Q3 '24 Doings
Hurricanes, Surgery, Spoons and more!
My most popular newsletters are the ones where I share what I’ve been up to. They are 2x more popular than my most thought-laden musings, but I won’t let that discourage me too much! This quarter has been jam-packed with some big things, and a good deal of strategic downtime.
Biggest News:
Hurricane Helene. Last week, a Category 4 Hurricane made landfall in Florida and was aimed straight at Valdosta. It hit our hometown as a Cat 3 or 2 depending on whose numbers you trust. We didn’t evacuate and I had the family and the nanny huddled in the interior of the house as we waited it out. We lost power for 8 days, have about $300k worth of damage across multiple properties, but none of our people were hurt. One of my colleagues lost her first house to a tree strike, and we’ve heard of others who lost their lives. We lost stuff, and they are always making more stuff. Both Trump and Biden came in and couldn’t believe what they saw. The City limits has about 1000 miles worth of streets and both sides of those streets are piled 8-10 feet high with debris now. And evidently, the damage just isn’t being reported on the news. I have friends and colleagues who haven’t reached out and I have to believe it’s just because they don’t know how bad it has been.
Surgery. I’ve been avoiding a hernia surgery for several years now and when the Hurricane hit our area, the Mayo Clinic called and said they had an opening. My girls were hitting a wall with no power and hot water for showers so we bundled down to Jacksonville and I went under the robotic knife. I was ridiculously naive about what was going on, didn’t ask enough questions, and am recuperating at home now. I didn’t tell many folks because I didn’t want anyone worrying about something so minor in the midst of recovery efforts, but you’ll understand now why I’m sticking close to home for the next month. The worst part is having to have Sheya help me up out of bed, and being forbidden any baths for 4 weeks!
What I Watched:
HBO Max. Out of the blue, Max sent me a kind notice letting me know that they were raising the price on the streaming service that I never watch. Seriously, unless you are really obsessed with dragons, what has HBO produced that’s worth watching in a really long time? I cancelled it. Maybe I’ll add it later when they figure something else out but for now, I’m watching other stuff. If Disney doesn’t start getting Star Wars right (yeah right), I’m cancelling it, too.
Killing Eve. I love spy thrillers and good acting. This Netflix special has neither. The premise is that Sandra Oh was going to catch a female assassin. It was so insipid. They were reading really clever writing off cue cards and making the most television leaps of logic ever. Couldn’t finish it.
Slow Horses. AppleTV has another spy show starring Gary Oldman in a career-defining role. I devoured the first 3 seasons, and just saw the new season was out now. I’ll be binging this week!
Bocephus/Hank Williams, Jr.: Several years ago I mentioned to my wife that all the really great performers had careers that were coming to and end. I had seen an interview with Willy Nelson who was asked what performer he’d see again and again and he gave a list, none of whom I’d ever seen. Loretta Lynnn toped the list, but Dolly and Hank Jr. were on it, too. Sheya bought tickets to see Bocephus but COVID canceled it, and so they finally rebooked it and we went to Charlotte for the show, and man what a show! The guy has been performing for 72 of his 75 years and he knows what to do, when and how to do it.
The Olympics. I didn’t go, and feel like I’m the only person I know who didn’t go to Paris this year, but I watched some of the events each evening. The Olympics never fails to amaze me in two ways: 1) How terrible the opening and closing ceremonies are compared to what we had in Atlanta in 1996, and 2) how they draw me in to watch some obscure event and care so much about it while I’m watching. USA and China tied for Gold metals for the 2024 Olympiad.
What I Read/Listened to:
Smart Brevity. Recommended by Joe McGowan, the book has popped up on my radar screen several times recently. The authors are the founders of Axios News and reveal how they construct news articles to be memorable, information dense, and useful. The book advocates for a concise, impactful writing style that eliminates noise and uncovers the signal of any message. When publishing, they advocate that you post a reading time so your readers can budget attention appropriately; to use the TL;DR format (too long didn’t read, a summary line), use an attention getting subject line or opening line, go deep, use emojis and impactful words. I don’t actually suffer from much from people sending long emails,
Acquired/Howard Schulz. The Acquired podcast is one of my go-to’s for long trips. In each episode, lasting 2-3 hours, the goobers who host the thing breakdown a company’s history. They do a tremendous amount of research, and the best episodes are the ones where they actually interview a person who was involved with the company at issue in the episode. Howard Schulz is a world-class entrepreneur — arguably one of the most successful of all time — and lays out step-by-step the evolution of Starbucks as a company, as a brand, and as an institution. I’ve written elsewhere on how struck I was with the difference with which he views Starbucks and how I see it as a customer, but the episode is nothing but gold. So many learnings that are transferable to other businesses.
Lex Fridman/Ivanka Trump. Lex is the king of the long-form podcast. He and Elon did an 8-hour episode recently that people are buzzing about. In this episode, he sits down with Ivanka Trump and has an interesting and meaningful chat about her life, learnings from living, working, campaigning for and loving Donald Trump. The most poignant stuff centers around her intentionality when it comes to her family, 3 children that she has with husband, Jared Kushner. She also succeeds in being charming about the rarified air in which she grew up, sharing vignettes of her Mom running around constructions sites in high-heels, or name dropping Kim Kardashian and Adele without a trace of ego. I listened to Lex’s discussion with Kushner last year and it changed my mind on the guy. If you aren’t listening to Lex, he’s worth an add.
The Sacred Mushroom and The Cross. John Allegro was a British archaeologist, and a member of the international team of scholars responsible for translating the Dead Sea Scrolls. His early work focused on the historical and religious significance of the scrolls and was well received in academic circles. His later work, this book, was so unorthodox that it has become almost a handbook in iconoclasm. In the book, he presents the highly controversial that early Christian (Essene) theology was rooted in ancient fertility cults, and that the figure of Jesus Christ was a symbolic representation of hallucinogenic mushroom rituals, and probably not a real historical figure. In reading the book, you see a mind trapped by a conclusion for which all evidence must fit or the argument doesn’t work, and so he uses his extraordinary mind with a background in linguistics to basically conclude that every proper noun in the New Testament was a hidden synonym for mushroom. Needless to say, I don’t buy the argument, but the work as a whole does train the mind to pay attention to our own argumentation biases.
Bulletproof Problem Solving: Two Mckinsey consultants collected the problem solving methodology practiced by big firms and turned it into a teachable process. The book focuses on breaking down problems into smaller, manageable parts, using logic trees and data-driven analysis to work through challenges efficiently. It emphasizes critical thinking, hypothesis-driven approaches, and disciplined execution to achieve optimal solutions, whether in business or personal decision-making. I’ve only read it once, feels like it needs several reads and real-world testing to get it right. I hope to see my decisions improve because of it.
So Long, See You Tomorrow: I don’t read as much fiction as I should, so when I do I tend to go big to make up for it. This is often a mistake as I have lots of long unfinished novels sitting around. Someone recommended this short novel and since I had tons of time to read lately, I picked it up. So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell is a poignant novel that explores themes of memory, loss, and guilt through the lens of a man's reflection on his childhood in a small Illinois town. The narrative interweaves personal tragedy and a local murder, examining how unspoken emotions and unresolved conflicts from the past shape one's sense of self. Elegant, sparse, personal prose and emotional resonance make it a powerful meditation on human frailty, the passage of time, and the complexities of forgiveness. I don’t think I’d read it again, but it’s one that will stay with me.
Where I Travelled:
Phoenix/Tempe. My team and I started working with a new client in the Phoenix area seeking advice on an exit plan for a family business, 30 years in the making. While in town digging into the work, I was able to visit with some friends, go to dinner at the very disappointing Rustler's Rooste, a gimmicky place with nice views of the City at sunset. The food was edible? The drinks were good, but it was just hokey in a way that I can’t ever seeing going back to it. We had good friends in attendance though, and it made up for all the rest.
Charlotte. We saw Hank Williams, Jr. in Charlotte and booked an extra day or two in the city to take in the sights. We needed precisely 2 hours to do so. They have this minuscule museum of surprising good quality, and little else. When we asked the concierge for suggestions, she sent us to the mall. You know, the big building that has the same stores you can visit 100 other places? The entire downtown has the feel of a corporate campus. The restaurants were surprisingly good, largely influenced by the fact that Johnson & Wales has a campus there.
Nashville. Session Two of the profound spiritual and psychological experience in Nashville and it was just as amazing as the first. The mind is a strange place with a hidden intelligence that we glimpse but rarely gaze upon. My work here has put me on a path I’ve long sought. Love to chat with anyone about it.
Boston/Northport. A friend recently recommended that I experience an experimental treatment focused on the microbiome and so Emmaline and I made the trek to Northport, Massachusetts to check it out. The process was amazing, a little on the weird side, and we are monitoring results now. More on this as it progresses but we are happy with what we’ve seen so far.
Atlanta. I was fortunate to be invited to attend Mo Bunnell’s book launch event for his latest book, Give to Grow, a very special book on how relationships fit in the business development world. Mo gave me several copies to give out to friends so if you want a really good read, hit me up and I’ll send you a copy. The event was a perfectly delivered as anything I’ve ever seen, and if you know Mo, you know that’s how things are going to be!
Jacksonville/Mayo Clinic. My family, friends and Board knows that I’ve prioritized health as a focus this year. With that in mind, I hired a health coach which was an absolute bomb, the promises they gave weren’t met and the turmoil we’ve been through this year hasn’t helped. With that in mind, I decided to go through the Executive Health program at the Mayo Clinic. The experience was wonderful. I had a call with a PCP and voiced all of my concerns and areas to examine. They ran full bloodwork and then set specialist followups every 90 minutes. In between appointments, I had access to a lounge with coffee, snacks, WiFi and privacy cubicles to stay current with my inbox. It was an amazing experience and the final result highlighted several things for me to work on. One of the things they said I had to get fixed was a hernia, and that’s done now.
What I’ve Done:
Kids back to school: Maybe its not a feat to some, but when you’ve struggled with a child who’s trying her hardest to make it all work and has her own mind working against her, any win is a huge win.
Corporate Development. I led corporate development efforts for a client as an embedded party for the first time in 20 years. We had a narrow window on a project where we held all the cards, and we issued proposals to maximize our leverage. The right answer was for the project to be allowed to fail on a sunk-cost analysis basis, but we were asked to propose a high-ticket solution, pulling a rabbit out of the hat. We did so to the tune of $95m and crossed our fingers. They agreed to go forward but cannot raise the funds in this environment and are proceeding with the shutdown plan.
White Party. We have some new faces on our largely virtual team now, and we work hard to get people together and have fun when we can. This year, we did our All Hands Meeting in the home office and one of the staff suggested we have dinner and do a white party. “What’s a white party?” I asked and she said “It’s a party where everyone dresses in all-white.” “Can do!” I said and still have no idea why it’s a thing, but it is. My company showed up, everyone dressed sharply in whites and linens and we had a fun time with dinner, drinks and lively conversation. A first for me!
New Investments. We’ve been very busy this year cherry-picking some of the best companies to back with our investment funds. Year to date, we’ve done Fortius Metals, Liquid Death, Databricks, Cartwheel, x.ai, Notion, SeatGeek, FreeForm Future, Fanatics, Armada AI, Skema AI, Daily.ai, ProteinQure, and Groq. 14 investments so far and I expect to write another 10 checks or so before December. That’s on par with what we did last year, but we are placing larger bets this year as valuations have come down, our early bets have paid off and we’ve developed more confidence in our abilities as allocators.
Follow-On Investments. This quarter we deployed additional investment capital into Anthropic, Alexsei, and H3X. These companies have supremely outperformed the competition and the shot to put additional monies at work where its already working hard is a core piece of our investment strategy.
Capital Calls. This has been the quarter of capital calls. Some projects that haven’t performed to plan have needed additional capital and we’ve complied when we’ve thought the use was justified. We’ve also kept our funding promises to VCs and some startups to which we pledged additional capital. A mixed bag because the question of good money after bad always comes up, but that’s the investing game. You’re not an investor until you pull the plug on an investment that you love but that just isn’t performing.
Pathstone. We completed our asset move from Morgan Stanley to Pathstone last quarter and have begun deploying capital through them. We are sitting on a large cash position waiting for a dramatic pullback in the markets. We almost rushed in with the unwinding of the yen carry trade, but I just felt like that was temporary and there was more to come. Then I thought that the longshoreman strike was going to be it and was ready to pounce, but that resolved and I’m still maintaining my patience but it’s getting harder!
What I Learned:
People know what they know, and don’t share it with you until it’s in their interest to do so. Usually you make it unsafe for them to do so, and they delay until things are too late to fix. Better initial and repeated communication without risk will improve results immediately.
It’s better to be a lighthouse than a tugboat. A lighthouse shows everyone its truth equally and summons those who seek its light. A tugboat pushes and directs an often-unwilling companion away from the rocks. A lighthouse serves all, a tugboat only those who want it. Be the lighthouse.
The further away from a disaster you are, the less real it seems to you.