0:00 spk_0
Whenever I, I, I take on a role, uh, with the company, the company and what they're building in their DNA has to resonate with me and for me, it hit home because of what I went through with my brother who had a lot of seizures and what Aina was doing, what Ash is doing is basically taking your health data and putting it on chain.
0:22 spk_1
What's up world? It's your boy Ross Mac and welcome to Financial Freestyle here on Yahoo Finance. And look guys, no matter where you are on your financial journey, you can never stop learning. And that's why each and every week I'm bringing you some of the goats, some of the wisest people in this space, and this week is no different, as I'm bringing on Tristan Thompson, NBA champion and Web 3 entrepreneur. Tristan, how you doing, baby?
0:46 spk_0
Appreciate it, thanks for having me on, man. I like that intro. I like that intro. Oh by the way, this is one of the more like, I could tell you got mad you from, you know, you're from the shot, so you got this is more like a it it feels like I'm more relaxed and like we gonna like we're gonna talk that talk about being in the barbershop.
1:01 spk_1
That's what this is about, bro. You know, I'm from the south side of Chicago. I used to work on Wall Street, so all our conversations don't feel like we right at the crib and so first convo, right? I got to let it be known. Obviously, you know, an extremely storied NBA player, but like day one, man, when you got your NBA contract, what do you think was your worst purchase and your bestinvestment?
1:24 spk_0
It was probably a bad purchase. It was just a bad spending.Events. So I remember after the summer league, uh, uh, my rookie season, we went to one Oak in Vegas, and I think I spent like, you know, this is back then where you didn't know like, so this is like bottle service times like early bottle service days, so I'm at one Oak and the bill was like 30,000, but I didn't know it was 30,000 becauseObviously when you get the first two bottles in Vegas, the the the the bottles are that they're like, you're running out of liquor, do you wanna get some more? I'm like, yeah, get some more, get some more, get some more, but I'm not even like, I'm used to like at other spots and other nightclubs though like, hey, your tabs at this, your tabs at that, but they just kept running up the check, and I remember I was sending people bottles, I was sending like, I remember saying Garrick Williams was #2 pick at the time of bottle on her said PG a bottle, and they should not get the bill.And I signed it and whatever. I'm not even paying attention. Next morning my financial advisor called me and said, man, you had a great night last night. I said, hell yeah, it was good time. He said it was so good, it was 30,000 good. I said, oh wow. So I was like, so that was probably like, you're charged to the game, but then that's what you gotta learn from these young fellas and people that are going out and and having a good time is always check with the bottle service person what my tab is after every order. It's crazy. It was, uh, but you know what, I, I, I think.I think that's good to happen as uh especially when you first get into whatever career path you are where you start making some real money. It's good to have that experience because it's almost like a a reality check, right? Like, kind of like, you know, you say back home with your mom like whoop you in the shave, you know, you get your mind right, um, yeah, and then that
2:57 spk_1
gets
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up
2:59 spk_1
on you. I, I had one of those experiences. It wasn't, it won't 30,000, but I could assure you I've had one of those where you had to look twice at the bill like what? It's one of those though.
3:09 spk_0
And
3:10 spk_1
your best
3:10 spk_0
investment
3:11 spk_1
like from like your early days in the league.
3:14 spk_0
Early I'll say I basically umbought a bought a property in Toronto, uh, uh, to put my mom and so when I got when I got drafted that same that same day I retired my mom from work and she was a school bus driver, uh, in Toronto. So I retired her and I bought her a crib. I bought her a place in Toronto, and then probably 2 years later, I flipped out of it, made a, you know, 2.5x on the money, so I made a great profit. That was a quick, you know, 2 year flip, so that was probably a good early uh investment gain.And then probably my biggest one so far was, uh, the drink, you know, the drink called Poppy, you know, it's, it's sold to Pepsi for billions of dollars. So I, I, I got in Series A back when they first started when the family was living in Austin, Texas. So I put a, I, I put 5 figures in and I, I walked out the door, uh, this summer with 7 up 7 figures. So that was a good, uh, that was a good, uh, investment turn.
4:09 spk_1
God is good, bro. I'm waiting on something. I'm waiting on something to IPO early Q1 next year. I'm hoping it's, it's supposed to be something like that, so we said LC, uh, I'm hoping, but man, congrats on that.
4:22 spk_0
don't have what I don't have me. Speakattorneys listings.
4:25 spk_1
That's a fact. And you know what I love is like hindsight 2020, right? And you know if everybody could go back, they would have did this or did that, right? And you've been vocal about you wish you had taken your salary in Bitcoin in 2015, right?So let's talk about that. One, how much do you think that would be today, but more importantly, what lessons did you learn from that?
4:46 spk_0
OK, so for me, I mean, when I, when I did the calculations, if I took my 5 or $82 million dollar deal, if I put that all into Bitcoin, I would have been, I think I've been up, I think like $250 billion. Reality is I would have not put my whole contract in, maybe, so this is the funny thing, this is the funny thing, and this is how crazy like.How, how, how like the journey like God works, right, like, so back in 2015, around the same time I signed my deal, a good friend of mine, uh from back home, his name was Shadow, he was telling us, me and my boys, he said, hey, you know, if you're gonna go out, or if you're gonna go to Louie and spend $4000 or $300 on stuff that you you there's no novelty behind and there's no life expectancy, right? Like if you're just paying for a good time, like a vacation or going out to the nightclub, right? If you're gonna spend $4000 to $5000 she's like, you take that $5000.And buy Bitcoin back in 2015.And we're listening to him I'm like, you know, that that sounds cool, and, and then in the time we're like, that's not even a lot of money, $5000 like, and not to sound like, like desensitized, like of course it's a lot of money, but in terms of like spending that at a nightclub or spending it on a potential runway, right message, wrong deliverer, right? Cause you know you have those friends you grow up with that, it's like the barber, right? Your barber always has the next million dollar play, but you're like, if you have this play, why aren't you doing it yourself? So.You know what I'm saying, like you, you could, I, I guarantee you right now, you can name 5 people right now that that that had been giving you these kind of questions like, bro, why don't you take it, right? So, um, for me, writing message wrong deliver and then come to those finding now like looking now, you know, back now we're in 2025 and now I'm in the space and now I'm holding Bitcoin and and now I'm in this web 3. Imagine if I just did that back then.Did this conversation, we might be doing this, we might be doing this while I'm on a, on a yacht south of France instead of me being in my office in in LA.
6:35 spk_1
Bro, I could assure you the early adapters to crypto was like to your point, you know, right message, wrong messenger, like there's a lot of people that was ban.Bitcoin, they was doing shady stuff, right? They was on the dark web and so the people that was knowing about Bitcoin, you're like, bro, what? I'm working on Wall Street. I'm going with that. But to your point, hindsight 2020. So I I I appreciate that. Let's actually fast forward now to kind of your crypto. You said this year, correct me if I'm wrong, you said when it comes to crypto, right, if you was to explain it to somebody, you say Michael Jordan is Bitcoin, Bron is Ethereum, Steph Curry is XRP, and KD.It's Salana. Break that down for me, bro.
7:19 spk_0
The reason why I'm in this space that I've really gravitate towards the space is because there's that bridge the gap moment, right? And I think even in, even in sports, I always like to correlate stuff to sports, right? There's a point in time in your career, you go from being, you know, the, the, the, the top three options to now you get to your later years and you become kind of the veteran voice and you become the bridge the gap between the coaches and the players, right? You know what sports, when you have young, the the the the game is getting younger, right? So, and the coaches are getting older, so you needThat guy in the middle to bridge the gap between the two, and it's no different than in crypto, right? So for me, whenever I'm explaining stuff, I always like to use the knowledge that people can understand and grasp, right? At the end of Bitcoin is like the OG, right? It's the first ever digital aspect. It's the one that has the biggest backing. It's the one that everyone knows about. So I use Michael Jordan as an example, right? The guy that kind of revolutionized the NBA and take the NBA from being a $100 million dollar business to being a billion-dollar business, right? So that's why I use him as.As Bitcoin, Bron used him as Ethereum because he's, you know, in my eyes I use Brown's to go to my, but just out of paying respect for the older people, I said Brown's with Ethereum, right? He's the next best thing. And then XRP I use Steph Curry because it's, he's just as great and he has such a huge market cap, and Americans love him, which Americans love XRP. So I just used it as my example and then obviously Solano KD where people can understand the tears, right? So I just always like when I'mEducating people about we and crypto, to be able to dump it into a scenario where they can grasp because what's the problem in the space in crypto? These guys, these are great founders, great minds, but the problem is that they explain things in such a high level tech vocabulary, which you know how human beings are psychologically. If you use words I don't understand, I'm going to tune you out because I feel like you're belittling me as a person.So for me, whenever explaining stuff, I like to explain it like I'm talking to my cousin or my auntie, right? Cause that's, that's what the whole thing is about mass adoption, you know.
9:14 spk_1
No, no, no, I think I actually love the analogy. I was actually trying to force your hand to see if he was actually just saying Jordan is better than than your boy. That's all, you know. I'm a Chicago,
9:26 spk_0
but I must say you from Chicago. I'm gonna give it to you.I'm not gonna hold it against you. You've been
9:32 spk_1
misguided, you know what I'm saying? But you're a good person, you know what I mean? So I promise you, I'm
9:37 spk_0
not,
9:38 spk_1
I'm not gonna hold it against you. But,
9:40 spk_0
but
9:40 spk_1
honestly, now that we're talking sports, right, I actually tip my hat to you because you're doing something remarkable, right? The intersection of sports, blockchain, and AI.You gotta talk to us about Tracy AI. Let the people know what Tracy AI is, and more importantly, what you think the vision for it is.
9:59 spk_0
So Tracy AI is basically an AI agent that I created, which is basically imagine a sports analyst or commentator on steroids. What I mean by that is that having all the high level analytics that you cannot get from NBA.com and ESPN, which the analytics are coming from the professional teams like, you know, we.Have certain data and access to certain companies that only professional sports teams have access to, and I was able to be able to pull that data with my resources and be able to put into an AI agent. The reason why I did that is because I noticed that AI has taken over so many sectors, whether it's the music industry, which is obviously causing some crazy controversy with AI, whether it's in art and digital and digital arts, whether it's umPeople trying to find jobs. If you look right now, Amazon is using AI agents to see who qualifies for jobs. Um, I'll give you another example. A law firm, a very prestigious law firm here in California, has actually hired and created an AI agent to be basically, they're a bookkeeper and they're basically automated assistant like front desk, front desker, where they basically answer call, have full conversations, take books, bookings, meetings, and really almost substituting that.Front desk girl and make it into the AI agent. So for me, it's like, if it's covering so many sectors, how come it hasn't got into sports? And for me, it was like, OK, this is low hanging fruit, and this is an opportunity where I can be a visionary and a pioneer, because at the end of the day, from my upbringing being from Toronto and make it to the NBA, I had to grind for my success, and it's no different now. It's, I've always had this grind builder mentality, so it's justIt migrated so easily into the web 3 and, you know, if you look at Darryl Morey, he said he used uh AI agents to curate his 6ers roster. Mind you, the, the record wasn't great, injuries and so on, but that just shows you that's the first domino effect and something great.
11:50 spk_1
That's epic, right? I, I think, you know, not only is it commentator, but it sounds as though you're gonna also be able to leverage it, uh, for the, the sports gambling.Uh, world at some point. They might not just have to pay the Jonte Porters of the world. They might be able to, you know, do it on the up and up.We're gonna take a quick break and when we get back, we're gonna have more with the NBA champ and web 3 entrepreneur Tristan Thompson.Alright guys, welcome back to Financial Freestyle here on Yahoo Finance. And look, man, we're talking with the Tristan Thompson. So Tristan, you already know, man, I'm gonna have to go ahead and get a little lightning around so you can catch you off guard all the way, right? You need a bucket right now. You need a bucket. 10 seconds. Who should have the ball? Is it Kyrie or
12:42 spk_0
Bron? Kyrie, it's fast, right? You want me to ask quick? Kyrie, you step back.
12:50 spk_1
He was the savior that year. That's a factory. Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin.Jordan or Brown,
12:56 spk_0
Bron, come on now. You already talk to me nice when you say this. Come on now.
13:01 spk_1
Alright, I see behind you, you got Mohammed, so Mohamed of
13:05 spk_0
Floyd, come on, Ali, Ali the greatest.
13:09 spk_1
And then the next one, obviously you're from Canada, so I need to know if this is a Canada thing. UK rap or
13:15 spk_0
American rap? American rap. I know, I know the boy I know Jersey was saying UK rap, but I, I just can't agree with that as he is American rap all the way to culture.
13:24 spk_1
You know that that was, that was honestly egregious. I won't, I won't hold that against him though, uh, and then lastly.AI or blockchain. If you had your last dollar and you had to invest it in AI technology or blockchain, which one is it gonna be?
13:38 spk_0
You see what Mark Zuckerberg's paying for all these AI gurus, so I might go AI.
13:43 spk_1
It's heavy, it's heavy, man. Um.What I find interesting when you think about investing, right, especially when you came into the league, the typical portfolio with stocks, bonds and real estate. Now, right, like the typical portfolio has to be stocks, crypto, real estate and a few little bonds. And so like, as we talk aboutkind of your your world into blockchain, etc. I really want to get a sense of kind of like what your vision is, especially when it comes to kinda blockchain and the way you can utilize it when it comes to either education or healthcare. I know you, you spoke about that in the past.
14:20 spk_0
Yeah, and I think uh the blockchain and it's it's and and and crypto, it's the um it's the future of finance, right? I think like you said, the world is changing and and it's no different thanDepends how old you are, whether it's the gold rush, way back in the day on the west coast or the early dotcom era. That's exactly the era that we're in right now with the crypto and blockchain, and from the health side, uh, it's a huge thing, you know, I've been very fortunate to uh.Uh, have a chief officer, uh, a role with Axendal. The reason why this health companies is very dear to my heart is because my brother Amari, he has epilepsy and really for me in this space, whenever I, I, I take on a role, uh, with the company, it it it.The the company and and what they're building their DNA has to resonate with me, and for me, it hit home because of what I went through with my brother who has a lot of seizures and what accident that I was doing, what Ax is doing is basically taking your health data and putting it on the chain. And the reason why I think that's important is becauseWhen you go to the hospital, and you, you're in Chicago, when you go to Rush Hospital and you log in and you put all your information, Rush owns your data, right? So if you're on vacation with your family and let's say you're in the UK and something happens, in order for the doctor to have access to your data or your your health chart, they're gonna have to contact Rush, which is gonna be a headache, time difference, getting a physician on the phone, getting a transferred email. That whole headache is kind of the sole.Old school, early 90s mentality, and what I love about what they're doing and putting it on chain is that you should be able to have your access to your health data at the palm of your hands, cause God forbid if something happens, or even in, in general, for us to find groundbreaking um solutions to people's health, whether it's my brother with epilepsy or if it's cancer or it's PTSD.Uh, you know, all these, these, these health issues that, that, that, that affect your loved ones and, and humans' lives. Every physician should have access because, for instance, there might be a doctor in Tanzania that's able to find a cure for my brother's seizures, but he doesn't have that access to my brother's charts because these centralized hospitals are containing them and almost, it's almost like theModern day mafia where they're basically controlling you and, and basically we're only gonna give you what you want. It's almost like the Mad Max mentality. If you ever watch Mad Max, the movie when the ruler opens the, the fountain and just gives the people water, he's like, I'm just gonna feed you as much as I want, then I'm gonna cut you off, right? And the one thing I love about the blockchain is that we're giving humans back control of our rights, and that's what I love about this space.
16:49 spk_1
You know what's interesting that you brought that up, right? Like my dad needs a kidney.And so, by definition, blockchain democratizes everything and removes all middlemen. So like in order to get a kidney, right, you got to be on the list and technically the deciding person, not as the person that's given up their kidney, but it's the hospitals and that's whether it's politics, etc. So I I I do believe that the blockchain has the ability to to effectively kind of take that, uh, take it and actually evolve that entire landscape and obviously, you know, education as well.I respect that view. And so like you and I are both parents, right? In fact, I got a children's book back here that we'll have our people talk to your people and shoot one over to you.
17:33 spk_0
Please send to me. You got to send it to me.
17:34 spk_1
No, that's a fact. It's called the ABCs of Future Millionaires. But as a parent, right, how important is talking about financial literacy to your kids?
17:44 spk_0
Well, it's very important. I mean, Ross, think about our upbringing as kids, right? You're from South side Chicago, I'm from Toronto, and we're both from underprivileged communities. But at the end of the day, how are we given our, our education? It was not until for myself making an MBA and for yourself, probably once you got to college or, you know, like that you started.Pro educating yourself. Our communities, we're not taught, we're not taught about finance because the people that we go around, they don't understand that stuff. And for me, as a parent, it's our duty to pay it forward and start helping our community understand that because what is the, what's the biggest, what's the biggest.Uh, try the saddest stories that you hear as athletes. These guys make a lot of money at an early age, and you trust a guy who's not from your walk of life, does not look like you, also don't have our skin skin tone, don't understand our life, and what do they do? take advantage of us and put us in situations where we made this money, but then when it's all said and done, we got nothing to show for it becauseWe've been misguided because a total stranger we gave full control to, right? So for me, that's my biggest goal in mission is I've always been the kind of locking, given the financial literacy, so not just as a teammate, but as a parent, because I truly believe that my, my daughter will probably purchase her first car or home with Bitcoin. So it's our duty to educate them at an early age, so they understand the value, the intrinsic value of this and why it's so important.
19:04 spk_1
So I love that, right? Uh, I talk to my kids every morning as I'm driving them to daycare about what's going on in the markets, whether it's personal finance stuff or stocks, and obviously we talk a lot about crypto, but it's important. The biggest thing you said was like educating our people and that kind of segues to my next question, which is your new venture with new world mobile gig, right? Like at the end of the day, right, you know, what is it? 1/3 of the world doesn't have access to the internet, soWhen we talk about the internet and how important it is to democratize and access to information, like, how important is kind of what you're working on with them.
19:41 spk_0
With uh World Mobile, you know, it's, um, the team is great, you know, need being able to be a a chief uh content equity, um, adviser, and obviously these roles are all good, these titles are great, but it's about the mission, right? The mission. The reason why I gravitate towards them is because what they're building is basically.Giving people back their freedom in the telco world, right? The thing was right now, these big conglomerates, whether it's Verizon, T-Mobile, or AT&T, they literally can spy on our phones, read what we're talking about, literally take our rights away as human beings and spy on us, which isRidiculous and crazy when you think about it. So the reason why I gravitate towards World mobile is because they're basically saying we're gonna let people reclaim their power in the telco space, but also what they're doing in the community from a a philanthropist and get back is that.They have gone to areas like Zanzibar, uh, Kenya, Pakistan, and they have set up these internet access points, which also the cool thing about it is that they're allowing people in these communities to become young entrepreneurs, and what I mean by that is that you can basically purchase one of these Wi Fi or air nodes, which provides connectivity, you could put it in your community and asYour community starts on board and and join the network, you can make rewards off that, and that's great. That's that's an entrepreneurial mindset where these conglomerates, you're paying AT&T and you don't get a dollar back. AT&T has no, they have no foundations, they don't do no uh give back program. They don't do nothing to help the community, they just extract from us human beings and give nothing back.With World Mobile, they're saying, hey, we're gonna build this network, but we're gonna also allow you the opportunity to make rewards and where you can use that money to get back to me. You could build back your communities, right? And, and when I think about that, and that DNA is, is that's what athletes are about, right? Our communities are everything. That's what we always do these community events. And when I think about it's like East Cleveland.Like in East Cleveland, it's a, it's a forgotten spot in Cleveland. Nobody cares about it. They have like probably two police officers. It was a very successful area back in the early 2000s. Obviously when when drugs and crack cocaine epidemic happened, it really teared down that those communities. So for me it's like, why not be able to find these young.Entrepreneurs and allow them to be bosses in the community where they can provide connectivity in these areas, but use that money that they make to reinvest, build courts, build after school programs like that's my mindset and that's world mobile's mindset, and for me, that those are the type of people that you wanna be in business with and grow something special with.
22:17 spk_1
That's remarkable man.My dog Tristan Thompson, ladies and gentlemen, more than a hooper, my dog a visionary. Tristan, man, it's nothing but love. I appreciate you coming on the show, man. Much love to you, you know what I'm saying? We only got a vision on who to go, but you know, once again, we ain't gonna hold that against you, baby.But nonetheless, ladies and gentlemen, that's it for this episode. We want to give a huge shout out to Trista for coming on. Make sure you like, subscribe, tell your auntie and her cousin to also like and subscribe, share this, and until next week, this is Ross Mack on Financial Freestyle here on Yahoo Finance.
22:50 spk_2
This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services.