Jim Mellon is downbeat on US stocks, determined to change what people eat, and defiantly optimistic about young people’s prospects.
The billionaire investor and author spoke to Business Insider in late February about why Warren Buffett’s cash hoard is a red flag, why he wants to feed the world using bioreactors, and why workers in the AI era should lean into what makes them human.
Mellon is the executive chairman of Agronomics, a venture capital firm that backs cultivated food companies, and the author of “Moo’s Law: An Investor’s Guide to the New Agrarian Revolution.”
He said that US stocks strike him as “way overpriced,” given the country is home to about 3% of the global population but accounts for more than 60% of the world’s market capitalization.
Mellon said it was a “warning signal” that, on top of “extremely stretched” valuations and “record levels of margin debt,” Big Tech companies have shifted from having “distinctive moats” to making circular deals and “doing more or less the same thing” as they pour huge sums into building out AI data centers.
He’s been a “huge bull” on gold and silver in recent years, he said, as government policies around the world have eroded the value of national currencies, and he’s reluctant to “jump on the crypto bandwagon.”
Mellon said the “energy sector is probably the best place to invest” right now, partly because the AI boom is fueling demand for power-hungry data centers and straining electric grids, and partly because he sees energy as “highly underpriced as a percentage of world stock markets.”
There are bargains to be had in the UK and in emerging markets, he said. But he would be “very, very careful in China” given the hazards of foreign ownership and state control, and would “totally avoid the US market.”
He also recommended people hold Japanese yen as it’s “extremely cheap” versus the dollar, and yielding more than in the past thanks to rising interest rates.
Mellon also pointed to Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway holding more than $350 billion of liquid assets at the last count.
“The fact he’s got so much cash is telling you that he sees something in the current world situation that isn’t very positive,” he said about recently retired CEO Buffett.
Future of food
Mellon, a veteran biotech investor, trumpeted how cellular agriculture can grow cells into meat or fish, and precision fermentation can harness yeast to create egg proteins, dairy products, and many kinds of oils.
He told Business Insider that he’s on a mission to transform the global food system because of how sick it has made so many people, how much it contributes to the climate crisis through emissions, and how badly many farmed animals are treated.
Producing “clean food” instead of traditional food would cause far less environmental damage and avoid health issues around hormones, antibiotics, heavy metals, and microplastics in food, he said.
Cost is a key challenge, but that has already come down dramatically, he continued, adding that he believes it will soon be cheaper to produce beef or pork in bioreactors at scale than it will be to raise a cow or pig for slaughter.
Mellon said he feels deeply motivated to bring about that change. “If I don’t make any money out of this, it doesn’t matter.”
Advice for the AI age
Asked how young people can get ahead when life feels unaffordable, and AI threatens to eliminate huge swaths of jobs, Mellon said he was eager to hire, and other employers should be hiring too.
“We were all freshly out of school at one point, and we were all given a chance, and we should be giving it to other people,” he said. “And now is the opportunity to get bright people at reasonable rates when they are in a very competitive environment to find positions.”
Mellon, who wakes up around 4 a.m. each morning and works every day of the year, said it was crucial for young people not to simply give up.
“Don’t retreat into a shell because you read all this negative stuff,” he said. “Don’t worry about it too much. Just get out there and do something.”
Mellon also argued that workers can fend off AI by developing their interpersonal skills, since people will always need human connection.
“One has to think there are going to be jobs that involve empathy,” he said. “Social care will become much more valued. Elderly care, because people are getting older, will become much more valued.”
Mellon pointed out that a whole generation of graduates was urged to learn coding only 10 or 15 years ago, and now those jobs are among the most threatened by AI, so going all in on the tech of the day is “probably not the right way to go.”
Separately, Mellon — who has 10 dogs and no children — said he would support raising inheritance tax to 100% and using the proceeds to give a lump sum to every young person.
That way, “instead of starting your life worrying all the time about money and trying to get enough money to buy a house, you actually have some money to go do something to begin with,” he said.
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