It's easy to take for granted how unconventional Jeff Bezos is, but his approach to Amazon's business is worth a closer look. We do a close read of the 2017 shareholder letter he published this April to see if we can better understand the company as a business and as an investment. This also is a prequel for our miniseries on Amazon to come this November. As might be expected, there's a lot to discuss.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Behind The Idea #37: Amazon In And Through Bezos's Looking Glass

On Behind The Idea, Seeking Alpha editors Mike Taylor and Daniel Shvartsman take a closer look at an investment idea published on Seeking Alpha to see what makes for compelling investing analysis. We look at what’s happening with the underlying company, what the author’s case is, how well s/he made that case, and what we can learn from this investment story. We also bring on the authors, top investors, and industry analysts or experts to explore the case further. We hope the breakdowns and discussions are is both timely and evergreen, educational and entertaining for investors.

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We couldn't wait to get to our year-end review on Behind the Idea, so we're sharing it before your Thanksgiving week travel. It's our 100th episode, and the last episode of our Gone till November special series, a more introspective quartet of episodes. We also discuss on the podcast one other reason why we've released this early.Topics Covered3:00 minute mark - The Alphies - categories4:15 - Favorite guest12:15 - Favorite story27:00 - Most interesting idea35:16 - Most surprising stock performance41:15 - Least surprising stock performance46:30 - Best performers49:15 - Listener awardsLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Behind The Idea #100: The Alphies 2.0

Over the last two weeks, Mike and Daniel have pitched respective long ideas. This week, we looked backward at mistakes we've made in our investing careers. The theory goes that your investing mistakes also amount to your investing tuition, and that true wisdom is learning from others' mistakes, rather than your own. I can only hope there's something for you as listeners to learn from our mistakes, as broken down on today's podcast.The investments in question date to 2016 and 2017. Mike went long on Gilead Sciences (GILD) based on their scientific prowess and low multiple, and even as his thesis sailed on him with Gilead's acquisition of Kite Biopharma, he couldn't find the exit door. Daniel went long Uniti Group (UNIT), even having concerns about its failure to cover its dividend and what the huge yield portended, let alone the binary risk that was introduced into the stock. We hope there are lessons to be learned from our mistakes.Topics Covered4:00 - Mike's bad choice - Gilead Sciences (GILD)6:00 - What was compelling about GILD?10:45 - At the time of purchase, did you have any concerns?14:30 - How did the investment play out?18:30 - When did you realize it wasn't working?25:00 - What are the lessons learned?28:00 - Daniel's bad choice - Uniti Group (UNIT)29:30 - What was your thesis?38:00 - Specific downside concerns41:00 - When did you realize it wasn't going well?55:30 - What lessons did you learn?Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Behind The Idea #99: Why I'm A Bad Investor

We continue our special November series. Mike shares his long thesis for Varian Medical Systems, an industry leader in oncology treatment devices that has a lot of attractive business aspects, though it's valuation is also challenging. Daniel tries to probe the thesis for any gaps, but the moat here seems quite strong.Topics Covered5:00 minute mark - Introduction to Varian Medical Systems and the business case12:40 - How much does it matter that there are two revenue lines in the income statement? Oncology vs. Proton and Product vs. Service19:30 - Any reason to think they are transforming more to a service business? 24:30 - Market and customer relationship strategy... moat around business.31:00 - Is a throughput based model something to be concerned about?36:00 - Valuation53:30 - The under the radar aspect of VAR.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Behind The Idea #98: Varian's Moat May Be Worth The Price

We kick off a special November series where we stop breaking down other people's ideas and try to dissect our own. Daniel shares his long idea on Stitch Fix, a fast-growing e-commerce clothing company that also will have to face a lot of competitors and skeptics as it tries to scale to profitability. Mike plays devil's advocate to interrogate the thesis.Topics Covered3:30 minute mark - SFIX thesis6:00 - What do you like about SFIX?11:00 - Actual experience with Stitch Fix20:00 - Business model25:00 - Growth prospects of retail clothing market SFIX is operation in31:00 - Where does SFIX fit in the market of fragmenting consumer preferences?34:30 - How does SFIX handle inventory management?37:00 - Is SFIX's customized really a big advantage over other retailers?46:00 - How much choice do consumers really have?52:00 - Valuation discussionLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Behind The Idea #97: Stitch Fix As A Growth Fit

There are three sorts of stories we've gravitated towards in the past 95 episodes of Behind the Idea:Value traps and/or value plays, the sorts of junk we might invest in. Examples: Cars.com (CARS), AT&T; (T), Dell (DELL), Kelloggs (K) from the short side.Growth stories that break our value-oriented brains. Examples: Amazon (AMZN), Shopify (SHOP), Crowdstrike (CRWD), Lyft (LYFT), PagerDuty (PD) from the short side.Battleground stories or news stories. Examples: Boeing (BA), PG&E; (PCG), Chipotle (CMG), Trupanion (TRUP).This week we cover Teladoc (TDOC), which falls squarely in categories 2 and 3. The company is a fast grower on the top line, but it's yet to crack break even profitability metrics. We've published many short ideas on the company on Seeking Alpha, but we recently published a PRO+ top idea by Value Alpha that takes the long side. As with many of these stories, there are both exciting things going on and questions raised that deserve a closer look.We break down the long case, and then we raise our questions. Beyond assessing the Teladoc story itself, we also get into what we look for in growth stories like this, and what it means to invest in an execution based story. Topics Covered3:00 - Assessing the long case8:15 - Market leadership and the total addressable market story13:45 - Teladoc's revenue model and Value Alpha's valuation model.19:00 - Pricing vs. valuation rears its head22:00 - Teladoc's industry position and is it a real moat?27:45 - Valuation arbitrage and the messiness in the story31:00 - What about the short case?36:30 - The significance of the 'execution-based' story40:00 - The reliance on acquisitions and the trends in visit fees.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Behind The Idea #37: Amazon In And Through Bezos's Looking Glass

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