Thought Experiment: Tech & Internet Owner-Operator Stocks

[Guest ajc]

It's sometime in July 2015...

 

There's a heatwave outside, the NASDAQ is 68% off of its February highs and Rob Ford is Canada's latest Prime Minister.

Also, the Houston Astros are favorites to win the World Series.

 

Many technology-related stocks are cheaper than at any time since the 1999/2000 Dot-com crash.

Anyway. Some really, really smart person has chosen you to invest a big chunk of their savings into a couple of technology/internet-related businesses for a 5-year period.

The only other proviso, is that you're limited to companies where the founder is an owner-operator who is (at least) reasonably involved in the running of the business.

That's the only additional condition.

 

On the plus side, any business that is likely to IPO between now and then (eg. Square) would be eligible as an investment.

That is your mission, should you choose to accept it.

 

*cue suspenseful music*

[Guest ajc]

Actually, this is obviously just so we can all share ideas and see what's out there and perhaps worthy of further research.

As far as my opinion goes, most of the businesses I happen to think of seem to be mainly consumer-oriented.

However, clearly there's also 3D printing, drones, media, entertainment, finance and a number of other areas which I'm sure have some great owner-operators working in them.

Hopefully, some folks here will know of them.

 

For what it's worth, so far I've come up with:

 

3D Robotics (Drones)

Amazon (Retail/Web Services)

BYD Company (Solar/EVs/Lighting)

Dish Network (Satellite/Wireless)

Dreamworks Animation (Entertainment/Animation)

Netflix (Entertainment)

Square (Online Payments)

Tesla (EVs)

Twitter (Media)

Uber (Transportation)

[Palantir]

In India, I would like to invest in Micromax - probably the only Indian smartphone OEM, doing some interesting stuff.

[Guest valueInv]

Why are you trying to predict what you would buy 2 years from now today?

[Guest wellmont]

if stocks are down 68% it's a great time to look at businesses where you can kinda predict the future. as such I would not present "some smart person" with a list like that. him being so smart, he would certainly understand why when I explained it to him.

[augustabound]

It's sometime in July 2015...

Rob Ford is Canada's latest Prime Minister.

 

;D I just laughed out loud at that.