Cable Caballero
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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John C. Malone
11 min read
The article explicitly references John Malone's biography 'Cable Cowboy' and his autobiography 'Born to Be Wired' as foundational texts for understanding the cable industry's consolidation. Understanding Malone's financial engineering and empire-building provides essential context for why the author sees Forrest Heath as potentially building something similar.
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Tele-Communications Inc.
14 min read
TCI is the company profiled in 'Cable Cowboy' that the author explicitly cites as a model for understanding cable industry dynamics. The company's history of aggressive acquisition, debt-fueled growth, and eventual sale to AT&T illustrates the 'virtuous cycle' strategy the article quotes Malone describing.
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Hi friends đź‘‹ ,
Happy Monday!
I’ve realized, writing this piece, that my job is to find and transmit a feeling.
When I first met Forrest Heath a year ago, I felt immediately that he was a special entrepreneur with the potential to build one of the world’s most important infrastructure empires.
Words are lossy, though. It’s taken me a year, a ton of conversations, even more research, a trip to Colombia, and over 33,000 words to put that feeling on paper.
This is my best attempt so far. The first, I expect, of many chapters in the story of Forrest Heath, Somos Internet, Autoridad Panandina, and the possibility of rebuilding the world’s infrastructure through vertical integration, lightness, and cashflow.
Let’s get to it.
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Cable Caballero
The hardest part of writing about Forrest Heath, III is figuring out where to start.
You might start in the backseat of a car, being driven, bag-over-head, through MedellĂn’s notoriously gangridden Comuna 13, to meet with the local “Duro,” “jefe de plaza,” or simply “gang leader,” about wiring up his comuna with better internet.
Record scratch, freeze frame, “Yep, that’s me. You’re probably wondering…”
Or in the passenger seat during Forrest’s frequent road trips, at age 16, from his home in rural North Carolina, 30 minutes outside of Chapel Hill, to visit his girlfriend in Washington, DC, just hoovering knowledge from audiobooks and
...This excerpt is provided for preview purposes. Full article content is available on the original publication.

