Fat Tail Capital Profile picture
Value on bottom, froth on top.
Mar 10, 2022 10 tweets 2 min read
Here are my top takeaways from the Morgan Stanley TMT conference in San Francisco this week (1/n): 🧵 👇 Stop giving advice to CEOs on how they should run their businesses. I know you think your 3 years of equity research experience at Citi gave you worldly insights into how to run a Fortune 500 technology company, but I promise you, they 💯 do not give a shit.
Jun 15, 2021 6 tweets 2 min read
Long thesis or seminal anti-trust paper? The incoming FTC Chair, @linamkhan, actually wrote one of the best investment analyses on Amazon I've ever read. "loss leading pays higher returns with platform-based e-commerce than it does with brick-and-mortar stores"
Jan 20, 2021 11 tweets 2 min read
A story about govt waste and a long pitch on $LMT $NOC $RTX and $HII: While I like to joke about the F-35, this is about the Zumwalt-class destroyer program, the Navy’s cool but expensive next-gen stealth destroyer that can’t shoot, isn’t very stealthy, and doesn't float well. US military procurement is kind of the opposite of Occam’s razor: where there’s a cheap, simple solution that’s 80% effective, we find a way to do it that’s 20% better but 1,000% more expensive. This is how our tax dollars end up in the pockets of the military industrial complex.
Jan 20, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
Someone pointed out to me that Google has averaged 35% returns in odd years and 5% in even years. It outperforms QQQ by 12% in odd years and underperforms by -12% in even years. Why? Is there a nefarious explanation here (timing of stock grants, etc.)? Same data in chart form:
Oct 14, 2020 6 tweets 1 min read
One of the greatest omnichannel transition stories that is under discussed is Brazil's Magazine Luiza, which has quietly 500-bagged ("only" 300x in USD) in 5 years since Frederico Trajano took over as CEO. Image The family-owned "Magalu" was founded in 1957 with a single store selling appliances and the story progresses much like other growth retail stories through store expansion and acquisitions.
Oct 1, 2020 10 tweets 2 min read
As 3Q ends, I look forward to another round of the same 13-Fs with the same 100 holdings. Here's a preview of holdings by manager:

Tiger Cub/80% of the performance of QQQ with 1000% the fees:

AMZN
BABA
MSFT
MA
TDG
NFLX
MELI "Value" PM who drew the “too expensive” line at AMZN/NFLX:

GOOG
CHTR
FB
TMUS
IQV
FIS
RTX
Oct 1, 2020 7 tweets 1 min read
Portfolio positioning poll (1/n):
When do you expect a vaccine to be approved for developed world use? (just approval, will ask about availability later) When do you expect a vaccine to be available for widespread use for general populations in the developed world?
Jul 31, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read
In 1999, I met Irwin Jacobs, a brilliant engineer and CEO, leading the visionary technology company Qualcomm. We spent the meeting discussing Qualcomm's 2G CDMA technologies. I immediately recognized how disruptive 2G technology was going to be, and bought the stock at $560/shr. Nevermind that it was trading at 150x P/E or 25x sales. 2G was going to be fucking massive. The price to TAM multiple was basically zero. Plus, it was one of the top management meetings I've ever had (along with Steve Jobs in 1987, Henry Singleton in 1972, and Henry Ford in 1927)
Jul 29, 2020 9 tweets 2 min read
TLDR thread version of megacap tech CEO testimonies before Congress today: (1/n) (pt 1):
(Skip to pt 2 if you read The Everything Store)
Born out of wedlock to 17 y/o mom. Adoptive dad was a poor Cuban refugee. Spent summers on grandpa's ranch in TX (USA! USA!). Came up with AMZN idea while working at a no-name "investment firm" called DE FUCKING SHAW.
Jul 28, 2020 6 tweets 2 min read
If you're a nerd like me and like old maps and/or are looking for some new wall art, the CIA declassified 3,000 maps from 1947-2015.

USSR nuclear missile deployment locations and stockpile sites: Image Some of these are pretty niche. State of collectivization in USSR in 1937: Image
Jul 27, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read
Microsoft analyzed its remote workforce. Some interesting data:
- Sr managers spending 8 hours more per week in meetings
- Employees working 4 hours more per week
- Working 52% more at night
- More work on weekends

hbr.org/2020/07/micros… Good WSJ article on perils of WFH:
- Fewer informal conversations/social interaction
- Less mentoring/development for young employees
- Less team cohesion especially for new employees
- Lower productivity for team-based work/unstructured problem solving

wsj.com/articles/compa…
Jun 11, 2020 5 tweets 1 min read
THE ROBINHOODERS

SCENE: The Bellagio, Las Vegas.

Everyone is winning. The roaring laughter and cheering at the craps table grow louder and louder. Their cacophonous celebrations attract nearby spectators like moths to a flame. High fives are flying all around the table. The shooter--a brogrammer in his 30s wearing dark aviator sunglasses and with his shirt unbuttoned one button too many as if compensating for a lost adolescence spent taking accelerated math courses--is on fire. Stacks and stacks of orange and purple chips.
May 27, 2020 4 tweets 1 min read
How is HBO Max not plastered all over the landing page of HBO.com on the day HBO Max launches... come on, these are basic details. It shouldn't take a TMT analyst to know the difference between Go, Now, and Max. Normal people don't care who is billing them, the MSO, or HBO directly. Normal people don't know what "WarnerMedia" is and its relationship to HBO. Image
Apr 8, 2020 6 tweets 2 min read
I'll bite. The first statement may be factually correct, but I disagree with this take.

Half of Google's fortress ecosystem was built or accelerated via M&A.

Home run deals:
DoubleClick/Semantic Labs/AdMob, Keyhole/Where2, Postini, Android, YouTube, Waze Much of its ad tech that allows it to monetize unlike any other, AdSense, AdWords, DoubleClick, were acquired.

Gmail's spam filtering, powered by Postini, was one of main reasons ppl signed up.

Keyhole was the foundation of Maps.

YouTube, Waze, Android, need no explaining.
Mar 31, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read
The photos of parked planes due to COVID-19 is both majestic and haunting. Brings back a lot of memories of 9/11 for me. ImageImageImageImage Frankfurt
Mar 20, 2020 5 tweets 1 min read
The unemployment number will be ugly, but it will be a buying opportunity.

US labor force: 160M
Restaurant/hospitality: 15M (40% part-time)
Retail: 16M (29% part-time)

If you assume all PT workers get laid off, that brings the total US unemployment rate to >10%. The headlines could be ugly:
"10.5% Unemployment Rate Surpasses Financial Crisis Peak of 10.0%"

The real question isn't "is it going to be bad" (it will), it's "how fast will things snap back?"
Mar 18, 2020 5 tweets 2 min read
Google searches related to "unemployment benefits" in the US: ImageImage Connecticut: "About 10,000 claims were filed Monday and nearly 10,200 more came in Tuesday, bringing the number to 30,000 since Friday. The typical number is 3,000 to 3,500 a week."

courant.com/business/hc-bi…
Feb 22, 2020 5 tweets 1 min read
Sentiment and positioning poll. Please retweet for greater sample size.

1/5 The next 10% move in the S&P 500 will be: 2/5 How is your portfolio positioned relative to the historic average of the last 3 years?
Feb 1, 2020 4 tweets 1 min read
The number of daily new suspected cases of #coronavirus in China declined today, while the number of daily new confirmed cases leveled off. Fastest growing category is people who have recovered and released from the hospital. Image This is based on the 24:00am daily data (China only).
Dec 12, 2019 12 tweets 4 min read
Thread on $UBER/
Ride-hailing has doubled the number of for-hire rides in NYC from 170M rides in 2010 to >320M rides in 2018. Some of these are at the expense of taxis but most of it is additive. Uber did 163mm rides in 2018 in NYC, vs 169mm for all taxis in 2010. Taxi drivers maximize earnings by staying in dense areas, such as Manhattan.

In 2010, before the introduction of ride-hailing, 93% of rides in NYC originated in Manhattan, despite Manhattan only having 20% of NYC's population.
Dec 4, 2019 4 tweets 1 min read
🚨🚨 Shots fired 🔫🔫

"Although Microsoft markets Teams as a Slack competitor, our customers achieve markedly different results. Just look at the weak engagement numbers that Microsoft themselves report." - @stewart “Way back in 2015, Microsoft announced that Lync had 100M active users. We have no reason to assume that any of those were lost when Lync was rebranded as Skype for Business. Now that Skype for Business users are being forced to migrate to Teams...