I feel Independent Researchers have recently received very bad reputation. Editors of a journal probably know what I mean. So many low quality LLM-generated papers are now submitted by independent researchers. I used to believe that research should be judged entirely based on its content. But the sheer volume of low-quality papers being mass-produced has seriously damaged the reputation of Independent Researcher.

I feel like traditional "value investing" went into hibernation. Before it was finding a 10x -12x P/E company like $UPWK or $PYPL, Dominoes, Pepsi. Or even a cheap Japanese company below book value. Then just enjoying slow growth but buyback/dividend appreciation from their cashflow. Now you can find 1.8x runrate P/E company like $ESMT that grew revenue 605.24% Y/Y. And the main thing you need to argue about is duration. Or a 16.2x trailing P/E Sumitomo, despite having way too many hyperscaler LTAs in AI from fiber to lasers. AI created much bigger medium-term anomaly, where "value investing" went towards high growth, "deep value" companies.

I feel like I missed on the whole American car buying experience. Never bought a used car. Never sold a car. Never leased a car. Never negotiated with a dealership. I feel cheated. Itching to try it just to cross it off the list.