SlowAppreciation

Howley is former Transdisgm CEO right?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2019/08/15/oscar-health-lands-berkshire-hathaway-deal-ahead-of-obamacare-expansion/#180561442051

Why anyone would want to block the politics section is beyond me :P

SlowAppreciation also for maintaining an also wonderful website with lots of good stuff. I like it a lot, and I'm from time to time puzzled about how some of that stuff on that site can actually be coded to full automation - especially the 13-F screener comes to mind here. It does not harm either that the name of the website calls for a smile every time, I'm visiting the site [ : - ) ]. I wish it were fully automated... ;)

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/o4nrunyh1sdri45/AAD-ymybTsFGJBXMH0kk35NXa/Shareholder%20Meeting%20Transcripts?dl=0&lst=&subfolder_nav_tracking=1

I run rentals on airbnb in a major city catering towards business travel. I've never had anyone try to extend directly. I set up my own site to market independently. I put my prices 33% lower than airbnb prices, even though they only charge low single digit fees.more than 99% of my bookings come through them, even at the higher price point. Also, a significant percentage of my customers are staying for the first time on airbnb. They are growing very quickly, and their operating leverage is likely very high. I've interacted with them only a few times and paid many thousands in fees. Other factors: they are adding more tools for professional hosts. Their previous UI was very cludgy for managing multiple properties. Now it is much better, which should allow them to take market share in independent property managers, which is a big market in vacation areas. I received a survey from them awhile back asking whether I'd be interested in getting an advance on my payments (paid prior to check-in) for a discount. This would essentially be a factoring arrangement. I said no, as their proposed pricing tiers were very, very high (20%+ effective rates). However, running a hosting business eats working capital, and doesn't necessarily attract financially sophisticated people. I think there is a very good chance they will be able to deploy a few billion in float at double digit returns on that. Similar experience when I was a host. If I had to guess, maybe 80% were first time users. But this was back in 2010 - 2015.

Out of ~500 people I hosted, this happened < 10 times.

The article linked above regarding their internal "hedge fund" gives some numbers. If their internal fund is accounting for up to $60M of that, is that sustainable given the option to now pay only half the deposit at the time of booking? $30B seems like a lot to pay for $100M of EBITDA, probably higher now since the article is almost a year old. https://venturebeat.com/2018/02/07/airbnb-reportedly-built-an-internal-hedge-fund-that-makes-5-million-per-month/ Can't imagine it costs a lot to run Airbnb though. No real estate, no data centers, small sales org, no hard assets... can just rent computing from AWS or Azure. Don't have to invest in data centers like other tech cos because it's not something they compete on. If FB's gross margins are ~85%, hard to see how Airbnb's aren't either. And operating expenses are just salaries for engineers and designers, and some litigation costs. Seems like the business would have tons of operating leverage.

Completely agree, and I'm excited to take a look at their prospectus. I was a host for 4 years to pay off my student loans, and am a big fan of the product and the business. As you mentioned, they used to (not sure if they still do) charged users before their stay, and paid out hosts on the day after check in. So Airbnb was definitely generating good float. For what it's worth, the former CFO (from Blackstone) had apparently tried using that float: https://venturebeat.com/2018/02/07/airbnb-reportedly-built-an-internal-hedge-fund-that-makes-5-million-per-month/ That's great if you have someone who's honest and trustworthy a la Buffett... not so great if they're not as it could potentially jeopardize the business.

Were you buying when it was at the same price earlier in 2018? Still doesn't look cheap to me, but I know it's never been "cheap" per se.

http://brooklyninvestor.blogspot.com/2018/11/why-brk.html

I use the 10.5 Pro with Pencil for 10Ks and like it a lot. I usually use Adobe Acrobat to mark them up

Some of you are way too harsh. Plenty of highly educated 50 year olds don't understand loans and debt—let alone a 17 year old who has been told since day 1 to go to the best school they can get into. To someone who has never really worked before, and has been financially supported their entire life, the difference between a $10k and $100k future payment is just some abstract # with no real weight behind it. For example, I would consider myself pretty financially savvy. I've (responsibly) had a credit card since I was 15, bought my first stock at 13, have had a 401k and Roth IRA since I was 17, etc. But I also took out ~$100k of student loans to go to school, because I simply had no idea how much money that was. Sure didn't seem like a lot when every school tells you that 80%+ of their graduates make $100k. In retrospect, yes, I overpaid for my education. But I also don't see how 17 year old me could have known otherwise.

Seems like you are pretending that operating businesses aren't included in book value at all. Just because some of them are held at figures much lower than their current value doesn't mean you should pretend that book value doesn't include huge sums for operating businesses that produce those earnings. Sure, though if you just look at the liquid assets like cash, stocks, and bonds, they alone are $130/share.

And BV doesn't include AAPL's recent run up. And look at operating earnings growth... Could be $9/share for 2018. So $200 - $150/share BV = $50/share for $10/share of real operating earnings...