The internet is notorious for its anonymity and is often used to protect people with malicious intent, but hidden identities are also used for more positive and influential deeds. This is the case with successful private investor Sir Jack. He is an online personality who has earned notoriety and respect from his community, making millions of dollars in profit and sharing his strategies for Wall Street Bets.
For those unfamiliar with WallStreetBets, the online community includes 14 million members on Reddit and more than 500,000 members on Facebook, with “memetic stocks” like GameStop (via social media Popular stocks) have surged in popularity over the last few years. and AMC. In MSNBC’s documentary “Diamond Hands: The Legend of Wall Street Betts,” Sir Jack described the community as “a world sick of… a very large group of fools who were sick of being told to go to college.” This community described as a group. Find a job…and make a living’ is frankly unrealistic for our generation. Members of WallStreetBets take pride in sharing their successes, failures, memes and tips, and giving everyone the chance to make money off the stock market.
Meme Stocks and Wall Street Bets helped users learn about investing and share information about stocks, and some investors quickly generated huge amounts of money. Among them is Sir Jack, who in 21 months he turned $35,000 into more than $8 million for him, while other investors lost a lot of money. That includes Melvin Capital Hedge Fund, which lost $6.8 billion on bets on GameStop. Sir Jack is idolized among this community and on various social his media his platforms he has generated over 50,000 followers.
On Wednesday, June 7, 2023, Stonks and Andreessen Horowitz hosted a Game Demo Day at GoogleGOOG in Venice Beach, CA as part of LATechWeek. Andreessen panelist Andrew Chen focused on one particular audience and asked: I just want to make sure. “
This hat belonged to the CEO of AfterHour, one of the companies selected for the pitch. During the presentation, ex-Googler (“Xoogler”) and his Stripe engineer, CEO and founder Kevin Xu, revealed himself as Sir Jack. The announcement caused an uproar in the hall, with many in the packed audience picking up their phones to share messages and social posts.
After the presentation, Xu explained building AfterHour as a platform for fulfilling his own mission of helping others succeed in stock trading, and after the rest of the pitch was finished, many entrepreneurs, Investors, and fans at large, flocked to Mr. Xu to express their congratulations and thanks. Reveal.
Brian Pennick: This reveal was a big deal, but why did you decide to do it, and why are you doing it now?
Kevin Hsu: We just released the app last month and the community is really starting to take off. I think we need to blend both worlds to grow. It’s getting harder and harder to talk about Sir Jack and Kevin Sue separately. I think the community appreciates knowing that I am a real person. Knowing my background gives me the legitimacy of what I do. People suspect the kid who works at Wendy’s is giving advice, but instead, he’s a former Google engineer who wants to build great places. People learning and discussing stocks.
Penic: Did anyone know your identity before this week?
Xu: About a dozen people knew, from family and friends to employees and investors. One of my best friends was surprised to find out for himself, which was funny.
Penic: Do you think this will change your online presence?
Xu: oh yeah. So I’m going to break this down into two parts. This will probably change my life a lot. My ex-colleagues and other co-workers and friends now know that I have fallen so far online and that it is a part of me that I have hidden for years. But finance and money are sensitive topics, so I feel liberated to finally be able to talk about this more openly.I won’t go into details because it’s taboo, but I and many others want Let’s get into specifics, shall we? It’s just like this weird cultural taboo that we’ve finally come to a stage where we’re ready to share the whole thing as we’ve been sharing it as Sir Jack, but now we’re finally ready to do it as Kevin Sue. can be shared. It makes a lot of new connections and allows us to create videos, interviews, TikToks and other cool stuff. So I’m looking forward to the next stage where I can talk freely and openly about what I do as Sir Jack, what I do after hours and money in general. I am very passionate about money and helping others, and now I am more open about it.
Penic: Will this change my relationship with online communities like WallStreetBets?
Xu: Well, unfortunately WallStreetBets went bankrupt after GameStop. To be honest, I see this as an Instagram meme thread. Because SubReddit is not extensible. It’s just full of memes right now. But the spirit, desire, and debate of wanting to know more about the market still exists and has spread across the internet. I see this all the time. There are some forks such as SubReddits and WallStreetBets forks that have very good discussions, sometimes all over Twitter, but it’s hard for people to find sessions this high, especially since the internet is full of scammers. is not possible. And a liar trying to sell a course or something. That’s why we built his AfterHour to validate stock positions and people are doing what they say they’re going to do with their money. So far the discussion has been great and people enjoy it on our platform as well.
Penic: what’s next?
Xu: For me, it continues to grow our platform in line with my vision. I want to build a social Bloomberg for Gen Z. Next generation investors value transparency, social communication, fun and authenticity. We have the right DNA and the right building blocks to foster a great platform for all kinds of personal financial discussions, from stocks to cryptocurrencies.
More broadly, with this announcement, I look forward to continuing to help others on their financial journeys. Having someone come into my life to give me advice, I can now speak more authoritatively to a wider audience. Maybe I will become a YouTuber.
A big trend is the rise of business influencers like Graham Stephens and Meet Kevin, but people are looking for people they can relate to instead of TV hotties like Jim Cramer. I see this trend increasing because of the Many of us can relate more to these people on YouTube. Also they have really good advice and views. I think this trend will only increase. Finance isn’t something people in school want to learn from textbooks, they want to be exposed to the right community. That’s why resources like WallStreetBets and YouTubers are great.
Penic: I always ask investors for market forecasts. where do you think we are going?
Xu: This is the most confused market I have ever seen. It feels like we went from a crazy bull market to a bear market recession and then a bull market again. thank you AI! The data I’m looking at are the top 7 tech stocks that are driving this rally. The rest of the market seems to have a proxy effect, so it’s okay. Consumer demand remains strong and the economy feels healthy. I can only hope that we don’t accidentally get caught in another bubble and that it grows healthy over the next few years.
Thanks to Kevin Xu (aka Sir Jack) for taking the time to provide his perspective. If you want to learn more about investing and entrepreneurship, I encourage you to read my ongoing series. “Navigating the 2023 VC Landscape” Follow me on Forbes.com
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