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Ensemble Capital Profile picture
@IntrinsicInv
Mar 26, 2022 • 12 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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1/20 My driver on a recent morning spin around the suburbs of Phoenix was none other than Google’s Waymo self driving taxi service, which has been operating for over a year giving paid rides to the public. This is a thread describing my experience. $GOOGL
2/20 Pick up in a parking lot went smoothly with the car stopping in a safe area and waiting for me to get in.
3/20 Parking lots turned out to be more challenging than you might expect, with people ignoring any rules and wandering in front of the car. But the Waymo handled it all smoothly.
4/20 After a few minutes of thinking “what have I gotten myself into” as the car prepared to pull into traffic, the whole experience quickly turned from exciting to… boring. But that’s a feature not a bug for this sort of service!
5/20 Cars pulling out aggressively in front of the Waymo didn’t cause anything other than a brief tap of the breaks.
6/20 Turning and merging into traffic was a bit nerve wracking for a first time rider. But seemed like no big deal for Waymo.
7/20 One of the interesting things was watching how the Waymo followed driving laws exactly. In this video the car crossed from a 25 mph zone into a 35 mph zone with the car accelerating exactly as it crossed into the new zone.
8/20 Riders can “see” what the car is seeing via a screen in the back seat. It was cool to see how items like this traffic cone appeared on the screen.
9/20 Here’s the same system in motion.
10/20 While the car drove like a conservative, law abiding Uber driver, it wasn’t overly caution. However, I also noted that it took different, slower routes than Google Maps would suggest and this appeared to be the system avoiding busy intersections or challenging areas.
11/20 Unprotected, left hand turns was where the system’s conservative nature was most obvious. But it’s caution was something a rider staring at their phone or napping in the back seat during the ride wouldn’t notice.
Sorry the rest of the posts didn’t link to the thread.

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More from @IntrinsicInv

Ensemble Capital Profile picture
Dec 14, 2023
The US economy right now is running at just about the most perfect economic dynamics you could imagine. When people talk about a "Goldilocks Economy" - "not too hot and not too cold" - what we have right now is what they are talking about.

Consider... 🧵
Core PCE inflation, the inflation rate economists view as most accurate and useful to understanding inflation dynamics, has now been running for 6 months at 2.0%. The 3 month and 1 month rate is also ~2%. Right on target.
Job growth has averaged 190k over 6 months, 200k over 3 months and 200k in the most recent month. We need 100k jobs a month to absorb population growth. So we are drawing more people into the workforce. We have been at higher employment-to-population rates in the past.
Read 8 tweets
Ensemble Capital Profile picture
May 7, 2023
1/x Some people were surprised to hear Buffett say yesterday that Apple was a better business than anything else Berkshire owns. But it was back in 2017 that he declared Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Facebook “ideal businesses.”
2/x The day after the 2017 meeting he went on CNBC and told @BeckyQuick that he felt investors hadn’t paid attention to what he had said.
3/x “I did mention one thing at the meeting, which I don’t think people appreciated at all… So you have close to 10% of the market value perhaps of the United States in five extremely good businesses that essentially take no capital. Now that was not the case in the past.”
Read 7 tweets
Ensemble Capital Profile picture
Apr 21, 2023
1/8 Everyone is waiting for a recession. But equity investors need to realize the corporate earnings recession started six months ago. This may help explain the surprising strength of the market. Image
2/8 4Q22 S&P 500 earnings were -5% and 1Q23 is tracking towards -7%. But inflation in those quarters was +7% and +6%. To make these earnings declines comparable to those in the past, we can adjust them for 2% inflation rate.
3/8 Removing the "excess" inflation leads to adjusted earnings declines in 4Q22 of -10% & 1Q23 of -11%. Mild recessions when unemployment increases by less than 3%, are more common than severe recessions. And mild recessions typically have 20%-30% declines, like we got last year. Image
Read 8 tweets
Ensemble Capital Profile picture
Mar 26, 2022
12/20 Parking lots didn’t present any challenges, but as the rider I was aware that close maneuvering and people walking around made these areas ripe for small accidents.
Read 7 tweets
Ensemble Capital Profile picture
Mar 19, 2022
1/25 You can’t predict the economy, but understanding the macro context is critically important for bottom up stock pickers. Whether you like it or not your company specific outlook includes a ton of implicit macro assumptions.

The current macro situation demands your attention.
2/25 A lot of company level forecasts are just a form of trend analysis. Most macro trends are usually long duration and slow moving, so you just need a sense of whether macro drivers are above/below mid cycle and how soon/much they might mean revert.
3/25 In a typical cycle, while there are early, mid, and late cycle companies (those that thrive best at various points), all companies are operating within a relatively homogeneous economic context.
Read 25 tweets
Ensemble Capital Profile picture
Mar 19, 2022
This is a pattern across many aspects of the US economy. Rather than current levels being high, in many cases the real issue is that the levels post GFC were very low. 1/4
This debate isn’t actually new. Whether the New Normal, low growth of the 2010s was a permanent secular trend or a decade long hangover from the Financial Crisis was a live debate prior to COVID. 2/4 intrinsicinvesting.com/2018/08/23/ret…
And you can’t understand the current inflation debate without taking into account the way that the New Normal decade caused radical reductions in what economists believe is the potential economic output of America. 3/4 intrinsicinvesting.com/2021/06/11/inv…
Read 4 tweets

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