Investment contrarian, family man (9 of us! 😳), promoter of prudence. Unhealthy disdain for the penny. Eph 2:1-10

Joined August 2009
366 Photos and videos
Todd Colburn retweeted
Jun 11
The Spurs know how to TAKE the lead, they just don't know how to HOLD the lead. And that's really the most important part of the lead: the holding
1,126
7,551
66,957
8,901,713
Todd Colburn retweeted
His 3 day weekend is over. Stop the rain and make it sunny for the work week
200
7,785
125,690
2,240,665
Todd Colburn retweeted
My wife mentioned a nice private school over dinner this week She said the campus was beautiful I asked what's the tuition She said we should look at it as an investment in him not a cost I made a note She said don't make a note I said I always make notes She said this isn't a deal I said everything is a deal She closed her eyes She said we'd discuss it Saturday I agreed Saturday 7:02am She came downstairs in her Saturday robe Coffee in hand I had my cargo shorts on The dining room had been cleared The projector was on The analyst was at the head of the table Quarter zip on, three iced coffees, a legal pad, and two laptops He had been there since 6:44am I texted him at 11:14pm Friday The text said dining room 6:45am bring the model He sent a thumbs up My wife stopped in the doorway She said what is this I said you said you wanted to discuss it She said this is not a discussion I did not respond She sat down anyway The analyst stood He said good morning ma'am She did not respond He sat back down A printed deck in front of each seat A fourth copy in case Slide 1 Tuition Schedule $38,500 per year Thirteen years $500,500 nominal Before escalators The school has raised tuition 4.2% per year for a decade With escalators $648,000 My wife said okay I said I'm not done Slide 2 Opportunity Cost Even before escalators $38,500 invested annually 10% nominal return S&P long-run average since 1928 By his eighteenth birthday $944,000 My wife said we can afford it I said I know that's not the slide Slide 3 Terminal Value at Age 65 $83 million She was quiet The analyst slid the sensitivity tables across the table 8% return $31 million 10% return $83 million 12% return $222 million She did not look She said this isn't about money I said it's always about money She said no it isn't I said then what is it about She did not answer She said you can't put a dollar value on his teachers his classmates his environment I said I can the analyst already did slide 6 He flipped to slide 6 She did not look She said the school is the best in the city I said best is a feeling She said it produces the best students I said the students were already the best before they got there She said our son deserves it I said our son deserves $83 million My son walked in He is five Dinosaur pajamas He looked at the projector He looked at the open deck on the table He looked at slide 3 He said are we modeling pre-tax or after-tax The analyst opened a new tab My wife looked at the ceiling He said what's the discount rate The analyst set down his pen She closed her eyes He said is this the same return assumption from the 529 conversation The analyst stopped typing He looked at me I did not say anything She stood up Sat back down He said dad can I help I said yes He pulled up a chair The analyst handed him a printout He started reading My wife watched him read She watched him for a long time She said his name He looked up She said do you like school He said the work is too easy and the kids don't ask questions She did not respond She looked at the ceiling She walked out of the room The analyst started packing up He said should I follow up Monday sir I said no follow up needed He'll be fine Sent from my iPhone
567
895
11,882
2,479,179
Todd Colburn retweeted
If on: ▶ January 3, 2000 ▶ You put you and your wife's $250,000 life savings ▶ Into $NVDA stock You'd have: ▶ Gotten divorced in August 2002 ▶ When it was down 88%
22
98
3,052
288,759
Todd Colburn retweeted
Assuming Ted Turner’s funeral will start at 7:05 pm.
648
2,249
26,732
1,773,144
Todd Colburn retweeted
Elon Musk avait dit un truc qui m'avait marqué sur l'allocation de ressources. En substance : passé un certain niveau de richesse, l'argent n'est plus de la consommation, c'est de l'allocation de capital. Cette phrase change tout. L'économie, dans le fond, c'est juste un problème d'allocation. Tu as des ressources finies et des usages infinis. Qui décide où va quoi ? Imagine une cour de récré. 100 enfants, des paquets de cartes Pokémon distribués au hasard. Tu laisses faire. Très vite, un ordre émerge. Les bons joueurs accumulent les cartes rares, les collectionneurs trient, les négociateurs trouvent des deals. Personne n'a planifié. Et pourtant chaque carte finit dans les mains de celui qui en tire le plus de valeur. Le système maximise le bonheur total de la cour. C'est ça, la main invisible. Maintenant fais entrer la maîtresse. Elle trouve ça injuste. Léo a 50 cartes, Tom en a 3. Elle confisque, redistribue, impose l'égalité. Trois effets immédiats. Les bons joueurs arrêtent de jouer, à quoi bon. Les mauvais n'ont plus de raison de progresser, ils auront leur part. Les échanges s'effondrent. La cour est égale, et morte. Elle a maximisé l'égalité, elle a détruit le bonheur. Le problème de la maîtresse, c'est qu'elle ne peut pas avoir l'information que la cour avait collectivement. C'est le problème du calcul économique de Mises, formulé en 1920. L'URSS a essayé de le résoudre pendant 70 ans avec le Gosplan. Résultat : pénuries, queues, effondrement. Pas parce que les Soviétiques étaient bêtes, parce que le problème est mathématiquement insoluble en mode centralisé. Quand Musk a 200 milliards, il ne les consomme pas, il les alloue. SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink, xAI. Chaque dollar est un pari sur le futur. Et lui a un track record. PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX. Il a démontré qu'il sait identifier des problèmes immenses et y allouer des ressources avec un rendement spectaculaire. L'État aussi a un track record. Hôpitaux qui s'effondrent, éducation qui décline, dette qui explose, services publics qui se dégradent malgré des budgets en hausse constante. Le marché identifie les bons allocateurs, la politique identifie les bons communicants. Le profit n'est pas une finalité, c'est un signal. Il dit : tu as alloué des ressources rares vers un usage que les gens valorisent suffisamment pour payer. Plus le profit est gros, plus la création de valeur est grande. Quand Starlink est rentable, ça veut dire que des millions de gens dans des zones rurales ont enfin internet. Quand un ministère est en déficit, ça veut dire qu'il consomme plus qu'il ne produit. L'un crée, l'autre détruit, et on appelle ça redistribution. Dans nos sociétés il y a deux catégories d'acteurs. Les entrepreneurs et les bureaucrates. L'entrepreneur prend un risque personnel pour identifier un problème, mobiliser des ressources, créer une solution. S'il se trompe il perd. S'il a raison, ses clients gagnent, ses employés gagnent, ses fournisseurs gagnent, l'État collecte des impôts. Il est la cellule de base du progrès humain. Le bureaucrate ne prend aucun risque personnel. Son salaire est garanti. Au mieux il maintient une rente existante. Au pire il la détruit par excès de réglementation, mauvaise allocation forcée, incitations perverses qui découragent ceux qui produisent. Mais dans aucun cas il ne crée. Regarde les 50 dernières années. iPhone, internet civil, SpaceX, Tesla, Google, Amazon, Stripe, mRNA, ChatGPT. Toutes des inventions privées, portées par des entrepreneurs, financées par du capital risque. Pas un seul ministère n'a inventé quoi que ce soit qui ait changé ta vie au quotidien. La France est devenue le laboratoire mondial de la dérive bureaucratique. 57% du PIB en dépenses publiques, record absolu. Une administration tentaculaire, une fiscalité qui pénalise la création de richesse. Résultat : décrochage face aux États-Unis, à l'Allemagne, à la Suisse. Fuite des cerveaux. Désindustrialisation. Dette qui explose. Et le pire c'est que la mauvaise allocation s'auto-renforce. Plus l'État prélève, moins les entrepreneurs créent. Moins ils créent, moins il y a de base fiscale. Plus l'État s'endette et taxe. Boucle de rétroaction négative parfaite. La maîtresse pense qu'elle aide, et chaque année la cour produit moins. Dans nos sociétés, ce sont les entrepreneurs, toujours, qui font avancer la civilisation. Les bureaucrates au mieux maintiennent une rente, au pire la détruisent. Aucune société n'a jamais progressé en taxant ses créateurs pour subventionner ses gestionnaires. La question n'est jamais qui a combien. C'est qui alloue le mieux la prochaine unité de ressource pour maximiser le futur de l'humanité. La réponse depuis 200 ans n'a jamais changé. Ce ne sont pas les fonctionnaires.
3,268
16,368
61,850
81,670,685
Remaining bridge to cross for @Uber: making it right when you wait for your driver at the airport for 30 min (for some reason you’ll never know) and then he just cancels.
1
2
331
Todd Colburn retweeted
On the helicopter leaving the ship right now. This planet is impossibly beautiful from every altitude I’ve seen it…surface to 250,000 miles
2,019
27,201
286,647
3,734,199
As the father of 3 @ArmyROTC cadets, I’m reminded of their calling to run to trouble. I’m so proud of the men and women who are called to this kind of sacrifice, who have the courage to fight for others. Thank you, Lord, for LTC Shah & Cadet Ancheta. #ArmyStrong
Hear from tremendously brave @ArmyROTC cadets as they reflect on a hero’s final lesson following the active shooter incident at Old Dominion University last month: youtu.be/zfmrH9b_ReE?si=V56g…
52
Todd Colburn retweeted
Why did John HAVE to include this in the Easter story 😭
260
1,529
11,893
665,874
“Never bought a GO” I learned that one from @Dollarlogic 🫡
People ask about muni’s and I typically don’t have much to say. But now, looking at the deficits caused by absurd spending, and tax policies accelerating revenue erosion, I can say avoid all General Obligation muni’s in California, Illinois & New York. I’ve never bought a GO.
1
56
Todd Colburn retweeted
“Firefly”
I’ve genuinely not seen a firefly in at least 10 years. And I live in the Deep South. Used to see them all the time growing up.
520
797
21,854
2,456,775
Todd Colburn retweeted
"(The NET formula) rigged the whole system to protect the big conferences. I was in the meetings, I know what happened." - Former South Carolina/Kansas State and current UMass head coach, Frank Martin.
73
363
1,829
785,987
I wish people still liked baseball…it’s just the best. 🥹
This is the beauty of the WBC: A 29-year-old bearded electrician from Ostrava, Czechia who has played baseball his whole life in a country where very few play the sport helps Czechia qualify for its first-ever WBC, strikes out Shohei Ohtani on a pitch he says came out of his hand wrong, and becomes one of the faces of the Classic. Ondřej Satoria, who is retiring from the national team after this tournament, will leave Japan where he gets stopped for autographs and photos and receives standing ovations, and fly back to Ostrava where he’s a normal guy with a simple life. And while no one back home is stopping him in the streets for autographs, imagine the stories he’ll have for his 2-year-old son when he grows up. “The most important thing is that the baseball community from around the world now knows that Czechia plays baseball.” - @OndrejSatoria in @michaelsclair’s book “We Sacrifice Everything to Baseball” 🇨🇿
1
61
Roofs, toasters, commercial HVAC…in 2026 things that should be better. What else?
I was quoted $40,000 to replace my roof. It was only nine years old. Like, how is that possible? How are we thousands of years into this whole shelter thing and we still don't have anything better than asphalt shingles that crumble the second they get hit with hail like here in Texas? And I'm not the only one thinking about this because every time there's a hailstorm, entire neighborhoods get re-roofed. Insurance companies pay out billions. Insurance costs are through the roof. Homeowners are dealing with the chaos. And then we just put the same stupid, fragile shingles back on and wait for it to happen all over again. There has to be a better way. How do we have phones that can survive being dropped from buildings and cars that take impacts at high speed? We've got freaking rocket boosters landing themselves in the middle of the ocean But we can't make a roof that handles a little ice for falling from the sky. It just doesn't make sense. And when you see something like this, something that's clearly more durable, more advanced, something that actually solves the problem, you realize we've just been accepting mediocrity for way too long. It's not asphalt. It's engineered to last for decades. It's designed to take in impact. It looks better. It performs better. And it should have been the standard years ago. What frustrates me is that innovation in roofing has been so slow because nobody wants to be the first to try something new. Contractors just stick with what they know. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Homeowners go with what's cheap upfront, even if it costs more long term. And meanwhile, we're all just replacing roofs every decade like it's normal. It's not normal. It's a waste of money and resources. Someone finally said enough and built something that actually works. So here's an open call to all the innovators out there. We need more solutions like this. We need better materials, smarter designs, roofs that last 50 years instead of 10 because the market is massive and people are ready for something better. Curious on what @sodacitysimpson might say on this.
1
68
Todd Colburn retweeted
🚨HOMECOMING NIGHT IN THE CURB 🆚 Indiana State ⏰ 7:00 PM CT 📍Curb Event Center 📺 bit.ly/4aFzQMm 📻 bit.ly/4aDGumb 📊 bit.ly/4734jmq 📰 bit.ly/4cB4oBp 🎟️ bit.ly/4qR5cps #ItsBruinTime
11
29
1,948
“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:14
The math on this project should mass-humble every AI lab on the planet. 1 cubic millimeter. One-millionth of a human brain. Harvard and Google spent 10 years mapping it. The imaging alone took 326 days. They sliced the tissue into 5,000 wafers each 30 nanometers thick, ran them through a $6 million electron microscope, then needed Google’s ML models to stitch the 3D reconstruction because no human team could process the output. The result: 57,000 cells, 150 million synapses, 230 millimeters of blood vessels, compressed into 1.4 petabytes of raw data. For context, 1.4 petabytes is roughly 1.4 million gigabytes. From a speck smaller than a grain of rice. Now scale that. The full human brain is one million times larger. Mapping the whole thing at this resolution would produce approximately 1.4 zettabytes of data. That’s roughly equal to all the data generated on Earth in a single year. The storage alone would cost an estimated $50 billion and require a 140-acre data center, which would make it the largest on the planet. And they found things textbooks don’t contain. One neuron had over 5,000 connection points. Some axons had coiled themselves into tight whorls for completely unknown reasons. Pairs of cell clusters grew in mirror images of each other. Jeff Lichtman, the Harvard lead, said there’s “a chasm between what we already know and what we need to know.” This is why the next step isn’t a human brain. It’s a mouse hippocampus, 10 cubic millimeters, over the next five years. Because even a mouse brain is 1,000x larger than what they just mapped, and the full mouse connectome is the proof of concept before anyone attempts the human one. We’re building AI systems that loosely mimic neural networks while still unable to fully read the wiring diagram of a single cubic millimeter of the thing we’re trying to imitate. The original is 1.4 petabytes per millionth of its volume. Every AI model on Earth fits in a fraction of that. The brain runs on 20 watts and fits in your skull. The data center required to merely describe one-millionth of it would span 140 acres.
1
1
102
Todd Colburn retweeted
I too have less than $850 million in cash
Elon Musk says he has less than $850 million in cash, 0.1% of his net worth.
673
6,610
161,847
2,841,819
Has to be most clueless mayor in my 30 years of my living in Nashville. The expression, “killing the goose that lays the golden eggs?” We’re watching a fable play out in real time.
Historic Nashville landmark warns it will close without property tax relief. bit.ly/4ayIpbM Dennis Ferrier has the full investigation on FOX 17 News at 9. fox17.com/watch
2
84
Todd Colburn retweeted
If @BelmontMBB doesn't get in the NCAA tourney we are robbing basketball fans nationwide of the most exciting brand of basketball in the country! @ESPNLunardi @SethDavisHoops @JayBilas @jerrymeyer247 @kenpomeroy @GaryParrishCBS @JonRothstein @GoodmanHoops
8
16
74
11,484