Ben Buchanan

Trying to get rich and live forever. Tweets mostly about big-tech, semiconductors and exponential progress. Pathological optimist. Don’t Die.

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

@joecarlsonshow Intuit and Adobe.

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

Looking forward to reading this. I have 7 turbo tax subscriptions and use quickbooks hours per day 7 days a week and have 9 seats across two businesses. Absurdly undervalued, zero chance I ever get off the subscriptions. As I like to say, “they’re the worst product, except for all the others” - to borrow a turn of phrase from Mr Churchill.

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

@AJButton2 It’s the biggest allocation in my software basket. Absurdly cheap. 20%+ IRR incoming

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

@Couch_Investor This was great, ty!

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

@ariaradnia At 8% I'm putting half of my IRA into MA...

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

Big Tech + Big Software is going to form an unholy alliance to ensure that OpenAI and Anthropic end up as providers of commodities. I do think there's a sustainable niche in having "the best" model - but it won't be what everyone needs to run normal businesses. IMO SaaS ends up seeing their TAM expand and margins stay worldclass even if they dip a bit.

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

Big Tech had no idea how valuable these companies were going to become. It was one thing to let them burn tons of money on compute. The problem with the now trillion plus valuations they have is that that equity value provides the financial heft needed to fund capex that will eventually free these companies from the hyper scalers and neo clouds. The biggest competitors of anthropic and OpenAI won’t be software companies getting smoked now, it will be the giant tech cos- who I expect to ally and along with other companies (eg palantir) do everything in their power to keep OpenAI and anthropic as commodity producers.

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

@evrgn11112231 I also expect that big companies trimming headcount - particularly if it happens at the scale being forecasted by those most bullish on AI, will result in an explosion in new business formation - future Quickbooks customers :)

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

Play a game with a friend. Ask them to name another small business accounting software.

$INTU

[Matt Turck @mattturck]

A day in the life of a VC in 2026:

9am: Board meeting. My main value-add is aggressively pushing for Anthropic/OpenAI usage in non-engineering functions. Briefly ponder how I became an SDR for foundation model companies.

1pm: Lunch with another VC. We discuss how startups can find "blue ocean" away Anthropic/OpenAI. We conclude we should probably just invest the rest of our funds directly into Anthropic/OpenAI.

3pm: Pitch meeting. Me: "Do you run on Anthropic or OpenAI?" Founder: "Both." Debating internally whether a company reselling Anthropic/OpenAI with a 10% gross margin is a good investment but hey, at least they're in the "token flow".

4:30pm: Deep due diligence. I ask Claude if it plans to build this exact startup natively in its next release. Same to ChatGPT. They both say yes. I pass on the deal.

6pm: Urgent call from a portco CTO: "We need an intro to upgrade our Anthropic tier!" I immediately agree to help them spend more of the venture dollars we just invested in them, on Anthropic.

8pm: Brainstorming next guests for the podcast. Thinking I should probably just try to get some folks from Anthropic and OpenAI.

[Negligible Capital @negligible_cap]

Mayors and governors should be required to have quarterly earnings calls

“Tax receipts came in light versus guidance due to weaker restaurant traffic, elevated public transit shrink and Ken Griffin moving half of Citadel to Miami.“

Then 45 minutes of hostile analyst Q&A from citizens

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

@sama Aging!

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

Before AI I paid an accountant to do my taxes. After ChatGPT came out I realized I could do them myself on turbo tax. I now have 7 turbo tax accounts instead of one because of AI (for family I help out).

I also use quickbooks all day every day.

I also received payment links generated by QuickBooks all day from our vendors.

Long intuit in my software basket and buying more, obviously…

[Trevor Scott @TidefallCapital]

CSU supercut done! I could only cut it from 4 hours down to 36 minutes.
I moved a couple segments on the timeline for clarity, it focuses heavily on mark miller opening, AI and panels and condensed a bunch of Q&A. fixed some audio synch issues as well.
Uploading to youtube now.

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

My newest index for people who don't think software is going to die. Here's what I did.

Started with the $QQQ.

Cut weighting of any company that has had a historically abnormal run.

Eliminated nosebleed valuations, companies where revenue didn't keep up with inflation, or who face structural headwinds.

Overweighted companies trading at historically low valuations.

Added a basket that includes "AI Losers" and compounders who for whatever categorization issue are not included in the index - who are trading at historically low valuations.

My guess is this thing underperforms as long as the AI trade remains on, but downside should be far less, beta lower than existing QQQ.

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

@TidefallCapital Yes please!

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

@WillBiddy_ https://t.co/ZVN429AYpE I concur and have added a lot as well

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

Every year I help various family members with taxes, and also manage taxes for a trust and two businesses. Pre Chat-GPT ALL of this was done by a CPA. Today, only one of the business and my parent's personal tax return are done by CPA - I handle the rest, even the trust if nothing tricky happened during the year. I am only able to figure everything out thanks to AI - where I usually have Claude and ChatGPT open to help.

I now have 2 TaxAct licenses and 7 TurboTax licenses. I used to have zero. AI driving business to TurboTax.

I'm also about to set up a new QuickBooks account for a new business - one that exists in part b/c AI is making it easier and cheaper for us to experiment with ads.

I also just started Google ads a month ago - which wouldn't have happened without the help of AI.

I also signed up for Shopify plugins that I never would have except for AI.

AI is expanding the TAM for software, it is also stealing business from service providers. Interestingly though - I'm also beginning to spend more on service providers - just different ones.

Just some narrative violations around my own circle of observation.

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

@InvestmentTalkk 🤣🤣🤣

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

It's hard to "grind my gears". But people being able to piss away their life savings on whether or not Jerome Powell opens a press conference by saying "Good Afternoon" or betting on the results of a sports game - or buying lottery tickets - while not being permitted to invest in the world's best companies b/c "private investing should only be done by sophisticated investors" - is one of them.

[Ben Buchanan @01Core_Ben]

I'm going long deep OTM leaps on $SNAP Monday. If Evan ever decides to make money it would be trivially easy. I also think there are more potential acquirers than in the past (e.g. OpenAI). If Snap were to get acquired it would be based on some reasonable multiple of normalized earnings, or based on the size of his user base. In either case the takeout price would be at least 3X what it's at right now. Wish me luck.