Pabrai Caps Reysas at 30%, Flags RIG Leverage; a16z Backs TypeSafe AI

Key Takeaways

1. Mohnish Pabrai used the Wagons ETF ($WAGN) shareholder call to detail a concentrated, conviction-first portfolio: Reysas capped at 30%, a "family sells, we sell" rule, and a preference for Warrior over Alpha in coking coal.
2. a16z led TypeSafe AI's Series A, framing the bet as a belief that AI should make software stronger rather than merely rebuild existing SaaS.
3. Muddy Waters confirmed an investigation exists but said no activist short seller is its target, while a FOIA log cited in the thread points to SEC correspondence with roughly 25 short-seller-linked domains.
4. Raoul Pal told Sui Basecamp that GDP will stop being a meaningful metric by the mid-2030s, arguing everything converges to "intelligence per unit of energy."
5. Jason highlighted Ultra's $50M raise to rent AI warehouse robots at $1-10/hour, predicting the model spreads across physical labor.
6. Charlie Bilello published a new market-state video, and Morgan Housel drew a leadership lesson from a Tom Brady book about sustained grievance.

1. Investing: Pabrai's Conviction Rules and Market Commentary

1. On the September 23 Wagons ETF ($WAGN) shareholder call, Mohnish Pabrai said the ETF's name means "holding on to highest-conviction ideas," with those names sold last during redemptions; he argued good outcomes come from holding a few great businesses for a long time, and that the hard part is not selling rather than finding them. Reysas, a Turkish logistics real estate firm, is the largest holding, and Pabrai capped each fund's exposure at 30% out of respect for the founding family, under a rule of "we sell only when the family sells." On $RIG, he acknowledged high debt but said leverage falls sharply after the Valaris merger, with management targeting zero debt; on $CSU.TO, he said Mark Leonard has fully exited for health reasons but believes the company's DNA is embedded in the organization. In coking coal he prefers Warrior over Alpha, calling Warrior the low point on the cost curve and "the Aramco of coking coal," and said he exited Mongolian Mining because he could not underwrite the risk of government terms restarting mining, adding that knowing what you cannot assess is itself a skill. He stressed method over labels, looking at a company's cost-curve position and management's energy, creativity, and integrity rather than thinking in "cyclical vs. compounder" terms. — via 1
2. Charlie Bilello published a new video, "The State of the Markets," and shared a post arguing stocks do not beat bonds every year or even every decade, but win far more often over the long run; the post's conclusion is that long-term wealth accumulation favors being an owner rather than a lender. — via 1 2 3
3. Morgan Housel cited a new book on Tom Brady, noting that repeat champions share a visible "chip on the shoulder" rooted in real or imagined slights, often nurtured for decades, and that when the goal is proving yourself rather than wealth or fame, it can never be satisfied. He also shared an episode of The Psychology of Money podcast titled "A False Sense of How People View You." — via 1 2

2. AI and Venture: a16z's TypeSafe Bet and Raoul Pal's GDP Thesis

1. a16z led TypeSafe AI's Series A, with the team saying it believes in the future of SaaS and software and that AI should make software more powerful rather than just automate rebuilding existing software; it cited long-standing appreciation for founder and CEO Diogo and his idea of giving intelligence primitives to builders so they can unleash their imagination. Reposted content in the thread claimed the model unexpectedly served trillions of tokens per day within three weeks of launch, that 29.4% of the Fortune 500 had appeared, and that the company raised a "very large" Series A from a16z; another repost said the funding would be reflected as benefits to users. — via 1 2 3
2. Raoul Pal, speaking at Sui Basecamp in Singapore, said that when the number of economic participants approaches infinity and the computing power they rely on keeps improving in efficiency, GDP growth rises in an uncontrolled way and the GDP formula itself stops working; he argued that by the mid-2030s GDP will no longer be the metric people care about. He proposed that everything ultimately converges to a single formula, "intelligence per unit of energy," and said markets, blockchains, geopolitics, and politics are currently reorganizing around that point at a pace far faster than most people are prepared for. He also promoted free content and a starter pack with a $100,000 prize, tied to an October 15 livestream on trading cycles, cycle turning points, and his indicators, one of six free workshops whose registration includes an AI Trade Agent and entry to the Real Vision Trading League. — via 1 2

3. Regulation and Markets: Short-Seller Probe Signals

1. MuddyWatersResearch confirmed an investigation exists but said no activist short seller is its target, adding that multiple investors, including short sellers, received subpoenas seeking limited information that may be relevant. A cited post said the SEC may be investigating one or more activist short sellers, based on a September 2026 FOIA log: on September 29, 2026, the SEC applied a B7A exemption to a FOIA request from Canary Data's Joe O'Donnell covering "any email correspondence" between the SEC and roughly 25 domains linked to the activist short-selling community. The post noted the SEC often uses the B7A exemption to withhold records that could interfere with an ongoing enforcement proceeding, and that O'Donnell has filed similar requests monthly since March 2025 without previously receiving a B7A response. It emphasized this does not necessarily mean any named short seller is under investigation, that the withheld communications could concern an investigation of an entirely different company or tips from activist short sellers, and that the matter could be narrow or a signal of a broader action. — via 1

4. Robotics and Labor: Ultra's Robot Rental Model

1. Jason cited news that Ultra raised $50 million to rent out AI warehouse robots, with more than 500,000 orders packed, $62 million raised cumulatively, 24-hour operation, and installation in hours. He argued that renting at $1-10 per hour rather than selling is an obvious sales and revenue-maximization strategy, since customers facing human labor costs of about $30 per hour plus mistakes, lawsuits, and turnover would see $10/hour as "set it and forget it." He predicted the model will sweep all physical labor over the next decade and that in 20 years humans working in factories, driving, or doing construction will seem unimaginable, affecting roughly 35 million jobs, or one in five American workers. — via 1

5. Quick Hits: Product, Policy, and Personal Notes

1. Jason called Anker a good company in a non-ad post, praising chargers whose app sets per-port wattage, uses AI to balance load across ports, and connects via Bluetooth to identify cable and device types, along with soundcore headphones for value. He also reposted a David Sacks interview on Peter Thiel saving PayPal before the 2000 dot-com bust: with no revenue, profit, or real business model, PayPal had a roughly $200 million investment commitment at a $500 million pre-money valuation, and while insiders widely considered the valuation too low, Thiel insisted on accepting; the deal closed the Friday before Black Monday, and a day later PayPal would not have existed. Separately, Jason criticized Austin officials over a list of fiscal problems, including 67 of 151 annual vendor performance expectations missed, a $1.08 million new city logo, over half of consulting contracts lacking requirements documentation, about 150 single-person lunches charged to city cards, and roughly $980,000 in fraudulent vendor transactions by a single employee, calling for an audit and attention to @SaveAustinNow. — via 1 2 3
2. Marc Andreessen's account amplified a set of a16z-adjacent and creative posts: a new radio feature letting users click "TUNE IN ▶" in the channel guide to play while browsing; a collaboration with @CompleteSkeptic, Erik, and Sash Dog; a "Jevolution" slogan listing partners on a mission to hand power back to builders; and a satirical post claiming Anne Carson won a Nobel poetry prize and published a poem in The New Yorker the same day, which the author then remade with "SLOP CANNON" into a feminist, Creed-style Lollapalooza work and said should earn him a Nobel to share with @boneGPT. The thread also showcased AI-generated creations: a "Sydney"-themed piece with lyrics by the author and music via suno and video via midjourney/chat/claude and @boneGPT's slopcannon; a "slopcore" track titled "TUHAN DALAM SERVER FARM" credited to claude opus 5.5 max and suno v6 on AI-generated existential crisis; and the line "LET THE AGENTS WORK. TAKE YOUR WEEKEND BACK. DEAD PIXELS. AI SLOP." — via 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3. Clifford Asness said he agrees with some criticism of Israel but considers the rest of the accusations "evil and numerous," citing as an exception a post criticizing the Netanyahu government for tolerating settler terror against Arab villages in the West Bank and arguing pressure should be applied to stop it. He reposted a claim that the Nobel Committee is "another joke of a once-great, now irreparably broken institution," responded "@grok really groks me" to a comment about writing in grief and anger to capture disappointment over institutions prioritizing controversial political conclusions over broader credibility, and joked that "socialism" actually means "celery" because he personally hates celery, a mocking response to Vance's definition of socialism. He also reposted views that allowing some short selling is "extremely helpful," that he found himself merely agreeing with Thomas Sowell, and a personal message about "fantasy novelists"; another repost argued the problem goes far beyond college students being anti-Israel, claiming they are fundamentally anti-Western civilization and free markets due to sustained indoctrination and ideological subversion in schools and social media, posing a serious risk to America's future, and that the country must either take it seriously and overhaul education or face a bleak future. — via 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4. Jason said he would also be unable to stand it if a claim about $60 bread were true, and ran several X Money micro-giveaways: $500 to a charity, school teacher, or volunteer in need via user voting, $88 for the best dad joke, and a random $420 for subscribers sharing what they are working on. He also said one of the hardest parts of Christianity is forgiving pure evil, that he has struggled with this in his faith, that he respects Vice President JD Vance for not participating in a livestreamed execution, and that while he understands society viewing some people as unredeemable and the state justice system producing that outcome, he finds it hard to reconcile spiritually. — via 1 2 3 4 5