David Lin is not your everyday, cookie-cutter, teleprompter-reading financial news talking head. And that is exactly why his audience holds him in such high regard in this new age of independent, online media.
This weekend, James from the popular YouTube program, InvestAnswers, welcomed Lin, one of the rising stars of the financial media, to talk about a wide array of topics. The two thought leaders discussed Lin’s career journey, his opinion of the financial news media overall, and his outlook for many assets, such as Bitcoin.
“I fell into this kinda by accident,” Lin explained, as he discussed his schooling at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and his first job at BCA Research, a macroeconomics research firm. “I worked with some of the brightest minds in the macro industry. Very fortunate to have started there. That kind of built my base for understanding macroeconomics and the markets.”
After nearly five years with BCA, Lin was contacted by Kitco News, a prominent online financial news outlet, about a job opportunity as a producer for the network.
“My job as a producer wasn’t to broadcast. It was to source questions, find guests, book guests, do the post-production, do the pre-production, and all that. So behind-the-scenes work,” Lin explained, saying he grew in that role for more than two years until the network’s anchor left for another opportunity.
“There was this void of someone needing to be in front of the camera and they just asked me, hey do you want to do some interviews? And I said, sure, and it was a lot of fun. My first interviews were not great. Don’t look up my first interviews online. It was a good learning experience; I had a lot of fun. I guess they liked me because they kept me in that full-time position for three years.”
At the beginning of 2023, Lin decided to go off on his own, leaving the network to create his own online YouTube channel, The David Lin Report. He envisions a future where he runs the business side of his financial media business, which eventually may include various programming options and multiple hosts. As a product of a long family line of entrepreneurs, the gamble seems like a natural progression for Lin. But for now, his on-camera role is where he focuses most of his energy.
“For now this is what I like doing, this is what I love doing. This is my passion, this is what I’m good at. I have an audience so I’m just going to build on that. I kind of fell into this profession by accident, to be frank. If I had my way of my life perfectly planned out in college, I’d be on Wall Street somewhere doing banking. But that didn’t work out, so here I am,” Lin said.
“It’s funny how careers develop. I always consider the lifespan of a working career as a bunch of stepping stones,” James said. “Sometimes you go to the one on the left or the one on the right. And that can change the whole trajectory of your life. That’s one of the reasons, for example, I’m in the U.S. Because somebody threw me on a stepping stone and the rest is history.”
When watching Lin – and James from InvestAnswers as well for that matter – viewers can tell he is not an empty suit. His questioning reveals not only a deep knowledge of the financial subject matter but also a laser-like focus when questioning his guests.
Unlike many current media interviewers, Lin has the ability to keep the focus on his guest, rather than on himself. Rather than pontificate and self-aggrandize, his goal is to pull the pearls and nuggets from the interviewee.
“I think as media we have to, for me, I focus on providing a platform for the guest to really flesh out their reasoning for their calls,” Lin noted. “You look at CNBC or FOX – and I love those channels – they have these sound bytes, where do you think the S&P’s going to go in five years or five months? Up. Ok, on to the next question. But we don’t understand why they think that. And so that’s why I think as podcasters on YouTube and other platforms we have the luxury of 30, 40-minute, 20-minute interviews so we can give the guest an opportunity to flesh out their rationale, which I think is more important than the ultimate call itself.”
Lin says he feels called to go deeper than just making market predictions. This approach, sadly, is more the exception than the rule in today’s media landscape.
“This is the irresponsibility of media, I would say. And I’m gonna fully admit that I’ve been in this camp myself,” Lin offered, explaining the prescient advice he was once given by a mentor. “I remember he was coaching me and he said, clients pay us a lot of money every year to subscribe to our services and research and consultation because they like our rationale. Not so much our calls, because nobody really cares at the end of the day if you think the S&P is going to 4000, 500, or 2500. They want to know your reasoning for that call.”
James, known for his rigorously-detailed, analytical approach even donned a suit and tie for this episode – perhaps an on-air first for James – as a hat-tip to the always sharply-attired Lin. The two seem to share a common philosophy based on objectivity, fact-based trends, and the dissemination of that information to the widest audience possible. (James’ viewers also know him as a rational, authentic voice, who uses proceeds from his channel to help endangered and injured animals.)
Lin, now in his 30s, shared his thoughts on many topics during the wide-ranging program.
On the future of AI, he said, “I fully expect AI to be just as good as me as an interviewer, if not better in five years. A scary thought when you think about it. That’s not the reason I want to step away from it eventually.”
Regarding the media’s use of fear to drive audience engagement, he said, “This is what I’m talking about, the irresponsibility of media. I’ve noticed that my bearish headlines always have gotten more clicks than the bullish headlines. And so I have an incentive to actually get more clicks and so clickbait the audience with all these doom and gloom headlines. Eventually, I told myself this is not responsible journalism because most of these calls end up being wrong anyway.”
On the future of his burgeoning YouTube channel, Lin said “My mission for this channel is to democratize financial education. That’s what I want to do for now. And eventually, five years down the line, I want to grow the channel and rebrand it in such a way that I can bring on other presenters and anchors as well so it’s not just me. I’m not the only face of the company.
And by then I’ll probably step into more of a managerial side. I’ll still be doing programs and hosting programs every once in a while, but I want to develop other talents as well. I see my channel being, perhaps, even an incubator for other podcasts and people who want to come on, learn and start their own channel. I can see myself being an incubator for that down the line.”
On his personal knowledge of Bitcoin, Lin said, “I remember when Bitcoin was first making the rounds in the headlines. Not in 2009 when it first was born, but a couple years later when it first started gaining mainstream attention. I was working in my first job and I remember thinking to myself, why would I ever buy this?
“And presumably, I look back and I regretted the mindset that I had, which is to say that I didn’t really adopt an open mind about this new technology. And I didn’t understand why people would adopt this. It was digits. It was computer code, and seemingly just arbitrary value assigned to this computer code. And I thought to myself, this just seems like a Ponzi.
And to this day a lot of people still share that sentiment. I’ve since educated myself a little bit more and I don’t think it’s a Ponzi anymore. But I had that mentality in 2012 and I didn’t buy it, and I missed the boat. And I think to anybody – whether you’re pro-Bitcoin or anti-Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies – to anybody watching, try to keep an open mind. Try to learn. Try to learn from the Bitcoin bears. Try to learn from the Bitcoin bulls. This is why media’s important. This is why it’s important for media personalities like you and me to present a balanced viewpoint, so everyone can learn from different viewpoints.”
One can be sure to hear Lin’s balanced viewpoint – in uniquely enhanced ways and larger numbers – for years to come.
