Austin Lee

HK/TPE

[Bill Ackman @BillAckman]

I have learned from experience that the experts, the government, and conventional wisdom are often wrong. ‘Inflation is transitory.” “C19 did not escape from the Wuhan lab.” “@Ukraine will fall in less than a week.” “Its not possible because it hasn’t been done before or because it hasn’t happened before.”

It is often the outlier with no experience in a field that challenges the status quo, that makes the important discovery, that has the unique insight, or creates the transformational innovation.

@elonmusk was not an expert in payments, electric cars or rockets. The ‘experts’ were at Visa, GM and NASA.

When you are part of the establishment, it is hard to challenge the conventional wisdom. You are incentivized not to. And when your economic livelihood can be threatened by an alternative point of view or a new innovation, you are less likely to believe it or its viability.

The greatest opportunities for discovery, innovation, understanding, and profits often exist in the unexplored paths, the unasked and unanswered questions, and in the improbable possibilities.

Our best investments have been: (1) in the stock of a real estate company going bankrupt, (2) from betting that a triple-A rated company was insolvent, and (3) betting that a virus in China would cause a global economic shutdown.

Each of these investments were met with extreme skepticism at the time they were made. In each case, we were the naive ones when we made these investments. We were not bankruptcy investors, experts in bond insurers or credit default swaps, nor did we know anything about viruses or pandemics.

From my experience, knowledge is advanced and insights are gleaned by studying alternative points of view from conventional and unconventional sources of information, and by not discrediting a point of view simply because it comes from someone who is not an accredited member of the relevant establishment, who does not have an advanced degree in the subject at hand, and/or someone whom has been criticized in the media.

In an effort to get to the truth, I try to keep my mind open to alternative possibilities and weigh them against each other. I often find that truth can emerge when two or more articulate and intelligent individuals in an open forum discuss and debate a controversial subject and are required to address unscripted questions from a knowledgeable audience or moderator.

The above is why I added to the pot in attempting to convince @PeterHotez to discuss vaccines with @RobertKennedyJr on @joerogan. I think knowledge will emerge from the discussion that will catalyze further explorations or investigations that will bring us closer to the truth and help us answer questions about vaccine efficacy and safety that remain unsettled for many. And if @PeterHotez is not the best or most knowledgeable advocate for vaccines, then we should find another one.

In getting to the truth, I want to hear from the greatest skeptics and advocates. Both deserve a platform on the path to truth.

And no, I am not an anti-vaxxer.

[Luke Sophinos @lukesophinos]

2 Armenian immigrants built a ~$10B vertical SaaS company by creating software for home service businesses.

In ~10 years, they've helped 100,000+ technicians and 12,000+ companies.

The story of ServiceTitan, an amazing company you've probably never heard of 🧵

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

While we're writing the New York Times...

[Austin Lee @austin____lee]

Happy new year

[Keith Wynroe @keithwynroe]

I can't compete with this

[CZ 🔶 BNB @cz_binance]

Ironic how people say "Twitter is dead", on Twitter.

[Austin Lee @austin____lee]

@RishiSunak > @trussliz

[Puru Saxena @saxena_puru]

Rishi Sunak warned about this but wasn't elected -

[Trung Phan @TrungTPhan]

Solid British Pound analysis via Reddit

[Austin Lee @austin____lee]

@LukeWarrd Zap

[Patrick Collison @patrickc]

Browsers really need File > Save Page as PNG. How are we still exporting PDFs with page breaks and print stylesheets like twentieth century troglodytes?

[Tanay Jaipuria @tanayj]

Shopify now making ~75% of their $1.4B in quarterly revenue from payments and other merchant solutions compared to ~25% from subscriptions

[Anand Sanwal @asanwal]

1/ Some signs to look for that suggest your startup equity won't be worth shit

(note: there are probably exceptions but generally, these will steer you right)

[Austin Lee @austin____lee]

Great thread @moizali. Nuanced and constructive at the same time. Solid mental framework for enhancing products. Thanks

[Moiz Ali @moizali]

1. Shopify stock is down 50% over the past 12 months. Its mission may be to "arm the rebels," but it is giving us muskets in a war that is increasingly being fought with machine guns.

👇👇👇

[Austin Lee @austin____lee]

@lillianmli Eyeopening, thanks for the article. Sound mental models to work off of. On 10), needs presumably differ based on culture. Having grown up in HK/Taiwan and studied in US, I reckon core needs differ. What are some frameworks to assess TAM given that?

[Lillian Li @lillianmli]

1) Meituan co-founder Wang Huiwen was with Meituan from inception to IPO. He retired at age 41 a billionaire.

Wang thought deeply about creating a category winning company. I found his insights on how needs evolve and how that relates to markets to be one of the best framing:

[Lillian Li @lillianmli]

1) I was a SaaS-focused VC in Europe for ~5 years, and then left for China to explore the SaaS ecosystem here.

Initially, I was highly disappointed. But after 18 months I've coming out of the trough of disillusionment.

Here's why:

[Sam Altman @sama]

even people who really understand compounding consistently underestimate the power of compounding.

if you can get close to internalizing and acting on the true power of compounding and momentum, you will outperform almost everyone.

[Austin Lee @austin____lee]

Not surprised at all. Incredibly smart bis model and leader. As a product person, I appreciated this quote about product market fit from him in his interview at @LendIt

“Delight is the greatest form of virality”
- he didn’t chase adverts, just chased word of mouth

[Andy Rachleff @arachleff]

Really excited to share that @Wealthfront has agreed to be acquired by @UBS. Read more from @margotpatrick via @WSJ https://t.co/gFbz9akejK

[Eli Dourado @elidourado]

The 2009 stimulus put $8 billion into high-speed rail, which hasn’t resulted in any high-speed rail after 13 years.

It costs infinity dollars per mile to build high-speed rail in the US.