Lenny Rachitsky: belief

Transcript context

…Really happy to talk about that about. So I'll answer the question more like, what's a little bit of a different philosophy that we have? So when we were coming out of the recession and I hired this coach, we looked at all of our companies. And we were looking for where did we make our most money, and what was the most consistent trend? And we looked at valuation, growth rates, capital structure, geography, industry. We cut the data every way you could imagine. And we had these three companies that kept showing up on all these lists that were three of our top performers, but they didn't seem to really have anything in common. And then we're like, "Well, they have one thing in common, which is they started off really badly, so badly in fact that we put our own person from Alpine in to go run the company, and then they ended up becoming our best companies." So we said, "Wait a second. Maybe that's the highly correlated thing, is us putting our own team in place, and even upstream of that, maybe just having an incredible management team." So that was foundational. And now, we put our own leadership team in 100% of the time. And not only that, but we have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to build a program to help people who are in their late 20s, early 30s learn how to become CEOs. And that's been foundational. So the thing that we probably believe to be true that not that many people agree with us on is that the management team is really where we think all the alpha comes from. You can't get the industry wrong, because if you hire the best management team in the world to run a typewriter business, you're going to lose money. So you can't be wrong on the industry, but you also don't have to be perfect on the industry. You have to have a good enough industry and then a world-class management team. And we found that to be a really good formula for consistent returns. And it's way more fun because you're literally in a board meeting with someone that is on your side of the table, because you hired them and put them in. And so you're building the company together. And they're bringing a lot of similar values. And so it's been a real differentiator for us. I have so many questions, but I'm going to cut it off there. We could do another episode going deep on all this. Graham, this was amazing. I think we're going to be helping a lot of people with what they want to do with their lives, and if nothing else, give them a little opportunity to break out of autopilot, at least for a little bit. Two final questions. Where can folks find you online if they want to maybe follow up, ask maybe some other questions that they are thinking as they hear this? And then how can listeners be useful to you? My website's grahamweaver.com, and I have a blog on there as well as a lot of videos and different things. And then on Instagram and TikTok, I'm grahamcweaver. And then on LinkedIn, I'm Graham Weaver. And on YouTube, I think I'm Graham C. Weaver. So Graham C. Weaver will pretty much get you on all those channels. How can listeners be helpful? I would say I'd love to hear from you. So my best way to reach me is grahamweaverblog.com. And tell me what's on your mind. I may not respond 100%, but I will read all the emails. And then if you're interested, subscribe to my blog. So go to my website, grahamweaver.com, and I have a blog where I talk about a lot of the topics that we're talking about today.…

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