DEATH BY GREED

How patriotic am I? In my perfect world Steve Jobs would have died in prison and every politician, CEO & board member who helped offshore American jobs to enrich themselves would be put on trial for treason. Hear me. Capitalism is the greatest enemy of patriotism.

MY RACIST

If U remember from an earlier post I brought up Sen Elizabeth Warrens remark that "Obama did more for Wall Street than Main Street." I concur. U can ignore poor black people all day, but under no circumstance can U ever ignore poor white

Now Biden must be careful not to repeat the same mistakes of Obama. Biden most go big & go big fast. Fuck inflation. Order the treasury to start printing money. You will not beat Trump by impeaching or prosecuting him. You must beat him on the battlefield of ideas & you do so by-

helping the people he ignored. People with good jobs, food on the table & a roof over their head dont have time to do insurrections. If U help these people, you will choke off the fuel to Trumpism. Some black people will criticize me for taking this approach. My simple retort is-

you can't out-violence white people. We don't make guns. We don't make bombs. We don't make shit. You have to make it such that everyone eats. Otherwise you have to deal with the warning Heather McGhee lays out in her new book: white

Obama did not get this. He made it such that only rich white oligarchs got to feast. Everyone else got crumbs. I need you to get precisely what peace requires. There are a good number of white people in this country which would rather burn this country down than to allow any-

MORNING BANTER

Most people could not handle being around me & my wife due to our ruthless banter. In my wife, I found my match. At 1st glance, my wife seems like a sweet choir girl who reads the bible all day, but she can play the dozens w/the best of them & takes no prisoners.

Ive said many times b4, like comedian Flip Wilson said, "When I met my wife she had a Sunday School face & I had Saturday Night thoughts." I was a frat boy running around campus half naked & she was an honor roll student athlete seduced by a bad boy who partied more than studied.

Many mouths drop at the shit I say in stand up, in speeches, articles & on social media, but if y'all could hear da shit my wife says to me, U would be on the floor howling. Supersensitive mafuckas cant crack our door seal. My wife don't give a fuck about my feelings & I LOVE IT.

So here's an excerpt from our recent morning banter. Now to set the stage, I need to give you a picture of my morning routine. I love nature, so in the morning before I have my 1st cup of coffee, I get up & refill all the bird feeders around our property & water the plants.

Oh & by the way yall dont wanna see me in that garden I'm a beast. Ive been trying 2 do a little winter greenhouse activity 2 see if I can grow certain flowers in the winter & I also have a couple of orchids that belonged 2 my cousin that were dying & I'm trying 2 nurse them back

POLITICS AS CELEBRITY

I knew this crap was coming sooner or later. People are suffering & these mafuckas out here doing sorority photo shoots. Miss me w/ this bullshit. More of the same. Stop treating politics like its a damn elite club & path 2

Stop playing games w/people's lives & maybe then you wouldn't have so many people suffering. I'm going to file this bullshit next to Michelle Obama's $8,000 Versace dress & $4,000 Balenciaga boots. This shit is

Remember when Barack Obama 1st ran for president & Mrs. Obama was heralded as "The J. Crew" 1st Lady who shopped at Target was just like every other American? That bullshit was a lie. Balenciaga & Versace Michelle is who she always was, but she masked it 2 aid her husband's rise.

Now Kamala Harris, like Michelle Obama, out here w/a Marie Antoinette "let them eat cake" tone deafness while Americans are suffering, the Capitol is burning , a pandemic is raging, people are dying & a civil war is brewing, but Kamala skee-weeing on Vogue covers in pink & green-

like she back on the yard at Howard about to do her probate show. Meanwhile, the Obamas globetrotting w/billionaires, gotta half Bil Netflix deal & hv mansions in Chicago, DC & Marthas Vineyard. Nevermind how they got this entire life of wealth & celebrity was through politics &

A NIGGA CHRISTMAS

Twas the night before Christmas, when all thru the plantation,
not a nigga was voting, not even for reparations,
Strange fruit was hung on the oak trees with care,
In hopes that Catcha Freeman would soon be there,

Little Sally was nestled all snug in her bed,
While Thomas the pedophile got in his head,
I'm president, I'm white, I can have what I want,
I'll take it, she'll give it, my privilege, I'll flaunt,

While Massa was taking it, I went back to sleep,
And prayed to White Jesus my nigga soul to keep,
When out in the fields arose such an Uncle Ruckus,
I sprang from my haystack to see what the fuckus,

Away to the outhouse, I ran like Nat Turner,
I tore open the shutters and let out a murmur,
when, what to my wondering eyes would appear?,
was Steve Harvey telling slaves "we black out here,"

I looked up in sky, was it a bird or a plane?,
No, It was Oprah in a sled filled with her favorite thangs,
Dropping gifts 2 good white folks who gave her good luck
tossing bootstraps to niggas so we could pull our ass up,

SPOILS OF WAR

#2allthosewhothoughtIwascrazy:

"When I see Harris & her husband, I see us. Will more BW begin to see the same potential 4 romantic love w/white men? Harris' next 4 yrs in the WH could help provide an answer. The power of Harris'

Black men, you are officially expendable, at least have the media tell you. And black women, to hell w/black men. White people will reward you handsomely following Harris' lead. Never forget this country was founded on breaking up black families. I predicted this would happen.

Make Michelle Obama white & Barack Obama's campaign doesn't sniff an ounce of support from black women. The reason being was that the picture of an intact black family in power was a beautiful sight for black women & fulfilled their greatest dreams. There is nothing wrong w/this.

There is nothing wrong w/wanting to see black people in love together in power. It's a beautiful sight, but what of Harris? If the Obama's marriage communicated to black people the power of black love in power, what does Kamala Harris' marriage to a white man communicate?

That black men are expendable & that 2 rise in a white world, black men are baggage that U need 2 discard. Think I'm off kilter w/this? Consider the fact that many black women in powerful positions either say little of or attribute little of their success 2 their black fathers.

1/x The window we have been targeting for 2 months has officially opened... i Can not imagine a more textbook display of the power of Vanna at expiration as we saw on Friday. The capital building was overrun by an insurrection, but all that that meant was a bigger late day rally.

2/x that ended at ATH on the close. Between Gary the 🦍 & his RVol suppression & his hand off to late day Ivol compression & the Vanna index bid, the 🐻’s never had a chance... but Gary’s getting tired after 2 months battling complacency & Vanna’s 2 week vacation, 1 of her only

3/x 2 week departures of the year (a 5 week OpEx) is quickly approaching on 1/15 morning. That means she’ll be increasingly absent as she prepares for her trip. W/ a $59 1 week straddle & $50 1 day range on Friday, & another $30 overnight drop, it’s hard to see why you wouldn’t

4/x want to take a chance on a little long gamma at this juncture. Especially given the obvious warning signs coming from the steepening of the yield curve, underperformance of the Growth complex, complacency in sentiment & positioning, anecdotal signs of bubbles in BTC & TSLA,

5/x NTM the growing exuberance surrounding a fiscal stimulus deal near $2 Trillion. The wall of worry of 3 months ago is gone. The vaccine is being deployed, the election is resolved, fiscal stimulus was passed & w/2 Georgia 🍑 🍑, ever moar 🚁💰is on the way. But what happened

Below are some of the most interesting business stories I came across in 2020.

P. S The list is not exhaustive.

1) PSG unbundled it's 28.1% ownership of Capitec.

2) MTN sold a minority stake in Jumia Technologies for R2.3-billion.

3) Dischem has completed the acquisition of Medicare Health for R282million

4) TFG bought 381 Jet stores from Edcon for R480m.

5) Capitec entered into a partnership with SA Home Loans to offer home loans.

6) Food Lover’s Market has started closing outlets in Zambia.

7) Sasol sold 50% of the "base chemicals division" at Lake Charles which equates to ~25% of total Lake Charles project. Sasol will still retain around ~75% of the total Lake Charles Chemical Project.

8) Sasol agreed to sell its 50% stake in Gemini for R6.2bn.

9) Tongaat Hulett sold its starch and glucose business to Barloworld for R5.26bn. The group has used R4.64bn of this to pay down debt.

10) The Competition Commission approved Nimble Fund 1’s intention to acquire Edcon Book Debts.

11) Greg Maloka has decided to resign from Kaya.

12) Ethos Private Equity has won a contract with Ninety One to take on an advisory contract for Ninety One's Africa Private Equity funds.

Ninety One will maintain control and oversight of the portfolio, while Ethos will manage the assets

13) Bidvest Wits sold to TTM

It's endlessly fascinating how economic datapoints get interpreted.

When I was in charge of a P&L, the guy who ran Finance for us and I had what we called the 'shelf plan.'

There were maybe 3-4 of us who knew it existed.

What's a shelf plan?
1/

Well it's a plan you keep on the shelf (full FP&A model), that you hope you never have to use.

It reduces forward hires, cuts back various line items (typically ad spend, travel, that sort of thing).

Oh, it also has a big fat RIF in there.

That's why we don't talk about it.
2/

Why have a plan instead of winging it?

Because this is where companies (particularly young companies) sometimes err. They do little cuts - 2-3% here and there, preserving as much headcount as they can, that sort of thing.

This is incorrect.
3/

If you're at the point where you need to make material changes to your forward P&L, at 2-3% RIF will be followed by another.

And another.

And this series of progressive cuts will cripple morale, incrementally reducing the productivity of the staff you retain to survive.
4/

And so the shelf plan cuts deep.

Your goal is to go from being a peacetime machine to a wartime machine, so you gotta lean out quick. Can't do that without a plan, hence the need to have one.

~30% cut is what you need.

And then you need to tell everyone left they're safe.
5/

@jspujji @RomeenSheth @ampush @GatewayX Down!

If you’re a Startup trying to compete with a Megacorp—the 800-pound Gorilla in the space—you need to understand the tax inherent to being a Gorilla

And then you need to make that tax work against the Gorilla—with your product's positioning & features

A thread on Gorilla taxes👇🏾

1/
Collaboration Tax

Getting two or more product groups at a megacorp to collaborate on creating a seamless end user experience is the hardest problem in computer science.

(I am not joking)

Examples of Collaboration Tax:

Calendly exists because the Gmail team & Calendar team haven’t worked together on creating a more seamless experience for that use case.

Loom might succeed because the Gmail, Video, Meet teams at Google are probably too busy with their own goals.

The takeaway for startups:

If you can create meaningful value by seamlessly integrating features of two or more distinct Gorilla products, you will typically have a lot of runway before the Gorilla can get its act together and eliminate its Collaboration Tax.

2/
Denominator Tax

Once a Gorilla’s product reaches massive scale (i.e. the denominator for its metrics gets very large), the pressure of OKRs & incentives will often force the Gorilla’s product teams to prioritize breadth of usage more than depth of usage.