Ed Wightman

[Dom Lee @heavyhandedbull]

I’m probably not the first to tell you this but those percentages are not actual tariff rates. They are the trade surplus with that country divided by imports. That’s not a tariff rate but he just decided to show it as one because he knows his base will believe anything he puts in front of their eyes. The irony of MAGA saying “the left are brain dead and don’t do their research” is laughable because anyone with any critical thinking skills can go look up what tariffs are imposed on the US by other countries and find that his percentages are fake af and that most of those countries have/had free trade deals with the US. That’s “why dems are mad”. That and alienating all your allies. Not a good look.

[Ed Wightman @edwightman]

@QCompounding @readwise save thread

[Ed Wightman @edwightman]

@Codie_Sanchez @readwise save

[Josh Perera @tourcontinues]

@Austen If I’ve learned anything these past 10 years is that that people are willing to believe anything that:
1. Confirms an existing belief
2. Makes them feel morally superior
3. Signals to their tribe they are one of them

[Ed Wightman @edwightman]

@QCompounding @readwise save thread

[Kevin Box @Fuel_YourGrowth]

Most people have no clue how to handle toxic people.

Yet, the impact on your mental health cannot be understated.

We must do more to help alleviate mental stress at work.

In this Fuel Your Growth cheat sheet, we explore 10 types of toxic people...

...and how leaders can manage each more effectively.

Here’s the 10 we dive into:

1. The Complainer
2. The Slacker
3. The Bully
4. The Gossiper
5. The Know-It-All
6. The Credit Thief
7. The Negative Nancy
8. The Passive-Aggressor
9. The Drama King
10. The Resistor

If you like this post, ♻ 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 to educate your network and 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗺𝗲 @Fuel_YourGrowth

[Bella Wallersteiner 🇺🇦 @BellaWallerstei]

My takeaway from Sue Gray pay row: it’s bonkers BBC journalists are paid more than the Prime Minister

[Brian Feroldi @BrianFeroldi]

A CEO's most important job is Capital Allocation.

Every CEO & CFO should study this visual:

[Ed Wightman @edwightman]

@QCompounding @readwise save

[Hidden Value Gems @HiddenValueGems]

4️⃣ “Even perfect buy-and-hold passive investors experience effective turnover. Cap-weighted indices like the S&P500 suffer a surprising amount of activity... The S&P500 has seen well over 1,000 name changes since its inception. Does this activity add value? Not necessarily, as another Siegel study suggested: if you'd bought the original S&P500 at launch in 1957 and then did nothing, you'd have beaten the actual, regularly refreshed S&P by more than half a percent per annum. Similarly, the Voya Corporate Leaders Trust, launched in 1935 (with explicit rules to prohibit turnover) hasn't added a single new holding in 87 years, yet delivered double-digit nominal compound returns.”
4/4

https://t.co/DxUCE2AuZN

[Ed Wightman @edwightman]

@QCompounding @readwise save thread

[Compounding Quality @QCompounding]

2️⃣ Irrationality

Humans are not rational. We all make a lot of irrational mistakes.

90% of Americans think they can drive better than average and 70% think they are smarter than average.

[Compounding Quality @QCompounding]

Outcome Bias

We are prone to blame decision-makers for good decisions that worked out badly;

..and to give too little credit for successful moves that appear obvious only after the fact.

[Ed Wightman @edwightman]

@Feynmanism_ @readwise save

[Ed Wightman @edwightman]

@Feynmanism_ @readwise save

[Teslaconomics @Teslaconomics]

Let me get this story straight.

So Elon’s 2018 compensation package was approved by ~80% of Tesla shareholders during a time the company’s valuation was ~$60B ($20 per share). The plan would require him to grow the market cap by $50B increments with the first milestone starting at a $100B valuation with the final milestone being $650B, in addition to aggressive revenue, pretax profit growth targets that many thought would be impossible, especially knowing the company was facing bankruptcy dead in the eyes during this time.

If Elon were to hit all the milestones, he would then be granted this full $55B compensation package that gave him stock options to purchase Tesla stock at a heavily discounted price and the stock could not be sold for another 5 yrs after exercising the options to prevent an “exercise & run”.

He hit all the milestones and created real value for the company & its shareholders (today, the valuation of Tesla sits at ~600B, a 10X from the year the comp package was approved, and a world class financial war chest). Also, btw, if Elon were to not hit these milestones, he would have been paid essentially nothing.

Then in 2019, a shareholder named Richard Tornetta (who held 9 shares of Tesla) filed a lawsuit claiming that the compensation package was excessive & unfair, claiming the board had not acted in the best interest of its shareholders.

Then today, the Delaware judge named Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick voided this compensation package claiming it was excessive and the process for coming up with Elon's comp plan wasn't independent bc he controlled the BOD and the directors who approved the plan weren't truly independent. Further claiming that the shareholders who approved the comp plan weren't made aware of this controlled relationship.

Wow… you really can’t make this stuff up, this is literally what just happened.

Personally, I’m not so concerned about Tesla bc I believe the board & shareholders will approve an even better & more aggressive compensation package for Elon (e.g. include the $55B 2018 comp that he deserves, give him 25% voting share, include milestones for Tesla to become the largest valued company in the world & more, etc.) which will ultimately keep Elon motivated to stay at Tesla and build the future of AI & robotics within the company.

However, my main concern here is the fundamental foundation of capitalism that America is built upon. The CEO of a company was incentivized with a compensation package & it was approved by its shareholders to create value and he did. He hit all the milestones that were laid out, it wasn’t a pump or dump, and he didn’t steal or deceive shareholders. He simply went all in, put his blood, sweat, and tears into building the best products to change the world for the better, which created tremendous value for the ones that believed, invested, and stuck through. And now a judge has retroactively removed the reward for the leader that got the company to where it is today.

Why would any CEO/founder in America want to work hard, when the result of his or her hard work can easily be taken away unfairly like this?

What happened today, is very wrong and if nothing is done to fix it, it will crush the entrepreneurial spirit & heartbeat that America was originally built upon.

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

This is incredible:

Exactly 6 years ago, @elonmusk agreed to the compensation package that a Delaware court just voided.

Here's a clip from the day when the compensation package was announced.

At the time, Tesla, $TSLA, was worth just $59 billion and Elon Musk made his compensation entirely performance based.

Here's the best part:

"If somehow magically he gets the company to $650 billion, he would collect $55 billion in compensation."

Less than 3 years later, Tesla hit a market cap of $650 billion.

Elon Musk bet on himself and he delivered.

Why is that being taken away from him?

[World of Statistics @stats_feed]

Divorce rate:

🇮🇳India: 1%
🇻🇳Vietnam: 7%
🇹🇯Tajikistan: 10%
🇮🇷Iran: 14%
🇲🇽Mexico: 17%
🇪🇬Egypt: 17%
🇿🇦South Africa: 17%
🇧🇷Brazil: 21%
🇹🇷Turkey: 25%
🇨🇴Colombia: 30%
🇵🇱Poland: 33%
🇯🇵Japan: 35%
🇩🇪Germany: 38%
🇬🇧United Kingdom: 41%
🇳🇿New Zealand: 41%
🇦🇺Australia: 43%
🇨🇳China: 44%
🇺🇸United States: 45%
🇰🇷South Korea: 46%
🇩🇰Denmark: 46%
🇮🇹Italy: 46%
🇨🇦Canada: 47%
🇳🇱Netherlands: 48%
🇸🇪Sweden: 50%
🇨🇵France: 51%
🇧🇪Belgium: 53%
🇫🇮Finland: 55%
🇨🇺Cuba: 55%
🇺🇦Ukraine: 70%
🇷🇺Russia: 73%
🇱🇺Luxembourg: 79%
🇪🇦Spain: 85%
🇵🇹Portugal: 94%

Note: This compares the number of divorces in a given year to the number of marriages in that same year (the ratio of the crude divorce rate to the crude marriage rate). For example, if there are 500 divorces and 1,000 marriages in a given year in a given area, the ratio would be one divorce for every two marriages, e.g. a ratio of 0.50 (50%).

Data is from last available year by country. As an example Portugal data is from 2020, Germany is from 2017.

[Luke Rudkowski @Lukewearechange]

This clip is absolutely terrifying to me

[Ali Abdaal @AliAbdaal]

Instead, motivation falls on a spectrum, with ‘extrinsic’ and ‘intrinsic’ at either end:

Intrinsic motivation comes from the inside: driven by self-fulfilment, curiosity & a desire to learn

Extrinsic motivation comes from the outside: driven by money, rewards & social approval