Demolition, architecture, plumbing, electrical work, heating, air conditioning, permits, labor, interior design, lumber, dry wall, 12 foot tall golden letters spelling your own last name--Trump's big edge is he knows the going rate for all of it. There are hundreds of details that go into turning a hunk of capital into a building; Donald Trump wins because he knows what all those details cost. And his competitors don't.
his competitors don't hire specialists who know that?
Think my argument is that the CEOs that meet with wild success don't appear to rely on specialists - there is a clear advantage to have a sense of development time in the chief's chair.
That advantage is much harder to receive in our business than Trump's, but is similarly effective to exploit.
I doubt CEOs with wild success do micromanagement. I also highly doubt Trump could build a single wall if you gave him a thousand bricks and some cement, or design it in CAD. There's a difference between having a sense of time/cost and knowing how to build stuff by hand.
How do you know that someone knows what he/she is doing? You can't always just look at the end result. For example, designing a web page today, you can still use tables to layout the structure and have the same look as a non-table layout; but obviously the latter is more desirable on so many levels.
Amen. Donald trump of startup would be bad. Lets take one of our most public entrepreneurs, Jason Fried & 37signals, and extend this out.
If Jason was "Donald of startup" he would then create a "get rich like Jason" book series. Of course 37signals would go bankrupt a few times and bailed out by banks that he had leveraged.
Then he would start selling a clothing line of Jason Fried coding shirts. He would then start a reality show where he fired developers based on not coding well enough.
Then Jason would get on tv and start asking the public where Obama's birth certificate is.
Please keep Donald Trump away from startupland. He's a troll that deserves none of our respect.
I have some inside knowledge of this, and the author did not pick the headline (it's common practice for copy editors to rewrite it). Agree that the headline is ridiculous, but if you go on to read the article, there is context to the analogy.
It says so in my profile, but for disclosure, I am a co-worker of the author..
Really not my argument here. What I'm suggesting is that one clear idiot has leveraged the value of knowing what something costs to a non-trivial level of success. In our line of work, the most important commodity is developer time. Having a fundamental grasp of such is a unique competitive edge.
"What I'm suggesting is that one clear idiot has leveraged the value of knowing what something costs to a non-trivial level of success"
But he hasn't. He's taken an inherited fortune (and the career he was given by virtue of who his family were) and squandered it. There's a reason why he's selling his personal brand and not primarily performing business transactions for a living.
"The bald truth is learning to program is still hard, despite recent gains in accessibility" <- This.
Regardless of all of the tools, you still have to work really really hard to be good. I guess that's true of everything. Even managing your billionaire hair.
I don't think Donald Trump is a very good carpenter, or architect, if you want to be the Donald Trump of startups go to Wharton and then play the VC game.
You don't have to know how to code to do price discovery in tech. The cost of software is especially nebulous, and as PG recently talked about the vast majority of returns come from a few investments. I doubt very many buildings that Donald Trump put $18,000 into became $1 billion dollar buildings. Since the returns are concentrated and you have no idea which will be successful the strategy should be to put a little bit into a lot of startups, not learn to code and out compete your competitors by building software on a better cost basis.
Wrong. Trump's father did not bankroll his initial ventures. It was rumored that his father helped him out after his first bankruptcy somewhat. Trump's father didn't believe in the angle that Donald was taking much as any old timer typically does. Trump's father did not bankroll him and certainly in no significant way.
It's pretty naïve to think that Fred Trump and his money/influence were not a huge competitive advantage for Donald Trump, even if Fred didn't literally bankroll his projects.
And what exactly in my comment says that "Fred Trump and his money/influence were not an asset". By the way, Fred had no "influence" in NYC. Did the fact that Fred had a good reputation doing housing in Brooklyn and Queens help Donald? Of course it did. But this was Donald's project and he had to do much as I've said to get it built.
"In the mid-70's, Mr. Trump lent support -- and a small amount of money -- to his son Donald's aspirations of becoming a developer. ''But what he lent was mostly knowledge; Donald really did it on his own, along with whatever boost he got from being Fred Trump's son, of course,'' Robert Trump said."
I don't know you ... I didn't mean to insult you personally. Just engaging in vigorous debate, is all.
That said, I do think it's absurd to imply that having a NYC real estate mogul worth hundreds of millions of dollars for a father wasn't helpful to Donald in becoming, well, a NYC real estate mogul worth hundreds of millions of dollars. If that isn't naïve, it's ... something.
Trump's father did not bankroll him and certainly in no significant way.
For what it's worth, the NY Daily News obit of Fred Trump literally begins with:
Fred Trump, who amassed a fortune building middle-class houses and apartments in Brooklyn and Queens, then helped bankroll son Donald's glamorous foray into Manhattan real estate ....
Poor article written on a poor premise. Even assuming that Donald Trump knows everything about how his company's physically operate (which btw, he doesn't), to say that his success is dependent upon that and not the myriad of other factors is a stretch. Further, again assuming that Trump knows all about how his company(s) operate, why are there countless counter examples? Warren Buffet anyone (who if I remember correctly is the 2nd richest man in the world now, because he gave away enough to make Bill Gates the 1st)? How did we come to call upon him as the standard of success? If I remember correctly, he isn't even in the top 100 richest people in the world.
Also, as someone from a business background who is also a programmer, I find the skill of irrelevance in business, and in some cases a hindrance. I am tired of seeing the same dead horse beaten into the ground.
Some hip programmers/start-up folks think that learning to code is going to be that thing that determines success or failure. Its not. If you are not a programmer by profession, then learning programming is not going to be the determining factor in getting you a job or helping with your start-up.
I wish that we all lived in some imaginary land where you knowing Java or understanding how software works, down to the byte of information is going to give you that next big investor or get you that next big job/promotion. Really, I wish it were the case. Unfortunately, its not. When a non-programmer applies for a non-programmer position at a fortune 500 company, not only does he not have space on his 1 page (or maybe 2 page) resume to list all the languages he knows or software projects he has worked on; even assuming he could, the HR manager on the other end is immediately going to toss that resume in the waste basket. Period.
Please HN, stop up voting the same retarded argument. Its made to the front page probably 100 times in the 3 years I have been here. Please stop. The horse is dead.
This is real talk. Its high time we started seing articles with titles like ''Coders Learn how to Business'' ''Coders like how to Market''. The tech community needs to get out of this ''Coding is everything'' bubble. Coders can be hired but Enterprenuers cant.
"Donald Trump knows everything about how his company's physically operate"
My cousin had a property in the 90's that Donald Trump wanted to use for something. It was not a large property at all. It was located in Atlantic City. He was surprised that Donald handled the transaction directly with him and he met with him several times.
Trump is a hand's on person and has a very lean organization. He doesn't have a PR department and his office staff is small relative to what he does.
Knowing what everything cost is not the same as being able to build. Sure you know a for loop, that dont make you a developer. You may just be able to know when the dev is lying, but really..
Yes, the legend has it that he knows the cost of everything. He could walk into a hotel under construction, and would know the cost of the faucet used in the bathroom sink, and would have a sense that it could be gotten $1 per unit cheaper with tougher negotiating skills. Knowing the true cost of things is a great asset in negotiation with suppliers.
But lets me honest. His success as a real-estate mogul is spotty. The casino company that bears his name (Trump Entertainment Resorts) has filed bankruptcy 3 times, and only owns 10% of the company currently and it's run by other people - mostly for the use of his name.
It seems the smartest thing he did was try to tie his name with luxury in the mind of the consumer. He does TV shows to reinforce his reputation as a ruthless businessman. He puts his name on every building he can - Trump this, Trump that. He's some type of marketing genius, not the king of real estate.
The second smartest thing he did was aggressively try to buy even undesirable property in Manhattan on the belief that even the port-lands would some day become places people would want to live. While everyone was focused on downtown, he was looking at the cheaper edges with a big vision of what it can become.
So what is the lesson for startups? While everyone is fighting over what they think is hot now (social! location! photos! online tv!), try and find what will logically be hot next and work there. And put your name on everything. A better lesson than "know the price of everything".
The thing I find most fascinating about Trump is how he is always stomping on the edge of being a joke and being a serious business guy.
That level of not-giving-a-crap of what other people think and ruthless self promotion is in my opinion very rare among internet centric people. Most are way to concerned about their personal and professional reputation to take a stand on borderline "controversies" such as Trump did with the birther issue. Even Thiel seems to be somewhat coy when it comes to his support for Ron Paul.
I've been following Trump since before he built Trump Tower. Which opened in 1983.
Interestingly the wiki page on Trump Tower says this:
"He also renovated the Trump Tower in New York City and several other residential projects."
Of course didn't renovate it. He built it from the ground up, acquiring the land and pushing through the project much to the chagrin of his father (who developed other buildings). Trump learned much from his father (and he also graduated Wharton undergrad). He spent time on job sites and learned the construction business from the ground up. I remember when Trump Tower was built. It was a big achievement for someone his age at the time (and would be now as well). And it was done in NYC with red tape, unions and all the obstacles that building in NYC brings. This is not like putting up a small structure in the suburbs by any means.
While many, including you, might feel Trump is a "legend in his own mind" I respectfully disagree having watched him for many years. He's had his failures but he's come back. He's mastered the art of self promotion and I have to tell you he did this at a level nobody had ever seen before at least for real estate development.
Incidentally it is known in real estate circles that wealthy people will generally pay more to live in a Trump building than "brand x". That's part of the reputation that he has among people with money to burn. It's hard to believe that he is pulling the wool over the eyes of so many people and not providing value to them.
Oh, by the way as far as the casinos? Trump suffered a huge loss when he was starting out in NJ in that the man that he hand picked to run his casino business was killed in a helicopter crash prior to (or around) the opening. He was so devastated he named his 6000 seat arena after Mark. He didn't have to do that and it certainly shows the value of that person to the organization and knocked him off balance. I remember the news stories from that time.
I don't think anything I said was at all unfair to him. He's had many successes and a few failures (like most people). He made a legitimate name for himself in the early days building buildings and not just selling t-shirts. I think what sets him apart from other billionaire businessmen is the amount of ego he shows while doing it. There are investors in casinos, golf courses and Manhattan residential buildings who are more successful than Trump who's name we don't know. Also Trump is a bit bombastic about certain topics such as politics, going on and on about birth certificates 4 years after the President was elected.
Another person who is similar is Sir Richard Branson, who often jumps out of planes and such in order to make a grand entrance into a press conference, while having several Virgin businesses that outright fail (such as Virgin Charter, the jet timeshare, and Virgin Record Stores) that we don't hear about so much. But Richard Branson doesn't come off as egotistical so much as just a good marketer of himself and his personal brand.
I actually agree with you that he is cultivating a brand for rich people, by making the non-rich people look up to him as some type of real estate God. Sure, I bet he has high standards for the multi-million dollar apartments he sells and so no one is getting crap products.
I'm guessing that the majority of HN readers fall into three categories (note I say "majority").
a) Younger business guys
b) Younger hackers
c) Older hackers
I am also guessing that among the "c" group most are not that familiar with Trump back in the late 70's when he got his start all the way through to now (Apprentice days). I've followed him for many years so I have a different perspective. I can tell from the comments here that many people take a view of Trump based on their limited exposure to him in the last few years. (I'm sure even PG hasn't been following Trump since his start or thought much about him at all. PG didn't become a "business guy" afaik till the mid 90's, right?). As someone who graduated Wharton and has followed business for close to 35 years I can assure you that despite your impression of him now he does well deserve the attention that he receives and he has earned it. Yes, he is a showman and yes people make fun of him. Guess what? His TV show, The Apprentice was very very successful and helped him make plenty of money. He earned that and did something very few business people are able to do. But people tend to throw bricks at many people who gain success and Steve Jobs was certainly no wall flower either. He used his celebrity to achieve and further his goals.
Hackers tend to be less outgoing and more humble at least that's my impression. That's not a feature, it's a bug in achieving the success you deserve, like any "artist". Don't knock others especially people who are known world wide, have TV shows and command premium prices for their name and image.
31 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 75.5 ms ] threaddid trump build a house brick by brick?
Demolition, architecture, plumbing, electrical work, heating, air conditioning, permits, labor, interior design, lumber, dry wall, 12 foot tall golden letters spelling your own last name--Trump's big edge is he knows the going rate for all of it. There are hundreds of details that go into turning a hunk of capital into a building; Donald Trump wins because he knows what all those details cost. And his competitors don't.
his competitors don't hire specialists who know that?
He inherited billions of dollars and a career from his father, squandered through narcissism and bad business decisions into mere millions of dollars.
That advantage is much harder to receive in our business than Trump's, but is similarly effective to exploit.
If Jason was "Donald of startup" he would then create a "get rich like Jason" book series. Of course 37signals would go bankrupt a few times and bailed out by banks that he had leveraged.
Then he would start selling a clothing line of Jason Fried coding shirts. He would then start a reality show where he fired developers based on not coding well enough.
Then Jason would get on tv and start asking the public where Obama's birth certificate is.
Please keep Donald Trump away from startupland. He's a troll that deserves none of our respect.
It says so in my profile, but for disclosure, I am a co-worker of the author..
But he hasn't. He's taken an inherited fortune (and the career he was given by virtue of who his family were) and squandered it. There's a reason why he's selling his personal brand and not primarily performing business transactions for a living.
Regardless of all of the tools, you still have to work really really hard to be good. I guess that's true of everything. Even managing your billionaire hair.
this->
:p
You don't have to know how to code to do price discovery in tech. The cost of software is especially nebulous, and as PG recently talked about the vast majority of returns come from a few investments. I doubt very many buildings that Donald Trump put $18,000 into became $1 billion dollar buildings. Since the returns are concentrated and you have no idea which will be successful the strategy should be to put a little bit into a lot of startups, not learn to code and out compete your competitors by building software on a better cost basis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Trump
And what exactly in my comment says that "Fred Trump and his money/influence were not an asset". By the way, Fred had no "influence" in NYC. Did the fact that Fred had a good reputation doing housing in Brooklyn and Queens help Donald? Of course it did. But this was Donald's project and he had to do much as I've said to get it built.
Note this from Fred's obit:
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/26/nyregion/fred-c-trump-post...
"In the mid-70's, Mr. Trump lent support -- and a small amount of money -- to his son Donald's aspirations of becoming a developer. ''But what he lent was mostly knowledge; Donald really did it on his own, along with whatever boost he got from being Fred Trump's son, of course,'' Robert Trump said."
I don't know you ... I didn't mean to insult you personally. Just engaging in vigorous debate, is all.
That said, I do think it's absurd to imply that having a NYC real estate mogul worth hundreds of millions of dollars for a father wasn't helpful to Donald in becoming, well, a NYC real estate mogul worth hundreds of millions of dollars. If that isn't naïve, it's ... something.
Trump's father did not bankroll him and certainly in no significant way.
For what it's worth, the NY Daily News obit of Fred Trump literally begins with:
Fred Trump, who amassed a fortune building middle-class houses and apartments in Brooklyn and Queens, then helped bankroll son Donald's glamorous foray into Manhattan real estate ....
Also, as someone from a business background who is also a programmer, I find the skill of irrelevance in business, and in some cases a hindrance. I am tired of seeing the same dead horse beaten into the ground.
Some hip programmers/start-up folks think that learning to code is going to be that thing that determines success or failure. Its not. If you are not a programmer by profession, then learning programming is not going to be the determining factor in getting you a job or helping with your start-up.
I wish that we all lived in some imaginary land where you knowing Java or understanding how software works, down to the byte of information is going to give you that next big investor or get you that next big job/promotion. Really, I wish it were the case. Unfortunately, its not. When a non-programmer applies for a non-programmer position at a fortune 500 company, not only does he not have space on his 1 page (or maybe 2 page) resume to list all the languages he knows or software projects he has worked on; even assuming he could, the HR manager on the other end is immediately going to toss that resume in the waste basket. Period.
Please HN, stop up voting the same retarded argument. Its made to the front page probably 100 times in the 3 years I have been here. Please stop. The horse is dead.
Not that it matters, but Carlos Slim is richer than either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes_list_of_billionaires
My cousin had a property in the 90's that Donald Trump wanted to use for something. It was not a large property at all. It was located in Atlantic City. He was surprised that Donald handled the transaction directly with him and he met with him several times.
Trump is a hand's on person and has a very lean organization. He doesn't have a PR department and his office staff is small relative to what he does.
Yes, the legend has it that he knows the cost of everything. He could walk into a hotel under construction, and would know the cost of the faucet used in the bathroom sink, and would have a sense that it could be gotten $1 per unit cheaper with tougher negotiating skills. Knowing the true cost of things is a great asset in negotiation with suppliers.
But lets me honest. His success as a real-estate mogul is spotty. The casino company that bears his name (Trump Entertainment Resorts) has filed bankruptcy 3 times, and only owns 10% of the company currently and it's run by other people - mostly for the use of his name.
It seems the smartest thing he did was try to tie his name with luxury in the mind of the consumer. He does TV shows to reinforce his reputation as a ruthless businessman. He puts his name on every building he can - Trump this, Trump that. He's some type of marketing genius, not the king of real estate.
The second smartest thing he did was aggressively try to buy even undesirable property in Manhattan on the belief that even the port-lands would some day become places people would want to live. While everyone was focused on downtown, he was looking at the cheaper edges with a big vision of what it can become.
So what is the lesson for startups? While everyone is fighting over what they think is hot now (social! location! photos! online tv!), try and find what will logically be hot next and work there. And put your name on everything. A better lesson than "know the price of everything".
That level of not-giving-a-crap of what other people think and ruthless self promotion is in my opinion very rare among internet centric people. Most are way to concerned about their personal and professional reputation to take a stand on borderline "controversies" such as Trump did with the birther issue. Even Thiel seems to be somewhat coy when it comes to his support for Ron Paul.
I've been following Trump since before he built Trump Tower. Which opened in 1983.
Interestingly the wiki page on Trump Tower says this:
"He also renovated the Trump Tower in New York City and several other residential projects."
Of course didn't renovate it. He built it from the ground up, acquiring the land and pushing through the project much to the chagrin of his father (who developed other buildings). Trump learned much from his father (and he also graduated Wharton undergrad). He spent time on job sites and learned the construction business from the ground up. I remember when Trump Tower was built. It was a big achievement for someone his age at the time (and would be now as well). And it was done in NYC with red tape, unions and all the obstacles that building in NYC brings. This is not like putting up a small structure in the suburbs by any means.
While many, including you, might feel Trump is a "legend in his own mind" I respectfully disagree having watched him for many years. He's had his failures but he's come back. He's mastered the art of self promotion and I have to tell you he did this at a level nobody had ever seen before at least for real estate development.
Incidentally it is known in real estate circles that wealthy people will generally pay more to live in a Trump building than "brand x". That's part of the reputation that he has among people with money to burn. It's hard to believe that he is pulling the wool over the eyes of so many people and not providing value to them.
Oh, by the way as far as the casinos? Trump suffered a huge loss when he was starting out in NJ in that the man that he hand picked to run his casino business was killed in a helicopter crash prior to (or around) the opening. He was so devastated he named his 6000 seat arena after Mark. He didn't have to do that and it certainly shows the value of that person to the organization and knocked him off balance. I remember the news stories from that time.
Add: Mark Etess was the executive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etess_Arena
Another person who is similar is Sir Richard Branson, who often jumps out of planes and such in order to make a grand entrance into a press conference, while having several Virgin businesses that outright fail (such as Virgin Charter, the jet timeshare, and Virgin Record Stores) that we don't hear about so much. But Richard Branson doesn't come off as egotistical so much as just a good marketer of himself and his personal brand.
I actually agree with you that he is cultivating a brand for rich people, by making the non-rich people look up to him as some type of real estate God. Sure, I bet he has high standards for the multi-million dollar apartments he sells and so no one is getting crap products.
Now, back to programming.
a) Younger business guys
b) Younger hackers
c) Older hackers
I am also guessing that among the "c" group most are not that familiar with Trump back in the late 70's when he got his start all the way through to now (Apprentice days). I've followed him for many years so I have a different perspective. I can tell from the comments here that many people take a view of Trump based on their limited exposure to him in the last few years. (I'm sure even PG hasn't been following Trump since his start or thought much about him at all. PG didn't become a "business guy" afaik till the mid 90's, right?). As someone who graduated Wharton and has followed business for close to 35 years I can assure you that despite your impression of him now he does well deserve the attention that he receives and he has earned it. Yes, he is a showman and yes people make fun of him. Guess what? His TV show, The Apprentice was very very successful and helped him make plenty of money. He earned that and did something very few business people are able to do. But people tend to throw bricks at many people who gain success and Steve Jobs was certainly no wall flower either. He used his celebrity to achieve and further his goals.
Hackers tend to be less outgoing and more humble at least that's my impression. That's not a feature, it's a bug in achieving the success you deserve, like any "artist". Don't knock others especially people who are known world wide, have TV shows and command premium prices for their name and image.