Insider trading is rampant on Capitol Hill and there needs to be new laws on the books to level the playing field ... so says a trading app founder who would lose his business if a major change ever happened.
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00:00There is a criminal law against insider trading, so my understanding is that the allegation
00:11here is that Congress will use, members of Congress will use their knowledge, you know,
00:16when they sit on certain committees, when they hear that either they're going to ban
00:20something or promote something or they just get scuttlebutt, that they use that to buy
00:26and sell stock.
00:27That feels like insider trading, so is there some exception for Congress?
00:32Is this actually happening?
00:34There is no exception.
00:36What you just described is how it kind of should work, and what you also described is literally
00:40how it is working.
00:42There's kind of historical precedent with this, too.
00:44The Stock Act, which is why they actually have to disclose their trades, only started
00:49in 2009.
00:50So before that, it was the wild, wild west of, you know, congressional trading.
00:54And that law started because the politicians were insider trading during the housing crisis.
01:00And then you kind of pass forward to COVID.
01:02They started insider trading during the COVID crisis, too.
01:05Five years later, they're still doing it.
01:07And the biggest kind of problem with it is they sit on the committees that oversee the
01:12laws and the companies that they're buying and selling stock in.
01:15So they then can affect those stocks.
01:18Sometimes they go up.
01:18Sometimes they go down.
01:20We've seen a pattern that they typically do go up.
01:22But there are clear examples of the conflict of interest, and it should stop.
01:28And that's kind of why we've been calling them out.
01:30It's insane that they're allowed to do this to begin with.
01:32You have this app tracking all of this, and it seems to me there's a dual purpose in your
01:37app.
01:38One is to blow the whistle on what seems to be illegal if insider trading applies to Congress,
01:45which it does.
01:46But two, you are kind of like a Morgan Stanley in the sense of here's what's on the upswing,
01:52here's what's not.
01:53I would say.
01:54And people can actually trade based on your app.
01:56You're kind of a Morgan Robin Hood Stanley.
01:58Right, because he's letting the rest of us see what's going on and get in on it.
02:03But it seems like it's a dual purpose.
02:05At one point, we can call it out, but calling it out doesn't do anything.
02:09You got to get in on the action.
02:10And like, what better way to highlight the literal hypocrisy of them trading than to
02:15build an app that has $500 million of everyday investor money following their quote unquote
02:21insider trading.
02:22And that's kind of what we've done.
02:23And our slogan is, if you can't beat them, join them.
02:25Chris, I got to ask you a tough question.
02:28Obviously, this is working for your company.
02:31You said you have $500 million in trades.
02:33Have you?
02:33Would you like to see a ban?
02:36Because you're out of business.
02:39I mean, the ban seems to be the right thing to do, but it would really hurt your business.
02:44I mean, would that kind of knock off a big revenue stream, a big marketing stream?
02:49Like, absolutely.
02:49But we 100% support the ban and we want the ban to happen because aside from the Pelosi
02:56tracker and all the broader kind of calling them out, I still am a startup founder and
03:03I'm trying to revolutionize the future of money management.
03:05And we don't have to go into all the details, but Autopilot, the broader vision is to bring
03:10trust and transparency back into people's investment accounts.
03:13So if you were to give me half a million dollars and say, how do you want this invested?
03:18How do you want it managed?
03:20Instead of me making these decisions on my own, I can go in and find someone trusted and
03:24transparently through a marketplace and then have them manage my money for me.
03:28It just so happens that politicians were the best managers when we initially started.
03:33And we then realized we can kind of spearhead this movement to actually get them banned because
03:38it would bring trust and transparency back into the institutions.
03:41That is our broader goal.
03:42But we have plans beyond just, you know, the funness of copying Nancy Pelosi and these
03:48other ones.
03:49We would love a ban and we will work with any politician that wants to get it through.
03:54So AOC, you know where to find me.
03:57Like, let's make it happen.