Jacob Taylor - The Rebel Allocator

The Rebel Allocator

By Jacob L. Taylor

Copyright 2018 by Jacob L. Taylor

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without prior written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations. For permission requests, please contact the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Name: Taylor, Jacob, L. author.

Title: The Rebel Allocator / Jacob L. Taylor

Description: Folsom, CA, 2018 | dba Five Good Questions

Identifiers: ISBN-13: 978-1-7326883-2-2 (paperback) | ISBN-13: 978-1-7326883-3-9 (ebook)

Subjects: Business, commerce, capitalism

Classification: HF, HB501

Contact: , @farnamjake1

Printed in the United States of America

Imprint: 5GQ

Book design by Jacob L .Taylor

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From the Author:

In his 1987 letter to Berkshire Shareholders, Warren Buffett wrote:

The heads of many companies are not skilled in capital allocation. Their inadequacy is not surprising. Most bosses rise to the top because they have excelled in an area such as marketing, production, engineering, administration, or sometimes, institutional politics. Once they have become CEOs, they now must make capital allocation decisions, a critical job that they may have never tackled and that is not easily mastered. To stretch the point, it's as if the final step for a highly talented musician was not to perform at Carnegie Hall, but instead, to be named Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Capital allocation is the process of deciding how money is spent inside a company. Its easy to forget how critical it is to the success of any business. Yet somehow after years of searching, I never found a definitive resource for learning about effective capital allocation. Many outlined the problem, but few offered solutions for the practitioner. It was a glaring omission I was determined to fix. Obsessed might be the most apt word.

This book started life as a nonfiction. I invested years researching everything tangentially related to capital allocation, going down more rabbit holes than Bugs Bunny. I wanted to write a book about capital allocation done right. And if Im being honest, my ego wanted me to write the book . I crafted a nonfiction book proposal and entertained offers from publishers who agreed this was fresh territory. Yet something wasnt right. Around the same time, a good friend who was my age died in a freak hiking accident. I was forced to reimagine what kind of book I would want to leave for my two young boys if I were to disappear tomorrow. That sobering thought changed everything.

A thousand little nudges from the universe convinced me I had to tell a story if I wanted this work to have a lasting impact. Theres an idea that emotion is the glue that makes any lesson stick. I explored the emotional mechanics of storytelling, heroes journeys, even screenplay writing. Thoreau said that the price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. If thats true, this has been an expensive book.

I can already hear you saying, A fictional story about a dry subject like capital allocation? What a terrible idea. I got a healthy dose of raised eyebrows when I shared the concept with friends. Just write a damn nonfiction book like everyone else, their eyes told me. Yet I couldnt ignore Ralph Waldo Emersons words in Self-Reliance :

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

This book is the plot of ground that I had to till. I hope the story helps you retain the lessons and broadens your understanding of an important subject. That would be success to me.

Your humble author,

Jacob L. Taylor

August 2018

P.S. This work is decidedly fiction. Although Ive borrowed elements from my own experiences for color, I took plenty of literary license. If we meet in real life, please dont psychoanalyze me--Im married to a Ph.D. psychologist, so I get enough of that at home already.

PROLOGUE

I creep into the hospital room and place the overpriced get-well flowers I just bought in the downstairs lobby on a table. I silently take a seat next to the bed. Medical equipment beeps metronomically in the background. How does anyone sleep around here? His face is sunken and more ashen than last time I saw him. Hes going downhill fast. The inevitable seems right around the corner, and I can feel my throat harden with emotion. I blink a few tears from my eyes.

I reach toward the bed and gently touch the back of his hand. His skin feels like parchment paper, loosely stretched over his bones. His breathing is at least steady, but labored and rattling. I cant help but take a few deep breaths of my own to compensate, like when you watch someone trapped underwater in a movie.

Without opening his eyes, the old man says in a gravelly voice, I thought youd never make it.

I let out a cathartic laugh. You ruined my vacation, I say.

I know, Im sorry. But we still have one lesson left.

Youre probably guessing this old man is my grandfather. Hes not; we arent even related. Yet hes one of the most important people in my life. Before I explain how I came to be in a hospital holding his hand in the last days, perhaps hours, of his life, lets rewind the clock...

CHAPTER 1

I grew up middle class with granola parents. They met in college at an environmental protest. Saving the whales? Or was it the rainforests? Doesnt matter. It was love at first sight. They were high on righteous indignation. Probably more. I guess there are worse places to be conceived than the back of a Westfalia?

There was a lot of talk around the dinner table of the man and how he was keeping everyone down and callously destroying the planet. We were taught that capitalism was evil, man at his predatory worst. The nightly news brought daily reminders of crooked corporations into our living room.

My father was an attorney, which should have made the family financially comfortable. And it would have, had he not taken on so many pro bono cases. Environmental damage or unfair labor practices--he was a sucker for a sob story. He took them on free of charge.

Maybe you get what you pay for because he certainly didnt win them all. Hed torpedo his case by not letting go of an irrelevant point. Self-sabotaged, windmill-tilted, unable to get out of his own way. We never starved, but we were a long way from Park Avenue.

My mother was a dedicated volunteer for various environmental crusades. In the best case, this involved her working the phones to raise money. At least she could do that from home. Too often she was pulled to out-of-town rallies and protests. Causes always trumped bake sales and Little League games. She loved us, but her passion was clearly for saving the planet, not motherhood.