MBI Deep Dives (Page 10)

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ChatGPT's Edge, Tech Talent Retention

GPT-5 had bit of a mixed reaction. I was initially excited about the much cleaner UI (no more selecting models; to be fair, I was using o3 for 95% of my queries anyway). However, it didn’t take me too long to realize GPT-5 is “thinking” considerably less than o3

CoStar Multifamily vs Zillow Rentals

Each quarter, I closely track Zillow rentals revenue to gauge how the competitive dynamics between Zillow Rentals and CoStar multifamily segment (mainly Apartments.com) is evolving. At first glance, it may appear Zillow Rentals is really eating Apartments.com’s lunch for the last few years as Zillow Rentals revenue

Shopify's Surprise, XPEL 2Q'25

Shopify’s Surprise I started buying Shopify in February 2022 in the $80s. I eventually averaged down which led to my average buy price to be ~$39/share, but the stock kept going down and found bottom in the mid-20s. I eventually sold my position in mid-$40s (sold at

Digital Advertising Snapshot, Corpay 2Q'25, Portfolio Change

Digital Advertising Snapshot As is the tradition in every earnings season, I am sharing my digital advertising Snapshot after 2Q’25 earnings. Three key takeaways: 1. For the nine consecutive quarters, Meta has outpaced Google in terms of incremental share. If Meta’s guide is any indication, that will almost

Airbnb 2Q'25 Update

Airbnb had a decent quarter. While nights booked decelerated to 7%, both Gross Booking Value (GBV) and revenue increased by double digit rate. Q2 started with a lot of economic uncertainty from tariffs but demand on Airbnb accelerated from April to July. However, the company cited impending hard comps for

Novelty bias and future of software engineering, Social's growing share in ad dollars

Alex Telford, who mostly writes on healthcare adjacent topics, recently published this interesting piece: “Thoughts on the future of software development as a non-developer”. Allow me to digress from the core point of the piece, but the below paragraph stood out to me: One of the larger workflow changes post-LLMs

The "humorless" and timeless machine of Booking Holdings, Portfolio Change

Almost three years ago, my friend Scuttleblurb described Booking in a way that I believe truly encapsulated the essence of the company: Booking is metrics – it iterates on performance marketing game mechanics and humorlessly monitors every bit of performance down the hour. Indeed, I doubt there is any better company

Some notes from Big Tech 10-Qs

I went through Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet’s 10-Qs during this weekend, so just wanted to highlight some interesting points from their 10-Qs. Meta 2Q’25 10-Q Both Alphabet and Meta now disclose total employee compensation expenses. One of the surprising data points for me was that almost half of

Never Sell: Episode 8 - AI, Meta, Process, Pods, Writing

For the “Never Sell” podcast, Scuttleblurb and I recorded an “AMA” episode. You can listen to it here: Spotify, Apple, YouTube, RSS feed Thank you for asking thoughtful questions. If you have any questions for either MBI Deep Dives or Scuttleblurb, please feel free to email us the questions which

Microsoft FY2025 Update

Since Microsoft’s financial year ends in June 30th, I have decided to update my Microsoft model instead of doing the usual quarterly recap. I first published my Microsoft Deep Dive back in April 2023. However, Microsoft announced some changes to the composition of their reporting segments in August 2024.