goblgobl

I found this incredibly helpful. Could you list any additional resources for CBT and positive thinking you might have? I have some other question if you don't mind, my email is in my profile.

There's a good mix of iterative changes and structural changes. I think the structural ones (that don't deal with aesthetics) are the most interesting.

One trick I like to do is stand a few feet back from the monitor/LCD, and try to, in 3-5 seconds, figure out what I'm looking at. I think its a good trick because you'll realize where your eyes go to first (smaller text/details usually gets blurry), and the time interval will tell you what you're communicating clearly.

When you compare the first version in the video with the last using this trick, there's a huge difference.

The 2009 version has an overwhelming amount of detail, with an ambiguous "Change your Business"/"Change the way you work" title. A lot of information is crammed in the first frame (company history, latest news, etc). The 2011 version is remarkably clearer: The two large texts explain the product offerings and that they are kind of a big deal (social proof) - both keys to selling. The rest of the information is prioritized descendingly. "Style" (what people most typical mean when they say design) has been minimized.

Another company's website that is great with this (standing back/first thing that pops in your head) is, suprise, surpise... apple.com

Is it a lack of coverage or just strategically staying under the radar?

I think the lopsided press coverage of VC-backed vs. bootstrapped makes sense when you think about the incentives: VCs are focused on liquidity events (acquisition, IPO), so their startups might aim to be in the tech press and divulge details about revenue, growth, etc in an effort to pump up their valuations.

If you run a profitable bootstrapped company and you are reaching your customers, why speak to the tech press and discuss your financials? It would attract competition and I can't think of any upside.

Yeah, that could be confusing - I updated the post.

It's an amazing quote.

Also, I can imagine if someone is extremely talented/gifted in one domain, its extremely alluring to measure the world against that attribute. It can be self-affirming 95% of the time, because you're better than most people. But the other side of that coin is the 5% who are better than you, make you question your talents and create insecurity.

I find this happens when 1. we fruitlessly compare ourselves to others, and 2. 'worship' smartness. I'm reminded of a quote from David Foster Wallace's commencement speech:

Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already -- it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power -- you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart -- you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

edit: changed DFW to David Foster Wallace.

Sounds amazing. Jobs is such a remarkable business figure, but I often wonder if people like him are rare, or if people like him are rarely given positions at the top of companies?

Depending on who you ask, people will tell you companies should be run by either MBA types or engineers. Jobs doesn't seem to fit either of these archetypes. Of all the big tech execs, he has to be the strongest systems thinker.

I think outside of the business success and technological innovation at Apple, one of Jobs largest contributions has been to bring the 'design process' to the center of management. Engineering has great models for problem solving, as does management theory, but design thinking is often the most overlooked. Its not given enough credit. Often when people talk about design they are really talking about aesthetics. When Jobs talks about design, he's talking about process. Hope the book sheds light on this.

You actually don't "have to" do any of that. If you don't wake up early tomorrow or take your kids to school, you will not be hauled off to jail and the world will still go on.

What you're really doing, if you stop and think about it, is making a deliberate choice - between the cost/benefit of sleeping in and taking it easy, and the cost/benefit of employment/income/future of your children. You may not think of it as a choice, but it is. Plenty of people decide its not worth it, and don't take their kids to school or hold a job. For you, the inconvenience of your morning is offset by the value of a more secure future.

So when you say you "have to" do these things, that's false. I wouldn't even call it "pushing" yourself. You actually want to do it, because you value it on some level. The fact that its not pleasurable or emotionally exciting doesn't even enter into the equation of deciding.

There could be many reasons we're seeing a rise in the number of incubators, principally the cost of technology startups are falling (makes sense from a diversification standpoint to invest the same $$$ in 10 companies that you would in one) and as a investor/mentor you stand to reduce your capital risk if you have some say in the early stages of product development.

Investing in early stage is cheaper and riskier. Investing in later stages (when a company has traction/growth - VC/PE stages) becomes more expensive, but is less riskier. The incubator model has the advantage of managing some of that early stage risk that angel investors traditionally didn't control by having experienced entrepreneurs on-board/within a network and in a collegial environment.

Any successful model will attract competitors, so you now have more incubators. He's equating the rise in incubators as a sign of a bubble. It would only be a bubble if you had tons of incubators sitting on cash and not finding any place to invest it. His second mistake is equating failed incubators, that result from poor investment decisions/leadership, with some kind of market correction ("the bubble bursts").

That is precisely why people in this thread repeatedly emphasize its an entertainment show first, car show second.

There is a story arc for the show and car reviews. Nissan may have a well designed system to limit blackouts, but in this case it didn't play well with the entertainment/comedic elements of the show.

Honestly, do you think this is playing to the facts? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrZy87TmDcs

Do you think afterwards they should mention it wasn't real?

They have a narrative, and entertainment/comedy takes priority over car reviews. It only seems to ruffle the feathers of electric car/environmental group - and I posit it has little to do with "presenting the facts" (where is their outrage about the claim that the stig can blink horizontally or is non-human?) and all to do with advancing their agenda.

Sorry, but electric cars are not infallible. There are some real issues involved with using them, and people are getting upset because a entertainment show about cars is poking fun at those issues in an exaggerated way.

All this sharpening of the pitchforks over ethics/editorial guidelines/facts is just a red herring to debase a TV show that isn't going to march in lockstep with a car manufacturer's marketing literature, or support the environmentalist's point of view that electric cars are utopia.

Do note this article is in the environmental section of the guardian. Top Gear bashes all cars of all types. They can be downright offensive (there was a somewhat tasteless joke about mexican cars a while back), but when it comes to electric cars, for some reason there is this clamoring for facts/journalistic integrity, etc in the media. These people don't really care for the show, they just care how electric cars are being portrayed in the media.

Top Gear is an entertainment show with cars as the backdrop. Just like Daily show is a comedy show with political clips.

If you want a car review show, take a look at Motor Week.

I think these claims of "faking" are ridiculous when you have episodes where cast members "die" (top gear apocalypse), and characteristics are emphasized for comedic effect (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh56geU0X8).

This article claims because of Top Gear's antics, the public is being misinformed about the benefits of electric cars. It completely misses the point that 1. it is not a car review show, and 2. there is a major poetical component of the show that celebrates automotive history. They like exciting cars and bash boring uninspired ones (except if its remarkably boring). Their reviews emphasize a car's essence, not necessarily a list of facts.

I think this view is coming from a place that has a vested interest in electric cars, and not anyone who really watches the show. Otherwise they'd be attacking all the claims ("Some Say") made about The Stig.

Grades have this affect because they become psychologically tied to your self-worth. Where does it start? I don't think small children care or are even aware of the significance of having good grades (what 5-8yr old is gunning for Harvard?), but they can certainly sense which end of the spectrum is desirable if they seek to maximize love, affection, and acceptance from adults and peers.

You take the organic process of knowledge acquisition and now you've added game mechanics to it. For children the prize is acceptance, and for college students its social status, employment prospects, and respect. Now you have scores and outcomes, and critically, the outcomes do not have to be tied to any intrinsic motivation for the thing you are trying to learn.

So children might do things not because they're interested in them, but because it makes them look smart. People will chase lucrative jobs in fields they don't particularly care for, or want to join particular institutions just for the prestige, and a wide range of other behavior thats driven by rewards of performance and not of one's real interests. Learning for learnings sake takes a back seat to all of this.

My point was the author's claim that the top of the top 1% is "involved in the financial services industry" is meaningless because of how he defines it. The only people who don't fit his description would be salaried employees.

To address your points - you're ignoring the difference in financial goals and economies of scale.

Joe is an employee. So his goal is to preserve the capital he earns, which is a service the retail bank offers. He earns a paltry interest on his money because 1. the bank lends his cash out very conservatively, and 2. he's not paying for the service of having it actively managed by a professional.

Rich people can not only afford professional money management, but very wealthy ones typical have access to higher quality investment vehicles than less wealthy rich. And since they have more capital (that they don't need) than Joe does, they tend to tolerate more risks. They also tend to get the rewards of that risk when its professionally managed.

At that scale of money, investment can have positive externalities. The capital invested in Facebook, Google, Apple, etc directly helped create jobs and expand the technology sector. Joe's money did comparatively little. Both are rewarded for their proportional economic impact. Capital gains is an incentive to keep rich people from parking their cash at a retail bank. Whether it works 100% effectively is definitely up for debate. But the general idea is that their cash can be deployed in a way that not only makes the rich richer, but the rest of society as well.

She sold her stock, which represented ownership of a business.

If Mark Zuckerberg sold all his "stock" in Facebook, that doesn't mean he made his money from the financial services industry.

The majority of wealthy people are wealthy by equity (ownership of a business), not from annual income. If the author used traders as an example of people making money on stocks, that would be an argument more inline with his thesis.

The way he defines being involved with the finance sector, of course the majority of wealthy people (business owners) will have touched the financial services industry - the same way the average joe a touches retail bank.

Any advice for a 24yr old trying to work in high performance computing?

Decided about a year ago to switch careers, and I've been getting familiar w/ a few low level languages (C, C++, Java), and working my way through a few books like SICP, Cormen's and Skiena's algorithms books, Code Complete, etc.

The OP seems to have landed an internship already, whereas I have been failing miserably at this. I've been cold emailing companies, applying for internships, etc. I've written a few basic beginner type programs, nothing large scale or real world yet.

I have a ways to go, but it sure would be nice to have some sort of mentoring and/or get involved with real projects of some kind. I'm doing great self-teaching, but there's obviously value in working with more experienced developers. I know having code to show is important (github, opensource), but what else should I be doing to land that first software job?

I'm pursuing this strategy, except on the financial engineering side.

I started taking upper level coursework at a quant finance program and after a semester quickly realized a few things:

1. learning the material thoroughly wasn't inline with getting an A. And if you don't have the grades, employers won't care about what you know, making your degree useless.

2. the real value of the degree (and what you're paying for) is the credentialing. Not the knowledge or skillset, at least for me. There is no magic or 'secret sauce' that was being transfered from professor to student. Everything could be learned from the textbooks, scientific papers, and doing your own research. An MFE degree is basically a degree in linear algebra and stochastic calculus, sprinkled with financial applications.

3. Another aspect of the futility of an MFE degree is most employers don't care what degree it is, as long as its an advance degree in a hard science discipline. In fact, some firms respect an MS/PhD in CS, math, or statistics over MFE's. That says to me that all these advance degrees are merely tools to signal that you can work in a highly quantitative environment.

4. There are a few professors in the MFE program I admired, and I found that they were more than willing to speak with me, even if I was no longer a student. Once I demonstrated enough knowledge, interest, and skill, they were more than willing to open up, and talk to me about my goals, plans, and ideas. A few of the even admitted that some of what they teach had no practical applications in the real world, but must be taught in order to confer the degree.

So with a 4.0GPA, I stop taking classes, and started educating myself independently. I have a nice rapport with a few of the professors I admire (some are very accomplished, academically and professionally), and I've also made a few contacts with professional quants online.

So what I have found is, figure out what is important, and try get very good at that. In investments/quant finance, its building an edge. Many people (including me at one point) think the goal is having a 4.0GPA from a top flight school. I'm sure that helps you get in the game, but thats not what keeps you there.

Its much like VC in a way, if your startup is spitting out money, you won't have trouble attracting investments. And if it isn't, you'll have to convince them with your hoop jumping, educational background, degrees, prior success in different ventures, etc etc.

So your choice is to get profitable ASAP, or to play the game of building hype to garner VC attention. This is exactly how I view building real alpha-generating skills vs. getting an MFE degree.

The other thing thats helped is reaching out to practitioners and academics. It isn't as hard as I once thought, with the caveat that you bring something to the table. For me, I was able to demonstrate I had outpaced the students my professors were teaching. I even recommended a textbook that they became impressed with, and have incorporated it into their program.

If your goal is to be where MBA's are when they graduate, figure out what industry you want to be in, and try to get very skilled in that. If its investments, jakarta's post is really helpful. If its business, nothing says you know business like running one successfully. I definitely think the street vendors in NYC know more about business than my consulting/banking/PE friends.

Realize most of these degrees are signaling. They are a pretty lazy way for firms to do their due diligence when hiring. Of course, there are investment firms that hire specific signal processing and speech recognition experts to do things very specific with their academic backgrounds, but those are the minority. Most just want 'smart' people to 'figure things out'.

I'm deciding between MFE/MS programs and starting independently at the moment. Here's what I've sort of cobbled together.

My understanding is that your value to a firm is directly proportional to your ability to generate alpha. Credentials would be useful for securing an entry-level position, but eventually, it is your ability to develop profitable strategies that will secure your position in this industry.

This is such a secretive business, that I doubt academia will be teaching anything other than the fundamentals/theory . As pointed out in the article, MFE employment stats are murky at best. I haven't had much luck getting confident stats. There's only a few of programs that staff actual practitioners, people who, you know, actually made/make money doing this stuff.

One of my concerns with the credential-path is future career growth. Many of the firms that hire from schools place candidates in specific roles that need to be filled. You might get stuck in an area thats not as profitable as other areas of the market. You will also not be exposed to the firm's intellectual property until they've worked you hard and for many years.

Contrast this with the option to start independently. I've spoken with quite a few people who've started out this way. Some have parlayed their experience and performance into jobs/partnerships at the big firms. Others continued to scale and build out their own fund. They all say the same thing, if you can develop profitable strategies, you will find people more than willing to invest in your strategies.

As far as networking, I think the internet is helping that immensely. Quite a few fundamental investors have received job offers or started their own hedge funds from blogging/posting on forums when it became apparent they had an edge. There's always a few headhunters and fund managers hanging around nuclearphynance, and other forums.

There is a higher risk, perhaps, of getting nowhere. But you also have the freedom, and less dogmatic structure to think independently, and the time to learn things thoroughly (vs. in a degree program).

I'd like to hear other's thoughts on this.