Eat People

This week’s Outside the Box is a little unusual, even for me. But it will be fun, informative, and thought-provoking. My friend Andy Kessler has written another irreverent, gonzo book called Eat People: And Other Unapologetic Rules for Game-Changing Entrepreneurs. He has graciously allowed me to copy his introduction as this week’s missive.

Andy gives us 12 Rules and a Bonus Rule that characterize game-changing companies. They are: Scale, Waste, Horizontal, Edge, Productive, Adaptive, Eat People, Markets, Exceptionalism, Market Entrepreneur, Zero Marginal Cost, Virtual Pipe, and Highest Return. Find a company that embodies these rules early, and you get in on the ground floor of the next Apple or Microsoft.

Andy has done that. He turned $100 million into a billion for his investors, then got out more or less at the top. He is the real deal and I take every moment I can get with him. Now he just looks for the Next Big Thing for himself, but in Eat People he shares the rules for finding them, or even creating your own next big thing.

You can get his book at http://www.amazon.com/Eat-People-Unapologetic-Game-Changing-Entrepreneurs/dp/1591843774 for a cheap $13.48 on your iPad or Kindle. You can read it in a few hours. Make notes.

And get some of his other books while you are there. I think How We Got Here is one of the best, most easily readable book on the history of technology and the markets I have read. His latest fiction work, called Grumby, takes a lopsided look at the whirl of technology as he shows how a product can go from nothing to millions almost overnight.

Read the following and think. And enjoy it.

I am trying to get over serious jet lag from Bangkok. Amazing place, but a long way from Texas, both literally and figuratively. I have been to over 55 countries, but way too little of Asia. That is going to change. By the way, some of the peppers in Thailand should be labeled as Weapons of Mass Destruction. Have a great week.

Your “my mouth is still numb” analyst,