4 laws of great corporations
#35
If you want to maintain control of your company, focus on running it well or find a team to run it well, and make sure you have plenty of cash to operate your business and that you never find yourself in a position where you are running out of cash and have nowhere to go but your existing investors. Do those two things well and you will be in control for as long as you want to be in control.
Simple wisdom from Fred Wilson on keeping founder control. Adam Neumann didn’t do this and surprise surprise, he was kicked out of his own company, joining that exclusive class of billionaires who have.
Below are notes from watching one of Vusi Thembekwayo’s talks on building great companies:
1st law: Find the truth. The role of a leader is to take a different perspective than everyone else. Every management meeting at Alibaba will have an empty chair. They have a philosophy that this empty chair is occupied by the customer so after everybody’s spoken, they ask themselves this question: if the customer were here, what would his/her input be? This enables the team to look for a different version of the truth than the version of the truth they have been prone to see/ been trained to see/ want to see. When Raymond Ackerman was running Pick& Pay, he spent 1 day a week in the stores. walking up and down talking to customers and finding the truth. This concept of “finding the truth” goes back to first principles thinking.
2nd law: Size isn’t everything. We have a weird love for size. As humans, we love big business. They tell you go to university and find a job in big business. But the truth is, it’s about being the best at what you do not the biggest. Being the best might make you the biggest and being the biggest doesn’t make you the best. The aim of great organizations is to be the best at what they do but not the biggest. Your customers don’t care if you’re successful or not. They care if you’re significant in their lives. We assume our customers care but often times they don’t.
3rd law: Vision excites people; not numbers. In the most iconic speech of the 20th century, MLK said “I have a dream”. If you want your customers to get excited, give them a glimpse of what the vision looks like. Numbers are great but people want to know what the vision of what it is when its done and achieved. What does that actually look like?
4th law: Lead by the business case. We’re all biased so when we meet, we see what we are, not the business case. When you present an idea, it depends…do i like the way you look, the way you speak, what’s your role in the business, how long have you been there etc. We bring all these biases into making decisions. BUT what we should be focusing on is “if we do this, does it create value for the business or not?” And don’t forget we are all human beings with biases and can make mistakes. Don’t become your salary/ job/ title. Business leaders need to put their money where their mouth is and take the lead.
Article List— What I’m reading (10 articles a day x 7 days x 4 weeks x 12 months = 3360 articles a year). Building the scope of my knowledge.
SEC Charges Las Vegas Investment Adviser with Fraud, Along with Registration and Other Violations: Airline baggage handler who does nothing at work but read on investing, gives investments advice to clients through an entity called Bored at Work, clients pay him 300$ a year to manage their retirement accounts, he takes screenshots of his clients profiles to flex on Facebook, gets caught because what he’s doing is pretty illegal and here we are now.
Nigeria: Chiedu Osakwe’s passing may hit free trade ambitions: RIP
Geologists now have evidence Africa is physically splitting into two continents: Just a random fact for your information. We might soon be Africa 1 and Africa 2
"Digitising Logistics in Africa" report: Think of the AfCFTA and movement of goods across borders. This report would help you understand what’s really going on and the future of this space. You may even find opportunities that haven’t been exploited in here.
Executive Coach or Therapist? It’s Getting Harder to Tell the Difference: Everybody needs their Wendy Rhoades, IMO, but it doesn’t always work like that. But take care of your mental health, people.
The Beauty and Burden of Being a Nigerian Bride: You know Nigerians love their weddings. Pretty short piece to get you up to speed on what Nigerian (piece is more about Yoruba weddings) are about.
WeWork and the Great Unicorn Delusion: If you wake up on a Casper, hail a Lyft to get to your WeWork, use DoorDash to order lunch, hail another Lyft home, and Uber Eats your dinner, you will have spent your day interacting with companies that will collectively lose nearly $13 billion this year.
Podcast— What I’m listening to (1 podcast episode a day x 7 days x 4 weeks x 12 months = 336 podcast episodes). Broadening my experiences through others’ stories.
New podcast: Zero to IPO: Learn how your favorite tech startups blew up from irrelevant to controlling major parts of your life in detail. Thats the key. Much like Acquired, this is very granular. They go deeeep.
Book— 1 Chapter a day x 7 days x 4 weeks x 12 months = 336 chapters. Most books have 10-12 chapters, so 1 year = 28 to 33 books. And my book list is nearing 1000 books. Send help 🌚
Almost done with AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order. If you’re not concerned about how artificial intelligence would affect your life in the near future, now is a good time to get concerned.
Twitter screenshot of the day
Good week to remember that if you’re working for someone you don’t believe in, but think you’ll get rich then leave, that those handcuffs might ultimately prove to be tin not gold.
Remember folks: “Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.”