GOTHIC HALLOWEEN

Thoughts on Silicon Valley and the search-based Web 2.0 industry

Pit stop at the 15 month mark of my Silicon Valley race.

Team profile:
Race started July 22, 2004. It was a furious start at a computer hardware startup, BitMicro, which resulted in a vehicular failure at the 4 month mark. I swapped the metaphorical vehicle and crossed over seamlessly, with no time lost to my fellow competitors, to a new team in the life science research instrumentation industry, Alpha Innotech. Continued to plough the tracks with my new racing team till today.

If there is one big change in me, i would say its a mentality shift and fervent embracing of the technology industry, especially the Internet industry. I can still remember myself a year ago involved in a school project to write a business plan for the Entrepreneurship Centre of NUS (my college in Singapore). and thinking that the Centre's focus on technology was unfounded as i was not convinced of its commerical potential and priority over traditional sectors of the economy.

Well, i was wrong, and glad for it. Over the past 15 months, i have come to realize the tremendous technological improvements made in the home of the technology sector here in the Bay Area and how far behind the rest of the world is in catching up with this new wave. If the Industrial Revolution has led to economic and social benefits to the world's civilization, the IT revolution that started with the advent of the PC and now, the Internet era, will continue on that path of technological advancement of our human race.

Now, i have to mention Google. Their stock, for those in the unbeknownst, rose by 10% in after-hours trading last week. Their current stock value have almost quadrupled since their initial offer price of $85 about a year ago. Where does this company get their mojo? Online advertising. It propels an overwhelming majority of their revenues. Why are people so caught up in search? And my personal question is, are Google users really clicking on the ads in such huge numbers to justify this explosion in Google's financials? Or is it a case of click fraud sprouting its ugly head and artifically inflating the numbers?

Whether Google's revenue figures are natural or fraudulent, we cannot discount the immense impact they have and insight into how the world has changed. The eternal quest for information will always be with every one of us. I see Google, or rather search, as the trail blazer of the Internet industry. I stick close to developments of Google, and then the rest of the search industry, such as Yahoo, MSN, and then maybe Ask, (as an afterthought) because i believe search is going to be the platform of many other web applications and services that will either co-exist or displace many other offline businesses in the next 10 years as the technology gap shrinks between the developed and developing economies and societies. Some call this the Web 2.0 industry. The natural economic advantages and characteristics of the Internet will change communication the way we knew it in the past 20 centuries and is a tide we all have to embrace and not reject.

Hear this, Old Media, RIAA and MPAA, for your doom is nigh if you do not embrace the Internet as a new distribution channel of your content.

Impulse to Blog

Just wanted to blog at this very moment. Something that suddenly made a lot of sense to what i am doing now.

What makes a successful entrepreneur:

1. CLEAR VISION of where the company is going.
2. PASSION and genuine desire to create amazing products/ services.
3. MAKE DIFFERENCE --> A strong personal conviction that one's product/ service will so so in the customers' lives.

I actually got the above 3 points off Evan Williams' blog . Naveen had been the original content creator. Trying to attribute this to the right person in an attemot to respect copyright laws, ahhaa..

Anubhav shared this with me yesterday from his own personal experience.

My main learnings from them were:
(1) Make sure your dynamic in the people is AWSOME
(2) Talk to the End-Users and confirm viability of your plan.

These are common sense, but these were my prime mistakes in my first attempt.

All this sounds regurgitative from what i had read and read on all mgmt books everywhere. But they make a lot of sense suddenly.

I am ENTP

A result from the Myers-Briggs Test. I am doing this for the 2nd time since i forgot what personality type i was when i did it the first time during this Stanford GEL class i took last year.

Extraverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Perceiving

"Clever describes ENTPs best. They deal imaginatively with social relationships as well as physical and mechanical relationships. They are alert to what is apt to occur next, and sensitive to possibilities. ENTPs are the engineers of human relationships and human systems.

Verbally as well as cerebrally quick, ENTPs enjoy arguing: for its own sake, and to show off their impressive verbal skills. They often have a perverse sense of humour, and play devil's advocate regardless of consequence. They sometimes confuse, even hurt, those who cannot understand the concept of argument as a sport.

Innovative and ingenious at problem-solving, they sometimes manage to outsmart themselves. ENTPs have been known to cut corners without regard to the rules if it's expedient - or it might be the collapse of an over-ambitious juggling act.

ENTPs are optimists. They tend to regard problems as personal challenges, and have little patience with those they consider wrong or unintelligent. However, they are often extremely genial and quite charming, when not being harassed by life in general.

Good at analysis, especially functional analysis, ENTPs have a tolerance for, and enjoyment of the complex. Enthusiastic, ENTPs are apt to express interest in everything, and thus unwittingly inspire others who find themselves caught up in an ENTP idea. The ENTP is the most reluctant of all types to do things in a traditional manner.

Non-conformists, ENTPs enjoy outwitting the system and use rules and regulations within the system to win the game - whatever it may be. ENTPs are good at innovative projects and can administer them well if dull routine is not involved. For ENTPs to be manipulated by another is humiliating.

During youth, the ENTP may be diagnosed with a variety of ailments and conditions which often emerge as a lack of intellectual engagement. Boredom is the bane of the junior ENTP. Generally immature until their late 30s or early 40s, the young ENTP is a socially awkward animal since they rarely fit in with the herd, and require 40 years to comprehend why this is and what to do about it.

Great friends or silent adversary; Court jester or Builder of bridges, the ENTP is difficult to overlook."

Quote from Typelogic.com, Copyright Typelogic.Com.
Used with permission.
Check out: Typelogic.com for more great Meyers Briggs information

Here's one for Eerie Coincidences

Not sure how much of this factually correct, will do a Wikipedia fine-tooth comb through it when i get the chance..

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Now it gets really weird.

Lincoln 's secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy's Secretary was named Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.

Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.

Now hang on to your seat.

Lincoln was shot at the theater named 'Ford.'
Kennedy was shot in a car called ' Lincoln' made by 'Ford.'

Lincoln was shot in a theater and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse.
Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his assassin ran and hid in a theater.

Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

And here's the kicker...

A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with (in?) Marilyn Monroe.