Value creation is in the areas where folks have overlooked it. Now, you've got to be careful because oftentimes the crowd is right. But you've got to go down to the fundamentals and do your homework. Sometimes everybody thinks you're wrong, but you know you're right.
Business is a hell of a lot more messy than theory. Business is like fighting or like a sport. You've got to get in the cut, shake it up, and figure it out outside the box.
Best filter in hiring is getting the person to opt out on their own. They know more about whether they fit than I'm ever going to figure out.
So we're transparent, we put the heat on early, and people who aren't up for it leave quick.
The strongest incentive I've got for teammates doesn't cost me a dollar.
You need people who are actually on board with the mission to further humanity, bc that's a deep incentive that touches the heart and no comp structure competes with it. Hire folks who don't care about that and you're buying their effort forever, over and over.
Then there's the money side, which matters plenty. You're already paying them, that's an incentive as it is. But equity like incentives, bonuses tied to real production, that gets everybody rowing toward the same place financially.
They do better, and guess what, so does the company. You're just splitting the fruits of the tree with the teammate who grew it.
Most people on the market aren't A players. That's why they're on the market.
Might sound like a mean thing to say but it's true. They're kind of repeats, back out there every two years or so. They don't really care about the work and want to kill it, they want to mail it in. You can't hire those people, they're not going to build anything.
Here's what makes it hard tho. Those same people are usually better at marketing themselves than a true A player is, bc they've had a hell of a lot more practice at it. Every year or two, always selling themselves into the next job.
A real A player is rarely out getting a new job. Their company won't let them go.
Back when I was 15 or 16 I had an uncle that changed my life.
I was putting everything into sports at the time, and he pulled me aside and asked why I was putting all that time into my body when I could put it into my mind. Said “when you're 60 you're not giving anything to the world with your athletics, but you can keep giving with your mind and serve people that way. Build things that last instead of passing muscle.”
Didn't stop me from being a meathead, but I moved the priority of my attention to my mind that year and went to first in my class.
Point is you need somebody who'll put you in check and who you respect enough to actually listen to.
My kids use AI. Down to the four year old.
They use it to find stuff out. Things like deeper knowledge of leprechauns, and whatever else their minds think of.
They speak the questions into it, and they've got to be pretty specific to get the answer they want, which is good discipline for the mind. Then an answer comes back, which disciplines them to read and comprehend. Then more questions, more answers. That whole loop is very good for a kid.
I want this to be second nature by the time they're grown. Power tools. Bc if they go out to compete with shovels and picks while somebody else shows up with a backhoe, there's no competition. The shovel folks just can't economically produce as much.
Every property owner should do an apartment deal like this.
Workforce housing. 100+ units. A sponsor with a verifiable track record.
For this asset class, today is the best price.
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AI is going to widen the wealth gap, but only if we let it.
It comes down to who learns the power tools. My kids use AI down to my four-year-old, and the folks who never pick it up will be out there with shovels and picks while everyone else runs a backhoe. That's not competition, that's just a lower economic value. Everything in the West is a knowledge job now. Learn the tools or get left behind
Insurance is barely price discriminated and it should be.
Somebody cleaning a unit isn't going to break their back doing it. Somebody landscaping might. Those shouldn't cost the same. And if the person is only on the property for an hour, underwrite the hour. Risk of an hour is a different animal than risk of a year.
Most of these folks only need it for the job anyway, and their total pay on ten hours of coverage is way less than a year, so you can probably double the margin on it.
Other thing is most people never even use their insurance. You're not leveraging the service. Only reason anybody switches is a price increase. So take the annoyance away, reshop the market for them every year, and there's not much reason for them to ever leave.
Celebrating failure is BS.
Part of it's good. We're a culture that treats entrepreneurial risk taking as a good in itself, and that adds to the petri dish. We all learn bc people are allowed to test and fail. Celebrate the ability to fail, sure, that's an American thing and it's great.
Terminal failure is different. You launch, it doesn't work, you're wiped out, you're done. Not celebrating that. It's embarrassing. You messed up. It's like handing a medal to the kid who came in last bc he played. Nah. I'm happy you played, son. You lost that game.
Failures along the way to success are another thing entirely, that's just iterations. Testing, fails, fails, fails, then it works.
Somebody gave me an analogy once about racking balls in pool. Millions of ways to arrange them on the table, one way to set them right inside the triangle. Million ways to fail at any one thing and one way to do it correctly, which is why I think you learn a lot more from success than from failure.