Intersection notepad

When you first start to study a field, it seems like you have to memorize a zillion things. You don't. What you need is to identify the core principles -- generally three to twelve of them -- that govern the field. The million things you thought you had to memorize are simply various combinations of … Continue reading Value of Time

Some potentially interesting shifts going on in US housing markets as a whole, but I think this could be more medium-term given these middleman (the Zillow's becoming buying of homes and Opendoor's of the world) in theory, creates inefficiencies in the actual price discovery, or matching natural market supply and demand, of this asset piece/housing. … Continue reading Liquidity in US RE – OpenDoor

Happy Thursday! Came across this and thought it be a value-add or just a useful learning tool for you all's decision making thought process! Chris Voss: "Never Split the Difference" | Talks at Google Not too bad of an incremental learn for tonight, applicable to both general negotiation and business deals. Some key points I … Continue reading Decision-Making from Voss, ex-FBI Hostage Negotiator

It looks like Chamath is not done with his 'blank-check IPO' play on escape velocity, relative marginal escape velocity and late-stage liquidity for LP and GP. 'Blank-check' IPO essentially consolidates public capital into a private vehicle. Per this latest SEC filings, he is looking to raise $1.0B cash for his vehicle. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1735980/000173598018000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml A few investors are pointing … Continue reading Venture/Private Capital Formation

Interesting guidance and change throughout the years. I would look into the thought process of the other prominent, upcoming and even newly established venture capitalists to learn the guidance. USV's three investment theses throughout the past decade: Thesis 1.0 - Applicable layer of the web and focus on network effect as the defensibility/scalability factor; Invest in large … Continue reading USV Investment Thesis 3.0

Bloomberg reported today that Apple is looking to to create its own in-house chips (therefore stripping out their dependence on Intel). There are some interesting shifts in semiconductor industries, which has serves as pretty much the foundational material in our near all-tech oriented life. Looks like Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) is will soon have some competition. … Continue reading Custom Designed Chips and Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC)

WeWork apparently just raised another $400M today to buy up some of the properties they are in right now, which will fundamentally lever up their balance sheet several x times...guess after all, revenue $/sq ft is a key factor after all similar to "same-store sales growth" for US retail companies. Same store sales is an important metric … Continue reading WeWork High Revenue $/sq ft?

Lumi: customer cardboard manufacturing startup; but will continual to capitalize on the growing trends of ecommerce. Check out Shopify stock price, ticker symbol: SHOP. can't get any better with this ticker name, similar to the ticker symbol for Salesforce is 'CRM') + Lumi is actually profitable (even pre Series A raise, which is probably < 0.05% … Continue reading Cardboard Manufacturing (boring but high potential) Startup

Glossier: direct-to-consumer beauty brand. Reminds me of Julep back in Seattle (Julep raised from Maveron, Andressen Horowitz, Jay-Z, Will Smith and of course, Madrona Ventures aka legendary investors as they are the biggest holder of Amazon stocks since early 1990's until mid-2005, in which their $5M seed round is worth at least $5-20B, dependent on their liquidation … Continue reading DTC Beauty Brands

Brandless (selling everyday necessities for $3. Generation Z will be price insensitive due to being exposed to more perspectives on all topics via the proliferation of social media). There is a lot of psychological studies that shows how the opinions of the herd or a group of people change when they are exposed with more information and perspectives, … Continue reading Branding Insensitivity for Gen-Z

Heard a credit manager with an "all brands are dying" thesis. If in the future you get things delivered to your door, what difference do premium-priced brands that fight for aisle space make? First it was magazines, next cereals, household cleaning items, etc. I am personally very positive on the future growth prospect of Morgan Hirsh's … Continue reading Direct-to-Consumer and CPI

A few days ago, an experienced, well-respected individual in the Greater Seattle Area posted this on LinkedIn and I thought I might as well put some of the thoughts in the back of my mind on paper. P.S. I am looking at this from the financial market perspective and not from the technical/AI perspective. I … Continue reading Chinese “venture capital” Startup

Earnings season is right upon us once again. Back in Nov 2017, I wrote about the an line item we should review from these systematically important bank’s earning, the credit loss provisions.  After all, we have fully shifted to a credit-based economy in which US consumer credit-based spending now consist of 70%+ of our annual … Continue reading Credit Loss Provisions – Directional Barometer for Growing/Declining Risks on Bank’s Balance Sheet

This one probably won't cause systematic shocks through the global financial market but one we need to observe the effects closely as public companies from all across the world is now borrowing against their own stocks, not tangible assets, as collateral aka HNA Property Holdings LLC (10% majority holder of Deutsche Bank and Hilton Hotels and … Continue reading Systematic Shocks? Importance of Mattress Firm (aka Steinhoff International)

Interesting daily observation this weekend: Crude oil price has been increasing drastically for some quarters now but price adjustments at Texas gas stations remains flat for 4-8 weeks now. DO YOU THINK? (1) crude oil price already baked into the consensus? OR (2) time to switch to a Prius/hydrogen fuel cell car? One major implication behind … Continue reading Gas Price versus Crude Oil Price? Inelastic demand for Gas and Impact on Consumer Discretionary