I don’t throw darts at a board. I bet on sure things.
- Sun-tzu, The Art of War
Every entrepreneur-to-be should read this line. Paradoxically, if entrepreneurs care about risk and possibility of success, they won’t be entrepreneurs in the first place. At the same time, every entrepreneur believes that whatever she/he bets on is sure to win. And they ignore, in practice, the ratio of a successful endeavor to a failed one is 1 to 10 on average.
It’s the entrepreneurial spirit that drives your gut, passion, and urge to set off, and it’s the hedging spirit that mitigates the risk of failure, guides you to the lucrative exits, and gives you peace of mind every night.
That’s why I come to believe that most great business owners are born with characters of a entrepreneur and arbitrageur. Think about Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and JP Morgan.
好在這個世界上有 broadband Inetnet + video streaming technology。當然，對我來說，沒有佳句摘要，就不算是吸收了一場完整的演講：
Announcer: …wealth is not about the money you amass, but the number of lives you enrich.
Gates: I was a huge beneficiary of this country’s unique willingness to take risk on a young person. And, you know, I got to hire people who were older. I got to sell to people who were older. And it was kind of a dream come true.
Buffett: Last September, only the government could have saved things. The whole world wanted to deleverage. And they were deleveraging under conditions of extreme haste and with guns to their head in some cases. And the only entity that could possibly leverage up at the same time that everybody else wanted to deleverage was the Federal government.
Gates: And business schools play a role in training people to think about value, leadership. There’s wonderful skills that are taught at great schools like this. And so the fact that, yes, we have had a crisis and we have dropped back, maybe we wasted two or three years net because of the things that were done wrong, that doesn’t say that business schools aren’t performing a great service, you know. The case studies of this crisis will be taught here for decades to come.
Buffett: The wonderful thing about it is in this country, is you can succeed magnificently with ethics. It’s not a hindrance. It’s a help sometimes.It’s a neutral sometimes. But it’s not a hindrance at all. And to cut corners, you know, everybody here has a wonderful future. I mean, this is an economy you’re going into that is so much — [APPLAUSE] If you look back on the 19th Century, we had seven great bank panics. If you look back at the 20th Century, we had the Great Depression and world wars and flu epidemics. This country doesn’t avoid problems. It just solves them. And in the next 100 years, our machine will sputter again, you know. Maybe 15 years will be so-so years, but there will be 85 great years. And during the 20th Century the Dow went from 66 to 11,400, so this is fertile soil that you’re working in and there’s no reasons to cut corners.
Buffett: I had a professor, Ben Graham, I offered to go to work for him for nothing. He said, "You’re overpriced." Nonetheless, I went into the business. [APPLAUSE] I will guarantee, you will do well at whatever turns you on.
Buffett: I don’t like to sound, you know, like a mortician during an epidemic or anything, but last fall was really quite exciting for me. [LAUGHTER] I don’t wish it on anybody, but there were things being offered. There are opportunities for us to do things that didn’t exist a year or two earlier. So I really don’t — I don’t want to be in a position where I am leveraged or something of the sort that does keep me up at night. I did not worry about the ultimate survival of our economic system. We were messed up. Wasn’t any question about that. But the plants haven’t gone away. The cornfields haven’t gone away. The talent of the American people hasn’t gone away. The innovativeness of the next Bill Gates hasn’t gone away. This country was going to do fine. I knew that. We just had to get things straightened out. And we’re well on the way to having that happen.
Buffett: …if you had a wonderful farm and you knew the next 50 years there would be five droughts but there would be 45 good years, I mean, you would not become paralyzed thinking about the five drought years. You would recognize that you’ve got a system that works very well over time, and that’s our American economic system.
Buffett: Let me give you an illustration. I bought my first stock in 1942. I was 11. I had been dillydallying up until then. I got serious. [LAUGHTER] What do you think the best year for the market has been since 1942? Best calendar year from 1942 to the present time. Well, there’s no reason for you to know the answer. The answer is 1954. In 1954, the Dow … dividends was up 50%. Now if you look at 1954, we were in a recession a good bit of that time. The recession started in July of ‘53. Unemployment peaked in September of ‘54. So until November of ‘54 you hadn’t seen an uptick in the employment figure. And the unemployment figure more than doubled during that period. It was the best year there was for the market. So it’s a terrible mistake to look at what’s going on in the economy today and then decide whether to buy or sell stocks based on it. You should decide whether to buy or sell stocks based on how much you’re getting for your money, long-term value you’re getting for your money at any given time. And next week doesn’t make any difference because next week, next week is going to be a week further away. And the important thing is to have the right long-term outlook, evaluate the businesses you are buying. And then a terrible market or a terrible economy is your friend. I don’t care, in making a purchase of the Burlington Northern, I don’t care whether next week, or next month or even next year there is a big revival in car loadings or any of that sort of thing. A period like this gives me a chance to do things. It’s silly to wait. I wrote an article. If you wait until you see the robin, spring will be over.
Buffett: [APPLAUSE] But let me add one point because — to the MBA situation. Right now, I would pay $100,000 for 10% of the future earnings of any of you. So anybody that wants to see me after this is over — [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] If that’s true, you are a million-dollar asset right now, right, if 10% of you is worth 100,000? You could improve — many of you, and I certainly could have when I got out, just in terms of learning communication skills. You know, it’s not something that is taught. I actually went to a Dale Carnegie course later on in terms of public speaking. But if you improve your value 50% by having better communication skills, that’s another $500,000 in terms of capital value. See me after the class and I’ll pay you 150-thousand. [APPLAUSE]
Gates: But I think I’d pick his desire to teach, his desire to teach things that are complex and put them in a simple form so that people can understand and get the benefit of all his experience, all his models of how the world works. He loves to teach. And he does it meeting with students. He does it in his annual newsletter. He does it when he’s talking to me on the phone. It’s a real gift that I admire incredibly.
Buffett: First of all, I’d say marry the right person. [LAUGHTER] And I’m serious about that. [APPLAUSE] It will make more difference in your life. It will change your aspiration, all kind of things. It’s enormously important who you marry.… And then also go to work, if possible, for an organization or an individual that you admire. I mean I offered to go to work for Ben Graham because there was nobody I admired more in the business than him. I didn’t care what he paid me. When he finally did hire me in 1954, I moved from Omaha to New York and I didn’t know what I was getting paid until I got my first paycheck. But I knew I wanted to work for Ben Graham. And I knew I would jump out of bed every morning and be excited about what I would do and I would go home at night smarter than I was in the morning. Go to work at a job that turns you on and a person that turns you on and institution. [APPLAUSE]
Buffett: The one thing I will tell you is the worst investment you can have is cash. Everybody is talking about cash being king and all that sort of thing. Most of you don’t look like you are overburdened with cash anyway. [LAUGHTER] Cash is going to become worth less over time. But good businesses are going to become worth more over time. And you don’t want to pay too much for them so you have to have some discipline about what you pay. But the thing to do is find a good business and stick with it.
Buffett: Don’t pass up something that’s attractive today because you think you will find something way more attractive tomorrow.
Buffett: But every year don’t measure it by the earnings in the quarter that year. Measure it by whether the moat around that business, what gives it competitive advantage over time has widened or narrowed. If you keep doing that for 100 years, it’s going to work out very well. Then I tell them basically if the reason for doing something is everybody else is doing it, it’s not good enough. If you have to use that as a reason, forget it. You don’t have a good reason for doing something. Never use that.
Buffett: It’s always interesting when Bill and I appear together, they don’t figure they can do what Bill does, but they know they can do what I do. [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] …
Buffett: And then basically I didn’t listen to anybody else. I just look in the mirror every morning and the mirror always agrees with me. And I go out and do what I believe I should be doing. And I’m not influenced by what other people think.
Gates: Well, we talked about some of the basics, having great people around you, reading a lot, thinking long-term. I also think, though, there become a few magic moments where you have to have confidence in yourself. You know, Warren when he set off on his own, he could have gone and taken a job as an analyst somewhere. But he knew that he had the skill, that he was going to raise money and have his own partnership. When I dropped out of Harvard and said to my friends, ‘Come work for me,’ there was a certain kind of brass self-confidence in that. You have a few moments like that where trusting yourself and saying yes, this can come together — you have to seize on those because not many come along.
Gates: Well, they [Google] have some of the same problems we had. [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] It’s another fine competitor. They are hiring a lot of smart people. They have gotten into the lead position in search, which is incredibly profitable to be number one in that. They may get a little competition as time goes forward. But they are a great example of what can happen, you know, two young guys who got together, pursued an idea and created a success that’s absolutely gigantic. And we all, you know, hopefully use search engines, maybe a variety. [LAUGHTER] And we benefit from that.
Buffett: … Well, that’s 50 years of preparation and five (minutes) of decision making. [APPLAUSE]
Steve Jobs: …And I think building a company’s really hard, and it requires your greatest persuasive abilities to hire the best people you can and keep them at your company and keep them working, doing the best work of their lives, hopefully. And Bill’s been able to stay with it for all these years. (一開始雙方互相讚對對方，Steve Jobs 特別指出說服力是公司初期招募與留住人才的關鍵。他本身就把 Steve Wozniak 從 HP 的金飯碗中遊說到車庫，一起創辦 Apple Computer。)
Bill Gates: …And his ability to always come around and figure out where that next bet should be has been phenomenal. (Bill Gates 稱讚 Steve Jobs 在在看趨勢與消費者需求這方面的眼光神準。)
Bill Gates: …And we had really bet our future on the Macintosh being successful, and then, hopefully, graphics interfaces in general being successful, but first and foremost, the thing that would popularize that being the Macintosh. (早期 Microsoft 是 Apple Computer 少數合作密切的 application vendors 之一。Microsoft 也把身家賭在 Apple 的麥金塔電腦。)
Steve Jobs: …But the net result of it was, was there were too many people at Apple and in the Apple ecosystem playing the game of, for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. And it was clear that you didn’t have to play that game because Apple wasn’t going to beat Microsoft. Apple didn’t have to beat Microsoft. Apple had to remember who Apple was because they’d forgotten who Apple was. (Steve Jobs 回憶，直到他1997年回鍋上任以來，Apple 內部仍瀰漫著反Microsoft 情緒，員工腦中裝滿了與 Microsoft 的零和遊戲。但他一走馬上任，第一件事就是告訴大家：Apple 的成功不一定要建立在 Microsoft 的失敗之上。同時也在 1997 Macworld 大會上宣布 Microsoft 將成為 Apple 的 strategic partner。)
Steve Jobs: The art of those commercials (I’m MAC v.s. I’m PC) is not to be mean, but it’s actually for the guys to like each other. Thanks. PC guy is great. Got a big heart.
Bill Gates: His mother loves him.
Steve Jobs: His mother loves him.
Steve Jobs: PC guy’s what makes it all work, actually.
(Steve Jobs 說：是 PC Guy 讓 Mac v.s. PC 系列廣告獲得空前成功，一切都要感謝PC Guy. )
Steve Jobs: …You know, what’s really interesting is–and we talked about this earlier today–if you look at the reason that the iPod exists and the Apple’s in that marketplace, it’s because these really great Japanese consumer electronics companies who kind of own the portable music market, invented it and owned it, couldn’t do the appropriate software, couldn’t conceive of and implement the appropriate software. Because an iPod’s really just software. It’s software in the iPod itself, it’s software on the PC or the Mac, and it’s software in the cloud for the store. And it’s in a beautiful box, but it’s software. If you look at what a Mac is, it’s OS X, right? It’s in a beautiful box, but it’s OS X. And if you look at what an iPhone will hopefully be, it’s software.
…And so the big secret about Apple, of course–not-so-big secret maybe–is that Apple views itself as a software company… (Steve Jobs 認為 Apple 的成功來自 software design，iPod 說穿了就是成功的software (含iTunes) 在一個漂亮的盒子裡，Mac 說穿了也是一個成功的 software 在一個漂亮的盒子裡。Apple 甚至比較喜歡把自己定義為 software company。說真的，山寨當道，hardware 可以很快被模仿走，software 卻很難，君不見市面流通的山寨版 iPhone OS 還是長得很山寨？獲利模式建立在 software solution 之上的公司，要時時擔心被大量盜版，但若同時擁有 hareware + software 的 vertical solution，可以握有更多對產品品質的掌控度。)
Bill Gates: The mainstream is always under attack. (簡潔有力，Windows, Office = mainstream)
Steve Jobs: …What I’m saying is, I think the marriage of some really great client apps with some really great cloud services is incredibly powerful and right now, can be way more powerful than just having a browser on the client. (WOW, Steve Jobs 也 echoed 微軟的 Software Plus Services 策略。)
Bill Gates: …How quickly all these things that have been somewhat specialized, the navigation device, the digital wallet, the phone, the camera, the video camera, how quickly those all come together, it’s hard to chart out. But eventually, you’ll be able to pick something that has the capability to do every one of those things. (my thought: 創新比較有可能發生在 specialized devices 上，但 specilized devices 終究會匯聚成 genenal purpose devices。然後失去創新動力，然後再引領出另外一波 specialized devices 創新，然後再匯聚，and the process repeats itself again and again.)
Steve Jobs: …No, that wasn’t my answer. You know, when Bill and I first met each other and worked together in the early days, generally, we were both the youngest guys in the room, right? Individually or together. I’m about six months older than he is, but roughly the same age. And now when we’re working at our respective companies, I don’t know about you, but I’m the oldest guy in the room most of the time. And that’s why I love being here.
…And, you know, I think of most things in life as either a Bob Dylan or a Beatles song, but there’s that one line in that one Beatles song, “you and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.” And that’s clearly true here. (回首從前，Seteve Jobs 和 Bill Gates 很早就互相認識，也曾是全公司最年輕的員工，如今兩卻往往是”the oldest in the room”。)
Steve Jobs: …You know, because Woz and I started the company based on doing the whole banana, we weren’t so good at partnering with people. And, you know, actually, the funny thing is, Microsoft’s one of the few companies we were able to partner with that actually worked for both companies. And we weren’t so good at that, where Bill and Microsoft were really good at it because they didn’t make the whole thing in the early days and they learned how to partner with people really well.
And I think if Apple could have had a little more of that in its DNA, it would have served it extremely well. And I don’t think Apple learned that until, you know, a few decades later. (初期 Microsoft 在尋找合作夥伴這方面做的比 Apple 好很多。Steve Jobs 甚至認為，如果當年Apple也多一點”partnering DNA”，情況也許會大不相同。)
Thank you young guys, you created tons of job opportunities (including mine), you made our life interesting, you disrupted the world once ruled by beauracrats.
“Bill started trying to convince me to get a computer. I said, I don’t know what it it’s going to do for me. I don’t care how my stock portfolio is doing every five minutes. And I can do my income taxes in my head. Gates said he would pick out the best-looking gal at Microsoft and send her to teach me how to use the computer. He would make it totally painless and pleasant. I told him, ‘you’ve made me an offer I almost can’t refuse, but I’ll refuse it.’”
“Before long, Buffett was so engrossed in Internet bridge that nothing could disturb him. When a bat got into the house and flapped around the TV room, banging into the walls and entangling itself in the curtains, Astrid shrieked, ‘Warren, there’s a bat in here!’ Sitting across the room in his frayed terry-cloth bathrobe, staring at his bridge hand, he never move his eyes from the screen as he said, ‘It’s not bothering me any.’ Astrid called the pest-control people and they removed the bat, all without disturbing his bridge game.”
- The Snowball, P 635
可別小看“focus”, 這可是世界首富和世界第二首富(當年)認為自己能小有成就的關鍵：
“…at dinner, Bill Gates Sr. posed the question to the table: What factor did people feel was the most important in getting to where they’d gotten in life? And I said, ‘Focus.’ And Bill said the same thing.”
The Snowball中，巴菲特生動口述當年初次和比爾蓋茲見面情況，一開始蓋茲還小有抱怨，說股票不是他的菜，爸爸媽媽的和好友的聚會為什麼硬是要逼他去…他本來決定去一下就要閃人…but…
“We talked and talked and talked and talked and paid no attention to anybody else. I started asking him a whole bunch about his business, not expecting to understand any of it. He’s a great teacher, and we couldn’t stop talking.” - The Snowball, P623
As much as I appreciate the goals of the Foundation, I found myself admiring Bill Gates as a person during the course of the interview. The truth is that while he was busy developing software, he’s also worked on developing himself. He is the self-made American who has matured into a role model and leader. He is thoughtful and tactful where a younger version would have been brash and impetuous. Like Windows, improvement for Gates has required multiple iterations but the insistence on getting it right won out eventually. The newest release of Bill Gates is the best yet.
DA: What would be the two or three things that would characterize the Microsoft way of computer software?
BG: The key for us, number one, has always been hiring very smart people. There is no way of getting around, that in terms of I.Q., you’ve got to be very elitist in picking the people who deserve to write software. Ninety-five percent of the people shouldn’t write complex software. And using small teams helps a lot.
You’ve got to give great tools to those small teams. So, pick good people, use small teams, give them excellent tools; vast compilation, debugging, lots of machines, profiling technology, so that they are very productive in terms of what they are doing. Make it very clear what they can do to change the spec. Make them feel like they are very much in control of it.
Have lots of people read the code so that you don’t end up with one person who is kind of hiding the fact that they can’t solve a problem. Design speed in from the beginning. A lot of things that have helped us, even as the project teams have become larger, and the company has become a lot larger than it was. It is not some methodology where there is a lot of funny documentation. Source code itself is where you should put all your thoughts, not in any other thing. So, our source codes, all though there are a few exceptions, tend to be very well commented in a very structured way. (source)
“give great tools to those small teams”，歹年冬，不管企業再怎麼想要省錢，”tool”的投資真的不能也不應該減少。玩三國志時都知道要給武將買最好的武器了，在職場上怎麼會不知道呢？
I certainly think that having some dimension, when you’re young, that you feel a mastery of, versus the other people around you is a very positive thing. (source)
首先聲明一下，我覺得部份媒體將Transitioning翻譯成「退休」不很恰當，Gates實際上還保留Chairman(董事長)頭銜，每週一天回到Microsoft上班，保留email帳號，仍會參與大方向的決策。我想，最大的改變是他個人的dream，從 “a PC in every home” (家家戶戶都有電腦) 到 “healthy people in every country”(家家國國都是健康的居民<- 這是啥翻譯XD )
StarWars Trilogy happens to be my favorite Movies. That’s the reason the headline caught my eyes and an afterthought posted here. For those who missed the announcement of Live Search Cashback, here is a catch-up.
For Consumers:
1. You make a commercial search on Microsoft Live Search.
2. You get certain % of discount (your cash rebate) if you purchase an item listed.
3. You still have to pay full price to the vendor; Microsoft will transact the discounted cash to your Cashback account afterward (60 days).
For Advertisers:
1. The % of discount is the bidding price for exposure of items, just as how Google AdWords bidding system works.
2. All the money advertisers paid for bidding ad-inventory goes to consumers who buy their item via Live Search. It means Microsoft get ZERO revenue from advertisers’ CPA fees.
That’s pretty cool. Advertisers pays indirectly to the consumers taking their desirable actions. Though Microsoft gains 0 $ right now, it could split the CPA revenue with consumers in the near future as long as users get addict to this model.
So, let take a look at what A-list bloggers thinking about the initiative:
First, Michael Arrington’s takeaway makes me lol (sincerely)
This new approach is both desperate and brilliant. Desperate because Microsoft is giving away most of the search revenue to get market share gains. Brilliant because they have such a small share of search revenue today that they have little to lose, and they are hitting Google hard in their core business.
Sometimes, desperation is a good place to be because it forces you to try crazy stuff.
One paragraph mentioned it’s nearly impossible to conquer Google’s sheer search market share (60%+) by technology-improvement solely. This really resonate with my previous post, 下一站，獲利模式.
It’s clear that technology alone will not unseat Google as the dominant player in this market. Microsoft already tried that with their AdCenter improvements in 2006; Yahoo tried with Panama last year. Google’s dominance only grew.
Hey, think about this: Microsoft sacrifices its revenue for market share! Rarely can we see a tyrant make such a sacrifice, if any. I told you MS is no longer seating on the evil emperor’s throne, didn’t I? : P
The success of the cashback endeavor, of course, depends primarily on query volume, and convincing consumers to stop using Google and start using cashback by offering modest savings is going to be a tough sell. But even Google fans and Microsoft haters have got to admit–it’s a pretty cool model. It’s YOUR attention, after all. Why should Google make $20 billion off of it
True, true. Seems nobody’s ever asked why Google AdWords NEVER pays me money while it’s my click-behavior & my attention that make Google employees rich.
During his keynote address, Gates outlined three areas of focus for the company’s broad search vision:
Delivering the best search results by continuing to focus on relevancy and selection
Expanding the role of search around the set of tasks that searchers are most often working to accomplish — including commerce, entertainment, navigation and reference — through improvements in its user experience, intelligent tools and access across devices
Innovating in the economic model that today powers the search business by rewarding both advertisers and consumers for engagement
Is Live Search becoming a more vertical-orientated search engine? Not a bad idea to break Google’s stronghold.
) 
)，當然，也有當年蓋茲相當看好，但至今仍然無法順利商業化的技術 (如語音辨識)。更有立意頗佳，卻被使用者討厭而導致腰斬的技術，如為增加軟體親和力而設計的軟體介面代理人(Agent，當年蓋茲認為設計出「軟體中的軟體」，蒐集、分析使用者行為，並在適當情境下提供「人性化」協助可能是未來趨勢(如模擬出電腦與使用者對話的介面)。實做案例？恐怕是那隻只有在安裝Windows時會看到的藍色高帽小巫師，和Office裡頭那根不時跳出來說話的迴紋針
