Spencer Jakab, author of The Revolution That Wasn’t, all about the GameStop/Memestock saga in January 2021, was my guest on today’s show. Don’t worry, Spencer hasn’t dented my belief in GME. However, this book is well worth a read for anyone interested in the GameStop story! I learnt a lot and felt that, whilst the conclusions were not the ones I was drawing from this story he is clearly knowledgeable about the inner workings of the market and his perspective was really interesting to me – it’s clear that as someone deeply involved in finance that Spencer has more belief in the system that most of my guests – but that does not make his opinions irrelevant, if anything it’s crucial to help understand the sheer corruption that the GME story is alleging takes place on Wall Street. If you don’t speak to people who believe in a system, you’ll never be able to critique it properly.
In this interview we talk through the ideas that drive the YOLO, Keith Gill’s investing strategy, why short selling is part of a fair market, whether he covered naked short selling enough in the book, and how Wall Street (including Citadel) made massive profits from the retail investor revolution.
The Revolution That Wasn’t is the riveting story of how the meme stock squeeze unfolded, and the real architects (and winners) of the GameStop rally. Drawing on his years as a stock analyst at a major bank, Jakab exposes technological and financial innovations like Robinhood as ploys to part investors from their money, within the larger story of evolving social and economic pressures. The surprising truth? What appeared to be a watershed moment – a revolution that stripped the ultra-powerful hedge funds of their market influence, placing power back in the hands of everyday investors only increased the chances of the house winning.
The Revolution That Wasn’t – https://uk.bookshop.org/a/6492/9780593421154
https://www.wsj.com/news/author/spencer-jakab
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Timestamps
0:00 – Intro
2:30 – Why he wrote the book
6:19 – Citadel profited off the squeeze
11:42 – Trusting people online for investing advice
21:37 – Why is short selling good for the market?
29:10 – Keith Gill’s Investing Strategy
32:21 – Naked short selling
41:00 – Is the financial game rigged against the little guy?
47:52 – Memes and larping/What if HODL is the lesson?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIKu_9O2g9M
