Akito

Money is a choice and a risk, and in crypto, it’s also a game of speed!

Collab Manager / Moderator / Community Manager

[Akito @itsak1to]

Michael Jordan's Nike contract paid him $2.5 million over five years. his mother demanded one extra clause that has since paid him over $1.3 billion.

in 1984 Jordan didn't want Nike. he wanted Adidas. he refused to even take the meeting.

his mother Deloris made him go.

Nike offered $500,000 a year - more than double Adidas. everyone in the room was ready to sign. Deloris wasn't. she called Nike's Sonny Vaccaro personally and told him her son needed something else: a percentage of every single shoe sold with his name on it.

nobody had ever done that. athletes got paid a fee and went home.

Nike reluctantly agreed.

they projected $3 million in Air Jordan sales for year one. they hit $126 million. in the first six weeks they sold 1.5 million pairs.

Jordan Brand now generates around $7 billion a year. Jordan personally collects roughly 5% of every item sold - over $350 million last year alone, decades after he stopped playing.

Nike was so unsure about him they wrote four escape clauses into the deal. he cleared every one in his rookie season.

"a shoe is just a shoe until my son steps into it." - Deloris Jordan

the salary made him rich for five years. the clause his mother insisted on made him a billionaire forever ↓

[Akito @itsak1to]

Warren Buffett's Berkshire just sold another $24.1 billion in stocks - the 14th straight quarter of net selling, the longest streak in its history.

everyone is reading that as a crash warning. that's not what it is.

Buffett has done this before. he sat on cash through 1969, through 1999, and through 2007 - every time the crowd called him finished. every time he was buying at the bottom while everyone else was liquidating.

the cash pile is now $397 billion, parked in Treasuries earning roughly $12 billion a year. that's not fear. that's a loaded gun waiting for a price.

"if they're 5% or 6% cheaper… we aren't in it to make 5% or 6%."

he isn't predicting a collapse. he's saying nothing is cheap enough yet. those are completely different statements.

"we've never had people in a more gambling mood than now" - he called the market a church with a casino attached, and said many prices look awfully silly.

Greg Abel, now CEO, exited 16 positions entirely - cutting the portfolio from 42 holdings to 29.

the headline says Buffett is scared. the filing says he's patient. one of those is a strategy ↓

[Akito @itsak1to]

@triiiam yeah, that decision probably changed everything

[Akito @itsak1to]

LeBron James was 18 when the CEO of Reebok slid a $10 million check across the table and told him to take it. he handed it back.

one condition came with the money. don't talk to Nike. don't talk to Adidas. sign right now.

he had never seen that many zeros in his life. he asked for a minute, and they left him alone in the room with his mother.

"I still can't believe I left that $10 million."

Nike offered him $90 million. a decade later they signed him to a lifetime deal reportedly worth over $1 billion.

then he did it again. in 2008 a headphone startup asked him to promote their product. instead of taking a fee, he asked for a small piece of the company.

Apple bought Beats for $3 billion in 2014. LeBron's cut was $30 million - more than his entire NBA salary that year, and the largest equity payout any athlete had ever received.

in 2012 he put around $1 million into a pizza chain nobody had heard of, then turned down $15 million from McDonald's to focus on it. his Blaze stake is now worth $35-40 million.

he became the first active NBA player to reach a billion.

the check is the ceiling. the equity is the floor. every athlete gets offered a number, and that number is the most that deal will ever pay. ownership has no such limit.

the offer that feels impossible to refuse is usually the one designed to stop you from finding out what you're worth ↓

[Akito @itsak1to]

Apple CEO Steve Jobs once paid Microsoft CEO Bill Gates $31,000 for software. twenty years later he begged him for $150 million to keep Apple from dying.

in 1977 Microsoft was the contractor and Apple was the client. Gates wrote Applesoft BASIC for the Apple II, took the flat fee, and went home.

by August 1997 Apple was weeks from insolvency. Jobs had just come back as interim CEO. his first major move wasn't a product - it was a phone call to the one man everyone assumed wanted Apple dead.

Gates could have let it die. instead Microsoft put $150 million into Apple non-voting stock and settled the patent dispute between them.

when Jobs announced it at MacWorld, Gates appeared on a giant screen above the stage. the audience booed.

"we have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose."

then, on the cover of TIME: "Bill, thank you. The world's a better place."

Apple's stock jumped 33% that day. the company is now worth roughly $4 trillion.

Gates on the deal a decade later: "that's worked out very well."

but this isn't really a story about two rivals.

a competitor is not an enemy. Gates needed a healthy Apple to argue Microsoft wasn't a monopoly, and he needed Office to have a second platform. both sides won because both had something the other couldn't get anywhere else.

the hardest call is the one that costs you your ego. Jobs got booed by his own people for that deal. he made it anyway, because being right in public is worth less than being solvent.

$31,000 and $150 million were the same relationship twenty years apart. the only thing that changed was who needed whom.

the man Apple hired as a contractor ended up writing the check that saved it ↓

[Akito @itsak1to]

@Rossst_03 great analogy, the real edge isn’t speed anymore, its what you do with it

[Akito @itsak1to]

@Frandeeer the hard question for every agent node:
what decision does it own, what evidence must it return, and what condition prevents the workflow from continuing?
if those answers are vague, adding more agents only multiplies ambiguity.

[Akito @itsak1to]

LeBron James was 18 when the CEO of Reebok slid a $10 million check across the table and told him to take it. he handed it back.

one condition came with the money. don't talk to Nike. don't talk to Adidas. sign right now.

he had never seen that many zeros in his life. he asked for a minute, and they left him alone in the room with his mother.

"I still can't believe I left that $10 million."

Nike offered him $90 million. a decade later they signed him to a lifetime deal reportedly worth over $1 billion.

then he did it again. in 2008 a headphone startup asked him to promote their product. instead of taking a fee, he asked for a small piece of the company.

Apple bought Beats for $3 billion in 2014. LeBron's cut was $30 million - more than his entire NBA salary that year, and the largest equity payout any athlete had ever received.

in 2012 he put around $1 million into a pizza chain nobody had heard of, then turned down $15 million from McDonald's to focus on it. his Blaze stake is now worth $35-40 million.

he became the first active NBA player to reach a billion.

the check is the ceiling. the equity is the floor. every athlete gets offered a number, and that number is the most that deal will ever pay. ownership has no such limit.

the offer that feels impossible to refuse is usually the one designed to stop you from finding out what you're worth ↓

[Akito @itsak1to]

@slash1sol great breakdown, it kept me reading until the end

[Akito @itsak1to]

@starmexxx really interesting setup, local ai is becoming a serious alternative to cloud subscriptions

[Akito @itsak1to]

@caspr_exe сouldn't agree more

[Akito @itsak1to]

Apple CEO Steve Jobs once paid Microsoft CEO Bill Gates $31,000 for software. twenty years later he begged him for $150 million to keep Apple from dying.

in 1977 Microsoft was the contractor and Apple was the client. Gates wrote Applesoft BASIC for the Apple II, took the flat fee, and went home.

by August 1997 Apple was weeks from insolvency. Jobs had just come back as interim CEO. his first major move wasn't a product - it was a phone call to the one man everyone assumed wanted Apple dead.

Gates could have let it die. instead Microsoft put $150 million into Apple non-voting stock and settled the patent dispute between them.

when Jobs announced it at MacWorld, Gates appeared on a giant screen above the stage. the audience booed.

"we have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose."

then, on the cover of TIME: "Bill, thank you. The world's a better place."

Apple's stock jumped 33% that day. the company is now worth roughly $4 trillion.

Gates on the deal a decade later: "that's worked out very well."

but this isn't really a story about two rivals.

a competitor is not an enemy. Gates needed a healthy Apple to argue Microsoft wasn't a monopoly, and he needed Office to have a second platform. both sides won because both had something the other couldn't get anywhere else.

the hardest call is the one that costs you your ego. Jobs got booed by his own people for that deal. he made it anyway, because being right in public is worth less than being solvent.

$31,000 and $150 million were the same relationship twenty years apart. the only thing that changed was who needed whom.

the man Apple hired as a contractor ended up writing the check that saved it ↓

[Akito @itsak1to]

Palantir CEO Alex Karp never learned to drive because he was too poor. he now runs a $317 billion company that picks targets for the US military - and calls himself a socialist.

he doesn't hide from it. at a talk in 2024: "the death and pain that is brought to our enemies is mostly, not exclusively, brought by Palantir."

his doctoral thesis was about how people unconsciously transfer aggression through language. two decades later he'd built the system that turns data into targets for American and Israeli intelligence.

Silicon Valley wanted nothing to do with that work. Google employees revolted over a Pentagon contract and forced the company to drop it. Palantir took the contracts everyone else found distasteful - and lost money for 17 straight yearsdoing it.

then the position paid.

last quarter: revenue up 85% to $1.63 billion, the fastest in company history. GAAP operating income of $754 million at a 46% margin. Rule of 40 score of 145% - matched only by Nvidia, Micron and SK hynix.

$10,000 at the 2020 opening trade is worth about $132,000 today.

but this isn't really a story about a stock.

the most valuable position is the one that costs you socially. Palantir's moat wasn't code. it was seventeen years of being the company nobody in tech wanted to be seen with. that discomfort is what kept competitors out.

the crowded trade is always the popular one. every Valley engineer wanted to build consumer apps and sell ads - a market with a thousand competitors. defense had almost none, because the price of entry was reputation, not capital.

the Valley called him a hypocrite for two decades. the market paid him $317 billion for it ↓

[Akito @itsak1to]

Apple CEO Steve Jobs once paid Microsoft CEO Bill Gates $31,000 for software. twenty years later he begged him for $150 million to keep Apple from dying.

in 1977 Microsoft was the contractor and Apple was the client. Gates wrote Applesoft BASIC for the Apple II, took the flat fee, and went home.

by August 1997 Apple was weeks from insolvency. Jobs had just come back as interim CEO. his first major move wasn't a product - it was a phone call to the one man everyone assumed wanted Apple dead.

Gates could have let it die. instead Microsoft put $150 million into Apple non-voting stock and settled the patent dispute between them.

when Jobs announced it at MacWorld, Gates appeared on a giant screen above the stage. the audience booed.

"we have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose."

then, on the cover of TIME: "Bill, thank you. The world's a better place."

Apple's stock jumped 33% that day. the company is now worth roughly $4 trillion.

Gates on the deal a decade later: "that's worked out very well."

but this isn't really a story about two rivals.

a competitor is not an enemy. Gates needed a healthy Apple to argue Microsoft wasn't a monopoly, and he needed Office to have a second platform. both sides won because both had something the other couldn't get anywhere else.

the hardest call is the one that costs you your ego. Jobs got booed by his own people for that deal. he made it anyway, because being right in public is worth less than being solvent.

$31,000 and $150 million were the same relationship twenty years apart. the only thing that changed was who needed whom.

the man Apple hired as a contractor ended up writing the check that saved it ↓

[Akito @itsak1to]

@caspr_exe whether you agree with Elon or not, it really makes you think

[Akito @itsak1to]

@starmexxx i'd say its his own definition, his views dont fit neatly into the traditional meaning of socialism

[Akito @itsak1to]

Palantir CEO Alex Karp never learned to drive because he was too poor. he now runs a $317 billion company that picks targets for the US military - and calls himself a socialist.

he doesn't hide from it. at a talk in 2024: "the death and pain that is brought to our enemies is mostly, not exclusively, brought by Palantir."

his doctoral thesis was about how people unconsciously transfer aggression through language. two decades later he'd built the system that turns data into targets for American and Israeli intelligence.

Silicon Valley wanted nothing to do with that work. Google employees revolted over a Pentagon contract and forced the company to drop it. Palantir took the contracts everyone else found distasteful - and lost money for 17 straight yearsdoing it.

then the position paid.

last quarter: revenue up 85% to $1.63 billion, the fastest in company history. GAAP operating income of $754 million at a 46% margin. Rule of 40 score of 145% - matched only by Nvidia, Micron and SK hynix.

$10,000 at the 2020 opening trade is worth about $132,000 today.

but this isn't really a story about a stock.

the most valuable position is the one that costs you socially. Palantir's moat wasn't code. it was seventeen years of being the company nobody in tech wanted to be seen with. that discomfort is what kept competitors out.

the crowded trade is always the popular one. every Valley engineer wanted to build consumer apps and sell ads - a market with a thousand competitors. defense had almost none, because the price of entry was reputation, not capital.

the Valley called him a hypocrite for two decades. the market paid him $317 billion for it ↓

[Akito @itsak1to]

Stanley Druckenmiller ran his fund for 30 years and never had a single losing year. $10,000 given to him in 1981 would have become $26 million.

most people have never heard his name.

he was the one who actually found the trade that broke the Bank of England - not Soros. he spotted that Britain couldn't defend the pound, built the short, and brought it to Soros expecting approval.

Soros asked why he was betting so small.

they levered it to $10 billion. on September 16, 1992, the pound collapsed and the fund made over $1 billion in a single day.

then in 2000 he broke his own rule. after avoiding the tech bubble for years, he watched everyone around him get rich and finally cracked. he bought tech near the exact peak, out of pure FOMO.

"I bought $6 billion worth of tech stocks, and in six weeks I had lost $3 billion."

the market didn't beat him. he beat himself - the one time he abandoned the discipline that made him untouchable.

but this isn't really a story about Druckenmiller.

it's about two rules that made him untouchable - and one that undid him.

one: don't diversify when you're right. "put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket very carefully." conviction is only worth something if you size for it.

two: size to the opportunity, not to your comfort. small when the odds are ordinary, enormous when they're lopsided, nothing in between.

three, the one he broke: never trade someone else's position. he didn't buy tech because he believed it - he bought it because everyone around him was getting rich. that's not a thesis. that's envy with a ticker symbol.

the edge was never prediction. it was discipline - and knowing when your own emotions are making the trade for you ↓

[Akito @itsak1to]

@starmexxx kaito is clearly thinking ahead

[Akito @itsak1to]

Palantir CEO Alex Karp never learned to drive because he was too poor. he now runs a $317 billion company that picks targets for the US military - and calls himself a socialist.

he doesn't hide from it. at a talk in 2024: "the death and pain that is brought to our enemies is mostly, not exclusively, brought by Palantir."

his doctoral thesis was about how people unconsciously transfer aggression through language. two decades later he'd built the system that turns data into targets for American and Israeli intelligence.

Silicon Valley wanted nothing to do with that work. Google employees revolted over a Pentagon contract and forced the company to drop it. Palantir took the contracts everyone else found distasteful - and lost money for 17 straight yearsdoing it.

then the position paid.

last quarter: revenue up 85% to $1.63 billion, the fastest in company history. GAAP operating income of $754 million at a 46% margin. Rule of 40 score of 145% - matched only by Nvidia, Micron and SK hynix.

$10,000 at the 2020 opening trade is worth about $132,000 today.

but this isn't really a story about a stock.

the most valuable position is the one that costs you socially. Palantir's moat wasn't code. it was seventeen years of being the company nobody in tech wanted to be seen with. that discomfort is what kept competitors out.

the crowded trade is always the popular one. every Valley engineer wanted to build consumer apps and sell ads - a market with a thousand competitors. defense had almost none, because the price of entry was reputation, not capital.

the Valley called him a hypocrite for two decades. the market paid him $317 billion for it ↓

[Akito @itsak1to]

@ScottyBeamIO having your own ai running 24/7 sounds a lot more appealing than another subscription)

[Akito @itsak1to]

@monokern i agree, sometimes the biggest opportunities are the ones everyone avoids

[Akito @itsak1to]

@caspr_exe wild that the two richest tech guys can't even agree if it's zero jobs or no big deal. so we're all just guessing here

[Akito @itsak1to]

@shevaxgod a really strong point, its not knowledge that matters most, it's taking responsibility for the decision

[Akito @itsak1to]

@kv1nsiii its fascinating how quickly aiis transforming even the music industry