The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 33 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Financial Models Do Not Create Alpha; Identifying the Core Driver Does
“You're not going to outmodel the other guy. We're going to build models. Figure out the one driver that will dictate success or failure to your thesis, and then spend all your time on that one thing.”
Amazon Will Ultimately Generate Over $100 Billion Annually in Ad Revenue
“Amazon's not going to be doing billions in advertising revenue. They're going to be doing tens of billions and ultimately over a hundred billion a year in ad revenue.”
Barakett Remains Skeptical of AI Consumer Surveys Versus Real Polling
“I'm still a little suspect on this. AI can do that for you. You can say, tell me what an 18 to 24 year old would think about this brand or this product, and the AI will tell you. I'm still old school enough. I want to do the survey. I want to ask actual people…”
Tremblant Capital Views the P/E Ratio as a Useless Valuation Metric
“The PE ratio, which we think is useless was infinite”
Tremblant Eliminated Multi-Year Profit Bleed-Out Economics for Departing Partners
“Because somebody exits a firm, And they were getting X percent of the economics. And then there's a bleed out for a number of years where, you know, three or five years where they get some portion of those economics. You have enough of that. And then the peopl…”
Wall Street Analysts Naively Underestimate Operational and Supply Chain Friction
“In my travels on Wall Street and in finance and sell side and buy side, people's assumptions about, oh, well, you just do this. Take those machines and put them over here. Take the equipment out of wherever, China, and just move it to the Philippines. It's lik…”
Founders Must Define a Strict Failure Plan and Runway Upfront
“Know in advance what the failure plan is, and so what I concluded was that I'd fund the business for 24 months, and if by month 25, I was not cash flow break even, then I should shut down.”
ZIRP and Zero Short Rebates Made Long/Short Equity Less Attractive
“And so when money's for free and there's no rebate anymore, particularly after Oh eight in hindsight, long short to a degree became less attractive.”
Return of Real Cost of Capital Makes Shorting Environment Phenomenal
“Well, now there's finally a real cost of capital again. And we think it's a phenomenal shorting environment. Why? Because there's a whole bunch of people that are carrying a ton of debt that was basically for free, which is not for free anymore. And so what we…”
Cheap Multiples Are Value Traps Without Factoring in Industry Disruption
“Blockbuster traded three to five times free cash flow until it went to zero, and so you got to look at change, and change comes in many ways.”
Amazon Historically Generated Massive Cash Flows But Reinvested Every Dollar
“I love when people say like, oh, back in the day, Amazon trades at 150 times earnings, and they don't generate any cash. And like, what are you talking about? They're generating an insane amount of cash. They're just reinvesting it all back in the business.”
Satellite Parking Lot Data Is Useless Without Weather and Holiday Context
“Looking at the parking lot today versus exactly one year ago may be completely useless depending on what the weather was like the prior year, whether it was raining or sunny, what the holiday was Easter earlier or later that month.”
Tremblant Prioritizes 'Little Data' Drivers Over Massive Data Lakes
“We are the opposite. We talk about little data. We want to go find that one thing that's going to drive success or failure and bring a lot to bear on that one thing, and that is where we spend all of our time.”
Never Allocate Serious Capital to Managers Without Deep Background Checks
“How you do one thing is how you do all things is a great way to assess not just management teams, but also investment managers. I don't know why you would ever put serious capital with an investment manager that you didn't do a deep dive on their background.”
Tremblant Targets Stocks That Can Double in Three Years or Less
“We're not interested in good ideas. Like, Hey, I think if this, and this happens, we can make 15%. It's like, well, that's good, but we're long-term investors. And so we're looking for things that we think can double or more in three years or less.”
Tremblant Holds 20 to 25 Stocks With Positions Capped Around 5%
“For me, 20, 25 names is probably about right. We can do a lot of research. So you say, well, we should have two to four percent positions. We don't really outsize massively anything. A big position for us might be five percent.”
Tremblant Sells Rigidly on Price Target Realization or Thesis Change
“You sell when it hits your price target, and nothing else has changed. It feels good when it goes up. I think it's gonna go higher. Really? Your opinion? Or is that a fact-based decision? You gotta be fact-based. You gotta stay rigid. So you said the stock was…”
Talented Analysts Quit if Top Managers Micromanage Their Investment Decisions
“What I found is people who are talented don't want to keep going to the quote head person and saying, Hey, I think we should buy da da da. And the person who spent three hours on it is saying, Hey, this is really compelling. And the head guy's like, nah, I don…”
Tremblant Capital Pulled All Funds From Lehman Brothers in Summer 2007
“We took our money away from Lehman Brothers in the summer of oh seven.”
Tremblant Pulls Funds Without Discussion if a Counterparty's CDS Spikes
“We measure the risk of our counterparties. Very simple. We look at the CDS of anybody who holds our client's money. If the CDS goes above a certain level, we pull our money. There's no conversation. We do not get paid to take that risk. We need counterparties …”
Tremblant Has Never Instituted Redemption Gates on Its Strategies
“We've never had gates on our strategies. We don't need them because we're super liquid.”
Tremblant Compensation Ties First to Fund Results, Then Individual Contribution
“Everybody at the firm gets paid first on how we perform for our clients. And secondly, on the relative contribution to that performance.”
Tremblant Employees Cannot Be Promoted Without Demonstrating They Develop Internal Talent
“You cannot get promoted here unless you can show that you're developing people because we want to develop talent internally, and that's worked out really well for us over time”
Long-Short Equity Fund Managers Will Increasingly Launch Actively Managed ETFs
“I think there is a lot more conversation around active ETFs from people who look like us. Start as long short funds, this kind of stuff. I think you'll see a lot more. I don't know why you wouldn't, because for your own money, it makes too much sense.”
Tremblant Reached Nearly $1 Billion AUM Within One Year
“By our one year anniversary, we had just under a billion dollars AUM and then we grew from there.”
Tremblant Made and Lost Substantial Money on an Early BlackBerry Position
“We made a bunch of money in BlackBerry, and then we lost a bunch of money in BlackBerry. We were early, one of my partners was like, this mobility thing is going to scale much faster than people think, and the winners are going to be Apple and Google and Black…”
Tremblant Portfolio Managers Manage Firm-Wide Positions Rather Than Carve-Outs
“The people who are in the portfolio manager seats, they're managing positions for the entire portfolio. These are not carve-outs. It's, hey, you're going to take a two to four percent position for the firm, and you're going to decide when to do that, and you'r…”
Tremblant Typically Holds Portfolio Stocks for Two to Three Years
“As I said earlier, we own 25, maybe 30 stocks and our holding period is usually two to three years on a name.”
Active ETF Structures Defer Capital Gains Taxes for Fund Investors
“The brilliance of the ETF structure led by Vanguard is create a structure that we can own Microsoft. We don't, but we can own Microsoft and Toga. It can double. We could sell Microsoft and the owners of Toga won't pay the capital gains tax until they sell thei…”
Tremblant Held Apple Through a 50% Drawdown in October 2008
“We got invested in Apple in January of oh four. It was our largest position for years. In October of oh eight, the stock fell 50% and stayed there for six months.”
Only Two of 800 HBS Grads Entered Hedge Funds in Early 1990s
“I think in my year, 800 people graduated HBS. I think, off the top of my head, I think roughly two went into hedge funds.”