NOTE: this was a past issue of my weekly newsletter, Timeless Gems. Join my free mailing list so you don’t miss out on future issues.
Today’s gem is this 2018 article titled “How A Mysterious Tech Billionaire Created Two Fortunes—And A Global Software Sweatshop”
If you’re not a software investor, you’ve probably never heard of ESW Capital or Trilogy. They are a fascinating company and this article does a great job highlighting some of its intricacies.
ESW is a perfect example of Charlie Munger’s “Take a simple idea and take it seriously.” Their simple ideas being:
- Acquire for as cheap as possible
- Employ remote contractors
- Maximize profits from software contracts
For anyone who is a Constellation Software fan, you might see some similarities here. Perhaps a more extreme version. Unlike CSU, they’re a private company so there isn’t too much information on them out there. But here is an example of one of their job posts (an $800k per year independent contractor CTO position).
P.s. if any of my readers work at, or previously worked at, ESW… hit me up, would love to chat.
