Official Richart Ruddie Blog - Internet Entrepreneur

Optimize for Freedom & More Sam Zell Advice

After reading the Sam Zell biography I notice when other entrepreneurs and podcasters take note. A podcast randomly popped up called "Founders" and he talks about his lunch with the 81 year old professional opportunist. Some of the great notes from the podcast is that you always need to be working for fun and not because you feel like its work. If it feels like its work then you are in trouble. Equally important is to optimize for freedom.

Another great quote from a recommended book from Zeckendorf a New York real estate work horse who was a big inspiration for a younge Zell. He says If you want to know whether you are destined to be a success or failure in life the test is whether or not you can save money you will lose money as sure as you will live if you can not save money. 

Every single entrepreneur from history was known and what their company was according to the Founders podcaster and he mentioned a railroad magnate to read about named: James Jay Hill who was also a big inspiration for Charlie Munger.

Startup Trends

7 of the 15 largest companies in the world are tech companies.

There are more breakout companies headquartered outside a top 20 startup hub than there are in the Bay Area and you should expect this trend to increase over the next decade. As high tax rates and some reasons are listed at the bottom. Some of the stats are interesting to note as startups are not all Silicon Valley and not even all the USA but are dominated outside of the country by London, Toronto, Paris, Tokyo, Singapore, & Tokyo. One thing that I find interesting is that all but Paris & Tokyo speak fluent English as either their primary or second language where as Paris is a much smaller amount of English speakers than Tokyo based on the shear size of the megalopolis.

In the three years before the pandemic, 63% of the new breakouts that we saw in the San Francisco Bay Area were based in the city of San Francisco itself. Since 2020, only 46% have been :


Around 26% of the US-based breakout companies that we see are based in California. The inverse of this fact is important: three-quarters are not based in California. California’s share appears to have been declining gradually, however. In 2018, for example, 31% of new breakout companies were headquartered in the state

In order, the top startup hubs in the US are: the Bay Area, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Austin. Miami’s growth has indeed been quite striking in our data: detected breakout companies are up by 89% in 2021/2022 as compared to 2016/2017

Outside the US, the top hubs in our data are (in order): London, Singapore, Paris, Tokyo, and Toronto. (Of these, Tokyo is growing fastest on a relative basis.) French entrepreneurial dynamism particularly stands out: the top three countries are the US, the UK, and France

So bottom line is Miami is a startup hub thats growing exponentially and San Francisco at least in the city has fallen back since 2020 due to covid, remote working, the decline of the city, startups moving to other parts of the bay, etc...

Entrepreneur Lessons Learned from Recent Malibu Conference

Live the values that you create and codify your company's purpose and values.

Some other great values, ideals, and lessons I picked up from the human gathering conference are:

Do things with your hands and engage in things that are rewarding to solve while also rewarding to create in your life or workplace.

Have candor

Complain about all the problems in the world or commit to being part of the solutions.

Create and move on.