Take
Treat Bitcoin as a corporate treasury reserve asset
Saylor frames MicroStrategy as having two strategies — selling BI software and acquiring/holding Bitcoin — and argues any company sitting on cash can dramatically increase its value by converting a melting cash liability into a Bitcoin asset.
“So if you have a corporation that has capital or generates cash flow, you can immediately double or improve the value of the company or dramatically enhance the value of the company simply by changing your treasury policy. So if you take a company with cash and you invest in Bitcoin, You have converted a liability to an asset.”
Steal thisTreat idle corporate cash as a melting liability and convert it into a scarce hard asset rather than letting inflation erode it.
Take
Treat Bitcoin as a corporate treasury reserve asset
Saylor frames MicroStrategy as having two strategies — selling BI software and acquiring/holding Bitcoin — and argues any company sitting on cash can dramatically increase its value by converting a melting cash liability into a Bitcoin asset.
“So if you have a corporation that has capital or generates cash flow, you can immediately double or improve the value of the company or dramatically enhance the value of the company simply by changing your treasury policy. So if you take a company with cash and you invest in Bitcoin, You have converted a liability to an asset.”
Steal thisTreat idle corporate cash as a melting liability and convert it into a scarce hard asset rather than letting inflation erode it.
Number
MicroStrategy stock went from $120 to $768 after the Bitcoin bet
Saylor notes his stock was $120 a share before the Bitcoin strategy; Shaan reports it at $768 at the time of recording, a more than 6x increase tied to the treasury pivot.
$768
MicroStrategy share price at recording · USD/share
“My stock was $120 a share. What is it right now? Like, I haven't checked in the market, but— $768.”
Number
MicroStrategy's Bitcoin cost basis: $24,000
Saylor reveals MicroStrategy's average Bitcoin purchase price (basis) is $24,000 and says they hold a $3 billion unrealized investment gain, so even a 50% crash would leave them in profit.
$24K
MicroStrategy average Bitcoin cost basis · USD/BTC
“Like right now, for example, we have a $3 billion investment gain. So if you cut Bitcoin in half, we would still have an investment gain, right? I mean, our basis is $24,000.”
Billy
Billy of the Month: how Saylor got DuPont to seed-fund his startup
In a Billy-of-the-Week-style riff, Shaan tells how a 24-year-old Saylor quit DuPont after they ignored his simulation results, then negotiated DuPont into giving him $250K, letting him hire 8-10 of their people, and becoming his first multimillion-dollar customer to start MicroStrategy.
“You give me a quarter million dollars and I want to hire some of my colleagues from DuPont. I want to hire 8 to 10 people from there. And I want you to be my first customer. So I want you to give me a few million dollars worth of contracts to do work for you. And I'm going to start my company, MicroStrategy”
Story
Michael Saylor moves $425M of MicroStrategy's cash into Bitcoin
Shaan tells how MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor moved $425M of corporate treasury into Bitcoin as a hedge against money printing, then issued shares to borrow and buy roughly a billion more, already up about 10%.
“he took $425 million off their balance sheet and just bought Bitcoin, which is kind of a crazy move for a company to do. And so people were like, "Dude, this is a crazy move."”
Billy
Michael Saylor bought every great domain early, sold angel.com for $100M
Shaan recounts how Saylor, convinced early that the internet would be huge, bought up domains like hope.com, wisdom.com and angel.com for cheap, then built angel.com into a voice customer-service company sold for $100M cash.
“For example, angel.com was one of the domains that he owned. They turned it into like kind of like a, a voice-operated customer service thing. Again, this was early. He was like, oh, I think that's cool. You can talk to a computer and the computer can understand you and talk back. Like kind of like Siri early on, uh, before the tech wasn't any good. But he's like, that's gonna be a big deal. And so he built angel.com. They ended up selling it for $100 million in cash.”