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Librarian Capital
Nike $NKE: Reminder it is a family-controlled company
Class A shareholders select 75% of directors
Class A 97.2% held by named Phil Knight & related parties, incl. 77.5% at Swoosh LLC, which Phil formed and where his son Travis "has a significant role"
Travis on NKE board https://t.co/f80CcnVWlt
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Nike $NKE: Reminder it is a family-controlled company
Class A shareholders select 75% of directors
Class A 97.2% held by named Phil Knight & related parties, incl. 77.5% at Swoosh LLC, which Phil formed and where his son Travis "has a significant role"
Travis on NKE board https://t.co/f80CcnVWlt
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AkhenOsiris
Databricks $SNOW
Bloomberg:
Once considered the little brother, Databricks has played the public antagonist with pugnacious marketing and sales tactics. “SnowMelt” is a not-so-subtly named initiative within the firm to take business from Snowflake, especially in its home court of data warehousing, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
Sellers can win bonuses for moving Snowflake clients to Databricks’ directly competing service. In other cases, Databricks salespeople offered to help pay off prospects’ Snowflake contracts in the form of credits if they switched vendors. Or they steeply discounted their offering to win business.
The typical pitch by Databricks is that its platform is less expensive and contains a wider suite of advanced features, such as those for building AI models for businesses from complicated unstructured data. Sellers are equipped with a program that estimates how much money potential clients would save by switching to Databricks from Snowflake.
Snowflake, too, says its offering is cheaper. “The claims on cost drive me nuts,” said longtime Snowflake product chief Christian Kleinerman in an interview. “I tell the customers — just try it and go run a representative benchmark.”
Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi is known for giving fiery media interviews and posting migration stories or favorable benchmarks on LinkedIn. Employees recall being asked to like or share these posts on their own accounts.
Going after Snowflake helped spread awareness about Databricks, Ghodsi said in an interview. “Two or three years ago nobody got fired for buying Snowflake as their data warehouse — I don't think that's true anymore.” Now, Ghodsi said he’s no longer orienting employees against Snowflake, focusing them instead toward goals like promoting their AI and data governance products.
While hard to know how much is due to its combative style, something is working for Databricks. Unlike most other large software companies, its revenue growth is accelerating, according to an investor presentation in June. Recurring sales were expected to hit $2.4 billion in July, with the company’s relatively new warehousing product — which most-directly competes with Snowflake — contributing more than $400 million.
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Databricks $SNOW
Bloomberg:
Once considered the little brother, Databricks has played the public antagonist with pugnacious marketing and sales tactics. “SnowMelt” is a not-so-subtly named initiative within the firm to take business from Snowflake, especially in its home court of data warehousing, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
Sellers can win bonuses for moving Snowflake clients to Databricks’ directly competing service. In other cases, Databricks salespeople offered to help pay off prospects’ Snowflake contracts in the form of credits if they switched vendors. Or they steeply discounted their offering to win business.
The typical pitch by Databricks is that its platform is less expensive and contains a wider suite of advanced features, such as those for building AI models for businesses from complicated unstructured data. Sellers are equipped with a program that estimates how much money potential clients would save by switching to Databricks from Snowflake.
Snowflake, too, says its offering is cheaper. “The claims on cost drive me nuts,” said longtime Snowflake product chief Christian Kleinerman in an interview. “I tell the customers — just try it and go run a representative benchmark.”
Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi is known for giving fiery media interviews and posting migration stories or favorable benchmarks on LinkedIn. Employees recall being asked to like or share these posts on their own accounts.
Going after Snowflake helped spread awareness about Databricks, Ghodsi said in an interview. “Two or three years ago nobody got fired for buying Snowflake as their data warehouse — I don't think that's true anymore.” Now, Ghodsi said he’s no longer orienting employees against Snowflake, focusing them instead toward goals like promoting their AI and data governance products.
While hard to know how much is due to its combative style, something is working for Databricks. Unlike most other large software companies, its revenue growth is accelerating, according to an investor presentation in June. Recurring sales were expected to hit $2.4 billion in July, with the company’s relatively new warehousing product — which most-directly competes with Snowflake — contributing more than $400 million.
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AkhenOsiris
Databricks $SNOW
Snowflake reported $3 billion in annual sales over the last 12 months, growing only about half as quickly as its startup rival. Mike Scarpelli, Snowflake’s chief financial officer, said in an interview that his company has higher profitability. “The reality is we’re generating cash and they're burning cash. How long can they do that for?”
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Databricks $SNOW
Snowflake reported $3 billion in annual sales over the last 12 months, growing only about half as quickly as its startup rival. Mike Scarpelli, Snowflake’s chief financial officer, said in an interview that his company has higher profitability. “The reality is we’re generating cash and they're burning cash. How long can they do that for?”
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AkhenOsiris
Databricks
"It's a relatively new product," Adam Conway, senior vice president of product at Databricks, said about Microsoft’s Fabric. "On the record, I'll leave it at that." He added that he's "not worried about another company out-innovating us."
Partnership is still the official line. During an all-hands meeting earlier this month, Ghodsi warned against criticizing Fabric or other Microsoft products on social media, telling attendees that “our message to customers should always be that we are better together,” according to a presentation slide seen by Bloomberg.
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Databricks
"It's a relatively new product," Adam Conway, senior vice president of product at Databricks, said about Microsoft’s Fabric. "On the record, I'll leave it at that." He added that he's "not worried about another company out-innovating us."
Partnership is still the official line. During an all-hands meeting earlier this month, Ghodsi warned against criticizing Fabric or other Microsoft products on social media, telling attendees that “our message to customers should always be that we are better together,” according to a presentation slide seen by Bloomberg.
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Hidden Value Gems
RT @HiddenValueGems: A couple of interesting data points:
1️⃣ Amazon’s AWS revenue over the last 12 months ($99 billion) was higher than the revenue of 468 companies in the S&P 500.
2️⃣ Apple has bought back $646 billion in stock over the past 10 years, which is greater than the market cap of 491 companies in the S&P 500.
h/t @charliebilello
$AMZN $AAPL
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RT @HiddenValueGems: A couple of interesting data points:
1️⃣ Amazon’s AWS revenue over the last 12 months ($99 billion) was higher than the revenue of 468 companies in the S&P 500.
2️⃣ Apple has bought back $646 billion in stock over the past 10 years, which is greater than the market cap of 491 companies in the S&P 500.
h/t @charliebilello
$AMZN $AAPL
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Offshore
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Librarian Capital
How smart is Twitter's Grok AI?
If you ask these questions in order:
"How many times have Elon Musk lied about Tesla?"
"How many times have Donald Trump lied about his record?"
Grok will blame Trump for the $TSLA "funding secured" claim https://t.co/ODogToUUkz
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How smart is Twitter's Grok AI?
If you ask these questions in order:
"How many times have Elon Musk lied about Tesla?"
"How many times have Donald Trump lied about his record?"
Grok will blame Trump for the $TSLA "funding secured" claim https://t.co/ODogToUUkz
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Librarian Capital
"Apple to open up tap-to-pay technology to other developers" (FT)
"Developers will have to enter into a commercial agreement with Apple ... and pay “associated fees""
US, UK, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan and New Zealand (EU already part of Jul-24 deal)
$AAPL $PYPL
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"Apple to open up tap-to-pay technology to other developers" (FT)
"Developers will have to enter into a commercial agreement with Apple ... and pay “associated fees""
US, UK, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan and New Zealand (EU already part of Jul-24 deal)
$AAPL $PYPL
Apple to open up tap-to-pay technology to other developers https://t.co/eFTMMjmjZL tweet
twitter.com
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Hidden Value Gems
RT @HiddenValueGems: Quote of the day #64
#Success #Perseverance https://t.co/Zkzd75nrYR
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RT @HiddenValueGems: Quote of the day #64
#Success #Perseverance https://t.co/Zkzd75nrYR
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Offshore
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Quiver Quantitative
Last month, a bill that would ban congressional stock trading was advanced in the Senate.
Since then, we have caught 9 different members of Congress violating the STOCK Act.
I believe that this sets a record for the most politicians breaking the law in a month. https://t.co/sg2ZTZw4AA
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Last month, a bill that would ban congressional stock trading was advanced in the Senate.
Since then, we have caught 9 different members of Congress violating the STOCK Act.
I believe that this sets a record for the most politicians breaking the law in a month. https://t.co/sg2ZTZw4AA
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Librarian Capital
"Former Chief Risk & Compliance Officer at Credit Suisse has joined Starling's Industry & Regulatory Advisory Board" (Linkedin)
In finance, brand name / credentialsing is more important than real track record?
Lehman's Chief Risk Officer in 2002-7 became World Bank's Treasurer
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"Former Chief Risk & Compliance Officer at Credit Suisse has joined Starling's Industry & Regulatory Advisory Board" (Linkedin)
In finance, brand name / credentialsing is more important than real track record?
Lehman's Chief Risk Officer in 2002-7 became World Bank's Treasurer
Finance is the land of second chances.
This was on LinkedIn today:
Stephen J. Scott Founder & CEO, Starling
I was delighted to announce this morning that Lara Warner, former Chief Risk & Compliance Officer at Credit Suisse, has joined Starling's Industry & Regulatory Advisory Board.
“I am excited to join Starling because they are working to address pervasive and unsolved risk challenges in a smart and novel way,” Lara said in connection with this morning's announcement. “The most significant losses firms face today typically stem from so-called ‘non-financial risks.’ But while we have robust metrics to guide us in managing the whole gamut of financial risks — credit risk, counter-party risk, etc. — when it comes to risks that flow from organizational culture, and the conduct that it permits or promotes, we’re still relying on ‘management intuition’ or blunt instruments better suited to the pre-digital era,” Lara added.
“Experience teaches me that, at the end of the day, non-financial risks are in fact financial risks, and Starling is advancing non-financial risk governance to meet the demands of today’s C-suite executives, boards, shareholders, and regulators,” she added. “The bank failures of 2023 make plain just how important this work is — for the industry and its overseers alike.”
I can’t overstate how grateful I am to have Lara’s guidance as we develop quantitative tools and data-driven methods to help leaders navigate some of the most persistent qualitative challenges in risk governance and supervision.
It’s hard to imagine someone better placed to help steer us as we develop practical solutions to real-world problems. Given the experience of Spring 2023, Lara knows better than most how – and why – our current risk governance toolset is failing the industry. Who better to help craft a new approach that’s fit-for-purpose? tweet
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