Can Sundar Pichai help Google by doing deadlifts? This ETF that beat S&P500 by 140% says yes

Deadlift ETF has only companies with CEOs that lift weights or do fight sports (not just cardio). (Photo by Victor Freitas:Pexels)

The envious may say that brawn is brawn, and brain is brain, and that the twain shall never meet.

But this founder of more than 10 start-ups, Pieter Levels, has calibrated an exchange-traded fund (ETF) to demonstrate that CEOs who lift weights also lift stock prices of their companies.

It's funny till you see the fund's performance numbers.

Levels’ Deadlift ETF outperformed S&P 500 by 140 per cent or 2.4x over the past four years! Deadlift ETF, as Levels described it, has only companies with CEOs that lift weights or do fight sports (not just cardio).

He has concluded, "Lifting weights=$$$".

This 'study' had his followers on X in splits and  CEOs pumping (pun intended) for a spot on the ETF. There were also lighthearted ribbing of more angular CEOs — like for example Google's Sundar Pichai.

What’s the ETF made of?

Detailing his ETF, Levels listed companies with CEOs confirmed to lift heavy weights.

Of course, it would not have been easy to check if the CEOs actually lifted weights like they claimed. (They wouldn't be the first to lie about their exercise regimen.)

Levels said that he relied on Google images.

Also read: 45-year-old CEO who spends $2 million every year to get 18-year-old's body reveals his fitness gadget

The ETF placed equal allocations to all the companies.

A user asked why Apple and went on to explain, "Tim Cook doesn't strike me as a dead lift guy. I may be wrong though". Levels said that Cook lifts but "yes could eat more" and shared an image of the Apple CEO in his gym.

Levels also shared an image of Deadlift ETF outperforming Google.

Levels wrote, "I'm convinced Google would do better if Sundar Pichai would lift heavy weights, or do fight sports".

A comment by Stefan Rottler, who handles business development at Seda Protocol, asked if this could be causation or correlation. He wrote, "My assumption: Tech has massively outperformed since 2020. Tech CEOs are on an average younger. Younger people are generally more likely to work out". Levels agreed that that's a big part of it but added that Google only did 29 per cent in the last 12 months versus Meta did 80 per cent. He added, "Zuck lifts, Sundar doesn't."

CEOs flex their muscles

Airbnb's CEO Brian Chesky advocated for himself and wrote: "I deadlifted 585 lbs in my early 20s [six plates in each side]". To this, Levels responded by saying that, following this update, he has added Chesky to the ETF.

Coinbase's Brian Armstrong said that he has been working out six days a week for "quite a while now".

Armstrong added, "Good recent performance, but entered a rocky market post direct listing. Good thesis to test!"

Levels said that he had thought of Armstrong because the Coinbase's CEO looked "ripped" but the company had not been added to the ETF because there was no confirmation to be found online. He said that he would now add Coinbase to the ETF.

There were comments on the Coinbase's CEO's last name, which was hard to miss, in this context.

There were other suggestions for similar products: one user said that it was time for the Squat & Bench 500 (S&B 500); 500 companies were the squat and bench total of the CEO is above 500 lbs.

One user asked if health biomarkers generally would be predictive of performance. Levels replied that maybe they could think of a Don't Die ETF with 0.5 per cent expense ratio. Not so funny maybe, but a comment under it was: "I wonder if CEOs who aren't dead outperform those who are".