Ben Casnocha: The Blog

Best Paragraph I Read Today (on LA)

From Salman Rushdie in his novel Shalimar the Clown (review forthcoming). In poetic fashion it captures some essence of LA, and near the end of the graf speaks to why I think it's a city better to live in than visit.

He praised the city, commended it precisely for the qualities that were commonly held to be its greatest faults. That the city had no focal point, he professed hugely to admire. The idea of the center was in his view outdated, oligarchic, an arrogant anachronism. To believe in such a thing was to consign most of life to the periphery, to marginalize and in doing so to devalue. The de-centered promiscuous sprawl of this giant invertebrate blog, this jellyfish of concrete and light, made it the true democratic city of the future. As India [name of daughter] navigated the hollow freeways her father lauded the city's bizarre anatomy, which was fed and nourished by many such congealed and flowing arteries but needed no heart to drive its mighty flux. That it was a desert in disguise caused him to celebrate the genius of human beings, their ability to populate the earth with their imagings, to bring water to the wilderness and bustle to the void; that the desert had its revenge on the complexions of its conquerors, drying them, ingraining lines and furrows, provided these triumphant mortals with the salutary lesson that no victory was absolute, that the struggle between earthlings and the earth could never be decided in favor of either combatant, but swung back and forth through all eternity. That it was a hidden city, a city of strangers, appealed to him most of all. In the Forbidden City of the Chinese emperors, only royalty had the privilege of remaining occult. In this brilliant burg, however, secrecy was freely available to all comers. The modern obsession with intimacy, with the revelation of the self to the other, was not to Max's taste. An open city was a naked whore, lying invitingly back and turning every trick; whereas this veiled and difficult place, this erotic capital of the obscure stratagem, knew precisely how to arouse and heighten our metropolitan desires.

Related Posts:

• In LA, You Don't Matter. You're Free.
• LA Diversity May Decrease Trust, But Optimism Reigns.
• LA and NY On Each Other via James Frey
• Disaster Mythology and Californian Identity

The Global Tongue of the World: Panglish

I've been in Costa Rica the past two weeks, so language (Spanish and English) is on my mind. Wired has an interesting, short piece on how Chinese is affecting the English spoken around the world. Here's Slate's helpful one paragraph summary:

The "likely consequence" of growing numbers of Chinese learning English without "enough quality spoken practice" means that "more and more spoken English will sound increasingly like Chinese." Already, nonnative speakers far outnumber native speakers, and in the next decade, native speakers will make up only 15 percent of those who use the language. English is "on a path toward a global tongue—what's coming to be known as Panglish." And, "[s]oon, when Americans travel abroad, one of the languages they'll have to learn may be their own."

Japanese and Korean Editions of My Start-Up Life

The Japanese and Korean editions of My Start-Up Life are available for sale. Here's the link to the Korean edition. Here's the link to the Japanese edition on Amazon.com Japan. Below are the covers of each. Apparently the Japanese edition has several manga drawings of me and of other scenes, which is pretty amusing.

Is "Just Get Started" Bad Advice?

My friend Cal Newport is a great guy who stimulates my brain. In his latest post, I'm guessing he has yours truly in mind when he writes:

Attend any talk given by an entrepreneur and you’ll hear some variation of the following:

    The most important thing you can do is to get started!

This advice has percolated from its origin in business self-help to the wider productivity blogging community. You’ve heard it before: Do you want to become a writer? Start writing! Do you want to become fit? Join a gym today! Do you want to become a big-time blogger? Start posting ASAP! If you don’t start, you’re weak! You’re afraid of success!

Cal goes on to say that he's mainly arguing against the attitude where "every twinge of momentary enthusiasm is translated into action that consumes a non-trivial amount of time and attention." Cal says that instead of just leaping into action mode, we ought to contemplate our choices, analyze the situation, and "develop rigorous thresholds that any pursuit must overcome" before acting.

I agree to an extent that the very real benefits of planning and not acting can be lost among the "pro-action" hoopla. But the hoopla exists for a reason: many people talk about things they'd like to do but never get around to actually doing them. Cal, a doctoral student who has no problem executing on goals, naturally favors a more academic approach to the inaction problem (analyze, list options, pick best option, track success) rather than an experimental approach (jump into things as soon as possible, figure out if it's worth it, back out if it's not, etc). For some though, I think his wait-and-analyze approach might exacerbate paralysis -- all smart people can create more detailed Excel spreadsheets instead of actually picking up the phone and take tangible steps in the desired direction.

In the end, the worthiness of the "just get started" advice depends on the task. Some tasks give feedback faster if undertaken right away in a small dose as opposed to analyzing it from afar. Take Cal's examples: If you want to become a writer, sure you can talk to writers and study the profession, but is there a better way to understand whether writing girds your loins than actually putting pen to paper? If you want to become a big-time blogger, is there a better way to understand the blogosphere than to start a blog yourself? If fitness is your goal, what's better than spending an hour a day in the gym for two weeks and seeing how you feel?

Starting a company is a much larger type of task and therefore more deserving of the kind of restraint Cal outlines. For the record, if someone tells me, "I want to start a company," I do say, "Get started!" But get started doesn't mean taking out a $100,000 loan from Fat Vinnie, quitting your day job, and betting the family farm on your venture. Rather it means doing some preliminary research, maybe developing a prototype by night, and developing mini-experiments that can quickly give you a sense of the viability of the idea. Low risk actions.

Cal also says this on successful people:

They have built an exhaustive understanding of the relevant world, why some succeed and others don’t, and exactly what type of action is required. This takes time. Often it requires a long period of saturation, in which the person returns again and again to the world, meeting people and reading about it and trying little experiments to get a feel for its reality. This period will be at least a month. It might last years.

I'm frankly a little skeptical and would be interested in some specific examples. Did this saturation happen on the job or beforehand? Did they build an exhaustive understanding of the relevant world from afar, before getting started, or during? Most of the success stories I've been exposed to have been accidental and the person ended in place that was unexpected -- for example, starting a business and then it becoming something totally different in the process of building it. Methodological, comprehensive saturation to the industry before jumping in? Not really.

Bottom Line: There are plenty of cases where not acting and analyzing options is preferable to jumping right in and getting started. It depends on the task (smaller tasks are good for immediate action) and the person (do you learn quickly from experimental feedback?).

Not Getting Boxed In as a Do-Gooder

In Switzerland I met a bright, ambitious young man who has spent a couple years in consulting and is now trying to figure out what to do next. He's intrigued by the non-profit sector and social entrepreneurship. But he's concerned that excessive non-profit time on his resume, while he's still young and trying to establish credibility, will make it seem soft; in other words, he's afraid of being pigeon-holed as a do-gooder.

It's a fair concern and relates to what seems like a massive challenge in the non-profit world: how to recruit the best and brightest young people into a sector that generally pays less and (exceptions notwithstanding) is filled with lower caliber people than in the private sector.

Teach for America has done a brilliant job at generating some caché around its jobs. My understanding is this is due to their ultimate effectiveness in the classroom (but since this is not enough by itself) it's also due to their selectivity and how they brand this selectivity. However they do it, they have made it sexy for its young workforce to say they are a teacher for TFA at a cocktail party.

I can't think of another non-profit which in so short a period of time has established itself as an elite, selective organization which will only hire the best.

All companies would do good to learn from TFA's remarkable positioning / branding job.

Those Late Night Dorm Conversations!

I am in awe of the romanticization of higher education in America, mainly by its alumni who are probably rationalizing an extraordinary sunk cost of money and time but also from the media (especially those pesky soft focus, all-anecdotes higher ed stories put out monthly by the New York Times which pander to its well-to-do readers with teenage sons and daughters). We hear that going to a fine college in America represents the opportunity for unblemished intellectual pursuit. The one opportunity to pursue the life of the mind with no other distractions or obligations!

Or: The late night dorm conversations about the meaning of life! This -- late night dorm conversations --  may be the most overrated thing ever. Slightly inebriated 18, 19, 20, or 21 year-olds (that includes me!) musing on the Big Questions with no preparation or structure is an absolute train-wreck. Yet these situations continue to get mythologized as formative intellectual or social moments that are not to be missed.

Based on my own experiences and those of my friends (who attend every college you've heard of and many good colleges you likely haven't heard of), I think people vastly overstate the existence of an unadulterated intellectual life for undergraduates in the academy. Look to the plagues of multiculturalism and political correctness (anti-intellectual currents if there ever were ones) or simply the fact that drinking / drugs, obsession with grades, and power plays in pursuit of golden internships are the primary points of interest for most 20 year-olds at even the best institutions.

This doesn't mean college is worthless. In fact, I think college offers many benefits to undergrads, such as the networking opportunities or just the fun factor of four years of summer camp. But a truly enriching intellectual experience of the sort that's often "remembered" by alumni or celebrated by the media -- those early moments where a worldview started to form, a love for books that was cultivated -- this seems less likely, unless you're a student at Reed, University of Chicago, Swarthmore, and perhaps a couple other places whose cultures do seem to take the life of the mind seriously. In general, I think a minority of students at good colleges leave infected with a love for ideas and a majority leave with knowledge that they will probably have to un-learn later in life.

I'd rather have our colleges either be more explicitly vocational -- ie, be in the business of transferring practical career skills and not talk themselves silly with phrases like "teaching our students how to think" -- or actually cut the bullshit / distractions and emphasize liberal arts for liberal arts' sake alone. Floating somewhere in the middle, as most liberal arts schools do now, appeals on the surface for those like me who don't want the suffocating seriousness of a University of Chicago nor the mechanics skills of a vocational institute, but ultimately the ever-elusive 'happy medium" as currently practiced doesn't offer enough of either to seem worthwhile.

Those Dove "Real Women" Ads Were Re-Touched

Remember those Dove "real women" ads that showed non-models posing in their underwear? They were popular ads precisely because they did not feature stereotypically hot women. A clever approach.

In this thoroughly interesting article on the world of Photoshopping photos, there's this nugget:

...Retouchers tend to practice semi-clandestinely. “It is known that everybody does it, but they protest,” Dangin [one of the leading re-touchers] said recently. “The people who complain about retouching are the first to say, ‘Get this thing off my arm.’ ” I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual “real women” in their undergarments. It turned out that it was a Dangin job. “Do you know how much retouching was on that?” he asked. “But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.”

Wow.

And for those writing nuts out there, here's the obligatory "one paragraph physical description of the main character in the story" from the above-linked New Yorker story:

Dangin is on the short side, with a scruffy mustache and finger-in-the-socket frizz. He maintains the hours of a Presidential candidate; lately, he is a little tubbier than he would like. He was wearing, as is his custom, an all-navy outfit: New Balance sneakers, ratty cords, woollen sweater with holes in the armpits. He is not immune to the charms of things—he owns an Aston Martin, along with houses in Manhattan, Amagansett, and St. Bart’s—but, for someone who can pick apart a face in a matter of seconds (he once, apologetically, described his eyes as “high-speed scanners”), he is remarkably free of vanity. “I’m not a stud,” he told me one day. “I don’t have the six-pack chocolate bars, I have a belly. Would I want to look like that? Yes. Am I ever going to achieve that? No. Am I happy? Yes.” He has an earthy streak and a digressive manner of thought, but he issues orders commandingly.

Decent. Here's an old post on physical descriptions that do or do not work.

The Art of the Job Offer

My friend Auren Hoffman has an awesome post advising organizations how to make a job offer. Anyone who's in the business of hiring should read this. His starting premise is that "fit" matters with employees and therefore companies should try their hardest to communicate the company culture and allow the potential hire to decide whether such fit exists. Hence you don't want to oversell; rather, you want to encourage the potential hire to opt-out if he has any doubts. Excerpts below. My favorite is the last one: make an offer slightly below market (to ensure that he really loves the company and isn't just motivated by pay) and then give raises to pay him above market.

First, don’t use the offer as an opportunity to sell the candidate. Try to be honest and open with each candidate. Tell them your goal for all employees is for them to love their jobs and that they should not take the job if they have doubts. You've only been able evaluate the person for a dozen hours – but the candidate has known herself all her life. She will be a much better judge if she fits the culture.

Next, be completely honest about the culture. At Rapleaf, we take at least 15 minutes to spell out, in detail, the company culture. Tell them your organization's quirks and what is expected of employees. Some of the many things that are particular to Rapleaf that we tell all candidates: 

We’re frugal. We’ll wait until we’re very profitable before we pay for fancy   dinners.

• We give each other a good dose of constructive criticism. We happily give and take criticism. We want to better ourselves and the   others around us.
• We do not value our own ideas more than those ideas   generated by our teammates.
• We work long hours. We believe great things are accomplished 5% inspiration and 95%   perspiration.
• We believe the perfect is the enemy of the good. This means we focus on getting things   done, not on building the most perfect system. We strongly believe in rapid iteration.

Really talk through the culture during the offer. If you want your employees to work long hours, you better tell them that is expected before they accept the offer.  Conversely, if you believe strongly in a 40-hour workweek, tell the candidate because many people are looking to change the world and they want to work with people who really make the company mission a priority.  

The essential take-away is not to sugar-coat the experience. Be completely honest.

Then, tell the candidate your concerns about them. Tell them what you like about them and what they will need to improve upon to be a productive employee. And tell them not to take the job if they don’t think they can make those improvements. This is the toughest thing for a hiring manager to do but it is important because it really sets the expectations. 

Fourth, don't give candidates a long time to make a decision. Two days is fair. If they don’t know they want to work for you in two days, then they should probably turn down your job offer.

And give a salary that is a bit below market. You want to make sure candidates REALLY want to work at your company. Then you should make sure you take care of your employees and give them frequent raises so they end up being paid above market. This way you get the both worlds – employees who are really excited about the company and who are happy that they are appreciated by management (because of the frequent raises).

Hong Kong Status Report ~10 Years Later

Below is an adapted version of a paper I wrote a few months ago, citations stripped out. It's a check-in on how Hong Kong is doing politically and economically since the Handover in '97. The short answer seems to be: just fine. Economic growth is bustling, political freedoms are more or less respected by Beijing. More detail below. BTW - Hong Kong is one of my favorite cities in the world.

On July 1, 1997 Britain ceded control of its colony Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China, ending 155 years of British rule. When the transfer agreement was made after the Treaty of Nanking, ‘97 seemed like a lifetime away, and Hong Kong did not have much economic significance. As the date drew nearer, however, Hong Kong had established itself as a financial hub in Asia, with a vibrant cosmopolitan culture, democratic processes, and an independent, more modern identity than mainland China. The “Handover,” as it is called, from Britain to China, therefore proved all the more intriguing because an important economic partner of the West was leaving its safe grasp and becoming a unit of a far less developed communist government.

•••

British Rule of Hong Kong

When the British took control of Hong Kong it was poor and uninhabited. While it had some useful natural features ⎯ such a deep lake area surrounded by hills, which eventually became the famed Hong Kong port ⎯ at the time none of this was developed, and there was much debate within British government about whether they should even invest in their new colony or not.  Left to their own devices, the inhabitants of Hong Kong fostered an atmosphere not unlike the “wild west” sense in the early days of America.

When Britain began attending to its Asian colony, it did so without much concern for local tradition or custom. There was little effort on the part of British officials to learn Chinese. British governors made laws with no input from locals. One scholar of Hong Kong characterized early British rule as “oppressive” but something that could “offer opportunities.”  Those opportunities, of course, came in the resources a modern, Western powerhouse could make available to a small island in underdeveloped Asia.

Indeed, were it not for British resources (and some might say its culture) Hong Kong would have not become, by the end of British rule, the world’s seventh largest holder of foreign reserves, third largest exporter of clothing, and second highest per capita GDP in Asia.  Hong Kong, with its British backing, established a beacon of stability in Asia, and was bridge to Western markets. Expats flocked and contributed to a genuinely cosmopolitan culture that made it appealing for businesspeople to conduct trans-national deals.

As Hong Kong grew in economic stature, its political system matured to resemble not only Britain in its freedoms but also Switzerland in its pro-business attitude toward policy. Taxes and tariffs were kept low. The country was ranked one of the easiest places in which to start a business.  From a democracy perspective, local representation was still limited (a small group of Hong Kong businessmen voted in a legislature of sorts) and universal suffrage non-existent. British governors ruled. But locals didn’t seem to care much, so long as their pocketbooks were full and freedoms of speech protected. The Chinese in Hong Kong grew accustomed to colonial rule, and as such were a bit apathetic about engaging in political debate. Compared to their neighbors on the mainland or in Southeast Asia, day-to-day life in Hong Kong looked pretty good.

•••

The Handover

The negotiations of Handover itself grappled with the fundamental challenge of autonomy. How autonomous will Hong Kong be within China? How will a liberal, more or less democratic place with press freedoms, an independent judiciary, and a stable private property / capitalist system be morphed into a government that is communist, censors its citizens, maintains a crooked judiciary, and allows only flashes of uninhibited capitalism? Will Beijing call all the shots? If not, which decisions are left to Hong Kong officials? These questions give a glimpse at issues negotiators from both sides (China and England) had to wrestle with. How, in other words, does the idea of “one country, two systems” actually get implemented?

In the end, China agreed to declare Hong Kong a “Special Administrative Region” which would enjoy a “high degree of autonomy” for at least the first 50 years of China control.  This meant the courts, free press, capitalist system, etc. would all be maintained independently in the short term. A “Chief Executive,” elected by an 800 person election committee in Hong Kong, would govern the state. The Chief Executive would govern in conjunction with the Hong Kong Legislative Council, a congress of sorts, which would be partially elected by the people and partially appointed by Beijing. The rule of law would change from British law to “Basic Law,” a Beijing-written constitution concerning Hong Kong. The most controversial aspect of Basic Law was Article 23 which said the Hong Kong government must enact legislation that “prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People’s Government.”

At face value, these arrangements seem excellent: at least in the short term, Hong Kong would maintain its rich independent culture, currency, and democratic institutions. To simplify, the arrangement guaranteed that the flag flying high would change, and British troops would leave the island, but there would be no substantive overhauls.

The fear among democratic activists in Hong Kong and among Western observers was that China wouldn’t follow through on these commitments. After all, “high degree of autonomy” can be interpreted in many ways.

With 11 years of Chinese rule of Hong Kong now behind us, we can safely say that the reality is somewhere in the middle – China has not reneged on its commitments to maintain Hong Kong autonomy, but there is also some evidence that Beijing is dragging its feet on certain democratic measures to run out the clock until the 50th year of control, when they have no need to maintain Hong Kong as a special region.

•••

Political Situation

Political life under Chinese rule has changed in ways more invisible than visible. Universal suffrage still eludes the people and Beijing-appointed Chief Executives have proven less interested in advancing Hong Kong causes than pushing through Beijing policy. Yet British governors, even though they were probably more sympathetic to local causes than Beijing, still, in the end, represented the interests in Britain above all. So what are the “invisible” political changes?

Observers say that what’s changed in the political landscape in Hong Kong is an increased level of self-censorship on the part of the people and media.  People are less willing to speak out on issues that might contradict an official Beijing stance. Though in theory they are endowed with the right to do so, at least until 2047 at the 50 year anniversary of the Handover, people are nevertheless reticent. Beijing commits thousands of human rights violations each year on the mainland. Dissenters are hushed ⎯ even killed. Information is controlled. Who knows what Beijing might do to a loud democracy activist, for example, or a newspaper editor who consistently editorializes against the mainland? There have been cases of radio hosts mysteriously resigning after expressing negativity with the PRC.  Rather than risk it, people stay quiet.

It is impossible to measure self-censorship precisely. We do not know how many citizens or Hong Kong politicians have changed their attitudes out of fear of retaliation from Beijing.

One positive political development since the Handover is more local engagement in politics. Maybe because the leaders of Hong Kong are Chinese and not British, or because the “central office” is closer (Beijing and not London) ⎯ whatever the case, more Hong Kong citizens engage in politics.

Economic Situation

While politics in Hong Kong has a mixed picture now and an uncertain future (will democracy prevail? will Beijing infringe on political freedoms guaranteed in the Handover agreement?), the economic picture of post-Handover Hong Kong is clearer.

From an economic growth perspective, Hong Kong GDP is growing at a rate comparable to the period leading up to the Handover.  Moreover, the prospects for continued strong growth are likely due to China’s emergence as the largest developing economy. Despite a scare early on ⎯ the Asian Financial Crisis pulled Hong Kong into a recession literally the day of the Handover ⎯ the island recovered within a few years. Unemployment lessened. Economic ties with mainland China deepened thanks to a 2004 free trade agreement and a loosening of immigration restrictions between the two regions. Meanwhile, mainland China continues to post stellar growth numbers. Due to proximity and special agreements, Hong Kong companies get first dibs on mainland opportunities, and the mainland imports from Hong Kong tariff-free. 

Timing-wise the Handover may turn out to be perfect for economic growth. For many years, Hong Kong mooched off its powerful colonizer. Back then, Britain was a more formidable economic force. Hong Kong built up its infrastructure and culture under the umbrella of a rich, safe, free Western patron. Meanwhile, China was slowly but surely developing. Now, as the lines seem to cross on the graph, Hong Kong becomes part of a more stable China which is rising rapidly, and leaves behind a Britain whose time has come and gone.

In its current position as an economic hub, Hong Kong boasts close ties with China (it is, after all, part of the Beijing apparatus) as well as a history of Western-style freedoms. This means multinationals eyeing the Chinese market ⎯ and there are more of these opportunists than ever before ⎯ who are unwilling to enter the chaos that is Shanghai, opt to set-up shop in Hong Kong as a safe baby step.

So: economic life in Hong Kong post-Handover is strong and getting stronger.

•••

Conclusion

“Over the past 10 years, there have been some very bumpy moments – politically and economically. But some of the more dire predications I remember so vividly from 1997 have not come true. One country, two systems has worked,” British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said last year.  This seems to be the consensus among experts on the region. Fear mongers abound in 1997, predicting economic ruin, political overreach from Beijing, and so forth. Few of these fears have been realized. Has Hong Kong changed beyond a simple flag change? Yes. It is more Chinese than ever before. Hundreds of thousands of British and American ex-pats have left the city. The governing political bodies now draw more influence from their communist bosses in Beijing than their democratic and capitalist bosses in London. So culturally, yes, Hong Kong is different. Politically, yes, Hong Kong is different ⎯ probably for the worse, but Beijing still largely respects the Handover agreement. Economically little has changed besides deeper ties with the mainland. In sum, any changes that have occurred since 1997 have been on the margins. Hong Kong remains a dynamic economic powerhouse, with a mostly free press and a somewhat-representative government. Contrasted to the tense situation in Korea, or the Tibetan uprisings in mainland China, or the general instability and coup d’états that plague Southeast Asia, or the economic stagnation that seems to be afflicting Japan, Hong Kong is a bright spot in the Pacific Rim. For now. The next big juncture in this small island’s life will be in 2047, when China no longer has obligations to the international community over autonomy. Until then, Hong Kong gives us reason to smile.

When In Doubt, Start a Company in a Big and Growing Market

That's what a friend told me recently, and it's a great point. He said a big and growing market will support a million mistakes as you build your start-up.

It's similar to what Jonathan Rosenberg said a few months ago: better to be a smaller slice of a big pie than a bigger slice of a small pie.

If I Were You...The Giving and Receiving of Advice

The Silicon Valley Junto, a discussion society Chris Yeh and I run where we bring together friends over lunch about once a quarter, convened today in Menlo Park for the topic:
If I Were You...Advice Giving, Advice Receiving, and the Best/Worst Advice You Ever Got. We were inspired by this Fortune magazine feature where various CEOs answered this question.

Our lively and stimulating discussion covered several bases on the topic of advice. Here are some notes:

• When you give advice, give the person options, and let them choose the best path. People hate to be told what to do -- need to make them feel empowered to make the decision for themselves.


• The quality of the advice -- that is, whether the advice could be considered good or bad -- is not necessarily connected to the ultimate consequences of following the advice. For example, if you advise someone to invest their money prudently in the stock market, and instead they liquidate all savings and buy lottery tickets, and win the lottery, did you offer bad advice? Can the quality of advice be judged based on the results that ensue from following it?


• When giving advice, include the word "because" -- it increases eventual absorption, regardless of what you say after the word "because."

• Are advice givers' primarily concerned about the advice-receiver following through on the advice? Usually. Usually the you want to frame your advice in a way that will best inspire action and a change in behavior. But sometimes the advice giver doesn't have this objective; sometimes he just wants to feel superior, etc.
  

• Remember four things when giving advice:
  
  • The role and responsibilities of the person on the other side of the table. See the situation from their perspective.
  • Your intentions -- keep them pure
  • The delivery itself -- focus on tone and spirit in which advice is delivered. This is crucial.
  • Summary -- close off the interaction, make sure everyone is on the same page. Whether it's a one minute conversation or four hour meeting, get some closure and action items.


• Much of advice giving and receiving is just good communication tactics and good sales techniques.


• When you seek advice, should you consult the domain expert or someone who knows you best? Your mother may know you best but she may not know the industry you're considering going in to. Domain expert knows the market but doesn't know your individual differences.
  
  • Get advice first from the domain expert to get a model and assess your choices. Then consult the person who really knows you to understand which choice makes most sense for you.

• When you give advice, it's easy to fan the embers but hard to strike a new fire. So listen carefully to their situation and find some aspect of it that you can build upon and emphasize. This will result in best outcome, rather than trying to instill an entirely new idea or some concept that's not already part of their framework. [BC: This is very insightful.]


• Actionable advice is best advice. Saying "speak up more" to someone who doesn't talk in meetings is not actionable; saying "say at least three things in the meeting" is more clearly actionable.


• The advice giver can be changed when he gives advice. That is, even though he's doling out suggestions to someone else, that process can change the person usually for the better.


• People who are "unconsciously competent" are not the best people to ask for advice. True experts often can't explain what they're doing and why.


• Good advice givers have self-knowledge. They know their own biases and discount them before giving advice.

Related Posts:

- We overvalue advice when the situation is hard, undervalue advice when situation / problem is easy
- You can't give advice until you've thoroughly acknowledged you understand how busy the other person is
- More general thoughts on the topic of advice, including "sometimes people ask for advice but what they really want is your attention."
- Even when someone discloses their bias before giving advice, we still don't discount the advice enough. Say our mechanic tells us we need to buy some repairs. Clearly he's biased but we tend to forget about the bias.
- How to be a good mentee -- be good at asking for and taking advice.

Do Speculators Create Social Wealth or Just Shift it Around?

The former, says Richard Posner, in this excerpt from his post:

There is also an echo of the traditional but erroneous suspicion of speculation as an activity that does not create social wealth but merely shifts it around. That is incorrect. Speculation aligns prices (whether commodity prices or the prices of companies) with values and so creates more accurate signals for production and investment. It is a vital economic service. That is not to say that speculators "deserve" higher incomes than ditch diggers. Desert doesn't enter. Incomes are determined by supply and demand.

Passion in Action: Kevin Garnett's Post-Game Interview

Slate called Kevin Garnett's post-game interview last night (after the Celtics won the NBA championship) "the strangest post-game interview of the television era." It's two minutes. Hilarious. Embedded below. Excerpts from Slate's blow-by-blow at bottom.

0:00: Greeted by Tafoya, Garnett first appears to be gripped by emotions familiar to any sports fan who's watched a championship celebration: happiness and disbelief. He presses his brand-new championship hat to his head with both hands, seemingly afraid it might come loose.

0:07: "NBA Champion—how does that sound?" Tafoya asks. Garnett is at a loss for words. After a long pause and more futzing with his new hat, he says, in a strangely even tone, "Man, I'm so, I'm so hype right now."

0:20: Garnett tells Tafoya that "anything's possible." He then leans back and howls at the moon: "ANYTHING'S POOOOOOSSIIIIIBLLLLLLE!" He holds the note for four seconds.

0:27: At this point the catharsis gets the better of Garnett, and he begins crying. These are not the poignant tears of joy shed by Michael Jordan upon winning his first Larry O'Brien Trophy. Garnett is in the throes of something closer to a child's tantrum, mumbling indecipherable words. Approximate translation: "Oh my buh buh, fa fa fa fa fa." He then buries his head in the shoulder of an unidentified Celtics staffer, who proceeds to say, "Yeah, baby!" repeatedly. ABC's producers pull away for a moment, cutting to a long shot of the arena....

0:57: "This is for everybody in 'Sota!" he bellows, a classy shout-out to the fans who supported Garnett for the first 12 years of his career. Such is the reservoir of good feeling that Garnett has built up in Boston that no fan will begrudge the Twin Cities getting top-billing in Garnett's list of thank-yous. If Ray Allen had dedicated the Celtics win to the hardworking people of Seattle or Milwaukee, one wonders if it would have gone over quite as well....

1:06: Garnett thanks Peanut. As ABC noted in its pregame show, Garnett is very fond of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, but this Peanut would seem to be a person. When Tafoya caught up with Garnett after Boston defeated the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, he closed out the exchange by saying, "What up, Brand? What up, Peanut?" Brand would seem to be Brandi, Garnett's wife. Might that make Peanut their newborn?

1:14: Garnett screams into the camera, "I made it ma! Top of the world! TOP OF THE WORLD!" That's exactly what James Cagney's maniacal, cackling gangster character says at the end of White Heat as he dies in a fiery explosion atop a gigantic gas tank. This explains a lot about KG's self-image.

1:20: Tafoya, who must be complimented on her poise throughout this exchange, parlays Garnett's screaming into a question: "What does 'top of the world' feel like, Kevin?" The query seems to momentarily ground Garnett, who again flirts with the normal rules of postgame interviewing, offering up some choice platitudes: "Ray Allen had a great game" and "I'm so happy right now—I'm not going to sleep for a week." Of course, since this is Kevin Garnett, the latter statement might not be hyperbole—he's previously claimed not to have slept for four or five nights during the Pistons series.

1:37: "I'm certified! I'm certified!" Garnett bellows. This may be the first time you could mistake a newly minted NBA champion for a raving lunatic on the subway.

1:40: In a more benign re-enactment of Joe Namath's propositioning of Suzy Kolber, Garnett says, "Michele, you look good tonight, girl." Over the course of the playoffs, the two have developed an easy rapport. After Game 1 of the Pistons series, he told Tafoya, "You look good in your pink, girl."....

The interview concludes, but the camera stays with Garnett as he turns to find Bill Russell waiting to greet him with a benevolent grin and a bear hug. In a conversation earlier this year, the 11-time champion told Boston's new star that he would give him one of his hard-earned rings if the team failed to take it home this year. KG almost cried. Now, even the stiffest upper lip in Boston has to be quivering as Garnett and his forebear embrace. "I got one of my own," says Garnett. "I got my own." He steps back, looks at Russell, and says "I hope we made you proud."

A less weird individual might have left it at that, but Garnett has one more line for his mentor: "Now you got to tell me where to go tonight."

If You Don't Know Who the Sucker Is, It's You

I was in New York all last week and met some interesting people. Here's one of the best nuggets I heard from a hedge fund portfolio manager:

I think, in the end, you gotta specialize in something. You need to know an industry and know everyone else in the industry, and how you're different and better than the other guys. If you're looking around the table and you don't know who the sucker is -- who's off-base in their thinking -- then it means you're the sucker.

The general idea of knowing how you stack up against your competition -- whether on a personal/career level or as a start-up -- is very important.

Give Me Your Feedback - Take a Survey on This Blog

With the four-year anniversary of this blog coming up next month, I thought it's time to directly solicit feedback and ideas from you, dear reader, on how this blog can be improved. It's 10 simple/easy questions. The last question is an open text box. It will take less than a minute. It is entirely anonymous. Here's your chance to influence what content appears on this site!

Here's the link to the survey.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I'll post the results later. (And thanks to my friends at Survey Gizmo providing the software for the survey -- it's the best polling app I've used on the web.)

Joseph Epstein on the Lavishing of Attention on Kids

Anything written by Joseph Epstein is worth reading. That's why I read his latest Weekly Standard essay even though it's on a topic that I think is a bit worn out by this point: how my generation - Gen Y or "millenials" - are over-coddled and over-cared for by our parents and how being the recipient of such an attention-fest leads to all sorts of undesirable consequences like an inflated sense of self-importance, arrogance, dependency, and so on.

Putting aside my wariness of generational arguments that overstate the collective experiences of those born in a same time period, I do basically with Epstein's broad strokes, and always appreciate the flair with which he makes arguments, so do read it. Here's the basic thrust:

Children have gone from background to foreground figures in domestic life, with more and more attention centered on them, their upbringing, their small accomplishments, their right relationship with parents and grandparents. For the past 30 years at least, we have been lavishing vast expense and anxiety on our children in ways that are unprecedented in American and in perhaps any other national life. Such has been the weight of all this concern about children that it has exercised a subtle but pervasive tyranny of its own. This is what I call Kindergarchy: dreary, boring, sadly misguided Kindergarchy.

Two years ago I wrote about The Emergence of Kids as Kings and noted how most of the Christmas cards I see from families only include the children in the photo, not the parents. It's perhaps the most amusing sign among many that (at least in America) children's needs and wants and likenesses preempt the parents at nearly every stage.

Perhaps it's some internal fear that if I have kids they will come to dominate my life in ways I can't control which contributes to my ambivalence about procreating in the first place, a sentiment I explore here (don't miss the 40 smart comments at the bottom).

Can Japan Become More Entrepreneurial?

This seems to be the fundamental question about the future of Japan's competitiveness. Japan, the world's second largest economy, remains the largest exception to the argument that many have made (such as yours truly, in this mini-essay) which is that entrepreneurship is a critical component to a country's economic growth. Japan lacks an entrepreneurial culture; is dominated by big firms; has little tolerance for risk-taking and failure; etc etc. Can it survive this way? Probably not.

The FT today re-surfaces this issue, emphases my own:

The Japanese government has accordingly announced a Y100bn venture fund to invest in fledgling technology businesses. The idea is to encourage more private and institutional investors to pump their money into start-ups too.

However, there are formidable barriers to injecting some of the pep of Silicon Valley into the commercialisation of new technology in Japan. The biggest is that Japan does not have an Anglo Saxon-style enterprise culture. Would-be entrepreneurs have few role models apart from Masayoshi Son, founder of communications group Softbank. Aspiring to become very wealthy is regarded as faintly unJapanese.

Equally, "business failure is seen as shameful in Japan, though that perception is beginning to erode", says Seiichi Yoshikawa of Nippon Keidanren, Japan's powerful business lobby. When new technology ventures fail, it tends to be as units of large corporations, rather than as standalone companies. This cushions the impact. The downside of the system is that it can suppress maverick talent.

At Japan's ministry of economy, trade and industry, Yuji Tokumasu, who works on science and technology policy, is fretting over a parallel problem. According to a chart he brandishes, even as Japan's spending on research and development has soared in the past 20 years, value added in the manufacturing sector has stagnated.

Japan already spends more than 3 per cent of its gross domestic product on R&D - more than any other country. One way of reading the chart is to surmise that diminishing returns have set in, that every extra yen spent on R&D goes to employ less talented researchers, who study less promising approaches to the same problems. Japanese universities' poor record on turning research funding into results published by top scientific journals suggests that government money can be more efficiently spent. It could be that rather than spending too little on R&D, Japan spends too much.

However, Mr Tokumasu and others in the technology establishment take heart from R&D expenditure data. If only Japan could convert all of this spending into scientific breakthroughs, new businesses and saleable products, they argue, it would prove a powerful source of economic growth.

George Packer on Andrew Sullivan on Obama

An excellent paragraph by an excellent journalist on the very interesting mind of Andrew Sullivan and his adolotion of Obama:

Sullivan, a Burkean by philosophy but a radical by temperament, is the most interesting critic of his former conservative allies, and I’ve learned a lot about conservatism agonistes from reading his blog. He says that conservatism isn’t about solving problems but about recognizing the limits of man’s ability to do so, especially in the form of organized activity called government. His breakdown can’t help stacking the deck: conservatism is modest, skeptical, narrowly focussed on what can be done; liberalism tries, promiscuously, to satisfy everyone’s needs. Sullivan believes that the Republican Party went astray when it forgot its philosophical principles and started throwing more feed at the hogs of the electorate than Democrats. He is, in the terms of my article, a purist rather than a reformist, but his unhappiness with the movement is so great that it’s driven him into the arms of his exact opposite, Barack Obama, who is philosophically liberal and temperamentally conservative. Sullivan knows that his Oakeshottian version of conservatism is a very hard sell in a country that expects problems to come with solutions, and he seems to acknowledge that its future here belongs with the reformists like David Brooks, Ross Douthat, and Reihan Salam, who are readier than he is to accept that people have a right to want their government to improve their lives, not just to instruct them in the vanity of human effort. I read Sullivan every day, partly to find out how far his disenchantment will carry him in the very strange direction of Obama-style uplift—how long his temperament will win out over his ideas.

Sullivan posts too much to read in RSS, but it's worth a weekly check-in for a stimulating perspective on the political scene.

Some Careers Are Better to Do Young

Some careers are better to do when you're young. Athletics is the most obvious example that springs to mind.

There are others. Compare my two main career interests: entrepreneurship/starting companies and writing/journalism. The start-up tech world seems to discriminate in favor of youth. That is, you don't see many 65 year-olds starting tech companies.

The writing world, however, seems age-agnostic or maybe even the opposite. There are many older writers who are still widely respected and prolific. More experience as a writer is almost always considered a plus, whereas in the start-up world too much experience can be seen as a negative.

Note that I'm talking specifically about the start-up tech world. Daniel Gross has a recent Slate piece titled How did America's business leaders get so old? where he discusses Buffett, Icahn, Soros, and other senior citizens who still dominate business.

All this to say, it seems to make more sense to start start-ups while I'm young, and pursue writing full-time later in life.

Related Posts:

• Does Experience Have a Negative Correlation With Success?
• Conceptual Breakthroughs: The Domain of the Young
  • In this post I say the ideal time to start a company is ~27 -- the idea being you want some experience but not too much experience.

The Forgotten Continent (and My Trip to Costa Rica)

(photo credit of Jaco sunset)

I'm spending three weeks in Costa Rica starting mid-June. My first week will be around Playa Samara (where I'm taking Spanish classes, four hours a day for four days), second week probably around Flamingo, and third week probably around La Fortuna / Arenal volcano. Some of these nights I'm looking to crash with friends of this blog -- if you know anyone there, drop me a line or leave gen'l tips in the comments.

In preparation, I'm reading Michael Reid's terrific (and dense) book The Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America's Soul. Reid has edited The Economist's Americas section for years. Here's the premise of the book:

Latin America has often been condemned to failure. Neither poor enough to evoke Africa’s moral crusade, nor as explosively booming as India and China, it has largely been overlooked by the West. Yet this vast continent, home to half a billion people, the world’s largest reserves of arable land, and 8.5 percent of global oil, is busily transforming its political and economic landscape.

This book argues that rather than failing the test, Latin America’s efforts to build fairer and more prosperous societies make it one of the world’s most vigorous laboratories for capitalist democracy. In many countries—including Brazil, Chile and Mexico—democratic leaders are laying the foundations for faster economic growth and more inclusive politics, as well as tackling deep-rooted problems of poverty, inequality, and social injustice. They face a new challenge from Hugo Chávez’s oil-fuelled populism, and much is at stake. Failure will increase the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants to the United States and Europe, jeopardize stability in a region rich in oil and other strategic commodities, and threaten some of the world's most majestic natural environments.

A full review and notes will be posted later.

Are You Your Team's Motherfucker?

From the late, great David Halberstam and his book A March to Madness: A View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference, page 37:

Every team needs a motherfucker, someone who is tough and mean and willing to do anything to win. That can mean getting in the other team’s face or getting in the face of a teammate if necessary. Michael Jordan was a motherfucker, even if his college coach wouldn’t use the term. Christian Laettner was a motherfucker and his college coach wouldn’t hesitate to use the term. Years ago, Maryland center Buck Williams, who carried a Bible with him everywhere he went, was a motherfucker. His coach liked to say of Williams: "Off the court he’s the nicest person you’ll ever meet. ‘Yes sir, no sir, yes ma’am, no ma’am. On the court, he’ll kill you if he has to."

Barnes was convinced he had a burgeoning motherfucker in Buckner, someone who would do anything to win a basketball game and never back down from anybody. That was what he felt his team needed to compete in the ACC: an attitude, one that said, “We are motherfuckers and you can’t scare us.”

(hat tip to my brother)

Nassim Taleb's Top 10 Life Tips

Here are Nassim Taleb's top 10 life tips, all worthwhile, from this profile:

1. Skepticism is effortful and costly. It is better to be sceptical about matters of large consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and human in the small and the aesthetic.

2. Go to parties. You can’t even start to know what you may find on the envelope of serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia, send colleagues.

3. It’s not a good idea to take a forecast from someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease people who take themselves and their knowledge too seriously.

4. Wear your best for your execution and stand dignified. Your last recourse against randomness is how you act — if you can’t control outcomes, you can control the elegance of your behaviour. You will always have the last word.

5. Don’t disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don’t understand their logic. Don’t pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific ‘evidence’.

6. Learn to fail with pride — and do so fast and cleanly. Maximise trial and error — by mastering the error part.

7. Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words ‘impossible’, ‘never’, ‘too difficult’ too often, drop him or her from your social network. Never take ‘no’ for an answer (conversely, take most ‘yeses’ as ‘most probably’).

8. Don’t read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants... or (again) parties.

9. Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel or a private jet.

10. Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them.

Elsewhere from the profile: he doesn't trust people who wear ties; he reads 60 hours a week but never a newspaper; he never watches television; he exercises fanatically; stress should be "irregular and ferocious -- early men did not have bad bosses, but they did occasionally run into lions".

Understanding the Virtues of Meritocracy via Brazil

This wise nugget courtesy of Kishore Mahbubani on page 67 of his new book which I will be reviewing shortly:

The simplest way of understanding the virtues of meritocracy is to ask the question: why is Brazil a soccer superpower and an economic middle power? The answer is that when it looks for soccer talent, it searches for it in all sectors of the population, from upper classes to the slums. A boy from the slums is not discriminated against if he has soccer talent. But in the economic field, Brazil looks for talent in a far smaller base of the population, primarily the upper and middle classes.

A similar point could be made around other types of discrimination (not just class based). With a seriously sexist business culture, Japan is effectively ignoring the potential creative contributions of 50% of its population.

And a corporate level...good companies cull ideas from all levels of the organization. Lou Gerstner at IBM famously encouraged employees at the bottom to submit ideas or proposals for corporate action. Let the best idea win, no matter who it comes from.

Communication Lesson of the Day: Smile

Smile. Smile. Smile. Smile. It lifts our mood, it's contagious, it relaxes us. On the phone, if you talk while smiling, your tone smooths the edges (this is something I need to work on). Here's another thing smiling does in a group meeting or interview: it implies a subtle kind of confidence that's very powerful. Below is a video of Brad Feld in an interview discussing how a start-up raises money. Watch the first three minutes. Observe his body language and gestures. In particular, Brad's facial expressions and tone of voice (especially when contrasted to the interviewer as her tone comes off as stilted). And even more specifically, observe his smiling, which is natural and fluid and very effective at creating an atmosphere of genuine exchange.

Three Observations About Western European Higher Ed

Below, three observations about how Western Europe treats higher education, as I understand it based on informal conversations with students, professors, and business people across the continent. Generalizing about such a large zone will inherently expose exceptions, but these are just observations that seem to hold up in most places I've been to. Tell me if I'm wrong.

First, schooling in Europe stresses specialization at a young age. This means that you choose early on what you want to study (law, business, medicine, whatever) and your entire "undergraduate" years are spent studying this topic. Many high schools are even specialized.

Second, success is largely measured by big, cumulative tests. Some of the law students I've met have a single test that covers four semesters of work. They spend months and months studying for this one test.

Third, the degrees you do obtain and schools you do attend receive substantial attention for life. In many countries your degrees (Masters, PhD, etc) are appended to your passport, and anytime you list the name of a PhD, "Dr." must precede the name. Always. Also, the first line of a one-paragraph bio of someone will include their education first. It is remarkable to read a bio of 60 year-old chief executive with an amazingly distinguished professional career that begins with where he read books at age 18.

So, the system disadvantages those youth who don't really know what they want to do in life at age 16 (most people, I'd imagine), then disadvantages those who are cognitively ill-suited at taking tests administered in school settings (a meaningful subset of the population, research shows), and then pushes whatever degrees you do pick up to the fore for the rest of your life.

Contrast the above three points to America.

First, while specialization is an option, liberal arts colleges and programs are also offered in abundance. And specialization will never occur at the high school level, as it does in places in Europe. High school is broadly focused.

Second, standardized tests are used, but relatively speaking, seem less important. Sure, the SAT matters, but it is not the only factor. Indeed, some U.S. colleges don't even require an SAT test.

Third, what you did at your last job is far more important than where you went to school at age 18. This varies by profession, of course, but I think this is part of the meritocracy ideal (myth?) of the country. And many PhDs do not demand to be called "Dr." Even in the industry where PhDs are most institutionalized -- higher ed -- some American colleges drop "Dr." in favor of the more generic "Mr." In the Pomona College course catalog professors are listed "Mr. Smith." Finally, the standard American bio will include education as the last sentence, if at all.

For points #2 and #3, I prefer the American model / culture. Point #1 is interesting. While I think Western European schooling focuses on specialization too early, I don't think there's anything wrong with specialization per se, and certainly the vocational variety doesn't deserve the kind of high minded shoo-shooing from liberal arts-educated intellectuals who think you're not suited for the world unless you've read Plato and Frost. As Joel Kotkin said, as a practical matter, in the States we need fewer poets and more plumbers. Or see Ross Douthat:

...We ought to become vastly more flexible in our understanding of what constitutes an ideal post-high school education, and what our high schools should be preparing their students for - which means more vocational education, more shop class as soulcraft, and fewer attempts to pretend that everyone can read Hamlet, or score above the national average on the Math SAT.

Related Post: How the Culture of Higher Ed in America and Europe Doesn't Seem to Impact Society in General