Table of Contents
These could each be longer posts. But they haven’t gotten written, so I figured I’d combine them into one.
Headhunting / entrepreneurship
Figuring out the layout for this newsletter
Datacloud / Metro Connect Conference
Titan Institutional Investor Conference
Headhunting / entrepreneurship
From roughly February to June, I pushed pretty hard (nights and weekends at least) on trying to start a headhunting business for fundamental equity analysts. I conducted one search and generated no revenue. I probably talked to a few dozen candidates and maybe 15–20 potential customers.
Rob Snyder’s PULL framework has been the most helpful way for me to conceptualize it, and I felt no real pull from customers. Most of my network is SM LO, and the hiring needs there are generally not urgent. Some of them were already working with a headhunter. I know I could find good candidates (the potential client moved forward with candidates I sent), but the hires just weren’t made. The pods have much more urgent hiring needs, but the channels and relationships are already very well established.
I’m still open to doing searches if anyone reading this needs help. I’m kind of back at the drawing board and open to trying things where it makes sense right now: outsourced primary diligence, headhunting, AI stuff, regular research Substack, etc.
But probably the three ideas that seem most compelling right now are, in no particular order: 1) just keep building career capital by being more disciplined about the Substack, podcast, etc., 2) some sort of invite-only buyside community with members from various types of institutions, asset classes, and experience levels, and 3) rapidly validate ideas unrelated to finance via Ideabrowser.com.
I wish I could do cap intro, and I think I’d be good at it, but there’s a big licensing component. I wonder how things would be different if I were trying any of this full-time without any income. I do believe that if I spent enough time and energy, the headhunting sales would come, but it feels terribly inefficient. I want to find something with real pull.
Figuring out the layout for this newsletter
The leading idea right now is some kind of financial media. What do I like to do? What am I good at? I think I’m good at interviewing people. I think I’m good at finding interesting people to interview. I think I’m a good analyst, but I’m not sure that is a differentiated enough product. There are lots of good analyst Substacks out there: MBI, Speedwell, Scuttleblurb, etc. Tough business.
But nonetheless, it feels like the most natural outflow of how I want to spend my time (looking at stocks, learning about whatever, talking to interesting people). I want to figure out how to incorporate AI too. Right now, I have a Claude Skill in development that aggregates everything I’ve looked at over the week and puts it into a weekly research dump. And then maybe a biweekly interview and ad hoc longer research pieces.
That’s probably 5 hours of interview and prep, 4 hours for a longer research piece, and then the Claude Skill dump is miscellaneous but requires at least a few hours for it to be substantive. Maybe 15 hours a week to do this well. It doesn’t exactly fall out of the sky, but I could do better.
I drafted this at ATX Writing Club, actually. Things like that can help provide structure and accountability to some degree.
Datacloud / Metro Connect Conference
This was an excellent conference. Anyone interested in AI (Datacloud) and/or all things telecom, fiber, etc. (Metro Connect) should consider going. I heard there were 3,000+ in attendance.
A couple of things stand out. 1) Hyperscalers are hard to reach, head and shoulders above others in how they think about this stuff, and seem to keep it relatively close to the chest. But they were there. They talked. Panels were great, networking was great. 2) Permitted, powered land is going to be a bottleneck for a long time. A few years. Behind-the-meter power can help fill the gap in the interim, but that seems like a suboptimal solution and there’s just not enough supply.
I covered this with a press pass for Hedge Fund Alpha. What other conferences should I be aware of? What would you, personally, like to see covered?
Cogent Communications (CCOI)
I wish I could get more checks on this. I don’t have Tegus, but I wonder if there is anything good on there. The best free stuff I’m aware of is probably Aaron Chan’s. Nick Del Deo at Moffett is also good, but I don’t have access and don’t know where he’s at on it.
Dave said on the call that he expected to get the refi done in 3Q. That something was in the works. Maybe the language softened moderately at subsequent conference appearances. I bought October calls. I almost never do something like that, but I figure the stock should go up a lot if the refi gets done.
If it does get done, I’d think seriously about buying more common because that gives them runway that should be adequate for the financials and FCF to get cleared up and the wave backlog (I know - is this backlog in the room with us, etc., etc.) to materialize.
Seems like plenty of assets to sell (data centers, IPv4, dark fiber, in that order) if they really, really need to. But Dave really, really doesn’t want to.
Titan Institutional Investor Conference
I attended the Titan Institutional Investor Conference. This is a good conference. I think they do one for family offices as well. The allocator-to-manager ratio was really good. Made for great networking.
There were some interesting panels. One was about institutional AI adoption. It’s interesting to see where everyone is at with it, from smaller, nimble places to huge institutions. The main thing that stood out was the increasing sense of accountability around AI use. You cannot say, “That’s what Gemini said.” You have to own it. People are becoming more aware of this, and it’s driving an increasing portion of time spent reviewing AI output. This is my experience as well. I try to do my best to make it an easy job, e.g., telling Claude to hyperlink when possible, provide source file paths if not, etc.
Dave Morehead, CIO at Baylor University, was there. He’s a great follow on LinkedIn. What stood out to me was how nimble the Baylor team is. They can do things like lean into energy for a year and then rotate into software during the AI scare. Both were on the public side of the book. That’s the liquidity edge.
Auto parts
I’ve been working on AZO. It’s unusual for me to be this deep into something and still not have a really firm idea of what’s caused a drawdown of this magnitude (30%+). I think it’s a couple of things combined.
DIY is on the lower end of the K-shaped economy (tough place to be right now). They’re lapping tariff-driven price increases, so who knows how they comp next year. The DIFM expansion is in full swing and still trying to prove out the ROIC, while dragging on the P&L and FCF a bit.
Outreach has been unusually slow. I’m trying to talk to anyone who owns a car at this point. Requested ~200 AZO formers, ~10-20 connects, 0 calls. Melich at Evercore and Shane at GS both do great work, though. I’m shifting to try more industry experts, trade associations, podcast people, etc. If you’re looking at these stocks, reach out.
Austin
I moved to Austin about a year ago. I love it here. There are bad things. Like the DA. But it’s great.
I lived in Lago Vista/Point Venture for most of the time. There’s nothing out there. Recently moved to South Austin, first into an Airbnb and now subleasing an apartment near South Congress through mid-November. I’ve been spending a lot of time exploring neighborhoods, trying to figure out where I want to settle longer term. I think I may just stay where I am. It’s a good spot, and at some point you have to stop trying to optimize everything. The question is whether moderately better walkability on South Lamar versus South 1st is worth the risk of negative surprises at a new apartment when my current spot has been solid.
If you’re from Austin and down to grab coffee/food/beer, reach out.
Disclosure: none of this is investment advice. I/we may own positions in securities mentioned.