Category: Thoughts
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Corporate Welfare and The Motivated Bureaucrat
A related problem to the green fuzz of government debt-based spending, is the nature of accountability in the government. Here is what happens: the government decides to take on a social project, or perhaps is already owning a certain business (as in the case of socialist governments becoming less so). The argument is that government…
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The Green Fuzz on Government Debt
Ever opened a tupperware in the refrigerator and wondered if something was still good. Then decide you weren’t sure you wanted to eat it now, and put it back in case you decide different later. This process gets repeated several times until nature in the form of green fuzz makes the final decision for you.…
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Changing your Reputation
Crea fama y eschate a dormir Literally, “Create fame and lay down to sleep”. After about 30 minutes of Tea Bog Beet Knee explanations, I finally understood the use of this expression in Spanish and will hopefully be more successful in explaining it here (with fewer words 😀 ). Essentially, once you have created your…
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Frustrating Your Own Goals
When we had a number of guests (19 people in all) over to our home during Thanksgiving this year, I observed a very interesting phenomenon: Our house is made of concrete walls and tile floors. The result is that sound carries quite well. Obviously, with all of the people there were multiple conversations that were…
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Moral Hazard in Startups
If you’ve followed the news regarding the government bailout of large corporations, you’ve probably heard of “Moral Hazard” — a term used to describe that when you mitigate the risk or take away the consequences of bad decisions, those who took the risks to begin with will take even more risks. This concept extends well beyond…
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For Fear of Getting Burned
Everything is in a constant state of flux, except our first impressions. Over the last few years, I can’t tell you how often I have been warned away from some solution or another because someone was burned by it in the past (often times in the distant past). It’s not that past experience should be…
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Preemptive Apologies
We are hiring, bringing the requisite meetings with people to find the one that is a good fit.. Earlier this week, we had breakfast with one such candidate. He was really nice and had a good skill set but it wasn’t a match with what we were looking for. After the breakfast, he sent a…
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Mixed Messages & Uncertainty
My wife and I were walking this evening and we arrived at a light that was completely lit up – Red, Yellow, and Green – all shining brightly. The cross street also had all lights turned on — Red, Yellow, Green Left Arrow, Green Right Arrow. This is the ultimate mixed message. If all the…
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Projecting Your Perception
El ladrón cree que todos son de su condición. This expression in Spanish, literally translates to, “The thief believes that all are of his condition”. In other words, they see everyone else as a thief. Another example would be that a liar believes everyone else is dishonest. This happens to all of us. We believe…
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No Longer Young
Many years ago, as I was starting out in my career, one of my close friends told me “You are no longer young when it doesn’t matter how old or young the people are around you”. In other words, age becomes something that you don’t notice. This was hard for me to understand. Age seemed…