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On Leadership, by Lecture and by Leadership

Trials and Tribulations

Today I woke up to a beautiful morning. The sun was shining, it was nice and cool, it was pleasantly quiet except for the chirping birds, and...wait! There's a couple of godamned bucks on my lawn! Those bastards do nothing but poop on my lawn and eat my apple trees.

I went outside to shoo them away. One of them tried to run, but couldn't really; it had a broken hind leg.

He can stay.

Oh wait, now's he's eating my shrubberies. He's got to go.

Why George Bush Sucks

It's NOT because he lied, because he didn't.

It is because:

- Mr. Bush has presided over the fastest growth in federal spending since the great Society in the 1960s.

- Mr. Bush put the Republican seal of approval on the biggest intrusion of federal power into the classroom in history (No Child Left Behind)

- Mr. Bush and the Republican party passed the most expensive public works program ever (the 2005 highway bill)

- Mr. Bush created the largest new entitlement program since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid (the prescription-drug benefit)

- Mr. Bush rode roughshod over states' rights on issues such as assisted suicide

- Mr. Bush has expanded the federal government's power to eavesdrop on its citizens

- Mr. Bush created the Department of Homeland Security - which is more 1984ish (even the name is doublespeak) than anything else one could possibly dream up

- Mr. Bush protected the steel industry (a special interest - buying popularity) at great costs to US consumers of steel (import tariffs)

- Mr. Bush's supreme court nominees have pushed the court far to the right

To paraphrase one of the most heinous people on the planet: "Dude, where's my party?"

(much of this is borrowed from The Economist, May 31, 2008, page 38)

Classic Humor

Truly timeless...

If I seem tired...

...well that's because this weekend was one of the best weekends ever to be in Colorado! The weather was fantastic, the activities were epic, and the company great!

Photos will be forthcoming, but know that the weekend involved rocks, wheels, snow, sun, food, and...drumroll please...beer!

Here are some writeups about our day
Jesper
Jen

I am one tired puppy today (and I am absolutely stoked that I have a desk job.)

If I seem cranky...

...It's only because I'm under-slept, under-resourced, under-sunned, and under-exercised. Good thing it's the annual weekend dedicated to singing flesh on the grill - it's just what the Dr. ordered. (Now, piss-off!)

Quote Du Jour

I love this quote...it is describes startup-ing and also reminds me of the modern day movie Gladiator.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
-- Teddy Roosevelt

Hat tip to Matt McCall

Just another day at the office...

104 inbound emails today (not including spam/news/form emails), 73 outbound (absolutely none of which are spam!).

From The Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction Department

This new product should do well in Boulder (I hope - I'm such an environmentalist).

And here's yet another reason why you married men should never sleep on the couch.

Product Marketing for the Social Web

Great presentation given at Web 2.0:

| View | Upload your own

Super-Walker!

I needed a long ride today to prepare for Laramie. So, I opted for a Super-Walker, which in the jargon means ride from Boulder up Flagstaff, over the top, down to Walker Ranch, around Walker Ranch, and back to Boulder. This is around 4,000 feet of climbing, and, for me, is a strenuous 3.5 or so hours.

Because I rode hard yesterday, I was tired. For the whole ride, I kept thinking that I was too tired to do this, and that I would turn around at the next corner. But I kept on, and pretty soon I was at the point of no return.

Going counter-clockwise on the Walker loop, the last climb out is steep and hard, and I've never cleaned it, and not many of my friends have. I always try, but always get pooped out and start getting sloppy and make a mistake in one of the hard sections. Today, I made the first hard rock step...and then the sharp off-camber left-hand turn...and then the steep stretch into the narrow rock move. Those are the three hardest moves, and I had never made all three in one ride. So, I kept going...there were a few more tricky spots, and I cleaned them all...cool! I was going to do it. Then, at the second-to-last switchback from the top, on an easy turn, I got chain-suck! I had to dab to backpedal to clear my chain. I don't know why Zeus conspired against me: I rarely get chain-suck, and it only happened once on this ride, and after I'd done all the hard stuff - maybe it was my impure thoughts about Athena...

I finished out the ride feeling surprisingly good. Door-to-door, my time was 3:23, only a few minutes off my PR...my weightlifting is serving me well, and is almost compensating for a winter's worth of ice cream...

PS - Wildlife seen included tons of deer, some at near-collision distance, and a half-dozen wild turkeys (not the yummy kind in a bottle, but the yummy kind on 2 legs with 2 wings).

PPS - EBC Green disk brake pads suck - I put on new pads...coming down Flagstaff, they faded to nothing...I had a scary moment. Anyway, don't buy 'em.

Chalk Creek Race Report

OK, I wasn't going to race this summer. Then, I committed to do the Laramie Enduro. Now, I have a training program...

...and part of that program is a couple of hard efforts. I'm tentatively going to do three events before Laramie - not to try to win, but just as venues that will encourage hard efforts to serve as build up for Laramie.

The Chalk Creek race was yesterday. What I found was that because I haven't been riding much, I don't have as much work (aerobic) capacity as I have had in summers past. In technical jargon, my VO2 max is not fully trained and is lower than it used to be. Also, after hard efforts, I have far less ability to recover. The good news is that after a winter of weight training and a whole lot of skiing, I am strong, so that for brief anaerobic efforts I am faster than I have ever been.

The race confirmed all this.

In my class of 4 clydesdales, one super fast guy took off at the beginning of the race. 10 minutes later, I caught him on a short anaerobic climb that he walked, but that I easily rode. We reached the top at the same time, whereupon he took off, never to be seen again. I rode the first of 3 laps in second place at a moderate effort, with the third place guy right behind me. I was pushing myself, but not nearly as hard as I have at prior races.

Near the end of the first lap, I rode over a small log, and after, I stood to hammer and get back up to speed. My front wheel hit a root, and I tipped over into a huge bush. I tried to get up before the third place guy saw me (avoid humiliation) and pass me (protect my ego), but I failed - I was still clipped in, on my back, in the middle of a huge bush, and helpless like an upside-down turtle. Mr third place asked if I was OK, I said I was, so he floored it. By the time I got untangled and going again, he was a couple of minutes ahead.

Lap two I upped the pace and started to reel him in. I was closing and was sure I was going to get him, when, at the beginning of the third lap, I flatted. I had trouble fixing the flat (it's been a long time!) and it took me 20 minutes before I was under way again.

The final result was that the first place fast guy did 1:45, the second place guy did 2:03, and I took third in 2:25. (In previous years I did a 1:55 or so.) One fall, one flat, and I still got the third place hardware, because only three of us in the class finished the race.

Net result: a worthy training ride. Notably, because I viewed it as a training ride, I didn't have my game face on, and I wasn't prepared to suffer like real racing requires. Hmmm.

The Impact of Goals

These days, most of my riding buddies are a little burnt out on racing. After 4 or 5 years of spending a summer doing a race every other weekend or so, most of us have decided that this summer we just want to have fun riding. It's not uncommon: bike racing is grueling. Of all the sports I've done in my life, bike racing is by far the hardest. Quite frequently people race for a few years and then quit. They don't quit riding, they just graduate from racing.

A couple of my riding buddies have also noticed that without a racing schedule to prepare for, they have no obvious fitness goals, and subsequently their fitness has suffered. What will get them out riding when the weather is foul or when relatives are in town?

Enter my friend Mark. Mark decided that he needed a goal that would ensure he would be as fast on a bike as he was in the good old days, way back before he turned 40. Mark had heard me rave about the Laramie Enduro in summers past, and decided that this one 75-mile monster of a race would be the focus of his training this spring and summer. For most mortals, it's less of a race and more just a personal challenge: it will take me about 8 hours of hard riding to finish - if I'm able. Two weeks ago, Mark committed to racing the Laramie Enduro at the end of July.

I too needed a goal for the summer. I've been eating more and exercising less, and I needed some motivation to turn that around. And, I'll be damned if I will let my riding buddy do my favorite race without me. I really had no choice but to also commit to riding in the Enduro.

Other riding friends were apparently in similar situations. In a plainly evident snowball effect, John, Liam, Sasha, Jim, Steve have all now also registered.

Here's where it gets really cool: we're all friends, and most of us have ridden together quite a bit. Since we all committed a couple of weeks ago, we've had Laramie on our mind, and we've been talking about our training, and been getting out on more and longer training rides. Without the goal, there surely would have been less training and more excuses to not ride. The BHAG has been clearly motivating and focusing for all of us.

Thanks, Mark, for being a leader and helping us to adopt a worthy goal. It's been focusing and motivating.

I wonder what other personal and professional goals I should adopt.

Spring!

OK, so I may have been a little premature. But, nevermind! What is really important is that over the last two glorious days - including 80 degrees yesterday - my lawn changed from brown to green, trees' leaves have opened up, and the first flowers are starting to blossom. Yippee!

George Burns was wrong!

I think it was George Burns who said, "Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a puppy!"

Well, it turns out that the vast majority of humanity who had agreed with George just might be wrong...new research shows that it appears that there is a correlation between money and happiness.

Overheard on Yesterday's Ride

"Tough way to start the day."
"This is hard. No, actually, the trail's not hard, it's just that I suck."
"This trail is kicking my butt."
"Man, I'm old."
"Man, I'm weak."
"I am such a spaz on my bike".
"I'm a mess."
"I can't believe how much of this I am walking."
"I used to be able to ride this kind of stuff."
"This is going to take forever."
"Perhaps we should have ridden this the opposite direction."
"I think we should've just stuck with Horse Thief Bench."
"It's too early in the season for this."

Clearly we had fun! Just as clearly, we're a bunch of whiners... But, we did not fail.

Quote of the Day: Tiger Woods

"I view my life in a way … I'll explain it to you, OK?...The greatest thing about tomorrow is, I will be better than I am today. And that's how I look at my life. I will be better as a golfer, I will be better as a person, I will be better as a father, I will be a better husband, I will be better as a friend. That's the beauty of tomorrow. There is no such thing as a setback. The lessons I learn today I will apply tomorrow, and I will be better."

Tiger Woods
ESPN
Hat Tip to Ben Casnocha

Brand Attribute #1 Is Always Reliability

In today's competitive world, reliability (synonomous in the software world with quality and robustness) has to be at least a perceived attribute of a product before a customer will contemplate purchase. So you won't sell much if you don't pay the price to build quality.

There are also a number of reasons why it's beneficial for an organization to think about building a reliable product. Off of the top of my head I can think of the following:

1. Quality is the cornerstone of building brand and trust. So it is not just important to get the first product sale, but it is also the beginning of the relationship with each customer. If you want them to buy from you again, they better be impressed the first time.

2. If a customer is pleased, they may evangelize for you, and tell their friends and colleagues. (There are many articles, both academic and anecdotal, about how word of mouth is by far the least expensive and yet also the most effective form of marketing).

3. If a customer is dissatisfied, they will tell the world and cause real damage to your brand.

4. Building an organization to support product problems is expensive. It is a huge time sink, especially to those who are trying to drive the product forward. Refunds and recalls are deadly.

5. If you're spending big time and energy dealing with problems in your current product, you surely can't quickly scale the product.

6. It is extremely fatiguing to an organization to steadily hear negative feedback from customers.

7. Conversely, repeated positive customer feedback is uplifting and energizing and empowering, and can propel the organization to even greater levels. There is little that is more individually empowering than having pride in your work.

8. Life is short. Who wants to spend their time around suckiness? Recruiting into an organization that builds mediocre products gets harder and more expensive, and building a great team becomes next to impossible.

I'm sure there are many other reasons, too - anybody got any?

Friday Humor #2

Friday Humor

Jackie Moon Old Spice Commercials

Gabi Hutter - You'll Be Missed.

Gabi and I talked about skiing together last weekend. I opted to stay in Boulder and enjoy the warm spell on my bike, just for a change of pace.

Then this.

Damnit. Damnit all to hell.

Andreessen Gets Integrity

Marc Andreessen's blog is well known amongst the high-tech entrepreneurial community to be well-written, insightful, and expert.

However, his occasional political posts have been, to put it mildly, sophomoric. (Perhaps they are almost as juvenile as mine).

However, his post this morning does a fantastic job of illustrating why Obama is such a great candidate to lead our country. This has nothing to do with the man's political persuasion; it is just that Obama is (like McCain) a person of great character and integrity, and that these qualities coexist harmoniously with tremendous political and leadership skills.

And we all know how rare this combination is.

(Self-serving egotists clearly are not worthy of being mentioned here.)

Warren Buffet Fan Club - Praise #4343

A student transcribed a recent Buffet talk, and it's well worth reading, even by Buffet standards.

Oh Happy Day!

I noticed that the trees and shrubs around my yard have little nubbins all over them...pretty soon - a week? two? - they'll grow into tiny little leaves and block my view of that icky white crap that blankets the nearby hills...

Spring, it's not just for dreamers any more. It's *this* close!

Ding, Dong, The Witch is Dead!

OK, OK, I'm a bit premature, but I'm so excited that the politics of character assassination are in their death throes that I just couldn't wait until March 5!

This Election: More on Integrity and Moral Courage

Lawrence Lessig has a beautiful piece on the contrasts between Clinton and Obama. It is so well done that not only are the points compelling, but the delivery of the message is compelling in and of itself.

A short summary of the presentation might be that Obama has courage, moral fortitude, and leadership, while Clinton has none. But I urge you to watch the video - it's awesome.

By the way, I think McCain compares with Obama on these character traits. If we were to have an election contest between Obama and McCain, we would, for the first time in memory, have an election between two worthy individuals.

Skiing is fun!

I first skied when I was maybe 5 years old. It has always been one of my favorite things.

I'm on a vacation up here in Whistler, BC. Whistler is my single favorite ski area in the whole world; it really is a remarkable place, in many ways. The mountains are challenging; the vistas are remarkable; the ambiance is dreamy; and the food is superb. I've been fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time up here and know the place well.

The skiing conditions Monday and Tuesday featured fantastic snow but tough weather. I mean really tough: cold, snowing, foggy, and windy. I remember when I was younger that weather didn't really faze me, and if the snow was good, I still had a blast no matter what mother nature was doing. But Monday and Tuesday, I wasn't having a blast on the slopes. Skiing wasn't orgasmic for me like it used to be. I wondered if perhaps I was just "moving on to a new stage in my life".

Today (Wednesday) dawned brilliantly clear. Sadly I had an investor call at 10am, but it was brief and I was on the slopes by 10:30.

To make a long story short, the previous days' inclement weather had kept much of the good terrain closed, so today there was blue sky and 2 feet of untouched freshie all over the place. So, to use the local jargon, today I schrelped. I haven't had this much fun skiing in probably 5 or 6 years. I mean it was epic good, an undeniable 10 out of 10! And, skiing is once again a contender for the love of my life!

Hiking up Spanky's















Looking down Diamond Bowl - 2000 vertical feet of 45 degree yumminess!















For the record, here is a chronological list of my schrelpings:
- Spanky's (Ruby Bowl)
- Spanky's (Diamond Bowl) (with new X-Files actor friend Robert)
- Spanky's (Diamond Bowl) (with Robert)
- Spanky's (Diamond Bowl) (with Robert)
- Spanky's (Diamond Bowl)
- Pakalolo (worst run of the day - it was crusty and windblown)
- Couloir Extreme (surprisingly great snow)
- Pasta with Marinara - rushed! - no time to lose!
- Cougar Chutes (with friends from Calgary)
- Spanky's (Diamond Bowl) (with friends from Calgary)
- Spanky's (Ruby Bowl)
Wow, what fun!

There's a cool map of one of my favorite playgrounds here.

Microsoft vs Yahoo - The Classics Edition

As Rosie Dawn spread her five fingers over my beautiful Colorado sky this morning, I had the great pleasure of reading the muse Petter Jeffery's tale of the great and unfolding legend of Red Mound:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120243357611452417.html?mod=hps_us_editors_picks

Greater battles for our souls careers desktops have ne'er been fought.

Facebook Redemption!

Today, playing around with Facebook, I was posited a surprising question:(click image to enlarge)

A Brief History of the Foreign Policy of Modern US Presidents

This morning I stumbled into an amazing blog post. If you're an enthusiastic student of history, like I am, take the 5 minutes to read about the ending of the cold war, and the roles of Carter, Reagan, and Clinton.

Carter, while arguably the greatest man of the the three, was likely the worst president. Clinton presided over a booming domestic economy, but was entirely absent in foreign policy (perhaps causing his popularity) . Reagan, while ridiculed by most Europeans as a hawkish warmonger, actually played a major role in ending the cold war and liberating eastern Europe with minimal casualties to the West.

I've just finished reading Charlie Wilson's War and this too is an integral component of this story and is a highly recommended read.

Current history is fascinating. Are we transitioning from Cold War to American hegemony to a "Post-Edwardian" US role in the world all in the space of a few decades?

Got Integrity?

OK, so we're probably all fed up with politics these days, and of course we all know that the US process is just getting started.

As I think about who I'll vote for, I realize that my own most important criteria in an elected official is my perception of a candidate's integrity.

I recognize that "political integrity" is an oxymoron, so don't jump on me for being naive and idealistic.

I have to say that one candidate is by far and away at the bottom of the charts of integrity, well below even all of the other demagogic candidates. That candidate is Hillary Clinton. It is my view that few people, with the possible exception of Donald Trump, have less integrity than Hillary Clinton.

For starters, check this out:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/01/obama-v-clinton.html

Oh, there's more, much more...perhaps this topic will come up again in the future?

Wisdom of the Day #2

Success is driven by vision and conviction and not by following directions.
- Furqan Nazeeri, in summarizing what he learned about a characteristic of successful CEO's.

Wisdom of the Day #1

An oldie but a goodie:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

- Adam Smith

Things To Learn From a Dog

• Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride (teenagers excepted).
• Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
• When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
• When it's in your best interest, practice obedience.
• Let others know when they've invaded your territory.
• Take naps and stretch before rising.
• Run, romp and play daily.
• Eat with gusto and enthusiasm.
• Be loyal.
• Never pretend to be something you're not.
• If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
• When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.
• Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
• Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
• On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.
• When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
• No matter how often you're scolded, don't buy into the guilt thing and pout ... run right back and make friends.
• Bond with your pack.
• Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.

- Author unknown; from The Colorado Daily 1/9/2008

Microsoft…hanging by an email client?

Microsoft is, and has been for a decade, the owner of the world’s most valuable monopoly. They have a market cap of $375B, resulting from FY2007 revenues in excess of $51B (with approximately $15B of that coming from windows, and $16B of that from Office), all at a gross margin exceeding 80%. Given these tremendous resources, it is surprising, to say the least, that Microsoft’s software quality is bordering on intolerable. In my circle of high-tech friends and colleagues, there is general exasperation arising from the user experience of Microsoft’s latest software:

• Vista, while prettier than XP, is not any more usable or productive. Yet is a resource hog (some analysis shows that it only runs 1/3 as fast as XP), it still has bugs, and, annoyingly, it seems to be endlessly patching/upgrading itself.
  
• Office 2007, like Vista, seems to have no substantial improvements from Office 2003. (The Groove product is, I think, the sole exception – more on that in a future post). The most noticeable “improvement” to the new version, the so called Office “ribbon”, is not very popular, as many find it more difficult to use than its predecessor. Outlook too remains nearly unchanged from the 2003 version.
• Microsoft’s browser, Internet Explorer, is a dinosaur that constantly fails in its struggle to keep up to date. Every sophisticated user I know has abandoned Internet Explorer in favor of Firefox. Firefox is an arguably better user experience; it has an architecture allowing for the easier development of superior plug-ins, and accordingly has a larger library of superior plug-ins. Firefox is, amazingly, an open-source product. How can an open source solution outperform a product with massively greater resources behind it? How can Firefox be noticeably more stable than IE, when IE is developed in an environment with full access to proprietary information about the underlying operating system? Yet it’s so, and widely known to be so.
  

The upshot from the recent Microsoft user experience is that longtime Microsoft users are actively seeking ways to dump Microsoft because of the perception that there are other, better solutions to their software needs. In the decades-old Apple/Microsoft rivalry, it seems that, now, for the first time, even long-time Microsoft devotees are trying to find ways to defect.

Here’s the thing that’s even more amazing than Microsoft’s bumbling execution: perhaps the single biggest thing (beyond the many switching costs that do exist) that seems to be preventing abandonment of Microsoft in the business world is the functionality provided by the combination of Outlook and Microsoft Exchange. Exchange is the de facto collaboration platform in the business world. By market share, it has no close competition. And, there is no non-windows client that works as well with Exchange as Outlook. So, if you want Exchange – and every business does – then you want to run Outlook as well, and then you’re forced onto the Windows platform, which in turn means you’ll buy Office.

Think on it: $30B of annual revenue from Windows and Office software, at an 80% margin, is dependent on the fact that there is no good non-windows email client for Exchange.

Any guesses on how long this will last?

How badly must Apple want Microsoft to port an Outlook to their platform, and how badly does Microsoft want to delay this? Why doesn’t some enterprising entrepreneur develop an adequate email/Exchange client? Why doesn’t Apple develop their own email/Exchange client?

PS – Please help me make even more money off of Microsoft’s poor execution by driving up the price of long-term MSFT puts, which I’ve already bought.