Trevor McKendrick - Startups are an act of desperation

Good morning friends,

Here’s to a year of doing things that make you feel alive.

PS - my company is hiring a Head of Banking Operations - send your friends!

Trevor

The Ignorance of Mocking Mormonism (article)

The classic conundrum: how do you get the benefits of religion without the belief system?

This will be a question we’re dealing with for, at least, the next 100 years.

Startups are an act of desperation (article)

If you’re not desperate to do something great, accelerate your career, or otherwise standout, startups probably aren’t for you.

But man - if you want to live an interesting life, meet & work with great people, and generally feel like your work actually does something: there’s no better place to look than startups.

Peter Singer & Tyler Cowen interview (transcript)

From 2009. Peter’s a big Effective Altruism guy.

I couldn’t even get more than a few scrolls down, this was too painful to read. Tyler’s not even trying and he comes up with ideas that Peter hasn’t even considered.

Tyler Cowen on the Jolly Swagman podcast

Fast, easy, fun. Covers how to identify talent.

Projects & companies built by small teams (article)

Some examples:

“Mojang (the company behind Minecraft) had 37 employees when they were acquired by Microsoft for $2.5 billion. At that time, Mojang had revenue of about $290 million annually with profits of over $100 million.”

“The Gartman Letter had a single employee and was rumored to be doing $25M/year”

“Plenty of Fish sold for $575 million with 75 employees.”

WhatsApp had 55 employees when they were acquired by Facebook for $19 billion.

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