Mark Hasebroock

Founder of Dundee Venture Capital investing in the best seed stage companies between the coasts. Member of @KauffmanFellows Class 22

[Heath Ahrens @heathahrens]

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang just made the boldest prediction of his career:

“AI will create more millionaires in 5 years than the internet did in 20.”

But he didn’t stop there.

He revealed exactly HOW it’ll happen

Here’s his framework for capitalizing before it’s too late: ⬇️

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

Imagine you had a humanoid robot. You could teach it to do anything. When it recharged, it could upload its learnings (on an anonymized basis) to all the other robots. It could be the most powerful data network effect in history.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇸🇦🇺🇸 DAVID SACKS: MCP IS THE NEXT BIG WAVE IN AI

"MCP {Model Context Protocol} is a new standard that allows agents to talk to existing SaaS applications or any kind of application, and it's really going to enable this agentic future that I think is the next big wave in AI."

Source: @DavidSacks

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

PRUFROCK: ELON’S TUNNELING MACHINE IS COMING FOR GARY THE SNAIL

The Boring Company’s newest invention, Prufrock, is a tunneling robot that “porpoises” — meaning it launches straight from the surface, digs underground, then resurfaces without needing giant pits.

It can start tunneling within 48 hours of arriving, and it’s fast — over 1 mile per week.

That’s 6 times faster than the last model, though still slower than a snail. But not for long.

Prufrock’s next goal?

Beat 1/10th of human walking speed, or 7 miles per day.

To get there, it mines continuously, installs tunnel walls on the go, and uses rubber wheels instead of old-school rails.

It’s all-electric, cleaner than diesel machines, and the dirt it digs up? It might become bricks or park paths.

Source: @boringcompany

[Mark Hasebroock @dundeevc]

Big congrats to @Jacob Mullins on launching VC Mastermind — a much-needed space for VC GPs to get real insight on building great firms. https://t.co/TIlyOuHYyD

[Mark Hasebroock @dundeevc]

Treating Ai as a teammate not a tool—>This Simple Shift will 10x Your AI Creativit... https://t.co/r6Q56C7jKV via @YouTube

[Mark Hasebroock @dundeevc]

@Jacob Good advice. Simple. Effective. Track record and then just do what you said you'd do.

[Mark Hasebroock @dundeevc]

Is there any way to get more texts from political campaigns? Really enjoying the 1,000 I get per day now and they are all so helpful and engaging.

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

BREAKING: US public debt has jumped $345 billion over the last 3 days hitting another record of $35.7 trillion.

Since June 2023, federal debt has surged by a MASSIVE $4 trillion, or 14%.

Over the same time period, US GDP is up just $1.5 trillion, or ~6%.

In other words, the national debt has outpaced the economic growth by 2.7 TIMES over the last 16 months.

Outside of the pandemic crisis, US federal debt has never grown so rapidly.

What is happening here?

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

Agriculture is an industry that is heavily reliant on East coast ports.

2.67 million metric tones of soybeans were imported through these ports in 2023.

Also, 1.95 million metric tons of poultry were imported here.

Food inflation could rebound again if this strike lasts.

[Barbarian Capital @BarbarianCap]

Had not seen a map with data centers as % of power consumption

[BuildWithin @JoinBuildwithin]

We are proud to partner with the University of Tennessee's Grow Your Own Teacher Apprenticeship Program!
This initiative is tackling the teacher shortage head-on. Thanks to @ecrisp & the @TN_GYO_Center team for leading the way.
Full announcement here: https://t.co/Ga00qRlrQU

[Anthony Pompliano 🌪 @APompliano]

This chart of net immigration to the US is mind-blowing.

[Elliott Robinson @TheValuesVC]

The AI landscape is evolving with each passing day. Its dynamic as hell so we went ahead & published the @BessemerVP Digital Book for the AI Revolution!

📖 “Everything, Everywhere, All AI”

AI Roadmaps + Insights + BVPs AI Strategy (*now*)

Get your copy👉🏼https://t.co/Fl8uZAEsam

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

BREAKING: Kamala Harris has endorsed Biden's 2025 capital gains tax proposal which would raise long-term capital gains tax rates to 44.6%.

This would mark the highest long term capital gains tax rate since 1922.

The plan has also proposed a 25% tax on unrealized capital gains for wealthy individuals.

Should this be approved?

[Steve Wiesner @SteveWiesnerSMB]

$47.61 for paper towels and TP at Target today.

Absolutely insane example of corporate greed and price gouging.

In fact, it made me so angry, I decided to do some analysis.

Many prices have increased by 50% or more since COVID, so I decided to put on my investment banking hat and spread some financials back to 2018 / 2019.

And man, was I ever surprised...

I started by looking at Target's annual revenue:

2018: $75.4 billion
2019: $78.1 billion
2020: $93.6 billion
2021: $106.0 billion
2022: $109.1 billion
2023: $107.4 billion
Last Twelve Months (LTM): $106.6 billion

Couple things I noticed. First, revenue has slipped a bit since 2022 and is continuing to do so in 2024 - not a great sign for the broader economy. Second, there's been big growth since 2018. They must be price gouging!

Well, I looked a bit deeper. Let's look at their cost of goods sold over the same period (the price they paid to buy the products they sold you).

2018: $53.3 billion (70.7% of sales)
2019: $54.9 billion (70.2%)
2020: $66.2 billion (70.7%)
2021: $75.0 billion (70.7%)
2022: $82.2 billion (75.4%)
2023: $77.7 billion (72.4%)
Last Twelve Months (LTM): $76.8 billion (72%)

Wow, so let me get this straight...

Target is making less money (28 cents) on every dollar of sales today than they were in 2018 (29.3 cents). Hmmmm. That's weird. Maybe they're not so good at this price gouging thing.

So, I decided to dig even deeper. They were prolly being evil and firing all of their employees so they could make up for the money they weren't gouging, right?

So, I looked at their operating expenses (the amount they pay to run the stores and the overall business):

2018: $15.7 billion (20.9% of sales)
2019: $16.2 billion (20.8%)
2020: $18.6 billion (19.9%)
2021: $19.8 billion (18.6%)
2022: $20.7 billion (18.9%)
2023: $21.6 billion (20.1%)
Last Twelve Months (LTM): $21.7 billion (20.3%)

Hmmmm. Very unusual behavior for someone price gouging me. Let's sum this all up by looking at their operating cash flow:

2018: $6.3 billion (8.4% of sales)
2019: $7.0 billion (9.0%)
2020: $8.8 billion (9.4%)
2021: $11.3 billion (10.7%)
2022: $6.2 billion (5.7%)
2023: $8.1 billion (7.6%)
Last Twelve Months (LTM): $8.1 billion (7.6%)

So, what this all means is that Target's making less overall profit on every dollar of revenue today (7.6 cents) than they were in 2018 (8.4 cents). And revenue has grown at an average (CAGR) of 7.3% per year since 2018 and operating cash flow has grown at 5.1% per year - both of which are pretty much in line w/ the overall rate of inflation during that period.

I guess I expected price gouging to be more profitable.

❌ NO PRICE GOUGING AT TARGET ❌

"Well Steve," you may say, "that's all fine and good, but even if Target isn't price gouging, Kimberly Clark and International Paper (both of whom are involved in the manufacture / marketing of paper towels and TP) sure as H3ll must be!"

Well Yes! Surely they are! I'll spare you all the numbers, but here's the summary:

Kimberly Clark:
5-year avg revenue growth: 2.0%
2018 Gross Margin: 69.7%
LTM Gross Margin: 64.0%
2018 EBITDA Margin: 12.1%
LTM EBITDA Margin: 15.6%

"A-HA! Look at that EBITDA margin!" you say, "They must be gouging!"

Well, the gross margin clearly says otherwise, and the five-year EBITDA CAGR is 6.6% - pretty much in line with inflation. Again, management is clearly bad at gouging.

❌ NO PRICE GOUGING AT KIMBERLY-CLARK ❌

"Well ok," you say, "I'm sure International Paper must be capturing all of that extra profit because they're the ones gouging then."

Let's take a look:

International Paper:
5-year avg revenue growth: 0.8%
2019 Gross Margin: 30.8%
LTM Gross Margin: 27.8%
2018 EBITDA Margin: 16.1%
LTM EBITDA Margin: 11.6%

Wowza, I guess IP is the worst price gouger of all since, well, they've basically been destroying value since before COVID began. You would think price gougers would be gouging to, I don't know, make more money and all. Well, IP made almost $3 billion of EBITDA in 2019, and a little over $2 billion over the last twelve months. Sigh.

❌ NO PRICE GOUGING AT INT'L PAPER ❌

So, maybe this means the inflation we've been dealing with hasn't been about corporate greed and price gouging after all. Maybe it has had something to do with, oh, I don't know, government spending and stimulus run amok or something.

So, rather than going on populist rants about implementing price controls for the greedy corporations (which, you know, have never worked out so well in the past), maybe we should consider some price controls for government spending.

That's a novel idea.

🤔

p.s. And for those of you who say "Hey, wait a minute, your receipt says "Bounty" - that's not Kimberly Clark, that's P&G! They must be price gouging!"

Procter & Gamble:
5-year avg revenue growth: 4.4%
2019 Gross Margin: 48.6%
LTM Gross Margin: 51.4%
2019 EBITDA Margin: 20.4%
LTM EBITDA Margin: 23.7%

Gross margin up? Yep. EBITDA margin up? Yep. Good management? Yep. Price gouging? Nope.

❌ NO PRICE GOUGING AT P&G ❌

[Mark Hasebroock @dundeevc]

And where would the cost of these battery powered trains be passed onto..? California laws hamstring the entire economy. An interesting analysis of electric train engine mandate.

https://t.co/wPXCb5Racg

[Niall Ferguson @nfergus]

“Any great power that spends more on debt service than on defense will not stay great for very long. True of Habsburg Spain, true of ancien régime France, true of the Ottoman Empire, true of the British Empire, this law is about to be put to the test by the U.S. beginning this very year.”

[Mark Hasebroock @dundeevc]

And soon- this year- interest payments will outdo all other categories. Not sustainable.

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

BREAKING: The US government deficit hit a massive $1.5 trillion in the first 10 months FY 2024, according to the Treasury Department.

In July alone, the US deficit spending reached a whopping $244 billion.

Total outlays came in at $5.6 trillion and total receipts were $5.6 trillion over the last 10 months.

Social Security was the largest expenditure amounting to $1.2 trillion.

Net interest was the second largest cost, exceeding health, Medicare, and national defense expenses.

Government spending remains at crisis levels.

[Mark Hasebroock @dundeevc]

“But they aren’t safe…” this is amazing compared to the USA average.

[Sawyer Merritt @SawyerMerritt]

NEWS: Tesla has revealed that in Q2 2024, they recorded one crash for every 6.88 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology, their best Q2 number ever. For drivers who were not using Autopilot technology, Tesla recorded one crash for every 1.45 million miles driven.

By comparison, the most recent data available from NHTSA and FHWA (from 2022) shows that in the US there was an automobile crash approximately every 670,000 miles.

Source: https://t.co/aQWulwjUSx