Steve Greenfield Reads The News w/ Paul and Kyle

‍SPEAKERS

Steve Greenfield, Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly

Paul Daly  00:27

Hey, it is Thursday, November 3, we have a special guest. We're gonna have Steve Greenfield maybe read the news today, we're also going to talk about the auto venture Intel report. And the virtual reality goggles that you keep on while you're driving the car. The people who are driving the people

Kyle Mountsier  00:44

don't mess with the people. You're gonna mess with. Well, someone else. All right, well, your car, this is gonna be the coolest thing. How's everyone else gonna do?

Paul Daly  00:57

Well, pretty much when you when you drive around right now and you look around at the driver, the driver looks like this.

01:04

Right? Right. So maybe it'd be better

Paul Daly  01:06

if they had VR goggles on while they were driving if it gave them an accurate representation of what's in the road. Let's bring Steve Greenfield into the show. Let's not wait till his segment. What is going on my

Steve Greenfield  01:16

friend? Hey, guys, howdy,

Kyle Mountsier  01:19

howdy, howdy. So. So Steve, before before we got on we You gotta let the people know what you did yesterday, because I think this is like, you know, every once in a while you do one of those things that you didn't realize was on your bucket list. But all of a sudden, you just throw it on there because you did it yesterday, you did something kind of crazy in the flight pattern yesterday.

Steve Greenfield  01:38

wasn't on my bucket list. I don't recommend it for anyone else's bucket. For the for the record, the record. I call said I flew into Las Vegas for a dinner. So I literally got off the plane and took a taxi to the Bellagio prime steak. And then when I was finished I hopped into a taxi got went back to the airport hopped on a flight and flew home

Paul Daly  02:00

right and didn't even have dinner with anybody.

Steve Greenfield  02:06

Dinner by myself

Kyle Mountsier  02:09

hey, look, that's a good day to go to at least you weren't like oh, we're gonna go to In and Out Burger and just, you know do business.

Paul Daly  02:18

So here's we're gonna do today, we're gonna go through usually we bring you in when it's time for you to talk about the Intel report. But we want to keep you involved in the story. We only have one story then we'll talk about the Intel report. So feel free to interrupt and do all the things that we kind of don't usually do with one another. So here it is. The tech entertainment company founded by Audi named Hello ride has since spun off as its own company it is now planning in 2023 rollout for its in vehicle entertainment system. According to automotive news, Audi announced their partnership to create hollow ride ready vehicles at South by Southwest this year. And the system will be available by 2023. In Europe, if you're just listening to the podcast, basically, you put this headset on like a VR headset. And it follows the dynamics of the car, the car is feeding it information as far as how fast it's going, which way it's turning. And so as you look around in the VR world, you actually feel the motion and you feel the interaction. And you can like you know in some of the videos that you probably saw if you're watching but if you're not, you can watch driver's seat

Kyle Mountsier  03:20

got to be in the passenger seat, the

Paul Daly  03:22

passenger seat actually in the backseat, Porsche so here's the deal. Porsche is also developing experiences around the tech. And if you go to their la Experience Center, you can actually be taken for spin around a track while you kind of like playing a first person shooter game. Shooting. I think it's bugs, you shoot some pedestrians, no shooting pedestrians, you can turn them from birds into skeletons, according to one of the videos that we saw. It always ends that way. Right? You need the point

Kyle Mountsier  03:54

where like you just look over, right? You look over and someone's like, like it's in a car.

Steve Greenfield  04:02

Really well really well.

Paul Daly  04:03

Have any of you have either view ever? Like put a VR like PlayStation VR and played?

Kyle Mountsier  04:10

Haven't done it?

Paul Daly  04:12

Yeah, get dizzy. Have you ever done that though? Yeah, it's it. It's surprisingly immersive. When you put it on, I can't imagine doing it in a car. But on one of the videos like we linked them up in the show notes and one of the videos. The I think it was the developer from Porsche said and it helps to alleviate symptoms of motion sickness. No. When he said it, I was like, I don't think he really believes what he just says

Kyle Mountsier  04:43

no way like anyone with vertigo is literally junk in their cookies.

Steve Greenfield  04:49

Maybe it alleviates road rage because I can shoot the other cars.

Paul Daly  04:52

There you go. Oh, see. Now that we're talking augmented reality, it just the whole world turns into some grand theft Otto.

Kyle Mountsier  05:01

Honestly, it feels very like as I'm watching the videos and as I'm thinking about it, like if you've been to Disney World and you've gone through, like, you know, the things where you go through and you got the little gun and you're playing Buzz Lightyear or whatever, like that's kind of what it feels like to me. So it's not like an altogether departure from like game mode of of the way that you would expect it. But I just, I just can't imagine it's hard enough for me. Like when we throw in a DVD, like pop in a DVD for the kids, we go on vacation, right? It's hard enough not like getting them to ask to do that every time we hit the road, right? Let alone them knowing the potential of like throwing one of those guys on on the way to Walmart on Tuesday is an option that would just destroy the you know, every,

Paul Daly  05:50

maybe if you deploy the technology at the right time. And don't let the kids know what it is and you go on a big two hour drive. Maybe you can actually convince them they went to Disney. And then you're just home. Like, there you go. You just went to Disney. And now your vacations are like very cheap. You know, what was happening with the Wii Remotes when people were doing the bowling, and they were throwing remotes in breaking the TV or spraying their arms? Yeah, I'm just wondering like I know these do come with a the safety tether strap but I just I have kids I someone just straight up breaking the glass, trying to break through a glass that someone's like punching stuff just

Kyle Mountsier  06:28

right, you know, I get this convergence, you know, it's South by Southwest is the relaunch like the convergence of pop culture and automotive and trying to make the car like an extension of an experience. It just to me, like, I just think there's so many more things that could be done with technology right now. It's just, it's

Paul Daly  06:48

an entertainment company. And if you look at the Porsche video, the Porsche video they were the person was kind of like moving through look kind of like a space the city as he's in the car. And it was all it was Porsche branded, it was pretty cool. Like I was like, Okay, maybe there's an element. One thing that you can also do, you can also send media view media, from your phone, on the device with the perceived 180 degree screen. I don't know if it's going to work or not, but it's coming out. And we'll see what people think about it. Not too long. Talking. Speaking of think, speaking of hearing what people think about things. owe the November edition of the auto Intel report, authored by our very own Steve Greenfield here on screen just came out. And you have a few announcements to make that I think I got personally caught on I got excited when we read it this morning. But But tell us about what the big deal is in the November issue and what you're really excited about?

Steve Greenfield  07:47

Yeah, I think it's more of an evolution than a thing. But you know, it struck me really, you know, at your conference here, when was that like a month, month and a half ago, where, you know, first first time back with a bunch of industry folks, and folks come up and say, you know, I really like this idea of you raising money from dealers and investing in early stage automotive technology companies, but how do I kind of like participate? You know, how do I participate? And, you know, so we're focusing on what I would call like democratizing the ability for people in the industry to invest in early stage auto tech. That's really it, you know, so it's getting away from the core Fund, which we still have, but also, you know, on a deal by deal basis, when we find hot companies that the fund is going to invest in, circulate those if we've got available ability, and let let people in the industry step up and invest directly into individual companies.

Kyle Mountsier  08:40

Well, it's huge for this is something that real estate has done really, really well at kind of democratize investment opportunities for low level investors on people that are just kind of like dipping their toe in. But I think this actually does two things for the industry, in my opinion from from my read is one, like if you are that, hey, I want to tiptoe into investment. You also get the advantage of knowing what's on the horizon a lot better, like you get that deep level learning of going okay, what are they doing? Why are they doing it? What problem are they solving and seeing it from like the ground level and not some sales pitch three years after they raised three rounds of funding and you finally saw them at Digital dealer. Right? And so it's I think it actually does two pieces one it allows people to get in and invest in auto which keeps them more sticky and auto career pathing and to it allows auto to innovate faster because more people start to see early stage tech so kudos snaps Well, you

Steve Greenfield  09:39

know, I mean, so I can't really take credit for it you look at what's happening with fractional ownership and fractional participation right now you've got you know, everything from masterworks where I can buy a fraction of a van go to you know, rally Road, which allows me to buy a fraction of a Porsche. There's collectibles Batman comics, you know Kobe Bryant rookie etc. So same sort of notion. It's like, Let's lean into this and see what the audience wants to do. But I've heard anecdotally, and I'm very interested to hear sort of what your viewers think. But I've heard anecdotally that people like love, you know, the taste of red meat, right? They, they fancy themselves gunslingers, right, let me pick off the ones I think are going to be the winners. And then let me get a taste of this, I think we can build a community around this, I think it'd be great for folks to, you know, figure out who else is invested in this early stage company. And I think it's gonna be really energizing to the industry.

Paul Daly  10:32

I think it's already energizing to the industry, what you've been doing, and people are seeing, like, you're just seeing more and more, dealers becoming investors, right. And I think like you said, like, there's this, the next layer is looking at them being like, Oh, wow, that looks like a lot of fun. Right? Especially when like, some of these companies now are moving forward, right, and you're reporting on it so well. So you see, even like, I always look at Robo tire. And that gets me really excited. That company, if you haven't seen, I wish we had a clip and there's like these robot arms, removed tires, and they put them back on because, you know, my background at the wheel repair, I'm like, Oh, if only we had that thing. And so I think there's another layer of people looking at the early movers and shakers and saying, like, just how can I move closer, you're providing them an opportunity to move closer. And so now what I think is going to happen is you're going to kind of like, make the circle bigger, and there's going to be this third layer, right? That may be considered being and you're just broadening and just every time that circle gets bigger, just proportionally more people come into the ecosystem, and, and look everybody with auto changing as much as it is. And as much money as there is floating around automotive right now, like you giving it a channel to run into, that's productive not only for the individuals, but for the industry as a whole. And you know, how we roll out, so do like, we're all we're all about dealer funded, dealer backed, you know, dealer dealer, you know, priority priorities being pushed to the front. So, I'm excited

Steve Greenfield  11:59

and holograms and holograms

Kyle Mountsier  12:01

and holograms. Hey, I'd like to one of the things that we haven't talked about, actually, in your intel report that's kind of been in there. And it's a little bit toward the back half. But I think you did. It was probably like seven or eight months ago that you initially started doing this, but you index a lot of of like, mobility type companies or third party marketplaces back to Was it something it was like back to 2019? Is that right? That you index them to a zero? And, you know, for me there, I'd love to hear kind of like, what you're seeing in the trend data on companies that are more stable and how Auto is reacting to the broader market? Because there's, I'm sure there's some insights, because for me that they sometimes just kind of sit there but and it's just like, you've got to perceive but what are your perceptions out of those indexes that that people might want to be looking at and paying paying attention to as they see these publicly traded companies indexed against broader markets?

Steve Greenfield  13:03

That's great. Yeah, I mean, it started off with your if you remember, I think we shared I used to show this proportional what they call a tree map of the market cap of Carvana, versus all the other dealer groups, right, which a year ago, Carvana, was sitting at 50 or $60 billion. And, you know, they've really, you know, been down 95%, or something so that that chart has changed. But also the other one that always resonates is if you look at all the publicly traded companies in the world, that are in mobility, right? Automotive dealer groups, parts, suppliers, whatever. And you look at all of them versus Tesla. Tesla's sitting over here at one point, like at $1.2 trillion, it was kind of almost the same distribution yet, Tesla over here on the left with, you know, a market cap, you know, it could have vacuumed up effectively, every single year publicly traded mobility company on the face of the earth, which, you know, after a built those, and people always, like had this interesting reaction to it, just to put that proportional scale. I was like, Okay, well, let me start tracking to Kyle's point, how these shares have have performed over the last like, you know, 15 years 10 to 15 years. And like, how has that performed those baskets and sub indices versus the s&p 500? Some benchmark, right, that all of us could invest in? It's very interesting. You look at some of the indices, like autonomy and electrification, many of these companies went went public through Spax. They've entirely fallen from grace, right? If you want to go by any of the public companies in electrification, infrastructure and, and, and autonomy, you can do it pennies on the dollar compared to what they were worth. But you know, you look at some some of the segments have stood up really, really well, the manufacturers up until very recently, the publicly traded dealer groups were doing very well compared to the s&p 500 over the last 10 or 15 years. So it's interesting for me to watch what I've thought about is like, is there a future for us to think about building a derivative product? At meaning if I only want to buy dealer groups, I can buy them all with one stock, right and ETF exchange traded fund. And then you can either go long or short on dealer groups, b2b marketplaces. You can go short on OEMs. Right? If you if you really believe like, you know, the the OEMs, were going to come under pressure, then you could like go short, if you believe that they were going to make all this new money off of subscription services, it's all going to be 100% profit margins, you can go long on. Oh, yes, but so that's the idea. I don't know quite what to do with that I report on it every month. I want to eventually make it interactive, like a stock tracker. And then people can build their portfolios. But I don't quite know what so if any of your viewers have ideas about what I should do with this thing, I'm all ears. Oh, yeah, you're hurt

Paul Daly  15:45

here. First. thing to think about? Before, before we go today, I want to get your thoughts on some to current issues. First rate increase, what do you think the rate increase is going to do for us this last quarter?

Steve Greenfield  16:03

Well, I mean, just continue to slow down the economy, right? If the idea is like inflation is like out of control, you know, the Fed has said and signaled that they're going to continue to increase rates until they get inflation under control. And we'll see how successful they are right now. It just doesn't seem like it's slowing down at all prices keep increasing for a multitude of reasons. But, I mean, I'm not an economist, but I don't know that they have any choice. I mean, you know, when goods are increasing by by, you know, 10% year over year, everything from you know, Big Macs to homes to cars are increasing at this rate that you know, is squeezing out the average consumer from affordability. And then the consumer has to like tap on the brakes, and they stopped buying used cars and we see what happens.

Paul Daly  16:46

Yeah, okay. Last question. Not don't want to get political

Steve Greenfield  16:51

stump the chump, baby.

Paul Daly  16:53

What are your thoughts on Elon Musk buying Twitter? Now that that whole scenario? Because like? Well, because the spotlight.

Steve Greenfield  17:04

So for let's I'll tell you what, so So go online and read the last earnings call transcript, Tesla's earnings call transcript. And I just want to like, watch my words here. Just just read read an earnings call transcript. I mean, the guy is this like, not not normal? I'll just say that the guy's not normal. And, you know, I don't know how someone you know, I know he has, he doesn't sleep a lot. He has unlimited bandwidth, it seems so but he's trying to get rockets to go to Mars, electrify the US with wall chargers, and, you know, solar panels and cars. And now he's going to also be able to have 20 direct reports at Twitter and turn that business around. It just seems like at some point, there got to be a day of reckoning. This the stock market and Wall Street analysts have to say, Well, hold on, dude, you're stretching yourself too thin. And it's just like, I just think it's a battle that he doesn't need to fight.

Paul Daly  17:57

I wonder about

Kyle Mountsier  17:59

why couldn't think well said, well said. Now,

Paul Daly  18:04

I've however, seems like Twitter's a philosophical thing for him. Right. And he's even said it like the guy didn't, I didn't buy it to make money, right? I didn't expect it to be easy. I didn't buy it to make money. But to your point, I don't understand what magic potion there is where you can have all these things going at once and still be moving forward. And look. It's hard to argue like the rockets are doing their thing. starlings doing their thing, right? It's like Tesla's doing its thing. And, like, they'll have bumps and bruises. But

Steve Greenfield  18:33

one thing to keep in mind. So Tesla has zero marketing budget. That's because awareness has been built on the back of the crazy man tweeting. Yep. So there's something to it. I mean, he knows that his channel of acquisition, his channel of awareness has been built on Twitter, and therefore, there may be bigger things afoot here. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier  18:56

Well, I would say that that that your customer acquisition costs have to be spread out over those separate over all of the companies and their brand attention that you get from building those companies across verticals and then pushing that back to each company and see what now your customer acquisition cost is because I know it's not associated with a line item on marketing, but there's definitely a lot of marketing being done.

Steve Greenfield  19:21

No doubt. Amen.

Paul Daly  19:23

Well, there you go. We've got from holographs are in the car hologram. To the auto Intel report. Everyone can invest in technology, Elon Musk buying Twitter if that is not a Thursday, I don't know what is debrief. Phil, thank you so much.

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