Imagine you are a bank. Someone comes to you and says, “I have millions of pounds of soybean oil stored in tanks in New Jersey. Give me a loan.” You send an inspector. The inspector dips a measuring rod into the tank. Oil floats on top. Looks fine. You approve the loan. What you do not know is that 95% of the tank is filled with water and there is just a thin layer of oil floating on the surface.
Imagine you are a bank. Someone comes to you and says, “I have millions of pounds of soybean oil stored in tanks in New Jersey. Give me a loan.” You send an inspector. The inspector dips a measuring rod into the tank. Oil floats on top. Looks fine. You approve the loan. What you do not know is that 95% of the tank is filled with water and there is just a thin layer of oil floating on the surface.
A 16-year-old kid who speaks four languages watches his family lose everything overnight. He flees to Argentina with nothing. No money. No connections. No plan. Thirty years later, he owns the largest private tanker fleet on the planet, throws parties with JFK and Churchill on his yacht, and marries the most famous widow in America.
A 16-year-old kid who speaks four languages watches his family lose everything overnight. He flees to Argentina with nothing. No money. No connections. No plan. Thirty years later, he owns the largest private tanker fleet on the planet, throws parties with JFK and Churchill on his yacht, and marries the most famous widow in America.
Henderson is walking along Port Hercule in Monaco, looking at yachts. He notices something interesting. Every boat has its country of registration on the back. The big yachts are registered in the Cayman Islands, Malta, Marshall Islands. The small ones are registered in France.
What if I told you that the fastest way for a profitable company to go bankrupt is to grow really fast? Sounds backwards, right? That is exactly what this chapter is about.
Tim Ferriss is standing in an airport security line with a medical sensor implanted in his abdomen. His hands are sweating. He almost wore a 50-pound weighted vest through TSA, but a friend talked him out of it by pointing out it looked like a suicide bomber jacket. So the vest stayed home. But the implant made it through just fine.
Tim Ferriss is standing in an airport security line with a medical sensor implanted in his abdomen. His hands are sweating. He almost wore a 50-pound weighted vest through TSA, but a friend talked him out of it by pointing out it looked like a suicide bomber jacket. So the vest stayed home. But the implant made it through just fine.
Henderson walks into a Romanian bank. He has his passport. That is it. Twenty-five minutes later he has a fully functional bank account. The banker, Teodora, looks at him like he is crazy when he acts surprised. “Why would it not be easy?” she asks.
Here is a sentence that will surprise exactly nobody who has ever checked their bank account after payday: just because you earned money does not mean you have money. Companies work the same way.