3 (or 4) Great Reads For SBF

Posted on February 15, 2023 by ppandria

“I would never read a book. (…) I am very sceptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that (…). I think, if you wrote a book, you f***ed up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.”

Sam Bankman Fried – Interviewed by Johnny Diamond

To never a read a book??? Finance for Dummies is longer than six paragraphs, but it was the first book recommendation that came to my mind for our friend Sam Bankman Fried. The former crypto wunderkind known as SBF is in seriously hot water these days. I am not an avid reader myself for a simple reason: I am surprisingly slow at reading. Therefore, I find it a lot easier to fit audiobooks in my schedule. The school run is one of my favorite times to catch up. I listened to a lot of books last year and fear not SBF, here are a few about business that you would have found highly entertaining. I even condensed the key takeaways for you. Enjoy!

Boundless – Nick Kostov & Sean McLain

His childhood is a surreal path through the Brazilian jungle, Lebanon, and France. He started his career with Michelin before becoming the globe-trotting, cost slashing CEO of both Nissan and Renault. Carlos Ghosn was larger than life in the automotive world. He was so famous he had his own manga comic book in Japan and a stamp in Lebanon. After a while, it seems Ghosn believed his own press, especially with a ridiculously lavish birthday party in Versailles. His head did not roll in France but he was arrested in Tokyo right off the private jet. Four charges were levelled against him, including one accusing him of hiding more than $85 million in compensation. He might end up more famous with his escape in a music box from Japan than his business career. In Lebanon, he is a free man continuing to plead his innocence, but he is still a wanted man in Japan, and more recently France. The authors do not make claims about his guilt or innocence, but the depths of their investigation certainly raise a lot of red flags: the yacht in his wife’s name, the LLC in the Netherlands that paid him off the books, and the flow of money from a Nissan distributor in Omman. The SBF takeaway is that as a business leader you must know how to count. Carlos Ghosn knew how to count, maybe a little too well.

The Missing Crypto Queen – Jamie Bartlett

This was a cocktail for the ages. The main ingredient was a charismatic and pedigreed female founder, Doctor Ruja Ignatova. Add the best multi-level marketers in the world. Combine the technology du jour, cryptocurrency, and finally the masses’ fear of missing out on the next BitCoin. OneCoin was supposed to revolutionize finance and to make cryptocurrency accessible to all, according to Doctor Ruja anyway. When Ruja promised to double the coins in people’s accounts, people cheered. They never stopped and thought it was impossible. Isn’t the number of coins you can mine a fixed quantity (you know, Crypto 101)? Jamie Bartlett hosted a fantastic podcast about Doctor Ruja as he chronicles her modest upbringing in Bucharest before becoming a world wide celebrity. The SBF takeaway is that yes, you can successfully run a crypto market exchange. Unfortunately, it is the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. You will be forced to disappear because you are at the top of the FBI’s most wanted list.

Billion Dollar Loser:

The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork – Reeves Wiedeman

Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber – Mike Isaac

To spare SBF too much reading, we will lump those two books together about Adam Neumann (We Work) and Travis Kalanick (Uber). First, they shared the vaunted status of “founder”. They started their companies from scratch and turned them into unicorns, the adored Silicon Valley term when a start-up’s valuation passes one billion dollars. Up until the 2016 US election, a tech founder was worshipped and could do no wrong. Most important, they even shared the same benefactor, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. Son was among a group of venture capitalist firms that poured an obscene amount of money into both companies. With no shareholders to answer to and a freedom to spend and expand at will without oversight, We Work and Uber used their billions to “blitz scale”, to bury their competitors, or anyone or anyhing standing in their way. Both men were comfortable pushing ethical boundaries. Kalanick deceived authorities worldwide using Greyball. Neumann milked WeWork starting with $80 million of real estate, after he sold WeWork stock, something most founders or Kalanick never did to his credit. Unfortunately, both personified everything the public despised. Neumann was notorious for doing tequila shots with his subordinates in the office. Kalanick called Uber “Buber” because his newfound fame made it a lot easier for him to meet women. The SBF takeaway is that you can behave like the worst “white men tech bros” in the world and still make a legal and insane amount of money, three commas worth. The downside is that some people will really hate your guts.

But at least you won’t go to jail…

3 Tips For A Richer Life

Posted on January 6, 2023February 15, 2023 by ppandria

Ronni Ancona, the Skoda Light Design Team, some lucky guy, James McLachlan – Photo Courtesy Car Design News

“Woke up in London yesterday
Found myself in the city, near Picadilly
Don’t really know how I got here
I got some pictures on my phone”
One Republic – Good life

The music comes to a stop, and I hear my name, pronounced with great Italian flair. That is my cue to walk on stage. I can hear my heart beating in my chest. I am not even looking in the crowd. If I did, I would realize that at this very moment, the eyes of the entire car design were on me. As seen in countless award shows, I softly announce “and the award goes to”. After seeing enough award shows go wrong, I made sure with our host James McLachlan that I had the correct name on the envelope. Six hours earlier, I was sweating over the major train delay that might keep me stuck in Germany. Yet somehow, there I was on stage in London at the Car Design News People Awards. After a few laughs in the audience, I announce the winner for Best Exterior Lighting Team sponsored by Autodesk, Skoda. Cue the claps, the handshakes, the award handover, the accolades, the pictures. I casually walk off stage, smile and marvel at this one fact: “how did THAT happen?” It boils down to three things: ask, observe and be there.

Ask

If you want something, did you ever think that the best way to get it is to simply ask? Let us travel in time to illustrate. The French have an incredibly special sentence when you go down in flames asking a girl out: “tu t’es pris un rateau”. You got yourself a rake. In the head or in the gut? Unlike you are Bruce Willis, no one knows. Either way, it hurts (emotionally speaking). As a young teen, I was a jedi gardener. Like many teenage boys, it was a horror show trying to get acquainted with the opposite sex. This rite of passage was an ugly spectacle, cringe worthy, sad, and everything else in between. Today I look back with zero regrets. At least I asked. Fantastically enough, there have been some wonderful times when I did go out with the girl, and it was magical. I even asked a beautiful woman on a dare once (ask my wife about that). Back to more recent times, I was travelling round trip from Birmingham to Germany to meet some clients. I learned that Autodesk was going to have a table at the event. I simply asked my boss if I could change my travel plans to attend and he said yes. That is all it took. Here is a first tip for you. You will never really know unless you ask.

Want a selfie with a very gracious legend? Just ask.

Observe

For the last six years I have trained as a public speaker with Toastmasters, and I could not believe my luck. I was going to get a free professional level lesson from a 2-time BAFTA winning actress and comedian no less! Ronni Ancona was the MC of the evening, and she was on fire, right from her intro monologue. In my mind, I put myself back at one of our Toastmasters meetings, as I was dissecting and analyzing her speech. She was funny, brilliant, coordinated with the current news events, and with the perfect dose of edge (ask Patrick Le Quément). Preparing your speech is half the battle. You could tell she researched her audience. She caught on early that the designer population was a very well dressed and flamboyant bunch. I would like to thank her for pointing out Pontus Fontaeus’ shoes (they were glorious, you just had to be there). Her quip about black turtlenecks was a line that kept on giving. Her auto-scroll notes were not working but as a seasoned pro she carried on with the evening without missing a beat until it got fixed. Sit back and listen. That is all I had to do to enjoy this public speaking masterpiece by a pro. Here is a second tip. Observe. There is awesome stuff that constantly unfolds before your very eyes.

Be There

“That’s why we line up on Sunday”. Those are the immortal words of the late MotoGP champion Nicky Hayden. Anything can happen in a race, said the beloved American. All that is required of you is to get out of the house and show up. And that is the third piece of advice: just be there. When I was stressing out about being a decent father, my wife said that the most important thing was to be there every day for the little things. She was right. When I interviewed for my last manager job, I only found out later that my odds of getting the job were long. I was only the third choice for the position. For several reasons, both candidates ahead of me dropped out. I showed up and the job was mine. That night in London, I just wanted to enjoy the evening and to reconnect with some old friends. My co-worker Phil was supposed to hand out the award. He and I were texting each other all day as we raced to get to London. My train in Germany was delayed but I miraculously still made my flight. Racing from Heathrow in the London underground, I got to the event when dinner started. Phil got stuck in Manchester because of the strikes. If we go by what Ronni said in her speech, he got the full British experience. And just like that, I was asked to hand over the award.

How do you make your life better? There is no shortage of advice out there. You can find gurus to help you. They will flip your life upside down. They will transform you (and it will cost you). The self-help market size will go north of ten billion dollars in the next few years. If I learned anything in life, tremendous changes in our lives do not have the biggest or longest lasting impact. How many people assault the gym in January only to end up back on the couch in February? It is the cumulation of tiny steps that add up to transformational changes. Eat one less cookie. Skip a drink one night of the week. Walk one more block with the dog. Be grateful, one more minute. Ask. Observe. Show up. Those are my three free pieces of advice for you. You will be amazed how much richer life can be.

First 90 Days – Warp Speed

Posted on November 16, 2022 by ppandria

Porsche Mission R Interior

The controls clip in above my knees. The door shuts. All the noise around me vanishes. I am in a cockpit all right. I am guessing you drive the thing but if you look around, the environment screams X-Wing (yes, I am mixing my movie references). Where am I? This is still Earth, a hotel lobby of all places. At the Munich Airport Hilton, the time is still May 2022 in the Gregorian calendar. Welcome to the annual Automotive Innovation Forum (AIF) hosted by Autodesk. In between demos and presentations, I was able to slide inside the cockpit of the Porsche Mission R. My inner geek is in heaven. For all my career I used to build and visualise cars with some fancy software. This time, I embarked into a vastly different journey. I was going to assist customers on how to better build and better visualize their vehicles (with said fancy software). I was going behind the curtains to see what happens when you start working for a software company. It has been more than 90 days, but it is my first impression all the same. Buckle up for my first 90 days on the new job, unlike any other before.

The Machine

Fast forward to New Orleans. I am now attending Autodesk University in late September. About 9,000 people were on attendance. The main stage looked more like a rock concert than a software convention. This is when you appreciate on a visceral level how much horsepower is behind Autodesk. “So… Let me just download the latest software, I will be on my way”, or so I thought. Well not so fast. To onboard the machine, you must take it slowly. There is a lot of horsepower for sure and all the cogs of the machine are scattered around the world. Your Spanish and Irish teammates are in Germany. The development team is in North America. Don’t forget to reach out to some of the customer success managers in Spain or France. And of course, keep your manager in Belgium informed. For the rest, you can sort yourself out, for your travels or your IT equipment. It is a culture of self-service, but you never feel abandoned. You can use Teams, Slack, the Intranet. There is a wealth of information out there for you to address any issues you might have. For example, I was having issues with my new work phone, so I raised a ticket. Messages started to ping on Slack. A tech guy in San Francisco called me directly. Now that is a well-oiled machine.

The Crew

When I started, my boss flew in from Belgium to the United Kingdom. My co-worker simply drove up. We all met in the Birmingham offices. The next time I saw them in person, it was in Munich at the AIF. A few weeks later, our team met in London. A few weeks after that, we were with the entire department in Barcelona. From home, from the office, on site, people assemble and meet as needed. Imagine you are the new guy, and you are trying to figure out who you need to talk to about an extremely specific issue. Let’s say I need to demonstrate the latest feature in the latest software. This is a microscopic part of a huge ecosystem. You have technical account managers and customer success managers for the clients. You have technical product managers for the business and the technology. Finally, developers and programmers handle the software itself as well as a lot of the support. Keep in mind that some of those individuals worked from home already before the pandemic. They are scattered in offices and homes all over Western Europe and the Americas over ten time zones. And all of them need to be aligned to deliver the best software experience to the customers. And without missing a beat, the work gets done. The entire orchestration is a remarkable sight.

The Care

In the past, I took my career development into my own hands. I would surf the Intranet looking for career resources and I would poke around at random. In one lucky instance, I finally generated a skills profile for myself. Unfortunately, that was years into the job already. Another time, there was leftover budget and it had to be spent. Here, it is a completely different story. I was encouraged to find a mentor right when I started. I was told I could become one as well down the line if I chose to. Within a few weeks I was getting emails about booking a coaching session. Within my first 90 days, I already had a work profile and one coaching session under my belt. The most striking aspect of my new position is the culture around its people. It is something that was given careful thought and consideration. There is genuine care about the people. Every person I met, from colleagues all the way to vice-presidents, have been very approachable, personable, and welcoming.

Conclusion

Ah Autodesk, we have been looking at each other for a long time. My first interview with that company was in Toronto in the previous millennium. And now, here we are. I described myself like a kid in a candy store when I started, and it is pretty accurate. It is easy for a nerd like me to stare at the toys and the galaxy of products in the Autodesk universe. Yet it is the culture of the company around its people that really struck me. Of course, the perks of the position are pretty cool. I gaze around the cockpit in total awe. I have the face of a 5-year-old who sits behind the wheel of a car for the first time. A minute or two later, I somehow get out of the very snug seat. That was cool all right, but it is nothing in comparison that what I could see behind closed doors… Our clients use our software in ways I did not know what possible or imaginable. Put it this way: my inner geek has not stopped being tickled. Cue the 5-year-old smile.