Good Reads: Sensible Investing
Sam Lessin, GP of Slow Ventures, has been on a Twitter roll recently. I recommend two short pieces of his:
- Valuation / Capital Raise = Impact is the crudest way to look at value of capital… and it looks ugly for VC at the moment. Here.
- The Actually Important Practical Crypto Use Cases, in one screenshot. Here.
Conversation at Panmure House. The latest Howard Marks memo here. Lines that I liked from the interview:
- [talking about his son] He's an optimist. (He would say he's not an optimist - that he's a realist - but of course all optimists think they're realists, and all pessimists think they're realists.)
- What are things that can be a source of superior investing if everyone has access to the readily available quantitative information? A better comprehension of the future and a superior ability to process qualitative information [I'd say those are essentially the same thing]
Time is Ripe to Snap up Bargains, says debt investor Howard Marks in the FT here.
Keep It Going. Here by Morgan Housel. He reinforces the point made by Druckenmuller, i.e., that it's important for investors to be in the right psychological space and take breaks on occasion to have longevity and make the best decisions.
Compounding is just returns to the power of time. Time is the exponent that does the heavy lifting, and the common denominator of almost all big fortunes isn’t returns; it’s endurance and longevity. “Excellent returns for a few years” is not nearly as powerful as “pretty good returns for a long time.” And few things can beat, “average returns sustained for a very long time.”
That’s the biggest but most obvious secret in investing: Average returns for an above-average period of time leads to magic.
Are Two of the Hottest Startups in South Asia in Trouble?
Why Deloitte Has Not Signed Byju's Financials for 2020-21 after 15 Months. Here. Byju's is, according to private market marks, the most valuable education company in the world and the highest valued 'startup' in India.
It's an interesting case. Everyone person that I've ever spoken with about Byju's has had...questions. The Ken, the premier startup publication in India (with spectacular analysis and writing style) has been asking questions openly for years as eager foreigners decided that Byju's was the industry leader to empower with their capital.
Here are the four bullet point summary from The Ken:
- Byju’s has built up an accounting house of cards through refunds, loan guarantees, and unusual revenue recognition practices
- It has also sold eight tranches of its securitized trade receivables between March 2020 and March 2022
- The company is yet to file financial reports for the financial year that ended 15 months ago, triggering panic among investors and rival edtechs
- The future of Indian edtech rests on a successful IPO by Byju’s. Such scrutiny spells trouble for all edtechs downstream.
Airlift: Trouble in Startup Paradise? Here. Another interesting case.
Why is Airlift notable? In August 2021, Airlift announced its $85-million Series B financing round - the largest single private funding round in Pakistan’s history - co-led by Josh Buckley (Buckley Ventures) and Harry Stebbings (20VC), both individual investors.
At the time, Airlift said the funding round had added 5% to Pakistan’s FDI for the fiscal year 2021.
I lived in Pakistan for little less than a year in 2011 and have proceeded to work with the government on and off for the next 10 years. My first question when I saw the news was "I wonder how much time Josh and Harry have spent in the country?"
Pakistan is a beautiful country with wonderful people. It is also an incredibly difficult place to do business and the rule of law is...to be polite...different from the US and UK. The macro economic environment and political instability might be a large reason why $85M would comprise 5% of Pakistan's FDI.
|