thegranderson

Commissions are 30-40% of an auto dealer's costs as a % of gross profit. If salespeople don't have to negotiate price, you can cut a lot of that cost and focus on higher margin (e.g., financing) and subscription products (e.g., parts & services) that deepen customer loyalty. The big groups will be better at making these investments (and the investments needed to sell/maintain EVs) and will continue to consolidate what remains a highly fragmented industry (i.e., the two largest dealer groups, AN and LAD were each only 1.75% of new car sales in 2021).

I wouldn't cry for nor count the dealers out just yet.

$800mm was confirmed on the SNOW earnings call. 80% stock, 20% cash.

Seems like another DNS issue - switching to Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 got me back online...

FAANG companies will primarily be differenated based on network or software, rarely commodity hardware. They don't need to go all the way to silicon if they can just tune the designs for their workloads. We're early on in that process, and I think the internt giants will progress up the stack into the metaverse, not down into the physical science of it.

Semiconductors are a capital intensive and brutal business, as evidenced by Intel's recent fall - they basically made one architectural mistake and that slip up cost them the lead on multi-threaded performance for probably 5-8 years, assuming they can get it back.

Separately, Rockefeller's coercion of the railroads was not something he did because he was big, it was something he did to become big. He would strong-arm his way into controlling or coercive positions at railroads, then cut off his competitor's ability to transport their product. When they were struggling, he would buy them up at distressed prices and turn the rails back on.

I think the disagreement is with this claim from the article (2nd to last paragraph):

Sci-Hub, more so than RG, therefore seems to have a greater potential for disrupting the current order of things and poses a significant threat to publishers and librarians, who cling to the mistaken belief that the key to Sci-Hub’s success is its alleged seamlessness (a single sign-on), which if they can replicate will go away.

The author is arguing that seamlessness is not Sci-Hub's only advantage versus traditional channels, but that "Much of the growth of Sci-Hub is therefore ideological", "publishers are seen as the enemy, whose greediness erects unnecessary barriers, thereby obstructing the advancement of science" and that "Sci-Hub is seen as a ‘Robin Hood’ figure"

Overcast (a podcasting app) has great features to optimize the high speed listening experience. They have variable speed, a great silence trimmer, and a voice boost that makes speech clearer.

Overall, seems like growth is slowing, especially in the ridesharing business, and losses keep expanding.

Will be interesting to see how they frame that on the call, as 9% YoY growth in the ridesharing business (10% YoY on adjusted net revenue) does not typically garner a 4.5x+ revenue multiple when you're burning so much cash ($1B in the first quarter)

Full Text: ALWAYS-ON WORK CULTURE CREATING ‘BROKEN’ PEOPLE, SAYS REDDIT CO-FOUNDER

Alexis Ohanian speaks out against toxicity of ‘hustle porn’ that glorifies ‘most absurd things’

Alexis Ohanian, venture investor and husband of tennis superstar Serena Williams, loves getting asked how he balances family life and his career as managing partner of Initialized Capital.

He and Ms. Williams became first-time parents in 2017, and in the months that followed, Mr. Ohanian frequently spoke out about why it was so important for him to take time away from the Bay Area firm he co-founded to bond with their daughter.

Parental leave wasn’t only a fun way to spend 16 weeks with their newborn Alexis Olympia Jr., he said at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival on Tuesday, but it was also a reminder of why work should never be the only metric for measuring success.

“I’ve spoken out quite a bit about things like ‘hustle porn,’ and this ceremony of showing off on social [media] about how hard you’re working,” said Mr. Ohanian, who previously co-founded online discussion forum Reddit. “Y’all see it on Instagram and you certainly see it in the startup community, and it becomes really toxic.”

Business men in his position are rarely asked about juggling the requirements of their roles outside of work, like in their family, he said, and that contributes to unrealistic expectations that a job can reflect the entirety of anyone’s identity as a human being.

“All of us who decide to start a company, we’re kind of broken as people,” because founders are often singularly-focused on the success of their venture, said Mr. Ohanian. Even with great mentors and investors supporting their vision, entrepreneurs tend to put a great deal of pressure on themselves to work harder than anyone else to achieve success and profitability. That psychological pressure is compounded by what he and others refer to as “hustle culture.”

“You have this culture of posturing, and this culture that glorifies the most absurd things and ignores things like self-care, and ignores things like therapy, and ignores things like actually taking care of yourself as a physical being for the sake of work at all costs. It’s a toxic problem,” said Mr. Ohanian.

This issue isn’t limited to technology companies, he added, noting that his acquaintances in finance and other industries also promote an unhealthy attitude that encourages 12-hour work days and few breaks.

“Social media has made it possible to weaponize it to the point where, if [bragging about your difficult workweek] gets hearts, you’re incentivized to keep pushing” the limits.

As those below mentioned, you have to use TEV here. Based on TSLA Q2 2013 vs. Q1 2019 financials, you end up with a TEV in 2013 of $28.2B vs. today of $44.3B.

The 2013 calc is:

$240/sh * 118mm shares = $28.4B market cap, less $746mm cash, plus $576mm debt = $28.2B TEV

The 2019 calc is:

$204/share * 173mm shares = $35.3B market cap, less $2.2B cash, plus $11.2B debt = $44.3B TEV

For those mentioning subtracting the debt, that's incorrect. A company is capitalized with equity and debt. To buy the whole company, you have to buy both. But when you buy the equity, you get the cash, so you subtract that out, since buying cash isn't relevant. You then have to add the debt, because you have to pay off all the debt to own the company outright.