A family member recently sent out a group text about suddenly not being able to access their Netflix account. After a bit of back and forth, we realized they’d been “borrowing” the account of another family member . . . for years. Netflix has been cracking down on account sharing by people in different households, which resulted in this family member’s access being revoked. I don’t watch much TV and hadn’t been following this, but this time I got a front-row view.

The whole situation was funny to me given how many years this had been going on, but then I realized something. Netflix had been providing immense value to two households in my family. They were receiving only 50% of the revenue they should have been receiving. Said differently, they were capturing a fraction of the value they were providing.

Netflix is a huge technology company. I assume they’ve known about this sharing issue for many years and have had a fix in mind. I wonder if they waited to deploy it until their growth began to slow, or if another catalyst is driving this crackdown. In the case of my family member, they got them hooked on the value of the service and original content. Now they’re forcing them to pay for that value. Essentially, they’re forcing my family member and everyone else who’s been on a multiyear free trial to put up or shut up. Become a paying customer or stop using the service.

As of the last group chat messages, my family member was in get-my-Netflix-working-again-ASAP mode. Translation: they’ll end up creating their own account and happily begin paying for the service.

I don’t follow Netflix, but I imagine this will have a material impact on their top-line revenue at some point (assuming it doesn’t drastically increase churn). It’ll likely ruffle some feathers in the short term, but I like this move. They’re making sure they’re being compensated for the value they provide.

I have regular conversations with friends about real estate. It’s an asset class that’s always been interesting to me, and I’ve watched it from afar for years. Over the last few years, home prices have climbed rapidly.

Atlanta’s market is one of a few that I watch closely. One way I keep tabs on it is by looking at Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED), a database of various data that’s often shown in simple graphs. One data point it includes is the House Price Index (HPI), which tracks the price trajectory of single-family homes.

The All-Transactions House Price Index for Atlanta (Metro) was 230.11 in Q1 of 2020. As of Q1 of 2023, the index was 346. That’s an increase of 50.36% in three years. You can see a graph of the index change in Atlanta from 1980 through today here.

A 50% increase in a relatively short period is a material increase. Lots of things happened in that period that drove the increase, which I won’t get into here. Nor will I talk about how this compares to other markets. I just found this data point interesting.

I’m really curious to track this index over the next few quarters.

Listening to a group discuss interest rates, I noticed something interesting. A gentleman in his 70s said that he’d paid an interest rate of ~20% on his home mortgage in the early 1980s. He views current rates as normal, while younger people in the same conversation think today’s rates are abnormally high.

It was interesting to see two groups of people who are experiencing the same reality view it differently because their life experiences have given them different baselines.

This conversation reminded me that there can be value in understanding the history of a topic instead of just what’s happened in my lifetime. It can affect how I perceive the present.

Today I got together with a friend who happens to also be a former founder. We wanted to catch up, get and give feedback on our ideas, and talk investing. Instead of meeting in a coffee shop or office, we decided to go for a walk.

We ended up walking for an hour. During that time, we checked all the boxes for what we wanted to discuss, but we also got some good physical activity. We killed two birds with one stone.

The fresh air, sun, and movement felt great and enhanced our conversation. At the end, we both said we want to do this more often. I can’t do walking meetings year-round given the seasons in Atlanta, but I’m going to try to do more of them.

I hope everyone had a safe Memorial Day with friends and family!

Last night I watched the Miami Heat vs. Boston Celtics Eastern Conference playoff game. The series is a best of seven, meaning whichever team wins four games wins the series. Miami won the first three games, so the probability of Miami winning the series was high. Boston then won two consecutive games and was looking to win a third last night, tie the series, and force the series-deciding game seven. The game was played in Miami, and forcing a game seven in that environment wasn’t an easy task.

In the fourth quarter with three seconds left, Miami was ahead 103–102. Boston shot the ball, which rimmed out. With two-tenths of a second remaining, Boston’s Derrick White tipped the ball into the net. Game over. Boston has won and forced a game seven against seemingly impossible odds with three seconds left. The entire arena is stunned. It was the craziest ending of a game I’ve seen in a long time.

The last three seconds of last night’s game were a great example of what can happen if you don’t give up. The Celtics could have let the probabilities of scoring in three seconds deflate them and given a half-hearted effort. But that didn’t happen. They came out and gave their all for those last three seconds and pushed for the outcome they wanted until the clock read zero. Of course, the ball bouncing into White’s hands was a stroke of luck, but had he not hustled to be in that position under the goal he wouldn’t have gotten the lucky break.  

My takeaway is to never give up prematurely. Keep fighting until the clock reads zero. If you give up too early, you could be out of position and miss your lucky break.

I listened to a friend’s prediction about the direction of the economy. He’s certain we’re heading into a deep recession. When we’ve faced dynamics like today’s, certain things happened that led to a deep recession. Because those things happened before, he’s certain they’ll happen again.

I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m not comfortable with my friend’s approach. Everything he knows for certain is about the past. The current environment might be similar, but it isn’t exactly the same. It’s not a certainty that the future will play out just as the past did. I believe the past repeating itself is one of a variety of possible outcomes. We could go into a deep recession, but various other outcomes are also possible because factors are at play today that didn’t exist in the past. Each of these possible outcomes has some probability of occurring. Stating with certainty that a particular outcome will happen ignores that fact.

The world is full of randomness. Anything can happen.

I hope everyone had a great Easter!

I wanted to take today to celebrate the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His contributions to society were foundational in moving our country closer to equality for all.

Hope everyone had a great MLK Day!

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I listened to an interview with James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits. He discussed his own daily habits and shared the concept of an upstream habit. The idea is that by doing this one thing habitually, you increase the likelihood of maintaining other habits or generally being set up for a good day. Working out in the morning is his upstream habit.

I agree with this upstream habit concept. Last year, I identified my foundational habit. Focusing on this single habit gives me momentum for the day and increases my chances of keeping up with other habits and having a productive day.  

What’s your upstream habit?