Taylor Nielsen

Noticing an interesting version of gell-man amnesia where people use AI for their job and see all the various things they have to do in the “last mile”, but then look at someone else’s job and think that AI will eliminate it immediately. We all have a much deeper appreciation for the nuances and complexities of the work that we do every day. We run into issues about accessing data, we know how much context is needed to get AI models to work the way we need, we have to review the output of the AI to make sure it’s accurate, and then we have to incorporate that work into some broader business process. We see all those steps deeply for the work that we do. Then, a moment later, we see AI do something in a foreign space and think that it can go automate that entire function. We tend to dramatically underestimate the work that goes into making the AI work just as effectively in those jobs. This is reason to be skeptical about many of the theories of job loss. It’s coming from the lens of being able to automate individual tasks with AI, without understanding all the work that goes into doing the job fully.

@tom_sietsema Congrats on the acquisition! Your point on underwriting the seller is spot on. I wish I would’ve known that when I acquired my business.

Closed our first acquisition this week. Specialty distributor of underground utility and telecom materials in Minnesota. Founded in 2003, still run by the guy who built it. The business is not sexy. It moves pipe, conduit and fiber components to contractors and utilities across the Upper Midwest. No SaaS margins, no obvious growth hack. A company built on technical knowledge and reliability for over twenty years. That's exactly what we were looking for. The search process was longer and harder than I expected. The deals that look clean rarely are. The sellers who seem motivated often aren't. You build a lot of conviction on things that fall apart. This one didn't. One thing I'd tell someone buying in the sub-$2MM market: seller quality matters more than business quality. At $5MM EBITDA there are systems, management layers, institutional memory. Below $2MM the seller often is the business. An OK business from an honest seller who wants you to succeed is a better deal than a great business from someone who starts playing games. The transition period is long, the seller knows things you don't and you're going to need their help. Who they are as a person is part of what you're underwriting. Talked to a handful of peers in the space yesterday and there was unanimous agreement on this. Grateful to the founding team for trusting us with something they spent twenty years building. That's not a small thing.

@paulswaney3 Would love to take a look

@AndyHVandenBerg Agree. We might choose a different direction in the future for that reason but wanted to try it out for at least a year. Most frustrating thing about our healthcare system is the inability to just get a catastrophic care plan through insurance due to income restrictions

@AndyHVandenBerg We are trying out CrowdHealth this year for those same reasons. We are a family of 6 and everyone is healthy. Right now we pay $400-500/mo. through CrowdHealth. Each person gets $300 a year toward preventive care which we are using to partially pay for a DPC membership.

Non-Finance Post: One of my biggest annoyances: the US Healthcare system. As a healthy family of 4, we pay ~$28k a year in premiums with a $10k deductible. A friend suggested we downgrade our coverage to the cheapest insurance plan (for trauma, cancer, etc) and try medical tourism for everything else. The idea is simple. You take one week a year and knock out all preventative healthcare abroad. These services are popular in Japan, Korea, Costa Rica, Thailand. In a single week you can get a full blood panel, cardiac screening, full body MRI, cancer screenings, dental, vision, a physical, and specialist consults. I ran some numbers. The whole trip, flights and lodging included, runs under $10k for my family. For routine preventative care, seems like an interesting option. Main downside is the continuity of care afterwards. Should we give it a try?

@StumpGuyTy Make sure to hit up Anakes Juice Bar in Poipu while you’re there. It’s in the back of a grocery store.

For all the “cash back is better than points” guys: I just booked 8 nights for FREE at the Grand Hyatt in Kauai with points. Points I would have spent on the stump biz and candy inventory regardless. No way cash back is better than this.

@RebeccaCNReid Good news is that you can make your own choices without weighing in when other people choose something different

@blueprintsmb22 Did you install the cameras?

It’s Saturday. Been up since 330am. Skeleton crew working. Premier league soccer playing (waiting for Liverpool West Ham at 10am). I’m watching episodes from the first season of Dawson’s Creek like a teenage girl (watching for the first time after hearing about Van Der Beeks passing). Judge me. I do not give AF. Updated my 13 week cash flow and processed a few orders that came in over night. I’m ready for AI to make this all possible from my phone while I enjoy an ice coffee from a cafe in a warm climate. Apparently stuff is happening in Iran. Happy Saturday.

…unto the enjoyment of life and salvation; for from the first existence of man, the faith necessary unto the enjoyment of life and salvation never could be obtained without the sacrifice of all earthly things.”

“The pilgrimage asks whats so extraordinary that a person will risk their ordinary lives, and give their all, to reach it.” Reminds me of another quote: “A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary…

@guessworkinvest We did it manually and it sucked. Just switched over and has been a lot less painful because I don’t have to store the reviews outside the system and it manages the deadlines for me.

@TaylorENielsen Good point, I should probably move all this into gusto since we have it anyway. We do it more manually, but same idea.

Steady performance reviews are clearly very important, but man, as our team has gotten bigger, it feels like it takes weeks. Has anyone figured out a way to streamline this process?

@guessworkinvest We use the performance review system in Gusto. We have employees do a self evaluation and then do a manager evaluation (all in Gusto). I will then take both of those reviews and share the results with employees. The only time consuming part for me is sharing feedback at the end.

@TaylorENielsen Twice a year at the same time each year

@BrentBeshore One of my concerns that this article touches on is the potential for us to shift from machines of production to machines of consumption instead of “locating our dignity elsewhere”

I would never eat another muffin again if it meant I had to handwash the muffin pan. It’s like washing a dozen pans.

Everyone's sharing that "Long Degeneracy" article and nominating it for article of the year with 20m views. I just got around to reading it…overall, I get it. It's well written, emotionally resonant, and captures something real about generational anxiety. I like the author, I subscribe to their stuff… talented Quant. But nobody's pushing back, so let me while I watch my kids at the pool. My main pushback is this: the article is a suicide note dressed up as investment advice. I REFUSE to hand my agency to "the house." The moment you accept "the game is rigged so I might as well gamble," you've surrendered. You've quit on the process that actually works because someone convinced you it doesn't. There are no easy buttons. No shortcuts. No magic money options. There is only learning, sacrifice, and continual grit. It tells a generation they're prisoners. Then it sells them a lottery ticket and calls it freedom. Then it tells YOU to invest in the prison. That's not analysis. That's despair with a ticker symbol. The author spends 2000 words empathizing with young people as "prisoners" trapped by a broken economy… then tells you to invest in the platforms extracting fees from their desperation. "Long Coinbase, long DraftKings, long the casinos." Read that again. The thesis is: a generation is so economically desperate they're turning to gambling, most will lose, and YOU should profit by owning the house. You can't weep for the prisoners and then sell shares in the prison. Pick one. 4 points I want to make.... Pushback 1: "Closed" is doing a lot of work The claim that traditional wealth building is "closed, not difficult" is asserted, not proven. The boomer vs millennial wealth stat is misleading… it compares 65 year olds to 35 year olds. Of course boomers hold more wealth. They've been alive longer. Housing is brutal in coastal cities. But median home prices in most US metros are still accessible to dual income households. "Wages up 8% while housing doubled" has no timeframe and cherry picks the comparison. Real wages post 2020 have actually grown. Is it harder than it was? Yes. Is the game "fundamentally broken"? That's a much bigger claim requiring a much longer discussion. Pushback 2: Negative EV doesn't become rational just because you feel stuck The core logical move is: "if you're trapped anyway, a 5% chance of escape beats 100% certainty of stagnation." But gambling doesn't leave you "still stuck." It makes most participants actively worse off. That 5% moonshot comes paired with a 95% chance of losing your savings, your rent money, your runway. The author admits "most people lose" then hand waves it because gamblers "understand the odds." But understanding bad odds while taking them isn't rationality. It's emotional capitulation wearing economic language as a costume. This isn't a generation finding a path out. It's a wealth transfer mechanism moving money FROM desperate young people TO platform operators. Pushback 3: The article accidentally reveals the real problem The author admits social media has "repositioned the zeroth line" so people earning $150k feel poor. Admits the algorithm ensures "you never feel like you've arrived." Admits basic needs are met and there's "cognitive bandwidth" for existential questions. But wait. If the problem is FEELING trapped due to infinite upward comparison rather than BEING trapped… gambling doesn't fix that. You could 10x your net worth and the algorithm will still show you someone richer. The "Maslow trap" section accidentally confesses: this generation isn't imprisoned. They're dissatisfied. These are different problems. Pushback 4: I don’t have enough FAITH to live in a world without God This is the part nobody wants to hear. The entire thesis rests on a materialist assumption: your life's meaning is determined by your net worth, your house, your access to experiences. If you can't get those things, you're "imprisoned." If you can, you're "free." That's spiritual poverty masquerading as economic analysis. Jesus said it plain: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?" The author's answer is apparently "at least you beat the algorithm." My BIGGEST problem with the article isn't economic. It's theological. It assumes the highest human need is "self actualization" through financial success. That Maslow's hierarchy is the truth about human nature. That if you can't afford the vacation and the house, you're missing what makes life worth living. That's not wisdom. That's the prosperity gospel without the gospel. No thanks. The reason this generation feels trapped isn't because housing costs went up. It's because they've been handed a worldview where meaning comes from consumption, identity comes from status, and hope is a betting slip. When you build your life on that foundation, of course you feel imprisoned. The cell is interior. Real freedom isn't financial. It never was. The peace that passes understanding doesn't require a Polymarket account. Eternity is a LONG time. So what's the alternative? First: Exit the comparison machine. The author correctly identifies social media as manufacturing infinite dissatisfaction. The answer isn't to gamble your way to a moving target. It's to stop letting an algorithm define your "zeroth line." Your reference class should be your actual life, not curated highlights from 8 billion people. Delete the apps. Touch grass. Go to church. Give yourself to something BIGGER than your net worth. Second: Skill acquisition still compounds. The article mocks "getting better at your job" as boomer advice. But the same young people pouring hours into memecoin research could pour those hours into skills that compound. The difference is skills don't have a house edge. Coding, sales, writing, trades… these translate into income whether the market is up or down. AI is changing which skills matter but it's not eliminating the returns to expertise. It's concentrating them. Third: Asymmetric bets exist outside casinos. If you want convexity, build something. Start a business. Create content. Ship a product. The difference between entrepreneurship and gambling is you're building equity in something that can compound, not burning capital on negative EV. Fourth: Anchor your identity somewhere the market can't touch. If your sense of self rises and falls with your portfolio, you're a slave. If your hope depends on a moonshot, you have no hope. The man who knows who he is in Christ doesn't need a 100x to feel like his life matters. He's already free. That's not copium. That's the only foundation that doesn't move. The real trap The article's framing is seductive because it offers absolution. You're not making bad decisions. You're rationally responding to a broken system. The house always wins but at least you're playing. The framing IS the trap. The economy is harder than it was. Housing costs are real. AI anxiety is real. But "harder" isn't "impossible," and the author's solution… becoming a customer of fee extracting platforms or an investor in them… doesn't help the people he claims to sympathize with. It helps the house. Here's what actually works. -Wake up early. Get after it. Be Relentless. -Spend less than you earn. No excuses. -Acquire skills that compound. Every single day. Stack them. -Build things you own. Equity, not lottery tickets. -Get your body right. Discipline starts physical. -Get your soul right with the Lord. My closeness with the Lord has grown MORE in trials and tribulations than any fancy car. -Exit the comparison machine. The algorithm is not your friend. It's your enemy. -Find your people. Real ones. In person. Build a family. Build a group you trust. -Serve something bigger than yourself. -Pray. Not as a last resort. As a first principle. Daily. -The path is painful. The path is boring. The path requires years of work that nobody will clap for. But it's the path that works. The casinos will keep taking their vig. The gurus will keep selling hope. The algorithms will keep showing you what you don't have. Let them. You are not a prisoner. You are not a degenerate. You are not a customer. You are a free human being with a soul that matters and a life to build. So build it through active faith, aggressive patience, and a mindset geared towards eternity and not your bank account.

Always Go To The Funeral “Always go to the funeral” means that I have to do the right thing when I really, really don’t feel like it. I have to remind myself of it when I could make some small gesture, but I don’t really have to and I definitely don’t want to. I’m talking about those things that represent only inconvenience to me, but the world to the other guy. You know, the painfully under-attended birthday party. The hospital visit during happy hour. The Shiva call for one of my ex’s uncles. In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn’t been good versus evil. It’s hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing.”

@OneManLBO I agree with that logic for myself. Wife wants peace of mind with our 4 kids.

Great to hear. I’ve thought about the DPC pairing as well. Lots of people do it. Just not sure we’d hit the medical spend there to make it worth it (DPCs run around $200-250 here per month for a family of 4). Another hack: Amazon telehealth sessions run $30-$50, may work for low complexity stuff

Going with CrowdHealth for our family starting next month. Extremely helpful feedback from friends and connections on this platform, and got all my detailed remaining questions answered by the company. Won't have 100% assurance that this will work out perfectly (no risk-free propositions in life, and let's hope we don't have to be a live test case), but all the early anecdotes and research are very promising. Let's go.

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