Jimmy Stone

founder @AlderbrookCo || writing at || ODA4 @beondeck || born & raised in NOLA

[Jimmy Stone @jstone1927]

The Majors: Dislocation…Or Not?

Over the past few months, we've been getting a lot of the same question:

Are Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group cheap?

In this month's Leveling Up, we'll dig into this topic and share our take.👇

https://t.co/WguD43Diu2

[Lucas Shaw @Lucas_Shaw]

Two of the most important venues in the history of country music are for sale.

Scoop with @MichelleF_Davis

https://t.co/ccJFWnLWYI

[Men in Blazers @MenInBlazers]

Look what it means to the 40-year-old Cape Verde goalkeeper, Vozinha 🥹

The joy of the World Cup is that two hours ago, few knew his name. Now everyone on the planet is saying it with awe and respect. What a performance, what a result 🇨🇻

[Men in Blazers @MenInBlazers]

Rute Cardoso, Diogo Jota's widow, wrote Andy Robertson a letter before the World Cup and it is heartbreakingly beautiful ❤️

[Jimmy Stone @jstone1927]

@boazweinstein Start a Substack @boazweinstein

[Jimmy Stone @jstone1927]

So awesome

[America'sBestRacing @ABRLive]

Mic'd up & making history 🎤🌹 @reredevaux takes the Kentucky Derby with Golden Tempo!

🎥 Now watch the extended cut you didn't see on TV.

@alyssejacobs | @Steve_Byk | @jose93_ortiz | @PhippsStableFan

[Jimmy Stone @jstone1927]

In it, we lay out our ideas for @UMG , @warnermusic , and @BillAckman to unlock potential value.

https://t.co/WguD43Diu2

[Jimmy Stone @jstone1927]

The Majors: Dislocation…Or Not?

Over the past few months, we've been getting a lot of the same question:

Are Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group cheap?

In this month's Leveling Up, we'll dig into this topic and share our take.👇

https://t.co/WguD43Diu2

[Men in Blazers @MenInBlazers]

Carla, a laundry worker for 27 years at Dutch club Go Ahead Eagles, was honored with a tifo and pre-game presentation before she retires at the end of the season 👏

Sometimes football is brilliant 🥹

[Jimmy Stone @jstone1927]

@SleepwellCap Hoping to cover in this month’s newsletter.

Your first point is the important one imo. VERY skeptical of their growth + FCF assumptions at first glance.

But like some of the ideas they had too.

More to discuss…

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

Lead Edge is probably most famous for this letter. Mitchell calls it the "Hierarchy of Bullshit".

It's his way of distilling what he learned from cold calling 10,000 companies.

[Jimmy Stone @jstone1927]

@SleepwellCap Lobbing in a bid for $RSVR would be good for both. Just sayin’

[Dan Runcie @RuncieDan]

Suno's ARR has doubled from $150M to $300M since October.

[Barstool Sports @barstoolsports]

Johnny Gaudreau’s kids were brought onto the ice to celebrate the gold medal win over Canada

Team USA is a FAMILY

[Brad Stulberg @BStulberg]

Joy is a competitive super power.

Alysa Liu retired from figure skating at 16.
She was tired of not not having fun, tired of being consumed by her sport.

She came back two years later with a new goal: to have as much fun on the ice as possible. And now she’s an Olympic gold medalist.

Liu won her first national title when she was just 13. But by 16, after competing in the 2022 Olympics, she decided she’d had enough and stepped away. She said pressure and losing her identity trying to be an elite athlete made it all miserable.

But then, she said she went on a ski trip that reminded her just how much fun she could have doing a sport. Something in her brain clicked. Maybe she could bring fun to figure skating. Maybe she could approach it in a way that could be full of joy and life and love.

She unretired at 18 and won a world championship the next year. At 20, she was ready to face these Olympic games differently than in 2022.

Liu went into the women’s figure skating final in third place. After her short program, she said:

“Even if I mess up and fall, that’s totally okay, too. I’m fine with any outcome, as long as I’m out there.”

One of the greatest competitive advantages is having fun. People love to romanticize the athlete, artist, or entrepreneur who has a chip on their shoulder, fueled by anger and resentment.

But the truth is that if you’re not having fun, you are not going to last long at whatever it is you do, and you certainly won’t get the best out of yourself. There’s a foolish idea that you either have to be full of intensity or full of joy. But that’s nonsense.

It’s no surprise one of the first things out of Alysa’s mouth after her free skate was: “That was so much fun!”

Joy and intensity can coexist, and in the best performers, they almost always do.

Alysa is unapologetically authentic and true to her values. She has said where she used to skate to win and be technically perfect, she now uses competition as a chance to show her art, to have fun, and to put herself out there.

She’s a fierce athlete with an infectious sense of joy in her sport.

And she broke USA's 24-year gold medal draught in women’s figure skating doing it.

Excellence requires focus, determination, a little bit of crazy, at times obsession, and living a mundane lifestyle that many people would find boring.

But excellence also requires that you find deep joy in your craft, that you learn how to have fun while working hard.

What makes for excellence—and not just in sports, but in anything—is the combination of intensity and joy. It’s the latter that makes the former sustainable.

[Jimmy Stone @jstone1927]

@SleepwellCap “It’s a write off, Jerry” - Cosmo Kramer

[Jimmy Stone @jstone1927]

This @JColeNC track popped up tonight. Been awhile. The last verse causes goosebumps every time…

https://t.co/GVyToOhxmb

[Jimmy Stone @jstone1927]

@SleepwellCap I think FCF story improves over next 2-3 years.

IMO had to make recent growth investments to navigate evolving industry.

Too bad catalog value isn’t well understood by public markets … and frankly difficult to discern from disclosures.

[Jimmy Stone @jstone1927]

https://t.co/0ZCQCJDiTo

[Jimmy Stone @jstone1927]

@MarceloLima wrote about UMG’s FCF issues last Jan (see link below).

They are navigating industry crosswinds, so don’t expect FCF to improve in near term.

But there is value here.

IMO move is to separate copyright biz from services biz.

At least UMG can communicate better.