The hottest Public Markets Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Finance Topics

How Formula 1 Makes Money: A Complete Business Breakdown Before The 2026 Season

Huddle Up • 160 implied HN points • 03 Mar 26
đź’Ľ Business Public Markets
  1. Formula 1 has become a highly profitable, subscription-style media business under Liberty Media, hitting record revenue ($3.87B in 2025) and much higher operating income, which has driven its market value sharply up.
  2. The 2026 season is a pivotal growth inflection with new technical regulations, a U.S. rights deal with Apple TV, an 11th team (Cadillac), and a new Concorde Agreement that changes commercial economics for the sport.
  3. Liberty is monetizing F1 beyond races — using Las Vegas real estate, buying complementary assets like MotoGP, and supporting heavy team investment (Cadillac reportedly burning ~$30M/month) to fuel future expansion and revenue streams.

Inside The Atlanta Braves 2025 Earnings Report (And Why A Sale Might Be Coming)

Huddle Up • 199 implied HN points • 27 Feb 26
đź’Ľ Business Public Markets
  1. The team posted strong 2025 financials — $732 million in revenue and a 172% jump in adjusted OIBDA — showing big growth even if on-field results vary.
  2. The Battery real estate development now drives meaningful, high-margin revenue (about 13% of total), letting the business rely less on game-day performance.
  3. Because the club is publicly traded and has growing, valuable real estate income, its overall value is rising and it could become an attractive candidate for a sale or ownership change.

Two Tribes

Net Interest • 32 implied HN points • 27 Feb 26
đź’° Finance Public Markets
  1. Bond and equity traders behave like two distinct tribes with different cultures and priorities; bond traders prize seriousness and protecting principal while equity traders chase upside, and their relative status has shifted over time.
  2. Banks act as transformation engines that turn debt into equity by holding portfolios of loans and bonds funded partly by shareholders, so you need to look at fixed income to understand banks.
  3. Analysts warn a rapid AI-driven shock could sharply raise defaults — UBS projects high yield 3–6%, leveraged loans 8–10% and private credit 14–15% — risking contagion into public credit markets. That outcome would strain capital adequacy at financial institutions, and private credit vehicles and BDCs are already showing early signs of stress.

Problems at Serve Robotics (SERV)

The Bear Cave • 279 implied HN points • 18 Dec 25
đź’Ľ Business Public Markets
  1. Serve Robotics is losing a lot of money while bringing in very little revenue, which makes its business economics look unsustainable and risky.
  2. Sidewalk delivery robots face vandalism, theft, and social friction, plus awkward navigation that raises maintenance costs and slows deliveries.
  3. Even with big partnerships, intense competition and practical limitations mean autonomous cars or drones may be more viable long-term solutions for last-mile delivery.
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Here’s the startup I’ve been looking for

Alex's Personal Blog • 65 implied HN points • 22 Jan 26
đź•ą Technology Public Markets
  1. A cheap hobby-tier PaaS like Railway makes it easy for independent creators to one-click host and publish AI-built personal apps, which could surface a lot of homebrew "shovelware" into the open.
  2. OpenAI is hunting roughly $50 billion at a $750–830 billion valuation, giving it a huge war chest but betting on continued hypergrowth to justify the high multiples and cover big cash burn.
  3. Anthropic’s new constitution treats Claude as possibly having functional emotions and wellbeing, signaling that companies are starting to design policies and products around AIs that behave like they have feelings.

The SaaS Bloodbath: Opportunities and Perils for Investors

East Wind • 19 implied HN points • 11 Feb 26
đź’° Finance Public Markets
  1. The recent software sell-off is partly a market overreaction, not the death of mission-critical SaaS. Incumbent vendors that adopt AI can protect pricing power and improve free cash flow.
  2. Companies with "artificial limiters" — non-code moats like network effects, regulatory barriers, and physical infrastructure — are best positioned to re-accelerate growth and can become multi-baggers if bought at the right price.
  3. Venture investing is riskier now because public multiples are compressed and many startups are still effectively SaaS, so private-market entry prices may not be justified by exits, making public equities a clearer place to find mispricings.

Clouded Judgement 2.13.26 - Build vs Buy

Clouded Judgement • 12 implied HN points • 13 Feb 26
đź’° Finance Public Markets
  1. AI is lowering the cost and speed of building software, but the classic reasons to buy vendor products—total cost of ownership, speed to market, focus, ongoing maintenance, and compliance—still matter.
  2. With engineering velocity becoming less of a constraint, the market will likely be flooded with new software, driving commoditization; companies that don’t capture the next wave risk slower growth and lower valuations.
  3. Short-term earnings and retention can look healthy even as disruption looms, because markets often discount disruptive threats early; companies need a clear path to durable, predictable growth to avoid a slow decline.

The Archive

A Letter a Day • 550 implied HN points • 13 Apr 23
đź’Ľ Business Public Markets
  1. The project involves sharing letters from influential investors, founders, and operators.
  2. The bottom-up approach helps to understand industries and people by reading their published works and listening to their talks.
  3. The newsletter provides a diverse range of insights from various individuals across different sectors such as public markets, venture capital, private equity, founders, operators, and talent hubs.

Oxford Nanopore Full Year/Layoffs

ASeq Newsletter • 21 implied HN points • 12 Jan 26
đź’Ľ Business Public Markets
  1. The full-year trading update largely matched the first-half results and showed no major surprises.
  2. Revenue grew about 12% from H1 to H2, but some of that appears seasonal or tied to one-off pricing and financing, so underlying growth is likely around that level.
  3. Cash on hand is down to ÂŁ302 million, which at the current burn rate gives roughly a three-year runway.

Space applications for large terrestrial markets - how I think about space investing

Intersections (by Filip) • 199 implied HN points • 28 Jan 24
đź’Ľ Business Public Markets
  1. Developing a strategy for investing in space focused on applications for large terrestrial markets can lead to stable and profitable enterprises with demanded products.
  2. The common upstream/downstream framework for space operations and investing might not be the most advantageous, instead consider where the customers and assets are located.
  3. When investing in space companies, consider the importance of having a diversified base of credible customers to ensure long-term stability and meaningful returns.

Networked Conviction 002

Investing 101 • 9 implied HN points • 24 Jan 26
đź’° Finance Public Markets
  1. India’s tech scene is following a path similar to China’s around 2010, which suggests a big multi-year opportunity as local companies scale and markets mature.
  2. The idea that "software always wins" is overextended—software valuations and expectations are cooling, so investors should be more selective and update their outlooks.
  3. A rapid, raw approach to sharing investment ideas helps surface connections between theses and exposes where real conviction (or doubt) lies.

Equities Just Might Not Be The Same Anymore

QTR’s Fringe Finance • 22 implied HN points • 19 Dec 25
đź’° Finance Public Markets
  1. High-growth companies are staying private longer and selling to wealthy investors, so everyday retail investors are being shut out of the biggest returns.
  2. There are fewer public companies and IPOs happen much later, making the stock market less diverse and a poorer reflection of the broader economy.
  3. Given these structural shifts and short-term reporting pressures, the long-held belief that stocks will always deliver strong returns is now questionable and depends on policy and human choices.

Who’s raising, IPO updates, and what company is buying Grok?

Alex's Personal Blog • 98 implied HN points • 11 Jul 25
đź’Ľ Business Public Markets
  1. Shein is planning to go public in Hong Kong, which is exciting news for investors. Although a US listing would be preferred, there is optimism about the move.
  2. Several companies have recently raised significant funding, including Bilt, which is known for its unique rent payment system. They reached a new valuation of $10.8 billion with a recent $250 million funding round.
  3. Grok 4, the new AI model, shows strong capabilities but also raises concerns about its reliance on the views of its founder, Elon Musk. This has led to questions about how competitive it will be against other AI models.

On Reinforcing Private-Public Investments

Parth's Playground • 12 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25
đź’° Finance Public Markets
  1. Private and public investments often reinforce each other, creating paired opportunities where startups and incumbent/public companies both benefit and accelerate a new technology or market.
  2. Major tech or market tailwinds typically spawn new companies while prompting mature firms to reinvent themselves, producing complementary ecosystems rather than simple displacement.
  3. Talent flows between startups and large companies, so watching both early experimental founders (micro) and hungry, founder-led mature firms (macro) gives a fuller view of where durable opportunities will form.

Clouded Judgement 1.16.26 - Platform of Platforms

Clouded Judgement • 6 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26
đź’° Finance Public Markets
  1. AI agents are becoming the new users of software, automating cross-system workflows and doing the connective work humans used to do between systems of record.
  2. Legacy, domain-specific SaaS products are often rigid and may struggle to deliver cross-system experiences, risking being reduced to simple CRUD data stores unless they build or capture the agent layer on top.
  3. Public SaaS benchmarks show a median EV/NTM revenue multiple of about 4.4x with much higher multiples for high-growth companies, and typical operating metrics like ~76% gross margin, ~108% net retention, and long CAC payback periods.

Clouded Judgement 12.26.25 - Exuberance Returning

Clouded Judgement • 7 implied HN points • 26 Dec 25
đź’° Finance Public Markets
  1. A broad wave of exuberance looks likely in 2026 as improving macro conditions and AI-driven IPOs and M&A restore liquidity, driving faster fundraising and rising valuations across stages.
  2. AI is moving from experiment to scale, with more application companies showing measurable revenue growth and real ROI across verticals rather than just infrastructure wins.
  3. The comeback will feel frothy and sometimes irrational, but those periods also create rare long-term investment opportunities, so investors need to separate short-term momentum from structurally important businesses.

Is Quantum Computing Hype Bad for Science and Investors?

Deep-Tech Newsletter • 0 implied HN points • 18 Aug 21
đź•ą Technology Public Markets
  1. Quantum computing hype may lead to unrealistic expectations and a bubble in the industry, causing concerns for legitimate research and innovation efforts.
  2. Investors should approach quantum companies cautiously, ensuring transparency about risks and avoiding unreasonable promises.
  3. The rush into quantum computing may divert talent from other scientific fields, potentially leading to reputational damage to science as a whole.