FortuneNotes

Stories of money, business & the people who built fortunes

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@praying_medic1 The real question is whether these numbers are actually being compared on equal terms.

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THE $12 BOOK THAT EXPOSED WALL STREET’S $1 TRILLION INDUSTRY.

Joel Greenblatt turned $10,000 into millions with a two-line formula. He charged hedge-fund clients “2 and 20,” then published the strategy in a $12 book.

The idea is brutally simple: rank companies by return on capital, rank them again by earnings yield, combine the rankings, buy the top 20, hold for a year, then repeat. Greenblatt called it the “Magic Formula.”

He taught this strategy at Columbia. Michael Burry studied it in Greenblatt’s 1997 book. And in a 2017 Talks at Google lecture, Greenblatt explained the entire process for free.

His message? “Cheap and good beats expensive and average.” The formula is public. The book costs $12. The lecture costs nothing. The hard part isn’t finding the strategy, it’s actually following it when everyone else is chasing the next hot stock.

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@Ruzveltxbt Ownership really is the difference between earning money and building lasting wealth.

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@DeepLeaksHQ $2.7T in improper payments is already staggering. The real question is how much of it was actually fraud and how much was simply bad administration.

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@katsuxbt Sometimes the best investment is the one that keeps you performing at your highest level. Small costs can protect massive opportunities.

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RYAN REYNOLDS TURNED A FEW MILLION DOLLARS INTO A $1 BILLION BUSINESS EMPIRE.

Most actors make money from movies. Ryan Reynolds figured out how to make money from the businesses behind the brands.

He bought into Aviation Gin when it was still a relatively small brand. Two years later, Diageo acquired it for a deal worth up to $610 million. Reynolds didn't just invest in the company, he became the face of it and helped create the advertising himself through his agency, Maximum Effort.

Then he did it again.

Reynolds invested in Mint Mobile when it was still a tiny wireless company. Four years later, T-Mobile agreed to acquire Mint Mobile's parent company in a deal valued at up to $1.35 billion, with Reynolds' stake reportedly worth roughly $300 million.

The strategy was remarkably simple: buy small brands, make people care about them, build the marketing yourself, then sell when a much larger company can take them to the next level.

He wasn't just putting his name on products. He was using his audience, creativity and marketing ability as part of the investment.

That's what makes his story so interesting.

Ryan Reynolds didn't just build a career as an actor. He turned his attention into an asset and his personal brand into a business machine.

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@thedrbryte Inversion is such a powerful mindset: avoid the big mistakes, and let time do the rest.

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@FOS @Realrclark25 Getting fired at ESPN just to level up like this is one hell of a plot twist. 🔥

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@BigJ16633 $500K a week? Bro was dating a subscription service. 😂

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THEY LAUGHED AT ELON MUSK. THEN THEY WALKED AWAY.

Hollywood, 2008. Musk was at a party surrounded by celebrities and powerful people, talking about rockets, electric cars, and the future. Nobody seemed impressed. They constantly interrupted him. Someone asked, “What the hell do we even need all this stuff for?” Others told him Congress didn’t have money for his projects.

Then someone went straight for the kill: “You keep talking about rockets, but you haven’t even launched a single mission yet, right?”

They laughed.

When Musk finally finished speaking, nobody stayed to hear more. People impatiently rushed off for a bathroom break.

At the time, Tesla and SpaceX were both on the verge of collapse. To everyone in that room, Musk looked like a rich guy burning his fortune on ridiculous ideas.

They thought they were watching a failure.

They were watching the beginning of one of the biggest business stories of the century.

Never underestimate the person everyone else has already decided to laugh at.

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@batagonx The real game isn’t earning more. It’s owning more.

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@ilar0x He didn’t beat the casino. He beat their assumptions. That’s the real lesson.

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@LegionHoops Private jets really are a different level of “where did all my money go?” 😂

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@antpalkin The “meat in the chair” part is wild. The future of finance may be fewer people and far more agents.

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@TechByArti Imagine having 50 years of wisdom and one hour left to pass it on. That’s powerful.

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THIS 5-SECOND REACTION AGED LIKE GOLD.

In 2006, a reporter asked Steve Jobs about the iPhone, one year before its launch. His face says it all.

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@aisarcore Imagine thinking you won £71K, only to put your glasses on and discover you’re £71 million richer. 😂 That’s the kind of plot twist you genuinely can’t write.

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@Allx032 The real lesson isn’t “get big enough to be bailed out.” It’s understanding when your downside becomes someone else’s problem. Leverage changes the game completely.

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@HeyShobhan The real edge wasn’t luck it was turning intuition into data, probability, and disciplined execution.

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@carter8f That’s not just building a refinery it’s a lesson in persistence. Turning a marsh into an industrial site is insane.