The Razor’s Edge

The Razor’s Edge

By Shortman StudiosBusinessInvesting
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The Razor’s Edge episodes

  • The Razor's Edge #19: Superhuman Founder/CEO Rahul Vohra On Email's Enduring Role In Modern Workplace Collaboration

    We've gone to some length covering Slack, Zoom, and other software companies, as the 2020 work from home environment has accelerated and amplified business's rush to the cloud. But what about email, that old standby? Where does it fit in?

    We got the chance to speak with Rahul Vohra, someone whose career has been built on optimizing email. He founded Rapportive, a Gmail plug-in, before selling that to LinkedIn for what was reported to be $15M. He is now the founder and CEO of Superhuman, a service that also builds on gmail and is dedicated to providing the fastest email experience ever. He filled us in on what Superhuman is seeing in the 2020 market, whether a $360/year product is consigned to a niche, what the entrant of a new competitor - Hey, from Basecamp - portends, and how gamification goes right or wrong. He also shared his thoughts on the recent Apple app store arguments that Hey prompted, and what his favorite video games were growing up.  

    Topics Covered:
    • 2:30 minute mark - The role of email in the modern collaboration landscape: Is Email dead?
  • 7:30 – Initial impact of asynchronicity, work from home, COVID
  • 10:30 – Superhuman user experience
  • 16:30 – The onboarding process, that Verge review, and unit economics
  • 23:30 – The niche question
  • 29:30 – Competition, Hey’s entrance into the market
  • 42:30 – The Communications bundling/unbundling
  • 46:30 – Demographic questions
  • 52:30 – Among the giants
  • 54:30 – App Store controversy
  • 57:30 – Gamification
  • 1:02:30 – Public SaaS valuations and what is possible for start-ups

    • Sources worth checking out in context of this conversation:

    • Walt Mossberg: Yes, You've Still Got Mail
  • The Smart but Scattered Guide to Success: How to Use Your Brain’s Executive Skills to Keep Up, Stay Calm, and Get Organized at Work and at Home (Book)
  • Verge: Superhuman's email app is overhyped and overpriced
  • Churn FM: How Superhuman avoids churn by systematically increasing product-market fit (Podcast)
  • First Round: How Superhuman Built An Engine To Find Product/Market Fit
  • TheInformation: The Tech Entrepreneur Who Loves To Troll Silicon Valley
    • 1 hr 11 min
  • The Investing Edge Announcement
    A quick update about the programming on this channel - this channel will be only featuring the Razor's Edge going forward. To get new Value Investor's Edge Live podcasts, subscribe to the Marketplace Roundtable Podcast channel, available here:
    iTunes/Apple Podcasts
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    Seeking Alpha
    1 min
  • The Razor's Edge #18: The Bankruptcy Market With Sam Zughayer
    One of the stranger dislocations in 2020 has been the behavior of stocks that are bound to or have already filed bankruptcy, with Hertz's offering of new equity this week as the biggest example of the phenomenon. We speak with Sam Zughayer, managing director of Berenson & Company, about what might explain this, what he's seeing, and where this may end up.
    Topics Covered
    4:00 – Where Sam gets involved in the process normally
    8:00 – What makes this time different
    14:00 – What the government learned in 2009 and how that affects things
    18:30 – Rule of contract law in the current climate
    21:00 – The implication of the Hertz ruling
    27:00 – The capital structure component and the structural effects for business
    32:00 – The Hertz precedent and effect on other bankruptcies
    35:00 – The longer-term legacies of this period
    38:30 – The problem with shale oil
    45:00 – Is this unhealthy? The Zombie element of sustaining firms.
    47:00 – And the formerly healthy companies that fall, what of them?
    50:00 – Looking back at stock buybacks
    53:00 – Will behavior change?
    55 min
  • The Razor's Edge #17: The Guidance Question For SaaS - Zoom vs. Slack and PagerDuty
    We visit the software as a service sector for the third time in a row, as the earnings week we were waiting for came to pass. Zoom reported the so-called 'greatest quarter ever in software', and skewed expectations for peers like PagerDuty and Slack. So, does the market have the reaction right, and where do we go from here? Akram's Razor and Daniel Shvartsman break it down.
    Topics Covered
    2:00 minute mark – Digging into Zoom's guidance
    6:00 – The timing of PagerDuty and Slack's earnings (two days after Zoom's).
    8:00 – What about the expansion in large clients for Zoom and potential new verticals
    13:30 – How did Zoom's report affect PagerDuty/Slack's reports
    18:00 – Why isn’t guidance going higher for some of these SaaS names?
    28:00 – The longer onboarding cycle for Slack/PagerDuty
    33:00 – The convergence of the attention economy
    36:00 – The Dropbox angle
    42:00 – Ramping up of adoption curves
    48:00 – Macro and sector context to keep in mind
    56 min
  • The Razor's Edge #16: Talking SaaS With Investor and Tech Veteran Justen Stepka
    We continue to follow the software as a service sector and the impact of the work from home world, but this time with an outside perspective. Justen Stepka, the founder of Authentisoft and then a longtime product management executive at Atlassian and Docker, joined us to talk about his positions in Slack and Atlassian and what makes the companies stand out. Currently the co-CEO/co-founder of Enterprise Fund, a private equity firm, he also shares his views on the work from home environment we're in and its potential knock-on effects, as well as what he's seeing in private markets.
    Topics Covered
    2:30 minute mark - The importance of R&D in retention
    6:00 - Product stickiness vs. ease of use
    11:30 - Evaluating R&D as a competitive edge
    15:00 - The importance of dogfooding
    18:00 - Okta's position
    23:30 - How can a software company really be on sale in this market?
    28:45 - ServiceNow's position
    30:00 - What's next in the industry, where is Justen watching, and what does the private market look like?
    36:30 - The change in perspective from being an insider to an outside investor
    41:00 - Work from Home and its broader effects
    52:00 - Commercial real estate
    59 min
  • Value Investor's Edge Live #20: Torm PLC's Management Team On The Product Tanker Market
    With attention still focused on the tanker segment, J Mintzmyer speaks to underfollowed Torm PLC about what they're seeing in the wake of a solid Q1 earnings report and Q2 outlook.
    Topics Covered
    1:15 minute mark - Overview of current product tanker markets:
    3:15 - Differences between LR & MR markets?
    7:00 - How many of your LR2s are trading dirty vs. clean?
    9:15 - How long is the destocking period likely to last, impact to rates?
    14:00 - Capital allocation priorities at this time?
    17:00 - Nearly 25 ships aged 15+, how are these performing? Plans to sell?
    21:15 - Any levers available to close NAV discount?
    24:00 - Free float is very thin, is there an ability to boost this without dilution?
    30:15 - Crew replacements ongoing or still stuck on water?
    35:00 - Current newbuild environment: Shipyards aggressively discounting yet?
    37:45 - What differentiates Torm from peers and competitors?
    42 min
  • The Razor's Edge #15: SaaS Earnings And Work From Home Vs. Work From Everywhere Plays
    The software as a service sector has passed its first recession test in flying colors, as the nature of the coronavirus market has led to a increased business for these companies. With two of the most popular names - Slack and Zoom - due to report in a couple weeks, Akram's Razor and Daniel Shvartsman check in on the state of the sector and whether work from home is a benefit or a liability.
    Topics Covered:
    3:00 minute mark – What explains a big move like Twilio's
    7:00 - The broader valuation context
    15:00 - The prevailing dynamic of competition
    21:00 - Valuation pair mismatches – DDOG/NEWR, PD/EVBG, WORK/ZM
    36:30 – Leaving the 10x EV/sales barrier in the past
    46:00 – Where does Slack go when the light bulb turns on?
    55:30 – the NFLX parallel for Zoom and the search for a pivot
    1:03:00 – Slack earnings preview
    1 hr 13 min
  • Value Investor's Edge Live #19: Post-Earnings Discussion With Ardmore Shipping CEO Anthony Gurnee And CFO Paul Tivnan
    J Mintzmyer speaks with Ardmore Shipping management about Q1 and the fast-moving product tanker section.
    Topics Covered
    1:00 minute mark - What’s the underlying trade in the product tanker markets?
    2:30 - Thoughts on broker rates versus actual ‘market levels?’
    5:30 - Difference in voyages in progress versus completed QTD?
    6:30 - Thoughts on chemical side of the business, rates coming in lower?
    8:45 - Shift in dividend policy, shift to deleveraging?
    12:00 - Is Ardmore aligned? Can we trust you not to blow money on ships?
    16:00 - At what point do you have to repurchase shares?
    18:30 - Repurchases versus secondhand vessel acquisitions.
    22:00 - Review of normalized ROA and ROE?
    23:15 - Review of normal average MR product market?
    27:00 - How do you communicate a ‘normalized value’?
    30:15 - Visibility and thoughts on product floating storage volumes?
    32:00 - Indications from customers/markets regarding terminal capacity?
    34:30 - Parting thoughts for investors in Ardmore or product tankers?
    38 min
  • The Investing Edge: Akram's Razor Interviews J Mintzmyer On The Tanker Trade
    In the most ambitious crossover event in Seeking Alpha podcast history, we turn the tables around. J Mintzmyer joins Akram's Razor and Daniel Shvartsman to talk the tanker trade, which is a hotly discussed topic in the markets these days. While the tanker rates and industry set up would seem to align with a generational shift, share prices have yet to pick up. Recorded at the beginning of a busy week for shipping sector earnings, it should provide some interesting background for people looking at this trade and the sector more generally.
    Topics Covered
    2:00 minute mark - The endurance of the shipping cycle
    12:00 - Mean reversion for Value?
    18:00 - The oil crash and commodity ETFs
    22:00 - The abnormalities in this cycle
    27:00 - How supply and demand have lined up
    31:00 - Investor reactions
    35:30 - The Macro context
    46:00 - Dry bulk woes
    49:30 - Talking the downside in the tanker trade
    54:00 - The management and capital allocation question
    58:00 - Getting down to some picks
    1 hr 6 min
  • Value Investor's Edge Live #18: On The Water In The Tanker Markets With Frontline's CEO
    J Mintzmyer spoke with Frontline's CEO, Robert Hvide Macleod, last week about how the tanker market is shaping up amidst a lot of commodity price moves and investor interest.
    Topics Covered
    1:00 minute mark - What has changed in the market YTD compared to initial setups?
    3:00 - Have we seen something like this in the market before?
    4:30 - Preferable data source or metric for global storage balance?
    6:30 - Discussion of ‘oil on water’ metric
    10:30 - What is LR2 clean/dirty split? What is driving LR2 spike?
    11:45 - What time charter offers are available in the markets?
    15:00 - Fixtures available anywhere for FRO? Indexes accurate?
    18:45 - Comments on Saudi flotilla? What happens if destinations change?
    21:00 - How does cash payment flow work for spot vs. TC?
    23:30 - Any concerns with CP risk? Precedent for this?
    25:15 - Chance of shifting terms of spot market payment?
    26:45 - Risk factor of ‘famine’ on the other side of the curve?
    31:00 - IMO 2020: Spreads are down, will they come back?
    36:30 - Capital allocation priorities now? Any newbuildings? Consolidation?
    41:15 - Formally swearing off newbuilds? Yes!
    42:30 - What is holding back the tanker stocks in these markets?
    47 min

About The Razor’s Edge

From the publisher's feed

The Razor’s Edge is an investing podcast that combines a prop trader’s viewpoint and deep-dive fundamental research to provide a unique take on the markets. The show is co-hosted by Akram’s Razor, a trader, tech enthusiast, meat lover, Marvel fanboy, battle tested activist short-seller and humble market servant, and by Daniel Shvartsman, VP of Content at Investing.com and someone who has seen thousands of investing pitches and ideas and how they play out over the past decade.