The First Time Michael Saylor Ever Talked About Bitcoin
The Pomp Podcast
Anthony Pompliano
4.6 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2026
⏱️ 90 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Michael Saylor is the CEO of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), the first publicly traded company to convert a material portion of its balance sheet into bitcoin. In this conversation, we revisit the very first time Michael Saylor ever publicly talked about bitcoin — recorded in late 2020 when bitcoin was trading around $10,000. We discuss his background founding MicroStrategy at age 24, the macro conditions that led him to reject cash as a store of value, why he chose bitcoin over gold and real estate, how he acquired $425 million in bitcoin without moving the market, and why he believes bitcoin is on a path to rival or surpass gold's market cap.
========================
Consensus Miami is the largest crypto conference in the world — May 5-7, 2026 in Miami. 20,000 attendees. 72% director-level or above. The deals, partnerships, and investments that shape the next cycle get made here. Use code POMPLIANO for 25% off your pass → https://go.coindesk.com/c26pomp
========================
Arch Public is an agentic trading platform that automates the buying and selling of your preferred crypto strategies. Sign up today at https://www.archpublic.com and start your automated trading strategy for free. No catch. No hidden fees. Just smarter trading.
========================
Bitget (https://bitget.com/promotion/futures-tradfi?channelCode=regd&vipCode=nkew) is the world's largest Universal Exchange (UEX) (https://bitget.com/promotion/futures-tradfi?channelCode=regd&vipCode=nkew), serving over 125 million users with access to over 2M+ crypto tokens, and TradFi markets such as 100+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and precious metal like Gold. At launch, users can trade 79 instruments with USDT directly with the App. Users can also enjoy high liquidity and low slippage, while trading these assets with up to 500x leverage. For more information on Bitget TradFi, visit this article (https://bitget.com/support/articles/12560603846859). For more information, visit: Website (https://bitget.com/) | Twitter (https://x.com/bitget) | Telegram (https://t.me/BitgetENOfficial) | LinkedIn (https://linkedin.com/company/bitget-global/) | Discord (https://discord.com/invite/bitget)
For media inquiries, please contact: media@bitget.com
========================
- 0:00 - Intro
- 1:25 - Michael Saylor's background & founding MicroStrategyÂ
- 29:40 - The 99% stock crash & lessons learnedÂ
- 31:07 - How COVID changed MicroStrategy's businessÂ
- 33:37 - The macro problem: cash melting & asset inflationÂ
- 40:45 - How Saylor discovered bitcoinÂ
- 45:23 - Why not real estate, equities, or gold?Â
- 49:10 - Bitcoin's network dominance & why it already won
- 53:30 - Addressing the "someone can copy it" critiqueÂ
- 59:28 - Convincing the board: homework assignments & deliberationsÂ
- 1:04:30 - How they acquired $425M in bitcoin without moving priceÂ
- 1:09:45 - Reaction from other CEOs & breaking the mental blockÂ
- 1:12:00 - The four-minute mile moment for corporate bitcoinÂ
- 1:17:00 - Addressing bitcoin's volatilityÂ
- 1:21:39 - Bitcoin vs. gold market cap
- 1:23:10 - Rapid fire questions & closing
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Busy routines can make it hard to focus on your health goals, but MedExpress offers a simple way to explore weight management treatment online. |
| 0:08.0 | Complete our short eligibility consultation with no need for face-to-face appointments or travel. |
| 0:13.0 | If eligible, treatment is delivered discreetly, with UK-registered clinicians offering support along the way. |
| 0:19.1 | Visit Medex.co.com.ukes slash podcast to get started today. It's not 10x better than gold. It's 100x. Maybe it's a thousand X better than gold. We could go on for hours. I could tell you why I think it's a thousand X better than gold. Hello, everyone. Today we've got a very special treat. I went deep into the archives and I found a video |
| 0:38.2 | that I did with Michael Saylor back in 2020. That video is the very first time that Michael Saylor |
| 0:44.0 | publicly talked about Bitcoin anywhere on the internet. The context here is that strategy, |
| 0:49.0 | which was known as micro strategy back then, had just put about $500 million from their balance sheet |
| 0:53.3 | into Bitcoin. It was the first public company to ever do that. |
| 0:56.6 | And I spoke with Michael because I wanted to understand who's Michael Saylor? |
| 1:00.4 | What is micro strategy? |
| 1:01.8 | Why are they doing this? |
| 1:03.1 | What are his thesis on Bitcoin and what is his plans for the future? |
| 1:06.7 | It is fascinating to listen to him talk about this in late 2020 when Bitcoin is trading |
| 1:10.8 | around $10,000 per coin to now see what has become one of the largest holdings of Bitcoin |
| 1:16.4 | in the world. |
| 1:18.1 | Strategy and Michael Saylor own more than 800,000 Bitcoin. |
| 1:21.2 | They've continued to relentlessly buy as much of the digital currency as they possibly |
| 1:24.7 | can. |
| 1:25.7 | And I think listening to this conversation will help you better understand what's happening there |
| 1:29.4 | and why so many people over the last six years or so |
| 1:32.8 | went from being skeptics to now being true believers. |
| 1:36.0 | So here's my conversation from the second half of 2020 |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Anthony Pompliano, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Anthony Pompliano and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.