Liberty

Good post on Disney by Matt Ball: https://www.matthewball.vc/all/marginalaffinity

https://stratechery.com/2019/google-and-ambient-computing/

Acquisition by Perseus in Texas: https://csiperseus.com/news/perseus-group-adds-horizon-retail-solutions-to-its-expanding-portfolio-of-software-businesses/ h/t @pearnick

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/migration-complete-amazons-consumer-business-just-turned-off-its-final-oracle-database/ "Amazon’s Consumer Business Just Turned off its Final Oracle Database" ("We migrated 75 petabytes of internal data stored in nearly 7,500 Oracle databases to multiple AWS database services")

I wish Eric would start posting more again. Sounded like he might, not that long ago.

OpenAI robotics effort

Sanjeev, because he created and held together the whole place for a really long time, and he's always more patient and good-humored with all of us hoopleheads than most people would be.

"If you'd done any actual work on this name then you'd know that per vehicle ASP has been dropping quarter after quarter." Should it be going up? They've introduced a new cheaper model (Model 3), so as it ramps up, it becomes a bigger fraction of total sales, driving ASPs down. On top of that, they started with the premium, full-featured Model 3s, and over time have come out with less expensive, more entry-level versions, which should also drop ASPs. Should ASPs have been going up while they're doing that?

Stunning indeed!

He's probably just on vacation.

There's also a long New Yorker piece (but that's redundant) about Amazon from yesterday: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/21/is-amazon-unstoppable?currentPage=all

Thanks

I enjoyed this Founders' Podcast episode that goes through highlights from 21 shareholder letters from Jeff Bezos. Even having read them all previously, it was good to refresh my memory: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/71-jeff-bezos-shareholder-letters-all-of-them/id1141877104?i=1000437859575

I enjoyed this Founders' Podcast episode that goes through highlights from 21 shareholder letters from Jeff Bezos. Even having read them all previously, it was good to refresh my memory: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/71-jeff-bezos-shareholder-letters-all-of-them/id1141877104?i=1000437859575

What do you like about PAR (apart from that good interview that the CEO gave to Patrick a while ago)?

New one by TSS in the Netherlands: https://www.totalspecificsolutions.com/about-us/transaction-updates?tid=49 h/t @pearnick

New post on Visa and Mastercard (part 3 of a series), subscription required: https://www.scuttleblurb.com/vma3/

I’ve looked at them a few years ago and read that writeup. I don’t think the write up is correct in comparing them. Pretty different models. Not mission critical, using more debt and issuing more shares, etc.

Volaris acquisition: https://www.volarisgroup.com/news/article/volaris-group-strengthens-foodservice-hospitality-vertical-with-acquisition h/t @pearnick

I don't think that's what Buffett is teaching... And I can't sell this because I've never owned it.

I haven't watched it yet, but Marc Andreessen recommended the TV series 'Halt and Catch Fire' as a good look into the startup/hyper-growth business world. It's a period piece based on a fictionalized company that represents Compaq computers. It's available on Netflix here in Canada. I've got good feedback about it from those who've seen it and it has good ratings on IMDB, so it's on my list to check out: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543312/

Good luck. I'm sure the market will soon provide a 50-bagger to get back to even for those people who were "right" 5 years ago...

What does any of that prove? They were doing that 5 years ago too and it didn't stop them from losing 98% of their value since.. It's a hostage situation with the lenders. They don't want to throw bad money after good, but they also don't want to turn off the spigot because payment on their existing debt requires continuing operations (and maybe if they're lucky, a turnaround). So they kick the can down the road, but I don't think this "evidence" is particularly strong in favor of the market being wrong.

Down another 25% in the past month. $53m USD market cap. Good thing oil prices were pretty flat during that time, I'm not sure the equity stub would do well on lower commodity prices..

Is it really picking up pennies when your making 30-40% ROC a year? And you are not going to get steamrolled if you are purchasing companies like BRKB, WFC, and BAC. There has never been a time where getting put to on BRKB was not a good thing. Getting put the big banks at the beginning of the financial crisis probably wasn't that great, though...