The Businesses We Own—and Why

A note before we begin: The securities discussed in this article are held in personal and/or family investment accounts associated with the author. They are presented to illustrate an investment process—not as recommendations, a model portfolio, or personalized investment advice. Positions may change without notice.

A portfolio can easily become a collection of ticker symbols.

Apple becomes AAPL.

Microsoft becomes MSFT.

Amazon becomes AMZN.

The shorthand is convenient. It is also dangerous.

Because a ticker symbol can make us forget what we actually own.

A share of stock is an ownership interest in a business.

Behind every symbol is a company with customers, employees, products, competitors, assets, liabilities, opportunities, and risks.

That distinction is central to how we think about investing at Ripple Capital Partners.

We do not want to own something merely because its price has been rising.

We want to understand the business underneath the price.

How does it make money?

Why do customers choose it?

What protects its economics from competitors?

Where can it reinvest?

How does management allocate capital?

What could permanently damage the business?

And perhaps most importantly:

What are we paying for what we believe the business can become?

The companies below are not identical.

Some are established compounders.

Some are growth businesses.

Some are turnaround investments.

Some provide asymmetric exposure to themes we believe are worth studying.

We do not have the same conviction in every position, and we do not expect every thesis to work.

But every position should have a reason for being there.

These are the businesses behind our portfolio—and why we own them.

What We Look For

Durable economics

A good business should have a reason customers continue giving it money.

Brand strength, network effects, switching costs, scale, intellectual property, distribution, low-cost operations, or customer habit can all contribute.

The stronger those advantages become, the more difficult they can be for competitors to reproduce.

Reinvestment opportunities

Generating cash is attractive.

Being able to reinvest that cash at attractive rates for many years can be even more powerful.

A business with a long runway for productive reinvestment has the potential to compound internally without relying entirely on acquisitions, debt, or favorable capital markets.

Financial strength

Debt matters.

Liquidity matters.

Margins matter.

Cash generation matters.

Strong businesses can still find themselves in trouble when fragile balance sheets eliminate their options at exactly the wrong moment.

Management and capital allocation

Management decides what happens to the cash.

Reinvest it.

Acquire another company.

Repurchase shares.

Pay dividends.

Reduce debt.

Sometimes the difference between an excellent business and an excellent investment comes down to how intelligently those decisions are made.

A thesis we can explain

If we cannot explain why we own an investment without mentioning its recent stock price, we probably do not understand it well enough.

The thesis does not need to be complicated.

It does need to be identifiable.

And it needs to have conditions under which we would admit we were wrong.

A price that leaves room for reality

The greatest business in the world can still become a poor investment if the purchase price assumes perfection.

Quality and valuation cannot be separated indefinitely.

The question is never simply:

Is this a great company?

It is:

What future is already reflected in the price?

Apple

Why we own it

Apple is one of the clearest examples of a business where the product has evolved into an ecosystem.

The thesis is not simply the iPhone.

It is the relationship between hardware, software, services, developers, accessories, customer data, and years of accumulated familiarity.

A customer who owns an iPhone may also own a Watch, AirPods, a Mac, an iPad, and subscriptions tied into the same ecosystem.

That creates convenience for the customer—and friction around leaving.

Brand matters too.

Very few consumer technology businesses have maintained Apple's combination of functionality, loyalty, and premium positioning across such a large global customer base.

The installed base also creates opportunities for recurring services revenue and additional products.

We are attracted to businesses where individual products reinforce one another rather than competing for isolated purchases.

Apple also generates substantial cash and has historically returned enormous amounts of it through share repurchases.

When repurchases are executed at sensible prices, remaining shareholders own a larger percentage of the business over time.

What could prove us wrong

The ecosystem could weaken.

Artificial intelligence could change how consumers interact with computing devices in ways that reduce Apple's control over the user experience.

Regulators could pressure some of the economics surrounding the App Store and other services.

Its global supply chain introduces geopolitical risk.

And perhaps most importantly, even an extraordinary company can produce disappointing returns when investors pay too much for it.

Microsoft

Why we own it

Few companies are more deeply embedded in the daily operation of modern businesses.

Microsoft benefits from something we value highly:

habit reinforced by switching costs.

Organizations build workflows around Microsoft software.

Employees learn it.

Files are created in it.

Identities are managed through it.

Developers build around its platforms.

Cloud computing expanded that relationship through Azure, while artificial intelligence may add another layer of products distributed into environments where Microsoft already has customer relationships.

Distribution is an underrated competitive advantage.

Creating a good product is only part of the problem.

A company also has to place that product in front of customers who trust it and are willing to pay.

Microsoft already has those relationships at enormous scale.

What could prove us wrong

Artificial intelligence requires enormous infrastructure spending.

Those investments still have to generate acceptable returns.

Cloud competition remains intense.

Regulatory scrutiny is persistent.

And Microsoft's size itself creates a mathematical challenge: generating rapid growth becomes increasingly difficult as the base becomes enormous.

The company can remain excellent without necessarily producing excellent investment returns from every valuation.

Alphabet

Why we own it

Alphabet's core economics begin with something enormously valuable:

intent.

A person searching for a product, service, location, answer, or solution is revealing what they want.

That made search advertising one of the most powerful business models ever created.

YouTube adds another enormous platform centered around attention and creators.

Google Cloud adds exposure to enterprise computing.

And artificial intelligence is simultaneously an opportunity and an existential strategic challenge.

Alphabet interests us because it owns highly profitable existing businesses while possessing the financial capacity to invest aggressively in whatever comes next.

That combination creates optionality.

What could prove us wrong

Artificial intelligence could fundamentally alter search behavior.

If users increasingly receive complete answers without engaging with traditional search results, the economics surrounding search advertising could change.

Antitrust pressure remains significant.

AI capital spending may rise faster than monetization.

And history gives us no guarantee that the dominant technology company of one era will dominate the next.

That risk belongs inside the thesis.

Amazon

Why we own it

Amazon contains several very different economic engines.

Its retail operation created extraordinary logistics and distribution capabilities.

AWS turned internal infrastructure expertise into one of the world's most important cloud platforms.

Advertising added another high-value business on top of enormous commercial traffic.

What ties them together is a culture historically willing to reinvest aggressively when management believes the opportunity is large enough.

That approach can make financial statements look less attractive in the short term.

But reinvestment can create enormous value when the returns ultimately justify it.

We like businesses willing to sacrifice some current optimization in pursuit of durable long-term advantages—provided those investments eventually produce cash.

What could prove us wrong

Reinvestment does not automatically equal value creation.

Amazon remains capital-intensive.

Retail is structurally more difficult than software.

AWS competes against some of the strongest companies in the world.

Labor, logistics, regulation, and infrastructure spending all matter.

Amazon has to continue proving that its enormous capital base can generate attractive incremental returns.

NVIDIA

Why we own it

NVIDIA is increasingly difficult to describe as simply a semiconductor company.

The more interesting thesis is accelerated computing as infrastructure.

The company recognized long ago that GPUs could perform workloads far beyond graphics.

Artificial intelligence dramatically increased the importance of that architecture.

But hardware is only part of the advantage.

Software, libraries, developer tools, networking, and an enormous developer ecosystem reinforce the platform.

That can create something more durable than a chip advantage.

It can create an ecosystem advantage.

The more applications and developers depend on a platform, the greater the friction around replacing it.

What could prove us wrong

Semiconductor leadership is never permanent.

AMD is competing aggressively.

Cloud providers are building custom accelerators.

Large customers have strong incentives to reduce reliance on any single supplier.

Export controls can affect addressable markets.

AI infrastructure spending could prove cyclical.

And one of the biggest risks may simply be expectations.

When investors expect extraordinary results for years, merely excellent results can disappoint.

Advanced Micro Devices

Why we own it

AMD represents a different semiconductor thesis.

Its history over the last decade demonstrates what disciplined execution can accomplish against much larger competitors.

The company participates across CPUs, GPUs, data centers, embedded computing, gaming, and increasingly AI infrastructure.

We do not need AMD to monopolize these markets.

The thesis requires it to remain technologically relevant and capture enough share of expanding computing markets to generate attractive economics.

Its success in data-center CPUs also illustrates something worth remembering:

Industry leadership can change.

Incumbency is an advantage.

It is not a guarantee.

What could prove us wrong

Execution remains everything.

NVIDIA has a formidable ecosystem in accelerated computing.

Intel remains a significant competitor.

Large customers increasingly design custom silicon.

Advanced semiconductor manufacturing remains concentrated geographically.

Export restrictions can alter market opportunities quickly.

The opportunity is substantial.

So is the competition.

Intel

Why we own it

Intel is different.

This is not principally a thesis about an already-dominant compounder.

It is a turnaround thesis.

Intel retains valuable technology, engineering talent, customer relationships, intellectual property, and manufacturing infrastructure.

The question is whether those assets can once again produce competitive economics.

Years of execution problems allowed rivals to take advantage.

That is precisely what makes the investment both interesting and dangerous.

When expectations for a formerly dominant company fall sufficiently far, improving execution can produce asymmetric upside.

Intel's manufacturing assets add another dimension.

Semiconductor manufacturing has become strategically important to the United States and its allies, giving domestic production capability potential value beyond ordinary industry economics.

But strategic importance does not guarantee shareholder returns.

Intel still has to execute.

What could prove us wrong

A lot.

Manufacturing requires extraordinary capital.

Turnarounds are notoriously difficult.

Market share lost through years of poor execution does not automatically return.

Competitors continue moving while the turnaround occurs.

And an asset can be strategically important while still producing poor economics.

The thesis fails if Intel continually consumes capital without producing competitive products and acceptable returns.

Being cheap is not enough.

The business must improve.

Costco

Why we own it

Costco demonstrates how a relatively simple business model can create exceptional economics.

Sell products at attractive prices.

Keep assortment focused.

Turn inventory quickly.

Use enormous purchasing scale.

Then monetize loyalty through membership.

The membership structure matters because it aligns Costco's incentives with those of its customers.

The company benefits when customers repeatedly conclude that their membership delivers more value than it costs.

That relationship can become a competitive advantage built around trust.

Costco's private-label products, purchasing power, operating discipline, and membership economics create a model that is harder to reproduce than simply opening another warehouse.

What could prove us wrong

Valuation.

Wonderful companies are generally recognized as wonderful companies.

Recognition can become expensive.

Growth eventually becomes harder as markets mature.

Labor, input costs, competition, and consumer behavior can all affect economics.

Our concern is less that Costco suddenly becomes a bad company.

It is that investors can pay too much for an excellent one.

Walmart

Why we own it

Scale can become a moat of its own.

Walmart's size affects purchasing power, logistics, distribution, technology investment, and pricing.

Grocery creates frequent customer interaction.

Its enormous physical footprint gives Walmart infrastructure for pickup, delivery, and omnichannel commerce that digital-first competitors had to spend heavily to reproduce.

That creates an interesting advantage.

The stores are not simply stores.

They are also distribution points already located near customers.

We also appreciate the defensive characteristics.

Consumers may change what they buy during difficult periods.

They generally do not stop buying food and household necessities.

Walmart's value proposition can become more attractive when consumers become more price-sensitive.

What could prove us wrong

Retail operates on thin margins.

Small mistakes matter when multiplied across enormous scale.

Labor costs, supply-chain expenses, shrink, competition, and capital spending affect profitability.

Amazon and others continuously raise customer expectations.

Walmart must prove that investments in e-commerce and new businesses strengthen rather than dilute returns.

Tesla

Why we own it

Tesla may be the most difficult operating company in this group to value.

That is part of what makes it interesting.

The vehicle business is only one component of the thesis.

Manufacturing, batteries, energy storage, charging infrastructure, software, autonomy, and robotics represent different sources of potential future value.

Some may become enormous.

Some may produce little.

That makes Tesla an optionality-heavy investment.

We therefore do not evaluate it in the same way we evaluate Costco or Microsoft.

A significant portion of the value depends on outcomes that remain uncertain.

Uncertainty should influence position size.

What could prove us wrong

Vehicle competition can compress margins.

Demand can disappoint.

Autonomy may take far longer than expected—or never produce the economics embedded in optimistic expectations.

Robotics remains highly speculative.

Management and governance decisions can affect investor confidence.

And perhaps more than almost any company we own, Tesla demonstrates the importance of separating the company from the stock.

An extraordinary technological outcome does not automatically justify any price.

Coinbase

Why we own it

Coinbase provides exposure to the infrastructure surrounding digital assets rather than simply to the assets themselves.

Its businesses touch trading, custody, institutional services, stablecoins, developer infrastructure, and blockchain-related financial services.

If digital assets become increasingly integrated with traditional financial markets, companies capable of providing trusted infrastructure may benefit.

That trust matters.

Large institutions require custody, compliance, reporting, security, and operational infrastructure very different from what an individual investor needs.

Coinbase occupies a potentially valuable position between crypto-native technology and traditional financial requirements.

What could prove us wrong

Crypto remains extraordinarily cyclical.

Trading activity can change dramatically.

Regulation can reshape economics.

Competition can pressure fees.

Security or custody failures would be particularly damaging because trust is fundamental to the product.

And new market structures could reduce the role of centralized exchanges.

Coinbase must ultimately prove its business model can mature beyond dependence on speculative trading cycles.

Strategy

Why we own it

Strategy deserves its own analytical category.

We do not view it primarily through the same operating-company framework we use for Microsoft, Costco, or Walmart.

The thesis is substantially tied to Bitcoin.

Strategy has effectively built a public-company capital structure around accumulating Bitcoin.

That creates different potential outcomes than owning Bitcoin directly or through a spot ETF.

Access to capital markets can amplify exposure.

Amplification works in both directions.

We therefore think about Strategy less as a traditional compounder and more as a financial structure built around a Bitcoin thesis.

It belongs in the portfolio for a different reason.

What could prove us wrong

Bitcoin can decline substantially.

Financing conditions can deteriorate.

Leverage matters.

Issuing equity or debt can alter the economics for existing shareholders.

The market can also change how it values Strategy relative to the Bitcoin it holds.

For those reasons, we do not treat Strategy as interchangeable with Bitcoin.

And we do not treat it as interchangeable with IBIT.

The theme may overlap.

The risk structure does not.

Not Every Position Plays the Same Role

One danger in publicly discussing investments is creating the impression that every holding represents equal conviction.

It does not.

A portfolio can contain different categories of investment.

Core compounders.

Growth businesses.

Turnarounds.

Asymmetric opportunities.

Broad-market exposure.

Monetary assets.

Those positions should not automatically receive equal weight.

Microsoft and Strategy are not owned for the same reason.

Costco and Coinbase do not carry the same risks.

Intel and Apple exist at very different stages of their corporate lives.

Understanding those differences is part of portfolio construction.

Ticker count tells you surprisingly little about diversification.

You have to understand the underlying economic exposures.

What We Left Out

Our portfolios also contain broad-market and thematic vehicles including SPY, QQQ, IWM, and IBIT, along with Bitcoin itself.

We have intentionally left them out here because this article is about operating businesses.

An index fund is a collection of businesses.

IBIT is a vehicle for Bitcoin exposure.

Bitcoin is a monetary network and digital asset.

Each may play a role.

But each requires a different analytical framework.

Price Still Matters

There is a temptation when discussing companies we admire to turn analysis into advocacy.

That is dangerous.

A company can have:

excellent management,

a powerful competitive advantage,

strong margins,

attractive growth,

a pristine balance sheet,

and an extraordinary future—

and still be a poor investment at the wrong price.

We try to separate two ideas:

business quality

and

investment attractiveness.

The first asks:

Is this a business we would like to own?

The second asks:

At this price, what return are we being offered for assuming the risk?

Those are different questions.

Sometimes the correct decision is to admire the business and wait.

What Could Prove Us Wrong?

This may be the most important section of the article.

An investment thesis should not be engineered to survive every possible fact.

It should contain failure conditions.

Competitive advantages can weaken.

Management can allocate capital poorly.

Debt can become dangerous.

Technology can alter an industry.

Customer behavior can change.

Regulation can reshape economics.

Growth assumptions can prove unrealistic.

And sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct one:

our original analysis was wrong.

Changing your mind when the facts change is not investment failure.

Refusing to change your mind can be.

Ownership Changes the Question

Thinking like an owner changes the relationship with volatility.

When a stock falls, the first question becomes less:

Why is the stock down?

and more:

What happened to the business?

Sometimes something important happened.

Sometimes almost nothing changed.

Likewise, when a stock rises sharply, we still have to ask whether the value of the underlying company increased enough to justify the new price.

Markets provide prices continuously.

Businesses create value much more slowly.

That mismatch is one of the reasons patience can become an advantage.

Why We Own Businesses

Owning stocks is ultimately not about assembling an impressive collection of ticker symbols.

It is about allocating capital to productive enterprises.

Some will outperform our expectations.

Some will disappoint.

Some theses will evolve.

A few will probably prove completely wrong.

That uncertainty is unavoidable.

The objective is not to build a portfolio in which nothing bad can happen.

The objective is to understand what we own well enough to recognize when something has gone wrong.

Our framework remains simple:

Understand what you own.

Know why you own it.

Know what could prove you wrong.

Respect the price.

Respect risk.

And then give good businesses enough time to do the work.