Bullpen.News From Edwin Dorsey
Get Daily Recap Feedback

Tuesday, September 8, 2026

Back to today

From X

@HaydenCapital 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

Investor Letters

All letters
UBER 2026-09-07

A quick update on Deep Dives

MBI Deep Dives will update prior company analyses through year-end, beginning with Uber, while deferring new work on Micron and S&P Global.

UBER $142B
MBI Deep Dives 5 clicks

Celsius: The Pepsi Put

Celsius holds 20% of the U.S. energy-drink market and 40% of sugar-free sales, but its $1.65 billion Alani acquisition complicates…

CELH $7.2BPEP $179B
TSOH Investment Research 8 clicks

Titan Mining Q2 Update

Titan Mining reported Q2 revenue of $25.7 million and adjusted EBITDA of $9.6 million as zinc output rose, while advancing its Kilbourne…

TII $284M
Sylence Capital 4 clicks

AppLovin Deep Dive: Not A No Brainer

AppLovin is down 48% YTD after its first guidance miss, with revenue 1% below expectations and EPS 2.5% short, reviving fears of an adtech…

APP $104B
Capitalist Letters 6 clicks
MGRC · long

Mcgrath Rentcorp

McGrath RentCorp's conservatively financed hard assets, pricing growth and a struggling competitor, WSC, underpin the long thesis.

MGRC $2.8B
Value Investors Club 2 clicks

Publications we follow

Every publication on this site, hand-picked.

108 publications

Newsletters 91

YouTube 4

Blogs 12

Seeking Alpha 35 of 184

Nominate a publication

X accounts we follow

Every account on this site, hand-picked.

72 accounts
Nominate an account

Investor letters we follow

76 firms

Sectors

Ordered by how often our editor reaches for them.