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Old, New, Borrowed & Blue, Vol. 11


In this episode of Rule Breaker Investing, Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner speaks about many different topics, including:

  • A World Series champion offers a lesson about sample sizes and staying with a winning process.
  • An old investing truth finds a new home–in exactly 350 words.
  • Kevin Kelly makes the case for becoming the most improbable version of yourself in an increasingly predictable, AI-powered world.
  • Blueberries: genuinely blue, surprisingly interesting, and even capable of teaching an investor a thing or two about compounding.

To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool’s free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you’re ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.

A full transcript is below.

This podcast was recorded on Sept. 2, 2026.

David Gardner: Once in a blue moon or a new moon or an old moon or a borrowed moon, I queue up a hodgepodge of points that I want to share. They’re not really related to each other. They’re a hodgepodge, but I force them to fit into this mold, something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. You probably know the expression, don’t you? It’s what brides traditionally are supposed to wear on their wedding day for good luck. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and while I won’t be providing this on this podcast, you’re also supposed to have a silver sixpence in your shoe. Of course, if you want to locate a dime or a quarter and slip it in your shoe for this week’s podcast, I won’t stop you. It might even give you better luck.

But anyway, as September begins to close out our summer here in the northern hemisphere, it’s time to crank back up this episodic series Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue. We’re going to talk about a World Series lesson for investors and a new home for an old investing truth. We’re going to talk about your most improbable life and the surprisingly Rule Breaker-y blueberry. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Only on this week’s Rule Breaker Investing.

Welcome back to Rule Breaker Investing. I’m going to welcome myself back to the United States of America because for the last 10 days or so, I’ve been traveling in London, in the U.K., and then in Dublin, in Ireland. I had so much fun with friends new and old speaking of something old, something new at Investicon the Dublin-based one-day investor conference for I would say for Foolish investors, people like me, I hope you, two, people playing the long game, people who believe picking stocks is a worthy discipline. You can do better than the averages and sharing information with each other as to where the world’s headed and what might be a good stock pick. Investicon was so much fun.

I want to thank, in particular, Emmet Savage. I was honored to have him as my interviewer. As we spent 45 minutes together in front of the audience, there was a fun panel the entire event was exquisite from start to finish. It was at an old pub in Dublin, and I loved it. Thank you again to the Investicon crew, to MyWallStreet, which is the company behind Investicon. Thank you for the invitation, and if you’re a college football fan, you might know that I went to the University of North Carolina, and they played a football game in Dublin a couple days later. I hung around to watch that, and wow, my team actually won for once. This was a delightful time, 10 days in August spent in the U.K. and Ireland.

Yeah, I’m just back now. I think I got like three hours of sleep last night because, yeah, I’m not awesome at adjusting my hours when I take planes over and back long distances. Maybe you are. If you have a tip, by the way, for me, our mailbag is [email protected]. That’s the Rule Breaker Investing Mailbag. There are five Wednesdays here in September, and the fifth Wednesday will be your mailbag. If you find yourself moved by anything we talk about old, new, borrowed, blue this episode, if you have a tip on better ways to handle long-distance flights. I mean, it wasn’t a big problem for me, but I find I never really can get a sound night’s sleep.

The first couple of nights in either direction, [email protected]. I just mentioned September. Yeah, five Wednesdays, one of them will be the Market Cap Game Shows. I’m certainly excited about the Market Cap Game Show, as I always am in a few weeks. Welcome to more challengers to next year’s final four. I also want to mention next week’s podcast will be looking back 10 years later at five low-risk stocks for the year ahead. One of those, let’s see how stock picks 10 years ago did. As of next week, I’ll have the updated numbers, stories, and lessons as always. One thing I love about Rule Breaker Investing is, I think we’re playing like the only game out there. I’m not sure of any other podcasts that are reviewing live picks made on that podcast 10 years later. In fact, if you know of one, I’d love to meet them. We should have them on this podcast, [email protected].

All right, old, new, borrowed, and blue. We’re going to start, of course, with old. I recently came across this essay, something that I’d shared with Motley Fool Stock Advisor members 17 years ago. It read like yesterday. I just thought it makes such a good point. It’s a timeless point, one that could be made in any given year. I’m warming this one back out of cold storage as I bring you the opener to the April 2009 issue of Motley Fool Stock Advisor.

I wrote the following on baseball’s opening day of 2008, the Philadelphia Phillies opened at home before a sellout crowd. Gave up five runs in the ninth inning and lost 11 to six. The next game, again, before their home fans, they couldn’t muster a single run, and they lost one to nothing. Those two losses were to none other than the Washington Nationals, the single worst team, as it turned out, in Major League baseball that year. After dropping two out of three to the Nats, the Phillies went on again to lose two out of three to another 2008 loser, the Cincinnati Reds, six games, four losses against what was, in retrospect, witheringly inept competition. Imagine the fan who, after watching his first six Philadelphia Phillies baseball games that year, canceled his season tickets. They’re not getting it done. I’ve had enough of this. I quit. The Philadelphia Phillies went on to win 92 games, won the National League East, coasted through both of their postseason playoff series, and then took the World Series championship, rather easily, four out of five from the Tampa Bay Rays. But back to the Fickle fan, his mistake? From too small a sample size of results, he arrived too quickly and firmly at a thoroughly wrong judgment.

To the many new Motley Fool Stock Advisor members joining us here in 2009, I want to make sure at the outset that you approach our service properly in both mind and deed. You’ve joined our service in order to make a long-term commitment to buying superior stocks. The best way to use this tool is therefore frequently and often. If you only dip your toe in a little bit here and there, you risk making the same mistake of the Phillies so called fan. Here’s why. Stock Advisor member Spurle Jenks, that was his screen name, Jason is a bioinformatic scientist keenly interested in investing, who claims, in his own words, and I quote, a habit of overanalyzing things. He recently posted a statistical study of this service on our discussion boards. He drew sets of stocks at random from our scorecard in different portfolio sizes ranging from five stocks to 70 stocks and simulated each increment 10,000 times. He discovered that if you buy five random stocks off our scorecard, you will beat the market 71 percent of the time. If you buy 10 random scorecard stocks, you will beat the market 83 percent of the time. If you buy 20 completely random Motley Fool Stock Advisor stocks, you beat the market 92 percent of the time. Those who’ve bought 50, I know you’re out there, you beat the market using this service in excess of 99 percent of the time.

This issue kicks off our eighth year of Motley Fool Stock Advisor at 24 picks per year over seven years. We’ve now selected more stocks, 168, than a Major League baseball team plays games in its regular season, 162. We’re certainly not claiming any world championships, but we will point out that each of those 168 picks averages beating the market by 30.3 percentage points. Now, who’s going to get more from Motley Fool Stock Advisor? The dabbler who only attends a few ball games or the true season-ticket holder. Both in terms of prosperity and peace of mind, it is the latter 10,000 times over. Welcome to our ball game. Play ball.

You know what I still like about that piece, it’s now 17 years later is the reminder that a good process deserves a sufficient sample size. Stock Advisor was already 7 years old when I wrote that. We’d made, as I mentioned, 168 recommendations. Yet any individual member could still turn a large body of evidence into a tiny personal experiment by just buying two or three of the stocks and deciding whether, in their minds, this whole Motley Fool thing works or not. Six games. Don’t make a baseball season. A handful of stocks don’t make an investing career. Give a proven process enough at-bats to let your own experience of it become statistically meaningful.

Before we move on to something new, I do hasten to point out, when was that written exactly, that essay? It was the spring of 2009. Just to give it full context for you now, here in 2026, it was written and published to Stock Advisor members in April 2009. The stock market had peaked in October 2007. At the time this piece was published, investors and our members had experienced the worst bear market of my investing lifetime. This piece was written at the bottom. I wasn’t writing, give the process enough at bats during an easy bull market. I was welcoming stock advisor members after they just watched one of the most brutal collapses in modern market history. I was telling them in effect, don’t judge the whole season by the terrible stretch you’ve just lived through. Something old.

All right, well on to something new. Something new. Well, I’m thinking right now about RuleBreakerInvesting.com. That was the website launched in conjunction with my book a year ago. That site, which I’m going to mention a little bit about in a sec is still new in my mind, since it was released less than a year ago as my book came out. I want to tell you about a few things on that site, including what I’ll be sharing with you briefly. First of all, in support of Rule Breaker Investing, there is a free downloadable bonus chapter to the book, which you can obtain at that site, RuleBreakerInvesting.com. There’s also a free PDF guide if you’re part of an investment club and you want to bring a little bit of Rule Breaker religion to the rest of your investment club members. Well, we’ve got you covered with the Rule Breaker Investing club guide for club discussions around the book.

Of particular interest to podcast listeners, that would be you, if you’re hearing me. We’ve taken some pains to pull back many of the episodic series and order them one after another. For example, this podcast, as you know, is Old, New, Borrowed, Blue, Volume 11. An easy way to find volumes one through 10 is at RuleBreakerInvesting.com under the podcast tab. Whether we’re talking about my authors in August interviews or pet peeves or pet perks or mental tips, tricks and life hacks, or yeah, sure, old new, borrowed, and blue. They are all arranged and curated right at that site.

While my regular listeners may have already heard some of those, and you feel like you don’t need to go back and revisit, although it’s an easy way to find something you’d like to revisit, I think it’s very effective for recommending to new people in your life, people who are starting to show interest in the stock market, people who want to know what investing actually means, where the word comes from, and how to break the rules. I want to thank at The Motley Fool, Brian Richards, my captain of all things Rule Breaker, for the effort that he and our team have made to take this podcast and out of the regular flow of just one after another that drop below the fold after a certain number of episodes, whether on Spotify, Apple Podcast, et cetera, instead have them sitting there, living, breathing a library of some of our best episodes.

I’ll also mention that we just added a section there called signature episodes, which you’ll see at  RuleBreakerInvesting.com under the podcast tab. Those would be like six or seven of my very favorite episodes of all. If there’s the greatest hits now in our 12th year of this podcast, well, those are conveniently arranged under the signature episodes. A little bit then about RuleBreakerInvesting.com. Now, something else that’s there for you are 11 blogs. I decided in advance of my book being published that I would blog, and I made a point of making every one of the blogs short. I remember my editor, Craig Pierce, at Harriman House, my publisher for the book. When I first got to know Craig, he said, he’s British. Said, David, do you know what people like? I said, Craig, what do people like? He said, they like short books. I said, I also like short books, Craig, many people like short books. He’s like, Exactly. Let’s write a short book, which is what I tried to do for my final stock market book, Rule Breaker Investing.

In support of that, I decided I’d write some short blogs, 350 words each. In fact, exactly 350 words because I have fun sometimes with math and words. But each of those blogs is right there for you. I’m going to share one right now with you, again, a short blog for something new. It’s one of my cardinal points. In fact, I dedicated a portion of Chapter 5 in my book, habit Number 5, five percent max initial position, one of our six habits for the Rule Breaker investor. In the book itself, I dedicated a short section to this very point.

Although these words are original for this blog, let’s get started without further ado. Stocks always go down faster dot dot dot. Stocks always go down faster than they go up, but they always go up more than they go down. Today’s thought, too long for a gravestone, is one of my epitaph prospects. It starts. Stocks always go down faster than they go up. Whether in a day like Oct. 19, 1987, or a month, the COVID crash of March 2020, market drops happen fast. With our instincts toward loss avoidance, we tend to panic out of things. By contrast, bullishness or the persistent willingness of lots of people to propel a stock upward isn’t triggered by single events. We need evidence to build over time, and so stocks go down faster than they go up.

But then there’s the second part. They always go up. More than they go down. Look at any graph of the American or global markets over time, and the line runs lower left to upper right. The longer your view, the bigger the mountain. That is the stock market’s truth. Not over the last year, perhaps, or the next, or some era cherry-picked by a market bear, that is the market’s truth over the period that matters, the long term. Your lifetime. Yes, stocks go down. The average bear market studies show lasts about 18 months, usually a very unfun 18 months. But two years in three, the market rises. One year in three, it declines. You do the math and play it forward. That’s why the average bull market lasts for years. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, and I quote, “If you can keep two opposed truths in your mind at the same time, that’s genius.” Today’s food for thought, bolded in my first two lines at the top, asks each of us, with Fitzgerald, to show some genius. The best way most of us are going to make the most money in our lives is to invest in the stock market, leave it in the market, and add more as we save going forward. That’s just as true today as 50 or 100 years ago. Stocks always go down faster than they go up, but they always go up more than they go down. There you have it.

As I mentioned, exactly 350 words. Doesn’t take too long to read them, something new this week. Even if the central thought, well, isn’t really new at all. In fact, maybe that’s part of what I like about writing these blogs. I’m not necessarily trying to invent a new investing principle every 350 words. Some ideas deserve to be encountered again in a different form at a different moment in our lives. Stocks always go down faster than they go up, but they always go up more than they go down is one of those for me. The first half helps us understand why investing can feel so bad sometimes, and the second reminds us why we keep doing it. Anyway, well, that is one of 11 blogs at RuleBreakerInvesting.com. If you’d like to read 1-10 of the others, they’re all there for you. I’ve never been a blogger per se, but I’ve sometimes thought it might be fun to write short pieces recurringly here and again. In a lot of ways, this podcast is my opportunity to create on a weekly basis, and I have, in fact, done it every week, going back to July 2015. It’s a regular rhythm for me, but I always think of myself as a writer first, and so it’s a pleasure to share those 11 blogs with you if you find yourself interested in them.

Before we move on to something borrowed, there’s a fun connection to new and old here. Since we’ve just covered something old and new, your new says, basically what we just talked about, give the market enough time. But something old a few minutes ago said, in effect, give your strategy enough attempts, shots on goal, if you will, swings at the batter’s plate. Both of them are warnings against allowing a small sample, whether a frighteningly short period of market history or just your first handful of stock picks. I’m warning you against dictating a long-term conclusion from smaller sample sizes.

Let’s move on now to something borrowed. It’s never hard for me to borrow from Wired co-founder, futurist, writer, genuinely good human being, all the above, Kevin Kelly, who, by the way, most recently appeared on this podcast just earlier this year, and I totally recommend you go back and listen to that. But in that podcast I mentioned that Kevin does blog. He blogs, I’d say every seven or 10 days. There’s not a regular date or time, but every one of his essays I find extremely compelling, and while I’m not going to share one of his essays here, it’s his work after all. I’m definitely going to quote liberally from some of the passages that really have helped me think about how to live a better life, and that’s why I want to share something borrowed with you through his essay, Your Most Improbable Life. Now, this is a free essay. If you go on Substack or just Google Your Most Improbable Life, Kevin Kelly, you can read the essay in full. It’s a little bit longer than 350 words, but it’s not a long essay. It made a huge impression on me when I first read it some months ago, and that’s why I want to borrow it and share it with you this week.

The first paragraph goes like this, “Your life’s goal should be to become the most improbable person you can be. Your path, your character, your life should be the most unlikely, the most unexpected, the least predictable version you can make. Improbable lives have fewer competitors, more unique rewards, and are harder to replace with AIs since AIs run on the predictable. This is true whether you favor traditional humanist directions or work on a frontier.” He goes on to talk more about that. In fact, he addresses entropy, and physicists generally understand entropy as the final state of all things. Everything tends toward entropy, and that would be some combination of disorder, but also inertia stasis. Everything is slowing down and wanting not to be organized. As Kevin says in the essay, that is predictable. Entropy is predictable.

He then goes on, and I quote. “Every single individual creature alive on this planet is highly unlikely, compared to the empty vastness of the universe. As humans, we have added yet more complexity into the environment by inventing technology, opening up immense new regions of possibilities and countless new ways to surpass the past. Every year, we collectively make it easier and easier to make something new that the universe has never seen before, not just on Earth, but in the universe, we are complex enough that our life will never be repeated nor anticipated on any planet, in any galaxy in any part of the universe. No matter what you do, the sum of your life is unique and unrepeatable.” He talks more about the improbability of it all. He reminds us that when the Big Bang banged its way forward about 14 billion years ago, you just think about all of those atoms shooting off of the Big Bang, and a lot of them are hydrogen atoms just in big clouds.

If you just think somehow all of that conspired 14 billion years later for you to be who you are, standing, sitting, jogging, whatever you’re doing during this podcast, those atoms found their way into you and to me and into this world that we’ve helped create together. It is so incredibly improbable to think about where those atoms started and how they’ve ended up where they are today, and improbable, of course, in the most beautiful sense of the word.

Then, in his essay, Kelly goes on to say, but it can be even more improbable. He writes, “The authentic you, your particular mix of talents, native abilities, personal inclinations, genetic limits, life experiences, and ambitious desires, points to a mixture that is distinctly unique if it is allowed to blossom. The further you move in that direction, the more you like you become.” He closes with three implications of, again, Your Most Improbable Life, the title of the essay, Three Implications, if you want to embrace this thinking and become the most amazing you.

First, and I’ll quote him directly here to close. “The more wish you become, the less competition you have, because you’re occupying your own niche. Less competition means you don’t have to be in a race. You can relax and focus on your strengths. You have the space to become even more you and even less likely. Second, the more you occupy a category of one, the easiest it is for you to appreciate this trait in others. It becomes easier to see past the conventional to identify authenticity and to encourage the improbable in others. For some people, that makes them great friends and mentors. For others, this makes them good in backing and investing in the work of others on their way to being improbable. Finally, third, the less predictable you are, the less likely you are to be replaced by AIs. Machines are efficient, and they are powered by the predictable. Current LLMs are trained to generate the most predictable solution. So far, they’re not very good at duplicating what a creative, one-of-a-kind improbable human can produce. To distance yourself from the machines, aim to be as improbable as you can be, and that’s where your most Improbable life leaves off.”

I’m going to mention our mailbag again because I really feel like this is something to think more deeply about. If you have a story, a reflection, a challenge, anything about your most improbable life, Hey, maybe you have something about something old or something new, too, I encourage you to remember [email protected]. The date was February 4th of this year. The title to the podcast Let’s Talk About the Future in 2026 with Kevin Kelly. That was Kevin joining us seven months ago, most recently, his third appearance on this podcast. Before we move on to something blue, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I pay for Kevin’s essays over Substack. I don’t think I pay any other blogger anywhere, and I’m generally somebody who looks for free content on the Internet. I bet I’m not the only one, but with joy and with no elbow twisting, I freely choose to pay Kevin for his wonderful, thoughtful, amazing, futuristic heartfelt, and authentic, honest words that pop up every seven or ten days in my inbox, and I completely recommend the same to you. Almost every one of those essays I’ve saved and put somewhere in my second brain, finding a place somewhere in my digital life where I want to store it so I can come back and see it again later when it matters again to me. I am a huge fan boy of Kevin Kelly. I think you already know that if you’re a regular listener. If you’re just hearing all this for the first time, take a look.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. We’re going to keep this simple this time: blueberries. Blueberries are awesome. I just want to state a few things, facts about blueberries for something blue. First of all, they’re genuinely blue, and that’s rarer in nature than you may think. Blueberries are actually blue. No. 2: Everybody knows this, I think, but they’re nutritional overachievers. Did the math here, a cup is only about 84 calories with roughly 3.6 grams of fiber and a meaningful dose of both vitamin C and vitamin K. They’re also rich in anthocyanins and other polyphenols. You don’t need to overindulge in them, but I try to have a little cup of them every morning. They are a true super food. They’re simply a very nutritious whole fruit. Reason No. 2 for something blue, of course, the super food status here.

No. 3, this one to my fellow North Americans. They’re deeply North American. Wild blueberries grew here long before any Europeans arrived. Indigenous peoples, the original Americans, ate, preserved, and used them extensively, so MCA. No. 4, they’re one of the few foods that work almost everywhere. Think about it. Fresh? Sure, but frozen. Pancakes? But also muffins, and let’s not forget pie and yogurt, smoothies, of course, salad, jam, or just straight out of your hand. Frozen blueberries retain much of their nutritional value. You should know that. Blueberry season can effectively be 12 months long. Finally, and this brings us right back into our investing wheelhouse blueberries are perennial compounders. This is where I’m going to get Rule-Breakery here, because if you plant a blueberry bush and care for it properly, it can produce fruit for decades. You don’t dig it up after it has a good or bad quarterly earnings release, you nurture the underlying organism, you let it mature. You harvest increasing quantities, over time, little blueberry dividends, if you will.

Reason No. 5 that blueberries are awesome, is that they are perennial compounders. Now, fellow Fools, I’m quite sure some of you are like, Dave, I already knew that. I knew No. 1, No. 2, I knew they were a North American, and of course, they go lots of different foods. Perennial compounders got it. I’m going to challenge you here at the end. Did you know this? Because bonus Reason No. 6, that blueberries are awesome, is that blueberries are berries. Because guess what? Strawberries aren’t berries, and bananas are berries. It’s true. In botany, a berry is a fleshy fruit. I’m pulling this from the Wikipedia page on berries produced from a single flower containing one ovary. Berries so defined include grapes, currants, and tomatoes, as well as cucumbers, eggplants, persimmons, and bananas, but exclude certain fruits that meet the culinary definition of berries, such as strawberries and raspberries, and I will editorialize again here, which are not berries. I think what I particularly love about this last point and how Rule-Breakery it is is that I also find, in addition to berries, the stock market itself is not the only place then where labels occasionally mislead and fail us. Something blue.

That’s pretty much it this week. What I love about something old, new, borrowed, and blue? This is our 11th volume in the series. The other 10, I hope you’ll enjoy. You know, I just get to go for a hodgepodge, which, by the way, is kind of a synonymous word with Motley. Anyway, to review something old. Six games don’t make a baseball season, and a handful of stock picks don’t make an investing career. Give a good process enough at-bats and enough time to show you what it really is. Something new. Stocks always go down faster than they go up, but they always go up more than they go down. The first half explains some of the fear of investing. The second half explains why optimism pays. Then something borrowed, Kevin Kelly encouraging us to make ourselves to make yourself increasingly improbable, to become more you-ish, occupying your own category of one there’s less competition, certainly more authenticity and perhaps in an age of increasingly capable AI, more distinctly and irreplaceably human. Then finally, something blue, I had to do it. Blueberries, nutritious, genuinely blue, deeply North American, delicious, and almost anything perennial compounders, and unlike strawberries, actually berries. Fool on.

India Beat the US Market Since 1998: The Investing Lesson Every Young Investor Should Know | FWS



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Kalpen Parekh is the Managing Director & CEO of DSP Mutual Fund, with over 25 years of experience in investing and asset management. In this conversation, he shares lessons from decades of observing investor behavior, explains why long-term discipline consistently outperforms short-term predictions, and discusses the principles that shape his investment philosophy at DSP Mutual Fund.
The discussion covers behavioral mistakes investors repeatedly make, why bear markets create the best opportunities, portfolio diversification, asset allocation, valuation-driven investing, sector cycles, India’s long-term investing outlook, AI and global investing, SIPs, compounding, and the importance of building resilient portfolios instead of chasing popular themes.
If you’re looking to become a more thoughtful long-term investor, this episode offers practical frameworks rooted in first principles rather than market noise.

Kalpen Parekh’s LinkedIn:

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Sharan Hegde:
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Sharan Hegde is a personal finance creator & founder of the 1% Club, simplifying money, markets, and mindset for India’s next generation of wealth builders.

Timeline:

00:00 – Introduction
01:37 – Investing Behaviours of Indians
05:36 – Biggest Investing mistake youngsters make
07:55 – Bear Markets vs Bull Markets
09:31 – Principles of Investing for Young Investors
14:17 – “I don’t know, I don’t care” Principle
15:25 – OpenAI Ex-Employee made 15 billion?
18:00 – AI Stocks : Hype or real?
20:35 – How to invest during currency depreciation?
22:07 – Best sectors to Invest
27:00 – Investing in India vs China
31:19 – “The Biggest Mistakes I’ve Done”
34:09 – How often should you change your portfolio?
36:25 – Best Investing advice & learning from Buffet
38:29 – Conclusion

#financewithsharan #finance #sharan

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How to Find People Ready to Sell in Any Real Estate Market in 20 Minutes


I’ve had my real estate license since 2016. For the first couple of years that I was trying to find my own deals, I did what basically every new investor does: I drove around and looked for the house with the sagging gutters and the boat in the driveway that hadn’t moved since the Clinton administration, and I’d write the address in my phone as if I’d just found buried treasure.

Then I’d spend a week tracking down the owner, finally get them on the phone, and learn the house was worth $240,000 with $228,000 owed on it. The owner would have had to show up at closing with a cashier’s check just for the privilege of getting rid of their own house, so that call ended about 90 seconds after it started.

I burned a lot of Saturdays that way, and I lost $40,000 on a flip during roughly the same stretch, so I’m not writing this as a guy who had it figured out early. I’m writing it as a guy who wasted enough time to eventually change the order in which he does things.

These days, I’m mostly hunting land and RV parks in any town with a Dollar General in Texas, and the 20 minutes I’ll outline is what I run before I ever get in the truck. It works about the same in a rural East Texas county as it does in a suburb of Phoenix, because the logic underneath it doesn’t care where you are.

Nobody Checks the Math

The mistake is the order of operations, and it’s a sneaky one, because chasing distress feels productive while you’re doing it. 

Distress is visual: peeling paint, tall grass, and a code violation notice taped to the door. Your brain sees that and fills in a whole story about a motivated seller, so you spend the next three weeks deep-diving into everything you need—until learning that the owner pulled cash out in 2022 and physically can’t sell without bringing a check to the closing table.

Equity is what makes a deal possible at all, and every other signal you get excited about only tells you whether the owner wants a deal or not. Run those in the wrong order, and your list fills up with people who would love to sell you their house and legally can’t.

So gate for equity first, then layer on the reasons somebody might be tired of owning the thing. Lists built in that order come back much shorter, which is fine, because a list only has two jobs, and being long isn’t one of them.

The Target

When I’m driving neighborhoods and see a property that’s clearly been neglected, what I’m actually looking at is evidence about a person rather than an address. 

Somebody stopped showing up. Maybe they moved three states away, and the place turned into a chore they handle over the phone. Maybe they inherited it, and nobody in the family wants to be the one who deals with it. Or maybe they’re 81 years old, and the yard finally got to be too much. The house is just the part you can see from the street, and the situation underneath it is what I’m actually trying to read.

So the rundown house sends me to the data now instead of straight to a mailing list. I’ll pull up the address in PropStream on my phone right there, and within 15 seconds, I know:

  • Who owns it
  • What they paid
  • When they bought
  • What’s still owed
  • Whether they live anywhere near it 

The 20 Minutes

Here’s the actual sequence. The whole thing is built to fit inside a lunch break because a process you dread is one you run exactly once.

Minutes 0 to 3: Draw a box you can service

Pick a county, or three or four ZIP codes inside one. I understand the pull, because the filters will happily hand you 90,000 properties, and a number that big feels like an accomplishment. But you can’t mail 90,000 people, and you definitely can’t follow up with them. 

Pick the area you would actually drive to on a Tuesday afternoon. If you’re not sure where that line sits, draw it tighter than feels right.

Minutes 3 to 8: Gate for equity

This is the whole ballgame, which is exactly why it goes before anything else. I set the estimated equity at 50% or higher, and I’ll usually run a second version that’s free and clear only, just to see how far apart the two numbers are. 

PropStream has more than 165 filters, and it’s genuinely easy to get lost stacking a dozen of them on your first pass, so fight that urge for a few minutes. 

Minutes 8 to 14: Layer the burden signals

Now you add the reasons, meaning the circumstances that make somebody ready instead of merely able. These are the ones I lean on:

  • Absentee or out-of-state owner, because distance turns a rental into a chore, and a chore eventually turns into a decision.
  • Owned for 10 years or longer, because long tenure plus high equity is the profile of somebody who already made their money and is now mostly maintaining a roof.
  • Tax delinquent, because people rarely stop paying on something they still feel good about.
  • Vacancy, since an empty house costs money and produces nothing, and that combination wears on an owner faster than you’d expect.
  • Pre-foreclosure, probate, and inherited property, which you either handle with real human decency or stay out of entirely.

PropStream keeps about 20 pre-built lead lists covering most of those, which is a decent way to learn what the filters do before you start building your own.

Minutes 14 to 17: Sort by signal count

Don’t treat the results as one flat pile. Count how many signals each property hit and let that set your priority order, so the ones carrying three or four reasons sit above the ones carrying a single reason. 

When a house is vacant and tax delinquent and owned by somebody living in another state, though, you’re not really guessing anymore, and that’s a call you make this afternoon rather than a postcard you mail in nine days.

Minutes 17 to 20: Split the list and send it

Take the top slice, however deep your budget goes, and skip trace it so you can call and text. Everybody else gets mail, because mail is cheap and patient and doesn’t mind waiting on people.

I’d rather call 40 people than mail 400, and the entire point of the first 17 minutes is to make sure those 40 are the right 40.

Skip tracing is included on PropStream’s Pro and Elite plans, and it’s the secret weapon for getting in touch with the right decision-makers at properties.

What I Actually Say First

Keep it short, and do not open with: “I want to buy your house.”

Something closer to this: “Hey, this is Garrett. I buy property here in the county, and I came across your place on Old River Road. Are you open to an offer on it, or is that not something you’d consider?”

That last clause is doing most of the work. You’re handing them an easy way out of the conversation, and the people who don’t take it are telling you something worth knowing.

Final Thoughts

Same box, filters, and 20 minutes. What you’re hunting on the second pass is the new names, the ones that weren’t there in the last pull, because a property that just went tax delinquent or just picked up a vacancy flag is a much fresher situation than one that’s been sitting in your CRM since spring.

Most people do the opposite of all this. They run one enormous search, get buried under 4,000 addresses, feel vaguely guilty about it for a couple of weeks, and never open the software again. 

The version that works is unglamorous and a little boring. You keep the box small, you keep the list tight, and you put the same 20 minutes on your calendar every month until you’re the person already in the conversation when somebody decides they’re done with the place. That decision usually lands months before they think about calling an agent, and those months are the entire advantage.

Ready to build your first list? PropStream gives you access to data on more than 160 million properties nationwide, 165+ filters, and built-in skip tracing.

Statement On Non-Solicitor Municipal Advisors’ Role In Disclosure



This post was originally published on sec.gov.



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The Old Startup Playbook Won’t Cut It Anymore. Here’s What It Takes to Build a Successful Company Today.


Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Key Takeaways

  • Business fundamentals need to be continually reexamined as technology, customer expectations and the nature of work evolve rapidly.
  • Every generation of entrepreneurs inherits rules from the generation before it. The smartest ones figure out which are still worth following.

My parents’ generation largely grew up believing you found a good company, worked hard, moved up the ladder and, if everything went according to plan, stayed there.

Today, people change jobs for better pay, flexibility, titles and that elusive thing every company claims to have — great culture. At the same time, we’ve raised a generation accustomed to immediacy. Order something today, and it might arrive today. Want to watch something? Stream it. Need an answer? Ask AI.

That changes consumers, employees and entrepreneurs.

Some of the old startup playbook focused on things that looked good: elaborate offices, cool perks, corporate initiatives and, for a while, apparently putting a slide in the middle of the office. None of that compensates for getting the fundamentals wrong.

Building a company now requires constantly questioning what those fundamentals should be.

1. Use AI to compete with AI

A good friend owns a marketing company and is an incredible graphic designer. Her custom, hand-drawn work is head and shoulders above the generic AI material we’re seeing everywhere. But she’s competing with something that can produce an image in seconds.

Customers may recognize that her work is better and still ask: Why should I pay more and wait longer when AI can give me something good enough right now?

My question to her was: Why not offer both?

Let AI handle what doesn’t require her talent, then apply her creativity and judgment where they actually change the result. If AI turns a 20-hour job into a two-hour job, eventually the economics change too. Someone will deliver faster or cheaper.

You’re not just competing with AI. You’re competing with the entrepreneur who learns to use it better than you.

2. Rethink the job before you hire for it

Another friend is an accounting director at a Fortune 500 company. Her company is reconsidering certain titles, degree requirements and experience expectations while simultaneously pushing employees to use AI. AI utilization is even becoming part of how performance is evaluated.

Think about where that could lead. An accountant may spend less time producing information and more time validating it, finding errors and deciding what it means.

Eventually, AI may become good at some of that too. We don’t know. That’s why entrepreneurs shouldn’t automatically recreate yesterday’s job descriptions.

Before hiring, ask what actually needs to be accomplished. Can technology do part of it? Can you eliminate the process altogether? Can one exceptional employee with the right technology accomplish what once required three?

Design the job around the work that exists today.

3. Build a multigenerational company — and listen to it

A 22-year-old employee grew up in a completely different consumer environment than someone who’s 55. They may instinctively understand platforms, expectations and behaviors an older executive had to learn.

The 55-year-old may have lived through recessions, hiring booms, layoffs, management trends and supposedly revolutionary technologies that disappeared five years later.

Hire both. More importantly, listen to both.

Your youngest employee may recognize where customers are going before you do. Your most experienced employee may recognize a mistake because they’ve already watched somebody make it.

Different generations aren’t just a workforce statistic. Their collective experience can be a competitive advantage.

4. Recognize that “instant” has changed your customer

Customers no longer compare your service only to your direct competitors. Amazon delivers the same day. Netflix streams instantly. Uber shows exactly where your driver is. AI answers a question in seconds.

Then a company says, “We’ll get back to you in three to five business days.” That increasingly feels ridiculous.

Not every business needs to operate at Amazon speed, and speed doesn’t excuse bad work. But immediacy has changed what good service feels like.

Friction is now part of your product whether you intended it to be or not.

5. Don’t assume AI can’t replace you

There’s a comforting prediction about AI: Great designers, accountants, lawyers, marketers and engineers aren’t going anywhere.

Maybe. I wouldn’t bet my company on it.

Instead of defending the old way of doing something, ask what happens if technology becomes dramatically better at it. Could you build the technology that makes an old process obsolete instead of being the person defending that process?

Then ask a harder question: What should technology replace?

We assume removing human involvement makes something less human. But technology’s purpose shouldn’t be preserving jobs or eliminating them. It should be improving outcomes for people.

Entrepreneurs should be willing to follow that question wherever it leads.

6. Invest in what technology makes more valuable

If practically anyone can generate an article, advertisement, logo or marketing campaign in minutes, simply producing something competent isn’t much of an advantage.

So what remains scarce? Trust. Relationships. Reputation. Judgment. Taste. Community. Original ideas. Exceptional service.

And human connection.

In a world filled with automated interactions and synthetic content, genuine relationships may become more valuable.

Don’t only ask what AI commoditizes. Ask what becomes more valuable because everything else has been commoditized.

7. Think for yourself

“We’ve always done it this way” has always been dangerous in business. But calling yourself a “disruptor,” “innovator” or “cutting-edge” isn’t particularly meaningful anymore either.

Maybe thinking for yourself is disruptive enough. Do you need an office? Does that position require a degree? Does the customer care about that feature? Does this meeting need to happen? Does a human need to perform that task?

And keep asking.

The opportunity isn’t to build the company someone taught you to build and sprinkle AI on top. It’s to reconsider what the company itself should look like.

It might have 100 employees. It might have 10. It might automate something competitors still do manually while investing heavily in people somewhere everyone else is automating. The answer isn’t always more AI.

Every generation of entrepreneurs inherits rules from the generation before it. The smartest ones figure out which are still worth following.

Key Takeaways

  • Business fundamentals need to be continually reexamined as technology, customer expectations and the nature of work evolve rapidly.
  • Every generation of entrepreneurs inherits rules from the generation before it. The smartest ones figure out which are still worth following.

My parents’ generation largely grew up believing you found a good company, worked hard, moved up the ladder and, if everything went according to plan, stayed there.

Today, people change jobs for better pay, flexibility, titles and that elusive thing every company claims to have — great culture. At the same time, we’ve raised a generation accustomed to immediacy. Order something today, and it might arrive today. Want to watch something? Stream it. Need an answer? Ask AI.

That changes consumers, employees and entrepreneurs.

Man sentenced in $35 million Ponzi scheme that defrauded Travis Kelce: ‘He did this out of greed’



Siddharth Jawahar ran a nearly decade-long scheme through his firm Swiftarc Capital, court records show, before pleading guilty to wire fraud.

A federal judge in St. Louis sentenced Siddharth Jawahar to 11 years in prison this week for running a Ponzi scheme that took in more than $35 million from investors, according to court filings in the Eastern District of Missouri.

Jawahar, 38, pleaded guilty in January to three counts of wire fraud. He was indicted in December 2023 on those three counts plus a fourth charge, investment adviser fraud, which prosecutors agreed to drop as part of the plea deal. And this week, one of those victims was a famous football star.

According to TMZ, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce was named in court as one of Jawahar’s victims during the sentencing hearing on Tuesday. Prosecutors did not elaborate on Kelce’s connection to the case, citing a policy of not discussing individual victims, and it’s not clear how much money, if any, Kelce lost. Kelce would not be the first celebrity to lose money to a Ponzi scheme: actor Kevin Bacon has spoken about losing most of his savings to Bernie Madoff.

Jawahar ran an investment company called Swiftarc Capital LLC, registered in Texas since 2010. He told clients he was investing their money in a range of companies. Instead, according to the indictment, he funneled nearly all of it—99% by one point—into a single overseas company, Philip Morris Pakistan. When that investment’s value collapsed, Jawahar didn’t tell his investors. He told them the opposite: that their money was earning strong returns. When investors asked for their money back, he paid them with cash from new investors, the hallmark of a Ponzi scheme. Court records put the total taken from investors at $35,607,984.16, of which only about $10 million was ever actually invested.

In one instance detailed in the plea agreement, Jawahar emailed two investors in May 2018 claiming Swiftarc was “investing a total of $525,000” in a company. He never invested anything.

The government did not mince words about his motive. In a sentencing memo, prosecutors quoted Jawahar’s own interview with the FBI: he “did this because of greed, any other adjective would be incorrect.” The same filing accuses Jawahar of later contradicting himself in his own sentencing paperwork, where he argued he “did not commit these crimes out of greed.” Greed is a common thread in these cases — Fortune has previously reported on the psychology behind Bernie Madoff’s scheme, history’s largest Ponzi scheme.

Prosecutors also laid out how the money was spent: private jets, five-star hotels, memberships at clubs including Zero Bond, Soho House and the Casa Cipriani in New York, plus a $164,000 New York apartment and a $363,280 apartment in Austin. Jawahar told the FBI he “primarily used the funds from these fraudulent investments for personal consumption,” according to the same filing.

After his arrest, prosecutors say Jawahar tried to derail the case. Court filings describe a recorded jail call in which Jawahar told a victim who was scheduled to speak with the FBI to “be dedicated” — which the victim later told investigators he understood as pressure to withhold information. Prosecutors also say Jawahar asked his sister to remotely wipe his phone and lied to pretrial officers about his finances and immigration status.

More recently, Jawahar hired a political consulting firm, Axiom Strategies, to help place sympathetic media coverage and solicit support letters ahead of sentencing, according to a contract filed with the court. A transcript of a recorded jail call between Jawahar and the firm’s Jeff Roe shows the two discussing plans to target an article about Jawahar toward the sentencing judge, including paying to “geofence his house” with ads. When Roe raised the possibility the plan could look “overly calculated,” Jawahar responded, “which of course it is.”

Jawahar has also asked the court for permission to marry his fiancée, Caroline Tredway, while in custody. Prosecutors are opposing the request, arguing in a filing that the marriage “may be a pretextual attempt for Defendant Jawahar to obtain immigration status in the United States.” The filing cites a recorded call in which Tredway asked Jawahar what would happen if he were deported, and he replied, “if you don’t marry me, I guess that might happen.”

Jawahar has not yet paid any of the $31.35 million in restitution he owes his victims. Prosecutors say a recorded call captured him telling Tredway that “restitution never gets paid” and that he expects it to eventually “get commuted.”

For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the information’s accuracy before publishing.

What the Fed’s rate hike means for mortgages


Much will hinge on whether that US-Iran conflict can be wrapped up quickly, he said. “If we see tensions ease and oil prices begin to normalize, that could provide some relief to the bond market and potentially mortgage rates,” he said.

“On the other hand, a prolonged conflict that keeps energy prices elevated could make it more difficult for inflation to improve and keep rates higher for longer.”

That’s not to say the outlook is uniformly negative. Pent-up demand has built in many markets, while buyers have more negotiating power elsewhere than they did a few years ago – meaning those who are in a position to purchase can often strike a good deal.

What’s more, Lessard said most borrowers have long accepted that COVID-era interest rates are firmly a thing of the past.

“I think we’ll continue to see consumers adjust to the current rate environment rather than waiting indefinitely for dramatically lower rates,” he said. “Ultimately, I think the rest of 2026 will be less about waiting for the perfect interest rate and more about finding the right opportunity and structuring the financing correctly.

Amazon Prime Big Deal Days 2026 Returns October 6-7


Amazon Prime Big Deal Days 2026 Returns October 6-7

This article contains Amazon affiliate links.

Amazon has officially announced that Prime Big Deal Days will return October 6-7, 2026, kicking off the holiday shopping season with 48 hours of deals exclusively for Prime members. The event starts October 6 at 12:01 a.m. PDT and will feature millions of deals across more than 35 categories.

One change this year is Today’s Big Deals, with new limited-time deal drops arriving three times each day at midnight, 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. PDT. Amazon says shoppers can expect deals across tech, beauty, kitchen, fashion, home and more, including brands such as Shark, Soundcore by ANKER and Princess Polly.

Amazon says more than one million items will hit their lowest Amazon price of the year so far during the event. Early deals are already starting to roll out, including discounts on Amazon devices, Amazon Haul, Amazon Music and other products and services.

Save big on Amazon devices

Prepare for game day—save up to 45% off select devices and bundles including the Amazon Ember 55″ Mini-LED Series with Alexa+, Amazon Ember 50″ 4 Series with Alexa+, Ring Battery Doorbell Plus Bundle, and Kindle Colorsoft Essentials Bundle. Also, save up to 70% off select Blink bundles, including the Blink Outdoor 2K+ and Video Doorbell Bundle.

Score more starting at $1 with Amazon Haul

Shop cozy seasonal finds including mugs, candles, blankets, and pajamas, starting at $1. Plus, get up to 50% off game day essentials like tailgating items and themed décor. Refresh your space with home décor under $8 and fall fashion under $6.
Unlock a $1,500 Amazon Gift Card when you buy or lease an eligible new vehicle through Amazon Autos—whether a sedan, SUV, or truck—from September 15 through October 7. Prime members will receive the gift card via email after pickup from a participating local dealership. Terms and conditions apply.

Explore deals on books, Kindle, and Audible

Curl up this fall with great reads—get three months free of Kindle Unlimited to dive into trending series like Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman and The Empyrean by Rebecca Yarros—ahead of the highly anticipated next installment. Find thousands of print book deals up to 65% off, including cookbooks perfect for seasonal hosting like Wishbone Kitchen by Meredith Hayden. Plus, Prime members can enjoy two free Amazon First Reads Kindle books and four months of Audible Standard for $0.99/month. Terms and conditions apply.

Stream for less with Amazon Music

Prime members who haven’t tried Amazon Music Unlimited can get four months free. Non-Prime members can get three months free. New customers can say, “Alexa, try Amazon Music Unlimited” to get three months for $0.99, and Individual plan members can upgrade to a Family Plan at no extra cost for two months. Amazon Music Unlimited offers more than 100 million songs, top podcasts ad-free, and one audiobook a month from Audible. Learn more at amazon.com/music/unlimited.

Earn more with the Prime Card bonus

Earn 10% back or more on select top brands and categories during Prime Big Deal Days starting September 15 through October 6, exclusively for Prime cardmembers. Terms and conditions apply.

Save at checkout with points

Redeem American Express Membership Rewards points for 50% off up to $50 if you’re an eligible Prime customer redeeming points for the first time, or for 15% off up to $15 if you’re an eligible active points user, from October 1 though December 31. Mercury cardholders can also redeem points for 50% off up to $15 through December 31. Terms and conditions apply.

Shop top picks from Amazon Brands

Shop fall fashion from Amazon Essentials starting at $10—including trending ballet flats, cozy cardigans, and lightweight sweaters in new seasonal colorways—plus Amazon Essentials x Sofia Grainge pajama sets and loungewear for the whole family. Stock up on pet supplies starting at $5 and household staples from Amazon Basics starting at $3, including coffee, paper towels, and cleaning supplies—all at up to 40% off.

Stack exclusive savings with Prime for Young Adults

Higher education students and young adults ages 18–24 can maximize their early holiday shopping by stacking exclusive 5% cash back on top of eligible deals across beauty, apparel, PCs, electronics, and personal care during Prime Big Deal Days.
Eligible customers can sign up for a six-month $0 trial at amazon.com/youngadult, then pay a discounted rate of $7.49 per month or $69 per year. Qualifying government-assistance recipients and income-verified customers can try Prime Access free for 30 days and then pay $6.99 per month.

Grab $20 off Grubhub orders

Enjoy $20 off Grubhub orders of $30 or more with code “DEALS20” at checkout from September 14 through October 5—exclusively for Prime members. Grubhub+ is free with Prime. Terms and conditions apply.

Join Prime today to shop Prime Big Deal Days deals

You’ll need a Prime membership to shop Prime Big Deal Days deals. Anyone can join Prime for $14.99 per month or $139 per year, or start a free 30-day trial if eligible at amazon.com/prime. Amazon also offers discounted Prime memberships for young adults and qualifying government-assistance recipients and income-verified customers. Learn more about Prime membership options.

 

 

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases made through this article. Using links on the site for Amazon purchases is the best way you can support the site as you normally can’t earn cash back for these purchases. But, you should still check shopping portals such as Rakuten, TopCashback, RebatesMe, ShopBack and others for possible cashback. Your support is always greatly appreciated!

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New York Ends The Regents Exam Requirement — And Hands Districts The Job Of Defining A Diploma


The New York State Board of Regents voted on September 14, 2026 to stop requiring students to pass Regents exams to earn a high school diploma, approving a plan that makes this year’s seniors the last cohort held to the 25-year-old five-exam standard. Students graduating in the 2027-28 school year and after will receive a single New York State diploma with no separate assessment requirement attached.

The timing is awkward: many colleges have spent two years moving the other direction, and every Ivy League school now requires SAT or ACT scores again.

The three existing credentials (local diploma, Regents diploma, and Regents with Advanced Designation) collapse into one, with advanced work recognized through a seal or endorsement instead. Regents exams survive as a measure of state standards, and the Education Department will build new high school accountability tests to satisfy federal ESSA requirements.

Districts will design their own local assessment strategies covering classroom work, performance tasks, and educator observation, alongside expanded credit options such as dual enrollment coursework that counts toward both a diploma and a degree. Regulatory amendments will be a Board discussion item in February 2027 and come back for adoption in June 2027, according to the Daily News.

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Why It Matters

A high school diploma is what drives a person’s next financial decision. It determines college admission and federal aid eligibility, and parents read it as a signal that a student can handle college-level work — the assumption sitting underneath every calculation of whether a degree will return more than it costs.

New York graduated 85% of its 2021 cohort within four years, per state data. Removing the exam requirement would almost certainly lift that rate without changing the underlying skills behind it.

The downstream costs would inevitably fall on the student and society as a whole. Remedial college courses carry tuition and consume federal loan eligibility while awarding no degree credit, and researchers put the national bill at roughly $7 billion a year, The 74 reported. Fewer than 10% of students assigned to remediation earned an associate degree within three years in the underlying study. That is borrowed money spent relearning high school, added to a national balance that just reached $1.86 trillion.

And for society, we want an educated populace. Without a basic measuring tool of what the results are, it’s impossible to correct learning deficiencies.

The Case For Sunsetting The Exams

State officials argue the exams were asked to do three incompatible jobs at once: measure standards, drive accountability, and certify college readiness. Assistant Commissioner Zachary Warner told the Board the change has “nothing to do with lowering standards,” and pointed out that elite private schools skip Regents exams entirely and their graduates do just fine. The strongest argument is that a single timed test in June is a poor readiness signal compared with four years of evidence. But that’s also a position that mirrors the reasoning behind the spread of test-optional admissions policies.

There is also an equity case too. Students who finish every required course but fail one exam currently leave with no credential, pushed toward low-wage work or a restart through trade programs financed with their own borrowing.

The Case Against

The big case against removing the exam is simply understanding whether high school graduates completed with enough basic knowledge to continue onward in education or their careers. Board members raised the objection themselves. Vice Chancellor Judith Chin asked how the state would ensure reliability and said “many of us are questioning whether or not we as a Regents are dumbing down the assessment,” according to an account of the meeting. Regent Weinman Shorenstein questioned how the state would compare outcomes across districts using different local assessments. Neither question got a full answer, and the replacement framework does not exist yet.

The problem is that the state is removing a common yardstick and promising to design its replacement during the same window. Three risks follow:

  • No comparability. Every district writing its own assessment strategy produces its own definition of proficient, which makes district-to-district comparison (and honest school accountability) close to impossible.
  • Grade inflation fills the vacuum. With no external check, the transcript becomes the only signal, and grades have been drifting upward for years.
  • The learning gap gets worse. National 12th grade results already show 45% of seniors below NAEP Basic in math and 32% below in reading, both record highs, the National Assessment Governing Board reported. The same release found more seniors accepted to four-year colleges than in 2019 while fewer were ready for entry-level coursework.

The California Warning

New York is running an experiment California already started. The University of California went test-blind in 2021, and the results at one campus are hard to ignore: UC San Diego’s remedial math enrollment went from 32 students in fall 2020 to 921 in fall 2025 (11.8% of the incoming class) a nearly 30-fold jump, Inside Higher Ed reported. We covered how recently the campus ran out of seats in its remedial math course.

These students were admitted on strong GPAs alone. More than 600 UC faculty have since signed a letter asking the system to reinstate testing for applicants, arguing that grade inflation and AI-assisted work have broken the transcript as a readiness signal, the Daily Bruin reported.

New York is now removing its last external check at the high school level, despite having the California data already in hand.

How This Connects

The pattern seems to be repeating itself: remove a measurement, watch the credential inflate, then find the issue later when somebody is paying tuition for it. Test-optional admissions masked poor math preparation at the high school level before anyone quantified it, and families end up paying the costs through extra semesters and debt loads that keep climbing at graduation.

For New York families, the practical move is to stop treating the diploma as evidence of readiness. Have students sit the Regents exams anyway (they still exist) and treat dual enrollment or AP results as outside verification, especially since 66% of high schoolers say their schools steer them toward four-year college without a clear read on preparation.

Plus, as more and more colleges are requiring the SAT and ACT again, getting a jumpstart on those national exams will give you a clear sense of any gaps and preparation that may be needed.

What’s Next

Watch three dates. State Education Department staff return to the Board in November 2026 with revisions to New York’s federal ESSA plan. Then draft regulatory amendments will be up to the Board in February 2027, with adoption scheduled for June 2027 and an effective date of July 1, 2027.

The detail that matters most is what the new statewide high school accountability assessment actually measures and looks like. There’s sadly a high potential New York will have removed a key standard without replacing it with a solid new one.

Editor: Colin Graves

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