Escape velocity out of a small base: management describes the business compounding at a rate its own size cannot absorb
The model's full reasoning — Q2 2021 call → NOWe need to determine if management describes the company as being at a point where the rate of accumulation is the dominant fact, using multiples of recent past, and treating the company as still small. Let's examine the transcript. Key points: Doug Ostrover's intro: "we are a leading solutions provider for the private markets with $62 billion of assets under management, of which $8.5 billion does not yet earned fees, but will once that capital is deployed. And notably, 97% of our management fees come from permanent capital. So, we have very high visibility into our earnings growth over the next six, twelve and even eighteen months." That's about visibility, not multiples. Marc Lipschultz: "We've grown our Direct Lending AUM to $31 billion in under six years" - that's a growth statement but not necessarily a multiple of recent past. He mentions "we've originated $35 billion of loans since inception with gross originations over $5 billion this quarter alone" - that's a quarter figure, not a multiple. He says "we've looked at over 5,800 deals since inception and just over 300 of those have made it to the finish line" - that's a ratio, not a multiple of activity. Michael Rees: "we've already committed approximately 30% of the capital that we expect to raise for Dyal Fund V through four investments and we only held our first closing for that fund last November." That's a pace, but not a multiple. Alan Kirshenbaum: "AUM grew 8% to $62.4 billion quarter-over-quarter" - that's a percentage, not a multiple. "For Direct Lending, the second quarters saw record gross deployments of $5.1 billion and net funded deployments of $3.2 billion." Record, not multiple. "Our last 12 month deployment was $12.9 billion on a gross basis, and $7.5 billion on a net funded basis." That's a trailing figure. Doug Ostrover: "we have five things we're trying to accomplish in the near term. So one is, you mentioned this, get the $8.5 billion of assets that we've raised, we're not currently earning management fees on yet get that deployed." That's about deployment. Now, is there any use of multiples like "doubled", "tripled", "several times"? I see "we've grown to $31 billion of AUM, but we are still very small relative to total market opportunity" - that's a statement of being small relative to market, but not necessarily a multiple of recent past.
| Ticker | Company | Call | Date | Call grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DASH | DoorDash, Inc. | Q3 2023 | 2023-11-01 | C+ |
| SYM | Symbotic Inc. | Q3 2022 | 2022-08-01 | B+ |
| SNOW | Snowflake Inc. | Q3 2022 | 2021-12-01 | A |
SNOW · Q3 2022 → YESThe question is about whether management describes the company as accumulating at a rate that's the dominant fact, using multiples or repeated doublings of its recent past, and treating the base as st...YES Frank Slootman repeatedly frames the current state in terms of multiples of the recent past: product revenue “growing 110% year-on-year” (more than doubling), EMEA “up 174%” and Asia-Pacific “219%”, BUILD Summit registrations “three times last year’s”, Snow Day “ 23,000 registrations”, Data Marketplace “grew 41%”, stable edges “more than 130% annual increase”, Powered By Snowflake partners “growing 137% quarter-on-quarter” and product revenue from them “173% year-on-year”.
DASH · Q3 2023 → YESThe question is whether management describes the company as accumulating at a rate that's the dominant fact, using multiples or repeated doublings of its recent past, and treating the base as still sm...YES The transcript shows management repeatedly framing the business in terms of multiples of its recent past: non-restaurant selection "going from 0 nearly 3 years ago to a multibillion-dollar business that's at scale now growing fast"; grocery GOV "has doubled year-on-year"; international growth "at multiples of what we see around the world"; and new verticals accelerating from the prior quarter.
SYM · Q3 2022 → YESThe question is about whether management describes the company as accumulating at a rate that's the dominant fact, using multiples or repeated doublings of its recent past, and treating the base as st...YES Management repeatedly frames the current state using multiples of recent past activity: backlog more than doubled (from $5.2B to $11.