A NOTE FROM OUR EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ALYSON SHONTELL

A range of industry leaders were on site, from actress and Pattern founder Tracee Ellis Ross to Glossier CEO Kyle Leahy to LTK cofounder and president Amber Venz Box.

ARK Invest founder Cathie Wood and I had a 20-minute fireside chat about the future of tech and how A.I. will disrupt everything over the next few years, as well as the ultravolatile performance of her funds.

Whether you’re long or short on her controversial investing style, Wood fancies herself the closest thing to a venture capitalist firm on the publicly traded markets. Learning her view of the world—of which she speaks from a point of total conviction—is fascinating.

Our conversation ranged from what will happen to Big Tech companies like Google in five to 10 years (“it depends”) to Bitcoin (“headed to the moon”) to why she thinks Tesla is the “best A.I. bet of all”—with or without Elon Musk at its helm.

I also asked her how she squares the fact that so many retail investors would follow her off a cliff—as many have done the past few years—knowing that predicting the future is very hard, and that her big company bets may not wind up being right.

Wood noted that she does “take to heart people who have lost money.” But if those people really believe in her strategy, maybe they should buy the Cathie Wood dip:

“If they liked us at a certain price level, and we are half that now and they really are keeping up with our research, the best way, over time, to overcome what has just happened is to average it and be right.”

And, she concluded, she does believe her research is right.

Check out the whole interview and Cathie Wood’s view of the future below.

MAY 20, 2023

FINANCE

From his new home in Austin, legendary VC Bill Gurley opens up about why he stepped back from Benchmark and his next act

Gurley explains why Steve Martin inspired him to retire from day-to-day venture capital, and why if a programmer is not using A.I., “you’re probably writing your own death certificate.”

Warren Buffett’s top 5 dividend paying stocks that will help him make nearly $6 billion in cash this year

Follow Buffett’s lead to build a portfolio of dividend-paying stocks.

A veteran market watcher who saw the Fed creating a disaster in 2008 says ‘distortions in the economy’ today are still the Fed’s fault

Jim Grant, who has been writing the weekly “Interest Rate Observer” newsletter since 1983, has foreseen many mistakes in his decades of watching markets.

The political pushback against ESG is resonating with Fortune 500 CEOs

Just under half of Fortune 500 CEOs agreed that ESG issues were “unduly impacting business decisions.”

HOUSING

The Big Squeeze: The housing market is so unaffordable that builders have no choice but to build smaller homes

A deterioration in housing affordability is fundamentally changing the way American homes are built.

JPMorgan wants to be your landlord

JPMorgan acquired a new, 184-unit rental community in Florida for $59 million, showing institutional home buying, though slowed, won’t be going away.

TECH

Sam Altman is plowing ahead with nuclear fusion and his eye-scanning crypto venture—and, oh yeah, OpenAI

His plans for A.I., crypto, and nuclear fusion energy are all disruptive—and connected.

Google, Meta, and other tech companies are cutting back on a prized Silicon Valley tradition: Summer internships

Tech summer internships, famous for giving college students a taste of Silicon Valley life, are among the most sought after gigs.

A.I.

Turkey’s deepfake-influenced election spells trouble

The world needs to prepare for a flood of A.I.-generated disinformation.

SUCCESS

Elon Musk says the ‘laptop class’ needs to ‘get off their moral high horse’ when it comes to remote work

The Tesla CEO argued hypocrisy on the part of the work-from-home employees.

Bill Gates is full of regret about missed vacations and broken relationships in commencement speech: ‘You are not a slacker if you cut yourself some slack’

The billionaire former Microsoft CEO and current philanthropist wishes he had a better work-life balance.

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