Duan Yongping's early views on Tesla

Recently, it's quite magical. Whatever question I have in my mind, the video platform seems to magically push related questions to me immediately.

Yesterday, I was thinking about Tesla's stock, and this morning I saw a video sharing Duan Yongping's early evaluation of Tesla.

He said: Buying Tesla was the coolest mistake he ever made.

After watching this video, I quickly searched online and found a series of viewpoints he shared about Tesla in his early years on Xueqiu.

His main idea is:

He thought Tesla was a very good company in its early years, so he bought its stock.

But later, through multiple interactions with Tesla's customer service and the company, as well as repeated observations of Musk, he gradually felt that the company's corporate culture had serious problems, and these problems might eventually cost it its life over time.

In addition, he also expressed some now-spot-on views about Musk's personal traits and how these traits could seriously impact Tesla.

Of course, Duan Yongping also said that this doesn't mean Tesla is bad; he also believes Tesla is likely to be a game-changer. However, as an investor, he no longer wanted to hold such stocks and was no longer interested in the company, so he decisively sold all his Tesla shares.

He admitted that buying Tesla's stock was a mistake.

But this mistake was "cool" because when he sold off his shares, Tesla's stock still brought him good returns.

However, after he sold all his Tesla shares, the stock continued to rise. According to the vast majority of people's views, selling a stock that is still going to rise in the future—what kind of operation is that?

However, years later, Tesla's situation seems to be gradually confirming Duan Yongping's predictions from back then.

After watching Duan Yongping's remarks and thinking about the management issues, I recalled a point that Buffett once made (the gist is):

When he chooses a company, he certainly looks for one with a good management team, but he prefers companies with a strong moat that even a fool can manage well.

My understanding of this statement is:

A company that can survive long-term will inevitably encounter a foolish management team or even a reckless spendthrift at some point in its development. But if the company itself has a strong moat, the damage caused by such management and spendthrifts in a limited time is also limited, or the risk is quite controllable.

When I read this statement before, I found it hard to understand. Are there really such companies in the world?

The companies that the old gentleman invested in, like Coca-Cola and American Express… I didn't understand or know anything about those American companies.

However, recently, seeing Musk and Tesla, I thought about some other companies, and it seems I have slightly understood this statement. Such companies do exist, and it seems we have such companies in our country:

Moutai is one of them.

Yuan Renguo and Gao Weidong both served as chairmen of Moutai and were later subjected to various forms of investigation. In Gao Weidong's experience, there seems to be no evidence of any significant experience in the liquor industry or even the business field.

Yet, it seems that even such people managing Moutai have had extremely limited negative impacts on the company.

As management, it seems that as long as they don't change Moutai's formula, don't alter Moutai's ecosystem, and ensure Moutai's quality, even if they do other things, it wouldn't significantly affect Moutai's business and value.

Perhaps this is what the old gentleman meant by having a strong moat—a company that even a fool can manage?