No. 329 | April 24, 2026
Welcome to Friday Five, a short dose of ideas to start the weekend with clarity.
Seeing things as they are—not as you wish them to be. Building a brand through engagement. Always asking “what if” about everything. Living well. Those are the themes this week.
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This Week in Friday Five
🎵 Three songs to start with: Louis Armstrong
💬 See things as they are
📝 Red Bull’s brand strategy
📚 John Malone on asking “what if”
🎙️ Ric Elias on living well
Music of the Week
Louis Daniel Armstrong, nicknamed Satchmo, was a trumpeter and vocalist from New Orleans.
His career spanned five decades. He won multiple Grammys and was inducted into the Jazz, Rock & Roll, and Rhythm & Blues halls of fame.
Recorded in 1967, What a Wonderful World flopped in America—and became immortal anyway.
Start with What a Wonderful World, Dream a Little Dream of Me, and Cheek to Cheek.
Quotes of the Week
Learning to see things as they are—not as fear or emotion distort them. It’s the difference between reacting to what happened and reacting to the story you tell yourself about what happened.
These capture it:
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” — Anaïs Nin
“People only see what they are prepared to see.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” — Henri Bergson
“It’s not things that upset us but our judgments about things.” — Epictetus
Article of the Week
“If an insurance company sponsors a team and loses, people don’t change their insurance. But when Red Bull loses, people get a new drink.” — Dietrich Mateschitz
Behind every cult brand like Red Bull is a massive investment in marketing and promotion. Few understood branding, marketing, and culture better than Dietrich Mateschitz.
He realized owning the stage mattered more than buying ads. Red Bull’s deep involvement in sports became the vehicle.
In 2012, millions watched Felix Baumgartner jump from the edge of space—branded not as an ad, but as an event.
The fascinating part is that all the money he spent on advertising and marketing came from operating income. He refused to take on debt.
Mateschitz built a world and invited people in. It started with a drink that solved his jet lag. It scaled by making people want to belong.
For more on Red Bull, Mateschitz, and his brand strategy, read:
📝 Red Bull Brand Strategy: Why Brand Beats Product Every Time
Book of the Week
In Born to Be Wired, cable cowboy John Malone shares his most interesting deals in media, entertainment, and technology.
It’s his story of how a copper wire changed from bringing TV to rural America to powering the internet.
Malone recounts launching the first cable networks, industry-defining mergers, his foray into sports with Formula 1 and the Atlanta Braves, and unlocking value in complexity.
At one point, Malone controlled a web of companies so complex that even insiders struggled to map it—yet it created billions in value.
Enduring lessons for me include:
- Adapt to new technology, or become obsolete
- Character matters more than reputation
- There’s no pause button with your kids
- Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose
- Do what you say you’ll do
- Strip things to essentials; focus on fundamentals
- Always ask “what if” on big decisions
- Play to win without sacrificing principles
- It’s better to own a piece of something great than all of something mediocre
- Assess downside risk—live to fight another day
- Long-term growth beats short-term gains
Podcast of the Week
Ric Elias is the CEO and co-founder of Red Ventures, which owns portfolio companies like Bankrate, The Points Guy, and Lonely Planet.
He joined Invest Like the Best to walk through the early struggles of building Red Ventures, his cultural values, and philosophies on how to run a company.
Elias discusses the differences between living well and being good, the power of forgiveness, and the beauty in compounding.
After surviving a plane crash in 2009, Elias began to rethink what it means to live well.
For more on Elias, Red Ventures, and how to live well, listen:
🎙️Ric Elias – The Art of Living Well
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