Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to go see the Backstreet Boys' Into the Millennium concert at The Sphere. I had never seen BSB in concert (in the boy band wars of that time, I chose NSYNC), but I have to say they were incredible and performed as if they were in their prime. The millennial teenybopper in me had the best time singing along to every word of every song, and the visual effects at The Sphere were unlike anything I had seen before. I highly recommend going to see a concert or production there - they are currently doing The Wizard of Oz, and the TikTok's I've seen look amazing. Sharing a few photos/videos here. Enjoy!
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Violin Covers
People often ask me “Henri, you play the violin, what are your favorite violin covers of pop songs?” (no one has ever said this to me ever…).
Here are 3 of my favorites - some familiar yet different takes on some of your favorite songs!
Different things keep people up at night: laundry lists of endless to-dos, the state of the country, where IS Waldo?
What keeps me up, you ask?
I’m still bitter about The Society being canceled.
For those who missed it, the show dropped on Netflix in 2019 and quickly gained a cult following. The premise was bizarrely intriguing: a group of Connecticut teens return from a canceled field trip to find their town completely empty. No parents, no siblings, no teachers—no one but them. Soon, they realize they’re not just cut off from the outside world… they might be trapped in an alternate version of their hometown.
What made it stand out wasn’t only the mystery, but how it tackled themes of power, justice, and morality—while still leaning into the absurdity of it all. Watching these teenagers attempt to build a government, ration food, and grapple with loyalty and betrayal felt like Lord of the Flies meets Dawson’s Creek. The mix of survival drama, political tension, and messy teenage relationships almost distracted you from the fact that the whole thing kicked off with the kids complaining about a horrible smell in town. Like I said: BIZARRE.
The first season ended with a shocking reveal (no spoilers—you should still go watch it). It left fans desperate for answers. How did they get there? Was it supernatural, scientific, or something else entirely? Would New Ham’s fragile government implode? Who could be trusted? And seriously, what on earth was that smell?
Season 2 was greenlit, and we were promised answers about the origins of their situation and the fate of both worlds. But then COVID hit, production delays piled up, and Netflix abruptly canceled it in 2020. Which means we’ll never know what the writers had planned, how the mystery unraveled, or which characters would have survived the long game.
And that’s what makes it so frustrating. So many threads dangling, so much potential left unexplored. The Society wasn’t perfect, but it was ambitious, smart, and brimming with possibility. To this day, I hate that we’re stuck with an unfinished story—endlessly wondering what might have been.
We gotta find out what that smell was!
The book “The Outsiders” – called by Warren Buffett the best business book of the century – looked at the best non-founder CEOs from a quantitative perspective (mainly compound returns over peers) and what they had in common. Eight CEOs over the last century stood above the rest. As most of us work for a CEO, use products shepherded by a CEO, and are all the CEOs of our own lives, I hope the takeaways are useful in perhaps multiple ways. Below are five common traits these all-time great CEOs shared, with a bit of color from the CEOs profiled in the book.
What it wasn’t:
It wasn’t charisma, because none of these CEOs had much of it. So what was it then?
Frugality
These CEOs were cheap and constantly sought to reduce costs. [One key exception – they were not frugal about compensation incentivizing performance; employees often shared in the success of the company and did remarkably well]. Tom Murphy, called by Buffett the best CEO he’s ever seen, exemplifies the frugality of these CEOs:
- Painted only the sides of his first office building that faced the street
- Passed on a company’s limo practice for executives, taking cabs – the rest of the executive suite soon followed. (When asked if he was leading by example regarding taking cabs, he responded ‘is there any other way?’)
- The most memorable example of all: When a colleague wanted to hire a secretary, Murphy declined spending the money to do so. When the colleague noted this would only cost $20,000, Murphy responded that ‘20k per year would increase as she got raises over time, and she may stay for 30 years, and other people would then also want secretaries, and how much toilet paper would she use that we would have to pay for over those 30 years?’
Steadfast Independence of Mind
A CEO very much not on the list of top CEOs was the Citigroup CEO at the banking height of the mid-2000s. He declared on his firm’s increasingly risky financial decisions that ‘as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance’. As the book reads, ‘he danced off a cliff from $240 per share to $3 per share.’ Warren Buffett, on the other hand, largely sat out the mid-2000s financial frenzy while his peers made great profits, and then when the 2008 financial crisis hit and fear peaked he deployed capital as aggressively as any time in his career. The Outsider CEOs each had examples like this, often multiple of them – achieving extraordinary results by consistently zigging while their peers zagged.
Getting the Key Decisions Right (or adjusting until they did)
Kay Graham, who took over the Washington Post in the early 1970s, exemplifies getting the rare key decisions right. When her husband unexpectedly left her with ownership of the Post, Graham made this string of decisions, changing the course of the paper:
- Replaced the editor in chief with Ben Bradley – about as important as any decision for a paper. He helped bring in an influx of talent, started the first national paper style section, and proved to be an exceptional fit for the role. [Also went through four COOs fairly quickly until she found the right one, again showing the importance of getting key people decisions right]
- Ignored the advice of her board who urged her to avoid meeting with Warren Buffet, relatively unknown at the time. “Figuring out he was a genius” and bringing him onto the board was one of the best decisions she ever made, informing subsequent key financial decisions.
- Chose to publish the Pentagon Papers when faced with unclear legal advice and many others urging her not (see above trait). The Pentagon Papers eventually led to Nixon’s resignation and the reputation of the Post was made, establishing it as the only journalistic peer to the New York Times.
Crocodile Patience
These CEOs could wait an entire decade or more for the right opportunity to emerge, and on the rare occasion with compelling returns, they could act with boldness and blinding speed. Case in point – Richard Smith, who made nearly zero acquisition moves for well over a decade until the right investment opportunity came up from a phone call. That same day he was on a plane to the potential acquisition’s headquarters and within a few days had made a company-altering deal equal to 40% of his company’s value. (See another example of crocodile patience here from the Warren Buffett May issue: https://qorrum.com/post/470)
Flexibility
From perhaps the top performing CEO of the last 75 years, Henry Singleton, on the importance of flexibility (all the more interesting given how significantly this diverges from most of us, but how similarly this was practiced by the most successful CEOs):
· “I don’t reserve any day to day responsibilities for myself. I define my job in terms of having the freedom to do whatever seems to be in the best interest of the company at any specific times. I like to steer the boat each day rather than plan ahead way into the future. I know a lot of people have very strong and definite plans they’ve worked out on all kinds of things, but we’re subject to a tremendous number of outside influences, and the vast majority of them cannot be predicted. So my idea is to stay flexible.”
And 10 Quotes
- It’s almost impossible to overpay the truly extraordinary CEO (but the species is rare)
- Capital allocation over operations — the true job of the CEO
- Their advantage relative to their peers was temperament, not intellect
- Charisma is overrated; analytical thinking is key
- Always do the math. It’s just fifth-grade arithmetic
- Extraordinary results came as much from the deals not done as from those completed
- Long periods of inactivity, punctuated by occasional large moves, produced extraordinary results
- It’s not easy to diverge from peers — the business world is like a high school cafeteria
- Hire the best people you can and leave them alone
- Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is more efficient than patching leaks
Where the profits come from (not always the core product sold)
- Restaurants -> Alcohol distributors
- Gas Stations -> Convenience stores
- Insurance Companies -> Float
- Movie Theaters -> Popcorn & Soda (conc.)
- Disney -> Cruise Ships & Theme parks
- Costco -> Membership/subscription club
- Airlines -> Credit Cards
- McDonald’s -> Landlords
- Auto Dealers -> Lenders & Servicers
- E-commerce Sites -> Advertising networks
America’s Phenomenal Geography
Jamie Dimon once said: “America has the best hand ever dealt of any country on this planet today ever, okay. And Americans don’t fully appreciate what I’m about to say. We have peaceful, wonderful neighbors in Canada and Mexico. We’ve got the biggest military barriers ever built, called the Atlantic and the Pacific. We have all the food, water and energy we will ever need.”
Michael Gridley posted a great Twitter thread expanding on the tremendous geographic hand the US has been dealt a few takeaways below:
From 16,000 to 32
At any given time there are 16,000 high school quarterbacks, 32 starting QBs in the NFL (~12 very good ones, ~4 great ones).
"American Kings", a new book by Seth Wickersham, explores the question of what these 32 have in common that the other 15,968 don't.
A few takeaways below - what I found most interesting was that once a minimum athletic baseline is reached, greater intangibles (work ethic, resilience, adaptability, etc.) were more valuable than greater athleticism.
Athleticism - Baseline minimum bar for:
- Height: 6’ to 6’5”
- Hand size: 9+ inches
- Weight: 190-230 lbs
- Arm strength: 50mph+ top ball speed
- Throwing range: 50+ yards
- Accuracy: 60%+ in HS and College
- Quick release: under half a second
- Baseline Lateral Quickness
The Invisible:
- The measurable (arm strength, speed, pedigree, flash you can see) is overvalued; the invisible is undervalued (endurance, intelligence, adaptability, self awareness, confidence)
- Beyond baseline athleticism, the invisible intangibles had the biggest impact on quarterback success.
The Environment:
- Coaching quality (think 2 of the great QBs in Tom Brady & Patrick Maholmes getting coached by 2 of the greatest coaches in Bill Belichek & Andy Reid)
- Coaching stability (system stability allows cognitive mastery and confidence)
- Talent (offensive line to block, receiving talent, running talent)
- Opportunity (QB slot opening up)
The Basics:
- “The game winning drives of Montana, Elway, Brady: what stood out was how mundane and obvious and simple they were. Like move the chains with slight throw to the running back.”
Double Click:
- Tom Brady is arguably the best football player of all time.
- Right before his first start as a QB in high school, he ran to his dad and said he "couldn't do it" because he had "forgotten how to throw". His dad calmed him down.
- Fast forward to his last year in New England 20+ years and 6 Super Bowls later. At the front of his playbook he’s written himself these self affirmations like “you’re the man”, and “you’re built for this”, “you love the big moments”. He’s written these things that he reads every day.
- Playing in front of tens of thousands of people with many more watching and counting on you, failing repeatedly as all QBs do, and maintaining the confidence to make a tight throw under pressure takes a special combination of internal and external support.