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Patrick McKenzie Profile picture
@patio11
Dec 1, 2017 • 23 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
Some people really benefit from hearing advice that everyone knows, for the same reason we keep schools open despite every subject in them having been taught before.

In that spirit, here's some quick Things Many People Find Too Obvious To Have Told You Already.
Your idea is not valuable, at all. All value is in the execution. You think you are an exception; you are not. You should not insist on an NDA to talk about it; nobody serious will engage in contract review over an idea, and this will mark you as clueless.

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More from @patio11

Patrick McKenzie Profile picture
Mar 20
An argument I have had with some credit card enthusiasts for a very long time, paraphrased.

Enthusiasts: I’m robbing the bank blind!
Me: Doubtful? They are probably pretty happy to have a portfolio of you.
E: Oh by carefully layering promotions and making a spreadsheet and…
Me: So checking my understanding: you spend a lot of money on credit cards.
E: Yes, that’s the whole point.
Me: And in a nation which makes it illegal to underwrite using an IQ test, you have self-constructed an IQ test.
E: Yes and I pass it obviously.
Me: Right. Tracking.
Me: You sound like a very desirable bank customer.
E: Oh no I’m not! I take them so hard.
Me: Your income and net worth are likely to be quite higher in ten years right. You predict that too?
E: Oh yeah.
Me: Yeah you’re going to continue consuming lots of financial services.
Read 7 tweets
Patrick McKenzie Profile picture
Mar 20
The Atlantic has an interesting piece on credit card processing. The thesis is that interchange fees redistribute money from poor to rich.

I do not subscribe to this thesis.

For a quick recap on how credit cards make money, see Bits about Money's issue on the topic.

bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/how-cr…
There is a general feeling in some quarters that the payments industry functions as a tax on everyone, and that the incidence of this tax must be highest on the poor, because they're least likely to have a rewards card.
Read 36 tweets
Patrick McKenzie Profile picture
Mar 18
Last up at #microconf, Marcos Rivera from Pricing I/O on pricing.

"How to avoid stupid mistakes in SaaS pricing"

(I am likely to have some thoughts.)
As always, quotes are Marcos (lightly paraphrased; real time is hard), anything attributed to Marcos is a heavy paraphrase, anything unattributed is me.
Marcos was previously Head of Pricing for Vista Equity Partners (hoohah; noted PE firm in software space).

Podcast host of Street Pricing, too.
Read 33 tweets
Patrick McKenzie Profile picture
Mar 10
This is a useful enough specific observation that I'm promoting the general observation to text:

Organizations don't make decisions. People at organizations make decisions. Very often, there is one lynchpin person who must hypercommit to an org doing something for that to be.
From this follows any number of corollaries, including:

1) If you desire change in an org, it is really useful to understand who, specifically, is the lynchpin for the change you want to see.
2) You might be offered the choice to be that person at some point in your career.

This will rarely follow someone whose job title is Quest Giver coming to you with a choice of two pills, one of which is failure and one of which is success, with clearly listed of side effects.
Read 5 tweets
Patrick McKenzie Profile picture
Mar 8
One of the cultural quirks of capitalists is that there are many lies that one is allowed or even encouraged to tell in society, and capitalists are members of society, but are in principle not allowed to lie about revenue.

This strikes many non-capitalists as odd.
I have jokingly phrased this as “Certain forms of writing are sacred. For example, if you write the word Balance Sheet on top of a list of numbers, those numbers become sacred to capitalists, and a lie amongst them is a sin that the gods of capitalism will punish most severely.”
But this causes a cultural disconnect because society broadly allows many fudgings of numbers. And e.g. conversations between management and investors allow for certain forms of salesmanship.

But about revenue: not allowed. We are pretty serious on that.
Read 6 tweets
Patrick McKenzie Profile picture
Feb 23
There is one contractor during this home remodel who I greatly enjoy because of his continued imprecations about the general state of contracting, other subs on project, etc.

“Got something to show you Mr. McKenzie. *gestures at floor* Do you understand how a laser level works?”
Me: “I think I get the theory.”
Contractor: “I think I do, too. Of course back in my day we did this with a bubble level of maybe a piece of string and a weight. But I was concerned that perhaps the people who put this floor in might not understand how to use traditional wisdom.”
Contractor: “So I brought a laser over here. Now, by my mark, and I brought here another piece of high tech gadgetry called a measuring tape, this floor is 3 and an eighth inches off.”
Me: “Ah I see.”
Contractor: “Three and an eighth! Who does that?!”
Read 7 tweets

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