Author: Phil Black

about.me/philblack

Repeat Patterns of Success

I cannot take credit for the genesis of this thought (ht Doug Evans).  However, it’s worth talking about.  When it comes to business goals, why would the United States possibly want to emulate China and not Germany?  Do you want millions of poverty like wages for your population?  Or, would you like very high paying jobs for millions of people based on high skilled labor that is adapting to the manufacturing realities in this decade?   Similarly, who in their right mind wants to be in Beijing right now?  Certainly the government cannot expect its people to endure this kind of suffocating air quality, no matter what they say about the business outlook. 

Repeat patterns of success.  Discard those ideas that have proven to be unsuccessful and you will be able to focus on the truly innovative ideas that can get millions of people in the USA with good wages and a good environment.

2012 in review – WordPress stats

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,200 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 4 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Party of “No”

On the eve of the Republican National Convention I am struck by how much we are being told “NO” by the Republican Party.  No to Taxes (new or otherwise, i suppose); No to Immigration reform; No to ANY abortion services; and lastly – No to seeing a presidential candidates prior tax returns, save for the last two years.  I can’t stand it and I can only hope that the Republican Party can be a positive force in the national dialogue someday soon.

Pre-Money Valuation – Does it Matter?

I now have empirical data that the “Valuation doesn’t matter if it’s one of those 10 companies” type of (un) reasoning has invaded the Series A and Seed stage market.  In retrospect, we can all point to those 10 or 15 companies where a $5 million or $50 million pre-money valuation would not have mattered b/c of the billions upon billions of enterprise value that subsequently occured.  The problem, though, is that we never know in the beginning if it is one of those 10 or not and anyone who says otherwise, is delusional or a liar.  So, good luck to those of you who will wildly overpay for a 3 to 10 person start up.  I may be a little old school in my thinking, but i saw and participated in this movie 13 years ago and i promise you it doesn’t end well.

[Compassionate] Conservative

How fitting for President’s Day to write a piece about the presidential election going on in 2012.

Do you remember the 2000 presidential election? The phrase of the campaign for George W Bush was ‘Compassionate Conservative’. I think it had something to do with the fact that being just plain ole conservative was mean spirited and curmudgeonly. W put a Texas grin and a maloprop in action and talked about being a Compassionate Conservative.

Now, I have not been following the cooky Republican Primary with much attention, but I don’t think I have heard the word “compassion”, much less the more descriptive phrase of ‘Compassionate Conservative’ from any of the candidates. From my vantage point it seems that you have to be CONSERVATIVE to be in the Republican Party and the meaner, more conservative you can be on issues for women, immigrants and the poor the better! Who decides this stuff for the republicans, anyway?

I have said this privately to a few and I’ll go on record today that I predict Obama wins in a landslide. Not that Mr. Obama isn’t vulnerable on certain issues, but the Republicans are in disarray and the President has a few winning hands that he will and should play.

Happy President’s Day!