Category: Editorial

I’ve had some time to think about Niall Kennedy’s announcement that he’s leaving Microsoft.  I met him once for probably less than a minute, so I don’t really know him.  I have read his blog a fair bit and have a lot of respect for him.  But….

I’m a little disappointed with Niall too.  He started work at Microsoft only 4 months ago.  Frankly, he should have known that Microsoft could be like this.  To quit after such a short period of time, and then to declare the company of being in “general paralysis” seems unfair to Microsoft, his colleagues, and his readers. He did generate a lot of press for himself though (ZDNet, Information Week, CNet, Seattle Post, SoftPedia).

There is no doubt that Microsoft is undergoing major changes in order to compete going forward.  This type of metamorphasis is one that Microsoft has successfully done before, but it takes a long time.  The change can take a huge toll on employees while the company gets priorities sorted out.  Coming from small companies myself, I definitely sympathize with Niall’s frustration that Microsoft and Windows Live is moving too slowly!  It’s fair, but any seasoned engineer should expect this when they start with Microsoft (and then work like a dog to make it faster/cheaper/better).

Obviously, each of us faces our own career/life decisions and sometimes the best thing to do is to leave.  In making his decision, I’m sure Niall did the right thing.  I’m just a little disappointed at the damning words that he left for Microsoft on his exit.  He’s a smart guy, but when you only had the patience for 4 months of it, you didn’t earn the right to conclude the whole thing is just screwed up.

Anyway – Niall – best of luck to you with your new adventure!  I’m sure you’ll go far.

The second most-important new feature is “Easily find help”.

Office 2007.

Wow. This is where marketing jokes originate. Seriously, though – try the new Office – the product actually is pretty good, despite the less-than-flattering-marketing.

I met with an investor the other day who was talking about successful businesses, and he claimed that almost all of today’s big businesses started out with extremely humble beginnings – raising less than $10M.  I wish I could quote where that research comes from, but I don’t know.  But let’s assert that it is true for a moment.

His second idea had to do with investment funds.  His claim was that you should never trust a fund manager that keeps significant portions of his fund in cash.  The reason is because when an investor has extra cash to use, he can make lightweight decisions to invest in something new.  If all cash is invested, then buying a new investment means selling another.  Having to make that tradeoff forces the fund manager to scrutinize his decisions – does he want investment A or investment B?  He has to decide.  If he has the cash already in hand, he doesn’t have to decide – he can do both.

In business, the same may be true.  When managers have too many resources, the decision to use those resources can be made easily.  You’ll always get better decisions when you have to give up something before acquiring something else.  Having extra money in the bank allows you to avoid this critical thought process.

If you’ve read this far, maybe this is making some sense.  And, maybe it means that good managers (be it fund managers, people managers, software managers, etc) are those which are able to always make good decisions even if resources are available.

So, here is the catcher – inherently, people aren’t naturally good at being decision makers when there is no tradeoff.  Without a tradeoff, we can make decisions based on emotional moods or whims.  After all, the resource is available and ready to use, so today, I’ll make the decision “because I feel like it”.  I guess this consistent with Warren Buffet’s description of “Mr Market”.

Could this account for why large companies often fail to successfully enter new businesses?  Spinning up a new division from a successful one will have lots of resources and cash from the onset.  Using those resources wisely is hard to do.  Unless the business is inherently difficult with high capital expenditures where it’s obvious how to spend the money, it can be easy to make poor decisions.

Well, don’t get too caught up in this, because if you take this literally, you’d believe that the incumbent companies would never be able to enter new businesses without acquiring.   Odd, though, there do seem to be a lot of acquisitions recently.

Since I bought my 2006 Civic Hybrid in January, and it is supposed to have great gas mileage, I figured I’d post my MPG results. Yes, I track my gas mileage. Don’t blame me, blame my statistics-freak father.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the real world gas mileage. The EPA rating is for 50MPG city, and 50MPG highway. I’m mostly doing highway miles, and I’m getting a little shy of 48MPG. You can tell when I’m driving the speed limit and when I’m speeding based on the ups and downs in this chart. What I really like most about the civic is its range. I get an average of 517 miles per tank of fuel. My Accord can only go about 400 miles per tank, and the boxster gets around 275.

If you drive a Civic or Prius – post your charts too!

One last note – my previous cars got 21MPG and 27MPG. If I had driven those cars for the miles I’ve put on my Civic, I would have spent an extra $592.70 and $353.53 on fuel (not including the extra per-gallon charge for premium!)

I’ve been reading Mark Cuban’s blog for a while, and this is just to pump his blog. While he does call himself a maverick – he really does think differently. Read his blog, and you won’t read the same old way of thinking… If you don’t know who he is, he’s the founder of a number of various companies, most notably broadcast.com, and now the owner of the Dallas Mavericks (there is that word again) basketball team.

There is a phrase that “great minds think alike“, which as far as I can tell is patently false. It’s the great minds that specifically don’t think alike…Mark thinks different, and that is cool.

I enjoyed this article recently: Don’t Blame Me – I’m just a Stupid Shareholder

Housing prices will drop at least 10% by end of 2006. With the East Bay particularly hurt.

I just purchased a couple of monitors online from Dell. Before buying, I went onto ebay and purchased a $35 coupon for $0.99. I’ve seen these before, but never used one. Given that it only cost a buck, I tried it. I paid for it via Paypal, and the coupon works great!

Only caveat – look out for shipping charges on ebay. Some of these guys want as much as $5.99 to send you an email with your coupon. “Shipping charges”? Ebay ought to ban fees on electronic delivery, as its nothing except misleading to the consumer, and makes purchasing take a lot longer due to reading the fine print.

On to the FREE STUFF – I ended up purchasing two coupons for the price of one (with $0.49 shipping), so if you want to use my second coupon, please take it. It expires on April 5th – the coupon number is 9DSK9N$0919$SL – I make no warranties, and the first person to use it gets it. It requires a $300 minimum purchase, and then you’ll get $35 off. Oh yeah – and no shipping charges 🙂

BTW – despite today’s date, this is not an April Fool’s Joke!

Glory to thee, foolish politician,
For creation of our traffic congestion,
For the only roads which don’t flow free,
Are those where you made a carpool lane be!

And now, for $25K and a sticker,
I drive straight through this traffic that’s thicker.
I used to frown and snarl, and grumpily complain,
About those selfish, fast pacers in the H-O-V lane.
But now that it is reserved solely for me,
I sing as I drive and I smile with glee!
I even say, “Let more carpool lanes be!”

You might think me unwise to not fear you’ll change laws,
But I know that you won’t due to your tree-hugging cause.
I really don’t care that my car helps with clean air,
I just want to drive without fear and without care,
That my routes will make me just sit there and stare.

To those who do not yet have their free passes,
Let it be known that it’s not for the masses.
If you were to come into my god-given space,
I’d end up put-putting all over the place.
So for now, I’m ecstatic to drive with such speed,
Past all of you suckers with politicians on weed.

I’m happy to announce I’ve upgraded my ’98 Porsche Boxster to something that gets me to work faster!

Must be a 911, right? Or maybe a BMW 5 series? Something German? How about an ’06 Honda Civic Hybrid!

Sure, this car doesn’t have quite the power, prestige, look, or exhilaration that comes with the Porsche, but I get to work faster in my steadfast little car with brand-new HOV-lane (aka Carpool lane) stickers. I left home at 7:15 this morning and sailed into work by 8am. (this was an impossible time in the Porsche at that hour!) Particularly satisfying was zooming at 65mph past all the stopped traffic merging onto highway 237. It was certainly a congestion that would have cost me at least 15 minutes!

My friends laugh at me now because I’ve switched from being an aggressive driver to a granny. My “porsche lane” is gone (weaving through traffic at 90+mph). Now I seem to be more content trying to optimize my MPG up to 50 instead of extending my spedometer to read triple digits. But that virtual high-speed lane is never open during the commute times anyway, so I’m reasonably happy to replace it with my wide open 65mph commuter lane.

The only thing I miss is the convertible top. I must be getting old. But at least I saved 15 minutes.