š ASB Partners Nuggets 6.13.25
This is a short weekly email that covers a few things Iāve found interesting during the week.
Interesting Links/Reads
Many links are sourced from Marginal Revolution (bold and italics are my own to highlight what I found particularly interesting)
If you own Tesla stock ā¦ look Teslaās SEC filings do not currently include a risk factor saying āElon Musk is a loose cannon who will alienate approximately all of our customers by going all-in on Donald Trump, and then also alienate Donald Trump.ā Is that securities fraud? If there is one essential theme of this column (that is not legal advice) it is that everything is securities fraud, and hoo boy.
Some taken hostage said they found the will to go on in a motto they heard from Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American hostage, before he was killed by his captors. It was a version of a quotation about having purpose in life, from the atheist German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and often echoed by Viktor Frankl, the Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor: āHe who has a why can bear with any how.ā
Like other such funds that invest in secondaries, Hamilton Lane Private Assets can buy private-equity stakes from other holders, often at a deep discount to the official net asset value. It can promptly mark up its holdings to that official NAV. By doing so, it disregards the discounted price it just paidāeven if that price was set in a competitive auction.
As my colleague Jonathan Weil exposed in a Wall Street Journal article last year, this technique has sometimes resulted in gains of 1,000% or more in a single day.
Such maneuvers are legal. But if you donāt think they smell a little fishy, I suggest you make an urgent appointment with an ear, nose and throat doctor.
āWe believe the assets are fairly valued today,ā says Brian Gildea, a managing director at Hamilton Lane, āand are marked accordingly with fair market value principles and standard industry accounting standards.ā
Note carefully: The new fee is payable not just on realized gains, but on unrealized gains as well. That means Hamilton Lane no longer has to wait to sell each secondary holding at a gain of at least 8% to take its cut.
Even if the fund still holds the assets, any gains above zero will count. And those are easy for secondary-fund managers to generate when they can unilaterally mark up assets they bought at a discount.
4.One or two game theoretic observations by Tyler Cowen June 13, 2025 at 2:28 am in Current Affairs Games on Israel/Iran Conflict
So far the campaign is a major "win" for (non-LLM) AI, though that is not yet a story. There is a reason why Palantir was priced at 300x earnings.
If you are one of those Iranian leaders, or nuclear scientists, your calculus has to be that you can never step outside again, at least not anytime soon. I believe that situation is unprecedented in the history of wartime? It remains to be seen how much that will shape the logic of deterrence and in turn outcomes, but I will be pondering this and observing.
Podcast/Videos
Show notes from Peter Attia Podcast āThe Driveā
On the growth in commentary
COWEN: Could you imagine a future where the Mishnah or the commentary on the games becomes bigger than the games themselves? What you do is, in fact, ultimately the primary. I saw a tweet from a guy. He said something like, āWell, I just spent six hours listening to NBA podcasts, but I didnāt turn on a game all week.ā
AUSTIN: Right. Yes, weāre there, arenāt we?
COWEN: Weāre there. I donāt know. You tell me.
AUSTIN: I feel like thatās probably true. Again, that comes back to barrier to entry, right? Is that whatās easier? Thereāre a lot of people who watch people play games and have never played a game in their life. Weāre probably there, would be my guess. Thank goodness for me, but I donāt know what that says about . . . In fact, I donāt even think it says anything. Weāre making this up as we go right now. Weāre exploring this idea live, on the spot. Does that say anything about the state of games, the state of the NBA? I donāt think so. I think it probably just saysāā
COWEN: It says NBA games are too long and have too many free throws, fouls, and commercial breaks.
COWEN: Thereāre a lot of people, and I donāt necessarily even have them on the show, but I know them, and theyāre remarkable for their persistence and their ability to understand one thing and just drive on that and attract others, but theyāre not actually that interesting. A lot of people that way.
AUSTIN: Thatās hopeful, though, isnāt it? Just the idea that you donāt have to be a very interesting, compelling person to do something truly great.
COWEN: Itās hopeful for the interesting people because they have a bit of a clear field, right? So, itās hopeful for everyone.
AUSTIN: Yes, they have a better selection, or they can do whatever they want. Then I was curiousāāāyou do a lot of interviews with people. Thereāre a lot, especially, it seems, in the last six months or a year, but I searched Tyler Cowen. Thatās Irish, I assume.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Adam