The value of constraints in business

`1:19:38`

You need constraints. When you have just loads of money, you basically have very few constraints. That's what tends to lead to slop. Versus like, "Hey, if we don't figure this out, we can't make payroll next week or next month." You just start to figure things out. One of the best stories I heard about this was Peter Rahal, who started RXBAR. Are you familiar with RXBAR? Mm-hmm. Yeah, little protein bars or whatever. There's a great article about this years ago, where he was talking to his dad about, I think, raising money or something. His dad's like, "Hey, go sell 1,000 fucking bars and come back and talk to me." He's like, "Just sell some fucking bar. Get out on the street and sell some bars, man. You've got products? Sell products.

`1:20:23`

Go, sell." Versus all the things you could possibly do. "Go sell some bars." It's just such great advice and it just cuts through all the crap. I like that scrappiness, and you don't get scrappiness from having large S. You just don't. It's just too easy not to have to do anything. Not to say that VC companies aren't doing things. They're doing a lot of things, obviously, but are they honing the scrappy skills? Are they learning how to make money and have margin and be profitable? If they don't have to, they probably are not. I think at some point, and we're starting to see this now, this is not like an I-told-you-so thing, this is just, this is what happens. This is not me. This is just economic cycles.

`1:21:11`

Money's harder to find, it's harder to get. Even companies who've raised money, investors are not necessarily putting in additional rounds. There's deep cuts happening, layoffs, pain and suffering. It's hard to switch from having a lot to not having enough, and then having to work as if you know what to do. I think there's a lot of confusion in the market now, at companies now, I should say, because they don't know what to do. They haven't had to do it before. I feel for them in a sense because, how could they be expected to know what to do? Just frankly, as I said earlier, if someone dropped 10 million bucks on me and 1,000 people, I would have no idea what to do with that. Truly, I would not. I would waste it is what I would do.