PE Operator → CEO | Real deals, stories & operator lessons | Never badmouth synergy | book recs: https://xitter.cf/t.co/6HlJT9V568
Joined November 2020
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I once presented a billionaire some of the highest-ROI projects I'd ever found.
Some north of 1,000% IRR.
I have never forgotten his response.
Ideally you want the people closest to the problem/project designing and deploying AI.
Deep understanding of the business and processes + general education/awareness of what AI can do
That combo is very potent.
What doesn’t work is implementing AI from on high.
This is why you see PE folks and others who are multiple degrees away from the AI solution very skeptical of ROI.
They see spend, but no return. It’s possible that’s because the solutions are top down.
Someone at the top is saying “we need to use AI.”
Ideally folks doing the work identify AI solutions, but that’s not always going to happen.
So, it’s important to educate the org on what AI can do and truly partner with (listen+incentivize) the front line to implement.
Finally, we are still so early. You should be experimenting. Not every dollar is going to have an immediate positive ROI. That is ok, within limits.
But long term, what is the ROI on having an entire organization that moves fast and leverages AI?
Incalculable.
Our company is seeing unbelievable productivity gains, with more on the horizon.
I honestly can’t understand how others are not.
It started with editing, spreadsheets, and modeling.
It spread to research. Then it spread to internal reporting.
And now we are exploring deploying bots en masse.
If you aren’t seeing productivity gains, you are falling behind.
Our company is seeing unbelievable productivity gains, with more on the horizon.
I honestly can’t understand how others are not.
It started with editing, spreadsheets, and modeling.
It spread to research. Then it spread to internal reporting.
And now we are exploring deploying bots en masse.
If you aren’t seeing productivity gains, you are falling behind.
Scott Kirby, the CEO of United, wants to pay more taxes.
Good news!
The Treasury Department actually has a program that allows one to voluntarily give more to the US govt.
If Scott Kirby doesn’t take advantage of this program, he is just virtue signaling.
If he is virtue signaling, how can anything else he says be trusted?
The only way he can be credible is if he puts his money where his mouth is.
Imagine if the two wars end, oil prices drop, and interest rates come down at all.
Lots of potential upside.
U.S. AND IRAN REPORTEDLY BACK NEW DIPLOMATIC PROPOSAL
Qatar and Pakistan have reportedly presented a compromise proposal with preliminary U.S. and Iranian approval, according to informed sources.
The plan reportedly includes confidential IAEA inspections of Iranian nuclear sites and a partial concession involving $6 billion in Iranian funds frozen in Qatar.
Source: Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, citing informed sources — October 20, 2026
Did @grok just solve personal finance education?
Can't overhaul school lunches from here, but start with fresh local produce, less ultra-processed junk, kid menu votes, and proper funding for real cooking.
Game idea: Finance Kart Odyssey. Race life paths Mario Kart style, blast debt bosses Call of Duty mode, draft budget teams like Madden, explore open-world investments Zelda-style. Power-ups for compound interest, side quests teach taxes and credit. Fun, safe practice for real money skills.
Schools should spend more time on health and personal finance.
Maybe the two most important skills for a successful life.
Link below. If you haven’t read, you won’t regret it.
Also lmk what’s missing from peoperator.co (recently redesigned)
Great book recommended to me by @BigJohn043
The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz
A classic I just hadn’t gotten to…
The book covers the lessons Horowitz learned taking a company from near bankruptcy to selling it for $1.6 BILLION.
Horowitz covers the ugly part of being a CEO: layoffs, fear, and wartime decisions.
His core takeaway: There is no playbook for the hard thing. Only judgment and ownership.
My Highlights:
- the only way to learn how to be a CEO is to be a CEO… Learning to be a CEO through classroom training would be like learning to be an NFL quarterback through classroom training. Even if Peyton Manning and Tom Brady were your instructors, in the absence of hands-on experience, you'd get killed the moment you took the field.
- Ordinarily, that vibe would rule out a candidate for me, but the strengths that I needed were so critical to the business that I was willing to overlook every weakness.
Thought this was an interesting note on thinking about hiring- sometimes you need a skill so bad you might overlook culture fit, weaknesses- not sure how much I agree but stuck with me
- If you run a company, you will experience overwhelming psychological pressure to be overly positive. Stand up to the pressure, face your fear, and tell it like it is.
- People always ask me, "What's the secret to being a successful CEO?" Sadly, there is no secret, but if there is one skill that stands out, it's the ability to focus and make the best move when there are no good moves. It's the moments where you feel most like hiding or dying that you can make the biggest difference as a CEO.
- There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.
Great book recommended to me by @BigJohn043
The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz
A classic I just hadn’t gotten to…
The book covers the lessons Horowitz learned taking a company from near bankruptcy to selling it for $1.6 BILLION.
Horowitz covers the ugly part of being a CEO: layoffs, fear, and wartime decisions.
His core takeaway: There is no playbook for the hard thing. Only judgment and ownership.
My Highlights:
- the only way to learn how to be a CEO is to be a CEO… Learning to be a CEO through classroom training would be like learning to be an NFL quarterback through classroom training. Even if Peyton Manning and Tom Brady were your instructors, in the absence of hands-on experience, you'd get killed the moment you took the field.
- Ordinarily, that vibe would rule out a candidate for me, but the strengths that I needed were so critical to the business that I was willing to overlook every weakness.
Thought this was an interesting note on thinking about hiring- sometimes you need a skill so bad you might overlook culture fit, weaknesses- not sure how much I agree but stuck with me
- If you run a company, you will experience overwhelming psychological pressure to be overly positive. Stand up to the pressure, face your fear, and tell it like it is.
- People always ask me, "What's the secret to being a successful CEO?" Sadly, there is no secret, but if there is one skill that stands out, it's the ability to focus and make the best move when there are no good moves. It's the moments where you feel most like hiding or dying that you can make the biggest difference as a CEO.
- There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.
Expert call networks are hilarious.
“We’ll pay you $1500 to talk to a stranger who has no idea if what you’re saying is true.”
The fact that private equity uses these so much that an entire industry was built up around it is insane.
Just shows you how detached most consultants and PE guys are from the business they’re buying.
PE/IB guys talking to each other about becoming CFOs
I get a lot of confidential inbound questions (into my mailbag) and DMs. Far and away the most common question I get is some variant of “I came from IB/PE as a first time CFO, I thought it would be easy and have realized that what i thought was the job was in fact only about 10% of it. And it’s much harder to get things done when I’m not talking to people who think and talk like me all day. What the hell do I do”
Just because you’re a good investment banker or private equity VP does not mean you will be a good CFO.
Many need to hear this.
