Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, I’ll take the bait. As someone with direct experience with the topic at hand, who has worked with / remains friends with people with direct experience regarding the subject of this conversation, I can say that many of the assertions of the parent ring true to me. And, in fact, the stuff you don’t know is even worse .
I'll bite, what happened? Something seems a little off lately with the sudden uptick in PR/guest interviewing/attention seeking behaviour as of late.
Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
181–190 of 198 posts
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, I am pretty pro WSB just like chamath. I think he is wrong about the "research" that is happening though. There is a bull case but not a $25 bil mkt cap one.
Chamath's comment was that there is a lot of great market analysis happening on WSB every day, on par with that of large hedge funds, so it isn't wise to treat the forum as just a joke. The interviewer twisted that into him saying that WSB thinks $350 is the correct price for GameStop. No one – least of all WSB – thinks that. This is purely a play for squeezing the shorts.
Some people did due diligence but still have lower price targets: https://www.gmedd.com/
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#183He didn’t have any answer as to the fate of new bag holders he created with his tweet. That was irresponsible. His plan to make hedge funds disclose their positions daily as some kind of a solution to overleverage makes no sense whatsoever. And he’s delusional about research skills of WSB posters as compared to Wall Street analysts.
Eh, I'm not sure there's clear moral responsibility when talking your own book.
However, he does come off as someone who doesn't understand what he's talking about:
* comparing WSB "research" with proper fundamental analysis
* daily position disclosing is unrealistic and unrelated to what's going on
* doubling down on the retail vs wall street narrative and talking about the mortgage crisis, when Melvin Capital is a buy-side institution, not a sell-side institution.
* generally painting WSB users as "curageous" for expressing their views in a public forums when a. everyone is using aliases and b. WSB is cery similar to one of those pump-and-dump penny stock IRC chats, just at a much larger scale.
He might appear to be confident and informed but, for someone who is familiar with the industry, he just comes off as being full of bullshit/having a hidden agenda.
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
> He didn’t have any answer as to the fate of new bag holders he created with his tweet. That was irresponsible. I have to say up front, I find this kind of attitude incredibly infantilizing and condescending. Exactly how many "bag holders" did Chamath "create"? (Hint: Zero.) Obviously the "bag holders" are assuming the risks themselves, as is (absent any evidence to the contrary) Chamath. They're on a forum literall…
>(He didn't make this argument as well as he could have, but Chamath himself points out that when Goldman or AIG played stupid games, everyone else was conscripted into being the "bag holders.") This - this is the point that seems to keep getting lost. The Big Guys get bail-outs constantly - hell Melvin got a float of $3B over this mess.
Conflating sell-siders (e.g. Goldman) with buy-siders (Melvin) betrays a lack of understanding of the financial markets.
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
The price will crash. No one knows when hype will die out and people will stop jumping on the bandwagon, but I'm sure those hedge funds that are covering their short positions aren't going to stick around for the fall.
This makes no sense. The hedge funds that cover their shorts are the ones taking the fall; entering a short at $20 and exiting at $300 is the fall.
Trading stocks is not a zero-sum game, at least not in the way implied here.
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#186The Chamath Craze is ridiculous. The guy is a stock promoter through and through. It's really sad to see people fall into this guys trap. He has an incredibly story (coming from nothing) but lets look at his career: He "leaves" (aka fired) Facebook for being a D*ck head. Nobody is willing to work with him because he is rude and a jerk. His direct reports would cry regularly. Steven Levy talked about this in his book…
It's just as ridiculous as the fact that r/wsb insiders are obviously abusing their positions to get rich at the cost of newcomers, basically constructing a public pyramid scheme, while everyone there keep repeating it's a way for the average person to avenge wall street, because that shit really works with the average young reddit person. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f3/f9/6c/f3f96c06ddc73aa35cfa...
You have a very nice view from the outside. The sub is misunderstood. Self deprecation and arrogance of being both ignorant and reckless are, at least for me, defining characteristics of the members. They don't take themselves seriously at all.
Most times WSB talk about normal stocks and positions and the gains or losses thereof. A few like TSLA, PLNTR and now GME hit the mainstream airways are meme stocks. Losing money and bragging about is about as big a kudos as gaining as much.
The level of organisation and criminality you might think exists isn't there at all.
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#187The Chamath Craze is ridiculous. The guy is a stock promoter through and through. It's really sad to see people fall into this guys trap. He has an incredibly story (coming from nothing) but lets look at his career: He "leaves" (aka fired) Facebook for being a D*ck head. Nobody is willing to work with him because he is rude and a jerk. His direct reports would cry regularly. Steven Levy talked about this in his book…
the guy literally has math in his name. what are you talking about girlfriends here boomer?
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#188Lol why do they invite him back. Cause every single time hes way to honest and ends up slandering their network. Its like a coin flip at this point.
I guess he his good for ratings and viewership.
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#189The stack on this story so far (newest ones at the bottom—if I've missed any, can you let me know at hn@ycombinator.com? this is sort of an experiment and we may eventually write software to support building lists like this collaboratively): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25932598 ("Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25904779 ("How WallStreetBets Pushed GameStop…
(This is a stub reply so I can collapse the various comments responding to this, so as not to distract too much from the topic at hand.)
This new "feature" is very much appreciated. It would have been great during the deplatforming storm, as well.
Hopefully it will be infrequently necessary. But I suspect that we're living in "interesting times".
Re: Chamath Palihapitiya on Wallstreetbets [audio]
#190The host, whoever he is, keeps bringing up risk to the retail trader, i.e. who's going to buy the shares. But if the stock is shorted 140%, the shorters HAVE to buy the shares to cover their positions so the risk is minimal.
That's my 5 year old understanding anyway.