Someone pointed me to the All-In Podcast a few weeks ago. I listen on Saturday mornings at 1.5x because the four-square merry banter reminds me of Entourage. You know, Vinny, Eric, Drama, and Turtle…
Vinny made an interesting point in E118 on March 3 2023, humble bragging that Credit Suisse offered him 6.5% interest on 3 month bills! (Well, the offer was to all private banking customers). He goes on trying to make some other point.
Fourteen minutes later when Brad Gerstner (Altimeter capital, a VC for 14yrs) gets a chance to talk, he reminds us that the 3y T-bill is 4.7 (Brad probably meant the 2-yr note sold on 02/28 at 4.67 or the 13-week note sold on 3/02) and Vinny might be a bit “goosy goosy on the 6.5,” i.e., that he might be “super special”—a comment that so delights Chamath that he can barely contain his Vinny-grin.
See my edited clip here to catch the precious facial reactions.
The first explanation
Was he just fibbing with his 6.5 to impress us, or just Prince-Charles out of touch with numbers like interest ?
The better explanation
What does a bank do when it needs to raise short term without pulling an SVB fumble? It quietly offers its 0.1% a special deal. Nobody has to know until it is all done.
A famous example is when Goldman gave Warren a sweet deal for 5 yards when it really needed it in 2008: cash for preferred shares with a guaranteed dividend, and also warrants to acquire more shares at a low strike.
So like a pro, and several weeks before the public storm, Credit may have offered its liquid customers a sweetener to raise cash.
What I learned from this
Chamath has explained some of his trades, such as his 1-day Gamestop position.
I’ve taught a computer security course for several years at Northeastern, and one of the anecdotal topics is operational security. Famously, the number of pizzas delivers at the Pentagon may have been a signal, as explained in this Chicago Tribune article. According to this source, even CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, a Pentagon correspondent at the time, supposedly remarked, “Bottom line for journalists: Always monitor the pizzas.” In this case, the All-In podcast may leaks details on deals.