May 2009
29 posts
“I have plenty of opinions about business models, but to me, the best business...”
– Paul Tyma, The Young Man’s Business Model
The Man Who Could Have Been Richer than Bill Gates →
Gary Kildall became a bitter man as the years went by. He was haunted by the IBM deal. It grated on him that Bill Gates was being given the credit for his invention. He was constantly asked if he really “went flying” the day that IBM came to call.
“The Flash of Insight, The Grand Gesture, The Rousing Speech, The Last Straw. All...”
– Michael Steger, Colorado State University (via Adventures in Capitalism)
“We have 19th Century intellectual property laws and 20th Century business models...”
– The Pirate’s Dilemma author Matt Mason
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“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product...”
– Peter Drucker
Personal Circles
Community by the Numbers: Personal Circles — Christopher Allen explains the different types of relationships in our life and the maximum of each type the average person can maintain. Obviously there’s variance in these numbers depending on the person.
Support Circle - People you turn to in moments of severe emotional or financial distress: 3-5
Sympathy Circle - People you turn to for...
“This downturn will be marked in history as the time where many of the business...”
– Fred Wilson, Bits of Destruction
WatchCharlie Rose: An Interview with Malcolm Gladwell
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Control of Attention is the Ultimate Individual...
“Yet, I can’t help but feel that Gladwell and others who share his emphasis are getting swept away by the coolness of the new discoveries. They’ve lost sight of the point at which the influence of social forces ends and the influence of the self-initiating individual begins.
Most successful people begin with two beliefs: the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to...
“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us...”
– Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
The Long Tail?
More than 10 million of the 13 million tracks available on the internet failed to find a single buyer last year. In other words, a near 90% of digital tracks released in 2008 didn’t sell a copy.
“80 per cent of all revenue came from around 52,000 tracks and only 173,000 albums were bought out of the 1.23 million available albums.”
This poses a challenge to ‘The Long Tail Theory’ which...
“So maybe a recession is a good time to start a startup. It’s hard to say whether...”
– Paul Graham on Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy
Secrets of the 2008 Campaign →
I finally got around to reading Newsweek’s 7 part election run down. A fantastic piece of journalism and a major reason why in depth reporting is so important for democracy.
Hire Managers of One
“When you’re hiring, seek out people who are managers of one.
What’s that mean? A manager of one is someone who comes up with their own goals and executes them. They don’t need heavy direction. They don’t need daily check-ins. They do what a manager would do — set the tone, assign items, determine what needs to get done, etc. — but they do it by themselves and for themselves.
These people...
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Only in folklore...
…does the world beat a path to the inventor of the better mousetrap. In September 1895, the world simply shrugged when Armat and Jenkins publicly unveiled their new Phantascope in a corner of the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta. It was the first film machine to produce bright pictures and smooth-appearing actions. A local paper gave it brief mention, but only few...
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increasing your own chances at personal success...
Practicing constantly Gladwell estimates that, in order to become world class at something, one needs to invest 10,000 hours of practice. That amounts to two hours of practice a day for roughly fifteen years - a pretty tall order, indeed.
Listening and interpersonal communication Being able to pay attention to what others have to say - actuallylistening and incorporating their statements into...
The Difference Between a Job and a Calling
The distinction is artificial but worth drawing. A job will never satisfy you all by itself, but it will afford you security and the chance to pursue an exciting and fulfilling life outside of your work. A calling is an activity you find so compelling that you wind up organizing your entire self around it — often to the detriment of your life outside of it. There’s no shame in either....
“I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my...”
– Beethoven
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