Tyrone V Ross Jr. - A Powerful Advocate
We are fortunate to be joined by Tyrone V Ross Jr. What started out as a connection over BitCoin turned into something much more important. In this episode Tyrone discusses many issues that seem to be forgotten as the stock market hits new highs. We cover a wide range of issues and potential financial solutions.
We recommend listening to this one at 1x speed. As always, thank you for listening.
Album art photo taken by Mike Ando.
Thank you to Mathew Passy for the podcast production. You can find Mathew at @MathewPassy on Twitter or at thepodcastconsultant.com
+ Transcript
Bill: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Business Brew, I have my guest today, Tyrone V. Ross Jr. Guy has a prolific Twitter game. I found him back when he was doing a lot of running and almost thought he was like a motivational speaker at first, there's a little bit of that in it. Then, I got subsequently into a little bit of a bitcoin research project and found that Tyrone had some very interesting takes on the unbanked and the underserved and how Bitcoin might be able to help them. And then, I started to get down his Twitter feed and I said, I’ve got to have this guy on because he's doing some important things right now making some topics that are going on in the world. He's amplifying them, I think that they're very important things to talk about. None of this is investment advice. As always, get your own advisor. Tyrone and I are not your investment advisors, fiduciaries, any of that stuff. This is all for entertainment purposes. With that, man, how you doing?
Tyrone: Well and on purpose. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
Bill: Yeah, man. Well, I saw you, what was it? Not that long ago, you made a plea to Congress. I think that was when I reached out to you. It's been wild to see what you're bringing attention to and, I guess, what's been on your mind lately is probably the best way to get you started.
Tyrone: Well, yeah, what you saw was a video that I posted in response to the STABLE Act. The premise of that was that cryptocurrencies and especially Stablecoins or crypto-dollars that people that know them, which is essentially digital dollars on the blockchain. Overall, that technology they felt was going to harm the economically sensitive and lower-income folks. I thought that was rubbish, shoutout to my folks in the UK. I wanted to give my opinion on that, and coming from an unbanked home, being a first-generation high school graduate in my family, which is the thing I'm most proud of, and fighting for people at the bottom, I have a responsibility to speak truth to ignorance.
There's two types of ignorance, not necessarily power, because ignorance pervades. There's two types of ignorance. Ignorance, “I just don't know. I need you to expose me.” Then there's ignorance, “I know, and I don't care.” That's the part that they were leaning on. I had to make sure that I illuminated some points from my perspective as a financial advisor as someone who grew up in that type of home. Then also, that someone who is an advocate of digital assets and cryptocurrency.
Bill: One of the things that is a little bit, I guess scary is probably the best word for me about doing this podcast is, I am going to expose my first part of ignorance quite a bit. I'm coming from a much different place. I don't have a lot of experience interacting with the unbanked. I worked at a commercial bank. I didn't grow up in a community that had underserved people from a financial standpoint. My mom has struggled a lot, but she has never been in the unbanked category. I guess, as someone that doesn't understand, would you mind illuminating what some of the issues are, that maybe someone like myself or Congress or whoever doesn't understand because they're not spending the time that they should be, getting up to speed on these issues?
Tyrone: Gladly. That's one of the things here that I just think we need to understand, is that there are just a majority of people who don't know or understand how the other sides live. Other side lives, and which is why I talk about getting proximate all the time. If I'm not familiar with what it is that you've gone through, what you've endured, what you have to overcome, I have no idea how to help. My way to help and the way to help these environments, when you're in financial services and financial literacy, and they start with what a stock is, well, that's not where financial literacy starts. If you are unbanked in America, there's 25% of America that is either unbanked or underbanked. I believe I think that number is right about 8% the Fed says that are unbanked, no bank account at all.
You lack connectivity with the world, you can't do anything, you just can't. Also, because again, the whole KYC, AML, you need an account to do a lot of things. It forces you to deal in the alternative financial services space. Post office, my mother still goes to the post office to get money orders to this day. My parents were together 40 plus years, they just got their first joint bank account a couple years ago. This is a true story. I also say if you go to most inner cities, you go to a post office on the weekend, you'll see it pretty packed because the basic banking that the post office uses people still use. Very little, but they use it. Money orders is a big thing. Payday loans and payday lenders, I don't like the damning of payday lenders because they allow people to access their money now. Research has shown that some, if not most of the people, have a good experience with them. Lastly, people talk about the rates, 300% to 600%. Well, if you did that same thing for checking accounts at banks when people overdraft, the same time period over three years, it turns out to 1700%, annual percentage rate.
There's nothing more usurious than the banking system. It is expensive to be poor in America. I call it financial redlining. When you realize that there are people that are forced to operate outside of the banking system, check cashing places as well, there's a reason why there's these things are all over the place. They're omnipresent. There's so many more than McDonald's and Starbucks, payday lenders and check, there's a reason why, there's a great need for it because there are so many people, 145 million working poor before COVID hit that they need access to money now. There's a reason Walmart tried to become a bank three times. They see the need. There's a reason because 53% of the people that shop at Walmart make less than $50,000. If I don't have an account, and I rely on cash, which most people at the bottom do, and then there's this digital divide in this country now. There’s contactless payments and everyone is doing digital payments now and all these things. I'm shut out, which is why states have had to act to say these people use cash. This is the only way they can transact, they don't have accounts. Cash means a lot to them to be able to do that. That's one side of it.
I can't get a mortgage. I can't go get a car. I can't rent somewhere. If I don't have an account, that means I can't link to all the other things that people link their accounts to, credit cards, brokerage accounts, all these other things, a low-income inequality in America. Let's not even get into the underbanked and how that is.
Bill: Well, tell me about it.
Tyrone: The underbanked is just simply I have an account, but I'm using most of the financial services away from my bank because it's too expensive for me to bank there. You have $34 billion in overdraft fees last year. That is egregious. The average overdraft fee is $350, when you look at the people that overdraft. These are all things that are really important. There's layers to this. We still don't have a real-time payment system in America. Even if I do have a bank account, now it's even worse because if I'm going to get evicted Sunday, I worked my butt off to get paid Friday, that money is not going to clear, the landlord is coming to knock on the door, I can tell you personally, as a kid when that happens, and that landlord is really pissed and they want their money, you don't want to go through that if you're anybody, but especially a child, that money is not going to clear until Monday, maybe Tuesday, you're evicted, your stuff is on the street. If I avoid that by going to wherever to get my money now, I can give that landlord cash. So, you get into a system that you realize is not even set up for you. That's one part of it, no real-time payment system. Mexico has one, South Korea has one, the UK has had it since 2007. The government says, the Fed says, I tweeted about it today, FedNow, but they don't mean right now. We'll get it in 2023, 2024. That's one part.
If I'm underbanked or unbanked, now I'm forced to use other tools, a phone, all these other things to stay connected and caught up with financial service which is why I say now we need online literacy in addition to financial literacy, because there are people who don't know how to use an app. There are people who don't know how to use the prepaid cards or whatever that they're getting from the Treasury. This is directly from the government on their site. There's people who threw out their first prepaid debit card with the stimulus money on it because they did not know what it was. Most people don't know what the Treasury is, what is this? There's so many things here, literacy goes beyond the difference between a stock and a bond. It's way, way, way, way, way scaled down. We're getting people to understand difference between a checking account and a savings account. Maybe what is a maiden name when I'm filling this thing out? I don't even know how to fill out this form. Link my account to what? I'm not even to the point where we're talking about stocks, bonds, cash, all that other fancy stuff yet. If we don't scale down and get into the roots and the issues here, which is why I say, well, they keep throwing crumbs over the fence, here is $600, placate them, throw them crumbs over the fence, but not addressing the financial infrastructure in this country, that is antiquated. Making sure that we are putting the infrastructure in place because that's the thing. Yeah, fine, we'll take your money, give me money. I've never been the big UBI guy, because here's what I know. You can give me money, but also give me a system that allows me to grow it.
I talk about my three Es all the time. Exposure, education, and empowerment. Empower me, don't just placate me, empower me, so I don't have to rely on you for that $600. But the system is set up to do that. Don't just throw money at me. Give me a system that allows me to take that money and turn my dollar into $1.10. I'll work, I'll get the patience. I'll do all these things. Adjust it for income, race, all these things. The greatest savers are those at the bottom, adjust it for all of those things. The most charitable folks are at the bottom, so we don't have to go in to teach these people about savings. We're going to teach you how to save. My mother can stretch $20 like a yoga class, we had to. People that have to opt out of the American Dream into survival, we don't need you, Mr. MBA from Wharton to teach me how to stretch your budget money. Thanks, though.
I could spend the next two weeks on this because it's so much of an issue. When you look at $1.8 trillion of wealth that was created since COVID and 8 million people fallen into poverty, anybody that has half a heart, not a whole one, half a heart that is okay with that, and has a voice and a platform and not speak to it, we have a big problem if that happens and this continues.
Bill: Well, I think from my perspective, a lot of what I do all day is looking at the stock market, and I'm on Twitter and whatever and people that I'm talking to are looking at the stock market. Man, I just keep going back to the higher the market goes, the further and further away that dream gets for the person that needs to rebuild. Your forward return will be lower if stocks are higher, all else equal, and the amount of hours that you have to work to buy a share of stock goes up. I don't know how we can have a society that is so bifurcated. When stocks go up, it just makes me think that political risk is increasing, not exponentially, I don't think that's fair, but definitely nonlinearly. If you're somebody like myself that sees what you're talking about and it resonates, what's step one in trying to bridge some of this divide? Is it donating to charities? Is it giving time? What would you say to somebody like me?
Tyrone: No, because we tried all that and it's halfhearted and it doesn't work. I've been doing this for 19 years. Listen, we are at the point right now where the solution has to be as big as the problem. It needs to be a revolution. We need the same people who took to the streets when they saw a black man die in the street-- again, this is not about poverty and how you feel about it. I don't care. I'm just talking about when we really care about any social justice issue, we should take to the streets the same way, the same way that there's this abhorrent abuse of our capitalist society. Again, I have no problem with billionaires, I have no problem with capitalism, they only exploit a system that allows them to do so. The first thing is people just simply, and I can't curse because my mother will kill me, simply need to give an F. They need to care, deeply, deeply care. That's step one.
Second thing is, we need to realize that when you have leaders, all leaders from the president down that lack empathy, one. Two, lack visual image. Three, lack people around them from those environments into the room, you are completely shielded from that. Most people, as you become successful, it is very easy to shield yourself from them. Them is defined by you, whoever them is. In this country, we have haves and have-nots. We need haves and have-mores, that's okay, but we can't have have-nots. Those things need to happen. So, yes, we need what you talked about, but there's fundamental wrongs, systemic, structural. The systemic years and years and years and hundreds of years of making a structural part, we can fix. 21 states requiring personal finance to be taught in high school, one class in high school, why doesn’t it all states require that? Why is it high school? Children can start picking up financial concepts at three. It should start as early as possible.
Bill: Yeah, it should almost be embedded in math class.
Tyrone: 100%. These are structural issues, things that we should be able to fix. 75% of school districts before COVID had children with student lunch debt, 75% of school districts all over America. How do I learn if I'm hungry? Structural. Our soil is barren, we have to get into the roots. I've traveled all around the country speaking at some of the most poor school districts in this country and the things that I've seen, how do kids learn here? Why am I incentivized to learn in this environment? If you haven't seen the depths of poverty in Detroit, you haven't seen it, but you've also been to Beverly Hills or something? That chasm has to close.
Bill: A lot of I think a lot of people that are listening to this haven't seen it. How would you describe it to somebody who hasn't seen it?
Tyrone: Yeah, I will pair that with what you said, because I definitely want to get back to answering your question.
Bill: Yeah. We'll talk and we'll see where it goes.
Tyrone: Listening to this podcast is one thing. That's what I tell people. We need more people that seem that have come from it to get these type of platforms. How many times are we going to interview the billionaire that has an opinion on everything-
Bill: [laughs]
Tyrone: -that they made their money in one area.
Bill: It drives me nuts, man. [laughs]
Tyrone: Yeah, we need to hear from real people with real solutions that are in touch with the problem. This helps big time, just people getting aware. The other thing is, yes, we need to donate. 2021 is going to be the year of thoughtful, effective, on purpose giving, on purpose to this school, to this cause, for this thing, and endow it, not one time. We're coming to the school, we're going to fix it. Here, we're going to fix the student lunch debt today, we're going to fix the digital divide today, we're going to make sure all the students have Wi-Fi, here and at home. We're going to come back, we're going to make sure that they have hardware, laptops, or whatever. Also, we're going to come back to make sure that we're bringing in people to do financial literacy, so on and so forth. We're going to get into community, we're going to educate the parents. Then, while we're here, we're going to make sure that the infrastructure is good so the kids get back and forth school, parents get back and forth to work. We can do that in every community. It has to go grassroots, we have to get into the soil. Our soil is barren.
We need to scale at all levels. From local politicians, federal, public, private industry, everyone just has to put a hand in here. If not, it's just not going to work. We have to find somebody to unite everyone to say, “Listen, this is not about class, this is not about parties, this is not about socioeconomic status.” Hey, if everyone just has a basic standard of living, it's good for everybody. Everyone's safe. It's good for the economy, all of these things. Studies have come out if people at the bottom were given more access, what it means for GDP and all of these things. Again, we need our quants in the room, we need empathetic people in the room, we need logistic people in the room, but we have to get everyone on board here and say, “Listen, this is a problem.” Until we start to do that, it won't get fixed. Lastly to that point, what you've seen this year is a highlight on the race issue in this country, which we knew existed, but it was put on front street. But now, the class issue, which we haven't addressed, we have to address the class issue.
Now, going to your question of, what is it like? Well, here's the thing, if kids are having to learn all day in a school with no heat, not only is there no heat, but there's rats running around the school, metal detectors, police, there's gang violence, all of these things. I've gone to schools where I've had to be ushered to classrooms by police officers and ushered out of the classroom by a police officer. Imagine having to learn in that environment. Imagine having to go to that environment as a guest speaker. You're not going because when they booked me, the guy told me, said, “Nobody will come.” I said, “That's exactly why I'm coming.” But he's like, “Nobody will come here.” It was at night and this in the South Bronx. Not advised. But he was like, “This is why no one will come, because the cops are going to have to meet you with the front.” This is after school. I've gone during school. This is after school. You walk through metal detectors. They pat you down. Now imagine that as an adult, but also imagine it as a child and now you were hungry at home. Again, you're seeing, like, “Do they care about us? Do they care?” We are sharing books. There's kids sharing books, some of these books are old, the information is not-- We expect these kids to compete when it's time to compete? That's one part of it.
I've seen situations where there's 20 kids sharing one laptop, and the laptop is old and the internet is cutting out. Then you see these kids where-- again, I was that kid on the side of the lunch line with no lunch money, dealing with emotional issues, things at home. There's so many things at home, abuse. They've been abandoned, maybe they're foster children, whatever the case may be, I've seen it at all levels, every single level. If we do not understand-- now little Johnny doesn't have ADHD, he's hungry. When I was a juvenile probation officer, I had a kid who was in-- and I don't know if folks are familiar with day schools, they put kids in juvenile or juvenile probation in day schools. They take them out of high school because they're very dangerous and put them in day schools. I had a kid who was kicked out of his high school, put in a day school, wouldn't go to the day school, he's running around and doing all type of stuff. Every time I was trying to follow him around, go to his house, he was beating up his grandmother really bad. Let's just go figure out. As a probation officer, it's your job to piece the puzzle together.
I'm piecing the puzzle together. I'm getting all the clues, and then finally, I'm like, “Something's not right here.” There's a spot where he had to go get therapy or whatever and piecing the clues. The next clue was, he's not bathing. I'm like, “Oh, I know he has somewhere to bathe, he has somewhere to live.” He’s staying with his grandmother’s, he was beating his grandmother up, he's not going to the day school. He's not showing up to probation.” I had to violate him. I didn't like to violate my kids because if I took them to court, then I had to defend the judge, well, a kid that was caught with two guns at a party on the weekend should stay in society. I knew that they were going to lock most of these black boys up who look, walked, and talked like me, I didn't want to do that. I was like, “I'm going to find a way to help them all.” Stupid, foolish at the time, but I was young. That's what you're supposed to be.
Bill: [laughs] This is true.
Tyrone: I violate him. Put into violation. I get the thing to go lock him up. The cops and I go to the house. Grandmother again bruised up. She said he's somewhere around here somewhere. It's me, there's another police car, the officers that I'm with, and we're about to leave. I just happen to see him down an alleyway and he's with 20 of the most dangerous people you would ever want to see in your life. Now, I'm with police officers and I'm still a little nervous. I'm like, “Johnny,” throwing a name out there. “Johnny. Hey, look, man. Just give it up. Let me help you,” whatever. Long story less long, we get him back to the station, he starts crying uncontrollably. This is a kid who's been in the streets, not dealing with trauma, hungry, he smelled horrible on the way back to the station. I can tell the cop didn't want to be rude, but he's like, “We’ve got to get this kid out this car.” We get them there, and I'm asking him what's going on and he just busts out crying. He says, “You want to know why I haven't been going to school? You want to know why I smell like this?” He's crying now. He's bawling, crying. “You want to know why I had to join a gang, do all this other stuff? Because my grandfather and my uncle have been raping me in my grandmother's basement.” I pause, not because I don't know what to say next--
Bill: Well, that’s a big moment you paused for that.
Tyrone: I pause because you do not see and hear that and not be impacted by it. When people ask me why I do what I do, that's why. I've seen the hurt on that kid’s face. I've seen why kids in street-- I've gone into homes and seen kids’ mothers hooked up to machines and roaches running in and out of their mouth and through their nose and out the other side and crawling in their ears. I've seen this with my own eyes. You see that at home, you hyped for trigonometry tomorrow?
Bill: Yeah, not exactly.
Tyrone: That's what it's like to answer your question. This is real life for people, like real life. If we don't start addressing these things, no one in this country should be living like that. People have been saying it for years, and again, here I am, I'm a lot older than I was then but I wake up every day dumb enough believed that I'm going to fix it. I dare anybody to convince me I'm not the one to do it.
Bill: Well, I think you're doing a good job.
Tyrone: [chuckles] That’s why every opportunity like this, I take, because every time someone asks, I may be tired, I may be run down, I may not have the time, but if it's a platform for me to speak about this, I'm going to do it because it's my responsibility to bring light to it and make sure that we finally start thoughtful, effective giving in areas of need in this country and it starts with talks like this.
Bill: Dude, I've been going through, I don't know, just a lot of thinking this year. One thing that I am really, really embarrassed to admit is I became the person that lived in a city that thought that, because I live in a city, I understand what's going on and I read about the problems and whatever. I realized sometime around this year, because I moved and I moved down to Florida, and it's hard to drive around this state and not see just real desperation in spots. In Chicago where I was, I never had that. It was easy to say, “I'm in the city, I get it.” I drove the South Side. Probably, I used to go down to a juvenile detention center there in law school to help some kids. I don't know, I probably did that like eight times and then I drove it twice. Both times that I drove it, I was struck by the amount of MoneyGrams and payday lending that there was relative to other businesses. I also did not feel particularly safe when I would get into the neighborhoods. Everybody's looking at me, and I get it. I don't know if it's laziness. I don't know if it's an excuse. I don't know what it is. I found a way to not have my life intersect with the real problems of that city. I'm pretty embarrassed about that, but going forward, hopefully, that changes.
Tyrone: I would hope so. Chicago is something that truly always brings a lot of emotion because the death there, the murders, especially of black men, if that was any other group, any other group, white girls, Asian boys, black girls--
Bill: Oh, there would be-- the political will be crazy.
Tyrone: They would have sent in the cavalry a long time ago. But because it's young black men, genocide, let them kill each other. It’s murder after murder after murder after murder, and I've been following it for years. There's an organization called My Block, My Hood, My City. [crosstalk]
Bill: Yeah, that's a good organization. That I do know about.
Tyrone: Yeah, tremendous work there. I just can't believe that, again, that we allow that to happen in one of the cities in this country, a revered city, a beautiful city, but any city to watch that happen-- And there may be people listening to this to say, “You know what, they're in gangs, they're black men, I don’t like, whatever, let them die.” Cool, you can hold that. I can't tell you can't feel that way. But here's what I do know. During the riots and looting and all that stuff, some of those same folks made it over to the Gold Coast. Rioting and looting in the street, again, don't really care how you feel about it, you're entitled to your opinion, that's going to start to happen more and more where you can put your kids, I tell people this all the time, put your kids in a private school, move to the nicest places, do all of that. I want that for my nephews as well. I want my nephews and my niece to live a life I've never lived. And it's my responsibility to show them that life. Everybody deserves that. Eventually, you meet on the street, and if we keep-- this is not about color because poor is a condition, poor isn't a color. Poor is a condition. If people keep really being hungry, and really being forgotten and dealing with death every day, and the PTSD that comes with that and feeling like people don't care, when they get an opportunity to do what we saw this year is what they're going to do.
This is what I said, forget how you feel about. I did walk and talk this. I said, pay attention to where-- and again, I'm speaking strictly to my people now. By the way, let's stop lumping black in with people of color. I still don't know what people of color is. If it's a black issue, let's just say black issue, so I'm talking to black people right now. What I saw was black people that I love, my own, running to Idols, Gucci stores and Fendi. Then you started to see the young white kids and go right behind them, stealing, Walmart, doing all this stuff. I started to say, you know what, look at their idols, they're running after their gods brand names, we put nothing in them. This is our failing. They're stealing Mercedes-Benzes, and there's still, this is where we are as a country? You starting to see, they're young. There's 43 million 10- to 19-year-olds in America, some of them on our streets, who's their leader? What do we put in them? We have people who don't believe that they pull those things out of them. If I want to be a millionaire, I pull that out of me. If I want a Rolex, I become the person that wears a Rolex. I don't go steal it.
I say that to say, especially in a community that has been void, 70% of black communities don't have a bank branch. The white family has 10 times the net worth of a black family, $171,000, $17,000. How do I compete against them, I got 10 times more than what I got? I don't want to make this about race, because, again, what's important here is this, some things are just undeniable truth. When we start to look at the issue that we have in this country, it's just lack of empathy, lack of gratitude and appreciation, but self-worth. We've put our value in celebrities, in items, in stocks, in our cars, and this whole thing. Was it a couple weeks ago, Bloomberg ran a headline, “Now billionaires can match their Porsche to their boat.” I said, “Okay, that's exactly what we needed right now.”
Bill: Yeah, how great is America [crosstalk] getting? Who gives a shit?
Tyrone: Exactly. Finally, how could they not figure this out before?
Bill: I know, it was tough for them before.
Tyrone: [chuckles] Again, I've sat in rooms with poor white kids, and they relate to me, you know why? Because I've been poor. They don't care that I'm black. If I'm drowning, I don't care about the color of the life preserver. I'm not going to be like, “Listen, I don't want to orange one. Can you go back to shore and give me a yellow life preserver and come back? I'll wait here and drown. Go ahead.” If you're going to help me, I don't care what color you are. I don't care of your background. But if you can speak to my condition, if you can really get into what it is that I'm going through, and every time I go into these inner cities or these poor rural communities, I tell these kids, white, black, yellow, brown, purple, it will never be about the things that you're being, that's being pushed on you. It's about as you develop the things that you want inside of you. Unfortunately, the idols, the visionaries that especially we put in front of young black men are not ones that have allowed them to flourish and not look at each other in a way that is destructive as enemies but the love back in our communities. The appreciation of values, the morals, having constructs of how to behave, constructs of how to build wealth, constructs of how to run businesses and have a community. We have a responsibility now to put that back in, myself, again, to that, for my own for my people.
I always say-- if I bring that up-- my mother always says this, “You take care of your house first. Clean up your house, but be ready to speak about your house because somebody will come in and say, ‘Well, you probably.’” “Well, it's my house, let me fix it. I know of the issues in my house, don't worry about it. I know that frame is crooked, okay, we need to get to it.” I'm aware of the issues in the black community and all we have, but the broader issue here is that the poor, the underclass in this country are united by the fact that they are exactly that poor, and that's a hard, hard way to live in a country where if you are not fluent in money, you are doomed to a life of suffering. We need to understand when you are fluent in money, in a capitalist society, which is the language of a capitalist society, life changes. You don't have to go steal these things, loot these things, destroy things of people, eat the rich, and destroy people's businesses, that learned, that look like you, they walk, talk, and act like you, you don't destroy it, they worked hard for that. We have to make sure that we’re giving our own, these people, the blueprints, so they say, “You know what, I don't have to go steal yours. I can build it myself. I don't have to go take from the kids in the private schools that their parents worked hard. Imma just go, Imma rob ‘em.” “No, we're going to go get it ourselves.”
I'll end on this note, I tell the kids this all the time, sometimes I'll be in rooms, we'll have the lights off and the kids are sitting there, and I said, “Listen, they want you to feel like you don't matter. That's why they got us in this cramped room. They want you to fail.” Here's what I do know, the library in your community opens the same time as the one there, it's opened 24/7, if you're able, and willing, you can get access. You’ve got to ask, you’ve got to seek. It will be hard. It'll be difficult. You may not have as much internet access, you may not have-- but it's all out there for you. We cannot use that as an excuse. My responsibility is to get you just as motivated to make you care, and not just by telling you or giving you fancy quotes and standing up here like I'm Martin Luther King. I say this to every single homeless person, every kid in the inner city, every gang member that I mentee, whatever, I tell them, here's why you change. Here's why you should be focused on changing. Here's why you should go through the pain of what it is to change. Not because of what I'm trying to show you is out there because that's not real for you right now. Do it because I care, I'm fighting for you when you can't fight for yourself. I'm in these rooms, getting called names, and being told no for you. I need you to keep fighting because I'm fighting for you. We're in it together. Trust me. Don't trust the system, trust me, but trust that when you're not in the room, I'm fighting for you. Trust that when you out here on the corner, and you're begging for money and you're sleeping, I'm fighting for you. There's people fighting for you. Not one single homeless person I've spoken to said, “That is BS.” They go, “You know what I'm trying, I'm going to do it. I believe in you.” I tell them, “I appreciate you, don't quit, don't fight, don't fight in what you see here, but fight to another day, one more day, because we're fighting for you.” I say that all along the way.
I think that's what's happened here is the lack of fight. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but you’ve got to keep hope, and you’ve got to keep fighting, you got to keep persevering, and when you feel like you're not fighting alone, and you feel like people that have power and prestige and influence and networks are fighting for you, it's easy to say, “No, they're going to go back and get us, they're coming for us.” We’ve got to do that. My responsibility, again, is to let these kids, these people know that we care, people at the top care. We're going to bring the resources to you, but we need you all to understand that you can't quit on yourself. Don't worry about all this stuff you can't control. We know they don't care. They're not bringing in-- yeah, they put liquor stores here and gun stores and all this other for a reason. They want you to believe that it's hopeless. It's not.
There's so many facets to this conversation, but the main thing is again, as you said, and I'm giving a TED talk on it in a couple months, God willing with COVID, is about the power of giving. It's my three Es, again, exposure, education, empowerment. But the biggest one is exposure. It's the first one, expose me. I’ve got to see. If I see it, I could be it. If I could conceive it, I could believe there's the possible-- but I got to see it. Not until I see it, and I go-- This is a perfect example. Everyone loves The Pursuit of Happyness. If you're really watching The Pursuit of Happyness, the sentimental moment, quintessential moment in that movie is, Will’s standing there, he’s coming out of a building, a guy pulls up in a Ferrari, or whatever it was, and he asked him, “What do you do?” He saw it, when he was exposed, and the guy told him, it switched at that moment. He had to, “Whoa, wait a second.” You see everything that you want, and get down at your lowest moment. That's the thing. Most people don't even get that access to ask. They just down and out, but he was able to ask, “What is it that you do?” “Oh, okay.” And now, the next E, educate me. Then once he started to get educated, he's got it now, and then he was empowered by given an opportunity, and the rest is history. That's the part that breaks through in that movie, but you had to have gone through it and really see that.
That exposure piece is really, really big. If we start exposing people to the possibilities of more, the possibilities of enough, the possibilities of less than lack, we can free a whole generation. I talk about this all the time. One generation. What can we do in one generation? We should all try and figure out what we can do in generation because they say is five generations to get yourself out of poverty in America. Research shows, four to five generations. What can we do on one? Let's just figure that out.
Bill: Yeah. Dude, I'll tell you, regardless of people's opinions of Trump, I think that what him getting elected did for me, is I had to really ask, why people are this upset? My first drive was from Chicago to Denver, and I stopped in these towns, and it's just hollowed out despair. You can tell that at one time the town was okay and now there's just nothing. I hear a lot of people are down in Miami partying. I'll tell you what, get in a car and drive north. Drive to the center of Florida and drive north, and you will start to see forgotten people, for lack of a better term. The one thing that I just won't accept any more when people talk about Trump in the Trump era, or whatever, is this notion that race was the predominant motivating factor for many people. I do not-- I agree that it was for a small segment of society that has something really disgusting in them. I think that there were some fans that were flamed, but a lot of people just needed somebody to fight for them.
Tyrone: Bingo.
Bill: Nobody else was fighting for them.
Tyrone: Bingo. Done. Again, and you prefaced it well. Don't care how you feel about it, because again, if I'm drowning, if I feel hopeless, whoever comes in, it could be the village idiot, but if they make us believe that there's possibility and that's why the people that feel about-- they fight for him and feel the way they do feel the way they do. There's a loyalty, an unwavering loyalty from people who suffer to someone who presents a salve to their suffering.
Bill: Yeah, that's right.
Tyrone: Oh, my goodness.
Bill: Okay, fine, the academics don't like him. Well, the academics have screwed me forever. What do I care about what they say about this guy's foreign policy? I need somebody that's here talking for me today. I don't know, I got sucked into not thinking that aspect through for a long time. I don't know, I'm happy that I opened my mind up. My mom, I referenced her, she's scraping by and her life was humming before COVID for the first time in a long, long time. She's in sales, and then COVID stopped sales. You can't get out and shake people's hands. And she's older, so it's not the easiest to pivot to the internet, figure out how to use Twitter and Instagram and all this stuff. Now, it's like, okay, so now the money has stopped. What does this look like on the back end? I get thinking about like-- you're talking about these kids that are in stressful situations, now their parents are at home, their parents are stressed out. They can't go to work. What is child abuse end up like in that scenario? How do we come back after all this? I don't know, man. I keep going back to it, but something about seeing the stock market go up just makes me sick.
Tyrone: I was just saying that. Oh, when they get the pom-poms out on Twitter, it is abhorrent, and they're doing it now with bitcoin running through $30,000. Oh, man, they're taking laps. Listen, again, free country, enjoy. This is my whole thing, is like, that's it, we’ve just got to be a little bit more sensitive. Imagine that same parading if there was a CNBC headline, first time in American history that there's no documentation of a child going to bed hungry last night.
Bill: Yeah.
Tyrone: What? Cure for cancer, something like that. These are the things that we should be-- Again, socialism, whatever, those are different podcasts, but it's like, there's a man in the country worth $180 billion. Okay, God bless him. Some type of social fund, let's just call it a fund where anybody could put into this fund for a cause that they mean, and they can match up with a billionaire that sees, and they say, “All right, well, Mr. Bezos, if I could present you a good presentation for schools in Detroit, would you directly write in and then just kind of-- would you social fund?” We just need a billion of what you got. We don't need the whole 180.
Bill: [chuckles] Yeah.
Tyrone: Enforce those folks to, again, main street, put your proposals here, we'll make sure only a certain amount, so we make sure he sees it or whatever, and no tax break, it's just going to go right into the community. Thank you for pouring a bottle of water in the ocean. We appreciate it.
Bill: Yeah. Well, it may have to be private. Some people are doing, and I don't want to make it sound like nobody is but what I can talk to is about myself. I think for far too long, I've been stuck in my head in books saying that I care and for far too long, I haven't done what's necessary to show that I care. When I see you say stuff, like, if you want to know what the first Stablecoin for the poor is, it's a gift card. I don't even understand what that means. I realized I better start asking myself some better questions.
Tyrone: Yeah. That's one of the things. I talk about that STABLE Act and everything I said there was like, their whole thing was-- I don't want to go down the crypto rabbit hole here too much. This is much bigger. Bitcoin is digital social justice, and it plays a part in that but we can get to that if you desired--[crosstalk]
Bill: I'd like to. I'd like to have a talk about it because I've read a lot of the theories and use cases and whatnot, and yours was the first one that really made me scratch my head and be like, “Alright, there might be something here that I have a massive blind spot to.”
Tyrone: Right. To say that, and this leads into that, but gift cards, one, Fed studies show prepaid cards-- and they're lumped in there, prepaid cards is where most people at the bottom spend their money. Those cards-- and they've also shown that there's a difficulty sometimes getting all of the money off based on fees or whatever else, but a lot of the people use this. It's stable if I'm given a prepaid card how to hand out stimulus, doing all that, it's there, it's not going to change in value. I don't have to go on the other side of town. It's stable, it's there, I can use it when I want to get to it. [crosstalk]
Bill: Can I just ask you a follow-up on that?
Tyrone: Sure.
Bill: As you're referring to Stable and value, are you saying if my alternative is to go to say a Payday lender and I got to pay them back and my value is reduced down in three or four days or even a week or whatever, because of these rates, the prepaid card gives you the actual amount on the card and there are no hidden fees. There is nothing. Is that what you're referring to when you're saying this?
Tyrone: Yeah. They give you choices sometimes where they say, “Hey, do you want to pay the fee for the person so they get the whole $100 on the card?” or whatever.
Bill: Yeah.
Tyrone: Those are very helpful to people at the bottom. I’ll tell you a true story. Before the world shut down, I was raising money for San Diego Youth Services here. I started collecting gift cards. I started on Twitter, it turned into this whole thing. So, everybody at the conference, I'm like, “I'm collecting gift cards because they need gift cards.” The one thing they said they need gift cards. I'm like, “Oh my God, great opportunity.” One, for me to educate people, let them know, yes, that's huge. I remember that. Yeah, gift cards are important. I do this thing on Twitter. It turned into this whole thing. People brought so many different gift cards. It was amazing. I don't know how much money, but I took it there and I delivered it. Incredible thing, because they give the kids gift cards and birthdays, holidays, when they get-- because they help these kids find jobs, things like that, hold them over. Went to a really nice dinner with a bunch of expensive folks. Again, they've given me gift cards. I got gift cards and a hoodie, and walking back, bunch of us. I got two gift cards in the hoodie, the front pocket of the hoodie while walking, and then we see this homeless woman and barefoot, it's cold for San Diego. It wasn't cold for me from-- [crosstalk]
Bill: [laughs]
Tyrone: It was cold-- [crosstalk]
Bill: Yeah, it was like 71.
Tyrone: Yeah, exactly.
Bill: [laughs]
Tyrone: I took my hoodie off, and I gave her a hoodie because she was cold. Didn't know that the gift cards were in there. I didn’t find out to the next day. I go to the conference now, and I'm like, people who gave me gift cards. I'm like, “I left those gift cards in the hoodie.” One or two gift cards had $1,000 on it. My only hope is whoever that woman was, she reached in that pocket and found those gift cards and was able to use them because she had $1,000 where-- here's the beauty and a struggle. Hopefully, she found it. Two, if she goes to use it and I pray to this day, God, she was able to, is there's no fussing with the cash and the change back or whatever. She uses the card to get what she wants, she leaves the store. Piggybacking on that, that is powerful to that group. People just forget how powerful gift cards are, just don't know prepaid cards, gift card, powerful. I wish people would do more of that.
Now, let's go into the crypto world. I have an uncle that is in Guyana. People have family members in other countries, the remittance market is huge. I've even met a lot of people who don't even know what a remittance is. We have a lot of learning to do. If I want to send my uncle money, he doesn't have an account or he can't leave the house, whatever the case may be, I take that gift card, go on local bitcoins or Paxful, put that information in, buy bitcoin with the amount on that card, local bitcoins or Paxful will convert it right there on the site into local currency. Or, again, leave the Bitcoin there, whatever it is that you want to do, never need a bank account, never have to walk into a store, this or that whatever, we could do it all online, that's powerful. That gift card, now, there's a fee there, if it's a $50 gift card, you may get $45 at a value of bitcoin, whatever the case may be, but just for implementation purposes, what people don't understand, and I promise we won't go too far down this rabbit hole.
Bill: No, I want to, man. I'm having you on for a reason. I think this is interesting-- [crosstalk]
Tyrone: Yeah. I try and get people to focus on the big B, Bitcoin, the blockchain.
Bill: Yeah, I liked when you said that. When you were like, “Yo, I don't care if little B bitcoin goes to zero, it doesn't matter, this will be a win.”
Tyrone: Doesn't matter because the big B Bitcoin, the technology, the network, the decentralization, the game theory, all of the things that go into it, the cryptography, allows for transfer value, of any value. Even intertwined with the traditional system, as powerful. Also, if it goes to zero, it forced governments all over the world, a world, like ours, one to look at central bank digital currencies. Also, now to say, well, back to that FedNow thing, you guys probably shouldn't wait four more years to do that. We need a real-time payment system. People need to transfer value in real-time right now. We need it to be cheaper. There's a reason why they say there's you can send money quicker from Poland to France than two banks in the same city in the US. That's a problem.
These things, Bitcoin is forcing the hand of that. Focus on the technology, the big B. The little B is going to do what it’d do, if people want to get caught up in the price, it's a speculative asset right now. As we're sitting here talking, I want to mute my bitcoin on Twitter and turn my phone off because it's blowing up because the price went to $30,000. That's stepping over dollars to pick up pennies in front of a steamroller. I don't care. It's the bigger picture here. Using those gift cards, I could transfer value to another country, no bank, he doesn't need a bank. We don't need a third party. There's no one taking fees, no Western Union. There's none of these things. The remittance market has exploded since COVID because of bitcoin.
I saw something last night. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was a significant amount of money. The bitcoin market was like 300 and something billion dollars transferred on chain, and I think the fee was like $28 or something like that. Are you kidding me? Has anyone sent a wire lately?
Bill: Yeah. [crosstalk] -nuts.
Tyrone: Yeah. These are the things that where people are like, “Oh, I can't buy coffee with it.” Good. That's a feature, not a bug. It's about massive amounts of value very cheaply. Again, in the crypto space, that amount is a lot. Yes, it's early technology, there still things needs to be worked out, it’s open source, but you would be hard-pressed, I've been putting it out there, for anyone to tell me that it is not a godsend to the unbanked. “Well, they need a phone and need internet.” No, you don't. There's bitcoin ATMs. You don't need a phone, you don't need internet. They'll give you a paper wallet, and now you own bitcoin. Now, once you own Bitcoin, you can get into the crypto economy. Then at some point, at any point, you want to turn that bitcoin back to fiat, you can do that. You don't need a phone, you don't need internet. If you have it, yes.
Most people at the bottom, there's 93% cell phone penetration here in the US. 80% of people have a smartphone. If you look at the lower-income folks, there's at least 70% penetration of a smartphone. The greatest users of financial technology and apps and things like that, those the bottom even know-- study showed it 17% of homes don't have a payment app. Bitcoin, you don't need a payment app. This is bitcoin. There's so many layers to it. Real-time payment system as they hit on fees, as they hit on the ability to not have to do all the KYC, AML because here's what it means, Tyrone wants to send Bill value. I don't know Bill, never seen him, don't care where he is, I don't care. What I do care is that I need to send him value, whatever that value is. The bitcoin network is going to make sure that I can trust him to send him this value, and it's going to confirm that, and if it's not confirmed anything wrong, it's not going to go through because there's a whole labyrinth of technology that has to happen for that to happen. I do know though that I need to send him value, he wants me to send him value without OU or whatever the case may be, it's going to allow me to do that without this chokepoint in between of whatever. It's going to look at your public key, your private key, mine, so and so and say, “Alright, these match. Let it go.”
I don't want to make this the debunk the myths thing, but this is true. Is it used for nefarious reasons yet? So is cash. So is the internet. So is every technology that has brought people-- People used to transfer all types of stuff on airplanes, all types of stuff on airplanes. But it was mostly doing a public good. Yes, it was all these things are going to be coopted by people who have bad and malicious intent. Doesn't ignore the fact that take away from the fact that the 1.7 billion people globally, and the 25% here cannot benefit from this immensely. It is again a boon to them because it allows them inclusion and access, hello Cash App, microloans, bank accounts, routing numbers, direct deposits, oh, and bitcoin. You can withdraw your bitcoin, you can take it off. And you know where's Cash Apps greatest penetration? In the South. You know where it is in the South? Lowest financial literacy rates in the country, lowest bank accounts in country, of those that are unbanked rather in the country. They are penetrating that area and doing that well because they understand this “internet money” allows people to transfer value to become a part of a system that have left them out.
Just to tie this up, the digital divide means the people that are not in the banking system now we have to get in the traditional system, and we have to pull them into the new one, contactless payments, all this other stuff. Again, don't care how you feel about bitcoin, God bless you, to God be the glory. What bitcoin then says is if we're going to introduce these people to Bitcoin at some point, one way or another, the traditional world is going to come up. You're going to have to get exposed to what a bank account is or some of these things here because, no, I will never say that people can live their whole lives if they're unbanked with bitcoins, that’s not my point. The point is what is for me and those people it's allowing me to walk into a Waffle House with a buy BTC shirt on. I think that's in my Cash App.
Bill: Yeah.
Tyrone: Then in the Cash App, I show her, “You know you can get your direct deposit right into the Cash App.” “What?” “Yeah, you know can get a routing number and they give you a card and you can---” “What?” “A BTC has Bitcoin here. Right here, you see it.” That's what it allows for. It's bigger picture thinking, but that big B focused on knowing that and not the price. I think people get lost in that. It's a highly speculative asset that may turn into a store value or digital gold or whatever at some point. Some people think is that now, great-- I'm more focused on what it means to liberate people who don't have access.
Bill: I've seen you talk about Square a little bit. I guess your affinity for that company boils down to, it seems to me at least, what they're doing for the underbanked. Is that accurate?
Tyrone: 100%. Not about bitcoin. I love that they make bitcoin, part of it. The fact that they are basically addressing that issue, there's a large population that are unbanked, let's get them accounts, let's get them set up, and then addressing all the things that matter to them. Okay, they're going to probably need direct deposit, because most of the issues is having a check and then going to cash to check and they're waiting for the check to clear. Let's get them direct deposit and let's give them a debit card because we know that most of those people use debit cards, debit prepaid cards, like I said before, and then, oh, by the way, here's this new peer-to-peer monetary system transactional internet resource that we can start to expose them to and let them buy pieces of it. Some people believe that bitcoin is savings technology, again, don't care how you feel about that, but some people believe that, they're allowing you to do that. Then, they come right behind microloans, community banking and microloans for those people really important. So, yeah, 100% probably the most important company in the space.
Here's what I will say, they will never get their credit for this, and I think this is really important, and it doesn't get enough attention. They were the first public company to engage the SEC, say, “We want to make this available to retail.” Here's why, laid it out in great detail. The SEC said, [unintelligible [01:02:21]. Absolutely. That matters. Jack Dorsey, they have Square crypto, which is a total separate entity working strictly on bitcoin and what bitcoin provides in terms of access for the unbanked, Cash App. Then you just have Square, the company that their whole thing is making payments cheaper, faster, more accessible, real-time, all of these things. It's hard to find a more important company in the space right now.
PayPal could change that with just the sheer size and breadth of PayPal, and PayPal making bitcoin available, PayPal gets interesting is because how all the people that PayPal is linked to, the main one being Walmart. Now, Walmart, PayPal has to deal with people who do a lot of the banking and the Walmart cash, and all that stuff, the Walmart will have access to PayPal. I said this in the videos, Walmart in 2019 applied for a patent for their own Stablecoin, for people to use that. This could get really interesting. Now with the app, maybe they make bitcoin available, maybe they have a Stablecoin and teaching people online literacy, how to use the app and be able to pay with things and so on and so forth. Now, there's a situation where people like you and I, because I'm sure you've done it as well, we've had the immense privilege for the last nine months to order stuff and have it come conveniently to the door. Thank you.
Bill: [chuckles] Yeah.
Tyrone: Don't have to leave the house. That is gross privilege, let me tell you. But imagine a mother of five who can't leave the house because she works, in a little bit of time she has, she can't afford to go stand in line for hours to go buy groceries, that is that, whatever. By the way, she has to walk in between the Bloods and Crips to go to the store by herself. Now, I can do that right from this app, and somebody will bring my groceries and I pay with the Walmart whatever that I earned from-- There's a lot that can happen here, and that's the bigger issue of this distributed ledger technology, blockchain whatever you want to label it as they make it comfortable with it, but it definitely helps people that are denied access to connectivity to commerce right now.
Bill: I think this is where the-- Maybe I'm just talking about my own head and not reality but where someone like me would see the volatility in bitcoin and then hear that people are trying to make it retail and impute a lot of my distrust of what I think Wall Street has historically done to people and I'd say like, “Oh, well, I don't know that it should be with retail.” Should it be regulated? Whatever. I think that where that argument may-- I haven't thought it all through, but as I'm talking to you, what I'm thinking of is like, the huge blind spot that I may see the world through, is like, “Dude, yeah, it's got some problems, but look at all the benefits that you don't even understand right now because you're just not living that life.” I may have a similar blind spot. A lot of these fractional shares, I look at that and I say, “Okay, well, is this really just to incentivize overtrading? Is that really what they're trying to do? Or, is it really a savings mechanism?” I don't know where I fall on that, but I think that I probably have discounted it as a savings mechanism too much in my own head. For all the beef I have with Robinhood, they did push people to at least explore the idea of fractional shares, and that may be a good thing for society over time.
Tyrone: Yeah. I've argued with a few of my colleagues and fellow professionals about Robinhood at first because I truly believed in them providing access. The first was about the fees and it was free, even though they were eating big time on the backside of the trades, but the free access to fractional shares now, which is huge for first-time investors, because that's one of the reasons they stay away. If you have being like myself trying to fight, now is where I will use people of color, black and brown folks, minorities to get into. I've tried for years to get them into the stock market, they would not do it. They would not do it. Then all of a sudden, bitcoin comes. They, “What is this?” First asset class history led by retail, you can buy pieces of it, and then now you starting to see all the fractional shares come in. Cash App has it in the app now whatever, and a lot of people are going, “Oh, I could buy a piece to Disney? I could buy $5?” This is the perspective of where you sit. I love fractional shares. I love what Robinhood did. Don't like the way they went about it, but here's what I know, and also to the volatility. Anytime you are first, you will be exposed. I was the first high school graduate, I was the first college graduate, I got kicked out of college. You know why? Because I wasn't prepared. When I graduated high school, if you would have came to my graduation, you would have thought I was getting my PhD. I was the first over the wall, so I was supposed to fail. I wasn't prepared. There's a high price you pay when you're first, and you're ignorant. You bite the slice of pizza, man, look, you burn your mouth, you know how to blow the next time. There's the tuition that you pay from ignorance and now I have knowledge, now I know better. Of course, the fees and all this other stuff-- and this is the one thing that I hate. My mother would kill me, don't say you hate stuff. I hate this. Every time, every time, capital E, Every time, you fight for people that are disadvantaged or lack access, holy cow, you have the privilege to stand on that mountain until you all, “What about the fees? They don't know this, and they shouldn't do that, and they're going to train themselves to death.”
Well, who are you to say somebody couldn't--? Well, if we give them a sip of water, then they're going to-- What, are they going to drown? They need access. Every time you want to help people at the bottom, there's all of these reasons why. Guess what? Sometimes, I’ve just got to go, I'm going to mess it up, but I'll fix it, but I just need it now, I have to get access. It can't be perfect. We just have to get some things to people and then, yeah, we'll fix it along the way, which is why I say, again, back to exposure. Give me exposure. Don't give me access, expose me. Educate me.
Bill: Yes. Where I think I am able to square some of my beef with where I also said I have a blind spot is a lot of what I am particularly upset with Robinhood given my personal circumstances is that I do not believe from what I've heard that they are providing the exposure that is necessary to arm the access. If you are going to give people dynamite, you better fucking tell them that it's dynamite. Sorry to your mother, I didn't mean to curse.
Tyrone: No.
[laughter]
Tyrone: [crosstalk]
Bill: Well, I'm not trying to be that all the time, but I get mad about that stuff, man. I get mad when I see that people have options. I get mad when I see that the payment-- yeah, the payment incentives when you have no fees is to drive the margin, and if you are giving access to people and you're offering those people margin and you don't know that they know, and by the way, you don't even have the customer service to when they have the question, get back to them quickly because settlement is today, and they don't have till next Wednesday to figure this out, because now they're staring at a negative $750,000 balance that they think they owe, but it's not even a real obligation, you’ve got customer service that's understaffed, so you can hit some profitability target, then I got major beef.
Tyrone: Yeah. I agree with you. I'm with you there. It's not without saying that they should do a better job with guardrails in educating. That was the thing that-- the company that I'm building, now we have a mobile app that we're going to do at some point, but we're going to make people go through education before they even get access. Then when they get access, they're going to trade with dummy tokens and money. Then after that, depending on how that looks, you can link an account, not a second beforehand. Because we don't need 100 million users, we just want to make it available to educate people, because I'm very big on financial literacy and education. You will go through a various amount of steps before you can even link an account. Then, oh, by the way, when you link an account, you can only get so much money into the app. As you start to get more education or whatever, we’ll allow you to put more money in. That's what Robinhood should have did. They were simply exploiting the system that was low barrier to entry, they jumped in, and boom. Here comes this rush of young folks who they didn't-- I see it now. I still see it. These Robinhood traders and all these options-- I'm just like, “My God.”
Again, the financial services industry spent $17 billion on marketing, I'd venture to say it's way more, less than 1% on education. They are exemplary of that. Exemplary of it. They are the use case, or the case study rather. With something like that, if we don't tell people to slow down like you said, oh, you're going to get-- I'm not going to give you the Ferrari right away and tell you to go in the fast lane. You’ve got to--[crosstalk]
Bill: By the way, maybe we give you some vodka while you're driving that Ferrari, but no, help. Something like that might happen.
Tyrone: Yeah, we'll get you drunk and throw you the key. Human psychology and all that stuff. I want to make it very clear, I just love the fact of access. But I also agree, yes, without guardrails and without the ability to reel things in because it goes off the rails. When I got to Georgia Tech as a freshman, they had guardrails there for athletes and study hall and this, that, whatever. What they didn't have anything for was, all right, well, we need to identify some of these athletes that are-- they don't know what college is, they have never-- We need a fence around them and that fence should remain all four years because statistics just show, not just, “Oh, your freshman year, and then after--” No, all four years, we’ll decrease it, but you're going to have to check in with us because, again, you're first-generation high school, there’s a high probability that you end up like Tyrone Ross. I was that person. Look to your left, look to your right, I was that person. Without that, and have an endowment at Georgia Tech now, which is pretty cool when I go back there a lot. My endowment is actually to help student-athletes get scholarships and educate and also make sure they stay in school, is making sure that they've made improvements on that and they have, were identifying people that are-- just high risk, very high risk and walking them through the unknown of whatever it may be. Stocks, college, a job, whatever it is, it's really important to do that. No, I agree with you there.
As we were talking about before, is it any good? My mother always says this, “Wherever there's good, there's evil present, always.” They walk in lockstep. One is the shadow of the other. It's just whoever gets in front and [unintelligible [01:14:14] the one out the way, sometimes the bad wins, but there's always good there as well.
Bill: Does your investment firm lead-- I just have a gut feeling that you have an outside focus on those that are left behind. I know you do in your personal life. Do you focus your investment firm around that as well, or how does that permeate your professional life also? It's who you are, I can tell that, so maybe this is stupid question, but I'm trying to figure [crosstalk] ask it.
Tyrone: Yeah. As far as Onramp, the company, we're geared mostly for financial advisors right now to help them get their clients to access to the retail app 100%. When I was a fully practicing financial advisor, I realized early that they wouldn't let me take on those type of clients, which was a problem. I worked to take some of those people on anyway. When I was at Merrill Lynch, I really couldn't do it. I did it anyway, but obviously, I wasn't getting paid. When I went independent, I found a way to do it through a subscription model.
Bill: That's sort of what I was asking because the traditional model, it's not-- I don't want to say it's not worth it. Merrill Lynch is going to tell you it's not worth the time, right?
Tyrone: Yeah, it's not worth the time. I come from that, I can't tell those people [unintelligible [01:15:30] as I am, but it wasn't for that, I wouldn’t be here. I did a subscription model. We're going to do that through the mobile app as well. I did a lot of talks, free talks. I always did that from day one. I said, 19 years of it, I go wherever they let me in. My only condition is, if you bring me in once, you’ve got to bring me back twice.
Bill: Oh, yeah?
Tyrone: I put that into contract. That's really it. It's core to who I am, I try to make it a part of what I do but it's really good to see in the financial services industry that a lot of folks have started to realize the importance of pro bono work, and giving people access to financial planning and things like that. Everything that I do, there's a component there, whether it's my Learn to Money series, which is launching soon, which I'm excited about. The nonprofit I'm launching, EEEvolve. The work that I do through Onramp as being the CEO of that my own private company, 401, which is a storytelling consultancy, but it's really geared towards bringing awareness and helping brands identify how to effectively communicate a message to those people because I realized that there was a need there. Any of the things that I do, podcast speaking engagements, things like that, my job is to be the voice for the voiceless. That's it. I realized that as I get a bigger platform, I have a bigger responsibility to yell for those people because their silent cries aren't heard. But I hear them, so I have to be their voice. I say this now, a lot of people can't see that. You and I are staring at each other. It looks like I'm the only one on the screen, but there's a million people behind me that you don't see that I have a responsibility to speak to, speak for, speak around, speak about, so people understand the importance of making sure that their needs are met. If I do that, I find it to be effective and I've been blessed enough to have a bunch of avenues to be able to do so.
Bill: Yeah, that's sort of how I felt a little bit when I was going through my battle with Robinhood. I was just thinking about the next mom who have her kid killed herself or himself because he didn't understand what he was looking at. Then it became a lot bigger for me, mental health is pretty important. I watched-- my dad had some issues at one point in his life and I had to check him in somewhere. He's all right now. You are motivated by a force that has nothing but good behind you, which I can tell that you are. When I saw your Twitter feed, I was like, “Yo, man, people may not agree with this guy, but this guy is coming from a pure place.” It's a superpower.
Tyrone: Yeah, I appreciate that. I get it. People are supposed to disagree. I'm not here to change nobody's mind. I'm here to open them. Martin Luther King, when he was alive, people didn't-- I'm not comparing myself to him by any way. I'll never be him. What they say, 87% of Americans didn't like him when he was alive. Now, oh my God, you bring up his name, “Oh, he's the sweetest thing that ever lived.” I'll be honest, I've been called a nigger, I've been called a monkey, I've been called all this stuff on Twitter, and I get DMs and death threats. I get it, but that means I'm effective, and I know everyone is not going to resonate with everybody, but you know what I do? There's seven billion people, eight billion people. I ain’t for you. Bye. Whatever. I don't try to change people's minds. I open minds. And if you want to disagree with me, that's fine. I don't do Twitter fingers. My mother can't see me arguing with you on Twitter. I'm not that guy. Curse me, say whatever you want. God bless you. I got other things to do. I don't set out to be inflammatory, but that's what happens when you speak in truth. Because here's the thing, Americans love talking about inequality. It's equity that pisses people off, like woo.
You'll get people comfortable to talk about income inequality. They'll tweet it and talk about it and go on CNBC all day. When you start talking about equity, that means that the people at the bottom is going to need a lot more to get an equal opportunity to do whatever it is that you're doing right now or equal view or equal access. Probably got to give them more because they started with less. Ooh, they don't want that. They don't want that. But inequality is okay because that just means that, “Oh, they can't see.” We'll make sure they can see. We don't care how, or what it looks like what they see, just give them the ability to see, but they don't need to see equally like everybody else.
Bill: Yeah. Let's take the charitable explanation at the equity discussion. I do think that the country for the better on average tends to have a huge fear of large government redistributions. That said, what I was just telling my in-laws, I was like, “Look, it is just super hard to argue to me that the rich have not gotten a huge bailout from the central banks and that we have not pushed just a ton of asset value into the riches’ coffers,” or whatever. For then, some people to say, “Well, they benefited from the government, why can't we?” That seems like a fairly reasonable argument to me. [chuckles] I can't say that that's-- that makes sense. I don't know how we're going to fix some of these problems.
Tyrone: Listen, I get it, and I understand that those are people's issues with mass redistribution and all this other stuff. Again, let's not jump out the window with that either. I'm not that guy. But what I am for is redistribution of access, of opportunity, of infrastructure, of voice, of representation, and equality. Not diversity and inclusion. We failed at that. 2021, throw that out, I don't want to hear it anymore. Representation and equality, there we go again with that equality word. When we do this, now, if everyone's voice is heard, we're building with these people in mind, we're investing with these people in mind, we're educating with these people in mind, everybody. We don't need to beg for it. There's nothing worse than somebody giving you something that they didn't want to give you. We good. If you stingy, keep it, don't want it. But give me the opportunity, an equal opportunity to get it for myself. Those boots in the straps you talk about, give me an opportunity to actually do that. I get why people feel that way. To be honest, our government hasn't really been good with distributing anything. Everything is flawed in some way. They do what they can, but there's a better way to do it. I get it.
I was talking to some really wealthy people, they're like, “Tyrone, [unintelligible [01:22:12] It's tough. I don't know where the money is going. I’m not really. I need to see, I do give. Five kids aren't reading, when I come back that they're reading, and five more, the KPIs, the OKRs,” and all that stuff, I get that. There's some people who just want to see that. I'm okay with that. There needs to be giving where like my mother says, “If you see somebody in need, your job is to give. After that, mind your business, it has nothing to do with you. Walk away.” Now, is that for everybody? No. But I think how I can dribble that down to people is, trust me, the school district, it will be tough at first to get the metrics that you want, but if we can just get the school fixed and get the heat on and do all these-- now we can start to-- they don't even set up to get the data right or whatever we just need. We’ve just got to get those that have the money to power and prestige to get trusted by people that are effectively in the communities and boots on the ground.
I hate to use this because I love our military and I hate what-- “We're going to war.” I use this because, again, there's boots on the ground. There's folks, you’ve got your Navy SEALs who go in on a dangerous missions, you’ve got Air Force. Everyone plays a role to take out the enemy. Those that are boots on the ground, send the messages up, that chain of command that goes up, so then tell the Air Force, “Listen, right there. This is where's he's hiding.” [imitating bomb blast] Done. It's the same thing with this. We need more boots on the ground to identify problems, evaluate them, send that information back through the system, all the way up. Now, we tell the government, “Look, we're going to tell you exactly what we need, when we need it, where we need it, who to give it to, how often, drop the bomb, boom.” Now, nobody can argue. Right now, it's just throw it out the window, figure it out. We gave it to them. We just need more. That's why I say thoughtful, effective giving. I think this way, you'll never satisfy everybody but people who really want don't want to feel like we're just throwing money at a problem and then the people who really need it will feel they're cared for because there's a strategic plan behind how we’re effectively trying to help every community in America regardless of zip code.
Bill: Yeah. Well, it's public-private partnership type stuff, personal accountability, and being involved.
Tyrone: Yes. I love that you said that, and that's the thing I don't want to miss, personal accountability. That's a big one. Personal accountability. You have to want to get up because if you don't want to get up, there's nothing I could do for you, you’ve got want to fight. You’ve got to want to get up, you’ve got to want better, but if I want better in a fight, and I want to do it, then I should have an equal opportunity, and we should find those hungry people. That's what I say, PHD, poor, hungry, and driven. You never want to compete with somebody with a PHD, that PHD. Poor, hungry, and driven, you're not going to win that battle, because they're too hungry. They come from nothing. They're driven. They don't need motivational classes or go to Tony Robbins and walk on hot coals. They’re going to wake up every day to bust your tail, because they're hungry constantly, because they come from nothing. If we get more people like that opportunity, I think we'll start to see some major improvements in this country. Look at some of the people who are really successful in doing things. They gut it out, and they’re hardworking, and they sacrifice, personal accountability. Truth. That's the main thing. We'll make that very clear.
Bill: I listened to your podcasts that I think are pinned right now and you were saying that you listen to Eric Thomas, but you don't need to listen to him anymore. Didn't you say that?
Tyrone: Yeah, absolutely.
Bill: I like ET. ET, he’s got a good vibe.
Tyrone: Yeah, love him, but don't need him no more. Again, like I said in the podcast, I think he would be very happy to hear that. Met him personally, heard him preach, and heard him speak, and follows me on Twitter, I follow him, but I love his message, but I don't need him no more. You’ve got to get up. I think any motivational speaker, anybody was in that line of work would love that. Why are you [crosstalk] asking you at every seminar I've done for the last five years, I must suck at this.
Bill: Yeah, that's right.
Tyrone: [crosstalk] -here. I do the same thing with my clients, I would tell them that there should be a point in our relationship where you go, “Thanks, Tyrone. I’ve got this figured out,” because my clients were younger. Like I said it. “Thanks, we got it.” On to the next one, so same thing.
Bill: Yeah, that’s what’s up. I’ve got to ask you, because, at least from my perspective, you've just like came on the Twitter seeing hot. You're one of the few that I see that uses video super effectively and have done so for a long time. How did you come on to Twitter that way? What was your strategy on it? You just don't like to write?
Tyrone: I hate to write. I like to talk, and I embrace video. Actually, I'll tell you how it happened. I was doing my walk and talks to people like it just turned into his own thing on Snapchat, and people loved it. I was getting all these responses, and people asking, “When you're doing the next one?” I was like, “You know what? I'm just going to try this on Twitter,” because at the time I was a real, everyday financial advisor, this, that, whatever. I'm looking, I'm like, “I'm not doing a podcast,” even though I ended up with a podcast. Now, I’ve got three of them. I don't like to write. I can, but I don't like to write. I'm like, “Well, I could just flick this thing on and talk?” I've never scripted a talk in my life. Everything people see, I’ve never scripted. Never. The hardest part of my TED talk was having to script it because they make you memorize it, but I never write down anything before I speak.
I started just every night. I'll just go out because I do evening walks. I'll just share what I'm thinking about my day or whatever. That started to take off. Then, where really went nuts is, I was waiting for a client meeting, and I was at a coffee shop and they got a downstairs. I went downstairs-- I think it was a couple of things here. Funny how this works, you never know. I did it, just because I wanted to kill time. I had a green Tiger Woods Masters hoodie on, some fresh air force ones on and I'm like, “You know what? I had a haircut, I'm feeling myself, I'm going to shoot this video.” I shot a five-minute video. I forgot what it was. Oh, bitcoin and the wash-sale rule and all that stuff, helping people understand like 401(k) or something, and something else. Three topics. I called it the Free Jewelry Minute, and I posted it. It was like 50,000 views. I got home and it was like 10,000 views. I'm like, “What in the world? What was fancy about this?” It was shot from my iPhone. Nothing crazy. Then I was like, “Alright, this is it.” It's different videos the way to go, and I've just been doing that ever since.
Bill: Huh. Yeah, that's cool. You got noticed pretty quick for me. I was like, “Alright, this dude, he's doing something different.” People are like, “Oh, will you follow me back?” like, “No, I'm not going to follow you.” Get value into the world and then you will end up with followers. You want advice? Try to figure out how to help people.
Tyrone: 100%. That's the thing about value and being on purpose. You find that you just add value-- My mentor always said this, he said, “Look, you want to be a high value person,” not only as a financial adviser when in life, he said, “Think to answer the questions people don't think to ask and have a really good answer for them.” He said, “The other part of that is,” he's like, “Just bring up things people aren't thinking about.” Bring light value to something that they're not. I always think about that every single time, like, “How can I look at this differently? People on Twitter arguing about Tesla.” Everything is bitcoin, is bitcoin ever-- I'm like, How can I get--?” That was the one thing that I looked on Twitter, and again, shout out to Josh Brown, he's the one that really gave me the blessing on Twitter, like, “You guys need to follow this guy's financial advisor, he's talking about bitcoin, he's right, he makes sense. He's no fluff, you should follow him.” It was over from there.
I looked at Twitter, and I'm like, I can't write-- I need to give a perspective from me in how I feel about certain things and I'll see what happens. I went way left. Again, as you add value, people follow you. I never asked anybody to retweet my stuff or all of that. Like you said, if you work for it, you grind for it, they'll come. I have this thing that I talked about RFN, reps for nothing. Life is directly correlated to how high your RFN is. How many reps, how many things you're going to do that you feel don't count, or for nothing? Because if you don't get caught up in that, you could just chop it to oak every day, you'll start to hear it, it's going to fall. The next thing you know, the oak falls, and then you got more opportunities and this, that, whatever. You know what’s funny? Every single time, the one post whatever it was, you thought that nobody paid attention to, that's the one that people mention. They're like, “I didn't think anybody read that.” “Oh, I loved it,” whatever, because people are voyeurs. They just going to-- your biggest supporters outside because the haters are the biggest marketing department. They're the best marketing department, too. Your most ardent supporters, I realize that people who DM me and, “I watch what you do. I don't broadcast, but I'm watching you. I love it. Keep doing.” That's how we got connected.
That's really what I love and appreciate because people can spot BS a mile away. If it's fraudulent, they go, “Oh, man. Look at this guy.” I'm sure people do that sometimes, they're like, “What is he--?” And then they're, “Oh, geez. All right. He ain't shutting up about this.”
[laughter]
Bill: He's committed to this fraud. [laughs]
Tyrone: Yeah. He knows this BS very well. [laughs]
Bill: Yeah, no doubt.
Tyrone: If people are truly committed to whatever it is. Friggin’ green bananas. All right, you committed to green bananas? I'm in, tell me about it.
Bill: Yeah. That’s wild. It's been an interesting medium. I think the reason that this podcast has gotten a good reception is it's something different. There aren't that many people that are in finance that are having open and honest conversations. There's just so much-- I don't know, I think the industry is something where it's like, “Oh, if you admit that you have some vulnerability, you're just a schmuck.” And it's like, “Well, we actually all do. Why not just talk about some ideas, who find out that people actually like it?” You don't have to be right on every single thing you've ever said publicly.
Tyrone: Yep.
Bill: I don't know. We'll see.
Tyrone: [chuckles] It's so true.
Bill: Dude, I wanted to ask you one more thing. How do you think that as a society, we come back from-- what do the next 10 years look like in some of these neighborhoods that have just been really decimated by COVID? How do we build back from this? I read your stuff, and you’re talking about, you're in the house, and you can smell the urine because there's no sanitation. You are actually there, touching people's lives that are going through some real bad stuff. What do people need to know and be thinking about? I know we've talked about a little but just sort of closing thoughts.
Tyrone: This is important because the next 10 years and I think even willing to net down, just using the standard financial legalese[?], 1-, 5-, 10-year returns. Over the next year, what we'll realize is we lost a bunch of these kids to not being able to go in school, they're going to fall behind. We're already in a situation where 10% of eighth-grade black and boy girls read at level, 10%. That's a problem. We're going to lose a lot of these kids in their math and reading skills, so we have to make sure that we address that which is one of the things that I want to do when I launched my non-profit, EEEvolve, this month.
The other thing is we're going to realize the long-term employment issues of people that are no longer just can't get back into the workforce. Again, these are people that weren't necessarily poor, but were hanging on with skills and jobs that may not come back. The other part of that is the humanitarian side of it, where you just have people who are-- basic human rights. This eviction moratorium, people that are going to be on the street, we've seen so many people for the first time being at food banks. The affordable housing, all of that stuff is going to have to be addressed. What happens with small businesses that are just been decimated, people who've worked their whole lives, the American Dream, that's done. When I was just home in New Jersey, there's a Caribbean restaurant that I love that I went to while I was home, they're closed, they're not open. Jamaican immigrants work so hard to get us by-- it's done.
Those things aren't coming back, and that has a trickledown effect. Let's talk about abandoned, abused, neglected children, the dispossessed, the disenfranchised, so many different people, foster programs, social services programs, and not getting any funding. These are people. Again, they were our boots on the ground, they were telling us how bad the foster programs were. They were telling us how bad our juvenile justice system was. They were telling us how bad the poverty was, and homeless mothers and all these other things. All of these things lack the funding and resources, anyway, they're going to be super, super, super destructive and hurt now. That's one part. That's the one year.
Five years, you look out now, and you start to look at now the greatest wealth transfer in our history, I believe, is on when you look at again the move to digital. Bitcoin is squarely in that, but just we're moving to a digital society very quickly, with cars and money, and everything's moving online, and so on and so forth. That is going to be exacerbated over the next five years immensely. There's so many industries are going to change and all these other things. Again, a whole segment of the population that just can't go. That's a problem.
Then, 10 years out, when you usher in 2030, again I'm not the big projection person, but I just see, as much as I am hopeful, as much as I'm fighting, if we do not get the plan in place now with leadership, not talking about the present, but true leadership, someone in this country that is responsible for making sure, and this should be tsar or whatever it is, the next two, three Presidents do over the next 10 years, that is responsible for the rebuilding of the American people, infrastructure, values, humanitary effort to make sure we don't lose a whole generation or two of people. Someone has to see that over, I believe. Whoever does it, but this person, your responsibility is to make sure that resources, donation, funds, it's to fix what we know is done. Find a way, bridge the gap, that is you. I think that’s what needs to happen. Maybe it's a group of people. People believe Satoshi started bitcoin, a group of people. We're going to need our Satoshi for social betterment and improvement. A group of people that are fully committed. “Oh, he just gave me a really good tweet there.” They're fully committed to making sure America bounce back and we don't lose a whole generation of people.
Bill: Well, that's what's up. I'll try to help you accomplish what you're trying to, anyway that I can. I know you've come to Florida. Next time you're here, I'll be there. Once we can start moving around a little bit, I'd like to stop talking about helping out and put some of this into action. Do stay in touch.
Tyrone: No, of course, man. Listen, let me not go without saying two things. The most important two things I will ever say on this podcast and any, so I hope folks are still listening. If you're still listening, these are the two most important things I'm going to say. One, I'm incredibly grateful for you taking the time out for me to talk about this, truly. I've watched my parents struggle mightily. I've been in a house with no heat, no gas. I've watched cars get repossessed. My childhood is in storage. I can't take you to my childhood home because I don't have one. I'd have to take you four, five, six different places. My mother pregnant at 16, my dad came to this country, couldn't read and write, held a job for almost 40 years being called out his name, “You dumb immigrant,” you this, that, whatever, but save so many people's jobs simply because he was diligent about making marks on a calendar. Me and my family have been through it, hell and high water. I don't believe any family should have to go through that.
Opportunities like this to speak and have people hear it, and it's not about people agreeing, is just about me having the venue and the ability to say it. I need you to understand this. If you don't do nothing else, this means a lot to me, it means a lot to my family, it means a lot to the young black men that I advocate for, it means a lot to the poor people that I fight for, and it means a lot to the people right now that will never have an opportunity to get within earshot of you to scream anything into that mic that you have that matters. I'm grateful and appreciative for that from now to eternity, truly.
The last thing I will say is this, there are one in four children in this country hungry. I went to bed last night, as did you, and a child went to bed hungry. That is a disgrace in America. If you are listening to this, if you care at all, please nokidhungry.org, I have no affiliation with them, I don't get a cut back, nothing. There's no reason why a child should be hungry in America. No Kid Hungry, Feeding America, your choice, however it is you want to do it, go down the street, feed a hungry child, buy somebody’s groceries, going to the other side of town, help somebody, whatever it is that you want to do, but please, let's make sure the children in this country have food in their bellies so that they can continue to grow and be whatever it is we tell them that they can be. I appreciate you, my man.
Bill: Well, thanks for coming on, man. I look forward to a long relationship from here forwards. So, take care of yourself until next time.
Tyrone: Absolutely, love and light, everybody. Happy New Year.
Bill: All right, man, peace. Have a good one.
