Michael Schroll

Entrepreneur

[Michael Schroll @MichaelForAll]

Verifying myself: I am mikeschroll on https://t.co/BEo3U4Rv1m. vYZg3BH8hYyA68M5zbz9LMJr72bcI6wHQFQq / https://t.co/aXKxECRDs3

[Michael Schroll @MichaelForAll]

Kamala Harris @VP is going to be visiting @CityofFlagstaff Pride Festival in a few hours! Secret service all over the place here.

[Virgin Galactic @virgingalactic]

Successful take-off from @Spaceport_NM confirmed! Let’s go #Galactic07!

[Paul Graham @paulg]

If you take the job at the startup instead of the safer one at a big company, all your coworkers will also be people who took the job at the startup. In ten years they'll be running everything, even if the startup tanks.

[Adam Lawrence 🇺🇸 @im_asl]

If you’re a founder in the first inning of your career, please read this…

The most important thing you need to do right now is get some experienced operators in your circle.

Specifically, these operators can NOT be your investors or board members.

I’ve watched founders be gaslighted by their investors before, despite the assumption that investors want you to be successful.

They want you to succeed, but their underlying incentives are misaligned with yours. This can cause a founder to fail when they otherwise would have been fine.

Here’s an example concerning growth:

- Founder gets funding
- Starts hiring a team
- Everything’s going well
- Investors tell them to grow faster… 10x faster.
- Founder thought they were already great at 5x.
- Founder trusts investors, starts hiring at a 10x pace.
- Company starts burning 15x cash (hiring faster costs more!)
- Something happens, growth slows down.
- Company can’t tolerate such a high burn rate.
- Founder forced to make sizable layoffs.
- Or worse, close down.

All along the best person to decide optimal burn rate was the founder, but investors wanted to see 10x growth, pressuring the founder to make decisions against their better judgment.

This result is often caused by misaligned incentives, here’s a couple examples:

Investors have a portfolio of companies where a founder has one. The portfolio model relies on outlier results to cover the zeros.

Investors have raised larger and larger funds. The dirty secret of their model is that large funds mean more management fees. In order to get more management fees investors need to deploy their funds faster.

Investors are looking to see if they should reinvest another $10M where a founder is looking to make every dollar count.

There’s many other examples of founder/investor incentive misalignment.

My point here is that an investor's advice should be taken with a grain of salt.

Advice is just that, advice.

It's up to the recipient to balance that advice with what's best for their company and their situation. Someone parachuting in monthly or quarterly isn't going to have the same context as someone in the seat each day.

This relates to a radically underestimated cognitive bias: Perception bias.

Perception bias is the tendency for humans to digest and regurgitate information as it relates to themselves instead of the facts.

In every single conversation or exchange of information you’ve ever had, perception bias applies.

For a founder, this means that an investor giving you strong advice on how to run your company is covered in their perception as an investor at the 100,000 foot level.

This advice will sound very confident, because it is. They are very confidently telling you their opinion as an outside investor, not a hands-on operator.

Only they won’t say it while admitting their lack of knowledge, they’ll just say it, which can lead you astray.

Your company is ultimately your responsibility, and you need experienced operators in your corner giving you impartial advice.

[Michael Schroll @MichaelForAll]

@seanldunn @IBoptimist @RichardGrenell You can board a plane. I and my friends have done it when ID was forgotten at home. See forgot your ID? Section: https://t.co/JxVSNFS4dE

[Wilderwise Homes @WilderwiseHomes]

Fun, celebratory photos of our setup crew and customer on delivery day in Flagstaff! 👍😜🥳 #tinyhouse #tinyhome #arizona #deliveryday

[Patrick Campbell @Patticus]

In the past six months, I spent serious time with 18 millionaires and 6 billionaires.

They fell into two surprising categories 👇

[Wilderwise Homes @WilderwiseHomes]

#DeliveryDay RECAP!
➡️ Pickup at 6:30am
➡️ Freeways for 5+ hours
➡️ 3 back-in attempts
➡️ Perfect parking position achieved
➡️ Friends arrive to help w/ snacks & good company
➡️ Home is move-in ready, looking more gorgeous than ever! #tinyhouse #tinyhome #tucson #flagstaff

[Wilderwise Homes @WilderwiseHomes]

Flagstaff delivery... SUCCESS! ✅ This beauty looks so perfect nestled in the ponderosa pines, don't you think? More photos coming soon 😁 #tinyhome #tinyhouse #flagstaff #arizona #deliveryday

[Michael Schroll @MichaelForAll]

That’s mine with the blue trim, getting it’s finishing touches!

[Wilderwise Homes @WilderwiseHomes]

Our worksite in #Tucson, AZ! 🌵 With the heat increasing every day, we're grateful for the robust insulation & powerful mini-split AC units that we've installed in each home 😎 And so the progress continues... We can't wait to show you the finished interiors! #arizona #tinyhouses

[Sam Parr @thesamparr]

ANNOUNCEMENT: I'm back.

Last July I founded a new startup. Today I'm sharing it with the world.

It's called Hampton: a highly vetted membership community for entrepreneurs, founders and CEOs.

Why launch a community? I'll explain + why it'll be huge biz.

[Michael Schroll @MichaelForAll]

@etucker Like how the artist modified it? Many ATMs run on windows… so sure!

[Picard Tips @PicardTips]

Picard management tip: Don't just be yourself. Be the best version of yourself. Recall who you were on your best day. Be that person again.

[DNSFilter @DNSFilter]

It's official! 💫

We have acquired the leading cloud Firewall + VPN technology platform, @guardianiosapp! 🎉

Uniting our best-in-class DNS layer security with the Firewall + VPN platform reduces the pain points that come with legacy SWG technology.

https://t.co/qLS9nqyS6C

[Picard Tips @PicardTips]

Picard style tip: If you're balding, don't hide it. Own it.

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

Lie: Free time is bad.

Hustle culture told you that free time is lost productivity.

The reality: free time is a "call option" on future interesting opportunities.

When you have free time, you have the headspace and bandwidth to pursue new ideas.

Free time creates alpha.

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

Lie: Money is the only type of wealth.

In reality, there are 5 types of wealth:
• Financial (money)
• Social (relationships)
• Physical (health)
• Mental (knowledge, faith)
• Time (freedom)

The pursuit of financial wealth can rob you of the others.

Don't let that happen.

[Michael Schroll @MichaelForAll]

Great summary of my retraction as well!

[Gergely Orosz @GergelyOrosz]

A major reason I don't engage with web3/crypto/NFT in any way:

The space attracts too many people wanting to make a quick buck. Opportunists. Scammers. Con artists.

When you have a crowd of these people, all behind a pseudonymized identity... why on earth would you engage?

[Lauren Self @laurenlself]

gorgeous gorgeous full stack mobile engineers love abolishing payment infrastructure that sucks!

slide into my DMs if that’s you 😎