... it's not that hard to figure out who the corrupt fucks are in my community.

Mike Hackett is a convicted cocaine trafficker and major marijuana kingpin in Monterey County.

Monterey County supervisors claimed no felons would be working in "legal" #cannabis.

In 1937, a trucker got frustrated waiting for his cargo to be unloaded. He later sold his company for $1.1 billion.

Here’s the story of how Malcom McLean made a billion dollars and which startup could be following in his footsteps. (Inspired by our episode with @laurabehrenswu)

In the early 1950s, the shipping industry was a dying business.

New York’s docks were handling half as much domestic cargo in the early 1950s as they had been in the depressed 1930s.

In thirty years, no one had invested significant money in coastal shipping.

Why?

As McLean found out, loading ships was difficult and slow.

A truck or train would deliver items to the port. Each item was unloaded separately, recorded, and carried to storage.

When a ship was ready, each item was taken from storage, counted again, and hauled on-board.

The cost of this labor was significant. As one expert at the time explained:

“A four-thousand-mile voyage for a shipment might consume 50 percent of its costs in covering just the two ten-mile movements through two ports.”

Yet, despite the industry’s issues, it felt little pressure to change.

Foreigners were barred from operating domestically. Cartels ran international routes. And gov. subsidies eased the pain of labor costs.

Reshaping the industry needed an outsider.

Enter Malcolm McLean.

On December 25 Mr Pool retweeted August 16 message about the Phoenix and that the worst was still on the horizon to come. 1/*

Maybe now we can assume that November 3 message meant "FUD" nor "FUN". Putting the word in capital letters seems to indicate the aspect the word fud has in our space, FUD. 2/*

Brad started it on December 22 (1/3 posts (Don't say? Sure) = 13 = Plan B). 3/*

And immediately the SEC followed dropping the bomb (1.3 billions (Don't say? Sure) = 13 = Plan B). 4/*

FUD materializes, Bitstamp is one of the first that haltes XRP trading and so on. 5/*

List of companies with more than 50% Market Share:

1) Maruti Suzuki (passenger cars)
2) APL Apollo (structural & pre galvanized tubes)
3) CDSL (investors accounts)
4) Interglobe Aviation (air traffic passengers)
5) GMM Pfaudler (glass lined equipment)

6) Asian Paints (decorative paints)
7) Colgate (oral care)
8) Symphony (coolers)
9) PGHH (female care & vaporub)
10) La Opala Rg (opalware)
11) HLE Glasscoat (filtration & drying equipment)
12) Delta Corp (online poker games)
13) Bajaj Auto (3W segment)
14) Vinati Organics (IBB)

15) OCCL (insoluble sulphur)
16) LMW (textile machinery)
17) Bajaj Consumer (almond hair oil)
18) Indiamart Intermesh (online B2B Classified space)
19) Vst Tillers (power tillers)
20) Sanghvi Movers (overall domestic crane hiring market)
21) Emami (antiseptic & male grooming)

List of companies with more than 60% Market Share:

1) Concor (domestic container cargo transport)
2) Exide (lead batteries)
3) Naukri (Indian job market space)
4) Praj (ethanol plant installing)
5) ACE (mobile & tower cranes)
6) Pidilite (adhesives)
7) Jamna Auto (leaf spring)

8) CAMS (RTA within mutual fund industry)
9) Time Technoplast (polymer based industrial packaging)

1) Core attributes of a promising founder worth following:
- Progress/trajectory over time
- How well they lead a team &
- Make the vision happen
- Most impressed when someone is way ahead of where you thought they would be when you check up/see them a few months later.

2) Indie Makers have such a benefit of being small, fast, nimble workers in comparison to big companies.

We can easily pivot and vastly change a project of ours. We can change as we learn more about our users.

Big companies can take months/years for even the smallest of pivots.

3) Before you find a product market you can pivot your project as many times as necessary until you find something that works.

Then you only have one thing to do: scale, scale, scale.

4) Be obsessed with the little details.
- listen to every single person who uses your product
- reply to every single person who emails you about your product
- ask them what they like and do not like
- iterate your product, make changes, pivot if necessary

5) Paul Graham's (@paulg) name came up with a feeling of great admiration! Naturally! It was Paul who said:

In the early stages of a company just;
- write code
- talk/sell to customers to stress test your idea

Nothing else.

Met a Brazilian-American Lyft driver from San Diego who passionately attacked the racism of Republicans, then switched to passionately defending Bolsonaro.

If I were Thomas Friedman, I could tell you what this means.

Met a Haitian-American in a restaurant who said he'd always vote for Democrats because of the immigration issue, but that he has conservative beliefs too. "I don't want to pay for someone's abortion!", he declared.

Met a Latino Lyft driver from San Jose who said that while he was liberal, California was getting too liberal for him and he was considering moving to San Antonio.

Again, not being Tom Friedman, I am unable to offer any commentary on the political and policy implications of these conversations.

I guess my only thought is that political opinions are pretty complex and multidimensional, out there in the real world.

(end)