Anni

Managing Partner, BluBird Capital Engineer - xApple | xQualcomm | xIntel | Startup exits, Tennis player🎾, JohnsHopkins alumni

[Anni @anni_sen]

$INTC I worked at Intel during transition of Brian Krzanich to its then CFO Bob Swan. Swan took care of closing loss making divisions but did little for innovation at Intel. Between inept management, work culture, lack of competitive moat, it was a broken company.
In 2019 Intels revenue hit 71B and FCF ~14B. It squandered that loot into hiring more inefficient leaders like Murthy from $QCOM.
Gelsinger from VMWare was a good leader but inherited a company so behind in CPU processor architecture, unable to keep up in the AI compute race.
They had good engineers, sufficient capital but lack of vision, in effective management, paying up for mediocre tech at high valuations from MobilEye to Altera to some AI outfits drained it’s resources

Except Hock Tan, few non tech CEOs have successfully run big tech.
I hope they will find a dynamic CEO to lead them, there’s a market out there in the AI compute race.
They can learn from Hock Tan and aggregate good tech into a tech holding company with focus on vertical value chain like enterprise software.
Oh and definitely spin out the FAB.
Two cents from an former Intel engineer

[Anni @anni_sen]

That’s not a view from the beach in San Diego, it is from the Pacific Surfliner, Amtraks coastal train that hugs the beach from San Diego all the way north to San Luis Obispo.
Imagine traveling, with this view without the hassle of driving.

Hey! California taxes suck but the rest ain’t so bad.

[Anni @anni_sen]

Apple $AAPL raising iPhone prices as memory costs surge 83% yet can’t depreciate memory costs as other data center suppliers like $NVDA, costing Apple a dent in their FCF.

Apple’s gross margin is expected to top 48% in the current fiscal year for the first time since 1990, according to consensus estimates from FactSet. 

Something to keep in mind as Apple stock in past was bolstered but it’s $100B plus a year buybacks. Will they be able to continue that spend?

Nvidia on the other in its latest earnings call is distributing their massive FCF as buybacks.

[Anni @anni_sen]

$MU Micron earning June 24th

What management guided
On the March call, Micron told us to expect, for FQ3:

Revenue: $33.5B ± $750M -a record, and roughly +40% sequentially off an already-record Q2
Gross margin: ~81% -a number that would have been unthinkable for a memory company two years ago

Non-GAAP EPS: $19.15

Sell-side has largely converged near the guide - Street EPS sits around the low-$20s, modestly above the midpoint, with revenue estimates spanning a genuinely wide $33.7B–$40.9B band depending on how aggressively analysts model HBM pricing and mix.

[Anni @anni_sen]

Crude heading lower-> inflation lower -> Rate forecast?

[Anni @anni_sen]

Called $AMPG to my subs at $4. It just printed $10.Now the part most people skip after a 123% rip: Why it moved and where does it go from here. Read article below on my thoughts.

The only American company that has commercialized an O-RAN CAT B 64T64R Massive MIMO radio. In a market where Huawei is banned and "made in the USA" is a procurement filter, that scarcity is the whole moat.

I learned about AMPG from this wonderful community on X-https://t.co/06yCx2C8hv

[Anni @anni_sen]

Check on your MAG7, especially the money incinerators - $META $GOOGL $MSFT $AMZN.
At 34% of $SPY, is it worth holding the index?

[Anni @anni_sen]

Much ado about nothing
Crude will be lower a month out and they will lean dovish.

“What he doesn’t see is a case for raising rates—that, he said, would take accelerating wage growth or signs that Americans had begun to expect higher inflation for the long haul. He sees neither. “This is not 2022,” he said.” -WSJ

[Anni @anni_sen]

Lunch today with ex-Intel colleagues at Karl Strauss, debating a good entry on $SPCX. None of us have pre-IPO shares.
Our waiter overhead us and said, unprompted: “Yeah, that’s the price I want for SpaceX.”
We were surprised, minutes earlier he’d served our Red Trolley while we talked $QCOM, and showed zero excitement.

Been in markets long enough to love the psychology of this. I’ve watched my dentist stop mid-procedure when I explained why I think Micron is headed to a trillion-dollar cap.

We underestimate the cult status some companies hold. We apply valuations and metrics and forget that raw belief and cult-like faith are intangible metrics too.

Don’t question the flow, be part of it.

And one day you’ll know it’s been enough, and you leave the story.

[Anni @anni_sen]

$SPCX buying Cursor for $60B.
Gotta be a smart move.

Cursor will receive $60B worth of SpaceX stock under the agreement.

Cursor competes with Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex.

[Anni @anni_sen]

$QCOM in talks to acquire Tenstorrent. CEO is microprocessor architect Jim Keller ex $INTC.

I am aware Qualcomm has some commercial products using RISC-V.
I have worked on RISC-V and this ISA is not easy to scale commercially.

Qualcomm is trying to put a wrench in $ARM but this has been tried before without much success.

[Anni @anni_sen]

Cathie Wood finally got her moment with $ROKU

Fox Corp $FOXA said it is acquiring Roku for $25B, ad-supported streaming is worth a look.

$ROKU makes up 4% of ARK's funds.

[Anni @anni_sen]

US Iran reached peace deal.
Futures popping. Now that Hormuz is open Crude has no place to go but down and thats a bottleneck removed from inflation. This is a CLEAR SIGNAL to deploy cash.

I messaged my subs - a few names in SEMI still at reasonable valuations. $SMH

Small caps $IWM shd do well w rate outlook.

[Anni @anni_sen]

Sorry, East Coast folks … can’t get this!
IN-N-OUT still a private company with 2024 and 2025 revenue per year around $2.4B.
IN-N-OUT has no franchise unlike $MCD and uses no frozen beef.
Average revenue per location ~$5M vs. ~$2,5-$$3M for McDonalds.
Average profit per location 20%

[Anni @anni_sen]

I own Nokia $NOK and am looking to see how their new business pivot into optical networking can move the needle on their 2026 valuation. What to expect in 2027 from their business segments. Below is a writeup of this valuation exercise.

+ Added a overlooked memory adjacent play that can run further.

[Anni @anni_sen]

After many years owning a home, which is truly beautiful and something I enjoy everyday, the cost of owning a home has gone up significantly over the years especially in California. San Diego is just the tip of the iceberg.

Start with home insurance, in California, it is prohibitively expensive luxury even for a barebones rebuild.
Home ownership is not what it used to be with labor costs up and maintenance, upkeep annoyingly pricey. Most times one can’t even avail skilled labor.
My advise to anyone wanting to own a home especially in California. Think twice and get a nice apartment in the city and go live your life. Don’t even think of paying crazy property taxes and get little in return.
Put the money in the market, even in an index it will do better.
Best financial advise I could give to anyone starting to think of owning a home.

[Anni @anni_sen]

Anthropic Fable Mythos ban -

The order could also cause significant problems for technology development at Anthropic, which along with OpenAI is one of the most influential A.I. companies in the world. Though Mythos and Fable 5 are new, they were considered a significant improvement on earlier A.I. models. -NYT

[Anni @anni_sen]

In case one was wondering how long the Semiconductor and AI trade persists, KKR’s Head of Global Macro & Asset Allocation Henry McVey thinks-

“Overall however, the fundamental case for stocks remains strong earnings growth, and on that front, the outlook for the next 12 months looks robust. Year-over-year comparisons do get tougher toward the end of 2027, but that’s at least in part an “embarrassment of riches, since growth rates right now are pretty stellar.” -Barrons

[Anni @anni_sen]

I’ve seen firsthand how a single company can change your life. My time at Apple, Intel, and Qualcomm didn’t buy me a yacht and I never wanted one but it gave me financial security, invaluable experience, and access to some of the smartest engineers I’ve ever met.

The lifelong friendships and lessons learned have been worth far more than any stock grant.

[Anni @anni_sen]

TOP 2 headlines of WSJ. I love peace and who doesn’t like SpaceX IPO happening around peace.
Sometimes the powers above just line up…
$SPY $QQQ