In this illuminating episode, Jake welcomes Andrew Page, founder of Strawman.com, to unpack his journey from traditional small-cap equity investing to high-conviction Bitcoin advocate. Andrew starts by reflecting on his early career in brokerage and equity research, highlighting the structural incentives within finance to push trades regardless of conviction. Disillusioned by the industry’s misaligned interests, he built Strawman — a community of serious, self-directed ASX investors — to crowdsource and challenge ideas through play-money portfolios and collaborative research, emphasizing that “you can borrow an idea, but not conviction.”

Andrew shares how his obsession with equities — driven by intellectual curiosity and a pursuit of financial freedom — was gradually overtaken by the Bitcoin rabbit hole. Initially dismissive, he set out to debunk Bitcoin but came away fully orange-pilled, realizing it offered the most asymmetric risk/reward opportunity of his lifetime. The parallels between equity investing and Bitcoin — capital allocation, hurdle rates, risk modeling — all reinforced his conviction. He also makes a powerful case that Bitcoin is not right-wing, but rather post-political, with the potential to serve left-leaning goals like fairness, environmental sustainability, and poverty alleviation far better than current systems.

The conversation dives deep into the implications of hard money for early-stage capital formation. Jake and Andrew explore how Bitcoin’s presence as a “risk-free benchmark” radically shifts investment behavior, enforcing more discipline and drastically reducing malinvestment. They discuss the misallocation of capital in today’s fiat economy — notably in property and low-yield public programs — and how Bitcoin reintroduces opportunity cost, incentives, and accountability into capital decision-making.

Finally, Andrew reflects on the deeper, civilizational implications of Bitcoin: as a once-in-a-millennium shift in monetary technology, a peaceful revolution against coercion and corruption, and a system that forces reality-based decision-making. He urges listeners — regardless of political identity — to look beyond tribal labels and recognize Bitcoin as a neutral protocol for human coordination. Passionate, articulate, and grounded in decades of investing experience, Andrew’s perspective is a must-listen for anyone exploring Bitcoin through a financial lens.