andrew engler (@aerockrose)

Jeff Bezos explains the stock-is-not-company rule behind Amazon's $113 to $6 collapse. "Our stock peaked somewhere around $113." "Then after the internet bubble busted open, our stock went down to $6." "It went from $113 to $6 in less than a year." "My annual shareholder letter that year starts with a one word sentence." "Ouch." Then Bezos gives the rule most operators forget in a crash: "The stock is not the company, and the company is not the stock." While the outside price was collapsing, he was watching the inside machine: "Number of customers." "Profit per unit." "Defects." "Every single thing about the business was getting better and fast." The useful idea: do not let the market's scoreboard replace your operating dashboard. A price can scream panic while the business is quietly getting healthier. - Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) on Bloomberg's The David Rubenstein Show

Morris Chang explains the hidden math most CEOs miss in layoffs: "If in a year you have to hire people back, you shouldn't lay off. The separation expense is usually half a year. And it takes at least half a year to train a person." The cost is not just payroll. It is trust, severance, training, and speed.

Jensen Huang reveals the operating rule behind NVIDIA's speed: "I don't like going into a problem and somebody says, 'It takes 74 days to do this today, and we can do it for you in 72 days.' I'd rather strip it all back to zero and say, 'Explain to me why 74 days in the first place.' Oftentimes, you'd be surprised. It might come to six days." That is the difference between improving a process and interrogating the constraint. After building $300M+ businesses, this is the part I have seen repeatedly: elite operators do not just ask for a better version of the current system. They ask whether the system should exist in its current form at all.

Pacific Palisades relies on three 1-million-gallon storage tanks in the hills. Water demand hit 4x normal rate for 15 straight hours. First tank empty by 4:45 PM. Second by 8:30 PM. Third by 3:00 AM. 20% of fire hydrants, 200 out of 1,000, went completely dry.