PE Operator → CEO | Real deals, stories & operator lessons | Never badmouth synergy | book recs: peoperator.co
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I once presented a billionaire some of the highest-ROI projects I'd ever found.
Some north of 1,000% IRR.
I have never forgotten his response.
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Imagine if the two wars end, oil prices drop, and interest rates come down at all.
Lots of potential upside.
U.S. AND IRAN REPORTEDLY BACK NEW DIPLOMATIC PROPOSAL
Qatar and Pakistan have reportedly presented a compromise proposal with preliminary U.S. and Iranian approval, according to informed sources.
The plan reportedly includes confidential IAEA inspections of Iranian nuclear sites and a partial concession involving $6 billion in Iranian funds frozen in Qatar.
Source: Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, citing informed sources — October 20, 2026
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Did @grok just solve personal finance education?
Can't overhaul school lunches from here, but start with fresh local produce, less ultra-processed junk, kid menu votes, and proper funding for real cooking.
Game idea: Finance Kart Odyssey. Race life paths Mario Kart style, blast debt bosses Call of Duty mode, draft budget teams like Madden, explore open-world investments Zelda-style. Power-ups for compound interest, side quests teach taxes and credit. Fun, safe practice for real money skills.
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Schools should spend more time on health and personal finance.
Maybe the two most important skills for a successful life.
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Link below. If you haven’t read, you won’t regret it.
Also lmk what’s missing from peoperator.co (recently redesigned)
Great book recommended to me by @BigJohn043
The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz
A classic I just hadn’t gotten to…
The book covers the lessons Horowitz learned taking a company from near bankruptcy to selling it for $1.6 BILLION.
Horowitz covers the ugly part of being a CEO: layoffs, fear, and wartime decisions.
His core takeaway: There is no playbook for the hard thing. Only judgment and ownership.
My Highlights:
- the only way to learn how to be a CEO is to be a CEO… Learning to be a CEO through classroom training would be like learning to be an NFL quarterback through classroom training. Even if Peyton Manning and Tom Brady were your instructors, in the absence of hands-on experience, you'd get killed the moment you took the field.
- Ordinarily, that vibe would rule out a candidate for me, but the strengths that I needed were so critical to the business that I was willing to overlook every weakness.
Thought this was an interesting note on thinking about hiring- sometimes you need a skill so bad you might overlook culture fit, weaknesses- not sure how much I agree but stuck with me
- If you run a company, you will experience overwhelming psychological pressure to be overly positive. Stand up to the pressure, face your fear, and tell it like it is.
- People always ask me, "What's the secret to being a successful CEO?" Sadly, there is no secret, but if there is one skill that stands out, it's the ability to focus and make the best move when there are no good moves. It's the moments where you feel most like hiding or dying that you can make the biggest difference as a CEO.
- There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.
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Great book recommended to me by @BigJohn043
The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horowitz
A classic I just hadn’t gotten to…
The book covers the lessons Horowitz learned taking a company from near bankruptcy to selling it for $1.6 BILLION.
Horowitz covers the ugly part of being a CEO: layoffs, fear, and wartime decisions.
His core takeaway: There is no playbook for the hard thing. Only judgment and ownership.
My Highlights:
- the only way to learn how to be a CEO is to be a CEO… Learning to be a CEO through classroom training would be like learning to be an NFL quarterback through classroom training. Even if Peyton Manning and Tom Brady were your instructors, in the absence of hands-on experience, you'd get killed the moment you took the field.
- Ordinarily, that vibe would rule out a candidate for me, but the strengths that I needed were so critical to the business that I was willing to overlook every weakness.
Thought this was an interesting note on thinking about hiring- sometimes you need a skill so bad you might overlook culture fit, weaknesses- not sure how much I agree but stuck with me
- If you run a company, you will experience overwhelming psychological pressure to be overly positive. Stand up to the pressure, face your fear, and tell it like it is.
- People always ask me, "What's the secret to being a successful CEO?" Sadly, there is no secret, but if there is one skill that stands out, it's the ability to focus and make the best move when there are no good moves. It's the moments where you feel most like hiding or dying that you can make the biggest difference as a CEO.
- There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.
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Expert call networks are hilarious.
“We’ll pay you $1500 to talk to a stranger who has no idea if what you’re saying is true.”
The fact that private equity uses these so much that an entire industry was built up around it is insane.
Just shows you how detached most consultants and PE guys are from the business they’re buying.
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PE/IB guys talking to each other about becoming CFOs
I get a lot of confidential inbound questions (into my mailbag) and DMs. Far and away the most common question I get is some variant of “I came from IB/PE as a first time CFO, I thought it would be easy and have realized that what i thought was the job was in fact only about 10% of it. And it’s much harder to get things done when I’m not talking to people who think and talk like me all day. What the hell do I do”
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Just because you’re a good investment banker or private equity VP does not mean you will be a good CFO.
Many need to hear this.
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Sawyer Merritt
You're worried about AI taking your job?
Try graduating with an econ degree during the Great Financial Crisis.
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One thing to ask the seller before buying a company:
If it’s so great, why are you selling it?
One thing to ask the seller after buying a company:
What didn’t you tell us?
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The problem here is not that operating is hard (it is).
The problem is that the selling PE firm pushes for aggressive projections.
Do not trust projections in a CIM; it’s a marketing document.
This should be obvious.
92% of companies miss their EBITDA projections in Year 1 following deal close, per S&P.
Operating is hard. Synergies and cost savings can take much longer to materialize than the sponsor plan.
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