Facebook’s strengths rest in two very distinct areas: the user network and user data. If you want to determine whether Facebook is healthy, you need to ignore the headlines and focus on these two aspects. Is the user network still intact? Is the user data still intact? Although the headlines
When I first wrote about Tinder’s parent company, Match, I believed there were two risks. I know I made a mistake with the first risk, and I believe there are lessons to be learned from both risks I identified. First, Tinder operates a freemium network user business model. Users can
Shake Shack (“Shak”) is a burger joint that is much more than a burger joint. It’s tough to describe if you haven’t eaten there. At the end of 2018, Shak will have about 123 domestic (U.S.) company-owned locations and about 85 Licensed Shacks (the majority of the licensed locations are
VRSN reported their quarterly results last night with a brief 30 minute conference call (you could also read the transcript in about half that time). The remarkable thing about VRSN is really how unremarkable it is. The business is highly focused on managing the .com and .net registry (hoping to
Facebook’s one day drop on July 27th was impressive. It marked the largest ever loss of equity value for a U.S. listed company. However, to achieve such a feat requires a large market cap before such a day, quite an impressive feat on its own. This feat was only accomplished
Bad Blood is a great book. It’s a fast read, it’s interesting and you should read it. I want to only discuss one aspect of investing with regards to my takeaways from this book. In November of 2006, Theranos raised money at a valuation of $165m. Approximately 8 years later,
“I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.”— Charlie Munger “We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can
Imagine you are an airplane inspector for the FAA. You job is to certify the flight-worthiness of a plane. You check the planes annually and certify that they are flight-worthy until the next inspection. This particular day you happen to be flying in the plane you are inspecting and therefore
When Buffett first started out, he had a true information advantage. Other investors just didn’t know that Sanborn Map had an investment portfolio worth more than the entire market valuation of the company. This was an incredible opportunity and he took advantage of it. This doesn’t exist anymore. (If you
Hidden Figures is a great movie. It’s a great story about women, but also a story about math. The continual discussion about the endless calculations (note: these calculations are basically done by hand) that go into sending people to the moon is amazing, truly spectacular. The Imitation Game is another