Category: Movies, Entertainment & Media

Marc Cenedella Freaks Out: “Privacy is for old people says LinkedIn founder”


Linkedin_2-300x206Marc Cenedella is upset! He is so upset he is lashing out at something Reid Hoffman said nearly a year ago at World Economic Forum in December 2010 (the Ladders' researchers must have been working on digging something up on him for months):

Privacy for Old People Says LinkedIn Founder

And I understand – LinkedIn went public and made X amount of millions in cash for Mr. Hoffman (I hope my readers understand that, like the rest of the public-stocks billionaires, he cannot really turn the $1.6 billion of his shares into liquid assets overnight). Mr. Cenedella, who started The Ladders barely two months after LinkedIn was launched in 2003, had wet dreams about being exactly in Mr. Hoffman's position by now.

I have no fucking clue why would he be dreaming those dreams. It's not that he created anything original. There were already other job boards with premium memberships and listing fees before The Ladders. The only differential he had was the $100K+ executive appeal (which, as you know, they just dropped – see my September 24th post). Did he think that those minute bells and whistles would be sufficient to build his value as an attractive investee?

You didn't really think that Marc was upset about your personal privacy, did you? Well, he did at some point – he was a man of ideals. When he started his company he did the right thing – he declared in the Terms & Conditions that he will not share, sell, etc. members' information. And indeed, I don't know anybody who gets spammed because of their usage of The Ladders. It's the other job boards that got their emails too: Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs, etc.

But big bucks are big bucks – they manage to bend out of shape the purest of idealists. And now, when Marc is alone in his office or his kitchen writing his blog, he is jealous, devastated, and desperate to kick himself in the nuts for not doing what all other amoral Internet moguls do, namely selling every single shred of your privacy in exchange for a golden bonanza Hoffman experienced on May 19th this year, when LinkedIn's IPO closed at the double of the entering price. (By the way, now it's at four times of the initial offer.)

So, he is upset and the post linked above is his way of letting the buildup of negativity out. Well, Mr. Cenedella's motivations aside, Hoffman's remarks in Davos are wrong on so many levels, it would take me several more posts to break it all down( don't worry, I am not going to). This is exactly what I would expect from someone who "made it" in the way Mr. Hoffman did, though. What's the implication here? Even if you are 18, but is concerned with your constitutional rights for privacy, you are "old" and square? And if you want to be perceived as young and hip, you should disregard all privacy concerns?

Statements like that don't upset me because they are "politically incorrect," as Marc Cenedella claims – I don't care about that shit! They upset me because they are politically dangerous and stupid. How intellectually limited one should be to mix up the teenagers' exhibitionism with privacy issues? Are you that confused? You don't see the difference between people, on their own accord, making decisions to disclose information about themselves and your selling their connectivity and interests profiles to third-party predators for an enormous gain? This proves once again that nowadays success, even in business, has nothing to do with intellect.

Radiohead: A Case of Strategic Mismanagement


Images-1Speaking of Radiohead (I am referring to my last "Quote of the Week" post)… 

No, let me first say that I LOVE Radiohead.  They are one of my top 5.5 (it's complicated, ok?!) favorite bands.  I have been to their shows, with pit tickets, standing for over seven hours in line to be in the first row, in front of the stage with big Ed's shoes in my face, watching Jonny Greenwood perform his musical voodoo, observing Thom Yorke drooling all over the mike, while articulating "I salivate like with myxomatosis," as if he was actually afflicted.  I saw them perform "True Love Waits" for the first time ever.  Good times!

And even though I usually religiously adhere to my own rule of separating the Artist from the Man (otherwise you end up hating everything – people, including geniuses, are nasty creatures), I agreeably pay attention to some of Radiohead members' personal principles: anti-music-establishment, free distribution, less flying, and stuff like that.  At the same time, I am very objective.  I don't idolize anybody.  If something is stupid, I'll call it that, regardless of who did it.  Plus, this is a CFO's blog, so when it comes to executive decisions I am especially vigilant.

Soooooo, the latest incident involving Roseland Ballroom (NYC) concerts really irritated me as a blatant display of a gross strategic mismanagement.  Supposedly to make sure that real fans get them and not the scalpers, the release of tickets for September 28th and 29th concerts was held off until Monday, September 26th, 10 AM.  And what was the wonderfully unique channel of distribution?  The fucking Ticketmaster!!! 

How out of touch with reality these people and their support staff are???  Don't they know that the days of conventional scalping are long gone? Today, you can be sitting somewhere in Nebraska with your little reloading software, buy tickets and immediately start electronically scalping them as PDF attachments.  

I personally clicked "Find tickets" at 10:00 AM.  The fucking Ticketmaster advised that my waiting time was 5 minutes.  Nevertheless, in 3 minutes flat, I was informed that the tickets were not available anymore.  180 seconds – God bless the electronic age!  Obediently I went to the "resale" (read – scalping) TicketsNow site (owned by the fucking Ticketmaster) – the tickets were already listed with prices ranging from $650-$1,500 for GA.  The concerts turned out to be the exclusive events for people with money.  Most of them cared more about the status of attending than about the music.

Talking about a complete failure of a business action plan!  Is there anybody around Radiohead with a common sense to suggest a more intelligent strategy?  You want to deliver yourself to your true friends? You are a super-group.  Instead of going through Live Nation, you can rent your own venue and sell the tickets the old-fashion way: at the box office, with a limit of two tickets per person.  Your real fans will sleep on the street through the night for a chance to see you!  It's really not that complicated.  But I guess, like with everything, it's too much to ask for a logical reasoning nowadays.          

Essentially, a rock band is a small business – no different then, let's say an advertising agency.  The set up is the same – there is a core creative staff and a bunch of supporting functions around it: administration, financial management, legal services, etc.   My readers know how important small businesses are to me – I believe they need to be cultivated and nurtured as the only option for saving the world's economy.  But, again, I am very sensible about it.  It's not all businesses that need support – only the ones that are well organized and have smart leadership. 

Hey you music fans, don't get mad at me (I'm on your side), but it's possible that most rock bands, after riding the initial fandom wave, eventually end up sucking because they don't know how to run their business well.  There were only five really great songs on "In Rainbows" and this last album Radiohead finally squeezed out (I did say I was very objective) is really just so-so. 

From time to time Mr. Yorke says that it "didn't jive in the studio," and I keep worrying that, after 26 years together, they will go out of business.  I don't want that to happen, because I am sure many people, including me, would be happy to see them doing OK Computer, Kid A and Amnesiac stuff on stage for another 25 years, even if they don't write anything decent anymore.   But they really need to figure out a sound business model to be able to do that.  And, please guys, get some strategic management advice about that "tickets to real fans" program.  I promise you, this will make already eternally grateful fans happy.

 
Radiohead – 15 Step (Grammy 2009)

Quote of the Week: Occupy Wall Street


Protesters-in-chicago-jump-on-the-occupy-wall-street-bandwagon-which-has-spread-to-a-number-of Intro to the quote:

Observing Occupy Wall Street protesters right there by Zuccotti park, my cynic mind could not help itself to see social, rather than political event.  Guys and gals hanging around, having a good time.  Many analysts from all over the world have been trying to understand if these people have any agenda, if their protesting have some sort of intelligent purpose.  And there is nothing… Just young people with nothing better to do being upset that they cannot become rich and famous overnight.  Very few of them have attained above average complex of general knowledge and they know nothing about work ethics.  In their poorly constructed bursts of words they bring up "disappearance of the middle class," but none of them understands that you are not born into middle class – you have to work for it, and maybe after 20 years of professional excellence you can claim your rightful place among its members.  The paper wealth of Wall Street phenomenon is a perversion, no question about that.   But securities balloons are not the only reasons middle class disappears in this country.  None of the protesters want to work real jobs to earn their daily bread, or start small businesses that would keep them physically and mentally busy 24/7.  Instead they want to magically transport themselves into the very places occupied by people with million-dollar bonuses they claim to despise.

And then there was that September 30th plot concocted by the protest organizers in order to get more people on location by announcing a Radiohead appearance?!  People who supposedly oppose the concept of misleading, blatantly lied to the general public!  What's up with that?  There could only be three possible explanations why these protesters did not run away in shame after the falsification was exposed – they are either blind, stupid, or really have nothing else to do.

Meanwhile, the electronics were polluted with the false news of Radiohead's "spontaneous concert", and exchanges among some people I know have produced some wonderful pearls (I know a few very smart people).  One of my funniest friends felt sorry for the "poor hippies crawling over each other's stomped bodies." 

But the first prize definitely goes to the following quote:

"It's the perfect cherry on top of their worship of spectacle rather than substance."

                                                                                Zach Caceras

Trying to Impress by Talking Too Much? Ur Doin It Wrong.


Images-1 Life screws with people: neglectful parents, inconsiderate spouses and partners, selfish children, boorish bosses, and disdainful co-workers create scores and scores of attention-deprived people desperately seeking approval.  Most frequent manifestation of this subconscious desire is excessive, out-of-place talking – lengthy stories with self-boosting subtext. 

This type of behavior is usually classified as social awkwardness.  I don't know a single person capable of keeping a grip on himself under any circumstances.  Once in a while certain conditions come together and something activates the stupid switch even in the most brilliant people.  I've seen some pretty impressive humans falling into this mode during lectures, important meetings, fundrasing parties, and social gatherings. 

During 2010 New York's World Science Fair, I attended a panel Consciousness: Explored and Explained with the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation) and the neuroscientist Giulio Tononi.  It was monitored by the actor and director Alan Alda (better known as Hawkeye Pierce of M*A*S*H) – a fairly smart guy who got close to popular science by hosting PBS's Scientific American Frontiers.  One concept that Giulio Tononi has described was too much for Mr. Alda to grasp.  He restated the scientist's words once, was corrected, then again, and again.  Finally, he realized that he wasn't getting it, but he couldn't help himself – he kept talking, and talking, and talking…  

Hey, sometimes I catch myself doing it and thinking, "What's going on?  Why am I relating my interpretation of A Streetcar Named Desire to this uninterested person?" But only very self-aware people are capable to recognize the symptoms and stop themselves.

Consequently, the degree of this affliction widely varies.  In some people it gets triggered by a selected audience (sometimes even one particular individual), or specific circumstances.  I had a sort of a paralyzing effect on my boss of two years ago.  He would be acting his aloof self around everybody else, but every time he would come to my office, he ended up ranting.  Eventually, I became wary of starting even super-important discussions with him.  It was always, "Let me tell you,.." and we would be off on an absolutely irrelevant tangent.  At one point he was telling me that he shares a surfing coach in East Hampton with Gwenyth Paltrow and Chris Martin.  I kept thinking to myself, "I am not impressed, dammit!"         

In many people this trait blows up to extreme proportions: people simply cannot stop themselves.  They don't need any special circumstances or triggers – they grab every chance they get to talk, even if they have nothing to say.  In public these people are usually extroverted, talking non-stop.   The overwhelming popularity of Facebook and Twitter is the testimony to the pandemic proportions of verbal diarrhea.

In social situations you can simply walk away, or turn your phone off to stop seeing three tweets per minute.  However, you cannot do the same at work.  You have to deal with it one way or another.  Ok, so not everyone can find the right way to tell their bosses to shut up.  And my advice – don't do it.  Even if it seems that you've done it in the mildest way possible, they never forget it.  And, as we all know, no one can hold the grudge as long as bosses do.  On the other hand, when it comes to your peers or subordinates, the issue must be addressed if it interferes (and it does) with the normal course of a meeting, an assignment, or a working day.

The best way to approach it is with a friendly private talk.  Most likely the person is not aware that what he is doing is an obvious display of insecurity, and that people recognize it as such.  Explain to the person that he achieves the exactly opposite results: while trying to impress and seeking approval, he gets co-workers and supervisors annoyed.  To earn this person's trust, you can share your own experience in similar situations (just like I did here).  Most importantly, tell them that the best way to make a difference and get appreciated is by doing the best job they can. 

Everyone Loves Lucy


Images-1 Last week Lucille Ball would have turned 100 years old.  Not every celebrity achieves the level of popularity that justifies posthumous birthday announcements, and I am glad that it applies to this great comedienne, who entertained people for so many years.   (As a side note, I must mention that it is a testimony to our electronic dependency that Google doodles have become integral parts of establishing people's immortality – I love them too, by the way.)

And I love Lucy, who also undeniably belongs in this blog as a brilliant businesswoman – one of the most powerful Hollywood women of all times. 

The business success started with Desi's shrewd decision of setting up a television company Desilu (with Lucy's effigy right there in the logo), equally owned by the spouses and responsible for production of not just I Love Lucy, but also Star Trek, The Andy Griffith Show, Mission:Impossible, The Lucy Show, Our Miss Brooks, The Jack Benny Program, and many others.  Only three years into its existence, the company was considered such a powerful television presence that it became a natural choice of  many consumer product conglomerates, including Phillip Morris, for production of high quality TV advertisement.

Desilu was one of the first entertainment companies to recognize a power of merchandising – an entire line of I Love Lucy products, from pajamas and dolls to furniture sets, was a tremendous success.  In 1954 alone they brought a net profits of $500,000 (over $4 million in today's money).  After purchasing RKO's facilities, Desilu Productions has become the largest studio in Hollywood, running 33 sound stages (more than either MGM or Twentieth Century Fox).  When Lucy bought Desi out in 1962, she became the first female head of a major studio.

I've seen different numbers estimating Lucy's worth at the time of her death in 1989, wildly ranging between $25 million and $65 billion.  It does not really matter.  One thing we can say for sure – she did well for herself. 

Many biographers, TV historians, and ardent fans, have been arguing for decades, about whose contribution was most important in Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's financial success.  While Desi did present the company as a President, we may never know whose idea it was was to do this or that deal.  Without a doubt, Lucy was always a bankable asset.  Moreover, it is a known fact that the artistic merits and public appeal of such long-lived franchises as Star Trek and Mission: Impossible, that still continue spawning new feature movies, were evaluated and approved by her personally.  

But the most remarkable lesson in Lucille Ball's shrewdness as a business woman comes from a very personal matter.  Many enterprises fall apart on account of minor tiffs between unrelated partners.  Lucy and Desi Arnaz stuck together through marital problems for a long time and got a divorce only after the final episode of Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour was filmed.  Moreover, they managed their business separation in the most civilized and mutually-beneficial manner, remaining friends for the rest of their lives.