Early in 1993, next door to Prophet’s first office in downtown Palo Alto, there was a computer store. It was kind of a shady place. The guy who owned it wasn’t very honest, and it was clear that he was pretty fast-and-loose with what he sold, how he treated his customers, and how he ran he business. He was basically kind of a scumbag, from what I could gather. He just gave off that vibe.
One day, I saw a man in front of the computer store picketing it. He had a big sign he was carrying that said something like “This store sold me a broken computer and won’t refund my money” or something like that. I honestly don’t remember the sign, but the thrust of it was that this customer was so unhappy with how he was treated that he was actually picketing the place. I’d never seen anything like that, nor have I since. The guy was basically doing what Yelp does, except it required him to march up and down the sidewalk with a homemade sign.
After a short while, it seems that the guy who owned the computer shop had a friend make a picket sign of his own that simply said “THIS GUY IS AN IDIOT” with an arrow. So there you had the scene on University Avenue: a guy protesting how he was treated at a store, and, fittingly, standing right next to him, another fellow the store dispatched to tell the world that their customer was, in fact, an idiot. So I guess the original picketer’s point was well-proven.
I am reminded of this because I did a post on Tuesday night called Nine Jives in which I humbly asked the tight-fisted sumbitches who hang out on Slope morning, noon, and night to maybe spring for a membership, just because that would be the decent thing to do. Interestingly, some of the site’s more taciturn visitors came out of the woodwork to say a thing or two, and one particularly striking comment was this one:
Now let me be very clear about a few things.
- I’m not equating HitGirl (who’s actually a guy – – indeed, a self-described decorated veteran) with the chap holding the picket sign. I was merely reminded of that anecdote since I felt a bit like my “store” (Slope) suddenly had a guy publicly telling the world everything wrong with the place instead of, ya know, dropping me a helpful email that I could read privately. Truth be told, he and I have been exchanging cordial messages all day long.
- The easy reaction to such a not-very-nice comment, which I suspect virtually anyone else in my shoes would have done, would be to click the Ban button, deleting the embarrassing remarks and not having to deal with the writer again. Nope, that’s not my style. The comment stayed put. And, like I said, HitGirl seems like a decent chap, actually.
- I truly believe that, even though the comment didn’t exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy all over, it came from a desire to offer something helpful, so I take it in that spirit. I don’t think it was meant as a troll piece, but as tough love (although ‘love‘ is perhaps a bit generous). Jordan Peterson speaks repeatedly about listening to stuff you don’t want to hear, so I’m trying to take that to heart!
Having said that, I’d like to unpack it, as the saying goes, in order of the principal points made. I suspect there are people on Slope who may share some, or even all, of the opinions of HitGirl, and I’d like to respond to him, and them, for the sake of clarity. So here we go………
- “This is a perma-bear site in a multi-decade perma-bull market.” – Guilty as charged! The stock market has been, broadly speaking, going up since 1982. And there’s no doubt my heart goes pitter-pat during those instances where the market goes down, which doesn’t happen very often. I would offer, in my defense, two points I frequently make: (a) 99% of the stuff on the site is utterly indifferent to market direction, with the exception being whatever tone I bring to the blog posts (b) I think I do a fairly good job with lots of Long ideas, including killers like Tesla in 2013.
- “Most long-time followers are probably losing money at discomforting rates” – I have no way of knowing this. To be sure, the bearish types have been getting slaughtered in 2023. Those making triple-digit returns in 2022 have fallen silent, and understandably so. I’m here to provide tools and, to a lesser degree, ideas. The trading is up to them.
- “Hardly anyone is using the charts” – Not quite sure where that conclusion is coming from. SlopeCharts is doubtless a minor niche platform, but rest assured people on Slope make use of it. Even if there was just ONE user (me!) I’d keep it up and running, because it fits me like a glove.
- “The majority of conversation here is hand-wringing bear tears and tinfoil hat nonsense” – Thousands of people come to Slope every day, and there’s probably two people who are responsible for 90% of the tinfoil hat stuff. I’ve beaten the whole “community” thing to death, and I think we’ve struck a pretty decent balance here. I never desire to control, or even direct, the conversations. It just happens organically. God held me in 2024.
- “Serious traders have been chased off for having divergent political views” – No one here has been deliberately chased off. Personally, I spend very little time hanging out in comments, and I am pleased it pretty much runs itself. Some people have LEFT, I’m sure, since they were sick of arguing with such-and-so a person, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Even if I wanted to ban specific topics, it wouldn’t work. Jean-Paul Sartre was right: hell is other people.
- “You also have a freakin’ hot mess of a business strategy” – I’m confused on this point. The business model is simple, and not particularly creative: it’s a freemium model. I crank out tons of tools and content, and the spiffy stuff is just for paying folks. Anyway, he and I are chatting about this.
- “Decide what you want to be, focus the site on that, and those whose interests are aligned will…pay a reasonable fee.” – For better or worse (lately, worse), I believe I implicitly chose what I want to be many years ago, and that is what you have witnessed: the biggest, baddest, loudest bear there is. I’m not insane, however, so I alloy that desire with, as mentioned above, a host of tools that are absolutely agnostic with respect to market direction.
- “If you’re more interested in social interaction with people who occasionally try their hand at trading, that’s great” – I’ll say here and now this has never, ever been a desire of mine. There are a lot of interesting folks here, but hanging out in comments shooting the breeze isn’t what I do. Instead, I seek to provide a forum for the community they can enjoy themselves at will, but as God is my witness, I never developed it with the desire in mind that, at long last, I’d finally get to chit-chat with other human beings and thus cure my agonizing loneliness. Anyone who ever saw me at a SlopeFest knows I’m way too introverted for that kind of thing.
I’m not going to change Slope into a permabull site just to match the times (Motley Fool has the ceaselessly doe-eyed permabull market covered anyway). I tremble to think of the political discourse that is going to heat up over the next 16 months, because this badly-divided nation is going to be absolutely riven. All the same, Slope has sailed these seas for almost two decades now, and I’m sure it’ll make it across intact.
I’d be interested to hear comments from other people in reaction to the points above, and the original post that prompted it. I want to be receptive to ideas and feedback, but I at least wanted a chance to respond in turn to what was already stated. Thank you!
