Food for thought 🍔🍟🍕
#33
Short and pretty straightforward post this morning (another to come later today), because man was pretty busy yesterday. Thanks for keeping me on my toes and constantly asking for last night’s post. You know who you are 😊😊. Hope we all take something away from any one of these quotes.
“Part of learning is done through reading, and the other part, which is likely more important, is taking with bright minds from different fields.” - Neil Shen. —Find time to connect with others and find some mentors with whom you can bounce ideas off of. Create that loop where you’re constantly discussing ideas with people who add value.
“Curiosity has kept me young as I have gotten older.” - Les Wexner. —Never stop questioning and keep that childlike curiosity going. It will serve you well.
“Integrity means honesty and willingness to fulfill a promise, even at high cost.”- Morris Chang. —Honesty, integrity, hard work. My father (and Frank Lucas, who would add “family”) is the most important thing in business. You are what you are in this world, that’s either one of two things: Either you’re something or you’re nobody.
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.
Seed Series: #Angels Founding Team Members Jana Messerschmidt and Katie Stanton: For anyone who wants to know what scouts are (more on this soon 😌) and thinking of starting a syndicate perhaps? *Ahem, Lexi*
Côte d’Ivoire: Bédié as president ‘would be a revenge’: Spent a good year researching Francophone politics for my thesis. Conclusion: HKB is bad for business.
Adam Neumann's potential WeWork ouster echoes Travis Kalanick's end at Uber: Worked out for Travis. Not too sure about Adam. If your biggest supporter just one year ago turns against you, thats bad news fam. We’ll most likely be saying toodles to Adam and Rebecca, and this episode would be a cautionary tale to tech founders. Thinking of the guys at Toptal as I say this, but doesn’t look like they really need the money… Anyway, 50% haircut on your IPO price. Not a good look.
Hear About Investing in African Tech at Disrput SF with Marième Diop, Wale Ayeni and Sheel Mohnot: If you’re in the valley, please attend and let us know how it is. I know Marième and Wale always speaking facts.
Facebook buys startup building neural monitoring armband: Competition to Elon’s Neuralink. These type of things sound crazy till they’re common place. Very soon, communication as we know it now, would change. We’d be “talking” without speaking and communicating by just thinking. Wild.
Inside Airbnb, Employees Eager for Big Payouts Pushed It to Go Public: Want to know how stock options and Restricted Stock Units work? Read this.
How TikTok Holds Our Attention: I must be old now. These are what the kids are using these days and I have no idea how it works. I’m still stuck on twitter and instagram. I never even got to understand how Telegram works. I feel like my dad when he saw how cell phones work 😭😭😭(He said he’d never own one, but homeboy carries 3 around now🙄).
What Drove SoftBank’s Vision Fund Up Is Dragging It Down: TWO WeWork posts today. Softbank’s biggest liability smh. And why should people put money into VFII?
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.
Locked Up Abroad: New podcast I started listening to, nothing supremely educational to learn here. But ever wondered about the Jewish Pablo Escobar or how British soldier got caught up in Sierra Leone fighting boy soldiers? Listen to this.
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 🌚
Back to Merchants of Debt. Will update on anything interesting I see.
Quote of the day
Q: “What’s the difference between Chinese and Japanese entrepreneurs?”
A: “In Japan until someone says ‘yes’ it’s a ‘no’, in China until someone says ‘no’ it’s a ‘yes’.”
Remember folks: “Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.”