GZ

Gary Zimmerman

Things Gary Says on Podcasts

Where to Find Them

Gary Zimmerman has been a guest on The Meb Faber Show - Better Investing (2 times) , Schwab Network and WSJ's Take On the Week .

Recently: “Why Cash Is King in the Era of Higher Interest Rates” on WSJ's Take On the Week (October 2026); “Fed Cut Anticipation: Hawks vs. Doves Debate 25-Basis-Point Reduction” on Schwab Network (September 2025); “Gary Zimmerman, MaxMyInterest - SVB, FDIC, & Improving ROI on Cash | #471” on The Meb Faber Show - Better Investing (March 2023); “Gary Zimmerman, Max My Interest - Several Of The Banks On Our Platform Offer Preferential Rates That Are Only Visible On The Max Platform | #271” on The Meb Faber Show - Better Investing (December 2020).

What They Said

“Our three biggest competitors as a company are not other companies. They are actually three human traits, which are awareness, apathy, and inertia… You'd be shocked how many people haven't looked at their bank statements, don't know how much they're earning.” — Gary Zimmerman, WSJ's Take On the Week

Asked why so much cash sits in accounts earning little, Zimmerman says the obstacle isn't rival products but people's habits. Miriam Gottfried had just pointed to inertia: opening and managing another bank account takes time.

WSJ's Take On the Week · 2026-10-11 Permalink → Listen →
WSJ's Take On the Week Around 22:12 into the episode
Gary Zimmerman

Well, there's a lot of excitement right now about AI, and I think it's well-founded. But really, what people are excited about is automation. How that automation happens is less important to people, but they like the idea of someone helping them out in an active way.

Miriam Gottfried

Because the real hurdle is the inertia, right? Correct. Filling out the application for another bank account takes time, and then managing these various accounts takes time.

Gary Zimmerman

It's exactly right, Miriam. And we've often said that our three biggest competitors as a company are not other companies. They are actually three human traits, which are awareness, apathy, and inertia, right? So awareness is: I didn't know I could be doing better. You'd be shocked how many people haven't looked at their bank statements, don't know how much they're earning. They couldn't tell you as they're walking down the street how much they're earning on cash or even how much they earned the last two years or three years or 10 years. So overcoming that awareness gap is important. The second is apathy, right? Oh, I don't care. It's just cash.

Telis Demos

People don't really think they're

Miriam Gottfried

earning that much within it. And

Gary Zimmerman

we've been conditioned that way, right? We've been lulled into this idea that cash doesn't yield anything. It doesn't need to yield anything. It's utter nonsense. It's a

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode
“An entire generation has grown up thinking that zero interest rates are normal. They are not normal, thinking that low mortgage rates are normal. They are not normal… So I think rates are not high and they're not low. They're just kind of average right now.” — Gary Zimmerman, WSJ's Take On the Week

Zimmerman, who runs the cash-management company MAX, is explaining how it began around the financial crisis, when savings rates were near where they are today. He argues that cash is an overlooked asset class, with about $20 trillion sitting in US bank deposits.

WSJ's Take On the Week · 2026-10-11 Permalink → Listen →
WSJ's Take On the Week Around 12:49 into the episode
Telis Demos

What was a typical kind of savings account?

Speaker 1

Well, actually, the

Gary Zimmerman

origins of MAX date back to the financial crisis. And around then, interest rates were not dissimilar from where they are, roughly around 4% if you're managing your cash properly. And then, of course, the financial crisis hit and rates went to zero and then they came back up and then they went to zero again during the pandemic. And what's interesting to me is that an entire generation has grown up thinking that zero interest rates are normal. They are not normal, thinking that low mortgage rates are normal. They are not normal. Today we're in a fairly average, historically average mortgage rate environment and interest rate environment. So I think rates are not high and they're not low. They're just kind of average right now. And what really fascinated me and what caused us to start MAX, the company, was that cash was this overlooked asset class. Most people don't even think of it as an asset class, but the average…

Miriam Gottfried

24% seems like a lot of money to me. Why do people love cash so much? Well,

Gary Zimmerman

Miriam, it's a real quandary because cash is not a good asset class, right? At best, it will keep pace with inflation, maybe slightly outperform inflation. Most people are Lagging inflation, which means they're losing real purchasing power every single day. So they think that their cash is safe in…

Miriam Gottfried

earning 3% today, you're lagging behind inflation and effectively losing money.

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode