Thinking and Throwing

There seems to be an inextricable meditative link between throwing and thinking. This afternoon, Stephen Lee and I tossed a nerf football outside the Scribd office and I felt a cool breeze over my new haircut along with a new and completely untainted flow of thought. Just 2 hours before, we were in heated strategic discussions:

ideas for every I,
thoughts for every theory,
strategy for every step.

But twas the throwing and thinking mended my mind.
It was soothing and scintillating all at once.

I was in the flow:
the ease of new ideas,
the condensation of confusion,
the strength of strategy,
the vicissitude of changed vision
dawned all at once.

Then I reminisced about my baseball days and remembered that it was only the first 5 minutes of practice that I really liked. The first 5 minutes of having a catch with your buddy, chatting about the follies and foes, girls and gossip. Those 5 minutes were inescapable and only now imaginable.

So I shall start to throw once more...
This deserves an ode.

Chaos

Great businessmen seem to have the ability to make chaos into structure, or at least ostensibly so.  

On VC's

It seems that the best VC's have mastered the art of meddling in other people's affairs.

Mobile SNS Report

Social Network Influence

A great author once wrote not knowing what to do in the confines of one's own room is a great cause for sadness and depression.

Kurt's Excerpt: Then came social networks, and the common man now never has to leave his room to feel acceptance and purpose.

Kurtism: Salary

Everyone gets a base, the rest is just a bonus.

Kurtism: Startups

Startups are 50% hard work, 50% intelligence, but most of it is just luck.

Kurtism: Time

Time moves to fast when you are not paying attention

Mountain 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.

"Never a boring day"

Kurtism: Pain

Pain goes away when it stops.

Kurtism: Why hard work never stops

The harder I work, the more ideas I get; the more ideas I get, the more energy i have; the more energy I have, the harder I work. It is a virtuous cycle.

Kurtism: On Life

All you can ask for is a job you like, good food, and some good lovin; and then, everything else is a bonus, even the wine.

Kurtism: On what you do

It is not important what you accomplish today, but rather what continues and blossoms after you are gone.

Kurtism: On winning

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it rains.

Hawaii 5.0

From Dec. 9 -13, I made my first trip to Hawaii. Upon arriving I got my first taste of Hawaiin food, it was a Hawaiian Japanese oBento. It consisted of a box of rice with a full size chicken leg and hot dog on top. This first impression governed my cultural thoughts for the rest of the trip. Japan meet Hawaii.

My good friend Alex lives and works in the Navy there. I hung out with him and his roommates who were cool guys. During those days we put on about 30 miles of hiking and running on the Nike Shox. We were staying about 30 minutes North of Wakiki. In fact, I did not even make it to Wakiki beach. We spent one day at North Shore doing some swimming. That area was quiet and nice without many tourists. I definately can go back out there.

We also went to a lookout, called ?, that had a nice view of the island. Apparently there was a big war there where people fell over the cliffs. It was during the re-unification of Hawaii.

Lastly we spent a night in the city at a few bars, one is called Nextdoor. It was pretty local crew of people and cool to get a feel for the local nightlife. At last I cannot forget my night with Alex`s good friends where we spent the night drinking and eating Sichuan Hot Pot. It was great.

After a 2 days, we took off for the Big Island, Hawaii. The east side, Hilo, was lush with green vegetation and had a cool climate and foggy overhang. We stayed in a town called Volcano where there was a national park and volcano with steams. At the national park, we stayed at the military camp. It was pretty nice. We spent the daytime running on the craters and trails, at night, we went out to do the long volcano hike to see the lava.

We hiked out for about 75 minutes to get as close as possible to the lava flows. As night fell, the view was better and more interesting. AJ and I decided to leave just before darkness came since the terrain back was so uneven and dangerous for knees and ankles. THe hike back took about 90 minutes. It was a challenging evening.

Lastly, we drove around the bottom of the island and stopped at the US most southern located restaraunt. I ate some crazy concoction that was rice, eggs, and sausages. Again Hawaii meet Japan. I will add this to one of my favorite dishes. It was called....After a quick 2 hours we arrived at Kona Kaliua. It was a combination of tourist hotels and very nice vacation houses. We did a little scuba and some shopping before heading to the airport.

All and all it was a solid trip. We got good food, some good runs, and time at the beach. Now back to work.

Chinamas vs. Christmas

Christmas is a time when all the people in the US scurry around to buy presents for their friends and family. Christmas is the time in China when everyone is working hard to supply the US with all the crap the Americans buy. Chinese New Year's is the time when the Chinese collect all the money from the Americans who spend too much money during the holiday they call Christmas. Sooner or later, it will be the Chinese government who buys all the US treasuries, not just 30%, that allow the Americans to take out debt to buy christmas presents that will pay for the chinese made products. What a cycle!

Christmas is a huge competitive disadvantage for America. Herein, Christmas will be Chinamas in my book.

Kurtism: On Potential

Potential means it ain't worth sh** yet

Kurtism: Invaluable experience

Invaluable experiences is a nice way of saying too bad you failed.

Pachinko's Influence in Japan - Korea - US Relations

Last night I had an early Thanksgiving with my colleague and good friend at Mitsui, Yoichi Asai. Yoichi is cool Japanese dude who just came to the US a few months back. He was "dispatched", as they say in JENGLISH (Japanese English), to the US to fulfill his training duty. Sometimes when I hear such words, I feel that I am part of some secret military force that is covertly sending agents to the US to gather information. In fact, I may not be far off. In the 1980's, it was well regarded that the Japanese trading firms had the best access to global information.

Asai-San and I started the night with a bowl of ramen at our favorite place Halu Ramen. Halu is Japanese for nice day and that it was a nice day. We then decided that we should drink large amounts of Asahi Dry and discuss the internal strategy of Mitsui. After finishing several beers we then decided to go across the street to a German Beer House called Harry's Hofbrau. Harry's is located next to my apartment and it has always touched my curiousity but I had never gone before.

So after we went in we ordered pints of Harry's Authentic German brew. In addition, they had a cafeteria line filled with turkey dinner helpings so I thought it would be culturally polite to show him what a typical T-Giving dinner is. So I ordered a few turkey legs and we gobbled them down.

Before coming to the US, Yoichi sold Pachinko chips with a Japanese subsidiary. So in the middle of our feast, we began to discuss Pachinko as a cultural phenomenom in Japan. Yoichi taught me some very interesting facts including that Pachinko industry is as big as the food industry in Japan, about $230Bn. I thought that was amazing! Also, Pachinko chips were made by two companies, one of them is Freescale which owns 50% of the market and that was one of the most profitable business lines for that unit.

Further and most interestingly, Pachinko Parlors are very much controlled by Koreans, both South and North. In fact, North Korea receives a very large amount of money from Japanese Pachinko houses. They earn so much that it would significantly impact North Korean's wealth if they were to lose this flow of money.

So let's look into strategic moves by the two countries. If Japan puts more pressure to regulate Pachinko, North Korea will retailiate by sending a missle over Japan so Japan will not do this. If North Korea makes any attack at Japan, then Japan will cut off Pachinko Money and North Korea will lose much access to wealth. This to me sounds like the ultimate strategic equilibrium.

But let's see how the US now plays a role. If Freescale decide to cut off production of Pachinko chips or sell the division that results in a decrease in chip supply, this will put supply pressure on the Pachinko machine production. Less Pachinko machines, means less Pachinko players and less money to North Korea. So Freescale, whether or not they know it is playing a very profound part of the equation.

Now let me bring up another very strange fact to this. During the North Korean uproar and threat of power there was one very large business transaction. That transaction was the taking private of Freescale by Blackstone, TPG, and Carlyle who are notorious for chopping up business divisions after buyouts. The transaction was consummated on September 16th and KIM tested his nucleur bomb on October 3rd.

It is in my opinion that KIM was making a direct threat to George Bush, who is a major shareholder in Carlyle. That threat was not please do not attack me; that threat was do not shut off my Pachinko Machines or I will attack you. If I were Freescale, I would have called up KIM and said you let us sell Motorola phones in your country and we won't touch your Pachinko Chips.

It seems to me that no one got this at all.

Kurtism: Defining Success

Success should not be defined by how much $$ you make but by the difference on society that you make.

In America, unfortunately, those who impart a great influence on our society, such as teachers, are highly unaccounted for.