To give you a taste, this is him 3 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjUs7o-TnjY. I remember watching that video the first time and being particularly struck by his insight on how entrepreneurial sales is different from regular sales [1], which I have been able to apply since then on a regular basis.
It's interesting to note that we had a president like this, and that was Herbert Hoover. Hoover's claim to fame before being elected president was saving Belgium from starvation during WWI[1], the dude deeply understood logistics and had lots of connections so was able to negotiate with all the parties to get humanitarian relief and set up his own NGO. I picked this up from reading this biography of him.[2] Unfortunately he's become only associated with fumbling the Great Depression.
[1] https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1989/spring/h... [2] https://smile.amazon.com/Hoover-Extraordinary-Life-Times/dp/...
I've been meaning to read that Hoover biography forever.
I thought the humorous podcast American Presidents: Totalus Rankium had an excellent two-parter on him:
Part 1: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-64j34-f045e3 Part 2: https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-zsqhc-f1a4af
That’s a legend that is in fact not true. He actually laid the ground for most of Roosevelt‘s „New Deal“ policies. These policies were likely ill-conceived and turned a bad recession into decade long depression.
https://www.history.com/news/great-depression-herbert-hoover...
A CEO who built or run an actual value-adding business (e.g Flexport) probably has more integrity, intelligence and aptitude than the average lawyer-who-seeks-politics who very often turn out to be snakes.
There is no way for a food stamp program to generate a profit - that's entirely opposite from the point of it! Closer to home, you can tell when corners are getting cut for budget reasons that are penny-wise and pound foolish in a department at a businesses that treats departments that don't generate profit as a cost center, eg the IT department.
Businesses also have the luxury of firing poor workers. Government has no such luxury with their poor.
Here's the thing - I've run startups that had a strong business, and those that haven't. While I would believe that my fundamental values never changed, I can tell you that I was far more tested in situations when we were running out of money than when we had 8 figures in our bank account. For example, how do you design a paid leave policy? With 8 figures in the bank, you really have to be a psychopath not to leaning on the generous side. But when you don't know if you can do the next payroll and the financial security of 100 people hinges on you hitting the next month's target... and then someone tells you about a family member who just passed away... Sometimes there are no good solutions, and you want to avoid getting yourself in those situations. So ironically, a hard-hitting CEO can sometimes lead to a better paid leave policy than a startup run by the most empathetic social worker in the world.
Yes. It would be great to have non-ideological leadership focused on solving practical problems instead of waging culture war.
Happy hunting!
Perhaps no one wants to ship them back because it's not economical?
This whole situation would make a great "systems design"-level tech interview question!