25iq
Tren Griffin writes lists of lessons drawn from investors and founders such as Munger, Naval Ravikant and Paul Graham.
What HN says
Commenters praise Griffin's posts as great, and link them for venture capital, mental models, business analysis and examples of premature scaling.
Stats for nerds
80HN people shared it
89linked in comments
384story points
Jan 2025last shared
Top posts on HN
- 1Things I’ve Learned From Marc Andreessen1 person · 104 points · first shared 2014 · 42 comments on HN
- 2What might the Amazon, Berkshire and JPM health care joint venture actually do?3 people · 69 points · first shared 2018 · 21 comments on HN
- 3Why Investing in Airlines Belongs in the Too Hard Pile1 person · 30 points · first shared 2016 · 10 comments on HN
- 412 Things I’ve Learned from Naval Ravikant about Investing and Startups7 people · 22 points · first shared 2016 · Discussion on HN
- 5A Dozen Things I’ve Learned from Paul Graham3 people · 17 points · first shared 2014 · Discussion on HN
- 6Sand Hill Road (Venture Capital and How to Get It)1 person · 8 points · first shared 2019 · Discussion on HN
- 7A Dozen Things I’ve Learned from Peter Thiel1 person · 7 points · first shared 2014 · Discussion on HN
- 8A Dozen Things I’ve Learned from Chamath Palihapitiya About Investing and Business3 people · 6 points · first shared 2016 · Discussion on HN
- 9A dozen lessons about product/market fit3 people · 5 points · first shared 2017 · Discussion on HN
- 10MoviePass. Premature Scaling?2 people · 5 points · first shared 2018 · Discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
- toomuchtodoJan 2025
Related:
Mike Maples Sr., 1942-2025: Microsoft’s ‘adult in the room’ had a deep impact on the company - https://www.geekwire.com/2025/mike-maples-sr-1942-2025-microsofts-adult-in-the-room-had-a-deep-impact-on-the-company/
A Dozen Things I’ve Learned From Mike Maples Sr. About Business and Investing - https://25iq.com/2016/07/01/a-dozen-things-ive-learned-from-mike-maples-sr-about-business-and-investing/
Mr. Michael J. Maples, Sr. - IT History Society - https://www.ithistory.org/honor-roll/mr-michael-j-maples-sr
140: Mike Maples, Sr. - Microsoft Legend | Legends & Losers Podcast [video] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHjDxy1Czys
Mike Maples Interview - 7 May 2004 - https://www.robertgaskins.com/powerpoint-history/documents/ensmenger-cbi-interview-mike-maples-oh387mm-2004-may-07.pdf
- mbestoNov 2021
> Seems like market valuations aren't that closely tied to profitability at the moment...
This trope needs to die. Not all "profitability" is the same.
A few things to note:
- "You will see many people talk about Amazon’s focus on “growth” vs. margins, but the right focus is instead absolute dollar fee cash flow."[0]
- SaaS revenue is different.[1]
- NetSuite's most profitable year was in 2009 (yes that 2009 when the great recession happened) because they simply turned off the S&M engine. [2]
[0] - https://25iq.com/2014/04/26/a-dozen-things-i-have-learned-from-jeff-bezos/
[1] - https://a16z.com/2014/05/13/understanding-saas-valuation-primer/
[2] - https://soundcloud.com/a16z/a16z-podcast-why-saas-revenue-is-worth-more-than-traditional-software-sales - pelotonJan 2015
From the LP pov, it boils down to capital concentration. Most LPs I've spoken with are not that different from Michael Kim (LP from the article) in that they are for capital concentration. It is the most controversial part of the offering.
Reference:
http://25iq.com/2013/01/16/charlie-munger-on-investment-concentration-versus-diversification/http://robgo.org/2013/10/21/decision-making-speed-of-big-funds-vs-seed-funds/
https://twitter.com/trengriffin/status/264789822982471680
https://twitter.com/sama/status/458094667972624384
That said, in the end, real performance trumps everything.
- awadJan 2018
In a way, these dynamics remind me of the movie theater business. Here's a good read:
https://25iq.com/2017/12/30/moviepass-premature-scaling/
Given that music is generally not a substitutable good, margins can only be so strong on the core streaming product to your very point. I'm not really aware of any other revenue stream they may have (do they do ads?) and am curious what they might propose. Presumably they do have enough scale to be possible successful with something tied to monetizing their user data whether through ads or some other value-added service?
- AJ007Aug 2016
Really Batista is like an anti-Musk. I'm not sure I could find two billionaires(ex-billionaire) who were further apart.
Charlie Munger's quote I read in Poor Charlie's Almanack a really long time ago resonated with me pretty well when I saw Batista being interviewed on Charlie Rose years back. “Bernie Ebbers and Ken Lay were caricatures – they were easy to spot. They were almost psychopaths." * Since no copy of the book online, https://25iq.com/charlie-munger-book-to-date-chapters-1-5/
- jboy55Oct 2022
Looking at the dot-com era, it probably would be more likely to compare crypto to the sudden rise and collapse of the 'dark fiber' companies.
https://25iq.com/2017/11/11/the-1990s-telecom-bubble-what-can-we-learn/
"Om Malik wrote a book on this period in which he estimated that $750 billion vanished when the telecom bubble burst. That’s a reasonable estimate in my view. The most interesting questions about a phenomenon like this are always: Why did it happen? What can we learn?"