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:
> Stories: Jenny Just & Mondelez International
> High-performance: How to actually set goals
> Insights: Vision deficit
> Tactical: Critical thinking skills
> 1 Question: Hidden patterns
Cheers,
Alex
P.S. Send me feedback on how we can improve. I respond to every email.
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Stories of Excellence
Person: Jenny Just
Jenny Just is a fintech entrepreneur who co-founded PEAK6 Investments in 1997. She's known for her innovative approach to options trading and financial technology. Just's career spans over two decades, during which she's built multiple successful companies. Her latest venture, Apex Fintech Solutions, provides clearing and custody services to major brokerages. Just's focus on technology and user experience has helped her companies stand out in a competitive industry. She's also passionate about promoting women in finance and technology.
Key Lessons from Jenny Just:
On innovation: "We're constantly asking, 'How can we make this better for the user?' That's what drives our success."
On leadership: "Building a great team is crucial. I look for people who are passionate and aren't afraid to challenge the status quo."
Company: Mondelez International
Mondelez International was born in 2012 when Kraft Foods Inc. split into two companies. The snack food division became Mondelez, led by CEO Irene Rosenfeld. With roots tracing back to 1903 and the National Dairy Products Corporation, Mondelez inherited iconic brands like Oreo, Cadbury, and Trident. The company name, meaning "world of delicious," was created by employees. Headquartered in Chicago, Mondelez quickly expanded globally through acquisitions like the $4 billion purchase of Enjoy Life Foods in 2015. By 2025, Mondelez had grown to over 150 countries and a workforce of 80,000 employees.
Key Lessons from Mondelez International:
On competition: Your biggest threat might not be who you think it is. Mondelez recognized early that their competition wasn't just other big food companies, but local brands and healthier snack options. They responded by acquiring smaller, health-focused brands like Perfect Snacks.
On business moats: Your moat isn't your product. It's your distribution. Mondelez's real strength isn't just its brands, but its ability to get those brands into stores worldwide. They have relationships with retailers in 150 countries. That's hard to replicate.
Something New
You read the newsletter. Now search the library. Faster Than Normal has 350+ founder playbooks and 380+ company breakdowns — every one structured, searchable, and cited to the source.
Try asking: "How did Steve Jobs think about product focus differently than his peers?"
Try it free for 7 days →Accelerants
High-performance tool
⎯
How To Actually Set Goals
Insights
William Deresiewicz in his speech delivered to the United States Military at West Point in October 2009:
"We have a crisis of leadership in America because our overwhelming power and wealth, earned under earlier generations of leaders, made us complacent, and for too long we have been training leaders who only know how to keep the routine going. Who can answer questions, but don’t know how to ask them. Who can fulfill goals, but don’t know how to set them. Who think about how to get things done, but not whether they’re worth doing in the first place. What we have now are the greatest technocrats the world has ever seen, people who have been trained to be incredibly good at one specific thing, but who have no interest in anything beyond their area of expertise. What we don’t have are leaders.
What we don’t have, in other words, are thinkers. People who can think for themselves. People who can formulate a new direction: for the country, for a corporation or a college, for the Army—a new way of doing things, a new way of looking at things. People, in other words, with vision."
Tactical reads
⎯
> When developing critical thinking skills
Farnam Street: Elements of Effective Thinking (Read it here)
> When reframing problems to find better solutions
Are You Solving the Right Problems? (Problem Reframing) (Read it here)
1 question
What are you seeing that no one else is seeing?
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.
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