Together with Waldo
Shoutout to the 121 people who joined the Rich Habits Network so far this month!
What Is The Rich Habits Network?
The New York Times wrote about the Rich Habits Network for a reason: it's where 1,050+ members invest in venture-backed companies like SpaceX, Apptronik, and Perplexity before they go public. 35+ deals closed.
Everything the Rich Habits Podcast can't fit into an episode — deals, coaching, research & 8 hours of video courses for 1k+ members and counting.
We’re currently running a deal for three private company:
A premium consumer products company building rigid, stackable food-storage containers made entirely from platinum-cured silicone. They’re targeting the massive plastic food-storage market with a plastic-free system designed to function like OXO, Rubbermaid, or Tupperware, while offering the durability, safety, and versatility of premium silicone.
A neurotechnology company building brain-computer interface technology, the same broad category popularized by Neuralink. The company is focused on restoring communication and digital control for people with severe motor impairments.
A next-generation nuclear energy company building factory-manufactured nuclear power plants designed specifically for AI data centers. Its modular pods combine compact reactors into scalable 50 MW power systems that can be deployed directly alongside hyperscale campuses.
A quick breakdown — in case you don’t have the time.
⭐ AI stocks are not in trouble yet.
⭐ Where Rich Habits disagrees with Dave Ramsey on debt.
⭐ Big Tech’s real AI bill is $3 trillion — and most of it is off the balance sheet.
⭐ New highs have historically paid more than waiting for a better day.
⭐ SpaceX unlocked 319 million shares today — the second post-IPO lockup.
Market Overview
As of Market Open 8/20/26
ETF Winners & Losers
Chart of the Week
AI stocks are not in trouble yet.
The bubble comparison keeps showing up because parts of this boom do feel familiar. Capex is climbing, the biggest spenders are raising more complicated capital, and investors are trying to figure out how much of the future is already priced in.
But the dashboard is not flashing red.
Zero gauges in the red. Two in amber. The rest in healthy green, just barely. Their rule is simple: two reds = trouble. We do not have that.
AI revenues have climbed to over $126 billion the last 12 months. A semiconductor selloff cooled public valuations. Capex is still being poured into a tight supply of compute. That is how more risk gets built even while the gauges stay out of red.
The gauge that actually moved the wrong way is funding quality. It has deteriorated since September 2025. Hyperscalers are still spending cash, but they are also leaning on debt and more complicated financing to keep the buildout going. In their base case, funding quality and economic strain turn red in 2027.
This does not mean the risk is gone. Cheap money is gone too, which is why the financing is getting more complicated. It does mean calling this a bubble today is early.
The question is not whether AI is a bubble this month. It is whether revenue keeps compounding fast enough to support the way this buildout is being financed. That is the 2027 tell.
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In Case You Missed It…
In this week’s Monday-morning episode of the Rich Habits Podcast (linked here) — Austin and Robert go head-to-head with Dave Ramsey on debt.
Dave has helped millions of people. Spend less than you make, build an emergency fund, kill high-interest credit cards. That part is not the disagreement. The disagreement is the hard rule: all debt is bad, and you pay it off as fast as humanly possible, no exceptions.
Here’s what they covered…
Not All Debt Is the Same — Credit-card debt at 25% is a wealth destroyer. A low-rate student loan you can service while you invest is a math problem, not a moral one. Treating every liability like a 22% APR card is how people skip years of compounding.
Student Loans vs. Investing — Ramsey’s default is pay the loan to zero before you invest a dime. Austin and Robert’s default: if the rate is manageable and you have a plan, keep investing. The opportunity cost of sitting in cash for five extra years is real.
Owner-Financing Beats “Save Up and Pay Cash” — Ramsey tells people not to borrow to start or buy a business. That advice falls apart on an already-profitable operation. Instead of a bank loan at 8–12%, you structure a deal with the current owner and pay them out of the business’s own future profits. Example they used: a business doing $400k a year in profit, $1.2M asking price, paid over six years from cash flow — $200k a year to the seller, $200k left for you. Alignment the bank will never give you.
Don’t Finance a Brand-New Idea — They are not arguing for leverage on a zero-revenue startup. If there is no track record, Ramsey’s caution is fair. The tool is for buying cash-flowing businesses, not inventing one on a credit line.
The bottom line: Ramsey is right about consumer debt. He is wrong that every dollar of leverage is a character flaw. The people who build real wealth learn the difference.
Here’s a link to the Q&A episode that was posted today.
You can submit questions for episodes by asking them inside of the Rich Habits Network, replying to this email, or sending us a DM on Instagram.
The Rich Habits Podcast is available on Spotify, Apple, iHeart, YouTube, and wherever else you get your content!
Austin’s Callout
Big Tech has $3T in off-balance sheet AI commitments.
The capex number all of the analysts are quoting is “$600 billion spent over the last 12 months” — the largest spending spree in corporate history. What people are missing are the footnotes.
The Wall Street Journal analyzed nine company filings and found off-balance-sheet AI commitments of around $3 trillion. Roughly $1.9 trillion in purchase contracts for chips, servers, and hardware. Another $1.2 trillion in leases that have been signed but have not started yet, so they do not show up as debt.
Alphabet’s purchase commitments jumped to $811 billion as of June 30 — up from about $322 billion three months earlier. Meta’s Hyperion campus is being financed with tens of billions that sit at a joint-venture partner, not on Meta’s balance sheet.
That is not a rounding error. It is how the AI buildout is actually being funded: future obligations that become cash later, while the income statement still looks clean.
This does not mean the AI trade is fake. Demand is very, very real. The question is whether the revenue shows up on the same timeline as the leases, the power contracts, and the chip purchase agreements. If it does, these companies own the infrastructure of the next decade and will print cash for their shareholders. If it does not, you get margin compression, more bond supply, and a higher cost of capital at the exact moment the 30-year is already at 5.3%.
The AI boom is not just an earnings story anymore. It is a financing story. Here’s a YouTube video I found explaining it all in an easy-to-understand way. We have no affiliation with this channel, by the way.
Robert’s Callout
New highs have historically paid more than waiting for a better day.
The instinct at an all-time high is to wait. The 30-year is at 5.3%. The S&P is making new highs. Sitting in cash feels like the responsible move.
The chart above does not agree.
Investing at a new high has historically beaten investing on any random day. One year later: 13.7% vs 11.9%. Two years: 28.9% vs 24.9%. Three years: 48.0% vs 40.2%. The gap gets wider the longer you stay invested.
That matters because the expensive mistake is not buying the high. It is waiting for a pullback that either never comes, or comes after you already missed the compounding.
If putting it all to work at a high still feels wrong, that is what dollar-cost averaging is for. You stay invested. You just do not wait for the perfect day.
This does not mean every new high is safe, or that a correction cannot show up next month. One of these highs will be the last one for a while. It does mean a new high, by itself, is not a reason to stay on the sidelines.
This does not mean you buy everything at any price. It does mean a new high is not a reason to sit in cash.
The Rich Habits Radar
👉 SpaceX unlocked 319 million shares today, the second post-IPO lockup.
👉 Walmart posted 2.6% U.S. comps and missed estimates.
👉 Treasury doubled long-end buybacks to at least $4B per operation.
👉 Moderna surged 177% after its Merck cancer vaccine met Phase 3 endpoints.
👉 Marvell granted Google a $12.2B stock warrant tied to a TPU chip deal.
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