4 ms·

> He spent the next decade dabbling in RV armrests and beachchair parts... devoted himself to buying small, struggling regional outfits and turning them around.

> He spent the next decade dabbling in RV armrests and beachchair parts... devoted himself to buying small, struggling regional outfits and turning them around... expanded his Indiana PVC manufacturer from zero sales to $25 million Is it just me or can this critical part of the story be summarised as follows: 1. Dabble around with no apparent income 2. ??? 3. Profit! I read many "successful businessman" biographies in my younger years and eventually stopped because the vast majority of them had these unreplicable mysterious inflection points. As a young man seeking the magical formula for success it frustrated me to no end.

roenxi 3y ago
And doubly suspicious because the obvious gap fillers are * Corruption. * Nepotism or family help. * Some special circumstance they don't want to share because it is either critical or embarrassing. * Very hard work.
- BadCookie 3y ago
  The solution to the mystery, in this instance, is your second idea. “During this period, Bhargava moved back and forth between the US and India and worked a variety of middle-class office and construction jobs. Bhargava returned to the US and joined his parents' plastic injection manufacturing company, Bhar Incorporated, located in New Haven, Indiana.” Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manoj_Bhargava https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manoj_Bhargava
  - Mistletoe 3y ago
    > In 2023, Bhargava was named interim chief executive of Sports Illustrated magazine Wait…what?
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  I have one such in extended family. Not a stellar personality (while he thinks he is a rockstar with amazing life, folks are mostly fed up with him and he is raising at least 2 kids with 2 separate women he doesn't date/isn't married anymore). Anyway he owns and does long term rental of maybe 20-30 apartments mostly in Munich (not airbnb or similar). No problem for him buying additional apartments and houses in very expensive places across Europe on spur (or recently Egypt). Also some old sports cars etc. Yet often a penny pincher when it comes to investing into relationship. The weird part is, when asked what he was doing before becoming a rentier, 'he had some manager job', in Germany. Now I haven't lived there specifically but I know net salaries don't go that high if you work for somebody else, and taxes and social deductions are brutal. This ain't US where 10x performance can give you 10x salary if you do it right and are lucky. And he ain't a C-suite material. He keeps claiming its all just his own effort but I just can't calculate a realistic path where even a highly capable person can get in their early 40s such vast net worth from 0 (I could grok some lucky exponential path via airbnbs but thats not what he does). This is a very conservative investment path of ending up with maybe 2-3 apartments if you really push it hard and do all the right choices at the right time. So he is either laundering money for some mafia/gang (but certainly doesn't seem like so) or got a small help from family initially and refuses to admit that. Nobody thought about that until I came along and just wondered about those numbers a bit.
  - phpnode 3y ago
    It’s not impossible for someone to have 30 apartments by the time they’re 40. It’s a matter of convincing mortgage companies to loan you money, which is what they want to do given it’s their job. I know several people who’ve done this 100% legitimately, the real question is how much equity they have
    - economicalidea 3y ago
      It’s impossible to buy 30 apartments in Munich for normal people with normal salary. You need at least 40 million euros, more if you are not only buying in unattractive areas.
      - ovi256 3y ago
        The above poster has explained how one can get loans for those 40 million euros.
        economicalidea 3y ago
        Ah so I show up at the bank and tell them “Please give me 40 million so I can buy apartments and rent them out - oh and I also have no money or safety of my own so just hope that I will be able to pay it back” Good luck with that at a German bank.
        phpnode 3y ago
        no bank would let you do that in the UK either. The way this typically works is that a bank will lend you ~75% of the purchase price on a Buy-to-Let mortgage, so you buy a £200k property with £50k down payment. This is achievable for normal people with good salaries, let's say they're earning £100k. The mortgage is likely interest only so the landlord can make approximately £10k/year from rent from that one property. The next year they buy another, their earnings are now £120k. It now only takes them a few months to save another £50k to buy their next property, and the more properties they own the faster it is to acquire the next one. After a few years of this let's say they have 10 properties in total. They are now earning £200k, which makes the bank's decision to lend them more money an easier one, even though they have £1.5m in mortgage debt already. If they already have 10 properties then it's not that much of a relative leap to get to 20, then 30. With 30 properties they're earning £400k a year and can finance a new property every 2 months. They do have £4.5m in mortgage debt that is not being paid off though, but they're making a bet on the value of those properties exceeding the purchase price by the time the balance of the mortgages becomes due 20 years from now. In the past that was a pretty safe bet. The risk of doing all of this is that the property market can slow down, rates can go up, values can fall, property maintenance can become a significant cost, bad tenants can ruin a property and wipe out several years earnings and the government can change tax rules that makes all of this far less profitable (as happened in the UK quite recently). But it's absolutely not impossible. About a decade ago I worked with a perfectly normal guy in his mid 50s who worked as an accountant in a small software company, he had 200 BTL mortgages! He just kept reinvesting the profits and buying more each month.
- theshackleford 3y ago
  I know a guy who is hugely successful now. Millions a year in Profit. Tells everyone it’s hard work blah blah, it’s not. I worked with him on it at one point, it’s because he functions in a manner that is borderline illegal, and rides that line hard. He would brag about how I was “a really smart technical guy” held back by the fact that “I can’t fuck.” It’s still depressing thinking about it. Because sadly in so many ways, it seems he is correct. I could replicate his business model save for the fact my morals won’t let me.
  - vonjuice 3y ago
    What kind of things did he do?
    - theshackleford 3y ago
      A range of activities. Claims to have shipped when he hasnt, blames covid for delays. Promises people tracking, gives them other peoples tracking numbers, if he responds at all. Claims to have stock on hand, doesnt. Marks product as genuine when they aint, just refunds the people who complain and keeps on keeping on. Charges for one tier of postage, uses another same deal. His entire business operates off the premise that if he can make good on the 5% of people that complain, that it makes the fortune he makes from the rest that dont viable. Because most people it seems are just too lazy to care about a lot of these activities, even if they do get burned. Because the business runs purely off google adds (and he has an exceptional return rate) it doesnt matter if any of the above customers come back, its already built into his margins. A site goes down or gets impacted by a consumer affairs complaint or whatever, he just reboots with another domain in under half a day, starts all over again. He aint tied to his brands, customers, any of it. It's all in the magic of his maniuplation of the ad market. "In a country with this many people and the modern ads market there is literally always another sucker around the corner." He can be literally as shitty as he wants, and as long as he manages the fallout (which he has) he prints money. I found out through working with him that there are large numbers of these individuals all following the same model, and all respectively making more than they deserve. It's literally one of the most depressing things i've ever encountered. You might say "He couldnt do this forever but" yeah well, twelve years and counting and he lives in the multi million dollar house and I assure you, I do not.
Gustomaximus 3y ago
This one seemed; 1) Spot small business product that has potential. 2) Remake & update as your own version 3) Build a large distribution network 4) Blow any other competing company away with court cases. On that, something I changed my mind on years back, distribution network often more important than product and it would be interesting to know what he did here. Generally I would prefer to have an average product with a great distribution network than an amazing product with a poor distribution network. People tend to be very product/feature focused but access to markets is often more important for success.
ugh123 3y ago
Definitely some family help. Guy was born on third base, thought he hit a triple.
leroman 3y ago
Oh yes, I know of one sure way, works 100% of the time: A man buys an apple, walks around, and sells it. Then, he buys two apples, walks around again, and sells them. Next, he doubles his effort by buying four apples, walking around, and selling them as well. Suddenly, he receives a phone call informing him that his wealthy cousin has passed away, leaving him a substantial inheritance. Now, the man is wealthy.
zubairq 3y ago
Yes, this reminds me of the James Dyson story, of being broke and getting success after 5000 failed prototypes.
quickthrower2 3y ago
Search “Survivorship Bias” and other cognitive biases. You don’t read about the guy who started with nothing, hustled hard, ended with nothing but in a parallel universe could have been a billionaire.
- gwern 3y ago
  You sometimes read about them if their hustling ends in a particularly messy fashion: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/02/12/a-teens-fatal-plunge-into-the-london-underworld https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/02/12/a-teens-fatal-... RIP Zoomer Musk.

roenxi 3y ago

And doubly suspicious because the obvious gap fillers are * Corruption. * Nepotism or family help. * Some special circumstance they don't want to share because it is either critical or embarrassing. * Very hard work.

BadCookie 3y ago
The solution to the mystery, in this instance, is your second idea. “During this period, Bhargava moved back and forth between the US and India and worked a variety of middle-class office and construction jobs. Bhargava returned to the US and joined his parents' plastic injection manufacturing company, Bhar Incorporated, located in New Haven, Indiana.” Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manoj_Bhargava https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manoj_Bhargava
- Mistletoe 3y ago
  > In 2023, Bhargava was named interim chief executive of Sports Illustrated magazine Wait…what?
saiya-jin 3y ago
I have one such in extended family. Not a stellar personality (while he thinks he is a rockstar with amazing life, folks are mostly fed up with him and he is raising at least 2 kids with 2 separate women he doesn't date/isn't married anymore). Anyway he owns and does long term rental of maybe 20-30 apartments mostly in Munich (not airbnb or similar). No problem for him buying additional apartments and houses in very expensive places across Europe on spur (or recently Egypt). Also some old sports cars etc. Yet often a penny pincher when it comes to investing into relationship. The weird part is, when asked what he was doing before becoming a rentier, 'he had some manager job', in Germany. Now I haven't lived there specifically but I know net salaries don't go that high if you work for somebody else, and taxes and social deductions are brutal. This ain't US where 10x performance can give you 10x salary if you do it right and are lucky. And he ain't a C-suite material. He keeps claiming its all just his own effort but I just can't calculate a realistic path where even a highly capable person can get in their early 40s such vast net worth from 0 (I could grok some lucky exponential path via airbnbs but thats not what he does). This is a very conservative investment path of ending up with maybe 2-3 apartments if you really push it hard and do all the right choices at the right time. So he is either laundering money for some mafia/gang (but certainly doesn't seem like so) or got a small help from family initially and refuses to admit that. Nobody thought about that until I came along and just wondered about those numbers a bit.
- phpnode 3y ago
  It’s not impossible for someone to have 30 apartments by the time they’re 40. It’s a matter of convincing mortgage companies to loan you money, which is what they want to do given it’s their job. I know several people who’ve done this 100% legitimately, the real question is how much equity they have
  - economicalidea 3y ago
    It’s impossible to buy 30 apartments in Munich for normal people with normal salary. You need at least 40 million euros, more if you are not only buying in unattractive areas.
    - ovi256 3y ago
      The above poster has explained how one can get loans for those 40 million euros.
      - economicalidea 3y ago
        Ah so I show up at the bank and tell them “Please give me 40 million so I can buy apartments and rent them out - oh and I also have no money or safety of my own so just hope that I will be able to pay it back” Good luck with that at a German bank.
        phpnode 3y ago
        no bank would let you do that in the UK either. The way this typically works is that a bank will lend you ~75% of the purchase price on a Buy-to-Let mortgage, so you buy a £200k property with £50k down payment. This is achievable for normal people with good salaries, let's say they're earning £100k. The mortgage is likely interest only so the landlord can make approximately £10k/year from rent from that one property. The next year they buy another, their earnings are now £120k. It now only takes them a few months to save another £50k to buy their next property, and the more properties they own the faster it is to acquire the next one. After a few years of this let's say they have 10 properties in total. They are now earning £200k, which makes the bank's decision to lend them more money an easier one, even though they have £1.5m in mortgage debt already. If they already have 10 properties then it's not that much of a relative leap to get to 20, then 30. With 30 properties they're earning £400k a year and can finance a new property every 2 months. They do have £4.5m in mortgage debt that is not being paid off though, but they're making a bet on the value of those properties exceeding the purchase price by the time the balance of the mortgages becomes due 20 years from now. In the past that was a pretty safe bet. The risk of doing all of this is that the property market can slow down, rates can go up, values can fall, property maintenance can become a significant cost, bad tenants can ruin a property and wipe out several years earnings and the government can change tax rules that makes all of this far less profitable (as happened in the UK quite recently). But it's absolutely not impossible. About a decade ago I worked with a perfectly normal guy in his mid 50s who worked as an accountant in a small software company, he had 200 BTL mortgages! He just kept reinvesting the profits and buying more each month.
theshackleford 3y ago
I know a guy who is hugely successful now. Millions a year in Profit. Tells everyone it’s hard work blah blah, it’s not. I worked with him on it at one point, it’s because he functions in a manner that is borderline illegal, and rides that line hard. He would brag about how I was “a really smart technical guy” held back by the fact that “I can’t fuck.” It’s still depressing thinking about it. Because sadly in so many ways, it seems he is correct. I could replicate his business model save for the fact my morals won’t let me.
- vonjuice 3y ago
  What kind of things did he do?
  - theshackleford 3y ago
    A range of activities. Claims to have shipped when he hasnt, blames covid for delays. Promises people tracking, gives them other peoples tracking numbers, if he responds at all. Claims to have stock on hand, doesnt. Marks product as genuine when they aint, just refunds the people who complain and keeps on keeping on. Charges for one tier of postage, uses another same deal. His entire business operates off the premise that if he can make good on the 5% of people that complain, that it makes the fortune he makes from the rest that dont viable. Because most people it seems are just too lazy to care about a lot of these activities, even if they do get burned. Because the business runs purely off google adds (and he has an exceptional return rate) it doesnt matter if any of the above customers come back, its already built into his margins. A site goes down or gets impacted by a consumer affairs complaint or whatever, he just reboots with another domain in under half a day, starts all over again. He aint tied to his brands, customers, any of it. It's all in the magic of his maniuplation of the ad market. "In a country with this many people and the modern ads market there is literally always another sucker around the corner." He can be literally as shitty as he wants, and as long as he manages the fallout (which he has) he prints money. I found out through working with him that there are large numbers of these individuals all following the same model, and all respectively making more than they deserve. It's literally one of the most depressing things i've ever encountered. You might say "He couldnt do this forever but" yeah well, twelve years and counting and he lives in the multi million dollar house and I assure you, I do not.

Gustomaximus 3y ago

This one seemed; 1) Spot small business product that has potential. 2) Remake & update as your own version 3) Build a large distribution network 4) Blow any other competing company away with court cases. On that, something I changed my mind on years back, distribution network often more important than product and it would be interesting to know what he did here. Generally I would prefer to have an average product with a great distribution network than an amazing product with a poor distribution network. People tend to be very product/feature focused but access to markets is often more important for success.

ugh123 3y ago

Definitely some family help. Guy was born on third base, thought he hit a triple.

leroman 3y ago

Oh yes, I know of one sure way, works 100% of the time: A man buys an apple, walks around, and sells it. Then, he buys two apples, walks around again, and sells them. Next, he doubles his effort by buying four apples, walking around, and selling them as well. Suddenly, he receives a phone call informing him that his wealthy cousin has passed away, leaving him a substantial inheritance. Now, the man is wealthy.

zubairq 3y ago

Yes, this reminds me of the James Dyson story, of being broke and getting success after 5000 failed prototypes.

quickthrower2 3y ago

Search “Survivorship Bias” and other cognitive biases. You don’t read about the guy who started with nothing, hustled hard, ended with nothing but in a parallel universe could have been a billionaire.

gwern 3y ago
You sometimes read about them if their hustling ends in a particularly messy fashion: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/02/12/a-teens-fatal-plunge-into-the-london-underworld https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/02/12/a-teens-fatal-... RIP Zoomer Musk.