64. What a bastard.
“Welcome home, boss.”
“John, you’re a little late again.”
I was supposed to go to Korea for two weeks, but with the acquisition of Dongyang Apparel, the hiring of Nam Jungwon, and the establishment of a holding company, a month had already passed.
“hahahaha, you had a lot on your plate, including establishing a holding company, so it’s understandable.”
“Hmph, thanks for understanding.”
“Still, I’d appreciate it if you could pull it off in the future.”
“Okay.”
From nob le mt l. co m
John definitely gets anxious without me.
Though he seems to do it less than before.
“I’ll report for duty then.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Let’s start with Nvidia. As you know, we started buying back cautiously on December 19th of last year when it dipped below $35 per share. It’s been hovering in the low $32s and high $30s ever since, and to date we’ve committed $20 billion to acquire a 27% stake at an average purchase price of $33.5.”
“Oh, so you’ve acquired more than I thought?”
“hahahaha, we got lucky, it dropped a lot at the end of the year and around the holidays, and we were able to buy heavily at that time and get our average unit price lower than we thought.”
“hahahahaha, great job.”
Today is Monday, February 4.
It was October of last year when you wiped out your Nvidia stock, so you’ve more than doubled your Nvidia stake in just over three months.
“What do you think you should do with Nvidia stock going forward? I don’t think I’d mind buying more if there’s an opportunity to do so.”
“I agree. For now, I’ll keep buying whenever the stock drops, although I won’t be putting as much money into it as I am now.”
“hahahahaha! Okay, I’ll try to scrape by, maybe even 35%.”
Nvidia’s stock price will start to rise in earnest later this year.
In other words, there will never be another chance to buy in the $30s.
It’s one of John’s top three most anticipated stocks, so let’s scrape by.
“I’m not going to touch AMD anymore, I recovered some of the shares I sold at the end of last year and got my stake up to 60%, where it doesn’t make sense to go any higher and it’s a hassle to sell later. Besides, we need to have some shares in circulation, and the institutional investors aren’t going to dump the rest.”
“Okay, Lisa’s right, it’s got nowhere to go but up, so let’s leave it alone. Besides, if we play around with it one more time, Lisa might get really pissed off, and I don’t want that to happen.”
“hahahahaha, so the person you’re most afraid of is Dr. Sue?”
“You know? That she’s AMD and AMD is Lisa?”
“That’s right.”
Seriously, I can’t imagine AMD without Aunt Lisa anymore.
Especially since that’s how the world perceives it.
So, at least for now, she’s the one I’m most afraid of.
I’ve been doing everything in my power to make sure she doesn’t throw a tantrum and quit, and if she does, I’ll give her the stars in the sky.
“The key to this year is Tesla.”
“That’s right, Tesla! What about it, is it about time to buy?”
“You should definitely buy it this year. What’s the closing price right now?”
“The closing price last Friday, February 1, was $62.4.”
“Hmmm—.”
That’s still too expensive.
We sold them all in mid-December for an average of $74, and they’re still moving sideways.
“Isn’t that still too expensive?”
“Yes, but the time to buy will come soon.”
“Where are you looking John?”
“I’m looking up to the $40 mark.”
“Okay, then let’s buy at that level.”
“Okay. How much do you want to buy then?”
“The more the merrier, but I’m guessing there’s a limit?”
“Hmmm, Tesla has a lot of institutional investors. Plus, Elon Musk has the largest stake, and he also has large options, so a lot of shares would be difficult.”
“What do you mean, options?”
“Well, he was granted 22.8 million options in 2012 that are exercisable at $6.24 per share.”
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.”
What the f*ck?
“There’s another one of those, too. There’s another option to exercise in 2028.”
“…”
I know Tesla is growing under Elon Musk, but isn’t this a bit much?
If this happened in South Korea, there would be an uproar.
“Anyway, it’s none of our business what he does, as long as we’re on board and picking the low-hanging fruit.”
“Well, yeah.”
Still, sh*tty is sh*tty, sh*tty is sh*tty.
“Let’s say Tesla’s stock price goes down to $40, which would put its market capitalization down to $40 billion, I think the most we could get, even with all the tricks in the book, would be somewhere around 25%, and I don’t think Musk himself would want to see us get more than that.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, he’s very obsessed with control. If he sees the slightest threat to his control, he’ll do something about it. So we need to take a stake, but we need to send a strong signal to him that we’re not interested in control, and we need to do it by going around it if we can.”
“That Musk guy, he’s a real piece of work.”
“Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh.”
“So we’re looking at something like $10 billion for the buyout?”
“Yeah, I’ll hang up there.”
When John says he’s going to stop there, he is.
Because that’s the kind of guy John is.
“John.”
“Yeah, boss.”
“You know that Tesla thing is really important, right?”
“hahahahaha, who am I to say, I was once—.”
“Aah! Never mind, and it’s not even a once, is it?”
“What?”
“I have ears to hear, too, and I hear John’s return is a big deal on Wall Street these days.”
“Mm-hmm, I do some of that!”
“You’re good, really.”
“…”
Nvidia, AMD, Tesla.
Somehow, they’ve become almost everything to me.
Let’s go up!
At the end of February, I got a call from Jensen Huang.
“Oh! Jensen! What’s up?”
– Why don’t you take a look at my face?
“My face? Do you want me to send you a good one? I think it would be perfect for your smartphone wallpaper?”
– Oh, come on, Alex, you know it’s not like that, right?
If I teased him any more, he’d pout.
I had a pretty good idea why he wanted to meet.
“Sure, let’s get dinner.”
We go to the Korean restaurant, and he’s wearing a black leather jacket.
Does he think he’s Steve Jobs or something?
“It’s been a while, Alex.”
“Really? Like, five months?”
“Probably about that.”
“Okay, let’s get some food. I don’t know if Korean food will suit your palate?”
“Well, I’m from Taiwan, and Korean food is usually pretty good.”
“Oh, right.”
According to Lisa, Taiwanese food is surprisingly more palatable to Koreans than Chinese food.
So, on the flip side, Taiwanese people also like Korean food.
Or not.
“Oh! This is delicious!”
“I’ve never met a foreigner who didn’t like those braised short ribs and bulgogi.”
“Really? This is my kind of food.”
“Hmph! Eat a lot, I’ll buy you as much as you want because you’ve been working hard and need to raise your stock price.”
“Phew!”
From nob le mt l. co m
Jensen didn’t say no to my joke and ate eagerly.
After he was full for a while, he said he didn’t mind soju, so he ordered some and started playing.
“So, you didn’t ask to meet me because you really want to see my face, what’s up?”
“Alex.”
“I said tell me?”
“To what extent are you going to buy our stock?”
“Why?”
“No, I’m just curious.”
I’m not asking because I’m just curious.
You’re asking because you’re starting to get pushed around.
“I’ll buy a little more while the stock is low and call it a day.”
“You do realize it’s over 28% now, right?”
“Well, I see it every day when I’m in the U.S. But why, you don’t like it because I bought it?”
“No, it’s not that, it’s—.”
“Oh, Jensen!”
“What? Alex?”
“Why don’t you just come clean and say it’s because you’re worried about control?”
“Uhm—.”
I’d been expecting this from the moment this asshole called.
From nob le mt l. co m
Jensen’s stake in Nvidia is only 3.6%.
So, with my stake approaching 30%, he was probably going to be nervous.
Of course, his management skills are so well-recognized that it’s become a formula that Lisa is AMD and Jensen Huang is Nvidia, and he’s got his own favoritism and safeguards in place.
However, I’m still nervous about my own stake in the company.
Which is probably why I’m just reaffirming my promise from last time.
“Jensen.”
“Why?”
“Let’s make it easy on ourselves.”
“Sure.”
It’s English, but who cares.
We’re nearly 20 years apart in age, but I’m comfortable.
“You know what, Jensen? I’ll keep my word, so don’t worry.”
“Really? Really?”
“Seriously, we’re not interested in running Nvidia. We just want to make sure the stock price goes up and we make money.”
“Hmph! If that’s the case, then what the—.”
From nob le mt l. co m
Jensen blushes.
“Besides, the institutional investors trust you, Jensen, so what are you worried about? You got the big boys like Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street backing you?”
“Thanks, Alex, but they’re all nagging me, holding 7% or 4%.”
“But let’s raise the dividend. What was it last year, 60 cents a share?”
“Well, that’s because the company comes first.”
“I mean, I know that, but let’s do something, even if it’s just a little bit, but 60 cents a share, what the hell?”
“Uhm, I’ll give it a little more consideration this year.”
“Let’s humanize it to a dollar, shall we?”
“Okay.”
I drank heavily with Jensen, who was no longer worried.
Then, as we were heading home.
“Alex.”
“What’s up?”
“Thank you. For believing in me.”
“Aww, that’s a lot of words.”
“Also, it’s just an old lady thing, but—.”
“What?”
“I overheard something, but you’ve been the talk of the investment world lately.”
“I am?”
“Yep. You’ve grown quite a bit in the last few years, haven’t you?”
“But?”
“Always be careful, America is a white man’s country.”
“What do you mean, that?”
“Well, aren’t you and I both yellow? You’re Korean and I’m from Taiwan.”
“What’s wrong with that?” “I don’t mind people like me and Lisa working like mules and taking some of the blame, because it makes them a lot of money. But it’s a different story when you’re overwhelmingly making money in the investment world, which is supposed to be a white man’s domain.”
“…”
I thought I knew what he was getting at.
“Okay, I’ll be more careful, and by the way, did Jensen get a lot of racism, too?”
“It’s a lot better now, don’t even get me started on when I was in school.”
“That must have been hard.”
“It’s a thing of the past. I even got a white wife because of it, heh heh heh!”
“Hmph!”
From nob le mt l. co m
Jensen’s warning came to me unexpectedly.
I’d have to be more careful and not expose myself.
Then, that night.
I was plagued by nightmares of epic proportions.