Welcome to the WC, where you’re trapped in my mind for eight to twelve minutes weekly.
The last few weeks have gone hot and heavy into future tech and how to place big bets today that will pay off tomorrow.
They’ve been deep dives into heavy stuff, and combined with Israel and Iran Ross-and-Rachelling about kicking off WW3 this week, today’s WC will focus on lighter fare.
Nothing here is investment advice. Do your own research. Please.
Table of Contents
Ferrari Arbitrage
Typically, importing a car from the UK to the US is so expensive that it’s not worthwhile. Between customs, duties, tariffs, federalisation, and shipping, costs can run well into six figures for a luxury vehicle.
However, if the car is 25 years or older, you are exempt from paying most of those fees, specifically, the Trump tariffs and federalisation.
This works best for enthusiast vehicles with limited supply, like the Ferrari F355 and air-cooled Porsche 911s. The margin on lower-tier cars evaporates with shipping, insurance, and other expenses.
Assuming each transaction takes six months and you spread your bets across the Ferrari and Porsche models above, this strategy yields 32% per six months, or 74% per year.
The other way to play is to buy up vehicles about to age into the 25-year rule: Classics that hit the (left side of) the road in 2001 and 2002 will be ready for export soon, and the price curves will go parabolic. You typically see a 60%+ return on a car you hold for 18 months before exporting.
I’m currently speaking with a few individuals in the UK who specialise in this area, and we’re compiling a few options. If it checks out, I’ll turn this into an Altea SPV.
Want to be kept in the loop? Click here.
But you must be an Altea member to invest.
Yes, it’s an AI bubble
Last week, Y Combinator, the most famous (and profitable) incubator in Silicon Valley, announced that fully 47% of its current cohort of startups are AI agents.
Fittingly, the current batch includes a company called Casco, which evaluates AI agents and apps.
Big addressable market, I guess.
Of the 68 companies dealing with AI agents, 53 of them are B2B, and, honestly, most of them sound like garbage.
But you’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince, and I’m a firm believer that AI won’t take your job — someone who’s really f-cking good at AI will take your job.
So here’s an AI tool I’m using that’s quite good, actually.
Fyxer bills itself as your executive assistant, and while it’s not quite there yet, it’s pretty good.
It’s a combo package that:
- Sorts emails and drafts responses
- Transcribes, summarises, and lets you query meetings afterward
- Schedules meetings
So it’s Supernormal, Calendly, and Mailmeteor all in one.
It’s solid at email — both sorting and drafting responses — and it genuinely saves time when responding to notes from, for example, my lawyer, salespeople, and accountants.
The calendar/scheduling is not great — it doesn’t understand that I prefer not to meet people at 8 pm — but I think it’ll improve.
The most fun/quirky bit is the meeting recording functionality.
It does all the normal things — recording, transcription, notes, and an AI bot to ask questions.
But!
After the meeting is done, it shows the talk time for each participant.
It’s not awfully useful for me, but I can see how it would be for sales teams or placing bets on who can talk the least during all-hands meetings.
Here’s the link to Fyxer if you want to give it a go.
Remember tariffs?
Speaking of useful tools, Altea member Kyle has put together a handy piece of kit called The Tariff Bot.
With previous, current, and planned tariffs, it’s an easy way to keep up to date on what’s happening where and when.
And if you care about a specific product from a certain country, it’s easy to search that up.
I hope I can stop thinking and caring about tariffs one day very soon, but until then, check out Kyle’s Tariff Bot.
🇺🇸 America’s for sale
There’s a lot going on in DJT’s One Big Beautiful Bill, and a few representatives have been called out for voting on it before properly reading it.
Understandable when it’s eleven million pages long.
But!
You can count on me to identify investment opportunities in even the most challenging subject matter.
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (where fun goes to die) released its budget reconciliation text last week, and it includes a fairly controversial provision that will require the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service to sell off at least two million acres of land for home development.
258 million acres across eleven western states are on the block, but it’s unclear just how much will be sold off.
Check out the interactive map to see if your backyard might be on sale soon.
Actual parcels will be announced monthly once the bill passes, so it’s impossible to know what will be available.
But we can guess!
The text prioritizes suburban-edge BLM parcels, where countries are already grappling with housing shortages, as well as a scattering of small, non-contiguous Forest Service lots that are expensive to manage.
Las Vegas, Phoenix, Boise, Colorado Springs, and Utah’s Wasatch Front are good candidates off the top of my head, but we dug into it more.
Here’s the first eight parcels we think will go on the block once this passes.
If you buy the land, you’ve got to put houses on it, and there’s nothing in there that helps you deal with state and local bureaucracy, but it does clear up much of the Federal red tape.
Good hunting.
That’s all for this week; I hope you enjoyed it.
Cheers,
Wyatt
Disclosures & Disclaimers The information contained in this newsletter is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, tax, or other professional advice. Altea does not offer or sell securities through this newsletter. Any references to investment opportunities are not offers to buy or sell any security. You should not construe any such references as a recommendation to invest.
All investments carry risk and may result in loss. You are solely responsible for conducting your own due diligence and consulting with your own legal, tax, and investment advisors before making any investment decisions.
Altea does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of information provided by third parties. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Only accredited investors as defined by applicable laws may participate in Altea investment opportunities.
