I used to clean houses when I was in high school.

In high school, I ran a little company called H+M Services that did household chores. I’d employ my high school friends for many of the jobs (I took a 10% fee of what they made) and I took the really high paying jobs for myself. Those were often the housecleaning and lawn-mowing jobs (they pay really well).

When is was 16, I cleaned one guy’s house in Harrison NY. He had a condo and he was a really nice guy. He bought and sold Hollywood scripts and gave me a lot of business advice. He trusted me … gave me the keys to his home, and would usually leave a $20 tip — big money for a high school student.

One day I was his condo cleaning while I was tossing one of his paperweights in the air and catching it. Then … all of a sudden … I missed the paperweight and it went crashing through the dry-wall. I was shocked. There was a big hole in the wall.

Rather than leaving a note for the owner telling him what I had done (this was before the ubiquity of cell phones and email), I rearranged his furniture to cover up the hole thinking he might not notice. When he called me later that night asking for an explanation, I pretended that I did not see the hole and that it must have already been there. It was a horribly lame lie.

While I did not lose the customer, he never trusted me anymore. And I never got the tip anymore. And I never got the business advice or career help. I devolved to hired help … that was all.

This is one of the many incidents that I regret. If I had to do it all over again, I wish I had left a note, left the money from that job, and proactively calling the homeowner to see if I can help more.

I went to an event the other night that cost $32 to attend, $24 if you bought your tickets early.

Now I was 95% sure I was going to attend, so in theory it would make economic sense for me to by my ticket early. I would have saved $8 if I bought the ticket early and since I was only 5% unlikely to go, my expected loss if buying a ticket early was only $1.20 (much less than the eight dollars).

But I elected to buy my tickets at the door. Why?

First, a few stipulations:
1. there was a 100% that this particular event would not sell out. so unlike most events where I feel compelled to buy my tickets early (like a Robin Williams comedy performance), I knew I could get tickets at the door.

2. I had inside information. I had been to this event in years past and I figured it would be run in a similar way.

So here’s why I chose to get my tickets at the door: Time.

– Buying the tickets online takes time. In this case, it takes quite a but of time as their web site is somewhat clunky.

– now usually buying the tickets ahead of time allows you to save time later. Not in this case. I assumed (it turned out correctly) that vast majority of people would be buying tickets a ahead of time and that their name was on a list. That means there would be a long line for people waiting to get their name checked off the list (it turns out the line was about 20 minutes long). The line to buy tickets, by contrast, would be really small (it turns out the line had zero people on it and I would right up, gave them $32 in cash, and walked right into the event).

So — in this case my calculation was — would I be willing to pay $6.80 ($8.00 – $1.20) to skip standing on line for 20 minutes in the freezing cold. To me, $6.80 was a real bargain.

In the future, the event could do a much better job of getting people to pay early by (1) making their web sign-up faster, (2) making the pre-pay line go faster, and (3) by charging more for people that pay at the door.

what is the purpose of money?

To me the purpose is the increase life, decrease pain, increase happiness, and help others.

One easy way to increase your happiness is to decrease your pain points. Think of all the things you’ve been complaining about and see how to can eliminate them. Like if your friend is always late and it really annoys you, buy your friend a reminder service.

I have a bunch of friends that have made some money that are always complaining about time. They feel they don’t have time to do this or that. They don’t have enough time to read (they say). They don’t have enough time to work on a cool project. They don’t have enough time to play with their kids.

But you can buy time.

Need an extra two hours a day? Buy it.

Time isn’t cheap. But if you can afford it and it is your biggest pain point … then buy some time.

Some people invest their excess cash in a really nice car or a really nice watch. Or they throw a huge birthday party for themselves. Now these are all fine things … but they don’t solve most people’s pain points.

With my extra cash, I buy time. I drive a normal Toyota and have a $10 watch, but I have a personal assistant. For years (when I was at Stonebrick) she worked out of my home. Now that I’m at Rapleaf full-time, she helps out with things occasionally. And she is REALLY helpful.

So I bought time.

Yep. Paid for time. How much is time worth to you? If you say you’re worth $300/hr because that’s what you make in the office, then a free hour where you can do anything you want is worth more than $300. because you can do anything you want in that hour. Anything. So you should be willing to pay at least $300 for someone to do a chore you were going to do so it frees up your time so you can do something else.

And if it costs less than $300, then you should assume that you got a steal. A real steal.

Time is very valuable. But you can buy it.

what is the greatest threat to mankind???

Great question.

So I thought about it .. What is my answer to what is the greatest threat to mankind?

I think it might be people’s lack of thinking for oneself.

Bad things happen when people don’t think for themselves. When people outsource their thinking to others, genocide happens.

There is a school of thought that most people CAN’T think for themselves and that the masses should be governed be the elites. Not only do I think that is wrong but that line of thinking is also extremely dangerous. Because once you convince people they shouldn’t think for themselves and they should think what you think … then that person is very susceptible to be easily influenced by others. Cults are generally not good … even cool Silicon Valley cults (like Google) can have their drawbacks.

When people think for themselves they need to take the first step and assume that they might be wrong and that some of their prejudices might be wrong. For thinking for oneself means evaluating the data available and coming to a conclusion. One could still reach a very bad conclusion … but one has a much better chance of helping themselves and helping society of they just think.

This is a post of things I like. Very simple … I like these things:

Mike and Ike’s are absolutely yummy. They could be my favorite candy. Hot Tamales, Mike’s distant cousin, are great too.

Alf is cool. I love Alf. I know … weird … he wants to eat cats.

Favorite movies are Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Field of Dreams. Yeah, i know, they’re both sappy. I like sappy films. So sue me.

Malcolm Gladwell is super-interesting. So is Dan Gilbert. So is Dialog.

I like pasta, Thai noodles, chow mien, and anything noodlely. Yeah, starch and carbs are good.

I like my scuba writing tablet. But I don’t scuba-dive. I often get my best ideas in the shower and I use my scuba tablet to write them down. i get great ideas in the morning. not at night while going to bed like many of my friends.

I like living close enough to work to walk (7 blocks). I love that of the 6 other people I work with, 4 of them live even closer to work than I do.

I like reading about psychology. I like meeting other people that like reading about psychology.

I love dinner parties … especially those where the entire table is engaged in one conversation … and especially if the conversation is about something substantial.

I talk to strangers … a lot. But I also love to be anonymous.

I love my job. I love going to work and working.

I rarely “exercise” … but I twirl people on the dance floor. and I’d never give up my weekly soccer games.

I like people who think they might be wrong.

The paradox of living longer

Peter Thiel said something very interesting to me the other day … he said people think they are going to live forever but they live like they are going to die tomorrow.

What a paradox.

People think they are going to live a very long time … and their right. But most people are borrowing from their future self to live in the now. They’re unprepared for the future and their not calculating their odds correctly.

Thiel points out that most people are severely undercounting how long they will live. And if you want a good investment strategy, you should go long on people’s life and short people who think they will die soon. Thiel points out that the most successful investor of our age, Warren Buffett, is doing just that. Buffett has loaded up on life insurance companies … which do very well if people live longer and don’t calculate their odds of dying correctly.

My friend Angie Schiavoni observed to me recently that women carry a lot less cash than men. She rarely has over $10. this rang true a few weeks ago when I was sitting next to a woman on the plane and she did not even have the $5 cash to buy a meal on the plane.

Maybe it is the fear of being robbed or of spending it … but my unscientific survey of a few friends bears the same results.

Of the men I asked the median was about $240. that’s a good deal of cash … and granted, most of the people I asked were fairly well-to-do.

Of the women I asked, the median was about $15. that’s it .. Just $15. not even enough for a cross-town cab ride in SF. Wow. (and these women were, on average, just as well-to-do as the men I asked.) And I don’t think there is a lot of evidence to suggest that women spend less money then men. Do women just prefer to pay by credit card?

And I got a similar response with the question: how often do you go to the ATM? For some men, it was only once every 2-3 weeks. By contrast, most of the women were multiple times per week and one went daily.

Interesting.

For detailed analysis for the differing shopping habits between women and men, I suggest reading Why We Buy by Paco Underhill (great book).

I love talking about entrepreneurship. My most quoted line on the Internet is a quote I once made at a conference off-the-cuff: “my definition of an entrepreneur: someone who steals office supplies from home and bring them to work” (February, 2003)

So given that was 3.5 years ago, I though I should update my definition of entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs are optimists. Optimism is contagious…

Many people think of the glass as half full or half empty. Good managers think of the glass as half full. Strategic consultants think of the glass as a way to quench their thirst (and bill you $400/hour for it). Entrepreneurs do the following:

– first, they get an empty smaller glass. Then they empty the contents of the bigger glass to the smaller glass — making the glass completely full.

– boom! No everyone around them (customers, employees, the public, etc) sees a totally full glass

– then, the entrepreneur constructs a gigantic glass next to the small glass and let’s everyone around her know that in four years, that super-duper-sized glass will be full — and not just full of water — preferably full of a strawberry-banana smoothie that we all can enjoy — mmmmmmmmm

People often say that they have had no regrets in life. That seems rather odd to me.

I can’t think of one day in my entire life that I wouldn’t do at least a little bit differently. It is a rare day that I don’t make a mistake or wish I allocated my time differently.

So to say one has no regrets strikes me as one who does not want to improve. Wishing one did things differently does not mean one isn’t happy … it only means he strives to be better.

As we all can improve, a better question than “do you have any regrets?” would be “would trade you trade your life with anyone else in the world” (I wouldn’t)

you can be extremely happy and extremely grateful for your fortune and place in life … but still would have played out each day of life a little differently. More importantly, by looking back at how we acted in the past, we can strive to do better in the future.

Ever prepare a can of soup on your stove top on a cold and rainy day? of course you have (unless you live on the equator where it is never cold but always rainy … or on the north pole where it is always cold but never rainy) …

Think of the time you prepared one of those high-end cans of soup … the kind (like Chunky, Marie Calendar’s, Wolfgang Puck’s, Progresso) that cost $2-3 a can at the local Safeway (or $8-9 a can at the local Whole Foods). What is the first thing that these cans tell you????? …

“Do not add water”

Yeah. But why do they say that? when you get a can on tuna does it say “do not add water?” nope.

The reason, of course, is Campbell’s. Campbell’s soups have become so ubiquitous that we assume we should add water.

It would make Andy Warhol proud …

How come most real estate agents have pictures of themselves on their business cards?

Does it invoke more trust? Maybe. Probably.

But then why don’t many other professionals do it? Stockbrokers, lawyers, interior decorators, plumbers, and dentists all generally leave their mug off their business cards.

Are real estate agents better looking? is Ron Abta a really good looking guy?

About two and a half years ago I did what every entrepreneur does when taking a break in-between companies … I took a stand-up comedy class.

After years of giving speeches at tech conferences, finance conferences, and staffing conferences where people were evidently laughing at my jokes … I thought I was actually funny.

Turns out comedy is harder than I thought. Yup … really hard.

So I decided to take a class where I wouldn’t know any of the students (easier to fail in front of a bunch of strangers) so I took an artsy class deep in the San Francisco’s Mission District. Sure enough, I knew no one. In fact, of the 12 students, only one other was in technology and one didn’t even use email.

For the class we had to write jokes and perform them. I wrote a long punchy shtick about edamame. I love the name edamame … I think it sounds really funny. Just say it five times in wacky voices … edamame, edamame, edamammeh … you just can’t help but laugh.

But my class did not find it very funny. In fact, pretty much no one laughed (I think one person actually laughed at me). So after the shtick was done I asked the class why I bombed so hard and … and …

No one in the class had ever heard of “edamame”

Now before I took the class I would have never guessed that someone living in San Francisco could not know what edamame is. My guess is that 96% of my friends and family not only know of edamame but they’ve tried the tasty beans and salt. Mmmmm.

But we all live in our own self-made bubble. It is actually not that odd at all that people don’t know what edamame is. Actually, as I sit here and type this, even my Microsoft spell-checker doesn’t know “edamame.” So the crazy engineers at MSFT might not get my jokes either (though I bet they at least order the seaweed salad).

So now you know why all jokes are about relationships, sex, and going to the bathroom. Because these are commonalities that bind us all. We all go through that (unless we’re experiencing extreme constipation).

It is very tough to bring a community together. We see that on the Internet (where communities are often very narrow … like Dogster (people who have dogs and really love dogs). And most diverse communities, like MySpace, are about sex and relationships.

So I sit here … pondering … munching some very tasty edamame