Shoutout to the Khosrowshahi family. Wealthy Iranian industrialists who had to flee during the revolution.
Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber: “We were all on the ground, terrified. That was when my mom said, ‘We’re leaving.’ I’ve never been back.”
Ali Khosrowshahi had founded the Minoo Industrial Company in 1959, a manufacturer of cookies, chocolates, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.
Other family branches included Tolypers, a chemical company, and a construction company, the Khosrowshahi Brothers Company (KBC).
“My father felt that he wanted to keep our wealth in [Iran], so my parents lost the vast majority of what they had.”
Today there is Dara Khosrowshahi of Allen & Co, IAC, Expedia, and Uber.
His Uncle Hassan Khosrowshahi who built Future Shop, a computer and electronics retail chain in Canada. Sold to Best Buy for C$580 million.
Hassan's children Golnar and Behzad who used the family office to incubate investment businesses in music rights (Reservoir Media) and healthcare royalties (DRI).
Then there's Dara's cousin Amir Khosrowshahi: co-founder of Nervana Systems, a software company sold to Intel for $350 million
Farzad "Fuzzy" K. built spreadsheets to model CDOs at JP Morgan. His web-based spreadsheet startup was acquired by Google and turned into Google Sheets.
Kaveh K. is a partner at Allen & Co. Lots more relatives in the tech world.
“The network of our family has grown stronger now with so many younger cousins,” says Hadi, who organizes the family’s reunions, 100-person affairs with water balloon tosses and talent shows for attendees ranging in age from newborns to 90-year-olds.
“I saw my family losing everything, and you know what? We rebuilt a life.”
"It's like you have a cell phone and then somebody gives you the charger. Oh, I can get this thing up to a hundred anytime I want?!
"It doesn't feel like anything. Doesn't do anything. I don't get it. I don't understand it. But here's the difference: at 1pm that day, my head does not hit the desk like it used to. ... I sail through the day."
"The way I look at life, basically is it's exhausting. Being busy is exhausting. Doing nothing is exhausting. No matter what you do, it's exhausting.
Sleep is hit and miss, [transcendental meditation] is not. It's this thing that augments your need for rest.
"I would always say to the people that don't do it, I can't believe you stay up all day."
"A lot of stand up is analogies.
The phone charger is pretty tough to beat as an analogy because your phone charger never doesn't work.
And that's the great thing about TM. You never have to wonder. That's the big difference between sleep and TM. TM never doesn't work perfect."
"Trait #1 is the ability to buy stocks while others are panicking and sell stocks while others are euphoric.
When 1999 comes around and the market is going up almost every day, you can't bring yourself to sell because if you do, you may fall behind your peers."
Roughly: Investing -> returning capital -> liquidating assets.
Unexpected:
"We expected low or negative spreads between ROIC and WACC for companies newly listed, rising spreads as they mature, a decline in senescence.
What we found was nearly the opposite. The spread at the date of the IPO was high and narrowed before stabilizing."
Companies going public (selling equity to new investors) when return on capital looks most attractive (and is about to decline)?
Returns to shareholders on the other hand were most attractive for more mature companies.
Druckenmiller: "I am so tired of being a bear, and being labeled a bear."
But: Liquidity ⬇️
"Since it's taken so long, the Fed has ended up with a higher terminal rate. Inflation gets stickier the longer its in the system. That increases the probability of a hard landing."
"We always short the same way. ... I try and think of a situation 12 to 18 months from now and if I think the security prices are going to be less, I short.
Frankly, I'm not sure I've ever made money in shorts. I like it. It's fun, but you can get your head handed to you."
"When I was at Soros, I shorted $200 million worth of Internet stocks in March of 99. And in three weeks covered them at a $600 million loss. I lost $600 million on a $200 million investment in three weeks.
I was short 12 stocks. They all went bankrupt Every one of them."
ROIC and margins for companies with different moats by @mjmauboussin
"A company creates value when its ROIC is in excess of cost of capital. Stated differently, it makes a dollar worth of investment worth more than a dollar in market value.
The market broadly appreciates this, especially when growth is considered as an additional variable."
"Markets are akin to an ecosystem where investors fill various niches. Investors with a short-term horizon tend to focus on near-term metrics such as sales and earnings.
Investors with a long-term horizon focus on competitive advantage and the size of the market opportunity."
Like other great investors, Sam Zell used content as a form of leverage. His "guide to the risky art of resurrecting dead properties" earned him his nickname, the Grave Dancer.
"Some might see buying and creating value from others’ mistakes as a form of exploitation, but I see it as giving neglected or devalued assets new life.
Often in my career I’ve been the only bidder for them—the last chance for a resurrection."
"I’m not claiming to be altruistic— just optimistic, and confident that I can turn those assets around.
That, in my definition, is an entrepreneur. Someone who doesn’t just see the problems but also sees the solutions—the opportunities."