OK you’re going to like this. 

A few months ago - I met the “Indian Warren Buffett”. 

I’m serious..look at the guy!

‍

‍

Not only was he fun to hangout with (and really nice), but he has banger stories. Here was one he shared: 

I asked him how he built his $100M+ fortune, and he said “Two words…Shamelessly Cloning”.

I love that phrase - ‘Shamelessly Cloning’. 

Here’s how he tells the story: 

1/ Like all of us - when he’s young, he wants to be successful. 

2/ One day, he reads a book by Tom Peters (a big management guru in the 80’s).

The book says: humans are surprisingly bad at copying successful ideas.

The book gives an example - the Story of Two Gas Stations . 

Imagine two gas stations are across the street from each other. 

Same concept: Gas station with snacks inside. 

‍Owner A pays a guy $150 to make his signage look better, and gets brighter lights for the evening. ‍

Owner B looks at that and says: “Psh, what a waste of money”.

Owner A’s traffic goes up a bit. Owner B shrugs it off. 

‍Owner A walks outside every time he sees one of his regular customers, and does a complimentary window wash. ‍

Owner B thinks: “What an idiot. That’s not sustainable, you can’t do it for everyone. And they’re not even paying for it!”

As time goes on, Owner A continues to make small improvements to his service. Eventually he’s making 2-3x more per week than the station across the street. 

Most people want to study what the smart owner does. But I think the more interesting question is: “why the heck is owner B not doing what he sees is working??” 

Is it ego? Ignorance? It’s obvious he should copy what’s working, but he doesn’t.

Tom Peters argues that this is common. You can go to your direct competitors, and tell them all your trade secrets. Everything you’ve learned. They will listen to you but there will be no change in behavior. 

Mohnish thought this was ridiculous & made a promise to himself that he would become a great copier of great ideas.

Picasso said: “Good artists borrow. Great artists steal”.

Don’t get me wrong. There IS a bad way to copy. Don’t copy people’s art. I’d say the gas station owner shouldn’t copy the exact signage, but the idea of “I should make my business look more approachable too” and put his own twist on it. 

And in many areas of life, copying is positive-sum. For example:

• Religion is people copying the morals/beliefs of others. They want you to copy them.
• CrossFit is people copying the exercise habits of fit people.
• Grandma’s delicious spaghetti recipe is a copy of someone else’s spaghetti recipe. 

You may not be the smart gas station owner who figures everything out. But you can choose to not be the idiot owner across the street. 

- Uncle Shaan 

P.S. - attaching my own list of great ideas that I’m planning to shamelessly clone… 

P.P.S - you should shamelessly clone me and start hiring top 1% talent from South America. $7-10/hour for MBA level talent. Email me 1-line of what talent you need (eg. “I need an EA”) and I’ll intro you to my guy.

‍