Problems = Money once solved
Business is problems. The best companies are just highly effective problem-solving machines.
Travis Kalanick on why he loves problems:
“I don’t think about problems in a negative way.”
“I think about problems the way a math professor would think about a problem.”
“A math professor without interesting problems to solve is a sad math professor.”
“So you wanna create interesting things to solve. You wanna create problems to solve. You have to predict well the nature of the problem and your ability and capacity to solve it.”
— @travisk
Ryan Romo retweeted
Business is problems. The best companies are just highly effective problem-solving machines.
Travis Kalanick on why he loves problems:
“I don’t think about problems in a negative way.”
“I think about problems the way a math professor would think about a problem.”
“A math professor without interesting problems to solve is a sad math professor.”
“So you wanna create interesting things to solve. You wanna create problems to solve. You have to predict well the nature of the problem and your ability and capacity to solve it.”
— @travisk
3.5 years into building RFP Homes (investment single family)
2 offices. Approaching 70 agents.
One thing I’ve learned is that building a high-performing organization is no different than building a championship sports team.
Think Tom Brady’s Patriots or Kobe Bryant’s Lakers.
You need talent. You need leadership. You need systems, accountability, discipline, and a culture where everyone is committed to winning.
But above all, you need the right people. And finding those people is arguably one of the hardest parts of building a company.
People who are genuinely competitive. Who think long term. Who take ownership of their results. Who don’t need someone constantly pushing them to work harder. People who are willing to sacrifice short-term comfort for long-term success.
Finding people wired this way is like finding needles in a haystack. To me, it really boils down to an individual’s ability to keep going.
And I’m not talking about a few weeks or months. Sometimes it takes years.
We live in a world where instant gratification is everywhere. People want the results, the money, the recognition, and the lifestyle, but very few are willing to endure the years of repetition, setbacks, rejection, and uncertainty required to actually earn it.
That’s what makes recruiting so difficult. You can teach someone real estate. You can teach sales, underwriting, negotiations, and how to structure a deal.
But you can’t simply hand someone the mindset required to persevere when things aren’t going their way.
To me, one of the biggest differentiators in life is the ability to stay in the fire longer than everyone else. To keep showing up, putting in the work, and trusting the process when there’s no guarantee of success.
Most people don’t fail because they lack talent or opportunity. They quit because the results didn’t come fast enough.
Details. Details. Details.
High standards show up in everyday decisions. Check your work. Prepare for the meeting. Notice what needs attention before someone has to ask. I move quickly, so this is something I have to stay conscious of myself. Your speed becomes a lot more valuable when people trust what you deliver.
The mega billionaires that say I’m giving away 99% of my wealth makes zero fucking sense to me. If you raise your kids right, their job is the pass it on to their generation and make a massive impact. You don’t trust them then you fucked up as a parent.
Charlie Munger’s no bullsh*t advice on giving money to your kids:
"You give them the money."
"Why?"
"They'll resent you if you don't. And what's the point of building a relationship with them and making all this money, and then at the end of your life your kids hate you?"
"Yeah, but won't that make them less ambitious?"
"Yes. Some of them have a few hundred million and they're not as ambitious. So what?”
Ryan Romo retweeted
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has a surprising theory about the "confidence" behind great founders: it might not be confidence at all.
When the idea of confidence comes up, Bezos offers a different explanation:
"You say it's confidence, but maybe it's just trying to compensate for that... accepting that that's a human bias and trying to compensate against it."
So what is the bias?
"I think it's generally human nature to overestimate risk and underestimate opportunity."
Your instincts don't just make the risks look bigger than they are. They also make the opportunities look smaller than they are. Both errors push you in the same direction: toward doing less.
Bezos's correction:
"The risks are probably not as big as you perceive and the opportunities may be bigger than you perceive."
This is why he says entrepreneurs "would be well advised to try and bias against that piece of human nature."
Seen this way, the founder who looks fearless may not have a different personality from you.
They may simply have accepted that their instincts are tilted and learned to adjust for it on purpose. That's not a trait you're born with. It's a correction you can choose to make.
And if you don't make it, @JeffBezos warns there's a cost:
"Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Let the bias set your ambitions, and you'll get small results that seem to prove small was all that was possible.
Your word is your bond. If you say you’re going to do something, do it. Follow through on your commitments, especially when nobody is watching or holding you accountable. Integrity isn’t about what you say or how you present yourself to others. It’s about the standards you hold yourself to when there’s no recognition, no reward, and no one around to see it. Your reputation is built on the promises you keep, especially the ones nobody knows you made.
Would love it if X required everybody to actually use the real name and stop hiding behind fake candles. We’ll see who keeps talking that shit when there’s nowhere to hide
Ryan Romo retweeted
Corient manages $525B for ultra-high-net-worth families.
They offer a unique value: owning private jets for clients to use.
“Through just the size and scale and the relationships that we have at Corient… we could provide them a relatively unique service.”
“We own aircraft on behalf of our clients for their collective use.”
“We take the balance sheet risk from buying the asset. We take the risk associated with the monthly management fee, and then clients effectively pay for the use of the aircraft.”
— Kurt MacAlpine
Ryan Romo retweeted
📹 Elon Musk’s Tesla has unveiled its next-generation Roadster, a literal flying car, with SpaceX-built cold-gas thrusters and a suction system that let it drive upside down and flip over. Musk called it “the best of the last of the human-driven cars.”
Ryan Romo retweeted
We announced an agreement to acquire a nationwide low-band spectrum license portfolio that will pave the way for @Starlink to become a major mobile carrier in the US.
With this new spectrum and our Gen2 constellation, Starlink Mobile can ensure Americans have access to high-speed mobile broadband no matter where they are → spacex.com/updates#starlink-…
