“Most businesses consume cash. Very few ever create it for the security holder on a regular basis.” — Martin J. Whitman, founder of Third Avenue Management Download the Slide Deck (PDF) : Direction_of_Absorption Listen to the deep-dive discussion – The Direction of Capital Absorption I. The Flow Between Two Reservoirs Every business is…
Tag: Compounding
When Growth Destroys Value – What the Dean of Valuation Sees in the SpaceX IPO
“Growth, when it’s accompanied by huge amounts of reinvestment and substandard gross margins, might not just be neutral to value, but actually be value destructive.” — Aswath Damodaran, The Intangible Economy, June 2026 Download the Slide Deck (PDF) : The_Physics_of_Value Listen to the deep-dive discussion – Why SpaceX Growth Might Destroy Value I. The Heresy…
Why Visa Earns 30% But You Get 12% – The Recycling Spread and the Deep Mechanics of Compounding
« Truly great businesses, earning huge returns on tangible assets, can’t for any extended period reinvest a large portion of their earnings internally at high rates of return. » — Warren Buffett “Over the long term, it’s hard for a stock to earn a much better return than the business which underlies it earns. If…
The Toll Collects – What the SpaceX IPO Reveals About S&P Global and MSCI
“You paid for a front row seat. Don’t miss the show.” — Nobody (Terence Hill), My Name is Nobody (1973) “Nobody pays attention to the guy who collects the tickets at the gate.” — attributed to Nobody Download the Slide Deck (PDF): Owning_the_Index Listen to the deep-dive discussion – Index Giants Own the SpaceX IPO…
The Gap, the Gift, and the Guarantee – What You Actually Buy When You Buy a Great Business
“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” — Warren Buffett Listen to the deep-dive discussion – The Gap the Gift and the Guarantee Download the Slide Deck (PDF): The_Financial_Architecture I. The Floor The traditional approach to valuation projects growth—estimates future cash flows, discounts them at a rate that blends the risk-free…
Why Berkshire Is Right About Google – The Alphabet Reinvestment Thesis
“I feel like a horse’s ass for not identifying Google. We screwed up.” — Charlie Munger Listen to the deep-dive discussion – Why Berkshire Hathaway Bet on Alphabet AI Download the Slide Deck (PDF) The_Alphabet_Architecture I. The Decision Worth Defending When Berkshire Hathaway committed $10 billion to Alphabet at roughly $350 per share,…
$190 Billion to Grow – What the AI Race Reveals About the Cost of the B
“For the investor, a too-high purchase price for the stock of an excellent company can undo the effects of a subsequent decade of favorable business developments.” — Warren Buffett Listen to the deep-dive discussion – Why Alphabet dilutes shareholders for AI Download the Slide Deck (PDF) : The_Growth_Ledger_Averagingup I. The Headline On June 1st,…
Coca-Cola vs Moody’s – What Buffett’s Portfolio Reveals
Listen to the deep-dive discussion – Why Moody’s beats the Coca-Cola moat (19:37 min) “We lived in a torrent of money, and we were constantly deploying it.” — Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, 2016 What if the torrent deployed itself? I. Two Holdings, One Portfolio Warren Buffett has held Coca-Cola since 1988 and…
Position Sizing – The Final Act of Conviction
By Jocelyn Dubé Listen to the deep-dive discussion – Position Sizing Matters More Than Stock Picking (31:18 min) “You have your best idea and your tenth-best idea in the portfolio at the same weight. Why?” — The Infinite Investor “The idea of excessive diversification is madness. Going into your seventh one rather than putting…
The Paradox of Wealth: Why Survival Beats Optimization (A Manifesto for the Ergodic Investor)
You have spent years building your wealth. You took risks, you optimized, and you won. You have reached the summit. But standing at the top, a strange feeling takes hold: vertigo. Why? Because you intuitively realize that the rules that got you here are not the rules that will keep you here. Traditional finance is…