02/15/2021: Weekly Newsletter
Sorry for delay. I was writing the newsletter and almost done, then accidently hit ESC, and LOST IT ALL. So I had to rewrite and it was so painful. Plus I feel so dumb for forgetting to save, save, save! (insert face palm emoji here) haha
In any case… the best thing I read this week was Matt Levine’s (Bloomberg columnist) tremendous explanation of the Elon Markets Hypothesis.
“I wrote the other day that ‘the way finance works now is that things are valuable not based on their cash flows but on their proximity to Elon Musk,’ and I am already tired of it. It was a joke? But in a couple of years there are going to be 800-page textbooks on Elon Musk Proximity Pricing; it will be a whole unit on Level 1 of the CFA. You might think that ‘did Elon Musk tweet about a thing’ would be a simpler valuation metric than, like, ‘estimate its cash flows in perpetuity and apply an appropriate discount rate,’ but I don’t know, there’s a lot going on.”
♫ Pod
My friend Praneeth and I talked about how the financial system is decentralizing itself, and how I tried and failed to open a DeFi account. Listen here or subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify podcasts.
Money & Crypto
Recent Elon Musk tweets and how its affected prices, Elon Markets Hypothesis, and an Economist article which ends with a great quote “Joining the ranks of cult ceos may lower your cost of funding. But it raises the cost of miscalculation.”
Why men under 30 represent a majority of crypto investors…seriously ~80% men to 20% women…
Privatization of Air India and other state-owned companies
Unions, Alphabet, and Amazon
SPACs vs IPO visual from WSJ
Brexit impact on German exporters
Inflation expectations
Google reaches deal with French publishers
Going public: Coupang $50B valuation, Bumble $2B IPO, GitLab considering going public, 23andMe going public through SPAC,
Fundraising: Robinhood $2.4B, Branded $150M, ZocDoc $150M, Clear $100M, Capital RX $50M, Axoni $31M, Mesh $13M, Stir $12.5M
Tech & Science
♫Atlassian founders (who invented critical product development management software JIRA…which I have a love/hate relationship with haha)
Samsung to build $17B factory in US
Facebook smartwatch
Investigating how mouth and gut microbiomes could be linked to diseases like diabetes, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s
Etc.
Lunar New Year 2021 in photos
♫ Sex expert Emily Morse interviewed. Is she the new Dr.Ruth?
♫ Armchair Expert has a new episode series. One guy is try to lose weight and reach 270lbs…another is trying to gain weight and reach 270 first… who will win? The banter on these episodes is great and very funny
NatGeo digs into its archives
Art after COVID and occupying the digital space
What if the English language had a word for ‘good weekend’ and other expressions from other languages
A dry British humor review of 2020 … “Hint to all [Zoom] participants: when the person chairing the meeting asks, ‘Does anyone else have any comments?’, the correct answer is invariably ‘No’.” Amen.
Disclaimer: All opinions are my own. The content on this site and on the podcast does not constitute financial, legal, accounting, tax, or investment advice.
