Two Plus Two Older Archives - Doyle Brunson attempting to buy WPT

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That's a perfect description of...AOL, EBay, and a ton of other similar companies. So, you should probably short all those "top of the heap for now" stocks... [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Actually it's not a perfect description of eBay and similar companies (notice that it probably is accurate as far as AOL is concerned - they were first to get there, and now....well, you get the idea). The point of my post was that you shouldn't invest in a company that's "top of the heap for now" if that's all they have to offer. eBay certainly had more to offer than that, because their success as an auction site was mostly a function of their user base - if you have the most users now, that gives you a huge advantage over competitors going into tomorrow. Coca-cola has been top of the heap for a long time because they make a product that people like and which cannot be copied. WPT, on the other hand, has no such huge advantage - there is nothing preventing them from losing audience to somebody else, and no protection from somebody copying their "formula". So perhaps if you wanted to make an actual comparison, instead of just trying to sound clever, you would have picked out examples of companies that have absolutely nothing to offer except brand name that have nevertheless been successful for some time. I couldn't think of any, and that's why I said so in my post. Even if I could think of a half-dozen of them, they would be the exceptions, not the rule - generally speaking, in capitalism, you have to provide a good or service that's of value to somebody else in order to make money. The fewer people who can provide the same exact good or service as you can, the more valuable yours is.

So, like I stated in my earlier post, there's a difference in being "top of the heap for now" because you've got a great company and great assets, and in being "top of the heap for now" just because you were lucky enough to get there first. Iomega, the WPT and to a lesser extent AOL are examples of the second; eBay is an example of the first.