boy oh boy Capital

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boy oh boy Capital

boy oh boy Capital

@SloppyDave

Building non-cyclical businesses by day. Trader at night. Libertarian. Socialists and bureaucrats are the bane of mankind. Anti-EU. Price drives narrative.

Katılım Mayıs 2011
210 Takip Edilen246 Takipçiler
Kristo Käärmann
Kristo Käärmann@kaarmann·
Now that we're soon running out of 32-bit namespace for transfer IDs at @Wise, the engineers are annoyed with me choosing int over long when I wrote the first lines of code in 2010. But why don't they appreciate the $17 of savings in storage cost over years!? 🤷
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boy oh boy Capital
boy oh boy Capital@SloppyDave·
Hey Bill, I think its a fundamental mistake that you hide the AI features behind the pay wall. Developers are building their AI workflows right now and GitLab just won't be part of that story for most of its users, outside of being one of the tools. You have a credit-based system anyway, so why not making it available for the masses? Seat based usage will not be affected, as enterprises need the governance features as you say yourself.
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Bill Staples
Bill Staples@bstaples·
1/ Spent the evening reading @GergelyOrosz's AI tooling survey (900+ engineers) released today, which confirms what we've been seeing: ~15% flag AI cost concerns ~30% are hitting usage limits Companies burning $100-200/mo per engineer on max plans, and it's going up with API pricing...
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boy oh boy Capital
boy oh boy Capital@SloppyDave·
@Sidewaves212537 $BARK Total clownshow. Meeker and cronieboard will fleece minorities forever. Glad I could get out at 70c, had break price estimated much lower. Good luck to anyone still holding. Maybe Lemonis will come for the rescue ;)
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Compound248 💰
Compound248 💰@compound248·
Might I get some jingle mail from Elon? 💰 Four years ago, in an immoral attempt to break the contract he’d just signed to acquire Twitter, Elon alleged it defrauded him. Today, a jury decided Elon actually committed the fraud against Twitter. It’s just so…so…beautiful. 🥹
Compound248 💰 tweet media
Compound248 💰@compound248

OMG - she just asked Twitter's counsel Bill Savitt what they make of Musk's claim, "but Warren Buffett doesn't conduct due diligence?" He then murdered Musk: "diligence is what you do before signing, not after. Mr. Musk is trying to reverse it. Everyone...knows this."

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boy oh boy Capital
boy oh boy Capital@SloppyDave·
$BARK Ooops. Should have exited when Meeker pulled out.
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boy oh boy Capital
boy oh boy Capital@SloppyDave·
Try Lily on Duolingo Max. I guess they'll fix the whole Goth-vibes as soon as technically feasible, but its a good preview on where $DUOL will move. Videochat soon avail on Super plan and potentially (with a time limit) for free users as well. Luis is pulling the right levers and I think DAU growth will reaccelerate.
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Paul, not a CFA
Paul, not a CFA@Investmentideen·
Genuine question. I understand the bear case for $duol, but did anybody ever tried to learn a language with an LLM? To me, this doesn’t seem to be an actual option.
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boy oh boy Capital
boy oh boy Capital@SloppyDave·
Macro looks just awful for all of iGaming. Even HACK.ST cant catch a bid in this environment while now paying 8% div. The sector just gets crunched between AI SaaS selloffs and the all-weather negativity around regulatory risks. Bragg's story particularly bad with no end to the NL carnage in sight. We need to see results to understand if there is actually any FCF on the horizon or not, but for now I dont see why this stock cant trade at $30M in a few weeks.
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Inflexio Research
Inflexio Research@InflexioSearch·
$BRAG numbers are out. 2026 guidance down 5% at the midpoint while losing your biggest customer (15% of revenue) and growing EBITDA 5% - headline numbers are not sexy but when you factor in betcity exit, its quite positive. Lots of tailwinds into 2027. Q4 Call will be important
Inflexio Research@InflexioSearch

I've gotten some questions on $BRAG and what growth might be for 2026. The last hurdle to fully clean-up the story will be 2026 guidance. Given the exit of Betcity and the sensitivity of the guidance to the exit, it could swing many ways Should Betcity fully exit May 2025 with no extension or migration services revenue, I would expect Bragg to report revenue decline of -5% up to flat revenues. Anything beyond May and they likely grow. I don't assume any extraordinary new negative developments in their markets. EBITDA should be much better where I believe it can hit MSD growth. There is a chance Betcity extends the agreement beyond May given the World Cup happens 2 weeks after the agreement termination. Importantly, the company will be left trading under 3x EBITDA with a much better FCF conversion profile and no customer concentration (Betcity goes from 15% of revenue to 0%, and Netherlands from 30% to 15% overnight), while underlying trends are very positive In the meantime, there has been a bunch of positive developments: Alberta is finally going live later this year, Maine has approved iGaming and Caesars controls 3 of the 4 state licenses, and Bragg is overindexed to Caesars in the US 711, their second biggest customer, went live in Belgium with Bragg The company keeps podiuming in the Eilers top 20 online games report Given the dynamic above, I am sizing it accordingly, waiting for things to start playing out the way I think they should.

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boy oh boy Capital@SloppyDave·
Is it time to buy software now?-guide for the simple man: Is $GTLB (the ultimate system of record and guardian of the "700 commits/day agents not breaking production") down on the 1M chart? Its not time to buy. $CSU.TO $TEAM $ADBE
boy oh boy Capital tweet media
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Thomas Claugus II
Thomas Claugus II@tclaugus2·
I see people telling others to buy $ADBE and $CRM... the market is just over reacting. Make sure you think you are smart enough to think it through. I am see folks vibe code very impressive software this year. AI will ONLY GET BETTER FROM HERE at this. It really is a bit difficult to fully grasp the risk of the current software models out there. Only thing I am very confident of due to my experience $SNPS as an example. aint going no where. to difficult with physics interactions etc... and oddly the benefit from AI. The software design companies for semis are some of the best businesses in the world. Out side of that I have no clue
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Thomas Claugus II
Thomas Claugus II@tclaugus2·
Oddly I spent this weekend reading Jesse Livermores "How to Trade In Stocks"... Why? I consider myself more of an investor than a speculator (or I guess trader for a more derogatory term???)..... However...... $SSNC I added at $71 (roughly) this week... I see so MANY MANY MANY you tubes on $ADBE or $CRM or $NOW . Some sayinfg they have been hit too hard... some saying they will continue to get crushed. Sometimes there are big changes in the world (AI)... and we can see that it just got a lot easier and efficient to write a shit ton more code in this world (and automate it on top of that). Jesse Livermore said follow the trend of least resistance on a stock move to make money... Don't be a long term thinker. These are things of course, for one who likes to trade, would be things you would espouse.... But THERE are upheavals in the order of things in the world and things that looked like very defensible businesses are at risk of not being so... Is it crazy that everyone is selling these stocks aggressively. Sure they are fearful... but there is a good reason to be. I for one am not sure if I am smart enough to predict what AI will do to the different software architectures and can I deem which software model type is more defensible... I will try of course... But it may be smart to sell everything and think it through... or observe for a moment before doubling down on your favorite software stock. Maybe noticing the path of least resistance for the stock moves is indeed a wake up call we should all heed. Best wishes. Tom
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boy oh boy Capital@SloppyDave·
People in the comments doubt this ever happened but I think its very realistic. Normies have no idea how founder-led companies are thinking. Reducing the expense line is infinitely easier than increasing the top line. If you can add pure margin with a (fun) weekend of toying around with an AI, entrepreneurs will go for it!
Jeremiah Shamess | Toronto Land & Building Sales@JShamess

A friend of mine owns 50 dental clinics. He’s been diving deep into building software with Claude code and thinks after a week of staying up until 1am, he’s replaced the marketing software they pay $1600 per clinic. So in essence erased $80,000 of costs for the corp in one week. The world is moving quickly today

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boy oh boy Capital
boy oh boy Capital@SloppyDave·
Disagree with the migration point. If anything migrations from vendor A to B got technically a 100x easier. AI is absolutely amazing at transforming defined output to defined input. Technical switching costs will go down massively. Also building provisional interfaces between old and new gets so much cheaper and safer to do. Suddenly it makes economic sense for the average software Co. to go after their tiny niches. I think margins on software will be in a structural downtrend from here. CSU might have a good enough setup to find alternative cap allocation pools, but as of today I'd rather not touch it.
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Paul, not a CFA
Paul, not a CFA@Investmentideen·
Why 20 Years of Data Is a Bigger Moat Than Any AI Model Everyone is excited about AI. “Vibe coding” lets anyone spin up an app in a weekend. Entire SaaS products can now be recreated with a few prompts. This has led to a popular conclusion: software is being commoditized. That conclusion is both true — and deeply misleading. Yes, AI is commoditizing code. But it is not commoditizing what actually matters in serious software businesses: systems of record, historical data, and institutional trust. And this is exactly why companies like Constellation Software (CSU) are structurally insulated from the “AI kills software” narrative. ⸻ Code Is Cheap. Reality Is Not. With modern AI tools, you can describe an application in plain English and get something working in hours. This is what people call vibe coding: software built by prompting rather than engineering. This absolutely destroys one category of products: point solutions. Thin SaaS tools that sit on top of Gmail, Stripe, HubSpot, or QuickBooks. If your product is basically “UI + a few APIs + some business logic”, then yes — you are one good prompt away from being replaced. But most serious enterprise software is not like that. There is a fundamental distinction between: •Systems of action: tools that do things (send emails, generate reports, move data). •Systems of record: systems that define truth (money, people, assets, regulated data). AI is amazing at systems of action. It is terrible at being a system of record. ⸻ What CSU Actually Owns CSU does not buy trendy startups. It buys boring, unsexy, vertical software businesses: •municipal tax systems •utility billing systems •hospital administration software •practice management for doctors and lawyers •parking systems •payroll systems •government registries These systems are not “tools”. They are infrastructure. They sit at a control point in the value chain: the authoritative ledger for money, people, or legally relevant data. If these systems break: •people don’t get paid •taxes are wrong •invoices are wrong •compliance fails •regulators get involved This is not the kind of software you experiment with. ⸻ The Real Moat: 10–30 Years of Historical Data The deepest moat these companies have is not technical. It’s not code quality. It’s not UI. It is decades of accumulated historical data. This data is not just rows in a database. It is: •20 years of regulatory changes •20 years of billing exceptions •20 years of edge cases •20 years of audit trails •20 years of institutional memory It is literally the record of reality for that organization. ⸻ A Concrete Example: Municipal Finance Software Imagine a German city that has used the same municipal finance system since 2003. That system contains: •property taxes •business taxes •water and waste billing •fines and penalties •exemptions and payment plans •every correction, reversal, and adjustment This is the city’s system of record for money. Now an AI startup shows up in 2026 and says: “We have an AI-native platform. Better UX. Cheaper licenses.” They can absolutely build the software. But replacing the old system means: 1.Migrating 22 years of messy data 2.Cleaning and interpreting undocumented edge cases 3.Mapping everything to a new data model 4.Reconciling historical balances 5.Re-auditing the entire system 6.Getting regulators to approve it This is a multi-year, multi-million euro project. At the end, the city realizes: “We will spend €5–10 million, take 3–5 years, and risk legal and career-ending mistakes, to save maybe €80k/year in licenses.” So they don’t switch. Not because the new system is bad — but because the old data is too valuable and too dangerous to move. That is the moat. $CSU.TO $ACP.WA $SGN.WA
Paul, not a CFA@Investmentideen

Call me out in a few years when all my software investments go to zero: AI (incl. “vibe coding”) commoditizes code, not systems of record. CSU owns mission‑critical systems of record in niche markets. Those moats are data, workflows, integrations & switching costs – not the difficulty of writing code. Think about what CSU actually buys: 20‑year‑old billing, practice management, municipal, utility, hospital, etc. systems that are completely entangled with how that vertical runs. Replacing them is a multi‑year capex + career‑risking project. AI doesn’t change that risk calculus. Vibe coding makes it cheap to stand up “an app”. It does not: • migrate 15 years of messy production data • recreate hundreds of integrations (banks, tax authorities, devices) • rebuild reports auditors & regulators already trust • retrain an entire workforce on new workflows Most CSU businesses sit at a control point in the value chain. They are the authoritative ledger for money, people, or regulated data. That’s qualitatively different from a point solution that sends emails or draws dashboards on top of someone else’s data. AI is great at “systems of action”: generating content, orchestrating tasks, moving data between APIs. Those are the tools that get nuked – thin SaaS wrappers around Gmail, Stripe, HubSpot, QuickBooks, etc. They have shallow data gravity and low switching costs. But systems of record (ERP/CRM/core VMS) encode: • strict data models & referential integrity • audit trails, permissions, compliance • deterministic workflows that boards, auditors, and regulators understand. You don’t vibe‑code your general ledger or your clinical records. We’ve seen a similar wave already: low‑code/no‑code. For a decade you could drag‑and‑drop your own business app. Did enterprises kill SAP, Oracle, or niche ERPs? No – they use low‑code at the edges while keeping standardized core systems. AI just turns that dial further. The “every company will build their own ERP with AI agents” story underestimates non‑coding costs: product mgmt, domain expertise, change mgmt, security, incident response, integration maintenance. Most CSU end‑markets don’t even have the teams to run that experiment. On margins: AI is more likely to be margin‑accretive for CSU‑type vendors. It: • boosts dev productivity (faster features/integrations with same R&D) • automates support, onboarding, documentation • improves internal ops (billing, collections, forecasting) Can buyers use AI to squeeze prices? Some, at the margin. But in most CSU verticals, software is 1–2% of revenue and mission‑critical. The binding constraint is risk, not license cost. As long as the app works and is maintained, there isn’t much appetite to rock the boat. Meanwhile vendors can repackage AI as upsell: copilots, agents, forecasting, process mining. Core ERP/CRM pricing stays per‑seat/per‑site; AI is a new line item or higher tier. That’s ARPU expansion, not commoditization. The code got cheaper – the outcome got more valuable. Where AI really hurts is exactly what you flagged: point solutions. Single‑feature SaaS that: • sits at the UI layer • talks to a few APIs • has no proprietary data model or workflow depth. Those become prompts: “Hey model, do what this $30/month SaaS was doing.” Net effect: • Point solutions & generic horizontal tools: heavy pressure. • Core vertical systems of record: AI is an add‑on + cost reducer, not a replacement. • CSU’s skill set (buying sticky, boring, regulated, low‑IT‑budget software) is aligned with where AI is least disruptive. Could AI still reshuffle winners within verticals? Sure. Incumbents that ignore AI may lose to incumbents that embrace it. Some CSU properties will under‑invest and stagnate. But that’s competition at the margin, not “vibe coding obsoletes the whole business model.” So why doesn’t AI commoditize CSU? Because their moat isn’t lines of code. It’s being the entrenched, audited, regulator‑blessed system that runs payroll, billing, tax, and operations for thousands of tiny niches. AI will sit on top of that stack long before it replaces it. Oh and I haven't even started talking about the complexity of running a software company and building a team. $CSU.TO $ACP.WA $SGN.WA $TOI.V $LMN.V

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boy oh boy Capital@SloppyDave·
Sharing a bit of anecdotal evidence of when I found out my stepfather (71) was using (and paying for $DUOL) for 2 years. Sat him down for an interview: Doesn't use YouTube, TikTok, Meta, Instagram, etc., and has no interest in doing so. Doesn't pay for any other app than DUOL (like literally ANY EVER) and never has. "Half a year of Duolingo is like two years of language school" (with one in-person lesson per week). Direct chat between members isn't possible. But indirect communication is possible via emoji-like language => "Better this way, otherwise it would turn into a dating site." Two-year paying member and he'll renew again! => "Because the ads annoy me." "What if Duolingo doesn't exist tomorrow?" => "I don't know of any alternative." No exam situations => "I wouldn't want them either." Have you told anyone about this who uses it? => Tells them, yes, but no users afahk Made me realize what special target audience $DUOL is able to reach. Older people who want to play a game and believe they're getting smarter/more educated at the same time. Is it the best way to learn a language? Absolutely not, but it is so convenient and the casino mechanisms make you "show up" for the reps and gives you the warm feeling of accomplishment. I think there are many more people like him out there that $DUOL hasn't reached yet. Competing against them for these customers will be a very expensive exercise for new entrants. Disclaimer: No position. Might build a thesis later if the AI sell-off slows/ends.
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Drew Cohen
Drew Cohen@DrewCohenMoney·
The thing I don't get about Duolingo has nothing to do with AI. The market sees a stock that's down or thinks there's some tenuous AI risk, and that drove the sell-off (imo). I don't think AI apps or AI translation are the real threat. My concern is simply why growth has slowed so much. For context, they guided bookings to about 20%, or half of prior revenue growth. CEO Luis von Ahn says it was purposeful: 1) curtailing "unhinged" marketing and 2) focusing more on product development and teaching efficiency. The first reason suggests their marketing was problematic for the brand long-term or had stopped working as it once did. I don't fully understand this, but I don't see how it's positive. The second should be a cost pressure, and it's unclear why it would impact topline—unless it ties to the energy issue (explained below). My suspicion is they noticed something in engagement numbers that signaled longer-term churn risk, so they focused more on engagement. The energy system they introduced (which penalizes you even for correct answers) seems to have hurt them more than appreciated. It limited time spent on the app, hoping to push users to higher-priced tiers with unlimited energy. Some users report the energy system reverting to the old heart system, suggesting this change was an issue. You can spin that as positive—it's a reversible decision if it was problematic. Or it's proof that users' willingness to spend is fairly limited. Duolingo Wrapped data showed the top 10% of users spend just 2–2.5 minutes a day on the app. This shows the vast majority aren't deeply attached. Increasing engagement and deploying AI for more A/B tests, features, and courses could change this. But it appears the app as it stands has a value prop problem, which is the real reason they guided bookings down. They are still growing, though. And with the stock down ~80% since May, it materially resets the assumptions an investor needs to make. They now trade at 20x trailing FCF (loaded for SBC). This valuation only makes sense if they continue on a trajectory of growth—but slowing growth isn't out of the question. With 135M MAUs and simple churn assumptions, it's possible they've burned through over 500M users who downloaded the app, tried it, and left. These users aren't likely to redownload just because they see an "unhinged" marketing post—which may explain why they curtailed that marketing (at least in Western markets). They now need a new message to win users back. Doesn't mean they can't do it, but the old formula is changing. The stock sell off may be attributed to AI, but I think their set back is more prosiac--growing at high rates becomes harder the larger you get. And markets can become saturated. But again, at 20x, you need to assume far less in order to make the math work. $DUOL
Drew Cohen tweet media
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boy oh boy Capital
boy oh boy Capital@SloppyDave·
Committee/Moelis will frame Lemonis' bid as too flaky/inferior so it virtually never was on the table to being with. If anything, its clear from the last PR that they won't engage with him in any meaningful way. So unless he goes activist his bid is dead on arrival (and he knows it). I doubt we'd see meaningful public resistance except from some minorities surrounding Lemonis. He'll have to show his hand soon, then we'll know.
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Ioannis Tsaliagkos
Ioannis Tsaliagkos@ITsa68891·
@SloppyDave So, the institutional who don't participate to the Great Dane group along with the retail investosr, with both hold near 50%, will stare the Special Committee approving the lowest bid? That would be unusual. Especially for the funds.
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boy oh boy Capital
boy oh boy Capital@SloppyDave·
$BARK Textbook insider heist at play. Reaffirmed by the PR today. Demand Lemonis to sign a non-standard standstill NDA to get diligence → if they sign, they can't go public or pressure the board and their bid gets silently rejected → if they don't sign, they can't access inside data to secure a firm financing → board rejects their bid as "too flaky". We will see how much appetite Lemonis really has soon.
boy oh boy Capital@SloppyDave

$BARK Merger getting interesting. @barkmeeker and his board of cronies trying to stonewall Lemonis and didn't engage in any talks since Lemonis made the bid ~4 weeks ago. Meeker trying to steal the Co. from minorities is now official. globenewswire.com/news-release/2…

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boy oh boy Capital
boy oh boy Capital@SloppyDave·
They wont because Lemonis will not sign. The board will ultimately recommend Meekers bid to shareholders, almost zero doubt about it. Shareholders will see a final offer of <=$1 from Meeker or a Lemonis group that will goes full activist and tries to grab board seats. AGM is soon, so we won't have to wait long to know what Lemonis' plan is.
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Ioannis Tsaliagkos
Ioannis Tsaliagkos@ITsa68891·
@SloppyDave No problem for Lemonis, already stated in his letter that he does not ask for confidential info. The Special Committee schedules meetings with both suitors and waits for their financial advisor to complete his report, while they give time to CEO to make a new offer.
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boy oh boy Capital
boy oh boy Capital@SloppyDave·
@puppyeh1 This guy... Who was it again who wanted to disappear with the family silver? 🤥
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