Laura Baker

I’m Laura Baker, Associate PM on the Pender Equity Team. Value-based. Ideas-driven. Long-term focused. Disclaimer:

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

If you’ve been missing my 4am equity sales thoughts landing in your inbox, fear not, The Pender Pulse Substack is now live! You can check it out here, and subscribe to get new posts twice a week (with audio): https://t.co/ZJDCucUR8u

[David Barr @PenderDave]

My favorite morning email is now available for public consumption! This is something we’ve been working on for the past few months, where we’ll share themes, ideas, and how our equity team is thinking about markets.
Subscribe here: https://t.co/1EwEr7AmaO

[Kyledoops @kyledoops]

One of the most overlooked charts in markets right now 👀

Goldman expects Russell 2000 EPS growth near 40% in both 2026 and 2027.

That’s well above:
• S&P 500 around 20%
• Nasdaq roughly 25–30%

If those estimates actually hold, small caps could quietly become one of the biggest earnings growth stories of the next cycle.

Interesting part?

Almost nobody is positioned for that narrative yet.

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

Whether a company survives will come down to two questions:
1. How hard is it for customers to switch to a competitor?
2. Does the value of the product compound with scale?
https://t.co/Sq03qB8mu9

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

“The lesson here is that whatever the world thought would end just ended up being vastly larger than anyone thought. And the thing that people thought would forever be replaced was not simply legacy but ended up being a key enabler.”

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

Parts of music have been automated for years through electronic instruments, recordings, and streaming. Yet demand for musicians has never been higher. Ticket prices are at all-time highs. Live art remains fundamentally un-AI-able.

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

"The conversation around AI and work has calcified into two camps. [...] Neither camp captures what it actually feels like to live through this. The truth is messier. You can hold wonder and grief in the same hand, mourn a version of yourself while sprinting toward a new one."

[Aditya Agarwal @adityaag]

https://t.co/eOZqVE32JH

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

I liked this perspective "In the five days after that weekend, I produced more code than I had in the previous five years. That is not an exaggeration. The software I was making was better than the code I had produced on my own in the past, and far more ambitious."

[Aditya Agarwal @adityaag]

https://t.co/eOZqVE32JH

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

Every great story has its characters. But sometimes the most compelling narrative isn’t the truth. Like in The Usual Suspects, we may only realize was happening with AI after the story has already been written.

https://t.co/swWg2ZSi7y

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

This was interesting

[Nicolas Bustamante @nicbstme]

https://t.co/v7sot4WCI2

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

Let’s go books!

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

My information consumption is now 1/4 X, 1/4 podcast interviews of the smartest practitioners, 1/4 talking to the leading AI models, and 1/4 reading old books. The opportunity cost of anything else is far too high, and rising daily.

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

This was a good one https://t.co/dJehvNuVXx

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

Turns out “The people who feel weird, different, and misunderstood are the ones who change the world”

[Shane Parrish @shaneparrish]

My conversation with @NicolaiTang1

Tangen runs the world's largest sovereign wealth fund and sees AI as a once-in-a-lifetime inflection point. He is responsible for managing $2.1 trillion. That's roughly 1.7% of all listed companies on Earth.

This episode is full of surprising insights.

Enjoy!

(Includes paid promotions)

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

Eileen Gu on the mindset that wins medals:
I'm very introspective. I break down all of my thought processes. I apply an analytical lens to my own thinking, and modify it because it's so interesting. You can control what and how you think, therefore, you can control who you are

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

“The point isn’t to work harder. It’s to apply the same work through better structures. Code. Media. Capital. Judgment. Each one operates differently, but they share one trait: they decouple your output from your input”

https://t.co/vTM0YPLbkx

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

“Imitation is the first stage of mastery. You earn the right to break the rules only after you've internalized them”

[Shane Parrish @shaneparrish]

My conversation with @vladtenev, co-founder and CEO of @RobinhoodApp and co-founder of @HarmonicMath

We discuss:
• Gamestop and what actually happened
• Going "founder mode" and firing himself
• Why "juicy falsehoods" are more appealing then "boring truths"
• How to reverse decisions
• The advantages of a crisis
• Why communication is a clarity test

This conversation changed how I think about running a business during a crisis and the future of finance.

Enjoy.

(Includes paid partnerships.)

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

“The applications-to-recruiter ratio is now about 500-1, four times what it was just four years ago” https://t.co/50wvaWKFyu

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

This was interesting after rewatching Enemy of the State. “People often talk about how AI breaks many of the foundational floorboards of our society […] Sure, we know it is possible for us to be monitored, but why would anyone bother watching the tapes?” https://t.co/eJuzthRkKh

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

Avoid ruin.
Stay patient.
Let compounding work.
That’s good personal finance advice.
It’s also Berkshire Hathaway’s operating system.

https://t.co/tQ3qJGm4Ql

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

The CEOs who follow legends rarely succeed by trying to replace them.

The ones who succeed prove the system works without them. https://t.co/tQ3qJGm4Ql

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

Most companies are built around people.

The best companies are built around principles. https://t.co/tQ3qJGm4Ql

[Laura Baker @PenderLB]

Warren Buffett didn’t just build a great company.

He built one designed to survive him. https://t.co/tQ3qJGm4Ql