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Tren Griffin Profile picture
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6 Mar, 4 tweets, 2 min read
What business is this?
What business is this? Both this business and the last business just filed a S-1.
Which business is Applovin
sec.gov/Archives/edgar…

Coursera sec.gov/Archives/edgar…
Assume you are the CEO of Coursera. What part of the unit economics of the business do you need to fix to improve free cash flow?

Assume you are CFO of Applovin. Explain those interest expenses to a buy-side analyst.

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More from @trengriffin

Tren Griffin Profile picture
6 Mar
1/ I helped my late friend Dan Kohn write this essay in 2001:

"Items are 'nonrival" when we can all make use of them without anyone having to give them up. If I copy your CD, you’re none the worse for it (nonrival), but if I steal your car, you will probably be upset (rival)."
2/ "Goods are "nonexcludable" when it becomes impractical to stop everyone from making use of the item, once one person can...

....the cost of providing the item to one consumer [can be for some goods] the same as providing it to any number of consumers."tidbits.com/2001/10/22/ste…
3/ Mauboussin: "intangible assets have characteristics that are different from physical capital or
labor. ...intangible-based companies can defy the conventional economic concept of diminishing marginal returns and in fact realize increasing returns." morganstanley.com/im/publication…
Read 5 tweets
Tren Griffin Profile picture
4 Mar
#10 came in a hot thermally given that flamethrower effect, but the touchdown of the metal was ~ soft. Iterative product development at this scale is fascinating to watch. That it landed at all is impressive engineering.

Rapid disassembly of #10 was hot! google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc… Image
What people focus on is the rocket (i.e., a tube filled with highly explosive materials) but by far the most important determinant of Starlink's success is the cost and performance of the ground terminals customers use. Vastly more cash will be spent on the ground than in space. Image
3/ More important than the #10 Starship soft landing would be the creation of high volume factory for the Starlink user terminals. A job posting suggests a ground terminal factory will be built in Austin. Solving a chicken and egg problem is a challenge. cnbc.com/2021/03/02/spa…
Read 5 tweets
Tren Griffin Profile picture
1 Mar
This podcast with John Malone is self-recommending. He describes Bill Gates arriving for a meeting with a pizza and a beer 6-pack telling him to "Forget hardware since there's nothing in hardware that can't be emulated in software." Malone: "Damn, I should have listened to him."
If you don't at least bookmark this John Malone interview you are a damn fool. If you pay attention you can hear someone with a circle of competence mindset. For example, generating value as an operator who understands cash flow and leverage isn't the same skill as stock picking.
John Malone: "Every business comes down to the quality of the management. It is not important that I know the business, but it is important that they know the business. I can help them with finance, but they need to have the vision, the drive and the team building skills."
Read 14 tweets
Tren Griffin Profile picture
28 Feb
1/ Warren Buffett yesterday:

"The best results occur at companies that require minimal assets to conduct high-margin businesses – and offer goods or services that will expand their sales volume with only minor needs for additional capital."

Who are these businesses?
2/ Michael Mauboussin describes the types of businesses which rely on intangible assets in this chart from his recent post: morganstanley.com/im/publication… Image
3/ "Berkshire’s depreciated cost of [its] domestic “fixed assets” is $154 billion....Berkshire owns American-based property, plant and equipment – the sort of assets that make up the “business infrastructure” of our country – exceeding the amount owned by any other U.S. company."
Read 6 tweets
Tren Griffin Profile picture
28 Feb
1/ "Most reporters have steadily been building escape hatches from their employers. They are called Twitter accounts, and their arrival gave journalists an asset that would have been unthinkable in a world before the internet: truly portable audiences." platformer.news/p/twitter-pull…
2/ That the creators have stronger bargaining power now that they have their own transportable brands is not a development that makes media companies happy. The media companies now have an incentive to treat creators well to keep them from moving to a new platform. This is good.
3/ Media companies nervously claim Substack-enabled writers "are not independent."

How exactly are large media companies independent any more given their primary activity is feeding the confirmation bias of their subscribers and viewers?

Everyone is a "content marketer" now.
Read 4 tweets
Tren Griffin Profile picture
27 Feb
Charlie Munger: "I don't like being too much of an example for people. I never consider it enough of a life to merely be shrewd at picking stocks. If you're good at just investing your own money, I hope you'll be good at something more."
Charlie Munger: "To make teaching endurable, it has to have enough wiseassery in it. And we do. We’ve done a lot of preaching [about investing] to not much effect. To the extent you’re working on it, you’re on the side of angels, but lots of luck.”
“I don’t think I’m a good example to the young.  I don’t want to encourage people to follow my particular path. I do not want a proctologist who knows Schopenhauer, or astrophysics. On the other hand, I don’t think you’d have much of a life if all you did was proctology.” CM
Read 4 tweets

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