Eugene W. Landy ·UMH Properties, Inc. ·13 MAR 2008
When Your Market Shrinks, Wait — Then Reload
The best time to be bullish on a market is right after everyone else has abandoned it.
Topic
Finance
Capital allocation, margins, and the numbers leaders defend.
27 letters · most recent first
Michal D. Cann & John L. (Jack) Wagner ·WASHINGTON BANKING CO ·21 AUG 2008
Walk Away Early: When a Bad Deal Protects Your Moat
Knowing when to kill a deal is as valuable as knowing when to sign one.
Steven E. Fass & David T. Foy ·White Mountains Insurance Group Ltd ·10 APR 2006
When Your Models Fail, Own It Fast
Risk models are tools, not oracles — and the leaders who survive bad years are the ones who say so out loud.
Jack Dorsey & Sarah Friar ·Square, Inc. ·3 AUG 2016
How Square Turned a Payment Tool Into a Business Platform
The real moat isn't the hardware — it's every product a seller adopts after the first swipe.
Square Investor Relations Team ·Square, Inc. ·1 NOV 2016
Win Bigger Customers Without Cutting Your Price
The strongest growth signal in this letter isn't revenue — it's that larger sellers are choosing Square on product merit, not discounts.
Jack Dorsey ·Block, Inc. ·2 NOV 2023
Cap the Company Before You Cap the Customer
When the company is growing faster than the business, the fix is a hard ceiling, not a pep talk.
Roku Management ·Roku ·21 FEB 2019
Build the Audience First, Then Sell the Audience
The platform that wins the eyeballs first will collect the ad dollars second — Roku is betting the sequence matters.
DoorDash Leadership ·DoorDash ·15 FEB 2024
After Land Grab, Switch To Operating Discipline
Growth and efficiency aren't opposites — they're phases. Knowing which phase you're in is the job.
Tony Xu ·DoorDash ·11 FEB 2025
Spend Big Only After You See Product-Market Fit
Profit and growth aren't opposites when capital follows evidence, not enthusiasm.
Richard McCathron ·Hippo Holdings Inc. ·10 NOV 2022
Design Your Exposure Before the Disaster Hits
The best risk management happens months before the storm, not during it.
Richard McCathron ·Hippo Holdings Inc. ·6 MAR 2024
Shrink the Risk Before You Chase the Growth
Before going on offense, fix the math on the losses you can actually control.
Richard McCathron ·Hippo Holdings Inc. ·2 MAY 2024
Shrink to Grow: How Hippo Traded Revenue for Resilience
Deliberately slowing growth in the short term can be the fastest way to reach sustainable growth — if you're cutting the right risks, not the right customers.
Richard McCathron ·Hippo Holdings Inc. ·8 AUG 2024
Fix the risk profile first, then grow
The best time to prove your risk controls work is when the whole industry is bleeding — and you're not.
Richard McCathron ·Hippo Holdings Inc. ·7 MAY 2025
How to Shrink a Portfolio Before You Grow It
The best time to expand is right after you've finished cutting — not before.
Richard McCathron ·Hippo Holdings Inc. ·6 AUG 2025
Sell the asset, keep the distribution, triple your reach
The smartest asset sale isn't an exit — it's a trade: cash plus a bigger channel.
Matt Fischer ·Apple Inc. ·21 AUG 2018
When Your Pricing Faces Pushback, Negotiate Before You Lose the Deal
The moment your partners consistently refuse your terms, you have two choices: lose them or adapt — and waiting too long to decide is its own decision.
Netflix Investor Relations ·Netflix ·21 APR 2014
How To Frame Competition When You're Outgunned
When you face bigger rivals on every side, define the game by the two things only you can do well.
Reed Hastings & Netflix Leadership ·Netflix ·16 JUL 2020
Promote The Partner Who Already Runs Half The Company
Formalizing power someone already has is cheaper than losing them — and clearer for everyone watching.
Ted Sarandos & Greg Peters & Spence Neumann & Spencer Wang ·Netflix ·18 OCT 2023
How Netflix Turned Content Spending Into a Flywheel
If you want to justify a massive cost center, show how it drives margin expansion at the same time — then the spending becomes the strategy.
Andy Jassy ·Amazon ·11 APR 2024
How Margin Expansion and New S-Curves Compound Together
When your core business gets cheaper to run, every new bet you place gets cheaper to fund.
Andy Jassy ·Amazon ·10 APR 2025
Ask Why Until The Locked Doors Open
Most companies optimize inside the room they're standing in; the best ones keep asking why the door is locked.
Warren Buffett ·Berkshire Hathaway ·1 MAR 2010
Hold Expensive Cash So You Can Be the Buyer in a Crisis
Liquidity is a strategic weapon disguised as a boring balance sheet item — its real return shows up only when everyone else runs out.
Kate Plikus ·Microsoft ·2 OCT 2018
Why Scale Is The Real Moat In Ad Auctions
In ad markets, scale isn't just an advantage — it's the price of admission to compete at all.
Jeff Shardell ·Google ·4 JUN 2007
Price Your Distribution Power Honestly
When a partner asks for the same price on a worse deal, the right answer starts with naming what you're actually buying.
Michael Murphy ·Google ·17 MAR 2020
When to Pay Less and Still Keep the Shelf Space
Sometimes the smartest negotiation move is paying your partners less — if you can redirect that money to win the customers who matter most.
Prabhakar Raghavan ·Google ·1 JAN 2019
Price Against the Market, Not Just the Customer
If your pricing model only has two players in it, you've already mispriced — the third player is the door your customer can walk through.
Jonathan Bellack ·Google ·10 MAY 2018
Owning the Pipe Is Worth More Than Renting It
Every dollar that flows through someone else's exchange is a dollar where you don't set the toll — and Bellack's math shows just how big that toll can be.