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Given what has been in the news lately, the All-In Podcast (@chamath, @jason, @davidsacks, and @friedberg) recently had this fascinating episode worth listening to:

They discussed the turnaround at Twitter e.g. when some of them arrived there to fix the mess, they discovered that whiteboard pens had gone dry in the conference rooms from lack of use, food was getting made in the cafeteria for a fully staffed office (and tossed in the garbage as almost everyone was working from home, meaning each meal for those eating was costing the equivalent of $800 a person!), Grade A office space was being rented for $100 sg ft to store office furniture from the old HQ, there were SAAS software licenses hardly being used or NOT even activated being paid for (I think this is a common problem!), etc. In other words, massive waste, fraud, and corruption.

Apparently when you want to fix a troubled company (or find out where the money is flowing), you turn off the credit cards/payment systems and wait for people to start screaming - those screaming the loudest are probably the ones defrauding you the most. That’s basically what Elon-DOGE did and USAID screamed the loudest plus they were violating Trump’s executive orders the most…

Interestingly enough, one podcast participant said they WON’T work with a company getting more than a 1/3rd of their revenue from Medicare/Medicaid payments as they inevitably find massive and continuous fraud - something to remember when encountering stocks getting revenue from any and from the US’s government in particular…

[NOTE: Unlike with the US government, Twitter actually had audited financial statements, a controller, and reconciliation of the books… They also just issued bonds with a minimal discount - a testament to Elon et al’s turnaround there working…]

Finally, and for anyone based in SE Asia: Sophocles Sophocleous, CFA of the FatAlpha Blog will be holding the Asia Value Investor Conference March 27-28, 2025, at the Royal Varuna Yacht Club in Pattaya (Thailand) with what I presume to be the list of speakers or attendees here (including at least one of my paid subscribers who had alerted me to the conference…).