I talk about Personal Growth, Management, Infrastructure and More | C-Suite Executive | Mentor, Coach, Strategic Consultant | Real Estate Investor | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
The $10 million typo
|
Once upon a PPP… ​ A government agency somewhere on this planet (let’s keep names confidential to protect the not-so-innocent) was closing a deal on a massive infrastructure PPP. As usualll… Billions involved. Advisors everywhere. Very expensive ones, of course. Lawyers billing by the minute. Months of negotiations. Taxpayers forgetting about their money. ​ Everything was perfect. Absolutely perfect. ​ Until it wasn’t. ​ Well… in the final version of the contract, someone — probably after too much coffee and too little sleep — changed a comma in a deduction clause. ​ Just a comma. And a “de” ​ Or almost… ​ That’s it. ​ Instead of reading: ​ “A deduction of $10,000 shall apply, per calendar day…” ​ It said: ​ “A deduction of $10,000 shall apply per calendar delay…” ​ Yeah. That’s right. ​ But the intention was clear, no? ​ Well… not that much. ​ What’s a “calendar delay”? Of course, no one knew. Not even the contractor, the agency, or the 9 law firms that reviewed the document. ​ The private sector loved it, of course. They argued that if they delayed a month, they only owed one $10,000 payment. ​ The agency said it meant daily. ​ Classic. ​ After weeks of negotiation and emergency meetings. Bosses flying from far away coping all business class seats… the resolution was… Anticlimactic. They fixed it in a side letter. I love them… side letters… I could write a book about them… ​ Anyway… They fixed it. Quietly. Without admitting fault. Because admitting that someone forgot how English works isn’t good optics when your signature is on a billion-dollar deal. ​ Moral of the story? ​ In PPPs, even one comma, one small error, can cost more than your house. ​ So maybe — just maybe — before we get excited about “innovative finance structures” and “output specifications”… we should hire someone who knows where commas go. ​ I don’t think that an error like this could happen in the PPP below. Why? You should check that course and you’ll know. ​
​
​ 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 | C-Suite Executive | Mentor, Coach, Strategic Consultant | Real Estate Investor | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
When you are doing real estate, there are always mistakes. That point that is not well located. The m2 in the council register that does not match reality… Things like that. But you’re more or less alone on this or with your small team. You assume that in multibillion dollar projects, things get more organized. You know. PPPs. So complex. So sophisticated. And… So… human. Yeah, because humans, not banks, not machines, not financial models… humans deliver. And humans “la joden”… or screw it...
I don’t do it every day. I agree. But, in case some of you still haven’t realized it by now, when talking about real estate, I’m talking about one thing and one thing only: Freedom. How to master the skills needed so you don’t depend on a salary, laziness, the opinions of others, or being stuck in places you don’t want to be at times you don’t want to. How to tame discipline, strength, and morality so that you’re the master of your desires and not a slave to your instincts. That is a goal...
In this mail, you’ll learn an invaluable lesson about sales… Don’t believe me? Just keep reading. A few days ago, I had a conversation with a great entrepreneur. He is in a new venture. He tries to implement AI in small and medium size building. The progress is slow. Not the kind of exponential growth that AI promises. The slogan? We help you to make more money with less. More profit. More growth. I explained him something. People don’t want to make more money. They say they want, but they...