anatomy of a company (aka how to kill a business)

1. do not understand business model

2. lack of mobile strategy

3. operational inefficiency

4. ignore clients

5. ignore employees

job vs. career vs. calling

job = pay the bills

career = increasingly better work 

calling = important part of your life and identity

source: cal newport

billion dollar lessons - book review

above average

first half of book was interesting, slightly repetitive

second half of the book was more prescriptive, less interesting and more repetitive

don't buy it

monday morning qb - october 13 2014

lions defense looks good

giants look terrible

browns look good

steelers offense is struggling

dolphins blew game against packers with poor situational defense with 20 seconds left to play

chargers defense looked shaky against raiders.
raiders could have won their first game

rams were controlling game against 49ers, 14-3, right before halftime but 49ers scored on a deep pass td before halftime. bad defense by the rams, playing man to man in that situation. changed the game. 49ers took control in the 2nd half.

company valuation and future growth

how do you determine the value of a company?

i asked my friend 

he replied: future growth

my response: 

how do you know how much the company will grow in the future?

who can predict the future?

no one that i know

is it a growth industry?

my response: 

how do you know if something is a growth industry?

can you take market share or invent something new to generate growth?

my response: 

two different things

gaining market share is hard

inventing something people will use or buy is hard

the industry drives the innovation to a degree
does the industry have innovation to offer?
can the innovation make a material difference or just a minor contribution?
my response:
i don't know if industry drives innovation
people innovate, not industry
this is an assumption people will disagree about

in most cases industry have some innovation to offer, most of it minor

iPhones do not grow on trees

neither does innovative thinking

future valuation is based on a lot of optimistic assumptions

technology = scale
future growth depends on technology? sounds reasonable to me