Jurgis

You did not say what "such" is. So either let's talk exact qualifications or you tell me how much they earn at G/F/A? 8) Although I'll say this: if a run of the mill, not superstar engineer earns more than 200K at G/F/A, they are overpaying. 8) If you are talking about someone of the caliber of Jeff Dean or Demis Hassabis before their full ascension but with demonstrated work/qualities/brilliance, then sure they likely would get more than 200K. 8) Edit: 3 year old data: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-salary-of-fresh-PhD-machine-learning-at-Google-Facebook-Apple-in-2016 https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-salary-of-senior-researcher-at-Google-Facebook-Apple-in-2016 Glassdoor/Paysa have more up to date numbers, but these are IMO more iffy. They seem to be in similar ballpark as Quora's though.

They are absolutely worth it. Silicon valley investors are a dime a dozen and add little differentiated value. Quality engineers on the other hand are a rare commodity. Maybe they are worth it maybe not. I have a feeling I know people who you'd value more than 200K (well, at least I'd value them more than 200K) and who worked at startups for way less (plus equity of course). Though maybe you're superselective and I'm wrong. ;) But hey, if that's the situation that's the situation. I'm sure it's nice to work at a startup with full salary. It's like a lottery where you cannot lose: you get paid and you might hit the jackpot. Of course, there's the cash burn but that's what the leeching SV VCs are for, yeh? They'll fund another round if you need more cash. 8)

I disagree on FAANG. FAG stocks are mostly cheap based on a number of metrics. AN are not cheap, but not as much in a bubble as people claim. You might be right if you mean that other tech IPOs with no earnings are in bubble. This might be the case. Wait, they want 200K salary and % of equity from a startup? ::) ::) And here I was ranting about entitled CEOs. (Well the CEOs are still more entitled. 8) ) I'll have to tell this to my friends and family who are working on a second startup for free... When I worked at a startup, I got 1/X of that. And the founders took no salary at all. It was self-funded overall. Anyway, glad you have the money, good luck. 8)

I thought I got reference to this book from CoBF, but I cannot find it when I search. Anyway Richard Wiseman The Luck Factor https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0099443244/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_rGFnDbGY7H1JJ

To paraphrase Cigarbutt and the following joke: I should have taken the luck. 8)

Thanks. I "optimistically" bumped CAGR to 15/15/10 and PE to 25. That yields 11.3% return. Not spectacular. Bumping PE to 30 yields 14.2% return. That would probably encompass the expectation of longer and stronger competitive advantage. Leaving PE at 25 and bumping the year to 2030, yields only 12.4% though. Anyway, it's interesting. 8)

Thank you again. 8)

Thanks. The interface is so painful though... No 2x speed. No saving the slides or video. If you pause, at some point the player expires and you have to restart from beginning. Trying to move to the point you were is a pain with the slider covering 428 minutes and you trying to move it 1 minute or less. I just gave up. Not your fault.

Thanks. Can you elaborate on "International"? Is that percentage of cross-border transactions?

Don't ignore securities litigation paperwork. It's free money (minus the effort). Just general observation. No position in FCAU. Position in Exor, but that does not give me FCAU litigation standing.

Not sure I agree with that. You could argue it in Global (and possibly in LILAC) but if I look at Charter, Liberty Media, Sirius, Discovery, QVC, all their cash flow beasts, they are all best in class managements. Maybe you are right. Maybe the capital deployment (for which Malone was famous...) that went astray more than operations. I.e. perhaps it was a mistake to deploy capital into EU cable (LBTYA), LatAm cable/mobile (LILA), TV shopping (QRTEA), US content (LGFB) rather than these companies having subpar operators. This is ironic since capital deployment was supposed to be the strong suit of Malone and Liberties. I think the overall result is a mix of operations and capital deployment and it might not be simple to distinguish how much each contributed/detracted. Show me someone with a perfect batting average. I'm pretty sure Malone thinks of his companies as a basket, like a virtual conglomerate. Some are always doing better than others, but overall, I'd say he's been doing pretty well over time. Kind of like how some companies or investments inside BRK might be doing badly or be mistakes, but that doesn't mean the whole has "bad capital allocation". There have been people on CoBF who analyzed Liberty universe and picked the good/bad parts couple years ago. So it was rather visible (I ignored it at my own peril) and Malone could have done Buffett and not piled the good money after the bad into companies/areas that were struggling. I'd say LBTYA sales to Vodafone is a good decision. LILA decisions so far were subpar - and CWC was somewhat rightly called Malone dumping his CWC shares at excessive cost to LILA shareholders. QRTEA decisions have been very much dumping the good money after bad. LGFB same. These are pretty large pieces to ignore. IMO, Malone is stuck with things he knows from the past that may not be working anymore like QRTEA, EU cable cos, etc. It is tough to say whether Liberty universe return was good or bad. It depends very much on which pieces a person owned and when. Same can be said about Malone's return in the last X years. My guess is that his return has not been great, but I did not calculate it. And I might be wrong, since some parts like LBRDA and FWONA have done well. I might be wrong with my assessment too. LILA/LGFB/QRTEA might turn around and do well. LBTYA may invest its cash in spectacular manner. We'll see.

Not sure I agree with that. You could argue it in Global (and possibly in LILAC) but if I look at Charter, Liberty Media, Sirius, Discovery, QVC, all their cash flow beasts, they are all best in class managements. Maybe you are right. Maybe the capital deployment (for which Malone was famous...) that went astray more than operations. I.e. perhaps it was a mistake to deploy capital into EU cable (LBTYA), LatAm cable/mobile (LILA), TV shopping (QRTEA), US content (LGFB) rather than these companies having subpar operators. This is ironic since capital deployment was supposed to be the strong suit of Malone and Liberties. I think the overall result is a mix of operations and capital deployment and it might not be simple to distinguish how much each contributed/detracted.

(vi) undue restrictions of access to the company's employees :-*

Yes. That's why I finally reduced my Liberties' holdings a lot even though I planned to never sell. (I still own some DISCK, FWONA, LBRDA, LBTYK, LEXEA, LSXMA, and unfortunately QRTEA. I sold LTRPA, LILA, LGFB, GLIBA. This might have been wrong time to sell - I can't be sure.) I agree with you that investing into EU cablecos is probably not the way to go. We'll have to see what Liberty Global decides to do.

Right. I used to play A / K shares tango, but then I lost my automated spread tracker and haven't done that for couple years now. And Malone definitely created the complicated tracker structures at least partially to (ab)use information advantage vs minority shareholders.

Yes. That's why the duration of growth (and ROIC) (what Mauboussin calls Competitive Advantage Period) is so important. And that's why Visa and MC were undervalued for so long. Investors were either underestimating the durability of the growth or ignoring it altogether. http://people.stern.nyu.edu/adamodar/pdfiles/eqnotes/cap.pdf Right. But can you really estimate CAP beyond 10 years or so? I know people will keep telling me that "nothing will change with V/MA/banks in 10+ years" , so I'll respond that that's just status quo bias. ;D I'll let Mauboussin answer that question (he will probably tell you to invert -- the stock price tells you Mr. Market's prediction for CAP and then you just have to bet on the over/under). At current valuation, this is probably close to a toss-up. Forced to bet, I'd say current price is undervaluing the CAP. The issue with the current price is that it is likely very undervalued relative to earnings 10 or 20 years out. But because so much of the valuation is based on earnings 5+ years in the future, there is potential for a painful drawdown. I agree with you though I'm probably less positive about earnings 10 or 20 years out. 8) Edit: there are also questions about reinvestment returns. E.g. the purchase mentioned upthread ( https://www.pymnts.com/news/partnerships-acquisitions/2019/visa-acquires-germany-based-payworks/ ) will possibly bring positive returns, but it seems to be in more competitive area with possibly worse growth and I'd guess worse CAP (if taken separately) than main V business. If that's how earnings are reinvested, you may get worse results going 10 - 20 years out than if you looked at main business CAP. (Again not saying it was bad acquisition, but using it to illustrate the point 8) ).

Yeah, I looked to buy more after the open when it was up only 1.5% but dropped the ball. With the hindsight, it was easy 5+% in a day... ::)

Yes. That's why the duration of growth (and ROIC) (what Mauboussin calls Competitive Advantage Period) is so important. And that's why Visa and MC were undervalued for so long. Investors were either underestimating the durability of the growth or ignoring it altogether. http://people.stern.nyu.edu/adamodar/pdfiles/eqnotes/cap.pdf Right. But can you really estimate CAP beyond 10 years or so? I know people will keep telling me that "nothing will change with V/MA/banks in 10+ years" , so I'll respond that that's just status quo bias. ;D

I use Quicken and have used it since 1990s. I have not had any significant blowups with it, though looking at reviews some people do. I track income, investing, 401(k), IRAs, ESPP, RSUs, credit cards, bank accounts, mortgage, etc. I don't do budgeting. I mostly don't use Quicken info for my taxes (I use Turbo Tax Online which is not connected to Quicken on my PC.) Quicken mostly works, but has quirks and issues (some that are never fixed for 10 years or so). I can do things like IRRs for a selection of accounts for any time frame, etc. Graphs and reports are mostly good IMO. I don't particularly like paying extortion subscription every year or two years. IMO Quicken does not provide enough incremental value for them to charge the subscription. Unfortunately, there are pretty much no viable alternatives (IMO) and so I'm stuck. (I have relatives who still use Quicken 2003 or 2007 and it works just fine - but you cannot get electronic updates and have to put all bills/charges/etc into it by hand.) Let me know if you have any questions and I'll try to answer. Good luck.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-17/elon-musk-s-neuralink-says-it-s-ready-to-begin-brain-surgery

As an example, at DANSKE it took a long time, too. When the headhunter introduces a potential subject for the position to the chairman, and a meeting for conversation is set up, the potential subject has by far more questions for discussion to the chairman than the other way around. Such a setup can be highly annoying, and thereby counterproductive. Wells Fargo CEO seat is basically “radioactive”. Not many candidates wants to deal with Congress , politicians, regulators while running a business at the same time. This will whittle down the pool of candidates significantly. Yeah, you know why is a person supposed to work for $20M salary or such? $20M positions should come with no duties attached. Just the private jets, soirees, and golf clubs please. Somehow the "radioactive" positions that involve dealing with disgruntled customers threatening bodily harm, hey even dealing with convicted felons get filled at wages closer to minimum wage. But that's for schmucks. The CEO caste is different. All hail the CEOs and shower money on them. It just could be that WFC may be having trouble filling its CEO position because the issues at the bank are still more serious than generally understood. Over the last 2.5 years there has been a steady stream of negative press. Perhaps the CEO vacancy is saying more about the issues at WFC than the character of the CEO candidates who are not interested. As much as I rant about the CEO characters, I think that Spekulatius' theory is correct. Perhaps a bit modified by insiders/board feeling no big urgency to fill CEO position. What's the hurry if the bank is doing fine? Regarding your theory: candidates may assume that the issues at the bank are more serious than generally understood. It's unlikely they know this for sure. I doubt that hiring committee discloses the size of potential issues to candidates except perhaps in very general terms. Which may scare (some) candidates more than warranted. IMO Wells would do just fine to either keep the acting CEO until fear subsides or take an acceptable (though possibly not "ideal") candidate who's not chicken enough to wade in. Doesn't change my rant opinions though. 8)

It's also a historical index of your life events. It has symbolically replaced scrapbooks and baby albums (to an extent) The longer it has been established the harder it will be for people to leave all that behind. I think there is a sense of effort from the user perspective. The idea that you're building something to be able to look back on has value in and of itself. But let's not forget 2.5B active users....that number alone is insane. They also have not yet monetized WhatsApp. I didn't get the big deal about it until I went to visit relatives in Patagonia where cell service is spotty (and expensive) and everyone uses WhatsApp. I think it's the same in many other parts of the world. I don't see why they couldn't throw ads on there like they do with FB and instagram. Likely because WhatsApp co-founders who sold to Facebook were against ads and WhatsApp retained some independence after acquisition. This is gone now that both co-founders left Facebook. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp But FB discussions probably should be moved to FB thread. 8)

As an example, at DANSKE it took a long time, too. When the headhunter introduces a potential subject for the position to the chairman, and a meeting for conversation is set up, the potential subject has by far more questions for discussion to the chairman than the other way around. Such a setup can be highly annoying, and thereby counterproductive. Wells Fargo CEO seat is basically “radioactive”. Not many candidates wants to deal with Congress , politicians, regulators while running a business at the same time. This will whittle down the pool of candidates significantly. Yeah, you know why is a person supposed to work for $20M salary or such? $20M positions should come with no duties attached. Just the private jets, soirees, and golf clubs please. Somehow the "radioactive" positions that involve dealing with disgruntled customers threatening bodily harm, hey even dealing with convicted felons get filled at wages closer to minimum wage. But that's for schmucks. The CEO caste is different. All hail the CEOs and shower money on them.

I am waiting for the day when a couple of negative interest rate loans default. If indeed momentum and hope for capital gains (betting on negative interest rates becoming more negative) is the driving force, then everyone knows it’s a fools game and jut hopes they can sell before the rest does and once momentum turns, things could get rather strange when everyone runs for the exit. "when everyone runs for the exit" for negative interest rate loans is no different from "when everyone runs for the exit" for the positive interest rate loans. Also if rates go up, it doesn't matter whether the bond you held was at -1% and rate went to 1% or if it was at 1% and rate went to 3%. You gonna have comparable losses (well, the math is more complicated for detail obsessed, but you get the drift). Also if negative rate loan is discounted enough, it turns into a positive rate loan on YTM.

Well, they are not paying CEO salary/bonus/etc. ;D Maybe more companies should get rid of their CEOs.