Good morning innovators, change-makers, and entrepreneurs.
This newsletter and podcast features stories about the people – past, present and future – who change the world. They make decisions and take actions enlivened by what I call The Entrepreneur’s Ethic. The Entrepreneur’s Ethic infuses people, organizations and places where the future is created, and the world is made a better place.
One of the Entrepreneurs featured in my upcoming book, The Entrepreneur’s Ethic, is Wilbur Wright. Wright’s work, along with his brother, Orville, exemplifies Ethic 3: Fail Successfully. This is the experiment-orientation of entrepreneurship.
This week’s podcast is an interview with Callum Laing, a Partner at Unity Group, Founder of the Veblen Director Programme, and past CEO, Chair, or Director of multiple public and private companies.
It was a great conversation with Callum, who’s had an adventurous career in business to say the least. Have you ever had $72 million swindled from your business? Callum has. In addition, Callum and his partner have pioneered a means of taking a collection of small businesses public in a novel way. We talk about exit strategy a lot in the startup world, and Callum challenges many preconceived notions of what an exit can look like.
I enjoyed the conversation with Callum and know you will too.
This will be the last podcast in the Wilbur Wright series. Next up will be a case study podcast about Steve Jobs. And interviews with entrepreneurs who create insanely great products.
Good Reads
The American Millenium – Patrick McCormick
Against the Burden of Knowledge – Maxwell Tabarrok
Three Things I Think (I Think)
Callum Liang and I spoke about short-term thinking versus long-term thinking, and the prevalence of short termism. How can one lean into long termism?
I think you need to act like an owner, whether you are an owner or not. A friend who owns a private company told me a story from the 1990s of doing business with a publicly traded company. Officers for that company got into the habit of asking him whether he could delay billing them for what he had supplied. He would agree, but substantially mark up the price. The officers for the publicly traded company had quarterly bonuses that depended on profit figures, you see. They could shove the expenses of a quarter into the future to make their short-term bonuses bigger. It kept happening again and again to the point where it cost the company hundreds of millions more than it should have paid. They didn’t act like owners, much to the detriment of the shareholders of the company in the long-term.
I think you need to be a part of communities. When people have a sense of belonging, they are more apt to think about the long-term best interests of the people and place. They share a sense of community. I learned much that prepared me to start my first business through community volunteer time. I learned how to ask people to contribute their time and money to projects that had no financial return. It turns out that’s good skill development for starting a business.
I think it helps to hang out with owners and builders. An executive with a partner business I was spending a fair amount of time once told me about a financial seminar he’d went to. “Kevin,” he said, “They explained that a person’s income tends to be the average of the five people he spends the most time with.” “Interesting,” I told him, “But what does that have to do with me?” He smiled. “I’ve been spending too much time with you, Kevin, that’s all” One guy teasing another, but the point about who you spend your time with is certainly applicable. Spend time with builders. You’ll start to build rather than tear down. Spend time with owners. You’ll own something before you know it.
Farm to My Table
Garden and orchard season are upon us. Last week, it was grilled filets from Grand View Beef with cherry pepper sauce and sauteed green beans paired with Dry Creek Vineyard Zinfandel. Being restrained, we didn’t have cherry pie for dessert!
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