$UBER Deep Dive w/ Abdullah, Mostly Borrowed Ideas


Abdullah runs the Mostly Borrowed Ideas newsletter and Twitter account. He’s one of the sharpest value investors on Twitter and I look forward to his emails every month.

Abdullah got his start as an equity analyst and realized he wanted to create his own newsletter and achieve financial freedom. The ability to work anywhere and do what he loves. You can hear his passion in the way he talks about business models, valuation and investing.

We spend the early part of the show discussing Abdullah’s background and general investment philosophy. After that, we dive deep into Abdullah’s latest research report: Uber (U).

There’s a lot of information in this podcast, so you might want to listen twice. Abdullah walks through the bullish thesis, Uber’s specific risk points/competitive challenges and valuation. What I loved about Abdullah’s research is that he ended the report not bullish on the company.

Pay close attention to his thoughts on valuation and how he backs into it using an Expectations Investing approach.

Time-Stamp:

  • [3:23] Intro Questions
  • [9:13] Why did you start a newsletter?
  • [16:34] Uber Deep Dive
  • [22:04] Why People Use Uber
  • [28:06] The Troubling Economics of Uber
  • [39:26] Driver & Customer Incentive Structures
  • [42:18] Uber Eats Unit Economics
  • [53:15] The Consumer Disincentive for Uber Eats
  • [63:12] Performance-Based RSU’s
  • [69:34] Closing Questions

Where To Find Mostly Borrowed Ideas

If you want to learn more about Abdullah and his newsletter, check out the following links:

This episode is brought to you by TIKR. Join the free beta today at TIKR.com/hive. They’re constantly releasing new updates that make the platform better including a new Business Owner Mode that hides share count, market cap and enterprise value. I couldn’t be more excited to partner with TIKR.

***Disclaimer: Nothing you hear on this podcast is in any way, shape or form to be construed as investment advice. The guest on this podcast may hold positions in any/all names mentioned during the podcast. This is not investment advice and investors should always conduct personal due diligence before investing in any security. Past performance of any funds mentioned are not indicative of future returns.***

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Brandon Beylo

Value Investor

Brandon has been a professional investor focusing on value for over 13 years, spending his time in small to micro-cap companies, spin-offs, SPACs, and deep value liquidation situations. Over time, he’s developed a deeper understanding for what deep-value investing actually means, and refined his philosophy to include any business trading at a wild discount to what he thinks its worth in 3-5 years.

Brandon has a tenacious passion for investing, broad-based learning, and business. He previously worked for several leading investment firms before joining the team at Macro Ops. He lives by the famous Munger mantra of trying to get a little smarter each day.

AK

Investing & Personal Finance

AK is the founder of Macro Ops and the host of Fallible.

He started out in corporate economics for a Fortune 50 company before moving to a long/short equity investment firm.

With Macro Ops focused primarily on institutional clients, AK moved to servicing new investors just starting their journey. He takes the professional research and education produced at Macro Ops and breaks it down for beginners. The goal is to help clients find the best solution for their investing needs through effective education.

Tyler Kling

Volatility & Options Trader

Former trade desk manager at $100+ million family office where he oversaw multiple traders and helped develop cutting edge quantitative strategies in the derivatives market.

He worked as a consultant to the family office’s in-house fund of funds in the areas of portfolio manager evaluation and capital allocation.

Certified in Quantitative Finance from the Fitch Learning Center in London, England where he studied under famous quants such as Paul Wilmott.

Alex Barrow

Macro Trader

Founder and head macro trader at Macro Ops. Alex joined the US Marine Corps on his 18th birthday just one month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He subsequently spent a decade in the military. Serving in various capacities from scout sniper to interrogator and counterintelligence specialist. Following his military service, he worked as a contract intelligence professional for a number of US agencies (from the DIA to FBI) with a focus on counterintelligence and terrorist financing. He also spent time consulting for a tech company that specialized in building analytic software for finance and intelligence analysis.

After leaving the field of intelligence he went to work at a global macro hedge fund. He’s been professionally involved in markets since 2005, has consulted with a number of the leading names in the hedge fund space, and now manages his own family office while running Macro Ops. He’s published over 300 white papers on complex financial and macroeconomic topics, writes regularly about investment/market trends, and frequently speaks at conferences on trading and investing.

Macro Ops is a market research firm geared toward professional and experienced retail traders and investors. Macro Ops’ research has been featured in Forbes, Marketwatch, Business Insider, and Real Vision as well as a number of other leading publications.

You can find out more about Alex on his LinkedIn account here and also find him on Twitter where he frequently shares his market research.