From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
One of the best ways to make money is not to lose it. If you can learn not to lose money, you're making money. When you lose your own money, it hurts, it makes you careful, but you cannot let it take the mojo… the hunger out of you.
We characterise our ideal 'Substacker' in affectionate terms – we call them outsider nerds – they're outsiders insofar as they don't fit comfortably in the dominant media structure for whatever reason – perhaps they feel they can do better work outside of it They're nerds insofar as they're especially knowledgeable or passionate about a particular subject area.
I would not have believed anyone if they had told me that within eighteen months I would have lost 99 per cent of my $4 billion fortune and would be pursued almost to the brink of bankruptcy by seven major banks… I would have found it impossible to contemplate that I would be treated like a pariah in my home country, saddled with $1 billion in debts and hated as a man who had supposedly almost single-handedly brought down an economy. But that is exactly what happened…
Entrepreneurs are people who by nature are optimists, who can tolerate risk and who have huge curiosity.
Many forms of entrepreneurship don't lead to wealth, and but they are no less entrepreneurial.
It was not wealth or fame that these people wanted... These individuals had, in their own minds, observed a particular customer need that wasn't being met. They were wired in such a way, that this need seemed obvious to them.
For the entrepreneurial spirit to manifest as successful business and social endeavours, we need a nurturing environment and an infrastructure that celebrates the human will to solve problems and progress.
Entrepreneurial businesses innovate, change, evolve and meet customer needs… it's about creating things that people value and love.
By far the most common is underestimating expenses. When industries do barely double-digits if their lucky, business plans ought not to be showing EBIT or EBITDA of 50-70% – that doesn't mean people are smart, it means they haven't understood the industry.
I tend to go with scholarship that argues that there no people called entrepreneurs but people perform entrepreneurial functions at different times. Edison performed great entrepreneurial acts. But he was also fierce opponent of innovation when it threatened his business interests.
I'm not saying that we should take-on less stress… the problem with the narratives around hustle-culture is that these narratives operate on one paradigm… you should either be working really hard, nor not working too hard.. that's a really primitive conversation. To be successful, you have to overcome a level of stress that would break most people. Building a company is not a sprint, it's a marathon… if you look at the world's best marathon runners, they're running in 4 minute miles. You have to learn how to take on an incredible amount of stress, and sustain it for a really long time.
I do this thing- I say something out-loud–announce it to the public–and then I'm forced to do it because people are excited and I don't want to let them down.