No. 346 | August 21, 2026
Welcome to Friday Five, a short collection of ideas to take into your weekend.
This week’s themes: learning from mistakes, looking ahead, building a competitive advantage, and using authenticity as leverage.
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Music of the Week
“I wanted to build a relationship and trust with the kids so that they wouldn’t have to worry about getting in any trouble.” — Shamarr Allen
Shamarr Allen’s music is unmistakably New Orleans. He blends jazz, hip-hop, rock, funk, R&B, and country into a sound that crosses musical boundaries.
He’s the lead vocalist and trumpeter of Shamarr Allen & The Underdawags. He has also collaborated with artists including Willie Nelson, Patti LaBelle, and Harry Connick Jr.
When he’s not playing, he’s composing, writing, and producing music.
Start with “Meet Me on Frenchman Street,” “Hit the Sean Payton,” and “Louisiana” to dive into his music.
Quotes of the Week
“Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking things, you are not moving fast enough.” — Mark Zuckerberg
“Real artists ship.” — Steve Jobs
“If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” — Reid Hoffman
“In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.” — Warren Buffett
Article of the Week
“We give our customers what they need, not just what they have.” — Michael Bloomberg
Being different matters. Apple has built pricing power through integrated hardware, software, and services that create switching costs and reinforce its ecosystem.
The Home Depot took a different approach. Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus built the company around helping customers complete projects, with customer service at the center of the business.
Alan Mulally took over Ford in 2006 during one of the company’s most difficult periods. He immersed himself in the business and built the One Ford plan around developing products customers wanted and valued while restructuring the company for profitability.
Competitive moats can come from many sources: switching costs, network effects, brand, scale, pricing power, customer loyalty, and specialized expertise. Michael Bloomberg combined several of these advantages to build a business that customers have chosen for decades.
For more on Apple, The Home Depot, Ford, and Bloomberg, and how each created its advantage in the market, read:
📝 Competitive Advantage: How Bloomberg Builds Moats
Podcast of the Week
“A pretty much constant paradox is that we expect outlier outcomes from people that we demand act in normal, average ways.” — Jeremy Giffon
Giffon has had hundreds of conversations with founders and the capital behind their companies over the past 18 months.
He joined Invest Like the Best to talk about what he’s learned from those conversations and what he’s seeing in private markets.
The discussion covers what he’s hearing from founders, the rise of the “poster class,” the relationship between wealth and influence, and the hidden intellectual history of Silicon Valley.
To learn more about Giffon, private markets, and the forces shaping Silicon Valley, listen:
🎙️ Jeremy Giffon — The Billion Dollar PDF
Book of the Week
“I dared to be different. I want to inspire others to do the same.” — Susie Wolff
Driven offers an insider’s view of Formula One from former racing driver and trailblazer Susie Wolff.
She dreamed of racing in Formula One from a young age. At the time, women were rare in top-level motorsport. They still are. Along the way, Wolff confronted a question that has followed women in racing for decades: could they compete with men on the track?
After years of ups and downs, Wolff rose through the ranks, eventually leading a Formula E team before becoming managing director of F1 Academy in 2023. Its mission is to develop and prepare the next generation of female drivers to progress to higher levels of competition.
Wolff’s story is about perseverance, reinvention, and continuing to move forward when the obvious path isn’t clear.
My core takeaways from the book:
- Focus on being the best you can be and let the results speak for themselves.
- Authenticity is a strength. Use it as leverage.
- Recognize when you’ve maxed out your current opportunity, then pursue opportunities that fit your interests and skills.
- True success means helping the people who follow you move the ball farther than you did.
- Channel the fearless version of yourself from childhood into your next adventure.
📚 Driven
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