Welcome back to the 21 patriarch edition. We have a very special panel for you today. It's the family law panel This is something people are pretty ignorant about not kind of in our space in our world But when it comes to your next door neighbors the people you work with Just the normal folks in your neighborhoods They they don't know what's going on and how bad it is and they have no clue what to do I think maybe a lot of us don't know what to do But today we have people that aren't just you know, theoreticians But practitioners people of action not just the words that are actually Involved in this world doing something about it and been doing something about it for a long time So I want you to welcome first Jeff Younger Carnell Smith and So let's start this way each of you just tell us a little bit about yourself and give us a minute or two on the work You're doing Jeff well my son James James has and my other son Jude have been in the family court system since they were two years old My wife filed for divorce to transition my son to a girl and I've been fighting for eight years to stop that And the courts have essentially sided with her at every turn I've been able to keep him from being chemically castrated and sterilized But I have not been able to prevent his social transition to a girl So he's presented to the world as a girl with an address and so forth and the family courts Repeatedly have overruled my parental rights and have had a total disregard for the best interests of my child Thank You Jeff Carnell. Hi, I'm Carnell Smith. I'm also known as the paternity coach I've come through my experience in family law as being a dad who was Fighting to ask a judge to enforce their own order so that I could see my son I found that that experience was such that Enforcement of making me pay was swift Should I be late? There was no mercy But in order to see my son there was no help and then a few years later I found out from a lady said I'd never do anything like that to you she lied and Managed to dupe me for 11 years out of child support for a kid That was her boyfriend's kid and I fought this all the way to the United States Supreme Court and I became a legislative advocate in the process of that and Help get law changed in probably about six states now I won my own case after the US Supreme Court turned me down Using the law that I wrote and also helped my state Georgia change their laws to what we call dual-party responsibility used to be Single obligor which meant typically dad's paid most of the support now mom is required to participate to Thank you so much Melissa I'm Melissa Isaac. I'm a Family law attorney and my I limit my representation to just fathers just men and family law matters And I started this I would say you know around not quite 15 years ago This was really before and these groups were formed. There was a lot of social media advocacy and it was a very lonely world I think as Jeff and Carnell can both attest to that It's a very lonely world when you're fighting something when you're going against the grain So in the last 15 years family law I want to say in some areas with a few judges has come a long way But we have a still have a long way to go We're fighting against social and cultural norms and the legal world and that's difficult to do So that's what I do one quick question for you as I listen to Jeff and Carnell They kind of had a personal connection to this world that brought them in Do you have something like that? How'd you get brought into this world?  She's she's tiny and my dad just got home from Vietnam He was a Marine, you know a six foot four and as I grew up Everything she said was just taken as true if she said it The courts accepted it at the expense of my dad at the expense of our relationship with him So seeing so being a child and coming up and seeing how these lies were accepted as truth where the Accusation was the evidence in me thinking that's not that's not justice. That's not how the court system is supposed to work But her destructive decisions The way they've impacted my life the life of my sisters It really motivated me to go into this area of the law to make a change. I'm glad you did Sorry came the way it did but thankful. Thank for for you guys. So I didn't know anything about this I had friends that went through some rough divorces heard some stories here and there But and I think a lot of people don't I think a lot of people have no clue what's going on and Some of the things they hear they would say there's no way that's true, right? That can't be that sounds and that's an exaggeration Right. So what I'd like to start with with all three of you guys is Let's drop some red pills, right? Let's wake some people up to reality and speak to your your speak to me Ten years ago when I knew nothing about this wake up some normies. What what how would you introduce people? Into the reality that you're fighting right now and starting with you Jeff. Well, I Kind of could give it to you the way I sort of discovered it in you know in court Because I went into court very naive and thinking it was going to be a fair process, too First of all, I didn't know that district court judges are probably the most powerful people you elect We talk a lot about how they can suppress speech and their contempt powers, which are virtually unlimited You can get life in prison on contempt, right? We talk about that but they have a very I have another power which we don't talk about they have the power to compel speech They're the only elected official that can compel speech for which you can be punished if you utter that speech and You get example of that real quick. Sure. Absolutely. So the whole process Leading up to a family court action, you know to trial in Texas. We have jury trials for this. Thank goodness It's about it's all about getting damaging character admissions even if they're really irrelevant to the case and They can it's very difficult for you to claim a Fifth Amendment privilege on that because there's really no criminal That's why I'm wondering how to get around the fifth Yeah, so they can compel all kinds of speech and then twist it later and turn them into these unfounded accusations that we just heard about The second thing is that it is a system I understood I finally figured out it was a system and it's a system that starts at the federal government and It's two laws title 4d and title 4e Where the federal government literally pays the states billions of dollars to remove fathers from homes and they only Get the money if they remove the father from the home and So that was a law passed Signed by Gerald Ford from a Democrat Congress. So both parties have you know a fault here Yeah, and it's it's devastated this country. It has literally Created a situation in which the state's Fund fatherlessness Cornell I've heard you talk about that a little bit. Could you could you what is it? 4d some section. Yeah, can you explain that a little bit more to both the audience and the people watching sure sure? Thanks for the opportunity. So the Social Security Act Is more than just helping seniors it has become somewhat of a goal mind where states pander to get Financial money for running their child support enforcement system and I dare say it also funds a lot of the judges retirement funds So I think you know just from my experience of most going to multiple states sometimes this tends to color What should be at a fair and impartial rendering of a judgment? It doesn't pan out So specifically looking at section 458 under this title 4d. It's called a bonus and incentives to the states and What it does is just that phrase and yeah Yeah, and and what it some people try to tell us that can't be true Like yeah, your tax dollars finance a system that will work against you And any thoughts that you had going in that it was a level playing field You're in for shock and awe a couple of key metrics that they use in terms of what the states will compete for To the extent of willing to overlook and down in fact They will stomp on your civil rights if you don't fight back and one of those metrics is based on the number of Paternities they get established each year not fathers Paternities now this can be done by make that distinct make that distinction between fathers and paternity for yes Yes, so they understand what the categorical differences. All right, so My my experience with men and women around the United States when you say father They think this is the person who fertilized the egg that resulted in the pregnancy So it's implied and furred thought of as biological father However, there were techniques that have been developed that you can get him established as the legal father Which then gives you access to his resources and then if he doesn't make some swift decisions He can't opt out even if genetic testing later reveals. He's been duped. He's been swindled He's been tricked and then they'll say well It's your fault you didn't find out sooner and my my my meme is called cupcake cupcake laughs and says well Hey, it's his fault. He didn't know the rules Yeah, and the next metric that they have is the states want to get in on the bonus pool money, right and Think about it. Some of the opposition I've had has come from the family bar section who I thought well I thought the lawyer stood for truth. I thought they stood for fairness and justice is like nope They're going to give an aggressive Representation for their clients of their represent mom We can have you come in trying to change the laws that say the judges discretion should be eliminated or limited But I'm thankful that there are a lot more women on the side of honesty when they see what happens to their sons Husbands boyfriends grandson's they finally figured out the thing was rigged and then when you show them how to use their voice and Represent themselves legislatively we're getting things done. That's great. Melissa. You only represent men fathers mostly so When they come into your office, they're probably incredibly naive and you have to wake them up What's ahead of them? How do you prep men for what they're about to go into? What are some of the steps some of the things they need to know? That they probably don't when they walk through the door Well, unfortunately a lot of men come in and they say I want my day in court I want the judge to know exactly what she's been doing how she's been treating me how she treats the kids and I kind of say wait It's rare.  Okay, it's rare. They don't care They care about moving cases off their docket. They want their docket to stay clean Very few care about the actual relationship between fathers and children post separation post divorce very few care about that So I I want them to understand that I want them to understand that you you can fight for your day in court You can get in there You can have a great case you can have great evidence and you can still lose because this judge doesn't care The judge might be friends with opposing counsel the law firm of that judge of that law firm may have contributed to the Campaign of the judge. There are so many factors that are involved in litigation Injustice they have nothing to do with justice. So what I do is I I like you use your word red pill I read people him right away. I Don't think that the court system cares anything about your relationship with your child Which is in the best interest of these children. So we have these laws that are written and you know It's crazy. We have these big books and they have all these laws in there And there's pages and pages of laws the laws, you know, the judge must XYZ the judge must and then there's then they end it with or whatever the judge thinks is in the child's best interest Okay, which kills you on appeal, essentially. So I let them know upfront Really, I try to lower their expectations That's brutal. Yeah, it is the lever of the Levers of power are never what people think they are because of TV because of media Because of just kind of folklore and mythology that exists in our culture You guys have been in this battle for a long time, right? You know, you know some of the buttons to push the things to go after what are those things? Let's say for a dad. Let's say dad. Let's start with the dad that is losing access to his child Where would you start Jeff? Where would you tell that guy? So look at my case you know, I got less than standard present and so This is another fascinating aspect of this the beginning of a case will usually start with what's called a custody evaluator and They're going to be a psychologist and They're going to determine what the relationship is between the parents and then they make a recommendation So since we have no fault divorce the Psychologists custody evaluator essentially functions to assign fault in the divorce for the court and they give cover for the judge To do what the judge wants and they have the judges have relationships with them So the first thing that I think You know that was important that I would have done differently is I would have insisted on having an independent Custi evaluator in addition to the court ordered one, which can you insist upon that? Is there something you you can? you got to pay for it, but you can and So let me give you an example of what the court ordered custody evaluate did to me So as you know my ex-wife for eight years has been trying to transition my son So he asked me what are your top three issues in this divorce that I need to look at? And I said my number one issue is that my ex-wife is tampering with my son's gender identity He found that I made a false accusation about her because that wasn't true And on the basis of that false accusation gave me less than standard I had less possession than convicted felons So was he the angle is that she's not tampering as much as she's like embracing or no He literally lied to the court and said she's raising him as a boy just normally just like he literally lied and Why did he do that? He did that because Courts are actually given quotas family courts are given child support quotas before they hear any evidence in cases So judges have a pool of child support They have to assign in their cases and they allocate that to each case and they pick and choose a winner and a loser parent based on Who can pay that money? Right the judicial retirement fund in my state comes out of that money So their retirement depends on how much child support they issue the Texas Attorney General's office is Completely funded by these title 4d child support reimbursements to the tune of half a billion dollars So there when you put half a billion dollars on the table you got a lot of special interests going after that money So that's the so the first thing is getting the custody evaluator and understanding the incentives and then in my case We have elected judges So judges respond to electoral pressure So one of the things that these courts will do is put unconstitutional gag orders on you So you can't tell the electorate what the elected officials doing in the in the course of their official duties I have simply refused to follow those now I've paid a price for that But I have just now I don't follow unconstitutional orders from the court and they never enforce them on me because they would Lose on a writ of habeas corpus as the Texas Supreme Court and it would look bad for them even worse to their electorate right for Imprisoning an innocent man, but they do this and most fathers follow those I've informed the electorate which has allowed me to keep my son from being chemically castrated I guarantee you had I not violated those gag orders and told the people what the judges were doing He would be sterilized right now. Yeah Melissa, how do you what have you learned when it comes to navigating our courtrooms? Some of the issues that Jeff brought up you have a we had Jeff Who's the one that is trying to defend his son?  I think the most important thing when navigating a courtroom is when the Legal standards are weak your evidence has to be strong and in Alabama It's a one-party state means you can record conversations if only one person to the conversation those have been recorded I Tell my clients to record everything when you meet with a garden and light them you record it when you meet with a a Therapist you record it you record everything because like Jeff said they will lie Now they're these people are they're professionals. They're there they have certifications. They have they lie Right, so and that's a big misconception. I think that the people have is Well, these are professionals. I mean this is a mental health professional.  They call themselves psychologists some of the worst people So don't ever give anybody any credit just because the credentials that they possess at all So when someone comes in and says well, you know, I met with the dad and the dad said XYZ Is that is that what he said exactly? Okay, because when I go in the courtroom with recordings I have recordings cued. I have transcripts for the court here. You go judge so you can follow along and For that reason and I'm glad by the way There are some mental health professionals that won't speak to me unless it's in writing Which by the way, I prefer that anyway, right because that's what we want Can't change a story. It is what it is So when you're navigating through the courtroom, let me tell you something especially as a man You do not want to be in a he said she said position. You will lose every time What I have found in my career women tend to be better actors than men Women can turn on the tears. I mean, you know what not Amber heard though. She's pretty. Oh, well Look, she's being an actress. She was a horrible actress like she did a horrible job But you know we go into the courtroom and we have social media posts We have the the the sexting pictures between her and the boyfriend, but yeah when she comes into court She dress very conservative always a string of pearls. That's odd to me But I always a string of pearls a little tissue in the right hand But then you hit play right when she's in there and she's talking about how important church is and how important family is I'm just here to protect my children from yeah But then when her f-bombs start bouncing off the courtroom walls when you can hit record play on that recorder chain It's a game changer. Yeah, okay, so you look at the court of appeals. It's hard to win at the court of appeals, right? You have to show that the judge abused your discretion or the the great weight of the evidence doesn't you know comport with what the judge did But it can be done. We actually have you know my firm We have a good appellate rate. Okay, not because we're these just just fantastic lawyers But because we do a thorough job. We do a good job. We understand what needs to be done so that would be my advice to you when you're navigating a courtroom is Everything you say Everything you testify to back it up by a witness and text message and email a recording Something do not get stuck in the he said she said situation We agree Cornell People sometimes say that men are the disposable sex and what they don't realize the reason that women and children go first off a boat Isn't because we're disposable but because we care about our legacy more than anything men care about our children They're our future. We're willing to die for them. I hate listening to you speak because but I do it Let me explain why having men promised a legacy and then them finding out that These children who are still beautiful children, but he's been sacrificing his life for and he would die for them in a second Right every dad would is not his child He's been deceived By a woman who claims to be faithful claims to love them Churchgoing women in many cases, right? It's not just Some sort of like strung-out person, but these are these are people again. They're string of pearls they present. Well It's very hard to hear that But I think it's something people need to know has been a reality for a long time and it's one that some that's undeniable Based on evidence how what's some of the evidence that shows that this is actual not just some Random every once in a while thing. Yeah, but this is a growing trend in our country in a real problem Okay, so you're speaking specifically on some data. That's that's beyond just some one-off situations beyond Anodism. Yeah, so in my in my process of working with legislators across the nation They always come back with this question. Well, it's only a small problem with with with a few minorities Low-income minorities at that and then when I show them billionaires who are paternity fraud victims multi-millionaires elected officials men in every branch of the armed forces clergymen Scientists you name it because oftentimes moms will pick a guy based on some criteria Who she thinks is the best father candidate and the truth about whether or not he's really related to the kid No, no, no, no, you understand how our program me how pergamy works She's looking to get the best candidate to help her with her goals The heck with what he wants or needs for a lot of guys their belief that legacy is it He's investing in what he believes to be his own progeny, and he's willing to go to the ends of the earth for them Now I will also say that in getting data. I asked the various State contracted laboratories who provide services by contract and say, okay How many men are you testing? I have tested over the past three calendar years and Of those you have tested how many of them prove to not be related to the child and Again and again and again year after year. This number is 30% or better There's one county in Michigan I think men have gotten a memo. They've gotten a memo that trust but verify. Yeah, she says you did it Yeah, you were married to her. Yes, she's your high school sweetheart But in that county in Michigan 80% of the guys who got tested were not related to the child So in in in my radical thinking, you know, I've been called a troublemaker by a few women Women groups and the women is feminist mindset. They're like, but you're you're trying to make DNA tests into weapons against women I was like, no, no, no, I'm not really I'm trying to help you I said as your your your ideology says you believe in equality, right? And I'm like go girl you get equality But you also must take the rest of the medicine that includes equal responsibility and equal Accountability so if you are parallel dating while your husband thinks he's in a monogamous relationship You should have a ethical moral duty to disclose that so he can make a formal Fully informed decision about whether or not your actions say that you're for the streets He should believe you were for the streets based on your conduct and he should return you to the streets That's my position. I don't care if she's the pastor's wife or whether she's an elected official Listen, I've even to come across women who were college professors who also committed paternity fraud No guy believes me initially and some men have even laughed at me in my presentation He goes and do DNA testing and one guy finds out three out of five of the kids weren't his and those three kids had different fathers So who was the person who did wrong? It wasn't him So a guy goes to Afghanistan for 13 months and his wife Hasn't it gets pregnant and has a new son while he's away for 13 months. Mm-hmm. He says that's not possible Humans aren't elephants. Yep. It's nine months in there, right? Okay And so he files for divorce. Yeah, why he's away open and shut, right? He's not gonna have to pay child support It's all gonna be fun, right? Not true. I want you not to explain how this how this could be possible How a woman could clearly like he's not mailing sperm to her. No, so how's how how in the world can a man Be paying for a child that's clearly not his scientifically, right, right? All right, so my yeah, so great question If there's this doctrine called the Lord Mansfield doctrine It's from the early 1800s and it's based on old English common law And what that doctrine said essentially is that unless the man was away on the high seas or otherwise His equipment didn't work He is presumed to be the father of every child that his wife has while he's married her Now at least back in that time if he was away on the high seas, he was essentially Had no access to her, right? Mm-hmm But now there's been a somewhat of a perverted twist to the thing by the states that support the marital presumption of paternity So even if he is deployed an active combat duty while he's still married to her and Everyone knows she's living with the boyfriend and the boyfriend's name got initially placed on the birth certificate His name will be removed and the husband's name will be put on there And if these if the guy doesn't fight this thing like rapidly Fatal mistake a lot of guys do they'll just walk away and then try to divorce her by Through the mail or by default and not take the critical step to get evidence Still look, we know you physically weren't here during the gestation period Women don't gestate like elephants do right not possible But in those states in country that support the marital presumption It doesn't matter whether you're in the country out of the country You found out she had multiple boyfriends. You said I'm not touching her with a 10-foot pole. The judge says according to the law You are responsible for any children she has while you're still married to her so ordered and That blows the mind of a lot of people so it's good. Look, it's patently unfair on its face, right? And what I say to the to the woman is feminist supporters like you guys should be cheering for the boyfriend To get to take care of his kid now if she was a Rational woman why didn't she divorce her husband her actions say she don't love him her actions say she doesn't want to be in that Relationship however, she wants to be attached to his resources a lot of time that guy's been selected by why he's a studious He's hard-working. He's a go-getter. He might not be the Chad or or Tyrone who turns her own right? So how does she do it? She doesn't get best of both worlds. I like that You did Chad and Tyrone. Yeah, and we both know you're discovering the spectrum here. I am. I am Melissa You've been involved in paternity fraud cases. What's what's some eye-opening cases that you've been involved in? Oh Probably they the saddest cases are because like Cornell is saying the law is so one-sided when it comes to Who is the legal father is mother would have an affair boyfriend finds out? She's pregnant boyfriend really wants to be a daddy But then husband steps in and says no, I'm the legal father and having to fight We can prove that we're the biological father. You can prove that it may not matter But see a lot of this comes down to the the politics of your judge your specific judge So like most the judges I I mean I wouldn't I wouldn't let them babysit my dog But there are a couple judges that when these situations come in I look at the judge and I'm like We got we got one of the two good judges in the whole state. We got one of the two So there was a case where something similar happened where the judge almost actually played a mediator Kind of pre-tried the case and said listen, I'm not going to kick this dad out of this child's life I'm not going to you can take me to court appeals. You can take me up But I'm not doing that where we actually were able to reach agreements So a lot of most of the time well I will say when a husband finds out that wife is pregnant with someone else's baby Most the time the husband will be like that their marriage is kind of over anyway But there are some of those men that will stay and hang on for some reason. I don't know right Maybe the sex is good, but crazy in the bed crazy in the head. I've yet to see an exception Right, but some of these men tended to to latch on why I don't know But the law is so horrible when it comes to that, you know And I'm just want to switch gears real quick. We look at You know some people are saying hey the divorce rates are going down. This is a good thing.  This other attorney and I'm just bashing.  Let's slation some dipshit wrote this Like I'm having a very candid conversation.  He could be this child's father He needs to get on a registry and say hey I've just signed this registry with the state of alabama saying I so and so slept with so and so if she has a child I might be this child's father. I said well that doesn't make any sense, right? Why isn't there a panties up doctrine? Yeah, right when these women lay on their backs with their legs wide open Sleeping with God knows who shouldn't they be the ones to have to report and say you know I slept with so and so on this wouldn't it be so much easier for the state to figure that out She knows she knows better than anybody else who this baby's father should be or could be But why do we put the responsibility on men?  This woman lays on her back with her legs wide open for a man that walks through her door Kind of makes you cringe a little bit to say that right, but you know, but I could write it makes you cringe But it's no different than saying a man can't keep his dick in his pants But why can I say it and not carnell? Why can I say it not Jeff somebody needs to say it? So I'll say it makes you cringe, but it's the truth So you look at these babies being born out of wedlock and these men will come in bless the heart They say like how this baby being born. This is my son.  It's a very long process an expensive process How many dads didn't get to see their children over COVID because well, we're not scheduling hearings because of COVID So, I mean family court. It's a show.  That's what kind of court it is You want to do everything you can to stay out of it, right?  It's dangerous to you as men dangerous Jeff, what do people not understand about? parental cost or custody of children after a breakup in A relationship or divorce. What do they not understand? You're a smart guy especially for Eastern Orthodox are doing all right but but And You know, we all we all have salt in our past, but you're You've done well for yourself, but you still found yourself in a situation Where you don't have access to your son How'd that happen from a legal standpoint? What can people learn from about custody from your situation? Okay, so you've heard about this paternity fraud issue and Once you can accept that that the courts will do this that they will literally take 30% of a man's gross income pre-tax income Which even millionaires and businesses can't survive and they'll do that for 24 years For a child that's not in their courts are willing to do that kind of thing to men You start to think courts can do other things. So let me tell you the simplified version of how they took Custody away from me the judge issued an unconstitutional gag order And I've repeatedly told the judge to please put me in jail for it because I'm never following it I have a writ of habeas corpus I want I'll appear in handcuffs at the Fifth Appeals district She'll come in her judge robes and we'll see who's right about this right because I have a permanent lifetime ban from all media Okay, that's Jeff this is going online. Yeah, I know I know I tell I look in the camera and tell her all the time So that's the first thing they should an unconstitutional gag order When I didn't follow the gag order opposing counsel got a psychologist to say that me talking about my son with other people Like my church and so forth to get support for my church was harming my son So then they then the judge reasoned like this I issued the unconstitutional gag order on mr. Younger Mr. Younger is not following the unconstitutional gag order that was entered in the best interests of his son Therefore mr. Younger is not acting in the best interests of his son. Therefore. I will give him less possession time than convicted pedophiles That's how the judge reasoned and what that should illustrate to you is That at law district judges have almost unlimited discretionary power over you in family court I'll give you some other examples that men just don't know about that affects custody You have no financial privacy like every credit card transaction that I'm making here at this will it be scrutinized by a judge And that will happen until my sons are 26 Okay, you have no financial privacy if you start a business all of your business partners are exposed to this as well Okay, so your it circumscribes the ways that you can make money to fund a legal defense to go after custody And that's done intentionally right So the other thing is that while they talk about custody being you know In Texas there are statutes that say you know Children have a right to an enduring consistent relationship with their parents, right? But this is really subject to the judge's determination of the best interest of the child And let me tell you how the courts have misinterpreted that doctrine I mean lawyer here can talk about troxel later, but Yeah, so rock soul, it's a it's a supreme court case. Yeah, so The certainly the statutes in all the states Give say that the judge should rule in the best interest of the child what they don't say what those statutes do not say is That the judge determines What the best interest of the child is that is still left with the fit parents called a fit parent presumption and One of the worst abuses that even the paternity front stuff all this is based on the idea that these district judges Just ignore the fit parent presumption and decide how parents are going to raise their kids And they're just going to make the parents pay for it and do all work and That becomes an ideological decision because there's no general agreement in this country on how we ought to raise our kids a Muslim because of multicultural multiculturalism That's right a Muslim will have a very different idea than an orthodox Christian, right? I have a very different idea obviously than my ex-wife who thinks my son should be a girl versus being a boy Now you you would think that courts would sort of pick between what the two fit parents are and choose one of those, right? But they don't what they do is they manufacture the way they would raise the child Right and that applies to custody so that the district judge basically does this Psychologically does this. I don't like that parent and If I were if I were in this situation I wouldn't want that parent to have time and so I'm going to give time to the other parent It comes down a lot to likability and And likability comes down to whether you're politically and socially congruent with the judge So I have a far left judge very far left judge radical actually far left judge. I'm clearly not congruent So she can grow up with her and so she's determined that people like me can't raise their kids And she has the power to do it because district judges are just that powerful The best interests of a child Part of the problem, so I'm a pastor and And I try to speak to the moral issues I don't think I don't think there's any hope without a moral populace But I also think when a hurricane has destroyed a town You pick up where you can pick up you start, you know, we all have our different place in the rubble here and trying to rebuild something So I've had a lot of men reach out to me. He's gone through terrible divorces Very painful custody battles good good men pastors who I know one pastor whose wife She got really in shape. He's a good dad I'm sure he made mistakes like any dad, you know, right work too much for a couple months or whatever But but a good man She got really involved in Instagram and then got into the fitness world and started hooking up with a coach and then The pastors discipline him for not loving his wife like Jesus would my Jesus says in Revelation He'll spit you out.  Okay So I don't know what you're talking about He goes through all that I can coach them to that I can coach them through the church stuff I can walk them through scripture, but then he gets into the courts And I don't know what to do. I don't know. I don't understand this world But you know my position is I'm trying to get men to be fathers and get married Because that's where that's what? Stabilize the society but guys are saying what all you know, what in the world? Why would I do that to myself like these?  We've talked about the corruption of the core the problems of the core At least we started scratching at the surface here What do we do about it? Like how did how do the have guys like me and people in here? You guys are advocates I know you guys are not making much money from this. I know that for a fact. That's not why you're here You're here because you're an advocate. So what do we do? How do we get involved? What are some steps Melissa? well You know, you said you look at the issues of morality the courts by statute look at morality, but like Jeff said What is morality is determined by your judge, right? So we think well morality is is commitment morality is You know exclusivity within a relationship.  It would be harmful for her to stay in that relationship, and you know what and he should want her to go be satisfied So, I mean what's moral anymore? This sounds so far out there But and this really ties into the presentation I'm gonna give later because it we're litigating excuses. That's what we do. We litigate excuses We litigate justifications as to well I did I may have done this but it's his fault and this is why this is what he was doing This is what he wasn't doing. I mean I didn't feel like I had a choice of them to fall into the arms of another man So so that's the thing is we look at morality. It's not even okay It's no you're not even safe if you meet somebody at church anymore You're not safe if you meet somebody at church the hypocrites that sit in church on the Sunday And then for the rest of the week tear apart families. Oh, but they go to church on Sunday. Oh, that's nice The woman in Proverbs chapter 7 when she's seducing the man one of the things she says is I've made my offerings Right, she said I made my offerings She is actually a religious woman But she tears down households and destroys them and it's not just that so this has been going on for a while It's Solomon Solomon's trying to make his son wise and it's hard for people. Yeah Yeah, there are deadbeat dads and there's manipulating moms right lion moms as well. So but to To your driving at a point Melissa. I want you to get there. So So the question is I mean, what do we do about this and we're dealing with morality And there's one thing that I try to do in courts as we point out the hypocrisy, right? So this is what she says. This is the the presentation she gives to the public This is what she says she wants and this is where the recordings come in.  No, well described hypocrite I don't understand what you're saying because the judge has to understand where you're coming from We have to believe you by the way. So you point out the hypocrisy, right where well I mean, I'm a moral woman. Okay. Just like we'll talk about later. I'm gonna talk about we have a woman She went to church three times a week But it was okay for her to have an affair Does it say that in the Bible? Um, I Don't I don't think it does you I'm glad you thought about that You should have thought about that before but you want to point out the hypocrisy again When you're when your legal standard is weak your evidence must be strong Carnell what's some steps what some ways the folks on the street get involved? So to two-fold two-fold I think that Men have and have to learn about a mindset shift that when they start to approach that family arena it is not a level playing field and He's got to start thinking Strategically and he's got to be open to being coachable to an outside expert to me a Family law attorney who's committed to helping you have frequent consistent quality contact with your kid is Golden because they know legal strategy They also know the lay of the court and you're at a extreme disadvantage because one you don't know the rules of the court You don't know the rules of evidence. You don't even know the freaking language So I asked the guys I said point blank How could you aggressively represent your interest when you even know what they're talking about about you and your case? And you're still trying to do he said she said so it's you gonna need some mindset Help all right. Mm-hmm But now on the other side of that coin There's opportunities to limit and eliminate judicial discretion by changing the law and that That involves some some advocacy to the point of helping people see that you say you want dads and and parents to have Frequent consistent ongoing relationship with their kids and not one person playing one Upsmanship and using the child like a pawn right to manipulate this other person to doing what they say he should do right? showing those people how to use their voice and Influenced legislators what I've seen happen over the past decade a lot more of the younger judges were the kid Who was affected by a malicious mom who nuked their relationship with their dad?  You need a minute to compose yourself and you're gonna answer this question today All right. I'm over there literally going. Yeah. Yeah, but here's something else that people can do I approach the faith-based community for court watch So what is court watch? You need some people who have some highs some some very high-standing in the community To sit in as observers on your court case and have them take notes that has two full purpose One day I believe in prayer power. All right, I really do It is why I'm a free man today and not at facing a felony prison sentence for a pregnancy I didn't commit all right But the other thing is now when you start calling for public testimony Before the legislators it is not just your story Before the legislators you got community leaders who have done court watch and seen multiple cases And believe me they start to see some common recurring things Whether it be married whether it be single and they're like well wait a minute The guy had 80% custody before he went in that courtroom He walked out with once every other week and once they ever the every other weekend. How was that good for the kid? Believe it or not showing people how to get involved in the letter slated process How to use your voice and not just be a victim who just lays on the railroad track and take it You can be effective if you learn how to do it Mm-hmm, and I my father used to tell me says you might need some expert help You don't lose your man card cause you go get some help That's great too many conservatives are losers, right? They they conserved the last liberal victory and I heard someone say that the problem with Americans conservative Americans Is there a grill Americans? They just want to be left alone on their back porch and grill, right? but That's not the way left this are they have no desire or willingness to leave anyone alone and So one thing that I like about you Jeff Especially like about you is that you've got an involved yourself and you've Rapidly got involved and taking a lot of steps You've got some recent experience here with some steps people can take well as you know I ran for office in the state of Texas to be in the state legislature specifically to change these laws and I forced the Republican establishment the governor of Texas a speaker of the house in Texas to spend over three million dollars against me in this Little po-dunk legislative race Because I had bills of impeachment Prepared for family court judges one of them Claire Shipman in my own county judge Shipman Gave custody to to the boyfriend of an ex-wife when the ex-wife was killed That's what was killed in a in a drunk driving accident and the boyfriend. She was limited time. She gave him visitation It's crazy. It's crazy. So I So there's a couple of things that I had a platform on family court reform and the first thing was We in Texas this is going to shock you Temporary orders are not appealable in Texas in family court We have a special statute that the family lawyers did you can't appeal temporary orders So that's why I thought Texas was a conservative state though. It's a it's peopled by conservatives But it's ruled by liberals. Yeah, yeah, like a lot of places liberals are experts at subverting democratic institutions Right, so we can't appeal so we need to make temporary orders appealable on the lower standard of appeal All you can do is mandamus, which is a much higher proof standard 95% of those plus are denied in Texas. It's such a high standard. So make them appealable second thing is Clarify in statute the meaning of the fit parent presumption Fit parent presumption exists in case law, but it's not written in statute They don't want it written in statute because it would take away judicial discretion and give it to the parents All right, the other thing is we have an error in the federal and most of the state constitutions If you read the Federalist papers They believe that the judicial branch would be the weakest branch of government and they worried that the other branches would gang up on it So it's very difficult to remove a judge while history has shown that they're wrong That the judicial branch is the most powerful branch of government. In fact, it bullies the other branches So we need to make it much easier to impeach judges Much much easier and I do I think also that I propose that in Texas with the same signature Requirements to get on the ballot you can initiate a plebiscite to remove a district judge So you could do removal votes for judges that puts that puts a lot of fear into them, right? because this interrupts their retirement even if it even if it fails and the the the final thing is to Enforce cameras in the courtroom. Yes, every family courtroom should be recorded on cameras because Anas is going to shock people here Court reporters lie too. Hmm. That's what I was wondering what but court reporters lie all the time in the record I've had I found it twice Yes, fortunately because of COVID most of my hearings for the last year and a half have been online And I've been able to find the fact that they lied in these records, right? But I wouldn't have been able to do that had it been an in-person hearing so we need to record judges and what carnell talks about court watchers We have a group in Texas We put 50 people into these courtrooms and you find that judges are very unwilling to commit felonies on the bench when there's 50 witnesses Lot of people don't know in the United States. I mean, it's funny that people don't know us We have open courts in the United States. We don't have secret courts Every citizen has access to every court in the United States Every citizen of this country should visit regularly visit their district court to see that justice is being administered to your fellow citizens in your community They should visit their federal district court, which is not a never far away. It's only a county away Go visit. We know once a year Go visit a federal district court and see how your federal district judge is doing you have access to these courts And you are the only place that the final say for all this now That brings me to my final point about serving on juries Now in Texas we have jury we have jury trials for family court where I think we're the last one left Well, the jury box is the only place left in our governments where the citizen can overrule the whole entire state If you are a member of a jury you can tell the state No, no matter how powerful the state is no matter how powerful the prosecutor is in the jury box You are the government So instead of thinking of it as jury duty, you should start thinking of it as a jury right You have a right to ensure that the courts are administering Justice to your fellow citizens fairly and no aspect of justice I submit even even criminal justice is not as important as the justice that is administered for the care of children And those are the most important cases you should be concerned with Amen, thank you for fighting for fighting against tyranny and fighting for our families. Will you give them a round of applause, please? We have just a few minutes left, and I'm gonna open it to a couple of questions from the audience And what I just asked is if you have a question be sure it's a question Not a statement that you're looking for someone to agree with you with So and when you give your question, please let us know who you're asking if you're asking the panel or a specific individual Yes, this is for car now Be very close to the mic. But yeah, we can hear you at this. Yes. There you go Car now regarding the the time that it takes to submit the claim that you are not the father Can you give an example of how long that is and and if it's something that's done clandestinely by the person You know who's trying to commit the problem. I want to know how you would know Like how you'd know about that that she is trying to put the man under like False fatherhood for somebody over. Okay. Okay. Good question. Good question. So time limits vary based on the use case scenario So if you are a single Unwed not married, right? If you sign any document, what do you see my presentation? What I call a sign confession? voluntary acknowledgement of paternity the Papa opportunity program or Litany of other touchy-feely names if you sign that document the clock starts running and You have in many states 60 days to figure out that if you sign this confession You are now locked into this thing and on the 61st day She can get in your face and say I tricked you full and you gonna have to pay me because now It's going to take a judge's order to get you off of that even if you got a recording of her saying Well me and my boyfriend figured that since you make more money than he does you are better candidate Now for the married men There's this group called the governor of commissioners. It's a non-elected body So the way they decided to tackle the challenging of paternity is they came up with this Statute of time limits that said anywhere from ages 2 to age 5 if you don't find out by the child's second birthday You are banned from ever challenging And then the other states that have as high as five years You marry your ban from ever challenging paternity and I've been able to point out the hypocrisy of this before the legislators I said one that is not a Duly appointed elected body They should not be able to dictate over the citizens of a state who haven't had a voice and participating in the process to just Manipulate men for money and this also applies to teen boys Second there's an hypocrisy here There's no requirement for the child's mother to disclose to the court To her own attorney or to the guy she's pointing at that there are multiple Paternity candidates and who's a multiple? Anyone that she's had intimate relations with during a 60-day window of conception Can be the child's father. I mean I actually solved the case involving identical twins and my client Using my formula called ABC's of paternity in my book called Trap by law. I Was able to prove my client was actually in Afghanistan in combat duty in the US Army as a sergeant At her time of conception, but yet they had a DNA test that showed he was 99.999% the father. He said man, it can't be I Didn't I haven't touched her since I've seen her I Told the guy says men when I see your DNA report the probability is so high There must be another guy who matches your DNA profile Identical twin triplets quadruplets something like that cause these are people who come from the same fertilized egg Well, guess what I say any chance you've got a twin brother. He's like, yeah Well, where's your twin brother live the twin brother lives near the girlfriend who put his name down His married brother Turns out based on the window of conception was the only person within 30 miles of her So guess we got my guy off. We got him put on and he was pissed about it But these time limits about what the you know, whether it's two years five years 60 days 180 days They are documented within the family code section of a state But how many men and teen boys are being taught information About family law so they will have any awareness that there's a clock running and your ability To defend yourself and defend your rights. You could lose that circle for you ever found out There was a time limit So I believe that one Men and boys should make take the action to have zero children While you are unmarried and don't have any children till you're in a committed relationship With the woman who has your last name if you want to be in a relationship No kids do not leave the decision in her hands because she has all these multiple options for Contraception and up to an including and let's talk about the Roe v. Wade decision real quick Senator Marco Rubio is making a push to say we should file for child support while the woman is pregnant Some people are shocked that I am not upset at that idea. I said, you know what that is a great idea this could represent the person hood of the child while the child is yet in utero and This is opportunity after she's been pregnant for eight weeks. We now have through my business partner We can get a DNA test legal DNA test that doesn't endanger the pregnancy By getting a blood sample from the mother because at the eighth week We now have enough fetal cells in her bloodstream that where now we can get a match of Maternity to the mother and the child and the only person we have to get an external sample from is the alleged father So he doesn't have to wait until birth now to find out. Does he have a financial responsibility? He can find out starting at the eighth week. So my push is well look now Let's also recognize the rights of the fathers From day one and them not have to take any legal intervention Actions to be recognized as a legal father at that has rights and access to the child That would be what I would say one more question Sorry, two questions really quick a follow-up to what you were just speaking on where can men go to educate themselves? To understand the laws for the laymen, which I think most of us are and the second one for the panel How do you gather evidence in a two-party state? So that first question was to me Let's start with the two-party. Let's start with the two-party state one Melissa. So Florida is a two-party state I'm licensed in Florida as well So in a two-party state what I tell my clients is you want to do everything in writing to the extent that you can put Absolutely everything in writing Most homes have security cameras right security cameras if you have a conversation on your front porch If you have a conversation in your house, that's not that's not violative of the rule You're not recording the conversation. You're like the I was accused of saying XYZ. She's in my home I wasn't recording her but my security cameras pick this up. So it's sort of a way to to get around that but unfortunately Let me say this to women will do this a lot. Okay proximity is power Text you can we talk Don't respond. We need to talk. What do you want? You can talk in person. No, listen, that's a trap All right after 12 years together, you know, we deserve a face-to-face conversation. No, it's trap proximity is power All right, because especially if you're vulnerable to someone if you're going through a divorce and they come in and My car now we've been together so long and women are very manipulative. They know so you want to stay away Especially in a two-party state, you don't want to get yourself in a situation where there's a possible. He said she said there are There's apps. Okay, there's my family wizard apps There's different apps that you can use actually I go through the court that automatically record calls, right? So if you can get those in place, then you don't violate the statute using a court order to app Okay, but in a two-party state you want to limit everything to emails to text messages Security cameras public places where there's witnesses because witnesses are still available and use these apps But definitely it's hard on a two-party state, but there's still ways around that Jeff to the issue of where can men go to start to educate themselves on these topics? I would send them to car now's website. That's what I was Yeah, I do too And I will tell you family codes are not that hard to understand No Of all the parts of the law that you'll ever find they're written in the most plain English Go to the family code in your state and understand and usually they follow pretty logically They define their terms at the top Then they start defining rights and duties of the judges and the parties and how the procedures work And so go do that, but I think car now has made this point You also need to watch some trials Yep, the best way for you to learn how this works is to visit a family court and Watch a couple of trials and see how it actually works. Yes, very helpful. Can we take them one more time?


Hello and welcome back to the deal room and we've got quite the show for you today because we're going to talk about the IPO market. We've had Arm, Instacart, Clavio and Birkenstock, the latter I thought probably hit its peak when I was at university back in the early noughties but apparently not. They're looking to IPO at this present point in time. So a couple of things just to give you a bit of a preview of what Steven and I are going to discuss in this episode. We've got, is the IPO market opening back up? That kind of was the lead of a number of mainstream finance publications of this week following those ones I've just mentioned. But how is this different to that boom that we saw in the IPO market back in 2021? Importantly, hopefully I'm going to be able to extract out Steven, what is the difference between what was happening then and what is happening now? And a few precautionary tales about this kind of first day pop because we have seen some pretty extreme price reactions on Arm and Instacart just in the last two weeks. And then stay tuned because at the end we've been talking to a lot of students and all of the applications are pretty much fully open now, particularly in the banking space. And one of those common questions that we get always is how do you kind of talk about a current deal that is happening? And I see lots of people showing information about there's this deal, there's that deal, but what I'm going to get Steven to do hopefully or get out of him is not only talk about the deals in a bit more detail, but talk about the role of what investment banks play. And then importantly, what does that actual, what are all the different players between the lead underwriters, the advisors. And I know that there's many levels to that because I think if you know that, I think you can really stand out in the interview process. I think your odds go up substantially. And so hopefully if you stick around to the end, Steven will share his thoughts on how to tackle that inevitable question. But Steven, the hoodie is on. I assume winter is here. Winter is very much here. I'm actually still kind of coming down from our summer party on Friday where I got into our office and it was full of amplified polo shirts and t-shirts and hoodies. So I just grabbed whatever I could. So my winter fashion is Birkenstocks and an Amplify hoodie. This isn't a fashion podcast, but. All right. So where do you want to start then? If it's been so many, it seems. I know you wrote on LinkedIn earlier this week. It's like waiting for London buses. You wait forever and then they all come at once. So which one do you want to start with? Oh, gosh, it's a good question. Well, let's go. Let's go sequentially from Arm, which which priced and launched last week all the way through to Birkenstock, which is looking to launch in October. And we can kind of take them one by one because they all have slightly different flavours. And then maybe we'll try and tie them together with a bit of a 2021 retrospective. So I think it's always good. We're talking a lot about IPOs on this podcast and my background's M&A. So we dealt with the equity capital markets team quite a lot. But this is certainly something that is interesting to me, but it's not my background. So it's very fascinating for me to get deeper into these stories. Well, let's just take a look at Arm. We spent a whole podcast last week talking about the IPO and it priced last week, last Thursday, the 14th of September at $51 a share. And we were, you know, we try not to give investment advice on this podcast, but we were starting to go. We were nudging one way or the other last week on the podcast saying, here are the arguments for, I think maybe I was trying to sell you that sell you the IPO at certain times. What is that investor on the pod? Here we go. If you got in at 51 and got out at its peak on Friday of last week, you would have bagged a $15 per share increase. So it popped from $51 a share to 66 midway through last Friday. And that's a pretty healthy pot, bearing in mind that the trunk, you know, that they've raised over $5 billion in this IPO. So obviously, the smaller the volume, the more extreme the exaggerations of share prices are likely to be depending on demand. But this is a big book.  Right. So it's an interesting one because we said last week on the pod, let's not judge the IPO underwriters who priced it at $51. Let's not judge the success of the IPO until the market settles. And it's still, you know, it's been trading for six days, right? It's not anywhere near it's settled stable price that usually happens once the first earnings report has come out three months into the into the into the launch of the IPO. But it's now down to $55 a share. So it's come off from its $66 high. So $51 Christ up to $66 down to $55. So, you know, it's feeling like it's kind of probably appropriately priced. And remember, you know, the IPO was 12 times oversubscribed and we had this roster of anchor investors putting in that $735 million. So they did all and they had 28 banks on the ticket. They did absolutely through the kitchen, the kind of IPO kitchen sink at this deal. And they managed to get it away and get it away very successfully, which has given confidence to all of these London buses waiting in the wings, thinking, all right, you know, I'm quite interested in IPO and I'm getting all of my ducks in a row. Let's have a look at what arm does, and then and then pile in if it's successful. So I think the general consensus is, are successful enough. I'd say a good IPO or things considered. And by the way, it's a good IPO for the banks because they got paid $105 million for their for their troubles. So not not a bad little payday. But there's still obviously there's still a lot of question marks about the IPO markets, which may well get resolved by Instacart, the next company we're going to talk about. Yeah, and I know that one's really dominated the last couple of days. I think we're from when we're recording this was their first day trading yesterday. So yeah, tell me a little bit about about that story and how that's probably a unique story in itself. Yeah, so Instacart is the is the US e-commerce kind of grocery platform. So it basically is a technology company that helps grocery groceries get delivered to individuals to consumers. And it's an interesting story and it's a really good representation of what we say quite a lot when we're teaching here at Amplify, which is, you know, a company is either a good deal or a bad deal depending on the price. You know, it's still the same company, but if it's at a good price, then it's a really good deal if it's overpriced and it's a terrible deal. So, and this is and this is kind of the history of Instacart that Instacart was founded back in 2012 and it was one of it got its break on the Y Combinator venture accelerator. I've been talking about this back, you know, a few months ago in the podcast, but that is the kind of the Ivy League finishing school, or maybe even starting school for high potential startups, just looking through the roster of illustrious alumni. So we've got the likes of Stripe, Airbnb, DoorDash, Coinbase, DropBots, Gusto, Flexport, GitLab, Reddit, Rocker, all coming through this accelerator program where it's very, very hard to get on. And then they turbocharge your business with amazing advice, amazing access, a really robust six month accelerated startup environment. And Instacart went through that process, right, and at that point, Vinod Kosler, Kosler of Kosler Ventures invested a million dollars of his own money. That's an extremely low valuation. Who knows what it was, but not very much right right at the pre seed, very nascent, very risky level thinking about valuation and whether it's a good deal or not. So fast forward 10 years, well 2012 up to 2023, the company in 2021 during the venture hype cycle was valued was valued as at $39 billion. So it went from nothing to $39 billion in nine years, hype cycle, pretty crazy, mad valuation. The internal valuation that happened back in March of 2023, so their own internal kind of view of how much the company's worth, value the company at about $13 billion. Now this is all important because the IPO launched yesterday at the top end of its price range, which had already been upgraded to $30 a share, giving the company a market capitalization of $9.3 billion. So is this a good deal. Think about it from Kosler, who invested right invested a million dollars right at the beginning. $20 million at $20 million valuation. It's now worth $9.3 billion. That's a good deal. The CEO who own 10% of the company on the IPO. It's now worth $1.1 billion. That's a good deal. Any kind of sucker in venture capitalist that invested in 2021 $39 billion. This is terrible. This is a hair cut. This is a kind of 60 70% heck. Well, no more than 60 70% haircut. This is an absolutely horrible, horrible deal. So, you know, it all depends, you know, is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing? It depends at what point you drank the Kool-Aid. And when you got in during the hype cycle. Yes, it's such a good lesson for life. This idea of like looking around and looking at your peer group and looking at others and just understanding different perspectives. I think that story really sums that up. It's like, what the founder exits with a $1 billion plus fortune.  So interesting. It's like I was working with some interns yesterday, and they were doing trading in the live market. And they were they were trading and they were making PNL's kind of profit losses of about $2,000. And I was like, they were like, that's my rent. And that person's perspective, that's like a month's accommodation, whereas from a trader's point of view, and I think this is one of the things I don't know if you found this Steven when you were working particularly on large M&A deals. You kind of become a little bit, it becomes very abstract to what you're doing and the numbers don't really mean the same as probably what it means to other people because you're just looking at it from a totally different lens. We're terrible at thinking about large numbers, aren't we? Especially when it comes to monetary terms, you know, what does it mean to have a billion dollars? What does it mean for Blackstone who have just entered the S&P 500 to have a trillion dollars of assets under management? Our brains are not kind of wired to deal with that number of zeros on the end of a one. So yeah, it's really good to try and contextualize and then try and see it from the perspectives of different incentives and things like this. But just to wrap up, maybe on Instacart, I put this in the deal of the week back in Monday, back on Monday, but just to try and draw some threads together. Remember, ARM had a bunch of cornerstone investors that would kind of, well, that would anchor the deal and give confidence to institutional investors that are wanting to buy a piece of the IPO. Now, Instacart, $660 million raised, $400 million of which were tied up in cornerstone investors, many of whom were venture investors in previous rounds. So it's an interesting one. It's kind of like, all right, these venture investors, many of whom have actually still made quite a lot of money because they would have invested in previous rounds when the valuation was much lower. They're like, okay, we want our exit, but we want to make sure that our exit is stopped with us, right? That just sounds illegal, like activity, surely. It's like, I've got a pot of money. Let's just throw some more money at it so I can like exercise my option. It's just, that seems very dubious, that type of activity. Yeah, I think it's all about information, isn't it? And it's all about who is the sucker if there is one. And so often, especially with direct listings, which we've spoken about previously in Coinbase, the sucker is the retail investor that gets given all of the kind of dopamine rush of an exciting company to buy into, whilst the investors cash out and go off to Aspen and drink their champagne and things like that. So yeah, there was obviously full disclosure. This was a big story within the industry. And cornerstone investors are pretty standard. But yeah, it reeks of doing everything that you possibly can to get a successful IPO away, much like the arm deal. Get as many cornerstone investors as possible. Make sure that we're talking about it as much as we can in the news. Get the best banks on it.  Again, we'll wait for it to settle out and remember these these investors have locking periods of, you know, six months, 12 months, etc. So we'll wait till the dust has settled. But it's yeah, it's another it's another interesting IPO and it's there's definitely some similarities coming through across the ones that we're looking at today. Okay, two more on the docket then. So let's go with Clavio, who full disclosure, I had to look at on YouTube to check if I'm saying their company name correctly. And what was more funny, you said that on their company website, there's a video of employees all saying something slightly different, which for a marketing company struck me as pretty crazy. But tell me about the Clavio story. Well, I think it's Clavio. But anyway, we're still, we're still getting confused. I'm going to call it Clavio. I'm going to go out on a limb. And again, this is not good, you know, pull yourself Instacart simple, pull yourself on simple, even call yourself Birkenstock, we all know how to pronounce it. Clavio Clavio, it's a it's a tricky one. I read there's a book I'm reading at the moment, and it talks about kind of social studies and and socioeconomic kind of classes and stuff like that and it was saying about actually if you're called James or David, or whether you're called something more peculiar. And actually, the data says on mass that if you have a more recognizable name, talking about obviously the country that we're residing in the UK, you're more likely to be given extra help. You're more likely to get a promotion. And it's only because half the study says that, regardless of talent, you're just the name that's recognizable and rememberable in someone's head. So yeah, I know this is I'm clutching at straws here but it's interesting like I can't even say a company's name is. Well, look, it's going to stick with me. But it doesn't give a lot of hope to the Stevens and the Antonis of this world, and they're not the most stand out names but anyway, maybe I'll change my name. So this is, yeah, this is the third in the kind of roster of the opening of the IPO market. And we don't need to talk too deeply. I just want to again try and tie some threads together. I think this is an interesting one. Remember arm successful IPO. Instacart seems to be a successful IPO. Now, Clavio and arm very profitable company, very well known kind of a piece of industry infrastructure as we discussed last week. Instacart profitable company, you know, tech company, but it's got, you know, it's pretty embedded in certain markets. It's very good growth.  It is profitable. It made $15 million of net income on trailing 12 months revenue of 320 million. But it's pricing its IPO at $30 a share, which will give the give the company a market capitalization of $9 billion. So $9 billion of $320 million of revenue, you know, let's call it 29 time sales. Right. This is, you know, which is nothing like what Instacart was going for. Right. So I think that was about six or seven times. So this is now, I think this is probably going to push the tolerance level of investors a little bit more than arm, which although it's very highly valued is a well known player and a big IPO. Instacart, which is, you know, from on a price sales perspective, which is what we look at a lot with these IPAs. It was a lot more kind of rationally valued. So Clavio, this is going to be an interesting one. It's not very profitable. It's fast growing. It smells a little bit more like the 2021 IPOs in terms of the type of company. But then again, they're going for the cornerstone investment model. They've got BlackRock and Alliance Bernstein, putting in $100 million. Led by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citi, so they're getting the big beasts out in terms of leading the deal. So they're again trying to ride on the back of these two other successful IPOs with a very similar playbook, and they're pricing at the top end of their range. In fact, they're going over the top end of their range because they're seeing very, very healthy subscriptions. But this does feel a little bit more like the 2021 IPOs that we can talk about as a bit of a cautionary tale. And maybe before we get to some of those cautionary tales, because I know you've got some excellent examples of very recognizable companies. Perhaps we could just have a quick look at Birkenstock. Okay, well look, I want to ask you a question about Birkenstock. How many pairs of Birkenstocks does the average US consumer of Birkenstocks own? How many pairs? Okay, so what, someone who owns a pair, but how many do they own? Exactly. Well, the fact that you're asking me is more than one. So I'm going to go for three. 3.6 pairs. I mean, 3.6 pairs. My God. So what would you get? You get different, you have your home pair, maybe you have your, you're going out pair. But I guess you have different colors for different outfits. Yeah. I guess it's just moved into the realm of fashion though, isn't it? It's gone from its original purpose, which was like a Jesus sandal back in the day to now being that your dad wore, your uncle, uncle would turn up at the barbecue on the weekend and you'd be like, what? Put those toes away. So now I saw the camo ones, bright pink. I guess if it becomes a fast fashion moment, then I guess you have to have multiple, right? Yeah, and this is it. I mean, so I own two pairs full disclosure and the kind of the classic Jesus sandals and a pair of Birkenstock slippers, which I love. Not sure whether that's going to move the share price up or down, but anyway. So they are very much on trend. You're absolutely right. And you see that, you know, I mean, they've done a brilliant job inserting themselves into the right parts of society that's going to continue to increase the value of the brand and the hype around the brand. And it's a really interesting one because although they experience a hype moment at the moment, you know, they were famously in the Barbie movie. So I've led to believe and and list that the consumer website saw its searches for Birkenstock junk 110% right after the Barbie movie was released. So it's kind of it's doing a great job at hitting the zeitgeist at the right time, especially in preparation for this IPO. And what I'm going to be super interested to find out a little bit more about on this IPO is, you know, is this a really enduring, you know, crisis its history back to 1774. And it's owned by Elcaterton, which is the LMVH investment vehicle, you know, creating and doing most valuable company in Europe until very recently, doing an incredible job trading in luxury trading in, you know, mature exclusivity. You know, you get a pretty nice premium in the markets for that. Is it going to go that way when IPOs, which will be brilliant, and you probably see the you know the valuation go up from its 8 billion targets, or is it going to go the way of two caution retails. And you remember I'm sure you remember both of these. Number one, all birds. You might remember all birds IPO, again, very, very hypey. All birds were the kind of the trainer of choice.  A lot of hype 95% off since it's IPO listing and 95% loss of value. Doc Martens, again, a pretty enduring back in German. At its moment in the sun. Every, you know, every teenager wanted to buy a pair of Doc Martens a few years ago. So this is going to be super interesting. Is it is it a hype cycle IPO, which is going to see us go down, down, down, down, down, or is it a, you know, a kind of enduring ways I luxury brand that's going to deal in its longevity and its exclusivity. Again, not here to give investment advice. I have no idea, but it'll be really fun to watch the progress of Bergen stocks and I'm going to keep buying the shoes. So yeah, I know the common thread like you touched on it earlier is about from which perspective you're looking at this and if I was part of the, I guess if I had a company like Bergen stock or any clothing item all birds Doc Martens they'll fit in same category kind of these these clothing items. If I was on the strategy team of that company. So from my perspective, I just want to cash out. I've been waiting for this I'm part of this and I get an event and I get paid. So, yeah, definitely taking these opportunities as you said these moments like Barbie or collaborations with Dior and, you know, give Kim Kardashian a free pair and she rocks it on Insta or whatever it is. But yeah, being an investor and then having certain legal requirements like I'm locked in I kind of get out for a period when it comes to fashion fashion is so fickle. And it's so fast. And it's almost like that fashion cycle. I mean, what was I watching your laugh at this was flicking through sky last night and I landed on some of the music channels. And it was the 90s there's a 90s music channel which is obviously for you and I the bread and butter.  They're all there and they look absolutely bang on trend. I was like, my God, they look like the current advert for like, yeah, for for a fashion Paris walk show or something. But the point being is I'm trying to make I guess here is that with the fashion names. I just feel like, yeah, I definitely be in it from an internal person working at the company from a strategic perspective. For an investment if I was an investor. I think I'd steer clear of fashion. It's just too, too rapid in its in its change, particularly in this almost like revolutionized by technology where something goes on tiktok and all of a sudden bang there's a new thing and then the old things gone and you just can't execute the IPO process quick enough. Which is why the LMVH market capitalization is is so high because it is, you know, it is the injured way is a combination of enduring very exclusive fashion labels that seem to ride out hype cycles and ride out market trends and things like that. But I just want to very quickly go back to your point on kind of again with always talking about different perspectives and investors and things like that and I think what's interesting about all of these examples is looking at the process of raising money and then exiting it's it feels a bit like a game of pasta parcel right. Can you, you know, if I'm if I'm an early stage founder, I want to get a good valuation that first investor wants to get a better second valuation that third investor wants to get a better third valuation. And then at some point, you know, obviously the company's growing alongside. At some point, there may be a moment where someone's left with the parcel, and we realize that the company's not really all all it's made up to be. So in the case of Instacart that was the 2021 $39 billion valuation I'm left with this valuation that I realize is probably a bit phony, and I'm left you know with the with the parcel in my hand. Often again we you know in these IPOs it gets left with the retail investor or the institutional investor. So just going back to the top of the show then addressing that question is the IPO market opening back up. So what are your thoughts on that and how does this kind of compare to where we were just during that COVID boom. Yeah, so I mean we're a long way away. So just looking at some stats. There's been 113 IPOs this year and bear in mind the IPO market was pretty much shut in the first six months of the year so that's ramped up. There's 181 IPOs last year in the depths of IPO winter and 1035 IPOs in 2021. Oh wow. Increasingly 2021 is looking like this kind of this this case study year. And whenever we're, you know, walking through graphs of deal volume and volume when we're teaching. We always spend a lot of time looking at 2021 because it is the biggest skyscraper in a bar chart and what the heck is facts doing and and and all of this kind of stuff. So yes, this is looking modest from an IPO perspective and obviously the fact that we got three or four quite big ones coming in. And I think in quick succession and I think CVC private equity firms planning on listing in November as well. So you've got some, you know, you've got a decent pipeline and and the investment bankers are going to be happy about this, but it's certainly, you know, 1035 and 2021 that was, you know, I'd say that that was just as degenerate a year in terms of trends in terms of a normal functioning market as 2022 when there was only 181. So somewhere in between feels about right. So as the market is the IPO market back open to an extent, and Clavier and Birkenstock will further cement that or otherwise. I was just thinking actually to add to your course retails I wonder what some of those EV US EV lucid and the like I wonder how much they're down on the years got to be in the 80s at least.  I was just looking back at 20. And you know a lot of people that listen to this podcast a new students and and why should you know too much about 2021. You might probably still back at school. And so back in 2021 I mean all of the companies we've spoken about today all four of them are profitable right. There's a big difference between now and 2021. Just looking at some of the unprofitable venture back tech companies that went that went public back in 2021. I'm going to give you a list of five companies. I want you to pick out the one company that you think the share price has actually gone up. Okay. Squarespace, the website maker, the online website maker, Duolingo, the language, the app based language app, Bumble, the dating websites, the dating app, Warby Parker. It's not really a tech company but it sells, sells glasses and Rivian that that EV manufacturer or at least wants to manufacture electric vehicles. So which one, four of those five went down a bit have gone down since 2021. One of them has gone up. What do you reckon? Okay, so process of elimination. Yeah. I know it's not Rivian. So take that out at least four correct. So then it comes to Bumble twofold. I remember us talking about it. So if we're talking about it, I'm assuming it's gone down and secondary to that. I think Bumble probably had its day in COVID when everyone was stuck at home trying to flirt and date. So I'm going to strike Bumble out. Correct. That leaves three Duolingo, I guess is tied to travel and travel has opened up but I don't I'm going to just I'm just going to take another view on that I'm going to scrub them out. Okay. That leaves me then with glasses or websites. So glasses. I'm just going to go on the pure thinking of people are not at home so much during those COVID years. They're out and about they're not looking at phones and tablets and screens as much so glasses demand has flattened and therefore I'm going to go to Squarespace. You're wrong. So Rivian down 71% Warby Parker down 70% Bumble down 65% Squarespace down 41% Duolingo up 59% Wow. Okay. Now your logic was absolutely right. But I didn't tell you any of the pricing. Right. So, so Rivian, it probably again we talked about price sales. It had zero sales. So you can't even do a price sales calculation when it when an IPO did a $66 billion market cap. Warby Parker priced at 10 times trailing 12 months revenue, really, really high for what is effectively a glasses company. Duolingo actually got it right and they priced it at two times trailing 12 months revenue really modest actually. And that is actually that's the reason why it's the only one that's been successful. Can I just ask questions on that point? Yeah. So when it's modest, who is leading that the company or the advisor, because there's conflict of interest there. So how do you or is it because the strategic idea is that they don't want an event to exit that at the founder and the owners they just basically want an event to get liquidity to then grow. Is that was that the idea. And then you have to like tame the bankers when they're getting their paws on bigger fees. Yeah, I have absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I don't know the Duolingo IPO very well, but I can imagine it could have been priced a lot more back, you know, a lot higher back in 2021. But yeah, so this is probably, as you say, this is not a dash for the exit. This is not a kind of, you know, I'm so tired of running this company and the investors are bored of being in it. It's an opportunity like IPOs, you know, historically have been it's an opportunity to raise some money at a relatively good valuation that's not going to anchor the company at a overvaluation. And then the bad news story for the next two or three years. So that was probably the conversations that were happening. And, you know, find part of a company, let's say I got some stock options on the IPO as an employee. And we all got very excited when the bell was rung. And I see that my share price is up 59%. I'm going to be pretty happy. I'm going to be quite motivated. Whereas if I got some stock options in Bumble or Squarespace or Warby Barker, I'd be like, well, what kind of company am I working for? Market things was 70% worse than when I got my options. So, yeah, there's a lot more to it than just trying to get the maximum, obviously the bankers want the maximum valuation. Cool. More, more, more quiz questions in future like that. And I'm sure the listeners had to go how to stab at that. So well done if you got it, if you got it right. But let's let's aim to then wrap up with this idea of a lot of people are in the application process, applying to roles in banking or equity capital markets, maybe specifically. And they get asked this question about talk about a deal. But rather than just talk about a deal, we've kind of covered that. Can they have a little extra special source to make them sound a little bit more well informed and knowledgeable about actually the role that banks play and the breakup of the division of kind of influence and power that they have within the deal. And this comes from a place where I think I read on your post about Instacart that Goldman's and JP were leading it. But then I was, I think it was Barclay City of Bamal also on the ticket. So yes, how do you break those roles up? Yeah, so the best way to think about it or the best way to understand where different banks sit in an IPO process is just to look at the second page of the prospectus. And it's a lovely visual representation of where these people, these banks sit. So the biggest font, the biggest font at the top of the stack are the lead left or the lead book runners, right? So this is the most important banks in the process. They come up the top and they're the biggest funds. And then underneath, maybe you call them the co managers or whatever it might be, there are different titles, you'd have the secondary tier of banks. And we'll talk about how important they are in a minute.  Now, if you are applying for a rolling equity capital markets team, you want to be on as many lead left transactions as possible.  I take a percentage of the deal and allocate it to your institutional investor base. But you are playing the role of advisor, confidant, roadshow manager, price setter, all of the fun stuff that comes with doing an IPO. If you're lower down on the ticket, either you're just given a smaller allocation in order to get away to your institutional investor base, or maybe you're put on the ticket because you're providing some auxiliary services. Maybe you've lent the money or you've helped them issue a convertible bond or something like that. And they put you on the ticket because you want a cred. It's all about creds in the banking world. So you want to be getting on that top tier lead left position is then that's where you get to influence pricing. That's where you get to do all of the stuff that we do in our IPO simulations. The roadshows, the next step creation, the price setting, the modeling and all of that stuff. So that's where you want to be. Yeah. So if a student could describe, like right there, it's like, Stephen, why do you want to work in equity capital markets? The response you just gave them was so good because it sounded like it's super interesting, right? And there's lots of responsibility, there's lots of variation within it. And so, and understanding that hierarchy or that structure, I think, yeah, definitely, I don't hear many people who are giving careers advice talk about it in that way. So that's great. Yeah. And the last thing I would say is in this whole area, the Deal Room podcast, we are advisors. Advisory is the word that we need to keep remembering. And any position that you can get into in an investment banking team where you feel like you are a trusted advisor, where a company relies upon you to provide high quality advice. That's where you want to land because that's where it gets really interesting. I was speaking to an old colleague yesterday who said, you know, 150 CFOs have my phone number. And, you know, they can, they can phone me up and have a bit of a moan or they can ask my advice or sound me out on something. You know, he's a managing director, but that's where you want to be aiming for because it becomes a much more personable, strategic role.  Sounds like your friend has a lot of leverage for a pay rise right there. Yeah. He bought the drinks. All right, cool. Well, that's wrap it up. Thanks everyone for listening. If you have made it to the show, thank you for sticking with us. And of course, as ever, feel free to connect with both Stephen and I on our LinkedIn on both the bottom of the show notes. However, we forgot to mention Stephen M&A Finance Accelerator. Just to finish, tell us a little bit about this launch of this new product that you're releasing. Yeah, absolutely. So you'll see it coming out on LinkedIn and in the market maker on newsletter as well. So Amplify has historically done a sales and trading finance accelerator, which is open to all students. It's a kind of, and we go around the country and go around Europe and do these fantastic simulations. We are launching the M&A version of that finance accelerator. The first event, the first simulation is going to be on October 5th. We are going to post all about it over the next couple of weeks. It's a free sign up. It's a free event. It's an opportunity for you to learn a bit more about the industry, test your skills, test your Excel skills, test your financial modeling skills. And maybe even put forward to a place in our M&A Academy. Sounds great. Well, with that, we'll wrap it up. Thanks everyone and catch you next week. Thanks, Stephen. Thank you.