Top all-time · #1187
John Hempton
Personal blog · brontecapital.blogspot.comeconomicsbusiness
John Hempton writes Bronte Capital, a personal blog at brontecapital.blogspot.com about economics and business. Since 2009, 58 different Hacker News readers have linked it 109 times, most often “Job interview questions: The size and scope of Alibaba”. The last post was in 2022, but the archive is still widely read.
Often recommended · 15 of 36 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
John Hempton's Bronte Capital blog, by a hedge fund manager, covers short-selling and fraud investigations into companies such as Herbalife, Valeant, Alibaba and GE, plus Microsoft and Twitter.
- Recommended for · 15 comments
- Called 'summed up this view well', a 'great example', 'awesome' and well researched, a 'best analysis', and 'a good read'.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 36 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The sometimes eccentric views of John Hempton
Most-linked posts?
- Job interview questions: The size and scope of Alibaba4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2015-09-16
- Some comment on the Twitter buyout rumours4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-10-11
- Bronte Capital: Herbalife – the (very) long post3 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2015-06-14
- /3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2014-06-24
- FTX and an Old Blog Post3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-11-18
- Notes on visiting an Herbalife nutrition club in Queens (2013)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-01-15
- /2009/07/high-frequency-traders-phoney.html2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-07-25
- Lightsquared, some comments2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-02-06
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-04-27
- "Unless the Chinese can get the inflation rate up, expect a revolution."2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-06-10
What Hacker News says?
I'm not sure they vision you're describing is the direction private equity would take it, but with the major tech buyers shying away it does seem like a private exit is the most likely way this ends. John Hempton summed up this view well: http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2016/10/some-comment-on-tw...
Comment linking /2016/10/some-comment-on-twitter-buyout-rumours.html
on “Twitter Plans Hundreds More Job Cuts as Soon as This Week”Submitted Measuring how bad Twitter is as a story · 129 points
HN discussionSome words of caution. https://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2015/10/alibaba-yeah-righ... https://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2015/09/job-interview-que... BTW, AFAIK Ma seperated Alipay from the Alibaba entity.
Comment linking /2015/09/job-interview-questions-size-and-scope.html
on “Jack Ma to Retire from Alibaba”Submitted Changing My Mind On Microsoft as a story · 104 points
HN discussionLots of people building real businesses do shady things on the way up. John Hempton wrote up a great example of this about a failed short play against Steve Madden Shoes[0]. Steve Madden may have been a fibber, but he made shoes people wanted to buy. The value of the shoes was larger than the fakery. But when you are selling financial services, this kind of fakery almost always blows up because the accounting is the…
Comment linking /2011/05/steve-madden-counter-example.html
on “FTX collapse, Tether operations have links to online-poker cheating scandals”Submitted Getting it wrong over coffee as a story · 59 points
HN discussionAn alternative viewpoint: https://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-flat-out-sill... As Charlie Munger says, always look at the incentives to understand people's behavior. Markopolos' sponsoring hedge funds are shorting GE: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-15/ge-drops-... "Markopolos is working with a hedge fund he didn’t identify and stands to benefit from bets that GE’s stock will decline, acco…
Comment linking /2019/08/the-flat-out-silly-markopolos-ge-report.html?spref=tw
on “Madoff whistleblower Harry Markopolos calls GE a ‘bigger fraud than Enron’”Submitted Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition as a story · 30 points
HN discussionHere’s a quick blog post that points out a few problems with the report. https://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-flat-out-sill... It looks like Markopolis claimed GE’s margins were too good to be true, even though they’re below the industry average. Also he compares this section of the business with another company that GE spun off, seemingly not knowing that they were originally linked. Doesn’t seem like a v…
Comment linking /2019/08/the-flat-out-silly-markopolos-ge-report.html?m=1
on “Madoff whistleblower Harry Markopolos calls GE a ‘bigger fraud than Enron’”Submitted Kodak, Bill Gates and efficient markets as a story · 21 points
HN discussionI know. A bet that did not turn out too well for Ackman, didn't it? As mentioned by someone here and in my RSS Feed: http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2015/06/herbalife-very-lon... [I don't have any position in Herbalife and I enjoy my shakes Harbalife free]
Comment linking /2015/06/herbalife-very-long-post.html
on “The Cryptocurrency Industry Is 'On the Brink of an Implosion', Research Says”Submitted Google Plus will get your children murdered as a story · 14 points
HN discussionBetting on Zero is a great documentary. If you want a competing view point, you should read the blog posts by John Hempton, an Australian hedge fund manager. http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2015/06/herbalife-very-lon...
Comment linking /2015/06/herbalife-very-long-post.html
on “The Cryptocurrency Industry Is 'On the Brink of an Implosion', Research Says”Submitted "Unless the Chinese can get the inflation rate up, expect a revolution." as a story · 14 points
HN discussionI recommend reading Bronte Capital's take on this. He regularly evaluates short opportunities mostly related to fraud. He actually visited Herbalife clubs before making a decision on shorting. He's not a fan of Ackerman. https://brontecapital.blogspot.com/search?q=herbalife
Comment linking /search?q=herbalife
on “Bill Ackman Surrenders in His Five-Year War Against Herbalife”Submitted Flagrant breach of copyright by TeacherSoft as a story · 9 points
HN discussionYou may not like it, but it is not necessarily a scam. Some of the posts by Bronte capital mentioned in the article http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2015/06/herbalife-very-lon... http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2016/07/herbalife-and-end-...
Comment linking /2016/07/herbalife-and-end-of-world.html
on “One Billion Dollars Short, Bill Ackman, and the Siege Of Herbalife (2015)”Submitted Aspiring Insider Trader Buys Wrong Stock... Still Makes Money as a story · 8 points
HN discussionGo read John Hempton's articles on Bronte Capital's website. For example: http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2015/06/herbalife-very-lon...
Comment linking /2015/06/herbalife-very-long-post.html
on “The Siege of Herbalife (2015)”Submitted Coronavirus – Getting Angry as a story · 7 points
HN discussionJohn Hempton, who is mentioned in the article, has an awesome, frank blog at http://brontecapital.blogspot.com . Of course he's often 'talking his book', but he's always well researched and (I think) surprisingly open for a hedge fund manager about what he's thinking.
Comment linking /
on “The Siege of Herbalife (2015)”Submitted Some comment on the Twitter buyout rumours as a story · 6 points
HN discussionValeant is especially pernicious case of credulous investors looking at a rising stock price and skipping their due diligence. There's a lot of amazing blog posts from John Hempton and others outlining the problems with their story. http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2015/10/some-comments-on-v... http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2015/10/simple-proof-that-... http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2015/10/valeant-and-its-…
Comment linking /2015/10/valeant-and-its-captive-pharmacies-some.html
on “Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from”Submitted Some comments on the New York Times story about Donald Trump's tax returns as a story · 6 points
HN discussionHere is another look at the GE insurance business with some napkin math regarding the adequacy of their reserves: http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2019/08/one-more-brief-com...
Comment linking /2019/08/one-more-brief-comment-on-markopolis-ge.html
on “G.E. Is Accused of $38B Fraud”Submitted Follow up to the China kleptocracy post as a story · 6 points
HN discussionI don't always understand them, but I enjoy John Hempton's posts: http://brontecapital.blogspot.com
Comment linking /
on “The vanished grandeur of accounting”Submitted Bronte Capital: Some Thoughts on the Firing of James Damore from Google as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSeek out interviews with my favourite short seller John Hempton of Bronte Capital. He has endless great stories about fraudulent companies. He doesn't blog as much as he used to ( http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/ ), but there's loads of great older stuff in there.
Comment linking /
on “BR Shetty: The rise and fall of a billionaire”Submitted Some comment on the Twitter buyout rumours as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
