Read on Twitter
Since it’s 
out in NYC it’s a good time for my first tweet storm - more of a story - from my new twitter home
out in NYC it’s a good time for my first tweet storm - more of a story - from my new twitter home
It's about how a meeting in Seattle 20 years ago helped reshape my investment philosophy
In late 1999 I was looking at the publicly traded GDSs - airline reservation systems that were controlled by the major carriers. One had caught my eye - Galileo - and I started researching the company
At the time I was on the hunt for low valuations like any 'good' value investor would be
I was able to meet the CEO & senior team and took it upon myself to better understand the business and the traveling ecosystem it supported
At one meeting the CEO mapped out his thesis that the online travel sellers were going to be squeezed as airlines lowered commissions in this channel to zero which was in the process of playing out real time
Consequently he considered this little stub equity in Seattle - Expedia - to be a great short which I took seriously, given this executive’s experience. I decided to investigate to see if I could find more opportunities in the travel space
It was easier to get meetings after the dot com wreckage post march 2000 and before long I found myself at the headquarters of a rare situation - a publicly traded subsidiary of Microsoft
For younger PMs/RH traders there was no PFANG back then (yes that's paypal in front of facebook) just MSFT and they tended to be over-successful in their endeavors to put it mildly
I went into the meeting room and the CEO - @Rich_Barton - is sitting there with 5 or 6 other people. I was surprised that I was getting such a big reception for an initial meeting but in the aftermath of the dot com crash it was a bit easier to get access to management teams
I had all my questions ready so we get right into it with all things travel. I ask away...question after question and this group has an answer for everything and most every scenario I had contemplated
It went beyond just answering a bunch of questions well - everything out of their mouths was extremely thoughtful, highly strategic and backed by a palpable intent to win
These were the kind of people you can't even envision losing. They were probably all over the place at MSFT at the time but MSFT wasn't going to roll out the red carpet for me so Expedia was my first exposure to real killer types
I recall they answered one question in unison...something about wanting to build a platform that was infinitely scalable - seemingly quoting Bill Gates or someone else at microsoft
I walked out of that meeting and thought that this was the smartest, most competitive collection of individuals I had ever met in my life - I hadn’t met Reed Hastings yet at that point :)
Here I was trying to be a rational, unemotional value investor, absolutely pumped up by this group of young Seattle execs. I wanted to bet on all of them & strap in for the ride as they changed the travel biz but...
this wasn’t how 'value' investors were supposed to find investment opportunities
