## Detailed walkthrough
### [00:00](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1GHJk6oEiQ?t=0s) Joby Aviation: The High-Risk, High-Reward Bet on eVTOL and Autonomous Air Travel
The Motley Fool hosts kick off the discussion by establishing their core mission: identifying companies to buy today and hold through 2036. Travis Hoium opens the portfolio discussion with Joby Aviation, an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft developer, teasing co-host John Quast about whether he would be daring enough to take a ride. John immediately declines to be the initial test subject, quipping, “Oh, you are definitely doing it before me, Travis.” Travis embraces the skepticism while outlining the mechanical and operational premise of the aircraft, which employs six tilting propellers that take off vertically like a helicopter before transitioning horizontally to fly efficiently like an airplane. This architecture promises faster, lower-cost, and quieter point-to-point regional transport between hubs like New York and Philadelphia.
Travis emphasizes how Joby has spent the prior six months systematically assembling the commercial infrastructure required to transform a speculative prototype into a scalable transport service. Joby acquired passenger-service assets from Blade to secure operational route networks connecting Manhattan, the Hamptons, and Monaco. To solve the end-to-end urban transit puzzle, Joby is partnering with CloudKitchens and Uber founder Travis Kalanick’s infrastructure venture, Atoms, creating an integrated transit chain: a passenger lands on an Atoms rooftop vertiport and seamlessly transfers down to an autonomous Waymo vehicle for the final leg. Furthermore, Joby has secured manufacturing support from Honda and is making deep inroads into military contracts through acquisitions that enhance its autonomous flight software. In a notable operational milestone, Joby demonstrated a cross-country autonomous test flight spanning more than 3,000 miles where an onboard safety pilot never once touched the controls.
John acknowledges the transformative potential but warns that any investor entering the stock must be disciplined about a decade-long runway, cautioning that material financial payoff will not arrive within the next five years. Travis agrees, drawing parallels to Tesla's decade of steep losses before achieving mass-scale profitability. The early upside may be driven by narrative momentum and milestone execution—such as scaling annual production runs from the end of 2026 toward roughly 500 aircraft by the early 2030s—rather than near-term positive free cash flow. Travis openly balances the asymmetric payoff against the existential downside: “This company could just crash and burn and not exist 10 years from now. But you know, the risk-reward is what we're about here as investors, and I think there's a ton of upside options.”
```mermaid
flowchart LR
accTitle: Joby Aviation Integrated Transit Ecosystem
accDescr: Diagram illustrating Joby's multi-modal urban transit infrastructure and manufacturing partnerships.
subgraph Manufacturing ["Production & Tech"]
H["Honda Partnership"] --> J["Joby eVTOL Aircraft"]
A_Tech["Autonomous Tech Acquisition"] --> J
end
subgraph PassengerJourney ["Multi-Modal Route"]
J -->|"Rooftop Landing"| V["Atoms Vertiport Hub"]
V -->|"Ground Transfer"| W["Waymo Autonomous Vehicle"]
W -->|"Final Mile"| D["Destination"]
end
```
- **Aircraft Design**: 6 tilting propellers designed for vertical helicopter-style takeoff and fixed-wing airplane forward cruising.
- **Regulatory & Testing Progress**: Working through active test flights toward final FAA commercial certification.
- **Autonomous Flight Milestone**: Completed an autonomous cross-country flight exceeding 3,000 miles without the safety pilot touching manual controls.
- **Strategic Partners**: Commercial integration with Atoms rooftop real estate, Waymo autonomous ground fleet, and manufacturing backing from Honda.
- **Production Scale Targets**: Targeting a ramp from initial run rates exiting 2026 to approximately 500 aircraft delivered annually early in the next decade.
---
[05:00](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1GHJk6oEiQ?t=300s) MercadoLibre: Latin America's Dominant E-Commerce and Fintech Flywheel
Turning to the second pick, John Quast highlights Latin American giant MercadoLibre as his absolute highest-conviction business to survive and outperform through 2036. Acknowledging that frequent Motley Fool viewers have heard him sing the company's praises before, John defends his stance by pointing to massive secular tailwinds in Latin American retail. Brazil, MercadoLibre’s flagship market, sits at only around 10% e-commerce penetration. By comparison, the United States stands at roughly 16%, European nations hover near 20%, and China exceeds 50%. The structural gap presents an inevitable runway of multi-decade growth that directly accrues to the regional market leader.
Travis corroborates the thesis, observing that MercadoLibre’s revenues have compounded nearly thirty-fold over the preceding ten years while unlocking notable operating leverage. While Latin American investments historically carry elevated macro volatility and political risks—such as protectionist sentiment or abrupt regulatory shifts—John argues that MercadoLibre’s domestic heritage gives it a profound structural advantage over foreign tech giants attempting to penetrate the territory. Furthermore, the broader economies of Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina represent a combined GDP of $5.5 trillion, which are undergoing a dual transition: expanding in absolute economic output while aggressively migrating cash transactions into digital financial systems.
Beyond its core retail marketplace, John underlines the compounding power of MercadoLibre's fintech arm, Mercado Pago, which is on track to process $400 billion in annual payment volume. The vast trove of consumer and merchant behavioral data gathered across the platform has allowed the company to spin up two high-margin nascent business lines: digital advertising and targeted lending. By leveraging proprietary transactional history, MercadoLibre can underwrite personal and merchant credit far more effectively than traditional banks while delivering precision ad targeting across its ecosystem. Concluding the pitch before moving on to health-tech disruptor Hims & Hers Health, John highlights why it remains a premier long-term compounder: “You brought up 2036, and I was asking myself, what companies do I have a very, very high degree of conviction will still be in business in 2036 and will be a better business in 2036, and MercadoLibre is at the very top of the list for me.”
- **E-Commerce Penetration Benchmarks**: Brazil (~10%) vs. United States (~16%), Europe (~20%), and China (>50%).
- **Long-Term Top-Line Growth**: Top-line revenue increased roughly 30x over the prior decade.
- **Addressable Economic Footprint**: Primary markets Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina encompass a combined GDP of $5.5 trillion.
- **Payment Processing Scale**: Mercado Pago is pacing toward $400 billion in annual total payment volume.
- **Emerging High-Margin Monetization**: Digital ad targeting and proprietary personal/commercial credit underwriting driven by comprehensive platform user data.
```mermaid
flowchart LR
accTitle: Hims and Hers Digital Healthcare Disruption
accDescr: Visual flowchart showing how Hims and Hers integrates patient inputs into AI to disrupt traditional retail healthcare.
subgraph Distribution ["全球化履约与分发网络"]
F["制药巨头直连 (Novo Nordisk 等)"]
G["自营及并购渠道 (Eucalyptus / Zava)"]
H["直接触达 300万+ 活跃付费用户"]
end
DataInput --> CorePlatform
CorePlatform --> Distribution
```
另一位主持人坦言，由于自身缺乏医疗领域的认知与投资优势，原本并不关注该板块，但面对如此迅猛的扩张势头，“When a company is putting up growth like Hims & Hers is, it's very hard to ignore it for too long because it is one of those things that I think we underestimate how much a business can compound when it is growing at a very high rate.” 这一商业模式本质上复刻了亚马逊（Amazon）和奈飞（Netflix）的“聚合理论（Aggregation Theory）”——庞大的黏性用户群即是平台的核心权力来源。诺和诺德之所以选择与其握手言和而非陷入长达数年的专利缠讼，正是看中了其目前拥有的 300 万忠实消费者以及未来十年可能达到一两千万用户的强劲分发能力。
当前 Hims & Hers 的市销率（P/S）仅维持在 3 倍左右，主持人强调：“Don't look at their profitability because at this stage in growth, you don't want companies to be profitable.” 正如早期的亚马逊和奈飞一样，在高速扩张期，公司应当把赚到的每一块钱重新砸回业务增长以抢占市场；唯有当营收增速自然放缓时，管理层才会转动开关释放利润率。基于这一判断，主持人明确表示自己将坚定持有 Hims & Hers 股票直至 2030 年。
[20:00](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1GHJk6oEiQ?t=1200s) McDonald's Staying Power, Robotics, and Franchise Economics
The conversation pivots to an impromptu discussion regarding McDonald's enduring staying power across generations. One of the hosts reflects on how the brand maintains an unbreakable hold on families, noting that kids constantly beg to visit just to collect the silly toys packaged inside Happy Meals, which remain just as popular with children today as they were decades ago. However, this nostalgic appeal is set against a rapidly shifting operational reality: modern McDonald's restaurants operate with visibly fewer workers and far less human interaction than in the past. Given that making a burger involves highly repetitive food preparation, the hosts see commercial kitchen robotics and automated systems as natural fits for the chain's operational roadmap.
The hosts debate what this ongoing technological transformation means for restaurant staff and whether humanoid robots or automated order-takers will soon dominate the front counter. One host makes a direct prediction about labor reductions, asserting, “At the very least, I think that McDonald's it may be a better than 50% chance of eliminating the cashier over the next decade. I don't see where that needs to take place anymore.” The other host agrees, pointing out that dedicated cashiers have already disappeared across numerous locations because customers seamlessly place their orders through digital kiosks or the mobile app. By stripping out redundant front-of-house tasks, the restaurant streamlines its back-end workflows and substantially curbs labor overhead—providing a compelling financial incentive for franchise owners to expand operating margins.
Beyond digital kiosks and kitchen automation, the hosts emphasize the underlying bedrock of McDonald's corporate resilience: its commercial property empire. While casual observers view it strictly as a fast-food chain, one host highlights that “if you've not looked at McDonald's, it is fascinating to understand just how much of the business is really driven by real estate.” Collecting rent and royalties from franchisees on prime parcels around the world gives the company a rock-solid, defensive cash-flow anchor, reinforcing the consensus that the business is not going anywhere.
- **Staying Power Driver:** Generational appeal of Happy Meals and collectible toys that continue to draw families into stores.
- **Front-of-House Disruption:** Mobile app adoption and self-service in-store kiosks have rendered traditional dedicated cashier stations largely obsolete.
- **Franchise Economics:** Automation enhances back-end operational efficiency, directly aiding franchisee profitability.
- **Core Real Estate Model:** Corporate McDonald's owns high-value real estate beneath franchised stores, serving as a reliable structural moat.
---
[21:10](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1GHJk6oEiQ?t=1270s) Four Decade-Long Holdings and Sign-Off
The hosts wrap up the episode by summarizing the four core stock ideas analyzed for an extended, decade-long holding period:
1. **Joby Aviation (JOBY)**
2. **MercadoLibre (MELI)**
3. **Hims & Hers Health (HIMS)**
4. **McDonald's (MCD)**
Posing a final question to the audience, the host asks, “Which one of those would you like to hold through 2036?” Viewers are encouraged to post their picks and rationales in the comments, subscribe to The Motley Fool's YouTube channel for future long-term equity deep dives, and tune in for the next episode.
## Notable quotes
> [10:00](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1GHJk6oEiQ?t=600s) I think we underestimate how much a business can compound when it is growing at a very high rate. — Host
> [20:00](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1GHJk6oEiQ?t=1200s) if you've not looked at McDonald's, it is fascinating to understand just how much of the business is really driven by real estate. — Host
## Mentioned
Joby Aviation, Travis Hoium, John Quast, Blade, Travis Kalanick, Atoms, Waymo, Honda, Tesla, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), MercadoLibre, Mercado Pago, Hims & Hers Health, Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, CVS, Walgreens, Garmin, Amazon, Netflix, Eucalyptus, Zava, McDonald's, The Motley Fool, Visa, Microsoft, ASML
## Video description
【The Motley Fool】
穿越周期的核心资产：现在买入并锁定十年的4只顶级美股
4 Stocks to Buy Now and Hold for the Next Decade
[10:00] Host: I think we underestimate how much a business can compound when it is growing at a very high rate.
[20:00] Host: if you've not looked at McDonald's, it is fascinating to understand just how much of the business is really driven by real estate.
Original transcript
[0:00] We are long-term investors in The Motley Fool, but buying a stock and holding it for the next 10 years, that was the goal today when I discussed this with John Quaston. We got some, I think, really compelling ideas. Not necessarily the safest stocks. But what are investors going to be buying the future with if they're buying right now. So we've got four stocks for you here today. John, I'm gonna go first with Joby Aviation. Are you excited to ride in an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft? Are you going to let me be the ones that's the guinea pig here? Oh, you are definitely doing it before me, Trish. That's fair enough. That's fair enough. Maybe not something for everybody, but there's going to be definitely plenty of demand. If you're not familiar with Joby, this is a company that makes... electric, vertical and takeoff and landing aircraft. So the aircraft has six propellers, they take off vertically, then they, you know, turn actually when you're in the air, so it flies more like an airplane than it does a helicopter, but it takes off like a helicopter. So the compelling thing here is you could potentially turn this into a point-to-point air travel that's a lot more helicopter-like, much lower cost, actually safer, and kind of from New York to Philadelphia. That could be a potentially good way to do that is with an EVTOL aircraft. They're flying... They're Blade aircraft. They bought a company a year or so ago to kind of build out this network. And they're flying from Manhattan to the Hamptons, for example, to Monaco. So there's definitely a use case here. They're currently using helicopters for that, but they're developing this EVTOL aircraft. Should be lower cost. should be more efficient, It's obviously electric, so there's going to be a little bit lower flight range. But I think the way that they're building this out is really interesting. And they put a bunch of pieces together over about the last six months to show how they're going to scale it. So they're getting to the point where they're going to be approved by the FAA for actually taking these off. They're flying. They're kind of doing test flights right now. But they're building out a network of locations with Atoms. This is a company started by Travis Kalanick. So you take off from, let's say, the airport, you fly to one of these Adams locations, you get out of your eVTOL aircraft on the roof, you go down to your Waymo vehicle, and it takes you to your final destination. I think it's a pretty compelling use case from an infrastructure standpoint. Like I mentioned, they bought Blade, which actually is operating a air taxi, if you will, but it's actually using helicopters. They also partnered with Honda to actually manufacture these aircraft, starting to put all these pieces together. The other two compelling things, They've-- started to do some work with the military, bought a company that's going to get them some more of those contract operations. And that company also helps them in autonomous flight. I don't know if you knew this, John, but they actually just flew an aircraft across the country and was over 3000 miles. No one, there was someone in the plane, but he didn't actually touch the controls at all. That was all done autonomously and if need be from the ground. So you add all of this up. The company that we get today with Joby is going to be nothing like the company that we see 10 years from now. I think that's the kind of opportunity that I want to be investing in over that time. All that said... This company... could just crash and burn and not exist 10 years from now. But you know, The risk reward is what we're about here as investors. And I think there's a ton of upside options. Thank you. I will give you this, if you are buying Joby aviation stock, which... I'm sorry to say this, Travis. I'm not. But if you are... I think you do need to have a 2036... calendar date in mind when you buy. Because if this is going to pay off, I don't think it's going to be within the next five years. Maybe it does make a lot of progress. Maybe it builds a lot of the foundation over the next five years. But the real big payoff, I think, is going to come beyond that. It's going to be closer to the 10-year range before... If you buy this today before, you should think about selling. Yeah, and In that next five years, I think what you're saying, too, is that the payoff is not going to be on the financial side in the next five years. Correct. It doesn't mean that the stock isn't going to go anywhere. So we've seen this over and over again. Look at a company like Tesla. The stock went crazy. They lost money for a decade until they finally got to profitability. So it's going to be the run rate exiting 2026 to somewhere around 500, you know, maybe early in the next decade. That's that's a lot. There's a lot of work to do from here to there. So the finances may not be, you know, profitable, positive free cash flow. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the stock isn't going to. Go crazy because... investors start to see, hey, maybe this is the future. Maybe we are just going to, I live in the Minneapolis area. Maybe we can just hop in
[5:00] Ajobe Aviation Aircraft And fly to Chicago for the weekend instead of, you know, going, ah, do we drive? Do we deal with taking a flight, which, you know, might get delayed? You might get stuck. I've slept in the Chicago airport before. You know, it's, I think, a pretty compelling product that the market may just kind of jump on like they did with Rocket Lab a couple of years ago. Baby. All right, let's go to stock number two, one I've heard you talk about before, MercadoLibre. Oh, I hate to bludgeon our viewers over the head with MercadoLibre, but... You brought up 2036, and I was asking myself, what companies do I have a very, very high degree of conviction will still be in? in business in 2036 and will be a better business in 20 20 2036 and mercado libre is at the very top of the list for me you look at At the very starting point, what are the macroeconomic tailwinds that are at its back? First and foremost, it is a large e-commerce marketplace. You look at Brazil. This is only one of its markets worldwide. Arguably, its most important market. But Brazil is only at somewhere around 10% e-commerce market penetration. You look at the United States, we're closer to 16%, somewhere in there. European countries are around 20%. China's over 50%. Everything is saying that Latin America has nowhere to go but up when it comes to e-commerce penetration, and that directly benefits MercadoLibre perhaps more than any other player in the market. Yeah, and I've got the chart up here of their revenue. Crazy that it's up almost 30x in the last 10 years, but also they've got pretty good operating leverage. I would like to see a little bit more of that operating leverage. I think there's some short term things with lending and things like that. But everything is pointing in the right direction for MercadoLibre. And like you said, given the markets that they're serving, I think there is geopolitical risks. We've seen that in those countries in the past in Latin America where you could just have And a place like Brazil be like, you know what, we don't want Mercado Libre here anymore. Not saying that that's going to happen, but there can be some massive risks that these companies face. So that's one of the reasons that it may not be trading for the multiple that it would in the U.S., for example. But hard to argue that there's not a lot of potential tailwinds for the next decade, for sure. I think that's one of the things that I... would say that maybe is in MercadoLibre's favor. is that it is a local company And so who better to navigate those risks Compared to a foreign company, and there are many foreign players in the Latin American market because it is an attractive space, mostly because these are growing economies, many of them. They're growing economies on an absolute basis, and then they're digitizing economies on top of that. So you look at banks, for example. Banking, that has gone digital over the last 10 years. I think it's like double now the penetration that it was compared to 10 years ago, but still relatively... smallish Uh... As far as what the daily kind of payment volume flowing through the digital veins is compared to the fiscal currency, MercadoLibre, I mean, $400 billion in payment volume is what they're on track for this year with their financial services arm. You look at Brazil, Mexico, Argentina alone, that's a $5.5 trillion GDP economy between those three. alone and then it still has other markets that it's playing in so there's still plenty of room for it to grow that financial services arm of its business as well not just e-commerce As a final component that I'll throw in the mix here, you look at its ecosystem, it naturally... has what it takes to grow other parts of the ecosystem better than maybe anyone else in the space. So you look at two things in particular, digital advertising and also lending, both private lending and personal lending. It has a lot, a lot, a lot of consumer data. And because it has that data, it can... very effectively target with digital ads and it can vary well predict who is going to be a good borrower, who's not going to be a good borrower, and those kinds of things. So those are two kind of nascent businesses with MercadoLibre that I think it does have a data advantage. Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, compelling case at the very least, this is one of those companies that I think if you have a decade timeframe, probably a pretty good bet that this is gonna be a bigger company and probably more profitable company 10 years from now than it is today. All right, let's go to, we talked about starting with a little bit riskier companies, we maybe threw MercadoLibre on the riskier side. But maybe... equal to hims and hers the third stock that i wanted to talk about hims and hers is one of these companies that's disrupted
[10:00] healthcare in a lot of different ways. And it's really just making access easier because you're accessing it on the web or on an app and connecting with the doctor as opposed to physically going to your doctor providing your insurance, then going to the pharmacy. If you have kids like we do, It's a pain in the butt. Right, especially for kind of normal stuff. So they don't have every specialty, but you think about where they're going to be 10 years from now, they go from five or six specialties today to... you know, maybe most of the things that you need on an ongoing basis, But just look at the numbers here, because I think this is showing how much traction that they have in the market. is 60% compound annual growth rate since 2020. That is actually going to their growth rate in the second half of 2026 after some. ups and downs because of GLP-1s. And we've covered that on other videos here on the channel. But they're at a much more steady state now, starting in about the second quarter of 2026, where they have partnerships with the biggest, you know, Eli Lilly's with Novo Nordisk in particular. So they're in a much better place when they were compounding those GLP-1s from a consistent growth perspective. But they're going to grow their revenue about 50% year over year is their guidance for the second half of this year. By the way, they usually beat their guidance. So you could see significant growth on top of that. The way that they're thinking about artificial intelligence too is also something that I think is really compelling. And part of the reason is... In the healthcare space, I always think about... Who's actually going to push things forward with AI? Where am I going to be able to go to just answer a question? Here's this thing that I'm dealing with or a question that I have, or I want to eat a little bit better. Where is that central repository going to be? Is it going to be? With an existing doctor? Probably not. Is it going to be with your existing insurance relationship? Probably not. CVS Walgreens. Absolutely not. So, What about a company like hims and hers that can pull in this data where I'm wearing a Garmin watch, I have a Garmin scale. You know, they know at least some of the prescriptions that we have in our household. I think it's a pretty compelling case where this is going to be. a central repository for your healthcare questions, answers and solutions because they're going to connect people to prescriptions, some of them prescriptions, some of them non-prescripted products. So I think a lot of tailwinds for hims and hers over the next decade. This is a business that over the past year, about $2.6 billion worth of revenue Prescriptions alone in the U.S., somewhere around $400 billion. Big, big, big market to go after. Hims and Hers hasn't been a company that I've looked into simply because I'm not all that terribly interested in the space. The reason I'm not interested in the space is because I don't have a lot of information or experience in the space and so I don't feel like that gives me an edge as an investor. So generally speaking, I just kind of stay away from this whole sector of the market. That said, When a company is putting up growth like him's and hers is, it's very hard to ignore it for too long because it is one of those things that I think we underestimate how much a business can compound when it is growing at a very high rate. Yeah, and you have some of the aggregation effects that we've talked about being an advantage for companies like Amazon and Netflix, where once you start to have users come into your platform, you're going to have a lot of people. That's your point of power. Then suddenly, like, why did they why did Nova Nordisk make a deal with them earlier this year? They could have maybe bludgeoned him's and hers in courts over the next five years trying to figure out this patent lawsuit. Or they could have said, hey, you're actually a pretty big distributor, you have 3 million customers today, you're going to maybe have, you know, 10, 20 million, 10 years from now, maybe we want to partner with you to be a distribution channel for us, as long as the terms are good for both of us. And that's where they ultimately ended up. But that aggregation position, is ultimately really valuable in a digital age because now you can take it from where you are today and then expand it globally potentially i mean they bought a company that's based in australia eucalyptus earlier this year they bought zava which gets them into the european market so they're starting to build out that global footprint well once you have you know, these... not only tools that they have today to connect you with the doctor to give you a prescription, but also AI tools to answer your questions. I think all of these things are going to be much more scalable and more. it's going to be very different than the old paradigm, where the power in the market was, "I'm a doctor, I can make a prescription, "you know, have a prescription, "I work with your insurance company and your pharmacy." They're actually kind of breaking all that 'cause they don't actually take insurance. So you just go with cash and now companies are gonna have to compete on price too. So what is that prescription gonna be if you get it from a doctor? You have no idea, the doctor doesn't have any idea when the prescription is written. Price is going to be on the can.
[15:00] For hims and hers. I think long term, having that sort of transparency is going to be a real differentiator and a real disruptor. Because if we just think about something like GLP-1s, sure, Ozempic, Elia Lili, they kind of get all the attention today. But there's a dozen of these coming into the market. I think 10 years from now, the price is going to be down another 90%. It's already down about 90% over the past few years. And as companies like him and hers that are driving that, that's the kind of disruption that I want to be a part of. So I like where they're sitting three times sales right now. Don't look at their profitability because At this stage in growth, you don't want companies to be profitable. You want them to be focusing on growth. You want every single dollar. You look back on the history of Amazon, Netflix. They were not profitable until that growth started slowing. When that growth starts slowing, then you crank up the profitability, but they're not going to be doing that for quite a while. Hims and hers, definitely keep it on your watch list. I'm planning on holding my shares through 2030. um, Okay, so for a final stock here, I might be the first person on this channel to highlight this stock. And the reason that I'm highlighting it is because I don't think that anything is going to sink this business between now and 2036. And I will explain why. The business is perfect. McDonald's ticker symbol MCD. Now this of course is the largest restaurant company in the world. Everybody knows the Golden Arches. It's not... often showing up among investors talking about good long-term opportunities But I want to talk about some things that you might not know about McDonald's. So it generates revenue in three primary ways. The company owns its own restaurants, some Not many of them, comparatively speaking, but it does on some, so it generates sales directly from selling you a Big Mac. More than that, it has franchisees who are selling you Big Macs, and it's collecting royalties and franchise fees from that. That's actually a larger source of revenue than its own company sales. But the biggest source of revenue, and this is what a lot of people are surprised by, is actually... Rents. They own the real estate. They own roughly about 50 percent of the land that its buildings are on. And it owns most of the buildings when you talk about all of its restaurants worldwide. And so it actually charges its franchisees. monthly rent to be there and that's where it makes roughly 40% of its revenue. So you're telling me that McDonald's is a real estate company. Yeah, it absolutely is. And that is, I think, what gives it the stability. When you think about a restaurant company, you know, there are some restaurant companies out there that the sales start slumping, the rent is due, they already had thin profit margins to begin with, and it can start to really kind of spiral for them McDonald's, the parent company, doesn't really have to worry about that because it hones the land. And roughly about – it spent about $50 billion somewhere. The numbers here are a little bit tricky, but – maybe spent somewhere in the ballpark of $50 billion to acquire as much land as it has. Okay, but understand that that doesn't show up on the balance sheet. It's not providing Zestimates on what its land and buildings are worth to come up with a book value on that, right? So I think there's a case to be made that its real estate is actually worth far more than what it has spent to acquire it because- Some of it had acquired decades ago, and that is only appreciated in value. And in fact, even if McDonald's was to fall completely out of favor with consumers, that land would still be valuable because many times it's in a very prime location as far as other restaurants would love to have it. Even if a lot of things go wrong in the next 10 years for McDonald's, it still has that whole real estate business holding it all together that, It could liquidate, it could sell and still generate tons of cash for shareholders. And I don't think that's going to happen. I'm just saying if an apocalypse scenario was to happen for McDonald's, It's still very stable. But I think you're making the case here that we should put up, I don't know, private equity group together, go buy up McDonald's and just just sell all the real estate. And, you know, I don't know. I'm sure there would be an activist out there who would say this is how you unlock the value for sure. McDonald's isn't in a position where it needs to do that. It is perfectly in a good place. And the stock is pulled back. The dividend yield now at near a 10 year high at three point three percent. 50 consecutive years now. putting it in very elite status. Is this going to be the highest performer on this list? Absolutely not. Is this going to be a company that is more valuable in 10 years than now? I would say probably. Thank you.
[20:00] Random question as you're talking. One of the things I'm thinking about with McDonald's is it does have a staying power. I mean, this is one of the places that, you know, the kids ask to go to all the time just because you get the silly toy. Happy Meals are as popular with the kids as they were when I was a kid. Do you think... McDonald's is going to have very many employees. 10 years from now. Because I look at what a McDonald's looks like now, there are far fewer employees, there's far fewer human interactions, and Man, making a burger, you think about use cases for robotics. I mean, they've moved in this direction with automating a lot of different things, but That's a pretty compelling thing. I don't know if that's good or bad for McDonald's, but it does seem like... the future for this company, if it's just making the same burger over and over again, Maybe we just have humanoid robots taking our orders. At the very least, I think that McDonald's It may be a better than 50% chance of eliminating the cashier over the next decade. I don't see where that needs to take place anymore. Yeah, that's already gone in a lot of places, yeah. Exactly. You can either do it on the app or you can do it at the kiosk and store. I don't think there's a compelling reason to keep a cashier in place at McDonald's. And that doesn't. That makes the back end a whole lot more efficient, and that's attractive to a franchisee as well because that's a way that they can get a little bit more profitability. Yeah, this is one. Yeah, if you've not looked at McDonald's, it is fascinating to understand just how much of the business is really driven by real estate. And that's kind of a stalwart piece of the business. But I also agree. McDonald's not going anywhere. All right. The four stocks we talked about. Joby Aviation, Mercado Libre, Hims and Hers, and McDonald's. Which one of those would you like to hold through 2036? Leave your comments in the comment section below. Don't forget to subscribe to the Motley Fool's channel here on YouTube. Thanks for watching, everybody. See you here next time. *Demonic music* Thank you. . Thank you.
