Apparently MapQuest still exists.
Even more surprisingly, its parent company System1 ($SST) is publicly traded.
And somehow MapQuest has become relevant again because they refuse to play Trump’s geography-renaming game.
Google/Apple: Sure, we’ll change the name.
MapQuest: Nah.
The result?
MapQuest reportedly jumped to #1 in the US App Store and System1 says it gained 2M+ new users in a week.
The stock has responded accordingly. $SST went from roughly $1.84 in late August to $5+.
Obviously the fundamentals aren’t exactly magnificent. System1 is still losing money, although they’ve recently restructured a huge chunk of their debt and their latest quarter had 80% gross margins.
They also own Startpage, CouponFollow and Dogpile, and are trying to turn MapQuest/Dogpile into infrastructure for AI agents.
So my investment thesis is now apparently:
Every time Trump tries to rename a geographical feature, MapQuest gains users.
Lake Michigan gets renamed? 📈
Atlantic Ocean becomes Freedom Ocean? 📈📈
Canada becomes North America Premium? 🚀🚀🚀
Trump renames the Moon to Moon of America? 🌕🇺🇸
A forgotten dot-com mapping website becoming a meme stock because it refuses to rename bodies of water is exactly the kind of market I want to participate in.
This could absolutely dump 50% tomorrow.
But fuck it.
I believe in the stock 😸