Surf Report: Lessons from the late, great human kindness factory
Issue 9: 11.29.2020 (Free Version)
INTRODUCTION
November 29, 2020
Hey everyone—I’m so glad to have you here. What a week.
News broke on Saturday that Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh tragically passed away at the age of 46. Referred to by some as a “kindness factory,” Hsieh was most known for his endless reservoirs of energy and positivity, and for making customer service the cornerstone of a business strategy that has since influenced companies and founders around the world (His book Delivering Happiness is a must-read). He also made a huge effort to invest in and champion Las Vegas—home of Zappos HQ—as a major hub of American innovation. This past August he announced he would be stepping down as CEO after having spent 20 years at the helm, leaving behind huge shoes and an unforgettable mark on Zappos culture that continues in his absence.
Few successful people in the world of business become known more for their warmth than their wealth, but Tony Hsieh was one of those people. It was with his legacy in mind that I was turning around three ideas in my head. They suddenly revealed themselves as connected in ways I never before noticed:
Lindy effect: The chances of a technology to continue are proportional to the current age of the technology.
Bayes' theorem: The expectation of an event or outcome should continually be revised based on new information.
Schelling Point: A focal point of agreement between people that requires no communication or coordination.
If there’s a common denominator between these concepts I think it’s this: repeated survival over time creates increasing confidence in continued survival.
The Lindy effect says that age/duration signals robustness. Bayes’ thoerem says the older something is the more chances for new information to accumulate and benefit. And a Schelling point is what you get when a thing’s success or prominence has grown so obvious that debate is no longer necessary.
These three ideas speak to many things, but for me the biggest is the power of not giving up. Staying in the game, waking up for a new day, and continuing to try are signs of fitness. With continued attempts confidence grows—both in yourself and from others. Getting back up allows you to apply the lessons learned from whatever knocked you down. Getting up is the success, because it affords you the ability to improve.
You can even see this idea play out in the stock market as part of a technical principle referred to as “staying in the box.” If a stock price drops below a key support level then that signals bad news and an impending downturn… unless enough people quickly buy enough shares to move its price back up to within the support zone. When that happens, traders take it not as a sign of weakness but the opposite: very bullish behavior, with chances of a big upside more likely than ever. Falling is actually required for confidence to grow in the prospect of fewer future falls.
I thought about all of this in the context of Tony, and his unrelenting dedication to being of service to as many people as possible. He saw unhappy customers as opportunities to create more happiness, and smiled in the face of setbacks and challenges. His positivity was an act of defiance in a world known for cutthroat competition. He took customer service from task to competitive advantage. And he somehow did all of this inside a place known as ‘Sin City.’
In a year that has dealt us all many setbacks I hope we can find reservoirs of energy and positivity of our own, to get back up and try to apply lessons toward improving. Tony Hsieh no longer has that privilege, but his attitude can keep surviving without him. And if we can carry it into our relationships, work, and play, then maybe the world will eventually come to an unspoken agreement that there’s good reason to be bullish on kindness.
"No matter what your past has been, you have a spotless future." —Tony Hsieh
I appreciate you staying with me for this project, it means a lot. Here’s to getting back up.
—Mark
"Look for opportunities beyond the game you sat down to play. You never know who you’re going to meet, including new friends for life.” —Tony Hsieh
Breaking 🌊
Based on activity of over 1 million merchants on its platform, Shopify did $2.4 billion in gross marketplace sales volume on Black Friday. This is up 75% over Black Friday last year. (Average cart price globally was $84.50, and in the US specifically it was $88.30) So What?: The influx of deferred consumption + entrepreneurial activity due to Covid lockdowns have created the perfect storm for Shopify to reap major benefits, especially in a climate increasingly resistant (though reliant) on Amazon’s near-monopoly status on online shopping.
President-elect Joe Biden selected former Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen as his secretary of the Treasury. So What? Our current period of high unemployment due to Covid will likely see even more government stimulus given Yellen’s track record of printing money without fear of long-term inflationary consequences. Many are expecting her to unintentionally help fuel Bitcoin’s rise over the next 4-8 years.
Shares of Slack Technologies ($WORK) closed almost 38% higher on Wednesday after the WSJ reported that Salesforce ($CRM) held talks to buy the company. If completed it would be one of the biggest software deals ever. So What?: Salesforce has been paying top dollar for high-growth software companies to increase its moat as the leading sales & marketing platform, with each acquisition filling key gaps in the user data or workflow stack.
Buzzfeed has acquired HuffPo in a stock deal with Verizon Media. (Interestingly: Buzzfeed’s founder and CEO was previously the CEO of HuffPo) So What?: Verizon originally acquired HuffPo, along with a number of other media properties like AOL, in an effort to own lots of online real estate for gathering data that could better target users. Their strategy has since shifted, and Buzzfeed is now attempting to fill the space by creating an empire of their own that some are calling “Clickbait Media.”
Facebook's Libra to reportedly launch in January 2021 as USD stablecoin. So What?: If Facebook successfully goes from social network to full-fledged economy it would likely extend into its Oculus VR product as well, establishing Facebook ($FB) as the first true “third place” of the internet.
From the Tweetbox 🐦
🔗 Poker lessons from Tony Hsieh that apply to marketing, branding, financials, strategy, and learning
🔗 Bezos Mental Models (My favorite: “a question to ask yourself when hiring is, ‘Along what dimension is this person a superstar?’”)
For The Pros 😎
Companies lose 20 to 30% in revenue every year due to inefficiencies, but there are more ways than ever to automate and improve efficiency in the most common business transactions. 🔗 (Link available to Pro subscribers)
Valuable resource of inspiration, templates, and resources for creating single-page websites. 🔗 (Link available to Pro subscribers)
“If you have an exclusive lock over supply, that can be used as a unique and compounding moat.” 🔗 (Link available to Pro subscribers)
A 90 minute sales course for new founders. 🔗 (Link available to Pro subscribers)
Worthwhile Reads ☕️
Graphics card maker Nvidia is a big hardware company… but is it becoming an even bigger software company? Its ‘GeForce Now’ app will debut on iOS via the web (followed shortly by Fortnite) after a dispute with Apple’s rules about cloud gaming: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang interview — Antitrust, openness, and the PC-console war
“There are only a billion active gamers today. Someday there will be 7 billion, 8 billion active gamers. The growth opportunity for gaming is still well ahead of us. Gaming is the only entertainment that can be any entertainment. You and I both know that when the metaverse [arrives], we’re going to spend a lot more time in game worlds, not just to game, but just to hang out, to be with people, to interact with people.”
Pair with: Microsoft’s Phil Spencer on launching the new Xbox and the future of games
“I think gaming has always been building towards this moment of being a real unifier.”
Check This Out 👀
Product Design Resources is a well-curated and nicely designed collection of the latest UI/UX tools and examples for product designers.
Insight 💡
Researchers found that participants spent longer choosing between options that were roughly equal in value than between options in which there was a large value disparity. [Source]
In other words: when making decisions, we spend too much time choosing between options that have roughly equal utility.
PNG 🖼
A helpful graphic for putting this year’s $BTC bull run into context:
“The beginnings of all things are small.” —Cicero
Groms 🐣
Superpeer gives you the tools you need to have paid 1:1 video calls and livestreams with your audience and paid subscribers, and they just raised $8 million in additional funding.
“In the midst of the pandemic, we’re seeing a widespread embrace of online mentoring and content as a new source of revenue.”
“Don’t tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio.” —Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Drop Ins 🏄
My latest investments & trades
Buy & Hold Investments (I will hold these forever)
This section is only available for contributing subscribers. If you’d like to trade and invest along with me, consider one of the paid tiers!
Swing Trades (1-3 month time horizon)
This section is only available for contributing subscribers. If you’d like to trade and invest along with me, consider one of the paid tiers!
Barrels 🎯
Portfolio Highlights
Winning Trade of the Week: $WORK (Slack Technologies Inc), scaled out some profits for a ~48% gain
Pods & Schools 🐬🐠
(I clip all my favorite podcasts excerpts on the Bitcast.fm app. Give it a try! You can follow me @markmulvey)
Podcast Reco: A Very Bitcoin Thanksgiving w/ Jimmy Song, Katie Ananina, Knut Svanholm, Surfer Jim, & Pierre Rochard [The Bitcoin Matrix]
One takeaway for me: It’s easy to scare people, but it’s very hard to build up their courage.
Course Reco: Jamie Catherwood, the guy behind the popular blog Investor Amnesia, just launched a new course on the history of speculation, financial markets, and fraud: Bubbles, Manias & Frauds
Book Reco: A new book from the creator of Failory: Product Market Fit:
How 7 Startups Achieved It
"34% of startups fail due to lack of product-market fit. Yet, there's a way to prevent it: turn PMF into your main metric.”
Tools of the Trade ⚒
Products I use to make money
Wealthfront. ~25% of my portfolio is in Wealthfront, which since 2016 has netted me a time-weighted return of ~39% (~35% money-weighted) at the time of this writing, all while harvesting tax losses like the pros do.
Use this special link to get your first $5,000 managed for free: https://wlth.fr/2ephpyb
StockCharts. I easily make back the small monthly subscription fee with the superpowers it gives me.
Carrd. Use this link or referral code 892PYX69 to start your own web empire.
Cointracker. Track your coins like you track your stocks.
Hypefury. Easily the best tool out their for growing a quality Twitter following.
Validate Your Business Idea: Includes everything from researching, writing, getting attention, and engaging with people, plus a spreadsheet template for tracking subs. Surf Report subscribers get $5 off with the code: surfreport
SPONSOR
Sforzo Audace is my own company—lifestyle brand for renaissance men and creator of the Original Renaissance Bag. “One can do much.” Get yours at renaissancebag.com
Disclaimer
Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.