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Good morning to all new and old readers! Here is your Wednesday edition of Faster Than Normal, exploring one short story about a person, a company, a high-performance tool, a trend I’m watching closely, and curated media to help you build businesses, wealth, and the most important asset of all: yourself. 

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Today’s edition:

Cheers,
Alex

P.S. Send me feedback on how we can improve. I respond to every email.

Stories of Excellence

Person: Brian Acton

Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, is a testament to perseverance in the tech world. Born in Michigan and raised in Florida, Acton's journey to success was far from smooth. After being rejected by Facebook and Twitter in 2009, he partnered with Jan Koum to create WhatsApp. "I look at this as an opportunity to rest and recharge, not as a failure," Acton said of his rejections. Their messaging app grew rapidly, eventually being acquired by Facebook for $19 billion in 2014. However, Acton's principles led him to leave Facebook in 2017 over disagreements about privacy and monetization. "I sold my users' privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. And I live with that every day," he later reflected. Now, Acton focuses on philanthropy and supports the encrypted messaging app Signal, continuing his commitment to user privacy.

Key Lessons from Brian Acton:

• On resilience: "You have to be resilient and keep moving forward. Rejection is not the end, it's just a step in the journey."

• On vision: "Take the time to get it right." This motto guided WhatsApp's development, prioritizing quality over speed.

• On principles: "No ads, no games, no gimmicks." Acton's commitment to a clean user experience set WhatsApp apart.

Read More.

Company: American Express

American Express was founded in 1850 by Henry Wells, William G. Fargo, and John Warren Butterfield as an express mail business in Buffalo, New York. The company quickly expanded into financial services, introducing money orders in 1882 and traveler's cheques in 1891. In 1958, AmEx launched its first charge card, revolutionizing the payments industry. The company went public in 1977, raising $267 million. Today, American Express is a global financial services giant with a market cap of $118 billion as of 2023. It serves over 140 million cardmembers worldwide and processed $1.3 trillion in transactions in 2022. The company's success stems from its focus on premium customers and strong brand identity.

Key Lessons from American Express:

• On exclusivity: Create a sense of privilege. AmEx's "member since" dates on cards make customers feel part of an elite club. People like feeling special.

• On partnerships: Choose wisely. AmEx's co-branded cards with Delta and Hilton leverage partner strengths. It's symbiosis, not parasitism.

Read More.

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Accelerants

High-performance tool

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Amazon Narratives

At Amazon, Jeff Bezos famously banned PowerPoint presentations in favor of six-page narrative memos. These memos are used to pitch new ideas and make important decisions.

Bezos believes that writing full narratives forces clearer thinking and better decision-making. As he explained in a shareholder letter, "The narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what's more important than what."

The process of writing these narratives is rigorous. Teams often spend weeks crafting them, going through multiple drafts. The memos are then read silently at the beginning of meetings, followed by discussion. This approach ensures that everyone has the same information and that ideas are fully fleshed out before being presented.

Insights

Tactical reads

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> When studying expert performance
The Role of Deliberate Practice in The Acquisition of Expert Performance (Read it here)

> When learning about cognitive changes with age
Aging and the brain (Read it here)

1 question

That’s all for today, folks. As always, please give me your feedback. Which section is your favourite? What do you want to see more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.

Have a wonderful rest of week, all.

Recommendation Zone

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Why Faster Than Normal? Our mission is to be a friend to the ambitious, a mentor to the becoming, and a partner to the bold. We achieve this by sharing the stories, ideas, and frameworks of the world's most prolific people and companies—and how you can apply them to build businesses, wealth, and the most important asset of all: yourself.

Faster Than Normal is a ‘state' of being’ rather than an outcome. Outlier performance requires continuous, compounded improvement. We’re your partner on this journey.

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