For the speed panel, basically each of the different panelists, they're gonna have
five minutes to answer a series of questions. We have Lisa here, who's gonna be
leading that force to give us a little bit more information. And I guess since you
have your book up here, we're waiting for the seats. Do you want to tell us about
your book that you have? So the bad bitch business Bible is now a global bestseller
has been translated into Arabic,
Ukrainian, Croatian, and it was really born from my own experiences as a
perfectionist, people -pleasing good girl who got into Ivy Leagues, got a straight A
student as a four -time US national champion and hall of fame gymnast, and I
realized pretty quickly the moment I entered into the business world that the good
girl gets the coffee and the bad bitch gets the bag. And that's really what my
mission is to help more women break free of playing small and questioning their own
worth, and unapologetically stepping into their power and commanding their value in
every room that they step into. So get it for your daughters and your wives and
all the powerful women in your life. (audience applauding)
Right. I'm very excited to bring on this next panel on investment trends in AI,
technology, robotics, blockchain, art, and more. We have a very diverse panel of
investors today, and each of them are investing in technologies that are
revolutionizing industries in ways that we could barely imagine a decade ago. And so
the question that we're facing today as investors is not just how to invest in
these innovations, but also how to stay ahead of the curve. And so we have experts
today who are going to talk all about that. And the way we're going to do this
panel is that everyone is going to get five minutes to introduce themselves, share
what they're investing in, how they're staying ahead of the curve and leave you with
a million dollar insight so you can really grow your own portfolio. So I will pass
it to the first gentleman to my left. - Thank you, appreciate it. Welcome everybody,
John Bowens. The name of the company is Equity Trust Company. For those of you that
aren't familiar, you may have heard of the concept or the term self -directed or
self -directed solo 401 (k), that's what we do. That's what we've been doing since
1974 when the company was founded by an entrepreneur by the name of Dick Desich,
and he's widely known as the pioneer of this whole concept of being able to use an
IRA, 401 (k) or other retirement plan to invest in alternative assets.
He started off in real estate, and then now we do everything from holding privately
how company stock for individual IRA investors, private equity, venture capital,
cryptocurrency, we have a proprietary crypto trading platform, and then of course,
traditional public assets as well. So we like to call it the universal IRA, which
is a equity trust term, which means you can hold both public and private market
investments. And when I say private market investments, you know, some of the big
shops or terms out there will hold alternative assets, but some of them will make
it a very bureaucratic process and some of them won't hold the types of alternative
assets that you see folks offering or presenting within this audience. Those are the
types of alternative assets or hard -to -value assets that we will hold, real estate
syndications, venture capital funds, private equity funds and such. I look at this
maybe through a little bit different lens than some of the their colleagues that are
on this panel. I look at this through the lens as a trust company or as a
custodian. And this is something, again, we've been doing since 1974. So when we
talk about AI, when we talk about blockchain, when we talk about some of these
other interesting asset classes, I have the unique privilege of being able to look
at this through the lens as a trust company and seeing where individual consumer
investors are investing their retirement dollars, their IRA rollovers, their Roth IRAs,
even their HSAs. We have a heavy concentration within the real estate syndication
space. That's one of the reasons why we're at this conference and we continue to
come back to this conference is because we are introduced to individuals that are
raising capital for real estate projects or other opportunities as well. And we can
help those individuals through providing education, through providing the platform,
through the personnel, through our systems, to encourage their clients to invest with
IRA dollars in their opportunities. And so at the end of the day, that's what we
do. I will give just a couple interesting statistics for those of you that are
raising capital or out there looking for investors. In terms of IRAs,
there's over 14, actually over 15 now trillion dollars in IRAs. When I started in
this business nearly 20 years ago, that number was like three trillion, over 15
trillion. So there's a huge marketplace for it now. There's over 40 trillion when
you account for 401ks, pensions, defined benefit plans. And obviously as people are
They're unlocking their 401 (k )s and the natural progression is to roll those funds
over into an IRA, hopefully a self -directed IRA. Nearly 50 % of retirement accounts
are locked away in mutual funds, yet you'll find statistically survey after survey
after survey, there's mountains of evidence that support that everyday investors are
looking for alternative investment options. In fact, when you Think about the
millennial generation. I wouldn't be talking about this 15 years ago, but the
millennial generation, those that are in the very beginning stages, they're in their
mid -40s now. They're in some of their highest income years, and they have access to
their 401 (k )s and other retirement plans, and over a third of those individuals
have alternative assets or cryptocurrency and /or cryptocurrency in their portfolio,
and they believe in alternative assets. So I think there's a huge opportunity out
there. That's why I'm incredibly bullish, why I'm still within the Equity Trust
organization. We now have over 500 associates, we do business all across the country,
and we work with individuals that want to invest in alternative assets. There was
something mentioned about a million -dollar idea or a million -dollar opportunity. I'll
give you one example in terms of AI as it was presented on this panel. I have a
client, just yesterday, she funded a private stock investment. She had a Roth IRA
with another financial institution. She went to that financial institution and said,
"Hey, I want to invest in this private stock "in this AI -based cybersecurity
company." And they said, "No, you can't do that with us." So she transferred the
account to Equity Trust into a self -directed Roth IRA. She has well over 30 years
in the cybersecurity space, so she's investing as a passive investor in this
opportunity with her Roth IRA. All of her gains will be 100 % tax -free in the Roth
IRA. So that's the million -dollar idea. The Roth IRA is the single most powerful
tool that I know of from a tax efficiency perspective, and every investor can have
one. And that's something that myself and my team can help out with. We do have a
booth out in the exhibit hall. My two colleagues, Brad and Adam are with me. Just
come see us. We're happy to help you understand how we can help educate your
clients with respect to using IRAs as your raising capital. - Thank you so much.
All right, great, great conversation about RIA. And up next, Dr. Yasir Gubami.
- I'm MD from the double degree. I'm a private investor and also consultant to other
investors. I have a strong focus on healthcare, technology and innovation.
What I typically invest in, I'm going based on the questions, on the panel
questions. Just, is that okay? Go for it. Okay. I primarily invest in health
technology AI and software solutions that can enhance patient care and streamline
medical workflows. My previous focus was on technologies that improved the diagnostics
and treatment outcomes in otolaryngology, head and neck surgery, particularly for
tinnitus and hearing loss. We developed a couple of software at UCI Medical Center,
which are now like got approval from FDA. So we are recruiting patients and helping
patients with tinnitus in case you don't know what is tinnitus is ringing in the
ears. Also the patients with hearing loss. So these treatments, new treatments,
they are web based protocols. They, our patients can have access through their
website and applications to that protocols and it has a like 85 to 90 % success
rate which is a great improvement in treatment of tinnitus and hearing loss.
So that was my previous projects. Currently I'm trying to explore because I got a
pharmacy degree recently, my pharmacy and I'm trying to explore individualized medicine
and treatments based on genetics, pharmacological and environmental factors for
patients. So now my preference in investment structure is to have a strategic
collaboration with some startups and companies, also direct investment in some of
those companies. Which align with my vision of transforming healthcare through
technology, especially AI.
And the type of investment I'm looking now is, as I mentioned,
is AI -driven solutions and digital health platforms that can provide personalized
treatment pathways for patients. And to enhance clinical decision -making and reach the
gaps in the specialty care, it doesn't matter what the specialty, it can be like
ENT or X surgery or other specialties.
One of the most valuable lessons I've learned is that successful healthcare
investments are not just about cutting -edge technologies. They require a deep
understanding of real clinical needs and seamless integration into existing healthcare
system. It means that a great idea without clinical adoption is just an idea.
There are too many ideas. But whoever implements the efforts to to accomplish those
ideas, that person is successful. Thank you so much. - Thank you so much. And next
we have Jeff Hummel, who is now a general partner at Excite, formerly old Parkland
Capital, talking to us about some very exciting high -frequency. - Fun intended. Yes,
and if I could promote the Bad Bitch Bible, I got a signed copy for my wife in
the Miami conference and she read it and loved it. So if you would like to become
a bad bitch, I can highly recommend through my wife that that is a great book to
do it. And I'll probably say something that most people up here won't say is since
my partner was up here 15 minutes ago that gave a pretty thorough understanding of
what we do, I probably won't use my whole five minutes. But I guess my perspective
from what we're doing at Excite. So an exciton is a molecule that is created in
the quantum process. And so that's where we get the name Excite from outside the
fact that we're just excited about what we're doing in the quantum realm. And that
looks, from my perspective, from an investor and an investee perspective, the Quant
Fund that we have at Excite Capital is just that it is a generative AI Quantitative
Analysis Fund that trades in the international forex and CFD markets I'm not sure we
were talking a little bit before this that people maybe not familiar with the CFD
markets or the International foreign exchange market and to put it in perspective,
you know, it's a decentralized market and on a banner day I believe Wall Street
trades and I'm not a Wall Street guy So forgive me if my numbers are a little off
But I think it's the 12 to 15 billion dollar on a banner day would be traded in
the New York stock exchange in the CFD in the foreign exchange market you're looking
at about seven and a half trillion from five to seven and a half trillion dollars
a day liquidity in that market so when you're looking at high -frequency trading
which is what we do and capturing that market I can just tell you any bucket that
you dip into a seven point five trillion dollar daily volume is very profitable.
Now that we've got the technology that can take up to a million trades an hour,
we're processing data every .45 nanoseconds, we've got some incredible liquidity
partners, but the whole thing about our process is that we are predicting the future
and not basing our trades on historical data. And I know that sounds a little bit
ridiculous to say we're predicting the future, But if we had a gentleman standing on
the left side of the stage and a gentleman standing on the right side of the stage
And they were throwing a ball back and forth Generally by the time the way that
that guy winds up and throws the ball before it gets to this side You're gonna be
able to make a probabilistic decision While that ball is in flight Is it going to
make it to the guy standing on the other side? And that's that really the most
dumbed -down version I can give to stay out of the technical analysis is that we
use the Hamiltonian model and all the things that Nitta was talking about to create
a velocity and a trajectory model that through volume and pricing in this very
liquid market can determine how far that trade is going to go whether it's going
longer short but we have very very good results and predicting and we can take
trades in microseconds not even milliseconds because we're processing data in
nanoseconds. So that is on, so for that side, we are in Investi. We're a general
partnership, limited partnership type of model, we have limited partners that invest
alongside of us in these funds. The general partners share in those funds as we
start funds all over the world. Now from an Investi standpoint, I believe that we
are in the next great pick and shovel opportunity. And I think the things that
maybe people are not seeing right now, I don't know, the oil and gas guy a second
ago was talking about how much energy is used in AI. Everybody's starting AI
businesses. Everybody in their grandfather is starting AI businesses, just like
everybody was wandering into the desert to get their gold strike. And a lot of
people died in the desert. Some people hit it, some people died. But the guy that
made money every single time was selling the picks in the shovels. And I think that
our quantum side, we are building quantum as a service in data centers that is the
infrastructure to the next big thing. And so we do have people that are investing
in our quantum technology development. By the year 2040,
40 % of the power generated in the United States is gonna go to generative AI.
Today, that number is 2%. So we're looking at a 15 -year span going from 2 % to 40
% without an infrastructure in place to support that. So there's gonna be a breakdown
somewhere in between here and there. And so what we're building and investing right
now and taking investments for is building out this quantum technology, which I think
is gonna take us into the next generation. - Very exciting stuff and definitely go
talk to Jeff 'cause he's very knowledgeable in the space. All right, up next, James
Nazarov. He is a keen focus on contemporary art and blockchain technology.
And so he's a high risk, high reward approach kind of guy and also great fashion
sense, great choice of accessories today. - Thank you. - James, take it away. - So I
actually woke up this way, so it So it just happened what you're the wolf of Wall
Street. That's the other guy, but I will say Jeff. Thank you very much I'm feeling
the pressure now of having to follow someone talking about quantum technology and
everything so but I am the art guy and My family were based out in Brooklyn,
New York. We invest into art and crypto
because you have very very risk averse feels and We love our peaceful nights where
we get plenty of sleep and don't have to worry about anything.
We were looking to invest into out -of -the -box thinkers, and we like people who are
in existing industries but are innovating new solutions for them. So in the art
market, a lot of people just purchase artwork from artists. They think of artists
that they just produced this asset, it'll go up in value, you'll sell it one day,
you'll flip it, but But artists are so much more than that. There's so much that
you can just leverage out of their IP, out of their likeness, who they are, the
relationships that they build. And we like to find these artists, educate them about
how much power they have, and then work with them to do these sort of innovative
structures where everyone's making a lot of money and having a lot of fun in the
process. And the types of investments we're looking for now outside of art and
crypto there's no topic in particular but I we like to say in the family that
we're happy to allocate into obsession so we're looking for founders and managers who
you meet them they speak to you and you're like this yeah this person has to do
this and since we feel that obsession will win over skill and talent over the long
term it certainly enhances those two factors, and with artists, if you look around
today at some of the most valuable artists on the market, you probably wouldn't say
that the most talented artists you've ever seen, but they are obsessed with what
they're doing, they're obsessed with the game, the industry, understanding the rules
of it and how it works, and that's why they're excelling far more than their talent
could ever get them. and the number one insight. So what I've learned from just my
life experiences and from my father is the greatest assets that I could ever invest
into, that I've inherited, that I will pass down is my family name and the
reputation that is attached to it. So wealth is not always synonymous with power and
influence. One without the other could make the other hollow.
Invest in opportunities that are not just going to expand your wealth, but expand
your influence in the world. And be of service to others, especially when you have
asymmetrical knowledge in an industry. We try to educate artists when they're starting
out and let them know what type of world they're entering so that they have the
best possible advantage navigating it, be of service to others,
and act in ways that would make you proud of how your name is spoken and rooms
you're not in. And if you do that, the best opportunities in the world will find
you. Great. You have a couple more minutes, and I actually have a quick question
for you. You talked about obsession. What is the fine line between obsession and
delusion, especially when it comes to artists?
- Well, we buy into a lot of delusion.
(audience laughing) You know, we've doubled down into it. We find artists early on
in their careers, they still don't know what they're doing. Their best work is ahead
of them, but there's something that makes you feel like, yes, I have to get in
now. We buy work that we don't necessarily like at the time, but that artist needs
to eat. They need to buy supplies, they need to pay their rent, and if we can
help them, there's an opportunity for them to change the world. So I don't know
where the line is, but as long as I have the resources and the comfort to take
the chance, I will. Awesome. Love that. Okay. Next, who is the founder of Avid Now
Medical, the world's first AI and augmented reality -driven patient journey platform
that reduces the cost of healthcare by 65%. He is also an accomplished entrepreneur,
investor, and CEO who has created and led high growth results for several tech
companies. James, take it away. Thanks.
So I've been in the high technology field for 30 years. AI over just the past few
years has come up and has been the rage. And it's still raging,
quite frankly. But when you start looking at it, I think the majority of people are
out there saying I must use AI to help my business. But how? Well, so in Each one
of these areas, we have companies that are coming up to revolutionize a specific
area. And what I do, I have three hats that I wear, I'll kind of talk through
each one. I look for people who understand their area in extreme detail such that
it can train an AI to actually revolutionize that space. While I have a family
office, I invest mainly in healthcare tech and fintech.
So that's hat number one. Hat number two is adding our medical. We use artificial
intelligence to automate the medical encounter. Now how I got doing that is a little
bit of an interesting story. I started out in my previous life, I had the
opportunity to run a billion -dollar business in self -driving vehicle technologies. Now
in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, when I was doing this, Elon was telling everyone
self -driving is going to happen and then it doesn't happen and it's year after
year. But everyone here in Los Angeles uses Waymo.
They see it, they feel it. Self -driving vehicles is a reality. Took 10 years.
I Drive a most recent Tesla and that self -driving vehicle is Awesome,
I blocked the camera and I can go to sleep in Phoenix where I live and the car
will drive me to the next charging station without me ever touching it so That took
the true visionary of Elon Well now in Well, in medicine, after we sold that
business and I retired, I started looking at what else I was going to do. And
healthcare seemed broken, so I figured, okay, well, why not? And as I joke often,
that's the famous last words of most health tech founders, right? I mean, it's a
tough business, which I have come to learn. But I started digging into it, and what
I realized is that most healthcare practices actually don't make much money and the
value of the practice itself is not in the business, the value is in the patient
list.
Then when I analyzed doing a time in motion study exactly where people were spending
their time inside that medical practice, racking the costs up not only for the
patients, insurance companies, governments, But also for the doctors themselves what
you notice is that physicians were spending 70 % of their time doing things that
have Nothing to do with their medical licensure and if we have any physicians in
the room You lived this and you're probably looking to retire because you hate it
what we did is automate everything except the decision And if the physician is left
to make the decision, the term called working at the top of your license, then you
can actually revolutionize healthcare, cut costs by 65%, eliminate the shortage in
medical practitioners overnight. So why doesn't everyone adopt it?
That is a whole different longer story that I'm not going to do in the last
minute. But those are the type of businesses that I want to invest in.
What are you revolutionizing such that you are eliminating the waste,
you're pulling away all of the activities except the actual human part that matters?
My last hat, I'd love to hear the AI trading stories. I'm a general partner in a
hedge fund which uses artificial intelligence to trade in the options and futures
markets. We are not high -speed trading by any means, but we are predicting where
the market will move within about a two -week window. And we buy and trade options
and futures based off of those predictions. We got great returns for three years in
a row. We had over 100 % return, and then we had a very bad year last year. So
I'd love to say it was low risk, but it's not. So what that means with my last
17 seconds is if you are an expert in a specific field
and you know how to automate it, come and talk to me. Great.
Thank you so much. And last and certainly not least, a renaissance man who has been
worked in various industries, including entertainment, media, academia, non -profit,
biotech, and investment management. Today, James is the chief commercial officer at
Bequest, a renowned private asset management company. - Thank you, Lisa. All that
James has decided to sit on this side, so this is a James panel. I'm the 50 %
side of the James, but Thank you so much for having me to the Family Office Club.
Great group of people. Thank you, Richard. This is actually my fourth event. First
one on the West Coast. Lisa does a phenomenal job, by the way, from a branding
perspective. If you have a chance to chat with her about your family office or if
you're running out of funds, she'll give you great feedback on your messaging and
branding. So great job, Lisa. I'll just do you guys a panel comment.
I sort of work in various areas with these folks. So Equity Trust, we've sent a
number of investors your way. They do a phenomenal job as custodial. Doc, I think I
have tonight, it's so that ringing, so we need to chat about that. I think it was
too many late nights at a Latin club growing up. But anyways, Jeff, kind of what
Ray was talking about, we're investing in energy parks down in Texas, the data, the
energy arbitrage, we're seeing opportunities there. James, on the artist side, I'm a
failed actor. I don't know. I was cast on hangtime. I was actually out here in my
early 20s. I'm now 50. And so I had a chance to walk around over the weekend and
I actually worked over at the Canon theatrical productions, which is off Canon in
Wilshire and they sort of plowed that whole thing over and they built that beautiful
hotel. It used to be an amazing midsize theater actually. We produced "Vagina
Monologues," "Bill Graham Presents," all these wonderful plays. So I kind of had this
mixed emotion over there and then my agency was Epstein Wycoff, Corsair Ross, which
was off Beverly and Gregory Way and I actually took the elevator up to the fourth
floor. And it's just weird when you're older and you go back to a place, It always
seems smaller and I was so terrified because everyone you know as an actor you're
always being told no And so Lisa your question of obsession over delusion I think
it takes delusion at first as an artist to go for it But then you've got to be
obsessed and believe in yourself and tell someone says yes So when I got cast with
hang time, I was so excited and then three episodes later. We were canceled. So
anyways, I moved on 20 years in pharma, so James, to your point of saving in
health care, I would love to see a lot of disruption in the health care arena. I
think that'd be phenomenal. So anyways, to my panelists, but yeah, I'm just, with
BeQuest, we're 90 million in assets under management. We own half of that, and then
we do take on investor capital. We have Reg D, Reg CF, nice comment on the CF,
we also have REG -A, so going back to Roth IRAs, I hope as firms out there you
look at REG -A, it can beef up your REG -D, but also offers out investment
opportunities to everyone. We specialize in real estate and energy. Given this,
the panel focus, energy parks, this is where we're going. We see energy arbitrage,
especially in Texas, so it's a great state. Four cents on the dollar we can sort
of sell it at eight cents a lot of AI blockchain technology companies We service
and what we have found is it's been able to cash flow Much greater than just our
real estate. We do a lot of mortgages commercial real estate So we can bump our
yields and then diversify as well And then me I guess as an investor.
I I guess I believe in Ray Dalio's non -correlation, so I invest in all things
across the asset mix.
As an angel early stage venture capital, you're looking at sort of an AI pitch.
I think it's tough as an investor, anybody who says they got it figured out, I
don't know. I mean, Bill Gates was sort of talking about he's excited and terrified
all at the same time. I lean back on the thing that my angel group knows,
which is you're looking for IP, you're looking for the operator, do you have a
moat, can you protect it? It's really hard when you're in the room. I mean,
everybody's pitching an AI solution. A lot of things are getting commoditized really
quickly, so how do you do the math on that? I guess we're leaning -- actually,
I'm sorry, I'm based out of Sarasota, Florida, by the way, currently. And we're
building sort of a studio for entrepreneurs that want to start up AI and tech
companies in our area. So if you are an entrepreneur and you're looking to start a
business and need some support, we are investing in that area. We are looking more
for niche AI solutions. We believe deep learning models is the way to go. Relating
back to my years, I think of like 92 % of the prescriptions are generic. There's
about 8 % that are branded. And that's where the margins and the profits are,
whether you believe in that model or not. But we kind of see that deep niche as
the way to sort of deploy some capital into some AI solutions. So thanks, Lisa.
Thank you very much. So as you can see, we have a very rich group and diverse
investment opportunities here on the panel, a lot of knowledge and so thank you
gentlemen for sharing everything today and obviously go find them outside, talk to
them about their investments and let's everyone give them a big round of applause.