Ed Baker & Jessica E. Lessin ·Uber ·26 DEC 2014
When Your Investor Becomes Your Biggest Competitor
The moment a board member starts leaving the room, the partnership is already over — the question is just who moves first.
Topic
Board Governance
Letters to shareholders, directors, and the inside of the boardroom.
14 letters · most recent first
Elon Musk & Andrej Karpathy ·OpenAI ·1 FEB 2018
Open Research Without Scale Feeds Your Competitor
If you can't match a giant's scale, publishing your best ideas is a subsidy to them, not a strategy against them.
Elon Musk & Ilya Sutskever ·OpenAI ·13 SEP 2017
Design Board Math Before You Need It
Control isn't a feeling — it's a seat count, and smart founders draw the arithmetic before the fight, not during it.
Elon Musk & Greg Brockman & Ilya Sutskever & Jared Birchall ·OpenAI ·21 JUL 2017
Musk and Brockman Debate OpenAI's Future While Musk Gifts Founders Model 3s
A single email thread from mid-2017 captures OpenAI at the exact moment its founders were already sketching a path from nonprofit to for-profit to government project — while Musk was simultaneously cementing personal loyalty with early Tesla hardware.
Sam Altman & Elon Musk ·OpenAI ·18 FEB 2023
How to Handle a Powerful Critic You Still Need
When a former ally attacks you in public, don't defend — pivot to asking what they'd do instead.
Eugene W. Landy ·UMH Properties, Inc. ·13 MAR 2008
When Your Market Shrinks, Wait — Then Reload
The best time to be bullish on a market is right after everyone else has abandoned it.
DSP Group Board of Directors ·DSP Group Inc ·11 MAR 2013
When a 10% Shareholder Wants to Run Your Company
Control of the boardroom is control of strategy — and some investors know exactly how to take it one committee at a time.
Reed Hastings & Netflix Leadership ·Netflix ·16 JUL 2020
Promote The Partner Who Already Runs Half The Company
Formalizing power someone already has is cheaper than losing them — and clearer for everyone watching.
Elon Musk & Ilya Sutskever ·OpenAI ·20 SEP 2017
When Funding Becomes Leverage, Trust Becomes the Real Asset
The moment your funder's leverage looks like a path to absolute control, your co-founders stop building and start negotiating their exit.
Greg Brockman ·OpenAI ·31 JAN 2018
Turn Your Mission Into A Moat
When you can't outspend competitors, out-trust them — moral high ground is a strategic asset, not a slogan.
Denelle Dixon-Thayer ·Mozilla ·4 NOV 2014
When to Pick the Risky Partner Over the Safe One
Sometimes the best deal isn't the biggest check — it's the one that buys you back your independence.
David Drummond ·Google ·23 MAR 2007
When a Rival Bids, Your Build Plan Becomes a Buy Decision
A build-it-yourself plan is only valid until a competitor's checkbook makes the timeline irrelevant.
Jeff Bezos ·Amazon.com, Inc. ·30 MAR 1998
Bezos Built Amazon by Refusing to Define Success in Quarters
The discipline isn't in what Bezos optimized for. It's in what he refused to apologize for not optimizing.
Warren Buffett ·Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. ·27 FEB 2009
Buffett's 2008 Letter Spends Three Pages Telling Shareholders What He Got Wrong
Buffett doesn't apologize for the loss. He apologizes for the analysis. Those are different things and most CEOs conflate them.