One Step Up Issue #18

This week we look at Rory Sutherland on marketing, Chuck Feeny, the early days of AirBnb, FinCEN files and dirty money running through the banking system, Chegg's stratospheric rise in value + more

1. Rory Sutherland – Moonshots and Marketing x Patrick O’Shaughnessy (Invest Like The Best)

   Rory is one of my favorite people to read when it comes to understanding why things that seemingly aren’t that great, work. His chat with Patrick was a highlight reel when it comes to that. Few of my favorite bits:

   It's incredibly difficult getting business people to understand that a large part of the value of their product is created in the head and not in the factory. And Tim Harford said, "But Apple, it's a trillion-dollar company?" And the extraordinary thing, I think, that distinguished them from... Strangely, I'm not a massive Apple user, but the thing I think that distinguished Apple from other tech companies was other tech companies were asking what their technology could do and Apple was the first to wonder about what it felt like while you were doing it. Which is a second-order consideration, which is actually much closer to being customer-centric than asking what functions you can perform for people.

   Or think of his distinction b/w regular and physical moonshots:

   

   Do yourself a favor and go listen to the podcast or read the transcript in the link above.

2. The Billionaire Who Wanted To Die Broke . . . Is Now Officially Broke

   Note: it’s not because he sucked as a business manager or capital allocator. Highly recommend reading this profile of Chuck Feeney, the former billionaire cofounder of retail giant Duty Free Shoppers.

3. Self Driving Cars and the future of Retail

4. AirBnB - now practically a household name, faced multiple rejections before Paul Graham at Y-Combinator took a close look at them and backed their vision.

   This is their story.

   The Hustle @TheHustle

   Long before Airbnb was estimated to be worth $18 billion, they faced continuous rejection at a $1.5M valuation. 7 times to be exact when first seeking funds. 5 rejections. 2 left on read. So they applied to Y Combinator…

   

5. Dirty Money Pours Into The World’s Most Powerful Banks

6. How Chegg Grew Their Share Price 20x In Four Years

7. The Mike Speiser Incubation Playbook

8. Seeing Like an Algorithm

9. The making of Bryson DeChambeau - 2020 US Open Champion

   David Perell @david_perell

   Bryson DeChambeau might be the most innovative athlete in the world right now. He just won his first major championship and is changing how golf is played at the highest levels. People call him "The Mad Scientist of Golf." Here's what you can learn from him. THREAD

10. What is the Cantillon Effect?

    Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom

    Cantillon Effect 101 With the recent money printing activity and an expanding wealth inequality problem, talk of the "Cantillon Effect" has taken center stage. But what is the Cantillon Effect and how does it work? Here's Cantillon Effect 101! 👇👇👇

    

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Till next time.

Organizational theorist Kenichi Ohmae on the difference between being efficient and being effective:

"Rowing harder doesn't help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction."

h/t James Clear (author of Atomic Habits)