I talk about Personal Growth, Management, Infrastructure and More | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
I scored you many goals
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First week of “relax” and meetings to celebrate my well-deserved holidays. Having been for so long on the infrastructure world, logically I’ve been catching up and meeting people from banks, private equity firms and infrastructure investors, in general. In a coffee with investors talking about how I could help them in the future, I was asked something like… why would I be a good advisor for them. I was thinking that we were practising the art of conversation and coffee tasting and this caught me totally out of guard. “Because I scored you many goals” – without thinking. Not the best answer, I’m afraid, but they loved it, and we could continue our coffee. And you know that I love coffee… Well… I correct. You know that I love good coffee… And why did they like my answer? Well… This is a constant in business. If you wonder, why the FBI uses hackers to protect their IT system or help them to “spy” on others’ computers… well… I’m sure you can guess. The best security guys can perfectly be former robbers. So, I guess that someone wanting to buy infrastructure, or any other thing would love to have a seller from the other site of the table advising them. I know where all the tricks and flaws could be in an asset. I’ve delivered many. It’s like buying a house… you would love to have a former real estate agent with you. Don’t you? If so, and you want to learn a few tricks about infrastructure, you need to take a look to this. ​The 15 Top Lessons of a PPP Project Nightmare - The audiobook​ PD 1: If you liked this email, don't keep it in secret and forward it to a friend. They will thank you enormously one day. PD 2: If somebody has sent you this email and you want to receive emails like this yourself, visit vicentevalencia.com PD 3: If you want unsubscribe, click the link below. |
Vicente Valencia
I talk about Personal Growth, Management, Infrastructure and More | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
Parkinson’s Law: Work fills the space you give it. “If you give yourself three years to complete something, completion will take three years.” Now replace “three” with whatever number… like eight. That’s what I keep seeing in infrastructure. Projects designed to take 8… 10… 12 years. Not because they need it. Because nobody in the room knows how fast it can actually be done. Some clients hire advisors who have never delivered a project at scale. Or with no direct experience in the type of...
There is a project that I follow even if I live now at the other side of the Pacific. It is… or it was… or it will be one day, one of the most ambitious (and game changer) infrastructure projects in the world. It was also meant to be a PPP. California High-Speed Rail The idea sounded great: Connect major cities. Reduce emissions. Transform mobility. On paper, it had everything. In reality… it had a problem. The scope was never stable… and still it’s not. Routes changed. Stations moved....
Not corruption. Not politics. Just… incompetence. A real project. $800M. In LatAm… No more details, as in this distribution list, there are too many people living in that country… Here you are the 4 red flags that would have helped you to smell blood miles away. First red flag: They didn’t understand their own project. I’m not exaggerating. They launched the RFP with: Misaligned traffic studies Outdated geotech data A design that didn’t match the environmental permits Second: They outsourced...