Mavix

The stories behind money, markets and the people moving them

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@softarox Johny Depp exposed the lie

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@Svityuk1 My brain is financial enemy

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@0xBenjamine Gamma squeeze forced massive buying

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@darkcrypto_off From huge hit to jail

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@0xzivo Humans lost to prediction bots

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@focuzzz_01 brilliant marketing around the money

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Grant LaFontaine says Whatnot’s early buyers sometimes found pricing errors. His example of the problem: a $500 Funko Pop selling for $150.

The first orders were not all evidence that the marketplace was working.

In December 2019, he recalls, the first week produced one sale. The second week produced one sale too.

Working with a Funko Pop influencer finally brought activity: roughly 30 sales around the third week.

But some buyers were finding mistakes in the pricing algorithm and taking advantage of them. LaFontaine describes the liquidity side of the calculation as a weakness.

The $500-versus-$150 comparison illustrates that problem. He does not identify a particular transaction or show a receipt for it.

For a young marketplace, those early sales could reveal two different things at once: people were willing to buy, and the pricing still needed work.

LaFontaine dates the first version of Whatnot’s live-selling product to July 2020. That is the point he identifies in this clip as the real start of the business.

Y Combinator’s company directory lists Whatnot in its Winter 2020 batch. The early sales counts and pricing story are LaFontaine’s recollection on My First Million.

What would you check before treating your first burst of orders as proof that the business works?

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@sterlingmkts Pure survivor bias

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@vektorrtrades A $500 billion mistake

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@0xTensorr Rich people hobbies are wild

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@Samsonrlj he really worked his way out of jail

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@millo_onchain absolute facts from Cuban

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@BRitanySHY the contrast between her public image and her legal bills is insane

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Nick Kokonas says he once wrote a multimillion-dollar check to the IRS. His father’s first question was whether the money had been earned legally.

Kokonas was trading at the time. To pay the bill, he needed to take money out of the firm.

Until then, he recalls, the biggest check he had ever written was roughly $3,000 for a car down payment. Now he was signing away millions and showing his dad the number.

His father did not see a tax bill as a reason to feel sorry for him.

In Kokonas’s telling, his dad had grown up during the Depression. The response was a warning that the good times might not last: save the money, avoid expensive distractions and pay what you owe.

Then came the family history. His father reminded him that earlier generations had made sacrifices to give him the opportunity to earn that money in the first place.

Kokonas admits he had been hoping for a little sympathy over the size of the check. Instead, he got a conversation about responsibility.

The amounts and the exchange are his recollection on My First Million.

What would your parents ask if you showed them the biggest tax bill of your life?

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@kryneeex the classic textbook example of bad spending

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@BRitanySHY he cared about nothing but his own ego

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@milezxbt a brutal case that finally came to a definitive end

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@MarkTaylormmh the absolute definition of political delusion

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@focuzzz_01 one trade two completely different realities

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Mark Cuban says the Mavericks were paying players over $1 million while spending more on computer training and support than on player development.

He thought the allocation made no sense.

When he took over, he recalls, one head coach and roughly three assistants were responsible for training and developing the team.

His response was to find former Mavericks and pair each with a current player who had a similar skill set.

The job was specific: work with that player. Give someone whose performance mattered to the business sustained individual attention.

Cuban says the former players were eager to return to the game, which made the extra coaching relatively inexpensive. He gives no salaries or total budget in this interview.

There is an older record of the decision, too.

In his own blog in 2006, Cuban described creating player-development coaching positions for former Mavericks. He named returning players including Popeye Jones and Mark Bryant, and wrote that the arrangement had drawn criticism.

That is the financial logic underneath the basketball story: a large investment in a player created a reason to spend more on helping that player perform.

Cuban says the extra attention improved skills and showed the roster that management would support its expectations.

How much of a talent budget should go toward developing the people you have already paid to hire?