Ideas are cheap. Most good ideas die in execution. I've kept a few alive in my small world. Thinking out loud and sharing what I learn along the way.
Smokies
Joined August 2026
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$34,974,929.
That was our number on a $35M water plant bid. Next bidder was $35,055,000.
I set it walking off a plane in NYC, on the phone with my estimating team.
We'd done the work. Met with our subs several times. Completed a series of reviews. So at the last second I cut a little more.
A lot of bidders chase an arbitrary number like $34.99M, just to get under $35M. I like to get the 8 in there at least. Ideally a 7.
Won by $80K. The late cut got it. We were low on two others the same morning.
Ideas are cheap. Execution is the boring prep that lets you make a nervy call in 30 seconds. Luck shows up more when you've done the work.
“Capital Leveraged Under Extremely Limited Economic Situational Sophistication” - CLUELESS is more appropriate than “Situational Awareness”
In a bubble, a lot of weak theses look great. Then the goggles come off, or get knocked off, and you see who can actually withstand the shakedown. I'll be looking for businesses still standing when the easy money's gone. That's where generational buying opportunities can show up.
Bloodbath in the AI trade today. Nasdaq into correction, chip stocks getting smoked. Markets don’t care about yesterday’s narrative when the spending story starts looking soft.
Glad I’m sitting in a protected position today.
Trump’s reaction was predictable. Read The Art of the Deal and it's all there. Stay positive, repeat your version, never concede the frame. Go back further and you get Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking. His family went to Peale's church when he was a kid, and he's credited him as an influence for decades. Once you know where a habit comes from, the next move is a lot easier to call.
President Trump is still watching the election results in the East Room tonight. As his handpicked candidates are struggling, a White House official is offering this assessment: "President Trump did a better job promoting many of the candidates on the ballot than the candidates did themselves."
"President Trump was not on the ballot, and it’s proven that Trump voters show up when he is on the ballot."
It is astonishing that we have allowed foreign-manufactured technology to become so deeply embedded in our critical infrastructure.
Water systems. Power grids. Telecommunications. The systems that sustain modern civilization.
We have spent decades prioritizing cheap production and global integration over national security and strategic independence.
Globalization may prove to be the most effective weapon ever deployed against the capitalist West, and we may not have even begun to unwrap the consequences.
EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon treating military base freezer malfunctions as suspected cyberattack, officials say reut.rs/486IZwN
Justin Morgan retweeted
@GHHILL1911 here’s one a friend sent me a while back.
Justin Morgan retweeted
BREAKING: President Trump reveals his new anti-fraud program set up to reward people who expose fraud with a 1% commission on the money uncovered.
"If you turn somebody in and you, let's say report and you find $1 billion, we are giving a commission to that person of 1%."
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
DOJ's published guidance caps individual whistleblower rewards at up to $30,000 per tip, not an uncapped 1% of fraud uncovered, with a total program fund of $25 million. A $1 billion fraud tip would not yield a $10 million payout under the official program rules. newsweek.com/trump-vance-of… foxnews.com/politics/trump…
I’ve noticed a plague of pessimism that seems to infect people as they age.
Sports aren’t what they used to be. The economy is collapsing. Religion is dying. Society is falling apart.
Maybe the world isn’t getting worse. Maybe you’ve just stopped seeing what’s good about it.
I hope I never become that person.
