Sunday, August 31, 2008

$5 Haircut

Today, I got a $5 haircut in China Town. Granted, I could have just use my own clippers and cut it for free but where in the world can you get a $5 hair cut.

On the Future

For the gods perceive things in the future, ordinary people things in the present, but the wise perceive things about to happen...in their intense meditation the hidden sound of things approaching reaches them and they listen reverently while in the street outside, the people hear nothing at all.
--Cavafy

That's Fresh

I recently went to a web2.0 conference where I was searching out deals to do mobile bling. There, I stopped by the Adobe Photoexpress exhibit where I spoke to a product manager. While giving my pitch to her, I exuberantly told her we could bling photos and send to the phone as they did on the web. She looked at me perplexed and asked,"what does bling mean?" I told her that is what they are doing to the photos. She said, "Oh, I get it, you mean edit the photos." I sighed and moved to the next exhibit.

Last week, I was at an inner city baseball practice where I coach 8-12 year olds. I was playing catch with Tay-Tay, a 9 year old outfielder who hit like Reggie Jackson and wore a shirt layered in big SF skyscrapers and overlayed with golden glittered text that read "Bay Area Boy." He asked me what I do. Trying to be as simple and clear as possible to this young man, I said, "I bling mobile phones." He stopped for a moment, thought about it, looked at me in the eye, and remarked, "that's fresh."

On Family

A poem by Hey-Hey:

Family is
Always their when you need them the
Most, They are there
In case you are sick or hurt
Love your family no matter what
You do they will always love you!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Bizness

Every great biznessman thinks he knows where he is going until he gets there...

Haircuts

"You are only as good as your last haircut"

Zen

Cherish (even the mistakes) the past, live the present, prepare the future.

Business as an Art

Bharti CEO Mittal after closing his deal with Wal-Mart said, "I like to express myself through large, transformational projects."

Business as a form of art and expression - I love that!

Biking

I went mt biking yesterday at Saint Teresa Park in San Jose, CA, just before a round of golf. Upon arriving, I noticed a group in the distance but didn't think much of it. So I grabbed my two wheeled terrain hopper and took off. In the middle of my ride, I hear a gunshot and about 3 minutes later a pack of dudes come up behind me. One of the guys yelled Berkeley get out of the f'n way! I thought who is Berkeley, looked back, and peeled off the course and flopped on the hill.

Then I, clad in a bright yellow under armor shirt and navy blue shirts, realized that I was Berkeley. The guys who rode by me were in Stanford, Oregon, Nevada, Chico State, and Berkeley uniforms. I continued along after them, faintly thinking I could actually catch them, and stopped to speak to a cameraman who said it was a Pac 10 race! What are the odds that I stumbled upon a Pac 10 race!

By the time i got off the trail, 45 minutes later, my wheel was in a 90 degree angle and when I lifted it up on my car rack it completely fell off! I'm glad it didn't fall off while I was riding.

Doing Biz in Asia

People often ask what I think the biggest differences are doing biz in US, China, and Japan. Here is how I can answer.

A man walks into an American convenient store and asks for a Pepsi (Note: I prefer Pepsi over Coke so I'm using Pepsi in this example.) The clerk says sorry we only have Coke.

A man walks into a Japanese convenient store and asks for a Pepsi. The clerk says sorry we only have Coke but my friend next door has Pepsi. Please tell him I referred you.

A man walks into a Korean convenient store and asks for Pepsi. The store owner tries to convince the customer to buy a Coke but when he does not succeed, he calls his friend who brings him a Pepsi, and sells it to the customer.  The two split the profit.

A man walks into a Chinese convenient store and asks for Bai-Shi Kele (Pepsi). The store owner tells the customer to wait a minute. He then walks out the back door, over to his friend's place next door and buys a Pepsi from him. He then comes back and sells the Pepsi to the customer for a 100% markup.


MR Ducks

MR Ducks
MR KNOT
SAR
CM Wangs
LIB
MR Ducks!

Translated:
Them are ducks
Them are not
Yes they are
See them wings
Hell, i'll be
Them are ducks!


This was actually an original branding strategy by the apparel company, MR Ducks, which took off in the south circa 1990's. If you could imagine two duck hunters by a lake having this discussion, then you could picture the commercial.

Poem by Hey Hey

A poem by Hey-Hey:

Family is
Always their when you need them the
Most, They are there
In case you are sick or hurt
Love your family no matter what
You do they will always love you!

On Anti-Aging

One thing is for certain in life, your parents will let you know when you are getting old. I've also noticed my close Japanese friends will let me know when I'm getting old or fat but they are more helpful in helping me keep my youth via nice skin whitening cream, i.e. Shiseido.

My last trip back to Tennessee my family told me I was getting wrinkles on my forhead, my receding hairline has worsened, and I have wrinkles under my eyes. Thanks Mom. On the positive note, I was in good shape and some hair seemed to be growing back on my bald spot without any chemicals.

I have a good friend who is about 8 years older than me. A few months ago, we were chatting up two girls in a bar and we asked them how old do we look. The one girl said I was 35 and the other said he was 32. Touche! It is also common for me to go to a bar with a few friends, they get ID'd and then the bouncer looks at me and says, go ahead. I think that this is because I make them look so much younger.

So let's cut to the chase, I look older than my age. I admit it. So now I need some help, what does a WASP do to keep his youth? I've been digging into this and I have a few solutions.

1) Keep the heart healthy. There is no doubt a correlation between staying in shape and keeping a good healthy complexion. It also helps with happiness as well. Nothing beats a nice 6 mile job at 10PM or 6AM. Anything physical will do it. Just do it.

2) Eye wrinkle cream. This stuff helps. It helps crease out some of those wrinkles under your eyes from staring at the computer. I've tried junk I get at the massage shop, nivea, shiseido, Fx. It all is the same to me so just smear it on and go.

3) I don't think the addition of hair keeps you younger. I think it ostensibly makes you perceived as younger even if you aren't younger. I'm not a fan of adding back my hair.

4) Sex. Look, all cards on the table here. A nice consistent sex life keeps a man happy. There is no doubt to that ladies.

5) Music. I don't play or sing, God help the world if I did. But I can cut a rug. Music keeps you going. Play some ghetto rap, play some jazz, play some Francais, play some country music like grandma and grandpa used to play and go on down the river to a cajun hideaway.

5) Working with youth. Working with younger people who have the excitement of youth, new ideas, and grandoise scheme. It really does keep you young.

6) Do feel good stuff. Do some charity, volunteer work. That makes your heart happy and that is good stuff too.

Any help for me? I'm open to ideas.

Managing Pitchers; Managing Entrepeneurs

While watching a Knoxville Smokies (AAA for Chicago Cubs) baseball game last night, a phenomenom that I never figured out during my baseball days dawned on me. Why do left handed pitchers wear their hats crooked - not all of them but most of them for sure? It was so apparent that even on the jumbo cam the pitchers hat was crooked. I took a picture but it didn't come out well. Sorry, there is no zoom on the iPhone.

It just makes no rational sense. Whats even more bizarre is that it slants to the left, not the right. In other words, it covers their left eye more than their right eye so they don't push the hat over far enough. I really don't know why this is but it reminded me of one of the reasons I loved baseball so much: as a catcher I would have the opportunity to work with a plethora of pitchers and deal with their personalities.

A pitcher and catcher's relationship is important to the game and how they think and work together is vital to their success. I call fastball, he wants curveball, I recall fastball, and he gets P*** off. That's not good. Each person has to understand what is going on. It takes a lot of time and effort to get there. Not only do they have to cohesively understand that batter's and games strategy but they have to just understand each other. The job of great catcher, in my opinion, is two fold 1) never be noticed - for a fan only notices the catcher when he screws up, like runs to the backstop to get the ball 2) get the best out of the pitcher every time he plays. If his fastball is slow that day, use the curve or slide-piece. It was a blast working with 10-12 pitchers on a baseball team. Each of them is truly an entrepreneur.

They all have different strengths and weaknesses but they are all in the spot light so they can be the superstar as fast as they can be the goat. Its a tough place to be. Likewise, true entrepreneurs (I have 3 classifications - that is another note) are similar, they try things over and over. They fail, they succeed and hopefully they succeed bigger than the cumulative successes of their failures. Lastly, the game never starts without them. So all hail the pitchers and the entrepreneurs.

Putting from the Fairway

The last few times that I've played golf, I've used my putter from the fairway. The elusive 25 yard chip is often problematic; its about touch. Sometimes you just don't have it and sometimes you do. Its the same in billiards, dancing, ping pong , and well any other thing you can think of that combines not full effort physical activity and emotional intensity.

The result of my putting from the fairway has been relatively consistent, however. I can basically get it up to the green and in the hole with 3 strokes every time. That's not great but its steady. Its like if I just use my 7 iron on the golf course. I think I could beat my score everytime with just a 7 iron and putter - no joke. I used to do this when I grew up in South Carolina. I'd walk around carrying a 7 iron and putter because I hated using a bag.

My point here is about consistency and its related to investing. It seems to me good investors are consistent. They consistently find good companies or deals at the right time and valuations. They control their emotions with patience and can balance the excitement of the deal with pragmatism. Its very hard but they have the touch. Its not the golden touch but the touch of consistency. By being consistent, they can keep playing the game, sustain, and then put themselves in position to make the big hit which may only happen once every few years. At that time they hit without really having swung for the fences. At that time it was just a consistent allocation of capital of which this investement was one.

Well, there are a few venture investors with different strategies. Buffet doesn't even believe in full portfolio diversification. He finds something he knows and bets big. Another one of those would be Vinod Khosla who only swings big. He swings so big it moved the entire world into clean tech. He thinks I'll lose 20 times but the 1 time I'll hit it will make so much money that it will dwarf my losses. Those two guys are amazing and are probably the two smartest investors in the world. And then that reminds me of a few of my old sayings, if you don't think big league, you'll never be big league. The other is SWING BIG or GO HOME. Otherwise, its not as fun.

I had an old baseball coach who described our second baseman as "steady at being steady" - there is a lot to be said for that. Then we had a 5 hole hitter who was as hot as he was cold and he said he only swung to hit the ball as hard as he could everytime. Why else would he play?

So this brings me back to strategy lesson #102, don't get stuck in the middle. Pick one strategy and be the best at it.

Truman on Leadership

1. Know their stuff, defend their men, be a man.
KD: Take one for the team if you have to.

2. Power, money, and women will destroy a man. Note he said women not a woman.
KD: I wouldn't know about the first two but the last one definately will make you crazy.

3. Ride the Tiger by mastering your job.
KD: To be great at something you have to be obsessed by it. That means that one would have little time for anything else. BLING BLING!

4. Give Hell and Get it in Return.
KD: If you don't get it in return, then the people you are with aren't warriors.

A Train from SF to LA

if there were a train from SF to LA
my flight would not have been delayed

if i didn't have to wait in a security line
i wouldn't have to arrive an hour b4 time

if i were in a mag lev bullet train
i wouldn't have to worry when it rained

even if it didn't save me time from door to door
i could relax, sit, stand, surf the net, and do lots more
if and only if i were on a mag lev bullet train.

god, i wish there were a train from SF to LA
I'm going to build that bullet one day.

KD

Making Bombs

Peter Guber tells the story of his first meeting with his Sony bosses in Tokyo, after they installed him at what was then Columbia/Tri-Star, and he told them his business plan: make about 14 movies a year — 6 will do okay, maybe break even; 2 or 3 will do a bit better, and have franchise possibilities; 2 will be hits; 1 will be a monster hit; and at least 3 will be total losses, total bombs. They listened respectfully, then one of the older guys asked (through an interpreter), “May I ask Guber-san why he bothers to make the bombs?"

KD on KCs

Thus was the quote from the lady I bought my shoes from today. I like shoes; i have lots of shoes. I have running, hiking, basketball, baseball, soccer, black dress, brown dress, loafers, spanish shoes, british shoes, japanese shoes, white kick around shoes, slippers, sandals, cowboy boots, steell toed boots, and soon bling shoes with a big $ sign on the front. Most of these I never wear but I'm ready when I need them. Lately, i wear sandals to work and so has the rest of FunMo caught on.

I have a Kurtism,"shoes can make the entire outfit look good." For that is a strange Kurtism as it was Tim Robbins in Shawshank Redemption who quoted as walking out the front door of the warden's office wearing the warden's shoes, "whoever looks at your shoes anyways?"

I always check people's shoes out. It COULD tell a lot about the person. Are they flashy, fashion conscious, conservative, frugal, frivolous, and so forth? Think about it for a second....

I always pushed our baseball team's to polish their shoes, it looks good, professional. Crash Davis in Bull Durham told Nuke Laloosh, you have to polish your shoes until you make the show, then you can grow fungus and the press will think you are colorful.

So while stumbling along Canal St (kind of chinatown?) in NYC in between meetings I walked into a few hole in the wall shoe shops. I found one particularly interesting with my favorite brand, Kenneth Coles. KC's cost a lot in SF like $150 a pop. I was wearing the same KC's I bought in HK in 2002, newly polished, but the heals were slanted and I've been looking for a new pair of the old version. I'm bow legged and my heals wear out on the outside.

The shoes were priced at $70-$80. I couldn't believe it. I checked Zappos on my iPHone and they are pricing at $125 (I think). I kept prying; these have to be fake, knockoffs. I couldn't find anyway to figure this out. They passed all the KC tests - solid soles, strong leather, and shoe strings that you could pull a horse with. I asked the lady, how these can be so cheap. She said, well it depends where you buy them. Then I flashbacked to econ 101, discretionary pricing - pricing a product depending on the area or wealth of the consumer. Is Canal Street that different from Times Square? The store was run by HKese so that means it was a rip-off or they actually had a good deal. I was putting the odds on the latter. I also realized that they weren't the new editions but a year or two old so I thought that factored in.

So what did I do? I bought two, turned in my old shoes for a new pair and got a cool brown/black pair to go alongside. So 2 shoes for the price of 1 in SF. I just hope they are real - please don't tell me I was duped. So far, I think they are. KC's break in tough, they give me blisters so I think they are real. Conversely, fake shoes give me blisters too. I bought a few pairs in China.

My hometown, Greenville, SC, native, "Shoeless" Joe Jackson used to get terrible blisters on his feet because of new shoes. He knew they were good because they gave him blisters and after he broke them in they would be great. So in the middle of games he would take them off because the blisters hurt too bad, that is how he got the nickname "Shoeless". Anything that is good breaks in tough, e.g. a good baseball glove takes forever to break in but when they do it fits the intricacies of your hand so exactly. I'd think that also goes for a lot of other things in life like relationships and good deals.

Let's hope my KC's are for real.