THE LETTER I WISH I HAD STARTING OUT

Twenty of our loans were paid off and closed out this year, which means twenty times we found out whether we had been right about something nine months earlier. In lending, being extra right pays nothing. Only being wrong costs anything. I want to spend this quarter's letter on a claim I think is under-argued, and then show you my own numbers against it. I. The Asymmetry Nobody Built For Start with the shape of the instrument. If you own equity in a project and the property f

When you play in the NFL, everyone wants to show you a deal. I took those meetings for years. The growth side of a portfolio is crowded. The income side is empty. I invested in more than fifty syndications and private deals and built my own rental portfolio one house at a time. I was not a passive listener. I was writing checks and watching what happened after. Almost none of it paid me anything I could live on, on a schedule I could plan around. Every pitch was about what my

I bought my first rental property while I was still playing, and it was not because I was some visionary. It was because I could do math about how long an NFL career lasts. If you have a career, you already own a large growth position. Most people then go buy more growth and call it diversification. Let me say the balanced thing first, because I mean it. Growth plays are invaluable. Appreciation is real, it is where outsized outcomes live, and I own assets right now whose ent