Curt Doolittle

Theme: Incentives

  • OVER-INVESTING IN FUTURE EXECUTIVES WHILE CONSTRAINING CURRENT MANAGEMENT COSTS.

    OVER-INVESTING IN FUTURE EXECUTIVES WHILE CONSTRAINING CURRENT MANAGEMENT COSTS.

    I have usually over invested in management talent and it shows in the profits on one hand and in growth rates on the other. I only build growth companies.

    It takes a few years to train someone well enough to operate successfully. And if you want growth you need talent.

    This is why my criticisms of middle management don’t seem right.

    But I don’t hire middle managers. I hire future executives in training and I rotate them all over the company.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-10-12 14:41:00 UTC

  • EMPIRICAL CEO ADVICE 3: People’s stress is not a reason to make a decision. Much

    EMPIRICAL CEO ADVICE 3:

    People’s stress is not a reason to make a decision. Much to the distress of my management teams I am perfectly happy postponing tactical decisions until the information is in, and sometimes until it cannot be delayed.

    This might sound counter to conventional wisdom but my particular skill is the long horizon I have no problem making strategic decisions – early. Because that is where I spend nearly all of my efforts.

    But I have good reasons for delaying a lot of other decisions.

    Why? People use early decisions as cheap means of experimentation that exchanges lower effort for offloading risk onto the business. I force them to collect information through research and to continue producing until change in production is necessary. Most middle management bloat and job justification is the result of playing at experimentation rather than self education by research. People are lazy in all walks of life. Progressives spend resources others earned send so does middle management. It’s the c level and the labor that pinches pennies.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-10-12 13:55:00 UTC

  • APPLE MICROSOFT. My prediction was that Microsoft would fail to take control of

    APPLE MICROSOFT.

    My prediction was that Microsoft would fail to take control of its future and reform before apple’s dependence upon the iPhone would run its course. And that in search of profits, Apple would chase the desktop out of necessity rather than preference.

    With microsofts release of a branded high end laptop; the reversal of the Windows 8 and vista catastrophes; the decision to bring gaming back to the PC; then all that is left is to (a) adopt apple’s admin UI scheme, (b) start work on replacing the “digital equipment” era kernel running long processes, with a Linux like kernel running temporary processes.

    I dunno.

    Using Windows still makes me angry. But I see a glimmer of hope after a two decades of tragedy.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-10-08 13:05:00 UTC

  • Define leadership? Do you mean persuasion? – Define Costs, do you mean depriving

    Define leadership? Do you mean persuasion? –
    Define Costs, do you mean depriving of rents? 😉

    Source date (UTC): 2015-10-08 12:54:43 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/652104836637433856

    Reply addressees: @ne0colonial

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/651940634551562244

    IN REPLY TO:

    Original post on X

    Original tweet unavailable — we could not load the text of the post this reply is addressing on X. That usually means the tweet was deleted, the account is protected, or X does not expose it to the account used for archiving. The Original post link below may still open if you view it in X while signed in.

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/651940634551562244

  • DEAL DESTROYERS AMONG US!!! Yeah. Common catastrophe: failure to research the in

    DEAL DESTROYERS AMONG US!!!

    Yeah. Common catastrophe: failure to research the interests of every decision maker on the other side. (Ignorance) usually caused by Selfishness. Laziness. Wishful Thinking. (and outright lack of intellectual capacity.)

    Lawyers are the WORST at f__king up deals by the opposite means. On the scale of risk protect us from likely scenarios, but do not burden us with constraints. This is unwise. Stop them.

    Middle (and senior) management folks are too often enthusiastic imbeciles trying to stroke their egos and careers and get attention by demonstrating their ‘value’. This is unwise. Stop them.

    Most of the time ignore your lawyer, and listen to your finance guy (assuming he’s skeptical). Your finance guy will try to show his cunning by seeking extra profit somehow. This is unwise. Stop him.

    Ask your sales people (not marketing). Even though they are largely blabber-mouths, sales people are in the business of determining incentives.

    Learn basic Austrian economics (incentives of rational choice: marginalism, subjective value) and micro-economics, as well as finance and the first two years of basic accounting.

    Learn how to write your own contracts. It’s just like programming really. There are design patterns, functions, objects, etc. “Simple-er is better-er”. Give lawyers your draft to start from. Try to cut everything they add unless they can justify it to you.

    In a business deal, if you do not want it on the front page of the NYT, then don’t do it. It will f__king haunt you, and you deserve it. My position is to hold the moral high ground no matter what. We all screw up. But there is no down side to doing the right thing.

    EMPHASIS ON M&A DEALS:

    Furthermore the secret to M&A deals:

    (a) companies have no objective value – none. Numbers are meaningless.

    (b) the price of a business is what it requires to tip the decision makers.

    (c) very often that price is lower if liquid, higher if not, and more often money is a secondary concern.

    (d) the cost is determined by the impact of the effort to merge the business cultures and processes.

    (e) use relationship building, time to comfortably adapt, and abstract goals to do it rather than micro management and detailed top down planning.

    (f) every manager’s opinion of staff is the opposite of factual value, since managers are mostly dead weight and rely on staff for upward processing of information. Mergers are good opportunity to give hidden talent room to innovate. Look for it.

    (g) a low end venture capitalist is looking to create addicts. They will very often burn shareholders, staff, management and founders. You are a ‘drug user’ they are trying to hook while you are in startup mode. Once you have value you are a debtor (addict). They will treat you like one the moment they prefer to exit. (No, not the big players, which is why you want them, but many of the rest. Selling money in an investment hierarchy and selling drugs in a distribution hierarchy are similar business models. )

    Source date (UTC): 2015-10-06 09:39:00 UTC

  • CAPITALISM IN EVERYTHING —“According to The Economist,… the number of porn s

    CAPITALISM IN EVERYTHING

    —“According to The Economist,… the number of porn studios in America is now down from over 200 to 20. Performers who used to make $1,500 an hour, now get $500 and before the launch of porn tubes, the industry’s estimated revenue was $40 billion to $50 billion, which is believed to have fallen by at least three-quarters since [to $10B]”—

    Source date (UTC): 2015-10-06 02:57:00 UTC

  • Poverty demands our of necessity. Plenty compromises out of utility. Wealth avoi

    Poverty demands our of necessity.

    Plenty compromises out of utility.

    Wealth avoids compromise and demand out of luxury.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-10-05 09:38:00 UTC

  • BLANK: A STARTUP IS A SEARCH FOR A BUSINESS MODEL (1) SEARCH: Search for a busin

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RTcXwJuCaUSTEVE BLANK: A STARTUP IS A SEARCH FOR A BUSINESS MODEL

    (1) SEARCH: Search for a business model (Founders from dysfunctional families have an edge in the search for a business model.) BUT: The day your company finds that business model, the VCs see you as valuable, and they want to know if you’re the executive to take them to liquidity – operating execs.

    (2) BUILD An operating exec knows how to scale a company from startup to scaled production. Build out the team.

    (3) EXECUTE: Execute on your business model.

    These may be three different people.

    FOUNDERS RUN PATTERN RECOGNIZERS

    At the end of the day it is not a spreadsheet problem. We are looking for opportunities to develop patterns. It is not about execution based upon numbers, but it is at finding and SEIZING opportunities, and turning them into business models.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-10-05 02:42:00 UTC

  • AMERICAN MENTAL ILLNESS: CONSUMERISM AS A DRUG THAT MASKS PERVASIVE LONELINESS:

    AMERICAN MENTAL ILLNESS: CONSUMERISM AS A DRUG THAT MASKS PERVASIVE LONELINESS: Natal, childhood, school, work, civil.

    THE STATE DESTROYED US WITH KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS AND FEMINISM

    So basically the science is coming together that shows I was correct: that Americans are desperately lonely people. That mental illness is the result of loneliness. That mothers working is bad for children adults and society. That beta males become dangerous. That while law must be constructed for individuals, policy must be constructed for families. That we must move capital to people not people to capital. That the Anglo enlightenment fallacies were suicidal outside of island Britain. That the Anglo conquest of Germania was the ruination of the west. That feminism is an extension of Anglo mental illness, and exacerbates it. That while the Anglo empirical method is truthful, it’s concept of man is false. That while the german rational method is false the German concept of man is true. That the ashkenazi method is pseudoscientific deception, and that it is disastrous for man.

    The enlightenment was a failure for the reasons i have stated. And that only by recognizing that the medieval methods were inferior, that the medieval concept of man was correct.

    But we can fix it with rule of law alone.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-10-03 04:55:00 UTC

  • Tech isn’t a competitive advantage, Experienced talent, credit, and operational

    Tech isn’t a competitive advantage, Experienced talent, credit, and operational excellence through management and training, cant be bought.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-10-01 13:29:29 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/649576870577610752