Nearly 40 years separate when @uninsightful and @fredwilson started investing in start ups. Now they're doing it along side each other. In their first recorded discussion they cover: • What makes an investor worth listening to • Building conviction before everyone agrees • Why VCs come back after saying no • Choosing investors in the age of megafunds • What programmable biology opens up for founders • Where USV gets it wrong • What 40 years teaches you, and what it doesn’t

100% - lots to learn from those that came before us! It always surprises me when others don’t have the same curiosity to learn how things used to be done

Downloaded the book and am now listening to it while doing steps Very interesting to hear how the early deals were all so-called “bootstrapped deals” = a lot closer to today’s search funds It goes in cycles, doesn’t it

SUNSHINE IS OUT NOW, EVERYWHERE ☀️ jungle.ffm.to/sunshine

Paul Tudor Jones was apprenticing for the greatest cotton trader in the world when he fell asleep at his desk: "I felt something under my chin. my eyes flooded open, and it was a spoon. I looked up and Mr. Tullis was right in my face - Paul, you're fired" this is him explaining why he says he can still outwork anyone on Wall Street, the two kinds of failure every trader eventually meets, and the one he says you cannot prepare for "my heart stopped beating in my chest. I literally thought - oh Lord, my existence has ended" "I wasn't angry at him. he was 100% justified. I was angry at myself for being such an idiot" "I would put my work ethic up against anybody on Wall Street today. I can outwork them - there's zero doubt in my mind" "I shot five times, two were blocked, three barely hit the rim. the other team erupted because I had not scored. I ran into the bathroom crying, and two players from the other team came in and started making fun of me" bookmark & watch the full conversation - then read the article below ↓

Come hell or high water. Sometimes there are intense sacrifices some of us have to make to get to where we want to go. ETA, traditional search, indy sponsor, committed capital vehicle… There is nothing new or unique here. Are you good at judging risk-reward, finding deals, finding talent? Being consistent? Based on the conversations these days, even with folks with killer resumes, it comes down to are you good at finding deals? And most importantly, getting lucky? Are you obsessed with this game? I talked to Greg and his story on a two-year search… the fact that they were coming from Harvard Business School, with zero experience, they went aggressively looking for deals by doing cold emails, cold calls, eventually finding one by attending to after hours event, ending up acquiring a tour business, paying 5x EBITDA and having a seller willing to finance $14.5 million of the $29 million purchase price at 4% interest… He said on the call: “Seeing success as the only option. Failure is not on the table. We’re going to be successful, regardless. You can worry, you can entertain… But I believe the entrepreneurs view success as the only viable option.” The idea that you will be okay even when coming up empty-handed… that should be a red flag. Doing all this should be a feeling that you don’t want to do anything else other than that. If you don’t pursue that, you’re going to have that feeling, that chronic lingering feeling… So in order not to go crazy or be sad at the thought of not going after it… the only thing is for you to do it. Does everyone have the same feeling like that? I don’t know… At the same time, if a high-performing person from IB or PE believes that this is the natural next step, that’s not good either. It’s very personal. Why do you do this? For whom are you doing this? For yourself or for others? If for yourself, great. What if it hasn’t worked out as you planned? Pivot, find, and I’d even say, create a way, create a door. The front door is always crowded… What has helped me is taking a moment to really stop… and deliberately writing down what I got wrong. Not journaling about my feelings, not gratitude lists… but what did I predict that didn’t happen? What did I believe yesterday that turned out to be off? Where did I waste effort because my assumption was wrong? The reason I’ve chosen this is that it attacks the single biggest bottleneck. Now, if all this LMM, $1-10M, $1-15M EBITDA is for any other reason, not for yourself… I don’t have an answer for this. At the same time, no need to make it more complicated than it is. This path, the journey, this particular environment… with the intelligence, work-ethic, horsepower, honestly, likability, is there to grab and really to take. There are so many ways to generate alpha. (Not all of these are my original thoughts, but everything I’ve heard from talking to 3-5 folks who buy $500k to $15m EBITDA businesses per day for years. Being obsessed with this game, they’ve said.)

When your back is up against the wall, your family is depending on you, what do you do? Trust your gut, make hard choices and keep pushing forward. Nathan did a huge favor to folks buying and operating businesses by coming on the pod and sharing all the details of what he did and how he came out the other side to tremendous success.

FED'S WARSH: EXPECTATIONS OF INFLATION OVER THE FIRST FOUR WEEKS HAVE COME DOWN

I plan on never retiring. What the heck am I going to do? Play golf every day? At some point I will go to primarily IC and company board roles but I can't imagine not working...

Made a new friend today (once again through this platform, SURPRISE) who knew like 5 people in my network, all widely geographically distributed Guys… we now live in a HYPER CONNECTED world The heavy hitters in SMB, indy sponsor, and business content (also RE to some extent) ALL KNOW EACH OTHER via small micro networks I’m talking max 2-3 degrees of separation in real life It’s INSANE. There’s essentially a tight national (and increasingly international) connective relationship tissue spanning all forms of business and capital allocation modes, expertise, and resources And all you need to do to get access to this network? Doing things, succeeding at some and failing at others, and consistently sharing your thoughts and learnings with the world, whether here or via other platforms People should think of their thought content library and audience as a portable, compounding asset. The algo distributes it to the right people. Mindset product market fit is achieved, allowing you to connect “warm” IRL, every time. Distribution generates trust at scale. Most people still don’t understand that the return on putting yourself out there has NEVER BEEN HIGHER. So let people know what you’re up to, and, if done consistently, the universe will shower you with capital, ideas, opportunities, and friendships Our grandfathers spent their entire careers working for a single company in a local town. They would have absolutely marveled at the kind of access we have at our fingertips today.