Mad Money has become enough of a brand that you could probably take your talents to Substack or some other independent venture. What’s the thing you value about CNBC that keeps you there?
Cramer: We have an amazing team and I think that a stripped-down version that you would do independently wouldn’t be as fun or as exciting. We’re also on a network that people know how to find and watch in any form they want, and I think that that really matters.
Gilgan: We do these college tours regularly, and the most recent one we did was at the University of Miami. A reporter wrote a piece about it and talked to all these kids on campus as they watched the show, and they had great things to say about Jim. Then he asked them, “Where do you watch Mad Money?” And not a single one of them watches it on cable! So all these young viewers are hardcore Mad Money fans, but they don’t watch it in the place that we started 20 years ago. That’s a reminder to us that you can always break through in different places and with different groups of people.
Jim, you’ve made some bad calls over the years and have been criticized for it. How do you internalize those critiques?
Cramer: I remember when I said that the Silicon Valley Bank was a good investment. And, by the way, everyone thought it was good. But I shouldn’t have said it—it doesn’t matter what everyone else said, what matters is what I say.
I got attacked for it, and a very good friend of mine asked me whether I was going to apologize. I told him, “Of course I am.” So I talked about what I did wrong and how I can learn from it. It’s important to learn from your mistakes. Now, you could argue that if all I do is talk about why I’m so bad, people will stop paying attention to me! But I certainly do acknowledge when I’m wrong on the show.
Gilgan: Obviously we get things wrong and Jim gets things wrong. But I don’t know of another show that does a “Day of Atonement” episode, which we’ve done for many years. Jim has an encyclopedia-like knowledge of the market, but if he doesn’t know something he always says, “I’ve got to go back and look that up.”
Cramer: I was a professional investor for 20 years, so I know there’s no hiding when you get something wrong. The difference was that when I was at a hedge fund or at Goldman Sachs and you screwed up, you screwed up with somebody else’s money. Then you’d have to tell them, “I’m wearing a hair suit publicly, but I don’t mind. As long as we can learn from it.”
