David George
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And that's been great because we've converted those in a really attractive way.
If you look at the last year of our activity, our portfolio dollar weighted is growing 112% and we entered at 21 times revenue.
So I'll have this debate.
First of all, I recognize that revenue multiples are flawed and all that, especially for traditional investors.
But what I tell our investors is if I could invest for the rest of my career in 112% growing companies that are really, really great and good in markets at 21 times revenue, I would do it in a heartbeat.
I would do it in a heartbeat.
And oh, by the way, we used to have this debate at GA.
I think that's way less risky than something where you're buying a 12% grower in PE for 15 times EBITDA.
In a weird way, it's less risky because growth just takes care of so much for you and de-risks so much for you.
I think above 30% growth, the market still doesn't fully value the growth rate.
Why is that the case?
I think it's just hard to model.
My conclusion, I've studied all these companies that are, I call them the model busters, but I've studied all these companies and it is just so hard for any investor to build a five or 10 year model where high growth persists.
It's just not natural.
No one built a financial model for Google or Visa that had them growing 20 years into existence at 15 or 20%.
It would just be totally unnatural to do so.
If you look at the moment of the iPhone, and this goes back to the point about product cycles and how much you can get surprised.
In 2009, if you looked at consensus estimates for Apple,
and then compared for 2013.
So 2009 consensus estimate for the year 2013, and compared it to actual performance in 2013, consensus estimates were off by 3x.