3000 Miles of Pure Insanity

Channelling Seth Godin

2011-02-27T10:34:00.000-08:00

Short but stupid post here (edit: maybe not so short now that I'm down writing). Last week, I wrote about Aaron Barr and the HB Federal fiasco and speculated on the implications of a world in which both centralized organizations and decentralized populations try to sway public opinion and disrupt each others' opposing operations.

Just in the past week, the examples are all around us, unfortunately with the centralized powers spewing confusion and misinformation all over the place. The New York Times gives BP space to claim the guy that they themselves hired to run the oil spill compensation fund isn't giving them a fair deal, drowning out the people trying to point out the absurdity that BP has the guy on payroll to the tune of $850k a month to run the fund (and the voices of those affected in the Gulf, saying this relationship is causing them to not get their fair share). (Side note: Which do you think is more likely? The guy who is being paid by BP not being fair to BP or not being fair to those affected? Who gets more press access?)

Beyond that, Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone (who wrote the Polk-award winning profile of Stanley McChrystal that eventually got him fired) had a must-read piece on the (mis)use of psych-ops by the US Military against our own government officials (to get them to allocate more funds to the Afganistan War). Immediately, "senior military officials" began anonymously slandering Hastings and his source, Lt. Col. Michael Holmes, which were repeated mindlessly by many major media outlets. Glenn Greenwald has a good summary of the situation, as well as a useful explanation as to why high level personel shouldn't be allowed to attack the powerless anonymously.

In the words of Bob Dylan (hah couldn't find the Dylan version, so enjoy the BSG one), there's too much confusion, and it's hard to get relief. For those looking to get anything done, the mudfight is scary - it takes your message and gets it all dirty and mucked up. While the realm of government and corporations may have the most wide ranging impacts, the impacts of this dynamic are felt by all of us, whether we're trying to write a gossip rag or deliver a marketing message.

More fundamentally, these interactions leave us a world full of suspicion and devoid of trust - and that is where the opportunity lies. With everyone zigging, your best choice is to zag - to build a brand that people can trust, because the brand itself is worthy of that trust. In the short run, this means showing restraint instead of passing judgment, acknowledging when you're wrong, and oftentimes putting yourself in an uncomfortable place. At Athleague, we constantly have to manage the short term gain of telling a customer they'll have a feature by a certain date with the long term credibility hit we take by not delivering. I've more than once fallen pray to this, promising something that I knew deep down was a long shot of being completed on time.

But there is hope - as an example of a success, despite being a comedy program, The Daily Show has built up their reputation so much that Jon Stewart is considered the most trusted news source in America. They research their material, apologize for mistakes, and do a pretty good job making only fair critiques by not taking things out of context (and, in the process, they're not afraid of making some enemies). The model of tribe-building and truth-telling is a great one to follow if the goal is to build an audience who trusts what you're saying.

The credit for this optimism and logic all go to the venerable Seth Godin, who manages to reduce these complex problems and dynamics into understandable hurdles, and inspires us to follow the path he charts - using truth as a weapon and the (social) web as a vehicle.

The Stupidity of Aaron Barr - and the Future of Civil Disobedience

2011-02-20T14:04:00.000-08:00

This post represents a leap for me, a return to why I started blogging: an attempt to make sense of current events and draw trendlines for where we're headed. It's an activity fraught with opportunities to expose my idiocy, and I don't doubt I will confuse correlation with causation time and time again. Furthermore, the ideas here are by no means my own. Apologies in advance. It's fun to ponder and write, and hopefully not too boring/frustrating to read. So here goes:

A little more than a week ago, the story broke. It didn't register much on the major news networks, but as the rabbit hole went deeper, it got quite interesting. A summary:

Aaron Barr, CEO of HB Gary Federal, tries to unveil the identities of the people he perceives to be the "leaders" of the internet group Anonymous as a stunt to generate publicity (and hopefully clients) for his company.
Bad move. Anon strikes back, hard, hacking into all his social media accounts (including a vulgar but hilarious Twitter hack) and email, putting a large collection of his emails on a popular torrenting website. Arstechnica has a characteristically great (though long) piece outlining the 1 and 2.
In these emails are found multiple presentations, all with the intent of destroying Wikileaks. The most interesting of these is one given in conjunction with Palantir and Berico Technologies to Bank of America's outside law firm, Hunton & Williams (who were apparently soliciting such presentations).
This presentation included tactics such as fabricating documents to be released to the public, applying personal pressure to key figures in Wikileaks organization (including full bios of families and friends), "cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters," and a "media campaign to push the radical and reckless nature of Wikileaks activities." It went so far as to name Glenn Greenwald (and others) as essential supporters of Wikileaks, and opined that "if pushed [they] will choose professional preservation over cause." In short, it outlined illegal and certainly unethical activities that HB Gary Federal and friends would commit against Wikileaks if hired.
To top it off, it's found that the Justice Department recommended Hunton & Williams to Bank of America.
Everyone starts backpedaling - HB Gary Federal's parent company (HB Gary), their partners, the law firm, etc.

This was followed by a number of good analysis pieces - Glenn Greenwald wrote my favorite. The gall of these firms to write down their illegal activities, the complicity of all parties until it was leaked, the depth of the social connections linking these firms together - all suggest this was business as usual until the presentation was leaked. Clearly, you can call Aaron Barr is stupid, for many reasons (foremost of which was thinking he could mess with Anonymous). But perhaps the most important consequence of his stupidity lies deeper: he gave away the playbook.

The presentations outline the plan of attack of the establishment - though somewhat obvious, it is a disciplined, cohesive strategy that leverages the many weapons they possess: the capabilities of government and large organizations, access to the press, focused use of technology, lots of cash, and others.

Likewise, Anon, and more generally the masses who are disgruntled with the corporatocracy, should give those leaked presentations some serious study, and think critically about their own assets and strategy. Fundamentally, as Egypt and DDoS attacks show us, these groups have the power of the crowds. Digging deeper, we see that this power needs some structure to be unleashed, be it a Facebook or Twitter call to organize at Tahrir Square or the Low Orbit Ion Canon.

As time passes, both sides (and more broadly, all organizations desiring to influence public opinion and make change/maintain the status quo) will become more sophisticated in their approach. The centralized powers like HB Gary (corporations, trade groups, and governments, to name a few) will devote their resources to muddling the debate and spreading misinformation. A few of Burr's leaked emails describe powerful software that can manage large numbers of online personas - coherently linked social media and email accounts. These are being used to sway online discussions and convey the impression of consensus, which can be powerful in swaying public opinion. As an example, think about how easy it would be for a company to hire a blogger to disseminate propaganda and then use these personas and paid traffic to make it seem like the blog is generating a lot of traffic, giving it legitimacy. It's easy to see how an organization with resources can accomplish its ends in a totally opaque and seemingly organic fashion.

But fundamentally, the forces at work and the larger changes in the playing field favor the grassroots protests and Wikileaks of the world. The outsiders have real people behind their cause - and, in many cases, some pretty skillful hackers. It isn't hard to envision a world in which protests - be they against governments, corporations, or people - are taken to the next level.

Holding up signs outside an oil company whose drilling is killing indigenous people in Peru doesn't really do much. Conversely, educating everyone connected to the CEO - friends, family, etc. - about the atrocities the oil company is perpetrating can have a massive impact on the CEO's life. Imagine the effect of his/her 10 year old daughter, grotesque picture in hand, asking why her parent is responsible for the deaths of so may people.

This is but one example - the possibilities are nearly endless when you combine the ability for large, distributed undertakings of the crowd with a baseline level of organization and communication, which is already in place and only becoming crowd-friendlier. Thus, the future of civil disobedience and protests is open source communities coalescing around systems disruption - Egypt and the DDoS attacks are the tip of the iceberg.

These tactics will be used by all parties, but in the end I hopeful that the just causes will prevail far more often than not. The internet greatly increases the possibility for transparency, resulting in the greater spread of truth, around which the crowds rally to bring about change. Of course, the path will certainly be filled with confusion and setbacks - for example, the mass persona software programs mentioned above will certainly have success until internet denizens learn of their existence en masse and web companies respond by making social media fraud more difficult. But these will happen, and the freedom of information on the internet will generally work against such tactics, giving them shorter and shorter half-lives.

And so perhaps its naive optimism, but I think the true beneficiary of the sort of targeted systems disruption proposed by Aaron Barr (and carried out by countless others, in all likelihood) will be the disenfranchised crowds seeking justice.

Fun links

2011-02-16T14:41:00.000-08:00

Wanted to share some interesting stuff I came across over the past couple days (mostly via Reddit and Twitter). Also, have an interesting blog post coming trying to analyze the HB Gary stuff - stay tuned.

Hilary Clinton on Internet Freedom via GigaOm
Title pretty much sums it up. It's unfortunate (but expected) to see the Government yet again apply the double standard promoting all US Government interests rather than protect the web.

Shell's Worrisome Report on the Future of Oil via The Sietch Blog
When Shell throws its hands up and says "we're screwed," it's time to start worrying about oil. Just sayin'.

Really Cool Analysis of Twitter and Languages During Egypt's Revolution via KovasBoguta
Visualizes who was tweeting in what language, what kind of influence they had, and how news made its way over from Egyptians tweeting in the streets to mainstream news outlets in America. Very cool.

How Congress has no Insider Trading Rules via Democrat and Chronical
Depressingly obvious short piece about how members of congress can literally profit off of their inside knowledge, and, statistically speaking, do.

Mosanto Being Mosanto via Red, Green, and Blue
More of the same here. Nothing to see. These are not the seeds you're looking for. *Hand wave. Move along.

Glenn Greenwald's Original Piece on HB Gary/Wikileaks via Salon
A nice summary of what happened plus a characteristically fun rant on the state of corporate/govt collusion in this day and age. I'll hopefully have a post up with some analysis on the entire incident in the coming days.

Greplin launches public beta. A simple AJAX search engine that aggregates your email, calendar, social networking sites, etc. Very awesome.

Passion and Entrepreneurship

2011-02-15T08:17:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: this is a pretty banal post on a very cliched topic. If you want exciting/juicy, check out how Microsoft bought Nokia for a balmy $0B (thanks Scott).

So I woke up this morning with the goal of getting a post up on the blog. Procrastinating through some writers block, I got into a conversation with a friend who is trying to move from her second tier finance job in upstate NY to a first tier one.

When I mentioned I knew several start ups in Boston hiring (including Athleague!), she responded saying that startups are risky. Fair enough, so I asked her what she was passionate about; her response was deeply saddening: nothing.

[Rant]

What is this crazy world(/country/coast/collection of really cold Northeast cities) we live in? Our brightest graduates of supposedly best institutions of higher learning in the world finally enter the real world - with the passion so thoroughly beaten out of them that they see no better use of their time than to spend the most active and free days of their entire lives sitting at a computer, working on a modern-day abacus to help their boss (to help their boss to help their boss) use their existing pieces of paper (plus the ones they borrow at a discount from the government) to make more pieces of paper, far removed from (and completely apathetic to) any consequences of those abacus findings.

We enjoy the greatest wealth in all of human history, owing it all to the toils of adventurers and entrepreneurs, artists and teachers, explorers and doctors, scientists and musicians, engineers and authors (and 3rd world wage-slave labor and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources and indigenous populations - wait, wrong rant). And this is what we're reduced to. It's embarrassing.

[/Rant]

Who is to blame? Our schools? Our culture? Or is it you, for letting the external influences cause you to lose sight of who you are. I have no idea, and perhaps that's only the second most important question, the most important being: what is your passion?

The P word, as one our investors fondly reminds me, is one of the most important thing in life. Ask yourself what in your life gives you true, deep happiness. Specifically, ask yourself how these things are related to money, or if they are at all. The whispers of science have joined the wisdom of the ages and begun to pick away at the corporate-driven consumer culture that glorifies wealth and suppresses contentment.

Once you've answered this all-important question, the path from passion to lifestyle is that of the entrepreneur - understanding this system for what it is (a crazy, stupid, but opt-out-able set of rules), and developing a way out of the prison. It can be as simple as the mischevious, slacking banker who spends company time researching the model car he's building on the weekends, as ambitious as the man who resolves to set his country free, or as original as the seemingly crazy person who peacefully lives out his days in bliss on an ashram.

The only guarantees are death and taxes - the rest is up to you. Plot your escape.
_______
Reposted to test my Twitterfeed

Suboptimal Super (Bowl) Decisions

2011-02-07T15:48:00.000-08:00

So this stuff gets written about to death on the many NFL stats blogs, but it continues to boggle my mind and was a great excuse to crank out a post, so I figured I'd throw some thoughts up on the blog. I'm just going to comment briefly on one choice by either head coach in the waning minutes of the game.

Packers have the ball, 2nd and Goal, at the Steelers 7, and the Steelers have one timeout left. Short pass nets 2 yards, clock is running with about 3 minutes left. Inexplicably, the Steelers choose to let the clock run instead of using their last timeout. Let's take a closer look:

When the goal is to preserve as much time as possible, a timeout called on defense is much more valuable than one called on offense: on offense, a timeout saves you distinctly less than 40 seconds (because you're not going to burn all of your play clock), whereas on defense it saves you the full 40. So we conclude that the Steelers should use their timeout while on defense.

Next, they can either use it or wait until after 3rd down. However, waiting is a poor choice for a few reasons:

The Packers could score
The Packers could throw an incomplete pass, stopping the clock
A bit more subtly, the Steelers having no timeouts left would add some incentive for the Packers to run the ball, an outcome which is much less likely to produce a game-ending touchdown.

As it turned out, the 2) happened. So while the Steelers kept their timeout, the kickoff happened with 2:07 left to play. Worse, the kickoff took the clock below 2 minutes, wasting the 2 minute warning clock stoppage. Instead of getting the ball back with about 2:40 left to play and the 2 minute warning, they got it back with 2 minutes and a timeout - a big difference. Really, the Steelers should have called timeout after the Packers completed a short pass on 1st and Goal, and not even waited for 2nd down. Regardless, a poor choice by Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin.

Rewinding a bit, the Packers were faced with their own decision - whether or not to go for it on 4th and Goal from the 5 with 2:10 left, up by 3. Those new to the new-school football stats analysis would think kicking the field goal is a no-brainer - in reality, going for it is the obvious call. I'll let Brian Burke at Advanced NFL Stats walk you through the scenarios:

[The Packers] opted for the easy FG to go up by 6. The Steelers would now need a touchdown, but often, forcing a team to go for the win rather than the tie can be counter-productive. This might be a little abstract, but by channeling your opponent into a more aggressive, and likely more optimal risk/reward posture, might not be smart. In other word, even if GB fails on the 4th down TD attempt, the Steelers are left at or inside their 5 yd-line and are "thinking FG."

From the 5, conversions are successful 37% of the time. A successful conversion puts GB up by 10 points, sealing the win with a 1.00 WP. A failed conversion gives PIT the ball at their own 5 with 2:10 to play, worth 0.87 WP to GB. On net, the go-for-it option is worth a 0.92 WP.

FGs from the 5 are good 97% of the time. Going up by 6 and kicking off is with worth 0.75 WP. A missed FG puts the ball on the 20, worth 0.83 WP. On net the FG option is worth 0.75 WP.

WAIT! Did I just say that missing the FG would be better than making it? Yes, that's exactly what I said, and historically, that's exactly the case. The reason is likely because teams down by 3 play for the FG in that situation, while teams down by 6 are forced to play for the win. Once inside FG range, they pull up and stop taking risks, accepting a long FG attempt that, even if successful, only buys them a tie--0.50 WP. I suspect Tomlin would be thinking differently, so the answer to whether the Packers should have gone for it isn't so clear. But based on league-baseline numbers, and some counter-intuitive thinking, going for it would have been the better decision by large margin, about 0.15 WP.

The WP stuff can be a bit confusing - it means Win Percentage, the chance that a given team will win the game (historically based on the situation that they are in). So basically, going for it would mean the Packers would win 92% of the time, where as kicking a FG would mean a win 75% of the time. It makes sense if you think about it - even it the Packers don't convert, the Steelers are pinned deep in their territory, hoping to kick a FG to tie the game. Burke's last point about the impact of the various situations on play-calling is also an interesting one.

It's incredible how much these suboptimal decisions persist in football. It's been written about a bunch, but for both coaches to make such poor calls in the most important moments of the most important game of the year is quite astounding.

The Case for Twitter

2011-02-01T21:47:00.000-08:00

I realized it's been far too long since I've been a regular here, and I'm going to try to change that this year. I've been silent for a couple reasons: First, of course, is Athleague - we're continuing to grow the company and seeing some success. I'll try to be better about sharing our story, the various decisions that got us here, and the path forward.

Second, the fever pitch of the innovation/Y-Combinator/Silicon Valley/New-York-is-the-new-Valley/oh-great-now-the-government-is-getting-involved/every other web start up meme is just too high. When people get overly giddy about entrepreneurship, when I overhear gems like "so we'll be cashflow positive in 6 months," when people forget the blood, sweat, and tears that define start ups - I get worried. I hope I'm wrong.

That said, as much as I miss California, I must admit it's a little nice living out in Boston, away from most of the hype, surrounded by snow, and able to just focus and work. But I'm going to try to restart the whole blogging thing, and I wanted to kick off 2011 getting back to the roots - some casual technology musings. Most of my friends aren't on Twitter, and I'd like to make the case for it. Note - anyone who is reading this blog is probably a web nerd, and will find the below useless. In general, this is a pretty poor/boring post, mostly for myself to get back into blogging. As always, proceed wary of wasting your time.

To start, "aren't on Twitter" is an understatement - from anecdotal evidence, Twitter is the web equivalent of mushrooms and cilantro (sidenote: your author believes both are awesome). More so than most websites, it's loved or hated. More interesting is how few of my friends are on Twitter - I'd say around 5% or less. Most haven't tried it, and they maintain the view it's full of narcissistic babble. Not that that isn't correct, but I thought I'd outline why I use Twitter, and why I think it's awesome:

1) Content discovery. More than anything else, I discover great content on Twitter - so much so that it could be my most essential source. Google Reader gives me everything I want but few recommendations, since so few people use it - it's more a great way to read what I know I'm going to read. Beyond that, Reddit (and it's crazy/awesome community) has earned a special place in my heart, but it's often quite trivial (not a bad thing, necessarily).

Twitter combines the best of these two - I get content I wouldn't have otherwise found, and I can easily control for quality. I can't tell you how many great articles/videos/pictures I found because Twitter.

2) Keeping up with organizations I'm interested in. Any company or non-profit worth its salt has a well updated Twitter feed. By following them, I'm easily notified about what they're up to. Yes, they have a Facebook page, but, imo, Twitter is a much better form factor for this. Facebook will rarely bubble this stuff up to your feed, but on Twitter you get short, simple updates in an unintrusive fashion.

3) It's funny.

4) The narcissism - I want to try to address this head on. When it came to Twitter, some of my friends commented, "I just don't have anything interesting to say" or "why do people think anyone else cares what they have to say."

Well, some people do have interesting things to say. Reference #3. More than that, it's a fun way to keep in touch with friends. One of my rooommates works at a private equity firm - there are weeks I don't see him between Monday and Friday (and I usually don't sleep until 1 or 2 am). However, he has a hilarious, private Twitter feed in which he spouts random musings from his day. They help him share his (often brutal) day and connect with his friends all over the country.

This is just one example - like any medium, some people will abuse it, some people will produce stuff you want to see. You don't not watch TV because Jersey Shore is on, do you? Or stay away from Facebook because that one friend's annoying status updates? Your and others' narcissism will find its ways to shine, with or without a microblogging service. Don't pretend that staying away from Twitter somehow doesn't make you narcissistic. :)

5) Learn. To me, this was the initial draw and still is the most important. Twitter enables a new kind of communication, one that changes the human dynamics. By no means did Twitter solely enable mass uprisings in Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, and others, but it clearly played a role. I hate how "realtime" has become an overused buzz word, but it aptly describes what Twitter does. The service has implications for the way we communicate, organize, conduct marketing, and countless other applications.

So there - maybe some of you will try it out. I don't have much to say, but you can follow me @TheMishra, and if you shoot me your Twitter handle, I'd love to read your contributions to the Twitter-sphere.

Strategic Government (Part 2 of 2)

2010-07-08T07:47:00.000-07:00

In the first part of this post, I pointed out some flaws in the way our government is set up, and a few examples of how these flaws manifest themselves in American society. In this post, I'll try to flesh out the philosophy that I think should be guiding our government - strategic and systems-level thinking.

Each aspect of an operation can be broken down into a system - there are inputs, outputs, and procedures for operation. The key insight of strategic government is the understanding that the system is not static - each of the components of the system can, will, and should change over time. Healthcare should use newer, safer, and cheaper technologies, teaching should incorporate psychological research to improve methods, and so on.

The question them becomes what principles should underlie these systems - what should the strategy be.

Today's government agencies face similar issues - they can grow corrupt and impotent. The former is solved by keeping things as local and transparent as possible. And the latter, as I see it, can only be solved one way - competition. Competition provides the motivation to innovate and ensures a higher caliber of personel in an organization. Say we had competing FDAs, education systems, etc. - agencies (local, regional, or national) would shine and rise to prominence, but then, over time, grow brittle and corrupt, only to be replaced by better ones. This would give the power to the people - want to advance local, sustainable farming? Start an agency or buy from the one that promotes it.

(You could argue that this is possible in today's world, but my whole point is that the existence of government agencies impedes progress. The regulations imposed by the FDA on meat providers makes it difficult and expensive for small farms to get their products to market. The FDA has a monopoly on the rules for producing meat and thus no reason to innovate. And today's FDA is bloated, opaque, and full of industry insiders - you can almost be certain that a few FDA officials are friends with the owners of the large slaughterhouses, who have made it clear they don't want the competition that small farms would introduce.)

Furthermore, we should strive to harness people's passion to reduce cost and increase innovation. Open source principles - which allow anyone in the community to propose ideas and conduct research - are a great way to accomplish exactly this.

An example - an open source education board tasked with setting teaching methods and materials instead of the status quo, where executive boards based on seniority essentially set the agenda and everyone else must follow. How could this play out?

A very close friend of mine teaches in the Bronx and is having success using novel methods to stimulate his 8th grade class's interest in literature and poetry. If he could post videos of his class sessions online to community of teachers nationwide, his practices could be "voted up" (much like videos on YouTube) and employed by other teachers (or, conversely, ignored because his peers don't think they work).

Let's take a closer look - what would happen in this scenario? His methods would be debated, teachers would argue and get mad. Factions would form as people, being only human, would take the new ideas as new religions or personal affronts. But, over time, best practices would survive and thrive, and more students would thus have a better education. Which brings me to my next point...

Many would argue this sort of system is chaos - and they're right. It's messy and crazy and nuts. It is in fact true that there will be times where the various FDA-type organizations are more inadequate, resulting in less informed purchasing decisions and potentially more dangerous food. It's a scary thought, one that typically kills this line of thinking. Without a federal government to regulate food, how will I know I'm not buying poison?

But this is the wrong question - we should be asking if this system is better or worse than the status quo. While a decentralized approach seems to open us up to the negative elements of chance, a closer looks reveals we're always exposed to these elements due to the inadequate nature of our current agencies - the Mad Cow and Salmonella scares happen even with the FDA. It is unclear whether they would occur more frequently in a libertarian system, and they may actually happen less often due to the decrease in collusion/corruption (see the BP oil spill). And the upside is enormous - more quickly evolving standards from competition means we don't have to wait years for the FDA to finally recognize that trans fat is bad for you.

This is an important point. Humans are risk averse but not good at identifying risks - we are more scared of terrorist attacks than car crashes, of car crashes than hamburgers, when the burgers are causing way more deaths than crashes and attacks combined. The government run agencies give us a sense of safety, a theoretically bulletproof system. State run schools? Great, my child and every child will get an education. The FDA? Excellent, I'll get food I know is safe and maybe good for me. In contrast, the shortcomings of the libertarian system are plain for everyone to see - when you have multiple FDAs competing, some things will slip through the cracks. We must understand that the big government narratives aren't reality - our schools are filled with awful teachers, and the FDA approving cornfed beef doesn't make it good for you. And when you compare the flaws of the two approaches in reality, it's tough not to conclude that big government agencies tend to be much more harmful in the long run.

Of course there are remaining issues - the devil is always in the details. How would such organizations get funding? How would they serve the poor? Defense and foreign affairs is another area in which I'm largely rudderless. I'm more of the persuasion that the problems can be dealt with in mostly in isolation (i.e. you could layer solutions to those things on top of this type of government), but I've heard some very convincing arguments of the opposite.

However, these are solvable problems - the ones the government should be solving. Instead of trying to build the best healthcare bureaucracy possible, they should be focused on designing a system that forces transparency and accountability and allows for adaptability, competition, and entrepreneurship to solve problems. Monopolies will inevitably become self-serving and ineffective - from a particular agency to the entire government. Obviously, you would need some degree of centralization - my point is more that decentralization and open source can be employed more often than the are today to effectively solve problems.

This should sound familiar - it was what the founding fathers tried to do. They understood the best government was one that was local and always changing. They believed the Constitution should be rewritten every 50 years and that states should be laboratories for democracy. They even gave us the right to bear arms to remove the government's monopoly on violence. Think about how deeply they understood this principle, and far removed from their vision we are today.

It's a messy process, but I believe this approach would be way better than what we have today. We need to approach government at a level of systems engineering, of strategy and not tactics.

I'll try to follow this up with some specific case studies. Clearly, any sort of transition would have to be well thought out and would take much time.

Would love to hear feedback as my views on this topic are far from certain. Credit for this post goes to a few brilliant individuals and authors, as none of the ideas here are my own.

Strategic Government (Part 1 of 2)

2010-07-08T07:11:00.001-07:00

So I wrote a really long blog post about our government, and upon finishing I realized I was better off splitting into two halves. This one will address the structural problems I see today, and the second some potential solutions. These are written for fun - to make myself crystalize thoughts into tangible points and to get feedback to add new elements and ideas to my thinking. Make of them what you will. (Also, apologies for the long gap in the "Healthy Living" series - and, unfortunately, it's going to continue. I will get back to it when work and life allow.)

Today, the prevailing ideology regardless of political party is that the federal government, with its power and resources, is the proper institution to provide for or regulate the basic rights we've defined in our country (everything from food/water to education and health care). This is especially true when the poor are involved - locked in a cycle of poverty and unattractive to private innovation, they would be in a far worse situation than the status quo without government run programs and standards. Any societal problem that arises is solved the same way: a government agency is tasked to fix it.

When we turn to centralized government to solve problems and regulate industries, the quality of service we get is directly dependent on the quality of people in the government - if we have rockstars at every agency, we'll get a great return on our tax dollars and enjoy the efficiencies of scale that central organization provides. However, we have no built-in methodology for assuring this outcome outside of elections, which are indirect and, empirically speaking, largely ineffective.

This approach - creating government solutions to problems - is a tactical and not a strategic one. Today, our government goes from fire to fire, trying to put it out without developing any sort of broader strategy for how to fight fires. This works fine, especially at first - when the passionate and unselfish individuals who created the specific fire-fighting solution are still around (be it an agency or government program) - but eventually the programs grow bloated and, in my opinion, less and less able to handle the problems they're charged to solve.

This seems self-evident - the SEC has no control over Wall St., our public education system is leaving many children behind, the FDA is classifying french fries as vegetables at schools (any wonder we're so fat?), and our offshore drilling oversight has allowed oil rigs to basically have no backup plan. Be it corruption or ineptitude, it's hard to find a government agency that is widely acknowledged to be doing a good job. (I'm sure I'm overlooking stuff here so I'd love to hear some counter examples.)

The status quo has a clear predisposition to failure. As government agents strengthen their ties to industry (formally by past work experience and informally through social networks), corruption naturally becomes institutionalized, for very human reasons: if you're friends with the people that your policies are going make life tougher for, you're going to think twice before making those policies. Throw in the obvious bribes and favors, and it's easy to see why the system is doomed to fail.

The takeaway is that government should be concerned with strategy, not tactics. The approach is not "how do we build the best FDA?", then "how do we build the best SEC?", and so on - it's "how do we build the best regulatory agency?" - a systems engineering viewpoint. How do you create a system in which any industry can be sustainably regulated, be it by an outside agency or laying the groundwork for self-regulation?

This is obviously a very complex question. The intricate web of incentives and the diversity of human nature make any system fallible in a large number of ways. People work for or with the government for a number of reasons: they're passionate about their cause, they want a steady job, they know they can make easy money from bribes and favors, etc. They are motivated by vastly separate goals and desires.

The approach to government needs to take all of this into account. The purpose is to build an overall strategy - we're looking to maximize benefit (progress, justice, effectiveness) and minimize harm (waste, corruption, ineffectiveness). No system is perfect but the point is we need to be thinking about these broader issues and distilling them into sets of rules that can then be applied to each specific iteration of the regulation, utilities, and resource problems.

I'll lay out a very rough groundwork for potential solutions in a subsequent post. Again, the purpose is to get feedback and new perspectives, so feel free to share your thoughts. I've clearly left many important points out - either by choice for brevity or, more likely, by ignorance and poor analysis.

"Healthy Living" - The Tenets (part 2)

2010-03-23T14:48:00.000-07:00

So this post has been severely delayed. Apologies. One of the biggest reasons I'm doing this is to get myself to blog more, and it's already not working. Clearly this doesn't bode well, but I'll carry on and try to get better at following through on this.

So here we go:

Sleep habits - This is a big one, big enough to sneak in Part 1 if I hadn't rambled on for so long. Sleep is one of the biggest unknowns in science. For the life of us, we can't figure out why we do it. We can't take any particular bodily function and say that sleep factors directly into its existence. But we do know that a lack of sleep results in a host of negative side effects - increased risk of diabetes, reduced cognitive throughput, weight gain, impaired judgment, decreased attention span, and more.

Regardless of your religious beliefs, for this lifetime, your body is you. When you do something bad to your body, it tries to find ways to tell you this. If skimping on this one activity causes this many ill effects that we can already measure, and if we don't even understand why we sleep in the first place, think about all the harmful effects a lack of sleep causes that we don't yet know about.

Or, in short, there are very few things core to our existence. Sleeping is one of them.

Nutrition - Similar concept to sleep in many ways. Eating food is, again, one of the few things we absolutely must do to stay alive. Most of you know my take on this: natural, home cooked, fresh, etc. is the way to go. Packaged, fast, synthesized food should be avoided. If you've been living in a cave and haven't read any Michael Pollan, get at it. He spells it out much better than I ever could, especially the tagline for his 2nd most recent book, In Defense of Food, which reads: Eat food, not too much, mostly plans (food as opposed to food-like substances, i.e. almost anything in a package). Nice and simple summation of the philosophy I'm going to try to follow.

Joint/body impact vs fun - This is the first of a stranger set of beliefs that will guide the redesign. One of the biggest areas of rethinking I've been trying to do has been in the area of exercise. I started to question some assumptions I had held my entire life - most fundamentally, the harder your train, the healthier you are.

When I thought about this, this doesn't make much sense. Why is doing crazy cardio that keeps your heart rate at 160+ for extended periods of time good for you? The heart, like any machine designed by nature or man, is optimized for medium usage. It's not good for your car to run at 6,000 rpms on a consistent basis. Why should our bodies be any different? It's a simple materials issue - pushing a system to the high end of its performance capabilities will strain the materials involved, be they metal or living tissue.

Even if you're not with me there, I'm assuming you'll agree that joint impact is an issue. Despite the new barefoot running movement, there is no getting around the plain truth that running is probably not great for your knees. Ditto for other high impact exercises. The machine analogy applies again - if you strike a system with higher degrees of force, you're more likely to cause long term damage.

But on the flip side, some high impact activities are just plain awesome. There are few things in life more fun than a great game of football or more exhilarating than a 20 degree run through Boston Common (a newfound passion of mine, though by no means am I sad to see the winter go).

So my goal will be to optimize along these two goals - if I go for a run, I'll try to keep it short and pay attention to how my knees feel, and if I'm going to be running around for a long period of time, I better be having a blast (playing a game of football, for example).

Sports - Along those lines, I also want to play more sports. They're fun, and the competition gets the juices flowing.

Trying new things - This is also a bit of a subset of the joint impact vs. fun point. Pushing the bounds of what you know and putting yourself in uncomfortable situations is always a great learning experience and a great time. So, when I'm doing active things, I want to make an effort to experiment with activities I haven't tried. Martial arts, rock climbing, and wind surfing are a few I'm kicking around right now.

I think that's it for now - did I miss anything? I'm going to synthesize these into an exact regimin, which I'll describe in my next post. And after that, it's time to get at it. Hopefully I can stay disciplined and get the next post up soon.

"Healthy Living" - The Tenets (part 1)

2010-03-10T23:56:00.001-08:00

I think this is a fairly important post in the still young "Healthy Living" series. When I decided I wanted to blog about this stuff, this post was what I saw as the cornerstone - a hopefully comprehensive list of the tenets around which I'd like to build a healthy lifestyle. So, without further ado...

(Actually, that's a lie. I think I'm going to split this up into two posts - this one will be about the two larger issues, and the next one will elaborate on more specific issues.)

Holistic approach - Above all, I think there has been an unfortunate downside of the emergence of science, which is that our logic has tended toward reductive rather than holistic thinking. We're told to throw a ball farther we should lift weights. We're instructed to avoid this or that nutrient (fat or salt or sugar). We're given drugs for any and all ailments.

This doesn't make any sense. You inhabit one body. Everything is connected. To some, this may sound like new age-y rubbish, but I imagine most people reading this generally agree. However, I want to take it further - I want to explore this link. My hypothesis is that it's extremely strong. By cultivating good habits in all the various spheres of life, I believe you can develop overall resilience and competence - physical, emotional, and otherwise.

What does this mean in reality? I think that, for example, if you sleep well, you're better at handling both a bad break up and a tough day at work, and you're quicker on your feet (again, both mentally and physically). Avoiding fast food probably improves your creativity or mood, in some way, and all sorts of other stuff that we don't see as intuitive today.

And I think we know this - our bodies tell us in their own way - but our science has convinced us otherwise, and our minds are too busy to hear the message. Which brings us to tenet #2:

Quieting of the mind - Until very recently, humans have had relatively few forms of entertainment. While this sounds awful to us, I'm guessing it wasn't so bad. People tend to view their experience relative to their surroundings, and it's hard to miss TV when it hasn't been invented yet.

And with this lack of distractions, premodern cultures had a much easier time turning off their brains by focusing on something simple. Almost every culture ritualized this process in some way: yoga, prayer, and meditation are just a few examples. The benefits of these activities are hard, if not impossible to quantify or even qualify - in the Zen tradition, for instance, you are actively told to not desire any particular outcome from your practice, so much so that desiring an outcome defeats the entire purpose of the meditation.

Think about how crazy that sounds. Any modern viewpoint would write such a mindset off on face. But doing so inherently blinds you to any potential benefits and wisdom that such a philosophy possesses.

To make this a little more credible, I will say somewhat paradoxically that this is based on personal experience - in the 2+ years I've been practicing Zazen (sitting meditation) with some degree of frequency (not to imply I have any degree of proficiency - I'm awful - but luckily that's not the point), I've certainly found it to have positive effects. The tradition's point refers to the intention of the process - you're not supposed to go into it or practice it with any "gaining idea" (reason for doing it).

So I intend to make this a strong tenet in the lifestyle redesign. While meditation or yoga are obvious examples of this, it by no means stops there. The idea is to focus on being in the moment - walks, runs, or games of catch can be very meditative and mind-quieting in nature, if approached with the correct mindset.

There you have it - two of the main points of what I'm trying to do. Take them for what you will. More to come - stay tuned.

"Healthy Living" - Personal Introduction

2010-03-04T00:31:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: This is a pretty boring post. I think it's important from the standpoint of fully introducing the concept, so I wrote it, but it's mostly about my health history. The next one will be much more interesting, I promise.

I think the next logical post after describing what I'm trying to do with this "Healthy Living" series should be about my "health" past and present - where I am today. I'll follow that up with a post about the core tenants I'm going to try to adhere to in designing the lifestyle changes and finish introducing the concept with the first pass at a specific plan of guidelines I'll be following.

So, most of you know me, but I'm a 6 foot Indian kid, usually weighing slightly less than 165 lbs. As a rule, Indian men tend to store body fat in the waist, build smaller but denser muscles, and generally be of slighter build. I certainly conform to this body type. I tried to maintain a heavier weight during high school (for football purposes) and hovered in the 180-190 lb. area, but even then I didn't gain much actual size (another characteristic of my body type).

Since then, I've realized 165 lbs. or slightly below is a good equilibrium weight for me - it tends to stay in that region almost irrespective of my health habits (which can vary a fair amount but not drastically so). I think that it means it's a good weight for me. Has anyone else found they have a natural "equilibrium weight" by the way?

That all may sound a bit off topic, but I think it's important to note that body types vary widely, and it's something one should keep in mind when designing a workout plan. Looking at my family and maybe Indian people in general, we tend to have skinny joints, which can often mean knee and hip problems down the road. That means I probably want to do things that limit strain on my joints - keeping my weight down and avoiding high impact exercises, for example. (That's far from a scientific analysis and I have no idea if Indian people as a whole are more likely to have joint problems. I'm mostly writing from personal experience - please disagree if you so desire.)

Speaking of which, I should probably describe my past/present habits. I have weekly goals of hitting the gym 5 times a week, which I do probably 85-90% of the time. Workouts usually consist of one pure cardio (20-30 minute run), then 3-4 days of short cardio (5-10 minutes to get the heart pumping) and lifting (major muscle groups being legs, back/biceps, chest/triceps, and shoulders - sometimes I'll combine legs and shoulders), and then maybe a day of yoga (which I'm not very good about fitting in).

Past that, my second goal is meditating 5 times a week for 30 minutes, which I actually get to 65-80% of the time. Right now, the meditation is all of the zazen variety (good explanation here), but I'd like to branch out and this will probably be another thing I change going forward.

Finally, my eating habits are good, but not great. I haven't done a very good job documenting them, but I'll try to summarize as accurately as possible. I'm really good about breakfast - eggs, toast, fruit, maybe some cereal. Past that, I do some cooking, though not often beyond the pasta and friend rice realm. That said, I do a pretty good job getting fruits and veggies, but not a very good one by any means. I stick to whole wheat bread and brown rice almost exclusively and haven't had fast food for ages. I try to go vegetarian every other day - it doesn't always work out that way, but I'm pretty happy with my meat intake. That said, I eat out probably 3-5 times per week, at least 1 (and sometimes 2) of which are Dominos. It's not good for you by any means, but $6 for what amounts to 2 meals (medium two topping pizza) is hard to pass up on a start up budget. For what it's worth, I typically tell them to go light on the cheese. :)

Anyway, I think that's about everything. Stay tuned.

"Healthy Living" - A New Blogging Series

2010-03-01T22:57:00.000-08:00

So I was in between sets at the gym a couple weeks ago, looking around at all the people straining to lift weights and zoning out on cardio machines, when I started to wonder: what makes one healthy?

And as I went through the mindless motions of the mundane rowing machine, I couldn't help but come to the conclusion that what I was doing probably was only as "healthy" as I had managed to convince myself it was.

What about pulling on the handle was actually good for me? Sure, maybe it worked out my biceps and upper back muscles. But what did that do? What made those muscles more important than others? I wasn't at the gym for cosmetic reasons, so why was I here?

That, of course, got me to the bigger picture - in our age of corn-fed beef, packaged food, chic yoga classes, and mega gyms, what does it mean to be healthy?

So this new blogging series is going to be my attempt to answer that question while simultaneously making a series of lifestyle changes (which I'll blog about as part of the series). I'm going to spend the next few posts introducing the series by describing my current habits, fleshing out what I believe is healthy (and by all means feel free to disagree), and laying out my plan for the changes I plan to make.

The goal is threefold: mostly, I think writing about this will help hold me to the changes I'm making. Second, I've always believed journal-keeping has enormous self-reflective benefits, and I'm hoping writing about the experience will help me get more out of it. (Sidenote: dream journal keeping really does promote lucid dreaming, or at least it seems like that so far.) Finally, I want to open the process up to feedback/comments/criticism from my many (read: 3 or 4) readers.

Fundamentally, I think this stuff is really important. The modern world introduces quite a bit of stuff (physical and emotional) into our lives, so much so we tend to forget that we're organisms. We just need to eat, drink, and sleep. Health is wealth, and all that.

Enjoy, and try not to come to the conclusion I'm a complete idiot.

Dear Idiots at NBC

2010-02-28T20:50:00.000-08:00

I wanted to sincerely thank you for reaching a new low in Olympic coverage. Your recipe of distilling events to the top 5 competitors, Americans, and crashes/wipe outs made for a fantastic viewing experience.

Seriously, how do you suck so much? It's 2010. Stream every event. Live. Archive the video so it's easy to access after the event. You think it's ok to target the mass market by synthesizing, tape delaying, refusing to post any video online until 1-2 days after the event (and even then making it impossible to find), and adding your inane profile pieces. It's not.

Let me let you in on a little not-so-secret. You're pissing off your most loyal customers. The very small percentage of people who actually want to watch the Olympics. No, I don't want your synthesized version of bobsledding. I want to watch every run for the top 20 teams (and every wipe out, of course). I want to watch it live. I'm happy to sit through a minute long ad for every 5-10 minutes of actual event.

Contrast that to what I actually did. DVR the event, skip everything except for the action, and hate your guts for continuing to ruin one of the modern miracles of sport, the Olympics.

And here is the kicker: Most of us don't give a crap about the Olympics. A fraction of that most of us will watch it, maybe. That fraction of your precious mass market is going to watch whether you stream or not.

Get it together, NBC. Not only are you pissing us off, you're leaving considerable money on the table. Oh, and try to make your website and iPhone app navigable next time around.

A Way Forward for the Dems (and why Massachusetts was a good thing)

2010-01-21T21:05:00.000-08:00

As a new resident of the Bay State (seriously, don't they know the SF Bay is much more important than the one they have here? :), I was able to get a bit of a closer look at the special election that vaulted Scott Brown to the Senate.

In terms of responses, panic seems to be the norm. I'm not saying that's not justified, but I just don't see it the same way. I'm hugely uneducated when it comes to politics, but I felt like putting my voice out there, so take this post for what it's worth:

Let's start with a bit of history. I'm going to begin with a bold argument - the "60 seat majority" was a bad thing for the Democrats. I think the entire concept is a little misleading. For starters, that 60 is really 58 Dems and 2 Independents (most frustratingly, Joe Lieberman). More importantly, Democrat Senators aren't all alike - the ones from Arkansas and Nebraska hold a somewhat separate set of beliefs from the ones in California, and must respond to vastly different constituencies.

So when it came time to fix health care, the first bill introduced didn't jive with every Senator's vision, and the inter-party negotiating/bickering began. Had some of those more conservative Democratic Senators actually been Republican, the dynamic would have been much different - the Republicans would have had to decide whether they actually wanted to filibuster a popular health care bill (back then, it was polling very well).

Think about how different that would have been - instead of a summer of prolonged debate, an opportunity for Republicans to spread misinformation about the bill far and wide, they would have had to respond, immediately - are we going to filibuster this popular bill, or not?

Side note: The whole "60 seat majority" thing has caused us to forget that filibustering has major public opinion downsides - it's seen as obstructionist and partisan. I think we're going to remember this soon.

We all know what actually happened - the prolonged debate did take place, the forces that be, well organized as they are, managed to convince a relatively uneducated public that the bill was toxic, and nothing got passed until December.

(I'm really not trying to be partisan here - my own thoughts on the health care bill are very mixed. It appeals to my liberal ideals but betrays my libertarian persuasions. That's a conversation for another day. I mean to deal in facts - the Tea Party-ers and insurance companies managed to steer the conversation to inane and fear-inducing things like death panels. Through mostly these tactics - framing of issues rather than the issues themselves - the bill become unpopular. And, let's face it - the public is absolutely uneducated when it comes to the state of health care. No one knows whats going, even people who should. Which is part of the problem, actually.)

In the process, the Democrats, the President, and pretty much anyone in favor of reform took a beating at the polls (and not to mention, the bill got very watered down). A giant, good-for-nothing mess.

But I digress. This post is about the future, not the past. What to do now? Here is the playing field: Health care hasn't yet passed and is still fairly unpopular. The public has lost the forest for the trees - the focus is no longer on the problem, the fact that the status quo will make us more bankrupt than the bill (I think that's true - correct me if I'm wrong), but on rage and anger at government spending and size. The people who the bill will help, the costs it will save, the necessity of the thing - all have been forgotten (even/especially by the beneficiaries of the bill).

But we must not forget the flip side of the coin: there are still issues to be solved, and now the Republicans have to actually exercise the threat of filibuster if and when they please.

So what is the way forward?

Step one is reminding the public what they have forgotten, and then getting health care off their minds. Now, if only there were a publicized stage where a charismatic speaker would have an unfiltered voice to remind the public of the bill's merits. Oh, wait, there is - the State of the Union.

This is the perfect forum for the President to remind us why he's the Man: by sticking to his guns. He needs to go up and acknowledge the criticism and hit back, tactfully. Facts, figures, emotional persuasion. Tell us stories of who it's going to help. Tell us stories of some of the tens of thousands of people who lost their grandmothers, spouses, or kids because of our broken health care system. (Do I have that stat right?) Remind us of the problem, and tell us how the bill will fix it. Shine light on the misinformation spread about the bill and channel anti-corporation rage - not too much, but just enough.

Then pivot to the future - cracking down on the corporations: big insurance, big oil, big whatever else, and...

Step two: Wall Street. I've heard rumors of a special tax on banks that received bailouts. That's a little two baldly popular for my taste, but it's a start. Even better, there has been talk of a sort of reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act (separation of commercial and investment banking, essentially).

This is brilliant. It left my favorite conservative financial/economic blogger dumbfounded and ecstatic. (Seriously, he's great, and he makes a lot of sense. He's also a riot to read and absolutely crazy. I would love to meet the guy.)

It's so brilliant because it does two things simultaneous - tap deeply into populist anger and accomplish something real and necessary. The support for Glass-Steagall-type reinstatement comes from all fronts - liberal and conservative economists, bloggers, and pundits - and it will do much to blunt the growing conservative/Tea Party movement.

With huge majorities, the Democrats will dictate the agenda. At this point, the Republicans will have two alternatives - go along with financial reform (and cede serious momentum) or oppose/filibuster it, allowing the Dems to wear the crown of the populist party.

There are roadblocks - health care and a second stimulus come to mind. But these can be handled. The former needs to be passed, and quickly, to get it off the public's mind. This is essential - get the Senate bill through the House, get it signed, and let the public forget about it. Tack stuff onto it after the 2010 elections.

The latter may be a little trickier. The Tea Party-ers will be out in full force, decrying the era of big government and spending. The President needs to use the State of the Union and the bully pulpit throughout the year to link the recession and debt to Bush while simultaneously reminding the public that he tried to get us out of the recession with as little spending as possible, but that didn't fix unemployment.

It's going to be a tough sell, but that's why Obama is Obama.

From there, it's focusing on popular bills - I'm not up with politics enough to know exactly what they are, but I'm pretty sure they're there, and tempting the filibuster whenever possible.

So, in short, this is how I truly believe the Dems can seriously minimize losses come November (or maybe even break even):

Use the SOTU to set the record straight on health care and turn the focus to Wall Street and the economy/unemployment.
Pass health care asap, likely through the House (get it together, idiots), and push modifications till later. Get it off the public's mind.
Push serious finance reform, focusing on Glass-Steagall.
Minimize damage if a second stimulus is necessary by the spectre of Bush and honest attempt to fix the problem with as little money as possible that was the first stimulus.
Focus on popular issues and force the Republicans to use the filibuster (often at their own peril).

There you have it - a complete amateur's take on how to navigate 2010. I'm sure I'm wrong for 3120329 reasons, but writing this has been a fun thought exercise. Also, I know "step one" and "step two" that I wrote about above don't line up with the 5 step process laid out a few sentences ago, but whatever. I have to get back to work.

(Basic) CMS Question

2009-12-10T11:52:00.001-08:00

Hi there - posting this question for web guys who know a thing or two about the architecture of Content Management Systems.

Here is what we have to do - we're going to be giving a number of videos with a bunch of different tags (male, football, age range, etc.). When a user signs into our site, we have to match that user's demographic (which we will separate out into tags, so that users will also be tagged) to potential videos' tags so that we can display an appropriate video.

On top of that, we want to rotate videos - if a user's tags matches him/her to 10 potential videos, we want to make sure we're showing him/her something new each time - so we have to keep track of which videos have already viewed (or haven't been viewed).

So yeah, any advice for the best way to design/build this sort of CMS would be great. Thanks all.

Global Warming, Climategate, and Sanity

2009-12-06T09:59:00.000-08:00

In the couple weeks since the climate emails leaked, the responses have been fast and furious. Skeptics have pointed to the emails as the smoking gun, the proof of the conspiracy behind global warming. And climate change believers have brushed the emails off as merely the manipulation of a few data points.

(Disclaimer - I like to think of myself as neither a skeptic nor a believer, but simply a logical person. Read on and decide for yourself.)

And by all means, I think this sort of distortion of data and corruption of science is wrong. But what's disappointing, to me, is that emails haven't caused anyone of importance to say the obvious: Climate science is not a science.

Climate science is a manufactured concept to motivate the masses to action because the short-sightedness and selfishness of man keeps him (and her) from realizing the following logical progression:

Humans have done tangible harm to local environments and continue to do so.
We've seen the repercussions of these harms - to name a few: drastically lowered fertility of Midwest soils, mercury poisoning in fish, polluted rivers and ground water supplies, and, most importantly, the fact that our kids will almost certainly never taste the deliciousness of blue fin tuna due to overfishing aka commercial raping of the oceans.
These harms eventually directly impact humans by decreasing the Earth's capability to provide for human survival (each of the above do this to some extent).
There is a link between scale of destruction and magnitude of harms - if the destruction of the environment continues, there will inevitably be global consequences.
And, most importantly - Keeping these bad things from happening requires a reduction in standard of living and a lowering of economic efficiency.

Climate change/CO2 levels is simply the most global and lowest hanging fruit, so it's getting the most attention. There are many more issues that need attention, of course.

Unfortunately, humans are oftentimes too selfish, passive, and short-term thinking to take pro-active action on environmental issues (see: extinction of the American Buffalo, South American rain forest destruction, etc.) and issues in general (national debt, health care, social security, etc.). So those trying to avoid long term, global environmental damage are forced, by an unmotivated public and an opposition so attached to their creature comforts that they cannot accept "better safe than sorry" as a sufficient reason to take action, to wrap their clause in a cloak of science.

So to those who oppose action on environmental issues: It's going to hurt the economy. It's also the right thing to do. Please grow up.

Supernova Application

2009-11-16T11:34:00.001-08:00

Yes, I know this blog has been quiet. And this isn't really even a post. I apologize.

However, one of my favorite Wharton profs, Professor Kevin Werbach, just offered free admission and demo space at Supernova (in SF, Dec 1-3), and I figured I'd throw our name in hat.

Athleague is a web start up aimed at amateur sports league and club organization. Our product allows league organizers to seamlessly administrate their sports league (or leagues), with features including online sign ups and payment, scheduling, ref tracking, and real time communication. It's being used at numerous college intramural programs throughout the country, including the Kansas University (20,000 intramural athletes, all organizing their sports life through Athleague), and Boston College (8,000 intramural athletes).

We're branching out from the college intramural space to attack a number of other verticals in the amateur sports space and are currently working with a Fortune 500 sports apparel company to deliver an integrated web experience for amateur athletes never before seen on the web.

Our investors include Jeff Fluhr (Founder/CEO StubHub), Sanjay Mehrotra (Founder/President SanDisk), Alex Doll (Founder/CFO PGP), and Anu Nigam (Founder Hi5). Our board includes Lee Hower (Partner at Point Judith Capital, early employee at X.com/PayPal, and founding member of LinkedIn). And our engineers are the best of the best - MIT alums, one of whom was a member of the 8 man IdeaLab team that made Picasa.

We're an exciting young start up in a hot space on the internet - using web tools to actively enhance your real, non-web life. Our functionality gives us key insights into the intersection between online and offline user behavior, allowing for new and original marketing opportunities. Hope to see you at SuperNova!

Looking for Web Developers

2009-07-20T13:47:00.000-07:00

Athleague is looking for PHP/MySQL developers to add to our team, both in full time or part time capacities. We prefer the Boston area, but most of all we're just looking for quality.

You can email me at rmishra [at] athleague.com - we'll shell out a $500 for a referral that turns into a full time hire. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Iranian Student Quote

2009-06-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you something. For about three decades our nation has been humiliated and insulted by this regime. Now Iranians are united again one more time after 1979 Revolution. We are a peaceful nation. We don’t hate anybody. We want to be an active member of the international community. We don’t want to be isolated. Is this much of a demand for a country with more than 2,500 years of civilization? We don’t deny the Holocaust. We do accept Israel’s rights. And actually, we want — we want severe reform on this structure. This structure is not going to be tolerated by the majority of Iranians. We need severe reform, as much as possible.

- Mohammad, an Iranian Student in Tehran. Quote from a CNN interview with him - full article here. Worth a read.

Thoughts on Iran

2009-06-20T11:09:00.001-07:00

With the incredible events going on in Iran, I couldn't keep this blog silent. A few thoughts, though I'm woefully incapable of adding anything meaningful (and certainly not unique) to the conversation.

First... incredible, amazing, stunning - words don't do the people of Iran justice. The courage they're showing by stepping out on the streets every day, in the face of arrest, beatings, and death, is truly indescribable. If, by any chance, you've remained out of the loop as to what is going on in Iran, this video will catch you up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1aPejT0izs (WARNING - this is a very graphic clip of a woman who was killed during one of the demonstrations today). Many have lost their lives, and I fear many more will as well.

On the domestic front, the response to the events have been somewhat disheartening. Obama has, in my mind, played it perfectly, minus his comment about the similarity of Ahmadinejad's and Mousavi's policies. His point was accurate - on the question of nuclear development, the two do have similar stances - but his words were too open ended (they should have left no doubt he meant only in regard to nuclear issues), and the setting of expectations that he wanted to achieve was outweighed by the negative impact of his comment.

More importantly, the Republican (specifically, the neocon) response has been absurd and saddening in that we can't stand as one behind our President, who is clearly doing the right thing. Conservatives from John McCain to the folks at the Weekly Standard have lambasted Obama for not supporting the reformers more explicitly. Why they don't see that this is a dumb strategy that plays right into Ahmadinejad's hands (for heaven's sakes, there are reports that Iranian State TV is playing an Obama clip and then translating it as something like "Obama supports the protests") is beyond me. To maximize the legitimacy of the reform movement, the US needs to have as little a role in it as possible. We're not going to give military support (yet), so vocal support will only serve to embolden the Ayatollah and Iran's establishment.

Past that, it's anyone's guess as to how this is going to play out. I certainly have no clue, but I'll offer a guess - basically, if Mousavi and his legions of supporters can keep the military out of the conflict, I think they have a very good chance of prevailing. At that point, it becomes the Basij (the Ayatollah's millitia) against the protesters. Though the movement is nonviolent, that's a numbers game that the Basij will lose, in that public opinion domestically and worldwide will turn against the Ayatollah to the point where the oppression will have to be stopped (hopefully).

The question is how does a nonviolent movement navigate the endgame of a revolution - it's complex indeed, but part of the answer lies with the military, I think. If the hearts of the soldiers can be turned against the Basij to the point where they are willing to protect the defenseless protesters, the regime can be ousted, perhaps without too much bloodshed.

It's a thought, a hope. We'll see what happens. If anything, one glimmer of hope strikes me from all of this - that the Iranians will provide the blueprint for a new kind of Revolution - a nonviolent revolution. Armed not with guns but the teachings of Gandhi and MLK, change-seekers around the world may have a new rallying cry.

Meditations on Meditations

2009-06-10T12:22:00.000-07:00

So I came across a great blog post today - a written account of someone's mind while meditating. If you've ever tried, you know the utter frustration/hilarity of meditation. One person's account of his deviating mind during such a session: http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/confession/ways-i-have-been-a-bad-meditator/

Perhaps the funniest sequence of thoughts:

I have missed my old girlfriend.
I have remembered why I broke up with my old girlfriend.

[...] I can’t date anyone who isn’t a meditator.

Good luck killing the Buddha :)

Follow up on last post

2009-05-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

Real quick - came across this today:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124208505896608647.html

Apparently we're considering a soda tax. Funny we were just talking about it, and glad that last post generated some interest. I'll try to make the blogging more consistent...

A Musing on Business and Government

2009-05-01T03:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this is really just a late at night, random musing. Here goes. I'm thinking about some of the inherent clashes between business and government, and how they rear their head in every day life. Specifically, I went to a movie tonight and saw a pretty good Coke commercial - a thirsty boy wandering through dry streets where everything looks like a coke until, finally, he finds a store and buys one.

Coke. Warm and fuzzy polar bear, bringing warm and fuzzy thoughts. Sponsors of all things athletic. All in all, a very positive brand.

And they're killing people. Definitely giving them diabetes, probably, in part, causing the rampant heart disease and cancer in our country. Makes sense, as our bodies weren't really designed for intense sugar shocks and so don't handle a lifetime of them terribly well. This line of thinking applies to McDonald's and countless other products of brands we "cherish" in our society, not even necessarily food/drink-related (haha, this is not a nutrition/organic rant, though I certainly feel the pull to go that way. :)

I'm also not trying to argue that they should mend their ways. That would be anti-capitalistic, socialist, and a whole lot more labels that we Americans seem to find unsavory (although, is it so bad to strive for a society where corporations think about the bigger picture?).

No, my sights are merely set on justice. If someone wants to kill themselves with soda or cigarettes, they should be able to. The difference between those two things is that cigarettes have a warning label, and soda doesn't. There is a cost to Coke's product that isn't covered in the price tag, a risk that a Coke consumer takes, willingly or unwillingly. If people knew, really knew, how bad soda is for you, they wouldn't drink it nearly as often as they do. As it stands today, it usually takes a loved one getting diabetes to remind us of this fact.

So how to right this wrong? Throw a warning label on, right?

And that's how I got to musing on business and government. As I'm sure you've realized, the government isn't throwing a label on soda anytime soon. The killer profits these companies make go not only towards making warm and fuzzy commercials (so we think they're warm and fuzzy companies), but also to lobbying the hell out of the government and making sure, among other things, labels don't get put on soda.

But the problem runs deeper. If there is a cost that's not on the price tag, who's paying it? Well, the consumer for one - they have to live with these diseases. But who pays for their treatment? Sure, insurance companies and the private sector, to some degree, but with corn subsidies making soda is cheaper than water, the diseases from drinking (way) too much soda are disproportionately skewed to those with lower incomes, who probably don't have insurance and might end up hitting the emergency room or other public health facilities. Yes, there is some assuming and hand waving going on, but it's not a stretch to say that, in the long run, we, the people, end up paying the health costs for some consumers of these companies' products.

So what can we do? Ideally, we'd say we need better leaders, people who ensure the lobbyists don't get in the way of the government serving the people. But let's be honest - that's not reality, and companies with power are always going to lobby and do shady things.

So, after kicking around a couple approaches in my head (morality, government theory, haha neither of which I know much of), I think I want to approach this from a standpoint of economics - essentially, how would we change the current incentive structure to straighten out this situation. Today, the sole interest of the company is to make money and continue making money, driving it to lobby to keep their cash flows unaffected (at the expense of the health and pockets of the nation). We can change this one of two ways - we can either add a monetary incentive for the soda company to consider these societal costs (i.e. give them a subsidy for putting the warning label on their product and perhaps for diversifying to more healthy options) or change the structure of business such that there is a way to incorporate the considering of societal costs into the overall running of the business (an extreme example - the government will shut you down if your product screws people).

To compound issues, down each path lies an unspeakable evil (as we see it) - socialism in the former sense (govt controlling the business landscape) and nationalization in the latter (direct govt control of business). Despite my sarcasm, those who blanket condemn socialism and nationalization of business do have one point (albeit overused) - the consolidation of power that results leaves the system open for corruption - absolute power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. In this case, the corruption could just move to those people who decide what harms society (for example, what is "healthy").

And yet the status quo is clearly flawed. What to do? Is today's situation merely the least of all evils? What type of system can we design to rid us of the Coke and McDonald's problem?

I haven't the foggiest, but the one thing that stands out to me is the importance of transparency and information. Perhaps all we can do is strive for a system where things are in the open as much as possible, and where the availability (and, for lack of a better word, in-your-face-ness) of information takes precedence over corporate concerns.

A system that encourages warning labels on Coke cans (and Big Macs:)

Thoughts from Coachella

2009-04-20T17:33:00.000-07:00

So I just got back from Coachella and figured I'd share some thoughts and bands that appealed to me. Plus, enough of you asked that I figured it'd be easier to write it down once. If nothing else, be sure to read about and listen to the last 3 bands on this post. Without further ado...

First off, some bands that stuck out to me...

The Ting Tings - UK rock band. They put on a great show and are a solid band. Lead singer Katie White really stole the show and worked the crowd. That's Not My Name is their hit song, and it's quite good, as are they.

MIA - put on a great show, as usual. Also notable for an interesting introduction featuring a montage of people holding up signs saying "MIA supports terrorism" and such, a reference to MIA's Sri Lankan roots. Her background really come through in her work. For good measure (and in honor of the holiday) a link to that one song she does...

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - a close friend called them the best female-led rock group today, and they lived up to that assessment. Katie O (their lead) was charming and spunky, in-your-face yet the girl next door. (Yes, I have a bit of a crush on her. Judging by the Borat-themed "Hot!" some dude next to yelled, I'm not the only one.) My favorite song is Heads Will Roll, but others might disagree.

Paul McCartney - showed up, started with some solid solo tunes, rocked out the last half of the set with classic Beatles, including Blackbird, Let It Be, Drive My Car, A Day in the Life, Something (played acoustic on a ukulele given to him by George), and Hey Jude. People sang, danced, and cried over his awesomeness. There was much peace and love.

The Killers - amazing band and an even more amazing set. Being the headline on Saturday night, they were the biggest act and didn't disappoint. I managed to get less than 50 feet from the front, and it was an experience to remember. From the opener (Human) all the way to the encore, it was difficult to tell whether we were, in fact, humans or dancers (yes, I know that was an awful pun). Seriously, though, it was one of the best music experiences of my life, and I'd strongly recommend seeing them if you have the chance.

Finally, the 3 bands I most want to shout from the rooftops about...

Tinawiren - first off, they have one of the most amazing and inspirational stories out there. In short, they are Tuareg (a nomadic people from western Africa), and their music speaks to the Tuareg movement for indepenence from Mali. Their sound is melodic rather than harmonic (a bit like Indian music) and their music is in French and Tamashek, so it's tougher than Western music to embrace immediately. Once you do, though, you're in for a treat. Their story, music, and spirit combined in a way that I can't quite put into words. Check them out.

Fleet Foxes - as they are a folksy band (they describe themselves as "baroque harmonic pop jams"), I wasn't expecting anything mindblowing from them going in. To be sure, I love their songs and think they have one of the most unique sounds out there - simple yet sufficiently complex music with very tight vocal harmonies (a bit like Simon and Garfunkel, actually). And to this end, they delivered with songs like White Winter Hymnal. What blew me away, though, was their (potential) diversity of sound. Much of their current stuff is like White Winter Hymnal, slow and great sounding, but they really rocked out on a few tunes, and they did it in their own way. Ultimately, they are able to maintain their sound regardless of the genre of music they're doing (sort of like how Coldplay or U2 have that same it in all their songs - slow, fast, rock anthem, or love ballad). They're already a great band, but if they explore with their music and push the envelope, I think they could be huge.

K'Naan - I'll go with what my buddy said about this guy - "It would have been worth the 500 mile drive to see just him." Like Tinawiren, K'Naan's story is ridiculously awesome and inspirational. Born in Somalia, he braved Mogadishu before making it to America and then Canada, where he taught himself English and eventually got into hip hop and spoken word.

I really can't say enough about this guy. First and foremost, he is pure genius. His lyrics are in the vein of Tupac and Lupe - meaningful and often poignant, and his wordplay and flow are out of this world. I'll post more of his spoken word when I can, but he did a couple peices at Coachella. I couldn't find my favorite of the two, but here is one (it's the lyrics to Somalia, which is also one of his songs). Secondly, he's extremely gifted musically - he can sing and rap, and he even rocks out on songs like If Rap Gets Jealous and Bang Bang. Third, he's on a mission. He has seen things most of us can hardly imagine, and he wants to share them with the world. He is extremely intelligent and socially conscious, and he knows how to use his music to convey a point and open eyes, both emotionally and rationally. He could really do some great things...

Oh, and I couldn't forget - one of his best songs: Wavin' Flag. Enjoy.

A closing thought (or rather, incoherent rambling) for me was the role of music in defining and shaping cultural memes. Music has always brought people together (and it was great seeing this in its literal form this past weekend, with 18,000 camping out at the 3 day festival, not to mention those who came to the festival just during the days), but it's mostly stayed out of politics and society in the mainstream as of today.

I wonder if that's about to change. Music can be a glue in the building of social movements and has done so in the past (the 60s being the most salient example). As society continues to open its eyes to the major issues our planet is facing (sustainability, war, etc.), music may well play a powerful role in speeding that process along. For example, it's impossible to listen to K'Naan and not be moved to think more deeply about what's going on in Somalia. If other artists start to take it on themselves to give voice to the unheard or to society's overlooked ills, it will be interesting to see what comes of it...

In defense of pirates

2009-04-15T18:33:00.000-07:00

Wanted to pass along a great article I came across about the Somali pirates that are heavily in the news. People tend to to antagonize the pirates (and I'm in no way condoning hijacking ships, taking hostages, etc.), but it's important to see things from their point of view...

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-partial-defense-of-somali-pirates-2009-4

Blog back online

2009-04-15T18:32:00.000-07:00

Due to some domain issues I overlooked, my blog has been offline recently. However, it's back now, both at www.ravimishra.com and ravimishra.com. Posts are on their way - enjoy.

Start your own Athleague Network

2009-03-03T12:54:00.000-08:00

We're proud to announce that Athleague has now opened it's doors so that anyone can start their own Athleague network to run a sports league or team, or even organize a pick up game. You'll have your own URL and be Master of your (Athleague) Domain! (Yeah, we love Seinfeld. What can you say.)

You can sign up at athleague.com by clicking Start a Network, or you can just click here. Be sure to designate the network as "Private" unless you're starting one for an intramural program at a university.

So sign up, explore, and let us know what you think. We're going to be adding tons of functionality over the next few months. For example, right now, you'll have to organize a team to get a pick up game together (have the members join the team and then plan the pick up game as an event), but we're working on making pick up games independent.

And we really want to hear from you. Be sure to give us feedback and let us know what you think. The changes you want to see will be the changes we make. Enjoy!

Why Yahoo! Sucks

2009-02-26T00:00:00.001-08:00

I'm looking for the full text of Obama's inauguration speech (to reference a line out of it), so I google it. The top link is a Yahoo news story that claims to have the full text. I click on it, and it's a dead link. Ok, I guess that happens from time to time.

Then, beneath the Yahoo 404 message, it offers Yahoo search results for my google search phrase (obama inauguration speech full text). Again, the top link is a Yahoo news story claiming to have the full text (though a different URL than the Google result). Again, it's a dead link.

So... this Yahoo news page is down (and has been for a while, I think), but even Yahoo's own search results haven't updated and continue to send me to a bad page. Perhaps this isn't so bad, but for some reason I don't seem to ever have ran into this problem with Google...

PS - random issue encountered while typing this post: Do you capitalize the "G" in Google when you're using it as a verb? As a noun, I see the need for capitalization. As an adjective as well. But for a verb, I'm thinking no... (wow, I must be tired...)

Quick thoughts on Slumdog Millionaire

2009-02-22T22:53:00.000-08:00

Wow. Slumdog Millionaire won 8 Oscars tonight, including Best Picture.

I think it's a great development for movies as a whole, even though I'm not entirely sure it was literally the Best Picture. As films go, I thought Dark Knight and Wall-E were better, and I haven't even see Benjamin Button, Milk, and a few others yet.

But, at a larger level, I think it deserved the award (and all the others it got) because it pushed the envelope and hopefully has ushered in a new era in film-making. It proved that America has an appetite and curiosity for cultures other than it's own. While other movies have been based in foreign countries, Slumdog truly broke ground by focusing so intimately on a way of life that is so different from that which we have here in America. And what's more is that Americans were genuinely interested. The movie became a hit not because it was that well made (some plot elements were sketchy) or had fantastic acting (I'm sure I wasn't the only one to get some cheesy Hindi movie vibes) but because it brought to life a culture and people in a way that fascinated viewers but also allowed them to relate to it at some level.

Aside from the pride of seeing a movie from the land of my birth attract such a wide following and critical acclaim, Slumdog appealed to me most for this very reason. Each culture is to be celebrated, and I really hope Slumdog's success encourages a more international and eclectic side of Hollywood. Perhaps it's naive or premature, but I honestly believe the movie could mark a turning point in the types of movies that get green lit, and we could see an increased number of foreign culture-focused films come out of Tinseltown.

The American people, it seems, are perhaps not as shallow and self-centered as pop culture might have you believe...

(As always with this blog, and especially now that I'm venturing to realms about which I honestly have no clue, you probably want to take the above with a huge grain of salt. I watch about 5 movies a year. It just strikes me as ridiculous/awesome that a movie so about India won so many Oscars and has gotten so much national attention. Americans seem to be fascinated with Indian people (makes sense, we're sort of awesome), but I think/hope it also reflects a larger fascination with the world as a whole...)

Why we don't stand a chance (a food post)

2009-02-21T11:35:00.001-08:00

I thought I'd break up the depressing economic/political commentary with a random moment of insight (or madness) about food. I ventured to the kitchen for a snack recently and, lo and behold, there was a box of Wheat Thins on the counter. Despite knowing to avoid packaged food and yearning for some delicious Indian food (dahl and chaval (lentil soup and rice)), I couldn't help myself, and snagged a couple while checking out the box.

A few things popped out. The marketing on the package screamed "HEALTHY" - they were trying to do everything they could to convince the consumer that this product did the body good. The Wheat Thins bragged about having "low fat" and was covered in little wheat symbols and such. Of course, quick turn to the nutrition facts showed that, despite it's relatively low fat, it had huge amounts of sodium (11% of your daily value in one serving).

As a side note, to channel a little Michael Pollan, that's the secret of packaged food - it hits you with abnormally high concentrations of fats, sodium, and/or sugar (those far, far higher than any food found in nature). That's it. Nearly every single packaged food is basically a carrier for one or more of those macronutrients. It doesn't matter how "healthy" the product says it is, or whatever cool marketing it has on it. Just fat, sugar, and/or sodium (or maybe one of those cancer-causing fake sugars).

But it just tastes good. Or, rather, the instant it hits your tongue, the chemicals that go surging through your brain feel awesome for a split second. Because in reality, it doesn't taste good at all - go try and taste whatever packaged food is lying in your kitchen. Try to savor the thing the entire time it's in your mouth. It's impossible - at some point, the "food" becomes a sort of cardboard-textured mess. Compare this to fruit or veggies, or any home-cooked meal - stuff that has flavor, texture, and true taste. There really is no comparison - seriously, try the experiment.

And this is why we don't stand a chance. I know this (and I've probably pissed off friends and family by belaboring the point since reading Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma last summer), and I still couldn't help myself.

The companies that make our food have intimate knowledge of our evolutionary response system, and leverage it to make food that they know will release a flood of "reward" chemicals in our brain and keep us coming back for more. To top it off, their food can brag about things like "low fat," "low sugar," "antioxidants," and "omega 3 fatty acids" while the spinach (very low fat), banana (very low, and natural, sugar), pomegranate (full of antioxidants), and avocado (deliciously filled with omega 3s) must remain silent, unable to make a case for being purchased.

And they wonder why we're the most unhealthy nation on the planet...

Market Reaction

2009-02-10T12:30:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note, but, wow, the market really hated Geithner's financial rescue plan. I really liked what Obama had to say yesterday about the stimulus (we should be investing in projects that will save us money and reap rewards down the road), but I have to side with the market on this one - Geithner's plan doesn't cut it.

Bottom line is that most US banks today are probably insolvent. I think he failed to articulate a clear strategy to turn this around (though the public-private partnership to public toxic assets might be a start), and he completely missed the notion of holding people responsible and investigating the fraud that occurred. And the latter point is important not because of vengeance but rather trust - ultimately, his plan does not address the root of the problem, which is a completely lack of faith in US markets.

Also, here is a very interesting article in the Times chronicling what apparently was the internal debate on the stimulus. I'm disappointed to see the exec compensation limitations largely left out...

Changes (and hey Stu)

2009-02-01T22:24:00.000-08:00

After my last post, a good friend from college, Stu Stein, sent me a great one line email:

Dude, come back to your Whartonian roots. You've been spending too much time in Berkeley.

I reread my last post and laughed to myself. He's probably right. (Although, in my defense, Berkeley is great.)

Really, I'm not sure what to say. Times change, people change. For starters, I'm not sure I ever was much of a "Whartonian" in the first place - those of you who were there probably remember my rants on Wharton's culture or my stubborn desire to only wear sweats to class (mostly for comfort, but also as a metaphorical finger to all the kids who took themselves way too seriously:).

But Stu is right about one thing: I've shed much of my ideological support for capitalism.

Don't get me wrong - I am an entrepreneur, first and foremost (at least as professions go). And entrepreneurship needs capitalism, at some level.

But, ultimately, there needs to be a better check on two innate human flaws - short term thinking and greed. For all its merits, capitalism often encourages the former and always relies on the latter. Now, this is often a good thing, as pointed out by Milton Friedman in this must-watch for capitalism haters.

His point is simple - greed will exist regardless of the system in place, and capitalism is the best way to harness this greed to produce positive outcomes for society. However, he discounts one aspect of the situation, on which I'll base my argument against capitalism as we practice it: culture.

Basically, our culture in American has spiraled out of control. While greed is a fine driver for enterprise, when left unchecked, it can have disastrous consequences. And we encourage it, deifying the rich and famous, so much so that much of our population, particularly those at the top, the ones throwing around the kind of money and making the kind of decisions that can bring our economy to its knees, base their self-worth on their bank accounts.

Wow, this totally turned into a rant on materialism. Didn't intend for that to happen. But what are you going to do - it's true, and it's the root of our country's problem. Maybe I've changed and now I can see it, maybe it's always been there. Who knows.

And then the more important question - what do we do? How do you change culture? Because as long as we glorify extravagance and excessive opulence, our problems will continue, in one form or another. Clearly you can't solve the problem in one fell swoop, but if we had a society that shamed the bankers, regulators, and other perpetrators of the fraud and greed that led us here - truly put them to public shame - we'd be in better shape. If we didn't feel the need to buy another car, house, or flat screen TVs so intensely that we were willing to take out debt to do so, we probably wouldn't be here.

In short, we need a cultural force more powerful than capitalism to keep capitalism in check. Religion is the only one that comes to mind. But, of course, that brings us Nietzsche, and I'll leave you with his most famous words...

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?

ps - for the record, I'm very agnostic and identify more with a godless religion (Buddhism) than any other. but the quote certainly frames our society from an interesting perspective.
pps - hey stu. having fun selling out in new york? :P

How do we keep this from happening again?

2009-01-30T13:54:00.001-08:00

It's becoming increasingly clear that the banking sector, in particular, has messed up a lot of stuff. Yesterday, Senator Claire McCaskill introduced legislation to keep Wall Street salaries from being no higher than what the President makes ($400,000). While that's a good start, there is a deeper issue at play here: the long term effects of the crisis on business decisions.

Over the course of this crisis, it's become clear that poor, greedy decisions on the part of few have had dire consequences for the rest of the economy. Agents and tellers loaned money to people that weren't likely to pay it back, brokers mislabeled the risk of the packages of these loans, and executives and accountants hid (and continue to hide) the true nature of the losses their companies suffered.

Quite simply, these people screwed up, and now it is much worse than it otherwise would have been, for all of us. And yet, these same people, who - more than anyone else - caused this mess, are not only getting off scot-free, but they're also getting bonuses or, even if they lose their jobs, fat severance packages.

Yes, this is bad, and we're all getting pissed off, but the bigger issue that's been bothering me lately is the precedent that our actions will set for future executives and decision-makers. If we are too lax, we run the risk of encouraging corporate irresponsibility; if we're too harsh, we violate civil rights.

The problem is indeed quite complex. My knee-jerk reaction, and what I consider to be the most "fair" solution, is to have the people who are at fault pay for this, literally. I mean, we know who they are, we have a documented history of what they've done. At best, we could go through and "assign" an amount for each person to pay back - lowly loans salesmen would foot a small amount, complicit money managers a little more, and executives would be forced to pay back a significant portion of their salaries and bonuses that let them pocket the false wealth that they created.

Of course, such an action is impossible - it violates a number of civil liberties and sets a potentially dangerous precedent for government interference in the market (though it's the former that is probably the overriding reason at this point).

How about something a little more realistic? If we focus on the executives, we could make an example out of the heads of the companies, deterring future executives from allowing these practices to exist within their organization. This would be a powerful deterrent, but again the approach runs the risk of infringing on civil liberties.

But if we don't do something (and something significant), we'll create a larger problem for ourselves. There needs to be some sort of justice, to punish these men and women and ensure future citizens know that corruption, greed, and incompetence at these levels (which have the ability to bring our economy to its knees) will not be tolerated.

Yes, our crisis has been of many causes, many of which are above my head. But there is a clear line that has been crossed, and we must ensure the line is not crossed again (or at least give people a reason not to cross it).

It'll be interesting to see how the government handles this. And, as a side note, it'd be great if Obama said tomorrow that he'd be forgoing his $400,000 salary and encourage others within the government to do so as well if they have the means...

(Too bad none of this will likely happen, and the criminals who played a part is causing this crisis will probably go unpunished...)

A Black Swan

2009-01-03T11:54:00.000-08:00

Or, rather, a black Cardinal. To fill you in, the Atlanta Falcons are playing the Arizona Cardinals in the wild card around of the playoffs. All week, the pundits gave the Cardinals very little chance. According to them, the Cardinals just didn't have the talent - specifically in both aspects of the run game - to keep up with the Falcons. Though there was only a 2 point line, most "experts" picked the Falcons, and even more agreed that the Cardinals would have a tough time running the ball or stopping the run.

The second quarter just started, but so far, in case you haven't noticed, the Falcons are playing outside their mind. Specifically, the Cardinals are running the ball at will, with Edgerrin James tearing it up. On the flip side, the Falcons are having very little success running the football, and the Cardinals' defense is simply stuffing them.

How could so many people, who supposedly know so much, be so wrong about the way that this match up (especially the running match up) would play out?

Cool sports example of the type of prediction bias (or, rather, our inability to make even reasonably accurate predictions) that Taleb makes a focus in Black Swan. Very interesting to see it so plainly in something I follow.

Facebook publishing error

2009-01-02T19:26:00.001-08:00

And now a completely mundane post/question. I have my blog synced with my Facebook account, so blog posts get imported as Notes on Facebook. However, new versions of posts don't get updated - basically, if I post once, then edit and re-post, Facebook still shows the old version. I usually hit post without any sort of editing (as I did with my last post) and sometimes add information later, so this error is sort of annoying. Anyone know how to fix it (or if I'm doing something wrong)?

Hello 2009

2009-01-01T22:50:00.000-08:00

I've forgotten about this blog a bit recently, but reconnecting with an old friend yesterday made me remember that you never know who is reading. I met up with a high school classmate of mine who moved back to Germany after sophomore year, and he mentioned that he's perused my blog once or twice over the years.

So anyway, in honor of that and the new year, I decided to chronicle some of the obscure thoughts and random reflections floating around my head as we journey into 2009. For starters, I don't think I've entered a new year in a world as scary/crazy as today's. A global economy in crisis, heightened tensions in the Middle East and South Asia, rampant corruption as our nation further swamps itself in debt, unemployed friends and family. The list really doesn't end.

And yet, personally, I'm not feeling the same sense of dread that has accompanied my musings the past few months. I can tell my outlook has been buoyed by a myriad of factors - the sounds of the Beatles (Love, their remastered/remixed album has been a recent favorite), the Who, Ratatat, and others (not to mention a rousing car ride rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody this afternoon); the thoughts of Nassim Nicholas Taleb in Black Swan; the return of old friends to the Bay Area for the holidays (and an amazing trip to Miami to see a bunch of family); and, perhaps above all, the best sandwich I've ever had to top off a great New Year's Day brunch (the Chicken Apple with avocado at the Brickhouse in SF at 3rd and Brennan).

Or perhaps, as our new President might say - hope springs eternal.

And that said, I'm still pretty pessimistic in terms of what's going to happen (I guess I'm just more ok with it now - it'll be quite a ride no matter what). Keeping in mind that I'm an idiot and don't know anything (and that, as Taleb says, we suck at this sort of stuff), I'm going to throw a few predictions out there.

I think we're going to see a few "Black Swans" in 2009 - things no one saw coming. Ultimately, who really knows, and it's these events that will likely shape this year the most. But I wouldn't be surprised by a few things. Economically, I think the carnage will continue - unemployment might hit 8% (or even 10%). I could see the Dow dropping below 5,000, and it's possible the currency manipulation that has gone on in Asian countries could produce some negative consequences.

Generally speaking, I wonder if 2009 will be the year we're forced to reap what we sowed with our national debt. For years now, debt growth has outpaced GDP growth - we're not producing more, but we're consuming more. This inherently unsustainable house of cards will come down one of two ways - card by card (preferable) or in one fell swoop. The geopolitical unstability that will result from the latter scares the hell out of me.

Geopolitically, though I definitely share some WW3 fears, I think we'll be ok - Obama should pull us through. What really worries me is that, domestically, Obama won't be the savior we all see him as - or, rather, that external circumstances will cause him to underachieve. Right now, I feel the hope of Obama is holding us together, to some extent. Some people are bound to be underwhelmed by his presidency, but if he loses some critical mass of this support - if enough people lose hope, so to speak - we could be in trouble. I fear there could be a level of the bottom falling out (economically, politically, etc.) that will get really, really ugly.

As for me, the new year comes with renewed optimism on my current venture, Athleague, as well as other things I have brewing. Not sure where the year will take me, but it'll certainly be fun. Haven't thought resolutions through, but this could be a quick list: start taking yoga classes (Stanford, 8am, thursdays, if anyone is interested) and be sure to meditate 4 times a week, stop late night fast food runs (fruit from a grocery store is such a better idea:), and probably a few others (perhaps I'll dedicated a post to resolutions in the coming days).

Most importantly, I'd like to wish you, family, friend, or random denizen of these crazy interwebs, all the best in the new year. Enjoy the highs and learn from the lows, and if things get darker (as they very well may), just breathe. Thanks for reading, and good luck.

The Art of Living

2008-12-17T19:23:00.000-08:00

Cool post up on LifeHack today, entitled How to Live Artfully.

Makes a very important point - that being good at life (i.e. happy) is skill we should actively be cultivating - and starts on some basic ways to do so.

Insanity:

2008-12-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
-Albert Einstein

I can't think of a better quote to describe today's world. While the specifics of our economic crisis are complex, the fundamental reason behind it is fairly basic: too much debt. Individuals can't pay back their mortgages, so banks (who lent money to these individuals) can't pay back their loans.

The lesson? Don't lend money to people who aren't likely to pay it back. And don't take on too much debt.

So what does our government do? Take on unprecedented levels of sovereign debt to lend money to financially unstable companies. Insanity.

With an auto industry bailout more than likely, the flood gates are poised to be thrown open, with every industry asking for their share of government aid. And the fact is that many of these companies will go under even with government aid - we're not going to get some of the money back.

My problem here isn't government involvement in private industry, and I'm not railing against these moves on the grounds of destruction of moral hazard (though both are substantial points, especially the latter - we really are setting an awful precedent of privatization of gains and socialization of losses).

But, very simply, in light of recent and potential future government action, I fear for the solvency of our nation. During this crisis, banks and businesses have gone (and will continue to go) bankrupt doing the same thing that our government is now doing, and that's scary. What's that? Youu say America going under sound can't happen? Tell that to Iceland.

One of the philosophical miscalculations behind this economic crisis was the systematic underpricing of risk, and I worry we're making the same mistake now. It's very similar Nassim Nicholas Taleb's thesis in Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness - that we underestimate the likelihood of highly improbably but potentially devastating events.

In the financial world, these events are, for example, currency movements or interest rate changes - the types of things that can (and have) blown up hedge funds and banks.

My argument, then, is that we are similarly underpricing the risk of negatively game-changing geopolitical events, leaving us more susceptible to sovereign insolvency than we've ever been. Figuratively speaking, we're walking the tight rope without a net. As we increase leverage, we owe other nations more and more money, subsequently increasing the likelihood of a circumstance where we don't have enough money to pay those countries back.

Or, more simply, if something else goes wrong - an Israel/Iran or India/Pakistan war, a mega natural disaster, a Chinese currency devaluation, a major terrorist attack, more bank/company failures, etc. - we're very possibly screwed.

And in today's world, something else probably will go wrong...

Let's define "Anti-American"

2008-10-18T11:42:00.000-07:00

It's a bit absurd how low the Republican party is going these days. The latest wave of attacks has thrown the word "Anti-American" out there in describing both Obama and certain parts of the country (San Francisco and the Bay Area, my home, probably being one of those parts).

The divisiveness (and hatred) in these people scares me, especially when you couple it with their apparent ignorance. In their eyes, it seems that doing or saying anything to criticize our country is "Anti-American".

Let's break that down, in ways even the most die-hard Republican would understand. Every Sunday, I sit down and watch the 49ers play. For the majority of this decade, that has been a painful experience. When coaches make dumb decisions, I tend to get angry. I probably call them names, in the heat of the moment. I also discuss with friends why those decisions are dumb, and what I thought should have been done instead. For example, a few weeks ago, the Niners were down by 6 late in 4th against the Pats. The Pats had the ball, 3rd and 20, on our 40 - basically 5-10 yard out of field goal range. On that play, the Niners didn't blitz, only rushed 3 guys, and gave the Pats ample time to pick up 10 yards on a short pass. They kicked a field goal, going up by 9 and essentially putting the game out of reach.

That's a dumb decision. We should have blitzed in hopes of not letting the Pats gain a yard and forced a punt, giving us a chance to win the game. And I said it, and called friends and we all bitched about it together, wishing for Nolan's firing and the like.

Sound familiar? And, more importantly (to the Palin-crazies in the world), do you see the parallel? I love the 49ers. And yet I can criticize them. And call their leaders names. And point out, rationally, what they're doing wrong and how it should be fixed.

Is Jeremiah Wright right (no pun intended) for saying awful things about American? Absolutely not. But have you listened to his speeches? Yes, he says "God Damn America" (much like most Sundays I'm left saying "God Damn 49ers"), but have you been to the South-side of Chicago? I haven't, but if it's anything like West Philly (of which I really only got a taste in my 4 years there) - and apparently it's worse - then, yes, God Damn Us for not doing our job. We need to be providing education and social programs to clean up the streets and keep kids in schools.

And Bill Ayers? I'm mostly playing devil's advocate, but I think he has a defense too. Yes, he bombed our own buildings, which is awful. But, his intent was never to kill (and other than one accident involving a member of his group), and he never did.

So, sure, he caused tons of property damage. But who is more on the wrong - the government that orders us into foreign soil, resulting in the loss of thousands of civilian and military lives, or the person who goes too far in trying to call attention to our poor decision?

Think about it. Who loves a country more - those of us who refuse to believe we can do any wrong, or those of us who stand up and call our country out when we do stupid things?

I've always wondered this...

2008-10-10T11:58:00.000-07:00

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/why-are-discount-stores-full-of-xs-and-xxl-clothes/

Basically, why is the extremes in sizes always end up being the ones that end up at discount stores? I sort of buy the guy's argument - that it's a form of price discrimination - but, still, something strikes me as not quite right.

Then again, the flip side is that if these companies could be making more money by varying production levels of different sizes, they probably would have already done so. Who knows.

What is wrong with the Republican Party?

2008-10-05T22:19:00.000-07:00

Today, the McCain campaign unleashed its first wave of new attacks - on Obama's character. Why it has come to this is baffling.

Does anyone ever wonder what happened to the Republicans? I'm not sure where to start. Perhaps at the top - if you can separate issues into social and economic, why do the ideas of the intolerant and stupid (NO on abortion, stem cells, gay marriage, healthcare, and just about everything but guns and creationism) have to be tied together with a rational, sound economic philosophy (less regulation, free trade, etc.)? But that's a tirade for a different day.

Also, thanks to the last 8 years, the Republicans are no longer the party of smaller government. Despite McCain and Palin's cries to "reign in spending," there is little evidence from their past to suggest we'll see a significant change in the size of government in a McCain administration (and if McCain gets us into another war, spending will go up even more). But again, this is also a tirade for another day.

What boggles my mind right now is why the Republicans have become the party of lies, secrecy, incuriousness, and dumb/puppet candidates. With the above worries, you can sort of see how it all played out (the demographics forced politicians to pander to the South and Midwest for the first concern, and Bush being an idiot caused the second).

For all the presidential elections of this decade, you've seen the Repubilicans far more than the Democrats engage in smear tactics and dirty politics. Sure, there are lies on both sides, but tweaking numbers to come up with impressive statistics when attacking an opponent's tax plan just doesn't compare to claiming Obama wanted to teach sex ed to kindergartners.

Why? Why do they need to lie about these things? Why do they need to resort to smears and character attacks? Our country is in dire shape, and when we need to talk about the issues most, they're essentially saying they want to use the final month of the campaign to attack Obama's character.

And why do the Republicans have to so actively glorify stupidity and incuriousness? What the hell is good about being "shooting from the hip" when that involves oversimplifying real world situations and making mistakes (Iraq - "oh I bet they have nukes" or Katrina - "they'll be ok"). And why do they have to select such dumb candidates??? McCain doesn't know the first thing about the economy. Think about that for a second - EVERY law on the books has some sort of economic impact (for example, speed limits affect driving habits affect gas consumption). To elect a presidential nominee who does not grasp the basic principles of economics is insanity.

And then there is Sarah Palin. The woman drives home all of these stereotypes - she doesn't understand any economic or foreign policy issues, and she PURPOSEFULLY speaks like a moron because she wants to connect with Middle America.

There was a basic lesson of the past 8 years - dumb, incurious people who are hotheaded and don't listen to others make HORRIBLE Presidents. So, the Republicans present us with... John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Now are we bombarded with outright lies and character attacks on Obama. And McCain and Palin don't go to the bathroom without running it by their campaign managers to make sure it's ok. And we're left wondering who is really pulling the strings, and why the Republican Party has come to this.

What sucks is that the net result of all this is to drag down the discourse of the campaigns - now Obama is planning to hit back with an attack on McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal in the late 80's (though even this is a little better than just taking swipes at associations, like the McCain camp is doing). I hope it doesn't happen, but the last month of the election could really devolve into a smearfest (significantly more so than it already has).

But there is one glimmer of hope - call me crazy, but I think we could see the end of the Republicans at some point. Political parties don't last forever, and you can't help but ask yourself what exactly it is that this one stands for these days. If Obama can continue and expand on his momentum, we could see a landslide victory for him - imagine he goes so far as getting North Carolina, Indiana, and Missouri (meaning he definitely picks up Florida, Virginia, Ohio, and Colorado) - crossing 375 electoral votes isn't out of the question. That sort of stinging defeat combined with the Dems picking up a super majority (60 seats) in the Senate (an outside shot that grows in likelihood with each passing day), and maybe the end of the Republicans might not be so far-fetched.

And wouldn't that be a great thing. The party that rises in their ashes could really move this country forward.

True Change

2008-10-03T12:12:00.000-07:00

Fred Wilson has a great post up on AVC on what our country needs right now. And it's change. A lot of it. Our country is so screwed in so many ways - broken healthcare and education, crumbling foreign relations, and now this $700 billion (actually the new version is closer to $800 billion, I believe) bailout plan. Not to mention, we don't have the money for any of this, and we're plunging deeper in debt. This paragraph, in my mind, summed up what we need to do:

We have global ambitions that we cannot afford but we still pretend we can. We have tax revenues that do not cover our spending. And we don’t have the will to cut our spending. And in many cases, we cannot afford to cut our spending. We should not cut our spending on infrastructure, we should increase it. We should not cut our spending on finding cleaner and smarter forms of energy, we should increase it. We should not cut our spending on education, we should increase it. We should not live with the terrible health care system we currently have, we should fix it. And we continue to spend money on things like tax breaks for oil companies and subsidies for farmers that mystify me and most Americans. And we spend a lot of money fighting vices like drugs, prostitution, and gambling when we should simply legalize them, tax them, and regulate them and turn them into a profit center.

Interesting thought, especially the last part. It might sound like blasphemy to some, but I think it's coming, sooner rather than later. We're just way too in debt to be worried about spending federal money to enforce laws of morality. They're fairly pointless - not only do they not work (as the Prohibition taught us, people will engage in these activities despite the laws), but they cost the federal government money. The government should making money on this stuff, not losing it.

Very, very interesting times ahead...

My favorite issues

2008-09-25T21:52:00.000-07:00

Are the ones that rise above party politics in a hilarious and interesting way.

What prompted this post?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/09/25/tubal.ligations.for.poor.cnn

It's a thought sure to turn heads. Paying citizens to not reproduce. Disgusted? Intrigued? The reactions run the spectrum, I'm sure, though many are probably immediately repulsed.

And we should be. It's an awful thought, one that conjures images of Nazi Germany, among other things (as the reporter points out).

But if disgust is your only reaction, you're probably haven't been somewhere very poor and overpopulated. The land of my birth (India), for all its beauty and greatness, certainly is such a place. This type of policy, if implemented, would provide immediate relief to the hundreds of millions of citizens who are currently starving on the streets (if you're still repulsed that I sound like I'm endorsing this, which I'm not necessarily, read that number again - a population larger than that of America starving on the streets). Furthermore, it will pave the way to a smaller and more sustainable population.

Take a step back. In the grand scheme of things, the issue is way bigger than people living on welfare. Our current population growth, as a species, is fundamentally unsustainable. Unless the people all over the world realize this and start to have fewer babies (a possibility, albeit an unlikely one), at some point in the future, we will have to implement state-required birth control or, worse, mandatory sterilization. If that's the future, offering money on a voluntary basis for sterilization doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

Just a thought. But now the bigger point - if this future does pan out, and we need to implement some sort of limit on children, which party do you think will champion the cause? In the video, it's a Republican from the South (who contrasts greatly with the subtly shocked and "morally superior" CNN host). But, in the future, I'd bet it's the Democrats (the party of abortion and big government) that would be pushing such a bill (in a sense, it could even be seen as an issue of environmental policy).

Another interesting issue is that of marijuana legalization, and, specifically, the case of Gonzales v. Reich. In short, the case pitted the federal government against a California medical marijuana user who was growing his own marijuana.

This is classic liberals vs. conservatives, right? Wrong. Yes, you had liberal marijuana legalization advocates on the side of Reich. But another group rallied to his cause: far right libertarians. For this group, possible opposition to marijuana use was dwarfed by their desire for states' rights, and this was textbook case of state government against federal jurisdiction.

It's always fascinating when groups on polar opposite sides of the political spectrum are united by a common cause. Anyone know any other great examples?

Is this news?

2008-09-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/09/25/money.pushers/index.html

So, what they're saying is, in our economy, with our structure of rewarding profits and punishing losses, with companies needing to show continued growth and returns to keep their stock up, banks were pressuring citizens to take on loans that might not have been in their best interest? Shocking!

As a sidenote, the one positive that will come out of our economic mess is a drastic contraction of the financial industry. We need more of our smartest workers creating actual value, instead of pushing money around (I know they do more than that, but it's crucial we have the bulk of our intellectual capital invested in the production of goods and services rather than in finance).

So much to say

2008-09-24T17:14:00.000-07:00

So today...

Congress still didn't pass the bailout bill (and I'm not sure it should).

McCain decided to suspend his campaign and go back to Washington to "work on the crisis" (whatever that means). This means that the debate on Friday is probably off.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the American Empire is nearing its end, all but repeated his desire to wipe Israel off the map.

And, thankfully, Obama continued to trend upward.

The word that comes to mind: chaos. It feels like this is the most chaotic world situation of my lifetime. But then again, I'm certainly more aware about the "world situation" now than I ever have been, so perhaps I'm speaking out of ignorance. Who really knows anymore...

In any case, I'll start to try to get some stuff on this blog in the coming days - each day I go to bed at night with the goal of cranking out a post, but between work emails and a sneaking in a TED video before I sleep, it hasn't been happening. I'll try to rectify that soon.

The 49ers could actually win the Super Bowl this year

2008-09-21T12:03:00.001-07:00

Or, at least, anything is possible:

http://scores.espn.go.com/nfl/scoreboard

Right now, the 0-2 (and, last year, 1-15) Dolphins are destroying the Patriots (undefeated in their past 18 regular season games. Past that, Oakland is on the verge of being 2-1 (leading the undefeated Bills), and Cincinnati has a 3 point edge on the Giants. Granted, a ton of this could change in the next hour, but wow. Go Niners.

Why the name change?

2008-09-14T23:56:00.000-07:00

Because the insanity is no longer virtual. It's practical and real. It's metaphysical, metaphorical, perhaps a little spiritual, and certainly grammatical. Banks are going under on Wall Street, and conflicts are stirring in Iraq and Russia and Israel. We're fighting a war on drugs and a war on terror and a war on poverty. The price of oil is soaring, along with temperatures. Now that we finally have enough to eat, we're eating too much, and dying because of it. We have the power to recreate the fractions of a second after the big bang but not to educate our youth. Our economy is... well, we're not quite sure what it's doing. And did I mention that our government has been using one credit card to pay off another for a really long time?

The rise and fall of civilizations have characterized our past as a species. But with the internet and onset of globalization, we stand at the threshold of a new world (and human) order, marked by connectivity, prosperity, and, just maybe, understanding. And despite all our progress, our entire way of life hinges on a myriad of factors - our environment and energy, among others - which today appear to dangle by the thinnest of threads. Or perhaps it's our hubris in thinking our times are somehow more critical, consequential, or trying than those which have passed.

So what does it all mean? I have no idea, only that I'm opening this blog up for a wider spectrum of posts (and I think I'm going to start posting more often). Stay tuned, but don't look down. And good luck - we're all counting on you.

Wind Energy

2008-08-17T10:47:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a very long time, but I came across an article that finally prompted me to put something up here, even if it's just a quick thought:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/08/17/bitter.wind.ap/index.html

As the rage around clean energy grows, I can't help but wonder if we're being as short-sighted now as we were when we began to pump and burn oil for energy. We can't play God with the resources around us and not expect there to be some consequences of our actions. Our problem today, though, is that we assume that we know exactly what these consequences are, when in reality, we have no idea.

As the article (slightly) touches on, we're not really sure what the impact of tapping into wind power will be. The same applies for solar as well. What happens when, 50-100 years down the line, a very significant portion of our power comes from these source? We know next to nothing about how global wind and solar patterns shape our weather, so how can rationally assume that altering these patterns will have no impact on one of a number of other variables?

For example, El Nino (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o-Southern_Oscillation) drastically changes the weather in many regions, an effect that spills over into agriculture and can often result in famine in poorer parts of the world. All of this from a phenomenon we can't completely explain or, more importantly, predict. Clearly, a few windmills here and there can't change too much, but there is no bright line to tell us how many windmills is too many, or, if there is, we certainly can't see it.

A similar argument could be made in solar power as well. For the entirety of our existance, some of the sun's energy has been trapped in our atmosphere, providing warmth and light and fueling life. How much of this energy do you need to take out of our ecosystem to trigger climate (or any other kind of) change?

I'm not saying that putting up solar panels and wind mills are a bad thing - I think they're very necessary and certainly a positive development. I'm just worried that we'll take it too far. Because we, as a species, often have the arrogance to believe we know all the consequences of our actions, even when they involve complex systems that we don't fully understand before we start meddling with them.

Yahoo/Microsoft

2008-02-09T08:48:00.000-08:00

First off, apologies the blog has been quiet. I've been busy.

Particularly, I've gotten a few people asking me why I haven't posted anything on the Microsoft's potential acquisition of Yahoo. I asked myself that question, and the best answer I could come up with was this - honestly, I really don't care.

Don't get me wrong - I realize it's a big deal and, if it goes through, will be one of the biggest and most important acquisitions in the history of the internet.

But personally, I've used either company's website only once in probably the past 4 or 5 years (since I ditched hotmail for gmail). And that once was a couple days ago.

I was on a computer in Huntsman, one of the Wharton buildings, trying to pull up some info to present to a group I'm in. I opened a browser and entered my search query into the box in the upper right corner. The results came up, but something was wrong - not only was I unable to find the web site I wanted, but, on the whole, the results just weren't as pertinent as they should be.

What in the world could be wrong? In the midst of trying to stall, I realized the problem - I was on Microsoft Live search. Penn, in its infinite wisdom, has shunned Google and Apple, installing nothing but PCs and letting Live Mail handle student email (instead of Gmail). Those PCs contained only Internet Explorer, pre-installed with Live search instead of Google in the upper right corner.

I think the incident is telling. On the whole, Google's offerings surpass Microsoft's and Yahoo's in terms of quality, and especially so in search, which is clearly the most important offering.

So where does that leave the merger? If it goes through, theres probably and 80% chance it'll be a mistake, like almost every other big merger. Perhaps the geniuses in Redmond will figure out a way to make it a success, but I doubt it.

And, really, it's not going to impact my life in much of a significant way - I get my search from Google and my news from CNN, Fox, BBC, and ESPN. So that's mostly why I haven't blogged about it, till now - together, I still won't use either today and they're probably even less likely to produce something that I might use in the future.

Valleywag Hits the Nail on the Head

2007-12-31T15:26:00.000-08:00

I love when Valleywag has short, sarcastic posts that articulately report an event/make a point. And they did today about our immigration policy regarding educated individuals. Check it out.

Happy New Years all!

Happy Thanksgiving (and Beardvember)!

2007-11-22T09:30:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving. And, as my friends at home have found out (to their horror), a happy Beardvember. It's gotten pretty bushy, and I'll be sure to post pictures at the end of the month...

Killer Apps

2007-11-05T20:49:00.000-08:00

My last post got me thinking about killer apps, and just how crucial they are to the success of a website. Taking into account the Facebook example I gave in that post (how Facebook's first killer app was basically the ability to look up/keep tabs on hotties of the opposite sex), perhaps it's not so much killer apps as killer purposes to use a website.

But regardless of what it's called, I truly believe it's necessary for a website to succeed. I hear a lot of pitches that paint a picture of an elaborate, multifunctional online ecosystem, and how it would be so great for some large set of internet users. So of course, the first question I ask them is, "What's the killer app?" For some (very few, unfortunately), the answer is easy, even if it's something like "Well, it's different for different kind of users." (The latter is definitely the case with Athleague.)

But for the vast majority, I get a dumb-struck look for a split second, and then the confident assertion that the killer app is "everything" because it's entire package of features that makes their concept so great. Honestly, I just don't buy it.

Maybe it's because I'm something of a disciple of Scott Rafer (he's only been beating the concept into me for a year and a half...), but I think this line of thinking represents the way real people work and how they adopt websites.

A salient personal example is Gmail. My best friend (and co-founder at Athleague) managed to get his hands on an early beta invite. Right away, I got my first killer "app" - the exact address I wanted (because there were very few existing accounts then). Then came the second killer app - college. Specifically, as I'm in college, I'm on a bunch of list servs with varying degrees of importance. To this end, the conversations feature was amazing - I can't imagine what my inbox would look like if a thread of 30 emails were displayed as individual messages. Finally, I looked for an online email solution (rather than a desktop application) in the first place because I knew I'd be using a variety of computers to check my email. This last feature (being able to check email on any computer with an internet connection), however, was by no means a killer reason to use Gmail in particular, only an online email service.

The clear take-away for me is that killer app(s) drove my Gmail usage. But this post is about a couple questions, the first being, is this how you function? Is it one or two features that cause you to use the websites and applications that you use? Or is it a variety of features that all happen to be at the same place (and am I just an idiot? - wait don't answer that one)?

The second quandary also deals with an aside from my previous post: are we out of killer apps? To be clear, I think the term "killer app" can mean anything from small to large. For example, driving directions were the killer app for people using MapQuest in the late 90's, but the ability to drag routes to create waypoints on Google maps, an innovation on an already common feature, could be a killer app for real estate agents. Today, we're seeing innovations mostly of the latter kind (it's hard to create a whole new branch of features/applications - virtual worlds is a potential example).

So yeah - whats sorts of killer apps do we have yet to see in the near future, if any? And, of those, do any present an opportunity for an internet company to make serious money?

OpenSocial

2007-11-02T09:14:00.000-07:00

I don't get it. The Valley is going nuts over OpenSocial. And yeah, it's cool. But not "checkmate" cool, as TechCrunch seems to think.

Yes open source is great. Yes platforms are greater. Look at what Wikipedia has done, harnessing the wisdom and intelligence of the masses - it's created what is probably the largest factual database in the history of mankind within only a few years.

But let's take a step back. Only a few months ago, Facebook's new platform was all the rage. Fast forward to today and, well, what's changed? I'm talking user experience. And when you boil it down, not much has. I don't have any stats, and maybe apps have revolutionized the Facebook experience for some small subset of users, but the core reason people log on to Facebook hasn't really changed.

And that's what Facebook is about. What the internet is about. People. You can make all the platforms you want, but it's very hard to change the way people operate.

People base their web behavior around killer apps. For example, Facebook's first killer app was basically dating/sex - a tool for checking out the fine (or ugly) guys or girls at your school. Then Facebook introduced pictures, which became a killer app for some. To a lesser extent, the news feed was a killer app, a reason to log on. Ditto with Walls and birthday reminders.

For the core of Facebook's users - that young, college-aged, 20s demographic - OpenSocial changes, well, nothing. Hell, I'm not sure I'll ever leave Facebook, if only because the vast majority of visual documentation of my 4 years at Penn (pictures) are on their servers.

But I digress. The point is that, so far, internet platforms (Facebook being the only example) haven't, on the whole, created killer apps. Who's to say OpenSocial will? And even if it does, will it steal traffic from Facebook?

(As an unrelated/related aside, writing this post got me thinking about the web and killer apps in general. Because, at it's core, that's what Web 2.0 is about - harnessing advancements in a variety of fields (everything from bandwidth speeds to "new" languages like AJAX) to create a new set of killer apps. But if platforms are unable to come up with this new set, how about the internet as a whole? This relays directly into what is, in my opinion, the question of the day: are we in a bubble?

And from this line of thinking, the answer is surprisingly clear and yet still fundamentally complex: if the current set of web companies can't succeed in developing new killer apps - websites that truly give us the ability to do things we could never do before (interactive virtual worlds, for example) and make those things worth doing (so maybe virtual worlds aren't an example:) - we're in trouble.

Maybe that's deep or maybe it's foolishly obvious, make of it what you will.)

(As a second aside, I thought I'd reference a post a wrote over the summer, when Facebook's platform was the big story. The post voices my thoughts on open platforms and suggests that maybe Google or Yahoo should launch one of their own (wait, did I predict OpenSocial?:). Specifically, I wonder if OpenSocial will take the structure outlined in the post or something else entirely.)

Facebook Apps

2007-10-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

I know this blog has been silent of late. I apologize. We're working, plus I'm back at school and am dealing with classes as well.

But anyway, I've been doing some thinking about Facebook apps recently. When they came out, they were all the rage in the Valley (and elsewhere, to a lesser extent). Each VC asked you about your "Facebook strategy" and the like. Hell, a number of VC firms started (or flirted with starting) microfunds dedicated solely to Facebook apps.

As an interesting side note, I got a bit of a sneak peak into this process. At the beginning of the summer, a good friend (Scott, of course) put me in touch with Greylock regarding the project that has now become Athleague. Greylock approached us as part of an initiative within the firm to provide Facebook applications with small (low 5 figure) seed rounds. As we corresponded throughout the summer, their enthusiasm for Facebook app funding slowly waned until, in August, they told us they weren't going forward with the microfinancing idea anymore.

I'd say the general pulse on Facebook apps has followed the same trend. Through there are some who still swear that the Facebook platform is the next Windows (something I did when the Platform first came out), the general consensus seems to be that apps, at least right now, aren't capable of making much money.

So that brings us back to the question - is the platform really that big of a deal, or not? I've been brainstorming, and I still think it could be. Specifically, when thinking about our Facebook strategy, I've realized that our app needs to be one that closely integrates with our website.

And perhaps, in a broader sense, that could be the key. Perhaps the apps themselves aren't as important as the traffic they drive to their website they represent. This, of course, calls for tight integration - allowing users to access and alter data from both portals (the website itself and Facebook) and giving them a compelling reason to go to an app's website after installing the app.

It could be a while before we actually see these kinds of apps. But, long run, I think these are the ones that could actually fulfill the promise (monetarily and utility-wise) of the Facebook platform.

Announcing: Athleague

2007-08-15T23:24:00.000-07:00

So this blog has been silent for a while. And it's because we've been busy - we being Athleague, a project I've been spending the summer on.

In short, Athleague aims to be the social utility of all amateur athletes of all ages - a place to find the best local soccer league or pick up game, or a tool to organize your team or league. However, we have a humble initial goal - to be an online solution for league administrators. Feel free to read more about us on The Official Athleague Blog.

What's even cooler is that we're now in public beta. To test out our site, go to beta.athleague.com and register for an account. Create and join teams and leagues and, above all, tell us what you think! If you don't understand something, it's because we suck and didn't explain it. Let us know what we're doing wrong, and enjoy.

Open Platforms

2007-07-17T11:40:00.000-07:00

You're sure this is going to be about Facebook, right?

Not so much, though Facebook is definitely the inspiration. Actually my quandary has more to do with the two 800 lb. gorillas in the web space. Specifically, why don't they open up a "platform," or at least something resembling one?

Really, all the Facebook platform does is two things: 1) it lets you log on to other websites using your Facebook login and put some self-expressive/marginally useful widget on your profile, and 2) it give third party applications certain information that Facebook has collected to enhance the application quality and experience.

Well, minus the profile widgets, can't Yahoo and Google do the same? Personally, Google knows a ton about me - my contacts, my searches, the ads I've clicked on, and probably more stuff that I don't want to even know they know. So, why not open up a platform?

Hell, it could be as easy as letting third party websites authenticate users via their Google/Yahoo log in, a little bit like the login process of websites that have been bought by either of the two (Blogger, Flickr, etc.). How cool would it be to be able to try out new websites without having to go through the annoying sign-up/verification? Maybe that particular feature is targeted more at the early adopter crowd, but I'm sure the geniuses at those companies can come up with a compelling list of benefits for the average user.

I mean, say, all of a sudden, you could log on to any website with your Yahoo email address and password. I haven't touched my Yahoo account in years, but I'd dust it off if it could all of a sudden get me access to every site on the web. And maybe they could negotiate putting a Yahoo ad next to the log in box on every page.

It's a little easier said then done, but maybe one of the big boys will have the cojones to try something crazy...

Basketball's Moneyball

2007-06-26T16:59:00.000-07:00

Surprisingly hard-hitting article on the NBA draft coming out of ESPN.com today. In the piece, John Hollinger proposes a statistical system for judging incoming collegiate basketball talent, an approach reminiscent of the Oakland A's draft strategy, as discussed in Michael Lewis's Moneyball.

It's a great study - Hollinger really breaks down the draft and assembles an algorithm that does a great job rating the players - better than the market does (based on comparing results from the system applied to previous drafts with how the drafts themselves played out). It's by no means a quantum leap, but it still does appear to do a significantly better job.

I guess it's just further proof that market efficiency rears its (pretty? ugly? you decide) head everywhere. It'll be interesting to see how, if at all, these rankings affect how the draft actually goes down...

Penn-er Tearing Up the Blogosphere

2007-06-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

Specifically, Emily Smith, a friend and classmate. She's interning at the DNC and is a contributer on the DNC blog (I know, how cool is that). You can read one of her recent posts here. Keep checking back, as I'm sure she'll be tearing it up through the summer and beyond. And Em - get a dedicated blog so you can tell us how crazy the world is 24/7.

It's amazing how the web is changing the way campaigns are run. Good luck to her and all those embracing it:).

Why I Love Technology

2007-06-21T14:14:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd continue the "Why I Love" theme. I've got a meeting with Scott Rafer in a few hours, and he said we should meet at a coffee shop on Union Square, as we'd be here for Supernova anyway. I said sure, but asked him which one. He responded by saying he had no idea what the name was, but sent me a picture. I got on Google maps, switched into street view, and scanned for a coffee shop that matched the picture. It took all of 30 seconds. That's why I love technology.

Why I Love the Valley

2007-06-21T10:34:00.000-07:00

I'm here at Supernova, but I've got a completely unrelated story I wanted to share. On the way here this morning, I took Caltrain and decided to walk here to Union Square from the SF station in SOMA. I've walked it a bunch before, but I was a little curious how many blocks it was. So, I turned and asked the person walking next to me. Our conversation:

"Hey, how many blocks is it to Union Square?"
"No idea, I work a couple blocks from the station and don't really walk all the way there."
"Oh, where do you work?"
"Powerset."

How cool is that. I love how I can walk down a street here and randomly meet a guy working for one of Silicon Valley's most hyped companies. Though we tend to hype quite a few ventures, some of the hype inevitably translates to revolutionary companies that change the way we live. Maybe Powerset isn't one of them, but maybe it is, and it's cool that it started here.

Supernova, June 21-22

2007-06-17T20:52:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let you all know I'll be at Supernova at this Thursday and Friday (June 21st and 22nd). Supernova is a tech/business conference put on by the Wharton School with a bunch of pretty cool speakers and whatnot, and it'll be at the Westin St. Francis hotel in Union Square. If you want to meet up there or in the city at any point Thursday and Friday (and possibly Wednesday), drop me a line.

Blogger Bug?

2007-06-14T18:45:00.000-07:00

Not a huge one, but an annoying one. When you start a post and save it as draft form, Blogger saves the time/date you started the post, and, when you eventually put the post up, attaches the saved time/date to the post, rather than the time/date at the time of posting.

Most of the time, this isn't a big deal. However, I'm a fan of starting posts and then leaving them in draft form to revise or finish later - not an entirely uncommon drafting method.

Well, with Blogger, say you start a long post, save it in draft form, and then put up a short post about a random thought the next day. When you come back to the first piece and finish it, it appears below the second post on your blog, even though it was posted later.

So, if you want the post you just finished to be the first one on your blog, you have to copy the text to a new post. Not hard, just annoying.

The above also explains why my Facebook Platform post says it went up May 30th when, in reality, it was posted June 10th. Like I said, not a huge bug, but odd that Google hasn't thought of or noticed it...

Nuclear Power

2007-06-11T19:24:00.000-07:00

Today's article in the Merc got me thinking. The piece was the second of a two part series on green energy. The first focused on the usual suspects (solar, wind, water, etc.), but today's discussed some of the pros and cons of nuclear power, touting it as the "alternative-energy dark horse."

My first thought was a deep one: "Duh." I've often wondered what happened to the promise of nuclear power, especially as greentech companies have been getting more and more funding over the past couple of years. Decades ago, nuclear power was touted as the answer to our energy problems. But here we are today, putting more stock in the sun, water, and wind to power our future.

And I don't really understand why. In my mind, nuclear power is clearly the future. My math might be fuzzy here (or I could just be wrong, feel free to call me out), but I'm pretty sure nuclear power holds a magnitude or two (or more?) more promise than other forms of alternative energy. Quite literally, nuclear reactions release much more power than those that take place in solar cells and windmills. Take a basic quantum class and you realize E=mc² means you can get a ton of energy out of a relatively small amount of mass.

Granted, nuclear power is not without its drawbacks. The technology behind current plants, fission reactions, creates radioactive byproducts and is generally hard to control (though many plants have done so successfully). However, as the article points out, these products are limited to small amounts and probably do less damage than all the carbon we're emitting into the atmosphere.

Furthermore, fission power is the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Anyone remember SimCity 2000 (circa 1995ish)? Remember speeding up time so you could get the fusion power plant? Granted, an actual fusion power plant is still far in the future (I think the game put it as being available in 2040), but I'm fairly sure we'll see on in our lifetime. As some of you know, fusion is fission's stronger, cleaner big brother.

(Quick physics lesson being done from memory - correct me if I'm wrong: Fission takes an atom, usually uranium, and pulls it separates it into two atoms while fusion combines two atoms into one. Both reactions release energy corresponding to the loss in mass, according to E=mc².)

Point is, at the quantum level, energy is abundant. Harnessing these powerful reactions safely is the key to unlocking the potential they hold. Nuclear power is one great example of this, and others will surely emerge as research is done. Perhaps someday, mega-powerful reactions like combining matter and antimatter (referenced in Dan Brown's Angels and Demons) will be commonplace sources of energy.

For the time being, searching the world around us for natural forms of energy is a noble goal. But, in the long run, we're going to need to think small to find the energy we need - so shouldn't we start putting money there now?

F8, the Facebook Platform

2007-05-30T16:53:00.000-07:00

I know this blog has been silent for the past month now, and I apologize. Finals came and went, and I'm now back home in the Valley.

This post is going to be short, and probably not even very sweet, but I had to put something up about Facebook's new platform because it's so, so cool. More accurately, it shows that Facebook really gets it. The company understands the tech world, the power of third party developers, and, above all, that the best way to increase revenue is to grow the pie rather than the company's slice.

The platform has been compared to a variety of other product launches in tech history, but the one that comes to my mind - Windows - hasn't been mentioned much. I wrote a few months ago about how I believed MySpace was in trouble with their fluctuating stance on widgets. Well, Facebook's move could very well go down as the nail in the coffin.

The parallels to Windows (and the OS wars) are eerie. The most obvious is that, just as Microsoft did, Facebook is allowing developers to keep 100% of the revenue that third party Facebook applications generate. That alone is huge - instead of worrying whether you're going to be shut down (like widgets do on MySpace), you're sure that you'll profit off whatever value you create.

Facebook is striving to create an open and level playing field for application developers, and the platform is a monumental step in that direction. It'll be interesting to see which applications make the biggest splash...

Wanted: You

2007-04-28T16:21:00.000-07:00

That's right. If you've got skills, that is.

Specifically, I'm looking for people to join me on a start up I'm getting off the ground. It's in the realm of Web 2.0 (of course, though I detest using buzz words) and sports. If you've got familiarity with programming (any or hopefully all of the following: PHP/MySQL, HTML, CSS, AJAX, etc.), leave a comment, shoot me an email (rmishra@wharton.upenn.edu), facebook me, call me, or whatever else. Location isn't crucial, but being in the Bay Area or Boston is preferred. Hope to hear from you soon.

Facebook + VTech

2007-04-19T06:57:00.000-07:00

GigaOm has a great article up today on the effect of social websites, Facebook in particular, on the dissemination of news and, on a larger level, the legitimacy of the web (and, again, Facebook in particular) as a avenue of communicating emotion (in this case, the vast number of groups and events that have popped up on the site in response to Monday's events at Virginia Tech).

And it's completely true. Though the internet will always be the internet, a form of communication more impersonal than phone calls and actual human contact, it has increased in emotional relevance - emails are pretty much as intimate as snail mail notes (though 10 years ago many said this would never happen), Facebook wall posts are an acceptable way to wish your friend happy birthday (though a phone call usually means more), etc. The groups formed and profile pictures changed in response to Monday's tragedy, though on a website, express and symbolize true empathy and support.

Whether it's setting up a group to let your friends know you're OK or joining one to show your unity in standing behind Virginia Tech and its victims, the web is changing. Welcome to a more connected world.

(PS - I have to say this blog has reached a new low - I'm now blogging in class. In my defense, my prof is droning on about why his memorization and superficial project-based class, disliked by all, was actually useful.)

Virginia Tech Vigil - 4/19 @ 9pm

2007-04-18T11:09:00.000-07:00

Hey all - just thought I'd put up a quick post about the vigil to be held tomorrow night (Thursday, April 19th) for the tragedy that happened on Monday at Virginia Tech. It's on College Green (Locust between 34th and 36th) at 9pm. Whether you're a Penn kid or a Philadelphian, try and make it out and show your support for the victims. Most of you I'm sure have already heard of it, but I thought I'd do what I could to help spread the word.

The tragedy was a little closer to home for me than most, as Virginia Tech is my Dad's alma matter (and the school that afforded him the right to come to America). It's a true shame, and I'm sure our hearts and prayers go out to the victims and their families and friends. I was going to put up a dedicated post on the topic, but I really couldn't (and can't) find the words.

Google Clicks Twice

2007-04-16T12:35:00.000-07:00

You really shouldn't be getting your news here first (especially not this story), but I had to put something up about Google's $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick, the online banner advertising giant, on Friday. Here is a link to the story on TechCrunch, and here's an interesting article up today on GigaOm.

Arrington makes an interesting point in his article - Google paid a price that's 10x the company's revenue, a staggering amount for a mature company.

Some of the pundits have been calling it a "strategic acquisition" to justify the price, but something just seems off to me. $3 billion is a lot of money, and I think it's probably too much. Microsoft had been rumored to be interested at around $2 billion, but Google came (way) over the top.

What do you guys think? Is Google getting carried away with these purchases just because they have boatloads of cash, or is DoubleClick really worth that much? And another odd point - does anyone notice how much less attention this purchase is getting than that of YouTube. Google spends twice as much money and gets half as much press. I mean, everyone around campus was talking about the YouTube deal, but I haven't heard anyone mention DoubleClick over the past few days.

On a quasi-related note, is it just me or is the tide turning against the Mountain View titan? Maybe turn is an overstatement, but I think the winds are beginning to change. Fred Wilson has a great post up today where he astutely points out that Google has to start worrying more about the quality of their lawyers than that of their engineers, which can never be a good thing.

As they've become a big company, they're inevitably lost some of their ability to innovate or even incubate innovation. Just read the Dodgeball founders' post on Flickr. Dodgeball was all the craze not that long ago, but, after being acquired by Google, they've been beaten out by Twitter in the social texting space. The founders complain, rightfully so, that the lack of resources Google sent their way was to blame for the loss in market share.

Wow, this post got longer than I had planned. My basic question is what do you think about all this? As usual, disagreement is highly encouraged and preferred...

MySpace Response

2007-04-12T15:07:00.000-07:00

So my buddy Sergey Lossev (Founder/CEO of VCEL) wrote a post in response to my last one about MySpace and Photobucket entitled "Blocking Photobucktet: not as stupid as you think."

He makes some good points, basing his argument around the following tenants:

In order to sustain their leadership MySpace needs to make sure to:

1) Drive a sustainable and large enough revenue stream via advertisement
2) Make sure that the quality of the content and the userbase remains intact. Meaning that the ratio of Signal to Noise in this network needs to favor signal as much as possible (e.g Have real private messages and comments vs robot spam)

Both very good points, especially the second. MySpace has a vast audience, so obviously advertisers are going to pushing for ways to get their wares in front of all those eyeballs.

But one point of his represents the crux of our disagreement - that MySpace needs to ensure they get 100% of the revenue from their site (or at least the majority of it - he mentions widget revenue share at the bottom of the post). Basically, he's taking the same stance as MySpace itself - the site shouldn't let parasitic companies make money off their traffic.

But that's exactly my point - they should. They should let others make money off their site. Because while MySpace is great, it's all the cool widgets that make it even more great.

Philosophically, that's exactly what being "open" is about - freeing oneself and one's company from greed (I'm loving the hippie slant to that last phrase) and understanding that if they don't embrace the little guy trying to make a buck, one of those little guys could be the one that ends up killing them. Going back to the OS Wars, it's the same thing as Apple saying they want to make all the money from the software and Microsoft being content with letting 3rd party software developers make a fortune as long as they do it gives people more of a reason to buy Windows. By dangling the incentive of money, you effectively have the entire widget development community working for you.

Now the times have changed, and it's understandable for MySpace to want to see some of the money widgets make because they're not exactly making money for signing up users (where Microsoft makes a bundle for each OS sold). So fine - work out a rev share with widget developers. And I think that's where Sergey and I have an area of agreement on the issue.

Maybe you've noticed that I've ignored the signal vs. noise issue. It's basically because I have no answer, except that maybe it's a non sequitur. What about letting widget developers make money encourages noise? I mean, I kinda see it - advertisements can be spam, and if you let people make money they're going to want to push ads and whatnot as much as possible. But you get a bit of a free market effect going on - if a widget is pushing spam and it pisses users off, then it will become less popular. And because widget developers rely on MySpace to put food on their table, they're not going to want to lose popularity.

Essentially, allowing them to make money outsources creativity. And creativity and new features keep users coming back for more and staying in love with a service, even if there is better stuff out there. Microsoft has done just that with Windows.

And then you can pull the second page out of the Microsoft book and copy what widgets and crush the competition (like Lotus and Word). Gotta love the boys in Redmond.

MySpace's Doom

2007-04-11T09:09:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, hasn't it? I apologize (but don't say I didn't warn you) - life has been beyond hectic.

I figured something would wake me from my blog slumber. A couple weeks back, the combination of a few friends' remarks and an article on CNN got me pretty pissed, and I started a draft on the brain drain our country is experiencing, stemming from the lack of emphasis on the sciences and engineering. Unfortunately, work came up, and I lost motivation to finish it. I promise I will because it's something I've been meaning to blog about for a while, but don't hold your breath.

What actually did the trick was MySpace, returning to the forefront of stupidity. A few weeks ago, I wrote the boys at NewsCorp an open letter, suggesting what they could do to ensure they remain the #1 social networking site: open up.

However, being a bastion of corporate foolishness, they don't realize their precarious position. Recently, they blocked PhotoBucket videos on MySpace, leaving millions of users without video on their pages.

It's mind boggling. They really don't get it. They just don't. I think their fate is sealed.

And I wanted to update one thing on the open letter post - Facebook is more "open" than I gave them credit for. Although they limit the personalization of pages, they understand the importance of third party developers and apparently have a sweet API. The whispers at first were that it was too limited to do anything cool with, but now it's loosened up a bit and some pretty nice stuff is being built around it. I can't attest to this myself as I haven't used it, so if any of you want to chime in that'd be great.

Resilience

2007-03-15T14:13:00.000-07:00

I know this blog usually tends towards start ups, tech stuff, and the like, but I thought I'd take a moment to recognize the toughness and courage displayed by some of my classmates down in Kentucky this afternoon, where the Penn basketball team took on Texas A&M, the 7th ranked team in the country, in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

In case you didn't watch, our boys really did us proud today. Every year, we finish near the top of the Ivy League, and when we win it (as we've done my 3 years here), we earn the right to be first round fodder for one of the best teams in the country in the tournament.

Last year, as a 15th seed against 2nd seeded Texas, we managed to be leading at halftime and lost by less than 10, a remarkable feat. But, in some ways, today's performance topped that. Our beloved Quakers, marred by awful shooting, were down by 13 points in the first half and 15 early in the second.

At this point, how easy would it have been to throw in the towel? Just a few hours earlier, Stanford, a higher ranked team playing a lesser opponent in Louisville, got thrashed early and never mustered the fight to come back. We were up against one of the best teams in the country, and everyone could see it. The Texas A&M players dwarfed our own, and you could see the sheer superior talent in first team All American (read: one of the top 5 players in the country) Acie Law and his teammates.

But we didn't roll over. Mustering strength I don't think anyone knew we had, we closed the lead and even managed to build one of our own (39-37). And though Texas A&M ended up winning in the end, our performance was one of the most inspiring things I've seen in a while.

Whether it's a start up trying to take down Google or a bunch of Ivy League nerds attempting the impossible, the importance of resilience can never be overstated. Talent and skill are necessary, sure, but faith and perseverance are often discounted in today's world. I know, it's cliche. But, though it often doesn't seem like it on this blog, today, I'm proud to be a Quaker.

Om's Thoughts on India

2007-03-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

Om Malik (of GigaOm fame) wrote an article a couple days ago on his take on India's emergence. In a word, it's beautiful.

Seriously, go read it. You know that India piece I referred to a few times on this blog (that is still lying in my drafts...)? This is like that except on a level I don't think I could ever achieve. It captures the both the analytical and emotional reactions of a first generation immigrant returning to his homeland.

(And I will get that post up at some point. It just may not be soon.)

New Home

2007-02-28T21:34:00.000-08:00

My blog moved! Didn't notice? Check the address bar - I'm now at www.ravimishra.com. The muse hit me and I decided I needed to have my own domain name. For $2, I'd say it's worth it. Change your bookmarks and tell all your friends...

Dear NewsCorp

2007-02-25T15:39:00.000-08:00

and Rupert Murdoch,

RE: MySpace

Why do you do the things you do? Over the weekend, you blocked Imeem, a popular widget provider.

Now, I don't know what Imeem is. Nor do I, unlike the 100+ million around the globe, even use your service all that much. (MySpace missed me - it got "cool" for my little sister, so then I couldn't use it of course, and didn't get "cool" for me till I already had Facebook.)

But I watch you from afar and wonder why, oh why, you do the crazy things you do. And today I finally had to blog about it.

You stumbled into a gold mine. The founders launched a solid product and made the right moves to get it popular. Then you came along and bought the site for extremely cheap ($580 million) by today's standards. (Facebook wants almost 4 times what you got for far fewer users than you had when you sold.)

Now you, a bunch of media execs, are trying to run one of the biggest websites on the planet. And I applaud the effort - you're really doing a decent job - because you have the balls to venture into a new space rather than sit back and deny its importance to your own doom.

So I know you mean well with your attempts to kill widgets and keep the site nice and closed and safe. On the surface, it may even seem like wisdom - keep foreign things to a minimum because they could be bad and security is important. But there's definitely a little greed there - you don't want other people profiting off your site. And why would you, it's yours.

Here's why - those pesky little widgets you've been trying to kill are going to keep you alive. MySpace, as an independent organization, may have had a slight penchant for innovation. As a huge, bloated, media corporation, you have none. The men and women behind those widgets, however, are some of the brightest and most forward-thinking minds this country has to offer. And, guess what? They're working for you. They may be taking some of your pie, probably more of the pie than you give to your developers. But they're making your pie bigger.

For that, you should thank them, not kill them. And thank arguably your biggest competitor, Facebook, for making sure no one can develop widgets for their site.

While you're at it, crack open a history book or two. Maybe it's a stretch, but that nagging voice in my head tells me we've seen this one before. Inferior but open source technology against brilliant product with a proprietary system and a purist bent? Dare I say it? Microsoft vs. Apple? The OS wars? Learn from the past - encourage third party developers to build widgets and whatever else on top of your site (and, hell, you could take a play from Microsoft's playbook and reverse engineer the widget and add it to your product. Or you could just be nice and buy them). But you probably will want to invest a bit in make sure security on the site is top notch.

In other words, take the lesson from that old fable: don't kill the Goose that laid the golden egg. It never works out well for you.

(PS - If you're really bored, count how many times I've referenced the OS wars on this blog. I know it's a little hackneyed, but it's a classic example displaying the wisdom of quite a few tenants in the tech world. And there's tons of parallels to whats going on today in various situations. Really, why isn't this stuff more obvious? Do people just not think to look to the past to decipher the future? Or perhaps the view from the ivory tower tricks CEOs into thinking they'll succeed where others failed...)

Interesting Response

2007-02-23T15:56:00.000-08:00

Robert Scoble pointed today to this article written by Dan Dodge in response to the Google Apps announcement yesterday. This is the second time I've heard the "Don't worry, we're taking care of it" answer from Microsoft (the first being Ballmer himself here at Penn). And it's a kinda convincing, I'm not going to lie. Microsoft has been thought to be on the way down before, only to come back in seemingly effortless fashion (think Netscape and Explorer).

Anyway, decent read, and I'm loving the reference to Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma, a great book (thanks for making me read it over the summer, Dad). At least Gates & Co. are well versed.

Google Declares War

2007-02-22T14:50:00.000-08:00

It's about time. After the rumor mill churned out whispers that Google had a big announcement coming regarding its Office-like web apps, it came as little surprise when the news hit today. But that doesn't mean it isn't big news.

Google unveiled a combined office suite for businesses, packaging its documents, spreadsheet, calendaring, and email software. The combined entity will cost $50 a year, a user. Though it's ideal for small businesses looking to save money, Google has already signed GE and P&G as users. Checkout the usuals (GigaOm, TechCrunch, etc.) for fuller stories, and there's a nice InformationWeek article here.

The War has officially begun. The one that we'll be telling our kids about. Since Google's first strike comes as Microsoft is trying to convince the world to upgrade to Office 2007, the company will probably draw first blood, but the blow will hardly be fatal. If consumers adopt Vista, Microsoft will own the OS for at least the next 5 years, giving the Empire a window to Strike Back. Simply put, in the long run, the boys in Redmond will need to find a way to capitalize on what they're good at, probably by tying desktop apps in with a web-based ones. Just how they do it remains to be seen...

This should be very fun to watch. Strap in and enjoy.

(This is the kind of thing that deserves a long, analytical post. And there's no way that's going to happen anytime soon. Nat, you were telling me you wanted blogging ideas - here's one on a silver platter. And anyone else, if you want to make some predictions, I'd love to read 'em.)

Wharton Tech Conference

2007-02-20T17:53:00.000-08:00

So a last night a friend asked if I'd be interested in attending the Wharton Tech Conference this Friday. Of course, my first reaction was "Wharton Tech" anything had to be a top 10 oxymoron. No way I'd be caught dead at this thing, right?

But then I thought about it. I don't have class on Friday, and even though I'll probably be out with Jack for his birthday the night before, I can pull myself out of bed and get downtown by mid morning. And possibly get Nat to join me? (PS - Jack, you need to have a blog so I can link to you when I do that.) (PPS - Mom, Dad, ignore that sentence. I'm going to be diligently studying. :)

I mean, I've got recruiting to do, and I might run into a someone I could bring on for various projects. Right, that won't happen there. But I may as well see how this side of the world tries to do tech while I'm out here (1.5 years and counting. Go time, go.).

So in case you're in the area and want to be amused for the day, leave a comment and come join me. I'll be that kid blogging (or probably working) in the corner who sticks out because he doesn't realize that "jeans and a t-shirt" isn't the dress code for a tech conference on the least coast.

CommunityNext Wrap-up

2007-02-11T11:27:00.000-08:00

The CommunityNext Conference yesterday at Stanford was a huge success. Props to Noah Kagan, CambrianHouse, and everyone else who made it possible (both for me and in general).

I'll be fleshing out a lot of what went on in the coming day (and by that I mean probably after my Math 412 midterm on Wednesday), but a few highlights:

The SkinnyCorp guys (Jeffrey Kalmikoff and Jack Nickell) stole the show. Their company executes a series of ideas that "would be cool." Their biggest project as of now is threadless, but naked and angry and extra tasty are making waves as well.
James Hong telling the HotOrNot story: "So we were drinking one afternoon at 3pm, because we were unemployed of course, and my friend mentions me recently met a Perfect 10..." But in all honesty, he had some great insights about getting a website off the ground. James also put a great post a few days ago about staying hungry.
The enthusiasm about community. The passion was palpable. It's a little Zen-like, but it was great to reaffirm that the Valley, at its core, is about passion and not money (embodied by the SkinnyCorp guys).
Getting recognized:). Kind of at least. I was talking to RapLeaf co-founder Vivek Sodera about school and life and whatnot. When I brought up attending Wharton, he mentioned that he'd read in a blog somewhere that the entrepreneurial environment there was awful. I sheepishly told him that, yeah, I wrote that.

I also have some bad news - nothing major, but I wouldn't expect blog posts here nearly as often as they've been coming. I aim for 3 a week, but in the coming weeks I'll be lucky to do one a week. Life and projects are beyond hectic. Hopefully once the smoke clears I'll have something sweet to write about...

Jobs creates a stir

2007-02-07T09:13:00.000-08:00

Steve Jobs is at it again. I'm assuming most of you have read his Thoughts on Music. Jobs lays out the state of the music world and three alternatives for the future. He uses the post to explain why Apple must slap DRMs on music sold on iTunes, making it playable only on iPods. His three alternatives, continuing the current system of separate DRMs for each company, licensing its DRM (FairPlay) to other sites, or removing DRMs altogether, basically serve to explain that the current state needs to be changed. His conclusion is a plea to the Big 4 Labels (Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI) to help charter a course along the lines of the last option.

It's a solid analysis and definitely a fairly impartial article. However, it smells just slightly of a PR move, showing the people that Jobs and Apple are on their side. His point (doing away with DRMs) is fairly obvious and a sentiment almost all readers are inclined to agree with. Of course, getting rid of DRMs will boost iTunes sales, so Jobs is definitely speaking mostly from the heart.

Interesting response on Mark Cuban's blog. Not what Jobs wants to hear, but Cuban urges the major labels to build a iTunes clone as a joint venture, get rid of DRMs, and monetize both the music and the traffic on their new music purchase platform(via Yahoo's Panama or Google's AdSense). There's a bunch of other great responses out there, but too many to link to.

Once again, sorry for the lack of posts - crazy times in West Phil these days. As I mentioned in the last post, I'll be home for CommunityNext at Stanford this Saturday. Hope to see you there.

Going, Going Back, Back

2007-01-31T20:24:00.000-08:00

(to Cali, Cali) I'm assuming 99.3% of you didn't get that reference. Anywho, point is I will be returning to Bay Area for the CommunityNext Conference next weekend, thanks to a number of people. The conference is at Stanford on February 10th. More details here.

I couldn't leave out some shout outs to people that are making this happen. Jing, Noah, and Cambrian House, thanks for setting this up (and letting me go), making the introductions and organizing the conference, and actually getting me there, respectively.

If you'd like to meet up, feel free to leave a comment and I'll see you at Stanford on the 10th.

And sorry the blog has been bare as of late. This place is keeping me more than busy. I have tons of drafts that are half done and I promise I will get around to finishing them asap. Stay tuned...

Cingular/AT&T

2007-01-21T20:43:00.000-08:00

The most recent example of corporate stupidity comes from our friends at Cingular and AT&T. As most of you probably know, it's now just AT&T.

I understand (at a very basic level) the company line on the move: They're trying to better integrate their various services to capitalize on core competencies and create synergies between divisions, and unifying the brand is a logical step in convincing customers AT&T offers a comprehensive communication solution.

But, seriously, are they for real? Not only are they nixing a brand that has built up quite a bit of brand equity and loyalty, but they also just made the opposite change shortly after the merger. AT&T Wireless figured to piggyback off Cingular's visibility and decided to centralize under the latter's name not too long ago. Now, they're taking one of the most recognizable name in the mobile business out of the market. In the short term, it's going to mean confused customers ("Where did Cingular go?") and unnecessary expenses (there must have been a dozen commercials during the NFC and AFC Championship games today).

But my beef with the move centers on the rationale behind it. Maybe its a generational thing, but I just don't think the AT&T's brand name is better than Cingular's. AT&T is old school, a lumbering giant that you wouldn't expect to be on the forefront of innovation, while Cingular is new and cool. And they've definitely put effort into making it seem that way (remember all those Cingular ads during the Super Bowl a few years ago?). The switch negates all that. To top it off, it looks completely ridiculous - what kind of company changes their name one way only to change it back a few years later?

Of course, it's a great way to reinforce the stereotype that you're clumsy, confused, and, well, a lumbering giant. Gotta love the irony. Good luck, AT&T.

(Oh, and an apology for dropping all the b-school lingo. I promise I understand it's all nonsense. Everyone knows there's no such thing as synergy. Outside of management class, that is.:)

1 Suit, 2 Suit, Red Suit, Blue Suit

2007-01-16T21:53:00.000-08:00

Mark Cuban wrote a great rant on suits today. Check it out, it's pretty funny and definitely highlights one of the odder traditions that has developed in our society.

Of course, most Whartonites here would balk at the article (as my roommates did when I passed it on to them). As they well should, since it tears into an institution they hold incredibly dear. :)

Then again, I wonder how much they'll love it when they drop hundreds (or thousands?) of dollars on suits this summer, only to drench them in sweat as they rush through 100 degree heat from the subway to the office.

Surprise! eBay buys Stubhub

2007-01-10T18:18:00.000-08:00

I don't know if anyone saw this coming. For the second time this week, a company I'm fairly close with got bought. This time it was eBay purchasing Stubhub for around $310 million. Unlike most acquisitions of this size, there weren't many rumors floating around until shortly before the announcement (or at least not any that I heard).

So what to make of it? I have no idea. My gut tells me eBay waited too long to pull the trigger and ended up paying a lot more than they needed to. Even today, the price seems a little steep for a company rumored to be doing about $10 million a year in profit.

The synergy (I hate that word) between the two companies' products is apparent, and a solid integration strategy will be definitely be a value add. But it seems as if eBay employed the "chicken with its head cut off" approach: first ignore the competitor, then scramble to build a half-assed response (search for tickets on eBay and it gives you a special search column but doesn't offer anywhere near the functionality of Stubhub), and finally just acquire.

Ok. That was a little harsh. Overall it's a good deal (especially for Stubhub), and I wish them all the best. Their product offerings overlap nicely, and the deal makes a lot of sense. It's hard to believe I sat down with CEO Jeff Flehr and Head of Marketing Mike James less than a week ago. Ebay definitely got a great website and a dynamite team, which should hopefully make the purchase worthwhile in the end. Many congratulations to Jeff, Mike, and the rest.

Y! buys MyBlogLog

2007-01-08T21:05:00.000-08:00

The rumors have been flying for a few weeks, and turns out they were all true. Yahoo has bought MyBlogLog for about $10-$12 million (exact dollar amount not confirmed). I've written about MBL here and here, so I won't bore you with another profile. Basically, great company, and the purchase is especially meaningful for me because their CEO is Scott Rafer, my fearless leader from over the summer. So congrats to him and the entire MBL team, and good luck working for Yahoo.

Update: I figured I should link to GigaOm's article on the acquisition. Gotta love the web - news that it was official traveled so fast that I called Scott to congratulate him while he was still at dinner with Om.

Seeqpod Rises

2007-01-08T10:15:00.001-08:00

Seeqpod, a music search and recommendation engine, recently came out of stealth mode and is currently in public beta. The brainchild of CEO Kasian Franks, Seeqpod uses neural networks to approach search and recommendations in an entirely unprecedented way.

So what's the word? Seeqpod is awesome. Seriously, go try it out. Click on music and search for your favorite song. Basically, you can stream music, but, in the process of searching, Seeqpod points you at other songs that you'll probably like, based on your search queries.

Sound like Pandora or last.fm? Well, it's not. Though it does only music now, the concept behind the company is far more encompassing.

Kasian and his team started with a classic problem - how to get computers to think like humans do. It sounds like AI, but Seeqpod quickly narrowed the scope of their efforts. They sought to create an auto associative approach to search - basically an algorithm that could take two pieces of knowledge and link the two or come up with something new in a fashion similar to what humans do.

Throughout the process, modeling functions of the brain guided their work. So, because we think in terms of ideas and symbols (and not words and grammar), they oriented their project around objects and their relationship to each other. One of my favorite Kasian quotes about the Seeqpod itself is that it "knows that humans associate the color blue with the sky more than anything else," something that other search engines today don't take into account.

Thus, the fruit of their labor is a fundamentally new solution that can be applied to traditional problems - matching content with ads, enabling recommendations, etc. Music search and recommendations is truly only the tip of the iceberg of Seeqpod's aspirations.

Of course, a company's fortunes also depend on the quality of its team. And CEO Kasian Franks is the real deal. Though its accuracy can be questioned, Franks has a solid vision of the future of search and knows how Seeqpod can play into that future. When I asked him the G-question, he pointed out that though Google rules search now, the future will bring changes, and "Google will be only a small piece of tomorrow's search." Bold words, yes, but history tells us he's probably right - 5 or 10 years from now, Google probably won't be the only player in search, and the industry may have adapted to allow multiple companies to coexist.

More than that, though, Kasian embodies the spirit of Silicon Valley. For example, he picked music to roll out the company's beta services because music is "a binding force" and brings people together "like no other glue in the world." Hearing him discuss the project, his passion is apparent, and he believes in his product completely. In the words of a certain someone whom we will be remembering next Monday, he has a dream (for Seeqpod), and he's not afraid to chase it.

Overall, though, the firm's success is doubtful - like all start ups, they face unfavorable odds and will need astute planning, careful risk taking, and a whole lot of luck. When you mention "neural networks search" to Valley veterans, you usually get rolled eyes and bored looks. But Seeqpod just might have what it takes - a solid product and ambitious and talented team - to succed. The rest, as always, is left to chance.

East vs. West, Again

2007-01-05T18:15:00.000-08:00

The Merc came out with a great article about business students visiting the Valley today. It featured undergrads and MBAs from the Sloan School at MIT, but also mentioned how Harvard kids, Whartonites, etc. visited during break as well. Entitled, "Suited for a Tech Tour," the piece humorously describes the clash of cultures as the b-school students show up wearing suits.

I'll leave you with one of the many gems in the article: "'[Silicon Valley] is sort of the Athens of our time,' [said] first-year MBA student Justin Kulla."

Greetings from India

2006-12-24T03:29:00.000-08:00

So I didn't get that company profile up before I left. I apologize. Life between my final on Monday and the time the wheels on the 777 left the ground was ridiculously busy. In short, I will get that post up as soon as I can.

I'll also probably have a post soon about India and its economic prospects. This place has been getting a ton of media attention, and I've always wanted to voice some of my opinions on the development going on here. In short, the dichotomy here is stunning. I'll leave you with that and the promise that the piece should be one of my best.

And, of course, a sincere Merry Christmas to all of you. Hope the holiday season is a great one for you and yours.

Time's Person of the Year

2006-12-17T08:18:00.000-08:00

Is You. That's right. Check out the CNN article on the story.

Confused? The magazine is honoring you, the empowered individual, in the wake of the re-emergence of the internet in our lives. The article quotes sites like YouTube, MySpace, and Wikipedia as examples of the growing influence each person has on the global online community.

I think it's great when the old media titans sit up and take notice of whats bubbling in Silicon Valley. Although, it's also usually humorous - apparently "Silicon Valley consultants call [today's internet] Web 2.0." Really? I didn't know we had consultants in the Valley, and that it was just them using the phrase...

The article is also a little creepy. When Time starts talking about the merits and beauty of Web 2.0, you know it's time to be scared that we're in a bubble. (I mean this is Time, not the Merc or Techcrunch or the rest.) Some proof:

America loves its solitary geniuses -- its Einsteins, its Edisons, its Jobses -- but those lonely dreamers may have to learn to play with others... We're looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it's just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy.

The funny part is, while they spend most of the article spewing the kind of babble written above, toward the end they caution, " it's a mistake to romanticize all this." And they close by calling Web 2.0 "a massive social experiment."

Nice article, overall. Always interesting to see the old media attempt to explain the latest buzz in the Valley, even if it results sensational journalism.

Note: I promised the profile of company that recently came out of stealth mode, and it's coming. A draft is in the works, and it should be up by Wednesday. Also, the blog may not see any action the 20th-30th, as I'll be in India. Just giving the heads up.

East vs. West

2006-12-11T19:41:00.000-08:00

"I do believe the monsignor's finally got the point."
"Aye."

Recognize the quote from Boondock Saints? This is like that, except the monsignor is the San Jose Mercury News.

I've often wrote about or referenced the differences in the VC and start up environments between the coasts, but this time the Merc joins in on the fun. The San Jose paper discusses the various reasons that Silicon Valley is head and shoulders above the Least Coast, including reputation, universities (Stanford and Berkeley), and infrastructure.

I'm not going to bore you with my take on all of this - you can read some of my previous posts on the subject here and here. But for all the grief I give the east coast, I must say that, at the end of the day, it's really just different and not necessarily worse. The tendency towards traditional businesses and security, the lack of innovation, the call for obedience over risk-taking, and the self-justification and toleration of abysmal weather are hardwired into the community and part of the culture. (I had to throw that last one in there. It boggles my mind when people out here tell me they enjoy "the seasons.")

Thus from an entrepreneurial and start up standpoint (that of this blog, for example), this place (Philly and generally this entire coast) is far less desirable than back West. This also explains my tone and language when referring to the East (although my homesickness probably also plays into it).

So when I speak of the derogatorily of the East coast, know that it is only because I think it's awful, not necessarily because it actually is. :)

(Stay tuned for my first "exclusive" profile, of sorts, of a Silicon Valley start up that recently came out of stealth mode. It's not really an exclusive, but at least I'll be blogging about them before any of the big names do.)

Yahoo Reorg

2006-12-09T08:39:00.000-08:00

This post would have went up on Tuesday when the news broke, but I figured I'd hold off to try to make sense of what happened so that I could write something coherent. Plus, I wanted to leave that last post on top of the blog for a bit, as it was, for some reason, garnering a little media attention.

(By the way, note on that last post: I got myself out of bed with the flu to see those presentations, and, needless to say, I was a little disappointed with their quality. The piece may have reflected some of the ire I felt at the time, resulting in harsher than intended language. Finally, between VentureVoice picking up my post and it, like all my posts, being plastered on the home page of the Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs website, there's almost no way my professor didn't read my rant. If you're reading this, Professor, I didn't so much think the problem was you, but rather the structure and content of the class. You obviously have a wide knowledge base, and you could really spice up the content by getting away from the textbook. That said, I understand if you fail me. I probably deserve it.:)

On to Yahoo! So what happened? The long-awaited reorg, of course, a celebrated Valley tradition. Much like Apple employees used to jest back in the day, Yahoo workers joke that having an awful boss isn't a big deal - in 3 months, you'll have a new one.

Ok, down to specifics. This reorg dwarfs those in recent history. Yahoo established 3 divisions - Audience, Advertiser & Publisher, and Technology - to refocus their efforts. COO Dan Rosensweig will be resigning in March. CFO Sue Decker will be running the Advertising Group and CTO Zod Nazem the Tech group, while the Audience group head will be found in the coming weeks and months. Topix has a nice AP article here if you're more interested in the nitty giritty.

My thoughts are basically... what? The typical Silicon Valley reorg involves a lot more heads rolling. Only Rosensweig is leaving, and by most reports only because he didn't want to play second fiddle to Sue Decker. And CEO Terry Semel said no layoffs are planned. I'm confused as to actually what the reorg is, then. It doesn't seem like much has changed. Maybe the company is more focused internally, but Yahoo hasn't gotten lean and mean to address their many problems. The coming months will tell what, if anything, has changed.

But what should Yahoo do differently? This covers only a small part of their business, but Robert Young voiced an interesting opinion on GigaOm - that Yahoo should start a Facebook clone. I've been thinking someone should do this for a while, and Yahoo would be a good fit. The Facebook clone would be closed (like the old Facebook), addressing the ire of being in an open social network that some students are feeling (though this sentiment has declined). Basically, a Facebook clone aimed at high school and college kids with a few perks (video uploading, for example, and possibly some smart classified functionality) has a good chance of seriously challenging Facebook.

Yahoo would probably want to build a separate brand but link it to the Yahoo name (to encourage visibility). Lastly, Yahoo is in a good position to launch it, as they have vast resources to design and ship the social network cheaply and efficiently. Anyone have some other good ideas to save Yahoo?

Where Entrepreneurship Comes to Die

2006-12-04T15:44:00.000-08:00

Any guesses? That's right, my favorite place in the world: Wharton.

Why the ire? I just got out of Marketing 281, a class entitled Entrepreneurial Marketing, where a couple groups presented their business plans. Let me share their gems with you...

(Side note to the groups that presented: You didn't make us sign NDAs, but I will still respect your wishes if you'd like me to remove presentation material from my blog. Email me or leave a comment. I'm only writing about your ventures to make a point, and I'd like to think that, despite having screen shots in your presentations and names for your companies, you aren't actually planning on executing your brilliant ideas.)

The first company, called Finedorms.com (they haven't launched yet, apparently), focused on providing tenants with a space to post residential openings for subletters. Ok. They dismiss craigslist as "not targeting the college market." Their presentation goes on. "Tenants looking for someone to sublet will pay a fee to post on the site." Really? And the kicker? Their financial statement. The team of 4 confidently believes that the rolling out of their site across campuses around the nation will allow them to make, by the 5th year, a whopping $70 grand. Investors, line up.

So these guys honestly believe that an increasingly tech savvy college population will shun the immensely popular craigslist and pay money (despite being cheap college kids) to the site to get their sublet ad looked at? And all this to accumulate an annual revenue that doesn't reach $70k till 5 years from now?

But the second presentation made the first look legit. Entitled eDough.com (the URL is taken, but they may be launching under a different name...), it featured an "off campus meal plan." In reality, their idea was a bank account that could be used only for food. Seriously. Their only selling point was that "parents can deposit money."

Are you kidding me? First off, after claiming that a significant portion of Penn's students orders food online, they failed to mention those same students order from Campusfood or EatNow. Not only is their entire functionality already covered by someone who has his parent's credit card linked to his EatNow or Campusfood account, but they're also completely vulnerable to the two companies implementing their product. While eDough is out doing the time-consuming stuff (negotiating deals with individual restaurants, setting up the website, etc.), all either of the two competitors has to do is implement a "bank account" function on their site to render eDough useless. And why again do college students want a way to limit what they can spend their money on...?

And Penn wonders why their precious school doesn't churn out high profile start ups. So where's the problem? In this case, part of it is apparent: the class itself is atrocious. For half a semester, I've listened to our Professor use the same Marketing 101 buzzwords in an attempt to describe what is different about getting the word out for start ups. And, for that half a semester, he's really said nothing.

For starters, our class has a textbook. A textbook on how start ups should market. Isn't the point of the class that start ups have to think outside the box? Symbolically, a start up is like antsy chameleon, jumping around, not knowing what it is or what it's really doing, always changing and evolving. No textbook can begin to cover the tenants of how the lizard should get its name out to the world, and (even if a textbook could,) especially not this one.

The problem starts pretty high up. Culturally, Wharton is a finance-hub, priding itself on producing finance drones who will go on to work 100+ hour weeks and make $100 grand+ a year. Going against the grain, following your dreams, and being different are highly discouraged (unless, of course, you're a management-drone who will do the above with 30 hours and $30k subtracted from the respective totals above).

And Wharton's culture pretty much fits in with the (l)east coast. But I aim to be constructive, and not just a whinny SOB. So what can be done?

First off, the classes need to be revamped. Don't call something Entrepreneurial Marketing if it's not. And the faculty could do with an upgrade - hiring people with credentials in entrepreneurship could go a long ways in giving class a degree of legitimacy. I mean, wouldn't you sit up and take notice if it were Josh Kopelman teaching a class about Entrepreneurial Marketing? Maybe that's a little unreasonable, but a Professor who references their own experiences in a class, especially about this subject, is far more influential than one who is constantly referencing some text. And as a whole, the classes need to focus on actual issues that face start ups, and they need to be taught by people who know what they're talking about and understand what we want from the class (that is, an oasis from Wharton's "fall into our cookie-cutter" mentality). Out with the textbooks and trite buzzwords and in with real discussion and real lessons.

Of course, this will all probably never happen. So how to solve the problem? Looks like we may have to take things into our own hands...

(Oh, and as a side note to the "drones" I referenced: Please don't take me seriously. I love you guys. And I believe you; you do love I-banking and consulting, and it's definitely been your dream since you were a kid. And you're definitely not a douche bag. Hugs and kisses.;)

Post Thanksgiving Post

2006-11-25T21:18:00.000-08:00

Now that I've recovered from the tryptophan-induced coma from Thursday, I figured I'd get back on this blog. First off, I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving, and I'd like to wish everyone a happy holiday season.

Luckily, the Valley has entered the lull between Turkey Day and the start of new year, so I haven't missed out on much. The biggest news from the past week-ish has probably been the release of the two next gen gaming platforms, Playstation 3 and the Nintendo Wii.

I actually had a draft of an analytical piece on the gaming market, focusing on the new platforms, but decided to trash it when I realized that, well, I don't know jack when it comes to video games. My favorite system is still probably N64 or even SNES, both from back in the day (you really can't beat Bond, Smash Bros., Mario Kart, and the rest). And I get smoked whenever I play Halo, but you can't blame me, those new controllers are so hard to figure out. Finally, forgetting to save the draft of the piece (as I was engrossed in Manchester United's riveting UEFA Champions League game) sealed the ensured that the post would never see the light of day.

Anywho, the point of that post was that I'm betting on the Wii to emerge as the dominant platform. And the point of this post is that I want your opinion. My thinking behind conjecturing the Wii's success is that it's the cheapest and aims to simplify games, enabling it to target a market outside hardcore gamers. But let's hear what you have to think...

Snakes on a Blog

2006-11-18T02:38:00.000-08:00

So the recent spread of the (false) rumor that MyBlogLog had been acquired got me thinking. How have the emergence of blogs affected the way news is reported and consumed? And, overall, are they a good or bad thing?

Unfortunately, my opinion on this is pretty middle of the road, so don't expect a scathing piece. That said, I'll try.

The rapid propagation of the MBL rumor yesterday highlights the negative aspects of blogs, especially compared to traditional media.

For starters, there's the unreliability. Bloggers usually ink what they hear immediately, vying to be the first to report a piece. Furthermore, as soon as one prominent blog has broken a story, the others swoop in and report it as well, assuming its accuracy has been verified. For example, yesterday, Valleywag reported that MBL had been bought out in the morning, and, by noon, Techcrunch and GigaOm had followed suit, tacking on that the buying company was, in fact, Yahoo.

Now, this particular rumor did no harm. But what about the ones that do? Reputations tarnished once are never again made completely whole. In that sense, bloggers, especially the big names, need to verify the accuracy of a story when it could have a potentially damaging effect on a person or group.

In a larger sense, we, as a society, need to keep the blogging phenomena from decaying into exaggerated journalism. Anyway who has seen the Google World Domination video (EPIC) knows its underlying message is scary. The video portrays a future in which we "consume" our news via a network of popular blogs, making for embellished and sensational reporting. And that might not be too far from the truth.

However, blogs do have a positive effect on society as well. As I wrote before, they are truly revolutionary because they give the average joe a voice. Personally, my blog has given me a forum to discuss issues on my mind and, hopefully, has provoked thought and opinions in my readers (once in a while, maybe?).

It's this sliver of light that keeps me optimistic about blogging. Blogs can empower the individual in ways this world has never seen.

And that brings me back to the title of this post. Most of you have heard of the movie "Snakes on a Plane" (side note: best worst movie ever. Seriously). But what you probably don't know is that the promotion for the movie, and the cult-following that had built up even before its release, stemmed from articles on blogs. The movie's blogging-based viral marketing campaign caused more people to go see Samuel Jackson combat hoards of serpents than most ever thought possible.

Long story short, it's crucial that we, as bloggers, realize the power of the double-edged sword we wield. Failing to do so can have disastrous consequences for the future of news and journalism.

(Personal note to the Penn Sixers who dared me to title a post "Snakes on a Blog" and have it make sense: Booyakasha, wugwan.)

MyBlogLog Rumor

2006-11-18T02:13:00.000-08:00

MyBlogLog, a company loyal readers know I've blogged about a few times, is currently in "very early stage" talks with Yahoo. Contrary to the rumors today, Yahoo has not actually bought them, yet. Stay tuned for updates (and possibly a post on how blogging has affected news reporting, now that I think of it).

As always, best of luck to Scott, Eric, and the team at MBL over the next few days as this plays out.

So Close, But So Far

2006-11-08T20:57:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, November 7, was a historic day. Guess why. What's that you say? Something about an election?

No, it was important because it was the beginning of the 2nd annual Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. And it's the place to be. It's the flashiest, sexiest, coolest conference in the Valley this year (and I'm stuck in Philly. And it's raining, of course).

And not without reason - Web 2.0 is the rage of the Valley right now. But we've seen rages come and go. The last one, lovingly nicknamed Web 1.0 after the fact, we probably remember all too clearly. I blogged about the new Internet early in the summer, and those thoughts are mostly still valid, but they also represent the oogling of wide-eyed newbie.

And, in that post, I never really addressed the what: what's the real deal with this Web 2.0 nonsense? I'd say it's mostly glitz and glamor - Silicon Valley doing its version of Hollywood. We have our gossip, and our rumors, and it makes sense we have that thing, that ideal, that is very much en vogue right now.

And, as with all buzz words, Web 2.0 has come to mean a lot of things - anything social, viral, AJAX, API-related, and much more has been dubbed "Web 2.0" at one point or another. However, some of the really "2.0" attributes, especially the social features and user generated content, have always been around, albeit with much less fanfare.

But I'm beating around the bush and avoiding the question - does the Web 2.0 represent a fundamental shift in the way we use the internet, or not?

Yes - but not for the reasons you'll hear from most people. Gurus will tell you that the Web 2.0 phenomena is unique because of the great, lifestyle changing ideas that are being churned out. I'd argue the enabling technologies and changing social norms, far more than the ideas and websites themselves, deserve credit for bringing about the online movement.

Disagree? Think about it. Think about the sites that come to mind when you think Web 2.0. YouTube? Brought to you by faster internet speeds and a cool new flash player. Facebook? Brought to you by the ease of internet access on college campuses. MySpace? Ditto, for homes and kids. (Venturing into the more geeky...) Digg? The proliferation of computers and the adoption of the internet as a form of entertainment, causing people to turn to the Web when they're bored. Flickr? The mass adoption of high quality digital cameras and, again, increased connection speeds, making it possible to upload more photos online.

The point is, Web 2.0 has it's roots in the development of computers and electronics - stuff is easier and faster, and some smart people have found ways to leverage that into neat businesses. You can deduce factors, social or technological, behind the success of most 2.0 sites that have little to do with the sites themselves. But don't get me wrong - the ideas and web sites of today are great - brilliant designs by brilliant people (well, some).

In the end, Web 2.0 should not be thought of merely as some cool new web sites, but the harmonic convergence of a variety of variables, empowering the individual to do much more on and with the internet than he ever has in the past.

But that is where we must be careful. "Web 2.0" is great, but it's far too sexy of a term for what should be a fairly long lasting era. And with that "sexy-ness" comes the requisite over-investment.

So VCs beware - the darkside of Web 2.0 is creeping in - irrational exuberance is in the air. (I totally didn't mean to rhyme there.) Money is being poured into start ups at a record rate once again, even with the memory of the bust fresh in our heads. VCs are enamored with the new "generation" of web start ups, to point where it could be dangerous. Whether Web 2.0 causes another bubble is yet to be seen.

But evil, good, fake, real, or bubble, Web 2.0 is currently being discussed. A lot. And I really, really wish I were there...

Thanks WEP

2006-11-08T18:50:00.000-08:00

The Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs quarterly newsletter did a piece on Wharton-pedigree bloggers, and, for some reason, I made the cut. The article is here, in case you wanted to give it a read, and I'm mentioned about halfway down. I especially like the comparison of this blog to a flamethrower (as opposed to a flashlight) - I don't think they could have given me a higher compliment. :)

Anyway, thanks to Tim, Peter, and everyone over at WEP for the shoutout.

Powerset Update

2006-11-05T20:57:00.000-08:00

Powerset, the natural language search start up I mentioned on a previous post, has raised some money. $12.5 million, to be exact, from Foundation Capital ($7m), The Founders Fund ($3m), and some pretty studly angel investors ($2.5m combined), as VentureBeat reported just a few minutes ago.

The kicker, though, is that they got a $31 million pre and $42.5 million post valuation. Wow. Google just may be in trouble if these guys can do what they say they can do.

Stay tuned, this could be the beginning of an epic battle...

MyBlogLog's new look + lessons

2006-11-02T13:41:00.000-08:00

I figured after a piece on Rafer, the logical next post should profile his "day job" - MyBlogLog. I've mentioned them in the past, as I worked on a couple of their projects over the summer. This will be the first of three posts (about the three companies I worked for) where I include what I did, what I learned, random thoughts, etc.

For a full description of the service, refer to a post I wrote on them earlier in the summer.

In short, my MyBlogLog work was mostly marketing and business development-oriented. I got to contact some of the major gossip sites on the web and convince them to use our service, which was pretty cool.

I think the biggest lesson I learned from the experience was the fallibility of the "build it and they will come" approach. Sure, a good product is necessary, but it is far from sufficient. By actively recruiting big name sites and strategically positioning themselves as not only a blogging tool but a social network and all purpose click tracking service, MyBlogLog has gained users and opened up their target market significantly.

The company has a great product (if you're a serious blogger, blog reader, gossiper, etc., go use it), but their ability to convince users to adopt them will determine if they are successful in the long run. "Build it and they will come" sounds great but isn't always reality.

The second biggest lesson I learned was flexibility, though that was more from the company's story. Basically, they started out as just a click tracking site but were astute enough to change directions when they realized they could expand their offering. Yes, it's trite and cliche, but it was still cool to work for a company that successfully was able to switch gears and take advantage of a growth opportunity.

As a side note, their recent relaunch has went over fairly well. The site's new look cements their service as both a social network and functional tool for bloggers and many others. Good work to Scott, Eric, and the MBL team.

Rafer in the Merc

2006-10-30T16:55:00.000-08:00

So we at Penn Six (comedy/a capella group I'm in) had our fall show this past weekend, and I finally have the time to devote to this blog, which has been barren of late.

Anyway, I know I promised articles on other stuff, but I had to write about this - my boss and fearless leader over the summer, Scott Rafer, was featured in an article in the San Jose Mercury about entrepreneurs who are captaining or heavily involved in multiple start ups. And Scott definitely embodies the part.

The coolest part about working for him this summer was not only getting to see him work his magic but trying my hand at it as well. As I've mentioned on this blog, I spent time working on projects for WINKsite, Mashery, and MyBlogLog, as well as a personal project when I could spare the time.

In particular, one of Scott's quotes from the article, "VCs spread their risk across numerous companies. Why shouldn't we?," really stood out to me. Spreading risk was one of the Rafer-isms I got all summer, and he makes a very good point.

Being an entrepreneur isn't easy. Hell, it's for the crazy ones, not the sane ones. No stable paycheck. No 9-5. Just a dream to make it big against the odds (really against the odds). And I really don't even know the half of it. It's easy to work for a start up for 3 months over the summer when you're under the same roof as your parents, but doing it for a living requires a lot of luck and even more skill.

Yet Rafer manages to pull it off - not only does he make a livelihood out of being an entrepreneur, he does it with mostly small start ups. The biggest lessons I learned over the summer were balancing and prioritizing - taking safer gigs to counter the risky ones and knowing which one is the most important (and communicating that to everyone involved).

But my most important realization went a level deeper: at the end of the day, the serial entrepreneur is doing more than just minimizing risk - he's living his dream. Working more than just a day job, especially for start ups, has got to be fueled by passion. Though practical reasons justify the decision to take on multiple projects at once, love for the work has to drive it.

(By the way, Scott, I'm going to use this post as a spring board for the write ups I promised a while ago. Sorry, it's taken so long, but they'll be up soon.)

I'm back (again)

2006-10-22T23:27:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the recent break in posting. I've been busy. Very busy. But it's mostly over, and in the meantime the valley hasn't slept much.

Stay tuned for posts on, in no particular order, Friendster and their patent, MyBlogLog, The Venice Project, GooTube (finally), the various financials released this past week (once Microsoft gets theirs out next week), the web and user generated art, the emergence of localized websites (a discussion stemming from SmallTown's recent launch), and maybe even a guess piece on Amarnth and their recent collapse. Not sure if/when I'll get to all of them, but keep reading.

As a side note, you're welcome Zach and Mike (the MyKin guys) - I hope it boosted traffic for you guys (though I really doubt it did much:). And I promise to be nice with the reporter from that Iowa paper.