FULL TRANSCRIPT
Slava (00:00)
In this episode of Smart Humans, we talk with Jim McCann, who's the founder and chairman of 1-800-Flowers. He covers a range of topics from becoming an entrepreneur, growing to a public company, what he thinks of all the various alternative asset classes, how he likes to invest his money across his net worth, and of course, he then purchases a company called Worth because he loves convening, meeting people, and is super curious. He has predictions about the economy, how the tariffs are gonna hit, and of course, where it's all headed,
for your investments.
Slava (01:50)
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Smart Humans. I am super excited for today's guest. We have Jim McCann, who's the founder and chairman of 1-800-Flowers. Jim, I've known you for a while. I'm so excited to have you here on Smart Humans. Thank you very much for joining.
Jim McCann (02:07)
Slava, it's always a treat to catch up with you. In this case, it's been trying to run you down. He said, well, we can catch up, but we'll make it a podcast. So this is our catch up.
Slava (02:16)
Okay, perfect. So just to back it up, we always start with the same first question, which is, how did you even get into the world of alts? Where did it even begin? Take us as far back as you'd like.
Jim McCann (02:27)
Well, I guess to some extent, the company we founded a long, time ago, 1-800-Flowers, is, an alt. Now it's in the public marketplace, obviously. But so as a small business person, one who became entrepreneurial, I've always had a soft spot for people who trying to do something different. So it's, I guess it's an organic interest that we, that I, we have had for all of our adult life.
Slava (02:34)
Absolutely.
What year did you start 1-800-Flowers?
Jim McCann (02:58)
1976 before you even a concept in your parents' minds.
Slava (03:03)
I mean, just a little before, but yes, you got me there. And before you started at 1-800-Flowers, what were you doing to get you going in that direction?
Jim McCann (03:11)
Well, I'm fortunate, Slava, in that I've only had two professional kinds of jobs, know, non knock around jobs. As a kid, I worked all different kinds of jobs in retail and worked for my dad, who was a painting contractor and learned how to do a lot of trade kind of stuff. So I buy houses and fix them up and sell them or rent them out and worked as a bartender because it was a social element to that. And you can do it in the off hours. but my and but bartending, frankly, led to
both of my career kinds of jobs. First one was I had a friend who worked at a home for boys, a group home. It was run, it's called St. John's Home for Boys here in Queens County, New York City. And they had group homes and a main home where they had about 175 boys in Rockaway Beach, Queens. And my buddy ran one of their group homes in a pretty tough neighborhood, very tough neighborhood. And I was always intrigued by it. He'd come into the bar and we'd chat.
And I asked him about it so much finally he says seems like you might be interested in this he says why don't you Why don't you come check it out sometime? Why don't you come have dinner with me and the guys and we can talk so I said yeah, it sounds that sounds great bob why don't we do it I did and After dinner he asked me to come it was a two-story brick house 10 boys 14 to 20 years old and he said know those who had earned it had a single bedroom the others were two to a bedroom and then it was a bedroom for the
the overnight council who would live in and Bob invited me downstairs to the lower level which was a finished basement and had a storage room and had a tool room and had an office and we sat in his office and he said, what did you think? Do think you'd ever like to give this work a try? And I said, Bob, I think I would like to give it a try. So he looks at me, flips me a key ring and says, well, you gotta do me a solid man because I have nobody to work tonight and I've worked nine days in a row. Can you start tonight?
So that was my orientation. He left, I had the 10 boys, my job was to get them to bed at an appropriate time, go to my room at midnight or so and sack out, get up early in the morning, wraps them all up, get them some breakfast and get them off to school. And so that started a 14 year career for me. I worked there as a, the live-in counselor in one group home and then I was promoted to be the manager of another group home, then all of the group homes.
Slava (05:28)
wow.
Jim McCann (05:37)
than I was promoted into the administration. And so it was no longer a 24-7 job. Still a serious job, but not like a live-in or running a group home. And I enjoyed that. It was run by an order of priests and brothers from the Catholic Church. Really good people. The people around them were doing really, really good work and really cared. And it was a great experience for me. It was such a grow-up experience for me and a learning experience about myself, Slava, because...
You live with 10 teenage boys who came from terrible circumstances, terrible backgrounds, and there is no secrets. They have no filter. They think you're inconsistent on something. They are going to let you have it. And so it was such a great learning experience for me. But then that was for four years I lived in and worked in direct care and then then I moved into the administration. And it's wonderful. But I married young. We started a family young.
and working in the not-for-profit social work world, you don't get paid very well. So was back to supplementing my income by bartending this time in Manhattan, Friday and Saturday nights. One of my customers there, so you'll see a recurring pattern here, was a great guy, and he'd stay late on Saturday nights, and while we were getting ready to close up, he'd sit and chat, and he owned a flower shop across the street.
Slava (07:00)
wow.
Jim McCann (07:00)
And
he goes on to tell me he's gonna sell the flower shop. I said, flower shop? Retail, dealing with people at a nice point in their lives, that sounds interesting. I think I could learn that. I said, Nick, what are you asking for that flower shop? He said, $10,000. And I said, hmm, so it's a small 800 square foot flower shop on First Avenue in Manhattan. I said, Nick, what if I would come volunteer to work there a couple of Saturday afternoons before I come into the bar? He goes, well sure, but why? I said, well maybe I'm a buyer.
Now I had just sold a building in Brooklyn and I had bought and fixed up and I had a $10,000 profit in it. So when he told me he was asking $10,000, I thought it was a sign from God. And lo and behold, I did buy that flower shop. Now I kept my job at St. John's home, because I'm in the administration now. I gave up the bartending job, of course, but I kept my job because I had the idea not just to become a florist, but to build a floral business. I, sure.
Slava (07:52)
Wait, I wanna interrupt you for a second, which is
just to be clear, at the same time, you're working at the boy's home, you're fixing the house that you flipped for 10K, but I'm saying you did that in parallel, you're bartending, and now you're trying to side hustle, see if you're gonna buy the company, which is the flower shop, all at the same time. I mean, you were quite the hustler already.
Jim McCann (08:03)
I had already fixed it,
Yes.
Not a lot of days off, working seven days a week, but I did that because we already had a couple of kids and I wanted to make sure I could pay the mortgage and put food on the table. It wasn't gonna be a lot more, but that way I could take everything that I had in terms of capital in the business, which is a very small business. did $65,000 in gross sales our first year, but anything I had in that, could roll into another shop and I didn't wanna get stuck just having one shop. So six months later, I opened up a second shop.
and every six months I'd open up a shop. And then finally I melted back from St. John's to leave there after my 14 years were up and made the flower business my full-time journey then. But by that time I had a lot of flower shops all around the New York area. I think at my peak it was about 40. But all of sudden I realized I wanted to become a nationwide company and this was no way to do it, Slava.
Slava (09:02)
How many did you have when you full time?
Jim McCann (09:14)
There was no economies of scale. I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off and it just didn't work. But that's when I acquired the telephone number 800 Flowers. 1986, so 10 years in, I'm out of St. John's now. Flower business is my full-time seven day a week commitment. And I decided that's the way to go because the retail shops weren't showing me that I could roll them out with any great efficiencies.
Slava (09:25)
What year is that?
Jim McCann (09:43)
So I started selling the flower shops because I had no money and I'd take the capital of selling them to our franchisees who were better operators than I was gonna be anyway. And I'd take the capital from the sale at a shop to roll it back into marketing at 1-800-FLOWERS. And lo and behold, by not having a lot of money to lose and having to be scrappy, five years later, we were a national brand without having had any capital spent. We just caught lightning in a bottle.
And we were very, very fortunate. So as I described it, we've been through a few waves as a business. First wave was retail. Second wave was the 800 number. Then right after we became a national brand with the 1-800-Flowers name, this internet thing came along, not yet called the internet. It was the online world. And we were always looking for what the next technology could be to revolutionize us. And my brother Chris identified the internet as the next one we should be betting on. And we did. So that was the third wave for us. And then...
The fourth wave for us was everything mobile and everything social. And that was 2008, 2009, and we doubled down on that, even though the recession had hit pretty good, the banking crisis. And then the fifth wave was something he termed conversational, he being my brother Chris, he termed conversational commerce. he was the first person I heard use that term. And that had a big impact on us because we had already migrated to social and mobile. So it's a long journey.
but it's distinctly milestone by those big technology changes for us.
Slava (11:17)
That's a great context, because obviously going all the way back to bartending, painting, hustling, and then working at the home, and then doing so many things, having the young kids, where do you think you got your entrepreneurial instinct from? Was it required to make it happen, or do you think it comes from somewhere?
Jim McCann (11:31)
Well.
I think a combination of a couple of things. Slava, my father was an independent contractor, a painting contractor. I learned a lot from him and my grandmother who he worked with in the business. Another job I had as a kid that lasted a long time was I worked in our community. There was a large men and boys clothing store. And I worked there through high school, college. I even worked there after I started the flower business because back then Father's Day wasn't much of a holiday for us when we were just flowers.
And it was a very, very busy time for the men's and boys clothing store. it was social for me as much as earning a couple extra bucks, because there was a lot of buzz, a lot of cool guys worked there, fun guys, and sort of be a crew of 30 salespeople there, and it had just good vibe. So I'd go back and work for all this day, weekend for them, even eight, nine years after I had my flower business, because it was just the buzz. So I don't think I, I think it was,
default for me, Slava, because my intention, the neighborhood I grew up in, our role models were shopkeepers, contractors, and New York City policemen and firemen, sanitation workers, and contractors, tradesmen. And I thought I'd become a New York City policeman. That seemed like a really cool thing for me to do. So I went to John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where I graduated from, and I'm still involved with it.
They do some really, really good things. I think 80 % of the students at John Jay are first generation college students. They're doing the good work. But along the way, I got so hooked on what I was doing at St. John's, I kept postponing going into the police department. And eventually I made the choice that now I wanted to commit to a different career. So I didn't prepare myself for a role in business or Wall Street like so many New Yorkers would.
and certainly you have natural entrepreneurial tendencies. I have small business instincts and knowledge which became over the years more entrepreneurial. By the way, back then, Slava, before you were born, the term entrepreneur wasn't used very much. We were small business people where you worked for a big company. And I think it's one of the blessings of our culture and our economy that over those three generations now that the term entrepreneur has been
Slava (13:47)
Absolutely.
Jim McCann (13:57)
reborn and embraced and has very strong positive characteristics to it. And that's a path available now to the smart guys like you who went to Wharton and had a real good idea of business and options. And now you had three options. You could go to professional school and follow that path, or you could go to work for a big company or a consulting company. Now you had a new path. You could do things entrepreneurial. And that was not the case 50 years ago.
And it is the case today and I think that's to all of our benefit.
Slava (14:30)
Absolutely. So we could talk for hours about entrepreneurship, but we need to focus a little bit on the alternative investments world since that's what this podcast is supposed to be about. So let me ask you this, which is as you start getting the success with 1-800-FLOWERS and you started looking at potential alternative investments, whether it's all these different asset classes, how do you start thinking about deploying cash of your own personal worth outside of your startup, your small business, 1-800-FLOWERS?
Jim McCann (14:54)
Well, at first I did some direct investing and frankly it didn't go so well because as you know and I now know, but you knew right away, it takes, you have to make a lot of bets, know, because you make two or three bets you're going to likely lose. You have to have 10 or 20 bets to be sure to have a mix of potential big winners. And I didn't.
Slava (15:15)
You're talking about startups
like investment directly into companies.
Jim McCann (15:18)
That's right. And we had a couple of okayed outcomes, but mostly not. And so I realized that there's a real skill set and a selection set that I didn't have. So I migrated toward investing through funds. And that turned out to be quite good, frankly. And I tended to invest in funds where we would have a voice. That is, whatever we were learning in our business at Flowers, we could leverage it in some of the funds we invested in.
particularly early stage businesses. So one of the funds we invested in was called Metamorphic, then they changed the name to Compound, David Hirsch and group. so they had a bunch of early stage venture investments and we got involved with many of those companies. That is, well, they had a new technology that could do X. Well, we say, hey, you can do it in our company first, we'll be your poster child. And so we got to see technologies early. So there was a benefit for our business.
there was, we had some, besides capital, we had some input that could benefit those investments. So that proved out to be a good and worthwhile thing personally, and also for the business as a byproduct. But then I saw the technology was where I wanted to invest, and where I thought the most leverage was. And so we invested in half a dozen or so of the big technology investors, Tiger.
insight where I got to know the leadership and a I got a residual benefit from that because I could learn from them what they were looking at trends wise and I could bring that back to the flowers companies and say here's where these smart people think the trends are going that's where we have to focus that's why we were early to social and mobile and and why we we did our tech stack during a recession when capital was very tight because we knew we had to be differently platformed from all learnings working with all these venture investments and
and early stage investors because we got that added benefit of seeing the world through their lens. And we continue to invest in those today. have a family office and Paul Stamoulis who runs that has a range of investments, but we do very little direct investing now, mostly through other funds.
Slava (17:34)
What percentage do you think of your net worth is in alternative assets? And what I mean by that, not your primary home, not public markets, and not bonds, not cash.
One five. And of that 15%, how would you divide that across PE, VC, crypto, art, collectibles, real estate, all the various asset classes, private credit?
Jim McCann (18:01)
I'd say
very, very little in crypto, but some. I'd say venture probably 2-3 % the rest are private equity.
Slava (18:10)
2, 3 % of the 15, so it's about 20 % of the 15. And then most of it's private equity like the Tiger, the Insight, and the companies you were mentioning. And for you it almost seems like as much as that's ROI, that also feels like it's your research.
Jim McCann (18:14)
Yes.
That's right.
sure it is. That's the value add for me is it's beneficial to my day job.
Slava (18:30)
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And for you, have you been slowly going up to that 15, because you used to be at three and now you're at 15, or have you been coming down, or have you been trying to stay flat at 15 for the last two decades?
Jim McCann (18:38)
No, no.
No, I'd say it's recent. It was higher at one point and now because the public markets have done so well the last couple of years, it's shrunken from the low 20s to 15 would be my guess.
Slava (18:59)
And do you have a sweet spot of where you'd like to be? Is it 15 or is it 10 or 20 or 25?
Jim McCann (19:03)
No,
think I'd rather rate over 20 in that 20 to 25 range.
Yeah, because I think in non-flowers, in my public equities, non-flowers equities, I'd like to be 50 % in public equities. They're going to be followed the same theme, though. I'm primarily in tech stocks there. I have some energy stocks, but primarily technology stocks, you know, and the big seven that you would know have been in for a while and are very reluctant to trade.
Slava (19:08)
How do you think about that? How do you think about that sweet spot?
Exactly.
Jim McCann (19:37)
We don't trade. If we have a winner and we like the fundamentals, we ride the winner for a long time. I always, maybe this is wrong, but I always have to ask myself this question. If I sold that position, I gotta pay, let's call it what, 30 % tax. Do I think that stock is gonna go down more than 30 %? And if the answer is no, why not let it ride? So that's, are you?
Slava (20:00)
I'm right there with you. mean,
I'm a buy and hold guy. I think in decades, I don't really trade anything.
Jim McCann (20:06)
And so
what do you get excited about now because your world has got to be on fire because you have these big tech trends that are clearly coming through the pipe and you have an opportunity to invest across the spectrum. Public equities, venture, private equity investments. AI is, in the past year I've become a complete believer that it's big, it's real, it's going to change everything and every day I become more convinced.
I was talking just the other day with a good friend of mine who's doing a lot of work with us here at Flowers. His name is Shelley Pama. And I love Shelley and Shelley is one of the smart people I know and I get to spend time with. And he is so knowledgeable about AI and just spoke to him within 48 hours of our speaking today. And he said in the last six weeks, the introduction of new products has got his head spinning. And so.
So AI, a believer. The other one is, and a consequence of AI, is robotics. And I had a cup of coffee with a friend yesterday and she described to me going into a particular company's distribution center and she was shocked when she was opened the door to walk in and the place was completely dark. I said, why was it dark? She goes, because no humans were in the distribution center. It was all robotics. And she said, these machines were moving as fast as you could imagine.
and there were no humans in sight. So robotics is gonna play a big and important role in our life. how do you think about, is that, you have a theme, would you invest across the theme? The public equities that play that theme, the venture deals that play that theme, the private equity opportunities in between those two, how do you think about it? And what does Vincent allow me as an investor to think about doing?
Slava (21:56)
I mean, I'm inappropriately into alternative investments. I'm like over 90 % of my net worth into alternative investments. So I'm probably not the right person to follow. But yes, I believe if you spot the right trends and you're willing to buy and hold, there's a lot of incredible opportunities. It's hard to tell the difference between what is public and what is private these days, right? You have private SpaceX or OpenAI, which costs a lot more than public Axon or Reddit, which are
Jim McCann (22:02)
Mm-hmm.
Slava (22:25)
all very interesting companies, all of these that we just mentioned. So.
Jim McCann (22:28)
But
Reddit's an example of one that I was in when it was private, and then I was in a big private equity round, and I stayed in it through its public offering. I kid one of my guys in our family office who said, you know, okay, it's going public now, we can sell, let's liquidate. I said, I still like the theory, I still like the company, I still think it's undervalued, let's ride.
It's one of the few times I was right. He's the one that's usually right. And so every time I see him, tell him, thank God we didn't listen to you and we stayed in.
Slava (23:02)
I mean,
most of the gains in the Amazons, the Apples, the Googles, the NVIDIAs, the Shopify's, or whatever, all of them are in the public markets because...
Jim McCann (23:07)
Google's.
Brad Gersten painted a picture of that recently and I said, well, he's right. He mentioned Alphabet Google. said, 98 % of its gains since day one have been since it's public. And you lose sight of it. You it's public, it's over now. No. In some of these really companies that make a big difference, it's just the beginning.
Slava (23:30)
Yeah, mean, a long time ago, like you with the flower shops, you needed another human to farm another acre of land. And eventually through technologies, we were able to be able to get a lot more productive as to how much food we can produce for not many more farmers. You know, that's like an old story now from many, many, decades ago. But I think we're seeing that happen now in terms of the productivity across many different verticals.
Jim McCann (23:48)
Mm-hmm.
Slava (23:58)
happening with many less humans to create much more results across industries. And all the things you're mentioning, whether it's robotics, AI, and many other things, I think that exact same result, think our GDP in the long run is gonna be very, very, very strong on less humans having to do the same work. So I think we'll get much more results. I think it's gonna be choppy between now and then, but it's about finding the right companies not a week later, but we'd like to think about a decade later.
Jim McCann (24:03)
Yeah.
Thank you.
Where do you think, so the next consequence, it's AI and then it's AI contributing to the robotics revolution. I'm on the board of overseers of NYU Langone Health System and we have some amazing science going on there and unbelievable care going on there, because I have a medical school.
What do you see coming down the pipe in terms of AI, robotics, and how it's going to change medicine? And if I have that as a theory and an appreciation, does Vincent allow me to invest early in promising medical technologies?
Slava (25:03)
So Vincent the platform, obviously is related to this podcast, you know, is more of a media company these days where we're trying to give you all the exposure and give you the access. We do have a great product called insider, which allows for people to get special picks and special access to different platforms. But we don't have any of our own products where we're actually selling our products. That all said, let's get away from our company, but rather, you know, I do think robotics is going to change a lot. if you can afford a six digit car, meaning a hundred thousand dollar plus car.
Jim McCann (25:18)
Uh-huh.
Slava (25:32)
I think that sort of person will be buying a personal robot in about five years. And then, no, I think if you can get a very expensive car, you'll start having your own robots in your house probably in about five years. For it to become mainstream, I think it's going to take quite a bit longer. But eventually, even before you get personal robots, I think you're getting a lot more verticalization of robots, just like you said, in the actual warehouse, right? Amazon's been doing great with that, whether it's with Kiva systems or with others. And
Jim McCann (25:37)
Got long? I would have guessed earlier.
Slava (26:02)
You know, even in my other hat where I actually run a venture fund, we invested in a company called Chef Robotics, which is for augmenting food manufacturing, the way Elon Musk has done for car manufacturing. They just raised a lot of money. And he was my intern at Indiegogo. And when I invested in him like five years ago, most people laughed at it because it's very easy to say hardware is hard. But you know, fast forward, I mean, that's where a lot of this stuff is headed. A lot of people know about Anderil, which is like defense tech. And that's really
Jim McCann (26:09)
Yes.
No kidding.
Yes.
Slava (26:31)
the same thing, which is AI and robotics coming together for defense. I think you're going to see massive shifts in global defense. And eventually that will come down to home security systems and local defense. So I think it's all super interesting.
Jim McCann (26:45)
And
laser weaponry on the roof to zap the bad guys.
Slava (26:48)
Of course, we're all gonna have to defend ourselves against the drones.
Drones will be a word, drones and agents.
Jim McCann (26:53)
Well, Andrew All has
developed a gun that shoots them down that uses bursts of energy.
Slava (26:59)
Exactly. mean, Andrew is quite impressive, but you're doing something that's not allowed, which is flipping the podcast on me, which is it just means that I have to ask you the next question, which is, so you're not so into crypto, you do love PE, you're into VC, how about real estate and private credit? Are you into yield oriented private assets or not?
Jim McCann (27:06)
Hahaha.
No, private credit, yes, in a couple of different ways, but real estate is an investment not.
Slava (27:28)
Why not?
Just because I really respect your opinion. Why not?
Jim McCann (27:31)
Well,
not as a decision, just as a default. I just haven't come across, you know, beyond private residences. I haven't really been introduced to good investment opportunities in real estate. I wasn't looking for it, so it hasn't happened, but no decision there, no deliberate action to say yay or nay. art, not really, not really. I was just saying to our team the other day, I wear an Apple watch and I got hooked on it a year or two ago.
Slava (27:49)
How about, yeah, art collectibles?
Jim McCann (28:00)
And I said, I have this really nice watch collection is all the batteries are dead or they're not. They look nice in this case that I have, but I don't wear the watches that much anymore. So that's the closest thing to a collectible for me. We have a little bit, nothing of value in our art collection. I, I've been to art Basel the last two years. I think it's unbelievable and it's turned my interest into art, but it's an early stage interest. So no investing yet. There is one artist I've met that I like a lot and I want to.
Slava (28:12)
Fair enough.
Jim McCann (28:30)
His name is Brito and I visited his studio recently in Miami and in fact we're doing a vase at 1-800 Flowers that Brito designed and I'm excited to see how that does. But I'm naive but an interested learner in the art world.
Slava (28:48)
What do think of gold?
Jim McCann (28:49)
I think gold makes sense for a lot of people. If you can't get comfortable with crypto because there's just too many questions about it, I wake up in a sweat thinking one day crypto, when they get done mining, the thing is going to pop up on everybody's terminal saying, it was a great big joke, it's all gone to zero. But gold has been a good place to invest. I think it hit a record just yesterday in modern times.
I think it has a place in a lot of people's portfolio. I have some gold holdings, but not a lot.
Slava (29:20)
Are you holding it?
Got it. moving on to the next topic, which is a very open-ended question, which we all would love to hear your perspective. And today was actually the day that the market just tanked in response to the tariffs. Yeah, yes, it definitely tanked. So very open-ended question. What do you think of the current market? And you could take that wherever you want, which is, you know, what do you think of the president's impact on, do you think of tariffs, what do you of unemployment, what do you think of inflation?
Jim McCann (29:35)
Sure did.
Slava (29:50)
Would you be investing? this buying opportunities? Are super choppy? What do you think of rates? Where do we take it? So let's just just what exactly. So just what does Jim think about all of this? And it's just your opinions, whatever you say goes.
Jim McCann (29:55)
Yes.
I think here we are an hour and half now away from the close of a horrible day in the market. And I think we just gotta take a breath. I get the privilege of doing a quarterly economic update for Atlas Merchant Capital and they have Bob Diamond, the famous banker who's their founder and co-CEO and Larry Cantor who's been his economist for decades both at
JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, then at Barclays, and now independently at Atlas Merchant Capital. Larry and Bob have been amazingly prescient, so I'll defer to them. I had a chat with them just today in prep for our quarterly update call next week that I always look forward to hearing from them about because they've just called the market right. My opinion is based on my conversations with them today, which is take a breath, sit back, 90 days from now.
That's when we'll have an idea how this is gonna affect us. We do calculations here at 1-800-Flowers about what the exact impact if tariffs go into place and nothing changes from today on, what the impact will be. But I don't for a minute think that there won't be changes in the weeks and months ahead. And this will come out at a different end. I'm hopeful, I don't have any knowledge, but I'm hopeful that those who have their hands on the levers in government,
have a grand plan and they're using this as a point of leverage and will come out at a very different place 90 days from now, certainly six months from now. So if you like the companies you're invested in, tight. And if you have a chance to take some, harvest some losses if that's appropriate and double down on other bets that you think will do well during a time like now, like your AI portfolio, NVIDIA is down from.
140 something maybe to close to 100. NVIDIA is still a great stock, great company. I like Rivian and I was just looking at it today saying, maybe it's time to increase our bet on Rivian. So I think you have some balancing things just to reinforce your core positions, making sure you're harvesting things that you don't have a strong conviction about anymore, but basically, stay put.
Slava (32:23)
So if it was buy, sell, hold, are you hold? Right, and are you thinking with all of your knowledge, all your experience, all your network, all your connections, your 100 Flowers knowledge, are we headed into recession? Are we gonna be flat? Are we headed into increases of economy? What's your prediction? And obviously, you're allowed to have an opinion, it could be wrong, but we just love to hear opinions.
Jim McCann (32:26)
I'm a hold.
I don't think we're heading into a recession, but that's only because Larry Cantor told me earlier that he doesn't think we're heading into a recession. He said the Fed's on hold in his opinion and that if there's any signs of recession, they'll cut rates, but then they're forced to stay on pat right now. And I'm conscious of the fact that we are a political country and we have some very savvy politicians on both sides of the aisle.
Slava (32:55)
Hahaha
Jim McCann (33:16)
And I have to believe that Trump wants to get the tough stuff out of the way early in his two years, his first two years of his second term, because he has midterms coming up, and those midterms are gonna come up fast. And if by this time next year, he doesn't have things pumping and people saying, oh, all that pain last year was good because wages are going up and our commodities are more affordable and energy's cheaper and the war in the Middle East is...
headed in the right direction and maybe not a war anymore. And the war in Ukraine has been brought to a close. Wow, I'm feeling pretty good about myself because they need to do well in the midterms to be able to have proactive impact on all of us. And I think they're very, very conscious of that. So I think they're saying, let's get the pain out of way early. Let's get the rosier times as we head into midterms. And by this time next year, we're looking at the midterms being just months away.
Slava (34:11)
Well, let me be provocative then. If now is painful for a predicted strong pump a year from now, why hold? Why not buy a little bit lower right now?
Jim McCann (34:20)
Well, I say hold, I'll keep the same capital committed. I'll move it around a little bit based on where I think this term will create better opportunity, but I'll stay about invested where we are. Just we'll move it around on the chessboard a bit.
Slava (34:36)
All right, great. So I appreciate that. In your family office and all the things that you do, you've accomplished many things. One of the things is more recently you picked up the Worth media asset. So can you tell us why you bought that and what you do with that?
Jim McCann (34:51)
I'm all about, and my day job at Flowers is all about relationships and helping our customers have more and better and deeper relationships. And I'm always involved in convening. And Worth Media Group is Worth Magazine, which was started 37 years ago by Fidelity Investments. And they celebrate the investment community, the RIA community, family office community, individual investors, high network community.
And while I didn't think a print magazine without any other things alongside it would be appropriate, we bought two companies. One was called Techonomy and one was called Worth. Both had events. So we put the two of them together. We created a company called Worth Media Group now that convenes people, those audiences, RIAs, high net worth individuals, family offices, investment professionals like yourself, and we convened them. And we have a dozen or so events that we...
convene and organize a year. And we're also a media partner for other people's events. So one of the most exciting things I get to go to every year is the Milken Institute Conference in LA in May, first weekend of May. And we're a media partner there, so I get to go and look over their shoulders and hear from people, what are the big trends? Where are things going in medicine and in cancer research and in geography and geopolitical issues? So you just go and get a.
fire hose of information and worth reports on that and I get to look over their shoulders. for me it was a I get to hang out with smart people, we get to build really deep important relationships and convene people who want to be with one another. So it just seemed like a natural extension of things we did in our day job. Of course doing that right before COVID was not the best plan ever.
Slava (36:32)
Amazing. So whether
Right, right,
So whether it's milking or convening to economy worth or insight or tiger or your investments, what I am hearing is you are a very, very, very curious person and you love information.
Jim McCann (36:42)
or Davos.
No question.
I know there are a lot of small people out there and I get to hang around with some of them and I know the learning opportunity is steep.
Slava (37:00)
That is awesome. And is that kind of the main purpose of the Worth Media Group is to have these really interesting people somewhere in your ecosystem?
Jim McCann (37:09)
Sure, it's a business and we want the business to do well, but the byproduct is, yeah, I get to learn.
Slava (37:16)
Amazing. How can the listeners get involved?
Jim McCann (37:19)
They can go to worth.com. have a really interesting website. They can see a lot of the material in there. was just looking, I think it was last night. They have a really good interview with the CEO of Rivian. I mentioned them earlier. I'm a fan of that company and the things they're doing and the plans they have. yeah, I get to hear about trends that I think are important and helps shape my interest. And I'm a father, three adult children, three in-laws and seven grandchildren. So.
There's a program coming up in a couple of weeks called Groundbreaking Women at Worth puts on, and I get to bring my granddaughters to that and let them see these unbelievably talented, passionate, smart women. And as a granddad, I get to put a check mark on my list.
Slava (38:02)
Amazing, amazing. I'm gonna ask you a tricky question that I didn't prep you for, which is, Worth Media Group sounds really interesting, and we're talking about AI, and how there's all this amazing AI. How do you think AI should improve and scale Worth Media Group?
Jim McCann (38:18)
Well, just this week or, yeah, last week I was chatting with the team, the editorial team, and they were explaining to me a couple of things that they are using AI tools for. It helps them in the editorial process a lot, but especially on research. They're doing a healthcare conference in June up in Boston at a wonderful hotel property called Raffles, which is just a knockout place. And the theme of the conference is wellness and longevity.
and the way they're using AI research tools to find out who the best people to invite to that is, the best speakers that they want to have on that program. A young lady brought me over a deck that we had spoken about in the morning. She came over and showed me in the afternoon. said, oh, you've been working on this for a while. She goes, no, just since we spoke this morning. I said, how could you possibly have done that? She goes, my AI tools. And I was just blown away how it accelerated her research.
I think it was a 38 page deck properly annotated. It was just unbelievable.
Slava (39:20)
Amazing. Not to put you too much on the spot, are you using AI tools at all or is that more for the younger kids?
Jim McCann (39:26)
I try, I'm trying to keep up and I force myself to spend time with it. Yes, every day, but never enough.
Slava (39:35)
Absolutely. All right, awesome. So anything else you want to mention about Worth?
Jim McCann (39:40)
The team over there is doing a great job and really building discrete communities. And I think there's real value in that.
Slava (39:50)
Amazing, and I know Vincent, we're trying to collaborate as well, so love working with you guys. So you are very accomplished, super curious, know a lot of people, know a lot of things. What are some of the things that you read? What are some of the things you watch or that you listen to that help make a gym gym?
Jim McCann (40:07)
Well, I was just explaining to someone yesterday that the podcast world is so interesting. We have a couple of podcasts that we do and I get to continue this. I get to talk to people I want to talk to anyway and only now we're recording and we get to share those conversations. We started a newsletter and a podcast at 1-800-FLOWERS which we call Celebrations. Celebrations Pulse, Celebrations Chatter.
The Pulse is a newsletter we write every week, Chatter is a podcast, and we get to talk to great people. And my own personal curiosity at this time of the year turned to exploring the impact of religious beliefs, faith, the difference between faith and religion, end of life thoughts. So I've been on a journey for the last six or eight weeks, I'll continue for another six or eight, where I'm getting to learn and talk to really interesting people about faith.
about spirituality and just in the last three or four days, chatted with an amazing rabbi who's right here from Long Island who's just a wonderful guy. We had a great conversation. And I chatted with Dr. Dan Airely, who's a famous psychologist at MIT, now at Duke, lives in Israel. And conversations about faith with him, which we didn't expect to go to, it was just great. So I get to do.
explore my curiosity and if it's interesting and entertaining for our audience and I get wonderful feedback about the things we get to talk about, it's just, it's a whole, but if I listen to music now, Slava, I feel like I'm cheating because I could be listening to something and learn from. So I love a whole bunch of podcasts. I love listening to Peter Thiel. I mentioned Brad Gerstner before. I think he's brilliant.
I like the All In podcast, I find that very entertaining. Now I'm gonna be listening to your podcast all the time, so there's just so much good content out there that I'm reluctant to waste any time with entertainment programming that's not learning something. And music, I feel like I'm cheating myself on the opportunity to learn.
Slava (42:17)
That's the first time I heard that, I love it actually. It just speaks back to the curiosity point, which is just so obvious with you. What else is a tradition or something that's in your routine that most people don't know about that's part of being you?
Jim McCann (42:31)
Well, as I mentioned, three kids, seven grandkids, so many of the things I do now, almost everything I do now is I'm focused on how can I impress, bring something to my kids, my family that they can learn from, we can enjoy together. How am I imprinting on them, our rituals, our routines? So I'll tell you, the last story I'll tell you is just a cute one. It made me smile just thinking about it. A couple of weeks ago, my wife had a birthday. So there's 15 of us.
three kids, Mary Lou and I, three kids, three in-laws, who all terrific, and now seven grandkids. And we gathered at a restaurant, we had a private room, we all gathered for the birthday. And I told everybody, I'm gonna ask you to come, my wife sat at one end of the table, I sat at the other end of the table, and I pulled my chair away from the table and I asked each person in the room to get up and speak to grandma and tell us something they love about her. And it was just beautiful, it was just wonderful. And just, just a,
Monday night when Merle and I were traveling we were talking about recounting what some of the things we said it was just terrific That was Friday night Saturday. There was a local parade for st. Patrick's Day in town. It was like a Norman Rockwell kind of painting and then it was a party afterwards and my Grandson who was just turning seven my son James's son Kurt We decided with the whole family was together that weekend. Let's have Kurt's birthday that weekend to his his was a couple of days later
So he sets it up, we have a cake and everything for dinner all around the dining table and Kurt comes around and taps me on the shoulder and says, Papa, can we do that thing that we did like for grandma where everyone gets up and says something about me? I said, Kurt, we can do that. And we did and everyone got into it and he sat at the far end of the table beaming the whole time. So I suspect we've created a new family tradition. He just turned seven. Good.
Slava (44:19)
So good.
I love it. How old is he, the young one? my gosh, that's amazing. I'm gonna steal that.
Well, Jim, we have covered a lot of information. I took...
copious amounts of notes, but going back all the way to in the early days when you were painting houses, flipping homes, and then eventually bartending got you all the access to everything, starting with a home for boys for 14 years. You obviously got the leadership there and then eventually one of your customers led you to what eventually is 1-800-FLOWERS. You navigated all the amazing entrepreneurial stories there, whether it's the five waves of retail, phone, internet, social, and then conversational commerce. You really are about 15 % into alts.
You try to hover around 20, you're more into the private equity and some VC, not so much into real estate, dabble with crypto, not so much into the art and collectibles, but you do like art and you like your Apple watch, so you don't need to get any fancy watches right now. That's right. You love your public stocks. There's a lot of great opportunities there, whether it's the Mag 7 or others, there's huge innovation ahead, whether it's AI, robotics and other things. As it relates to the market, your simple take is take a breath. Take a breath. People have to pause.
Jim McCann (45:16)
Anymore.
Slava (45:33)
You know, maybe a year from now, things might look a lot better. If anything, just don't react right away. You got to give this government 90 days to see how things evolve. You did throw in a bone for Nvidia and Rivian thinking that there's an opportunity there. You love convening, Worth Media Group, whether it's economy and Worth was a great way to get that all together. You're going to Milka and you love talking with people. You are the essence of curiosity, whether it's through people, through funds, through research, to AI, et cetera.
So that's so interesting about you. just learned that on this podcast. Tons of newsletters, tons of podcasts and listening to music is cheating. I'm gonna remember that one forever because there's so much great information out there and today's flavor for you is faith and religion, but there's other flavors that will happen. You know, a quarter from now, you love Peter Thiel, Brad Gerstner, the All In Podcast and other things, but your favorite thing is you have 15 people in your family, three kids, the spouses, obviously the seven grandkids and you have a new tradition which is expressing gratitude to your family.
Jim McCann (46:09)
Ha ha.
Indeed.
Slava (46:30)
Thank you very much, Jim.
Jim McCann (46:31)
That's a better summary than Copilot could do.
Slava (46:33)
On that one, have a good one.
Jim McCann (46:35)
Thanks, Slava
