started ripping and silver went literally through the roof. So at 50 bucks now, he's worth about 11 billion and he's got a multiple of five or six on the next closest guy. So anyway, they made liquidation only. Silver collapsed. It went from 50 bucks to under 10 bucks in the space of about eight weeks. And that had a searing impact on me to see him go from the richest guy to virtually bankrupt in the short space of six or seven weeks.”

“And I used to just sit there and rail on Warren Buffett year after year after year. And I would self-congratulate myself for trashing because goes, you know, he just happened to be in the right place at the right time and caught this bull market. And I was just thinking, "Oh my god, why couldn't I be Warren Buffett? Just believe in America." What I realize now is what an idiot I was. That guy is a flipping genius cuz he understood the power of compound interest which I somehow managed brilliantly to avoid my entire career. He understood it at nine. But anyway, if Warren, if you happen to hear this, I'm deeply apologetic. You are the OG of compound interest and I wish I was onetenth as as smart as you are.”

“The biggest problem with AI is that if you think about the the way AI is being deployed, practiced and deployed right now is the it's the build break iterate model. Build it, break it, fix it and iterate. If you think about it, that's been the invention model since the beginning of man. Build, break, iterate. But we've never been in a situation where the tail event the break can do so much damage could could be hundreds of millions if not billions of lives. When I was able to ask them pointedly how do you think that AI safety gets resolved the pretty much the consensus answer is I think we'll finally do something about it when 50 or 100 million people die in an accident.”

“The one thing that I think should be part of this next election the simplest most important thing that we can do is we can demand that all AI is watermarked. That's the single most transformative thing that we could possibly do for the country, for the world. Make it a felony if someone knowingly violates that three times and put them in jail. I want to know what's authentically human and what's not. And when that happens, talk about restoring trust in the country, which I think is one of the biggest problems.”

“Oh we were so long cotton one weekend and uh there was a great drought, spectacular drought and of course it rained all through the belt over the weekend. Walk in market was limit down. He'd gotten absolutely smashed. I thought, "Oh my god, it's over." That day for lunch, his wife brought in four of her friends. He had the most beautiful office I've ever seen in my life. And he came out and just, oh my god, he had a smile on his face. Oh, ladies and flirting with the wives. I mean, I was in sitting there going, "Are you kidding me? This guy's just broke and he's acting like uh he's Rock Hudson or something." When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

“Bitcoin is unequivocally the best inflation hedge that there is more than gold because Bitcoin is finite. There's only so much Bitcoin that can be mined. The problem with it is inflation hedge is if you got into kinetic exchange, there's clearly going to be cyber warfare and anything that you have to deal with electronically is going down, including Bitcoin. So, strike one. And then secondly, quantum computing. Who knows if and when with AI advancing as fast as it is that we may actually have quantum computing. Now quantum computing, someone can come in and can hack any bank and hack anything they want to.”