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Tren Griffin
@trengriffin
, 3 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
Am I saying the unit economics of a SaaS business we're first practiced by John Malone in the early cable TV business? Yep. And that his ideas are completely in synch with Warren Buffett? Of course. Was Buffett the answer to my quiz question? Certainly. berkshirehathaway.com/2000ar/2000let…
Am I saying that the ideas of John Malone about cash and shareholder value were adopted though a chain of people by Jeff Bezos which has enabled Amazon to become what it is today? Obviously. google.com/amp/s/25iq.com…
Is is true that Jeff Bezos met Jim Sinegal in a Bellevue Starbucks in 2001 were he learned about the Costco business model including its unit economics, focus on cash and use of cash float? You know that answer. google.com/amp/s/25iq.com…
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Tren Griffin
@trengriffin
Today's SaaS businesses remind me of McCaw Cellular which was sold to the predecessor to today's AT&T in 1994 for $11.5B. They are recurring revenue businesses with an up front customer acquisition cost. The operator can use telemetry to make the product better and manage LTV.
At the same time Craig McCaw was building a cable tv business another team was building a software business with very different economics. Microsoft flowed cash from a time very shortly after it was created. Bill Gates never needed to raise growth capital prior to MSFT's IPO.
McCaw Cellular and Microsoft grew up together founded by people from families that knew each other well. Capital needs in the businesses and ways in which they were operated were different because the nature of the business was different. In 1994 $11.5B was a lot of money. ;-)
Read 3 tweets
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Tren Griffin
@trengriffin
In 1945, Arthur C. Clarke first proposed the use of equatorial geostationary orbits (about 35,786 km above the Earth) for communications satellites. It took the form of a letter to the editor in Wireless World magazine entitled "Peaceful Uses for V2": lakdiva.org/clarke/1945ww/…
GEO orbit solved a tricky problem since a satellite otherwise does not remain stationary above the same spot on the Earth. Once satellites are moving the ground antenna must track them which can be done mechanically or electronically. Mechanical tracking requires two antennas.
Lower cost and weight electronics + lower launch costs means constellations of 100s of satellites at far lower weight (e.g., 500 lbs) a low orbits can create continuous coverage. The critical factor then is electronically steered antenna cost and form factor (e.g., pizza box)
Read 3 tweets
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Tren Griffin
@trengriffin
An individual can form an opinion on which team win a sporting event relatively quickly. They are free to express that view on Twitter. You can see people do the same thing for a stock. The best investors focus on finding the better "betting value" instead of predicting winners.
Michael Mauboussin: "expected value [is] a central concept in any probabilistic exercise. Expected value formalizes the idea that your return on an investment is the product of the probabilities and the various outcomes and the payoff from each outcome.” google.com/amp/s/25iq.com…
Venture capital is an extreme case since better betting value is determined by how cheaply one can buy optionality. Optionality is sometimes mis-priced and can be bought at a bargain. Those situations tend to be in places where others are not looking and the failure rate is high.
Read 3 tweets

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Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
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"#Economics has long been the purview of men; almost all the names in early economic thought were men, with the notable exception of Joan Robinson, a member of John Maynard Keynes’s inner circle of Cambridge economists." - @LipstickEcon americanprogress.org/issues/women/n…
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Topless Topics
@ToplessTopics
#warren/#buttigieg 2020. Tell me why I'm wrong.
I was really hoping to elect a person of color, and I still have some interest in Harris. But she's getting too much heat for her prosecutor background. Besides Warren has the most policies that align with my view of America, AND she knows how to make those goals achievable!
And Buttigieg... I'm still learning about his ability to govern, but I'm continually impressed by how worldly and hella SMART he is. and he's obviously had some inside experience of oppression as a gay man from middle America.
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Steve Faktor
@ideafaktory
#economics thread

@aoc's expansionary, unconstrained domestic spending proposal #GND (Green New Deal) is based on #MMT (Modern Monetary Theory).

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en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Mo…
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1) LT vs ST
Even w/traditional keynesianism, we are terrible at ½ the theory. SAVE during booms, spend during downturns. We've got the 2nd half down. Not the first one. Is there anything in our history that might suggest we are capable or willing to make good LT rate decisions?
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Christian THALACKER
@MrChristianCafe
KIDS+ need to be sustained by biodynamic, cancer-free food + environment.

@Guardian Story is IMPORTANT...by @KendraCKlein @annalappe + @sciencedirect-referenced work by Carly Hyland, Asa Bradman, Roy Gerona, Sharyle Patton, Igor Zakharevich, Robert B. Guniera & Kendra Klein.

1/
Kendra Klein is senior staff scientist at Friends of the Earth-US, a national organization working to create a more just and healthy world. Anna Lappé is a national best-selling author and co-director of Real Food Media. Together, they have collaborated on Organic for All.

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Prasanna K
@prasanna_says
[Tweetstorm] What's the TAM Chasm? A #SaaS #startup story

Early stage founders typically get thrown for a loop when they're asked for their TAM. Here's two ways to think about it that both make sense, but not really for the same person at the same time!
Let's say you're a domain expert - 10-15 years in manufacturing sw for auto ancillary units. You know the end users, you've done pre-sales, deployment, you know what their problems are, you even know how to solve some

You decide to startup to solve one of the problems Yay!
The founders of your company hate to see you leave, but also know you're a go-getter. They agree to support you with angel investment, and access to customers. You find a few friends who're hitting a glass ceiling, and want out of mid-mgmt, and into an exciting startup.
Read 21 tweets
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Alex Hardy 🦊
@CantHardyWait
1/ Here's a tweetstorm of notes on one of my favorite 2017 pods: "Betting on Crypto" with @AriDavidPaul & @david_perell . I'll try to keep tweets under 140 chars & full of memes. perell.com/podcast/ari
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♣️ Poker ♦️
💸 Investing & Trading 💸
🛫 Travel 🛬
Career Advice
How to live a good life
Biases
🤖 Cryptocurrency 🤖
Mental Models
3/ First Topic: ♣️ Poker ♦️

🔑 = it's game of incomplete information. You can make the "correct" decision every time & still lose. In chess, OTOH, if you make the right move every time you'll win.
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