Most recently, I speculated a few more, one with the intension of arbitrage (Reddit$HCP– HashiCorp is weighing up a potential sale – Bloomberg Business); another one I just stepped on it purely by accident ($BSY). I know in many days, I stepped on the wrong thing (or stock), but this time with #BentleySystems, things are looking good 🙂
My year 2020 post on Terraform, note TF is probably Hashicorp cash cow, and also important for cloud infrastructure life cycle management
Note in the years since 2015, essentially since year 2019, I thought about learning the #golang myself and apply for a job (likely dev) at Hashicorp. That didn’t materialize like many initiatives I had over the years. Also note in year 2020/21 while at Ascension health I did use the Terraform quite a bit for the GCP infrastructure automation. My main motivations to join them are two folds: 1) I was interested in Dev Ops and cloud infrastructure; 2) I recall if I join a startup when they have 200 people (or engineers), potentially I would make enough money from stocks so that I can retire early.
For $BSY, I heard about them for a while, but until recently I didn’t have chance to look at their financials (until they came to the public market a dew years ago)
Last but not least, as the old Chinese saying goes, 胜不骄败不馁，what I need to do: is continue this battle on the stocks, and hopefully I will come away with more winners compared to losers (recently losers include $DT, $LEG Leggett & Platt which I talked about here, and $RIVN).
PS (04-27-2024) I sold all my $HCP long position at $33 on Thursday 4/25, and now I think if it drops to $31.50 ($10% discount of IBM $35 offer price), I can make some money there – assume the deal doesn’t collapse, and I think almost risk free arbitrage from $31.50 to about $34. Along those thinking, I placed a limited “good until cancel” buy order of $31.50 🙂
cobble together per Collins Dictionary: If you say that someone has cobbled something together, you mean that they have made or produced it roughly or quickly.
Or Google AI overview – “Cobble together” is an American English phrasal verb that means to produce something quickly or roughly, often without great care or effort. For example, you might say “The group had cobbled together a few decent songs”. The phrase can also be used with disapproval, such as “The last half an hour was unconvincing and looked as if it had been hastily cobbled together just to get to the finishing line”.
I think this applies to my cooking fairly well – I really need to pay attention to more details during cooking, in terms of ingredients, prep, and actual cook, and do better on that aspect.
But sometimes I got to do what I got to do: I mean work sometimes. For example, last Tuesday evening I had to do that. This is something we should be able to improve when I reflect on it. The issue was: the database scripts for deployment were not version controlled all the way, and there were some manual steps involved. And the DBA ran an earlier version of the DB scripts. My problem on the spot is: I need to figure out the changes since the particular script DBA just ran. And came up the scripts so that the end results would be like we ran the latest scripts 🙁
Cobble together is suitable for that situation. And I was able to quickly realized what’s needed, and came up with the “Update” scripts in a few minutes. And have the DBA ran that. Followed by validation by the teammates.
In a more modern database world though, ideally DDLs and DMLs would be automated, or in other words, the versioning of Database will be managed by a framework, such as FlyAway, or LiquiBase. I recall in my previous job at Ascension, we used the latter. This (automated) way is usually better than the “cobbled together” (manual) way. It doesn’t mean the frameworks don’t have any issues.
I think I was pretty ignorant about the Roth IRA or Roth 401k until recently years. Some friends talked about Backdoor Roth IRA a few years ago. Around the same time (Sept 2021), I noticed my employer 401 k plan has a Roth option. Before that I already worked in the USA for about 21 years: I did contribute to 401k plan earlier on and also have some traditional IRA plans (savings). In addition to those, I have HSA and 529 plan for my daughters too (both are not significant) compared to 401k and IRAs.
Weschler, extrapolating from numbers that I sent him, said that if you’d put the $70,535 that he had in his IRA at year-end 1989 into Vanguard’s S&P index fund, you’d have had more than $1.6 million as of June 30.
(The exact number, Vanguard confirmed, was $1,636,238.)
“That $1.6 million,” he says, “drives some very simple advice: start early, maximize the (employer) match, invest 100 percent in equities, and ignore all the other noise.”
Not a recommendation to transfer or rollover. 3% match requires Robinhood Gold (subscription fee applies). Keep Gold for 1 year and the IRA for 5 years. Other terms apply.
Also, I just saw the blow from their email:
For the 2023 tax year, you’d earn $195 on a maximum $6,500 contribution by April 15, 2024. For the 2024 tax year, you can still earn $210 on a maximum $7,000 contribution through April 15, 2025. Subscription fee and terms apply.
I am thinking: for most people, do what you need to do in terms of what to save, where to save, what to invest, don’t try to get the 3% match at any cost. I heard the RobinHood Gold has a cost (it’s not a high cost, but it seems to me they are trying to promoting something that may not be suitable for me).
PS: I think HSA again is a potential sleeper that can do quite a few things for us down the road (thinking investing in S&P 500 index fund instead of just put it in a CD or money market like fund).
PS 2: Over the years, I have seen two people who are likely in their 70s worked at Panera Bread (St. Louis Bread Co. here in STL), one lady worked at the Bread Co. at Chesterfield (Olive and WoodsMill), another gentleman at the New Ballas Road (near Olive, he may still works there). And I just came across this story – So last October, at the age of 80, Murray ended her retirement and got a job giving out samples at Costco. Honestly, this is something I am trying to avoid for myself and my wife. Working for fun and working for food/medicine are two quite different things.
I agree. At #Panera (aka bread co here in STL), sometimes I saw quite senior people work there. I think a while ago couple times at the Woodsmill and Olive (an old lady, reminds me of my grandma), and now at New Ballas (near Olive), an old gentleman (he seems like my dad's age) https://t.co/LAjbqQwMDt
I just saw a lady who is probably in her 60s, picked up at bread do and she is wearing red #doordash t-shirt. She is using an accessible parking 🅿️ spot too. Over the years I also saw a few people who likely in their 70s work at bread 🥖 co. #seniorEmployment#seniorsAtWork
Sometimes I cross posting, and sometimes I posted on social media but I forgot where I exactly posted (I spent probably one hour trying to looking for this on Twitter/X), but I just found it at FB. I posted below on FB on 03-09-2016.
========
So I was at Sam’s club, tasting the free salmon sample. The lady passing out the Salmon said something funny “Being a Mizzou journalist graduate, I know how to propaganda”. Something like that. It sounds like she lost Journalist job. An old couple who complimented the salmon and the lady’s cooking (there is really not too much cooking because the main task was to warm it up, I think), said their daughter who is in graphic design, lost job since last July. I know it’s probably very difficult for journalists these days amid the new media etc (traditional media lost all the Ads revenue). My previous 2 jobs were in two industries that were both seriously affected by the government polices, luckily my skill can be transferred to other industry. I believe the two people can look at other relatively stable industry as well, as their skills can also transfer: good communication, writing and graphical design skills are always in demand. This is my chicken soup of the day.
(Update 12-08-2024) 我今天录了一个油管视频：I created a YT video today and it’s in Mandarin Chinese. I can create an English version later, if there is interest.
My street credentials (qualification) for writing this: besides as the consumer of US healthcare system (employer sponsored plans most of the time) since fall 2000. I also worked for 2 large healthcare systems (hospital chains) in the USA, Mercy Health and Ascension Health. Here is my LinkedIn profile.
I received 5 bills total, one paper bill didn’t come because I turned on paperless billing inside MyChart
We had two visits at Shriner’s hospital near the BJC at central west end: the initial encounter (encounter as in medical billing) and the followup encounter (to make sure her ankle is good). She was not seriously injured per Shriner Hospital but I am still glad that we had professional to check her out to make sure.
There were 5 bills or 5 payments from my side. Two bills for the X ray which although it says the doctor’s name in the insurance company website’s benefit explanation section. For those two bills I paid on the Shriner’s hospital MyChart website. Talking about MyChart, personally I liked it very much as it’s electronic. And recently I switched my primary doctor to Mercy partially due to this. I can see the appointments, messages and test results, as well as billing info in one spot. I didn’t realize or recall until very recently, all the insurance and billing information are in the MyUHC website. More on this in the next section.
More paper bills and that’s the confusing part
Later on there are two bills for the nurse practitioner who looked at S. And one bill for therapist’s work who came for the 2nd visit. Because I don’t see the bills inside MyChart, and initially I didn’t go to MyUHC website (the benefit explanation website) I only see one paper bill came after another, and I didn’t know what’s going on.
Eventually I paid off all 3 bills online by following the website address on the letter (the paper bill), because I prefer to get refund check instead of get the collection letter.
I still didn’t fully understand is why those bills don’t show up in the MyChart website. Last but not least, after I paid all the bills, I found out I can pay all those bills from the MyUHC website too. There is some integration between UnitedHealth (insurance side) and its subsidiary Optum (HSA account, payment side). Now I recall I used that functionality a few years ago when I had the United Health insurance from my previous employer Mastercard.
Out of pocket cost
The total out of pocket for Shriner’s hospital is about $450 for us: which seems okay for me at least. The UnitedHealth plan do have some decent discount from the initial charge.
Dealing with my 14 y old: the new retainer got lost in a week. See: I was smart that I bought the “retainer insurance” 🙂 If the opportunity arises, I would buy the “iPhone insurance” too (remember why I bought iPhone 15 : long story short, she accidentally broke her iPhone XR (which was passed on from me), and I decided to buy iPhone 15 so that I can give my iPhone 12 to her.
And before that, she lost her wallet at the J (due to theft).
So we have 2 accidents and one theft (in which she is victim, but still as my wife says, you don’t want to be careless so that the thief would notice you 🙂
Why, why, why is her so sloppy in terms of keep track of her things?
I can think of one reason, which is coming back right to us – we babied her too much, reminded her consistently (sometimes a bit excessive), which made her rely on our reminders to some extent. This is definitely not healthy. Here is one article on the topic – How to get your kid to do stuff without having to constantly remind them
Another reason is probably because there is no real consequences for her on those kinds of things. Imagine if I “broke something like iPhone”, there is no iPhone then, let’s just say that I lost a radio, or a cassette player (a Walkman). It won’t be trivial let me guarantee that. Even if my parents didn’t say anything: I would feel bad. In college now I recall I did have a few accidents: including once someone broke my drawer and stole my money there – remember the loss from theft story I talked above. Even today I still suspected someone in my dorm room or someone has the connection stole my money (they probably knew I received money shortly before that). Once in a bus in Wu’chang, I realized my wallet got stolen by a pocket picker.
I guess that’s one hard part of parenting. But I think I would still trade “being my daughters’ Uber driver” any day (see the paragraph below), over true retirement which means I probably need to find something productive to do if I am still healthy.
昨天基本上就是半退的状态-我告诉我老大我大概为她的事跑了两个半小时-为她的retainer开车到new and cool St. Peter’s orthodontist 🦷 office 两次（2 round trips, drop off mold 1st, then pick up when the new retainer is ready); 放学到学校接她(got “dad, can you pick me up” text when I was taking a walk to Warson park). Yes sure 🙂
PS: I talked about “soldier on” mentality to my 14 year old and she thinks it’s too much. She basically her generation doesn’t care. My sense is she felt that is “out of date” concept. After all, until fairly recently she never ate anything from White Castle (they have very cheap food). I guess many of her friends are privileged like her too. I heard some people spending tons of money on Bar and bat mitzvah: one of my Jewish friend told me some rich people spent wedding like money on the adulthood ceremony. She was invited to one last year and it seems pretty good too. This is quite different from my middle school days. Too bad she still has to work on similar math homework I do in my days 🙂
关于Soldier On, 我的理解很大程度上是“坚持”：我记得高中一年级，有一次运动会，跑四百米，我知道我有可能拿道第三名，最后一百米使出吃奶的力气，紧紧跟住第三名，后来我是第四。我的一个同学后来跟我说：其实他（第三名）也是害怕你一直跟着他。我觉得现在美国的很多问题其实也是因为缺少坚持，努力和毅力。
And if/when I tried to tell her or remind her to be more careful (maybe once to 3 times at the most), she would say: dad, basically you are telling me things I already know. So, here am I, the middle age guy who tends to repeat himself 啰嗦或是爱唠叨的老头。
I think she may be more talented or intelligent than me, but without that grit I am not 100% sure that she will be successful. A related phenomena is I saw very few Americans want/like to do physical labor nowadays: by that I mean things such as construction work, mining etc. For example, we saw all the contruction workers in the Baltimore Bridge accident are immigrants – An international tragedy: A father of 3 and a budding entrepreneur are among 6 victims of the Baltimore bridge collapse. The irony part is those workers were trying to fix the potholes in the highway (on the bridge) that many commuters and 18 wheelers use daily – assume mostly are the wear and tear.
Or maybe this is so called generation gap 代沟？After all, once she said: I don’t think there is any ethical billionaire. I guess her definition of “ethical” has higher standards than most. Then she added: Taylor Swift included too. That’s my girl: at least she is thinking and has her own opinion.
*美国的Double Tree Hotel 也不包早餐。Hotel chains that provide free breakfast (usually buffet style) include: Hampton Inn (by Hilton), Hilton Garden Inn, Hyatt Place/ Hyatt House and Residence Inn (Marriott). This is not a complete list. I know in addition to Double Tree, Marriott’s Courtyard doesn’t have free breakfast either.
This is a continuation of my personal reflection on investing in stocks. I recall most recently I talked about patienceover frequent short term trading here. Patience is import during power (electricity) outage too: which btw, in St. Louis due to the unpredictable weather, it happens once a while (such as this one in year 2006. And in summer 2021. Both the Jan 2007 and the July 2021 outages lasted multiple days. Also keep thing in perspective, I recall in July 2006 an electrician died when working to restore the electricity.
Today (this morning to be exact) I just noticed 2 stocks in my portfolio. And one is much bigger than the other in terms of portfolio size: 20 to 1. The big one barely went up 1%, the small one went up 10%. If you are curious, the large holding is $KO Cocacola, and the smaller one is $VERX Vertex software inc (tax software).
This reminded me of something Charlie Munger said quite a few times.
Charlie Munger: “And the wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time, they don’t. It’s just that simple.” (reddit self.investing)
(08-05-2024) Noticed judge ruled in a similar case, the Google search engine/Apple iPhone case, and Google lost this 1st round. Think they will likely appeal. But Tech Industry Braces for Fallout From Google Antitrust Verdict. This potentially has some impact on Apple.
Also, today I noticed the Google chat app on iPhone is called just “Chat” app. I guess that’s because Apple doesn’t have such an app: similar to slack or something like that.
(04-11-2024) Big tech in this new regulatory environment in general, Andy Jassy (CEO of Amazon) was talking to CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin this morning on Squawk Box. I think Andy has a good point.
“What regulators were saying is that they trust two large Chinese companies to map inside U.S. consumer homes instead of Amazon,” says Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on the regulatory environment. “People don’t know what they can do right now.” pic.twitter.com/tnhU6LvTHp
Andy Jassy (CEO of Amazon) was talking to CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin this morning on Squawk Box: on failed iRobot acquisition
(Update 04-06-2024) Yesterday it was somewhat educational to me in terms of the Apple ecosystem. I need to project screen along with audio/video to the projector or the system in the school gym. Our school district is all Apple in terms of computers etc. The way to do it is via “screen mirror” on my MacBook, but the WiFi I am on has some limitations: basically it blocks YouTube. But I want to play something on YouTube for the passport night. One workaround I came up with: I used my phone (iPhone 15) as hot spot, play the YouTube video once (now it’s the memory and I can play it even without Internet). Then I connect to the school public WiFi for the screen mirror purpose.
But there are some more issues: for example, another person texted me the YouTube links via text message, my iMessage App on MacBook could not receive it. On the other hand, a teacher texted me the movie clips via iMessage (using her iPhone), it worked pretty much out of the box.
Btw, for the “YouTube blocking issue”, I actually tried to use a VPN, but as soon as I connect to VPN, the screen mirror stops working. Also, it seems even on VPN, the YouTube is still blocked?
(Original) Some people may know I am an Apple fan, and to be honest, I think I am. And I am not a big fan of the DOJ’s anti-trust lawsuit against Apple. Full disclosure: I own a few shares of $AAPL too.
Walter’s Argument is interesting because he mentioned both the “dual mandate” of DOJ/FTC regarding the anti-trust laws: protect both competition and the customers. In terms of competition, he said, a company that uses its dominant position to get dominance in tangential areas, that company may have violated the law.
For me personally, I started to using Apple Pay since I got the Apple Watch – after seeing coworker using it at the MC Daily Grind Cafe. I used Apple Pay much less frequently via iPhone (before I had the Apple Watch). I bought my 1st Apple Watch in year 2017.
Consumer addiction
A side note of Apple’s domination in the smart phone market, along with the general popularity and Android and iOS smartphones in the world, and in our daily lives, may have pushed the pendulum too far in terms of addiction to the phone or tablets for many people. I am not just talking about the teens doing TikTok, or adults doing FB or Instagram. I am talking about both legit use such as the Panera Bread app (refer to this one) and also binge watching Netflix (or in the case of my wife, Korean soap opera on her iPad, at the expense of sleep sometimes). Jon Hadit, the NYU professor has written quite extensively on the topic too – First He Came for Cancel Culture. Now He Wants to Cancel Smartphones.
(Update 03-27-2024) Both the app and the website are back, fully functional as of now (this morning). Btw, I cleaned up a few CC in my account (from 6 to 3); also enabled 2 factor authentication for MyPanera account (via SMS, not perfect, but better than nothing). Honestly I still don’t know what happened to Panera’s system. One thing impressed me a bit is their mobile app works out of the box – it’s logged in this morning when I opened the app. I used to work on an app when I was working for the Mastercard, and that feature alone (make sure the user logged in if he/she was logged in before the app update) is a difficult task to do.
(Update 03-26-24) It looks like the website is coming back, but I cannot log in using my old credential either. Forgot password via email or #MyPanera number don’t work either 🙁 Thanks to the Twitter user who reported the website coming back. || A small benefit of this thing is it made me to look up the good old MyPanera number. Another side benefit is for me to rethink the practice of saving credit cards under my Panera account (going forward will probably only do Apple Pay). Also refer to our friend’s new article at SVDaily.
Yesterday morning (3/24), I went to the the new U City Panera Bread as usual, and noticed system is down nationwide: the mobile app and the kiosk didn’t work. But the register still works. Note the new U City is an all digital store and it’s almost full outage – the manager said they have a computer for employee order and I assume he can ring a bit regular customer sales as needed (maybe it’s the 3rd party app such as Uber Eats order instead?). WiFi is down too so I am using iPhone as hotspot. At this time it seems 3rd party apps (e.g., Uber Eats) still work.
I posted it on Twitter and also posted a survey yesterday evening.
PSA: Panera system is down nationwide now: the mobile app and the kiosk don’t work. But the register still works, I think. I am at the new u city all digital store and it’s full outage. || WiFi is down too so I am using iPhone as hotspot 😀 https://t.co/cIEwKLRNFT
This sadly could have more impact to Panera compared to say, companies such as Garmin. Some of my readers may know I am a loyal Panera bread customer, and I regularly went to the Old Olive store (sometimes walk) since year 2005; sometimes I work there using laptop (remote work). So it’s almost 20 years since I regularly go there. I also talked about them quite extensively on my blog.
(In Chinese) 原来Panera网站炸了. Note Panera is popular in Chinese American customers too.
In the News
This incident was not widely reported in the news, due to various reasons: it happened on a Saturday; and Panera is not McDonald’s or Starbucks.
Btw, it’s the 1st time Panera Bread website/app/kiosk underwent an incident like this. A few years ago, I do recall Panera Bread had a security related issue, and was remediated quickly. Below are some articles around the issue.
Panera Bread, here in the St. Louis area they are called St. Louis Bread co., or breadCo as some people call it, is early in its digital transformation effort. The in store kiosks and the online ordering (web and mobile app). Personally I liked the convenience of it, although I do miss the “first name basis” at the counter when I started going to Bread Co almost 20 years ago.
Sipper Club (loyalty program) (and in year 2011, I interviewed there once for a dev position related to that, no offer)
I like that too. I recall it was initially called “Coffee+” or something like that, and it was limited free coffee refill. Later it was expanded to soda and other drinks. Note there were controversy around that too. I mean the chargedlemonade. Initially I didn’t pay close attention to the caffeine content, until the news break. My wife was not happy that I gave our daughters that drink once or twice.
Pandemic (during pandemic in year 2020?, I interviewed there again for a software architect position, no offer)
I recall in the early days of pandemic, probably in May 2020, we cannot go in the store. The first time I ordered and picked up the food there, when I saw the young girl (masked) brought out the food, I was almost in tears.
Menu Revamp
They are in the process of big revamp of the menu items in the coming April. Then this happened. I still think it’s unlikely menu revamp will cause this. Menu revamp is nothing new at Panera and at other restaurants, Panera has done many times during my 20 years observations with them. I recall once they tried pizza: it didn’t work out very well (this was before the most recent pizza effort). Once they removed the famous Frontega Chicken sandwich, and some fans revolted, and they brought it back. I am a fan of Frontega, btw.
Key People
Ronald M. Shaich: he is the founder of Panera, and I believe he engineered Panera’s buying St. Louis Bread Co., rebranding, and digital transformation and so on. I saw him in person once at the SunsetHills Panera. It seems he is friendly with the rank and file Panera IT people (I saw a guy who interviewed me in year 2011, quite a few years after that).
I also liked Niren Chaudhary, although his tenure is not as long as Ron, once he replied me to my comment in LinkedIn. It was before Pandemic, I commented on the closing of the store in ForestPark way at Central West End, near BJC/Wash U medical school campus.
I can think of two scenarios: one is acquisition is done via cash; another one is done by stocks (and the stock itself is overvalued).
The yardstick of overpayment
======
EBITA or EBITDA (or use Charlie Munger’s word, replace it with bullshit)
I know from my own software industry experience, 10x sales (or revenue) is usually a fair price.
Example:
Francisco Partners Completes Acquisition of Sumo Logic: Pursuant to the terms of the definitive agreement announced on February 9, 2023, Francisco Partners has acquired all outstanding shares of Sumo Logic common stock for $12.05 per share in cash, valuing the company at an aggregate equity valuation of approximately $1.7 billion.
Sumo Logic’s peak revenue was $300.7M in 2022. The peak quarterly revenue was $79.8M in 2022(q4). Sumo Logic’s revenue increased from $155.1m in 2019 to $300.7M currently. That’s a 93.91% change in annual revenue.
If my memory is correct, they were losing a lot of money too.
Note each industry has its own metrics (or yardsticks).
In the below example, I assume Square and AfterPay is in the fintech space, and Disney is in the content creation (movie and animations to be specific), and park/entertainment business.
Both scenarios didn’t play out well. Both acquirers’ stocks ($DIS; $SQ) were down since the acquisitions. Btw, I googled those two deals’ closing date.
For Block (Square Inc., I used 02/01/2022 per this source, noted another source too)
I think, maybe we should track the performance between the day before deal was announced until now.
======
Consolidation in the Production Monitoring software space
In addition to Sumo Logic, we have
New Relic (by Francisco Partners and TPG for $6.5 billion) –
Revenue in 2023 (TTM): $0.96 B According to New Relic ‘s latest financial reports the company’s current revenue (TTM) is $0.96 B. In 2022 the company made a revenue of $0.88 B an increase over the years 2021 revenue that were of $0.75 B.The revenue is the total amount of income that a company generates by the sale of goods or services. Unlike with the earnings no expenses are subtracted.
