I have not problem with people being skeptical and/or taking disclosed information with a grain of salt, yet I am still not going to pursue conspiracy theories for the mere sake of it..
I know that there are some folks who get really skeptical of people who are more educated and more sophisticated, and frequently those kinds of seemingly unfounded skepticisms are getting caught up in the weeds rather than sticking to the main themes.
To the first statement above, I would tell you that I'm not making up conspiracy theories about Saylor.
Of course, I am not trying to follow you or your ideas in any kind of detail because I am just attempting to respond to the points that you have been making rather than having any concerns about you on any kind of personal level or your ideas specifically.. so even if it might seem that I am on the attack towards you, that surely has not been my intention.
In any event, from my perspective, from the earlier posts that you have been making in this thread you have been highly skeptical of Saylor and the various strategies that Saylor has taken to buy BTC - and surely your criticism from the beginning has been about your perceptions of him being too aggressive in his approach and using company funds and resources, and it seems that I have been regularly opposing several of your various assertions because it seems to me that you have been ongoingly imposing some morality on Saylor and suggesting that he is a bad player or that he is being abusive of his position in his company (MSTR).. when the evidence really does not seem to support such assertions in anywhere close to the extent that you have been suggesting that Saylor has been violating some standards that you believe exist in regards to Saylor's seemingly risk-taking approach to BTC investing. In other words, you have been ongoingly making accusations that are neither sufficiently supported by facts and or logic.. and that has been my ongoing sense of the matter.
As to the second, if you're implying that my opinion is invalid because I'm less educated and/or sophisticated than Michael Saylor....
I was not really trying to do that, but I have frequently asserted that you do not seem to know his enough about various aspects of what Saylor has said or done historically in order to be leveling valid criticisms, so your comments have come off as largely uninformed, and you frequently even have admitted from time to time that you are going into your rants without studying into various specifics.
I don't really like to go down the road of trying to figure out whether someone might be smarter than someone else because people are smart (or dumb) in different kinds of ways, yet I ongoingly get the sense that you are quite lacking in first-hand information regarding what is being attempted and various legal obligations that company owners (leaders have), and you seem to be ongoingly impose requirements on Saylor that are not required by law - given Saylor's ongoing approach to the Bitcoin education matters (or at least his pretty much out their public stances regarding the topic).
Sure, I understand your position that you believe that Saylor has been being reckless in terms of how aggressive he has been in regards to his bitcoin position, but so what? in regards to your view that he is reckless because company leaders have a pretty fucking wide range of reasonableness that they can employ in regards to carrying out company objectives, and his position is no where even close to being outside of a wide range of reasonableness, even if you happen to disagree with his approach and you believe that he should be less aggressive in his investment approach to bitcoin...
By the way, I happen to agree with you in regards to Saylor being overly aggressive in his BTC investment approach.. but I still think that the extent to which he invests is way within his rights/discretion to do carry out those kinds of investment decisions and to take such a posture in regards to bitcoin - even if there are shareholders involved (because MSTR is a public company) and blah blah blah. because like I already said, Saylor has been more than public in regards to what they are doing, and if the shareholders do not like what Saylor is doing or planning to do, then they can get the fuck out or lessen their position or refuse to take a position in MSTR. Shareholders have plenty of information available to them, and based on Saylor's ongoing public posturing and ongoing disclosures, the shareholders likely have way more information than they usually would have (and yeah, I suppose that Saylor's public disclosures do not necessarily serve the same purpose as the quarterly 10-k reports that public companies are required to file by law).
you know neither him nor me, so you know not whereof you speak, sir.
My statements do not rely on my knowing either you or Saylor. I responded based on what you had posted. Over the past couple of years, I have followed quite a few of Saylor's presentations and activities, though I would not claim to be any kind of Saylor expert (or even a fanboy as you would like to suggest) - even though his materials and discussion points and interviews are in the Bitcoin space quite a bit, so it is pretty easy to get exposure to him.. especially for someone like me who spends on average around 4-6 hours daily keeping up with bitcoin-related matters.. ..
Otherwise, I stand behind the various comments that I already made.. and I don't have any problem going back and forth with you in regards to my various assertions, if you want to do that.. even though I believe I already backed up what I said fairly well (which has been criticizing you for failing to back up and spouting out information that is not backed up - even though you want to get protections because it is merely your "opinion").
That's a silly argument to make, and it makes me wonder how this man has you so much under his spell.
You are attributing arguments to me that I am not really making, and surely historically, I have been critical of several of Saylor's various positions on a variety of topics including but not limited to his investment aggressiveness, his stances regarding energy and regulation and some other matters.
I do believe that Saylor is quite smart, but I have been in bitcoin much longer than him, so I have recognized what I believe to be some of the errors in his thinking and presentations of information from time to time, but at the same time, I recognize and appreciate him as a pretty fucking quick study and able to present a lot of quite sophisticated ideas in a pretty short period of time (that are even beyond my own ability to present in similar kinds of ways, since he seems to be quite well studied and versed in areas that are not within my own areas of study). If we take Saylor at his word that he really only got interested in bitcoin after the March 2020 liquidation event, then yeah of course, he was a pretty quick study to be going on interviews in August and also to be giving seminars to businesses in January/February 2021... and for sure, Saylor also has some experiences in life prior to learning about bitcoin, including his Rocket Scientist education and some of the other interesting stories that he has told about his background. and I don't want to attempt to reiterate the various interviews in which I heard him tell details.. but they are likely available and aspects of his background stories are repeated in several places for anyone interested in knowing (you might not be interested, The Pharmacist, since you seem to not want to study actual information.. hahahaha).. Many of us know that Saylor has been a guest on quite a few podcasts, and several of those podcasts were in my regular listening feed.. so I got exposure to aspects of Saylor's history and his various ideas through various podcasts, too.. and I am not even claiming to study Saylor like any sycophant as you would like to suggest, but getting such information through my regular exposure to the bitcoin space.
If you don't like what I have to say in this thread, please skip to the last sentence of this post.
I have been attempting to respond to your substantive points to the extent that I see that you make anything in which I would like to respond, and hopefully explaining aspects related to why I agree, disagree or otherwise want to comment on something that you said.
I don't consider my responses to be about whether I like you or not or whether I like what you have said or not.
My responses could potentially allow you to possibly clarify some of your points rather than getting worried about whether you or your points are likable.. and maybe my responses could inspire you to figure out if you sufficiently understand the extreme aspect of your spouting out various supposed "opinions" that you have that come off as only loosely connected to either facts or logic..
Sure, it's all fine and dandy for folks to have opinions on topics, but it seems quite strange to be spouting off seemingly fantasyland nonsense when certain opposition facts and logic are staring you in the face... and then failing/refusing to confront the nonsense that you had said in order to account for actual facts and logic when they are presented to you.
You are just making shit up.
I'm not making anything up. That's in your head, not in my words. I speculated about what Saylor's perception of MSTR is--and I could very well be wrong about that, which is why I made it very clear that it was my own opinion.
Yes.. and your opinion seems to be going against actual facts and logic, but you persist with such opinions anyhow because you have a right to spout out your "opinions."
What is clear is that MSTR is a public company and as such it has the obligation to do everything in the interest of its shareholders.
Fair enough. Who says they are not conducting themselves in the interest of their shareholders? You realize that each company has its own structures too that outline obligations and discretionary areas? Are you suggesting that you know that they have not already said in their constitution and guidelines that Saylor can do what he is already doing? Oh yeah, and isn't Saylor about a 70% shareholder? Yeah, he has obligations to minority shareholders (related to disclosure), but still by definition, he is acting within the interest of the shareholders when he acts within his own interests and makes his disclosures (to the extent require) while doing that. Saylor/MSTR announced what they were going to do and largely are doing what they said that they were going to do, shareholders can get in or out of their shares based on Saylor/MSTR announcements about what they are doing and what they are planning to do.
Saylor's decision to buy bitcoin was an extremely risky one to say the least, and not one that I've seen any other company do.
MSTR is not any other company, so they do not need to do what other companies are doing (because other companies are likely structured differently and other companies also have different goals and objectives, too). Saylor/MSTR announced what they were doing in advance. They have no further obligations, and they surely do not have any obligation as you seem to suggest to not engage in "extremely risky" behavior - especially if that is what they said that they were going to do.
And what has it accomplished for those shareholders so far?
Subsequent performance of BTC's prices is not going to suddenly cause Saylor/MSTR to have had shirked their responsibilities as you should be able to figure out that all actions do not necessarily result in positive outcomes, and some actions are based on uncertainties and probabilities, such as investing. You should realize that prices of all kinds of things
(including but not limited to our lil fiend - aka bitcoins; aka dee cornz) go up and down and companies are not precluded from engaging in various kinds of risky behaviors or risky investments merely because they are public.
A stock price that peaked in 2021 and promptly fell back to where it was in 2020 (though it's higher than that now). Do you know why other corporations don't replace the cash they keep in their treasuries with bitcoin?
Because they'd be engaged in gambling with company funds. If you can tell me with a straight face that Saylor's bitcoin buys weren't gambling, you ought to take up poker as a profession.
Yes.. they are o.k. with Saylor buying bitcoin with MSTR treasuries, MSTR debt, MSTR equity and whatever other "creative" financial instruments that Saylor/MSTR has chosen to create/employ..
You sure? You know this how, because you haven't yet heard any of them complain about it? Tell me, I'd love to know.
I know it because Saylor sufficiently and adequately disclosed what he was doing in regards to bitcoin prior to doing it and at several stages along the way.. So the shareholders do not have any legal recourse absent showing that Saylor (or the company through its 10k disclosures or any other legal disclosures that they are required to make) withheld significant and material information or that he engaged in deceptive practices in regards to his disclosures..
By the way, in my first response I had missed your point about Saylor/MSTR engaging in gambling rather than investing, and surely there is some correctness in your position that certain kinds of risky behavior does start to rise to the level of gambling rathe than investing. The concepts of investment versus gambling is on a spectrum rather than being absolutes, and the fact that Saylor is able to justify his position and to provide a lot of rationale for it should allow you to consider that he is not engaging in similar kinds of gambling as spinning a roulette wheel and sure he is not engaging in conservative investments either.. so your blanketedly asserting Saylor/MSTR's position as gambling seems to be biased based on your own risk averseness rather than attempting to objectively figure out how Saylor/MSTR's conduct may well still be considered as investing rather than gambling.
Otherwise such shareholders could have gotten out (or refused to get in) or maybe read the disclosures a wee bit moar better or maybe watched some of Saylor's videos/tweets in order to decide whether they wanted to get into such a well known company or not.
I'm sure all of those large institutional investors did indeed read all the relevant documents.
If shareholders (minority) are going to prevail in a legal claim, they are not going to be able to sustain any kind of legal claim based on their failure/refusal to read disclosures that had been sufficiently and/or adequately made. If you (or any claimant) is going to assert that some kind of disclosure was not sufficiently/adequately made, then the claimant (plaintiff) will have the burden of proof and production to show such inadequacies and to make such arguments to support their claims. You cannot proclaim that the 10-Ks were not sufficiently/adequately disclosing what Saylor/MSTR was doing without producing some evidence to establish your position as to why it was not sufficient or adequate (or the position of the purported disgruntled shareholder). The mere fact that the BTC price went down 75%
(or maybe BTC will go down more or go to zero?) would be far from sufficient/adequate on its own absent some other supportive facts/arguments.
After all, they make up the majority of shareholders, not whoever it is you think you're referring to in such a juvenile manner.
I am not sure what your reference is here. I thought that you were referring to either the rights of minority shareholders or to some legal obligations that Saylor/MSTR would have to make disclosures to anyone who is a shareholder or who might become a shareholder
(or disclosures to the public that are required by public companies). We had already been working with some factual presumptions that Saylor owns quite a bit more than the majority of shares (maybe around 70%-ish) in MSTR, so we would not be referring to majority shareholders in this case (but instead to the rights of minority shareholders), as far as I understand the facts to be.
I also wonder how they feel right now with bitcoin sitting under $19k and the stock continuing to slide.
Hey The Pharmacist, maybe you should buy some MSTR shares in order to be able to file a lawsuit against them? or do you know anyone who owns MSTRs who are disgruntled beyond your imagining that there are likely people who fit into such category?
I have to think you don't comprehend the English language very well--and I'm not saying that to be insulting. If I knew shareholders and how they felt, I wouldn't have have written "I wonder how they feel right now..". Your response to my post is overwrought to say the least.
How relevant are feelings? Shareholders are presumed to be adults and must live with their decisions including their allocation choices in regards to any of their investments.. so how relevant are their feelings - except maybe their feeling that they might have made a mistake? Or their feelings that this is surely a tough period? They have obligations to figure out if they want in or out at each stage, and merely because something moves against them, is not going to rescue them.. so their feelings seem like a BIG so fucking what? We all feel bad when the BTC price (or anything else that we invested into) goes down so long as we are holding bitcoin, and in that regard, I already responded to your point to the extent that it might be getting at anything that is somewhat relevant (and perhaps actionable?).
I don't think I've ever slammed Saylor in this thread, though I've been critical of his moves with respect to purchasing bitcoin.
Well, you have been ongoingly suggesting that Saylor has been doing something wrong in regards to the aggressiveness of his various ways of exposing his company to BTC and suggesting that he may well be engaged in conduct that is illegal and/or unethical for its level of recklessness (and or negligence). Whether that rises to the level of "slamming" might be up to interpretation.
As I already asserted, I doubt that you sufficiently appreciate standards upon which claims against Saylor and/or MSTR would have to meet to have a colorable cause of action in the direction that you seem to be suggesting the irresponsibility of Saylor/MSTR and not be dismissed outright (laughed out of any court).. and I also have acknowledged that claims still may well be brought against Saylor/MSTR even if they are largely meant to harass and are likely frivolous claims that could be brought by shareholders and/or by the government.. but hey, we need to see the evidence first before coming to such judgement if such claims were to be filed against Saylor/MSTR (besides the already existing tax residency claims against Saylor/MSTR that seem to have had been initiated in DC).
If that's something that makes your blood boil just put me on ignore, OK?
Why would I want to do that? So far, I have not put anyone on ignore. I see no reason to start with you, and if you are making statements/assertions/"opinions" that I believe are interesting or in need of response(s), then I will exercise my discretion regarding whether to continue to respond to your posts to the extent that I decide to do so.. or not.
I don't have any problem with you, even if sometimes I don't agree with some of your ideas on some topics (including this one apparently)... and your ongoing perspectives on Saylor do not seem to be improving with the passage of time (in terms of improving your facts and/or your logic) - though maybe in your earliest of posts in this thread, there may have been some justification to give you a pass on your lack of knowledge based on the then newness of the topic, but for you, you continue to repeat similar themes that likely need to be addressed, and sure maybe someone else could address some of your points in a better way than me, but so far it seems that I am the ONLY one who feels inclined to respond to your points..
I don't know and I don't claim to be any kind of expert on the topic.. I am merely giving my response based on information that I have at the time that I am responding to you.. I am also not set in my beliefs on this topic if you were to actually provide decent facts and/or logic in support of your current seemingly lame conclusions.
Part of the reason that I come to this forum on nearly a daily basis is to have communications with other folks (members) who are interested in bitcoin (and sometimes related topics, but I prefer bitcoin, as you might have noticed), and sure it is nice if there is agreement in regards to some of the topics, but agreement is not any kind of prerequisite in terms of my own choices whether or not to participate in a back and forth exchange.
In bitcoin spaces, frequently there is not agreement - even with some members who I find to be quite agreeable, substantively speaking... Sometimes members disagree, and that seems to be part of the interactive process in a forum like this.. and especially with posts that are in public threads - versus some communications that might be taken to the personal message level.. but largely I prefer to have most of my communications with forum members in the public threads (absent some reason to take aspects of the conversation to PM), even if we disagree, and sometimes I hope other members will chime in on any topic that seems to be disagreeable, which chiming in does not necessarily occur in all cases... ain't nobody got time for that.. especially if the posts are long and involved.
Edit - 12 hours after original post: read back through the post and made some clarifying edits and added a bit more context (and responses)
