The big inflection in video game end markets is first generation of people who grew up as gamers are now parents. So the whole family games and it is no longer seen as a “vice” for young kids.
If you were born in 1980 you were 5 when Super Mario came out. But 1990 was peak birth year for Millennial Generation. So we have a decade of rising number of gamer-parents ahead of us.
This chart shows the shift is already playing out rapidly.
The point of “play” is to prepare children for adulthood. What is better way to prepare for adulthood in a digital world than playing video games? Our long $ISRG (robotic surgery) thesis depends on surgeons having played video games as children! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17309970/
Those of us in our 40s entered workforce and saw senior executives not fluent in computers and weak at typing. In a decade GenZ will look at us as having significant productivity handicap due to limited video game time as children as we hopelessly navigate VR/AR work environments
What investments other than Nintendo align with this theme; parents as gamers and games as preparation for adulthood? intrinsicinvesting.com/2020/07/14/nin…
For those of you enjoying this thread, a question: why do many people insist you must be a gamer to be a legitimate investor in the space but when someone pitches Boeing no one says “Bro, do you even build airplanes?!” cc @GavinSBaker
This comic was published in 1990, peak year for Millennial births. Turns out the comic was “right” except they underestimated how much gamer kids would earn as working adults. @wolfejosh says to buy anything that people say “will rot your brain!” How right he is.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
1.1/x On value creation & dynamic capital allocation, @thirdpoint’s Daniel Loeb sent an insightful letter to $DIS prodding management to double down on its Disney+ direct to consumer (DTC) streaming business bit.ly/35LbUWe
2.2/x He argues $DIS should permanently stop dividends & reinvest cash into accelerated content creation & make Disney+ 1st landing site for all $DIS content instead of 2nd after box office, potentially forgoing $B’s in lost box office revenue (moot for now)
3.3/x Making Disney+ first drop for new franchise blockbuster content would fuel subscriber growth to scale into $NFLX league of 100MM’s of subscribers quickly, while bringing accelerated content velocity would keep them engaged, lowering churn
There are two CEO archetypes: Visionaries and Optimizers. Both types can create substantial value for shareholders, but require different evaluation tools.
Here’s how we think about it: 1/15
A Visionary is best described as a rule breaker. They are ideally suited for situations in which there is no blueprint for success. They are creating opportunities where none existed. 2/ intrinsicinvesting.com/2018/09/18/see…
Precisely because their approach is unconventional, Visionary personalities and management styles tend to look weird or are off-putting to most observers. V-led companies often have a unique, insular, and quirky culture. 3/ intrinsicinvesting.com/2018/05/04/cor…
1/ Why Value & Growth is no longer just about valuation.
The nature of business is not static. While core principals are often timeless, the underlying dynamics can change dramatically over time. Case in point, this is one of the most important charts in investing.
2/ Because GAAP accounting treats corporate investment in tangible assets differently than intangible assets, this shift changes what is deemed “earnings” and thus the meaning of many valuation measures.
3/ The market gets this and has assigned less and less relevance to accounting earnings over time.
This is the classic Christensen cultural/financial issue incumbents have in adapting to disruption... 2/x bloom.bg/36aKtHk
In contrast to Viacom+most incumbents, @Netflix’s culture enabled it to accept the pain of -75% decline in its stock price in 2011 to transition effectively from legacy DVD by mail… after winning rental battle with Blockbuster 3/x
Investors often confuse relevance & recognizability. Just because a customer *recognizes* a brand/service, does not mean it is *relevant* to their lives. Relevance drives attention, attention drives demand, demand drives pricing power. 1/11
This is the path that most successful products/services take. It starts with a relevant product that quickly becomes recognizable. Without good stewardship, its relevance fades even though people still remember it. 2/11
Relevance fade can happen quickly (e.g. a fad) or slowly. Once we’ve determined a product/service/brand relevance is in secular decline, we either won’t invest or will exit an existing position. 3/11
This is a really interesting profile that is well worth a read if you’re not deeply familiar with Hastings and Netflix’s corporate culture. We agree he’s a truly world class leader. Choice quotes in thread below...
“They were all asleep to it during the early ascendance of Netflix," Barry Diller said of his fellow Hollywood moguls. “Now they’ve woken up to it, and it has slipped away from them and is never to be regained. They lost hegemony over an entire industry.”
“The heart and soul of our content,” is how Mr. Hastings describes [head of content and newly named co-CEO] Mr. Sarandos, who grew up glued to the TV and dropped out of community college in Arizona to work in a video store.