My First Million

Algorithms are designed to maximize engagement by showing users content they interact with positively. If your content isn't being distributed, it's because people aren't engaging with it positively, not because of algorithmic bias.

Like any skill, conflict resolution requires practice. People who rarely encounter conflict don't develop the emotional regulation, communication techniques, and repair mechanisms that frequent conflict navigators learn

Coaches provide accountability, accelerated learning curves, and forcing functions that are worth far more than their cost for people with discretionary income

Network effects and social proof drive adoption, creating virtuous cycle of increasing value and legitimacy

The 'great companies are bought not sold' advice comes from unicorn founders who had inbound interest, but most entrepreneurs don't have that level of traction and need to actively run sales processes

Personality-driven media depends on authentic connection between founder character and audience. As founders age, maintaining youthful or edgy personas becomes less authentic and more desperate. But changing persona risks alienating core audience that connected with original character.

Social status markers evolve with generational priorities. Millennials and Gen Z prioritize health, longevity, and optimization over risk-taking and hedonism. Social media rewards self-improvement content over dangerous behavior. Economic pressures make health a luxury good signaling wealth and discipline.

Best performing DTC businesses remain Facebook-dependent while diversified strategies indicate inability to make core platform work optimally

Wealth managers profit from fees and commissions, creating incentive misalignment where they benefit from churning assets rather than optimizing returns

Internet dynamics consolidate production while democratizing consumption, creating winner-take-all markets where slight differences in quality create massive differences in rewards

As AI commoditizes digital content and experiences, scarcity shifts to unreplicable human interactions and physical presence

Successful entrepreneurs consistently demonstrate extreme focus and follow-through rather than being the smartest people in the room - they 'break the intensity knob past 10'

Social media success requires turning your life into a performance, attracts unwanted attention and criticism, and the benefits (followers who don't really know you) don't outweigh the costs for people already doing well professionally

Creators are nimble, understand platforms natively, have direct audience feedback loops, and can produce content at lower costs with higher authenticity than traditional agencies constrained by corporate processes

Just as literacy was essential for industrial age success, video literacy becomes essential as the internet becomes primarily video-based communication, making those without video skills professionally disadvantaged

Strong markets pull success out of mediocre execution, while great teams in tiny markets will fail despite superior capabilities. Market demand creates forgiveness for poor execution.

If these businesses were truly as easy and profitable as claimed, sophisticated operators would have already captured all the value

The struggle and resource constraints that built the parent's success are exactly what they're removing from their children's development

As AI Apply enables automated applications to thousands of jobs, companies will develop AI systems to filter out automated applications, creating cyclical technological competition

Users in 'brain rotted frame of mind' while scrolling social media lack the attention and motivation to scrutinize content authenticity

As women achieve financial independence and take on careers, they no longer need men primarily as providers. Instead, they need partners who can handle the emotional labor of modern relationships, communicate effectively, and share domestic responsibilities.

Unlike Google which relies purely on advertising, ChatGPT has both massive scale (800M weekly users) and direct subscription revenue. This dual revenue model provides higher margins and more predictable income than advertising-only models.

We accept that mastery in any field requires intense practice and long hours. Business building is a craft like music or sports, requiring similar dedication. The stigma exists only because business can generate money, but the motivation is craft mastery, not money.

If you can name anything on Earth, you can find a site with 10,000 options delivered to your house by tomorrow. The infrastructure, logistics, and consumer behavior are all established.

Knee surgery costs $40,000 in US vs $20,000 in France with better results. 20x higher maternal mortality for Black women vs Sweden. These aren't inherent limitations but structural inefficiencies.

Early-career confidence gaps are bigger barriers than knowledge gaps; external belief provides psychological fuel to take action until evidence builds self-belief

AI systems are rapidly improving at understanding context and executing tasks. Personal assistants primarily do information management, scheduling, and communication tasks that are perfect for AI automation.

Advertiser exodus is making Twitter financially unsustainable, Elon has already acknowledged 'hardship he didn't need,' and the platform's value has declined significantly.

Fund carry structure and management fees reduce returns compared to direct personal investment, plus you eliminate LP management overhead

High confidence leads to bigger risk-taking, faster decision-making, and self-fulfilling prophecies that create more opportunities than cautious intelligence

Traditional corporate promotion systems reward political skills and network relationships over technical competence and direct communication ability, leading to mismatched leadership in technology companies.

Slow growth often indicates solving real problems with sustainable business models, while fast growth can mask fundamental issues

New platform with massive existing user base but minimal competition, similar conditions that created iPhone app millionaires

Traditional software companies had steady, predictable growth patterns over 7+ years. AI companies reach $100M ARR in 4-5 months, making it impossible to evaluate sustainable foundations

Word-of-mouth requires creating a remarkable product experience that naturally compels customers to share, which is much harder than executing tactical marketing campaigns with direct cause-and-effect relationships.

Compounding doesn't care about focus; it works across multiple ventures. Diversification provides learning arbitrage where insights from one business improve others, plus reduces single-point-of-failure risk.

Innovation carries high failure risk and requires rare insights. Copying proven models reduces execution risk and allows focus on operational excellence rather than market education.

Every yes to a new project is a no to family time, deep focus, or optimization of the main thing. Successful people appear diversified only after achieving massive success in their primary focus area

Platform adaptation combined with advertiser learning curve - Facebook rebuilt targeting capabilities while advertisers optimized for new constraints

VCs need to raise next fund from LPs every 2-3 years, requiring portfolio companies that can show quick markups for fundraising, not necessarily companies with best long-term prospects

Aggressive deadlines force teams to eliminate non-essential work, make faster decisions, and maintain urgency, while 'realistic' schedules invite scope creep and complacency

Production companies face 'feast or famine' revenue (dependent on individual show success), Distributors control all pricing power, high infrastructure costs with low margins (20-30%), and valuation multiples tied to easily-disrupted cash flows. Success looks dramatic but sustainability is nearly impossible.

Moms have high engagement rates, strong purchasing power, network effects through recommendations, and are underserved by current tech solutions focused on male-dominated markets

AI companies have raised significant funding, operate in legal gray areas around training data and intellectual property, and would prefer to settle quickly rather than fight lengthy legal battles that could impact fundraising

Businesses are collections of people, people are inherently messy, and when you combine messy people the complexity compounds exponentially creating constant operational challenges

EBITDA was created by cable industry to convince lenders, but ignores real cash requirements like capex and reinvestment, creating misleading picture of actual cash generation

Compromise by definition requires both parties to give up something they value, creating resentment and suboptimal solutions, whereas collaboration can create solutions better than either party originally envisioned

When you use leverage (ability to inflict harm), the other party withholds information and cooperation needed for optimal solutions, and implementation suffers due to resentment

Sales talent is in extremely high demand across all industries. Companies will acquire businesses primarily for proven sales teams rather than technology or products, making sales team building a de-risk acquisition strategy

Market saturation creates noise that prevents viral organic growth, while increased competition makes it harder to stand out and be noteworthy enough for people to share.

Once basic needs and security are met, additional money provides diminishing returns on happiness. Continued focus on accumulation suggests lack of clarity on what actually matters.

Physical conditioning trumps size advantages in martial arts. Zuckerberg trains in jujitsu and MMA, is 12 years younger, and significantly fitter. Musk doesn't exercise and is overweight at 51.

Musk has too much to lose and little to gain. Losing would hurt his 'cool factor' significantly. He needs a 'hold me back guy' strategy to save face.

Natural beauty reduces stress hormones, improves cognitive function, and provides psychological restoration that enhances creative problem-solving. The 'movie-like' quality of inspiring landscapes creates a mindset shift that elevates thinking and ambition levels.

People without true confidence cannot distinguish between authentic self-assurance and performative dominance behaviors. Narcissism presents as confidence through aggression, material displays, and dominance over others, which appeals to those seeking external validation

Distribution advantages, economic incentives, and audience relationships favor creators over traditional media. Cultural influence follows where audiences spend attention and form emotional connections

As consumer standards for food quality rise and direct local sourcing becomes more accessible, Whole Foods' mass-market 'natural' positioning will seem low-quality compared to true local sourcing

Growing health awareness about chemical exposure through clothing, similar to how food ingredients became important, will drive demand for natural materials despite performance tradeoffs

Unreasonable hospitality creates emotional experiences that people naturally want to share. These stories get retold multiple times, creating compound marketing effects that traditional advertising cannot match.

In chess, all information is visible and skill determines outcome. In poker and business, you have incomplete information, randomness affects results, and patience/selectivity matter more than activity level

Success breeds confidence in existing frameworks while age reduces learning agility. Older investors have seen more failures and become risk-averse, missing opportunities that younger people embrace

Similar to Elon's rocket analysis - when final product price vastly exceeds material costs, there's usually massive inefficiency that can be eliminated through first-principles thinking and automation

Persistence and grit compound over time, while intelligence alone doesn't guarantee execution. Most people give up before seeing results, so willingness to continue becomes the differentiating factor

Market efficiency makes consistent outperformance extremely difficult, while tax optimization provides guaranteed returns with lower risk and complexity

Cult brands need generational nostalgia - people must grow up with them as background, then rediscover them as adults to create authentic emotional attachment

Fundraising is a means to an end, not an achievement itself. Real celebration should be reserved for actual business outcomes and customer success

The potential for $100B+ outcomes in AI means the math works even with extremely high valuations and loss rates, similar to how $1B outcomes used to justify venture math

AI can already perform many knowledge work tasks better than humans, and companies will eliminate roles once they realize the AI alternative is superior and cheaper

Success creates comfort and predictability, which reduces the natural drive to explore and grow. The identity becomes attached to past achievements rather than future potential. Without intentional pattern interruption, successful people default to optimizing existing systems rather than imagining new possibilities.

Twitter's B2B-focused, text-based, high-value audience creates better conditions for expensive product sales than other platforms, but hasn't yet reached critical mass for breakout successes.

Human brains are optimized for learning through physics demonstrations since survival depends on understanding physical reality. Marketing demonstrations mimic this fundamental learning process.

Wealth building is a learnable skill set involving mindset, habits, and decision-making patterns that persist regardless of starting capital

Most successful strategies are well-known; competitive advantage comes from willingness to execute at higher intensity levels than others

It's nearly impossible to get 130 million people to voluntarily watch and pay attention to a 30-second video. The cost per engaged viewer is actually low compared to other attention-getting methods when you factor in the quality of attention (people want to see the ads).

When users get direct answers from ChatGPT or Google AI instead of clicking through to websites, the traffic that SEO businesses depend on disappears. Social media already started eating search traffic, and AI accelerates this trend.

He's the only major tech founder who clearly understood attention as the core asset early on, demonstrated by his attempts to buy Twitter, successful acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, and failed attempt to buy Snapchat. His track record of attention-based acquisitions is unmatched.

Scammers are highly incentivized to find what actually works in persuasion, creating natural experiments in human psychology at scale

Pattern matching to how epidurals became mainstream - when pain/risk can be avoided with technology, most people choose the easier option

Media embedding drives viral growth, election cycles create massive betting interest, and platform has solved user experience problems that plagued earlier prediction markets

Human brain processes musical patterns more durably than visual information, similar to how nursery rhymes aid learning; decline correlates with industry trends, not consumer response

Most people specialize in either technical or creative/cultural skills. Those who combine both become exponentially more valuable because they can build products that work AND market them effectively in modern channels

Young people have native understanding of social platforms and no preconceptions about what's possible with AI. Older entrepreneurs are constrained by existing mental models. However, this gap will close as tools become more accessible and older entrepreneurs learn new platforms

Boring industries have low customer expectations, minimal innovation, and high customer frustration. Small improvements create disproportionate customer delight and word-of-mouth marketing

Strategies that everyone agrees with become table stakes and provide no competitive advantage. Differentiation requires doing things competitors won't do, which means some people must think your approach is wrong

Crisis opportunities have short windows where early movers capture disproportionate value. While people analyze, first movers build relationships, secure supply chains, and win contracts. By the time analysis is complete, the opportunity window has closed.

Search algorithms and discovery mechanisms reward consistent publishing over occasional high-quality pieces. Audience habits form around regular content consumption. Volume creates more surface area for viral hits and audience connection points.

10-15 years ago you could have special supplier relationships or unique technical capabilities, but now anyone can spin up websites, features are no longer defensible, and everyone has access to the same resources and tools.

Countries operate like businesses with GDP as their breathing mechanism - money in, money out. By attacking economic access points and using social media influence, you could destabilize authoritarian regimes more effectively than traditional military approaches.

General distrust of traditional news creates openings for upstart news organizations to capture audience and advertiser attention with fresh approaches and perspectives

High income creates new stressors (lifestyle inflation, performance pressure, addiction enablement) while solving basic survival stresses

People in positions of authority often engage in similar behaviors as those they oversee, but have better circumstances or luck in avoiding consequences

Most people's experience with organized social events is terrible (awkward company happy hours, standing around open bars), so even basic structure and intentionality creates a dramatically better experience

Right opportunities create energy rather than drain it. When you're aligned with market needs and your capabilities, work becomes energizing despite challenges. Persistent difficulty often signals fundamental misalignment.

Entrepreneurs want to prove their specialness by creating complex solutions, but consumers prefer simple improvements. Overcomplication is often a defense mechanism to justify personal importance and valuation rather than serving customer needs.

Teams gravitate toward consensus and safe picks to avoid individual blame. Contrarian bets require conviction that goes against group think. The highest returns come from being right when others are wrong, which teams psychologically resist.

Different therapeutic interventions that seem unrelated (psychedelics, cold plunges, vagus nerve stimulation, fasting) all have strong anti-inflammatory effects. If chronic inflammation underlies many seemingly different conditions, this would explain why these diverse treatments work across multiple conditions

Time is the only truly finite resource, while money beyond a certain threshold provides no additional utility. Once you have enough money for your desired lifestyle, additional earnings provide diminishing returns while consuming irreplaceable time that could be spent on relationships, health, creativity, or experiences

Unlike blog posts or social media where you can use clickbait or manipulation, podcasting requires sustained authentic conversation for 40-50 minutes multiple times per week, making it hard to maintain a fake persona

Generational shift in information authority - just as previous generations moved from encyclopedias to Google to WebMD, current generation moving from human experts to AI systems as primary information source

Fundamental technology shifts create periods where established competitive advantages become irrelevant and new capabilities enable previously impossible business models

Decision-making power over family purchases creates high commercial value, while shared life experiences create strong community bonds and word-of-mouth growth

Traditional journalism training emphasized impartiality, but internet economics and social media incentivized opinion-based content because it gets more engagement and subscriptions. This created a generation of journalists who see activism as part of their job.

Conspiracies do exist but are difficult to execute due to challenges keeping secrets among many people, especially lower-paid participants over long periods.

Boards without equity incentives make decisions disconnected from value creation, leading to talent exodus to for-profit alternatives

Audience value is so high it makes even bad businesses work, but the same audience could create vastly superior businesses in better categories

Most net worth is illiquid and based on subjective valuations, while cash flow determines actual lifestyle and opportunities

Children require massive time, emotional energy, and mental bandwidth that would otherwise be available for business building. The shift from personal achievement to family care fundamentally changes priorities and risk tolerance.

Revealing Satoshi's identity would create personal danger for the individual, undermine Bitcoin's decentralized credibility, and satisfy curiosity at the cost of the technology's foundational principles.

Execution credibility acts as a multiplier for branding investments. Without proven execution, great branding is just expensive decoration. With proven execution, branding becomes a competitive advantage and signal of seriousness.

Business education trains people to look for specific patterns and metrics (looking for 'blue'), but entrepreneurial success requires seeing unexpected opportunities ('red') that others miss because they're trained to ignore them

People pay money to those who solve problems for them. Money-focused people appear self-interested rather than customer-focused. This creates negative perception that reduces willingness to transact. Focus on upstream activities (problem-solving, skill-building) instead.

Like poker table selection, your success depends more on who you compete against than how skilled you are. Smart competitors will match your moves and erode margins. Dumb competitors leave opportunities for superior execution and customer service.

Consumer Reports makes $289M annually testing products, supplement industry is growing rapidly with low trust, short-form video enables viral distribution unlike old media

Chinese companies succeed by focusing purely on engagement metrics and user demand without caring about prestige or brand perception, while US companies optimize for what looks good to peers

Large tech companies (Google, Microsoft) have stronger distribution, more resources, and existing user habits working in their favor. Users resist switching email clients, making new entrants face both technical and adoption challenges.

Access to information, capital, and opportunities through the internet allows talented individuals to bypass traditional credentialing. Success stories of college dropouts reduce social stigma.

Meticulous people become dependent on perfect conditions to perform well, creating fragility. Unconditional people maintain consistent performance regardless of circumstances, providing resilience and adaptability advantages.

Even loving families create social/mental fatigue; podcasts provide solo mental space without physical abandonment guilt

Demand constraints can be solved through better marketing, sales, and value creation - skills that scale across industries. Supply constraints often require capital, logistics, or regulatory solutions that are harder to replicate

AI technology is advancing so rapidly that today's specialized tools may be replaced by more general or integrated solutions within 12-18 months

Small differences in flavor formulation (0.1% changes) create massive consumer preference differences, and flavor expertise requires years of testing and iteration that can't be easily replicated

These apps succeed by saving time, but AI can provide personalized book summaries on-demand, eliminating the need for pre-made content libraries and subscriptions

Constraints force founders to find creative solutions, discover unmet market needs, and build more efficient operations. Abundant capital often leads to wasteful spending and avoiding hard problems through throwing money at them.

Belief creates the psychological foundation necessary to persist through inevitable failures and rejection. Without belief-first mentality, entrepreneurs quit when early evidence suggests they should. Confidence enables the sustained effort required to develop actual ability.

After achieving financial independence through high-risk entrepreneurship, the psychological and practical benefits of guaranteed security outweigh potential higher returns from active investing.

Human psychology consistently leads to poor timing decisions based on emotion, fear, or external noise rather than fundamental analysis. Transaction costs and tax implications compound these errors.

Investors make decisions based on evidence of business success (traction, unit economics, market size, team credibility). A good pitch deck just organizes this evidence clearly. Without strong underlying business metrics, even perfect presentation will fail.

Fundraising is about finding the right investor match, not appealing to everyone. Strong opinions and personality help you attract investors who get excited about your vision while filtering out those who wouldn't be good partners anyway.

Tech people understand measurable moats but dismiss brand because it's harder to quantify. However, brands can last centuries while technology becomes obsolete quickly.

Online interactions allow you to observe someone's thinking, work quality, and character over time through their content and communications, providing better signal than brief in-person meetings.

Enthusiast audiences have demonstrated decades of loyalty and high spending power, but publishers are selling at distressed prices due to misunderstanding of digital disruption impact on niche vs mass media

Real estate provides tangible asset backing that retains value even if business fails, while software businesses can go to zero with no residual value

Top 1% income ($750K+) requires competing against the most driven people in the world who are willing to sacrifice balance; if you're not willing to make that sacrifice, someone else will and they'll get the position/opportunity

Great talent can multiply output exponentially while poor talent can destroy value. The leverage potential of human capital exceeds other asset classes for entrepreneurs.

Death makes all future considerations irrelevant to your personal experience, so optimizing for your own preferences while alive is the rational choice

Revealed preference theory - people's actions reveal their true beliefs better than their words. Rich people keep their money despite claiming it doesn't matter, proving they actually value it highly

These negative emotions provide sustained motivation that doesn't fade when things get difficult, unlike positive emotions which can dissipate with setbacks

The gap between what universities teach and what the job market needs is growing, while student debt makes ROI calculations more critical

Most creators and entrepreneurs optimize for 'more' (more seasons, more revenue, more features) but the best work comes from restraint and knowing the perfect amount. Too much of anything changes the fundamental feeling and quality.

Most people's calendars fill up with other people's priorities by default. Without intentional planning, you end up living reactively and missing opportunities to create meaningful experiences.

Areas with highest reported longevity correlate with poorest record keeping and highest rates of age fraud, not with dietary patterns. People lie about being older to collect benefits or gain status.

Money allows you to eliminate tasks you hate (cleaning, administrative work) and optimize for tasks you enjoy, creating significant quality of life improvements at much higher income levels

Twitter has business audience concentration and high conversion rates but lacks native famous creators, creating first-mover advantage for sophisticated business builders

Thumbnails look similar across educational content, so the title becomes the primary differentiator for click-through rates and subsequent performance

Dying magazine industry provides cheap acquisition targets, expensive hobby audiences have high purchasing power, negative CAC model provides sustainable growth funding

OpenAI releases increasingly capable models that commoditize AI features, companies without deep workflow integration lose their differentiation

High fees (0.5-1.2% annually) compound over decades while adding minimal alpha over simple indexing. Behavioral psychology of percentage-based fees masks the true cost impact.

Sport has proven massive adoption in Europe/Latin America, offers more athletic challenge than pickleball, fits urban space constraints better than tennis, and creates strong community dynamics

Short-form video content combined with local targeting provides unmatched ROI for service businesses with $500+ ticket sizes

Historical pattern shows technology waves create trillion-dollar opportunities every decade. AI follows the progression: information -> communication -> value -> intelligence

Technology becomes commoditized quickly, but exclusive rights create permanent moats. Everyone can build deepfake tech, but only one company can own LeBron's digital rights