Amen of the Week: “When there’s an ache, you want to be like aspirin, not vitamins. Aspirin solves a very particular problem someone has, whereas vitamins are a general ‘nice to have’ market. [The Netflix idea] was certainly aspirin.” - Reed Hastings, Netflix founder and CEO Fortune Magazine, “How Netflix Got Started” January 28, 2009 Few professional short-sellers can raise their hands and proclaim, “I have never been short Netflix.” Back in the mid-2000’s when I co-managed a hedge fund, I too had bet against the company. Briefly. The thesis for Netflix’s imminent failure was “elegant” in the words of my best analyst. Although the company had enjoyed success creating a DVD-by-mail business
Amen of the Week: “Every single one of the premises on which we ran our company was wrong: centralized marketing, massive centralization of everything, massive specialization – it was all nonsense… Practice in the hard light of reality shows things. What do you do when you realize the theory is wrong? You change your ideals to make them realistic.” - Sir James Goldsmith, entrepreneur and legendary British investor (on his early challenges in business)* Yesterday I shared my thoughts on Brexit with our clients. I attempted to explain how this might be a good thing for selective and patient investors. You can read the note here. As a follow-up to Goldsmith's quote above, here’s an
