Baldness is Correlated with Success

New post up on Seattle 2.0:

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to have a friend of mine stop by, and actually had five minutes free to go out for a cup of coffee. We got to talking about where we were, and the things that were sucking up all our available bandwidth. He had recently helped sell the startup he was working at to a much larger company, worked the minimum amount of time necessary to finish off his responsibilities and has branched out into a new new thing. It's always interesting to speak to someone who has gone round with the full lifecycle of a company and on to the new one. He reflected on his previous ridiculous hours, and his current ridiculous hours, and the fact that, despite his best efforts, the most meaningless stuff fills up all that time. When I asked him what his solution was to getting actual work done, he responded without skipping a beat, "Find a barber." >>

That’s it… I’m shaving my head.

A Brief Foray Into MLM

More efficiency talk on Seattle 2.0:

What's that you say? You don't work on an hourly rate? Wrong. You absolutely work on an hourly rate, and if you don't treat your job that way, it's a recipe an inefficient work day.  >>

Now if I could only figure out a way for someone to pay me to watch True Blood…

I’m Too Sexy For This Post

New post up on Seattle 2.0:

How sexy are you? Rate yourself how attractive you are to the opposite sex (or same sex for non-traditional folks) - be honest. Now take that number and add/subtract 2 from it. There are many who would suggest that you should not marry anyone outside that range - the experiences you have in life, and the type of person that it makes you, will create too big a rift for you to overcome over time (this does not apply to shorter term relationships). A similar guideline applies when deciding who to work with in your business. >>

It’s HARD WORK looking this good.

Who Cares About Internet Explorer?

Answer: lots and lots of people. New post up on Seattle 2.0 :

[T]he fact is that, even with years of (public) neglect, there were hundreds of millions of desktops which required IE working exactly as IE had always been. And this was the blessing and a curse that underlies where IE is today. >>>

In the world of the Web, where people constantly focus on the new new thing, there are worse places to be than majority having hundreds of millions of users as an installed base.

Quit Fooling Yourself

A new blog post up on Seattle 2.0:

Correlation does not equal causality – especially when it comes to running a successful business. If you have suddenly had a breakthrough, and, finally, are making some money, gaining market share, winning customers – be sure you know WHY or else you're likely to have all your success taken away just as quickly as it was bestowed upon you. More >>>

There is no greater force in the world than self-delusion.

What’d You Really Learn Anyway?

New Blog post up on Seattle 2.0:

It is ironic then that the second time around people will make some of the biggest mistakes themselves. In fact, when you take on your next project, whatever it might be, the WORST thing you can do is spend a ridiculous amount of time and energy trying not to make the mistakes you made the first time around. More >>

Go and learn how being a naive fool may not be as bad as you think.

Envy the Paper Boy

I have a new post out on Seattle 2.0:

Envy the paper boy. When the papers are delivered in the morning, he knows exactly how much work has ahead of him. He knows how long it takes to fold and put a rubber band/plastic bag around each and stuff it in a bag. He knows how much the bag weighs, and where along the journey it’ll be hardest to carry. At the end of their route, he knows when he's done. And when he walks away from his route, he's done for the day, he doesn't have to think about anything work related until the next morning, giving him complete freedom for the day. What white collar worker can say this? We're all tethered to our Blackberries/iPhones/G1s, answering mails, being randomized to the nth degree and working against arbitrary and deadlines every hour of every day – and, more often than not, getting nothing really done. Yes, envy the paperboy. >>

The unquestionably most awesome part of this post was that it gave me the chance to include a screen shot from one of my favorite games of all time – Paperboy:

The game had handlebars for controls … come on! Man that game was cool.

Reagan, the Tax-and-Spend Liberal

Found this particularly funny (thanks TMQ – )

Apparently, marginal tax rate under Reagan was higher than Obama. TMQ’s got it right; it’s borrow and spend that’s the issue – something that’s been true for the last 4 presidents at least.