Michael Gangadeen

@Owen0to1 Depends where you are doing it. Running utilities can kill all your profit. Stay out of Illinois.

I’ve been thinking about buying land in good locations that needs to be cleared for pre-development. The plan: Handle the entitlement, do the land clearing/logging in-house, run the utilities, and exit. I want to hear from anyone who has actually done this. What do you think? What are the biggest blind spots I’m not seeing yet?

@Owen0to1 @KeriA1776again The biggest mistake you can make is thinking that you are smarter than guys like Anju. Intelligence is no match for the creativity and imagination of a scam artist.

Sometimes the most profitable move you can make in business is walking away from a $15,000 job. Last October, I issued my 24th quote since starting the land clearing business. It was clearing for home-site build prep. I was 19, super green, and super hungry. I bid $14,980 to clear a lot and remove several large trees. The quote was valid for 90 days. I didn’t know it then, but that piece of paper would eventually be used as a weapon in a legal battle I’m now watching from the sidelines. From the start "Anuj" was a walking red flag. He talked down to me, cut me off mid-sentence, and tried to engineer angles and deals that felt greasy. At one point, he tried to scare his neighbors into removing their trees for "liability," then told me he wanted a $2k "finder’s fee" for the introduction. The neighbor's job was barely worth $4k total. I ignored the noise and waited on city permits. By the time the project cleared in March 2026, everything had changed. I had moved my operations two hours away to a different spot in MO. The 90-day quote had expired in January. The city’s Tree Protection Plan had also expired, and a new survey added 10 massive trees to the scope. We were now looking at 73 trees total. Then the GC stepped in with a "Master Agreement" even though I was working for the homeowner directly. They demanded niche insurance requirements that would have run me $3000. On top of that, Anuj was demanding an unconditional lien waiver on job completion before any funds even cleared. I decided to reset the terms. I removed the $1,000 "off-season" discount and requested a 50% deposit. I was personally floating $12k in subcontractor costs, and the payment risk was glowing red. Anuj refused the deposit. He told me: “We have to trust each other that you will do the work and i will make the payment.” He suggested that if he didn't pay, I could just file a mechanic's lien. I’ve been around long enough to know that a lien is a legal headache, not a payment strategy. I walked away on March 19th. I refused to gamble my company's future on a client who wouldn't follow standard industry terms. A month later, the fallout hit. I got a call from a local excavation company. It turns out Anuj used my expired October quote as a "price anchor" to trick this excavator into a $12k contract. He reportedly showed my quote briefly on his phone to "prove" the market rate, then closed it out before the excavator could read the fine print. He lured them in with the promise of a massive dirt work contract, then pulled the dirt work the second the trees started coming down. The excavator realized too late that he was trapped in a suicide bid. What was supposed to be a simple clearing was actually a $40k scope involving full stump uprooting, hauling, and massive timber. He pulled his machines halfway through the job. Now, the excavator is seeking my records to build a case for fraudulent inducement. I’m helping where I can with the facts, but I won’t be making a formal statement. I washed my hands of this for a reason! The lesson? Trust your gut and don’t work for assholes!

@cafebrouge @newstart_2024 Back in the day when NY had a bail requirement, if you can’t post it, they put you in handcuffs and transport you straight to Riker’s Island. You sit in prison until you can meet bail.

@MichaelGangade1 @newstart_2024 You were locked up with bad guys…but not in prison?

Boris Becker just described prison in one chilling line: “If you can get drugs in there, you can do anything. You can kill me, you can rape me, you can attack me. It’s a lawless place.” He said you can literally get almost anything inside if you’re willing to pay — someone on the outside makes it happen. The scariest part wasn’t the sentence. It was the constant danger and uncertainty. His survival strategy? Stay with the right people, keep your mouth shut, never brag, never share stories about your life or loved ones, and be extremely careful who you talk to. At the start he couldn’t wait to leave his cell. By the end, his cell was the only place he felt safe. Raw, eye-opening stuff. What’s the most unsettling thing you’ve heard about life inside prison from someone who actually lived it?

@cafebrouge @newstart_2024 When I was younger, I was locked up twice with bad guys but was never sentenced to prison.

@MichaelGangade1 @newstart_2024 Have you been to prison?

@finn_swigitti @AlpacaAurelius Hey bud: I'm not looking for a fight although based on your comments, you must be a big fat slop from the south. It's obvious I have hit a sore spot with on based my opinion. If it makes you feel better, I am blind to patterns.

@MichaelGangade1 @AlpacaAurelius Then you're blind to the patterns around you. Things in the north are probably worse than the things in the south. The only difference being is you've become blind to it

americans in the southeast of the US have a 20 year shorter life expectancy than those elsewhere insane difference why?

@finn_swigitti @AlpacaAurelius Not trying to be mean. I met some great people in the mid south that I still stay in touch with and consider my friends. Spend some time down there and you start to notice patterns. That is the best explanation that I can offer of why they die earlier.

@MichaelGangade1 @AlpacaAurelius This is not accurate in the slightest. Junk food is eaten all across the us in high concentrations as is alcohol and drug consumption. I feel you are just being bigoted at this point

@dannycheng2022 Money is made when you buy and realized when you sell. I would wait for the pullback.

When the index is at all-time highs, would you wait for the so-called mid-term seasonal pullback to load up, or FOMO buy now?

@mwmoedinger We renovated a 1782 Bucks County, PA stone house a few years back and it was one of the worst experiences. Rooms are super small with low ceilings. We were always over budget. We didn’t lose money but not worth the effort.

Kicking off what may be our most extreme "before" yet! We specialize in tough renovations and bringing buildings back to life...and this one isn't dead yet, I promise! A multi-year project, it's a 1750s barn foundation we're rebuilding as a guest house and gathering space. First, tree and junk removal, then stabilizing the foundation. We'll do water management, repoint, pour a slab, install the structure for the 2nd floor, then dry it in to wait for phase 2, which will be the main construction.

@MFT_Get_Funded Good stuff.

When the broader market declines sharply, nearly all sectors tend to move into deep red territory—it’s simply the nature of broad sell-offs. One strategy I’ve adopted over the past six months, particularly with high-yield dividend ETFs, is to never allocate more than about 8–12% of my total portfolio to these types of products. I’ve also focused on funds with annual yields in the 10–17% range rather than chasing the 50%+ yields. Some of the more conservative examples I personally hold include $QQQI, $SPYI, $JEPQ, $GPIQ, $TSPY, and $TDAQ. With these, I take a “set it and forget it” approach and reinvest dividends automatically through DRIP. In my opinion, these funds have a reasonable chance of recovering in price over time. If roughly 85% of a portfolio is invested in broad-based ETFs such as $VOO, $VUG, $VTI, $SPY, $QQQ, $QQQM $SCHD $SCHG, and $SPYD, investors are generally in a strong position to weather market downturns and continue growing over the long term. Best wishes to everyone. Bill

@DemianMiguel1 @tommyswriting We are from the northeast US and do not being away from home more than 7 days.

@MichaelGangade1 @tommyswriting how much time would you spend, where are you from and which places do you prefer? No trates de hacer todo de una porque realmente es muy extenso. Si tenes mucho tiempo anda a calafate y recorré la ruta 40 hasta jujuy, pero sabe q te puede tomar demasiado tiempo. Abrazo!

One of the reasons I choose to spend a lot of time in Argentina 🇦🇷: I'm a gigantic Geography nerd, and I think it's legitimately one of the greatest countries on Earth. It easily has some of the best Geography on the planet. And Geography is Destiny. (A thread 🧵)

@AJauretchefan @tommyswriting Yes, we always go away somewhere warm in January but we are tired of Mexico and the Caribbean.

@MichaelGangade1 @tommyswriting Bs as... Norte? Salta jujuy.....excursión salinas grandes...paran en un pueblo q tiene un cerro 7 colores ( Purmamarca) Cataratas Sur? Ushuaia, Calafate , Bariloche ( auto...ruta 40 ) hasta Mendoza..... increíble.... Vas en enero? Mar del plata

@ssikfandk The Elder album was such a disapointment. I was stunned by how bad it was the first time I heard it.

This date in #KISStory : Gene does a screen test for proposed ABC show- ‘Grotus’. 4/7/81 Gene would have made 60 k per ep and would have to leave KISS. Financially a huge step backwards. And no band/ tours. The hair was already lopped off, Elder era style. All I can say is… he improved significantly by Runaway in 1984. He was DAMN good in that. I do not find this very good. At this point-The Elder album had already started recording. March-September 1981. There was NO TOUR for the first time. They were so lost, as a band. #KISSRelated : 1981

@genesimmons Imagine those former 6th graders trying to convince people that Gene Simmons was their teacher?

Well…I started working at 12 years of age working for a butcher, grinding the fat from the butcher’s block. I delivered newspapers. I was the assistant to the director of the Puerto Rican interagency council. I was the assistant of the editor of Vogue magazine. And I was a 6th grade teacher. And what have you done with your life, Chad?

@BillAckman @X Fight

I am reaching out to the @X community for advice with the likely risk of sharing TMI. I have been sufficiently upset about the whole matter that I have lost sleep thinking about it and I am hoping that this post will enable me to get this matter off my chest. By way of background, I started a family office called TABLE about 15 years ago and hired a friend who had previously managed a family office, and years earlier, had been my personal accountant. She is someone that I trusted implicitly and consider to be a good person. The office started small, but over the last decade, the number of personnel and the cost of the office grew massively. The growth was entirely on the operational side as the investment team has remained tiny. While my investment portfolio grew substantially, the investments I had made were almost entirely passive and TABLE simply needed to account for them and meet capital calls as they came in. While TABLE purchased additional software and other systems that were supposed to improve productivity, the team kept increasing in size at a rapid rate, and the expenses continued to grow even faster. While I would periodically question the growing expenses and high staff turnover, I stayed uninvolved with the office other than a once-a-year meeting when I briefly reviewed the operations and the financials and determined bonus compensation for the President and the CFO. I spent no time with any of the other employees or the operations. The whole idea behind TABLE was that it would handle everything other than my day job so that I would have more time for my job and my family. Over the last six years, expenses ballooned even further, employee turnover accelerated, and I became concerned that all was not well at TABLE. It was time for me to take a look at what was going on. Nearly four years ago, I recruited my nephew who had recently graduated from Harvard and put him to work at Bremont, a British watchmaker, one of my only active personal investments to figure out the issues at the company and ultimately assist in executing a turnaround. He did a superb job. When he returned from the UK late last year after a few years at Bremont, I asked him to help me figure out what was going on with TABLE. When I explained to TABLE’s president what he would be doing, she became incredibly defensive, which naturally made me more concerned. My nephew went to work by first meeting with each employee to understand their roles at the company and to learn from them what ideas they had on how things could be improved. He got an earful. Our first step in helping to turn around TABLE was a reduction in force including the president and about a third of the team, retaining excellent talent that had been desperate for new leadership. Now here is where I need your advice. All but one of the employees who were terminated acted professionally and were gracious on the way out (excluding the president who had a notice period in her contract, is currently still being paid, and with whom I have not yet had a discussion). The highest compensated terminated employee other than the president, an in-house lawyer (let’s call her Ronda), told us that three months of severance was not enough and demanded two years’ severance despite having worked at the company for only two and one half years. When I learned of Ronda's request for severance, I offered to speak with her to understand what she was thinking, but she refused to do so. A few days ago, we received a threatening letter from a Silicon Valley law firm. In the letter, Ronda’s counsel suggests that her termination is part of longstanding issues of ‘harassment and gender discrimination’ – an interesting claim in light of the fact that Ronda was in charge of workplace compliance – and that her termination was due to: “unlawful, retaliatory, and harmful conduct directed towards her. Both [Ronda] and I [Ronda’s lawyer] have spoken with you about [Ronda’s] view of what a reasonable resolution would include given the circumstances. Thus far, TABLE has refused to provide any substantive response. This letter provides the last opportunity to reach a satisfactory agreement. If we cannot do so, [Ronda] will seek all appropriate relief in a court of competent jurisdiction.” The letter goes on to explain the basis for the “unsafe work environment” claim at TABLE: “In early 2026, Pershing Square’s founder Bill Ackman installed his nephew in an unidentified role at TABLE, Ackman’s family office. [His nephew]—whose only work experience had been for TABLE where he was seconded abroad for the last four years to a UK watch company held by Ackman—began appearing at TABLE’s offices and conducting interviews of employees without a clear explanation of his role or the purposes of these interviews. During this period, he made a series of inappropriate and genderbased [sic] comments to multiple employees that created an unsafe work environment. Among other things, [his nephew] made remarks about female employees’ ages (“Tell me you are nowhere near 40”), physical appearance (“Your body does not look like you have kids”), as well as intrusive questions about family planning and sexual orientation (“Who carried your son? Who will carry your next child?”). These incidents were reported to senior leadership at TABLE and Pershing Square. Rather than being addressed appropriately, the response from senior management reflected, at best, willful blindness to the inappropriateness of [his nephew]’s remarks and, at worst, tacit endorsement.” The above allegations about my nephew had previously been brought to my attention by TABLE’s president when they occurred. When I learned of them, I told the president that I would speak to him directly and encouraged her to arrange for him to get workplace sensitivity training. The president assured me that she would do so. When I spoke to my nephew, he explained what he actually had said and how his actual remarks had been received, not at all as alleged in the legal letter from Ronda’s counsel. I have also spoken to others at the lunch table who confirmed his description of the facts. In any case, he meant no harm, was simply trying to build rapport with other employees, and no one, as far as I understand, was offended. Ironically, Ronda claims in her legal letter that TABLE didn’t take HR compliance seriously, yet Ronda was in charge of HR compliance at TABLE and the person who gave my nephew his workplace sensitivity training after the alleged incidents. In any case, Ronda, as head of compliance, should have kept a record or raised an alarm if indeed there was pervasive harassment or other such problems at the company, and there is no evidence whatsoever that this is true. So why does Ronda believe she can get me to pay her nearly $2 million, i.e., two years of severance, nearly one year of severance for each of her years at the company? Well, here is where some more background would be helpful. Over the last two months, I have been consumed with a major family medical issue – one of my older daughters had a massive brain hemorrhage on February 5th and has since been making progress on her recovery – and I am in the midst of a major transaction for my company which I am executing from a hospital room office next to her . While the latter business matter is publicly known, the details of my daughter’s situation are only known to Ronda because of her role at our family office. Now, let’s get back to the subject at hand. Unfortunately, while New York and many other states have employment-at-will, there has emerged an industry of lawyers who make a living from bringing fake gender, race, LGBTQ and other discrimination employment claims in order to extract larger severance payments for terminated employees, and it needs to stop. The fake claim system succeeds because it costs little to have a lawyer send a threatening letter and nearly all of the lawyers in this field work on contingency so there is no or minimal cash cost to bring a claim. And inevitably, nearly 100% of these claims are settled because the public relations and legal costs of defending them exceed the dollar cost of the settlement. The claims are nearly always settled with a confidentiality agreement where the employee who asserts the fake claims remains anonymous and as a result, there is no reputational cost to bringing false claims. The consequences of this sleazy system (let’s call it ‘the System’) are the increased costs of doing business which is a tax on the economy and society. There are other more serious problems due to the System. Unfortunately, the existence of an industry of plaintiff firms and terminated employees willing to make these claims makes it riskier for companies to hire employees from a protected class, i.e., LGBTQ, seniors, women, people of color etc. because it is that much more reputationally damaging and expensive to be accused of racism, sexism, and/or intolerance for sexual diversity than for firing a white male as juries generally have less sympathy for white males. The System therefore increases the risk of discrimination rather than reducing it, and the people bringing these fake claims are thereby causing enormous harm to the other members of these protected classes. So what happened here? Ronda was vastly overpaid and overqualified for the job that she did at TABLE. She was paid $1.05 million plus benefits last year for her work which was largely comprised of filling out subscription agreements and overseeing an outside law firm on closing passive investments in funds and in private and venture stage companies, some compliance work, and managing the office move from one office to another. She had a very good gig as she was highly paid, only had to go into the office three days a week, and could work from anywhere during the summer. Once my nephew showed up and started to investigate what was going on, she likely concluded that there was a reasonable possibility she would be terminated, as her job was in the too-easy-and-to-good-to-be-true category. The problem was that she was not in a protected class due to her race, age or sexual identity so she had to construct the basis for a claim. While she is female and could in theory bring a gender-based discrimination claim, she reported to the president who is female and to whom she is very close, which makes it difficult for her to bring a harassment claim against her former boss. When my nephew complimented a TABLE employee at lunch about how young she looked – in response to saying she was going to her 40-year-old sister’s birthday party, he said ‘she must be your older sister’ – Ronda immediately reported it to our external HR lawyer. She thereby began building her case. The other problem for Ronda bringing a claim is that she was terminated alongside 30% of other TABLE employees as part of a restructuring so it is very difficult for her to say that she was targeted in her termination or was retaliated against. TABLE is now hiring an external fractional general counsel as that is all the company needs to process the relatively limited amount of legal work we do internally. In short, Ronda was eminently qualified and capable and did her job. She was just too much horsepower for what is largely an administrative legal role so she had to come up with something else to bring a claim. Now Ronda knew I was a good target and it was a good time to bring a claim against me. She also knew that I was under a lot of pressure because on March 4th when Ronda was terminated, my daughter had not yet emerged from consciousness, she was not yet breathing on her own, and my daughter and we were fighting for her life. I was and remain deeply engaged in her recovery while at the same time I was working on finishing the closing for the private placement round for my upcoming IPO. Ronda also knew that publicity about supposed gender discrimination and a “hostile and unsafe work environment” are not things that a CEO of a company about to go public wants to have released into the media. And she may have thought that the nearly $2 million she was asking for would be considered small in the context of the reputational damage a lawsuit could cause, regardless of the fact that two years of severance was an absurd amount for an employee who had only worked at TABLE for 30 months. She also likely considered that I wouldn’t want to embarrass my nephew by dragging him into the klieg lights when her claims emerged publicly. So, in summary, game theory would say that I would certainly settle this case, for why would I risk negative publicity at a time when I was preparing our company to go public and also risk embarrassing my nephew. Notably, she hired a Silicon Valley law firm, rather than a typical NY employment firm. This struck me as interesting as her husband works for one of the most prominent Silicon Valley venture firms whose CEO, I am sure, has no tolerance for these kinds of fake claims that sadly many venture-backed companies also have to deal with. I mention this as I suspect her husband likely has been working with her on the strategy for squeezing me as, in addition to being a computer scientist, he is a game theorist. My only advice for him is to understand more about your opponent before you launch your first move. All of the above said, gender, race, LGBTQ and other such discrimination is a real thing. Many people have been harmed and deserve compensation for this discrimination, and these companies and individuals should be punished for engaging in such behavior. Which brings me to the advice I am seeking from the X community. I am not planning to follow the typical path and settle this ‘claim.’ Rather, I am going to fight this nonsense to the end of the earth in the hope that it inspires other CEOs to do the same so we shut down this despicable behavior that is a large tax on society, employment, and the economy and contributes to workplace discrimination rather than reducing it. Do you agree or disagree that this is the right approach?

@CynicalPublius After a little while, you get your sense of humor back and realize that you are much kinder to strangers.

I'm starting to get used to being an ex-lawyer. The best thing is not having an uncontrollable urge to check my email every ten minutes to make sure a client does not need something. Also, not waking up at 3am to check my email is enjoyable. Maybe I can stop taking so much blood pressure medication and vodka.

@felixprehn Workbook

UPDATE: The automation is capped - I'll be sending the workbook to you manually over the next 24 hours. If you haven't opted for the giveaway, please comment on this post with "WORKBOOK" and I'll send it to you + reply to your comment once I do. Thank you guys! We hit over 1k+ comments on this post.

@Manifest_Lord I just saw this from another feed and I thought it served as a great comparison:

This is the perfect plan for a longer healthier life.. -Must Read-