I hope she's able to reinvigorate yahoo, but speaking from general ignorance about the person (other than her published resume) this seems like a very conventional hire, just like using heidrick was conventional, and just like most every yahoo product is currently conventional. nothing wrong with that, just doesn't strike me as the kick-start, explosive action yahoo's been trying to convince everyone it's been in the process of making to turn itself around.
While I agree with David's sentiment, the more info the better . . . it sometimes may be appropriate to have a stock answer when the event doesn't really generate real emotion.
http://status.37signals.com/
"21:20 - 21:40AM CDT DECEMBER 22 (3:20 - 3:40 GMT DECEMBER 23), 2008
Connection problems were experienced to Basecamp and Highrise due to a misbehaving web server. We apologize for the inconvenience."
An important point that is lost on most politicians and tax-payers:
"Government can only tax its people so much before they say no. So the government expands the money supply when it has taxed and borrowed all it can. This inflation is a hidden tax that falls squarely on the middle class. Sound, honest money would go a great way towards reining in the big-spending politicians."
Just because he might be guilty of possibly believing he was above the law, doesn't necessarily mean all of his ideas are untrue. It's possible he's just a hypocrite.
i've never met zed, but am always impressed with his honesty in everything i've read written by him. I don't think one can ever say that he doesn't actually believe what he claims.
Besides what is mentioned, I find it interesting what's not mentioned: no lottery, no shotgun approach, no throw 10 different things against the wall and see what sticks.
its no dirty secret, google finance makes it pretty clear "Sector: Financial > Industry: Insurance (Prop. & Casualty)". It's possible there's questionable accounting in the history, but 30+ years into it, I'm surprised nothing major's come up seeing how large and public a target he and berkshire are and how many other accounting cheats have been netted.
Chances are that you and buffet could both be right. Buffet is right in getting a guaranteed 10% return on $3B dollars with a potential for upside with his preferred stock, even if you are right in that GE common stock performs badly in coming years. So long as GE is still in business/profitable, Buffett is right.
I agree with your last point, I'd actually be curious how many of the vocal "buyers" are actually throwing their money down and buying?
Thats true. I think newer (last 15 years) tech company's have been able to not offer dividends and still attract investors (even low capex, software co's that don't necessarily need to reinvest), but the types of investors (venture investors) they attract are naturally then interested in capital gains, and thats only achieved by trading that equity. I could be wrong, but traders tend not to think past the point of their expected holding, and since their only return is on sale of the equity, prefer for that to happen earlier rather than later.
That is true, however I think it's fair to make the point that all Venture Capital firms have the same structural incentive to treat companies (equity) as products, to be traded in a marketplace, and consequently are primarily focused on the net worth (capital gain) return from trading that equity versus the ongoing value-added by the operating business (dividend). I think that's where the 'taste-for-blood' comes from. That fundamental incentive affects how institutional VCs view the founders of a company (less so as partners and more so as employees in a sense). I think that's what this guy is reacting too, rightly or wrongly.
"They say it's hard to live in San Francisco and not take funding, but I beg to differ: out here it's easy to get lucrative consulting gigs and fill your bank account. Contract for someone else with funding, make some money, save it up, then spend it on your company. You don't have to sell your soul to a VC or live off of ramen. Just be smart."
Brilliant secondary effects of venture capital funding.
"I don't see how anyone could argue that selling was not optimal for security. Sure, you could gradually save money, but that's not optimal; it's not more secure than getting a lump sum upfront."
That's a pretty bold statement. If you think that an offer on the table is greater than all the net income you're comfortable your company will generate (discounted to present value of course), then you would take the money and run. If on the other hand your company is creating value (net income), and you are confident it will be creating more value (net income) going forward so that the discounted future net income the company generates is way more than the upfront lump sum, you wouldn't sell and it wouldn't be more secure or optimal. I think the issue is that most 'startup' owners aren't focusing on the net income part so they don't view their company as a cashflow generating entity which can be rationally valued against an upfront lumpsum, which means they'll take the money and run just about everytime; why wouldn't they?
I'm sure 37signals could have sold their company right after launching basecamp in 2004 for a multiple of revenues at the time, guessing a couple of million dollars. However, for some reason that wasn't optimal for their security, and by 2007 (doubling revenues every year since 04) chances are they've earned/pocketed the value they could have sold the company for in 04 (if not a majority of that value) and they get to keep that cashflow generating machine going forward (which means more cashflow + more valuable equity).
I hear you and do understand pg's point. While the first part 'doing what you love' is really easy to do, one simply chooses it, the second part 'finding something the market loves' (which is the 'security' point of pg's essay) is basically out of your control. The only thing you can do to be happy about that 'market love' is decide what your reaction is, keep your expectations completely elastic and be able/willing to live within the constraints of 'the market' reaction. The problem comes when there are preconceived expectations of what the market should return, or a sense of being entitled to a level of success (that the market may not grace you with) which leads to unhappiness on that second point. But there is a solution, since you set your response to the market, its easy to reset, simply chose to be happy with what the return the market is giving you (ie. support your life with in those means, though it can be more difficult if you're supporting a family), and scale appropriately.
I'm sure there are many 'ways' to start a company and live off the net income, and there may even be an optimal way. Historically the way a lot of business owners have achieved freedom and security is 1) love what they do, so that the work isn't a chore (their work is what they would do if they could do anything in the world, which is one definition of freedom) and 2) spend/live within the constraints of the net income generated. Seems pretty simple to me since both can be chosen. This also solves the main disadvantage of you 'hav[ing] to keep running it', because you actually want to keep it running.
It seems that google was generous in the way a company is generous by having a policy to pay for traveling employees' hotel stays at the Ritz, and when it learns that they are paying 4x more than competitors who have employees stay at the Marriot, changes its policy by having employees stay at the Ritz but charging them to cover some of the subsidy, instead of changing their policy and paying for employees to stay at a lower priced hotel. Apologies for the looong sentence.
that is a pretty ridiculous offer . . . that's why I enrolled my 7 year old in business school, and now that she has an mba the six-figure offers are rolling in . . . with equity of course.
brilliant resignation letter! . . . though I think he forgot to mention the part where yahoo paid him $35MM for his sheet-tin skills, something that probably made it a little easier for him to be able to write a resignation letter like that and not worry about it getting out.
cuban's point is still valid, while youtube accepts user-generated content like your kid's gymnastics video, they will never be able to sell any ads against it, because no one other than you and your family will want to see that video, no offense.
The goal is not to start startups, the goal is to start companies, operating businesses. That "trend" has been happening for hundreds (if not thousands) of years and will continue after we're all gone, we need to gain some perspective.
How many other chat/messaging competitors does campfire have?
I can guarantee you huddlechat was not the only one, so now that its gone campfire can go back to enjoying their monopoly of the chat/messaging market.
I think you've missed the point. The point is not to settle for the middle, the point is that there are real everyday problems that need solving, and there's real success that can naturally come from solving those problems, overtime. You can't force success or simply will it.
I appreciated how he positioned "startups" in the same realm as other "regular" businesses; that's a very honest view because at the end of the day every business (tech startup or Italian restaurant) is judged by the profits they generate by creating value for their customers. Thats what a business does, 1 + 1 = 3, adding valuing. As a business owner you can't escape that law of commerce and expect to survive. Tech startups aren't a special class of business in and of themselves that deserve to be valued higher than other businesses, they're only special if they can grow more efficiently and operate at a higher margin than other businesses.
Great story. I hope that parting words about buying Porsche's was said as a joke.
It's great that the owners achieved the outcome they desired, very positive; however I also think it's important to keep in mind that it will take some time for the buyer to realize value from the acquisition. In my opinion that should be the metric of success, did the acquired company create value, not for the previous owners/investors through an acquisition, but for the current and future customers through it's operations. I think sometimes the idea the companies should create value-added as an ongoing entity gets lost in the discussion about the company's stock creating a return for the investors/owners.
agreed, that was the obvious choice; when I was posting their front page was taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r to load, plus wanted to add some color commentary via 37signals.