 Alright, hello and welcome to the latest session in our masterclass speaker series. Normally something we do in the summer we did so last year had some really great feedback, but lots of demand to bring them back early this year so I'm absolutely thrilled to have a guest on today Alfonso Picatielo has joined me as you can see here. A bit of an introduction, we're going to, he's going to go into it himself in more detail in a moment but he is the author of the absolutely amazing macro compass. If you're not reading that already, you should definitely I'll drop the link to everyone for that going forward, but he was previously the head of investment portfolio at the Treasury Department of I and G. Where he was in charge of active management of around $20 billion of a multi asset portfolio so guy of immense exposure and experience. And as we will hear about in a moment, he's not that old either so it's going to be really fascinating to see that journey of progression over that that period of coming out of study. And so, the way we're going to kind of divide this session up is, Alf and I are going to have a chat, we're going to pivot around two areas. One, and I know we've already just said this off camera is, we talked to so many industry people, but students very not very regularly knows the real background or personal story of these people that they look and aspire to be. And so it's going to be great to have a chat about that go back in time a little bit so we'll talk about that in the first section, and then we'll pivot and talk a little bit more about your specialism. I think Eddie said as well, earlier that you know you're kind of a macro guru and it'll be great for students, I think to have macro in a digestible way that's going to be useful for them. I guess the pursuit of landing a role in finance so yeah kind of away from perhaps some of the tech technicalities and a little bit more about how did they kind of deconstruct what's going on so that they can think better when they're interviewing and things about nature and then we'll do a Q&A at the end. So without further ado, Alf, great to have you with us and yeah be be awesome to know a little bit about you really your background and how you got started going back to kind of school days I guess. So first of all congrats for the amazing work you do at the Amplify and you know what you guys have built. It's really nice. And I'm honored to be here and speak to the students I mean to young guys I call them students but ultimately young guys. So I'm a 30 years old looking 50 but still 30 years old guy who comes from a humble place in the south of Italy where GDP per capita is I don't know $15,000 a year I mean if you make 1000 euro a month you're paid very well if you manage to get a job there is about 40% youth unemployment income from it's a very tough place. Very humble place but also a very intense like emotionally intense one. It's the south of Italy so there is a lot of that going on there. But it's a great learning experience when you grow up because you learn to grind literally like you you have to go that extra mile because there is so much uncertainty. There was an employment rate before right so there is no there is a queue of people applying for jobs in that region compared to the availability of jobs out there right so there is this imbalance which makes it very difficult, which motivates people to go the extra mile. And that's, well, as I was basically raised and thanks a lot as well to the fact that my mother runs the Treasury Department of a small bank in the south of Italy, very small bank but she's very passionate it's a typical southern Italian woman I would say. And so I was, I was basically brought into the world of finance already when I was 14 because at lunch breaks after school. My mom was there too, but she was in the lunch break from from work and she was still looking at these charts you know this is futures this equities this bonds are like, What the heck is that I mean, I'm eating my pasta here and I can't talk to you because you're looking for whatever the US markets or whatever you're trading right. And so I just I was very curious, which is something we're going to talk about later and it really helps in shaping your career guys. And that helped me because I just wanted to know what she was looking at. And then I started liking it because ultimately this is a puzzle markets are a puzzle macro economy is a puzzle that you need to sort of assemble together. And yeah, from there I developed this passion, pursued it that at university, and read a gazillion books that I mean I was just too curious to be honest and that's what really helped me. And then, well, basically from there we can we can discuss what happened but I think also the university experience was an interesting one that taught me a lot, but I'm going to stop here and if you have questions or I'm going to go to the university then so given the fact that you came into this with already like an interest in trading and things like that. How did you find what you learn at university to satisfy that kind of itch. I mean was it was it kind of like a necessary passage to get where you wanted to go or did you actually find that actually was useful then for when you were getting to those first steps into into your career. I found it relatively useful because I was lucky to have exposure to two different teaching models. So I studied macro economics at my bachelor degree in well basically close to my hometown. And then for my master of master of science I moved to the north of Italy, where I did the master of science in English that we of course helped broaden my skills and while we Italians are not very well known to speak fluent English so there was also I needed to work on back then still probably need to with my al Pacino accent. I can't much about that. Anyway, and when I went there the course was quantitative finance which meant that I had a lot of math and statistics and econometrics and all of that. So I learned a ton about, let's say the coincide of finance, although some of it was not really applicable or concretely applicable but it gave you that mindset. You understand what the linear regression is you understand with the stochastic processes. It doesn't mean you will be a master in handling those things in your life but at least you get a good understanding of the big picture what are we trying to do with this quantum stuff. What I what what that experience luck is the applicability. So we very rarely used to say okay, we are going to use this regression to try and test a or back test the trading model, for instance, it was rather non applied quant stuff. Yeah, I was lucky then to win a scholarship and go at the European business school to finish my master's degree. That's in Germany. It's private university that obviously I can't afford. But thanks to the scholarship I managed and there the teaching style was completely the opposite so you're walking there after one year of quant finance stuff. And the first day they just basically give you a case study, you know, you have to basically analyze the balance to the company and tell what the company is going to, you know, do to improve its profitability or whatever was tasked. And I'm like, but there was no theory. I mean how am I supposed to do something here. And so the German approach was completely different and it was rather than a bottom up approach where you first start from you know the basis of the theory and you work up your way until you're able to effectively put it in practice. If you ever even try, we move to the opposite which was, this is the problem. Try to figure out how to solve it. Give me your answer and then we're going to cover the theory behind. And basically I was lucky enough to experience both teaching methods, and as well my, my brain got, you know, used to think both ways. And I think this is a, a, and it's always good not to get your ego or your style attached to a certain type of student type of guy I am either a quant or a big thinker. I'm either a mathematician or a top down consultant or whatever. Or hardly benefits you in your career. There are paths which are very specialist path but even in this specialist guys, you will have to have a diverse set of skills. In nowadays labor market, it's basically impossible to be able to have just one skill. And even if you are the top two, three percentile at that skill you will be required to have a broad set of skills. Try to diversify as well the approach you have to learning. What we, what were you like at that stage in your life, were you quite an introvert, were you an extrovert, were you able because like, I guess operating in a professional sense isn't just about having technical capability. You're in an organization, right. And there's lots of other things that come along with that. Let's go into the working career. So basically, from the master of science in Germany, ING, which was the bank I was working for until a few months ago, came on campus and started, you know, asking guys and interviewing. There were them and then Barclays and then whoever else big bank was in there trying to recruit basically interns. And so I had a chat with them and they were growing like hell. So ING is a Dutch bank and they were growing in Germany. They were setting up shop in Germany 2013, something like that 2014. And so I decided to join a department which actually wasn't even what I was looking for. I knew that already. So I was a markets guy always fascinated by macroeconomics and markets and I ended up joining the commercial bank side. They were basically setting up their commercial bank to lend basically to German businesses. And so obviously I tried to take the markets rated stuff, so pricing the loans, calculating risks and all of that within that internship. But again, the grinding mentality worked back then too because what I really needed Anthony is to get my feet through the door. And I don't care if the first job is not going to be the good one. I'm still going to learn something because I have no idea what I'm doing here. So and ultimately it's going to be a good experience that was my mindset back then. And so it worked exactly like that. So I learned quite a few things during my internship, but after four months the thing that I learned by far being the most valuable was networking. So I immediately realized that I had a lot of people around me directors managing directors and, you know, you just have to speak to them. And ultimately, something will pop up that will interest you or could be an opportunity. And then, well, basically ultimately that's what happened and a job in the Treasury Department of ing the Netherlands which is the headquarters it's a Dutch bank right opened up and the Treasury Department was basically the place where I wanted to end up in financial markets right where you effectively run portfolios manage risks and trade different asset classes which is, you know, you basically try to solve the puzzle. You get your hands dirty into what I always wanted to do but it was not nearly this fairy tale linear path up it was a lot of grinding a lot of, you know, trying to broaden your skill sets. And once even the skill set you really don't think it's necessary or you hate. It can really help. Yeah, I think it almost answers the question but to put it out there anyway because we always focus on obtaining that first job and getting that first foot in the door. Because they have such a mountain of an objective, they get there, and then they can feel a bit lost them because they've lost that that was a very clear definable goal. Yeah. And then once they're in the organization it's like, oh, it's almost like the air's let out a little bit and you're like you need to re motivate. So any any advice around those who have secured and they're in that first infancy of their career, or is it again it's just utilizing that network and really growing off other people's experience and expertise. The advice I can give is you assume you sleep eight hours a day. You have 24 hours in your day, then you have 16 left, then you have to eat and take care of yourself. You have maybe 13 14 hours left between commute well nowadays not that much but normally speaking between commute and the hours are going to put in you're probably going to spend about 70% of your awake time doing this, this equals your job which can be setting up your company working for an employer, whatever. At least 70% of your wake time. While at the beginning of your career this might not even see my metric you will focus on a few years later you will focus on this. So the only one single advice I can give when you start the first two years of your career is just experiment literally means just try to find out what you like. This will be by far the most important thing in defining how happy are you about your life, your working life. The end of the day if you're unhappy about what you do you're never going to be able to either perform, nor get the best out of it for yourself and for your employer well if you have an employer and you don't run your own company. The most important thing is to find out what you like. And once you find that out. It's going to be such a revelation because then working is is actually the verb is not going to describe exactly what you do. So as I always say this before this was not my job working for the bank was my passion. It's just what I like to do. And then it doesn't weigh on your shoulders. On a Monday morning saying holy crap I need to face seven days or five days to wake up saying wow that's cool let's see what happens today in markets that was my thing your thing can be. I don't know. Let's run the accounting for this company or let's set up my own company whatever it is find what you like that's by far the most important thing at the beginning of your career. Excellent advice and yeah that's the beauty I think I've always had working on the market side is that every day is a new day and every day is a new challenge I guess but. Okay so moving this over to then the kind of next parts of the kind of discussion is that so I think it's a lot of mystique around what actually a portfolio manager does for students. It's great to actually get under the bonnet and for you to explain, like, what's a typical day look like and I know it's not like guns blazing you're making decisions left right and center but I guess a little bit of context. Yes, really great insight. Yes. So today the portfolio manager. Not in a in an investment bank, let me add that because maybe the rhythm might be different. Is that you generally try to be at the office before the market opens, which means if you are in continental Europe that's about eight, 815 am, so not not a prohibitive time. And then you run basically your, your, your screen the news overnight because Asia has been trading in the meantime, America from from last evening if you were sleeping and whatever right so you understand what has what has gone on. And then you move on into your positions that's the most important thing you're running positions at every point in time. Therefore, before the market opens. Once you regroup your information, you have to understand whether there was any relevant vital information that changes your assessment of your portfolio. That's the first thing you do. And then assuming you had no action to take because you still feel comfortable with your positions. You have a coffee as probably even before you even start. No, I'm just kidding. And from that point onwards, the market part, let's say so both the executing and the thinking about strategies probably takes no more than 40% of your time. Yes, correct 40% not 80% 40% the remaining 60% is you have people annoying you. I'm just kidding. You have you have a lot of things around you going on you need to manage, which are not in the Wolf of Wall Street movie but actually are there which is your risk manager, which is your finance department that wants to make sure that the PNL the profit and loss reconciles between what you see and what he or she sees on the back of the envelope when they run the ledgers and all the accounting numbers, and I can tell you 90% of times you're not going to see the same numbers. So you have to argue a lot about that. Your risk manager will will try to chase you and to basically bring down your positions at every single point in time, even if you're making money doesn't care is job is to basically make you shrink the amount of risk you take and optimize the profit and loss you make for one unit of risk. Alright, so you'll have this very annoying guy, basically almost every day at your desk. Then you'll have a lot of presentations to do, and a lot of communication as well so I want to talk about that and another key part which is the stakeholder management which is a very fancy word for you learn to be diplomatic. And so if you are not diplomatic, and you cannot do stakeholder management, you can be the best portfolio manager out there. You can only work for hedge fund, maybe, because they're the incentive scheme is 99% make money and 1% the rest is relevant. But if you work for a large institution, you can be the best portfolio manager out there. If you cannot communicate what your strategy is, and if you cannot manage your stakeholders, you are not going to be successful. So the remaining 2025% of your time is communicating stakeholders and managing them. And I learned at the beginning I was paying zero attention to this. I mean I walked in there I'm like okay I have a strategy I'm going to run it I'm making money leave me alone. Oh, you have your, I don't want to give presentations fuck off. Sorry for that. You know I just want to do this, I like it, please leave me alone. And my manager actually, you know, walked me in a room after a few months and he said, Oh, your PNL is looking very good and you definitely know what you're doing. I was back then not running a $20 billion portfolio was a junior, basically an associate or even analysts back then just just started a year or two years after I remember this conversation with him saying nobody likes you. So, what are we going to do about that and I'm like, what do you mean nobody likes me, but you don't you don't want to talk about your strategy you don't communicate it well. You don't pay attention to the presentations you're doing to stakeholders, and you tell your risk manager to go and have a walk. So that that doesn't work. So, it was my wake up call basically to pay attention to communication and to stakeholder management. And up to today Anthony. Now basically writing the macro compass which is an educational newsletter effectively with some investment ideas about global macro. The communication is at least 50% of the success because you can be the best content guy out there if you're not able to convey your message out. It doesn't work. Yeah, it's so important. And it's so important going back as well as what you said at the start about having different skills to complement and almost make the core ones better. And like you say that fits perfectly with what you just what you've spoken about so that the question then next would be, you obviously moved on from that role now to move on to new things. Tell me about that what was the rationale there and what's the plan. Yeah, so we are at the analyst associate moment right a couple of years in and they were promoting me year after year my manager saw the PNL and also saw the improvement I was making on communication and stakeholder management because I understood it was important. And then he said okay, I was 27 and a half and he said, Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make you run a team of three people and a book of $20 billion. And I thought he was drunk, but he really did that. And so the beginning that experience was was incredible right and you get and it's so hard. I imagine managing the team of three Germans between 40 and 45 years old. They have to be managed by 27 and a half. That's a really good point. How did that go down? I mean, at the beginning, horrible. I mean, they're like, I don't recognize you. Why you should be my boss. I mean, I see your PNL but I mean, who the hell are you. I mean, so at the beginning that was very tough, a great learning experience. And then again, diplomacy and communication were more important than than hard skills. Now that was fun for the first year and a half. And then I was 29, six years with ING. And in the last year I had zero fun. Fun for me means my learning curve was completely flat. And that is something I don't accept. I'm like, okay, if I don't, if I don't enjoy what I'm doing, if I don't learn something new every day, why am I doing that? Also, the corporate politics had become unbearable for my standards because being promoted means being paid more, having more responsibility, running more risks in my case, that also being exposed to an increasingly annoying amount of corporate politics, which is, it's just part of the game. So if you're not prepared for that, do not even, you know, aim at having a certain position which starts with the C in my case was a chief investment office. It starts with the C in front. No, I'm kidding. But you know, it involves a lot of politics, corporate politics. And at some point this corporate politics was overshadowing even the content of my work. And then I basically, you know, on a parallel fashion, I started writing on LinkedIn and opening the newsletter. This was like beginning of 2021. Just a side dig for fun. And I soon realized that, wow, that was really fun, you know, the interaction with people, thinking how to build it up, how to communicate what I knew, interacting, writing, thinking how to write in such a way that I can convey what I want to convey to people. I mean, I thought, okay, well, this is fun. And then at some point I thought this is fun and also potentially something I can do for a living. So why not. And I took the leap of faith basically and I quit. And my wife wanted to kill me and my best friends thought I was completely crazy. But I'm, you know, having this sort of conversations with you and then he was obviously much more difficult before because of compliance. I can't check what I'm saying in public. And I'm just wants to check I enjoy any other employer wants to check what I take. I write on LinkedIn what I write on the macro compass. At some point I thought I don't want anybody to check what I'm doing. I just want to put it out for, you know, to educate and put out knowledge that accumulated over the past years. And as people seem to like what I have to say then let's give it a try. And I now say this very lightly but let's give it a try meant and basically giving away pretty decent salary, or the certainty of receiving that salary, and also, leaving behind the label. The label was that I am known in the street to be basically the youngest ever guy to manage such a large portfolio that any guy has seen on the street street is the name for investment banks. And so, you know, I was, I had this label with me and it was a comfortable one. And I'm like, okay, I'm that guy, young brilliant apparently everybody likes him. Now can even communicate runs a huge book, and basically removing that label and saying I don't run that book anymore. I don't have that title anymore. It's just me, me putting out the content and if you like it's going to be a success if you don't. I'm an idiot. And that part was, and that part was tough. But here we are. Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure the communication skills came in handy with managing your wife's expectations. Yes. I mean, absolutely credit to you for staying true to those values of always be learning and progression. So, yeah, we wish you the very best with this new kind of turn in your career and I'm sure it's just the beginning of the next, the next kind of chapter. But look, moving to the next part, which was the obviously now I mean when I read your LinkedIn posts or things like that. I think they're brilliant because they hit just the right tone. And it takes things deconstructs them and makes them much more digestible and I think that's perfect for what we do which is trying to finance students I think sometimes can be a bit intimidated by a lot of the subject matter, because there's such a big division between the technical side and the application as we said earlier, what actually do day to day markets. So what advice can you give to them to, from a top level I guess, all of this stuff in the world's going on, all of the time because I mean, when I started my career in 2006, if you can believe it I actually used to still have to go to the newspaper truck at 6am in the morning and get every news conceivable newspaper I could we the analysts had to read them. Now obviously students are just subjected to an overwhelming amount of information 24 seven. How's best then for a student one is getting to finance he needs to build up that repertoire of commercial awareness so they can talk markets, as well as technically know about them. What advice would you give in that area. So the opportunity today is huge compared to 15 years ago and you're right. So if you are on LinkedIn or on Twitter or on sub stock or wherever you get your information now you can get as much as you want. Normally I would say just scout for good quality stuff, and then make sure you consistently read those. So it needs to be a routine for instance do you find the financial times to be a good resource or right then make sure that it's within your five to seven do not exaggerate and not overwhelm you with information otherwise you're not going to be able to digest it right so we also live in the world of having to having a very low attention span, compared to maybe 20 years ago, because of the social media influence in our life so make sure as well that your time is well spent efficiently spent which means that the message and information you get these pretty concise clear and factual, importantly factual, and nowadays I mean in the past you had to go through newspapers to do that and nowadays you have several other free source of information. It's important though to make a first selection to spend time on identifying who are the guys that you really trust and want to read or the newspapers, and then make sure you always read those, and then continuously over time, continue to scout to open your horizons and, you know, sooner or later you're going to find somebody else that you find consistently interesting and factual and start following this guy to and then you create basically a package that's what I do for myself still today I read five sources today, three are newsletters to our newspapers, and that's it that's what I go through every week, depending on you know the basically the time horizon of publishing of these newspapers or newsletters. And then of course I read also something on top of that otherwise you can close yourself in an echo chamber, but that's that's probably the most efficient way to go through it. So how do you find, and I guess this kind of brings back a little bit of what you were doing in G but how do you find the disconnect then out of trying to move. I mean, I've always found markets, almost like a drug, because it's because it is pretty much permanent apart from Saturday somewhere in the world is open. It's happening. And you kind of get a bit of a kick or at least I used to out of being the first to know the first when something breaks you're like I want to be first and that's as an analyst not even as a trader trying to execute so what was your kind of methods, because I know for students as well mental health for young people particularly amplified by the pandemic is is a really important thing and so how can they kind of manage that because I know markets can be quite all absorbing particularly because a lot of them are trading crypto and there really is no lead up there. So, if I know something, and you know something Anthony there is for sure somebody else in the world that knows it before you and I know. That's a fact. So, applying a news based strategy to your trading approach is basically today only applicable with algo trading and only by few professional flow traders all over the world. And most likely credibly you can be amongst those which means having that approach is, you know, very time consuming very mental energy consuming probably not efficient too. I would say based on on a single news to be able to be the first one to know and therefore the first one to be able to profit from that. It's not a business model that a single person without infrastructure can actually deliver. So, in general, then the advice that I can give to people again is to make sure that if you are in markets you're really passionate about it because it is a fast paced somehow energy draining a business. At the same time, be credible with yourself and humble about it. So it's a very difficult business as in to be profitable is a very difficult business and very few people actually succeeding that, which means that you have to be honest with yourself. You have to like it and be passionate about it and discount the probability that you will never be able to solve the puzzle in your entire life and find the motivation into trying to get closer and closer. And that's how you remain healthy about it, because if you are true to yourself and you know that the highest probability outcome is that you will not be able to solve the puzzle at all. And you will only get closer and closer and smarter and smarter over time. If you are consistent with that view, then it's it's more likely as well you will not overwhelm yourself with countless hours and pressure, because you just find it unnecessary. It's a bit like I am one of the few guys on Twitter or my on my newsletter, the macro compass that puts out investment ideas or training ideas to the world, open face with an entry point a stop loss and a first profit target. And people are telling me you're absolutely nuts, because people will be able to see when you're wrong. And and and what's and what's the problem. I mean, everybody is wrong. So this is the first step in admitting to yourself that you will never be able to achieve 100% win rate. It's impossible. It's been humanly impossible. The best trader that compounded the best returns over the last 30 years is Jim Simons of Renaissance capital. There is there is a you I mean amazing book about him being written by the way. Just Google it and remember the name Jim Simons is the trader Renaissance macro. And he's a mathematician that developed a quantum based approach that is completely systematic. Anthony has no discretionary decision making zero basically the computers round the long short position for him not himself. So this win rate is on trades. It's going to be something insanely high by the way that this is being pitched, or is it the opposite and it's just one point one over the edge. There are good answers in the chat I can see it's 51% 51% the best traders of all time who compounded about 30% and will return for 30 years in a row or something like that. The one who returns is right one trade and he's wrong the other trade and then he's right one trade and then he's wrong the other trade. The best traders of all time do that friends in edge funds when I was at IG my win rate was 54%. So like oh you're going to be wrong sure of course Oh plenty of times I'm going to be wrong, and I don't see the problem with it so this really helps. You're going through to yourself relieves yourself from the pressure, but to get to that to that intellectual honesty. It's a very demanding step because this industry teaches big ego. It promotes big ego, and big ego is your worst enemy if you're managing money. From the other PMs that you know that you've met. Did that big ego today, they all got over that part and that's why they are successful or is it complete mixed bag of personalities. It's a mixed bag of personalities and there is a common trait amongst the most successful market makers portfolio managers hedge fund portfolio managers those are all different jobs and animals. The common trait amongst the top 10% percentile of the most successful guys is that they went over this step. And they all did. It doesn't mean that there are there are successful guys that I know that never went over this step. Which is, which is just fine I'm just saying if you want to skew your odds your way to do this in a mentally healthy way and also potentially in a profitable way. This is a step that skews the odds in your favor. It's not a necessary and sufficient condition but it skews the odds your way. Okay, cool well let's let's move on to some questions. Yeah. So, yeah, hit us up in the chat or the Q&A. If you have a question for Alph you'd like to know just drop it in and I can see them all and I'll present them so. Okay I'll read out the first one while others type theirs in so pal has asked do you think it is necessary to specialize into the area that you like most in order to succeed on the highest level. It's appropriate to a person who loves multiple areas of finance and markets to keep expanding into different areas. It's quite a question. May I ask Anthony just for one thing before we start. I am having this conversation is really great to be honest I mean I'm having a lot of fun. And it also I hope helps the people listening to this webinar. One thing you guys could do to help me out is to subscribe to the newsletter is free. So if you just want to do it, I'd be, you know, super happy to to see that that going on now back to the question. Basically, I also to Paul right Paul was the name of the guy. So I started back then wanting to specialize and to become a sort of quantitative portfolio manager so I thought I could build models that gave me an edge to basically overperform markets. And after starting I realized that that's quite a niche, and that it's much better to develop broader skills, so I ended up becoming a macro discretionary portfolio manager which means I still use models to run my portfolio but I use them not as my main input so they they speed out signals for instance I have several indices that I build and then they say okay this is overvalued or undervalued. So I take that input, and I put it in the old macro view that I have of the world, and I see where it stands, and then I make a discretionary decision whether to belong or short something. So I turn basically 180 degrees. And so what this taught me is that while at the beginning I thought that what I really wanted to specialize was one thing. At the end, it was not. So my suggestion would always be to follow your passion if you if you really like something pursue it, but keep an open mind to develop skills that can help you to pivot away because in a couple of years you might, you know, you might, you don't know exactly if that is really what you want. Cool, and I've shared the link there for our newsletter so please do as highly recommended. Another good question a very I guess on topic of the here and now is web three there's there's lots of chatter about it, I guess, a bit of a lack of property education about what exactly that is because I think people look at something meta and think well here it is we've arrived but obviously that's this is the first kind of more broad based awareness of something that's been happening for a while but what is your take about this whole web three web two to three transition. Yeah, so the other thing that I learned. My experience is that when I don't know something I'm going to say I don't know so I know little about web 3.0. And the reason why I say that is that I haven't tried myself one of the features. It allows in a deep enough way to be able to give you an opinion, but I can say it's more general about the digital transition. Yesterday I was reading a piece from Goldman Sachs about the gaming industry. So, and he project something like 500 million gaming users growth a year over the next few years. Right so all these guys are going to use 3D Google goggles or whatever other highly digital instrument that 20 years ago was just a dream So what this teaches me is that the economy is becoming more and more digital. I am now in the process of, you know, setting up my own business, and I could never would have never thought of doing that five years ago completely I mean, it was it was a stretch nowadays is not so what that teaches me is that the direction of trouble seems to be pretty clear and the digitalization of the world is likely to continue whether web 3.0 will be the overwhelming reality in five years from now Anthony I just don't have the insights to give a proper answer. So was there any pms that we're talking about crypto in terms of as an asset class. I know it's been ETF launches for brochures and others. Yeah, that's an interesting one. So, we talked about egos right and bankers have a big egos normally speaking and portfolio managers to so digital assets are seen as a Ponzi scheme that's the average answer, which I strongly disagree with. But it's hard for the average banker to change its mind. First of all they see it as a threat. And, and ultimately it could be a threat. Because it somehow also forces central banks to react to it which then means central bank digital currencies might become a reality faster than expected which also has impact on monetary policy which ultimately has impacts on commercial banks. So, you know, people within the industry and we want to preserve the status quo, especially at a banker's level and anything that comes and it's new and it's potentially threatening. It's disliked by definition. There are some portfolio managers out there that I know that they have a sympathy for digital asset classes. One of these guys is a maximalist which I really like, which means they either say, Oh, it's going to zero it's upon the scheme, or tomorrow we're going to buy bananas in Bitcoin and the bananas in euro you can buy them anymore. It's only Bitcoin. So, those two extremes are polarizing the discussion. And I think the smart guys are seeing digital assets, basically as a call option. You can interpret it. It's it's a, it's an asset you want to own in a size that you can afford in terms of drawdowns and volatility that it generates for your portfolio, but it's an asset that you can't ignore at the same time, because of the potential positive payoff it can have in the future. And that's the role it has in my portfolio I allocate a small percentage of my wealth in digital assets because I think there might be a pretty good convex pay off my way. At the same time, I touch it, I treat as a call option where if I'm completely wrong, and the far, you know the far left tail scenario realizes, then I'm going to lose the premium on the call option which is the small amount I invested my wealth in, and I'm not going to treat this as an ego trade, it's either right or wrong. It's an asset class, it must have a role in the portfolio, which is appropriate to its characteristics. No, really good, really good summary. And Robin has asked, did you have a specific process or ways to improve your communication and yeah, six skills. Yes, I had find a mentor. And the mentor has two characteristics. He has gray hair or no hair. I'm just kidding. He's very experienced. He's very experienced. Which means he's at the face of the career where he went up up and up, and then he has been plateauing for five to seven years, maybe 10 years, which means he has gone through the face where he was growing. And he also went through the phrase where he was plateauing where he found it hard to progress, which is most likely not because he lacked skills but because he was lacking technical skills but because he was lacking other skills that he didn't want to develop because maybe they didn't match his profile, which means often the diplomatic skills and communication skills. And he has gone through exactly the crop that you will hate the most, and he can tell you how that's going to play out. The second most important characteristic of a mentor is that he can tell straight to your face. What's going to happen, even if you don't like it. So you don't have to find somebody who massages you or promotes you in all situations. You have to find somebody who has been there and has no problem telling you you're going to make a huge mistake for your career, which doesn't mean you're still going to do it because sometimes you know we're stubborn and we go for it but you really need somebody who these two characteristics. The first mentor was a guy that, I mean, from a content perspective is really great. He communicates well, he does horrible politics, and he knows it. He's just like, I don't want to meddle in that stuff. I don't care. I don't want to lie. I don't want to massage things to my risk managers. I'm just going to say, if I see risks, I'm going to say this is risky. I'm going to advance my own self interest, which obviously cups his career by definition, because that's how it works. And he was a great teacher to basically because he could anticipate already what happened, what would have happened, and then you know you can sort of. Yeah, so how can I say a maneuver around that and learn how to handle these situations much better if you have a mentor with these two characteristics. So we'll take one final question from someone in Hong Kong. And they've asked, would you share about how to learn macro starting out as a junior. I'm going to add another angle on that, because a lot of students who we actually try to target to take part in some of our practical simulations are non econ students. And it goes from a variety of different backgrounds because our belief has always been, you know, there could be talent out there. That's just in a very much more process driven like a sales trading role, for example. There could be someone who's just got talent, who might be a music or a history student or something like that. The question they always ask is, Well, how do I kind of accelerate what I do need to learn, because I haven't learned to a university so any kind of kind of ground rules or to get the macro up and running. First of all, you need to understand what money is. Why the weird statement but the kinesian and post kinesian stuff we are taught that universities comes from wrong foundations and wrong definitions of money. So, unfortunately, I don't have one magic book that can sort of answer all these questions that one because money is one you need to write a book out. I know, and you're not you're not the first one who tells me that Anthony so I'm going to get to it I promise but Robin is correct central banking 101 from Joseph Wang friend of mine on Twitter is called the fat guy, I think is his handle used to work at the Fed. He explains money plumbing as I call it so the central bank and the commercial bank system very well. When you want to understand first money, rather than money plumbing, then you read Colin rush book, which is called pragmatic capitalism. I'm going to review Colin for real vision today or tomorrow. Anyway, I'll, I'll see if I can share a link which goes behind the paywall. If you promise not to share that link or social media guys otherwise guys at real vision are going to kill me so. But I'm going to talk money with Colin rush buys books called pragmatic capitalism. 100 pages maybe. Well, how money works. You start from there. Then you move to money plumbing so central banking and commercial banking central banking 101 from Joseph Wang. It's a very good book. And then you start connecting dots and to connect the dots. I suggest that you read the book of Richard coup. There are two books one it's called balance sheet recessions, which explains what happened in Japan, where they try to experiment with expanding the very fast pace and lowering interest rates at the same time. And there is another book which is called the holy grail of macroeconomics, which is pretty good title from Richard coup again. Finally, you should read the work of Professor Steve keen. Okay, Ian is an Australian professor who does an amazing job at explaining macro. Those are the four to five payers you start from that, and you have a good understanding. Unfortunately, there is nobody who then does a, you know, a holistic job connecting all of that together. I'm going to write my book and let's see if I can do that. Anyway, to end the discussion and what I'll do is I will get links to all of those books that were mentioned. And when we share this video. And what I plan to do is also take the audio and put it out as a podcast I'll put all of the links there, including to the macro compass as well so yeah. It's amazing. It's, you know, some fantastic insight, I think really honest, which is so refreshing for the community to hear. And so, yeah, can't thank you enough and I'm sure for everyone listening, connect. Remember, Al himself said networking. And so here's an experienced person. I've heard him talk now and you have a reason to connect so encourage you to do so. And, yeah, look forward to look forward to the book out. Oh, well, that's going to take some time. But guys, I really appreciate having almost 100 people I think listening to this. So it was one of you and career went fast, but I'm still super approachable so if you have questions or whatever you find me a LinkedIn with my full Italian Southern Italian sounding name, or on Twitter at macro alf, or you want to send me an email via the macro compass newsletter just do so I'm super approachable time is a bit of a constraint but I always find time to answer to students especially to students. Thank you very much. Thank you very much everyone for tuning in. See you next time.