Some Thoughts On Sandy

I wanted to take a moment to thank my family, friends, employer, colleagues and staff in my building for their concern and offers of support in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. I was very lucky in that I live in the Flatiron neighborhood of Manhattan and was far away from the flooding; though I lost power, running water and sanitation in my apartment and office. I was able to get out of the city on one of the few buses leaving town yesterday afternoon and am now safe and sound in Boston.

Having no power and being forced to conserve my cell phone battery gave me lots of time to reflect on the events of the last few days. I thought I’d post some of my thoughts here:

1. Serious weather events really are local. You don’t truly appreciate the carnage and impact on those affected until you see it up close.
2. It really, really troubled me that NYC’s 911 system was receiving 10,000 calls every 30 minutes following the power outage: 1.) because there are so many morons calling 911 for non-emergencies and 2.) because there isn't any effective way to triage those 911 calls so people with life and death emergencies had to wait on hold. I've been thinking about ways that those calls could be triaged and I think there’s a good startup opportunity here – given the vast amount of information that our cell phone and email providers have on us there should be some intelligent (and profitable) ways to solve this problem.
3. Just after the power went out in New York, police cars turned on their blue flashing lights and slowly circled around the impacted streets. I saw a police car go by my apartment literally every three or four minutes. This was a smart move to give people a safe feeling and I’m sure it reduced any potential looting or other crime.
4. Twitter is incredibly useful during a crisis.
5. For the most part, people don’t need to evacuate their homes to avoid the hurricane itself, they need to evacuate to avoid the miserable days following the hurricane when they’re stuck in their wet home with no power, running water, sanitation or cell phone coverage. I think a lot of people miss that point.
6. Mayor Bloomberg did the right thing by asking President Obama not to come into New York City. The police resources that would've been required to facilitate his visit had much more important things to do.
7. Mayor Bloomberg sent the wrong message by ringing the opening bell at the NYSE that the city was up and running and open for business. People from all over the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut areas hopped in their cars and drove into a city that was just at the beginning stages of a recovery and caused massive gridlock.  New York City should not be open for business when the entire subway system is down.
8. Walking around Manhattan at night when the lights are out is really surreal.
9. It’ll be interesting to see the impact Sandy has on the Presidential election. If people see the federal government making a positive impact it should help President Obama but if things still look bad on Tuesday it might help Governor Romney.
10. Weather events like this are likely going to be much more commonplace going forward. I’ll save the climate change discussion and the role of government for another post. But citizens should use Sandy as an example of the importance of being ready when a disaster hits. Having an escape plan and an ample supply of non-perishable food, water, rain gear, flashlights, battery-powered radios and back up cell phone batteries is critical for everyone. Because even in a city of eight million people with all the conveniences that could be imagined, you just might find yourself on your own.

Finally, here are some helpful tips from FEMA on how to help the victims of the storm.

Image via Nameen.

You're Not Special

Here's my favorite excerpt from David McCullough Jr.'s highly publicized commencement address at this year's Wellesley High School graduation.  It's about time educators starting sending this message...read the entire speech if you get a chance.

Contrary to what your u9 soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia, no matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you… you’re nothing special.

Yes, you've been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble-wrapped. Yes, capable adults with other things to do have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you again. You’ve been nudged, cajoled, wheedled and implored. You’ve been feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie. Yes, you have. And, certainly, we’ve been to your games, your plays, your recitals, your science fairs.  Absolutely, smiles ignite when you walk into a room, and hundreds gasp with delight at your every tweet. Why, maybe you’ve even had your picture in the Townsman! And now you’ve conquered high school… and, indisputably, here we all have gathered for you, the pride and joy of this fine community, the first to emerge from that magnificent new building…

But do not get the idea you’re anything special.  Because you’re not.

Where I Get My News - 2012

Growing up my parents were news junkies. As a result, I sort of pride myself on knowing what’s going on in the world. The other day I was asked where I get my news and it took me a while to answer the question. So I thought I’d think about it and lay out the answer in a blog post. I’ll try to order these sources from most consumption to least consumption. Here goes. Blogs. Currently I follow 52 blogs and I read them daily. The topics include business, technology, sports, current events and healthcare. Most of the blogs are written by individuals, but I do follow the What’s News section of the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker and Techmeme which aggregate posts from a wide variety of writers and sources. I use Google Reader to manage the blog feeds on my desktop and the Reeder App to view them on my iPhone and iPad.

Twitter. I follow about 200 people on Twitter. I get a ton of news from individual Tweets as well as links to other content that I’m interested in that gets Tweeted. I follow a variety of news outlets, bloggers, traditional writers, businesspeople, athletes and musicians.

Podcasts. I follow 14 podcasts. My most listened to podcasts in order are a variety of shows on WEEI (Boston’s sports radio station), the Adam Carolla Show, This American Life (NPR) and the B.S. Report (Bill Simmons).

Television. I watch far less TV than I used to. I watch Meet the Press and 60 Minutes every week without fail. And I sporadically and somewhat infrequently catch parts of the local broadcast news and national cable news.

Newspapers. Because I'm from Boston I read the online version of the Boston Globe virtually every single day. Living in New York, on a rare, rare occasion I will pick up a copy of the Times, the Post or the Daily News.

Magazines. I subscribe to hard copies of Men’s Health and Outside Magazine. With some regularity I’ll download the New Yorker, the Atlantic or the Economist onto my iPad.

Other Social Media. Occasionally I’ll find a link to an article posted by a friend or connection on Facebook or LinkedIn.

Kindle. I got my first Kindle back in March. I love it. But so far I haven’t used it for anything other than reading books, though I plan to use it to read newspapers and magazines when I get around to it. Currently I’m reading Great by Choice by Jim Collins and Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote. Both are great.

So there’s my somewhat organized list of where I get my news. It’ll be interesting to see how this changes over the next few years.

Where the Magic Happens

Very true.  Via Bijan Sabet.

The Facebook IPO

Facebook is set to go public today at a $100 billion dollar valuation.  For context, General Electric is worth about $199 billion.

GE was founded by Thomas Edison in 1890, has more than 300,000 employees and is a market leader in appliances, aviation, consumer electronics, electrical distribution, energy, finance, healthcare, lighting, oil & gas, rail, software & services and water treatment.

Facebook was founded in 2003, has about 4,000 employees and is a market leader in, well, display advertisting.  

It's official.  The world has changed. 

Two Posts Worth Reading

Seth Godin had two great posts last week with two simple lessons worth remembering.  Both posts are super short, I recommend checking them out.

The first points out that success comes not just from working hard, but from working on the right things.  Often, knowing what not to do is harder than knowing what to do.

The second discusses the balance between knowing a lot about one little thing but also knowing a little about a lot.  Both are crucial.

Random Insights

Here are some somewhat random insights that I picked up this week...

There’s no such thing as the “Internet Bubble”.  Yes, the stock market went way up and way down.  But if you look at internet traffic over the last 20 years, you’d have no idea when the bubble occurred.  Internet traffic has increased steadily.

Large companies that are working with small companies prefer that any disputes that arise go to arbitration, as opposed to the courts.  Reason: the general public is far more sympathetic to the underdog than a third party arbitrator.  The arbitrator must go by the book and has a reputation of fairness to build and uphold.  Big companies will push to have arbitration in their agreements with startups.

When betting on a startup, there are 3 things that matter: 1.) people 2.) a huge commitment to be successful from the management team and 3.) a large market opportunity.  If those things are in place, nothing else matters -- the plan, the product, the pitch, the competition, all of that will change pretty quickly anyway.

25% of Groupon’s revenue comes from health care related daily deals.

Sleep

Bill Maher made a great point the other night on his show.  He pointed out that that it seems that when relatively young celebrity deaths are drug related, it's most often partially caused by some kind of "downer", i.e. sleeping pills.  Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger; all of them died from complications related to sleeping pills.  I looked back a few years.  Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Jimi Hendrix -- same thing.  The list goes on and on.

Celebrities with lots of fame and fortune are able to control nearly everything in their lives; what they eat, where they live, when they work, who they spend time with.  They control everything.  Except one thing: sleep.  

So it's not hard to understand why celebrities turn to pharmaceuticals to put themselves in control of the one thing in their lives that can't be controlled.

This is a scary reality, particularly as sleep aids such as Ambien and Lunesta are becoming more and more popular and readily available.  And it's not just celebrities that are trying to control their sleep.  These drugs are becoming a normal part of lots of people's lives.  The Today Show recently reported that 30% of women use some kind of artificial sleep aid.

One major danger associated with these "downers" is that users build up a tolerance and quickly need more and more of the drug to experience the same effect.  So even if the drug isn't technically addictive, the users become addicted anyway and have to ingest more and more to get to sleep.  So the use of these drugs can turn a minor sleep problem into a serious sleep problem.  Combine the use of these drugs with more common sleep aids -- alcohol or over the counter products -- and they can cause serious health problems.  They can quickly depress brain function and the central nervous system leading to unconsciousness, respiratory failure and death.  

I'm obviously not a physician.  And I recognize that when used properly sleep aids can impact people very positively, and they're probably very appropriate for patients with more serious sleep issues.  But sleeplessness is not caused by a lack of Ambien or any other drug.  It's caused by other factors.  Treating those factors, rather than covering them up with pharmaceuticals seems like the best bet to me. 

The best advice I've ever been given to cure sleeplessness is to simply stop trying to sleep.  Get up, read a book, write something, clean your kitchen.  Distract yourself from the thought of sleep and your body will most often get you back to bed when it's ready.  In the short term, this approach may lead to some sleepless nights and yes you'll have to give up some control.  But it's far safer than the artificial approach that seems to be taking so many celebrities before their time.

So True

Saw this comment under Chris Dixon's post, The enterprise: buyers versus users.  His comment was in response to a commenter's theory that SAP is a mess internally. So true.

Thanksgiving

It's very difficult to keep perspective on how lucky we truly are on a day to day basis.  But Thanksgiving is a good day to stop and take a step back and consider all that we have to be thankful for.

If you have access to clean drinking water, an income of more than $4,000 per year and a college degree, you're better off -- much better off -- than 94% of the world's population.

I came cross this infographic that gives a bit more perspective.  Lots and lots to be thankful for this year.

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Occupiers and Capitalism

On Sunday I had the chance to check out the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York.  It was a pretty amazing scene.  Check out this blog that’s posting updated photos.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what the protest means and if these people are really onto something, or if this is just the latest rant that will go away when cold weather finally hits the east coast.  

Last night I came across Thomas Friedman’s column titled, There’s Something Happening Here.  In it, Friedman proposes that these protests could be a signal that we’ve reached a tipping point in capitalism, he points out this argument:

…these demonstrations are a sign that the current growth-obsessed capitalist system is reaching its financial and ecological limits. 

Yes, the rich are getting richer and the corporations are making profits — with their executives richly rewarded. But, meanwhile, the people are getting worse off — drowning in housing debt and/or tuition debt — many who worked hard are unemployed; many who studied hard are unable to get good work; the environment is getting more and more damaged; and people are realizing their kids will be even worse off than they are.  

On the other hand, he looks at it  more optimistically: 

Yes, corporations now have access to more cheap software, robots, automation, labor and genius than ever. So holding a job takes more talent. But the flip side is that individuals —individuals — anywhere can now access the flow to take online courses at Stanford from a village in Africa, to start a new company with customers everywhere or to collaborate with people anywhere. We have more big problems than ever and more problem-solvers than ever.

As we consider these arguments, I think it’s critical to keep in mind economies are cyclical -- we have good times and we have bad times.  And occasionally, economies go through revolutions; in recent history, the U.S. economy has been through the agricultural, industrial and information revolutions – and we’re still in the thick of the last one, and we’re feeling the pain.  

In this most recent revolution, when most pessimists point to the bad news, they point to the unemployment rate.  But here’s an important statistic that often doesn't get talked about: the U.S. unemployment rate is 9%; for those with grad degrees it's 2%, college grads 4.5%, HS grads 9.7%, non-HS grads 15%. 

This data shows us that our economy is going through the painful transition that we’ve experienced in every economic revolution: a mismatch between our growing job sectors and our citizen’s talent (this particular gap is amplified by the housing crash that viciously eliminated scores of jobs for less educated American workers).  

In time, as it always does, the economy will naturally close this gap.  But we can and should do a lot to speed up the process: skilled worker training programs, changes in high school curriculums to include skills the economy needs, increased student loans for growth sectors, increased investment in growth sectors, to name a few solutions.

The “Occupiers” passion is inspiring and it underscores the important problems and real pain our nation is facing.  They have a good message and I’m glad their voices are being heard.  But as the conversation evolves into solutions, I hope it moves away from theoretical discussions on the merits of capitalism and the principles of taxation.  And towards more practical, easy to implement, solutions that get people back to work  in sustainable jobs that keep America competitive now and into the next revolution.

Brown M&Ms

I've always loved the story of the brown M&Ms and Van Halen.  Chris Dixon posted it on his blog this morning and I thought I would do the same.

The background is that in every contract with every venue they would play in they required the venue to have a bowl of M&M's backstage with all of the brown ones removed.  From Chris' blog. 

That way, the band could simply enter the arena and look for a bowl of M&Ms in the backstage area. No brown M&Ms? Someone read the contract fully, so there were probably no major mistakes with the equipment. A bowl of M&Ms with the brown candies? No bowl of M&Ms at all? Stop everyone and check every single thing, because someone didn’t bother to read the contract. Roth himself said:

“So, when I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl . . . well, line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error. They didn’t read the contract. Guaranteed you’d run into a problem. Sometimes it would threaten to just destroy the whole show. Something like, literally, life-threatening."