You can think they are a good company while also being fearful they won't survive the macro.

They aren’t a good company if they can’t survive the macro.

This is an astonishingly limited view of what makes a “good company”.

Not really. If you can’t handle a down turn, how are you a good company?

This all gets a bit messy when trying to use a simple binary designation of "good" or "bad" to describe a company based on all factors about that company.

Good companies come and go. Good companies of old no longer exist because the world changed. Some companies are good for awhile, and then lose their way. Nuance abounds.

Not putting words in the parent commenter's mouth, but maybe a different way to say this is that Cloudflare is a good product. A product can be both great, and not viable under some conditions. The two are not mutually exclusive.

It's interesting to look at the list of 11 companies profiled by Jim Collins in his classic 2001 business book "Good to Great". How many of them are still considered great today? In other words, is being great at one point of any value in predicting long-term success?

Abbott Laboratories

Circuit City Stores

Fannie Mae

Gillette Company

Kimberly-Clark

Kroger

Nucor

Philip Morris

Pitney Bowes

Walgreens

Wells Fargo

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/good-to-great-jim-col...

Again, they aren’t a good company today if they can’t weather a down turn. They may have been a good company in the past, but they aren’t currently if they can’t make it.

That definition of "good company" is close to being just a tautology. It isn't useful to investors or business managers.

Are there any consistent patterns which allow us to reliably predict which good companies will contine being good longer term?

What's your definition of a good company? If people could reliably predict which companies are and will remain good then they will be very rich. Most of us can only know in hindsight for the most part. This is why virtually no one picking individual stocks beat the S&P 500 index over the long run.

This is basically what I was getting at. Everyone has different definitions of "good" and to limit it strictly to "Survives the current market" is both limited and asking for abuse. E.G. I would argue there is absolutely nothing "good" about US health insurance companies, but they continue to be financially successful.

My belief in their goodness, or lack thereof, has absolutely nothing to do with their finances. It is the same reason I won't invest in Crypto currencies or NFTs. The line may be going up but so is the global temp. Not good.

Great distinction!

A tech company that makes large capital outlays expecting growth might do very well in an expanding economy but get destroyed in a recession.

I both agree with you, and sympathise with GP because I'm bad at following your/my own advice.

I suppose it comes down to conflicting opinions/strategies - I'd be way over-allocated in Amazon & Cloudflare (and probably 'tech' and the USA) if I always did.

Yes and no. You might not have cash to spare (especially in such a volatile period). Also, investing more might exceed your exposure limit to a single stock/industry.

Sure you should have a diversified portfolio but everything is also on discount. Warren Buffet went on a buying spree. If you don't have cash to spare thinking about investing isn't what you should focus on but instead doing basic financial wellness like having a savings account. Also cash has been outperforming the market so far so cash isn't necessarily a bad investment.

>If you don't have cash to spare thinking about investing isn't what you should focus on but instead doing basic financial wellness like having a savings account.

There are an incredible number of reasons why they might not be able to invest right now so perhaps it isn't the best thing to immediately goto implying they don't even have a savings account.