DooDiligence

Kind of related. Here's a couple of nice privately owned Swedish business. The 1st one is Apple-ish in their product design & marketing. https://teenage.engineering https://www.elektron.se/us/ I can attest to the amazing performance of both companies products. I don't often use the word amazing but damn...

his goal is to troll

Every 4 to 6 months I look back at what a moron I was 4 to 6 months ago. I'm about half way through "the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck" by Mark Manson and it has some really good ideas in it. Your thought about "treat your former self with grace" fits well with what he's saying.

I've seen a couple of meme's on reddit where WEB gets lumped in with the likes of musk and other odious characters. Also got into an argument a while back over the lack of philanthropy among the uber wealthy and when I linked to Buffett's history of giving I got downvoted into oblivion. A lot of people are having a hard time sifting through bullshit to see truth. This has always been a difficult task but I think it's exponentially more difficult in the era of viral hot takes and mis/disinformation.

Disney thread gets a dishonorable mention.

The name of this thread should be changed to philosophical circle jerk.

Berkshire?

A little more Disney.

increased DPZ by 20ish % with some NVO funds

Good discussion with ADSK CEO Andrew Anganost on AI and their business model. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2023-04-25/autodesk-ceo-on-ai-acquisitions-video He see's AI cutting out a lot of the grunt work in getting design projects started. The pitch seems easy, "pay us more and you get to fire a bunch of people" (years away?) They're building LLM's & MMM's with customer data using mostly Amazon but also MS services for AI. Reminds me of Core Labs using customer reservoir data to sell products and services. Design & lifetime management systems are likely to catch on in the coming years. https://www.autodesk.com/partners/aec-partners/infrastructure http://extranetevolution.com/2021/02/autodesk-spends-us1-billion-innovyze/ CEO says he likes acquisitions into adjacencies (see above: $1B for Innovyze to get into water management), but prefers to develop new products in house using core competencies. Customers all have backlogs that are growing but at a slower pace. Customer migration to cloud services is slow. Jobs can last a decade or more and many prefer to stick with the existing platform and change slowly as project pace allows (like during a recession). Not cheap by any stretch of the imagination.

ba dum tss

Our holdings may be different (we have BRK + DIS in common), but our ideas are the same. I look at money as a flywheel that spins with the inertia of my productive years. Equities add rpm's by compounding a lot of other peoples efforts. I put very little friction on the machine now but do it to good purpose. Later, when I can't mow the lawn, I'll lean on the wheel a bit more. Meanwhile, it gets stronger while I do very little.

How about a Margaret?

Speaking of Natalies.

One of my best friends has been an electrical engineer / draftsman for 40+ years. A lot of military design work (runway lighting, radar installations, hangars, etc.) and he's been doing WFH for quite a few years now. Still has to make frequent trips to walk sites but most of the W is FH. He uses AutoCAD and say's it would entail a huge and extended business disruption to try and switch. You might say impossible. Here's an old article citing Autodesk estimates (more than just guesses), on pirated users. I'll bet they don't mind an office pirating the software and then getting hooked on it. Efforts are ongoing to convert these businesses to paid subs. https://www.engineering.com/story/seeking-pirate-bootyautodesk-aims-at-6-million-unlicensed-users# Hell, if all they get is 1% = 60,000 subs x $5-$15K /year = $300m to $1B in extra revenue per year.

Screw Grimes. I can get around royalties by sampling the likes of Satie, Chopin and Ludwig van (actually, physically sampling them with my fingers), live looping snippets of their altered work(s) with Lofi beats (also live recorded), on my Digitakt and garnishing with lush MiniFreak pads. I did this for hours last night with the first 16ish bars of Gymnopedie 1, Valse in b minor, and the first 4 bars + pickup measure of Fur Elise. I do another one on Wurlitzer (w/ tremolo), based on Ennio Morricone's "the Good, the Bad and the Ugly" with improv beats from the Digitakt (including gunshot samples at the appropriate moments) and a big fat bass on the MiniFreak. Might have to pay a royalty to Ennio. This is a pretty distinctive work and I don't alter it from the original. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/ennio-morricone-scores-big-appellate-win-copyright-termination-suit-1233645/ The ads for fakery are ubiquitous. Watch enough gear and music videos on youtube and you'll see offers for sample packs galore. Samples : AI's : Bullshit. You can either play or just spin soulless samples. I'm turning into more of a keyjay who rolls his own sample packs. My entire rig now fits into a backpack (which an AI cannot carry BTW).

Very true. But, I have a new 2 week old Elektron Digitakt to keep me busy.

If I start worrying I trim. If it gets bigger than Berkshire I trim. Edwards is growing fast enough to keep up with sentiment. Recently trimmed Novo as it got out over its ski's.

I see the possibility of multiple contraction with Edwards and Novo too but they seem to be growing fast enough to maybe offset a rerating. I like the durability of most of these businesses. My entry points were wonky on a few of them. If I wasn't so stupid I'd just go full on index funds. Not doing too bad thanks to a couple of issues.

I've learned a lot from reading Dylan Patel and Doug at Fool All the Time. There are others.

I thought I wrote a disclaimer about this idea?

It's probably not that hard to win back business either. We'll see if Progressive is underpricing and has to hike bigly.

The recent thread on concentration vs long term holding was very provocative and led me to some rebalancing. Thanks to @Viking for starting it and to all the contributors for fleshing it out. Presenting, the No Position Bigger than Berkshire Portfolio Here it is in all it's glory Warts exposed to air Views expressed are a priori Warning, there will be hair (Expected Holding Periods => 2-5 years => 5-10 years => 10 years or more) percentages based on present market values 2-5 year bucket: DPZ 5.9% (still love the business but would trim on strength and keep a tracker) (edit : increased to 7.8% may 1st) SFTBY 2.2% (will Masa get back to his roots & will ARM & BABA be helpful? I had no business buying this and had already trimmed and reallocated 50%) STLJF 1.8% (sells wood products to both infrastructure and consumer markets. shows pricing power. results aren't getting recognized) CMCSA 1.3% (kind of pairs with Disney. a gift from my Mom) CLB 1.2% (an unsightly weed that will eventually be removed) 5-10 year bucket: Nintendo 6.9% (trusted gaming content for all ages. don't see how Donkey Kong could ever get accused of grooming kids. why isn't this a meme stonk?) (adding and hope to trim opportunistically while keeping a nice sized position that may get moved to the 10 year + lockbox). ADSK 3.6% (sticky virtual infrastructure play. low capex. duopoly with SolidWorks [Dassault] in mechanical and electrical design for builders big and small) (transition from perpetual licensing to SaaS is still rippling through revenues. opportunity to onboard pirated users. hodling. INTC 3.2% (all semis and semicaps have seen their futures in jeopardy at some point) (falling knives hurt) (hodling) BBH 3.2% (spreading out the risk in biotech & pharma) SMH (VanEck Semis) 3% (I like the composition and pair it with Intel) (already trimmed and left a biggish tracker that will get re-trimmed and tiny-tracked if it works out) CITI 1.7% (hopeful that the assets are at least half as solid as the liabilities) (drop it if it gets hot) TYL 1.8% (more sticky virtual infrastructure with low capex requirements. NIC digestion ongoing. would like to see cash flow smooth out) Altria 1.1% (last gasp, or bull in a vape shop crashes into a fortune?) (sell out opportunistically and buy a new pair of pants with the proceeds) 10 year + lockbox: BRK 15% (there can be only one) NVO 14% (in a more prosperous world, people are going to eat) EW 11.9% (everbody's got a heart. I sold too many shares early on. CEO Mussalem is stepping down after leading the company since the Baxter spin) ($468m patent infringement judgement for Abbott (mitral / tricuspid), against EW last year. Still dominating TAVR with Medtronic. Abbott got FDA approval for their 1st TAVR device Navitor.) DIS 7.9% (entertain us) GOOGL 5.6% (there's more money to be made) ABBV 4.6% (lot's of people are uncomfortable in their skin. the commercials are relentless + my Mom left this to me and her Mom left it to her. i'll keep it) ABT 2.4% (competes with Edwards on left ventricular assist devices and now TAVR. won a recent judgement against EW over mitral : they make other essential stuff and occasionally get chided for it : another Grandma to Mom to me stonk. think i'll keep it) HTLZF 1.8% [slow roll up? babies are the best people and grow up to be gamers. pairs well with Nintendo] and about 2% investible cash [Anything that get's bigger than BRK gets a trim] I recently, reluctantly, trimmed NVO and am trying to put 1/3 of the proceeds into Nintendo. I am the Bullgod I am free and I feed on all that is forsaken I'm gonna get you I see through you I'm gonna get you More like a Bullfraud who got lucky with a few concentrated purchases [BRK/EW/NVO]