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ALC

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he does decide NOT TO DO something more often than he decides to do something.
That is obviously understable with the load of work that he have at the moment.
He choose to act on the actual projects and he will stick to them that's for sure.
 
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ChrisR

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I think the gist that I am observing is that investors look mostly at
1. the track record of the founders and
2. (growth) metrics of the business

What if the founders have no track record and the business isn't even started yet? How do those people get their ideas funded?


Conventional businesses mean conventional competition. VCs aren't going to be the traditional place a restaraunteur goes looking for capital. Usually they are started with with an angel round or loans.

The problem is, no one "starts" a chain of restaurants, they snowball it or buy them. One by one. Its scalable, but linear at first. You need to do something different if you want exponential growth.

That makes sense. I hadn't thought about those types of businesses like that.


In VC, the size of the opportunity is one of the biggest criteria. Because roughly 90% of their investments go bust, each investment by necessity must have greater than a 10x potential return. If they are investing in businesses that can only return 5x, the math simply doesn't work.

Even if you have a great team, great idea, good track record, but the best possible return is 3-5x... what's the point? Over time the expected return is negative.


Every firm is different, has different criteria, and a different area of focus. But to assume all VC funds ignore conventional ideas with huge potential simply because they aren't groundbreaking? That's crap.

Sure you'll have the occasional VC firm like Founders Fund whose stated mission is to exclusively focus on groundbreaking, revolutionary ideas.

But the partners there are already rich. Billionaire rich. They care less about returns and more about building the future.


Restaurants and movie theaters are not good industries for venture capital.

If you've never run a restaurant but go to a VC asking for funding for a chain of them, you'll be laughed out of the building.

Alternatively, if you have 5 successful restaurants and want to expand to 50, then you shouldn't be talking to a VC fund in the first place. You should be talking to private equity, strategic partners in the same industry, or getting non-dilutive loans if your cash flow can support it.

VC wants early-mid stage investments with the chance for huge returns. It's like gambling. You're looking for the 50-100x needle in the haystack.

PE wants safer, stable investments that are already cash-flowing and can expect a 30%+ IRR through leverage, bolt-on acquisitions, etc.

Awesome post dude! All of that makes a lot of sense. Rep+
 

Andreas Thiel

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What if the founders have no track record and the business isn't even started yet? How do those people get their ideas funded?
That seems to be out of scope in most VC related discussions. The advice seems to be: get hard proof that your business performs asap. At best it is: get hard proof that your team can deliver asap.

My personal thoughts are currently: start outreach and networking early while also working on "portfolio" pieces or an MVP for actual bootstrapping. If possible, launch something even if it is not for money (like an open source plugin) and figure out how to market and propagate it.
 

MTEE1985

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Re: thinking big

This is a Public Service Announcement on behalf of the Fastlane Forums..

If you sell somebody else's product, no matter how you slice it, whether it be on Amazon, eBay or Amway... you are not an entrepreneur. You are a salesman. You are working for commission.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD6qtc2_AQA

Except worse because salesman don’t have to hold or buy inventory.

I’m not knocking it if it’s what you wanna do.. but it’s not entrepreneurship. It’s middlemanning.

Couldn’t one argue that Amazon itself, in its simplest form, is a “middle man”?

Sounds like the more accurate statement is if you don’t have control then you are just a salesperson. As Amazon owns so little of their inventory but they control all of it.
 
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Kak

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What if the founders have no track record and the business isn't even started yet? How do those people get their ideas funded?

The simple answer is they don't.

The complex answer is that the strategy you are highlighting there is putting the cart before the horse.

Go back to the original post on this thread. The guys that are building the railroad. They HAD (key word) no track record, or background. So before they raised money they built enough of a background to speak with some semblance of authority on the topic.

Remember, these guys, for this particular venture traveled all over the world talking to the actual companies that do the labor, talking to rail lines about revenues and learning what is out there to learn. Thinking through the numbers. Making it all make sense. Some stuff will just need to be learned as they go, VC's understand they invest in incomplete pictures often, but they need the reassurance that you are "the guy" that will figure it out.

NONE of this is fake. You need to legitimately become who you need to be to get the job done. If not, you are scamming.
 

ChrisV

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Couldn’t one argue that Amazon itself, in its simplest form, is a “middle man”?

Sounds like the more accurate statement is if you don’t have control then you are just a salesperson. As Amazon owns so little of their inventory but they control all of it.
True but they’re enormous so...

they can be an exception

i don’t think this guys who are opening drop shipping threads are aiming to create the next amazon

or maybe they really do want to provide exceptional value/service... who knows

The simple answer is they don't.

The complex answer is that the strategy you are highlighting there is putting the cart before the horse.

Go back to the original post on this thread. The guys that are building the railroad. They HAD (key word) no track record, or background. So before they raised money they built enough of a background to speak with some semblance of authority on the topic.

Remember, these guys, for this particular venture traveled all over the world talking to the actual companies that do the labor, talking to rail lines about revenues and learning what is out there to learn. Thinking through the numbers. Making it all make sense. Some stuff will just need to be learned as they go, VC's understand they invest in incomplete pictures often, but they need the reassurance that you are "the guy" that will figure it out.

NONE of this is fake. You need to legitimately become who you need to be to get the job done. If not, you are scamming.
Yea, you don’t have to be an expert. You just have to hire experts.

People have this illusion that you have to be good at everything. As an entrepreneur, your job is to be the maestro, not the flute player. You don’t need to know how to play the tubas, you just have to find someone who does.

You don’t have to be a doctor to own a hospital.
 

Kak

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Yea, you don’t have to be an expert. You just have to hire experts.

People have this illusion that you have to be good at everything. As an entrepreneur, your job is to be the maestro, not the flute player. You don’t need to know how to play the tubas, you just have to find someone who does.

You don’t have to be a doctor to own a hospital.
And leadership once again comes full circle.
 
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ALC

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People have this illusion that you have to be good at everything. As an entrepreneur, your job is to be the maestro, not the flute player. You don’t need to know how to play the tubas, you just have to find someone who does.

You don’t have to be a doctor to own a hospital.
I do think it's the biggest thing people have to keep in mind.

You're the Vision of the company, not the technicians, technicians are educated to DO, not to LEAD.

My biggest fear is to attack an industry / seeing a opportunity but not having any idea how this industry work (in depth), the only way i see is to hire someone to explain you everything but i would still look at myself as a fraud, i don't know.
 

ChrisV

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My biggest fear is to attack an industry / seeing a opportunity but not having any idea how this industry work (in depth), the only way i see is to hire someone to explain you everything but i would still look at myself as a fraud, i don't know.
I don think it’s important to have some knowledge of the industry. The maestro may not play the flute, but he does understand music.
 

Shepherd

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One easy example from the farm. I have nearly 300 sheep which need shearing every year. I don't know how to shear sheep and have zero interest in learning how to do it. But I know how much it should cost per head to have it done, I know what a good job looks like and I know who to call when I need it done. So we hire people to do it and I sit in a chair and watch them, then write a check.

Now, flip that to the sales side, I currently sell the majority of my lambs to a packer, who is the retail seller. I may or may not want to vertically integrate in the future to the retail side where he's at. Every time I speak with him, I'm asking questions in casual conversation. Where does he sell? Where does he get his supply? How many head is he running through his facility? What's his outlook on the market? And so on...

Sometimes I will go out of my way to sell somewhere else just so I can pick the brain of another player in that space. I don't have to know the specifics of each business, but the more information I gather, the more data I take in, the more I can see where opportunities may lie. IMO, you have to develop an eye for what you need to be able to do yourself and what is simply building yourself another task/job. Usually, the best answer is to become a master of logistics and coordination.

But I've been doing this type of work my entire life. I'm not the best at any one thing, but I'm always in the GAME. However you can get in the game, whether it's as a water boy or a scorekeeper or a full-time player, you have to be in the space you want to compete in at some level to learn. You have to invest. You can't be in the stands and think you know better than the players.
 
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Vigilante

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Here's my cliffs notes to this thread.

I see what @Kak comments positively on, and then I read that post.

I see what @Kak comments negatively on, and then I skip that post.

Boom. Shortcut.
 

Real Deal Denver

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I may or may not want to vertically integrate in the future to the retail side where he's at. Every time I speak with him, I'm asking questions in casual conversation.

You are lucky because the market is there for the taking.

You can double your income by just stepping sideways. I'm amazed at the "producers" that don't do this. I'm hoping to get a spread in the future and raise some angus. I like the idea of them being grass fed, and that's so much less work for me too. I can sell what I don't need in a heartbeat. What's not to like about that?

T-bones on the grill this weekend! You bring the beer!
 

Vigilante

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You are lucky because the market is there for the taking.

You can double your income by just stepping sideways. I'm amazed at the "producers" that don't do this. I'm hoping to get a spread in the future and raise some angus. I like the idea of them being grass fed, and that's so much less work for me too. I can sell what I don't need in a heartbeat. What's not to like about that?

T-bones on the grill this weekend! You bring the beer!

Carb friendly, hold the beer.
 
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Kak

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You are lucky because the market is there for the taking.

You can double your income by just stepping sideways. I'm amazed at the "producers" that don't do this. I'm hoping to get a spread in the future and raise some angus. I like the idea of them being grass fed, and that's so much less work for me too. I can sell what I don't need in a heartbeat. What's not to like about that?

T-bones on the grill this weekend! You bring the beer!

No kidding! That’s pretty cool, I am kind of researching the same thing. From what I can tell so far, the ROI is excellent on grass fed cattle. An excellent investment.
 

Shepherd

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You are lucky because the market is there for the taking.

You can double your income by just stepping sideways. I'm amazed at the "producers" that don't do this. I'm hoping to get a spread in the future and raise some angus. I like the idea of them being grass fed, and that's so much less work for me too. I can sell what I don't need in a heartbeat. What's not to like about that?

T-bones on the grill this weekend! You bring the beer!
Cattle will be cheap for a while, so it could be a good investment if you have the set up. We have over 100 head and the beef in the taco I'm eating right now came from our farm. We sell a lot of beef straight to consumers and I will do more of it in the future.

We finish on grain the last 30-60 days to take the wild onion taste out of it. As far as "Angus" goes, those guys have been masters of marketing. I can tell you that all "Angus" really means in a lot of cases is "black cattle". If I were starting a herd, I would probably buy some Holsteins (super cheap right now) and put a nice Black Angus bull with them.

I started selling a few lambs direct to consumers this year and will increase that as well. I don't have the finished product quite where I want it yet, but I will get it dialed in over the next year with some improved genetics.
 

MTEE1985

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No kidding! That’s pretty cool, I am kind of researching the same thing. From what I can tell so far, the ROI is excellent on grass fed cattle. An excellent investment.

While not the exact same thing, we had a member of the club who never finished high school but was worth roughly $80,000,000 from....milk business. Guy has something like 40,000 cows in Northern California. Dirty job, but one few wanted to do.
When we were in Vegas he’d refer to his chips as the number of cows he was betting, fascinating guy. Hearing him talk about how he took one farm and never looked back was mind blowing.
 
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Shepherd

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Fastlane farming... I could read this stuff all day.

Love the posts @Shepherd
Thanks, @amp0193. I think I've mentioned it, but I wouldn't have found this forum if you hadn't recommended MFL on another forum.

@MTEE1985, there are definitely lessons to be learned from the dairy industry right now. Milk prices have been depressed the past couple years and small dairy farms are going out of business daily. The big are getting bigger and the small to mid guys are going away.

Farming just like any other endeavor, people become complacent and think they are owed a living just because their families have been doing it for 4 or 5 generations. They don't innovate, they over-leverage the ground and equipment they inherited and they let the market dictate their sales. Succession plans are never discussed (this topic is a breakout session at nearly every conference I attend).

I have been fortunate. In my family, business is business. My dad and uncle will listen to me if I have thoughts about the farm. My cousin went to AG school and leads all of us when it comes to innovations and education about new techniques. If anyone visited our farm while we are sorting cattle, you would think we all hate each other with all the yelling and cursing. But it's not personal.

Shrewdness is rewarded in my world just as it is everywhere. You have loud mouths who brag about their big plans like they are impressing someone other than themselves. I was out at a farm an hour or so away for my day job a couple weeks ago. Guy in his late 30's who is as country as it gets, super helpful and super polite. We talk for an hour or so and I find out he has a transportation business, cattle, tobacco and nearly 30 rental houses. We make a deal that works out for both of us. Guy has zero knowledge or interest in social media, e-mail, etc. He says his neighbors often insist he must be dealing drugs because of how successful he is.

A few days later, we are chatting on the phone finalizing our deal and I ask him about his rentals (something I dabbled in years ago). He details his philosophy, strategy, logistics, upcoming projects he's investing in. Offers to answer any questions I might have, texts me later and says we should get dinner sometime. Great guy who I can learn from at least in part because I didn't try to screw him over and I can listen to him talk about his successes without being jealous or trying to take from him.

I guess my point is that farming is not that much different from other businesses, if at all. It has a certain mystique in our culture, but to me it's all I've known.
 

MTEE1985

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Farming just like any other endeavor, people become complacent and think they are owed a living just because their families have been doing it for 4 or 5 generations.

I don’t think this can be emphasized enough. In today’s business world you need to always be adapting, expanding, branching out or somebody will come along and put you out of business.

I guess my point is that farming is not that much different from other businesses, if at all. It has a certain mystique in our culture, but to me it's all I've known.

It isn’t “sexy” in our world of start-ups and beach dwelling dropshippers.

While your business clearly has high barrier of entry, need, scalability and potential detachment from your time via good hiring, (to paraphrase Jack Welch and @Kak, hire good people, fuel them with compensation and you barely have to manage them...granted much easier said than done) my question is what are your control concerns? Is regulatory risk something that pertains to you and in what areas specifically? I assume it must be greater when you are slaughtering but I may be mistaken.
 
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Shepherd

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I don’t think this can be emphasized enough. In today’s business world you need to always be adapting, expanding, branching out or somebody will come along and put you out of business.



It isn’t “sexy” in our world of start-ups and beach dwelling dropshippers.

While your business clearly has high barrier of entry, need, scalability and potential detachment from your time via good hiring, (to paraphrase Jack Welch and @Kak, hire good people, fuel them with compensation and you barely have to manage them...granted much easier said than done) my question is what are your control concerns? Is regulatory risk something that pertains to you and in what areas specifically? I assume it must be greater when you are slaughtering but I may be mistaken.

Control on the sales side is definitely an issue in my mind right now. I sell a lot more on the open market than I would like to, which has been down recently. Direct sales is going to be the path forward and my next big challenge. Many producers sell direct off the farm and skirt regulations with ownership changing hands and then "assisting" with slaughter for the customer.

One guy I deal with makes a lucrative living doing this, has a huge house and an indoor basketball court for his sons, fully heated with rubberized floors. But as he's acknowledged, he's essentially created himself a well-paying job. He's sick or injured or wants to on vacation, no money. No thank you. I can butcher myself, but have no desire to do it on a daily basis. I would rather sell whole or half lambs, work with a USDA inspected facility and up-charge for processing, delivery, etc. with my own branding and packaging. I've started selling to a few locals to get the word out on social media, which I haven't done a great job of to date. My wife is much better and I have turned that over to her.
 

ChrisV

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MTEE1985

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The only problem with that is..

Skip to 1:32 since I’m mobile

View: https://youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


We all get that your thing around here is disputing anything and everything you possibly can. That’s likely why you cut short in the quote above where I said that it’s easier said than done.

I’m assuming the attached video is one of the million saying “people aren’t motivated by money, they want meaning in their job!” Aside from my personal experience hiring, managing and when needed, firing dozens of people where I found that they are motivated by money more than anything, I’ll take Jack Welch’s observations over a YouTube video.

Again, my personal opinion and easier said than done.
 
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ChrisV

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We all get that your thing around here is disputing anything and everything you possibly can. That’s likely why you cut short in the quote above where I said that it’s easier said than done.
Dude relax lol.. I just enjoy nuance

I was just reading your reply and it reminded me of that research

And actually, since you didn’t watch the video, you don’t know what it was. It wasn’t disputing what you said at all, it was adding nuance.

The research found that for most tasks, yes pay increased performance. But for certain (more Artistic or creative endeavors,) a rise in payment actually harmed their productivity.

If that’s a dispute, or you don’t think my information is valuable, you can easily block users on this forum. Just go to my profile and click ‘block user.’

But for a lot of people who are in the position of hiring, that information is invaluable. It’s literally paradigm shifting. It shows you exactly how to get your employees to perform at their best. There are people who read these threads years later and gain valuable insight from it. People actually message me and say “hey thanks for posting that thing you did last week, that was really helpful,” and that video
I posted falls into that category.

My philosophy is “understand the world as accurately as possible so that you make the most accurate decisions possible”..

And no, I’m not particularly agreeable just for the sake of being agreeable. But I’m also not disagreeable for the sake of that.

These are important ideas that help us make decisions. I’d you don’t find the information I share to be helpful or the insights I share to be valuable, you can block me. Matter of fact, I encourage that.

But for the rest of us, this is stuff I wish someone had shared that with me years ago.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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ChrisV

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Direct sales is going to be the path forward and my next big challenge. Many producers sell direct off the farm and skirt regulations with ownership changing hands and then "assisting" with slaughter for the customer.

There are a few farms near me that do stuff like that. It’s great. That’s where we get all our raw milk, grass-fed steak, beef, cheese, etc. they have these awesome little “Make Your Own Cheese” kits from the raw milk. Everyone lives going there.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Kak

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Lessons From Tesla (the Man, Not the Car) Lessons From Tesla (the Man, Not the Car)

As much as I LOVE the agg stuff, back on point. Here is a story of Nikoli Tesla. The inventor of AC power. The power type we use today. It was BETTER than DC. It traveled longer distances. It was more efficient and powerful.

So why did he die penniless? Why don't we hear about him alongside of the likes of JD Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie? Because he was a small thinker. He was UNDERFUNDED and ran out of resources in a battle with well funded Edison and JP Morgan..

From the article: ‘By his own admission, Tesla “suffered a complete collapse” when he ran out of resources.’

Not only did he not get wealthy... He didn't even make a good living.

The WSJ describes it as a LONE WOLF BEHAVIOR. Hmmm, sound familiar? Onepreneurs take note.

Resources breed success.
 
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ChrisV

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Lessons From Tesla (the Man, Not the Car) Lessons From Tesla (the Man, Not the Car)

As much as I LOVE the agg stuff, back on point. Here is a story of Nikoli Tesla. The inventor of AC power. The power type we use today. It was BETTER than DC. It traveled longer distances. It was more efficient and powerful.

So why did he die penniless? Why don't we hear about him alongside of the likes of JD Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie? Because he was a small thinker. He was UNDERFUNDED and ran out of resources in a battle with well funded Edison and JP Morgan..

From the article: ‘By his own admission, Tesla “suffered a complete collapse” when he ran out of resources.’

Not only did he not get wealthy... He didn't even make a good living.

The WSJ describes it as a LONE WOLF BEHAVIOR. Hmmm, sound familiar? Onepreneurs take note.

Resources breed success.
Yea and yet geeks worship Tesla and despise Einstein. Why? The same reason they worship Woz and despise Jobs. They somehow value the inventor not the person who made the invention big.

They say “Steve Jobs gets all the credit for Wozniak's creation!” not realizing that if it were up to Woz that Apple 1 would have been made in his basement and never seen the light of day.

Jobs, Musk realize one thing... for them to keep going they have to turn a
profit.

1:53

View: https://youtu.be/dkvvCaRaKDo?t=113


If you don’t profit, you die.
 

Kak

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Yea and yet geeks worship Tesla and despise Einstein. Why? The same reason they worship Woz and despise Jobs. They somehow value the inventor not the person who made the invention big.

They say “Steve Jobs gets all the credit for Wozniak's creation!” not realizing that if it were up to Woz that Apple 1 would have been made in his basement and never seen the light of day.

Jobs, Musk realize one thing... for them to keep going they have to turn a
profit.

1:53

View: https://youtu.be/dkvvCaRaKDo?t=113


If you don’t profit, you die.

If you look up Woz he’s worth 100 million. Every time I see commentary from him he comes across as a bitter, jealous, child. Woz would be worth what most fat, communist, geeks his age would be worth today if it wasn’t for Jobs. His hobbies currently include riding segways... presumably because walking is uncomfortable.

A company is an ever changing system of resources. Some more crucial than others. Woz signed on and should have understood what he was getting in to. He was a single piece of the puzzle. Could he have done this himself? No. Not even close to what I would call a leader.

Tesla on the other hand was a name no one gave a crap about until Elon Musk named his car company after him. He didn’t get shafted. He shafted himself. He gave the rights to AC away!
 
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ChrisV

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Although, if you look up Woz he’s worth 100 million. Every time I see commentary from him he comes across as a bitter jealous child. Woz would be worth what most fat geeks his age would be worth today if it wasn’t for Jobs. His hobbies currently include riding segways... presumably because walking is uncomfortable.
Yea... “I’m so mad that he took the toy that i made for only myself and literally used it to create the greatest shift in human innovation since the stone tool"

Ideas are F*cking everywhere. I can literally come up with 30 AMAZING ideas in the next hour. Like mind-blowing, world changing, cats and dogs living together GREAT. It doesn’t matter. Sparks of thought are easy to have. It’s the other shit.

Building a computer isn’t thinking big. Building 300 million computers is thinking big.

And I just laughed so hard at that segway comment
 

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If you look up Woz he’s worth 100 million. Every time I see commentary from him he comes across as a bitter jealous child. Woz would be worth what most fat, communist, geeks his age would be worth today if it wasn’t for Jobs. His hobbies currently include riding segways... presumably because walking is uncomfortable.

A company is an ever changing system of resources. Some more crucial than others. Woz signed on and should have understood what he was getting in to. He was a single piece of the puzzle. Could he have done this himself? No. Not even close to what I would call a leader.

Tesla on the other hand was a name no one gave a crap about until Elon Musk named his car company after him. He didn’t get shafted. He shafted himself. He gave the rights to AC away!

I stayed recently in the Hotel New Yorker in Manhatten where Tesla lived out his last few years (decade?)

The hotel was a shithole now, and maybe then. I think he actually died there, but was living there for maybe nothing for years. Supposedly during his death his research papers disappeared, including an invention he created called a Death Ray that was capable (at the time, in the 1950's?) of shooting a laser beam upwards of several hundred miles.

There's a tribute in the bottom floor of the hotel to him. Crazy interesting and I think Tesla was likely as crazy (and smart) as Elon Musk.
 

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