Why I Shall Buy Amazon, and Why Research In Motion Will Die

Disclosure: the following is pure writing exercise, for the purpose of familiarizing myself with a foreign language. If you act on these ideas in the real world, you shall fully understand that chances are good that you will lose your grandpa's coffin money along with you pants. Yes, I do work for a financial institution, but no, my writing, or any ideas behind what's written here, do not reflect my employer's opinions. Please, dear sharks, just let me write my thing and go to bed.

---here begins the writing exercise---

Science is almost subjective. (please refer to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and the author has given substantial explanation for this claim. By the way, most of the philosophical discussion about technology and science is either directly or indirectly plagiarized shamelessly from the brilliant Robert M. Prisig) Since I wrote so much BS in between the parenthesis I will finish that thought later. 

I was amused and angry when I saw an ad on Food Network. It was an ad about Blackberry's Torch, I first notice the ad about a year ago (the YouTube video was uploaded in Oct 2010). The ad itself was in fact very nice. As one of the many "Love what you do" ads during the period, it highlights individuality, passion, and personal success (with the phone by their side, of course). But it was the timing of the ads that bought both amusement and anger. In the past 12 months the mobile device world has turned a little bit a round, green robot, whose development was inspired by that incomplete white profile of a kind of fruit. Torch was never a successful product, not one year ago, and not today. I saw exactly one person ever used it in real life. I dare not venture to assume the mental state of whoever put on that Torch ad on Food Network. (Perhaps I should venture just a little...too much dirty eggnog from the holidays?) It was perhaps a practical joke. One of those "oh the idea is so bad that it's good" things that may potentially gather a cult following and create a new meme. But jokes aside, I thinks this is an insult, a blatant ignorance on RIM's part of its current market position. Imaging selling steam powered wooden car alongside a 2012 Jaguar XF and feel good about it.

RIM used to be a great company, and BB the device of choice of the most successful professional. My former colleague used to say if you hold a BB on the street of New York in the 90s, women would come to you and chat you up. RIM caught right onto the wave to massive email adoption. It's enterprise integration is convenient (at least from a user's point of view) and secure. In fact, it is such an amazing productivity tool that people grew addicted to it - they literally find themselves checking their BB 24/7. But RIM's days are gone, at a time when every smart phone can sync to enterprise accounts (assuming the IT departments are willing to adopt non-BB solutions), at a time when doing emails alone is simply seen as "stupid" for handheld devices, and at a time when Apple took away all the sex appeal of cell phones. RIM is no longer relevant in the upcoming competition - a million other devices can do its job and at the same time offer value not seen on BB's platform: apps, and armies of developers behind those apps.

 Amazon is relevant. The days of amazing hardware, the arm race of higher "spec" is perhaps behind us. iPhone is a very nice phone from a pure spec/design point of view, but one can't really argue that HTC, Samsung, or Motorola Mobile's products are not as wonderful. It is the operating system, the apps, and the platform/ecosystem which connect multiple aspects of users' need that really make iPhone stand out. Amazon doesn't have all that software side yet, or perhaps it won't need it at all. Maybe all it needs is simple a sleek device plus one really good web browser, and HTML5 apps will do the rest. Amazon has the infrastructure, it has a growing market place/platform, and it has content. Additionally, it controls a key aspect of our lives - shopping.

Google and Its One Company to Rule Them All

---consider this a writing exercise---
The new look of Google's homepage followed Youtube and Google Reader's face lift, is beginning to make sense to me. Now Blogger is also getting the similar clean efficient look. Now when I switch from a Google search to Youtube, or from a quick reading on Google Reader to a short piece with Blogger, I get the operational consistency - think Windows Search, Media Player, Adobe Reader, and Notepad. Google has it all, accessible from online.

Define and Destroy - A Few Quick Thoughts on Apple

I think Apple's success rests on its genre-defining products. The Company is able to introduce one blockbuster after another. Its success, starting with iPod, drew competitors into the a death race - it seems as if you can't sell unless you either provide a low quality product at drastically lower price point, or you make something that looks like an Apple product. By choosing the latter strategy one leaves its success at Apple's mercy - essentially your design cycle is half a season or a season behind Apple. And whenever, Apple mows over its own design and come up with something new (from ipod classic to ipod touch; from ipod touch to iphone, from macbook to ipad; from macbook to macbook air), you are letting it literally run a monopoly for half a year. And the worse thing is, if your Apple-too product isn't nearly as good, you lose more potential customers craving for these product categories: think Microsoft's Zune, Dell's Adamo, and Blackberry's Playbook.

---Consider this a writing exercise---
Intel has generated some buzz with its Ultrabook concept, a very thin and portable (under 3 pounds) series of laptops driven by Intel's power-efficient chips. Asus, Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba, HP, and LG all responded with their models. The designs are sleek, but the looks are no news to techies eyes. All the metal, all the unibody-like case, and the way they are portrayed in the ads to emphasis their minimum profile, screamed Macbook Air, which is almost a 4-year-old product (the original Macbook Air was released on Jan.28 2008). The OEMs of Ultrabook are in a really touch spots, very similar to those of Android-powered smartphones. Their best efforts run the danger of relating people to Apple's products which are always 2-3 product cycles ahead of them. With one losing battle in hand, the obvious and the counterstrike for OEMs is out-power Apple regarding technical specifications, larger storage, bigger screen, faster chips, and more functions. But wait, aren't tech specs declared dead less than a month ago?

Perhaps I should put my $5,000 (when I have them) on Intel :)

Makes You Think Again

via The Big Picture:

The Wealth Report: Here is the top 10 list culled from billionaires:

1. Figure out what you’re so passionate about that you’d be happy doing it for 10 years, even if you never made any money from it. That’s what you should be doing.
2. Always be true to yourself.
3. Figure out what your values are and live by them, in business and in life.
4. Rather than focus on work-life separation, focus on work-life integration.
5. Don’t network. Focus on building real relationships and friendships where the relationship itself is its own reward, instead of trying to get something out of the relationship to benefit your business or yourself.
6. Remember to maximize for happiness, not money or status.
7. Get ready for rejection.
8. Success unshared is failure. Give back — share your wealth.
9. (A secret so powerful, we simply cannot tell you)
10. Successful people do all the things unsuccessful people don’t want to do.

Support Wikipedia

I made my first small donation to the website today.

On Staying Hungry

Today I came by the shocking news that the CFO of my previous employer was fired. He is literally the smartest people I have ever seen. He exhibits a very quick and incisive understanding of things - whatever you are discussing with him, he understands. And he is humble, is not too self-effacing. His kind of intelligence and empathy are rare - not the usual "quick and understanding." When he speaks, the counter-party is often left in awe, wondering how come one complex idea can be dissected in such an elegant and simple way. And he also knows how to express and articulate.

But he is fired, as capable as he has always been. He devoted the prime time of his career to a smaller firm, brought it up to the highest professional standard, helped it weathering the most difficult times, accepted lower benefits for a seemingly more promising future. However, just as he is about to see the light, he is fired.

Let this be a lesson for all of us: stay hungry, and keep your options open. Nothing is forever.

Where Will You Invest Next?

Y-Axis: Life Expectancy in Years
X-Axis: GDP per Capital in USD (PPP, 2009)

Not Making This Up

Quotes via WSJ

Just minutes after I wrote about my owns lessons on irrational decision making, I came across a very recent WSJ article on similar subject.

When people face an uncertain situation, they don't carefully evaluate the information or look up relevant statistics. Instead, their decisions depend on mental short cuts, which often lead them to make foolish decisions. The short cuts aren't a faster way of doing the math; they're a way of skipping the math altogether.

I couldn't help thinking about my favorite professor Thomas Howard from University of Denver (he has retired to run his own fund, AthenaInvest, which has achieve good return) after reading about the following

Consider the overconfidence bias, which drives many of our mistakes in decision-making. The best demonstration of the bias comes from the world of investing. Although many fund managers charge high fees to oversee stock portfolios, they routinely fail a basic test of skill: persistent achievement. As Mr. Kahneman notes, the year-to-year correlation between the performance of the vast majority of funds is barely above zero, which suggests that most successful managers are banking on luck, not talent.

What my favorite professor reminds me of this article is a topic for another time. But what I was really trying to say is that time and time again the market proves that there is money to be made based on irrationality and human errors. A rational mind could be all one needs to make a comfortable retirement out of the equity market.

Irrationality at Play

I pride myself on some meager sense of logic and rationality. I ruthlessly laugh (secretly) at any signs of irrational thinking displayed by my fellow beings. And yet I made a pompous fool of myself recently simply by doing the kind of irrational things I scorn.

It all started 11 months ago, when I exited an internship with a local mutual fund company and during the same period, graduated from business school with a specialty master's degree. I needed a full-time job at the time. But more urgently, I needed any kind of employment (paid/unpaid) to be able to stay in the US for a while, as any foreign students would need. So I returned to the VC I worked for, without their promise of a full-time position in the following months. The VC was raising its first fund - a on-going process that would last till the end of June. My employment would basically tied to how that process go. Successful fund raising means a bigger budget, which would potentially turn out to be an addition full-time position for an analyst.

It was natural for me to seek a full-time position while working for that VC. But I didn't, some "hunch" told me that I would eventually be hired by the VC and there was no need to take all the pains of networking and online applications. Man I was wrong. When news was revealed to me that there was no chance of employment at the VC in July, I was left with only 5 months, which happened to be 5 months of worsening US economic outlook. Also, I missed the hiring window for investment banking analyst in May and June, during which more senior analysts will take their bonus and leave for other opportunities.

The VC has been extremely clear that there was no guarantee of a full-time position. I largely ignored that unsettling notion. Why? I was emotionally attached to the company. I loved it. Even though I still hold my highest respect for the company, I've learned to at least nip emotional elements from hard facts when it comes to business decision making. Business is business, and so is my job hunting.

Against high frequency trading

二级市场的一些问题

- 上市前的股权交易，交易的结构会对上市成功与否有如下影响
1. 估值问题以及对投资人的保护（比如适当的加discount）
2. 沃伦问题(warrants)
3. profit sharing问题

第三个问题最有意思，假设卖方给买方估值的保护，同时又要求在保护范围之外，分享收益，那会影响IPO定价，因为潜在的收益分享会使得这次交易直到IPO才算真正完成，这样就形成了IPO价格和买方价格两个价格，对于负责定价的投行以及律所而言，这是个令人头疼的法务问题，所以一般律所或者投行都不喜欢公司管理层在上市文件递交SEC之后进行类似的股权交易。

今天参与一个买方和卖方间的谈判，打开眼界，老板的随机应变能力和风度实在让人佩服。

Mark My Word

I will buy as many Netflix stocks as possible if I have a trading account. It's trading at only $130 today.

So this is the plan I came up today

Do my best at work, but be very happy to go home. Bear in mind the reasons of going home. Don't let others' opinion influence my own happiness.

博客大巴你敢不敢再慢一点啊...

开始发现充足的休息和认真的态度都是幸福的源泉，做什么都认真，要认真啊。

Rio

我喜欢现在的样子，很稳定，但又有一些重要的变数让我保持期待和努力。脱离学校以后，其实并没有走进社会，办公室的那个角落和图书馆的自习室无异。我很难准确描述自己想要什么，但仿佛又知道一些方向，我觉得自己下班后的锻炼是有目的的，减重也是有目的的，这个城市是非常好的长跑和野外徒步的训练场。我知道自己不适合在某个特定的领域专一投入很久，我要想尽办法扩大自己的经历。

write write

这几年年纪越大，就越来越难以和自己交流，袒露自身那些虚弱，懒惰和无情，把不顺心的境遇归结于凭借自身无法改变的因素，用借口解释问题。

No excuse

和朋友在纽约吃饭，同行有一个几乎失明的人，是个非常成功的VC/pe律师，大概还有1-2年就会成为那个律所的合伙人，聪明，友善，有令人愉悦的大笑，自己用iphone，打高尔夫球，热衷尝试各种新餐馆，我没有任何借口。

有怪事3

我见了Skipp，这人刚刚从一场滑雪事故中恢复过来。出事前，天和雪山融为一体，什么都看不见，然后“啪”地一声，他撞上山崖。Skipp很喜欢自己现在的样子，半边的脸没了，被各种奇怪的铆钉覆盖，说话时有清脆的金属撞击声，好听极了。分开之前他对我说：“其实我这个样子过机场安检也是没问题的啦。”

有怪事2

早上起了床，往外看，天是灰的，不对，是窗户上都细细盖上了一层薄灰。我拉开阳台门，一股灰尘的味道扑鼻而来，抬头看，市中心的那些大楼都没了。街上什么声音也没有，到处都是悬浮的灰尘，楼没了，连瓦砾也不剩。我关上门，翻出最大的马桶包，把台灯边上的两个小龙猫和ipod放了进去。“去找吃的。” 我想。

有怪事1

我坐在马桶上，看自己裸露的小腿，一块肌肉抽动了一下，慢慢在皮肤下面游动起来，它形成一个突起的椭圆，滑到我的耳边对我说：我们去日本吧，去阿根廷吧，去新西兰吧，离开这里吧。

Financial Model as A Good Storyteller

Every financial model should be a good storyteller, unfolding a company's business model, growth, and fundamental assumptions clearly and succinctly. Anyone with absolutely no prior knowledge should be able to go through the model with minimum assistance, and walk away with a very good understanding of the underlying company

Happiness?

The pleasure that comes with, say, a good meal, an entertaining movie or an important win for one's sports team—a feeling called "hedonic well-being"—tends to be short-term and fleeting. Raising children, volunteering or going to medical school may be less pleasurable day to day. But these pursuits give a sense of fulfillment, of being the best one can be, particularly in the long run.

对于我来说，还是有一定的成就感（事业，人际关系，家庭纽带）更加重要。

快手慢心

前些时候，每天坐轻轨回家的时候，不可抑制地想象去南美旅行，潜伏在里约或者布依诺斯艾里斯，急切地想走远。

现在每天都学到东西，某天回想起来，发现已经比2年前的自己对资本市场的理解深多了，焦灼感，总是源于对于时间和个人努力的错误认识，其实可以在相对短的时间里，学会很多东西。

Patience

It took me so long to realize that I have no patience and tolerance in a very general sense.