Chris West

Acquiring businesses to scale

[Ricardo @Ric_RTP]

The CEO of Uber just revealed his controversial way of running his company.

His principle:

Hard work is a learned skill.

And if you haven't developed it by now, you probably never will.

Dara Khosrowshahi went on Diary of a CEO and dropped something most executives would NEVER admit publicly...

He was asked a simple question:

"Have you ever seen someone who wasn't a hard worker become a really hard worker?"

His answer: "No. No one occurs to me."

Not one person. In decades of building billion dollar companies.

Then he explained why:

"The most important skill in life is the skill of working hard. It's not something you can turn on and off. It's a LEARNED skill. That's not something you're born with."

Read that again.

He's not saying hard workers are special or gifted.

He's saying they LEARNED it. Developed it. Trained it like a muscle.

And the people who never learned it?

They stay that way forever.

This is the guy who turned Uber from bleeding $3 billion a year into printing $10 billion in free cash flow.

The guy who took Expedia from $2B to $9B in revenue.

And his entire thesis on success comes down to one skill most people never bother developing.

Here's how he runs Uber:

"You come to Uber, you're going to work your ass off. If you're not performing, we're going to let you know. And if you don't fix it, we're going to push you out."

He sends emails on Saturdays.

If no response by Sunday, he follows up with just "?"

When HR told him he was "scaring people" early in his tenure, he said:

"Then they can leave."

And here's what separates this from toxic hustle culture nonsense:

Dara has dinner with his family every night. 6 to 8pm is protected.

But he's back on email at 9:30pm.

And again at 5:30am.

It's not about grinding yourself to death.

It's about the refusal to be outworked.

"I'm not going to let anyone outwork me. They may be smarter, more talented. But I'm not going to let anyone outwork me."

He studied the elites. Ronaldo. Jordan. The pattern is always the same...

Talent gets you in the room.

But the thing that separates the best from everyone else?

"They work their asses off. They're disciplined. They're structured. They're relentless."

That's learned behavior. Not genetics.

The uncomfortable truth here is that most people had their chance to develop this skill.

And they didn't.

Now they spend their energy debating whether hard work is "toxic" instead of building something.

The question isn't whether this is "fair" or "healthy" or whatever cope people want to throw at it.

The question is which SIDE you're going to be on.

The people who learned to work?

Or the people who learned to make excuses?

[Michel Roux Jr @michelrouxjr]

Thought for the day
‘Bees don’t waste their energy convincing flys that honey is better than 💩’ some minds are not meant to be changed 🙏🏻

[Chris West @ChrizWestt]

@TGE_LDNM Good Lad

[Chris West @ChrizWestt]

@TGE_LDNM Or we could just expect Debbie Smith off the street, could run a 180k+ headcount, multi billion turnover business and continue to pay her £21k a year? Why did we give individuals like Zack a platform! Wake up! 🤦

[Chris West @ChrizWestt]

@geoheaton Aston Martin DBX707

[Chris West @ChrizWestt]

@TGE_LDNM Hahaha I always love your responses! Long live the TGE

[Chris West @ChrizWestt]

@matthucius Good feminine energy

[Chris West @ChrizWestt]

@AutoPap Yeah cockpit is nice in fairness, felt that when I sat in one at a showroom.

[Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10]

I sit in Parliament listening to these ministers, and it’s all just so depressing - the vast majority of them have never run a business, and it SHOWS. You would not believe how bad it is.

They think ‘work’ means turning up to an office between 9 and 5, answering a few emails, and going home at the end of the day. Nice lunch break, few coffees away from the desk, probably a smoking break or several. It doesn’t - not for the millions of men and women who actually create the wealth that funds the state.

Running a small business isn’t a job. It’s a way of life. It is life. It’s 24/7/365. It’s relentless. You are the accountant, HR department, compliance officer, cleaner, marketer, and customer service team - all in one. There’s no sick pay, no safety net, and no taxpayer-funded pension waiting for you.

Holiday? Good luck. If you do manage to get away, it’s checking the phone all day, every day. Wife/husband obviously getting pissed off. We’ve all been there...

It’s all on you. Every invoice chased, every tax deadline met, every bit of red tape navigated is on you. And if you make one mistake, one error, one small slip-up, the state comes after you - in a relentlessly efficient manner that is never afforded to us when we ask questions of it.

Most MPs have no idea what that feels like. They just don’t. We’re going to see more of this in the budget I’m sure. More hurt. More pain. More tax. They don’t get it.

They don’t understand that when a small business owner gets hit with another tax, it’s not absorbed by a ‘budget’ - it’s taken straight out of their family’s pocket.

There is no ‘deficit’ in the business world - that’s called going bust.

And they certainly don’t understand what real risk looks like. Politicians can vote through a policy on Monday and forget it by Tuesday - a small business owner lives with the consequences of that policy for years, decades. The MP monthly salary is safe. It always has been. In the public sector before, and in the public sector after - if not that, some charity/NGO funded entirely by the public sector.

GET A REAL JOB.

If MPs actually spent a week running a small firm - paying suppliers, tackling VAT, navigating health and safety law, sorting out HR issues, chasing clients for payment, trying to expand while staying compliant with everything from GDPR to local planning regulations - they’d legislate very differently. I can promise you that.

They’d realise that most of Britain’s problems could be solved by the state doing less, not more.

Cutting tax. Simplifying regulation. Slashing back the HRification of the country. Trusting people who actually produce things to get on with it.

Instead, we have a political class that talks endlessly about ‘growth’ while brutally punishing the only people capable of delivering it - especially going after the family businesses/farms, which is a particularly spiteful policy decision.

Small business owners are people who work harder than almost anyone in Parliament could imagine - and who are treated worse for it.

Britain’s small businesses don’t succeed because of politicians, they survive in spite of them.

[Chris West @ChrizWestt]

This is absolutely no surprise. I always stand firm, I wouldn’t go to University given the choice. I’d learn a trade and scale a business from that foundation. University if you’re studying medicine, law etc - it works - anything else, don’t go.

[Chris West @ChrizWestt]

@danmurrays Amazing milestone. Subscribed for the first time four months ago and absolutely love the product/ service. Only thing is - I keep getting an extra magnesium capsule in my bottle each month as an FYI - I’m definitely not going mad!

[Chris West @ChrizWestt]

@TGE_LDNM I’ll say it before and I’ll say it again, 996’s are absolutely slept on. Been tempted by a Turbo for a winter basher, AWD, 420 BHP, timeless and £30k!? Mental

[Chris West @ChrizWestt]

@HarryStebbings Do the exact same on a Sunday. Learnt early that life is short and we miss these small, but impactful moments. What feels minor to us, can be major to someone else.

[Chris West @ChrizWestt]

@TomTalksCars Couldn’t agree more. This is when it’s time to have a social shred and move on from those people.

[Chris West @ChrizWestt]

@AutoPap Couldn’t agree more with this, Shami. Moved here 18 months ago, still the greatest city, an abundance of opportunity. The grass isn’t greener. Fuck the naysayers.

[Chris West @ChrizWestt]

@TGE_LDNM Hahaha love the TGE responses! Yes lad

[Chris West @ChrizWestt]

@AutoPap As @HarryStebbings rightfully says, a captain never leaves a sinking ship!

[Charlie Mullins OBE @CharlieM_OBE]

Every August, we get the same feel-good TV shots of beaming teenagers waving their A-level results, teachers clapping, proud parents filling their phones with happy memories that are instantly posted on Facebook.

In the UK, plumbers, electricians, carpenters and heating engineers don’t get the same respect as graduates in suits — but in Germany, vocational training and university are equal.

Apprenticeships don’t saddle you with £50,000 debt. You get paid while you learn, gain skills employers need, and walk into a career with earning potential from day one.
Degrees and AI don’t fix boilers. If we keep ignoring apprenticeships, the UK will have plenty of degrees… and no one to fix the pipes.

[George Heaton @geoheaton]

What you do in private, shows in public. Reading shows in a conversation. Your diet shows in energy. Your discipline shows in confidence. Your focus shows in your results.