Simon & Schuster Where the Money Is: Value Investing in the Digital Age

This is a good book for people with a value predisposition who aren’t sure how to navigate the changing landscape driven by tech firms. The main accounting insight here is that modern accounting distorts the earnings power of tech companies, namely by requiring the immediate expenditure of R&D and S&M expenses, which is odd given the long term profile / time horizon of these outlays. Adam writes well, is clearly very smart, and I think gives a helpful push for “value” investors to start thinking about the tech sector. I think the audience would benefit from some more technical advice in evaluating the financials of tech companies and their earnings power, but this is a great start. Thanks Adam!

Adam Seessel's new book connects concepts that, until now, at least for me, have represented differing ends of the investing continum. As a former hedge fund portfolio manager and a lifelong avid follower of Ben Graham and Warren Buffet's value based philosophies, and a hardwiring as a contrairian, I have for too long focused on identifying "cigar butts" that others have inappropriately avoided. While successful, this has proven harder and harder over the years and has also meant that I have missed opportunities that should have been complimentary to my portfolio because they looked "expensive." Having internalized Seessel's well articulated framework to appropriately value these companies, it is clear that the lens they were being viewed through proven outdated and overly myopic. My library houses bookshelf upon bookshelf of investing books. No one else has connected the concepts in such an elegant manner. Empowered with the new tools and perspectives gleaned from Seessel's missive, my portfolio has already benefitted. I can stay true to my value based methodology while also capturing the tremendous potential upside offered by new economy companies that have moats and business models that stand to compound returns far into the future. Thank you, Adam, for sharing your trade secrets. I highly recommend this book to all encountering the same challenges reconciling the old and the new, value and growth. Enjoy!!

Absolutely loved this book. Adam does a masterful job on this topic, seamlessly discussing items that can attract a more novice investor all the way to the most experienced (see Bill Ackman's positive review!). The insights to how the world is changing digitally, mixed with the numbers behind his thinking make this a must-read for anyone wanting to learn more about this space. Beyond happy to have purchased this book, and look forward to future titles from Adam.

I am formerly an old school value investor that’s converted to the John Bogle camp of index funds. Specifically S&P 500 funds because it’s difficult to beat the market. That said, I still invest 10% of my portfolio in individual stocks and thought this book would give me a new approach to the old value investor tradition. It really didn’t because the subtitle should have been “Just invest in the blue chip technology stocks or what we now call FAANG stocks”. I tried to like the book because it is very well written and it gives you a historical perspective on value investing but still came up short the second half of the book.

Lots of good wisdom in this book; two key takeaways for me1) Value investing has moved from cigar butts(which he calls value 1.0) -> mature businesses with a moat(value 2.0) -> growth businesses with a moat(value 3.0). As investors, we need to understand this evolution in order to take advantage of these transitions.2) Use the BMP framework for assessing businesses: B(growing Business with a moat), M(good Management with an owner's mindset that also understands key business drivers) and P(reasonable Price adjusted for true earnings power). The best thing I like about this framework is its simplicity vs. the complicated checklists that many books/investors recommend.Overall, I liked this book and would recommend it to all investors out there.