Rentier

When to Tell a Child There’s Money

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When to Tell a Child There’s Money The tax math took an evening. Deciding when to say the number out loud has stayed open ever since. My wife and I sat down one evening to work out how our money eventually reaches our kids. Nothing urgent about it — this is decades away — but […]
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Every Reason Not to Have Kids Is Correct

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Every Reason Not to Have Kids Is Correct A colleague walked me through his case against having children. Every line of it was right, and it still didn’t get him an answer. The Question He Asked A few months after I got back from a long parental leave, a colleague asked me whether he should […]
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The Debt Didn’t Move: Burford’s Leverage After YPF

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The Debt Didn’t Move: Burford’s Leverage After YPF Between December and June, Burford’s borrowings rose 13% and its leverage ratio nearly quadrupled, from 0.9x tangible book to 3.5x. Almost none of that came from borrowing. The denominator collapsed, because a court reversed a judgment and $2.4 billion of carrying value went with it. In the […]
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The Price of Being Heard

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The Price of Being Heard I read up on how people are actually persuaded before deciding whether to become a manager. I passed on the job, and the reading turned out to be worth more than the title would have been. Why I Read the FBI’s Negotiation Manual A few years ago my employer started […]
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The Patent Platform Turn: How Families Beat Single Cases

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The Patent Platform Turn: How Families Beat Single Cases Funders moved from single patents to families and licensing campaigns, and the strategy is genuinely better than what I bought as a retail investor. But the thing that actually repriced patent assets over the last eighteen months wasn’t strategy at all. It was a screen at […]
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The VC Myth, Debunked: Why Patent Funders Aren’t VCs

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The VC Myth, Debunked: Why Patent Funders Aren’t VCs A defence firm says patent funders bankroll junk in the hope one case pays for everything. A funder’s general counsel says the arithmetic makes that impossible. I rebuilt his model and it reconciles to the dollar — so he wins. Then I read what he deliberately […]
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The $10M Extraction: Anatomy of a Subordinate Note

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The $10M Extraction: Anatomy of a Subordinate Note A retail real estate offering promises 11.5% on a loan against a Santa Monica building anchored by Trader Joe’s. The 27-page note supplement describes something narrower: the first-loss slice of that loan, behind a bank, with cure rights that can require investors to pay the bank down. […]
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The $208M Rebrand: YieldStreet Becomes Willow Wealth

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YieldStreet → Willow Wealth: Anatomy of a Rebrand $208 million of investor losses, a name change seven weeks after the second exposé, and a decade of performance data pulled from the website. The rebrand is what everyone noticed. The SEC filings describe something larger, and the company states it plainly in its own proxy material: […]
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The Template Behind the Ban: Tracing HB 105 to Its Source

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The Template Behind the Ban: Tracing HB 105 to Its Source Most of the state litigation-funding bills in this wave descend from one model act adopted by insurance-committee legislators in November 2024. Lay the template beside the statutes and something odd shows up: the document is called a Transparency Act, and transparency is the part […]
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The Ban That Wasn’t: Ohio’s New Litigation-Funding Law

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The Ban That Wasn’t: Ohio’s New Litigation-Funding Law Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed HB 105 in July and the coverage called it a foreign-funder ban. It isn’t one. It’s a licensing regime for the whole industry with a single real prohibition attached — and that prohibition, a look-through test on where a fund’s capital came […]
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The Redemption Panic: Why BDC Gates Aren’t Defaults

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The Redemption Panic: Why BDC Gates Aren’t Defaults Non-traded BDCs are capping withdrawals again and the alarm is pointed at the wrong thing. The cap is the most honest sentence in the prospectus. The price it lets you exit at is set by the party you’re exiting, on a quarter’s lag, and cannot be audited […]
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The Bank That Isn’t a Bank: Synapse and the FDIC Mirage

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The Bank That Isn’t a Bank: Synapse and the FDIC Mirage No bank failed, so deposit insurance never paid a cent — and 100,000+ people still lost access to their money. Here’s what actually went missing, why the compensation arrived as a one-dollar penalty, and why the two rules meant to fix this still don’t […]
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The Prohibition Model: North Carolina Bans Litigation Funding

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The Prohibition Model: North Carolina Bans Litigation Funding North Carolina became the first US state to outlaw third-party litigation funding outright — not disclosure, not a cap, a flat prohibition with $50,000 penalties and treble damages. It passed the House unanimously and the Senate 45-1, which is a strange result for a contested policy fight […]
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The Sovereign Mirage: 9 Years, Two Arbitrations, Total Loss

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LexShares Case #254: The Sovereign Mirage A Turkish contractor built $1.5 billion in infrastructure for a Central Asian state. Then the government stopped paying. Two international arbitrations and nine years later — nothing. The Numbers Invested $50,000 Returned $0 Net Loss ($50,000) MOIC 0.00x IRR -100% Holding Period 3,270 days The Case A Turkish construction […]
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The Litigation Grind: 42 Cases, 7 Years, 1.25% IRR

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The Litigation Grind: 42 Cases, 7 Years, 1.25% IRR An eight-member investor group put $2.3M into 42 commercial lawsuits on a retail platform and came out roughly where it started. The win rate was survivable; what the wins paid was not. The platform priced just under the funders who had already turned these cases down, […]
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The Passport Patent Payday: 9 Years to 1.84x

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LexShares Case #644: The Passport Patent Payday An inventor’s RFID technology ended up in every US electronic passport. After 9 years of litigation, the government finally paid. The Numbers Invested $25,000 Returned $45,897 Net Profit $20,897 MOIC 1.84x IRR 9.43% Holding Period 2,458 days The Case In the mid-2000s, an inventor developed technology for securely […]
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The David vs Goliath Letdown: $50M Claimed, 1.12x Returned

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LexShares Case #1101: The Copycat Fuel Injection System A small engineering firm proved a €14 billion auto giant stole their technology — but $50M+ in claimed damages became a 1.12x return The Numbers Invested $30,000 Returned $33,710 Net Profit $3,710 MOIC 1.12x IRR 4% Holding Period 1,699 days The Case A Michigan engineering firm developed […]
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The $5 Million Mistake: Rejected Settlement, Total Loss

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LexShares Case #617: The $5 Million They Should Have Taken A retail developer rejected a $5M settlement offer, went to trial, lost, appealed, lost again. Total loss. The Numbers Invested $82,500 Returned $0 Net Loss ($82,500) MOIC 0.00x IRR -100% Holding Period 1,351 days The Case In 2009, a major metropolitan transit authority — one […]
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The Counterfeit Nightmare: Chinese Prison, Zero Recovery

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LexShares Case #321: The Counterfeit Equipment Nightmare A small reseller bought “genuine” equipment from a Fortune 50 company. It was counterfeit. Their employees went to Chinese prison. The lawsuit went nowhere. The Numbers Invested $47,500 Returned $0 Net Profit ($47,500) MOIC 0.00x IRR -100% Holding Period 1,648 days The Case In 2011, a small East […]
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The $100M Question

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The $100M Question A dinner-table thought experiment: if money stopped being a problem overnight, what would you do next — and what would still be broken? Background This thought experiment showed up at our dinner table while my wife and I were talking about retirement. We bounced between the usual topics — where to live, […]
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The Trademark Grind: 50 Letters, 4 Years, 1.10x

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The Trademark Enforcement Campaign 15 lawsuits, 4+ years, and a 1.10x return — the economics of volume trademark litigation The Numbers Invested $50,000 Returned $54,970 Net Profit $4,970 MOIC 1.10x IRR 2.1% Holding Period 1,673 days Distributions 5 payments The Case A financial advisor built a nationally-recognized brand around his radio program. His company owned […]
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The Second Million: $1M to $2M in Three Years

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The Second Million: $1M to $2M in Three Years The first million took 14 years of earning and saving. The second took three — and taught me more about people, work, and “enough” than about money. The Acceleration My wealth grew far faster after I crossed my first million in 2018 — I doubled it […]
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The Monsanto Verdict: $289M Jury Award, 1.70x Return

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LexShares Case #656: The Groundskeeper Who Made History Johnson v. Monsanto — the first Roundup cancer verdict, a $289M jury award, and my small piece of legal history The Numbers Invested $25,000 Returned $42,399 Net Profit $17,399 MOIC 1.70x IRR 29% Holding Period 770 days The Case You probably heard about this one. Dewayne Johnson […]
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The Installment Plan: 31 Payments, 1.69x Over 3 Years

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LexShares Case #1098: The 31-Payment Settlement A medical finance fraud case settled quickly — then took 2.5 years to pay out in installments The Numbers Invested $30,000 Returned $50,703 Net Profit $20,703 MOIC 1.69x IRR 65% Holding Period 1,061 days Payments Received 31 The Case A Florida investor spent seven years building a relationship with […]
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The Pyrrhic Victory: Won at Trial, Lost Money

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LexShares Case #310: When Winning Still Loses Money UKnight v. Knights of Columbus — a $100 million lawsuit wins at trial, but the $500,000 verdict doesn’t cover the litigation funding The Numbers Invested $170,000 Returned $149,937 Net Profit ($20,063) MOIC 0.88x IRR -4.41% Holding Period 1,018 days The Case List Interactive v. Knights of Columbus […]
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The Double Loss: No Verdict, No Lawyer, No Recovery

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LexShares Case #249: A Total Loss What happens when the plaintiff loses at trial, then loses their lawyer The Numbers Invested $50,000 Returned $0 Net Profit ($50,000) MOIC 0.00x IRR -100% Holding Period 1,079 days The Case A landlord leased 18,000 square feet of office space to a county child services agency in Pennsylvania. The […]
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The Startup Vindication: Trade Secrets Case, 1.76x in 15 Months

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LexShares Case #678: When a Giant Copied the Startup A trade secrets case generated 1.76x in 15 months — via a plaintiff buyout The Numbers Invested $150,000 Returned $263,269 Net Profit $113,269 MOIC 1.76x IRR 58% Holding Period 456 days The Case Cosmetic injections are a $4+ billion global market. The problem: poorly trained providers […]
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The Acquisition Exit: 48-Month Term, 21-Month Payoff

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The Acquisition Exit: A 48-Month Deal Paid Off in 21 My best YieldStreet investment returned 13.14% in 21 months — and the reasons it worked are nowhere on the tear sheet that sold it My first YieldStreet investment — $250,000 into a diversified pool of pre-settlement advances — returned $289,248 for a 13.14% IRR against […]
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The Rubber Band Windfall: 2.57x on a Toy Licensing Fad

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LexShares Case #285: Riding the Rubber Band Craze How a toy licensing dispute turned $25,000 into $64,135 in under 2 years The Numbers Invested $25,000 Returned $64,135 Net Profit $39,135 MOIC 2.57x IRR 66% Holding Period 682 days The Case Remember when rubber band bracelets were everywhere? In 2013-2014, loom kits were the hottest toy […]
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The Break-Even Beginning: My First Litigation Bet

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LexShares Case #217: My First Litigation Investment 640 days to break even — and why I consider that a win The Numbers Invested $10,000 Returned $10,000 Net Profit $0 MOIC 1.00x IRR 0% Holding Period 640 days The Case A software company developed a web-based payment platform for transportation companies. A Fortune 500 trucking conglomerate […]
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The Concentration Bet: Going All-In on Litigation Finance

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The Concentration Bet: Going All In on Litigation Finance Why crossing the first million made me abandon diversification — and put more than half my portfolio into lawsuits. Why I’m Changing Strategy Crossing $1 million didn’t feel like much at the time — what actually changed my thinking was doing the math on how I’d […]
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The 14-Year Climb: From First Job to First Million

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The 14-Year Climb: From First Job to First Million From arriving in the US with nothing to $1 million in investable assets — the job changes, 50%+ savings rate, and appreciating tech RSUs that got me there from a $32,000 starting salary. The Starting Point (1999–2004) I arrived in the United States in August 1999 […]
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The 73-Day Payday: 1.79x in 10 Weeks

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LexShares Case #281: A 73-Day Win How a wealth management fraud case turned $75,000 into $134,295 in under 3 months The Numbers Invested $75,000 Returned $134,295 Net Profit $59,295 MOIC 1.79x IRR 1,741% Holding Period 73 days The Case A professional athlete trusted a major bank’s wealth management team with his career earnings. What followed […]
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From $5,000 to $300,000: A Credit Building Roadmap

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Building a $300K Credit Line: From Zero to Arbitrage-Ready How to build credit history and maximize limits for credit card arbitrage Introduction This post continues from the Credit Card Arbitrage Guide, addressing the second part of Evan’s question: Can you talk a little more about how to get started doing credit card arbitrage, like the […]
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Credit Card Arbitrage: How to Borrow Cheap and Invest Smart

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The Complete Guide to Credit Card Arbitrage How to borrow at 0-3% and invest for double-digit returns using credit card balance transfers Introduction Recently, a reader named Evan asked the following question: Can you talk a little more about how to get started doing credit card arbitrage, like the basics? I just discovered this and […]
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The Midtown Payoff: $100K to $119K in 12 Months

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The Midtown Payoff: $100K to $119K in 12 Months My first preferred-equity real-estate deal ran its full term and paid off — a 19.45% IRR over 366 days. EVIVA Midtown Add-on Project Paid Off My first preferred-equity investment in a commercial real-estate project has been repaid in full. It ran 366 days from capital commitment […]
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The Deal That Never Closed: 36 Days, $3,330 in Cash Drag

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The Deal That Never Closed: 36 Days, $3,330 in Cash Drag A preferred-equity commitment that was returned before it ever funded — and what 36 days of dead capital actually cost. ProudLiving Project Has Been Terminated My second preferred-equity investment in a commercial real-estate project was terminated before it ever closed. It ran 36 days […]
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