STREET DOGS

Anthony Bourdain — chef, travel host and writer — was found dead on June 8 at age 61 in what CNN described as a suicide.

Bourdain rose from what he called a low-level line cook in his late 30s to a celebrity TV host in one of the most memorable second acts in American life. Here are extracts from an interview he had with Tren Griffin at 25IQ in October 2017:

Luck is not a business model … the point of looking at many case studies and examples is to find the patterns … as Michael Porter says: “Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different. The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

As Andy Kessler wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “The core of investing is quite simple: determine what everyone else thinks, and then figure out in which direction they are wrong. You can find the greatest story ever, but if everyone already knows it, there’s not money to be made.”

Life is better in a business that has high gross margins….

I hated the whole concept of brunch … but it was such a money maker because people are so foolishly happy to pay $22 for the same two eggs and bacon that they have during the week for $7 or even $3. Give them a free mimosa and a little strawberry fan and suddenly they’re happy. As Warren Buffett says, “We like companies which buy a commodity and sell a brand.” Eggs, bacon, milk, vanilla, strawberries and bread are commodities, but “brunch” as an event is a brand.

As another example, just as in Jack and the Beanstalk, Starbucks convinces people to give them a cow for a few ground-up magic beans mixed with water. Getting a cow for a few magic beans can be a very financially attractive business.