peter swartz

Many software/engineering people who want to know more about finance follow me and message me about Gitlab, so let's do a high level post on Gitlab $GTLB, which reports their quarter today. Many people in the software/tech world follow me because I talk about financial topics in a way that interests them. Many in the financial world follow me because I talk about software/tech topics in a way they can get value. Let's bring it together here. 👉👈 👉We'll focus this post on software/tech engineering people who want to know more about finance, specifically around Gitlab. 1) Gitlab will report their quarter today at 4:30 PM US ET. As a public company, anyone can listen to the call. You can listen to the call here at the link and find the webcast on the page. Sign up and it will start around 4:30 or so. ir.gitlab.com/news-events/ev… They'll first go through the CEO/CFO listing off their results from the quarter. Next, they'll move to questions from industry analysts. They'll put out what's called an 8-K with the SEC which links to their PR around the prepared remarks. Standard stuff. They'll also put out what's called a 10-Q which is a deeper rundown of their financials on file with the SEC, with their balance sheet, income statement, risk disclosures, etc. Gitlab typically gets these 10-Qs out pretty quickly after their calls, so I'm assuming based on historicals that this will be posted by tomorrow, if not tonight. 2) Now here's where it gets fun. 🌈🍾🚀 Gitlab has a lot of problems. a) Their auditor KPMG has issued for 2 years what is called an "adverse opinion" on Gitlab's ability to maintain proper controls of their financial reporting. This is very unique. Companies will go to great lengths not to have something this negative get out, and the fact that it's gone out on their last 2 annual reports is bad. b) Gitlab is under scrutiny from the Netherlands. The Dutch Tax Authority is looking into their taxes from the mid 2010's (GitLab's CEO is Dutch and the company was at one point a Dutch entity, and still maintains a Dutch entity). Gitlab has told investors that they are estimating tax liabilities and has included these numbers on previous financial statements. Put simply, they are on the hook to pay extra taxes and they've estimated what these will be, but it's all very hypothetical. I personally consider this a red flag given the small relative size of this business. c) Gitlab has this whole Mainland China business structured as a joint venture that seems to have blown up in the last year. The idea on paper was to set up a China entity, Sequoia and Sequoia-related parties came in and bankrolled this, the JV hired a bunch of Hong Kong and Taiwan people, and CEO of this JV was booted out last year, he fell out of favor in Mainland China, it's a mess. I'm not sure it's even a real company at this point, just something that exists on paper. d) On the last call, Gitlab CFO Brian Robbins gave one of the worst performances I've personally ever seen of a CFO on an earnings call. Getting snippy with analysts, talking about spend on internal conferences, it made no sense. I'm looking to see whether the analysts on the call retaliate this time around and ask him more pointed questions. e) The amount of insider selling (aka CEO, execs, VC investors still on stock) has been especially large here. Remember, their auditor KPMG has put out 2 "adverse opinions" on the internal controls here, the Dutch Tax Authority is looking over them, it's all kind of a mess as the powers that be sell off equity. f) Gitlab signs a lot of 2- and 3-year contracts with its large customers. Right now, we're 2-3 years off a lot of tech layoffs. Many of these contracts no doubt have been renewed at lower rates, and these haven't necessarily shown up in the financials. It may take another quarter or two. --- I'm not very bullish on this company. The main bull case is around them getting acquired, and most bulls point to Google as the most likely potential acquirer. However, I don't think any acquirer is going to accept risk from all the outstanding tax and accounting problems until they are at least mostly settled. Nobody would want to risk their career on making an acquisition like this. I've been short $GTLB in the past and I'm still short. This specific event of this call is basically a lottery ticket. Gitlab has an adverse opinion for 2+ years now, so I don't trust their financials at all, they could just outright lie and kick the liability down the road even further as their execs and large investors sell off more equity. It will get them eventually though. Join the fun on the call! Let's see whether CFO Brian Robins starts getting snippy with analysts again. Link here -> ir.gitlab.com/news-events/ev…

#SFPD Narcotics did a great job arresting drug dealers connected to SF drug trade. Feb 1st: 2 search warrants were conducted in Oakland, 3 adults, 1 juvenile arrested, 23 lbs of Narcotics, 21 of the lbs were fentanyl, 28k cash, & ghost gun. 230077518 230077693.

🚨BREAKING: Major CEOs confirming presence at emergency meeting with @ericadamsfornyc following the subway murder of a Goldman Sachs employee. Attendees will include @DavidSolomon, Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman, NBA's Adam Silver among others. Over 100 to attend Thurs meeting.

A woman is run down and robbed of her watch by gunmen Downtown. It's one of more than 200 "follow-home" robberies carried out by 17 South L.A. street gangs, the LAPD says. Eyewitness News with the troubling trend frustrating police. Tonight at 11 from ABC7 abc7.com/11743093

Account of an attack on Ocean Beach, SF. #mentalhealth, @hknightsf, @sunita37 @LondonBreed Thread 1/ A small group of us was at Ocean Beach for a teen’s birthday gathering: a few moms and our daughters. All was well for a couple of hours—food, cupcakes, relaxation.

UC Berkeley/LA Times poll shows that 59% of California’s voters want Prop 47 changed to prosecute more property crimes as felonies. That’s broad political support to change a law that has let havoc be wreaked on our communities. latimes.com/california/sto…