Social Leverage Letter | Issue #26

John D. Rockefeller was the most successful businessman of all time. He was also a recluse, spending most of his time by himself. He rarely spoke, deliberately making himself inaccessible and staying quiet when you caught his attention. A refinery worker who occasionally had Rockefeller’s ear once remarked: “He lets everybody else talk, while he sits back and says nothing. But he seems to remember everything, and when he does begin he puts everything in its proper place.” When asked about his silence during meetings, Rockefeller often recited a poem: A wise old owl lived in an oak, The more he saw the less he spoke, The less he spoke, the more he heard, Why aren’t we all like that old bird? Rockefeller was a strange guy. But the more I read about him the more I realize he figured out something that now applies to tens of millions of workers. Rockefeller’s job wasn’t to drill wells, load trains, or move barrels. It was to make good decisions. And making decisions requires, more than anything, quiet time alone in your own head to think a problem through. Rockefeller’s product – his deliverable – wasn’t what he did with this hands, or even his words. It was what he figured out inside his head. So that’s where he spent most of his time and energy. This was unique in his day. Almost all jobs during Rockefeller’s time required doing things with your hands. In 1870, 46% of jobs were in agriculture, and 35% were in crafts or manufacturing, according to economist Robert Gordon. Few professions relied on a worker’s brain. You didn’t think; you labored, without interruption, and your work was visible and tangible. Today, that’s flipped. Thirty-eight percent of jobs are now designated as “managers, officials, and professionals.” These are decision-making jobs. Another 41% are service jobs that often rely on your thoughts as much as your actions. Here’s a problem we don’t think about enough: Even as more professions look like Rockefeller’s – thought jobs that require quiet time to think a problem through – we’re stuck in the old world where a good employee is expected to labor, visibly and without interruption. The point is that productive work today does not look like productive work did for most of history. If your job was to pull a lever, you were only productive if you were pulling the lever. But if your job is to create a marketing campaign, you might be productive sitting quietly with your eyes closed, thinking about design. The problem is that too many workplaces expect their knowledge workers to pull the proverbial lever – today in Microsoft Office form – 40+ hours a week when they’d be better off doing things that look lazy but are actually productive. The result is that most people have thought jobs without being given much time to think, which is the equivalent of making a ditch-digger work without a shovel. Maybe this is why productivity growth is half of what it used to be. If you anchor to the old world where good work meant physical action, it’s hard to wrap your head around the idea that the most productive use of a knowledge-worker’s time could be sitting on a couch thinking. But it’s so clear that it is. Good ideas rarely come in meetings, or even at your desk. They come to you in the shower. On a walk. On your commute, or hanging out on the weekend. I’m always amazed at the number of famous ideas that came to people in the bathtub. But tell your boss you require a mid-day soak, and the response is entirely predictable. Look at famous thinkers who didn’t have to impress anyone by looking busy, and you see a theme: They spent a lot of time doing stuff that didn’t look like work, but in fact was stupendously productive. Albert Einstein put it this way: I take time to go for long walks on the beach so that I can listen to what is going on inside my head. If my work isn’t going well, I lie down in the middle of a workday and gaze at the ceiling while I listen and visualize what goes on in my imagination. Mozart felt the same way: When I am traveling in a carriage or walking after a good meal or during the night when I cannot sleep–it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Bill Gates got his best work done on what looked like vacation: “Hi, thanks for coming,” said Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, appearing eager for company after four days alone at the waterfront cottage. He was there for his “Think Week,” a seven-day stretch of seclusion he uses to ponder the future of technology and then propagate those thoughts across the Microsoft empire. This meshes with a Stanford study that showed walking increases creativity by 60%. Everyone eventually has to sit down and produce their work, and are held to goals and quotas. But as the economy shifts to knowledge work, we should respect that what actually produces good work can at first look lazy, and (even more so) vice versa. In investing, where there’s the potential to win by pure luck, it’s wise to judge someone by their process, rather than their outcome. Work may be the opposite. Judge people by their outcomes, not by the visibility of their process, which is often hidden inside their head.

Sometimes life can be a bit frantic as a founder. The long hours, hard work, and tenacity required to see it through can often wreak havoc on your sleep. But when it comes to getting better sleep Diane Macedo, author of The Sleep Fix , says there are two things you can start doing immediately to im

Listen to this episode from Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy on Spotify. My guest today is Frank Slootman, Chairman and CEO of cloud platform Snowflake. Frank has become one of the most revered CEOs in business. Over the past twenty years, he has three times taken over emerging enterprise software businesses – first Data Domain, then ServiceNow, and most recently Snowflake - and led them across the chasm into large, billion-dollar businesses. Please enjoy this great discussion with Frank Slootman.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.   -----   This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus is the new digital hub for market intelligence. The Tegus platform empowers Investors and Corporate Development teams to invest smarter by pairing best in class technology with the highest quality user-generated content and data. Find out why a majority of the top firms are using Tegus on a daily basis. Head to tegus.co/patrick for your free trial.   -----   This episode is brought to you by Lemon.io. The team at Lemon.io has built a network of Eastern European developers ready to pair with fast-growing startups. We have faced challenges hiring engineering talent for various projects - and Lemon.io offered developers for one-off projects, developers for full start to finish product development, or developers that could be add-ons to the existing team. Check out lemon.io/patrick to learn more. -----   Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.    Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus   Show Notes [00:02:33] - [First question] - How he evaluates the team of a company he’s working with [00:04:48] - The pace of decisions made around changing team members  [00:06:10] - Understanding the potential quality of outside leaders being brought into the company [00:08:13] - How he characterizes great and constructive confrontation [00:09:53] - What he’s found to be most effective in convincing senior talent to join a team [00:11:36] - Ways he personally generates energy to sustain himself in this pace of business [00:14:17] - How he fosters and nurtures healthy communication pathways [00:15:36] - Narrowing the focus when evaluating a new product [00:17:58] - Is it possible for a focus to be too narrow? [00:19:31] - An example of a dazzling customer that he’s worked with  [00:21:04] - Working backwards from a problem and building something that solves it [00:23:03] - Building trust between a company and its customers over time [00:25:37] - Overview of the base layer ingredients of trust [00:28:12] - Sequential versus parallel processing and how they affect building trust [00:30:22] - Lessons in successfully translating between engineers and business people [00:32:58] - Crossing the chasm and effective sales organizations [00:35:17] - Working compensation into getting more out of an organization [00:38:45] - How much a sales organization needs to work backwards to serve their product [00:41:40] - Great questions for board members to ask their executive team [00:46:07] - Where the analogy of ‘business as war’ falls down and defining the highlander concept  [00:48:01] - What he feels he could still hone in his skillset  [00:49:16] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him 

Listen to this episode from Panic with Friends - Howard Lindzon on Spotify. The markets are in turmoil, and while this is an evergreen podcast, I thought it was important to put this episode out now and address what’s currently going on in the markets because we’re having our first real Panic since March of 2020. We kept our cool back then, but this panic we’re in now is very focused on a specific group of companies. It’s mainly focused on technology companies that are doing well, but are just overvalued. Host - Howard Lindzon, Managing Partner at Social Leverage, and Host of Panic With Friends Podcast  Co-Host - Knut Jensen, Sidekick and Producer of Panic With Friends Podcast  howardlindzon.com, socialleverage.com  Twitter: @howardlindzon, @socialLeverage, @knutjensen  linkedin.com/in/howardlindzon  linkedin.com/in/knutejensen  linkedin.com/company/socialleverage  Odd Lots podcast with Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway  #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance  Show Notes: (00:42) - Intro (03:27) - Listener questions (04:13) - For any Whoop employees listening (04:28) - What is the Great Roundtrip and what can we learn from it? (05:46) - Poster child ARK’s Cathie Wood (06:29) - The FANG stayed intact for the most part (07:26) - We don’t have a full market crash (08:22) - Great investors will find the companies that emerge (08:51) - Cloudflare, Shopify, and Zoom (09:48) - 8 to 80 brands with great margins (11:24) - Are the markets as connected as I thought? (11:44) - Private markets acting more efficiently than public (12:31) - Public market equivalent selloff of 50, 60, 70 percent (14:16) - A nasty correction in pricing for private companies (15:11) - Eventually these are connected markets (15:38) - What excites me moving forward (16:00) - Tech outperforms over the long haul (16:44) - If energy stays up, high tech will win (17:07) - Figuring out how to get rid of carbon (17:31) - While everybody chases energy, tech will win the day (18:11) - Tech stocks are not 1999 (21:45) - We need balance, but the show is about trends (22:07) - Closing thoughts

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It’s with that in mind that Beyond is looking to add a Business Intelligence Analyst to our growing team. You will have the opportunity to proactively bring insights that fuel innovation and learning, empower our team to make data-driven decisions, and optimize how stakeholders gain access to our data. We’re looking for someone who is hands-on, results-oriented, and eager to work cross-functionally to support the business’s objectives.

Seattle or Remote

Who We Are - MANSCAPED™ is a fast-growing consumer lifestyle brand specializing in men’s grooming and personal care products. On a mission to help men level up, MANSCAPED™ designs and distributes premium tools, formulations and accessories that introduce a whole new self-care routine for men. MANSCAPED™ operates as a truly global omni-channel company, currently available in 38 countries worldwide and counting. With growth like this, we are adding to almost every department at MANSCAPED™! We are a values-driven company with a keen interest in ensuring the success of every employee. Who We’re Looking For - We are in search of a Staff Accountant who will be responsible for performing general ledger accounting,  and preparing journal entries, maintaining fixed assets, bank statement reconciliation, and assisting accounting leadership with ad hoc reporting, projects and analysis. Keys to Success - As a member of the Accounting team, success will be measured based on three key actions. 1) Doing your job; setting and meeting appropriate goals that ladder up to the long-term Company vision and the short-term Company targets.  You are expected to align on these goals with your manager, and then deliver on them. 2) Doing Your Job, the Right Way; At MANSCAPED™ we strive to be ideal team players.  That means striving to live up to the Humble, Hard Working & Smart framework. 3) Engaging (in both directions) with Radical Candor in a way that seeks to improve the performance of yourself and the team around you.Responsibilities:Perform Revenue accounting and reporting, including foreign currency translation Work closely with indirect tax department to reconcile VAT, GST and Sales Tax accountsPost and reconcile intercompany journal entriesMaintain Prepaid Expenses, calculate & post amortization, and reconcile monthlyMaintain Accrued expenses, identify, calculate & record expense accruals, and reconcile monthlyAdditional month-end close duties include cash account reconciliations, multi-currency balance sheet account reconciliations including tax asset & liability accounts, currency revaluationMaintain fixed assets, preparation of depreciation schedules and reconciliation to general ledgerAssist with monthly P&L variance analysis Provide support for external audit activities, including preparation of audit schedules Assist in developing accounting policies, processes, and proceduresOther duties as neededQualifications:Bachelor’s degree in Accounting or Finance, CPA and/or public accounting experience a plusMinimum 5 years experience in accountingStrong analytic abilitiesWorks well under pressure and in fast-paced environmentExhibits good time-management and organizational skills, is a Self-Starter High degree of attention to detailProficient in Excel ERP experience required; NetSuite experience preferred. Experience with Amazon Seller Central and Shopify a plusMANSCAPED™ Benefits: 20 Vacation Days40 Hours Paid Sick LeavePaid Mental Health Days9 Paid HolidaysLife AD&D + LTD CoverageMedical, Dental, Vision, HSA + FSAEmployee 401(K) PlanMonthly Utility AllowanceEmployee Discounts

San Francisco, CA