This Week In The Degenerate Economy - Your Opinion Will Be Replaced By Bets. And Apple's iPhone 17 and Stocktoberfest (Oct 20-22 Coronado)

Good morning…

Before I get started with ‘This Week In The Degenerate Economy’

I am headed to Venice today to meet up with my pals for some cycling in Northern Italy including the Dolomites and Lake Como.

The Lindzon’s are spread out with Rachel in Germany, Max in Phoenix and Ellen Coronado, just back from her sisters trip in Croatia - which she loved.

It is only one month until Stocktoberfest at The Del on Coronado (October 20-22). The hotel has been completely renovated and the grounds as stunning as ever. I am so excited to host 400 plus people - for 2.5 unforgettable days - to talk about stocks, markets, crypto, the ‘degenerate economy’, and the biggest trends shaping the markets in the decades ahead. The lineup of speakers is ridiculous for my one day on stage of panels and fireside chats which you can see on the site if you scroll down.

There are about 100 tickets left.

We have a lot of sponsors this year to help make it the biggest and best yet. A special thanks to Granite Shares as our ‘presenting sponsor’.

This year our firm Social Leverage is having its annual LP and founder Palooza the day after - on the 23rd - so it will be fun to have a new mix of attendees.

Onward…

Below is my weekly show ‘This Week In The Degenerate Economy’ and the topics as well. In my six months without the Twitter app (I still use it from my desktop), I have learned that I miss little. As people catch on to prediction markets (Stocktwits is partnered with Polymarkets), they will realize that bets (even very small ones) replace opinions which make the prediction markets a better place to follow ‘news’ and events.

Next up…the ‘death’ of Apple is not near.

On Thursday eve my iPhone was destroyed. I was on my usual Coronado Strand ride and on the way back, my phone fell out of my jersey pocket. The pavement won. I had no screen, no nothing.

On Friday I headed to the Apple ( $AAPL ( ▲ 3.2% ) )store and I could not have picked a worse morning. The iPhone 17 was launching and hundreds of people were in line waiting to get their preordered phones. The store was a zoo.

I grabbed an iPhone 16 which were being treated like a disease and headed to do my iCloud backup. I made the mistake of restoring the new phone from the Apple store but in doing so watched the crowd for two hours and wow do people love, want and need their Apple products.

Om has a great piece on the iPhone 17.

On Friday it closed back near all-time highs and $3.6 trillion.

A few months back I almost gave up on Apple below $200. So far, I am glad I did not.

My gut is that Google and Apple will get closer to deal with Open AI and Microsoft.

For a taste of Russia I unfortunately had to make a trip to the Verizon store ( $VZ ( ▼ 0.44% ) ) to get the cellular transferred (as my dead phone made it impossible for Apple to transfer). This $200 billion, bloated behemoth whose stock price is below its 2016 prices could care less about their customers. On launch days of the iPhone 17 they had 2 people working the store. I hope Elon solves this one soon.

Finally…

One of the wierdest/saddest parts of this boom in cool products and technology (see Packy’s always good weekly does of optimism) is how negative the mood is by the young people both building them and benefitting from them. It has been one of the greatest bull markets in history and this young generation surrounded by the great products and innovation that has driven it is not truly enjoying it or participating in it.

Social Media hangover, Covid, the greedy and mean old people in charge have done great damage to young psyches. The Silicon Valley bootlickers and tech leaders that have merged with the White House have not helped build trust with the younger generation. There is so much to be optimistic about and yet there is this misery gap that has come with all this free time and technology.

For parents, it is impossible to stop kids from growing up earlier. What I have realized watching my own kids, backing young people and recruiting is that these kids that grow up earlier and earlier but need mentoring more than ever. They are not getting that in this economy. It is solvable.

Have a great Sunday.