Insight
Adelman: Scaling to $10 million is much harder than $100M to $1B
“That first 1,000,010 million are much harder than the hundred million to a billion.”
Insight
Adelman: Better to hire 10/10 work ethic over 10/10 intelligence
“The number one quality to me is I would rather have somebody That's an eight in intelligence and a 10 in work ethic than a 10 in intelligence and an eight in work ethic.”
Opinion
Adelman: The world does not need another venture capital fund
“The world doesn't need another fucking venture capital funds. Okay. Like Enough. Okay.”
Insight
Adelman: Chefs, doctors, and lawyers generally make poor business operators
“Chefs generally make poor business people. Doctors are very poor business people, right? And a lot of time lawyers don't translate into being operators. Like that's just a, something I've noticed.”
Opinion
Adelman: Software investing is very tough today due to AI and ChatGPT
“The software companies are too hard to understand today with AI. I have no idea if you're solving for something that couldn't be solved now by just putting into chat GBT, right? Like so, and we're not going to spend the time to differentiate that. So, you know…”
Disclosure
Adelman: Rejects fund managers who launch funds with minimal experience
“We're getting all these funds that are coming and looking for stuff, and I'm just like, stop with the funds. Like, what's your differentiator? You know, you ran a company for, you know, 10 minutes, and now you're gonna go launch a fund. So like, we say no a lo…”
Assertion Contradicted
Adelman: U.S. electricians are currently earning almost $200,000 a year
“Electricians are making almost 200,000 a year right now.”
Insight
Adelman: Junior employees do not schedule formal calls to pitch spontaneous ideas
“A junior person is not going to suggest an idea in your company. If you walk by the hall and I'll walk into his office, like, what are you working on? And like, well, we have this crazy idea. They're not going to call my assistant, make an appointment to do a …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Adelman: 76ers owners learned of player signing five minutes before public announcement
“That's how we found out five minutes before they announced it publicly.”
Insight
Adelman: Great deals must also be good to great for counterparties
“For me, the way I think about it is if it's going to be a great deal for me, it's got to be a good to great deal for the other person. Very rarely do you get to a place where it's great for one side and poor for the other, and everyone's happy, right?”
Insight
Adelman: You cannot partner with bad counterparties expecting to rehabilitate them
“You can't do a deal with a bad person, keep them in the partnership. That won't change. You can't rehabilitate a bad person, in my view.”
Insight
Adelman: Building a major business is very hard without a supportive partner
“Like if you don't have a great partner, like it's very hard to succeed because you don't want that internal pressure from home. There's enough external forces.”
Insight
Adelman: Leaders must demand managers report bad news first
“Bad news doesn't get better with time. And so I appreciate like punch me in the face of the bad news. And so the managers that tell me what's like, it sounds bad, but I kind of want to know what's going wrong first than what's going right. Okay. Like I expect …”
Insight
Adelman: Evaluate property managers by the cleanliness of hidden maintenance areas
“I can tell a really good property manager and maintenance supervisor by how clean the other areas are. How organized is the maintenance shop, which no consumer or customer is going to see, but I'm going to see it.”
Opinion
Adelman: AI will not replace hands-on home trade services
“Like AI is not going to replace the heater in my house.”
Assertion Contradicted
Adelman: The United States faces a shortage of two million electricians
“We're short two million electricians in the country. Two million.”
Disclosure
Adelman: We receive frivolous lawsuits every day across properties and businesses
“We get frivolous lawsuits every day from our properties and from our businesses. Every day.”
Opinion
Adelman: Online hate against successful people always stems from jealousy below
“I've never had that happen, and I think it does come from blow, and it really stems from jealousy, right?”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Adelman: Longevity, Peptides, and Stem Cells Will Transform People's Lives
“My next frontier that I'm really getting involved in is, like, longevity, ok? Peptides, stem cells, all of that. Like, I think that is the wave of the future. Like, I think that is gonna change the scope of people's lives.”
Disclosure
Adelman: Family members must work elsewhere 3–4 years before working for him
“I have a hard and fast rule that if you're a family, you can't work with me unless you work someplace else for three to four years. You gotta pick up those habits somewhere else, be trained by other people, and you know, that's kind of the way I've thought abo…”
Insight
Adelman: Beginners Should Join Operating Businesses to Earn Equity Before Launching Solo
“In my mind, it's not looking for the first million. It's looking for what education can I get that'll lead me on a path. Okay. So I would show up and we had talked about this. If knowing what I know today, I'd go back to somebody's operating business and say, …”
Disclosure
Adelman: Business ties with Maverick Carter provide no sports negotiation advantage
“His business partner, Maverick Carter, and I are very close friends. We're in some deals together, but that doesn't mean shit, right?”
Assertion Supported
Adelman: Levered $300 million equity into a $1B real estate joint venture
“And so we raised three hundred million dollars, and in real estate, you know, you can put down 30% equity, 70% debt. So if you have three hundred million dollars, that was a billion dollars worth of deals. So, you know, I was in my early thirties. I got to say…”
Insight
Adelman: Evaluate founders by asking if you would back them if they fail
“Here's part of what we go through when we're my family office, when we're looking at investing, if the deal fails, would we do a second deal with that person?”
David Adelman