August 4, 2022 • 30 mins
Jim Rogers grew up poor in a town so small that his phone number consisted of one digit: 5. He was desperate to see the world. He gave himself a deadline: he would make a million by the age of 35. He did it at 37 and then went on to visit more than a hundred countries. The veteran investor shares his life story, discusses the experiences that shaped him, and explains why he’s sticking to his investment advice: if you want to be successful, be boring.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Join us on demand at the Bloomberg Asia Wealth Summit
on August four to hear from leading investors, economists, and
money managers as they bring actionable intelligence to private investors
and family offices. At this event will unravel the complexity
and on Earth where the opportunities for wealth creation live
founding sponsor HSBC. Register now to watch on demand at
(00:21):
Bloomberg Live dot com, Slash Asia Wealth Slash Radio. That's
Bloomberg Live dot com Slash Asia Wealth Slash Radio. Hi there,
and welcome back to Out of Office. I'm your host.
Malika Kapoor. My guest today, wanted to retire at the
(00:41):
age of thirty five. He didn't quite get his way.
It happened when he was thirty seven. That's when he
made his first million. Well, I remember one day my
partners we were talking about something and he looked at
at that A and by the way, today you are
a millionaire. I wish don did shock because I hadn't
even paying attention. That's so I went and toward the
(01:03):
tour the sheet out of my desk calendar for the day.
I again, I still have that desk calendar sheet. Jim Rogers,
a renowned investor, author of several books on investing, world
traveler and proud father spoke to me from his home
in Singapore. We spoke about his childhood. There were baseball
games and the lady who sold Coca colas. You know,
(01:26):
in those days, you had to pay a deposit on
your bottles, and so the people are trying to coppologists
through them on the ground, and she paid me five
cents for every twenty four to go and collect the
empty bottles and bring them back to her so that
she could get her deposits. We spoke about his views
on China. China is going to have many problems, as
(01:47):
does every country there. Rotherays that does every family, or
every individual, or every company. So yeah, there's gonna be
lots of problems. But you should teach your children Mandarin
being a far though I never wanted to have children, well,
I thought children were a horrible, useless waste of time
and energy and money. I felt so sorry for my
(02:10):
friends who had children. You'd ruined your lives. What's wrong
with you? Well, it turns out I was totally wrong,
and it's enduring investment advice. People should only invest in
what they themselves know. A lot about if you want
to be rich. You know what people say, They say,
that's boring. So you want to be successful, be boring,
(02:31):
be boring. That's how you're going to be successful. Here's
Jim Rogers with all of that and much much more
on Out of Office. Jim, welcome to Out of Office.
I am delighted to be a Maliko. I am a
fan of yours and of Bloomberg's. Oh thank you, thank you. Jim.
(02:52):
You made your first million before the age of forty,
and you actually decided to retire. Then, can you tell
our global audience quickly how you made that first million? Well,
my god, I grew up poor and I always used
to say, who knew what I was talking about? That
I wanted to retire when I was thirty five so
(03:14):
I could have more than one life. And there were
two of us, and we were having a lot of fun,
and we were we didn't consider it work. We were
just having so much fun doing what we were doing.
And we did a lot of things right. We made
a lot of correct decisions, and the next thing you
knew we had a lot of money. And this is
(03:35):
while you were at Quantum with George Soros. Yes, yes, yes, yes,
that's when I quote quote you became a millionaire. Well,
that's not why I did it. I did it because
I loved what I was doing. We both did. But
fortunately if you did well what we were doing, they
paid you a lot of money. And remind me of
(03:56):
the day when you actually found out that you were
a millionaire. That more and well, I remember one day
my partner, we were talking about suddenly and you looked
at at that hour. By the way, today you're a millionaire,
which stunt did shock because I hadn't even been paying attention.
So I went and tour the tour the sheet out
of my desk calendar for the day. I again, I
(04:18):
still have that desk calendar sheet. Nobody has desk calendars anymore,
but I have the sheet from back in the seventies.
That's amazing. Now, you said you grew up poor, and
I remember reading about how you really discovered your entrepreneurial
spirit or you knew you had it really young when
you were five and you were collecting bottles from a
(04:41):
local baseball field. Is that right, Yes, there were baseball
games and the lady who sold Coca colas. You know,
in those days, you had to pay a deposit on
your bottles, and so the people who are trying to
coke bottles just threw them on the ground. And she
paid me five cent for every twenty four to go
(05:01):
and collect the empty bottles and bring them back to
her so that she could get her deposits. Either way,
I'm sure if we did this today, she would be
in jail and I would be in jail. Tim, I
was five years old. Yes, yes you have five exactly exactly.
But that experience, you know, how do you think that
(05:22):
influenced well your childhood? Well, I don't know that it did,
but I do know that it was quite thrilling to
get paid, even though it was very little by just
certainly by the day standards. I do remember that one
night I made so much money a dollar and fifteen cents,
(05:44):
by the way, when you was dollard fifteen. Said there
was so much money for me that I went home
and gave my little brother half of it because I
didn't know what to do with so much money. But
I was very pleased every night when the lady would
pay me. Uh, and I liked it. So I guess
that's started something in my poor brain. And where did
(06:06):
you grow up with at Alabama. I grew up in
the backwoods of Alabama. Yes, this happened to be in
the backwoods of Oklahoma where I was visiting my grandparents.
But I went home to the backwoods of Alabama and
started my own business doing selling Coca colas and things.
What was your childhood like in Alabama? Your parents, your family, Well,
(06:29):
it was a small town. My phone number was five
where I grew up. That's the typo. That's five, five, one, two, three,
four or five. It was my phone rumber. It was
a lot of TYPEO. I said. It was a small town. Uh,
And that's why when I went back, you know, I
could start my own business. And I was selling coca
(06:51):
colas and peanuts at the baseball games and football games. Now,
of course this would not be allowed at all in
two thousand twenty two. But there I wasn't a small
Nobody cares as a small town, and so I was
selling Coca colas and peanuts. And I was hiring for
year old boys to work for me, and there we were.
(07:15):
You know, it was successful. There was no competition. So
when you did retire at the age of thirty seven,
you actually did retire. You just went on to do
something very different. You got into a car and you
travel the world. Well, oh god, I had for many
(07:37):
years with only thirty seven. But for many years I
had been saying, I want to go around the world,
or my motorcycle, I want to see the world. If
you grew up on a phone number in a town
where your phone numbers five, you probably want to see
the world. So I wanted to see the world. And
that was what my plan was. I'm going to retire
(07:58):
and go around the world and my motors well, and
then we'll see what happens. So that was the plan
of You may remember the Armed Curtain and Red China
and things like that, so it wasn't so easy. It
took me a few years to get permission, but I
finally got permission from the Soviets and the Chinese, and
(08:20):
off I went. What's your favorite memory from that time?
For from that time, my my adventures on my motorcycle,
driving through Central Europe, driving through China. I mean, these
were unknown places to most of the world, certainly to
a Western capitalists, but there I was traveling through literally
(08:45):
Red China, literally Soviet Union, differ literately behind the Iron Curtain, um,
and there was nobody else. There was already no tourists
driving through Red China, no tourists driving through the Soviet
Union and those days. But I wanted to see the
world and I wanted to find out. I know, you
(09:05):
expected to to be surprised by everything that you saw
and learned, and it was all a very new experience
for you. Is there anything that stands out any one
country or do you have any anecdote or any experience
from this trip that really still stands out in your mind? Well? Yes.
(09:26):
When I first went to China, Red China in I
was terrified because I had been reading American propaganda all
my life if the Chinese were evil, vicious, bloodthirsty and
dangerous people. So when I got off the plane, I
was sure I was going to be shocked. But it
didn't take me long traveling around Red China to find out,
(09:49):
Wait a minute, these are hard working, ambitious, educated, disciplined,
crazy people, crazy and a positive sense. And I realized.
And I would go back to New York and I
would say to people, China, China is going to be
the next great country in the world. And they would
look at me very strange and say, what Japan, Japan,
(10:11):
and Japan and Japan. You don't enough to remember those days,
but we all thought that Japan was going to take
over the world in the eighties. And I kept saying, Oh, China, China, China.
And I guess that's the most vivid memory because I
saw what was happening close to the ground and from
the ground up, and I realized, oh, my gosh, these
(10:31):
people have thousands of years of history. They've been the
most successful in the country in the world two or
three times, and it's going to happen again. Uh. I
realized the great Britain had been great once, Rome they
had been great once, Egypt had been great once. But
my guys, China have been great three or four times.
(10:52):
They had collapsed and had catastrophe three or four times.
But they were the only country that, after a catastrophe
be after a few decades or a few centuries, work
their way back to the top again. Nobody else has
done it. And I mean all of this was if
you see the world close to the ground, now, the guy,
(11:13):
you learn a lot more than if you take a
tour or watch the internet. Are you still as bullish
about China as you were back then oh, yes, no,
but might let me be sure to clear clarify that
they're going to be problems. America became the most successful
country in the twentieth century, but along the way we
(11:34):
had many bankruptcies, civil war, massacres in the streets. You
could buy and sell congress Well, you can still buy
and sell congressmen, but they were cheap back in those days.
You could buy as many as you wanted. So no,
America went through a lot of difficult and strange times
as we rose to being very successful. China is going
(11:56):
to have many problems, as says every country that rises
is that does every family or every individual or every company.
So yeah, there's gonna be lots of problems. But you
should teach your children Mandarin. Yes, my Gilder lifely do
Lan Mandarin because I just moved here from Hong Kong. Well, yeah,
(12:17):
so your girls. You have twin girls and they speak Mandarin.
I believe, had no idea except I don't speak man.
How good it is CCTV, the Chinese network. He has
taken my girls to China three times and done specials
about them because they say Chinese. There's now I have
no idea. I don't streak Manamin, but apparently it's been
(12:38):
a brilliant, brilliant success, not because of me, but because
of these two girls. How did you end up living
in Singapore? You grew up in Alabama. Well, I lived
in New York for many, many years. When I went
there and I got out of college, I went to
Wall Street and Alabama doesn't have Wall Street New York
at Wall Street. Uh. But then, uh, we realized if
(13:05):
we wanted these girls to really speak Mandar, we're going
to have to live in a Chinese speaking city or
it wouldn't work. So we looked at all the Chinese cities,
but they were horribly polluted. So we wanted up in Singapore. Singapore,
everything works and they speak English and they speak Mandar.
How long have you been in Singapore? Two thousand seven?
(13:26):
We came here prominently, all right, So it's been it's
been a while. Now you've gone on to have a
tremendous career giving people investment advice, you know, trying to
explain them various options they have, you know, about how
they can improve their wealth. And I know you're going
to be speaking at a Bloomberg event on wealth. The
(13:48):
Bloomberg Wealth Asia Summit. I wanted to ask you what
does wealth mean to you? Well, you know, I have
a lot of friends who were still on Wall Street
or many I was served for gone and Rhenu Burger
was still there over a hundred years old, every day
having a wonderful time. And that was great. That's what
they wanted to do. It's it's not what I wanted
(14:11):
to do. I wanted to have more than one life,
and I wanted to have adventure. So my plan was
to do that, and so I did stop working early
so that I could have other lives and have adventure
and see the world. I would have a lot more money,
I think, I hope, I presume had I continued to work,
(14:34):
but I wanted to have more than one life. Who
knows whether I did the right thing or not. Is
that what wealth means to you is sort of wealthy experiences,
being able to have adventures. For me, it wasn't the money,
as I said before. It wasn't money stocked by cars
or planes or horses or something. It was to buy
(14:56):
my freedom. I wanted to buy my freedom so I
and have to be nice to people if I didn't
want to be nice to them, pretty simple, pretty simple
goal in life. I'm a very simple person. From place
for your phone numbers five, You're bound to be a
simple person, and so I just wanted to buy my freedom.
(15:16):
That's all it was. It was that simple. I'd say
I would probably have a lot more had I begun
you to work, but that was not my goal. I
had a pretty simple goal, and so far it has worked.
After the break, Jim explains why he believes the key
to success is being boring, and he talks about his
(15:37):
relationship with his daughters, though he admits he wasn't sure
he wanted to be a dad. We'll be right back.
Join us on demand at the Bloomberg Aga Wealth Summit
on August four to hear from leading investors, economists, and
money managers as they bring actionable intelligence to private investors
(15:59):
and family offices. At this event will unravel the complexity
and on Earth where the opportunities for wealth creation. Live
founding sponsor HSBC Register now to watch on demand at
Bloomberg Live dot Com, Slash Asia, Wealth Slash Radio. That's
Bloomberg Live dot Com, Slash Asia, Wealth Slash Radio. And
(16:19):
previously you've said that your strategy or your investment advice
has been to buy low and sell high. Wat should
people buy now? Well, yes, that's very simple, advinds. Isn't
it so easy to do? I wish you were so
easy to uh, but you just back when you asked
(16:40):
about work. I tell people often that you know, they
switch and I do blah, and I say, listen. It's
a very simple. Just figure out what you love, not
what your teachers and parents and friends love. With you
love and do it even if people laugh, or especially
if people laugh at you do what you absolutely adore.
(17:02):
That's what I did. They didn't have to pay me.
I mean, I'm glad they paid me because I needed
wanted to live and I wanted to buy my freedom.
But you know, if you do what you love, you're
never going to go to work and wake up every
day and have fun. And those are used. The people
are the most successful. They love what they're doing, and
even if they're not successful, they don't care because they're happy,
(17:25):
you know, they don't. They don't care if they have
trillions of dollars. They're very happy to have happy lots.
So for me, that's what quote work was, but I
didn't consider it work. That's what I wanted to do.
It's how I wanted to spend my time, and so
I did. And since then, I hope that that's what
I've been doing, doing things that I'm very keen on.
(17:46):
I drove around the world twice because I had this
long term to light gold, whatever it is to do that,
so I did it. Um. I think I've been doing
things that I wanted to do to have fun. And
if other people do that, as I say, even if
they're not successful, they're going to be. They don't care,
(18:10):
plenty happy, And you're more likely to be successful than not.
Your father to two young girls, and you've written this
amazing book. It's called a Gift to my children, and
it's a father's it's Father's Lessons for life and investing.
I'm just curious. Is their attitude towards money and wealth
(18:32):
and working very different from yours? Probably is because when
I would somehow with that age, I knew, we knew
we didn't have any money, etcetera. You no matter how
much I tell my girls, I mean, they can look
out the window. Can they go to school and classmates
talk to them? You know, they see that we drive
(18:54):
different cars from a lot of people. And things like that.
So no how much I tell them we're rich, they don't.
Their friends sell them, No, you are rich. We're not
as rich as many many, many people I know, but
at least we can pay the rent and we continue
to I'm trying to teach my girls that they must
(19:16):
save money because an adventure they will learn to invest it.
I have not taught them about investments because I want
them to come to me. I have learned if you
try to teach somebody something they're not interesting and it's interested,
it usually doesn't work. So but when they were babies,
we've got some five or six piggy banks that I
(19:38):
wanted them to know that every time you get money,
it is to be saved. That's what you do with money.
You don't go spend it. You get your money, go
put in the piggy bank, and the piggy banks for
you go to the big bank and put it in
the big bank. And they learned about interest and things
like that. So I am trying to teach them the
(19:59):
value you have money, that it doesn't grow on trees.
My older daughter, when she turned fourteen, I told her
she had to get a job because everybody should have
a job when you're a teenager. I assumed she would
go to McDonald's or something and get a job making
eight dollars an hour. But she's a lot smarter than
(20:20):
I am. Motheress. She got a job teaching Chinese making
thirty dollars an hour, complaining and complaining because the grown
up teachers made seventy dollars enough. And I said her,
your fourteen years old. For goodness life, you better be happy.
Stop complaining. So I think that the value of work
(20:40):
is something we all need to learn early. The younger generation, though,
do you think their approach of their ideas about investing
are different? Are they focusing more on E. S G?
For example? What's the difference that you notice? Well, of
course E. S She is different because that was no E.
(21:00):
S G when I was at that age. Of course,
things are different in many ways. But a lot of
this has been happening for hundreds of years. You know,
when everything a long bowl market, new people come into
the market and they tell their friends, Oh, I've found
this new thing called the stock market, and it's fun
(21:22):
and you can make money, and it's easy. It's easy
to make money. You know, this is not my first
rodeo mile like, I've seen this before. I know how
this movie ends. Uh. Some of these things have happened
over and over again SPACs. SPACs have been around for
three hundred years, and SPACs came riding in again often
(21:43):
after Long Bowl market. So if some of this let's say,
it's not my first rodeo, have seen some of this
movie before. Uh. And people should only invest in what
they themselves know a lot about. If you want to
be rich, don't listen to me. Don't listen. Maybe you
listen to Malachom, maybe you listen to Bloomberg, but for
(22:06):
the most part, you don't listen to hot tips. You
don't listen to other people. If you want to be successful,
you just wait until you've found something that you know,
you yourself know what's going to be successful, and do
some research and and invest. Oh and then by the way,
send me an email I want to research it. Yes,
(22:27):
that's how you become successful. If I told you you
could only have twenty investments in your life, you would
be very careful, you wouldn't need jumping in and out
all the time, and you'd probably be successful. And you
do it. Wait wait, wait, you know what people say
they say that's boring. That's okay. You want to be successful.
Be boring, be boring. That's how you're going to be successful.
(22:50):
And that advice is the same no matter what the
market conditions are. We're all talking about a recession right now,
and that your advice was stayed the same. Invest in
what you know. It may be boring, but if you
want to be successful, that's what you do. If you
listen to hot jips, you're not going to be successful.
You're gonna be talking about how it's horrible the style
(23:11):
market is and how it's unfair and they cheat you
and nothing works, and stay away from it. Oh, the
choices are to be successful or not to be successful.
You've done so many fascinating things in your life. You've
traveled the world twice, You've written so many books, You've
(23:32):
got this amazing reputation, you're on TV all the time,
you're giving investment advice. I mean, you've you've had an
amazing career and amazing life. And one of the things
you've done was you taught at Columbia, and I was curious.
You know, the students obviously were lucky to be in
your class and to learn from you. What didn't you
(23:54):
learn from that experience and from the students. Well, first
of all, I'm flat about what you say, but I
want you to know I made many mistakes in my life,
plenty of mistakes. Uh. I taught it Columbia because after
I retired, one of the things I wanted to do
while I was trying to go around the world was
to learn to play squash. Shouldn't have learned to play tennis.
(24:15):
When I lived near Columbia and I said to Columbia,
what do I have to do. I mean, I'm not
going to give them a non work, you know, I
wasn't going to go back to school or something. And
they said, okay, you teach one class, one semester and
we'll make your lifetime access to the Columbia Gym. I said, okay,
(24:35):
and I'll do it for free. But I didn't know.
And then I said to them, you know, business schools
and waste of time. I don't approve of business school
I wouldn't be a good teacher at blah blah. It
turns out I loved it. The kids loved it, and
so it was smaller than I was. I kept teaching,
but it was so much fun, so that I could
(24:57):
play squash and play tennis, and it was a lot
of fun. Uh. I learned from the students, learned how
much they didn't know for one thing. I also learned
how much I didn't know for another. No, it was
a very good experience for certainly for me. Would you
think about teaching in Singapore? Is that an option? I
(25:20):
have thought about it. I have not because it does
take a lot of time. You know, to do it right,
even if you're wrong, it takes a lot of time.
But if you want to do it right, it takes
a lot of time. And I I had I had
no children when I was teaching at Columbia, etcetera. But
then when I was here, I had these children, etcetera.
(25:42):
And I had rather devote my time any time I
have to my daughters than to other things. What's your
favorite thing to do with your family with your daughters, Well,
I guess the favorite thing. Well, I'd like to have
dinner with him. But I also do like to travel
to places with them, show them new things. Uh. When
(26:05):
we go to China, they show me new things, you know,
because they speak they speak perfectly the language. Um. But
no one of my daughters had her birthday in Moscow
and Venice and Vienna. She wants to have her birthday
in different places. Well, it's pretty fun. We do have
(26:25):
been to all those places, but I've never been there
with a young girl, a young kid, So I always
see new things because they see new things. Yeah, you
see it through their eyes and it's different. Yes, yes, yes,
walk around any city in any country with a young
child is an eye opening experience. You've done so many
(26:46):
different things in your life. What's next? Well, it really,
you asked me. The focus is my daughters. Um, I
never wanted to have children, Like I thought children were
a horrible, useless waste of time and energy and money.
I felt so sorry for my friends who had children,
who had ruined your lives. What's wrong with you? Well,
(27:09):
it turns out I was totally wrong. These little girls
are fantastic for me, and if everybody should do him,
should not miss what it will teach you and how
much fun it is. So I came to fatherhood late,
and it's good that I came late, because if I
had done it earlier, it would have been bad for
(27:29):
the mother, for the children from me, would be bad
for everybody. But when the time I did it, I
had a lot of things out of my system, and
it's been a fabulous experience. Um, and trying to spend
as much time and effort on them as I can.
(27:51):
Part of the problem is, of course they're getting older
and they're not quite as interested in their father as
they might have been when they were nine or something
like that. But I'm still I am still as interested
in them, if not more so than I was when
they were not. I'll look him now when it is nineteen,
she's a freshman in the university, and one is fourteen
(28:15):
and she isn't what would be the eighth grade in
the US. That's right, Okay, great and Jim, this podcast
is called out of Office? What's your favorite thing to
do when you're not in the office? My daughters, if
I can, if they'll have anything to do with me, Um, Yeah,
whatever they want to do, that's what I'm keen to do.
(28:37):
The problem, anybody who has teenage shure them will understand,
is they're not so keen to do things with me
as I am to do things with them. I hear you.
I have a fifteen year old and a twelve year old,
so I I understand, but you certainly understand, as I say,
anybody with teenagers will certainly understand. And now are you
(29:00):
You know when I was a teenager, I guess that
was that way too. Nothing was more embarrassing than my parents.
You know, they showed up somewhere. I was Oh, my gosh,
how hopeless, etcetera. We forget that, right, we forget that bit. Well,
I was there once too. I can remember thinking how
(29:22):
foolish my parents were. And I can remember a few
years later thinking, boy, they've changed, They've learned a lot.
You know, they've learned a great deal in the last
tern of fifteen years. I can remember when they were hopeless,
hopeless people. Now they're not so dull after all. So
maybe let's hope for us, and maybe our kids will
(29:43):
say that about us one day. I hope to much
of this someday think that I've learned a lot and
it's gotten better. Jim ro just thank you for spending
some time with me. I really appreciate you being on
out of office. Thank you, it's my pleasure. Moling. Let's
do it again sometime. That was my conversation with Jim Rogers.
(30:03):
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did
recording it. Remember, you can check out more episodes of
Out of Office. We are on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts,
the Bloomberg website, and of course, the Bloomberg Terminal. This
episode was produced by Yang Yang. I'm Monica Kapoor. Until
next time, stay well, I'll see you in two weeks.
(30:28):
Join us on demand at the Bloomberg Asia Wealth Summit
on August four to hear from leading investors, economists, and
money managers as they bring actionable intelligence to private investors
and family offices. At this event will unravel the complexity
and on Earth, where the opportunities for wealth creation live.
Founding sponsor HSBC. Register now to watch on demand at
(30:49):
Bloomberg Live dot com, Slash Asia Wealth Slash Radio. That's
Bloomberg Live dot com, Slash Asia, Wealth Slash Radio
Join us on demand at the Bloomberg Asia Wealth Summit
on August four to hear from leading investors, economists, and
money managers as they bring actionable intelligence to private investors
and family offices. At this event will unravel the complexity
and on Earth where the opportunities for wealth creation live
founding sponsor HSBC. Register now to watch on demand at
(00:21):
Bloomberg Live dot com, Slash Asia Wealth Slash Radio. That's
Bloomberg Live dot com Slash Asia Wealth Slash Radio. Hi there,
and welcome back to Out of Office. I'm your host.
Malika Kapoor. My guest today, wanted to retire at the
(00:41):
age of thirty five. He didn't quite get his way.
It happened when he was thirty seven. That's when he
made his first million. Well, I remember one day my
partners we were talking about something and he looked at
at that A and by the way, today you are
a millionaire. I wish don did shock because I hadn't
even paying attention. That's so I went and toward the
(01:03):
tour the sheet out of my desk calendar for the day.
I again, I still have that desk calendar sheet. Jim Rogers,
a renowned investor, author of several books on investing, world
traveler and proud father spoke to me from his home
in Singapore. We spoke about his childhood. There were baseball
games and the lady who sold Coca colas. You know,
(01:26):
in those days, you had to pay a deposit on
your bottles, and so the people are trying to coppologists
through them on the ground, and she paid me five
cents for every twenty four to go and collect the
empty bottles and bring them back to her so that
she could get her deposits. We spoke about his views
on China. China is going to have many problems, as
(01:47):
does every country there. Rotherays that does every family, or
every individual, or every company. So yeah, there's gonna be
lots of problems. But you should teach your children Mandarin
being a far though I never wanted to have children, well,
I thought children were a horrible, useless waste of time
and energy and money. I felt so sorry for my
(02:10):
friends who had children. You'd ruined your lives. What's wrong
with you? Well, it turns out I was totally wrong,
and it's enduring investment advice. People should only invest in
what they themselves know. A lot about if you want
to be rich. You know what people say, They say,
that's boring. So you want to be successful, be boring,
(02:31):
be boring. That's how you're going to be successful. Here's
Jim Rogers with all of that and much much more
on Out of Office. Jim, welcome to Out of Office.
I am delighted to be a Maliko. I am a
fan of yours and of Bloomberg's. Oh thank you, thank you. Jim.
(02:52):
You made your first million before the age of forty,
and you actually decided to retire. Then, can you tell
our global audience quickly how you made that first million? Well,
my god, I grew up poor and I always used
to say, who knew what I was talking about? That
I wanted to retire when I was thirty five so
(03:14):
I could have more than one life. And there were
two of us, and we were having a lot of fun,
and we were we didn't consider it work. We were
just having so much fun doing what we were doing.
And we did a lot of things right. We made
a lot of correct decisions, and the next thing you
knew we had a lot of money. And this is
(03:35):
while you were at Quantum with George Soros. Yes, yes, yes, yes,
that's when I quote quote you became a millionaire. Well,
that's not why I did it. I did it because
I loved what I was doing. We both did. But
fortunately if you did well what we were doing, they
paid you a lot of money. And remind me of
(03:56):
the day when you actually found out that you were
a millionaire. That more and well, I remember one day
my partner, we were talking about suddenly and you looked
at at that hour. By the way, today you're a millionaire,
which stunt did shock because I hadn't even been paying attention.
So I went and tour the tour the sheet out
of my desk calendar for the day. I again, I
(04:18):
still have that desk calendar sheet. Nobody has desk calendars anymore,
but I have the sheet from back in the seventies.
That's amazing. Now, you said you grew up poor, and
I remember reading about how you really discovered your entrepreneurial
spirit or you knew you had it really young when
you were five and you were collecting bottles from a
(04:41):
local baseball field. Is that right, Yes, there were baseball
games and the lady who sold Coca colas. You know,
in those days, you had to pay a deposit on
your bottles, and so the people who are trying to
coke bottles just threw them on the ground. And she
paid me five cent for every twenty four to go
(05:01):
and collect the empty bottles and bring them back to
her so that she could get her deposits. Either way,
I'm sure if we did this today, she would be
in jail and I would be in jail. Tim, I
was five years old. Yes, yes you have five exactly exactly.
But that experience, you know, how do you think that
(05:22):
influenced well your childhood? Well, I don't know that it did,
but I do know that it was quite thrilling to
get paid, even though it was very little by just
certainly by the day standards. I do remember that one
night I made so much money a dollar and fifteen cents,
(05:44):
by the way, when you was dollard fifteen. Said there
was so much money for me that I went home
and gave my little brother half of it because I
didn't know what to do with so much money. But
I was very pleased every night when the lady would
pay me. Uh, and I liked it. So I guess
that's started something in my poor brain. And where did
(06:06):
you grow up with at Alabama. I grew up in
the backwoods of Alabama. Yes, this happened to be in
the backwoods of Oklahoma where I was visiting my grandparents.
But I went home to the backwoods of Alabama and
started my own business doing selling Coca colas and things.
What was your childhood like in Alabama? Your parents, your family, Well,
(06:29):
it was a small town. My phone number was five
where I grew up. That's the typo. That's five, five, one, two, three,
four or five. It was my phone rumber. It was
a lot of TYPEO. I said. It was a small town. Uh,
And that's why when I went back, you know, I
could start my own business. And I was selling coca
(06:51):
colas and peanuts at the baseball games and football games. Now,
of course this would not be allowed at all in
two thousand twenty two. But there I wasn't a small
Nobody cares as a small town, and so I was
selling Coca colas and peanuts. And I was hiring for
year old boys to work for me, and there we were.
(07:15):
You know, it was successful. There was no competition. So
when you did retire at the age of thirty seven,
you actually did retire. You just went on to do
something very different. You got into a car and you
travel the world. Well, oh god, I had for many
(07:37):
years with only thirty seven. But for many years I
had been saying, I want to go around the world,
or my motorcycle, I want to see the world. If
you grew up on a phone number in a town
where your phone numbers five, you probably want to see
the world. So I wanted to see the world. And
that was what my plan was. I'm going to retire
(07:58):
and go around the world and my motors well, and
then we'll see what happens. So that was the plan
of You may remember the Armed Curtain and Red China
and things like that, so it wasn't so easy. It
took me a few years to get permission, but I
finally got permission from the Soviets and the Chinese, and
(08:20):
off I went. What's your favorite memory from that time?
For from that time, my my adventures on my motorcycle,
driving through Central Europe, driving through China. I mean, these
were unknown places to most of the world, certainly to
a Western capitalists, but there I was traveling through literally
(08:45):
Red China, literally Soviet Union, differ literately behind the Iron Curtain, um,
and there was nobody else. There was already no tourists
driving through Red China, no tourists driving through the Soviet
Union and those days. But I wanted to see the
world and I wanted to find out. I know, you
(09:05):
expected to to be surprised by everything that you saw
and learned, and it was all a very new experience
for you. Is there anything that stands out any one
country or do you have any anecdote or any experience
from this trip that really still stands out in your mind? Well? Yes.
(09:26):
When I first went to China, Red China in I
was terrified because I had been reading American propaganda all
my life if the Chinese were evil, vicious, bloodthirsty and
dangerous people. So when I got off the plane, I
was sure I was going to be shocked. But it
didn't take me long traveling around Red China to find out,
(09:49):
Wait a minute, these are hard working, ambitious, educated, disciplined,
crazy people, crazy and a positive sense. And I realized.
And I would go back to New York and I
would say to people, China, China is going to be
the next great country in the world. And they would
look at me very strange and say, what Japan, Japan,
(10:11):
and Japan and Japan. You don't enough to remember those days,
but we all thought that Japan was going to take
over the world in the eighties. And I kept saying, Oh, China, China, China.
And I guess that's the most vivid memory because I
saw what was happening close to the ground and from
the ground up, and I realized, oh, my gosh, these
(10:31):
people have thousands of years of history. They've been the
most successful in the country in the world two or
three times, and it's going to happen again. Uh. I
realized the great Britain had been great once, Rome they
had been great once, Egypt had been great once. But
my guys, China have been great three or four times.
(10:52):
They had collapsed and had catastrophe three or four times.
But they were the only country that, after a catastrophe
be after a few decades or a few centuries, work
their way back to the top again. Nobody else has
done it. And I mean all of this was if
you see the world close to the ground, now, the guy,
(11:13):
you learn a lot more than if you take a
tour or watch the internet. Are you still as bullish
about China as you were back then oh, yes, no,
but might let me be sure to clear clarify that
they're going to be problems. America became the most successful
country in the twentieth century, but along the way we
(11:34):
had many bankruptcies, civil war, massacres in the streets. You
could buy and sell congress Well, you can still buy
and sell congressmen, but they were cheap back in those days.
You could buy as many as you wanted. So no,
America went through a lot of difficult and strange times
as we rose to being very successful. China is going
(11:56):
to have many problems, as says every country that rises
is that does every family or every individual or every company.
So yeah, there's gonna be lots of problems. But you
should teach your children Mandarin. Yes, my Gilder lifely do
Lan Mandarin because I just moved here from Hong Kong. Well, yeah,
(12:17):
so your girls. You have twin girls and they speak Mandarin.
I believe, had no idea except I don't speak man.
How good it is CCTV, the Chinese network. He has
taken my girls to China three times and done specials
about them because they say Chinese. There's now I have
no idea. I don't streak Manamin, but apparently it's been
(12:38):
a brilliant, brilliant success, not because of me, but because
of these two girls. How did you end up living
in Singapore? You grew up in Alabama. Well, I lived
in New York for many, many years. When I went
there and I got out of college, I went to
Wall Street and Alabama doesn't have Wall Street New York
at Wall Street. Uh. But then, uh, we realized if
(13:05):
we wanted these girls to really speak Mandar, we're going
to have to live in a Chinese speaking city or
it wouldn't work. So we looked at all the Chinese cities,
but they were horribly polluted. So we wanted up in Singapore. Singapore,
everything works and they speak English and they speak Mandar.
How long have you been in Singapore? Two thousand seven?
(13:26):
We came here prominently, all right, So it's been it's
been a while. Now you've gone on to have a
tremendous career giving people investment advice, you know, trying to
explain them various options they have, you know, about how
they can improve their wealth. And I know you're going
to be speaking at a Bloomberg event on wealth. The
(13:48):
Bloomberg Wealth Asia Summit. I wanted to ask you what
does wealth mean to you? Well, you know, I have
a lot of friends who were still on Wall Street
or many I was served for gone and Rhenu Burger
was still there over a hundred years old, every day
having a wonderful time. And that was great. That's what
they wanted to do. It's it's not what I wanted
(14:11):
to do. I wanted to have more than one life,
and I wanted to have adventure. So my plan was
to do that, and so I did stop working early
so that I could have other lives and have adventure
and see the world. I would have a lot more money,
I think, I hope, I presume had I continued to work,
(14:34):
but I wanted to have more than one life. Who
knows whether I did the right thing or not. Is
that what wealth means to you is sort of wealthy experiences,
being able to have adventures. For me, it wasn't the money,
as I said before. It wasn't money stocked by cars
or planes or horses or something. It was to buy
(14:56):
my freedom. I wanted to buy my freedom so I
and have to be nice to people if I didn't
want to be nice to them, pretty simple, pretty simple
goal in life. I'm a very simple person. From place
for your phone numbers five, You're bound to be a
simple person, and so I just wanted to buy my freedom.
(15:16):
That's all it was. It was that simple. I'd say
I would probably have a lot more had I begun
you to work, but that was not my goal. I
had a pretty simple goal, and so far it has worked.
After the break, Jim explains why he believes the key
to success is being boring, and he talks about his
(15:37):
relationship with his daughters, though he admits he wasn't sure
he wanted to be a dad. We'll be right back.
Join us on demand at the Bloomberg Aga Wealth Summit
on August four to hear from leading investors, economists, and
money managers as they bring actionable intelligence to private investors
(15:59):
and family offices. At this event will unravel the complexity
and on Earth where the opportunities for wealth creation. Live
founding sponsor HSBC Register now to watch on demand at
Bloomberg Live dot Com, Slash Asia, Wealth Slash Radio. That's
Bloomberg Live dot Com, Slash Asia, Wealth Slash Radio. And
(16:19):
previously you've said that your strategy or your investment advice
has been to buy low and sell high. Wat should
people buy now? Well, yes, that's very simple, advinds. Isn't
it so easy to do? I wish you were so
easy to uh, but you just back when you asked
(16:40):
about work. I tell people often that you know, they
switch and I do blah, and I say, listen. It's
a very simple. Just figure out what you love, not
what your teachers and parents and friends love. With you
love and do it even if people laugh, or especially
if people laugh at you do what you absolutely adore.
(17:02):
That's what I did. They didn't have to pay me.
I mean, I'm glad they paid me because I needed
wanted to live and I wanted to buy my freedom.
But you know, if you do what you love, you're
never going to go to work and wake up every
day and have fun. And those are used. The people
are the most successful. They love what they're doing, and
even if they're not successful, they don't care because they're happy,
(17:25):
you know, they don't. They don't care if they have
trillions of dollars. They're very happy to have happy lots.
So for me, that's what quote work was, but I
didn't consider it work. That's what I wanted to do.
It's how I wanted to spend my time, and so
I did. And since then, I hope that that's what
I've been doing, doing things that I'm very keen on.
(17:46):
I drove around the world twice because I had this
long term to light gold, whatever it is to do that,
so I did it. Um. I think I've been doing
things that I wanted to do to have fun. And
if other people do that, as I say, even if
they're not successful, they're going to be. They don't care,
(18:10):
plenty happy, And you're more likely to be successful than not.
Your father to two young girls, and you've written this
amazing book. It's called a Gift to my children, and
it's a father's it's Father's Lessons for life and investing.
I'm just curious. Is their attitude towards money and wealth
(18:32):
and working very different from yours? Probably is because when
I would somehow with that age, I knew, we knew
we didn't have any money, etcetera. You no matter how
much I tell my girls, I mean, they can look
out the window. Can they go to school and classmates
talk to them? You know, they see that we drive
(18:54):
different cars from a lot of people. And things like that.
So no how much I tell them we're rich, they don't.
Their friends sell them, No, you are rich. We're not
as rich as many many, many people I know, but
at least we can pay the rent and we continue
to I'm trying to teach my girls that they must
(19:16):
save money because an adventure they will learn to invest it.
I have not taught them about investments because I want
them to come to me. I have learned if you
try to teach somebody something they're not interesting and it's interested,
it usually doesn't work. So but when they were babies,
we've got some five or six piggy banks that I
(19:38):
wanted them to know that every time you get money,
it is to be saved. That's what you do with money.
You don't go spend it. You get your money, go
put in the piggy bank, and the piggy banks for
you go to the big bank and put it in
the big bank. And they learned about interest and things
like that. So I am trying to teach them the
(19:59):
value you have money, that it doesn't grow on trees.
My older daughter, when she turned fourteen, I told her
she had to get a job because everybody should have
a job when you're a teenager. I assumed she would
go to McDonald's or something and get a job making
eight dollars an hour. But she's a lot smarter than
(20:20):
I am. Motheress. She got a job teaching Chinese making
thirty dollars an hour, complaining and complaining because the grown
up teachers made seventy dollars enough. And I said her,
your fourteen years old. For goodness life, you better be happy.
Stop complaining. So I think that the value of work
(20:40):
is something we all need to learn early. The younger generation, though,
do you think their approach of their ideas about investing
are different? Are they focusing more on E. S G?
For example? What's the difference that you notice? Well, of
course E. S She is different because that was no E.
(21:00):
S G when I was at that age. Of course,
things are different in many ways. But a lot of
this has been happening for hundreds of years. You know,
when everything a long bowl market, new people come into
the market and they tell their friends, Oh, I've found
this new thing called the stock market, and it's fun
(21:22):
and you can make money, and it's easy. It's easy
to make money. You know, this is not my first
rodeo mile like, I've seen this before. I know how
this movie ends. Uh. Some of these things have happened
over and over again SPACs. SPACs have been around for
three hundred years, and SPACs came riding in again often
(21:43):
after Long Bowl market. So if some of this let's say,
it's not my first rodeo, have seen some of this
movie before. Uh. And people should only invest in what
they themselves know a lot about. If you want to
be rich, don't listen to me. Don't listen. Maybe you
listen to Malachom, maybe you listen to Bloomberg, but for
(22:06):
the most part, you don't listen to hot tips. You
don't listen to other people. If you want to be successful,
you just wait until you've found something that you know,
you yourself know what's going to be successful, and do
some research and and invest. Oh and then by the way,
send me an email I want to research it. Yes,
(22:27):
that's how you become successful. If I told you you
could only have twenty investments in your life, you would
be very careful, you wouldn't need jumping in and out
all the time, and you'd probably be successful. And you
do it. Wait wait, wait, you know what people say
they say that's boring. That's okay. You want to be successful.
Be boring, be boring. That's how you're going to be successful.
(22:50):
And that advice is the same no matter what the
market conditions are. We're all talking about a recession right now,
and that your advice was stayed the same. Invest in
what you know. It may be boring, but if you
want to be successful, that's what you do. If you
listen to hot jips, you're not going to be successful.
You're gonna be talking about how it's horrible the style
(23:11):
market is and how it's unfair and they cheat you
and nothing works, and stay away from it. Oh, the
choices are to be successful or not to be successful.
You've done so many fascinating things in your life. You've
traveled the world twice, You've written so many books, You've
(23:32):
got this amazing reputation, you're on TV all the time,
you're giving investment advice. I mean, you've you've had an
amazing career and amazing life. And one of the things
you've done was you taught at Columbia, and I was curious.
You know, the students obviously were lucky to be in
your class and to learn from you. What didn't you
(23:54):
learn from that experience and from the students. Well, first
of all, I'm flat about what you say, but I
want you to know I made many mistakes in my life,
plenty of mistakes. Uh. I taught it Columbia because after
I retired, one of the things I wanted to do
while I was trying to go around the world was
to learn to play squash. Shouldn't have learned to play tennis.
(24:15):
When I lived near Columbia and I said to Columbia,
what do I have to do. I mean, I'm not
going to give them a non work, you know, I
wasn't going to go back to school or something. And
they said, okay, you teach one class, one semester and
we'll make your lifetime access to the Columbia Gym. I said, okay,
(24:35):
and I'll do it for free. But I didn't know.
And then I said to them, you know, business schools
and waste of time. I don't approve of business school
I wouldn't be a good teacher at blah blah. It
turns out I loved it. The kids loved it, and
so it was smaller than I was. I kept teaching,
but it was so much fun, so that I could
(24:57):
play squash and play tennis, and it was a lot
of fun. Uh. I learned from the students, learned how
much they didn't know for one thing. I also learned
how much I didn't know for another. No, it was
a very good experience for certainly for me. Would you
think about teaching in Singapore? Is that an option? I
(25:20):
have thought about it. I have not because it does
take a lot of time. You know, to do it right,
even if you're wrong, it takes a lot of time.
But if you want to do it right, it takes
a lot of time. And I I had I had
no children when I was teaching at Columbia, etcetera. But
then when I was here, I had these children, etcetera.
(25:42):
And I had rather devote my time any time I
have to my daughters than to other things. What's your
favorite thing to do with your family with your daughters, Well,
I guess the favorite thing. Well, I'd like to have
dinner with him. But I also do like to travel
to places with them, show them new things. Uh. When
(26:05):
we go to China, they show me new things, you know,
because they speak they speak perfectly the language. Um. But
no one of my daughters had her birthday in Moscow
and Venice and Vienna. She wants to have her birthday
in different places. Well, it's pretty fun. We do have
(26:25):
been to all those places, but I've never been there
with a young girl, a young kid, So I always
see new things because they see new things. Yeah, you
see it through their eyes and it's different. Yes, yes, yes,
walk around any city in any country with a young
child is an eye opening experience. You've done so many
(26:46):
different things in your life. What's next? Well, it really,
you asked me. The focus is my daughters. Um, I
never wanted to have children, Like I thought children were
a horrible, useless waste of time and energy and money.
I felt so sorry for my friends who had children,
who had ruined your lives. What's wrong with you? Well,
(27:09):
it turns out I was totally wrong. These little girls
are fantastic for me, and if everybody should do him,
should not miss what it will teach you and how
much fun it is. So I came to fatherhood late,
and it's good that I came late, because if I
had done it earlier, it would have been bad for
(27:29):
the mother, for the children from me, would be bad
for everybody. But when the time I did it, I
had a lot of things out of my system, and
it's been a fabulous experience. Um, and trying to spend
as much time and effort on them as I can.
(27:51):
Part of the problem is, of course they're getting older
and they're not quite as interested in their father as
they might have been when they were nine or something
like that. But I'm still I am still as interested
in them, if not more so than I was when
they were not. I'll look him now when it is nineteen,
she's a freshman in the university, and one is fourteen
(28:15):
and she isn't what would be the eighth grade in
the US. That's right, Okay, great and Jim, this podcast
is called out of Office? What's your favorite thing to
do when you're not in the office? My daughters, if
I can, if they'll have anything to do with me, Um, Yeah,
whatever they want to do, that's what I'm keen to do.
(28:37):
The problem, anybody who has teenage shure them will understand,
is they're not so keen to do things with me
as I am to do things with them. I hear you.
I have a fifteen year old and a twelve year old,
so I I understand, but you certainly understand, as I say,
anybody with teenagers will certainly understand. And now are you
(29:00):
You know when I was a teenager, I guess that
was that way too. Nothing was more embarrassing than my parents.
You know, they showed up somewhere. I was Oh, my gosh,
how hopeless, etcetera. We forget that, right, we forget that bit. Well,
I was there once too. I can remember thinking how
(29:22):
foolish my parents were. And I can remember a few
years later thinking, boy, they've changed, They've learned a lot.
You know, they've learned a great deal in the last
tern of fifteen years. I can remember when they were hopeless,
hopeless people. Now they're not so dull after all. So
maybe let's hope for us, and maybe our kids will
(29:43):
say that about us one day. I hope to much
of this someday think that I've learned a lot and
it's gotten better. Jim ro just thank you for spending
some time with me. I really appreciate you being on
out of office. Thank you, it's my pleasure. Moling. Let's
do it again sometime. That was my conversation with Jim Rogers.
(30:03):
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did
recording it. Remember, you can check out more episodes of
Out of Office. We are on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts,
the Bloomberg website, and of course, the Bloomberg Terminal. This
episode was produced by Yang Yang. I'm Monica Kapoor. Until
next time, stay well, I'll see you in two weeks.
(30:28):
Join us on demand at the Bloomberg Asia Wealth Summit
on August four to hear from leading investors, economists, and
money managers as they bring actionable intelligence to private investors
and family offices. At this event will unravel the complexity
and on Earth, where the opportunities for wealth creation live.
Founding sponsor HSBC. Register now to watch on demand at
(30:49):
Bloomberg Live dot com, Slash Asia Wealth Slash Radio. That's
Bloomberg Live dot com, Slash Asia, Wealth Slash Radio
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Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com