dharmon

34 ms·

271.
by dharmon 10y ago
Ugh, I hate feeling like a Silicon Valley naysayer, but this outlook is entirely wishful thinking and not remotely rooted in fundamentals. But hey, why ruin a good story? Baron was once a legitimate investor and knew how to root out value,
272.
by dharmon 10y ago
The link was originally just talking about bubbles. It was swapped out with a link to the podcast, so I haven't listened to it.
273.
by dharmon 10y ago
I am curious to see how a16z's investment results eventually pan out. I don't believe any of their funds have gone through a full cycle, nor have they experienced a down market, so its still too early to declare him a top dawg. Hi
274.
by dharmon 10y ago
Can someone explain how the toasted balls play works? Are they arbitraging by buying cheap porn ads then selling higher priced ads to the same traffic? I don't see how this would work, except for the paragraph that follows in the artic
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by dharmon 10y ago
> I don't know why you are trying to make this point about adjusting for risk when the entire question revolves around what the stock was worth at a stationary point in time three years ago. That you don't see how these two are
276.
by dharmon 10y ago
When you do valuations you must take risk into account, and with the benefit of hindsight it is far too easy to imagine that 3 years ago the future as it played out was more inevitable than it actually appeared at the time. Hindsight bias i
277.
by dharmon 10y ago
This is the oft-repeated argument in favor of Uber ("they're a logistics company!"), and to be honest, it's quite hand-wavey. Why is the expertise they have built up in car-hailing directly applicable to other logistics
278.
by dharmon 10y ago
First, public backlash has not stopped Uber from doing things before. Second, all the smart money is either sitting it out and/or can't invest at these levels, and Saudi money in a tech startup is definitely dumb money.
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by dharmon 10y ago
As Dell's vision was realized, the market price would have reflected the increase in value. This means the more disturbing part is that the judge has had 3 years of hindsight where parts of Dell's plan have been realized, making i
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by dharmon 10y ago
I was doing an analysis a while back to figure out YC's IRR, and the problem wasn't outright dead startups, but the walking dead. Silicon Valley (YC included) has a large number of these. I remember one that is not "dead&quot
281.
by dharmon 10y ago
There's not much commentary in the article on why Thiel feels compelled to do this, so I'll make a more general comment. For me, Thiel is a healthy reminder of the dangers of being a very smart person, who knows a lot about one th
282.
by dharmon 10y ago
I feel this analysis is missing the forest for the trees. Most of this comes down to Flipkart losing money to gain gross sales. However you may feel about this strategy, it is basically what everyone, including Amazon, does. Be the cost lea
283.
by dharmon 10y ago
If this short bio is interesting, you may enjoy the much more in-depth biography, _Titan_, by Ron Chernow. In addition to an incredibly thorough (and even-handed, IMO) treatment of Rockefeller, I found it an interesting perspective on the p
284.
by dharmon 10y ago
Like most dangerous situations, they begin with a nugget of truth. In this case, GAAP has many limitations / shortcomings, and has been patched up piecemeal over the decades, leading to some oddities. Tech companies in particular are a
285.
by dharmon 10y ago
Statements required by the SEC are not the same as those sent to the IRS. For example, a company can use straight-line depreciation in their GAAP statements, but use accelerated depreciation for tax purposes. The difference becomes a tax cr
286.
by dharmon 10y ago
If you put aside the "M$ was evil and he is just atoning" arguments, Gates is a huge inspiration, at least for me. This guy finds problems that he's passionate about and attacks them with such ferocity that it is truly awe in
287.
by dharmon 10y ago
Off the top of my head: Baupost Group (Seth Klarman), Greenlight (David Einhorn), Gotham (Howard Marks), Renaissance (Jim Simons), Oaktree (Joel Greenblatt), Graham & Newman (Benjamin Graham), Magellan (Peter Lynch), Pabrai (Mohnish Pab
288.
by dharmon 10y ago
I feel like the Theranos fiasco has been discussed on HN ad nauseam, so I'll comment on an interesting quote by Holmes: > “The minute you have a back-up plan, you've admitted you’re not going to succeed.” I've seen this as
289.
by dharmon 11y ago
Yes, resist in selling. And yes, she doesn't want her legacy to be Yahoo's value nosediving under her watch (whether or not it was her fault). I'm not saying she's wrong in resisting, only that resisting is a "neg&q
290.
by dharmon 11y ago
Fact is, regardless of her performance, she is now in the executive club, and once you're a member, it's hard to get kicked out. The biggest thing, in my opinion, to hurt her future career is fighting the large stakeholders on the
291.
by dharmon 11y ago
The most relevant portion is buried at the very end: > While some are scared by the numbers, everyone I spoke to plans to make a bid of some sort, largely because even as financially precarious as it has become, Yahoo remains one of the
292.
by dharmon 11y ago
The last raise was two years ago, so if you figure the current valuation based on recent markdowns, then this price is more inline with what you might expect from common equity vs. preferred. I am curious, will these secondary shares have t
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by dharmon 11y ago
My god, I usually ignore articles like these, but does anyone actually listen to this idiot? I remember reading his IBM articles in the past, and he has such a personal beef with them he seems incapable of rational thought. I don't eve
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by dharmon 11y ago
This is a good article at covering various business metrics, but I just have two things to add: 1) Relative valuations can be slippery, and I personally sleep better when I make an investment I am comfortable with on an absolute basis. 2) M
295.
by dharmon 11y ago
Of course, shareholder equity is just assets - liabilities. Granted, it's probably significantly smaller than the $2B figure you cited.
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by dharmon 11y ago
People talk about the "Sports Illustrated cover jinx", and even a similar EA video game cover jinx, where making the cover precedes a period of underperformance. I think a similar effect could be claimed for being called the next
297.
by dharmon 11y ago
If you literally just want the technical stuff, then anything by Damodaran is good. His Valuations book is awesome, but does not qualify as "condensed / quick". You can also watch his valuation course on YouTube. I have not r
298.
by dharmon 11y ago
This formula (the Gordon growth model), doesn't really apply here, cause the g is for perpetual growth. For example, if you plugged in FB's current growth rate, it would blow up to something ridiculously large. The rule of thumb i
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by dharmon 11y ago
I really like the Munkres book (just called "Topology").
300.
by dharmon 11y ago
Since no one has really answered your question, I will chime in. Firstly, investing is a very personal thing. The style of investing you follow will depend very much on your temperament, investment timeframe, investable cash flow, time you

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