What's up, everyone? This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and executive chairman of Morning Brew.

Welcome back to Founder's Journal, my personal audio diary, where I give you the business builder,

the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a business,

a team, or a new product. We're doing things a little bit differently this week. We dropped our

third-ever mini-series, which means you got two episodes on Monday, two episodes Wednesday,

and two episodes today. You are listening to episode six in the series, the last of the mini-series,

but also be sure to check out today's classic episode as well. This week's theme is mental models.

We're going to talk about some of the most powerful tools you can use to sharpen your thinking,

prioritizing, and decision-making. Many of these tools have been made famous by leaders like

Dwight Eisenhower and Elon Musk. And today, I am talking about the power of leverage. Let's hop

into it. Leverage is a multiplier. Here's how I define it. For one unit of input, that input could be

time, connection, or money. With leverage, you get way more than one unit of output. And leverage

comes in all different forms. I think Naval Ravicon put it best. There are two major groups of leverage,

permissioned leverage, and permissionless leverage. And I'm going to talk about both groups and

the types of leverage that sit under them. Let's start with permissioned leverage. Permissioned

leverage is the oldest form of leverage. And if you know what leverage is and you think of examples

of leverage, odds are that you're thinking about some sort of permissioned leverage. As the name

implies, this type of leverage requires someone else's permission. And within permissioned leverage,

I think there are three types. There is capital leverage. There is operational leverage. And there

is knowledge leverage. Capital leverage is what most people think of when they think of the word

leverage, something dealing with money or getting lent money. So, for example, if I want to buy

a house for a million dollars, I don't have to pay the full million dollars today if I don't want

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