SF Outside Lands Was a Disaster
this is a rant so i'm not going to capitalize letters or fix spelling mistakes; bear with me. i wrote this whole post refraining from using the f-word or any other expletives; it was very hard but i hope you can understand my frustration/anger regarding the following events.
i have heard from all of my friends that have seen radiohead that it is one of the most life changing/religious experiences you can have at a live show. i've listened to radiohead a lot the last few years (though to be honest they're pretty far down on my list of top artists on last.fm, #18). everyone keeps telling me that you HAVE to see radiohead, so i buy the tickets two weeks in advance for $95/ticket to be a part of this experience.
so with much anticipation, i bring you to friday at 5pm before their show that starts at 8pm.
these are the things that went wrong before the radiohead performance:
- the ticket cost $95. i don't care who i'm seeing (unless it's daft punk or josh groban), i will never pay $95 to see a band play again.
- couldn't find a taxi on embarcadero street - there's 100,000 taxis in san francisco but they were magically elsewhere at 5pm on a friday. we nix the taxi idea and hop on the n judah.
- the n judah had the worst driver of all time, he yields for EVERY car. n judah is packed and nobody can move.
- got to the festival and there are no signs anywhere, just crowds walking in a general direction.
- get there, the line for will call is hundreds of people long and there are only two will call booths. unbelievable.
- wait in line for 45 minutes, finally get tickets. great, we've missed beck and all the other shows, but we're just in time to see radiohead.
so all that was a big downer, but i tried to not let it weigh on me.
walk down to the polo fields, it's 7:30 and radiohead starts in 30 minutes. looks like the entire crowd left the remaining shows to get good spots for radiohead around 7, because the closest possible place to stand is at least 500 feet from the stage.
radiohead starts promptly at 8, everyones going crazy. i let everything up to this point get erased in my head - i'm here to see radiohead, i don't want any bad energy while watching them. they start playing, first few songs sound like sigur ros and are pretty inspiring - but i'm so far back i can't feel the music. i'm used to going to shows/festivals where the speakers are so loud/close they vibrate you, that's one of my favorite things about live performances. then they play "my iron lung" and i close my eyes, taking it in. still hard to feel anything because i'm so far back and people keep wiggling through to get a closer view (i always let people through, never really cared about trying to be a dick and block them).
halfway through my iron lung a fuse blows and the power gets cut, and for a minute radiohead keeps playing with no sound. i really paid $95 for this? the sound comes back on and i forgive them, but by now my patience is wearing very thin. the song ends and they start playing another sigur ros sounding song. now i love listening to sigur ros on my ipod, but the only time i saw them live i thought they absolutely sucked (coachella 2006). i wasn't the only person - hundreds of people left that show with the same sentiments (people were pretty vocal about it). i don't know what it is about that sound, but it doesn't seem to work well for me outside. so we're back at the radiohead concert, and they're mid-way through this song that i've never heard before but is pretty cool. some stoner decides to weasel his way up through the crowd to get a better view, but when he gets in front of me decides that this will be his better view point. i gave him 15 seconds to begin his hunt for a better spot, but slowly realized that he was staying there. so now i'm looking at long hair and hear radiohead faintly in the background (remember, we're far away). that just did it, i turned to matt and katie and said, "alright, screw this, i'm out of here" and began my retreat. this is at 8:20, 20 minutes or 4 songs into the radiohead show. as i am leaving, another fuse blows and the power goes out again. unbelievable.
it all worked out and was meant to be though - i took a cab to [redacted]'s party and met sean parker right before he had to leave for the airport... if i had left the concert 10 minutes later, i would have never met him.
in the end, the universe tends to unfold as it should. that being said, i will never attend sf outside lands again and am going to try to get a refund on my ridiculously overpriced ticket.
m f r t d
I'm so bored of the internet, those five letters represent the sites I go to every day. I check out 2-3 more every once and a while, but I usually stick with those (in that order)
m - Gmail
f - Facebook
r - Google Reader
t - Tumblr
d - Digg
Can someone come out with something innovative? Or is innovation on the internet slowing down? I'm sad to say this, but the internet has become extremely boring. I'm going to have to agree with Mark Cuban on this: the internet is dead and boring.
(sorry for the pessimism)
Great Leaders
I'm in bed trying to get some sleep before my flight to LA tomorrow, but I've been meaning to write a post regarding my thoughts on leadership for a while. It will be hard to make an essay out of this post as my thumbs are already tired of typing on my BB.
I am tired of the term "leader" being thrown around these last few years. I heard the term a lot at school, and even more at church (TFH). People have lots of different ideas as to what they think makes a great leader. And of course, I have my own opinion on this matter. There are four different people that I find to be the greatest "leaders" of today, and you've probably only heard of one or two of them. They are:
1) Mark Zuckerberg
2) Mark Cuban
3) David Heinemeyer-Hansson
4) Sean Parker
Yes, I know that they are all geeks and very tech-centric. I regard Zuckerberg as the number one leader because he has bigger cajones than everyone else on the list combined (for not selling to Yahoo last year).
There are a few things that characterize these great leaders.
1) They have the balls to take criticism -- lots of it
2) They are unpopular with a lot of people
3) They all give the finger to "the man", and in doing so, become THE MAN
4) They are not afraid of telling people which end is up -- explicatives are often used by Cuban and DHH to drive a point home to idiots
5) They are all atheist/agnostic/humanist, which means not very "religious"
6) They are more important to the the world than the media will ever admit, simply because the media doesn't like them
Obviously, being liked has nothing to do with changing the world. Looks like the only people that need to like you are your employees, and the rest of the world can devolve on its own without guys like this. Well, having a great product also helps a helluva lot.
As Ali-G would sign off, "Respect yo."
Rant on Education
I feel like I am stagnating in my "traditional" education at high school right now.
When I can't see the current/future value in what I am learning, it becomes completely pointless and irrelevant to me. I understand why they want to teach people in Primary School all the concepts and stuff, but the only way you are going to really learn something is if you go out and learn on your own. When I say "learn on your own", I am talking about picking up books, or going and doing an internship in a field that you want to be in, or simply Googling a subject and finding out everything there is to know about it. I learned more about Silicon Valley working for MonVia in these last few months than any teacher could have ever taught me.
The best way to learn something is just by going out and doing it; book knowledge is good to an extent. I'm not saying that reading isn't useful -- it definitely helps out a lot. I believe that being able to read and synthesizing valuable tangible information will open up more doors for you than anything else you can do while you still young. But I am tired of "Information Overload". How is knowing about an Amoeba going to help me when I am out in the real world trying to make a living? Shouldn't my education be more focused on something tangible? Capitalism? Managing money? How about a course based on Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor? At least learning about this stuff will help me put food in my stomach after High School is over.
I am glad for everything I learned up until 8th grade. Then I got into high school and took all these science classes that I could have cared less about (still don't care for them). I did terribly in all of them (B's and C's) because I never saw any value in what I was learning. It was, and still is, useless information to Sam Purtill. I am never going to give a **** about the Periodic Table; it's not something that I will ever specialize in. I'm sure there are some kids in my school that are fascinated by the Periodic Table and how many electrons are in Plutonium. Great for them, let them take the Science classes (Mrs. Rausch and Mrs. Page are awesome teachers) and let them know that information. When I have a question about Plutonium, I'll go to them and ask. I don't need to know everything!!
I am so tired of Information Overload though. It is the result of the internet. I don't care about EVERYTHING; I'm never going to act like I do.
I do believe there are three things that everyone should be proficient in by the end of High School:
- English - writing and speaking
- Math - up to Algebra 2
- Spanish - this should be taught starting in Kindergarten. Everyone legal US Citizen in California needs to speak Spanish fluently if they want to survive in 15 years
And beyond that, kids should start specializing. They should find something they like and start taking classes in it. I wish there were Java courses. Computer Science courses. Something that I actually care about and would be extremely motivated to do. I garauntee if we had a Computer Science class at my school I would get 100% in it every single semester.
Education needs help: there are three things I want in my education.
- Tangible - the instructor should be able to explain to me why I need to know this crap
- Valuable - this is going to take me farther in life if I learn it
- Relevant - wake up call: this is the 21st century. Would any of this information matter to me now if I went out and got a job?
I don't like things the way they are.
Lucky
I watched this video with Warren Buffet about 6 times in this last week. I have also done a lot of thinking about my life ever since I watched that video. So anyways, here you go.
I am lucky.
I am lucky I was born in 1988, 18 years before the Web 2.0 boom began. Lucky I was born in Davis, California -- a quiet, intellectual college town in Northern California. Lucky to have the parents that I have -- to this day, I've never heard them fight. Lucky to have 2 brothers and 2 sisters who taught me how to share, how to lead, responsibility, and how to interact with people. Lucky to grow up with support from my entire family -- my grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and other "family" members like Nate Pina (my older brother) and his family.
I am lucky to be homeschooled by my Mom and Mrs. Washabaugh through 3rd grade, where I made my first best friend -- Michael Washabaugh. Lucky to have been able to go to GVCA from 4th-8th grade; from an academic perspective, it would be hard for me to find another school in California as rigorous as that school. I credit all of my current "IQ" to the foundations that were laid down at that school. I am lucky to have had the friends that I did at that school -- Eric Haynam, Jon Roby, Dwight Smith, and my best friend, since 5th grade, Travis Parker. I've been best friends with Travis for over 8 years now, and we've never been mad at eachother once. Lucky to have developed an above average EQ (the awareness of and ability to manage one's emotions in a healthy and productive manner) while at GVCA also; it helped me so much down the road when I had to move to new places and make new friends.
I am lucky to have moved to Maryland in 2003. Lucky to make the friends that I did out there; there are three guys really mentored me that I still keep in close contact with today -- Ben Tedesco, Edgard Gasca, and Hector Oropezah. Lucky for all the talks I had with Hector; I will never forget the one we had on the boardwalk at Ocean Beach, New Jersey. Hector told me of all the mistakes that he wish he would have never made, and he wanted to make sure I wouldn't make those same decisions. Lucky enough to have a dad that cared enough about me to send me to private school (CLS) instead of public school. Lucky to have made all the friends out there that I still talk to today. Lucky to have Nate Pina out there with us to be my older brother and help me through that horrific winter.
I am lucky to have moved back to Vacaville, California (greatest city to grow up in ever). Lucky to go to The Father's House church and Launch Camp that year (3 days after moving back) and meeting all the people I did there -- it made the transition to Vacaville easy on us. Lucky for that whole summer; it was just so much fun -- we were all still little kids; Josiah, Rob, Chris, Me, Nate, James. I am lucky to have been born with a love for technology, the internet, and most of all, Flash. Lucky for my tour of Odopod that inspired countless nights of learning more Flash. Lucky to have seen that learning programming languages would help me get a good job when I got older (it paid off faster than I expected, but I didn't mind :p).
I am lucky to have been able to work for The Father's House as their web developer. Without that job, I would have never become as good as I did at Flash. Lucky to have switched from Vaca High to Buckingham 1 week before my Sophomore year began. Lucky to have had Mrs. Oates as my English teacher in 10th grade; her class taught me a lot about myself -- if I see a teacher put a lot of effort into teaching, I will return her effort with effort of my own in their class. This has remained true for everything I do; if I am motivated to do a good job on a certain project, I'll do the best job you've ever seen. The flipside is the opposite; that's just how I am built, and I don't plan on changing it. Lucky for to have made all the friends I did that year -- Megan, Joanna, Marco, etc... Buckingham is "no ordinary high school"; I love it.
I am lucky to have my dad, Uncle Jim, and Don Graham as people to talk to about business. Lucky for all the talks I've had with these guys about business and life in general -- they helped me learn so much, and made it possible for me to avoid the mistakes that they made. These guys are the best mentors I could have asked for.
I am lucky for the friends I had during the summer of 2006 -- Jeremy, James, Christy, and Cailey; I could have gone down so many wrong paths that summer, but it was theses friends who saved me. Lucky to have been able to become best friends with Cailey, the happiest girl I have ever known.
I am soo lucky to have met Okapi. Lucky for all the clients I landed under their name. Lucky for the business skills I gained as I managed each client. Lucky for Andrei and Gabi; two guys I have never met, but I talk to every day for about an hour (I will meet them soon!). Lucky enough to get a client called MonVia, which is the company that I am doing my startup under.
I am lucky to have teachers and a principal that let me go to school Monday and Wednesday of my Senior year in high school. Lucky to have started reading again Senior Year. Lucky for all the "mentors" I have but will probably never meet -- Warren Buffet, Mark Cuban, and Ayn Rand. Lucky to have a teacher that I realized was a real human being, Mr. Robbins; we've had countless talks that I have grown from.
I am lucky to work with Jorge Fernandes, Mani Kulasooriya, and Jim O'Connor. These guys have taught me so much about Silicon Valley and how the entire industry works; no University or business school in the world would be able to give me the knowledge I have today from all the experiences I have had with them in the last 6 months.
I am lucky to have had an idea for a startup that began at the beginning of 2006, thanks to the book Getting Real by 37signals. Lucky to be able to have the right skill set needed for a startup (thanks to all the programming I did starting at age 11). Lucky for the much needed support I have gotten from everyone on it. [will there be a "lucky" statement about the company here soon? :)]
I am lucky for my Grandparents who let me stay at their house any time I want, and (this is the best part) wait on me in the mornings so they can get me breakfast. Lucky for aunts and uncles that will open their house for me any time I need to stay in The Valley. Lucky for Brent and Mary-Anne and all the help they were in applying to Stanford and Santa Clara.
I am lucky that I am born in a market economy that pays off well for guys wired like me; like Warren Buffet says -- "If I was stuck on a desert island with a bunch of other people, I'd be useless. The most useful person in that situation would be, say, a rice farmer. I can allocate capital, but that doesn't matter in a situation like that." Lucky that I wasn't born 4,000 years ago -- I would be some animals lunch.
I am lucky.
If I "had to do it all over again", as Buffet says, I would just ask to be lucky.
When so many things went right when they could have gone wrong, I can only be optomistic towards the future and say... Thank you God. I didn't deserve any of this.
And if I left anyone out, don't be offended. It's 1:30am and my brain shutdown two hours ago.Thanks
Internet Privacy
I am sick and tired of listening to people that know nothing about technology talk about how scared they are of their privacy being intruded upon by the internet. Most of this fear comes from the lack of knowledge about the threat that the majority of these companies pose to them.
The two companies that I would like to talk about in this post are Google and Facebook. Both companies track almost everything that user's do on their sites: the search queries, the time a person logs in, the computers he logs in from (from IP addresses), the "status updates" on Facebook, etc... Just about everything that could be tracked is tracked on these two sites. Just as a side note, there is a new Flash analytics tool (I forget the name right now) that creates and saves arrays of the mouse movements, so [Flash] websites can be optimized for better navigations and content. Anyways, back to the subject. I stopped caring about my online privacy a long time ago... A long time ago being defined as the moment I realized the threat these companies posed to my life. Google and Facebook are viable companies; I mean come on, Google's motto is "do no evil."
Facebook tracks everything that you do on their site, but it just creates an interesting experience for me every time I login. I can see every single little thing that my friends have done since I last signed in. Technology is leading to a world where everyone can know everything about everybody. Sound scary? If you're a bad person. I could care less -- I'll do everything I do in private in public. It's not like I have anything to hide. So why do you even care if Google is storing all of your search queries? Do you have something to hide?
Another thing I would say is put it in perspective. How many searches are done on Google every day? Nearly 100 million. And out of the 100 million, what are they going to do with the 20 searches that you did? Exactly. Nothing.
So whatever. Who cares about your online privacy.
Breaking a 5th grader
I had a realization today of where I can trace a whole lot of things back to. Here goes.
Eddie is in the 5th grade at William Jefferson Christian Academy, a private K-9 school in Davis, California. He was homeschooled up through 3rd grade by his mom and one other lady. Since there was nobody close to his age in his homeschooling co-op, he was forced to take higher classes; when he stepped into the first day of 4th grade, his first day at a real school, he was over-prepared.
He was the most egoistical 5th grader you would ever meet. He was an over achiever; he did all of his homework within the first two hours of arriving home from school. One of his teachers posts the perfect spelling tests on the wall; Eddie tests have been on the wall the entire year. In standardized testing, he ranks in the top 2% of the country in both Math and English. He has made the Principal's Golden Circle (4.0) every semester since the beginning of 4th grade. Eddie doesn't lose, and he's proud of the fact that nobody can beat him. It's what drives him to study his spelling list every night; it's what drives him to answer questions with complete sentences on seemingly erroneous homework; it's what drives him to make sure he stays on top.
Every winter, the school would run a basketball league for the 4th-6th graders; the volunteer coaches would form teams, and the "season" would begin.
In 4th grade, Eddie was on the team that never lost -- they went to the championship game and convincingly won. During these games, if his team was losing, he would throw outrageous fits on court: he would scream at teammates, cry like a baby, and run until asthma strangled his lungs. He wasn't the best player on the team, Rob was, but Rob was in 6th grade and much bigger. Rob and Eddie weren't "team" players; they kept the ball from everybody else on the team who sucked. They were countlessly reprimanded because the only thing they wanted to do was win. Eddie's parents came to his games now and then, and they were embarrassed beccause their son would throw fits in front of all the other parents. Eddie didn't care if people saw him crying and screaming: he wasn't going to lose.
In 5th grade, Eddie got put on the worst team in the league. To say his teammates were unathletic would be an understatement; his teammates were a bunch of losers. Eddie knew that his team sucked, but he wasn't going to let that stop him; at recess, he would get his team together and practice. During these practices, he would help his team memorize the plays that he created at home; this would give them an edge over the other teams that had more natural talent during the games. The season began, and Eddie's team lost the first game by 30 points: it was a blowout. During the first game, he had thrown a massive fit. He kicked the ball to the other side of the court and got a Technical Foul. He had at least 10 personal fouls because he was too angry to think straight -- he kept on pushing the opponents he was defending. He screamed at all of his teammates when they would forget a play or make a stupid mistake. He cried so hard he couldn't see the ball he was dribbling. Near the end of the game, he kicked the ball again: he was ejected.
He was a disappointment to all of the parents, coaches, teachers, and other students watching. Eddie sat in the stands alone and watched the rest of the games with his arrogant smirk -- he had lost a battle, but he was going to win the war: the championship. One of the coaches took him aside and yelled at him for his unsportsmanlike conduct; "there is more to life than winning." On the way home from their first game, his mom discouraged him from showing so much emotion on the court, "It's only a game." Eddie blew her off; she responded, "You are so arrogant."
Throughout his whole life, Eddie had been told he was extremely arrogant. He was puzzled by this; what is wrong with being better than everybody? What was wrong with wanting to be the best at everything? Was it wrong that he was born with a mind that was brighter than everybody else in his grade? He was told so. He became aware of his "arrogance" -- he slowly began to stop caring about being the best. Since being the best was arrogance, and "pride precedes the fall", he might as well try to be humble so he wouldn't have to take a big "fall".
Over the next few games, his fits became much less violent. He didn't punch kids when he was defending them; he didn't kick the ball across the court when he disagreed with a call; he wouldn't scream at his teammates when they would make a stupid mistake. He was beginning to become a "team" player, and even started to encourage his teammates when they would make a basket.
Everybody around him was suddenly patting him on the back -- Eddie was beginning to see that it isn't all about winning and his ego. Everybody was happy for him, he was transforming to the boy that they had always wanted him to be -- "humble". Eddie's parents weren't receiving anymore negative comments from the other parents about him; they were quietly ecstatic. By the end of the season, Eddie's team had won only two games and lost in the first round of the playoffs. Eddie smiled when they lost their last game and shook each opponent's hand, saying "good game." He came back to his team and gave them all hi-fives. He told them that they had helped him learn a lot about himself throughout the season, and that he was thankful that they were catalysts of his personal "growth". At the end of the season, the coaches passed out awards. Eddie received the "Most Improved Player" award, and the coaches applauded the fact that he had realized there was more to life than winning.
This wasn't Eddie's personal growth, it was the beginning of his personal decay. His elders had broken him; they had convinced him that his pride and ego were the root of all of his problems, and he bought the lie. He developed a trait that would destroy many of the possible achievements of his future: indifference.
His indifference didn't stop on the basketball court; it spread like an epidemic to everything he did. His scholastic ambitions slowly began to dissipate: he became a minimalist on all his homework; he would study the morning of the test; he would fool around in class instead of listening to the teacher. He stopped caring about his favorite sports teams: who cares if the Lakers lost to the Kings anymore, it's just a stupid game. He wouldn't cry and scream obscenities when he lost a game of "knockout" in his backyard with his brother -- he wouldn't even throw a punch at him anymore.
Nothing mattered to Eddie anymore; his life became defined by his indifference.
Aristotle once said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." Eddie had once strived for excellence, but his aspirations and ambitions all meant nothing to him now.
He sat at home and played PS2.
Seven years later, Eddie comes across a book called "The Fountainhead". He had been wasting the majority of his life on useless things -- Myspace, computer games, PS2, and just plain laziness. He finds the book because his idol, Mark Cuban, said it was his favorite book of all time. Eddie looks up to Mark Cuban because he represents everything that Eddie was before he was "broken". Eddie loves the fact that Mark Cuban is a mover and shaker of the world, while there are billions of humans in this world are more than happy to live in a state of complacency. Eddie has lived with indifference long enough and is fed up with it; he has grown to hate complacency and any of his peers that live in that state. After reading "The Fountainhead", Eddie hypothesizes that maybe his ego wasn't actually a bad thing. He goes on to read "Atlas Shrugged" and solidifies his hypothesis. The system had set out to break him of his ego and had succeeded; they wanted him to be like everybody else: average. He realizes that what he produces while he is alive is the one achievement that will bring him absolute satisfaction. Eddie wants to do something with his life; he doesn't want to end up average or ever be complacent.
Eddie's terrible study habits have given him trouble in high school; he has never actually tried to get in A in any of his classes, save one, because he never cared. That being said, he is still an "A" student and will be graduating with a 3.7 3.6. He received decent scores on his SAT, and is in the process of applying to Stanford and Santa Clara University. Getting in to either of these Universities will be more than anything Eddie deserves; he sees college as a second chance -- the start of a new life.
This time around, there won't be anybody to stop me from getting on top and staying there.
Ok, this is just wrong…
As a rule, I never write about anything personal in my blog. I'll tell you what's going on at school, work, home, but never what's going on with any of my real personal life, or, even worse, what's going on with my relationships. Why ? Because that's just messing with privacy. I especially would never mess with my friends' private lives; that's just not right. Before I post anything that has to do with somebody that I am friends with, I would definitely ask them permission (quotes don't count).
I never knew until just now, but someone has been writing stuff about me; I was clueless until I clicked through a link tonight. Come on now, public information isn't something to be taken lightly !
That's some immature BS.
I don't want to post a link to the site, because it wouldn't be considerate of her privacy either. The funny thing about it is she told me that she didn't want me to find that page; yet why would you post public information for anyone to see if you don't want the person that you're talking about to see it ?
Do I smell a lawsuit? :D Nahh...
The fact of the matter is, I don't care what she wrote about me. Of course some people aren't going to like me; I'm extremely opinionated and egotistical as hell. But in the words of my great cousin, Stephen Jr., "It's better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for what you're not." Anyways, I don't care enough to make a big deal out of it. I won't even bring it up in a conversation; I've done enough ranting on here to get it out of my system.
Come to think about it -- I think I might be breaking my most important rule on this post:
"Never post when angry."
But I didn't mention any names or link any links, so I think this is Ok to go public; it's just a personal illustration of how blogging can unwantingly invade the private lives of others.
--- UPDATE ---
I am done thinking about this or even wasting time over this crap. I'll leave the post up though just so I can go back in 3 years and laugh that I even wasted time writing something like this. Damn, I just realized I won't get the 20 minutes back that I wasted on this :(
Being well rounded is a bad excuse
For mediocrity.
I don't believe in being well rounded anymore. I don't believe in knowing a little bit about everything. I used to try to know a little bit about everything that was going on; what was happening in sports, technology, business, the blogosphere, etc... I don't want to be like that anymore. It's all a waste of my life. The only thing I should be doing is becoming great at what I love to do; flash developing. After reading The Fountainhead I came to this conclusion. And I'm not talking about trying to become good at something you suck at; find something that you're naturally good at and become the best.
There is a long list of reasons why I have come to this belief; I will begin to list a few.
#1 - Love work, love life - How many people do you know that are miserable simply because they work jobs that they hate ? Last time I checked, nearly 87% of people don't like the jobs that they work at. Sucks for you buddy, that's 1/3 of your day that you get to spend trapped in a cage, realizing that you should be doing what you love. Oh the pain and agony!
#2 - The experts make all the money - True in nearly every industry (I have yet to find an industry that this is not true). Here are a few examples: professional sports - the best players get paid the most; freelancing - the best charge the most; colleges - the best educations cost the most (a bunch of bs - the best educations are free; from real life experiences... but whatever)
#3 - The more you charge, the less you have to work - I'm going to make up this next statistic, but you will understand I think: for every one polo shirt that Abercrombie sells, Old Navy has to sell 10 polo shirts to make the same profits. This is terrible for Old Navy; they have to be selling like crazy to stay in business. Rahul Sood said it best --"Growing market share by slashing prices is ultimately a losing proposition."
#4 - Mediocrity is the bane of human existence - What an unfulfilling life. Great, you're above average at everything you do. You're going to get an above average paying job, an above average car, an above average house. How depressing! You're in between greatness and average! I'd rather suck at everything else and just be the greatest flash developer in the world than being mediocre at everything my hands touch. I must admit, I have tried to be like this for the last few years and it has been completely unfulfilling
#5 - The greatest make all the money - I said it in number 2 and I'll say it again. The world revolves around money; my blog revolves around money; everything in the universe revolves around money. However, I don't want to come across as greedy; let me crush that impression right now. I am very ambitious, and want to be the world's greatest at whatever I decide to do with my life. And money will come with it.
In a world of rapidly evolving technology and competition, becoming the best has never been so easy, and staying the best has never been so hard. Look at Terrel Owens; he was the best wide receiver in the NFL until Chad Johnson came. He couldn't step it up to the next level though, which (my speculation) has led him to an attempted suicide. Life must suck if you can't stay the greatest.
Once you get to the top, stay there.. And stay there for a long time... Do whatever it takes to stay the best, and never follow. Remember: second always tries harder.
Anyways. Don't be well rounded. Be great. At one thing. And you will own the whole world.
You’re pushing my buttons… By not pushing yours
All it is is a tiny little green button with an icon of a phone on it. Yes, I'm talking about the "answer" button on your cell phone. You own a "mobile" phone so that you can answer it when you are mobile, or not in the vicinity of your land connection. And when I call you on that mobile phone, I expect you to answer it every time.
One of my biggest pet peeves is people that never answer their cell phones... As in the people you can count on to not answer them. Um... What's the point of you having a cell phone if you're not going to answer it? It's so easy, even if you're busy, just click the answer button and let the person know you'll call them back later. But voicemail, everytime ? That isn't going to land you a job for a new client, now is it ? That's not going to instill any sense of responsibility you have to your parents, will it ? The answer is only two letters long -- NO.
I am willing to make exceptions though, here is a list of a few:
#1 - If you're in a meeting with an important person. People that aren't important, tell them to hold on for a sec and take the call
#2 - If you are drunk or at a party. Self explanatory I think...
#3 - You're skiing
#4 - You're with your girlfriend... Haha JUST KIDDING. Tell your girlfriend to shutup and answer your phone.
#5 - If you're making a bunch of money doing something, and don't want to be interrupted. Money is more important. Period.
#6 - If you're in church... Every time there is an altar call, without exception, somebody's phone goes off. Turn off your stupid phone while you're in church, come on, have some respect for God...
Yeah so those are just a few good reasons.
I'll be down in Mountain View again this weekend, another meeting. Like always, call me if you'd like to say hi or something. My cell phone is always posted online :)