It&rsquo;s an old pattern in tech.
In brand new industries, investors can make 7 figures by investing in the infrastructure.
BUT
The &ldquo;Eight Figures Club&rdquo; is usually reserved for those who invest in the applications and use-cases that emerge once that infrastructure is in place.
In other words&hellip;
There&rsquo;s far more wealth created in the adoption phase than there is in the infrastructure phase.
For reasons I&rsquo;ll reveal in a moment, this should make you VERY excited.
First, consider the trend.
With personal computers, though Intel and Microsoft made billions from providing the foundation&hellip;
Even greater wealth was created by software companies and businesses that used PCs to transform their operations.
During the Internet boom, while Cisco and other infrastructure providers did well&hellip;
The greatest fortunes came from companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook that built applications on top of that infrastructure.
You&rsquo;re probably thinking I&rsquo;m about to say crypto. While also true&hellip; I&rsquo;m not talking about crypto. I&rsquo;m talking about another industry that&rsquo;s about to take off.&nbsp;
More tomorrow.
Happy Thanksgiving!

We&rsquo;re living in an epic period of change, danger, and opportunity. The economy is blowing up in our faces. The Fed is printing trillions of dollars. People are getting fired and replaced by computers. Every day, we&rsquo;re bombarded with fake news and fake data. Crypto is eating everything online. Every &ldquo;fix&rdquo; from the government makes things worse. Technology is moving too fast for anyone to keep up.
In short, the Old World has been demolished&hellip; the new world is just beginning. Alongside the greatest wealth shift in human history. We get it. People are desperate for answers and to cut through the noise. Everyone wants to become financially secure. Nobody knows who to trust. That&rsquo;s where we can help.
Altucher Confidential&nbsp;is your guide to surviving and thriving in the age of risk, chaos, and tremendous rewards. This is not a newsletter for the faint of heart. It&rsquo;s a guide West, to the new frontier. For those who are ready to hear, James Altucher and Chris Campbell provide an updated map of the new territory for generating wealth and freedom. Consider&nbsp;Altucher Confidential&nbsp;your daily guide to building, keeping, and investing your money and breaking free from the chains of rusted, old thinking.

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AltucherConfidential

Altucher Confidential is your guide to surviving and thriving in the age of risk, chaos, and tremendous rewards. This is not a newsletter for the faint of heart.

Altucher Confidential

Eight Figures

Chess saved his life&hellip; but first, it ruined it.
That&rsquo;s what Danny Rensch told me on stage at the Norway Summit last month.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3dVW1EC6zijBVuFe5WyQDE/ac6d28621b66427194bd099d16213e3a/alc-07-04-25-img-1.png" alt="Interview" width="550px" />
And I don&rsquo;t mean metaphorically. I don&rsquo;t mean &ldquo;chess saved me&rdquo; like a high school teacher saying, &ldquo;Football kept me off the streets.&rdquo;
I mean: He was literally taken from his family by a cult leader obsessed with chess.
Yeah. Let&rsquo;s rewind.
<h3>The Game That Took (and Gave) Everything</h3>
Danny was 9 years old when he first touched a chessboard. He was living in what he now openly calls a cult&mdash;a &ldquo;spiritual collective,&rdquo; as they phrased it then.
The cult leader was obsessed with chess. Not just &ldquo;I enjoy the occasional match&rdquo; obsessed. More like &ldquo;this child is my pawn in a divine game&rdquo; obsessed.
So when Danny showed talent&mdash;real talent&mdash;the kind that doesn&rsquo;t just beat other kids at school, but travels the world and wins tournaments&mdash;they moved him out.
At 12 years old, they took him from his mother and placed him in an apartment alone, so he could train full-time and travel for chess.
He didn&rsquo;t speak to his mom for ten years. She lived 500 feet away.
And the craziest part? No one stopped it. No one said, &ldquo;Hey, maybe don&rsquo;t remove a child from his family so he can become the Bobby Fischer of the Bible Belt.&rdquo;
But that&rsquo;s what happened.
He became one of the top American youth players. Traveled the world. Slept in strangers&rsquo; homes. And for a while, he bought into it. He thought he was special.
Destined. Chosen.
Which, to be fair, is the kind of thing you believe when a grown man tells you your purpose is ordained by God and your only job is to sacrifice everything for the game.
But chess wasn&rsquo;t just a game. It was his prison. And his escape route.
Because while the cult manipulated him, controlled him, used his gift, they also gave him the one thing they didn&rsquo;t expect: perspective.
&ldquo;Chess was my tormentor,&rdquo; he told me, &ldquo;but also my mentor.&rdquo;
<h3>Dark Squares, Bright Future</h3>
Eventually, his body forced him to stop. He got sick. Lost his hearing. Literally bedridden for two years. His dreams of becoming a grandmaster? Done.
But this is where the story flips.
Because sometimes when you lose the thing that defined you, you finally figure out who you really are.
While recovering, Danny discovered the internet. YouTube. Forums. He realized chess didn&rsquo;t have to be a solitary, brutal obsession. It could be something more. Something joyful.
Something&hellip; social.
And that&rsquo;s when he helped launch chess.com.
Today? 200 million users. 10 million active players a day. Global tournaments. Twitch streams. Memes. Drama. Magnus.
Chess isn&rsquo;t just a game anymore. It&rsquo;s a culture. A movement. A business.
And Danny Rensch&mdash;the boy who was taken for his talent&mdash;is now a chief architect.
<h3>What I Learned</h3>
We talked about chess. About cults. About trauma, therapy, lawsuits, scandal, and Elon Musk's brain chip. (Yes, really.) But here&rsquo;s what stayed with me:
<ol>
<li>You can build something beautiful from something broken. Pain is not destiny. It&rsquo;s just input.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="2">
<li>Your origin story doesn&rsquo;t get the last word. You can write your own next chapter&mdash;even if you&rsquo;ve been told otherwise.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="3">
<li>The same thing that crushes you can be the thing that saves you. That&rsquo;s not paradox. That&rsquo;s life.</li>
</ol>
And maybe most of all&hellip;
<ol start="4">
<li>There&rsquo;s always a best move on the board. You just can&rsquo;t always see it.</li>
&nbsp;Which means: don&rsquo;t panic. Don&rsquo;t rush. Don&rsquo;t resign too early.</ol>
Danny has a book coming out soon.
It&rsquo;s called Dark Squares. I got a preview. It&rsquo;s raw. Honest. Wounds wide open. It&rsquo;s not a chess book. It&rsquo;s a book about being human.
You should read it.
And maybe, when you&rsquo;re facing something impossible, you&rsquo;ll remember this:
No matter what happened&hellip;
You&rsquo;re still in the game.
And the next move is yours.
<a href="https://lnk.to/DRCSJAS01">Click here for the full interview</a>.

alc-07-04-25-featured

How to Survive a Cult

I&rsquo;ve interviewed a lot of smart people.
Billionaires. Bestselling authors. One guy who went from panic attacks on live TV to bestselling author on how to keep calm under pressure.
But Robert Rosenkranz? He&rsquo;s one of the most unique guests I&rsquo;ve had on my podcast. (Link below.)
Before writing The Stoic Capitalist about how he applied stoic principles over his 50-year career to navigate high-stakes decisions, build successful businesses, and stay rational under pressure&hellip;
He put 100% of his liquid net worth&mdash;all his money&mdash;on the line for one deal. A single bad week and boom, back to zero.
Except&hellip; he wasn&rsquo;t some 22-year-old crypto bro. He was 35. At the top of his game as a partner at Oppenheimer.
Why would anyone do that?
Because, he told me, he did the math. Rationally. Coldly. Stoically.
He didn't catastrophize.
He didn&rsquo;t curl up into a fetal position thinking about the Sony Walkman killing his record cover business (yes, that happened).
He zoomed out, thought clearly, made the best decision based on the info he had&hellip; and lived to fund another day.
<h3>Freedom From Outcome Addiction</h3>
Here&rsquo;s one thing that stuck with me: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t judge decisions by their outcomes&mdash;judge them by the quality of the thinking at the time.&rdquo;
BOOM.
I&rsquo;ve spent most of my life doing the opposite. I think most people have.
I would launch a business, fail, and think: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a failure.&rdquo;
But Robert? He launches a business, Sony nukes the industry, and he&rsquo;s like: &ldquo;Well, that sucked. But I made a good decision.&rdquo;
And you know what? That tiny shift in thinking&mdash;it&rsquo;s everything.
It&rsquo;s the difference between:
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;I got dumped, I&rsquo;m worthless&rdquo;</li>
<li>&ldquo;I showed up with love and integrity. That&rsquo;s all I can control.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
Or:
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;I missed Bitcoin at $200, I&rsquo;m an idiot.&rdquo;</li>
<li>&ldquo;I evaluated the risk-reward at the time. That was the best move I had.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
It&rsquo;s freedom from outcome addiction.
It&rsquo;s emotional sobriety.
It&rsquo;s stoic capitalism... with a capital gains twist.
<h3>Why Panic is Useless</h3>
Robert&rsquo;s life isn&rsquo;t just a masterclass in rationality. It&rsquo;s a masterclass in curiosity.
He read biographies not for trivia&mdash;but for blueprints. He asked: &ldquo;Is my life such that someone could write a biography of me?&rdquo;
Do you realize how insane&mdash;and beautiful&mdash;that question is?
It makes you stop doomscrolling. It makes you put down the anxiety blanket. It makes you ask:
<ul>
<li>Am I thinking clearly?</li>
<li>Am I acting intentionally?</li>
<li>Am I doing things worth remembering?</li>
</ul>
Here's what I took away from our conversation (and why I think The Stoic Capitalist is a must-read):
<ol>
<li>You can&rsquo;t think clearly if you&rsquo;re emotionally drunk. Stoicism is not about being cold. It&rsquo;s about sobriety from unuseful panic.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="2">
<li>Catastrophizing is an addiction. Most of us are hooked. And it&rsquo;s ruining our ability to take bold, rational risks.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="3">
<li>You&rsquo;re allowed to aim high. He read Carnegie. Rockefeller. He wanted to be biography-worthy. That allowed him to be bolder, take more risks, and think clearly about them.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="4">
<li>Worst case thinking is useful only if it&rsquo;s realistic. Living under a bridge? Unlikely. Losing your job and starting over with your skills intact? Happens every day.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="5">
<li>Your spouse matters. When Robert risked everything, his wife cheered him on. That&rsquo;s rare. And priceless.</li>
</ol>
There&rsquo;s a lot more in my podcast. We dove deeper into his thoughts on investing through chaos and why catastrophizing is ruining your life.
<a href="https://jamesaltuchershow.com/episode/the-stoic-capitalist-how-rational-thinking-creates-success-robert-rosenkranz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here for the full episode</a>.

alc-07-03-25-featured

How I Learned Not to Panic

Picture TED and Davos crashing a chess tournament.
That&rsquo;s Norway Summit.
Also, yes&mdash;I moderated. Again.
Third time. Still not fired.
The Norway Summit brings together some of the best minds in AI, energy, and innovation while a chess tournament unfolds around it.
On the top: Magnus Carlsen deep in thought.
On the bottom: me trying to keep up with Vishy Anand, five-time world champion.&nbsp;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4nSGzIM8ppZXFrsDtANGU/4cde555feb4796b4b925e5f8ea8f2eb1/alc-06-30-25-img-1.png" alt="Norway Chess" />
At first, it sounds like a weird mash-up.
But chess is strategy. It&rsquo;s pattern recognition. It&rsquo;s knowing when to pivot&mdash;just like navigating AI, markets, and whatever chaos tomorrow brings.
I opened the event with a talk called &ldquo;Be Stupid.&rdquo; 
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5SuV9yS8CzNyObb1ewFRS7/552c3520fe5f9450326eb8b1f4703e30/alc-06-30-25-img-2.png" alt="James" />
The idea? The world is moving too fast. AI, crypto, energy, robotics, finance&mdash;everything is evolving at light speed. The experts are confused. The confident are usually wrong.
And in this environment, being stupid is the hardest, and smartest, thing you can do.
But forget my talk for a second.
One of the real highlights for me? My fireside chat with Vishy Anand, who still ranks among the top players in the world&mdash;in his 50s.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2E2epHRZt8npMAgUdv9IKz/478b039109c3d9d4b70e63c3ef090930/alc-06-30-25-img-3.png" alt="James and guest" />
We talked about aging, evolving, and staying elite in a world that changes faster than ever.
And what he told me is so important I&rsquo;m sharing it here.
This wasn&rsquo;t just about chess. It was about how to stay relevant when everything around you is trying to make you obsolete.
<h3>Here&rsquo;s What I Learned:</h3>
1. Complacency Kills&mdash;Even at the Top
After winning his first world title, Vishy got worse&mdash;not because he stopped working, but because he worked on the wrong things.
&ldquo;You can still work very hard and still fall behind,&rdquo; he said. It&rsquo;s not about working hard. It&rsquo;s about working on what&rsquo;s changing.
2. Psychology and Skill Are Entangled
When he was young, he played fast because he didn&rsquo;t know what could go wrong.
That blind confidence? It&rsquo;s a superpower.
The trick, as you age, is to not let wisdom turn into hesitation.
3. The Game Changes. You Must Too.
The chess world became more nimble. Openings changed. Engines got smarter. Old tricks stopped working.
Sound familiar? This is every industry post-AI. Vishy didn&rsquo;t just complain. He updated.
&ldquo;I had to drop assumptions I didn&rsquo;t even know I had.&rdquo; That&rsquo;s how deep the reprogramming has to go.
4. Youth Isn&rsquo;t About Age. It&rsquo;s About Belief.
The younger players weren&rsquo;t necessarily better&mdash;they just weren&rsquo;t weighed down by what had already failed.
They assumed things would work. That made them try more. That made them win more.
Boom. That&rsquo;s it. Optimism as strategy.
This isn&rsquo;t just about chess.
It&rsquo;s about how to survive in any game that changes underneath you.
It doesn&rsquo;t matter if it&rsquo;s startups, investing, writing, or reinventing your career at 52.
The trick isn&rsquo;t just learning new moves&mdash;it&rsquo;s forgetting the old ones that are holding you back.
<a href="https://lnk.to/VACJAS01">Listen in here for the full fireside chat</a>. It&rsquo;s worth it for everything he shares.
Thanks, Vishy. For the wisdom. For the humility.
And thanks, Norway.

alc-06-30-25-featured

I Flew 4,000 Miles to Say “Be Stupid”

Wall Street wants you fat, slow, and late.
That&rsquo;s how they win.
The real money? It's made before you even hear &ldquo;IPO.&rdquo;
I watched it with Newsmax. One of my VC groups got in early, before it IPO&rsquo;d. Two days later? It erupted 2,000%.
And another recent example: Circle. A month or so ago, most had never even heard of it. Suddenly, everyone wanted in when it IPO&rsquo;d.
The insiders who got in pre-IPO? They were up 200% before your neighbor could ask ChatGPT &ldquo;What the hell is Circle?&rdquo;
But what I&rsquo;m seeing right now? It&rsquo;s different.
And frankly, it might be one of the most asymmetric setups I&rsquo;ve come across in my entire career.
Here&rsquo;s the deal:
<h3>Super-IPO: No Yacht Club Required</h3>
There&rsquo;s a company&mdash;one of the most fascinating tech stories I&rsquo;ve found&mdash;preparing to debut on the Nasdaq.
But you&rsquo;re not going to hear about it on the news.
Yet.
Because this opportunity doesn&rsquo;t come through traditional IPO routes. It comes through what I call the &ldquo;IPO secret backdoor.&rdquo;
And here&rsquo;s the beautiful part...
The big guys? Pension funds. University endowments. Even your mutual fund manager with his office plants and a framed degree from Wharton?
They legally can&rsquo;t buy in yet.
They&rsquo;re handcuffed. Regulated out of this phase of the game.
But you? You can be one of the first in line.
And no, you don&rsquo;t need to be a billionaire or wear a Patagonia vest or drink Soylent out of a titanium thermos.
You just need to know where to look.
But before I show you where to look, here&rsquo;s why I&rsquo;m excited about this company.
<h3>Bigger Than AI, Biotech, or Energy</h3>
One reason: They&rsquo;re not just another AI, biotech, or lithium stock of the week.
It&rsquo;s something completely different.
I&rsquo;ll explain what I mean by that in the video link below.
As you&rsquo;ll see, you don&rsquo;t need to open a foreign brokerage. You don&rsquo;t need to do anything shady.
You just need to know where the backdoor is&mdash;and walk through it. Because when this stock uplists to the Nasdaq, the back door slams shut.
And by then?
The biggest gains will already be gone.
That&rsquo;s why I recorded <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2454182" target="_blank" rel="noopener">this video</a> to reveal the urgent details&hellip;
<a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2454182" target="_blank" rel="noopener">And what you need to do to access the &ldquo;secret backdoor&rdquo;</a>.

alc-06-25-25-featured

Missed Circle IPO? You’ll Want to See This.

I asked Gary Vaynerchuk when he last cried.
He said funerals. And once, in 1998, when the Jets lost a heartbreaker in overtime.
That&rsquo;s it.
No tears over business failures. No existential breakdowns over missed opportunities. Just the Jets.
Gary came back on my podcast to talk about freedom. Not Ferraris or 8-figure exits.
Real freedom.
Like picking your kid up from school at 3 p.m. without asking permission. Like never again attending a meeting about toothpaste brand engagement.
He believes entrepreneurship is just that&mdash;freedom. And that most people are too soft to earn it. Not because they can&rsquo;t. Because they won&rsquo;t give up leisure.
They won&rsquo;t skip Netflix or poker night. They want freedom without sacrifice.
A cheat code. A blueprint without bruises.
He talks about practicality like it&rsquo;s a religion. Forget trying to be the next Zuckerberg.
Build a mustard brand. Sell niche t-shirts on Ebay. Make $88K doing something weird and personal. That&rsquo;s not failure. That&rsquo;s winning on your own terms.
<h3>Not Money. Not Fame. </h3>
I distilled Gary&rsquo;s method into four steps.
He didn&rsquo;t lay them out this way, but they were behind everything we talked about:
<ol>
<li>Learn something real. Not &ldquo;read three Medium posts.&rdquo; Actually do something for 5&ndash;10 years.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="2">
<li>Document the journey. Use content to become a lighthouse. People like lighthouses.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="3">
<li>Build community. Talk to every follower like they&rsquo;re your only follower. At least until you can&rsquo;t.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="4">
<li>Ask them to do something. Buy the shirt. Share the post. Come to the con. Vote. Whatever.</li>
</ol>
Most people get it backwards. They start with the pitch.
Gary starts with the &ldquo;dirt.&rdquo;
The daily work. The eBay listings. The DMs. The comments. The boring stuff that builds trust. It&rsquo;s what most people avoid. Because it doesn&rsquo;t feel like winning.
Until it is.
Gary didn&rsquo;t start by selling. He started by talking. About wine. About the Jets. About flipping Pok&eacute;mon cards. The selling came later. After the trust.
Too many people want to be rich without being useful.
They sell courses about selling courses. They fake lifestyles they never lived. And when it all falls apart, they blame the game instead of the mirror.
He said something else that stuck with me. If you&rsquo;re not actively trying to put yourself out of business, you&rsquo;re playing defense. 
Amazon arbitrage will die. So will content platforms. So will the fads. So will your current edge. So be early to the next thing. Always.
We talked about patience. About the fantasy of the 1% and the reality that $400K a year puts you in it. We talked about side hustles built after work. About how he used to record Wine Library TV from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. while still working full-time.
We ended where we started: with freedom.
Not money. Not fame.
Freedom.
To live how you want. To never ask permission again.
To cry only when it really matters.
Thanks, Gary.
<a href="https://lnk.to/JASGV01">Click here for the full conversation. </a>
If you know anything about Gary, you know you&rsquo;ll be motivated by the end.

ALC-06-23-25-featured

Not Fame. Not Fortune. Freedom.

&ldquo;Everything in the physical world is becoming intelligent.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s what Michael Dell, founder of Dell, said in my latest podcast.
And that means&hellip;
&nbsp;&ndash; Microchips in everything
&nbsp;&ndash; Machines talking to machines
&nbsp;&ndash; Explosions of data
&nbsp;&ndash; AI doing the interpreting
He said the world we&rsquo;re entering now makes the last few decades look like the pregame show. That includes genomics. Protein folding. Cancer treatment. Drug discovery.
It also includes enterprise-grade blockchain (yes, Dell is building it too), supply chain visibility, and cybersecurity &mdash; where the attack surface grows every day.
I asked if he ever considered putting Bitcoin on Dell&rsquo;s balance sheet. He gave a measured answer: not yet.
But he&rsquo;s personally invested, just to understand the space.
That&rsquo;s how he operates.
If you don&rsquo;t know anything about Michael Dell, here&rsquo;s three things you should know:
One: He&rsquo;s the rare founder who took his company public, then private, then public again &mdash; and came out ahead each time.
Two: He started that company in a dorm room &mdash; while most of us were playing video games and trying to survive sophomore year.
Three: He&rsquo;s lived the full entrepreneur&rsquo;s lifecycle: startup, scale-up, suit-up, fight-off-activists, and give-it-away.
<h3>The Dorm Room That Ate Wall Street</h3>
Michael made $80,000 a month while still in college by building and selling custom PCs&mdash;directly to small businesses like law firms, doctors&rsquo; offices, and even the State of Texas.
He realized that most personal computers were sold through retail stores with high markups and unnecessary features. He figured he could sell directly to customers, cut out the middlemen, and offer better prices and service.
He didn&rsquo;t leave college in a blaze of rebellion. His parents actually staged an intervention to stop him from working on the business. So he shut it down for 10 days&mdash;cold turkey.
But he couldn&rsquo;t stay away.
He told me: &ldquo;It was what I was passionate about. It was pulling me in.&rdquo; So he took a semester off. He planned to go back. He never did.
(He also admitted, by the way, that parents still send him angry letters saying he&rsquo;s a bad example.)
We talked about the transition from dorm-room tinkerer to global CEO. We talked about how Dell was never really a consumer brand. 80% of revenue came from businesses, even in the earliest days.
But the part that really grabbed me &mdash; and might surprise you &mdash; was what happened years later. After the IPO. After the growth.
It was the fight.
<h3>When Sharks Smell Blood</h3>
Carl Icahn &mdash; activist investor, legendary poker-faced negotiator &mdash; came after Dell in 2013. Icahn didn&rsquo;t own a single share when the go-private plan was announced. But he smelled blood.
&ldquo;He didn&rsquo;t know whether we made French fries or nuclear reactors,&rdquo; Michael said. &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t really care.&rdquo;
Icahn saw a strange voting structure in the go-private proposal and figured he could force a higher payout. He used every trick: media pressure, public shaming, hardball tactics.
It got dark. Personal.
&ldquo;It was just a big poker game to him,&rdquo; Michael told me. &ldquo;There were definitely some dark moments.&rdquo;
But Dell played the long game. He got the votes. He took the company private.
He doubled down on enterprise, cloud, and infrastructure &mdash; and then brought Dell public again years later, stronger than before.
<h3>The Future is Upon Us</h3>
When I asked what makes a great CEO at that level, he didn&rsquo;t talk about vision boards or charisma.
He said:
&nbsp;&ndash; Curiosity
&nbsp;&ndash; Being able to see around corners
&nbsp;&ndash; The ability to engage and inspire teams
He told me companies have to create space for employees who think like entrepreneurs. Most big companies squash those instincts. The best ones encourage them.
We talked about what&rsquo;s next.
And this is where his demeanor changed. He lit up. Because Dell &mdash; the company &mdash; is playing a much bigger game now.
If you want to hear the full story &mdash; how he negotiated with Steve Jobs, kept his sanity, and why he believes the real future is just beginning &mdash; <a href="https://jamesaltuchershow.com/episode/michael-dell-vs-wall-street-dorm-room-to-billion-dollar-battles">listen to our full conversation</a>.
It&rsquo;s one of my favorites of the year.

ALC-06-18-25-featured

The Dorm Room That Ate Wall Street

Every June, Apple puts on WWDC&mdash;Worldwide Developers Conference.
It&rsquo;s the one time a year Apple pretends it&rsquo;s not a trillion-dollar luxury goods company&hellip;
And instead a humble little software club trying to help developers build the future.
Okay. I know.
Who cares? 
Another Apple event. Another keynote. Another upgrade to the calculator app.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
But hear me out&mdash;this one&rsquo;s different.
Because it could fuel one of the biggest buying opportunities of the year.
<h3>Cook&rsquo;s Next Power Play?</h3>
If my research is right, Apple CEO Tim Cook is about to walk on stage and drop the single biggest financial bombshell of 2025.
I&rsquo;m talking about another buyout.
Not just any buyout. A company you&rsquo;ve probably never heard of&mdash;tiny, unassuming, based in Texas.
The same company that&rsquo;s been quietly making the guts of your favorite devices. Microcontrollers. System-on-a-chip circuits.
Powering the stuff you don&rsquo;t see&hellip; but can&rsquo;t live without.
It&rsquo;s already working with Google. Amazon. Nvidia. And now? It&rsquo;s on Apple&rsquo;s radar.
Here&rsquo;s why:
This company&rsquo;s tech is like Legos for &ldquo;on-device intelligence.&rdquo; AKA, making every device AI compatible.
Apple wants in. Of course they do. And this company is the key.
Thing is&hellip;
Apple has $30 billion just sitting in cash. This company? Worth about $4 billion.
Do the math.
Cook could buy them outright, no financing needed.
But here&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s crucial&hellip;
<h3>It Happens Tomorrow</h3>
Alpha-3.
That&rsquo;s what we call our AI system that tracks unusual activity in the markets.
Think: hedge fund guys whispering at Soho House. Smart money moving in fast. Insiders buying up shares before the ink dries on the deal.
And right now, Alpha-3&rsquo;s signal is flashing hot on this stock.
Just so you know this isn&rsquo;t more AI hype&hellip;
A $48 billion hedge fund has used a mix of real-time and historical data over 20 years&hellip;
And saw this AI outperform the S&amp;P 500 by 10X.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7EDNygnuLCwOnkvbINcv7O/84a7fc15d8be33a3c48191127c58fec1/sei-ded-S_p-500-img-1.png" alt="graph" />
Then, there&rsquo;s a group of my &ldquo;Early Access&rdquo; Traders like Roger W., who said:
&ldquo;This AI is the reason I now enjoy a comfortable retirement. I have never seen anything so good in 30 years of trading.&rdquo;
And finally, there&rsquo;s me and my 68% win rate using this AI&hellip; this year alone!
That&rsquo;s two out of every three trades.
Right now&rsquo;s the perfect time for you to get in, too.
If the announcement hits during Apple&rsquo;s big event&mdash;and I think it will&mdash;this tiny company could rocket higher overnight.
Look, I don&rsquo;t get excited about many things anymore. Most buyout rumors are just noise. But this one? It feels real. It feels big.
And if you act fast, it could feel pretty profitable too.

ALC-06-12-25-featured

Final Warning Before Apple Strikes

Most business books suck.
Like someone gave LinkedIn a laxative and a book deal.
They&rsquo;re either preaching, rambling, or repackaging cliches like it&rsquo;s the Dead Sea Scrolls.
That&rsquo;s why talking to Mike and Kass Lazerow on my podcast felt like a deep breath of fresh air through a straw in a sewer tunnel.
Their book Shoveling Sh*t: A Love Story About the Entrepreneur&rsquo;s Messy Path to Success is exactly what the title promises&mdash;raw, funny, painful, inspiring, and, above all, real.
They don&rsquo;t dress it up.
They hand you the shovel and say, &ldquo;You&rsquo;re gonna need this.&rdquo;
I&rsquo;ve known Mike and Kass for almost 20 years.
I invested in their company Buddy Media before it sold to Salesforce for roughly $700 million.
But until this conversation, I never realized how close they were&mdash;multiple times&mdash;to losing it all.
Like, family-member-threatening-to-kill-you close. Like, ramen-for-dinner-while-your-cofounder-spouse-spirals-into-optimism-denial close.
That&rsquo;s not hyperbole. That&rsquo;s entrepreneurship.
<h3>Why You Should Never Give Up</h3>
What struck me most wasn&rsquo;t the chaos&mdash;it was how they kept going. They built golf.com, lost everything in the dot-com crash (and then some), and still turned it into a $24 million exit.
Then, they did it all over again with Buddy Media, pivoting from a failed Facebook game to building the first major software platform for Fortune 500 companies on social media.
They didn&rsquo;t do it with some grand plan or an MBA strategy spreadsheet. They did it by staying close to customers, learning fast, pivoting harder, and repeating until something clicked.
Cass said something in the podcast that stuck with me:
&ldquo;Entrepreneurship is a whole life of its own.&rdquo;
It's a marriage, a mental illness, a spiritual test, and sometimes, a lottery ticket.
And if you&rsquo;re doing it with your actual spouse? Godspeed.
I asked them how they didn&rsquo;t implode as a couple. The answer? Therapy, honesty, and shared suffering. They didn&rsquo;t get to $700 million by being superhuman.
They got there by failing together&mdash;over and over&mdash;without giving up on each other.
That alone makes this book worth reading.
<h3>What Stuck With Me </h3>
But if you're thinking, &ldquo;Okay, great, James, but what can I take from this?&rdquo; here&rsquo;s what I walked away with:
<ul>
<li>Trends matter. Mike put it perfectly: &ldquo;Trends are your friends.&rdquo; They rode the wave of social media before anyone knew it was a wave. Liquid Death, which they invested in, rode the wellness trend while wearing a metal band t-shirt. And it worked.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>You don&rsquo;t need venture capital to build something great. In fact, venture capital might be the worst path for 99% of businesses today. Their biggest wins? Simple businesses solving real problems&mdash;pizza, pets, par-three golf. That&rsquo;s the gold.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Forget perfect. Start. They made a great point: If you talk about your idea too much, your brain gives you the dopamine as if you&rsquo;ve already done Just start. Get punched in the face. Learn. Repeat.</li>
</ul>
If you&rsquo;re an entrepreneur, aspiring or seasoned, this book is a reminder of what it really takes.
Not just grit, but relationships. Not just ideas, but relentless reps. Not just big dreams, but an even bigger tolerance for pain.
Mike and Kass have been through hell. And they turned it into a playbook.
Read the book. <a href="https://lnk.to/SSES01">Listen to the episode</a>.
And if you&rsquo;re thinking about starting a business&mdash;just know what you&rsquo;re signing up for: Shoveling sh*t. But sometimes, underneath the pile, there&rsquo;s a $700 million exit.
And sometimes&mdash;if you&rsquo;re really lucky&mdash;you find someone willing to shovel with you.
<a href="https://lnk.to/SSES01">Listen to the full conversation here</a>.

ALC-06-09-25-featured

Shoveling Sh*t and Finding Gold

A trillion in trade.
80 countries on speed dial.
And fentanyl, semiconductors, and pharmaceuticals at the center of the storm.
This isn&rsquo;t the plot of a niche geopolitical thriller&mdash;it&rsquo;s Trump&rsquo;s 2025 trade agenda. And I just spoke to the man who helped design its prototype: Wilbur Ross.
Ross is an investor, billionaire, and former U.S. Secretary of Commerce under Trump from 2017 to 2021.
Before politics, he made his name on Wall Street as the so-called &ldquo;King of Bankruptcy,&rdquo; specializing in buying distressed companies in steel, coal, textiles, and banking&mdash;turning failing businesses into profitable ones through restructuring.
He&rsquo;s also the latest guest on my podcast. (Link to full conversation below.)
Here&rsquo;s what I learned.
<h3>Blanket Tariffs? That's a First.</h3>
Ross started with what we already kind of know: what Trump is doing right now is unprecedented.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a level of complexity that&rsquo;s quite novel in the tariff world.&rdquo;
Not just blanket tariffs, but special ones too&mdash;tailored by product, country, and diplomatic leverage point.
I asked Ross, &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t this like Smoot-Hawley 2.0?&rdquo;
No&mdash;because this time, Trump isn&rsquo;t just trying to protect domestic industry. He&rsquo;s aiming at three things at once:
<ol>
<li>Reduce the trade deficit</li>
<li>Raise federal revenue (to pay for tax cuts)</li>
<li>Force strategic outcomes (like stopping fentanyl exports from China)</li>
</ol>
This isn&rsquo;t a shotgun. It&rsquo;s a sniper rifle with a silencer, a laser, and a built-in tax refund.
<h3>The Fentanyl Gambit</h3>
The part most don&rsquo;t know: Trump is deadly serious about China and fentanyl.
&ldquo;In Beijing, if you sell fentanyl on the streets, they&rsquo;ll execute you,&rdquo; Ross told me. &ldquo;But they&rsquo;ve been subsidizing exports of the stuff that&rsquo;s killing Americans.&rdquo;
China executes domestic dealers but allows exports of precursor chemicals to Mexico. Most of it ends up in the US.China knows how dangerous they are but turns a blind eye because it&rsquo;s not their citizens dying.
Ross says this is personal for Trump. He wants it stopped. And he&rsquo;s tying it into trade negotiations.
Not with threats.
With leverage.
<h3>Rare Earths, Pharma, and the Apple Problem</h3>
Problem is, we&rsquo;re addicted to Chinese supply chains. iPhones. Generic drugs. Semiconductors. Vitamins. Ross didn&rsquo;t deny it. But he says reshoring is starting&mdash;and Trump&rsquo;s policies are finally giving it teeth.
The rare earth thing? A mess. We have the resources. We just don&rsquo;t process them because it&rsquo;s dirty, and nobody wants a refinery in their backyard. So we ship it all to China, let them pollute, and then buy it back.
Ross: &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t make the planet better off to have it processed in China instead of here.&rdquo;
Makes sense. But the EPA probably won&rsquo;t love that logic.
<h3>Inflation? Recession? Or... Neither?</h3>
Do tariffs cause inflation? No.
Tariffs did not cause inflation in 2018&ndash;2020, despite media panic. Ross argues current inflation claims are more political than economic.
I mentioned Powell saying tariffs will spark inflation again. Ross smiled and said: &ldquo;I think he's hiding behind that as an excuse not to cut rates.&rdquo;
Meanwhile, Trump wants to cut energy costs, healthcare costs, and grow the &ldquo;External Revenue Service.&rdquo; The goal? Shift from taxing your income to taxing imports.
Ross confirmed a few sleeper details about the tax plan:
<ul>
<li>Makes Trump&rsquo;s 2017 cuts permanent</li>
<li>Tax-free tips and overtime</li>
<li>Incentives for manufacturing here</li>
<li>Incentives for foreign investment here</li>
</ul>
And yeah&mdash;he also said the reason Trump wanted Greenland? Rare earths.
<h3>The Mind Behind the Moves </h3>
That was just a small part of our conversation.
Whether you love Trump or loathe him, you should understand the game he&rsquo;s playing. Ross just gave us the playbook.
And if even half of what he said is accurate, we&rsquo;re entering a new kind of economy. One where tariffs are not just a trade tool&mdash;but a tax system. A foreign policy lever. A domestic stimulus.
A weaponized spreadsheet.
You don&rsquo;t have to agree with it. But you do have to know what&rsquo;s coming.
And thanks to Wilbur Ross, now we have a better idea.
Listen <a href="https://lnk.to/WRDJT01">to the full conversation here</a>.

ALC-Issue-06-02-25(1)

Trade, Taxes, and Trump’s New World Order

If you tuned in yesterday, you know about Alpha-3. You know about the Blue Spike. You know buyouts are the only legal form of &ldquo;insider trading&rdquo; left.
Now what?
You don&rsquo;t need a degree from Wharton. You don&rsquo;t need Bloomberg terminals or six monitors glowing like a NASA launch pad.
All you need is 5 minutes, a broker, and the ability to follow instructions.
So today, I&rsquo;m giving you the Buyout Blueprint &mdash; the same exact checklist I follow every time the AI flashes. No fluff. No filler. Just the playbook I personally use to turn data noise into dollar noise.
Let&rsquo;s get tactical.
<h3>Step 1: Ignore the News. Trust the Spike.</h3>
If you&rsquo;re still waiting for CNBC to validate your trades, you&rsquo;ve already missed the move.
When Alpha-3 flashes a Blue Spike, that is the news. It means something is moving under the surface &mdash; insider tension, whispered deals.
It&rsquo;s not a prediction. It&rsquo;s a signal. A tell. A breadcrumb trail left behind by people who know what&rsquo;s coming next.
<h3>Step 2: Check Your Alpha List</h3>
Our Alpha Screener isn&rsquo;t for entertainment. It filters out 4,300 companies and leaves you with the strongest survivors &mdash; companies that would be valuable even without a buyout.
But when a Blue Spike hits and the stock&rsquo;s already on our Alpha list?
That&rsquo;s not noise. That&rsquo;s a drumbeat.
<h3>Step 3: Pick Your Weapon</h3>
Once the spike hits, there&rsquo;s always two ways to trade:
Option A: The Conservative Play
&nbsp;This is the &ldquo;sleep-well-at-night&rdquo; move. An in-the-money option. Costs a bit more. Moves slower. Less risk, less drama.
Option B: The Moonshot
Out-of-the-money. Cheaper. More volatile. These are trades I call &ldquo;synthetic IPOs&rdquo; &mdash; because if they hit, they don&rsquo;t go up 10%. They go vertical.
You can choose either. I often take both.
Just never risk more than you can afford to laugh off over drinks.
<h3>Step 4: Automate the Exit</h3>
Most people obsess over when to get in. I care more about when to get out.
That&rsquo;s why every alert I send includes sell limit orders:
<ul>
<li>Conservative play? Sell half at +50%</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Moonshot? Sell half at 2x</li>
</ul>
That means you&rsquo;ll lock in some profit even if you&rsquo;re stuck in traffic, sleeping, or watching reruns of Shark Tank.
And we let the other half ride &mdash; house money.
This is the most successful strategy. It&rsquo;s been battle-tested by me and my team. And it&rsquo;s been hard-won.
<h3>Step 5: Watch the Clock</h3>
Big news often drops outside of market hours. That means your spike could become a rocket at 9:30 AM sharp.
If the market opens and your limit order fills instantly, congrats &mdash; you just out-traded 99% of Wall Street.
Then we&rsquo;ll send an alert to manage the rest &mdash; whether to hold, double-down, or bail.
<h3>Bonus Tip: Don&rsquo;t Be a Hero</h3>
Some spikes are early. Some are fake-outs. That&rsquo;s part of the game.
If something&rsquo;s not working, I&rsquo;ll send a sell alert. No ego. No second-guessing.
We&rsquo;re not here to marry stocks. We&rsquo;re here to ride waves, grab the cash, and move on.
<h3>Data. Patterns. Signals. </h3>
You&rsquo;re not going to get this from a financial advisor. You&rsquo;re not going to get it from ChatGPT either (sorry, buddy).
You&rsquo;re going to get it from data that never lies, from patterns that repeat, and from signals most people are trained to ignore.
And right now? Alpha-3 just lit up again. The alert is ready.
The last time this happened, it was IonQ. The time before that, it was Maxar.
This time? Let&rsquo;s just say I&rsquo;m loading up the moonshot.
If you haven&rsquo;t already&hellip;
<a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2444518">Click here to see the EXACT opportunity I&rsquo;m releasing to new beta testers</a>.
&nbsp;Out-of-the-money. Cheaper. More volatile. These are trades I call &ldquo;synthetic IPOs&rdquo; &mdash; because if they hit, they don&rsquo;t go up 10%. They go vertical.
You can choose either. I often take both.
Just never risk more than you can afford to laugh off over drinks.