Laffont’s Gamble: Streaming Wars & Ad Tech Carnage

Philippe Laffont. The name drips with a certain… detached power. One of the Tiger Cubs, you see. Spawned from Julian Robertson’s 90s breeding ground of financial predators. These guys don’t invest, they stalk. They sniff out the weakness, the vulnerability in the market, and then… well, they pounce. And Laffont’s Coatue, a $40.8 billion beast, has been making moves. Moves that suggest a fundamental shift in how this whole damn game is played.

They dumped The Trade Desk. Completely. TTD. Once the golden child of programmatic advertising. Now? A smoking crater. And then, they went ALL IN on Netflix. Seventeen times the position. Seventeen! That’s not a bet, that’s a declaration of war. A frantic scramble for position in the streaming bloodbath. It’s enough to make a man reach for the ether, honestly.

The Ad Tech Ghost Town

The Trade Desk. It was supposed to be different. A neutral platform, a Switzerland in the increasingly hostile world of digital advertising. Google and Meta, those walled gardens, hoarding data, squeezing advertisers. TTD promised open access, a fair fight. They built a slick machine, leveraging data and AI to optimize campaigns. For a while, it worked. Revenue was up, earnings were climbing. They were the darlings of Wall Street, briefly.

But the cracks were always there. The AI threat looming. Amazon building its own ad empire, a monolithic beast capable of crushing anything in its path. And then the software rout hit, a cascade of fear and loathing. TTD’s valuation, once stratospheric, came crashing back to earth. From 80 times earnings to a pathetic 12. From 25 times sales to a measly 3.6. The air is thick with the stench of desperation.

Is it a bargain now? Maybe. But this isn’t a simple dip-buy. AI is a relentless force, a digital hurricane. And Amazon? They’re not playing by the rules. They’re rewriting them. Wall Street analysts are whispering about decelerating growth. Decelerating growth! In this market, that’s a death sentence. It’s a slow bleed, a gradual erosion of hope.

Netflix: A Gamble Worth Taking?

And then there’s Netflix. Down 43% since June. A wounded animal. The Warner Bros. Discovery deal? A chaotic mess. A swirling vortex of corporate greed and ego. Paramount Skydance sniffing around, trying to steal the prize. Antitrust concerns looming like storm clouds. It’s a goddamn soap opera, honestly.

Netflix isn’t known for its acquisition prowess. They’re a content creation machine, not a deal-making powerhouse. This deal is a massive distraction, a risky bet with billions of dollars on the line. And the debt? They’re swimming in it. $83 billion. Eighty. Three. Billion. It’s enough to induce a panic attack.

But Laffont sees something. He sees a path forward. A combination of Netflix’s technical prowess and HBO’s content library. A streaming behemoth. Billions in cost savings. It’s a long shot, sure. But in this business, you have to be willing to take risks. To bet on the chaos.

And even if the deal falls apart, Netflix isn’t going anywhere. They’ve already surpassed 325 million subscribers. They’re raising prices. Their advertising business is booming. They’re a dominant force. A juggernaut. And Warner Bros. Discovery will have to cough up $2.8 billion if they walk away. That’s a nice little consolation prize.

Laffont is buying the dip. He’s doubling down. And in this twisted, unpredictable market, that’s a signal. A warning. A call to arms. Prepare for impact. Because the streaming wars are about to get a whole lot uglier.

2026-02-24 21:13

The Ad Tech Ghost Town

Netflix: A Gamble Worth Taking?

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