⁠Startup Archive
RT @kevg1412: https://t.co/h4itE7CMJi

Bill Gurley on what he learned from his mistake of not investing in Google’s Series A

“The biggest mistake I ever made is I met Larry [Page] and Sergey [Brin] when they had 25 employees at Google and had them present to my partnership, and we didn’t follow through and try to invest.”

Bill reflects on what he learned from this:

“A lot of people talk about this in venture, but you have asymmetric returns — you can lose 1x your money, but when you miss on [a Google], you can miss out on 10,000x your money. So we had a saying internally, ‘What could go right?’ We never sweated a zero… But when we miss big winners, we talk about that frequently…. And one interesting thing about venture is it’s a complex system and there are no rules… I’ve often thought about it as: You develop a set of pattern recognition, which is enhanced if you’re working with a partnership because everybody has their own. And then you have like 10 loose rules that you apply when you see a company. But a lot of the times when you make a great investment, it’s because decide to relax one or two of those rules.”

He emphasizes that Google wasn’t an obvious winner at the time:

“Yahoo had fallen from $82 to $10 as a public company. Excite was in bankruptcy. These were the other search companies at the time. Larry and Sergey both wanted to be CEO and they were PhD students at Stanford. Co-CEO PhD students is not on the checklist. And they wanted a really high price.”

But what Bill finds most interesting is that two of the all-time great venture capitalists were able to look past these problems:

“Two of the very best venture capitalists of all time — John Doerr and Mike Moritz — did the deal. So they had a superior mental framework in that situation and broke a lot of the rules. Another thing was they split the deal at a really high price so their ownership was much lower than they traditionally get. But they knew to break that rule at the time.”

Bill gives Tesla as another example of an investment that “likely violated most people’s entire rule set” but being contrarian is what made the return so high.

Video source: @UTexasMcCombs (2025) - Startup Archive
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⁠Quiver Quantitative
BREAKING: Senator Markwayne Mullin just disclosed new purchases of up to $100K of Stride stock, $LRN.

Stride is for-profit education company.

Mullin sits on the Senate Committee on Education.

We previously reported on his July purchases of this stock.

It has risen 77% since. https://t.co/M3D4cO26EF
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⁠InsideArbitrage
The acquisition of Heartland Financial USA $HTLF by UMB Financial $UMBF was completed on January 31, 2025.

It took 277 days for the deal to be completed. https://t.co/K0qLoJ3RQK
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⁠InsideArbitrage
RT @business: United Airlines said it’s not in talks with another carrier for an acquisition or other transaction, in an attempt to dispel rumors that had been circulating online in recent days https://t.co/jDOvxc94ZZ
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⁠Investing visuals
January 2025 portfolio update! 📊

🔹Portfolio is up +6.47% vs $QQQ +1.8%
🔹Most of the gains are driven by 3 positions that where up > +15%

Buys 💸
• Added to 3 positions I consider undervalued right now and great long term picks

Sells 👋
None! I've only been buying in January

Reflecting on January🪞
I'm very pleased with the results so far. Some of my holdings have already posted their Q4 earning, ranging from okay to absolutely crushing it.

Up and onward! 🙏
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⁠Investing visuals
It’s been a busy earnings week!

In case you missed anything, here’s a breakdown of 9 companies that reported -- covering $ASML, $MSFT, $AAPL, $V, $MA, $INTC, $TSLA, $NFLX & $META 🧵👇

#1 $ASML Q4 2024 breakdown https://t.co/LZX0ahn7Zj
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⁠Startup Archive
Ben Horowitz on the ideal founding team for a startup

Ben looks for two people on a founding team:

1. The inventor. “It’s the inventor’s job to build a product that’s 10x better than anything that’s available to solve that problem.”

2. The entrepreneur. “The entrepreneur’s job is to take the market.”

When Ben and Marc Andreessen founded Opsware, Ben was the entrepreneur and Marc was the inventor.

“What helped us a lot was that - as an entrepreneur - I’ve got a master’s degree in computer science, so I understood invention. And I understood how to drive the company around continuous innovation. And that’s really, really important. And Marc, although he invented the browser and a lot of important things, he knows a lot about business, markets and competition.”

Ben continues:

“The best thing to do is to have two people who know how to do both, but at least one person who’s world-class in each. And that’s how you think about the founding team.”

Video source: @UCBerkeley (2009)
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⁠Stock Analysis Compilation
Alluvial Capital on Titan Cement $TITC GA

Thesis: Titan Cement’s planned US IPO unlocks value, with shares trading at a discount despite strong global operations and financial stewardship

(Extract from their Q4 letter) https://t.co/zhYODpfFSh
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⁠App Economy Insights
📊 This Week in Visuals:

📱Apple $AAPL
♾ Meta $META
🚖 Tesla $TSLA
💳 Visa $V
💳 Mastercard $MA
👜 LVMH $LVMUY
☁️ SAP $SAP
💊 Abbvie $ABBV
and more!
https://t.co/1lOB8u7cro
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⁠Stock Analysis Compilation
Massif Capital on Harbour Energy $HBR LN

Thesis: Harbour Energy is well-positioned for growth and value generation through strategic acquisitions and strong cash flow, particularly following its recent expansion into diverse international markets and increased natural gas exposure.

(Extract from their Q4 letter)
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