This Time Is Different
Long-form conversations that challenge consensus thinking about markets, money, and the economy. We question the narratives everyone else accepts and welcome contrarian ideas. Hosted by Malcolm Ethridge and Ricky Mulvey
Episodes
September 22, 2026 • 47 mins
Sam Altman told Fortune that OpenAI is delaying its IPO because of safety concerns. Ricky and Malcolm think the real story is something else.
Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss:
Why Sam Altman's "safety" excuse for delaying OpenAI's IPO looks a lot more like a company that isn't ready to speak to Wall Street.
The AI researcher who quit his job over how "dangerous and irresponsible" these companies are, then admitte...
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September 15, 2026 • 47 mins
Apple dropped a new folding iPhone. Are you ready to pay $2k for one? Ricky and Malcolm are joined by special guest Dylan Lewis, now with The Morning Brew! They discuss:
Malcolm's case that this is Apple's "Jordan Mania" moment even if he's not buying one himself.
Why Apple's stock is up roughly 40% over the past year, why it’s a "safety trade" story as CEO John Ternus takes over.
Robinhood's tokeniz...
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September 8, 2026 • 50 mins
Tax tricks used by billionaires are now showing up in the algorithm, but the real money secrets aren’t going out on social media. Ricky and Malcolm discuss:
Winmark, a royalty-collecting franchisor (Play It Again Sports, Once Upon a Child) trading at a 52-week low, and why Ricky is interested as a long-term investor.
The 351 exchange strategy the ultra-wealthy use to defer capital gains taxes, and why the versi...
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September 1, 2026 • 50 mins
AI didn’t kill all software. In fact, some of the big dogs in cybersecurity may be stronger than before. Ricky and Malcolm discuss:
Bitcoin's return to favor, and whether it's a trade or a decade-long hold.
Why CrowdStrike and Okta are rallying, and the CISO survey stat behind the next leg of cybersecurity spending.
The "SaaS-pocalypse" that may still be coming, and how private equity gets hurt.
Ricky's Med...
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August 25, 2026 • 51 mins
Future US stock returns may not follow its historical success. Former Motley Fool senior analyst Matt Argersinger sits in for Malcolm this week. Ricky and Matt discuss:
- 30-year Treasury yields near two-decade highs, and what that means for income investors who remember 2% bonds.- A real estate investment trust that Matt thinks is a great value.
- The case for playing defense on the AI trade.
- Ricky’s reporting on debank...
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August 18, 2026 • 46 mins
The economy is unhinged! Ricky and Malcolm discuss:
Gen Z redirecting investing dollars toward gambling.
Malcolm as the lone voice of caution on a CNBC panel of market bulls.
Bill Ackman's return to Netflix as an activist investor and his shaky track record with the stock.
Reddit's inclusion in the S&P 500, and why Google and OpenAI need the site for AI ambitions.
Cerebras' wild earnings swings, th...
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August 11, 2026 • 42 mins
Malcolm bought a popular tech stock a few years ago and just decided it's time to sell. How did he know?
Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss:
Why Malcolm is selling a streaming giant after a multi-year run, and why he believes there are signs the company's best growth days are behind it.
Mercado Libre, the "Amazon of Latin America," and why a company trading off profit margins for a decade of growth might be a stock...
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August 4, 2026 • 51 mins
A 24-year-old hedge fund manager said he had more "situational awareness" than anyone on Wall Street. Then his leveraged bets on memory chipmakers blew up, forcing a fire sale to Ken Griffin. Wall Street is pretty smart.
Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss:
- How Leopold Aschenbrenner's AI manifesto and multi-billion-dollar hedge fund imploded within months, and what it says about ego.
- South Korea's leveraged ETF boom,...
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July 28, 2026 • 63 mins
ServiceNow is down 50% over the past twelve months. Investors are doubting the company's place in a world with AI agents. But, maybe the software giant is figuring it out…
Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss:
- OpenAI’s latest scandal. Its bot broke out of a sandboxed test environment and hacked its way into another company’s servers using stolen credentials.
- Ricky passing the CFP® exam.
- ServiceNow...
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July 21, 2026 • 52 mins
Uber, Tesla, xAI, Meta, and now IBM have all quietly signaled the same thing: AI is too expensive. Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss:
Whether "gotcha questions" in media interviews (from Tucker Carlson to JD Vance on Rogan) actually work
Why Malcolm bought Netflix into weakness after a disappointing earnings report, and picked up Cerebras (CBRS) as a bet against Nvidia's pricing power.
The "canaries in the coa...
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July 14, 2026 • 53 mins
Nvidia’s valuation is the cheapest it has been since the AI boom. Traders’ attention moved to memory chipmakers. They may have forgotten that Nvidia makes advanced memory systems.
Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss:- An unpaid intern getting “fired” for demanding $32 per hour, and if unpaid internships should even be legal.- What investors forgot about Nvidia.- President Trump’s financial...
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July 7, 2026 • 60 mins
US margin debt, what investors borrow from their brokerages to buy securities, rose 54% from a year ago. Don’t take the punch bowl away!
Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss:
Malcolm’s prediction that Sam Altman will have to walk back OpenAI's spending commitments in the back half of 2026.
The mechanics of triple-leveraged ETFs, and how they're driving 10% single-day swings in stocks like Micron without any ind...
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June 30, 2026 • 53 mins
Polymarket reportedly paid creators to post videos of themselves "winning" bets that didn't exist. The Wall Street Journal found 118 videos showing nearly $900,000 in winnings — bets that, in reality, would have lost more than $166,000, placed on a creatively misspelled lookalike site.
Meanwhile, Wendy's is drawing more Wall Street Bets chatter than SpaceX, 80% of its borrowable shares are already sold short, and the interne...
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June 23, 2026 • 53 mins
Elon Musk says SpaceX could hit $1 trillion in revenue by 2030, a fifteen-fold jump from 2027 estimates. Parts of the market feel like they're on fire. So where does a long-term bull actually put money when they don't want to chase 40%-in-a-week moves?
Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss:
The REITs they're using as cover in an overheated market — cold storage, data centers, and class-A office — and Mal...
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June 16, 2026 • 57 mins
Is the American Dream Dead? w/ Freddie Smith
Over the past 50 years, Americans created roughly $140 trillion in new wealth. Roughly two SpaceX’s worth of wealth reached the bottom half. Actor-turned-economic-commentator Freddie Smith argues the American dream isn't dead, but the timeline to reach it has become unreasonable for the typical worker. Is he right, and what would it actually take to fix it?
Ricky Mulvey and Malc...
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June 10, 2026 • 52 mins
Google is raising $80 billion, and nearly 40% of it is going to the IRS, not data centers. Is Big Tech cutting employees to pay a tax bill?
Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss:
Why index funds are forced to buy SpaceX at a bad time
The Nasdaq rule change that helps big IPOs, and possible reasons why the exchange declined to answer Ricky's questions
Why Malcolm is making a list of stocks to buy when the hype ...
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June 2, 2026 • 62 mins
SpaceX is mostly an AI company now. Or, that’s where it sees most of its total addressable market in one of the largest economic opportunities “in human history.” Well, that's according to the company. Malcolm is more skeptical. Is this the last big bang in the AI bull market?
What's buried in the SpaceX S-1 that nobody's talking about.
Whether OpenAI's IPO will land with a thud in SpaceX's shadow
...
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May 26, 2026 • 33 mins
Malcolm flies solo this week to break down one of the more generous early retirement packages in recent memory, and whether "generous" and "right for you" are actually the same thing. He covers:
- What makes Microsoft's offer different from a typical severance package (hint: five years of health care)
- The three-bucket framework for deciding if you can actually afford to say yes
- Why your RSU vesting window might matter more t...
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May 19, 2026 • 54 mins
Meta is losing users for the first time in company history. It has a mountain of debt loaded in other development companies. Is this a blip for an unstoppable force or the beginning of a slow decline?Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss: - America’s debt problem, and the landmark of owing more than it makes.
- Strategy backtracking on permanent bitcoin ownership.- Why AI stock trading bots lose money, or the ones ...
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May 12, 2026 • 55 mins
This isn’t just like the dot-com boom, but you’ll find pockets of “irrational exuberance” if you look a little bit. Ricky Mulvey and Malcolm Ethridge discuss:
- How arena football shows the “dark part” of the American Dream.
- Why Malcolm believes that parts of the stock market are overheated and what he’s actually doing with his own money.
- If Robinhood can be a casin...
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