Liberty

https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/21/17762326/waymo-self-driving-ride-hail-fleet-management "A look at Waymo's self-driving car depot in Phoenix and the progress of its Early Rider program, which offers free test rides to 400+ members"

Verizon recently tried to buy CHTR for a higher price than its trading now. Not sure if that's what you do if you have a high-ROIC way to basically overbuild the country (which is kind of what 5G requires, with lots of small cells and lots of backhaul fiber required).

I think it's pretty far from Instagram (one of the all-time greats), but it was a good deal.

Sure, but buying Amazon isn't really a way to get exposure to esports, right? A billion is chump change considering the market cap of Amazon. Even if Twitch is worth $50 billion now that would hardly be significant. I didn't say it was a good way to get direct exposure to it, but it certainly was a good investment for Amazon, and when in 20 years esports is multiples of what it is now, that 1 billion will probably have had a very nice IRR.

Amazon's Twitch purchase for a billion has positioned them well.

MKBHD interview from August 15:

The usual explanation is lower liquidity.

Book coming out soon about self-driving technology. There's an excerpt here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/late-to-the-driverless-revolution-1534520404 On Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Autonomy-Quest-Driverless-Car-Reshape/dp/0062661124/

Sad that it has come to this. I'm a big fan of the technology, ambition, and how he pushes the pace of whole industries forward faster than they would otherwise go and such, but he really needs to take better care of himself and rein in his self-destructive tendencies and find help to help better run his companies. Gwynne Shotwell seems to be filling that role at SpaceX, he needs someone (or a few) like that at Tesla, I think.

I haven't had time to read the transcript yet. Ben Thompson wrote about the results in his update today. Seems to be temporary issues with the games and a transition in how they monetize the payments. They also keep growing the non-game stuff, so over time the lumpiness of the games should go down.

Q2: http://www.tencent.com/en-us/articles/15000721534337610.pdf http://www.tencent.com/attachments/ResultsPresentation2Q18.pdf

Details are starting to come out about Michael Lewis' next book, coming in October: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1324002646/

Charter has been doing some 5G tests, and they have a MVNO contract with Verizon. They also have lots of public wifi points that can serve to offload some of those "mobile" bits.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/08/are-diesels-days-numbered-a-view-from-a-trip-to-byds-electric-bus-factory/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-14/john-malone-the-cable-cowboy-isn-t-ready-to-hang-up-his-spurs

New Musk release about the taking private transaction: https://www.tesla.com/en_CA/blog/update-taking-tesla-private

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-09/visa-mastercard-amex-agree-to-trim-interchange-fees-in-canada

If you're looking for a good film, I recommend this one about James Randi, an expert magician who became a debunker of charlatans of all kinds. I found it quite fascinating, and there's a lot in there that was amazing seeing with my own eyes rather than just reading about it as a quick anecdote somewhere (wait until you see Project Alpha!). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2246565/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Honest_Liar Places where you can get it from: https://www.amazon.com/Honest-Liar-James-Amazing-Randi/dp/B00Z9QEZ5Q https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/an-honest-liar/id996270491

Feature piece on Instagram stories: https://www.recode.net/2018/8/8/17641256/instagram-stories-kevin-systrom-facebook-snapchat

https://daringfireball.net/2018/08/doug_field_returns_to_apple

Finished reading it during the weekend. Good book. I gave it a B+ in my notes.

Q2: http://ir.bookingholdings.com/static-files/c63b9479-1de4-49e6-b505-22cf9f14fb99

Trailing 10 year results are ~40% CAGR for share price, even after the drop. I'd love to own some of this business, and would also be very curious to hear how those of you who are long are valuing it right now... It's something like 26x TTM FCF (and that TTM includes the abnormally low Q2). To me, that's not expensive for a business of this quality with this management. But each has to make up their own mind on that.

They don't have to give data anymore than Google or Facebook are giving data to the advertisers. What they do is use the data to better target the ads, increasing conversion rates and making the ads more valuable through the auction mechanism. The point is not that this revenue isn't counted, but that's it's growing fast and high margin, and growing from a small base. That small base might have been barely noticeable a couple years ago, now it's something like $4bn, and in a few years it could be tens of billions of high-margin revenue. That makes a difference, just like AWS did.

https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Perspectives/Our-Hat-into-the-Podcasting-Ring I thought this might interest some here. I haven't had a chance to listen yet, but AQR is a factor/quant shop, so this might bring a different perspective to the value investors here. Always good to broaden your horizons, even if you don't end up using the info directly. Direct link: https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Podcasts First episode: https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Podcasts/The-Curious-Investor/Season-One/Face-the-Factors The hosts are Dan Villalon and Gabe Feghali.