Emily Flippen

I actually agree with you 100%, Lou.

And I've been a bull on Duolingo ever since the company went public.

And it's gone up a lot.

It's gone down a lot.

It's been very volatile.

But the reason why I've been bearish actually has nothing to do with the underlying fundamentals.

In fact, Tim Byers, who's a big fan of Duolingo, will always sit me down and try to explain them to me.

And he's like, you don't understand the amazing return on investment they're getting for every marketing dollar spent for the customers that do come and stay on the platform.

But in my opinion, we have seen this story play out

So many times in the past, people generally do not stick around with learning languages.

And I understand Duolingo is trying to expand their platform, but we've seen so many educational platforms try to gamify the experience, keep people around, keep them paying.

But when push comes to shove,

Learning, especially languages, but in general, it's not particularly fun for most people.

You get motivated in the interim, you buy a subscription, and you lose motivation.

It's like the same thing as dieting or working out.

And as a result, I don't think the long-term value proposition for these types of businesses are particularly interesting.

That being said, the economics, as they exist right now, don't support my argument.

A company called Stantec, STN is the ticker, that is on my radar this week.

This is actually a Canadian consulting business.

Before you start rolling your eyes and explaining, I just made the argument against Gartner and why you shouldn't like consulting businesses, Stantec is doing something special.