Thursday, September 3, 2026

@HaydenCapital Feb 26

Fred Liu on X

Well, looks like $RKT vacuumed up the entire industry's refi volumes. Not only PennyMac. And 30 yr fixed just hit the lowest in 3.5 years this week. https://t.co/fqJ4bNkmiF

@HaydenCapital Feb 26

Fred Liu on X

Happy to share our Q4 2025 letter. Especially at a time when the future of internet and software business models are being questioned. In it, we offer our take on: - The "AI Scare Trade". The market is pricing in fear, not facts. These businesses aren't broken (yet), but investors are selling indiscriminately. - What's still investable? Software faces real headwinds - disruption to terminal value assumptions and forced pricing model shifts. But ~80% of a software company's value is trust, reliability, and headache-free solutions. That doesn't disappear overnight. - Network effects are real moats. Gaming, ecommerce, consumer internet - they're all down substantially from highs. But as AI reduces barriers to entry, the barriers to scale go up. Distribution grows more valuable. - Thoughts on $SE, after a -45% drawdown. We don't think the TikTok boogeyman is as scary as the market fears. In fact, the opposite. - New Oriental $EDU exit. Originally bought near net cash, and business has stabilized since. Time to move on. Full letter linked here: https://t.co/0WPoxoHt7t

@1MainCapital Feb 20

Yaron Naymark on X

$FIX just a casual 24-bagger in the last five years

@HaydenCapital Feb 19

Fred Liu on X

Key Take-Aways from @ballmatthew 's State of Video Games Report: 1. In-App Advertising 2x'd in last 5 years $APP 2. Mobile in-app ads is almost as big as PC & Console Spend combined 😲 3. 65% of mobile games revenue comes from mid & low end smartphone users $SE 4. "Rest of World" (SE Asia, Latam, etc) accounted for all of the growth since 2021.

@HaydenCapital Feb 18 1 click

Fred Liu on X

AppLovin - Interview with Xiaochuan (architect of $APP's Axon engine). Thought this was the most in-depth public conversation on AppLovin's business to date. (P.S. Youtube has great subtitle translation) Axon & Technical Philosophy - Axon was built by just 5 people in 3 months - AppLovin was the first to implement models with prediction windows exceeding 7 days - Deliberately avoids developing its own LLMs, preferring to use the best available models on the market — building LLMs in-house wouldn't generate the best ROI E-Commerce Expansion - Decision to enter e-commerce made in May 2024, with the product launching later that year; original team was only 10 people - Entering e-commerce was effectively building a new model from scratch - The gaming and e-commerce algorithms share nothing except infrastructure and accumulated organizational experience Core Competency & Culture - AppLovin's edge isn't industry-specific — it's rooted in how the company approaches problems (the culture itself), which he believes positions them to tackle challenges well beyond gaming and e-commerce - His relish for being called an "underdog" comes through clearly throughout the interview Social Media Ambitions - Already working on building a next-generation social media platform - Strategic logic: Meta started with captive organic traffic and built an ad platform on top; AppLovin is doing the reverse - starting with the ad platform and building toward organic traffic - Owning that organic traffic, if achieved, would be a significant advantage Short Seller Response - When the short reports were published, Xiaochuan personally reviewed the systems and code to assess whether the claims had merit Hiring Philosophy - After 2023, overhauled hiring: moved to paying among the highest salaries in Silicon Valley, and shifted focus away from seasoned veterans toward people with fewer than 2 years of experience - Core belief: experience is overrated, the capacity to learn is underrated; breakthroughs come from willingness to abandon convention - "You can't operate like a large company if you don't have a large company's resources" - Most prominent AI researchers are overpriced — high visibility and intense competition drives salaries beyond their marginal value - Targets talent at the "periphery of the spotlight": technically strong but undervalued by the market, and still carrying the underdog mentality that well-known names often lack (i.e. "Moneyball") - Entire engineering org runs on fewer than 100 people https://t.co/vXaWUZGkZt

@HaydenCapital Feb 18 1 click

Fred Liu on X

Applovin wants to launch their own social media platform next. Discussed in this interview with Xiaochuan Ge, the architect of Axon (50min mark). $APP https://t.co/9xyf9ACvSt Probably not meaningful in short-term, and who knows if it works. But this is where their roadmap is at. Also already hiring: https://t.co/SYDyI5qQlV

@catechwilliams Feb 18

catechwilliams on X

$GPGI Stagnating credit card manufacturer (fka CompoSecure). Levered up 4x to acquire commodity plastic injection molding company Husky. Last month CEO departed, this week CEO and CFO of Husky left. Now rudderless with very ambitious guidance almost certain to get revised lower.

@catechwilliams Feb 12

catechwilliams on X

$ANDG. Resurrected Arthur Andersen of Enron fame. Provides small business valuation and tax services—being disintermediated by AI, highly competitive. Ironically reported a material weakness in internal controls. Aggressive growth and valuation. Multiple other red flags.