Lifeaholics Anonymous

I would be very surprised if the Democratic candidate comes close in the Presidential election.  A recent reading of an article on the fatigue experienced by the primary candidates made me lolz.  The two candidates have been campaigning for over 15 months to become the party presidential candidate.  The last state contest isn’t until sometime in July with the National Convention the last week of August. Since the race is so close that gives the winner just 4 months to campaign against McCain.  After 18+ months of campaigning, what is the candidate going to have in reserves to go up against the Republican?  Why are the state elections drawn out over so many months?  Why doesn’t select a candidate by the spring so they can rest and then gear up for the presidential campaign in the summer/fall?  I’m sure there is some over-complicated traditionally-based answer to these questions that I will gladly shrug off.

The electoral system in America is so badly screwed up. It makes a lot of sense why the common person votes for American Idol and not for President?. Why? Because you vote for AI and something actually happens.  On AI you vote between two candidates, the winner is announced the following week and then is touring through your city within 8 or so months.  In contrast to the Presidential election sequence where you vote for party, wait 6 months until a candidate is selected, then vote 6 months later for president, then 3 months later they are inaugurated, then over the next year nothing happens that affects you personally.  Americans become disillusioned with the process and wind up not participating (for this among numerous reasons).  Its like the NBA, no one watches the regular season, lets shorten it and get to the playoffs before people forget that the games are being played (Playoff Predictions)

In recent history whenever there is a division amongst party vote, the other party wins almost all of the time.  The most recent would be Perot splitting the Bush vote and promoting Clinton to the White House.   Why would the democratic party do this to themselves?  America is split amongst Clinton and Obama. Whoever wins will lose most of the supporters of the other candidate. Then those people will either not vote or vote for McCain.

So I am preparing for four more years of republicans in the White House and will likely not vote in this years presidential election as it has no bearing on my day-to-day life, like so many Americans.  But hey, at least I like the sound of his healthcare system reform.

Admittedly I havent followed the NBA that closely this year but here are my predictions for whats left of the NBA Playoffs

WEST:

LAL 4 : UTA/HOU 1 - Kobe has one three rings and no one is going to stop him on New Orleans.  There is just too much post season experience between him and Fisher compared with virtually none on either of their potential opponents. Could be another sweep.

SAS 4 : NOH 2 -  Again lack of experience will kill the younger team in this matchup.   Bruce Bowen will frustrate CP3 and combined with solid interior defense the spurs will pull out some close games.  I expect the hornets to put up 100 pt games at home so they will win a pair there, in Alamo they will likely average 85.  Considering what Phx was able to do offensively and still get beaten handily, it doesn’t bode well for the Hornets.

West Finals:

SAS 4 - LAL 3:  This will be a fight right down to the wire.  I fully expect that it will come down to Derek Fisher missing a buzzer beater in game 7.  That one he hit a few years ago was the fluke, time for reality. This will shape up as one of the best playoff series in the last few years.

East - Assuming Boston will pull it out over the hawks and so will the pistons.

CLE 4 : BOS 2 - As talented as the Celtics are they lack playoff experience and Lebron James doesnt.  Lebron is really that good.  Delonte West will continue to improve as the Cavs go deeper in the playoffs and Booby Gibson will continue to hit big shots.

ORL 4 : DET 2 - Orlando is a deep and talented team. Dwight Howard is the best player in the conference after Lebron.  Jameer Nelson is an underrated PG and while hes know Chauncey Billups he can play.  Prince is no answer for Lewis.  Considering the Pistons struggles with a minimally talented and hard working 6ers team, they are going to be overwhelmed when a more talented team plays just as hard against them.

East Finals

ORL 4: CLE 3 - No answer for D.Howard down low for Cleveland will ultimately do the Cavs in.   Lebron’s talent will pull out a few games but they just dont have the players to compete with the depth of talent on the Magic, yet.  If the Cavs had one reliable big man they would win this one.

Finals:

SAS 4 : ORL 1 -  Pretty much the same as last year.  One or two guys on the Spurs step it up big in each game.  The variance in defensive ability between the Spurs and Cavs disrupts the Magic offensive rhythm. While the cohesiveness of the offense gives them the edge on the scoreboard. Defense wins championships.

Very exciting times coming up for me after staying in OC most of the last few months.  I’ll be in Chicago next weekend, followed by San Fran the next and the Lightning in a Bottle Festival (Santa Barabara) for Memorial Day.  Two weeks after the Mets come to play at Angel Stadium (on my 28th birthday) and Thievery Corporation is playing at the Hollywood Bowl. I could not be more excited about this spring!!

Music was phenomenal! The all-star lineup: Grace Potter, Robert Randolf and Gov’t Mule on Friday. Then Toubab Krew, The Wailers, Blues Traveler and John Butler Trio on Saturday!!  .The sound quality was excellent. It was not crowded so at any point you could walk right up to the first 5 rows or so.  All the proceeds went to charity. I bought a VIP pass off a guy for $20 and proceeded to load up on free drinks and food.   Camped out in the desert where it was 100 during the day and 30 at night.   I really dont understand the appeal of Phoenix or Scottsdale. They are really nice and new, but how can people live in that heat and sun?  Its unbearable. So while the festival was awesome, unless they move it to the mountains theres no way I would go back to the desert outside of Nov-Feb.

Last night I had matzoh brei for the first time in over a decade. Let me just say that it is awesome.  Some of my favorite foods are breakfast foods and matzoh brei can be made to taste like all of them. French toast, pancakes, omletts, scrambles. You can put pretty much anything into it.  My favorite mix-ins: crumbled bleu cheese, chopped onions and habanero hot sauce!  Try it!

People will not work for free.  Nor will they give you money for coming up with a great idea.  Entrepreneurs are always trying to get people to work for equity and invest in their company before they have a product. Neither are realistic ways of building a business.  A key to becoming a successful startup is to take the plunge and invest the initial capital by yourself to get an initial product developed.  Once you have a product developed, investors will believe in your idea.  Once you have investors, people will work for less cash and more equity.  Its up to the founders to get the ball rolling.  The proof is in the pudding, and after all if you the founder aren’t willing to put in the time and money intially to bring your idea to reality, you can’t expect anyone else to either.

There is a serious problem when organizations get rich, they stop innovating. No technology company has been successfully able to transition from one era into the next and maintain dominance.  They lose the passion and drive that enabled them to establish themselves in the first place.  IBM -> Xerox -> Microsoft -> AOL -> Yahoo -> Google.  Look at the stock prices over the life of these companies and you can see them taper off when companies stop bringing innovations to market.

A major component of this lack of transitional ability is the US Government.   In 2008 just 65,000 of the best qualified individuals will be allowed to work in the US.   The growth of Silicon Valley thrived on the ability to bring the best engineers in the world to work in one place.  In 1999 the quota for H1B visas was double what it is today.  This means brilliant people are coming to the US to be educated at our universities only to be deported when they receive their degree because they can not legally work in the county.  Shouldn’t it be the other way around.  Students dont contribute much, if anything to our economy.  Companies should be enabled to hire the best person for the position regardless of national origin.  Protectionism is only going to hurt companies in the long run.

Another major problem is the protection provided by US Patent & Trade office.  Patents can be a very good thing when they enable companies and individuals to profit from their innovations. Contrarily, the situation in America is now hampering innovation.  Currently a small number of companies account for a large percentage of the patents that are awarded.  The aforementioned dinosaur companies spend billions of dollars on PHd’s and R+D plants to develop patentable technologies.  Only a handful of these patents ever go into production however, so what you see is brilliant ideas being killed before they have a chance to get to market.  These innovations would do more for society if they awarded to organizations who were going to bring them to market.  Now that is a very subjective area but something needs to be done because every time I come up with an idea its already been patented by Microsoft or HP and its really pissing me off!

In his recent essay, my hero Paul Graham writes about being ‘good’. Companies who listen to their customers and give them what they want tend to be successful. Treating people well generally gets you what you want from them as well. Here is an example of how to be good as an organization and the impact it has on your company.

There is a website called OLX which is a ripoff of craigslist but is experiencing some nice growth abroad. I checked out the site and found that they don’t have a listing for Orange County. So I went out of my way and emailed their support staff. I informed them that there are over 3 million people in OC and its the 5th most populous county in the country, that we dont identify with LA and they should add a listing for us specifically. The reply:
Thank you for contacting OLX. Thank you for the suggestion, we are always adding cities to the OLX site. However, at the moment there is no plan to add Orange County as of yet

This is awful treatment and will ultimately lead to the sites failure. They dont even acknowledge what the customer is saying and dismiss it. A good company is always listening to its customers! They should have said, while there are no plans to add oc now, we will take it in consideration and notify you when we know an expected launch date for the OC section of OLX. This directly reflects the leadership of the organization, they have drilled the concept of being good into their customer service.

Its time for my favorite holiday, PESACH or passover.  I think its actually tied with purim for best holiday.  Dressing up and drinking or eating tons of great food, tough call. Passover was the biggest holiday in the Markowitz family growing up.  Every year my grandfather would lead the seder and fireworks would ensue.  I cannot remember one holiday where the family was able to get along with out a fight and someone storming out of the house mad.  Lots of bad tempers in there. But those days are gone and this year Ill be heading back to Chabad at SDSU.  Hopefully there will be some french exchange students again!

Bring on the charoset and horseradish!!!