Opinion
Cohen: Advertisers Conspired Against Twitter Due to Politics, Not Cuts
“What really happened at Twitter was that the advertisers, you know, I don't know what the situation is now, but they pretty much conspired against him, and, you know, it had nothing to do, my understanding is it really had nothing to do with the cost cuts, mor…”
Disclosure
Cohen says GameStop will issue stock to fund half-cash eBay takeover
“We're offering half cash, half stock, and we have the ability to issue stock in order to get the deal done.”
Disclosure
Cohen: GameStop offered $125 per share half-cash, half-stock for eBay
“We made an offer yesterday. 125 bucks a share. Half cash, half stock.”
Assertion Supported
Cohen: eBay's $5.5B opex and 11,500 headcount make no sense
“They're spending five and a half billion dollars on operating expenses on eleven billion dollar business that Has no inventory in its asset lights. So, it just, there's 11 and a half thousand employees, and it doesn't make sense.”
Assertion Supported
Ryan Cohen: GameStop Has $20B Bank Letter and $9B Cash for Bid
“We have the cash accounted for today in terms of, ah, a highly confident letter from our bank for the twenty billion, plus we've got nine billion of cash, so.”
Opinion
GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen calls the Meta Quest a joke
“When I think about the MetaQuest, I mean, it's a joke.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Cohen predicts computers and AI will go after humans soon
“At some point, the computers are going after the humans, and I don't think it's that far away.”
Opinion
Cohen: eBay has 130M users but gets crushed in live commerce
“EBay has a hundred and thirty million users and they're getting crushed by competitors in live commerce.”
Disclosure
Ryan Cohen intends to permanently run eBay, not act as an activist.
“The goal here isn't to be an activist. The goal is I want to own eBay. I want to run eBay. Like, I want that to be my baby.”
Opinion
Cohen: eBay has more runway than Chewy and is 'Chewy on steroids'
“EBay is like Chewy on steroids. And so there's so much more runway, and it's global.”
Opinion
Cohen: eBay is worth far more than $125/share under his leadership
“When I think about what eBay could be worth, if I'm running this business, I believe it's a heck of a lot more than a 125 dollars a share.”
Assertion Supported
Cohen: eBay directors make $350K-$450K each with zero insider buying
“You know, the directors board of directors make four million dollars. It's like 350 to 450,000 per director. There's been no insider buying at the company.”
Disclosure
Cohen: eBay Ignored Partnership Outreach One to Two Years Ago
“I reached out to eBay, like, I don't know, maybe a year or two years ago to talk to them about partnering, and They didn't engage seriously.”
Insight
Ryan Cohen: Corporate Leaders Without Personal Financial Stakes Disregard Shareholders
“Ultimately, what you see is that when people don't have their own money on the line, they don't give a shit, and they're focused on all kinds of other stuff that ultimately doesn't matter to shareholders”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cohen: Copying Chewy's expanded catalog failed and cost GameStop shareholders heavily
“I hired a bunch of fancy people from both Amazon and Chewy, and we expanded the catalog, and we added a bunch of product, and most of that product didn't sell, and we ended up marking it down and taking a big hit, and it cost shareholders a lot of money, becau…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Cohen: CEOs will choose AI over humans to cut short-term costs
“One thing I know for certain is that the CEOs, if they can reduce their cost structure in the short term, They're gonna replace, they're gonna take computers over humans.”
Opinion
Cohen: Large tech competitors cannot acquire eBay due to antitrust
“The strategics can't really do it because I don't think that they would be able to clear antitrust. So any of the large competitors wouldn't be able to acquire it.”
Assertion Partly supported
Cohen: GameStop cut SG&A by 47% and $800M
“And if you look at SG&A, we've pulled out, we've dropped SG&A by 47%, eight hundred million dollars, by making marketing more efficient, almost turning off marketing.”
Opinion
Cohen: Twitter's Smaller Engineering Teams Are Innovating Faster
“And so like you look at the usability of the platform and the teams, the engineering teams are much smaller and they're innovating a lot faster.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Cohen: eBay's Business Model Future Is More Certain Than Most Tech Businesses
“You know, I think that eBay is the kind of business where the future of the business model is more certain than most tech businesses, and that's why it's done so well. And, you know, there's been such a lack of innovation, yet it hasn't been able to be disrupt…”
Assertion Supported
Cohen's compensation requires doubling GameStop's market cap to start vesting.
“My current compensation plan is tied to really lofty metrics, and it's based on the first tranche I've got to double market cap, as an example, just to hit the first tranche, and the 10 exit in order for it to fully invest.”
Disclosure
Cohen: Majority of personal net worth will be tied to eBay deal
“Well I haven't done the math, but if things go correctly, then it better be the majority. Otherwise I'm wasting my time.”
Opinion
Cohen: eBay Sells Digital Goods but Handles Delivery and Fraud Poorly
“In terms of the digital marketplace, and they are already doing it to a certain extent. I mean, like, all kinds of Roblox digital items are bought and sold, but and I've actually bought them for my kids, and there's so much fraud on the platform. Like, we're b…”
Opinion
Ryan Cohen: GameStop's Legacy Board and Management Had Perverse Incentives
“A board of directors that had perverse incentives, a management team that had perverse incentives.”
Ryan Cohen