JOMP

My worst stock investments ever: we all love to take our victory laps and gloat about our winners. so I might as well chime in with my biggest losers. People seem surprised or suspicious when they see that almost every one of my positions is deep green. But this is just solid long term investing strategy: - I let my winners ride - if something is under-performing, I cut it out - over time, that translates into lots of winners Anyway, for a long time my portfolio was more than 90% $AAPL When we were hitting peak 2021 euphoria (and early on the way down) I took massive profits on my Apple position, bought an apartment, and used the remainder to diversify my portfolio into a range of high risk/reward stocks with small allocation into each among them: $BIRD When it was a sneaker company. One day seemingly overnight, EVERYONE in Manhattan was wearing them. I bought a few pairs, they were great. They opened up flashy stores that were pristine and beautiful and seemed to be crowded. They promised they would expand rapidly and disrupt $NKE. I bought into the vision. Then, just as suddenly as everyone started wearing AllBirds, they all switched to $ONON. To this day, On sneakers are still part of the standard Manhattan uniform. I ended up taking a ~90% loss before capitulating in 2024. If I had held on through today, I would still be deep red even with the pump 🤣 And my 2 cents on the AI pivot: absurd Anyway, that was a small position. The really bad one was 23andMe I believed I had found the holy grail here. Genetics are the code system of humans. By unlocking their potential and consolidating into one platform, I believed 23andMe could become the Apple of genomics - Founded by Sergey Brin's wife Anne Wojcicki (her sister was also CEO of YouTube) - Google was direct investor in 23andMe via multiple funding rounds - generated stable revenues from test kit sales which became huge sensation - millions of people unknowingly signed over their genetic data - amassed the world's largest human genetics database - 23andMe was first using the data to sell to pharma companies to develop drugs - landed a massive partnership with GSK to co-develop - then began running clinical trials themselves. A huge risk, but positioned them to become a platform + drug maker and dominate the future genomics market But after years and years, - promised breakthroughs failed to materialize - decoding the genetic web proved to far more complicated than first anticipated upon the completion of the human genome project in 2003 (23andMe launched 3 years later) - then hit an inflection point where it seemed everyone in America who wanted their DNA tested had already had it done - Test kit sales plummeted - tried offering monthly health platform services based on your gene data - no interest from consumers - then dilution began to make up the funding shortfalls - then the reverse splits to retain listing - then the buyout discussions I couldn't believe the market cap I was seeing. I failed to see the writing on the wall because I was blinded by the long term potential. How, I thought, could a company with the world's largest genomics database be worth just $500M? Surely the database alone is worth far more than that?! Ultimately, I capitulated at a 95% loss after doubling down twice. I probably lost more on this investment than all my other losses combined. There were important lessons learned. Regeneron $REGN ended up buying 23andMe's infamous genetics database in bankruptcy auction + the remaining scrap assets for just $256M Since then, I have been much more careful to get out early when I see a fundamental thesis falling apart. Thanks for reading, anyone who made it to the bottom! 😁