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It's becoming tabu
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It’s a constant. When you talk freely about money you’re critized. And not just from Spain, the country that is a fiscal hell but the paradise of criticism and the prosecution of the rich, no… It’s everywhere. It’s becoming a kind of tabu. Look. The world is full of people who say, "money isn’t important". Good for them. But I think they don’t know what they’re saying. They just say it for the sake of saying it. It’s a cliché. If they stopped for a moment to think, they would realize that money matters to them more than they’re willing to admit. For money, they spend a large part of their lives doing things they deeply hate. So Spain is a poor country, or Spanish people poor in mindset. And it’s a pity, because some of the stories I tell in the book below, that money made through smart investing, are in Spain. And if you can make money there… trust me, you can everywhere.
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Vicente Valencia
Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
You know the IBM ad: “Nobody has been fired for choosing IBM”. Well… in procurement there are ads like that. “We didn’t just go for the cheapest.” Lovely. Everyone nods. Someone writes “quality” in the minutes. Your career feels protected. Unfortunately, the project hasn’t read the minutes. Take Scotland’s Parliament building at Holyrood. In January 1999, three final candidates were competing to become construction manager. Bovis came out comfortably ahead at interview. 82 points out of 100....
A few days ago, I talked about the smallest PPP in the world. It’s in Poland. 12.000€. Probably quite unknown. There are another one… this time famous. Small building. Small investment. Small transaction costs. Sorry. That last one was a joke. Scotland. 2002 Audit Scotland reviewed six school PFI projects. For Glasgow, it reported around £12 million in combined public and private sector set-up and advisory costs. Against £212 million in construction. For West Lothian? Around £2 million....
Before you tell a difficult public client: “You can’t do this without me.” Consider a small building in Sydney. White roof. Quite photogenic. You may have seen it. February 1966. Jørn Utzon, the architect of the small building, met the NSW Minister for Public Works, Davis Hughes. There were unpaid fees. A dispute over funding for prototypes. And a relationship that had already gone thoroughly to hell. Utzon threatened to quit. Hughes replied: “You are always threatening to quit...” And both...