Forget Unicorns - Give me Steven Bradbury

In the 2002 Winter Olympics, Steven Bradbury won a gold medal by being the slowest on the ice. As the first Australian to win a Winter Olympic gold medal, he pulled off the seemingly impossible. On the last corner of the 1000m race, he was dead last with the remaining 4 competitors in a heated deadlock for gold. He had no hope until they crashed going too fast around the last corner. Suddenly, he crossed the finish line as the last one standing. Some may call it luck as he was too far behind to be caught in the crash, but he had formulated this strategy after he had almost died.

In 1998, Bradbury raced in Canada when he was struck in the thigh by a rival’s skate and had lost two-thirds of his blood in 60 seconds. The injury required over 100 stitches and months of physical therapy to get back on track. In the races since, he trained hard and focused on making it to the Olympics, but his strategy had changed. He knew the dangers of moving too fast and losing control. He remained a fierce competitor but decided to use his competitor’s reckless speed as an advantage.

To say Bradbury was an unlikely candidate for winning the 2002 Olympics was an understatement. In the quarter-finals, only the first two racers would move on to the semi-finals. Finishing third, it seemed like Bradbury had been eliminated and would have to return in four years. Yet, Marc Gangnon, the defending world champion, was disqualified for blocking another racer. Suddenly thrust into the semi-finals, his coach, Ann Zhang advised him to run his race as they both knew he couldn’t keep up with the other racers. In last place for most of the race, the other racers crashed, leaving Bradbury in first and in the finals.

In a now-famous clip that has been viewed almost six million times, Bradbury used the same strategy from the semi-finals. He patiently skated at his own pace while his competitors darted ahead. But during the last turn, they crashed and Bradbury won a gold. His story and win has turned him into an Australian cultural icon. He trained intensely to make it in the Olympics but also had the patience, foresight, and wisdom to run his race. In a world fueled by hype and being the next big thing, why don’t we focus on being the next Steven Bradbury?

Hype Cycles and Cycles

Silicon Valley companies are focused on the coveted unicorn status, or bringing their valuation to $1 Billion. Before the recent crash of 2022, some people were debating the value of a decacorn ($10 Billion) being the new unicorn. It seems like these new batch of AI companies have surrounded themselves with more hype than ever. But these hype cycles happen all the time. From the Dot-Com bubble in the late 90s to the housing market crash in the 2000s, to crypto in the 2020s, hype comes and goes. In all instances, it seemed like there was a new technology that we didn’t want to miss out on. Everyone was talking about a new website they’d invested in, a house they bought at a great rate, and a new crypto token they flipped for 5x their money in 30 days. It’s all great until reality catches up. We forget that hype grows unsustainably until the next time it catches us by surprise.

Since the crash of 2022, with companies announcing layoffs left and right, expectations are being reset. Founders who are building fraudulent companies are being sentenced to prison. A brief reset has been hit before the next cycle of hype has come. Now companies with artificial intelligence are raising money at insane valuations. VCs are pouring money in left and right because they don’t want to miss out on the next big thing. But we’ve seen hype before and it doesn’t end well.

Birds can Crash too

Bird, founded in September 2017, was the darling of Silicon Valley VCs. By May 2018, it had raised $265 million, making it the fastest company to ever reach unicorn status. By the next month, it had raised another $300 million, valuing it at $2 billion. Seemingly overnight they had become the next big thing, with VCs tripping over themselves to give them more and more money. Scooters littered the streets of major cities like San Francisco, Washington DC, and Miami. Nothing could slow Bird down. And then they went public.

You can check out Bird’s financials since they’ve gone public and it’s hard to watch. They first went public in late 2021 at $210 a share, making their market cap close to $3 billion. Since then, they’ve lost more and more money and their valuation is closer to $30 million, losing approximately 99% of their value. They’ve never been profitable and continue to burn through cash quarter after quarter. Ridership and revenue have been down since they’ve gone public as costs have been rising steadily. Just 5 or 6 years ago, the most exciting company in Silicon Valley turned into a whimper of a company. The hype has come and gone, and it’s left them in the ditch. They should’ve been more focused on building and investing in a sustainable business than building a company based on hype alone.

Not Just Warren Buffett

This is not an uncommon investing philosophy. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger famously don’t invest in anything they can’t understand. They pour themselves into reading company financials and focus on businesses that have a solid business plan. It’s worked out for them, having built an investment empire.

The investment strategy that I use, and that most people should use, is investing in an index fund and letting it grow. The problem with this investing strategy? It’s boring. There will never be any articles about how you were able to grow your portfolio by 7% YoY. There will never be a movie about how you generated average returns throughout a lifetime. Yet, too many people are looking to beat the market and find uncommon investing techniques, only to lose it all in the end.

But this is more than just an investing philosophy, this is part of our lives. Too often we focus on the hype or the status. We look to jobs that will be the coolest to say at cocktail parties or to a salary passed a certain threshold or a status symbol that we can attach ourselves to. These aren’t necessarily bad, but once they become the highest priority, it becomes a bigger problem. Doctors, lawyers, software engineers, and investment bankers all have high-status symbols alongside the hefty salary. But underneath the surface are the 80+ hour work weeks and the mental and emotional toll of keeping up with all the peers and constantly increasing lifestyle spend. We chase these status symbols, always out of reach until it’s too late and we crash.

In a world where everyone is running too fast, we need to be more like Steven Bradbury. Comfortable and confident enough to run our race, even if it looks like we’re being left in the dust. Bradbury won by going at a pace he knew he could keep up. The pressure of hype and expectations often force us down a path that ends in a huge crash. Taking the pressure off and focusing on running our race, being consistent, and showing up, we might find ourselves the only ones still standing.

If you made it down here, thanks! I’ve got some ideas in the pipeline that I’m excited to write about. If you know any stories like Bradbury’s, let me know. I’d love to read all about them.

Best,

Derek