A former Group Product Manager at Google Search explained why Google invested so heavily in hotel search.

It was about the money in distribution.

"distribution margins in the hotel industry are very high, on the order of 20% to 30%. So if you do a long weekend in Manhattan that costs $1,000 and you book through Expedia, Expedia is making $200 or $300 on that transaction."

That margin is why hotels got prioritised... and why eventually turned big partners against Google. Finding a hotel is a genuinely hard problem... location, price, amenities, and availability that all shift by the day. Google could go deeper here and add real value.

"finding a hotel is a multi-dimensional problem. You have constraints you're bound within — location, price, amenities... They're also bound by availability, and availability and price change over time... Google realized that for this particular vertical, it could go deeper, and by going deeper it could add more user value."

Derek Pilecki has compounded at 20%+ annualized over the past five years.

In a recent conversation, he broke down his core position sizing rule... and it challenges one of investing's most repeated principles.

Here's what he does differently.🧵 The standard playbook says:

→ Concentrate hard
→ Buy when stocks are cheap
→ Average down when you're right but the market hasn't caught up

Pilecki does the opposite.

1/ Howard Marks just dropped 5 decades of investing wisdom in one conversation.

5 market calls in 50 years. $218 billion under management. Zero blowups.

Here's what separates him from everyone else: 🧵 2/ The dinner that changed everything:

In 1990, a pension fund manager told Marks his portfolio stayed in the 27th-47th percentile for 14 straight years.

Sounds mediocre.

But over 14 years total? 4th percentile.

How? He never blew up while everyone else occasionally did.

Just finished Gavin Baker's latest interview with Patrick O'Shaughnessy.

It's one of the most insight-dense conversations on AI infrastructure economics I've encountered.

Key insights that matter for investors 🧵 First, the big one: Gemini 3 confirmed pre-training scaling laws are still intact.

This matters because no one actually knows why scaling laws work. It's an empirical observation, not a theoretical guarantee.

Every confirmation that it still holds changes forward projections.

Everyone's blaming Chipotle's 44% decline on Slop Bowls.

The real threat? Casual dining.

A former Regional VP who ran 415 restaurants shared what management won't tell you: Chipotle's average check: $18

Chili's: $21

The old advantage was no tipping. But Chipotle has embedded tipping into card readers, making it almost impossible not to tip.

That $3 gap with casual dining has nearly disappeared.

Fundsmith is on track for its 5th year of underperformance.

In a recent interview, Terry Smith explains the reasons why—and what he thinks is wrong with the market today.

Key insights: 🧵 Smith breaks down the underperformance into distinct phases:

2022-23: Interest rates rose from 0% to 5%
2023: Magnificent Seven concentration
2024: AI boom/hype
Throughout: Passive fund flows

He claims each one is a headwind for quality investors.

Eric Seufert and Ben Thompson just released an interview that reframes AI monetization strategy.

Why affiliate links fail, why "agentic commerce" won't happen, the Netflix lesson OpenAI is ignoring, and Meta's first real bear case in years.

What stood out: 🧵 Context: Everyone assumes ChatGPT will monetize through affiliate links (Walmart, Etsy partnerships).

Seufert's argument: this is the wrong model. And the urgency is real—"OpenAI needs to launch its ads product today, they cannot wait."

This is what happens when you answer the "tell me about your weakness" question too honestly.

PayPal CEO Alex Chriss at Citi's FinTech Conference laid out the challenges so clearly it spooked the market.

Here's what he said: 🧵 1/ Consumer spending deteriorated suddenly mid-September and it's persisting into Q4.

Chriss: "We started to see a slowdown on consumers, particularly around discretionary spending, retail and really in middle to low income brackets, which play a significant role in PayPal."

The weakness is concentrated: "If we look at some of our cohorts of higher income spenders, they're still spending. But we are seeing pressure for middle to lower income."

Q4 branded checkout expected to grow slower than Q3 as a result.

"Good companies stay good. Bad companies stay bad."

Chris Hohn's entire investment philosophy rests on this observation that everyone knows but nobody follows.

His recent conversation breaks down why simplicity beats complexity: 1. Risk Before Returns

Most investors obsess over returns. Hohn inverts this completely - risk comes first.

His definition isn't volatility or beta. It's about understanding what actually matters in a business.

In 1980, Bill Nygren's classmates laughed when he said he'd manage $25 million.

Today he manages $25 billion and has crushed the market for 3 decades.

His latest interview drops decades of hard-won investing secrets.

Your notebook better be ready: 🧵 Bill Nygren's 3 pillars for beating the market for 3 decades:

1. Buy at 60 cents on the dollar
2. Per share growth matching the S&P (8-9%)
3. Management aligned with shareholders

Simple framework, extraordinary results.

Reed Hastings just gave a rare 1-hour interview revealing how he built Netflix into a $520B giant.

His secret? It wasn't about algorithms or content.

It started with people—and breaking every "best practice" in management.

Here are 12 insights that will change how you think about building companies: 1/ The Keeper Test

Netflix asks ONE question: "If this person quit tomorrow, would I fight to keep them?"

If you'd feel secretly relieved → give them severance TODAY.

"We changed from 'did they fail enough to deserve firing?' to 'would we fight to keep them?'"

Great insights from InPractise, featuring the Former Head of Global Advertising Partnerships at Meta.

Why Meta holds a competitive edge over other ad tech companies and won't be impacted by the trade war's effect on Chinese advertisers reducing ad spend: 1/ If the overall economy were to slow down, brand advertising will take a hit first over performance advertising.

Meta has stakes in both, but is particularly popular for performance advertising.

The communication on Liberation Day has been an absolute mess.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dove into Trump's tariff plan with Tucker Carlson in a one-hour deep dive.

He broke down the system's flaws and what the administration is gunning for.

A thread 🧵 To start, I want to state that I don't agree with everything said. Some views are simply reframing to make the policies more palatable.

Regardless, this offers us a glimpse behind the curtain of what the administration sees, as opposed to all the speculation online.

Let's begin:

Howard Marks just went on Bloomberg to share his views on Liberation Day.

Here are his insights on its economic impact and why he thinks US is still the best investment destination.

A thread 🧵 Recent tariffs represent a major economic paradigm shift

Valuation: why multiples are becoming less useful

Source: Valuation Multiples by Michael Mauboussin & Dan Callahan The rise of intangibles lead to earnings and ROIC looking understated.

Meet Allan Mecham.

At 22, he dropped out of college to start his fund, Arlington Value.

And achieved a staggering 30% CAGR from 2008-2016.

He reveals his investing secret in his letters.

Here's the framework he used (that you can too): 1. Adopt a mindset for longevity

He focuses on variables that affect a business' durability.

Stuff like valuation doesn't matter if the business quality is misjudged.

Since a company's value is determined by its future cash flows...

Hence evaluating its future is key

The Marathon Asset letters offer a masterclass in investing through the capital cycle.

If you invest in the stock market...

Here are 11 capital cycle patterns you need to know: 1/ Periods of high profitability leads to reckless investments.

When profits are high:

-Boost CAPEX with little regard for ROIC
-Competitors will follow suit to avoid losing market share
-CEO's incentives aren't aligned with shareholders

It's a race to the bottom.

Since inception, Terry Smith has generated an annualized return of 15.4%, outperforming the MSCI world index by 390 basis points.

On Fundsmith's annual meeting 2024, he shared his views on his stocks, AI, and recent underperformance for 90 minutes.

Here're my key takeaways: Most of the time, the best stocks can only be bought when they are most heavily criticized.

It happened with Meta and Microsoft when Fundsmith first bought it.

Microsoft has appeared as a top performer for the eighth time. It speaks volumes about letting winners run.

14 lessons from Warren Buffett over 46 years of Berkshire Hathaway letters: 1. Fundamental pillars of investing

• Invest in companies with wide moats
• Know your circle of competence
• Think like a business owner
• Focus on future cash flows
• Macro is a waste of time
• Ignore volatility

Charlie Munger & John Collison podcast.

It's bittersweet listening to one of Charlie's final interviews.

His words of wisdom were always simple and straightforward.

Here're my 15 takeaways: 1. Create a huge advantage in life by:

Avoid selling anything that you wouldn't like to be on the receiving end.

Work with people you admire & trust.

Pay attention during math.

One of the best fund managers you've never heard of:

Tony Deden.

My key lessons from the Chairman of Edelweiss Holdings: 1. Respect the capital

The capital entrusted to him was a lifetime's worth of savings.

It's tough enough to protect the capital from externalities such as inflation, taxation or unforeseen events.

A fund manager can't compound the error by internal factors such as imprudence.