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Mellody Hobson

Co-CEO and President, Ariel Investments · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

executiveinvestorauthorarielinvestments.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

Mellody Hobson co-leads Ariel Investments and has held high-profile corporate leadership roles, notably serving as the former board chair of Starbucks and DreamWorks Animation, as well as a current board director at JPMorgan Chase. She authored the bestselling book Priceless Facts about Money and co-founded Ariel Alternatives' Project Black.

20statements → 9claims → 8claims resolved → 38%fully supported → 4.2/5average certainty → 1.75/5average debate potential → 3said about them ↓

3 supported 3 partly supported 2 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 9 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 8 assertions · 1 opinion · 5 insights · 4 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 9 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 8 are resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Mellody argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Hobson: Bristow Group stock trades below the liquidation value of its fleet
“The stock is trading for less than all the helicopters if you sold them. Interesting thing about helicopters, they don't depreciate the way other vehicles do, because every five years you have to replace the engine and the rotor. You basically have a new helic…”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 37:05 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
Hobson: Fox gave Lucas Star Wars sequel rights to hit quarterly earnings
“They gave him the sequel rights in order to make their quarter. To make their quarter. They were a million dollars off, which was George's fee.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 48:13 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
50% certainty 4
50% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

275 words/min while actually speaking · 10.2 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Mellody Hobson: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews.

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 8,050 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

Everything Mellody Hobson said on the a16z Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Disclosure
Hobson: Ariel Investments uses ex-CIA agents to train team on management questioning
“We actually use an organization called BIA Associates, Business Intelligence Advisors, ex-CIA agents, who help us in, in questioning.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 33:10 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Assertion Contradicted
Hobson: Fox gave Lucas Star Wars sequel rights to hit quarterly earnings
“They gave him the sequel rights in order to make their quarter. To make their quarter. They were a million dollars off, which was George's fee.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 48:13 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Disclosure
Hobson: Ariel buys companies at a 40% valuation discount or 13x forward earnings
“We want to buy companies when they're selling at a 40% discount to what they're worth. That, to us, creates a margin of safety for us. And or 13 times or less next year's earnings, which is why a lot of your companies don't fall into our purview unless somethi…”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 13:29 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Disclosure
Hobson: Ariel Investments automatically rejects resumes from job-hopping candidates
“So when we read resumes, we nix job hoppers. If you've had too many jobs, we throw out your resume. Because we say you're not going to be the person who comes and stays here.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 26:52 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Assertion Supported
Hobson: Bristow Group stock trades below the liquidation value of its fleet
“The stock is trading for less than all the helicopters if you sold them. Interesting thing about helicopters, they don't depreciate the way other vehicles do, because every five years you have to replace the engine and the rotor. You basically have a new helic…”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 37:05 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Insight
Hobson: Public company boards should ask 'Would we do this if private?'
“One of my standard questions, which I always told you is, that I told you, already told you is, would we do this if we were private?”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 57:10 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Disclosure
Hobson: Core of Ariel Investments' strategy is time arbitrage
“And we feel very strongly that, ah, the core of what we do is play time arbitrage.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 2:58 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Opinion
Hobson: Madison Square Garden has an unreplicable real estate moat in NYC
“You could not rebuild Madison Square Garden in New York City if you tried, because of the size of the number of city blocks that it, exactly. So we said there's a barrier to entry here that is pretty significant.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 6:25 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Insight
Hobson: People undervalue time and overvalue money when making decisions
“I believe people undervalue time and overvalue money. And because of that, they make a lot of decisions that are actually not rooted in the right set of circumstances.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 10:43 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
What-if
Hobson: Early frugality cost Ariel talent that would have accelerated growth
“That was making a decision based upon money, and he probably lost people who would have accelerated the growth had he hired them.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 12:13 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Insight
Hobson: Spice sales are counter-cyclical as consumers season cheaper foods during downturns
“In a bad economy where people can't buy maybe as upscale an item like steak or shrimp or whatever it might be, they buy cheaper Items that they season more. So it ends up being counter-cyclical in some ways”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 16:14 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Insight
Hobson: Debt is poison for small-cap companies without strong cash flow
“Debt is poison if you're small cap and you can't, you know, you don't have the cash flow or you can't finance it. It's a disaster.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 44:27 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Assertion Partly supported
Hobson: George Lucas sold Pixar to Steve Jobs as a medical device company
“He sold Pixar to Steve Jobs when it was a medical device company.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 53:12 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Insight
Hobson: Board members must act as fiduciaries, not creative directors
“When you're on a board, you serve a role. You are a representative of shareholders, and you're a fiduciary. My job is not to be the creative force at DreamWorks. My job is not to even create, critique that.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 54:43 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Assertion Contradicted
Hobson: Madison Square Garden raised ticket prices 40% during Linsanity
“And, you know, they raised all of their ticket prices by 40%. Dropped right to the bottom line.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 6:50 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Assertion Partly supported
Mellody Hobson: Average mutual fund holding period dropped to three years
“The average mutual fund investor held a fund for 10 years. Then it dropped to seven. Now it's more like three.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 8:36 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Assertion Supported
Hobson: The Ariel Fund grew from $500,000 in seed capital to $2.5B
“He started the Arial Fund, which is now a 2.5 billion dollar publicly traded mutual fund, and that, that was to get 500,000 dollars together to have a track record.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 11:35 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Assertion Supported
Hobson: Microsoft's valuation multiple once dropped to 10x earnings
“Microsoft was in that from an earnings, from a P ratio, absolutely, I think got down to 10 times.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 13:54 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Prediction Partly held up
Hobson: Ariel's small-cap fund will not hold more than 40 stocks
“Our small cap product is about 400 stocks, but we only own 40. And if we found a new name, we wanted to buy it would force a name out of the portfolio. We can't, we won't go over 40.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 41:47 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mellody Hobson: ETFs replaced mutual funds for algorithmic trading due to pricing delays
“The thing about mutual funds is the delay In pricing, so what has really taken the place of that are ETFs.”
Mellody Hobson Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 9:08 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!

The other half of the tape: Mellody Hobson's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes on the a16z Podcast. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Reshma Saujani 1Ben Horowitz 1

Statements about Mellody Hobson, by other people (1)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Quincy Jones entrusts all his money to Mellody Hobson
“She's the best. I give her all my money.”
Ben Horowitz Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 2:08 a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars!

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
00111120192020202120222023episodesmentions
01120192020202120222023episodes it came up in
000.50.51120192020202120222023episodesmentions per episode
2023 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
a16z Podcast | Mellody Hobson and Ben Horowitz Talk Investing, Career, and Star Wars! Jan 2, 2019 37m
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