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Hidden Value Gems
Howard Buffett on Berkshire culture when he takes over as Chairman: “The culture is to keep things simple, to do what you need to do but don’t do a lot of things you don’t need to do, treat people fairly, respect your managers, respect your shareholders. Tell them the bad news upfront, be honest."
$BRK.A $BRK.B
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Howard Buffett on Berkshire culture when he takes over as Chairman: “The culture is to keep things simple, to do what you need to do but don’t do a lot of things you don’t need to do, treat people fairly, respect your managers, respect your shareholders. Tell them the bad news upfront, be honest."
$BRK.A $BRK.B
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App Economy Insights
Earnings season is back!
What are you watching this week?
• Wednesday: $JPM, $WFC, $C, $BLK.
• Thursday: $TSM, $BAC, $GS, $MS, $UNH.
All visualized in our newsletter! https://t.co/vUfAUP1ypj
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Earnings season is back!
What are you watching this week?
• Wednesday: $JPM, $WFC, $C, $BLK.
• Thursday: $TSM, $BAC, $GS, $MS, $UNH.
All visualized in our newsletter! https://t.co/vUfAUP1ypj
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Startup Archive
Brian Armstrong tells the founding story of Coinbase: “Nothing was working”
After quitting his job in 2012 and joining Y Combinator to build Coinbase, Brian faced setback after setback:
“I was struggling to find anybody who would join my team and work with me... I almost cofounded it with one person and that all exploded in dramatic fashion… I finally found the right cofounder, Fred Erhsam, we got off to the races, and someone sued us three months later.”
But as Brian explains, this is the norm for startups:
“Startups are moving from one setback to the next with enthusiasm… nothing is working, and that’s kind of the default state… If it feels like that, just don’t give up. That’s the main thing. A lot of times I’ve seen people: they have an idea, they have a team that comes together, it doesn’t work, and four months they have a big cofounder fight, blow up, and they all go home… And it’s like, well, you didn’t really try it because there’s no idea that works on the first try.”
He continues:
“You have to put something out there, and then grind it out for two or three years. Talk to your customers, improve the product, talk to your customers, improve the product… If you look at almost every successful startup, it feels like it was an overnight success, but really that’s just how history gets written in hindsight. If you talk to most of those founders in the early days, there was a period where any reasonable person would have quit. Nothing was working… And all of them somehow persevered and pushed through and finally found something that started to work.”
This was especially true for Coinbase. There was no way to buy and sell crypto in the first version. A couple hundred people signed up after Brian posted it on Reddit, and they all left. After emailing five of the people who signed up and churned, he realized some people liked the app but couldn’t use it because they didn’t have Bitcoin:
“I remember this light bubble that went off in my head, and I was like, well if there was a simple way to buy [Bitcoin] in the app, would you have done it? He’s like, yeah, probably. And so I hung up and the next few months I had to start thinking about how do we build a simple buy button? And there were a million things that had to go into that: bank partners, legal, licensing, and all this kind of stuff. But that’s when we finally got product/market fit. And that was just one example of hundreds of times where I did that. And I was trying to find something that works… So talk to your customers, improve the product. That’s all we did. And that was one of the things I would recommend.”
Video source: @a16zcrypto (2023)
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Brian Armstrong tells the founding story of Coinbase: “Nothing was working”
After quitting his job in 2012 and joining Y Combinator to build Coinbase, Brian faced setback after setback:
“I was struggling to find anybody who would join my team and work with me... I almost cofounded it with one person and that all exploded in dramatic fashion… I finally found the right cofounder, Fred Erhsam, we got off to the races, and someone sued us three months later.”
But as Brian explains, this is the norm for startups:
“Startups are moving from one setback to the next with enthusiasm… nothing is working, and that’s kind of the default state… If it feels like that, just don’t give up. That’s the main thing. A lot of times I’ve seen people: they have an idea, they have a team that comes together, it doesn’t work, and four months they have a big cofounder fight, blow up, and they all go home… And it’s like, well, you didn’t really try it because there’s no idea that works on the first try.”
He continues:
“You have to put something out there, and then grind it out for two or three years. Talk to your customers, improve the product, talk to your customers, improve the product… If you look at almost every successful startup, it feels like it was an overnight success, but really that’s just how history gets written in hindsight. If you talk to most of those founders in the early days, there was a period where any reasonable person would have quit. Nothing was working… And all of them somehow persevered and pushed through and finally found something that started to work.”
This was especially true for Coinbase. There was no way to buy and sell crypto in the first version. A couple hundred people signed up after Brian posted it on Reddit, and they all left. After emailing five of the people who signed up and churned, he realized some people liked the app but couldn’t use it because they didn’t have Bitcoin:
“I remember this light bubble that went off in my head, and I was like, well if there was a simple way to buy [Bitcoin] in the app, would you have done it? He’s like, yeah, probably. And so I hung up and the next few months I had to start thinking about how do we build a simple buy button? And there were a million things that had to go into that: bank partners, legal, licensing, and all this kind of stuff. But that’s when we finally got product/market fit. And that was just one example of hundreds of times where I did that. And I was trying to find something that works… So talk to your customers, improve the product. That’s all we did. And that was one of the things I would recommend.”
Video source: @a16zcrypto (2023)
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Stock Analysis Compilation
Baron Small Cap Fund on GCM Grosvenor $GCMG US
Thesis: GCM Grosvenor Inc. is a resilient alternative asset manager with $79 billion AUM, strong growth potential, and significant upside due to its discount valuation and experienced management, aiming to double fee-related earnings over the next five years.
(Extract from their Q3 letter)
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Baron Small Cap Fund on GCM Grosvenor $GCMG US
Thesis: GCM Grosvenor Inc. is a resilient alternative asset manager with $79 billion AUM, strong growth potential, and significant upside due to its discount valuation and experienced management, aiming to double fee-related earnings over the next five years.
(Extract from their Q3 letter)
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Stock Analysis Compilation
Baron Opportunity Fund on GDS Holdings $GDS US
Thesis: GDS Holdings Limited is a promising pan-Asia data center operator with significant growth potential, driven by strong demand for cloud services and AI applications, leading to a projected increase in share value from approximately $20 to $45-55 within two to three years.
(Extract from their Q3 letter)
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Baron Opportunity Fund on GDS Holdings $GDS US
Thesis: GDS Holdings Limited is a promising pan-Asia data center operator with significant growth potential, driven by strong demand for cloud services and AI applications, leading to a projected increase in share value from approximately $20 to $45-55 within two to three years.
(Extract from their Q3 letter)
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Startup Archive
RT @eugenemarinelli: @StartupArchive_ Coinbase is a good counterexample of the “startup is like producing a movie” concept. Just a software engineer who wanted to start a big company, spotted an opportunity, and iterated from an MVP.
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RT @eugenemarinelli: @StartupArchive_ Coinbase is a good counterexample of the “startup is like producing a movie” concept. Just a software engineer who wanted to start a big company, spotted an opportunity, and iterated from an MVP.
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Stock Analysis Compilation
Baron Asset Fund on Duolingo $DUOL US
Thesis: Duolingo, Inc. is a leading language learning app with exceptional user engagement, strong growth metrics, and promising upcoming AI-driven product enhancements that position it for further market expansion.
(Extract from their Q3 letter)
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Baron Asset Fund on Duolingo $DUOL US
Thesis: Duolingo, Inc. is a leading language learning app with exceptional user engagement, strong growth metrics, and promising upcoming AI-driven product enhancements that position it for further market expansion.
(Extract from their Q3 letter)
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Ahmad Jivraj
Wow time flies!
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Wow time flies!
Happy 1-year anniversary to our beloved Bitcoin Spot ETFs!
• The most successful ETF launch in history by AUM
• The best-performing ETF of 2024
• The most talked-about ETF ever on a global scale
Proof of Work is forever tweet
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Stock Analysis Compilation
Baron International Growth Fund on China Mengniu Dairy $300750 CH
Thesis: CATL is the world's largest manufacturer of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for EVs and ESSs, with a strong market position, competitive advantages, and expected 20% earnings growth in the medium term.
(Extract from their Q3 letter)
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Baron International Growth Fund on China Mengniu Dairy $300750 CH
Thesis: CATL is the world's largest manufacturer of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for EVs and ESSs, with a strong market position, competitive advantages, and expected 20% earnings growth in the medium term.
(Extract from their Q3 letter)
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Hidden Value Gems
My latest Investments Notes are out.
Flagging Kering and Prosus stock ideas and some additional commentary on markets👇🏼
$KER.PA $PROSY
Link in bio and reply https://t.co/3gwlzvIQTx
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My latest Investments Notes are out.
Flagging Kering and Prosus stock ideas and some additional commentary on markets👇🏼
$KER.PA $PROSY
Link in bio and reply https://t.co/3gwlzvIQTx
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Offshore
Video
Startup Archive
Keith Rabois on how to identify great talent
“What you want to do with every single employee every single day is expand the scope of their responsibilities until it breaks… and that’s the role they should stay in.”
Keith tells the story of giving an intern the task of getting smoothies to arrive at the office at 9pm to reward Square’s engineering team. And once the intern proved they could solve this task that had stumped multiple people at the company, he gave them something more important and consequential to do.
Everybody has some level of complexity that they can handle, and you want to keep expanding their responsibility until you see where it breaks—as Keith points out, some people will surprise you:
“There will be some people who you don’t expect—with different backgrounds, without a lot of experience—who can just handle enormously complicated tasks. So keep testing that and pushing the envelope.”
Keith also argues that you should monitor who is going up to other people's desks. If you see people frequently going up to a person's desk, it's a sign that that person can help them. Promote these people and give them more responsibility as fast as you can.
Video source: @ycombinator (2014)
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Keith Rabois on how to identify great talent
“What you want to do with every single employee every single day is expand the scope of their responsibilities until it breaks… and that’s the role they should stay in.”
Keith tells the story of giving an intern the task of getting smoothies to arrive at the office at 9pm to reward Square’s engineering team. And once the intern proved they could solve this task that had stumped multiple people at the company, he gave them something more important and consequential to do.
Everybody has some level of complexity that they can handle, and you want to keep expanding their responsibility until you see where it breaks—as Keith points out, some people will surprise you:
“There will be some people who you don’t expect—with different backgrounds, without a lot of experience—who can just handle enormously complicated tasks. So keep testing that and pushing the envelope.”
Keith also argues that you should monitor who is going up to other people's desks. If you see people frequently going up to a person's desk, it's a sign that that person can help them. Promote these people and give them more responsibility as fast as you can.
Video source: @ycombinator (2014)
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