January 2008
28 posts
Better Late Than Never
… the historic growth rate of … prosperity may now be threatened. Because demand in the form of consumption has been artificially and fictitiously stimulated in recent years by financial engineering run amuck, there is a legitimate question as to whether its black hole imploding destructiveness can be totally countered with another dose of lower yields and...
House prices: prepare for the impossible
… we conclude that a decline in house prices is already under way. If the house market, like the stock market, were mean-reverting, the sell-off could carry a fair way. A return to the post-1968 trend line would imply a drop of 22%. Which, of course, for these real estate-centric United States, would imply disaster. We do not predict disaster, but we do expect a pullback severe enough to...
TED Talks Jeff Bezos: After the gold rush,...
In it for the long haul
When you do what you love for the sake of itself, the rewards are so much greater than if you just do it for external incentives.
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In light of this, I strongly recommend that you find a vocation in your life where you just really enjoy the act itself. Not just the results, not just the external incentives. The actual work. There’s not enough time to spend it...
“The problem with hype is that it transforms the use value of a would-be work of...”
– The Hype Cycle, n+1
When A.P.C. started in 1987, the vision was: We are living in a Warholian nightmare; everyone really believes that no skill is necessary to be a star. To just communicate and have a name was enough to build a brand. So, my vision was: Do not communicate, do some real work instead, and do not have a name, just have a group name.
Jean Touitou
We’re not living in a very creative era. That’s not good or bad; it’s just the way it is. I think it’s in very bad taste to buy art right now. People should leave it to the hedge-fund owners who want to satisfy their wives. “Hey, I bought a Chinese avant-garde thing.” Good for you.
Jean Touitou
Monetize: A word we didn’t need
Only in the perverted world of the web can something as simple and fundamental as making money be in need of a fancy word like “monetize”. The most basic principle of business doesn’t need an exotic dress and an academic hat. Just a pair of working gloves.
It’s no longer either: “How can we make money?” vs “How can we monetize this?”. And the former even...
Frontline: Growing Up Online →
Having an all-encompassing, laser-focused, opinion and a maniacal focus on executing on that vision are foundational. But the last ingredient for making something great may seem counter-intuitive… humility. Amidst all this passion and certainty you must be able to set your opinion down, and take advantage of others perspective on it. In short, you must have an open mind.
Jackson Fish Market
Why companies need owners
All companies need owners who are engaged, committed and, ideally, thinking about long term.
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A venture with one million shareholders ultimately has no real owner.
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History will look back on the 1990s and early 2000s as a time when the principal officers of public American corporations transferred from shareholders to themselves approximately $1...
Dieter Rams: Ten Principles for Good Design
Good design is innovative. Good design makes a product useful. Good design is aesthetic. Good design helps us to understand a product. Good design is unobtrusive. Good design is honest. Good design is durable. Good design is consequent to the last detail. Good design is concerned with the environment. Good design is as little design as possible.
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@dickc: Don’t agree with most of the accepted wisdom that you need a PR firm anymore. In fact, I’m pretty sure you don’t
Interview with a Hedge Fund Manager
… if you assess the attractiveness of a trade based on historical data from a time when people weren’t really actively doing that trade, and then suddenly everybody’s doing that trade, the behavior of the trade will be different. And if you’re trained the same way as everybody else, in general you’re all going to behave the same. And when everyone behaves...
As you can see, these lessons are nothing new. We’ve been preaching these ideas for a long time, but living them is so much harder. When we let the core principles of Getting Real slide, not even we could produce software worth a damn.
svn
Hugo by The Tellers
Most of the stuff I accumulated was worthless, because I didn’t need it. What I didn’t understand was that the value of some new acquisition wasn’t the difference between its retail price and what I paid for it. It was the value I derived from it.
Paul Graham
courtesy swissmiss
Single trader behind oil record
Markets are only as efficient as their participants.
The man behind the record rise in oil prices to $100 a barrel was a lone trader, seeking bragging rights and a minute of fame, market watchers say.
23 Actionable Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies →