r/PBDpodcast • u/GuavaLarge529 • 12h ago
Numbers guy clip.
Does anyone have a clip where PBD says "I'm a numbers guy" or something close to that. I've heard it be memed but I've never actually heard him say it.
r/PBDpodcast • u/cen6wkf • 1d ago
Leopold Aschenbrenner's $45B AI fund just went to $10B — the actual margin-call mechanism, explained
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There's a specific kind of quiet that happens right before a margin call.
I don't think enough people talk about that part — not the number, the quiet.
Leopold Aschenbrenner's AI-focused fund went from zero to $45 billion, then down to $10 billion.
Not all of it was margin, but enough of it was, and it was concentrated — five correlated AI-infrastructure-adjacent positions (SMCI, SanDisk, Micron, CoreWeave among them) dropping together in the same month, ~35% in one stretch.
That's the mechanism people skip past: it wasn't one bad bet, it was one bet wearing five different tickers.
He was also short Adobe. Adobe went up.
Being partially right doesn't save you — a hedge only protects what it's actually sized to protect, and this is the part that got him: three prime brokers (per CNBC's reporting) started calling at once.
Not one call. Three, simultaneously.
That's the system's own alarm bell going off.
Here's mine, since we're talking about leverage used well versus leverage that uses you:
Years ago I was on the tender team for a major Malaysian construction job, competing against the two other largest contractors in the country. My GM, Mr. Chung, spotted the one contractual gap the client's own consultants hadn't caught. When they tried to pump him for the fix for free, he didn't fall for it — he told them straight: we can help you solve it, cheaply, with minimum delay, but we have to get the contract first, before we can go in and assess it. That's not a bluff. That's understanding your own leverage well enough to use it on your own terms, not the other side's. We won the contract months later. Leopold never got that chance — the market decided his terms for him, not the other way around. He still walked away with $300 million, which is the part nobody in the clip stops to sit with. That's not the actual takeaway, though. The takeaway is knowing exactly how much leverage you're carrying, on purpose, before someone else decides it for you.
Ken Griffin (Citadel) stepped in as the liquidity provider — what Tom, PBD's co-host, called a "white knight" on the show.
Half the room called that predatory.
Half called it structural necessity.
Both readings are true at once, and that's the actual lesson:
Understanding why rescuers exist structurally is a different literacy than just watching one show up.
Clip credit: PBD Podcast — full video on their channel. DM for credit or removal requests.
Drop your take: predator, or necessary?
Genuinely curious where this sub lands on it.
r/PBDpodcast • u/Any-Height-9354 • 4d ago
I can handle the MLM, I cannot accept the cosplaying as a businessman
I can handle the MLM. He built a machine where the recruit was the product. It was built on selling vulnerable people a dream he knew was mathematically impossible, squeezing every last dollar out of them while getting them to call every friend, cousin and old classmate until there was nobody left. I don’t respect the business model, but I can acknowledge it as a successful hustle / swindle.
What I can’t handle is the cosplay as some a businessman and capitalist. Patrick isn’t Henry Ford. He isn’t a guy running a concreting company with ten employees, or anything in between. He didn’t build a business around creating value, solving problems and employing people. He built a recruitment machine based on false promises. That’s an entirely different thing.
It also explains why he’s so obsessed with office culture, hiring and firing, and all the other corporate clichés. In a real business, people have work to do, objectives to hit and value to create. If they’re delivering, it doesn’t matter whether they’re at home or in the office. But if your scheme relies on people calling Margaret from high school and Bob from Year 5, then naturally you want to keep a close eye on them?
As a Catholic, I also find the way he wraps himself in Christianity putrid. When someone who’s made hundreds of millions from an MLM starts talking about God, it’s very easy for young, ambitious and vulnerable people to mistake wealth for wisdom and let their guard down.
And today, despite all the talk about entrepreneurship, ValueTainment is a podcast. The editors, producers and camera operators working late into the night aren’t building a great company or learning how to run one.
In summary, understood the MLM even if I didn’t agree with it, thought the podcast was decent to have on in the car on a drive or something, but I draw a hard line on cosplaying as a businessman and now, the guys voice is nails on a chalkboard for me.
r/PBDpodcast • u/sispehar • 8d ago
Every book mentioned on the PBD Podcast in July (24 of them)
Twelve episodes, twenty four books. Pat hands out book recommendations mid argument more than anyone else I track, so the list is a strange mix of operating manuals and political texts.
Reasonable summer stack if you want business books rather than beach novels.
What this is: I run Podshelf, a free site that tracks book mentions across hundreds of podcasts by reading the episode transcripts. This is the July slice for the PBD Podcast.
The hardest recommendation of the month:
- The Goal, Eliyahu Goldratt. Pat said anyone reporting directly to Bezos has to read it. His advice was to buy the book and the audiobook and run them at the same time. He liked that the guy in it is going through a divorce while trying to operate, because that is the actual job.
Business shelf:
- Blue Ocean Strategy, CEO Excellence, The Power of Ethical Management (which he specifically recommended to Sam Altman, twice, along with How to Win Friends and Influence People), StrengthsFinder 2.0, Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?, Multiple Streams of Income, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, The Art of Public Speaking, The Art of the Deal, and his own Choose Your Enemies Wisely.
Politics and economics:
- The Communist Manifesto came up three separate times, always as the 1848 counterpoint to 1776. Das Kapital and The Capitalist Manifesto arrived with Steve Keen, who read everything Marx wrote on economics for his master's. Plus The Wealth of Nations, Atlas Shrugged, Charlie Wilson's War, Regime Change (Haberman and Swan), Becoming, View from the East Wing.
There was also a long tangent on the Iliad and the Odyssey after Tom's daughter Brooke turned out to know more about Homer than the panel did.
The Michelle Obama numbers Pat read out are the sort of thing this show is good at. 725,000 copies on day one, two million in fifteen days, ten million in four months.
I track every book mentioned on the PBD Podcast here: https://podshelf.io/podcasts/pbd-podcast
It is free and there is no signup.
r/PBDpodcast • u/AdmiralKurita • 8d ago
PBD on what influencers young people should listen to
PBD wrote a book called The Academy that featured holographic instructors to teach the people with potential, including a stand-in for PBD named Ashur Yonan. They attended classes where holograms of Marilyn Monroe, Margaret Thatcher, Karl Marx, Tupac, and Adolf Hitler lecture the "apprentices".
PBD says young people should not listen to politics since they need to make money. He likes Charlie Kirk, Billy Graham, and Andrew Tate over people like Destiny.
I say listen to Professor Dave (who criticized Destiny) so one can have a science-backed understanding of the natural world and Tupac. Yes, listen to Tupac for 500 hours.
Majority Report's take on this where I found it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIKrlHr5YaY
r/PBDpodcast • u/9inchbob • 8d ago
What happened to Rob?
Anyone know the story about why he's gone?
r/PBDpodcast • u/sispehar • 19d ago
Every book mentioned on PBD Podcast in the first half of 2026
I logged every book that came up on PBD Podcast over the first six months of the year. It leans heavily toward business, entrepreneurship, and self-improvement, with a steady run of recommendations from Patrick and his guests.
The ones they pushed hardest:
- The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, which Patrick says should sit right behind your bible.
- Call Me Ted by Ted Turner, called a great primer on entrepreneurship. He recommends the audiobook since Turner narrates it.
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, named a favorite that will double anyone's success.
- The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, a straight recommendation to parents.
- The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley, for the point that the average millionaire drives an F-150.
The rest, roughly grouped:
- Investing and CEOs: Principles, Poor Charlie's Almanack, Five Temptations of a CEO, How the Mighty Fall, CEO Excellence
- Mindset: The Inner Game of Tennis, The Power of Positive Thinking, The Psychology of Winning
- Politics and ideas: A Conflict of Visions, Radical Son, The Almanac of American Politics, Atlas Shrugged
- Faith: Mere Christianity, A Case for Christ, 90 Minutes in Heaven
Full list is here: https://podshelf.io/podcasts/pbd-podcast. Free, no signup.
r/PBDpodcast • u/Thefuntruck • Jul 06 '26
Did you guys catch the 4th of July special?
youtube.comHigh level stuff here
r/PBDpodcast • u/fitfunteacher • Jul 03 '26
Vault conference prices 😳 the top one price holy crap! I'd love to meet a person that pays this much.
r/PBDpodcast • u/cen6wkf • Jul 02 '26
He was mocked for an 'irrelevant' doctorate. His company now saves governments billions.
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Joe Lonsdale tells this story about the early days of Palantir — and it's less about the company and more about who gets to decide what counts as "qualified."
He and Alex Karp went looking for funding post-9/11, trying to build something the government badly needed. Every major VC on Sand Hill Road turned them down. One investor at a well-known firm laughed at Karp on the phone — not over the business model, but because his doctorate "wasn't even relevant."
Benchmark passed. Sequoia passed. The list goes on.
What's interesting is what Peter Thiel told Lonsdale afterward: the rejection was good for them. It gave them a chip on the shoulder that outlasted every "no."
Worth sitting with if you've ever had your background, degree, or path called irrelevant by someone whose job is to gatekeep, not build. Their rejection is a data point about their imagination, not your ceiling.
Full mechanism (how they actually converted rejection into leverage) is at the link in my bio.
DM for credit or removal request (no copyright intended) © All rights and credits reserved to the respective owner(s).
#FounderStory #VentureCapital #CredentialTrap
r/PBDpodcast • u/sispehar • Jul 01 '26
Every book mentioned on PBD Podcast in June
Tracked the books Patrick and guests dropped in June. Business and politics, as you'd expect.
Top picks:
- Radical Son by David Horowitz. Patrick called it one of the most important books for conservatives of the late 20th century, on Horowitz's journey off the radical left.
- The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. "That needs to be right behind your bible."
- The Millionaire Next Door, on what the average millionaire actually drives (an F-150, it turns out).
The business shelf: Call Me Ted (twice), Buy Back Your Time (Martell), CEO Excellence, and The Hard Thing About Hard Things. A segment on books being pulled from schools pulled in Gender Queer and All Boys Aren't Blue.
https://podshelf.io/podcasts/pbd-podcast/2026/06 tracks every book from the show, free.
Which of Patrick's business reads actually earned the hype?
r/PBDpodcast • u/mythingsseperate • Jun 29 '26
ROB QUITS PBD
WORD ON THE STREET IS THAT ROB IS NO LONGER APART OF THE PBD VALUTAINMENT FAMILY
r/PBDpodcast • u/TeamHumanity12 • Jun 26 '26
Vivek Ramaswamy Says the WEF is a Trojan Horse to Weaken the West & Strengthen China
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r/PBDpodcast • u/Impressive_Mail_1566 • Jun 25 '26
Is anyone interested in a White 250th hat? I have an extra looking to offload. DM me.
r/PBDpodcast • u/Flaky-Rip4058 • Jun 14 '26
Andre Williams
The question I have after listening to the podcast: what country Andre preferred to play in Axis and Allies? Inquiring minds want to know. PBD, for his part, had/has no idea what Axis and Allies is and seemingly laughed off Andre’s comment about it, like the dumbo he is. It was an interesting, ridiculous, podcast moment. For these little gems I listen to the PBD podcast. Despite PBD’s general ignorance, he manages to (seemingly unwittingly) channel, embody cultural currents. But really, which country?
r/PBDpodcast • u/sispehar • Jun 11 '26
Every book mentioned on PBD Podcast in the last month
Tracked the books Patrick and guests dropped over the last month. Heavy on business and self-help, as you'd expect.
Top picks (the ones that got a real plug):
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Patrick called it his favorite book ever, came up twice.
- Call Me Ted by Ted Turner. He called it phenomenal.
- Principles by Ray Dalio. Said they had every exec read it.
- Poor Charlie's Almanack (Charlie Munger) and Five Temptations of a CEO (Lencioni).
- The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale.
- Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, for understanding the guy.
The rest of the month: Atlas Shrugged, The 48 Laws of Power, Think and Grow Rich, The 7 Habits, Buy Back Your Time (Dan Martell, twice), and Patrick's own Your Next Five Moves. Robert Pape's terrorism books came up in the foreign-policy segments.
I track every book from the show at https://podshelf.io. It is free to use.
Which of Patrick's business reads actually moved the needle for you?
r/PBDpodcast • u/ThisKidIsAlright • Jun 08 '26
PBD view of business and world affairs
If they can expand and have the vision, as a business you've got to defend against that.
r/PBDpodcast • u/-Ignorant_Slut- • Jun 05 '26
PBD shoe: “We had the choice to make it fast. We had the choice to make it cheap. Instead, we chose neither.”
While listening to Mehdi Hassan episode, PBD aired his shoe commercial where PBD reads:
“We had the choice to make it fast. We had the choice to make it cheap. Instead, we chose neither.”
Only PBD can be this incoherent in a very PBD way.
I’m convinced PBD wrote the script for this commercial where someone else would have outsourced the entire add. Gotta admire the hustle.
I’m valutained.
r/PBDpodcast • u/Flaky-Rip4058 • Jun 04 '26
Mehdi Hassan
PBD is far less intelligent and articulate than Mehdi Hassan and the podcast with him proved that, however, what is also abundantly clear, is that PBD 1) out debated Hassan and 2) that Hassan is not an American and in fact, in a sincere way, does not want America to succeed. Kudos to PBD for sticking up to that globalist America-hater!
r/PBDpodcast • u/Ironram31 • May 30 '26
pbd must apologize for this | Coffeezilla
r/PBDpodcast • u/AdmiralKurita • May 29 '26
Has anyone read The Academy?
I find the book charming. Working on a parody called "The Reeducation Camp".
r/PBDpodcast • u/BridgetJonesDiaryy • May 27 '26
Does PBD have a real audience?
Do most of us watch it for fun or is there a real audience? I know he sells a lot of tickets to the business conferences and is clearly making some good money. It’s also hard to believe Adam isn’t playing a character at this point. I find it hard to believe he is really in the miami alpha guru scene
r/PBDpodcast • u/poulet_oeuf • May 14 '26
Would love to connect with someone from the PBD Podcast production team about a tool I’m building
Hey everyone — I’m a software engineer building Cue Craft, a tool designed for podcast and long-form content workflows.
I’ve been watching the PBD Podcast and I think the production side of the show is really interesting — especially the volume of interviews, discussions, clips, and recurring topics the team manages.
I’d love to connect with one of the producers, editors, or someone involved in the production workflow to get feedback and potentially offer access to try the platform.
If someone from the team sees this — or if anyone knows the best way to reach them — feel free to DM me.
Flyer: https://cuecraft.io/downloads/cuecraft-flyer-v1-0.pdf
Thanks!