Hey friends,
James Harden is considered a leader in the NBA and will go down as one of the greatest offensive players of all time. So it was disheartening to see his lack of leadership on display earlier this month.
After losing to Lebron and the Lakers, this is how he responded when a reporter asked him, “are you surprised that you never made a run at all?”
“We’re just not good enough. Chemistry. Talent-wise. It’s something that I don’t think can’t be fixed.”
Ouch.
Can you imagine how you would feel if you were his teammate?
Before those comments, James Harden was bringing negative energy to the locker room and skipping practice. He did all of this because he wanted out of Houston.
This is how Demarcus Cousins responded to Harden’s antics:
“I just feel like it's a way about handling business. He can feel however he wants to feel about the organization or whatever his current situation is, but the other 14 guys in the locker room have done nothing to him. So for us to be on the receiving end of some of the disrespectful comments and antics, it's completely unfair to us.”
This type of behavior is also prevalent in the business world. Like when David Katzenberg blamed the failure of Quibi on COVID.
“I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus,” Mr. Katzenberg said. “Everything.”
Or when salespeople blame their managers or marketing teams for missing their numbers.
We all need to take ownership even if bad results aren’t our fault. This is doubly true if you’re a leader. Blaming your teammates or external factors when you fail to deliver is incredibly selfish and a surefire way to lose respect.
In the renowned book Extreme Ownership, former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink says:
“There are no bad teams, only bad leaders. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame.”
If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend it.
SPAC that
You’ve probably heard the word SPAC thrown around a lot lately.
It stands for a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
What is it?
A"blank check" shell corporation designed to make it easy for private companies to go public. Going public through a SPAC can accelerate a company’s entry into the public markets by two to four months.
“You can think of it like: an IPO is basically a company looking for money, while a SPAC is money looking for a company,” said Don Butler, managing director at Thomvest Ventures.
There have been some big-name SPACs recently, including DraftKings, Opendoor, SoFi.
You can buy shares in a SPAC before they merge with a company. For example, if you’re a big fan of SoFi, you can buy shares of IPOE via your brokerage account right now.
Chamath Palihapitiya has been leading the charge on SPACing companies. Here’s a list of them so far:
Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE)
Opendoor Technologies: (NASDAQ:OPEN)
Clover Health: (NYSE:IPOC)
SoFi: (NYSE:IPOD)
Just make sure you understand the risks associated with SPACs before loading up. See the tweet below from one of the best investors I follow:
That being said, I would love to see Chamath, SPAC Plaid. It was almost a year ago when Visa announced that they would be acquiring Plaid. However, the two recently called it quits amid increased anti-trust scrutiny.
Plaid started by building the technical infrastructure APIs that connect consumers, traditional financial institutions, and developers. They allow you to connect your bank account to applications like Expensify or Robinhood.
I’m very bullish on the company and excited that it will continue to operate independently.
Just Take The Money
Tesla has created a lot of multi-millionaires. Check out the tweet below:
Jason went on to say that he wasn’t going to sell a single share. He started adding Tesla shares to his portfolio in 2013 with an initial investment of around $18k.
It would be wise to diversify his portfolio—even if it was just a little bit—but Jason is not interested in doing so. There’s a simple reason driving his decision. His identity is now directly tied to Tesla. Take a look at his bio:
I really hope things work out for Jason.
When it comes to investing, it pays to separate your emotions and identity from your holdings. I’ve seen similar behavior among crypto investors. At the end of the day, we invest to make a positive return. Directly linking our identity to a specific investment makes it difficult to assess the associated risks properly. This leads you exposed to getting wiped out.
I remember how passionate people were about GoPro when it first launched.
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Bardia