I keep this private at the time because I wasn't sure where it would go, but I am pretty certain I'll have nothing to do with them so...
A few weeks ago I was introduced to a schoolfriend of Charlie's completely by chance (we were introduced by email by a TV producer in America). He is starting a business in the US, in my sector, and was referred to me as someone who had done so. Interestingly, as soon as he found out I was a SAFC fan he mentioned Charlie and said he didn't know whether that would count in his favour or not.
In that meeting he:
- Was baffled by someone from the North East being involved in the sector I am, with the success we have had. This is despite him quite literally trying to do the same from London (it's not a surprise when people like him do it, it is a surprise when people like me do it).
- In one of the most arrogant and misjudged things I've ever heard, tried to get me to merge my company into his to help his first investment round, despite us being hundreds of thousands of x bigger than his.
- Told me Charlie was a hacking bastard at football
I just thought it was breathtaking the way he spoke about American people as almost sub-human and how his company with foundations of sand was just absolutely going to destroy every established company over there, simply because he believes it.
These comapanies are clearly dominant and have raised tens of millions already, have established userbases etc, and his plan is literally to just not do anything different
. It was a fascinating insight into how these people are convinced that they can't fail and how the old-boys network had helped him do things that many of us would have loved to have had 'starting out' with a plan that has zero edge.
He'd raised £2m in a week by virtue of meeting someone in his communal apartment garden during lockdown who ran a family office.
I guess what we have to remember is that these people, no matter how bad they are at this, no matter how little knowledge or talent they have, they always fall upwards as long as they can keep the Public Schoolboy aura of knowing what they're doing around themselves. Just like Charlie, if at first it sounds like he's confident (as it did here), people turn a blind eye to the huge red flags that suggest that he is actually not that great at what he does.
He'd also used some creative numbers to get that investment too, because those little white lies/exaggerations don't matter to these people as long as they can get some cash in and hopefully paper over the cracks later. Again, think about how CM tried to use creative phrasing during that first year to justify what they were doing on the basis that if they could get promoted, hopefully nobody would ask questions about the debt Madrox owed us.
Just thought that story might interest a few of you.
