Disclosure
Dan Gill would pass on investing in OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI
“I wouldn't invest in any of them. I think that the foundational models are trending towards commoditization and it's gonna be difficult to capture all of the gains relative to what, you know, Google, Google can capture and Microsoft can capture and others.”
Opinion
Dan Gill: Exceptional outcomes require exceptional effort, which isn't for everyone
“No. And I would say it's not for everyone. I also think if you want to be exceptional, there is no other route. Exceptional outcomes require exceptional effort period.”
Insight
Carvana would reject $100M in SaaS revenue if it distracts from core
“We could license so many pieces of software that we've built. There's a lot of companies in, in our industry that would love to use software that we've built. The idea of us generating. Ten million dollars of incremental SAS revenue or a hundred million dollar…”
Assertion Supported
Carvana sold more cars after eliminating nationwide free shipping
“And what ended up happening Is as a result, we unclogged our network from sort of wasted excess transport that brought delivery times down for everyone. We have fewer late deliveries from this sort of excess clogging of the network and we sell more cars. So by…”
Opinion
Carvana's deterministic, algorithmic systems give it a structural AI advantage over dealerships
“Whereas in our world, all of these systems are deterministic and algorithmic and have been built that way from day zero. And so we can have an LLM tell you, Harry, given your credit score and the VIN of the vehicle that you entered you have 3000 dollars of pos…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Carvana aims to become the 'Amazon for cars' by distributing third-party vehicles
“I think that we should be selling other people's cars and we want to be Amazon for cars. We want to be able to distribute the cars that consumers want.”
Insight
Consultants only excel in product if they hate purely advisory work
“We've had great success with a small number of consultants that have joined, but you've got to look for that very specific type. It is the person who comes from consulting and says, I hate it. We do all the research and we make these recommendations and then w…”
Insight
Carvana hires product operators for 'horsepower and give a shit'
“I would say it can be valuable, but it is not what we index on. You know, when I'm hiring I use two attributes and I've sort of tried to pass this through the organization. The two I look for are horsepower and give a shit.”
Insight
Product managers are not 'CEOs of the product'
“I don't. I think that being the PM, you need to be obsessed with every aspect of the experience, and I think that you need to really intimately understand the system. And what I mean by that is that any good experience has so many inputs and so many outputs, A…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Carvana CFO's 10-year-old Excel model accurately projected the company's long-term margins
“The Excel model that our CFO, Mark Jenkins, built 10 years ago has been quite prescient. When we said, this is where our long-term margins will come from. This is where the economies of scale will come from. And these are all the areas that we want to vertical…”
Insight
First-party vertical integration creates a durable advantage in commodity markets
“So if you can do More of the work yourself as a first party and drive those expenses down. Now that transaction is worth more to you than it is to anyone else. You're generating more of the profit pools, you're spending less, and you have a greater profit per …”
Insight
Having 90 parallel teams means one team's fifth priority blocks another's first
“And ultimately there are not 90 number one priorities that the fifth priority of a certain team might actually dominate the number one priority of many other teams, but they're not going to get to it because it's fifth on their queue.”
Assertion Supported
Carvana consolidated from 90 product teams down to eight in 2022
“And so what we did in 2022 is we went from 90 back to eight and we forced so much more Cross-functional prioritization.”
Insight
Product teams create zero value by shipping features unless metrics move
“We do not win by shipping features. We win by moving metrics. And ultimately, while there are so many input metrics and you should have a very clearly defined unit economics driven hypothesis for why we're taking on any given initiative, and you should have le…”
Disclosure
Carvana refuses to hire super senior external talent, preferring internal growth
“We also don't hire Super, super senior people. We like to grow our talent from within”
Assertion Partly supported
Carvana's first-party logistics network can reach 90% of US driveways
“Carvana first party logistics touches 90% of US driveways. So if you can get any car to either coast of the United States, we will get it to 90% of Americans within a week.”
Insight
Manage crises by setting 30-day truth checks against external media narratives
“What you say to your team is, here's what the rest of the world misunderstands about the truth, and what you're reading in the Wall Street Journal, or what you're reading in any of these publications, Let's be really clear about what that version of the truth …”
Insight
Founders often fail because they rush into irrational idea selection
“I think that founders are often in such a hurry to found something that they aren't rational enough about what they pick to go and found.”
Opinion
Dan Gill: Jaguar's rebrand was a mistake given its existing brand equity
“I'm not a fan of the rebrand, if I'm honest. I think that Jaguar already means something, and when you've built brand equity for so long, and their brand has stood for quality, and innovation, and luxury and all these really great things, I think you could hav…”
Assertion Supported
Carvana's market cap went from $2B to $60B, $500M, then $50B
“We IPO'd at about two. We peaked at about sixty billion. We dropped back down to five hundred million, and we're back to fifty billion.”
Insight
A stock dropping from 98% to 99% is another 50% loss
“The fun thing about dropping by 99% is that the difference between a 98% drop and a 99% drop is another 50% drop.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Virtually no Carvana employee has done their job before at scale
“There's basically not a single person at Carvana that's done their job before. Certainly not at the scale that we do it at.”
Insight
Assess candidate intelligence by probing their knowledge of advanced product settings
“I will often ask what their favorite piece of technology is. And I want to know if you're going to say what your favorite app is or favorite piece of hardware or whatever, You better have gone into the advanced settings and know what's buried under there and b…”
Insight
Test candidate resilience by asking about the hardest they have ever worked
“My favorite question is to ask what is the hardest you've ever worked in your life? And I'm not necessarily asking, you know, at work in your job. I'm asking anything. It could be that in high school you had a sick parent and you were trying to be on the track…”
