Timothy Chen

Friends familiar with me know that I like to observe subtle interactions among colleagues. I like to separate managers into two categories, those who lead naturally, and those who lead by position power. Sometimes you follow orders not because you believe it’s a right decision, but because you fear that the manager might score you at the bottom 5%. Most managers have the power to lead because they can impact subordinates’ fates. They review your performance, they decide your salary, and they are your step-stones to higher positions. living in the bubble of power, a manager tends to regard herself/himself as a leader while actually it is the position that exerts every single order.

To know whether one is a “equipped” manager or a natural leader, just calculate the ratio of the number of his/her subordinates to that of friends at workplace.

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I’ve read tons of blog posts, tech news and analysis since late 2006, most of which come from the writing of “armature” journalists (or those without formal training on relative areas). I was fascinated by the diversity of perspectives among the bloggers then. I remember that Robert Scoble used to be the first one jumping into the then newest online services and came up his own thoughts. Jason Calacanis always did surprising things like turning off his blog and starting a “traditional” newsletter subscription model for readers instead. Tim O’Reilly’s posts were always thought-provoking. He was the advocate of free-Internet. I also learned the concept of “unconference”, such as BarCamp, FooCamp, and BoF from him. During the peak of my information-addictiveness, I subscribed more than 100 RSS sources and read almost half of them everyday.

However, I don’t do this anymore. As I suddenly realized that content from social media can only expend the horizon of knowledge, but no the depth, I began to cut down the number of RSS subscriptions. Today I read only filtered feeds from Techmeme and Fred Wilson, my most admired VC’s blog. Sometimes, I may turn to Michael Arrington’s posts for the important issues. Meanwhile, I’ve reduced the time spent on social media activities because links shared by friends, though interesting nevertheless, always distract me from more important things. But I still read links shared from my friends via MSN messenger. As the saying goes, “if the piece of information is worthwhile, it will come to you eventually.” The time saved is allocated to book reading. 

Throughout the last couple of years, the number of English books I’ve read more than doubled or tripled what I’ve read for the previous time combined. I discovered Ayn Rand and Benjamin Graham. I read the biography of Warren Buffett and the making of Goldman Sachs. These are “brick-books” and I won’t bother reading them until I really believe that I’m able to finish them.

What I found is that I couldn’t remember the majority of blog post I read two weeks ago, but I can still recall the famous quotes from books even a year later. As the trendy topics yesterday fall apart, be it Kin or Google Wave,  I laugh to myself. Tim, were these applications worthy of your excitement? Was I excited because of the innovation by its own virtue, or I was excited because others were excited? In contrast, the thoughts-turned-texts on books are timeless. I was thrilled to hear Ben Graham lectured,  “You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right. ” It was true, it has been true, and it will be true. True wisdom never goes outdated. I so spend a majority of time seeking wisdom, and a minority of time chasing trends.

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I’ve learned from a case-study interview today. I spent 5.5 hrs on the railroad and only 1 hr on the interview. Apparently it is not a good way to utilize your employee’s time. Some more problems:

1. The interviewee, who was the project owner, didn’t fully understand the details of the project. He kept saying about the applications while what we needed most is the pros and cons of infrastructure deployed.

2. The interviewer (writer) was not well-prepared. He didn’t pinpoint the critical issues such as reasons behind platform choices and comparative advantages of our solutions.

3. The partner representative, who introduced the case, didn’t mention that the project owner was not a qualified interviewee. The interviewee was not committed. The partner should have known the personality and inclination of the project owner through previous business contacts.

4. I didn’t ask for detailed briefing in advance, so when I found the nature of the case was not aligned with our goal, it was too late.

5. I followed what my manager told me to do, without questioning it. I knew the direction was wrong, but I didn’t take my own position.

In all, a phone-interview could achieve similar result (though it would still be a somewhat unconvincing case-study) at a lower cost. And if I took the courage to lead, perhaps, such an interview would not exist in the very first place.

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Yesterday, I happened to read a line, “how do you survive in the world of capitalism while doing the right things?” It’s indeed a paradox. The opportunities of promotion are scarce so that you can’t move forward without taking advantage of your colleagues. Teamwork? If you threaten experts to tell the truth, they will admit that it’s actually a zero sum game. Remember the last time you pretended to be part of a homogeneous culture by sacrificing self identity ? My friend said that in order to survive in his company, he has adopted all the similar ways of composing emails, speaking at meeting, and even telling jokes. Meanwhile, the HR Dept. keeps reminding every staff the “one-[company_name] way”. However the executives, whenever appear on TV spots, always repeat the cliche, “we value diversity.” Most of the time, the CEO, delivering a speech at school, tells students that “be yourself”, “do whatever you like”, and “passion is what you must bring along with no matter what kind of jobs you do in the future.” In contrast, during dinner time, it’s not uncommon to witness managers complain about how boring their jobs are, or regret that they haven’t spent enough quality time with family. I believe only a few of us could ever understand the meaning of pursuing success.

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One of the highest level executive, along with his secretary, went to the seat of a young intern students and had a small talk with him. Under normal situations, it is difficult for a new hire to obtain such a greeting, not to mention he is merely a kid just graduated from junior high school. What makes it possible is the acquaintance between the executive and the intern student’s father, who is a important client. Perhaps this kindness will lead to another transaction, who knows. Is it a bad thing? Is it unfair? It Depends. This is part of business. By doing someone a favor, you may get the return in the future. This kind of relationship building works especially well in Chinese culture in that everyone regards kinship as the prerequisite of successful negotiation or effective cooperation. The phenomenon is unique since no other animals will do the same to achieve their goals. One monkey may help another to fetch bananas by lending its own sticks, by it will never temporarily includes the offspring of another as one of the family members in exchange of future rewards. Maybe even more important is that does the student really want to be a "catalysts" to facilitate such a relationship?

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Yesterday on the way to office, I saw two workers putting tiles on the pavement of an intersection. It was hot, and it would be pretentious to say that they were happy. Nevertheless, they were making meaning. If there were no tiles, pedestrians would find it difficult to pass through the way without getting wet during a rainy day. Toilsome, but meaningful. The same day, Steve Jobs announced that iPhone 4 sold 170 million unites in the first 3 days of sale. Were it be no such genius and dictatorship, the smart phone industry would grow at a much slower pace. Glorious, and meaningful. So, what do we learn? While some contribute either at the bottom or at the top of the value chain of economy, some at the middle of the pyramid take advantage of both at the top and at the bottom. Like parasites, these people drain the blood of a healthy organization. The bad news is: most people must go through the middle to reach the top. The good news is: we can change.

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How do you spend most of your time at work, dealing with people or dealing with things? Admittedly, if more than 50% of your time and efforts are spent on relationship building and gossips gathering, and less then 50% of your time and efforts are spent on jobs to be done, you will be somewhat successful as an individual, at the expense of an organization. If more than 50% of staffs in a company do so, I will certainly short the stock of the company.

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“The future is not set. There is no fate, but what we make for ourselves.” This is the motif of Terminator series. Brought with him the message, Kyle Reese, John Connor’s father, a member of the rebellion and sent by the leader John himself in 2029 to protect his mother, met Sarah Connor in 1984 and together they gave birth to John Corner. In everyday life, I’m not sure to what degree we can make our own fate, or the fate is already predetermined by God beyond our comprehension. However one thing is for sure: always be a fighter as well as a dreamer. Think like a dreamer, because the day you stop dreaming, you become part of the machines as dominated by Skynet; act like a fighter, because the “present” may act against you from time to time. Fight back. People may betray you, may lose confidence in you, may misjudge you, but do not give up believing in the bright side of human beings. After all, if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of humanity, why can’t we?

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Then there is another thing I want to tell you. You have achieved your goal, and now you are ready to begin another chapter. Now you really start real life. Real life may be more complicated. It is bound to face some unhappy things and hindrance and obstacles, complications. So it is important to have determination and optimism and patience. If you lack patience, even when you face some small obstacle, you lose courage. There is a Tibetan saying, ‘Even if you have failed at something nine times, you have still given it effort nine times.’ I think that’s important. Use your brain to analyze the situation. Do not rush through it, but think. Once you decide what to do about that obstacle, then there’s a possibility that you will achieve your goal.

 

- Dalai Lama, Commencement Address at Emory University (source)

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Leadership is consisted of a number of attributes. Among them, finding the possibilities and creating opportunities for your people is two of the  most important elements. In the short-term, leadership is similar to ownership and managerial-ship; in the long run, leadership leaves much prolong impact to an organization and to people than ownership and managerial-ship do. Leadership is not a means to fulfill personal interest, instead, leadership is a means to serve a vision larger than everyone under its umbrella. Leadership in our organization is loosely defined, and is usually confused with ownership and dictatorship. True leaders don’t need your compliment. It is tyrants who needs it desperately.

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Every individual has blind spots. Bill Gates, Confucius, Gandhi, your boss, and you all have blind spots. The first step to overcome blind spots is to admit that we all have blind spots. Interestingly, we can find blind spots of others more easily than those of ours. I don’t know why people are made of this way, but I do know that reminding colleagues, friends, and family members of their blind spots is art that deserves more appreciation.

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A secret to succeed has been existed but hasn’t been told. The secret is – finding out the single most import factor in every assignment your manager delegates to you. That was what I learned in a talk with a senior manager yesterday. Take event organization for example. Content plays the most significant role in a PR event, while logistics play the pivotal role in an executive-reception event. As someone who is accountable for thorough implementation, understanding the key factor is a sure way to guarantee staying in the right track. To adopt the strategy, premises should be remembered: Don’t analyze different issues from the same perspective and don’t use the same hammer to fix any problems. The most important factors vary case by case.

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Sorry for being abstract. Today I would like to talk about meaning. Although each individual has his own definition of meaning for work, I do believe that doing certain things during work makes no sense for meaning. First, doing whatever your boss tells you is meaningless. Second, doing for the sole purpose of flattering your boss is meaningless. Third, planning to minimize the part of a project for which you are responsible is meaningless. Forth, helping colleagues because of potential benefits you may harvest later is meaningless. Fifth, giving up your ideal and enthusiasm due to rejection from your boss or colleagues is meaningless. Sixth, worrying about political consequence before pressing the “send” button on your Outlook is meaningless. Seventh, communicating your accomplishment, which will be ignored otherwise, is meaningless. Eighth, managing things without managing people is meaningless. Ninth, challenging the above is meaningless. For some, all they want is to survive in an organization; meaning or meaningless, that’s not the question. All that being said, there are still a lot of people who are positive and eager to contribute. One day, I believe, they will find the meaning.

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Students in Asia are used to be judged by short-term performance, or to some extent, the performance of one-time exam. Our education as well as measurement systems are designed to facilitate the painful process of selection, but they doesn’t reflect the quality of the end result for a prolonged period of time. One student may get a high score in a math test, but his ability to sustain the same level of performance is not being tested. Likewise, during an interview, a candidate may impress the interviewer at one moment, but outstanding performance in one or two hours can’t guarantee stability of performance in the future. Therefore, past records that demonstrate persistence and consistence of certain capabilities are necessary, as educators in the western countries are taking these factors more seriously. Call-to-action: start to accumulate your records and build evidences to show that your profession is a sustainable one.

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The other day, I heard people said, “You can’t do x and y because you’re too young and inexperienced.” I agreed with the naysayer at that moment; however, I was fault. Whenever I accept the notion of “too young” or “inexperienced”, I do nothing constructive but admitting that I’m so young and so naive that I simply ignore the opportunities to innovate the future. Honestly, almost all the great entities nowadays are founded by young entrepreneurs with little, if not none, experience. The more the inexperienced are excluded and depressed, the less the force that drives our world rotating forward. Why are you afraid of failure when you’re bigger than the problem? The best time to act is always, now.

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There is a discrepancy between consumer and enterprise software domains which seem to be mutually exclusive an no company on earth has yet proven success of integrating both. Microsoft? Perhaps. Although some technology from MSFT surprises the market periodically, in the long run, the cultures and priorities within the company are incompatible. The root of the problem is originated not from the new hires, but from the middle layers. Whereas the very top executives and the very young talents pay attention to trends, because of their job requirement and passion, a number of middle managers lack the ability to discern and appreciate trends and paradigm shift. Why? Their experience, profession, and most importantly, dignity prohibit them from doing so. Solutions from three angles can be applied – eliminating the existence of the obsolete positions, depriving the dinosaurs of the decision making privilege, or separating the company into two entities, one for commercial products, and another for consumer products.

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We tend to associate toughness with the ability to dig the right hole, while in fact, toughness usually leads to  thorough execution, that is to say, dig the hole right. As far as I’m concerned, the result of digging the hole, which is a wrong one however, right, is equal to a multiply of zero and a given score. In other words, ignoring the whole picture is the common failure among managers. On the contrary, leaders with soft skills are sometimes judged as ineffective ones, while in fact, they are more flexible and open to embrace changes and adverse conditions. After all, it doesn’t matter that you dig the wrong hole at the first place, as long as you recognize the mistakes and are willing to change course. Zero and one should be as distinctive as black and white, but in organizations, the pair are always hidden under authorities with obscurity.

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When I stumble upon obstacles, John Roark always comes to my mind. I would ask myself, “What would John Roark do?” Will he take a stand? Will he speak out loudly for things that ought to be done? Will he hesitate to face himself? If one can’t face oneself, how can he speak for justice and fairness? What has he seen? Will he has the courage to challenge the status quo, the so-called authority, or the so-called experienced? Will he insist on the ideal? Supposing he was seemingly defeated, what will be his next step? Is now the time to wait, or the time to act? Will he involve in, or stay indifferent to, the issue, saving efforts for things deserved his attention? Nevertheless, in addition to these question marks, I know one more thing for sure – never will he stop believing in himself, in the way Atlas would bear the world, and in the way the ideal man should be.

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Two young guys joined a company twenty years ago. One is now the CEO, the other stuck in the middle position. Why? The scope and the openness of minds rule their careers. What they choose to see, what they choose to listen to, and what they choose to believe matter. 

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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.

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What I learned is that burning out isn’t just about work load, it’s about work load being greater than the motivation to do work. (source)

Early on, before I began case work, one manager I befriended gave me some advice. To survive, he told me, I needed to remember The Ratio. 50 percent of the job is nodding your head at whatever is being said. 20 percent is honest work and intelligent thinking. The remaining 30 percent is having the courage to speak up, but the wisdom to shut up when you are saying something that your manager does not want to hear. (source)

The above quoted from a former consultant at BCG. He just graduated from MIT (supposedly a MBA graduate) and joined the prominent consulting firm. This means a dream came true by most ambitious young talents. He brought with him solid analytical skills, sophisticated models, and most importantly,  eagerness for contribution, to tackle tough problems faced by fortune 500 companies, but only found that what he learned from school was almost useless. His profession, passion, and idealism were compromised to clients’ political correctness. He couldn’t stand anymore, so he quitted. BCG paid him a handsomely $16,000 check attached with an NDA prohibiting him from disclosing any working experience there. He rejected both and choose to tell his story to the rest of the world.

My thought? It’s obvious that there are two worlds, one from textbooks and another from Main Street. Before transitioning from the former to the latter, as all MBAs have to, You got to set the right expectation, equip yourself with political savvy, and be ready to deal with ambiguity. The business world is brutal, not because of its intensive competition, but because of its reality that destroys what you have leaned and believed since day one at school. One must accept that the “unacceptable”, “immoral”, or “unethical” parts of business are the underlying force that builds customer relationship and drives transactions. The educators can leave students themselves to figure out how the real world operate, or they can include the dark side of business and of humanity in the courses.

All recently graduates have the right to know the ugly truth. Only then can they decide whether it’s a war worth fighting.

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Hedging, he explains, is basically a speculative tool used for conservative purposes. Without it, he says, “I would not have been able to sleep so well at night.”

 

- quoted from Alfred W. Jones, written by Peter Landau, 1968 (source)

Dr. Jones was a sociologist and journalist before he invented the concept now called “hedge fund”. In 1949, he set up a limited partner, A. W. Jones & Co., putting hedging philosophy into operation, to test the validity of his research on “technical approaches”, an investment style that relies heavily on odds, statistics, charts, patterns, and other quantitative measurements. The return of his portfolio for the 20 consecutive years was spectacle.

Essentially, hedge fund by and of itself is not evil, neither are hedge fund managers. Although the press always portrays, especially in economic downturn, hedge fund managers as vultures or demons by their own design, a few of them, including the founding father, regard venturing into hedge fund business as an efficient way to “reallocate fortune” to those in need.

Jones says frankly that he wanted to make money in Wall Street because he eventually wanted to be able to “slope away from business and pick up my old interests in social affairs." Moreover, he wanted his limited partners, many of whom were active in scientific and artistic fields, to be free from financial worries. So they can devote themselves entirely to their creative efforts. (source)

He did so. After 1984, Dr. Jones gradually disengaged himself from fund management and shifted his attention to Peace Crop. And it’s the beauty of capitalism. Compared with governments, sometimes capitalists are in a better position to allocate wealth. For the system to work, the premise is: don’t over regulate, allowing capitalists to make tons of money first. It doesn’t matter that 95% of top hedge fund managers are greedy and selfish. The world is already much better because the other 5% are philanthropists.

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Where there is a sell side, there must be a buy side. The middleman’s duty is to provide liquidity for both sides, not to backup quality of investment instruments. (Otherwise I believe that tons of brokers whose interest is volume rather than quality would be found guilty.) Thanks to hinder sight, we now know that housing market was destined to crash, and that John Paulson cashed in at the expanse of other ABACUS investors’ ignorance, but how could we foresee that two years ago? Wasn’t Paulson taking great risk against the market which had gone mad and kept skyrocketing during February 2007 to October 2007? Don’t forget that Dow Jones Industrial Average raised from 12767 on February 16, 2007 to all time high, 14093, on October 12, 2007.

We should make things clear that it’s final decision makers’ responsibility to pick up investment portfolio. Investors, instead of traders, brokers, or salesmen, are the final decision makers, and in the world of business, we often attribute the ultimate responsibility to final decision makers. (Otherwise, what to justify their high salaries and bonuses?) In theory, middlemen as a whole act as a platform, and their neutral existence is for the only purpose of facilitating end-to-end transaction. But in practice, because of the way in which incentive system operates, financial middlemen may be encouraged to shift their neutral position to a biased one, and therefore to what extent Goldman Sachs is biased will be the subject to be further explored.

As a result, two variables left. One is whether Goldman Sachs didn’t disclose enough information, or didn’t tell the the so-called “truth”. In this case, I don’t think they are guilty. (We can’t convict somebody of a crime just because of not telling anything, including the truth.) Since no law requires brokers to inform their clients who is selling short and who is buying long for certain targets, disclosing that Paulson & Co. was betting against the Synthetic CDOs was not necessary. And as reasoning above, even though GS did so, under the over-optimistic market, no one would care much. Another variable is whether Goldman Sachs did mislead, or lie to its clients with a false claim that ABACUS was selected by a neutral 3rd partly, ACA, but in fact it was selected by Paulson & Co.. If that is proven to be true, it would be impossible for GS to walk away innocently.

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在我們團隊之外，或許只有投資大師華倫．巴菲特的話值得一聽，他不只對房市，還對所有一切的成長週期做出評論：「有三個 “I” 一直存在。第一是創新者 (Innovator)，然後是模仿者 (Imitator)，再來便是笨蛋 (Idiot)。」講得真對，巴老，現在笨蛋來了。。

 

- 雷曼啟示錄, A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers, p178

Social media marketing, or more specifically, FB marketing, is currently at the 2nd stage, and moving forward to 3rd stage. How many new campaigns are launching without a FB fan page alongside? How much attention and tolerance could be divided by ever increasing sugar-coated baits? As palatable as they appear to be, baits that all tasted quite alike have been overwhelming. Since the total amount of human attention is fixed, this is a lose-lose game.

Time may tell, I don’t know. In the last decades, it takes a while for the crowd to learn to distinguish spam from newsletters, and to distinguish newsletters from eDMs. People who can’t tell ads from information are those you lest want to target. Unfortunately, we’ll witness more and more fan page followers to be categorized as ads-illiteracy. Brilliant marketers will advance from one less effective vehicle to another. Only the idiots stay.

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The other day, I had lunch with friends and much of our talks were about careers. I shared 4 criteria to evaluate the intrinsic value of a job. They are:

1. current pay – your relative “market price” which may shapes how you view yourself. How much you earn is less important if you are a recent graduate, but believe me or not, it matters more than you think when you get older. From time to time, however, job markets could be quite inefficient. For example, you may find your colleagues, inferior to your intellectual capability, work less hard and achieve poorer results, but they are nevertheless “quoted” at a higher price than you. It’s time to choose whether to take advantage of the “market inefficiency”.

2. future growth – if more than 50% of the skill you perform everyday is what you are already good at, you should consider another job. If your pay is strongly correlated to and will grow along with your profession and experience, and there are no glass ceiling for such growth, you should consider staying. On the other hand, some positions are going nowhere, even though they are landed on a top-tier company listed in Fortune 500. Take a while to identify them beforehand, and don’t lie to yourself when you are in such roles.

3. your colleagues – you may spend more time with them than with your family. Everyday you learned from them, or even imitate them. Colleagues not only influence your value, but also form an important network that you may find useful during the later stage of your career. So choose your “business partners” wisely.

4. your customers, partners, and vendors  - make sure they are the kind you like, otherwise you won’t succeed. If you despise geeks and nerds, you won’t succeed in IT or gaming industries. Interaction with external business counterparts may occupy as much as 80% of your job scope, so you should regard them no less than your colleagues. They are important constituents of your network, too.

When it comes to career seeking, the ultimate rule, as Steve Jobs already told us in his commencement address in Stanford University, is straightforward:

And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

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4. 本日佳句 – No Inefficient Markets, No Hedge Funds
5. 4 Basic Elements of a Business Model

The surest way to convince yourself that you are passionate about something is when you hear that “something”, be it a quote or a short speech, you feel certain chemistry changing inside your body. Your adrenal gland and lachrymal gland secrete. You feel the thrill, the urging, and the undeniable body response. All happen at once, just as you hear a song and it’s rhythm and lyric touch you so deeply and, so suddenly.

It’s a moment that you can’t explain, but you just know when it comes to you.

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4. Performance
5. Paradox

Large technology companies, taking advantage from their resources and understanding of market, are good at sketching the right vision, but, unfortunately, usually poor at execution. From an overall perspective, misalignment of incentives among divisions and implementation of imbalanced scorecards are two major causes of poor execution.

Ironically, most corporations in the developed countries implement “balanced” scorecards, and these scorecards contain shared goals, which are vital to new R&D effort, assigned to more than one department. Some professionals believe that the concept of shared-goals described in scorecards has been the best realization for collaboration management so far, but I would argue that though the application of scorecard is a good way to increase revenue, it is not necessarily a good way to foster internal cooperation. Instead of being a mechanism to drive commitment, shared goals are more often than not to become an excuse for not taking thorough responsibility. Because each division has their own priority delegated through organizational hierarchy, shared goals are inevitably give ways to primary goals. And because managers’ incentives are bundled with the achieving rate of goals, and their time and resources are limited, they tend to emphasize on objectives they have full control and neglect shared goals which require more effort on inter-departmental communication and resolving conflict among stakeholders. The consequence is obvious – lack of teamwork and less efficient execution that make the right vision broken.

I therefore recommend a radical way to align incentive with each division and stakeholder. For each scorecard, there are some items more difficult to accomplish than others. Top executives should assign each items a “risk factor” – the ranking of rick that a certain goal may not be able to be achieved. The higher the risk, the higher the incentive would be rewarded to those who reach the goal. For example, shared goals that are neglected or dodged by most managers last year are those with higher risks of not being well executed this year, and should be assigned with higher risk factor and higher incentive to catch managers’ attention. Once the new model introduced, shrewd managers who tend to calculate what are best for them will reconsider whether the high incentive justify the time and energy they will invest. Equally important is that objectives with higher risk rankings should not be divided into shared goals; instead, they should be assigned to a single owner who deserves all the returns to ensure thorough execution. After all, risk-sharing is the source of the financial crisis in 2008, and it didn’t and won’t go well with human nature.

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One of the reasons why I always enjoy reading TechCrunch is that, Michael Arrington, the founder and editor-in-chief of TC, always takes a stand bravely.

Yesterday he publicly criticized the political stunt orchestrated by US Congress, GoDaddy and, you guess it, Google. Among the trio, Senator Chris Smith, in order to exemplify how wrong it is to “exist” and “do business”  in China, made a comment about Microsoft as below:

They [Microsoft] need to get on the right side of human rights rather than enabling tyranny, which they’re doing right now.

 

And Sergey Brin, interviewed by NYTimes a few days ago, attributes Microsoft’s position against Google to loser’s mentality:

I’m very disappointed for them in particular,” Brin said. “As I understand, they have effectively no market share – so they essentially spoke against freedom of speech and human rights simply in order to contradict Google.

Here I present the arguments Michael Arrington brought up to challenge comments on Microsoft’s ignorance of human right. It’s up to you to determine how valid and convincible these arguments are.

1. Both Google and GoDaddy made political donation, $8,500 and $19,500 respectively, to Senator Dorgan’s campaign fund.
2. Why doing business in China was just right in December 2009 but doing so is very very wrong now?
3. .cn domain registration accounts for a tiny portion of GoDaddy’s overall business (2700 v.s. 35 million, 0.08%). And this contradicts to Sergey Brin’s suggestion that companies with effectively no market share spoke against freedom of speech and human right.
4. The US government, doing nothing to fight the “evil “ existing in China, backup certain companies while blaming some others.

I would like supplement that, just because Microsoft makes excessive profit doesn’t mean that Microsoft does excessive evil to human rights and freedom of speech. Moreover, associating too much social responsibility and moral standard to profit-making companies, is basically, irresponsible and anti-capitalism. On the other hand, the fact that “most” of Chinese people are comfortable with the political and economic status quo makes the claim that the Chinese live under oppression ungrounded. All that being said, we should regard Google’s leaving China as pure business decision even though some of the underlining causes are political ones, and respect decisions made by companies, such as Microsoft, which decides to stay in China, obeys the local laws, and continues to do business as usual, as business decisions.

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3. 4 Basic Elements of a Business Model
4. 不錯的一篇文章：Chrome vs. Bing vs. You and Me
5. Microsoft也推出愚人節產品

For marketers and analysts… This is an exciting era of publicity, one in which you have more access to data than ever before, one in which you can see people who were previously invisible. But just because you are able to see people doesn’t mean that they want to be seen by you. And just because you think you can interpret what you see doesn’t mean you will do so accurately. We are becoming a data-driven society and, in some ways, this is a very good thing. Goddess knows, I’d love to see more policy grounded in data. But please realize that just because you have access to numbers doesn’t mean that the numbers tell the full picture. Or that people will be happy to hear that you have this information. (source)

Boyd Danah 是任職於微軟研究院的社會學家，也是地球上少數全職於研究 social media phenomena 的學者。這年頭講起 social networking 有 insight 的人不多了。他是我心目中少數的那幾個人之一。這樣的人才願意留在微軟，微軟肯定有它的魅力。

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5. Buffett’s 3I

Salesforce.com 創辦人 Marc Benioff 前幾天在 TechCrunch 八啦八啦講了一大串為什麼 “ The Facebook Imperative Cannot Be Stoppable”，換句話說，就是在申論為什麼企業軟體 (或服務) 最終將走向 Facebook 的形式。

Spoiler Alert: Salesforce.com 剛推出一個介面與 Facebook 相仿的企業協同合作服務 – Salesforce Chatter。

台灣企業主的 ultimate feedback：為什麼我們要在員工的辦公軟體中加入 social networking 元素？

如果想讓企業接受像 FB 那樣的 social networking 溝通方式，需要的是行為上的轉變。而這種轉變，我認為短期內不太可能發生。20 世紀的前 90 年，企業透過留紙條、傳電報、打傳真來溝通非口語表達資訊。20 世界的最後五年，企業開始大量採用 email 來傳遞書面資訊。而這些載體本質上都沒有涉及員工行為模式的改變。資訊還是需要完整、有結構性的被傳達。這些載體只是增加訊息傳遞的效率。反觀 social networking 的 fragment information 或 noise 終究無法建構出有效的溝通。不然 5 年前，各大企業現在早該採用 IM 作為主要的溝通管道 (一樣也很 social 啊)，email 早消失了。

說到這邊，我們不得不騰出個位置，讓老闆們表達心聲：「我找你來上班，是請你來 working，不是和同事 social net-working！」

然後，也請各位白領勞工朋友們想想，如果一天突然要多收個 20 封 email 都覺得煩了，現在假如公司導入 social networking applications，一天多個 60 封短訊息要看要回應，這樣您還能專心把眼前的事情做完嗎？

最後，再請老闆英明，有幸在工作時使用 FB, Plurk, etc. 的白領勞工朋友們想想，請問您是拿它來喇賽打屁的成份居多，還是討論公事的成份居多？

如果 Social Networking Services 能在企業 take off，那我們早該在三五年前，企業一窩蜂追逐 internal blogging 和 internal wiki 的風潮中看到結果。而事實呢？時至今日，大企業還是以 email 交流資訊為主，沒人有時間玩 blogging、wiki。這些工具的需求多集中在中小企業，或是大企業的少數 (task force oriented) 部門，既然都是組成特性都是「小」、「少」，彼此很容易在 offline 產生聯繫，不會複雜到需要在網路上 maintain profile，然後一人 assign 一種 expertise，以便於 knowledge search。撇開 people / KB search 不談，其餘 SNS 能帶來的「強大」效益，在組織複雜度還很低的情況下，也不明顯。

所以，總歸一句話，行為模式不改變，怎麼會有新需求？沒有新需求刺激，怎麼推動 paradigm shift？

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5. 微軟創新不創新

阿四，我記得你以前跟我說過，每天晚上只要一閉上眼，夢到的全是阿純，我閉上眼，是中國的明天。

昨天和同事聊到十月圍城，我說，最讓我感動的，就是上頭這段對話。對我來說，理想、堅持、犧牲，還有改變世界的格局，是有能之士存在的理由。

也許有人會說：陳少白這個角色很不負責任，真自私，文人專送別人去慷慨赴義。我則要說，歧視文人，才是現代社會最大的問題。追求實際，取笑理想，也是現代社會之所以平凡人充斥的原因。在太平盛事大家講求什麼？講求生活 (請稍歇會兒，跟著 Steve Jobs 一起歌頌 life style)、講求享樂，而給你們生活，給你們享樂的，就是商人。也就是說，現代社會講求重商主義，士農工商，很遺憾，請反過來寫。平民百姓的認知中，現代文人若不是窩在學校教書，就是在淌在政治圈裡搞利益輸送。前者是不經世事的井底之蛙，後者是掠奪民脂民膏的米蟲。

但，就算有一鍋老鼠屎，也無法抹滅一粒米的存在。想想一百年前，若沒有文人散布思想，起身號招，很多事情永遠不會有人去做。平凡百姓會繼續活在「夠好」的生活型態。而當革命已成歷史教材，壓力退去，文人也退縮了。時至今日，已沒有太多文人想改變世界。畢竟大平盛事，文人沒有舞台，沒有苦難百姓需要拯救。

若要替文人論斤兩，我們先捫心自問：這個世界，到底是 thinker 重要，還是 doer 重要？

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5. 本日佳句 – for last night

前微軟 VP Dick Brass 投了一篇專欄到 NY Times，強調微軟不夠創新，而且根源是 internal competition。先不論這個原因，至少我覺得 internal competition 是每間成熟的大公司都會有的問題。倒是被 Dick Brass 點名「不創新」的例子： music, e-books, phone, online, search, tablet, clear type font, etc.，喚起了我心中醞釀已久的想法，而這想法，在微軟阿宅的噗中出現：

大家覺得 IBM、Oracle 創新嗎？不少人心目中對「創新」的認知，侷限在消費性電子科技領域、或是外觀、互動方式等「看得到、摸得到」的介面創新；但在企業 IT 領域，還是有很多創新，是一般大眾沒興趣，或是不瞭解的 (所以記者也不愛寫)。久而久之，一些大公司就給人 LKK 的觀感了…

微軟並非不創新，只是它正在 enterprise software 和 consumer application 的路上迂迴前進。而合作夥伴生態、過去歷史包袱，以及投資人的壓力 (請準時交出短期成績單)，讓它的推進路線，更偏向 enterprise 一點。

enterprise software 這條路，本來就難走，寫熱門報導給大眾看的記者與部落客不懂此領域；懂此領域的記者縱使寫出精闢好文，刊載其報導的媒體又只有少數圈內人關心。微軟沒錯、Dick Brass 沒錯 、記者沒錯、媒體沒錯、一般大眾沒錯，錯的只是我們對微軟不正確的期望，以及人類容易受到膚淺事物刺激的天性。(可能要問問腦科學先生，人類大腦理解創新的部位，和狗狗大腦理解骨頭好吃的部位，是不是在同一個位置。)

說得含蓄點，就是大眾只對「貼近自己」、「容易理解」的創新有感覺，有反應，有記憶。至於讓 fortune 500 企業 LOB 效率增加 75% 的創新？讓 fortune 500 企業 IT 總支出減少 75% 的創新？省省吧，大眾沒興趣，別期望這些創新會有 pop momentum。

你不會因為 Apple 遲遲無法開發出適合企業使用的 mail server 就罵它不創新，不會因為 Google 遲遲尚未進軍 ERP 市場就罵它不創新。所以拿 lack of consumer technology innovation 來 challenge 當前將經營重心放在 enterprise technology innovation 的公司，有失公允。如果你是見識的菁英，如果你是有見識的記者，你會如何看待？

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難得看到一篇批判 Google / Nexus One 的文章。十五年來，雖然資訊載體的形式一直推陳出新，但人受到媒體的影響程度 (或控制程度) 也同步加深。除了少數菁英，一般人不願或不配或無法成為能「獨立思考的考動物」。媒體 (as a whole) 會繼續扮演老大哥的角色，只是老大哥會逐漸把權利下放給你我身邊的堂主。

所以，有沒有想過，the power of media v.s. the superior product portfolio，你心目中的企業品牌，有多少成份是靠前者建立起來的，有多少是靠後者？

如果從今天開始，全世界的記者都被下蠱，全部只寫 Microsoft 好話，猜會怎麼樣？

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谷歌霹靂火繼續上演。WSJ 提到 CEO Eric Schmidt 支持 Google 繼續留在中國市場，但 Sergey Brin 則是堅持不能繼續向中國妥協。(推測多少和他小時候生活在蘇聯的背景有關)。看到一位網友認為，Google 就是因為 “startup mentality”，才會做出這麼「幼稚」的決定。如果換成 IBM 或 Microsoft 等 “matured” 之流，一定會選擇在檯面下把事情橋定。

差在哪裡？Google 是一間屬於創辦人的公司。IBM 和 Microsoft 是一間屬於管理階層的公司。

好在我們還有一間市值超國 1800 億美金的幼稚公司，仍然保有 “startup mentality”。站在股東立場，我不贊同 Google 片面撤出中國市場。股東，就是要賺錢。但今天如果我是創辦人，我也會希望能 leverage 這個位置的力量，做一點除了賺錢之外，有理想的事。

給個示範吧！

     (source: Bloomberg News)

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我很喜愛的一位 VC Blogger 昨天用「說」的方式 (via Nexus One )，寫了一篇文章。他堅持不做任何修改，讓大家看看目前辨識技術能達到什麼程度。原文大約有一到兩成文法或拼字錯誤，斷句也不是相當清楚。不過最重要的是 –  我看得懂整篇文章。其實這樣就夠了。

他的合夥人也認為，十年內，我們有機會讓鍵盤輸入走入歷史。嗯。商機。

語音輸入說了這麼多年，為什麼一直無法 take off？ 除總總技術障礙外，使用者沒有需求恐怕是最大原因。能坐在某個地方舒舒服服敲鍵盤 (說不定敲得還比說得快)，為什麼我還要對著螢幕亂噴口水呢？更何況說話所要耗費的能量可是比移動手指頭多呢。

現在總算有一個合適的平台，能喚起使用者的 “demand side awareness”。以前我們的生活型態很安分，到某個特定地點，才會從事那個特定地點適合的行為。但這幾年做啥都要 ”on-the-go” 的風氣興起，讓廠商有機會重新思考 dominate 人類數十年的輸入行為。

前天，一位女同事告訴才我，她想要「說」簡訊。

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1. 請繼續餵食

早上花了一點時間，看完 Wire 對 ”3D Realms” (製作毀滅公爵系列的那家) 關門大吉所做的詳細報導。畢竟 Duke Nukem 3D 曾經是 PC Game 史上的一個里程碑，曾經是繼德軍總部、毀滅戰士之後的 FPS 遊戲霸主，也是我在 1997 年資訊展買的唯一一套遊戲…現在雖然盒子丟了，但光碟內附的小冊子至今都還留著，冊子封底也有一張製作團隊大合照。諷刺的是，3D Realms 解散的那一天，也拍了一張類似的大合照…

3D Realm 會關門的客觀事實很簡單 – Duke Nukem 3D 的續集 - Duke Nukem Forever ，製作了 12 年，卻遲遲無法上市。士氣榨乾了，錢也燒光了，甚至演變到和發行商鬧上法庭的局面。

從報導看來，背後的原因是：

1. 創辦人對完美的苛求 (或說是不想輸給自家上一個作品)，導致遊戲引擎、遊戲內容一改再改，上市時間一延再延

2. Duke Nukem 3D 成功大賣，創辦人拍胸脯保證：資金不成問題，卻也讓開發過程失去了紀律

從報導看來，感覺千錯萬錯，都是創辦人 George Broussard 的錯，但想想看，如果一個男人，把人生中最黃金的 12 年，統統壓注在一套遊戲上，換成是你，你會不偏執嗎？

George Broussard, co-owner of 3D Realms and the man who headed the Duke Nukem Forever project for its entire 12-year run. Now 46 years old, he’d spent much of his adult life trying to make a single game, and failed over and over again.

Long live Duke Nukem!

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今天接到一通信用卡銀行打來的推銷電話，之所以沒馬上掛斷，是突然想聽聽她們葫蘆裡到底在賣什麼膏藥。

1. 首先先告訴你：我是你的個人服務專員，並且附上真實姓名、電話、員工編號

2. 接著告訴你一個只有少數經挑選會員獨享的別優惠，而且特別到不會透過 email、簡訊等方式對外公開

3. 講一大串好處

4. 重點來了，但是重點以相當輕鬆的口吻帶過重點：每月繳交 n 元保險費

5. 強調申辦方式很簡單，簡單到讓你忘記 n 元保費

6. 繼續透過情境、分享其他參與會員的個案，來強調一大串好處，好到讓你忘記 n 元保費

最後我實在是受不了了，所以就想個不失禮的辦法脫身。

短短幾分鐘，讓我想起平時我們的客戶是不是都這樣看待我們的 pitch 呢？你覺得我是笨蛋嗎？benefit is benefit, value is value，不是 benefit，不是 value 的東西，不論你再怎麼包裝，提供再怎麼逼真適切的情境，搬出再怎麼無堅不摧的 talking point，聽在客戶耳中，都還是糖漿。

除非客戶是笨蛋。而你的生意也是建立在和笨蛋的關係之上。

好處顯而易見的產品或服務，不需要請 MBA 來精心規劃 scenario。只需要給我陳述事實 (e.g. 媒體報導)，我自然會發現好處。當公司的產品需要四處兜情境和 case study 來說嘴時，代表 1) 產品價值不明顯、2) 產品太複雜。那為什麼不在最初設計規劃時，就把這些絆腳石考慮進去呢？

因為複雜，好處又不明顯的產品還是有官僚的機構和想往上爬的主事者會買。買賣雙方會一邊握手一邊附和著說，因為我們組織龐大、事業版圖龐大，所以要持續成長，所以需要這種複雜的專案；而要完成複雜的專案，就要夠採購複雜的工具和服務，才能夠完成這項艱辛的使命。

複雜的東西，總是暗藏著機會，不是嗎？

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The rise of fast food content is upon us, and it’s going to get ugly.

今年六月，在一次飯局中和朋友聊到，過不久各式各樣的商業 Plurk、Facebook 帳號將如雨後春筍搬探出頭，而網路上的噪音 noise / signal ratio 將越來越高。最後 user 就會選擇 ignore 這些資訊，甚至是放棄使用這個平台。

現在台灣漸漸有這種跡象了。其實我們都不知道，我們早已經在臉書上練就一身「跳過噪音」的能力。沒錯，我就是說你的心理測驗魔人好友啦。

其實這不是這篇的重點。我的標題是從 Michael Arrington 那借過來。他點出了 “newer” media disrupt new media 的現象。而這些 newer media 代表的是講求速度、膚淺、或是消費 (or paraphrase) 其他原創內容的內容。一語貫之，就是 fast food content。

當 fast food content 統治了我們的視窗，第一個要忍受的就是重複出現的議題，特別是像某些重大新聞 breaking 時，例如 MJ 的消息。第二個就是花時間看完某篇膚淺文章後緊接而來的後悔感 (人人都以為自己是評論家，但除了很會下標題之外，內容實在乏善可陳 –> 老子 / 老娘被你這標題殺人法騙了)。第三個，也是最可怕的，就是雖然內容乏善可陳，但我還是忍不住要轉錄 / 分享給我的朋友，誰叫我已經養成了這個習慣了呢？這就是我存在於 FB / Plurk 的目的呀！結論：人人都像是在開 fast food content 的加盟店。

對媒體業來說，可能會發生劣幣逐良幣的情況。因為從今以後，還在那邊寫第一手、原創資訊的記者就是笨蛋，直接改寫別人的才叫做 work smart。深度的資訊沒有市場，發表能被轉錄的資訊才是總編輯批准的資訊。

我們混 FB / Plurk 的這代，將是一群見多識廣的有為青年，每天都能接收到朋友轉來的資點子子，未來進了職場，一定也能貢獻出破壞性創新。但每天接觸這些支離破碎的內容，刺激到的都是脊椎骨裡面的神經；另一方面來說，成為一個優秀人才的關鍵能力 — 邏輯，將沒有辦法被訓練到。不周全的思考，連帶也會影響到執行力。這就像是吃速食最後會變胖，造成行動緩慢；看太多 fast food content，也會讓點子塞滿大腦和肥腸，但卻沒有動手做的能力，造成點子一點一滴淤塞在脂肪。後遺症是什麼，就讓我們拭目以待。

好，我要繼續去生產 fast food content 了。

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老實說，這年頭還那些消費者(非商務人士)會想買 Sony, Apple, 之外的高階筆電？CULV 目前只有 Acer 和 ASUS 在主推，HP, Dell 等大廠不願意跟進，她們的觀點，就和媒體說的一樣，認為 CULV 卡在小比電和高階筆電中間，沒有市場。

但今年資訊展已經讓數字告訴我們，事實不是這樣。

我認為未來買高階筆電的人會越來越少，原本看上高階筆電輕薄質感的族群，會把錢花在更接近炫耀財的高階智慧型手機；剩下的，就是玩 game 和執行繪圖等高階工作的使用者。但因為線上遊戲要求的硬體效能其實已經沒有過去單機遊戲高，所以這個族群只會繼續痿縮。

就低階筆電來說，我自己的使用心得是：買過的人應該不會推薦朋友也去買一台。我幫朋友買的那台，後來也是換來抱怨 : P 這一切都是效能問題。我常懷疑 Atom 是不是要拿來做 single task 的處理器。只要多開幾個網頁和 Word 檔，系統資源就快被榨乾了，買小筆電的人雖然都認為自己只會做些簡單的文書處理，但相信我，現在影音資源橫流，小筆電買回家之後，一定會有拿來看影片的情況，這時，停格或是字幕對不上的問題，也會讓你想捶電腦。但當時大家不是說好只拿來做文書處理嗎？: P。另一方面，Intel 和 MS 也因為毛利率問題，不願意繼續支持小筆電成為主流，因此這個 segment 明年也不會有什麼搞頭。

所以一般廠商做高階筆電打不贏「精品廠」，做低階筆電無法滿足消費者，做 CULV 中階筆電就不是選擇了，而是必然要面對的趨勢。不然我實在不知道所謂的「潛在市場」在哪兒。甚至我們也不必為 CULV 貼上「中階」的標籤，因為當高階筆電逐漸 commoditized ，低階筆電逐漸被上游廠商和消費者排擠，甚至是被智慧型手機或電子書等裝置部份取代，從而淡出市場，結局將會是：不再有人稱 CULV 為中階筆電；CULV 成為主流筆電的代名詞。

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從 CompuServe 到 AOL 到 YAHOO，入口網站之所以能獨霸一方，成為網民主要資訊來源，很大原因是因為傳統媒體公司不知道怎麼玩網路，所以把 distribution 的工作交給入口網站。然而，這樣的態勢未來幾年也許會有改變。

剛看到 WSJ 寫到美國幾家龍頭雜誌出版社，終於聯合起來，要製作一個像“Hulu” 一樣的數位平台。除了有些為電子書市場做準備的意涵外，也意味著傳統媒體界越來越熟悉網路世界的遊戲規則，甚至逐漸能嗅出趨勢。下一個，會不會是新聞版 Hulu 呢？

如果傳媒真的變聰明，那 YAHOO 的未來也許就不怎麼光明了。全球上 YAHOO 的使用者，很大一部份是為了看新聞等 premium content，如果 content provider 聯合起來，提供 user 更方便的 solution，那像 YAHOO 這種 content aggregator 可能要重新思考自己還有什麼長線競爭優勢。

畢竟出版業者擁有更專業的 gate keeper，一樣是人為挑選每日能登上版面的文章，出版業自己來做會更棒更有效率。

同業合作的難度本來就很高，但當競爭者之間彼此都有共同的敵人時，敵人的敵人，就是朋友。誰敢保證，繼電視業、雜誌業皆成立聯盟平台之後，電影業、音樂業等內容產業會不會如法炮製呢？

該重新來評估 YAHOO 的投資價值了。

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昨天看到一個很不錯的觀念：當遇到難題時，與其想破頭，不如動手動腳。

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When the market changes, you may be seeing all the new opportunities and problems the wrong way because of the solutions you’re used to. The reason so many organizations have trouble using social media is that they are using precisely the wrong hammer. And odds are, they will continue to do so until their organization fails. PR firms try to use the new tools to send press releases, because, you guessed it, that’s their hammer. (source)

Bonus Quote

Instead, you gain converts by winning at something the existing provider didn’t think was so important. (source)

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…The problem with being an amateur scientist is precisely the reason that marketers relish the opportunity to sell to us, the amateurs: we make stupid decisions, easily manipulated by those who might choose to do the manipulation (on their behalf or on ours). …

…The news here is not that people are irrational, giving too much credence to the dramatic and the local and the short-term (that’s not news), but that people have added a veneer of scientific rationality to their irrational decisions. …

…This is one of the problems with breast cancer screening. It appears to give information, really good information, but in practice, it doesn’t. Since the information is vivid, we give it too much credence. … (source)

1. 這世界上每天有數以千百億計位元的新資訊產出，但對少數來說， 99% (?) 都是 noise。

2. 為什麼 insight 這麼少？因為大眾不喜歡思考。insight 沒有市場。

3. 吸收資訊原本就不是人類為了生存而演畫出來的能力，那是為了社交所演化出來的能力。

4. 我們應不應該繼續餵大眾簡單的東西？應該。不然人類社會賴以運行的主從關係會瓦解。

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5. 本日佳句 – whom to blame

I said that there are two kinds of api failures that I’ve noticed. The first is when the web app itself is not very popular and therefore developers aren’t compelled to build to its api. That is not an issue with the api itself. The second is when the web app itself is very popular but the api is not so much.  (source)

I’ve been thinking about applying the concept of API for content creation on social networking model.

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第二次世界大戰後，政經局勢丕變，車廠未來前途堪，照理來說，這家公司應該完蛋了。但是，他們沒有放棄…

 

為維持生計，車廠員工開始種植蔬菜，公司蓋了一座麵粉廠、麵包廠、和木炭廠，也設立陶瓷廠生產瓷器，而其他單位則開始生產鍋碗瓢盆。車廠老闆還派兒子到北方學做魚漿，因為很可能是一項商機。

 

現在，這個車廠正與美國通用汽車競逐全球最大汽車製造…

 

(source)

這段話讓我相當感動。聽起來像是封建時代才可能發生的動員令，在資本主義社會中也可能發生，前提是上位者必須像貴族一樣展現十足的領導威能，下位者 (佃農魂) 必須打從內心信服貴族的領導。從猿人到智能人，人天生就是需要領導，民主制度不過是被包裝得比較好的精英主義操縱。人天生就嚮往 “nobleness”，嚮往具有這樣特質的群體來領導、保護他們。

在資本社會的專業經理人制度之下，我們不容易看到退居幕後的貴族，只會看到媒體拼命哄抬的個人式英雄主義。然而貴族永遠都在，貴族體系形成，需要兩個元素：血脈和文化，一旦成型，就是一張八方延展的網，就算嫡系消失，旁系仍會將類似的文化基因傳承下去。

但最吸引我之處在於，翻開族譜，貴族的源頭都是庶民。

這代表任何世代，不論政經制度如何演變，永遠都會有像羅斯柴爾德、像摩根、 像洛克菲勒一樣的平民，透過努力，透過謀略，喚醒原本就屬於他們的天命。

成功的主產品是自己，副產品是自己的血脈。

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Plato describes five types of government in the Republic:

1. Aristocracy- Plato considered this the best form of government; aristocracy embodies wisdom of the philosopher king.
2. Timocracy- military government embodies virtues of honor and courage.
3. Oligarchy- rule by a rich elite, their vice is greed, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
4. Democracy- mob rule, and chaos, it represents akrasia people are slaves of their desires and have little self-control.
5. Tyranny- this is the worst form of government. The vice is selfishness, one power crazed person in control. (source)

這就是 social media 的本質。

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1. Get in
2. Get it done
3. Get it done right
4. Get out

應用在投資，我想就是以下四個簡單流程。堅信簡單公式，能幫助你過濾外界噪音：

1. 研究追蹤特定標的
2. 進場
3. 管控風險 (加碼或減碼)
4. 出場

Bonus Quote: “know everything you can about what you’re doing.”

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The central task in a gift economy is to keep the gifts moving. By social debt, barter, and pure charity, gifts circulate and generate happiness and wealth.

(source)

禮物經濟，或是 Chris Anderson 喜歡說的免費經濟，在我看來是烏托邦，不可能實現。它無法 scale ，沒有價值衡量標準，沒有人需要為勞務或服務的提供負責，最重要的是，它太順從於人性，從歷史的經驗看來，凡是放縱人性的經濟體都無法長期存在。

活在貨幣堆起來的資本主義很辛苦，因為它懲罰懶惰。但它也給了我們最好的禮物 — 時間。它讓時間站在我們這邊，縱使金湯匙金叉子金牙籤現在不在你手上，只要你不鬆懈，擁抱資本主義，時間會幫助你，把整套餐具從沒有資格獲得的人手中奪過來。

有時候，禮物會收得心不安理不得，唯有靠自己努力得到的才是真的。

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One question to ask yourself is: what doesn’t exist that should? Do you see something that is lacking in your neighborhood, your city or in the world? Is there anything you can contribute? Is there a niche waiting to be discovered? There most likely is. If people spent less time complaining and more time in productive and creative thought, we’d all be the better for it. It’s sometimes as simple as going beyond the status quo and having the courage to do so. (source)

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技術幾年前就有，但多虧智慧型手機才得以讓大眾親身體驗。得趁台灣記者 pick up 起來前先想好 business model。我猜一年到一年半之內會上商業週刊 ，封面？

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