Perception versus Reality

Much of life is based on perception.  It is surprising how little is based on reality.

The applicant who is perceived to be the best is the one who gets the job, not necessarily the applicant who is the best.  This is part of what makes hiring extremely complex.

Markets move based on the perceptions of the participants, which can often diverge from reality for extended periods.  Getting a job is part of the labor market, and is therefore based on perception.

Most departments in most businesses function on perception.  Conflict arises at the interface between the perception departments and the reality departments.  Generally engineering and manufacturing have to be based in reality.  As you move further from these departments, you can depart further from reality.

Some functions, such as accounting, are anchored to reality to an extent, but still have significant discretion to diverge from reality when convenient.

Oxymoronic: Investing in a Secondary Market

If you aren't giving your money directly to the company, you are not investing, you are trading.

In secondary markets, such as the US stock market, you are buying shares from another owner, not from the company.  The money goes to the seller, not the company.  You are not investing.  The company does not benefit, except in an indirect manner (lowering their weighted average cost of capital if they choose to sell more stock to actual investors in the future).

If you think you are an investor because you hold your trades for a long time, you are just a long-term trader.

Using Radar to Find Your Future

This Jim Rogers talk presents some interesting, seemingly paradoxical, advice to young people about preparing for their futures.

He sings the praises of studying history and philosophy in college and denigrates business schools and the MBA degree in particular. But then he says that if an MBA is your passion, get there as soon as you can. He praises farming, but says not to do it if it is not your passion.

I see this as a parallel to the way that radar works.  Typically, radars have two modes: search and track.  In search mode they are sweeping the sky looking for anything of interest.  Once they find what they are looking for, they switch to track mode and all of their power is directed at that target.

Until you find your target, cast a wide net to see what interests you and learn about the world along the way. Sooner or later, you will find the precise thing that interests you and you can narrow your focus.

Made You Look vs. Made You Look Again

There are many tricks to make someone look at something.  The goal in business is to create something that people want to look at over and over again.

I saw a very heavy person wearing a t-shirt that said "Made You Look".  People might look once, but they are unlikely to look again.  An attractive person does not need to wear something special to get you to look again.

Shared Offices Inhibit Communication and Productivity

Advocates of shared offices believe they facilitate communication.  They do increase communication of all types, productive and unproductive, voluntary and involuntary, between the occupants. They do this at the cost of concentration and productivity.

Shared spaces also inhibit some valuable communication.  When someone from another office wants to talk to one of the office inhabitants, they have to weigh whether the communication is worth interrupting two or more people, perhaps for an extended period of time.  This acts to inhibit communication from thoughtful, shy, or junior personnel who may incorrectly feel that their need to talk is not worth the cost.

Knowledge workers need to control their environment for maximum productivity.  This implies private offices that are large enough for a couple of visitors, and a variety of other work spaces available for larger groups.

The topic of people with their own offices who insist on using the speaker phone with their door open is left as an exercise for the reader.

The Real Cost of Netflix

You might think that Netflix costs only $8 per month, but the real cost is the time you waste passively sitting in front of a screen.  Time that you could be working on your dream.  Time that you'll never get back.

11 Bosses You Need To Fire Right Now

Christopher Hawkins' post on 11 Clients You Need To Fire Right Now (http://www.christopherhawkins.com/06-13-2005.htm) will also tell you which bosses to fire or never work for.

Why is Dilbert funny?

Because we are bad at management.  A comic strip about bad bridge building would not be funny because it isn't true.  Every day we can look at Dilbert and imagine something from our own work experience.

Customer Development vs. Product Development vs. Logo Development

The key insight of Steve Blank's work is that the customer development process for a startup should take priority over product development until the required product fit has been found.  This presents an interesting balancing act for a new company.  The product must be developed enough so that customer development can proceed (Eric Ries' Minimum Viable Product), but no more.

What you don't hear discussed is what could be labeled as "Logo Development".  The logo development process encompasses activities that are important to large businesses, but a distraction to startups.  For example, unless the startup's logo is so bad that it frightens small children, no time should be spent improving it until it is clear that it is an impediment to the future success of the business.  Other examples of this type of activity may include business card layouts, aspects of the web site appearance, and even the name of the company itself.

The key test for addresssing any activity is whether it is preventing the organization from moving forward.  For a web-centric company, web design is often crucial.  In fact, the web site may be the product, so web site changes would be properly categorized as product development.  For a hot-dog vendor at sporting events, a web site might not be useful at all (although a mobile app might be).

Startup Source Code Quality Bait and Switch

Many software startups cut corners with low quality code.  They are just trying to get ramen profitable with a minimum viable product.  If they ever get to the point of a sustainable business, they will clean up their act then.

Caveat emptor.  If you are an investor or customer or are otherwise contemplating putting skin in the game with respect to a software company, understand that at some point, massive resources will be required to pay down the technical debt accrued during the ramen days.  If this debt is allowed to grow too large, it will one day ruin the company.