Monthly Archives: October 2019

Grazer. Face to face.

  • “When I enter a meeting with a potential collaborator, I always assume they are wondering: what does this person have to offer me? What can he add to the conversation? Where do our shared interests lie?”
  • The most successful creative relationships start from a place of authenticity and pure intentions. Showing up in our truth. No ulterior motives. Genuine curiosity about the other person. And respect.
  • From gladwell; “outliers are those who have been given opportunities – and have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them”

Schwager. New market wizards

  • Stan druckenmiller. Started out as a bank and chemicals analyst. Focusing on what drives the stock. Dreyfus, soros. Breadth of markets. Be aggressive when you’re up.
  • Richard driehaus. You have to be willing to turn over your portfolio more frequently than the conventional norm to get superior performance. Comfortable with high PE. Buying on uptrends. Big high sell higher. Nietzche. What does not destroy me makes me stronger.
  • Blair hull. Wolf detectors. Unusual price moves in underlying of stock. Sudden increases in volume. Jump in implied volatility of out of the money options. In context of M&A on a short position

Schwager. Market wizards.

  • Steinhardt “when are we going to get something that is going to surprise the world.” Anyone who thinks he can formulate success in this racket is deluding himself because it changes too quickly. As soon as a formula is right for any length of time it’s own success carries the weight of its inevitable failure
  • See photo.
  • William o Neal. Canslim. Current earnings per share growth. 5 year growth cagr. New (products, services, highs). Leader or laggard. Institutional ownership. Market.
  • See photo
  • David Ryan. RS, long term eps vs recent. Industry RS. New products. Share counts. Opportunity for growing institutional ownership. Price base. Has it doubled? Might double again. “So a stock which is at new highs has much more of an open running field? Right, because no one ahead of you is at a loss and wants to get out at the first opportunity. Everybody has a profit, everybody is happy” volumes doubling on highs = a lot of new buyers. Consolidation on lower volumes. Volumes picking up = potential move. “I think if you love what you are doing you are going to be a lot more successful.”.
  • Marty Schwartz. By mid 1978 I was a securities analyst for 8 years and it had become intolerable. I always knew I wanted to work for myself have no clients and answer to no one. To me that was the ultimate goal. “Why wasn’t I doing well when I was groomed to be successful?” I decided it was now time to be successful. “One of the most suicidal things you can do in trading is to keep adding to a losing position.
  • Paul Tudor Jones. Don’t be a hero. Don’t have an ego. Always question yourself and your ability. Don’t ever feel that you are very good. The second you do you are dead. Prices move first, fundamentals 2nd. Don’t focus on making money. Focus on protecting what you have.
  • Van Karp. Cut your losses. Let your winners run.

Nicholas. History of VC

  • Greyloft spun out of ARD
  • ARD returns were 5% IRR ex DEC from 1946-~1970. Including ARD = near 20% returns. validated the long tail
  • First 3 vcs. Dga (Draper ghaither Anderson). Draper left for Sutter hill. Greylock. Started off generalist but had to specialize. Venrock Rockefeller family. Venrock rode apple from $500k to $289m in contemporary dollars…in 3 years
  • JD rockefeller “if you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success”
  • Core vc industry growth drivers: LP structure, increasing number of proof points for long tail outcomes (venrock Apple), decreasing capital gains taxation
  • Arthur rock (people) Tom Perkins (tech) sequoia (markets)
  • Terman. Head of Stanford engineering. Encouraged docs and post docs to start companies but also come back and teach. Encouraged university and industry relations, uncommon vs east coast schools
  • “the regions culture encouraged risk and accepted failure”…”there were no boundaries of age, status or social stratum that precluded the possibility of a new beginning”…”it appealed to individuals interested in technology, many of them uninterested in the brutally cold winters and more structured orders associated with the east coast
  • East coast ARD, Greylock, Venrock. West coast Davis and rock, Sutter hill (forms dga) and angels. Perkins sought to systemize investments in high technology.
  • Valentine. Yonkers, Fordham. National semi, Fairchild. Capital group sequoia. Market sizing.
  • Key banks / “four horsemen”: Alex brown (Baltimore), Rothschild (new york), robertson Stephens (SF), hambrecht and quist (sf)
  • Law firms: Cooley. Wilson sonsini.
  • Venture debt. SIVB
  • Kpcb. Sequoia. Greylock. Mayfield. Then battery, matrix. Accel (of Adler & co), DFJ
  • Nea. Newhall, t Rowe. Doriot”
  • Anndreesen. Netscape.
  • Kpcb. Recruiting and networks as a competitive advantage.
  • PayPal. Thiel levchin. musk x.com. PayPal mafia
  • Hotmail. User acquisition w trivial marketing costs
  • yahoo was passed on bc people didn’t believe in making money on a free product