Smart Humans with Slava Rubin

Jim McCann is an entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist, renowned for transforming a single flower shop into the billion-dollar omni-channel retailer, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. His entrepreneurial journey began with a deep belief in the importance of social connections, which inspired him to create a company dedicated to helping people build meaningful relationships.The company’s portfolio includes well-known brands such as Harry & David®, PersonalizationMall.com®, Cheryl’s Cookies®, The Popcorn Factory®, Things Remembered®, and SmartGift Inc., along with its newest additions, Card Isle®, an innovative greeting card company, and Scharffen Berger®, a premium chocolate company.Jim is also dedicated to philanthropy, with a particular focus on supporting individuals with developmental disabilities. He founded Smile Farms, Inc. a not-for-profit organization in 2015 that provides meaningful work opportunities for people with disabilities. In addition to his role as Founder and Chairman of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc., Jim serves as Chairman of Worth Media Group. He also holds various other positions, including Vice-Chairman and Lead Independent Director for International Game Technology PLC, and serves on several private and not-for-profit boards.

Nate Helbach is the founder and chief executive officer of Neutral. While studying finance and sustainability at Harvard Extension School, Nate developed the framework of what is now Neutral, which redefines conventional development strategies and mitigates the harmful effects of the built environment on our ecosystem. Nate founded Neutral based on this thesis in 2020 and continuously seeks to evolve and innovate new sustainable and regenerative development methods to rejuvenate our built environment. He leads financing, capital markets, accounting, investments, product development, and construction oversight of the company's low-, mid-, and high-rise developments.

Vincent CEO Eric Cantor and Sacra co-founder Jan-Erik Asplund looked at Anthropic, the American AI startup behind LLM model Claude. They talked about the company’s rapid growth, the competitive landscape in AI, and how the recent emergence of DeepSeek could affect Anthropic's outlook.

Peter Grosskopf was one of the founding investors and currently serves as the Chairman for Argo, a precious metals investment platform that enables secure and digital access to physical gold. With over 35 years of experience in the financial services industry, Peter served as Chief Executive Officer of Sprott Inc. for 12 years from 2010 to 2022. During that time, he drove the growth of the fellow Sprott Family Company from $5 billion to more than $20 billion of assets under management. Peter is a CFA® Charterholder and earned an Honours Degree in Business Administration and a Masters of Business Administration from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.

Vincent founder Slava Rubin and Sacra co-founder Jan-Erik Asplund, analyze SpaceX, the most valuable private company in the world. They talk about the company’s growth, strengths, challenges, IPO prospects, and answer investor questions.

Vincent CEO Eric Cantor and Sacra co-founder Jan-Erik Asplund talked about OpenAI, the American AI giant.

Slava Rubin and Marcelo Ballvé, Pre-IPO analyst at Sacra, analyzed Stripe, the global payments platform last valued at $95 billion.

Zac Townsend is the co-founder and CEO of Meanwhile, the world’s first Bitcoin life insurance company. Meanwhile’s mission is to democratize access to financial protection and security. Formerly, Townsend was a leader in the financial services practice of McKinsey & Company and served as the inaugural Chief Data Officer of California. Townsend was also the founder of a banking API business called Standard Treasury which was sold to Silicon Valley Bank.

In this episode of Smart Humans, Slava Rubin and Vincent's Adam Katz recap the year in alts, and talk about what to what to expect in 2025 in real estate, pre-IPO venture, art, collectibles, and crypto.Adam Katz is a co-founder and Head of Research and Content at Vincent. He is a seasoned real estate investor and syndicator and a longtime investor in alternative assets. He is a graduate of Columbia Law School and has an undergraduate finance degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

Meb Faber is the founder and CEO of Cambria Investment Management. He is the manager of Cambria’s ETFs and separate accounts. He hosts The Meb Faber Show podcast and has authored numerous leather-bound books. He is a frequent speaker and writer on investment strategies and has been featured in Barron’s, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Meb graduated from the University of Virginia with a double major in Engineering Science and Biology.