[bespoke_engnr]

From one of my absolute favorite articles about this, and about finance in general. The most entertaining thing I've read this month: Matt Levine's "How do you like We now?"

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-10-23/how-do...

    Masayoshi Son: What does your company do?

    Neumann: We lease office buildings, spruce up the space and sublet it in small chunks.

    Son: Hmm I invest in visionary tech stuff, this doesn’t really sound like my thing.

    Neumann: Did I mention we are a state of consciousness. A generation of interconnected emotionally intelligent entrepreneurs.

    Son: Okay yeah that’s more like—

    Neumann: The world’s first physical social network. We encompass all aspects of people’s lives, in both physical and digital worlds.

    Son: You’re crazy! I love it! But could you be, say, ten times crazier?

    Neumann: You’re going to invest $10 billion in my company, which I will use as kindling to light the whole edifice on fire, and then when we are both standing in the ashes you will pay me another billion dollars to walk away while I laugh at you.

    Son: All my life I have dreamed of meeting someone as crazy as you, but I never really believed this day would come. 

    Neumann: I’m gonna use your money to buy a mansion with a room shaped like a guitar, where I will play the world’s tiniest violin after all your money is gone. 

    Son: YES PUNCH ME IN THE FACE.

    Neumann: Also I’ll rename the company “We” and charge it $6 million for the name.

    Son: RUN ME OVER WITH A TRUCK.

[didgeoridoo]

> Masayoshi Son: What does your company do?

> Neumann: We lease office buildings, spruce up the space and sublet it in small chunks.

> Son: Hmm I invest in visionary tech stuff, this doesn’t really sound like my thing.

> Neumann: Did I mention we are a state of consciousness. A generation of interconnected emotionally intelligent entrepreneurs.

> Son: Okay yeah that’s more like—

> Neumann: The world’s first physical social network. We encompass all aspects of people’s lives, in both physical and digital worlds.

> Son: You’re crazy! I love it! But could you be, say, ten times crazier?

> Neumann: You’re going to invest $10 billion in my company, which I will use as kindling to light the whole edifice on fire, and then when we are both standing in the ashes you will pay me another billion dollars to walk away while I laugh at you.

> Son: All my life I have dreamed of meeting someone as crazy as you, but I never really believed this day would come.

> Neumann: I’m gonna use your money to buy a mansion with a room shaped like a guitar, where I will play the world’s tiniest violin after all your money is gone.

> Son: YES PUNCH ME IN THE FACE.

> Neumann: Also I’ll rename the company “We” and charge it $6 million for the name.

> Son: RUN ME OVER WITH A TRUCK.

[0xffff2]

Please don't use code formatting for quotes. The side scrolling makes it painful to read on desktop and virtually impossible to read on mobile.

[bound008]

I signed up for Matt Levine's newsletter after that and was surprised to receive well written serious information in addition to this sharp wit.

An example of one such pieces was on the relationship between institutional investors and proxy advisers. Not a single joke or funny sentence unfortunately, but very interesting.

As long as the two types of content he writes are well written information about how the markets work or humorous viewpoints tinted with a mild amount of rage, I am a fan.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Hah, this is pretty hilarious.

The other important tidbit from the article that I think is critically important is that a huge part (most?) of Son's fortune, after the .com collapse, was a single investment in Alibaba.

So, basically, Son got lucky. Of course, "luck" of this sort isn't possible unless you are willing to take big risks, which Son did, but so often, especially in the VC world, you see folks whose really sole main skill is a penchant for outsized risk-taking, and they got lucky, and then they are hailed as a "genius", where the only difference between them and thousands of others who failed is one lucky event, and of course, stastically, someone will get lucky.

When I first heard about Neumann's ridiculous platinum parachute, it made me angry about the state of capitalism, but honestly, if you are going to be a grifter, can't think of a better group to take it from than Son and the Arabian oil shieks.