Klarna to raise fresh cash at slashed $6.5B valuation

I very much enjoyed Matt Levine's take on how exuberant Masayoshi Son is.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/newsletters/2019-10-23/mon...

Started (accidently) with a lot of money, consistently investing at the top, or in failed hype-projects, in things they didn't understand and end up mostly being negative signalling

But when you're buying stakes that size in companies that aren't yet mature, you're almost necessarily going to be chronically overpaying. There just aren't many 4 year old companies that actually have real upside when you're buying in at a $100b or $200b valuation.

When you're making investments that big, you've got to go back to value investing like Warren Buffett or the Norwegian Sovereign Fund. That's the only place to sustainably put billions to work. And you'll have to accept the 8% annual returns that come with it.

The reason why Softbank buys at the top is because they do not have good internal filters to judge technology. "Masa invests in cr*p," one of them said.

They want the prestige of investing in the best tech companies, and to them, that often translates as "the most overvalued startups with the most media attention."

Their LPs know even less about tech than they do, so who's going to stop them?

For these reasons, Softbank is incapable of making contrarian bets on undervalued companies, and always puts money behind the startups that have already raised too much, too soon.

Needless to say I’m pretty happy they didn’t take my money in the end.

The sad part is, unlike silicon valley the employee salaries were still quite low, they do not discuss plans with the employees, they only hire juniors and management does not share any numbers / overall plans with the employees. Even after last round of layoffs we were told that all is good. Now, we hear that company is seeking fresh funding after raising more than half a billion last year!

They operated their own debt collection firm until March 2021 called Segoria. They liked to keep quiet about that.

From the horse's mouth: https://youtu.be/ZasUQuoCw2Q?t=1887

They of course still use debt collection but outsource it now.

Most of these make BTC look like a safe haven

Powell was recently quoted as saying "We understand better how little we understand about inflation.”

The authority and respect the last generation commands needs a real challenge. Substantive change and not just chanting “disrupt” while playing the same game.

Their figurative identities should not be sacrosanct.