Desmond Ogola

The older you get, the more you realize luck is mostly exposure. If you sit in the same place, have the same routine, talking to the same people, nothing new really happens. You have to engage the world to win. Travel more. Talk to people.

Nobody is going to discover your genius if you keep it in your head.

@AbdulMahmud01 All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Sun Tzu, Art of War.

Behavioural economics explains why generosity without conditions destroys the people you give it to. Helping someone repeatedly without requiring growth on their part does not 'support' them. It updates their internal model of what life requires from them. You taught them that effort is optional because someone else will absorb the consequences. So the next failure is cheaper than the first. You have effectively subsidised their stagnation. Genuine help requires that the recipient feel the cost of their own decisions before assistance arrives. Everything else is enabling, dressed up as kindness.

Elon Musk avait dit un truc qui m'avait marqué sur l'allocation de ressources. En substance : passé un certain niveau de richesse, l'argent n'est plus de la consommation, c'est de l'allocation de capital. Cette phrase change tout. L'économie, dans le fond, c'est juste un problème d'allocation. Tu as des ressources finies et des usages infinis. Qui décide où va quoi ? Imagine une cour de récré. 100 enfants, des paquets de cartes Pokémon distribués au hasard. Tu laisses faire. Très vite, un ordre émerge. Les bons joueurs accumulent les cartes rares, les collectionneurs trient, les négociateurs trouvent des deals. Personne n'a planifié. Et pourtant chaque carte finit dans les mains de celui qui en tire le plus de valeur. Le système maximise le bonheur total de la cour. C'est ça, la main invisible. Maintenant fais entrer la maîtresse. Elle trouve ça injuste. Léo a 50 cartes, Tom en a 3. Elle confisque, redistribue, impose l'égalité. Trois effets immédiats. Les bons joueurs arrêtent de jouer, à quoi bon. Les mauvais n'ont plus de raison de progresser, ils auront leur part. Les échanges s'effondrent. La cour est égale, et morte. Elle a maximisé l'égalité, elle a détruit le bonheur. Le problème de la maîtresse, c'est qu'elle ne peut pas avoir l'information que la cour avait collectivement. C'est le problème du calcul économique de Mises, formulé en 1920. L'URSS a essayé de le résoudre pendant 70 ans avec le Gosplan. Résultat : pénuries, queues, effondrement. Pas parce que les Soviétiques étaient bêtes, parce que le problème est mathématiquement insoluble en mode centralisé. Quand Musk a 200 milliards, il ne les consomme pas, il les alloue. SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink, xAI. Chaque dollar est un pari sur le futur. Et lui a un track record. PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX. Il a démontré qu'il sait identifier des problèmes immenses et y allouer des ressources avec un rendement spectaculaire. L'État aussi a un track record. Hôpitaux qui s'effondrent, éducation qui décline, dette qui explose, services publics qui se dégradent malgré des budgets en hausse constante. Le marché identifie les bons allocateurs, la politique identifie les bons communicants. Le profit n'est pas une finalité, c'est un signal. Il dit : tu as alloué des ressources rares vers un usage que les gens valorisent suffisamment pour payer. Plus le profit est gros, plus la création de valeur est grande. Quand Starlink est rentable, ça veut dire que des millions de gens dans des zones rurales ont enfin internet. Quand un ministère est en déficit, ça veut dire qu'il consomme plus qu'il ne produit. L'un crée, l'autre détruit, et on appelle ça redistribution. Dans nos sociétés il y a deux catégories d'acteurs. Les entrepreneurs et les bureaucrates. L'entrepreneur prend un risque personnel pour identifier un problème, mobiliser des ressources, créer une solution. S'il se trompe il perd. S'il a raison, ses clients gagnent, ses employés gagnent, ses fournisseurs gagnent, l'État collecte des impôts. Il est la cellule de base du progrès humain. Le bureaucrate ne prend aucun risque personnel. Son salaire est garanti. Au mieux il maintient une rente existante. Au pire il la détruit par excès de réglementation, mauvaise allocation forcée, incitations perverses qui découragent ceux qui produisent. Mais dans aucun cas il ne crée. Regarde les 50 dernières années. iPhone, internet civil, SpaceX, Tesla, Google, Amazon, Stripe, mRNA, ChatGPT. Toutes des inventions privées, portées par des entrepreneurs, financées par du capital risque. Pas un seul ministère n'a inventé quoi que ce soit qui ait changé ta vie au quotidien. La France est devenue le laboratoire mondial de la dérive bureaucratique. 57% du PIB en dépenses publiques, record absolu. Une administration tentaculaire, une fiscalité qui pénalise la création de richesse. Résultat : décrochage face aux États-Unis, à l'Allemagne, à la Suisse. Fuite des cerveaux. Désindustrialisation. Dette qui explose. Et le pire c'est que la mauvaise allocation s'auto-renforce. Plus l'État prélève, moins les entrepreneurs créent. Moins ils créent, moins il y a de base fiscale. Plus l'État s'endette et taxe. Boucle de rétroaction négative parfaite. La maîtresse pense qu'elle aide, et chaque année la cour produit moins. Dans nos sociétés, ce sont les entrepreneurs, toujours, qui font avancer la civilisation. Les bureaucrates au mieux maintiennent une rente, au pire la détruisent. Aucune société n'a jamais progressé en taxant ses créateurs pour subventionner ses gestionnaires. La question n'est jamais qui a combien. C'est qui alloue le mieux la prochaine unité de ressource pour maximiser le futur de l'humanité. La réponse depuis 200 ans n'a jamais changé. Ce ne sont pas les fonctionnaires.

i don’t even argue anymore, i just see things differently

it’s actually so healing to let people be deadass wrong about you. like go ahead bitch, tell that story. i hope it makes you feel better.

When you’ve been poor and then rich, you can sometimes give good advice freely, but most of your advice would be wrong, as it discounts luck. When you have been rich and then poor, then rich again, you will learn not to give advice freely until you’ve listened to people carefully. It is very easy to listen to the rich man talk and believe that if you follow their path, you will likely become rich. The truth is that the path to wealth for everyone is unique and depends on how well they use their advantages. This morning I took my family out for brunch and met a guy who fixes ships and tankers. A very understated guy who helps others who take risks to build and protect their wealth. He told me of his current boss, who is on his 4th tanker and looking to do 20. His boss is 35 years old and a Nigerian of Indian origin. His own father is very wealthy. He can take advantage of his father’s wealth to grow because he learned from his dad how to avoid the risks and pitfalls. I thought about my life and realized that I saw those risks and pitfalls with my uncle, whom I lived with longer than I lived with my father, and who raised me, but it was Herbert who learned the most and became rich. My uncle used to tell us that there is no crime at all in being poor, and in fact, most poor people are the happiest. The greatest crime is being rich and being poor again. You destroy hope for so many people in the process. It is why he always fought back after every adversity and came back up. I realized that I learned that part very well from him. It is the most valuable gift he gave to me. Those who learned from him and just became rich didn't see the full life cycle. Henry Abebe, Aigboje, Herbert, and I did. It changed all of us in different ways. For them, it was about taking maximum risks and winning. For me, it was to play the long-term game while remaining functional. My uncle turns 70 this year, and I have been with him for more than half of his life. I have seen that many risks aren't worth it. Life is meant to be lived and not performed. My biggest mentor is 80 and lives in Cornwall, England. I can't wait to visit him this summer, as I learned a lot more from him about the long game than anyone else. A business he started after age 60 generates millions of pounds in profit each month and is still growing. He and his wife now follow their granddaughter, who plays Rugby for England, around the world while his son runs the business.

The most dangerous form of laziness is performative productivity. Notes, tabs, highlights, summaries, plans. A whole pile of activity arranged to avoid direct contact with the work.

"You need to have equity, either as an owner, an investor, shareholder or a brand that you're building." @naval

This is why I keep stressing that learning "small talk" is important. I got married that way.

The role of intellectuals is to challenge authority, not serve it.

Sometime last month I went to get new sets of lights for my studio. While I was still looking around, a man walked in regular clothes, nothing flashy and tried to get someone’s attention. One of the sales reps who was free was reluctant to attend to him. She had analyzed him from afar and already judged him, assumed he couldn’t afford anything in that shop. I tapped the girl attending to me and told her to go meet him. That business was about to lose a customer, and as someone who owns brands, I always correct this kind of attitude with my team. I moved closer to where the man was, pretending to window shop. He pointed at a chandelier. The girl checked and said ₦7.3M. He asked if they had two, he had two sitting rooms he wanted to change. The other girl who refused to attend to him suddenly stood up. Before she could get there, the first girl had already closed in. He brought out his card and asked for the POS machine. I stood back, watched the transaction happen, and smiled. After he left, she came to thank me and told me about the commission she was about to collect. I picked up my small ₦1.3M light and walked out. Moral of the story: everyone is a client till they are not.

Bro, therapy is not weakness. Therapy is maintenance. You service your car every 3 months. Your mind deserves at least the same respect.

Never get behind Satan at the DMV. For the devil takes many forms.

Power is not always moral, but morality is powerful. Humans always prefer to be treated well, even when they are vile and terrible people. They will still prefer good to bad when on the receiving end.

hot take: your friends SHOULD call you out on your shitty behavior.

The unwritten law of innocence. For anyone who is innocent of a crime, there is someone out there who is guilty of it.

My oyibo wife woke up one morning and told me she is divorcing me. Wait! She didn't tell me, they sent me a paper written in Dutch. I took the paper to work the following day so my colleague will help me interpret. That's how i got to know it's a divorce paper. I have only been in the country for 3 years, so my ex wanted to divorce and send me back to Africa since she gave me papers. Turns out, as we later found out, that the country has amended their law and now allows one to complete their stay as stipulated on their paper, so long the marriage lasted at least 3 years (I had 5 years papers then). Upon realization, my ex tried to mend fences and get us back, but it's too late. I was afraid. She owned me. I submitted to her whims and caprices because I feared i would lose my right to stay if she divorces me. When the divorce papers came i went into depression. I began to lose weight. Where do i begin from? How do i go back home and face my people? I pleaded with her but it fell on deaf ears. She even booked a one-way ticket for me. She said it's her own little way of helping me transition to my new reality. You need to see her disappointed when we found out i could stay. I moved out and rented my own space-far from her and her troubles. It's been years now. That period really tested me but i thank God for God.

He charged his client $5000 to deep clean their home, and shows what is included!