Starting, Privatizing and Ruling (plus Hamilton)
Your weekly 5 things from the mind of Miles Lasater
Happy Saturday! Here are your 5 things from the mind of Miles for this week.
Right to Start. Did you know that new companies create almost all the jobs? And we’ve discussed before that prosperity is the child of innovation. So, you might think that entrepreneurship should be higher on voters priority list. On my podcast, I learned from Victor Hwang that it polls very low at like ~30 on the list. What can we do to support entrepreneurs of all types? What barriers should we remove? Listen to the latest episode of Startups for Good.
Read Up, Founder. After that inspiration, you’ve decided you want to start a company? Learn more with my list of must read books for founders. What’d I miss?
Creating Quality and Safety. The book Chain of Title chronicles the foreclosure dramas and fraud of the financial crisis. Plenty of stories to make you sad and mad. The book also raises questions about the role of private businesses vs. government. For example, as government real estate ownership records are balkanized and create friction, banks created a faster privatized registry system. But it was abused. How do you maintain quality, equity and safety in privatized systems? Fiat or incentives or…?
Dictator’s Handbook. The business world isn’t for you? Are you a revolutionary who should rule it all? Start with this book The Dictator's Handbook. You’ll need the advice because it's much harder when it's all your call. For a coup the priorities are: place guard, means of communication and the treasury. (This cross-references well with my understanding of Roman history.) The book doesn’t focus on getting into power, but also keeping it. Remember, winning is easy, governing’s harder. (Here’s another random thing that stuck with me from the book. Governments with more autocratic governments have a straighter road from the capital city to the airport.)
Summer Camp Resurgence. All our kids talk about recently is Hamilton and trading Pokemon cards. According to Google Trends, Hamilton is flat in searches nationally. Pokemon cards show a slight uplift. But that doesn’t explain why our kids are so focused on them again. Should I blame summer camp? (I don’t care for Pokemon. I do love Hamilton enough to have added at least three lyrics references in this newsletter. Can you find them all?)
Until next week,
Miles