Carl Icahn famously said: “If you want a friend on Wall Street, get a dog.”
He's a tough negotiator and built a fortune for himself.
When he rose to fame in the 1980's, it was him against the world. Him and his analyst - Al Kingsley.
This is Kingsley, drowning in paper. He was responsible for the details.
“Carl and Kingsley operate like a couple of rag merchants. Carl is always yelling at Kingsley, but it all bounces off Al. Al has a great mind."
"He puts things in a language Carl can relate to. I used to explain things from a cash-flow standpoint but Kingsley would recast it into a ‘put money and here’s what you get for it’ approach. The Carl-like way.'”
In 2015, Icahn and Boone Pickens sat down for a chat.
At minute 2, Boone asked Icahn: "You remember Al? What's up with him?"
Icahn waves it off, "he's doing something in biotech."
And I thought: yeah, whatever happened to Al?
Turns out he ran his own shop doing activism in the 1990s. Called Greenway Partners. Backed by Soros though. Not Icahn. Odd.
"Mr. Icahn is said to blame Mr. Kingsley for that nightmare, but Mr. Kingsley says, "It's stupid to ask who was to blame for [the decision to buy] TWA."
TWA was an airline Icahn gained control of that eventually went bankrupt. wsj.com/articles/SB875…
From Icahn's biography:
“No one has been nurtured by Carl. Guys who worked around Bass, Milken, Perelman, all got rich in their own right. Not with Carl. If Kingsley made any money it’s because he knew how to make investments.
Carl doesn’t share his success with anyone.”
"In Icahn’s kingdom, there is no place for partners. Virtually all of the equity and all of the power rest with the king."
Keep this in mind when you think about your own career and who to work for.
Try to find people who want to see you succeed. Who will boost you and back you. Who believe in being partners, not in getting all the upside for themselves. Remember Al Kingsley.
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Loved this conversation from 2019 @briankoppelman and @pmarca. Riffing on entrepreneurs vs. artists, finding a scene, showmen, betting on people, pivoting.
"The world is busy. People don't wake up and say, 'I can't wait to find out what this person that I've never of has invented.' You have to inject yourself in the world. In our world, the successful people are the ones that are able to create and are able to push into the world."
Why @a16z doesn't invest in cold pitches aka "the test":
"If you can't get one inbound referral, that indicates you're going to have a hell of a time as an entrepreneur. Once you raise money from us, the pain begins. The pain of trying to get other people to say yes to you."
“Ego is the single most destructive force you can confront in business. I treat every trade as a business decision. You have to be sure you have the discipline to get out of a losing trade.”
From the book Engines that Move Markets: the British railway boom, 1820s -1840s
When interest rates dropped from 4% to 2.5% "it was not long before a remarkable effect occurred in the general increase in all kinds of schemes and speculations."
Factors as the bubble popped:
-Continued need to raise capital overwhelmed investors (aka cash burn)
-Projections "wildly overoptimistic" and underestimated competition
-"A fair amount of fraud"
-Higher rates, decline of liquidity
This was hilarious: they tried to regulate the boom by imposing a deadline for railroad proposals. More than 800 groups of promoters fought each other to get their coaches into London on time, jamming up the roads. "Feed the ducks while they're quacking."
Some notes from the book Dot.con "How America Lost Its Mind and Money in the Internet Era," a play-by-play of the dotcom bubble.
Written in 2003 the pessimism around the web is striking in hindsight.
"Online economy... grossly exaggerated. Internet not a disruptive technology"
"Most internet startups failed because they were based on the mistaken premise that the internet represented a revolutionary new business model, which it didn't." Oof.
"Any retailer is basically a distributor. And arduous and costly operation."
Yes, there were bears. But many had been bearish long before the actual bubble took off.
"You've got companies going public that don't even have earnings."
"Everybody is tired of being bearish and wrong. Clients don't want to raise cash."