Category Archives: Investing

09/26/21

The Next WeWork

In looking at “things” I am always surprised that nobody seems to be able to find the “worst” companies out there. It seems like that should be an easy task.

I am not talking about companies that fail quickly in their infancy because the market spits the bit on their idea, but companies who fail because their monumental “success” is built on a foundation of feces. [In this instance, we are talking only $250,000,000 in funding, not quite WeWork $$$.]

Case in point? WeWork which was spotted from its genesis (by those who had a smidgen of real world, commercial real estate knowledge) as a horribly bastardized nightmare in an industry that has been around forever — FOREVER.

I wrote about the company, WeWork, some time ago.

We IPO — You Work, I Work, WeWork

I was critical at the time of its Messianic founder and his “real estate as a service” mantra. In retrospect, I could have been more critical and I was pretty damn critical. Continue reading →

12/3/19

eBay and PayPal — Creating Gobs of Value

I always think of eBay as a scavenger hunt type of site which is totally unfair. I know that. I apologize.

But one of the things that I admire about eBay is the wisdom of their acquisition of PayPal back in 2002.

Back in 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5B which turned a lot of heads. Wow! Unicorn meat! How do you cook it?

Continue reading →

08/21/18

The Wizard of Omaha and Tech

Big Red Car here on a lovely, sunny Texas day, y’all. Hope it is going well for you and yours.

I always like to take a peek at what Warren Buffet owns as it relates to stocks. It is often an eye opener. It is often pretty damn plain vanilla and boring, but something caught my eye.

Buffett famously has eschewed investing in technology suggesting that there is a limited longevity and defensibility of the competitive advantage for tech based companies and that it is very difficult to identify the big winners at a time when their stock price is reasonable. This was his view back in 1999 when Forbes interviewed him for an excellent article. Take a second and consider that statement. This from a guy who has to deploy $200B in stocks.

Image result for images warren buffett

“My name is Warren Buffett. I’m 84 and I’ve been at this investing business for a long time. Don’t be blowing smoke up my ass about bitcoin and cryptocurrency. I was in business when the US was on the God damn gold standard.”

He and noted venture capitalist Marc Andreesson had a pithy exchange about the future of bitcoin. When Buffett called it a “mirage” Andreeson countered that Buffett “…was just an old white guy crapping on a technology he didn’t understand.” [I see no reason why Buffett’s ethnicity was germane to the discussion, do you?]

Buffet has long been quoted as saying, “All you people piling into dot-com stocks must be much smarter than I am, because I just don’t get it.”

Continue reading →