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- #162 – Golden Generation & New York
#162 – Golden Generation & New York
Quote, Podcast, Article, Observation, X.
Dimitri Gremos
July 01, 2026
Good morning everyone,
Hope you’re having a great week!
Here are 5 things I found interesting over the past few days.
Let’s jump in.
read online on my website
read time 3 minutes
#162 – The Rundown:
Quote: Inevitability & imminence.
Podcast: Why England’s golden generation never won a trophy.
Article: Why founders often make bad investors.
Observation: The thing that makes New York City so unique.
X: Buying businesses in European towns.
Quote:
Inevitability & Imminence
“What is inevitable is not necessarily imminent.”
Rick Rule
Sometimes, you have to be willing to stand out in the cold and wait for time to prove you right…
Podcast:
Why England’s Golden Generation Never Won A Trophy
During the early 2000s, England experienced its ‘Golden Generation’ of football players.
David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney, Paul Scholes, Michael Owen, Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, Jamie Carragher – just to name a few that come to mind.
And yet they never won a single trophy.
This roundtable discussion between Rio Ferdinand, Peter Crouch, and Joe Cole as three prominent members of the Three Lions squad during that time, unpacks some of the reasons why the undeniable talent that England had on paper could never managed to achieve silverware.
Obviously it cannot boil down to one single factor over a period of a decade, but some of the ones mentioned include:
1) Club rivalries spilling into the dressing room
2) Incessant media pressure
3) Poor leadership at key moments
4) A sense of complacency/entitlement both amongst players and coaches
5) Poor and unrefined tactics
Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
[Duration: 49 minutes]
P.S. I made a Spotify playlist with every podcast I’ve ever recommended. Hope they bring you as much value as they’ve brought me.
Why Founders Often Make Bad Investors
Some interesting insights on why founders often make bad investors:
“Building a company is all about doing. You move first, you decide fast, you back yourself when the evidence is still thin, because if you wait for certainty, you've already lost. That bias to act isn't a flaw in a founder. It's one of the reasons there was a company to sell at all.
After the exit, the opposite is true, and almost nobody warns you. Looking after a large pile of money is mostly about what you don't do: the drop you don't panic-sell into, the hot fund you pass on, the position you leave alone for a decade so it can grow. It's closer to a defensive game than an attacking one, and most of the value comes from the mistakes you manage not to make. That's an odd thing to be good at when everything in your career so far has rewarded the opposite.”
Taras – Capital Founders
Highly recommend checking out the full article.
{h/t Capital Founders}
Observation:
The Thing That Makes New York City So Unique
I’m sure many of you have seen some of the footage floating around online from every nook and cranny of New York City which seemed to absolutely come alive after the Knicks secured their first NBA finals victory since 1973 – an immense achievement.
There is, of course, both a spoken and unspoken energy associated with NYC and the clips circulating on social media seemed to be exemplifying that ‘New York energy’ that the city is so famous for.
But why New York? What is it about that place that can elicit this kind of camaraderie amongst its people?
I think Jack Raines summed it up really well:
“The unique thing about New York sports, as opposed to any other city, is the sense of pride non-native New Yorkers feel about these sports teams, and, at a deeper level, this city. A lot of folks are proud of where they’re from, but New York is the only place I’ve lived where folks develop a sense of pride in the place they move to. Few folks who move to Atlanta, or Houston, or Denver, or even Los Angeles or San Francisco, are “proud” of those cities. They might like the cities, sure, but they don’t make that city part of their identities.
Why is New York different?
It’s the only place in America that so many people move to because they want to experience the city for the city’s sake. You move to Florida for beaches and low taxes. San Francisco to hit the lottery on whatever industry is ripping in the current boom cycle. LA because you want to be an actor or screenwriter. DC because you’re a sociopath. New York? Because you want “New York.” The “city” itself is the allure. It doesn’t matter if you moved here from Georgia, or Wyoming, or Bogotá, or Buenos Aires. You wanted New York, you got New York, and you’re proud to make “New York” part of your identity.
That shared pride is why the camaraderie among New York transplants is so strong. There’s an immediately understood “game respect game” because you know, without saying a word, that you’re both here for the same reason.
Can a city be “alive”? I don’t know, but on Saturday night, New York City did its best to pass the Turing Test.”
Jack Raines
{h/t Jack Raines}
X:
Buying Businesses in European Towns
Man, this was so interesting.
Highly recommend checking out the post in full, but here’s the TLDR:
There are thousands of businesses found in small European towns (especially Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) possessing the following characteristics:
1) Revenue between €5 million and €100 million
2) EBITDA margins from the mid-teens to the low thirties
3) A top-three position in a narrow global niche
4) Founder or family ownership, with retirement approaching
5) Equity-financed balance sheet, low or no debt
6) No succession plan in place (i.e. their kids do not want to takeover the business)
A handful of Nordic acquirers figured out how to buy these businesses.
They buy small, profitable, family-owned hidden champions at 5 to 7 times EBITA and hold them indefinitely.
Once acquired, each business contributes its free cash flow to the group's reinvestment pool, which funds the next acquisition. The compounders reinvest more than 80% of that cash flow.
And the kicker is that many of these businesses are too small/niche to absorb the capital of larger US firms which have been pouring into the region, thereby reducing competition.
It seems like there could be something here…
Thanks for reading! Grateful for your support.
In case you missed it, last week’s newsletter covered whether there is an AI bubble, some truly surprising stats from the US job market & more.
If you enjoyed this edition, it would mean the world if you could forward it to a friend or send them my website.
This goes a long way to helping me reach more people :)
See you in the next one,
Dimi