Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly • Hacker News Board

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#181

Post by tehlike » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 1:03 AM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #158

rootusrootus wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you mention Warren Buffet, I will say that what makes me most nervous about the market is that collectively everyone seems to be concluding that it's overheated. By the time the hordes figure it out, it's already happened.

This recession talk seems to be happening suspiciously close to an election year. It's almost as if someone is trying to concoct a self-fulling prophecy.

This was the case last year too... In 2017 and 18, there was discussions of melt up and then melt down...

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#182

Post by thatfrenchguy » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 1:19 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #166

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can loose your money outside of your retirement account too though.

And if I cross the street I could get hit by a car. I'm all for countries teaching their citizens about financial responsibility, right in school with the rest of the curriculum. But I would not want the state to tell me how I can invest, they are protecting their own interests as much or more than mine.

Except you get tax advantages in exchange from the restrictions on your retirement account. You can use a non retirement account if you’re not happy with them.

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#183

Post by Barrin92 » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 2:05 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #166

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can loose your money outside of your retirement account too though.

And if I cross the street I could get hit by a car. I'm all for countries teaching their citizens about financial responsibility, right in school with the rest of the curriculum. But I would not want the state to tell me how I can invest, they are protecting their own interests as much or more than mine.

> But I would not want the state to tell me how to...

well then I would advise you to stay far away from Denmark. I personally don't feel like I have to rebel against the man every minute of the day and safeguarding people from engaging in hazardous financial behaviour is about as reasonable as forcing them to put a seatbelt on

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#184

Post by manigandham » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 2:06 AM UTC

just0nce wrote: post #126

tjchear wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment reminds me of another comment [0] on Reddit that talks about the different levels of wealth. An eye-opener for the rest of us for sure. [0]. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_i...

Throwaway for obvious reasons, apologies. FWIW, I kno(e)w four billionaires through my work (one deceased, one I lost contact with), and their life is not at all like described here, though they could afford that and more they keep a pretty low profile and you likely have never heard of them, and likely never will. But the 'controlling interest in a company you've likely heard about' is a common factor for three of t…

Billionaires are just like the rest us when it comes to variety of personalities and motivations. The wealth just lets them indulge more in the extremes (like complete privacy or flamboyant fame).

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#185

Post by perl4ever » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:11 AM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #180

cVwEq wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside to the parent poster, an often-stated guideline for the maximum amount you should own in the companies you work for is 10% of your portfolio value [1][2]. Modern portfolio theory (Markowitz, et. al.) calculations for a bundle of assets probably would bear out that 20% in a single stock is not on the efficient frontier [3]. [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dont-invest-in-your-compan... [2] https://www…

Diversification is for people who have no idea what they're investing in. Portfolio theory is spray/pray with no information which is what VCs do with unestablished startups, hoping for the wins to beat the losses. If you want to be that passive then just buy an ETF or all the large-cap blue-chip dividend stocks instead to keep it simple. Investment funds with a real thesis and research don't do this. Concentrated po…

Diversification can mean different things to different people.

If you mean that >30 stocks is pointless, I agree. How much different is the Dow than the S&P 500 or the whole market, even though its methodology is atrocious?

If you mean that even with a large edge, you should take positions that are >20%, I don't agree.

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#186

Post by perl4ever » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:16 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #129

cVwEq wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an aside to the parent poster, an often-stated guideline for the maximum amount you should own in the companies you work for is 10% of your portfolio value [1][2]. Modern portfolio theory (Markowitz, et. al.) calculations for a bundle of assets probably would bear out that 20% in a single stock is not on the efficient frontier [3]. [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dont-invest-in-your-compan... [2] https://www…

Depends how the company is doing. Depending on the internal transparency of the company, as an employee you're often privy to a lot of information that Wall Street does not have access to, eg. you'll oftentimes know their upcoming product pipeline, employee morale, culture, and key metrics for the success of the business that are not published in their financials. If those are doing well but Wall Street is treating t…

The company I used to work for not only didn't provide stock options or RSUs or (that I can recall) an ESPP for ordinary employees, they eventually took the choice to invest in company stock away from the 401k plan, because they decided it would encourage people to not diversify and they might be considered liable.

I remember when the CEO visited, and while she clearly didn't know that our division existed, the things she talked about highlighted how little we knew of the rest of the company. You have something with tens of thousands of employees, and you have probably quite a few groups of a few hundred people that just have no particular connection to the rest of the company. In our case, we started as an acquisition that was kind of forgotten about.

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#187

Post by perl4ever » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:25 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #54

est31 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Co-founders are supposed to have confidence in the business they built - if they don't, why should other investors? But what's in it for the co-founder? Usually it's that they have lots of power over the company, e.g. being a CEO, and have more freedom than someone who still has to prove that they deserve that power. Jeff Bezos for example "only" owns 100 billion USD but controls a 800 billion USD company, with the…

There are realms of wealth. Even 100m is not enough to comfortably afford a private jet. Several ultra wealthy like Bill Gates diversified a billion dollars from their company which seems to be about the limit where more money mostly becomes an abstraction. One example is people who actually own mansions generally live in a relatively small space inside. You can only really use one room at a time and walking around t…

If you have tens or hundreds of millions, I imagine you could find ways to do the stuff associated with billionaires without spending anywhere near as much. If you want to fly on a private jet, you can buy a fractional share. If you want a mansion, you can buy almost anything, you just don't buy a dozen and forget about them. You would just have to have a scaled up middle class budgeting sensibility instead of viewing your wealth as unlimited.

If there is anything that really is limited to billionaires, it seems to me logically it's going to be status, proximity, location, attention that are in limited supply. Not material things.

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#188

Post by perl4ever » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:33 AM UTC

kjs3 wrote: post #148

Retric wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear I am speaking of someone living off of 100m in assets. You can have negative net worth, be pulling in 35m/year and reasonably splurge on a 1m/year expense. But, if you’re living off of say 5m/year from your assets a 1m/year splurge is a huge chunk of your income. At that level renting one would be far more appealing to most people. Though sure if owning a jet was a major hobby vs a means of transportation…

If I'm making $100k/yr and I spend $20k cash on a second car (e.g. I don't use that often), or a pool, it's the same ratio, and people do it all the time. And that's just luxury items, not things I can justify from a business perspective. And I don't disagree for most people renting or fractional ownership of planes are undoubtedly better deals (200 hours is a lot of time in the air), but none of that is what you sai…

Planes and boats at all levels are known for being a sink for money - no experience personally, but come on, you know operating costs are huge. Like, at an ordinary person's scale, you buy a used German luxury car for $10K, but it's still the same car that was $60K new, which means fixing it will be proportional. And if you can't personally pilot it...

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#189

Post by manigandham » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:47 AM UTC

perl4ever wrote: post #185

manigandham wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diversification is for people who have no idea what they're investing in. Portfolio theory is spray/pray with no information which is what VCs do with unestablished startups, hoping for the wins to beat the losses. If you want to be that passive then just buy an ETF or all the large-cap blue-chip dividend stocks instead to keep it simple. Investment funds with a real thesis and research don't do this. Concentrated po…

Diversification can mean different things to different people. If you mean that >30 stocks is pointless, I agree. How much different is the Dow than the S&P 500 or the whole market, even though its methodology is atrocious? If you mean that even with a large edge, you should take positions that are >20%, I don't agree.

Then we don't agree. The concentration of a position depends on the confidence of the investment and direction. 20% isn't a magical rule, no point in following it blindly.

Re: Travis Kalanick Is Exiting His Uber Holdings Uber Quickly

#190

Post by tim333 » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 5:21 AM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #22

michalu wrote: post #11

That's to be expected. He was ousted from the company, has no control now so there's little reason why he should be bullish on a stock run by other people. Plus, the future isn't so clear and the markets are at all time highs and he has other company that may require liquidity in the coming years. Better be in cash.

the markets are at all time highs Isn't the world economy built on the idea that markets will always go up? Every year should be an all time high, otherwise we're in recession which is (apparently) tragedy to be avoided at all costs, no?

>Isn't the world economy built on the idea that markets will always go up?

Not really. Recessions are where there is less spending and production, not when the stockmarket goes down.

While stockmarkets and property prices and the like to tend to go up and up in nominal terms a lot of that is because of the currency they are denominated in losing value through inflation. If you adjust for that there is much less of an uptrend.