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Tren Griffin Profile picture
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31 Dec 20, 5 tweets, 2 min read
1/ "I’ve been in the top 5% of my age cohort all my adult life in understanding the power of incentives and yet I’ve always underestimated that power.” Charlie Munger

Are incentives properly structured to create what he calls "incentive superpower"?

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
2/ "Federal Express had one hell of a time getting the [central package shifting system to work]. Finally somebody got the happy thought that maybe if they paid them by the shift, the system would work better. And lo and behold, that solution worked." jamesclear.com/great-speeches…
3/ What incentives would be created if people were given $50 vouchers for a Covid vaccine as some people have suggested?

"If the incentives are wrong, the behavior will be wrong. I guarantee it." Charlie Munger
fs.blog/2016/02/charli…
4/ Would better systems exist to prove people got a Covid vaccine if the right incentives had been put in place?

Instead there's a paper CDC card that is easily forged?

“Never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my [belief in incentives] a little farther." CM
5/ What's wrong with this picture?

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More from @trengriffin

Tren Griffin Profile picture
31 Dec 20
"If you've got the power to raise prices without losing business to a competitor, you've got a very good business. And if you have to have a prayer session before raising the price by a tenth of a cent, then you've got a terrible business."

Warren Buffett variety.com/2020/digital/n…
2/ Charlie Munger: “There are actually businesses you will find a few times in a lifetime where any manager could raise return enormously just by raising prices—and yet they haven’t done it. They have huge untapped pricing power they’re not using. That's the ultimate no-brainer."
3/ Charlie Munger: "Disney found that it could raise prices a lot and the attendance stayed right up. A lot of the great record of Eisner and Wells came from just raising prices at Disneyland and Disneyworld and through video cassette sales of classic animated movies."
Read 7 tweets
Tren Griffin Profile picture
30 Dec 20
1/ What business is this?
You want another clue?
3/ More data you want?
Read 4 tweets
Tren Griffin Profile picture
29 Dec 20
1/ Newsletter owned by Advance Publications (Condé Nast) publishes a meandering slam of businesses like Substack that enable writers to create their own newsletters.

Writers owning their business and controlling their own lives = bad for democracy? Nope! newyorker.com/magazine/2021/…
2/ News (e.g., the mayor took bribes) is non rival and non excludable. Selling news if not to Bloomberg terminals is near impossible.

"few newsletters publish original reporting; the majority offer personal writing, opinion pieces, research, and analysis"

Like the New Yorker!
3/ WTF is this from the post in the New Yorker newsletter:

"Substack obviously wants to call it a democratizing gesture, which I find a little bit specious. It’s the democracy of neoliberal self-empowerment."

Is it investigative journalism? Is it news? You can't sell news.
Read 5 tweets
Tren Griffin Profile picture
25 Dec 20
1/ Quick thread before my turkey goes in the oven.

You are Ben Ronson and you publish a newsletter called "Stradeckery" about strategy. Thousands of people pay you $10 month to subscribe.

Bundler says: "Publish through us Ben since X, Y and Z."

What is X let alone Y and Z?
2/ Does the bundler have all the elements needed to be a successful multi-sided market?

Does the bundler solve a hard coordination problem that Ben can't solve on his own? 25iq.com/2016/10/22/a-d…
3/ What does Ben give up if he lets the bundler own the direct relationship with the customer and the data from that relationship? 25iq.com/2018/06/02/pro…

Remember: You are Ben (the creator) not a consumer whining about paying for so many subscriptions or the bundler.
Read 4 tweets
Tren Griffin Profile picture
25 Dec 20
1/ 1994 was a miracle year of my life I said in a podcast recently. McCaw Cellular was sold in 1993. The Information Highway plan was about to die an unexpected death replaced by an Internet that had commercial value. The shift to the Internet was obvious only after the fact.
2/ “The decision to put money into the Internet in 1994 was considered by many of my colleagues to be borderline insane. Most people said things like, The Internet is free; you can’t make money on that!" Marc Andreessen
3/ The sale of McCaw Cellular to AT&T in 1993 meant Jim Barksdale and Peter Currie went to Netscape. Craig McCaw was talking to Jim Clark who said: “What I recognized after talking to Marc Andreessen was that the Web was to networks in 1994 what the PC was to computing in 1982.”
Read 6 tweets
Tren Griffin Profile picture
23 Dec 20
It's almost as if tech stocks have intangible assets that don't show up in GAAP "earnings."

If it makes you feel better, go ahead and howl at the moon tonight about P/E multiples being too high! morganstanley.com/im/publication…

You're under pressure. Why do actual work? Use multiples!
Selfish investors might endow chairs at universities teaching that businesses should be valued with a P/E multiple.

"For a security to be mispriced, someone else must be a damn fool.” Charlie Munger

Fools graduating from these schools are a source of investment outperformance!
Sam: "I'm selling my tech stock because my broker told me NASDAQ P/E multiples are too high."

Ann: "When did you buy it?"

Sam: "A long time ago. Two months."

Ann: "Why did you buy it?

Sam: "My broker said I needed more beta."

Ann: "What do they sell?"

Sam: "I've no idea."
Read 5 tweets

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