M&Ms: Acorns and Ideas

Hey Team,

I planted some White Oak acorns with my kids this week. 

We are going to try and grow a tree or two.

My youngest, who is 4, asked me, "Why does the mighty oak make so many acorns? So we had to research it.

We have a massive 140-year-old White Oak in our yard. Apparently, a White Oak tree can produce as many as 10,000 acorns in a good season. 

And get this: these trees can produce acorns from the age of 40 until 200 years old. Some Quercus Alba (the White Oak's scientific name) are documented to live up to 450 years old. That would be a nice age to get to as a human, wouldn't it? Anyway, in one special instance, "More than 23,000 acorns were produced during a good seed year by an individual white oak growing in Virginia; it was 69 years old."*

The seeds have a high germination rate, as high as 99%.* But the problem is so many seeds never make it. Here is a picture of a Racoons in my yard having a feast on acorns from last year:

My daughters learned nature's cruel irony. The White Oak depends on those pesky animals, the squirrels and such, to take its acorns far and wide. They have to get far enough to have a chance to become saplings.

But how many of those acorns actually make it to trees? 

We did a little back-of-the-napkin math: A productive White Oak can produce about a million acorns in its lifetime. It is estimated that over 50% of acorns get eaten by animals. (Birds, squirrels, deer, raccoons, insects, etc.) Many of the acorns rot because they are not in the right place. (Shade, hard surface, flood, frost, etc.) But then, even if they get to become saplings, they have to compete with other plants for sunlight, water, and nutrients. They must survive diseases and human activity (like logging, land development, etc.). 

It would be generous to say that .1% of White Oak acorns go on to become saplings, much less full-grown trees.

But I told my daughters, don't feel bad for them. The oldest White Oak fossil is 45 million years old.* The oldest human fossil is about 300,000 years old. So, these White Oak trees seem to know what they are doing. 

It was at this point that I began to make some comparisons between White Oaks, their acorns, and business with my kids. I know, I know, I can be insufferable.

But I am not the first to make comparisons between trees and business. In his famous 2016 Shareholder Letter, Jeff Bezos said, "Staying in Day 1 requires you to ... plant seeds, protect saplings, and double down when you see customer delight."

So I told my kids about the comparison, who Jeff Bezos is, and how he is apparently planning to protect a lot of saplings now. Bezos recently set aside $2 billion to plant trees. But if you search about this initiative, the first things that come up are negative Media coverage. For example, CNBC warns, "Experts fear Jeff Bezos’ grand plan to plant trees could harm ecosystems if not executed properly." The Media really is insufferable. 

Anyway, I told my kids that if they get really rich, they, too, could have tens of thousands of trees planted from acorns. But for now, we'll have to make do with planting a few trees and protecting a few saplings. 

But I also told them that our White Oak has, through its many acorns, figured out how to tame the randomness of nature. And we can think of our ideas in our heads very much like acorns from the White Oak. We all have tons of them. Just like the White Oak has a million acorns, you might have a million "good" ideas, too, I told my 4-year-old. But only a few of them, for various reasons, will ever make it into projects. You can think of ideas that make it to a project as Small Bets. And from those, even fewer, and even with help, will grow to become successful full-blown businesses.

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A Small Promotion:

Daniel and I will be running a free webinar on October 31 on all the ins and Outs of our Small Bet’s community.

We will talk about the Small Bets that worked, the ones that didn’t, and the many more we plan to plant.

You can sign up for free at https://lu.ma/73ysp9mx

I hope to see you there.

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Three Things: Laws of Getting Rich, The People By Your Side, Tough Conversations With Kids

Morgan Housel wrote a wonderful piece with 9 laws of getting rich. In it he says:

“Happiness is complicated, but if you simplify it into things like a loving family, health, friendship, eight hours of sleep, well-balanced children, and being part of something bigger than yourself, you realize how limited money’s role can be. It’s not that it has no role; just smaller than you may have assumed.

Think of it this way: Would you rather make $100,000 a year with a spouse who loves you, children who admire you, good friends, good health, and a clear conscience, or make $1,000,000 and have none of those things? It’s so obvious.”

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Moiz Ali, who is rich and writes some incredibly candid stuff on Twitter/X seems to confirm some of Morgal Housels 9 laws.

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A nice little conversation between my friends Chris and Monica on having tough conversations with kids.

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Three Memes: Dissinfo, Deer-roos, Tipping

Miss information on every platform now… What a time to be consuming information.

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I go on walks in the woods all the time and see a lot of deer, now it’s tough to unsee this from Ed.

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You might know I am a big fan of tipping. A few months ago, I wrote Why You Should Tip. I know it’s not popular, and it’s become a meme, but I am still a a big fan of it.

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-Louie

P.S. You can reply to this email; it will get to me, and I will read it.