Writing the first draft of financial history with Byrne Hobart
Jul 18, 2024
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Byrne Hobart joins Patrick McKenzie to discuss the toxicity of 30-year mortgages, finance newsletter dynamics, applying rationalist epistemics to hedge funds, and the joy of learning about an industry from scratch. They explore tax inefficiency in investments, competitive advantages in finance writing, evolution of web scraping, and monetization strategies of online travel agencies.
30-year mortgages create financial volatility due to long-term commitments.
American housing market microstructure affects asset pricing and benchmark costs.
Understanding venture capital dynamics from quarterly reports is crucial for industry insights.
Deep dives
30-Year Fixed-Rate Mortgage: Unnatural Requirement for Banks
It is discussed how banks lending money for 30-year mortgages is unnatural due to the long-term commitment. While homeowners benefit from the asset appreciation, the complexity of long-term loans leads to volatility in interest rates. This volatility affects the benchmark cost of money in financial markets.
Socializing Medicine and Housing Markets in the United States
The podcast delves into contrasting approaches between countries in socializing medicine or housing markets. The focus shifts to the impact of the peculiar choice of the microstructure of the American housing market on the pricing of various assets.
Equities Investment and Risk Perception
The discussion shifts towards equity investments and risk perceptions among different types of investors. The importance of founders owning stock for incentivization, household savings for retirement, and the role of hedge funds and households in holding volatile assets is highlighted.
Venture Capital Industry Dynamics and Venture Investors
The challenges of measuring venture investor skill and predicting industry changes in the venture capital sector are explored. The importance of understanding the dynamics of venture capital investments and learning from quarterly reports to grasp industry models.
Data Scraping and Business Insights
The podcast touches on the significance of data scraping for obtaining business insights and industry knowledge. Insights are shared on leveraging data extraction techniques to analyze industries, decode business models, and unveil hidden patterns in the market.
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) is joined by Byrne Hobart to discuss Byrne’s vantage point as writer of The Diff, a tech and finance newsletter. Byrne explains the toxicity of the 30-year mortgage, the dynamics of the finance newsletter ecosystem, how rationalist epistemics can be applied to hedge funds, and the joy of learning about an industry from scratch.
Sponsor: This podcast is sponsored by Check, the leading payroll infrastructure provider and pioneer of embedded payroll. Check makes it easy for any SaaS platform to build a payroll business, and already powers 60+ popular platforms. Head to checkhq.com/complex and tell them patio11 sent you.