The Stacking Benjamins Show · Friday, October 2, 2026
OG argues that the obsession with beating market benchmarks like the S&P 500 is misguided. He believes the focus should be on reaching personal financial goals, not on outperforming an arbitrary list of stocks. Jesse agrees, suggesting that the analysis of benchmarks is often flawed.
“I just, I don't even understand why it would matter to try to beat anything. The S&P is... Standard & Poor's list of 500 stocks. The Russell is Russell Investments list of 1830-odd positions. Who gives a crap what it does?”
“The only thing that matters is whether or not you reach the goals that you need to reach to... you know, or get the returns that you need to reach your goals. If you beat the S&P by 300%, but still don't have enough money to reach your goals, awesome, you're still dead broke.”
“I think so. And I think not only do I agree with everything OG just said, this idea of beating a benchmark is the wrong question. And that's essentially what OG is saying is we're not really asking the right questions.”