Categories
401k and Personal Finance

Thinking about opening a Roth IRA

Reading Time: 3 minutes

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.

I am aware of some difference between the Roth IRA and traditional IRA, partially due to the widely published article about Ted Weschler, investment manager of Berkshire Hathaway, grew his personal Roth IRA many many times over a long period of time. Below is quoted from Dr. David Kass’s blog post, link above.

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.”

A quick refresher, roth ira vs traditional ira comparison, by fidelity.

Also, NerdWallet, 401k vs IRA (both traditional and Roth) by Schwab

NerdWallet: Roth IRA Contribution and Income Limits 2023-2024

Robinhood Gold and IRA boost: I just noticed the small print (italics below)

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).

How much does Robinhood Gold cost: let’s just say $50 per year.

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).

Also, new 529 plan rules make it more attractive too – something I need to read and think about it more.

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.

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.

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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.

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Also, How to Convert to a Roth IRA

Categories
401k and Personal Finance advice and tips finance Life Tips

American Healthcare System III – 美国医疗系统之三: the medical bills are confusing

Reading Time: 2 minutes

(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.

(Original 04-07-2024) I talked about American Healthcare System I 美国医疗系统之一 and American Healthcare System II 美国医疗系统之二。Recently due to my older daughter’s ankle injury, I learned a bit more about the medical bills.

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.

The main lesson again, if I can quote my former colleague at Unigraphics, don’t get sick 🙂

Categories
kids Life Life Tips

I am exhausted, but I will soldier on

Reading Time: 3 minutes

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 🙂

Again maybe I could always use more patience: in life, in investing and at work.

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.

Categories
Life Life Tips

Stay at Hotels in China 回国住旅馆

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I am used to stay at hotels when I visited Shanghai, from the Home Inn or the like back in the days, to more fancier or western brand hotels, now that I have a family and kids.

I never thought that I would stay in hotels when I go home and see my parents. But that happened in year 2016.

我们大概是傍晚🌆 到的我父母的家：两卧室的老公寓。我当时根本没有想到要去住旅馆🏨。但是吃了晚饭后，我很快就意识到住在我父母家不现实。因为我看到另外一个房间的床上都放满了东西。

我们就出去找旅馆。先找了一个类似招待所一样的地方，交了押金等，后来很快就意识到房间的味道（发霉的味道？）太大，就损失了一百块的押金，住到了对面的稍好一点的旅馆。过了几天，找到了南苑旅馆(这家是连锁的，还可以），就又搬到那里，一直住到去其它城市我的岳父家。在我岳父家我们也住的是旅馆（招待所）。

最近三次回国（2017，2019，和2023年），我就住这一个（17年开的）。中文名字叫宁波北仑世茂希尔顿逸林酒店。今年夏天回国基本上定下来还是住这一家。这一家(DoubleTree)不包早餐*：她家有自助餐，还可以，大概一百多块钱。附近有肯德基，兰州拉/牛肉面，还有一个宁波还是台州的连锁的豆浆，肉包子等传统中式早餐。还有星巴克等。所以不用天天吃旅馆里的自助餐。旅馆傍边就是富邦世纪广场，地铁长江路站，银泰城也不远。我个人比较喜欢银泰城里的西贝莜面村。拿了也有外婆桥等本帮/宁波本地菜。

*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.

Aging Parents 上了年纪的父母

这个方面的问题我以前没怎么想到。就是父母上了年纪以后可能会更“粘人”。下面是两篇英文的相关文章。

Strategies for Dealing With a “Clingy” Senior

How to Handle Emotionally Needy Parents

现代医学有很多进步，手机微信等现代科技也带来很多方便，同时也带来不少问题。我想对老年人也适用。微信是中国最流行的手机应用之一。我爸爸会用智能手机，但是他把家庭群当成了网上的某些论坛，骂人。还不如我妈妈不会用手机。说到我妈妈不会用手机，还有个故事。疫情前，她在老年大学，拿出来老年手机（就是只能打点话，发短信的手机），有人就说，都这个年代了，你怎么还用老年手机。原来她们班也是有微信群。后来，大概是16年回国那一次，我有个就是帮她在手机上弄好微信。

Categories
Investing

Charlie Munger: when to bet big or get a large serving

Reading Time: 2 minutes

This is a continuation of my personal reflection on investing in stocks. I recall most recently I talked about patience over 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)

Charlie Munger in final CNBC interview: You’ve got to learn how to recognize rare opportunities when they come (he was talking to CNBC Becky Quick on this topic, at about 5 minutes 17 seconds mark)

Charlie said here in a Q&A session with Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting too. In this one they talked about various topics of issues.

This is also his “put eggs in a few baskets and watch them carefully” portfolio management philosophy.

One thing I need to add is $KO does has about 3% annual dividend yield, while $VERX doesn’t have a dividend.

Categories
Software development

More thoughts on Apple AntiTrust lawsuit

Reading Time: 3 minutes

(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.

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.

I talked about the anti-trust for a bit here. And I was a bit surprise to hear Walter Isaacson’s view on this – YT Video Walter Isaacson: The law says you can’t use market dominance to then dominate an adjacent field

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.

Visa Mastercard anti-trust lawsuit

Interestingly, Jay Clayton (former SEC chair under TFG) has a different view: When governments select what a market structure ought to look like, innovation dies: I was a bit surprised to hear the amount of the fine, $30 billion, but on the grand scheme of the things, it’s still something they can bear (the industry, I mean, both them and the banks).

Categories
Software development

Panera bread system down

Reading Time: 5 minutes
Panera App down screenshot

(Update 11-12-2025) Came across this news about the class action lawsuit against Panera. The subject is a bit misleading, but you have evidence you can submit your claim.

(Update 04-05-2024 BleepingComputer) Panera Bread week-long IT outage caused by ransomware attack

(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.

https://twitter.com/JTolo54/status/1772653099720622539

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.

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.

Panera Bread digital channels suffer national outage (restaurantbusinessonline, 03/25/24): quote – But it appeared third-party delivery orders were still coming in to units.

Panera Bread Hit By Massive National Outage (SVDaily, 03/24/24, also the Reddit thread around the outage). I noticed the discussion around Disaster Recovery, and business continuity plan are valid. Back in the days at Mastercard we do those once every year, and it was fairly rigorous. But I don’t see many other organizations do that kind of exercise.

Panera Bread Hit by Nationwide Outage: Cyberattack Rumors Swirl as Digital Ordering Crashes (the Cyber Express).

Note the issue surfaced on Saturday 03/23/24.

Previous Security Issue

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.

No, Panera Bread Doesn’t Take Security Seriously;

Panera Bread’s half-baked security;

Panerabread.com Leaks Millions of Customer Records

Btw, some reddit discussions on KrebsOnSecurity (Brian Krebs: Wikipedia); again Reddit: What do you think about Brian Krebs as security professional?

Digital Transformation

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.

Ownership Change

The company was public, until it was took private in year 2017 (Wikipedia, scroll down a bit, you will notice the 03/24 Computer System issue as well)

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 charged lemonade. 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.

CIOs, from LinkedIn (former; current/interim).

Panera Bread on LinkedIn

Categories
Software development

When companies vastly overpay for acquisitions

Reading Time: 2 minutes

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

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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 HISTORICAL REVENUE (Zippia)

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.

Two Examples

Scenario 1: Disney buying 21st Century Fox, US $71.3 billion

Scenario 2: Square Inc (now Block) bought AfterPay for $29 billion

(Reuters) The $29 billion deal in 11 weeks: how Square bought Afterpay

(paymentgenes) The Real Reason Why Square is Acquiring Afterpay

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.

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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.

Splunk (Cisco): this is after Cisco Completes Acquisition of AppDynamics (2017)

Categories
Software development

Software or technology interoperability

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Blue and green bubble divide

As mentioned here in the CBS News YT video – “Breaking down the Apple antitrust lawsuit”.

iMessage vs text message. I noticed some issues in the group text messages in the past: for example, I can not add someone on Android to a group text. If one of the member in the group text is on Android, we need to resend via text message (default is iMessage), and so on.

Recently I asked my daughter (14 year old) about the group text chat as well, and she said: we prefer iPhone, but we don’t exclude Android people too 🙂 I guess they are the inclusive generation.

This reminded me of the CAD interoperability product: I worked on long time ago, it translates from competitor’s file format to ours. Also around the time, I recall it was very hard for us to compete in the 3D CAD market place (we were No. 2 in terms of market share). And our executive’s marketing strategy: we are more open (than the big bad No. 1 guy). See some similarity with Apple here? 🙂 Btw, I recall it was not easy to develop the translator, both from technical and business perspectives.

‘Buy your mom an iPhone.’ – Tim Cook’s 5-Word Remark Could Curse Apple’s iPhone (newsweek)

Social Stigma

Apple’s ‘green bubble’ Android texts fuel ‘social stigma,’ DOJ claims in landmark suit

More about Anti-Trust

I had to admit I am not a legal expert. But one thing to note this is not isolated to Apple. This Yahoo Finance article Justice Department files antitrust suit against Apple has a graph says Regulators vs Big Tech that summarized all the US regulators actions against the big tech currently.

Why Google Is Being Sued by the Justice Department | WSJ (YT Video)

Why the DOJ and 16 states are suing Apple in a landmark antitrust case (PBS Newshour, YT Video)

United States v. Microsoft Corp. (Wikipedia)

Acclaimed tech columnist Mossberg says the DOJ’s claim of an Apple monopoly is ‘laughable’ (Walt Mossberg)

Walter Isaacson: The law says you can’t use market dominance to then dominate an adjacent field (YT Video): I was in the Mossberg camp until Walter mentioned 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.

Some of my thoughts on the topic in Chinese (linkedIn)

很多年前在一个CAD/PLM 软件公司打工。我的东家在三维CAD行业里是老二，有一段时间公司很紧张，因为汽车行业里面除了美国通用汽车有不少公司要换老大的软件：福特说要换，丰田后来还是选了老大的软件（世界上最大的两家飞机制造公司也用她家的），尼桑（日产）是我东家非常想保住的客户。后来我们那里的人想到一招：就说我们比她们更open, 她们是封闭的（就像今天美国司法部的AT部门的人说的那样）。题外话：大概也是二十年前，苹果用我们的软件设计她们的产品，她家当时的当家花旦是iPod. 前提是我们的三维设计软件在她家的Mac 上运行。#DOJvsApp || Back to software or more broadly the technology business, building better #mouseTraps or #moat if I could use #warrenBuffett words, is one important measurement of success #yardstick

More on Proprietary Software (Wikipedia, note the vendor lock-in as well)

Categories
gadgets

AirPods I owned

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I wrote about it last year.

And I just commented on Twitter about a question.

My Twitter/X reply

I just noticed my 1st gen AirPods Pro is $258.19 on Amazon. Maybe I should tell my 14 year old to sell it and buy a new one 🙂

Other headsets I used and am using

Another headset or headphone that I use is this one from Costco – Bose QuietComfort 45 SE Noise Cancelling Over-the-Ear Headphones, it’s selling for $170 now (much cheaper than what I paid for). For longer time wearing, I prefer the AIrPods 3. Bose does have some advantage though, for example, in cold weather, it could double as an ear muffs.