Mostly Borrowed Ideas Deep Dives, MBI Deep Dives

MBI Deep Dives

Mostly Borrowed Ideas Deep Dives

MBI is the abbreviation for “Mostly Borrowed Ideas”. Why “Mostly Borrowed Ideas?” As a generalist, I do not have a background in any particular sector. I enjoy navigating across industries, businesses, and countries to learn, understand, and connect the dots. In any case, most ideas and innovations are incremental in nature. Very few of us are smart enough to come up with truly original or groundbreaking ideas. I am Abdullah Al-Rezwan. I was born and brought up in Bangladesh. I went to University of Dhaka for my undergrad and majored in Finance. After working three and half years in Equity Research (Sell-side) covering Financial Sector in Bangladesh, I left Bangladesh to pursue my MBA in the US. I graduated within top 10% of the class from Cornell University's two-year MBA program and worked on the buy-side following my graduation. During my time at Cornell, I won two stock pitch competitions and also became finalists in four other competitions. I thoroughly enjoyed my stint as a generalist in the US large cap team at Madison Investments and covered a wide range of companies from UnitedHealth to Amazon and Boeing before US immigration reality paused my career in investment management. As my work authorization expired, I moved to Canada in January, 2021. Then in early 2022, I was able to return to the US.

Equity Bottom-Up

<ul><li>Let’s start with not-so-good news. For the 9th consecutive quarters, Google Network revenue kept declining. Everything else is good news.</li><li>Despite all the disruption narrative, Search keeps humming along.</li><li>YouTube is doing okay. But the highlight from last quarter was Google Cloud.</li></ul>

Let’s start with not-so-good news. For the 9th consecutive quarters, Google Network revenue kept declining. Everything else is good news.Despite all the disruption narrative, Search keeps humming along.YouTube is doing okay. But the highlight from last quarter was Google Cloud.

<ul><li>Yesterday’s Google’s earnings may have been bit of “meh” at first glance, but there were nuggets in the call that may have important implications for the broader market.</li><li>Network segment continues to struggle, but the rest of the businesses continue to grow at healthy double digit rate.</li><li>Search revenue growth surpassed YouTube ads revenue growth last quarter. For the first time, Cloud posted &gt;$10 Bn quarter while maintaining high 20s growth YoY.</li></ul>

Yesterday’s Google’s earnings may have been bit of “meh” at first glance, but there were nuggets in the call that may have important implications for the broader market.Network segment continues to struggle, but the rest of the businesses continue to grow at healthy double digit rate.Search revenue growth surpassed YouTube ads revenue growth last quarter. For the first time, Cloud posted &gt;$10 Bn quarter while maintaining high 20s growth YoY.

<ul><li>Despite following Big Tech closely for the last 5 years, this sentence from today's call still somewhat surprised me!</li><li>The scale and the height of success of Google truly boggles my mind.</li><li>Over the last year or so, Google has had its fair share of skeptics, including yours truly. </li></ul>

Despite following Big Tech closely for the last 5 years, this sentence from today's call still somewhat surprised me!The scale and the height of success of Google truly boggles my mind.Over the last year or so, Google has had its fair share of skeptics, including yours truly. 

<ul>
<li>While I have sold my shares in Alphabet last month, I remain a very curious observer.</li>
<li>Here’s my highlights from today’s earnings.  While almost every single revenue segment grew by double digits, Google Network was down ~2% YoY and ~10% from 4Q’21.</li>
<li>The Network business may not be terribly important given it’s a relatively lower margin segment compared to Search, but it may be indicative of the general direction of where the open web is heading.</li>
</ul>


While I have sold my shares in Alphabet last month, I remain a very curious observer.
Here’s my highlights from today’s earnings.  While almost every single revenue segment grew by double digits, Google Network was down ~2% YoY and ~10% from 4Q’21.
The Network business may not be terribly important given it’s a relatively lower margin segment compared to Search, but it may be indicative of the general direction of where the open web is heading.


Meta Platforms (Facebook) / Equity Bottom-Up

<ul><li>During the weekend, I asked my twitter followers: What do you think Facebook's DAU to MAU ratio was in 2009?</li><li>The number that got the highest votes was ~80% even though I mentioned the most recent number was ~68%.</li><li>I asked this question a couple of friends in real life too and they too picked the ~80% number.</li></ul>

During the weekend, I asked my twitter followers: What do you think Facebook's DAU to MAU ratio was in 2009?The number that got the highest votes was ~80% even though I mentioned the most recent number was ~68%.I asked this question a couple of friends in real life too and they too picked the ~80% number.

United States

Alphabet, Inc. operates as a holding company. The Company, through its subsidiaries, provides web-based search, advertisements, maps, software applications, mobile operating systems, consumer content, enterprise solutions, commerce, and hardware products.

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Alphabet (GOOG US)

Alphabet 3Q'24 Update

Let’s start with not-so-good news. For the 9th consecutive quarters, Google Network revenue kept declining. Everything else is good news.

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Alphabet 2Q'24 Update

Yesterday’s Google’s earnings may have been bit of “meh” at first glance, but there were nuggets in the call that may have important implications...

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Alphabet 1Q'24 Update

Despite following Big Tech closely for the last 5 years, this sentence from today's call still somewhat surprised me! The scale and the height of...

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Alphabet 4Q'23 Update

Here’s my highlights from today’s earnings. While almost every single revenue segment grew by double digits, Google Network was down ~2% YoY and...

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Meta's Moat

During the weekend, I asked my twitter followers: What do you think Facebook's DAU to MAU ratio was in 2009? The number that got the highest votes...

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