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Zack Kanter @zackkanter
, 8 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
1/ As a former/recovering 4HWW disciple, I've been thinking about writing a post on this to other 'lifestyle' business founders who have fallen into the trap. Some quick thoughts to follow...
2/ A 'lifestyle' business can be a great fit for some people, but you have to ask yourself what you want to do with your free time once you have it. After automating my last business to the nth degree & moving to Argentina (the 4HWW mecca), I had practically unlimited free time.
3/ As a kid, I played games like SimCity, SimTower, and Transport Tycoon in my free time. I could play for hours. When I was finished, I had billions of simdollars that amount to nothing in real life. A lifestyle business is like a video game that makes real money. It's amazing.
4/ After many years, I figured out how to run my lifestyle business as easily as I could play a game like SimCity, I asked myself what I wanted to do with my newfound abundance of free time. And it turned out that what I really wanted to do with my free time was work more.
5/ The paradox of a 4HWW/lifestyle business is that most people who successfully start one actually love to work. Instead of optimizing for free time, I realized I should have been optimizing for what I really wanted: to work on hard problems with as many smart people as possible
6/ A VC-backed startup was the right answer for me for many reasons, but here are two: a) The smartest people generally don't want to come work for your lifestyle business. b) Funding removes the financial constraint that prevents you from hiring the smartest people you can find.
7/ All this reminds me of @cdixon's post: "Climbing the wrong hill." When you're climbing a hill, don't forget to ask yourself if you want the things you get when you reach the top. Because if you're reasonably smart and driven, you probably will. cdixon.org/2009/09/19/cli…
8/ Lastly...the constraining factor in the startup ecosystem is the # of founders who can execute. I think 4HWW/lifestyle business founders are the biggest untapped natural resource. They know how to bootstrap, break with norms, execute, and sell.
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1/It’s possible that tariffs might actually “work” in cases like Apple (tons of cash to repatriate & enough scale to run an automated US factory). But man, it’s going to devastate small business.

Ex: avg auto parts brand does 7% EBITDA. 25% increase in COGS and you’re dead.
2/The price difference for fully-automated manufacturing in US vs China at large scale isn't that bad. But at low volume (say, 500-2000 units a year, which is actually 'high volume' for a small business), price difference can be 5-10x - if you can find someone to make it at all.
3/This means that small businesses just have to keep buying from China, but now the small business is paying a 25% tax. They can't absorb that (see #1), so they increase prices. Total consumer discretionary is ~fixed, so power just consolidates to fewer, larger firms.
Read 4 tweets
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1/ I think Amazon will grow into the current (insane) valuation on a long enough time horizon, but I’m extraordinarily optimistic & (at least think I) have some unique insight from selling to/buying from AMZN in many diff ways for many years.
2/ Could be wrong, but hard to imagine current valuation reflects that most AMZN shareholders have same irrational/insane optimism & very long time horizon. Seems more likely that investors are confident that the (insane) premium the market has placed will continue - or increase.
3/ Seems like Amazon is a miss, scare, or bear market away from a giant price correction. B Graham’s comments on IBM/Xerox seem apt:

“These striking losses...reflected a lack of confidence in the premium valuation that the stock market had placed on these excellent prospects.”
Read 3 tweets
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Critics who think Amazon is killing retail should talk to the millions of businesses/products that were rejected by retail gatekeepers and only exist today because of Amazon’s ‘infinite shelf space.’
Retail had been artificially stifled by more than a century of a ‘Big Man’ (gatekeeper) system. Amazon Marketplace has spurred a Cambrian explosion of SKUs and the businesses who create them. ‘The Origin of Wealth’ captures this problem perfectly:
‘Buyers’ at big retailers used to decide which products would be given the chance to be market-tested. All sorts of incentive problems here, but the effect was increased concentration of wealth & power for large vendors (e.g. P&G).
Read 8 tweets

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I started the post with a different purpose, using it as an edition of my column for @ChiTribBooks which caps out at 600 words. I realized pretty quickly that whatever I had to say, it wasn't going to fit there, so I decided to just keep going.
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I was just visited by two Secret Service officers regarding my tweets about #tRump. I told them I have no thoughts, plans, or intent to harm tRump and I never have. They advised not to post anything that may be interpreted as a threat. I was impressed with their professionalism.
Many are asking what I tweeted that prompted a Secret Service visit today. I won't restate the long deleted tweets because it might be misinterpreted as a threat. Critiques of #tRump are fine providing they do not cross the line in a way that one may interpret as a threat.
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Quick Thoughts on the MYE OIG Report...

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As readers of this account are aware, I struggle with brevity which makes me Twitterly-challenged. So me saying I'm going to give "quick thoughts" on a 500+ page monster of a report is hilarious - but I'm going to try!
My original plan was to wait until the weekend to make any real statement about the report - just to allow myself time to absorb it rather than rushing twitter with my first impressions...

But since all of Twitter seems to look like this right now...
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Writing Myths #3 Writing Portfolios are the magic way into the industry!!
Get a portfolio said the writing panel/advice/speaker in what is the latest throwaway simple advice that instantly builds a career…. So, let’s talk about them.
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Quick thoughts that have been bugging me about the role of Twitter in #USSstrike #NoDetriment (sorry this is a t****d) 1/
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