Top Reads, Listens & Follows of the week
It's always about the money
Takeaways:
Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome. The quote attributed to Charlie Munger seems particularly relevant in light of the announced merger of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. Since the debut of LIV Golf in 2022, the PGA Tour, sensing an existential threat to their business, began an offensive to undermine the upstart golf league. Instead of touting its own business merits and potential, the PGA leadership preached that players should remain loyal to the Tour and later threatened to ban players that accepted the incredible contracts offered to them. Further, the PGA Tour commissioner invoked the memory of 9/11 victims in a gross attempt to condemn the morals of players considering leaving for their personal and professional benefit.
Now, in an unsurprising turn of events only a year after this video, the two leagues are merging. This seems to be a surprise to many players who stood by the league, turning down millions only to be given a pat on the back for their loyalty, but was interestingly predicted almost exactly by none other than Donald Trump.
Despite the widespread shots taken at the imperative of a business as defined by Milton Friedman (to increase profits), it’s moments like this that remind us all that he was pretty close to spot on. The NBA, at the forefront of social causes and advocacy, affirmed this when confronted with a threat to their double-digit growth in China, and you better believe Adidas is back to selling Yeezy shoes.
The world is gray, not black and white, but make no mistake that business is business. It is and always has been about the money.
Reads: If you have trouble accessing some of these reads, try this
In Memory of Capt. Grady Kurpasi, USMC (here)
Cristiano Ronaldo vs Lionel Messi: who was the greatest footballer? (here)
EV Makers Confront the ‘Nickel Pickle’ (here)
Fake Signals and American Insurance: How a Dark Fleet Moves Russian Oil (here)
Instagram Connects Vast Pedophile Network (here)
Golf-Crazy Saudi Wealth Manager Orchestrated the Shock PGA-LIV Truce (here)
Listens:
Corey Hoffstein & Jason Josephiac - Portable Alpha & Risk Mitigating Strategies (here)
Scott Galloway on the Algebra of Happiness and the American Middle Class (here)
Follow, Watch & Other great content:
FedEx founder Fred Smith: An "overnight" success (here)
60 Minutes: Great white sharks & ocean plastics (here)