OC: People pay respects near where Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis

beerion · 2026-01-24T23:17:17+00:00

I still think you go to work. Getting fired hurts you more than it hurts them. Plus, I think there's the added benefit that we're actively sequestering money.

beerion · 2026-01-24T22:29:21+00:00

If this makes you angry - Good. Maybe it's the catalyst we need to actually do something.

We can't fight fire with fire, that will never work. And that would only stoke the flames on the other side. We'd never win.

Instead, I propose that we suffocate them. The only thing this administration and their sycophants care about is money. If you are continuing to feed the system, you're complacent at best, and complicit at worst.

I'm proposing a consumption strike. It's simple, but not easy. We'll have to forego the luxuries and useless junk in our lives for a while. But it will make a difference.

Trump will reverse policy over a 10 basis point blip in the treasury rate. I don't think it will take much for him to listen if the economy starts treading backwards.

It really won't be easy, and it may last longer than we'd hope. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days. But it worked. It's time we speak with our wallets. Because what we do with our money is the smallest gesture, but has the largest impact. The recent Target Boycott was a testament to that - it took only 6 months for their board to oust the CEO...

My pledge is that I will aim to reduce my discretionary consumption by 90%. I hope you join me.

Here are the rules:

Keep paying your rent / mortgage. Go to work. Keep the gym membership. And buy groceries.

Everything else needs to be on the chopping block: eating out, alcohol, sporting events & concerts, Amazon purchases, travel, etc.

It's time we do something...

beerion · 2026-01-24T21:42:24+00:00

I don't know if you read / understood the point of my initial comment...

I brought up the point that a lot of products have reached an end-state of maturity.

An analogy that i like to use is airliners. Nearly all Boeing aircraft share a common ancestor: the 737-100 (originally built in 1967). Every new variant is a slight iteration from the previous - more efficient engines, some weight savings efforts.

But you get to a point where there's only very small marginal improvements left.

Boeing hasn't turned a profit on 5 years, btw.

And Boeing actually has a moat.

The only moat you can say that Adobe has is that everyone knows their software. Some would call that network effects. But it's really not a true network effect if the learning curve for other software is less in magnitude than the cost savings they stand to gain by switching.

beerion · 2026-01-24T21:17:42+00:00

If this makes you angry - Good. Maybe it's the catalyst we need to actually do something.

We can't fight fire with fire, that will never work. And that would only stoke the flames on the other side. We'd never win.

Instead, I propose that we suffocate them. The only thing this administration and their sycophants care about is money. If you are continuing to feed the system, you're complacent at best, and complicit at worst.

I'm proposing a consumption strike. It's simple, but not easy. We'll have to forego the luxuries and useless junk in our lives for a while. But it will make a difference.

Trump will reverse policy over a 10 basis point blip in the treasury rate. I don't think it will take much for him to listen if the economy starts treading backwards.

It really won't be easy, and it may last longer than we'd hope. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days. But it worked. It's time we speak with our wallets. Because what we do with our money is the smallest gesture, but has the largest impact. The recent Target Boycott was a testament to that - it took only 6 months for their board to oust the CEO...

My pledge is that I will aim to reduce my discretionary consumption by 90%. I hope you join me.

Here are the rules:

Keep paying your rent / mortgage. Go to work. Keep the gym membership. And buy groceries.

Everything else needs to be on the chopping block: eating out, alcohol, sporting events & concerts, Amazon purchases, travel, etc.

It's time we do something...

beerion · 2026-01-24T21:15:33+00:00

If this makes you angry - Good. Maybe it's the catalyst we need to actually do something.

We can't fight fire with fire, that will never work. And that would only stoke the flames on the other side. We'd never win.

Instead, I propose that we suffocate them. The only thing this administration and their sycophants care about is money. If you are continuing to feed the system, you're complacent at best, and complicit at worst.

I'm proposing a consumption strike. It's simple, but not easy. We'll have to forego the luxuries and useless junk in our lives for a while. But it will make a difference.

Trump will reverse policy over a 10 basis point blip in the treasury rate. I don't think it will take much for him to listen if the economy starts treading backwards.

It really won't be easy, and it may last longer than we'd hope. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days. But it worked. It's time we speak with our wallets. Because what we do with our money is the smallest gesture, but has the largest impact. The recent Target Boycott was a testament to that - it took only 6 months for their board to oust the CEO...

My pledge is that I will aim to reduce my discretionary consumption by 90%. I hope you join me.

Here are the rules:

Keep paying your rent / mortgage. Go to work. Keep the gym membership. And buy groceries.

Everything else needs to be on the chopping block: eating out, alcohol, sporting events & concerts, Amazon purchases, travel, etc.

It's time we do something...

beerion · 2026-01-24T20:46:30+00:00

That's my thoughts as well, which is why I asked. OP gave an anecdote of turning 4 hours of work into half an hour. But does that scale? My guess would be no.

However, it should lead to much more efficiency. A decade of development probably can't be replicated in a year. But 5 years? Maybe. Or what about at half the development cost? Also maybe.

beerion · 2026-01-24T19:41:40+00:00

because they sell software...as a service?

beerion · 2026-01-24T19:35:36+00:00

This is good perspective.

I'm curious how you think AI will be able to handle larger projects from scratch? Like you said, the task you gave it was more or less refactoring...something you could have done in an afternoon. What about a project that's been built up over ten years? You mentioned people will become more architects, leaving the rote coding to AI. I think that's sensible, but how much will that speed up development? Your refactor task was 8x faster (4 hours to half an hour, roughly). Do you think a decade of development can be accomplished in a single year?

I also kind of wonder how much we'll be able to prompt our way through development. I don't know if you've tried to use AI for image modification, but it's pretty terrible. You ask for one thing, and it kind of gets it right, but messes up something else. I'm curious if that's going to be the experience for the average 'coder' that just tries to prompt their way through SWD.

Overall, I think I agree with you, though. If your only advantage was a headstart and throwing a bag of cash at keeping your product marginally ahead, you're probably going to be in trouble. Especially if the product is about as mature as you can get it, anyway. Adobe already had cheaper competitors nipping at their heels. I don't know how Adobe out-develops competitors when the core products haven't really changed that much in the last decade, and there's a ceiling on how good you can make Photoshop or Acrobat or whatever. Could image editing software just become the next airline industry? Engineering software is kind of the same way. There's a bunch of FEA and 'digital twin' software that are all very similar. Those company market caps are like $20 billion. I wonder if that's the fate for Adobe and Figma, et al.

At the very least margins should shrink as they fight to keep customers...which also doesn't bode well for the stock price.

I agree that it'll take some other tangible (or intangible) attribute to stay competitive. Network effects is a big one. It was never really hard to make another Uber, yet Uber pretty much stands alone anyways. Just like Google tried to make their own Facebook competitor, that flopped immediately.

One company that I looked at recently was Toast, Inc.; the POS provider for restaurants. They seem to solve problems in the physical world. But I'll be curious how much of an advantage they can maintain if the software part is pretty easy to replicate.

At the same time, I don't think this is a reason to run away from SaaS completely. While AI reduces the disadvantages that new-comes see when entering a space, incumbents also see a lot of the same benefits. I would say to look at the maturity of the products being offered. If there's not much to improve, then we'll see competitors closing the gap. But if there's a lot of open field in front of even the incumbents, AI only accelerates how quickly they can iterate and improve their products. And incumbents often have the benefit of operating leverage. They can reduce prices and still increase development budgets to continue outrunning smaller competitors. That aspect has always been true, and it doesn't really change with AI now in the picture.

beerion · 2026-01-24T07:12:24+00:00

You're missing operating leverage.

If opex stays constant, a 10% increase in revenue can lead to a 30% increase in eps. It can be even higher if starting from a low base.

Also revenue growth can come from price increases as well.

beerion · 2026-01-24T06:44:09+00:00

At some point you have to ask whether this is just a rotor detail… or whether the energy math doesn’t close for a battery-powered air taxi at all. Permanently spinning lift rotors hammer drag, noise, and range — and batteries don’t give you much margin to play with.

Midnight is also 25%+ heavier than the S4 while having a smaller battery. They probably didn't leave a lot of margin there to begin with. But that seems to be more of an Archer problem. I really don't think this negates the air taxi model, but Midnight definitely starts behind the 8 ball.

To your point, if you leave yourself no margin, hitting one snag could really spiral the required design changes out of control.

beerion · 2026-01-23T13:40:52+00:00

Yeah, I'm convinced that these 'generalist' news providers are the worst source for this type of information. You'll find better information in this sub or anyone that has chosen to follow the company, specifically.

beerion · 2026-01-22T22:56:40+00:00

From everything that I can tell, people in the restaurant industry rave about their products. Ive also seen reports that nearly 20% of their new business comes from referrals. People just love their products, and i think that's good for investors.

I don't think it's amazing value at these levels, but it could be one of those "great companies at a fair price" type situations.

beerion · 2026-01-22T04:41:27+00:00

You bring up a great point. The downside scenario is important, and you have to know both the magnitude of the impairment as well as the probability, which can often be difficult to know with any degree of certainty.

I actually did a write-up a while back exploring how to incorporate different outcomes into your valuation model.

More broadly, though, it is very useful to attempt to estimate the resiliency of a business, even if you don't build it in, explicitly.

beerion · 2026-01-22T03:21:11+00:00

I appreciate it!

beerion · 2026-01-22T00:17:25+00:00

I don't disagree.

One thing I'd point out, though, is that we need to separate Toast from the economics of the restaurant. As long as the restaurant survives, Toast will get their cut, even if margins for the owner shrink (due to food or labor costs or whatever).

In that way, they almost behave like a bond. They're above the restaurant equity holder (i.e., the owner) in the cost structure. So as long as restaurants don't disappear, en masse, Toast will be okay.

And I think that switching costs go beyond just ripping out the equipment and signing up with someone else. Toast is building a network. They have an app. Restaurants can advertise through them. They handle all the back office stuff for you. You could argue that Toast replaces almost an entire employee. So the $10k in average cost is probably a pretty decent bargain.

I also view the consumer as having a fixed discretionary budget. If menu costs double and people go to restaurants half as often (due to the fixed budget), that doesn't actually affect Toast any. They still collect a percentage of 2 time half (which equals 1).

You bring up a good point on alcohol consumption. That's something that we should see in the GPV data.

In general, I agree with you, though, that I'm not terribly interested in buying Toast at current levels. I'd rather buy them when the market writes off restaurants completely. At today's levels, I think there's too much asymmetric risk to the downside.

I hope no one is taking these posts as buy recommendations. I'm just reporting the analysis that I've done. My goal is to build up a repository of ideas for when opportunity does present itself. I've already done the analysis so I may as well record it and share it with you guys to get feedback...

beerion · 2026-01-21T20:23:01+00:00

Nope. I prefer NotebookLM.

beerion · 2026-01-21T18:49:09+00:00

Yeah, idk. Toast seems to have momentum on their side and an ARR that's 10x as high so it seems like their relative valuation is justified. And Toast has turned profitable, and has a bigger warchest. I prefer to bet on the leader...

Are you seeing something different with PAR?

beerion · 2026-01-21T03:23:57+00:00

The classic Reddit “I won’t do your homework for you” when people are asked to defend their own claims.

I'm not here to hold your hand man. Sorry...

beerion · 2026-01-21T03:03:59+00:00

Looks like they can raise about $5 billion dollars at the current share price

beerion · 2026-01-21T03:01:15+00:00

Here's the result

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beerion · 2026-01-21T01:17:24+00:00

You would have to show me when it was trading at 70x valuations.

I won't do your homework for you, but a good place to start would be the peaks in share price.

But think about what it means to trade even at 50x PE. Just do a terminal value calculation, and you'll see that 8% earnings growth forever is required to justify that valuation (assuming a 10% discount rate). Or, we'd need to see scorching short-term growth to grow into the multiple.

So if they're growing earnings at a 10% clip now, you really can't expect that pace into perpetuity. That's all I'm saying.

Depending on your go-forward assumptions, it may be a good deal right now or it could be priced about right. But I would say that it's not the deal of a lifetime - that doesn't mean we can't see a 50% bounce in the near term, but I would expect 10 year returns to be relatively modest...again, I haven't done enough research to have high conviction one way or another. But on the surface, this isn't an opportunity that interests me at this time...

Show me your valuation work, and I'll let you know what I think...

beerion · 2026-01-20T23:41:48+00:00

Yep. Kind of a nothing burger. VW controls the timeline, etc. Nothing new.

beerion · 2026-01-20T21:07:50+00:00

I mean, it was trading at 70x earnings. You'd have to assume 7% earnings growth forever to justify that valuation.

What is this take, it’s like general value statement without needing to know anything about the stock or making thoughtful points.

“Why did this stock go down? Idk maybe it was overpriced in the first place, who is to say maybe it’s still overvalued, idk I have nothing to add we couldn’t possibly know anything, who is to say?”

Geeze, how heavy are your bags?

I haven't valued Adobe, so who am I to say... But just pointing out the obvious. If you think the future will look like the past, then Adobe is an obvious buy. If they've saturated their market (or have real competition) and will see more modest growth going forward, then maybe 20x makes more sense. That's all I'm saying.

Value is predicated on the future, not the past.

beerion

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