Tag Archives: business

Thoughts

Talk about screwing up

I get digest emails from the Economist every Thursday, on politics and business. Two things caught my eye in today’s edition.

  1. Chrysler appointed Robert Nardelli as its CEO. This is the same guy that left Home Depot after employee and investor dissatisfaction with his management and personal style, with a severance package worth about $210 million. So the guy pisses off people at Home Depot left and right, is run out of the company, but gets hundreds of millions in bye-bye pay… and then Chrysler hires him? Isn’t Chrysler supposed to be in trouble as a company? What do they see in him?
  2. Trump Entertainment Resorts reported a second quarter loss that was more than double that of last year’s. So they’ve been losing money all along, just like all of the other business ventures run by Trump, and yet their share price surged when they released their earnings report?! Are the investors sane?!

I’m going to rant a bit now, because I’ve wanted to say this for a long time. Donald Trump has to be one of the most overrated businessmen ever. On the whole, his career and life are an exercise in ridicule.

Take business: for years, he’s managed to do poorly in his ventures. He’s had a few successes, but on the whole, he’s run project after project into the ground. The ones that are still standing are so heavily in debt that they should be dead by rights. Yet investors continue to sink money into his ventures in spite of all evidence to the contrary. The guy cannot run a business in the black. He’ll run them all in the red, and he’ll pay himself tens of millions while his companies wither away.

Take life: he managed to get a TV show that was a hit with the general populace — that in itself was incomprehensible. He, the clueless, poorly performing CEO, dared to dole out business advice to others, and to act as a role model for other businessmen. If Trump is a model for American business and leadership, then God help us, because we’re headed for the crapper!

Take style: the man looks like he’s got a dead cat on his head. Over the years, he’s persisted with that cockamamie hairstyle to the chagrin of decent people everywhere.

Trump seems to be rubbing it in our faces: he’s ridiculing us. He may be saying something else, but his actions say, “Look, I’m going to thumb my nose at all of you. I’ve got you all eating out of my hand even though I can’t run a business to save my life.” In spite of this, people clamor to kiss his behind and stand in line to invest in his businesses. I don’t get it.

It seems to me that greedy losers do best in modern business, and Americans on the whole love to celebrate them. The two people I mentioned in this post are just a few of the guilty parties. But then, is that any wonder when almost every CEO has ridiculous compensation packages regardless of their job performance, and when companies (especially those that deal in non-physical assets) are stupidly overvalued? I think we’re headed for the crapper, and Trump and others like him are the icing on the cake that’s going to give us the runs.

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Thoughts

Busy, busy, busy

It’s a bit unusual for me that I can’t find the time to write posts, but that’s just what’s happening. I left home shortly after noon on Friday with Ligia to go camping with close friends of ours in the Blue Ridge mountains. Had loads of fun, and we visited Natural Bridge. I’m afraid I wasn’t very good company. My eye was pretty much either glued to the viewfinder of my 5D, or looking for reasons to stay glued to it. Took lots of gorgeous morning, evening and night photos and I can’t wait to post-process them.

Came back early afternoon Sunday and got ready for a photographic gig that same afternoon. Finally arrived home for good around 7:30 pm, exhausted. I’ve been using my spare time since to work on those photos. They get top priority since I got paid for them, which is very nice indeed. In between bouts of work, I also need to spend a little quality time with Ligia.

When you count it all up, it adds up to no spare time whatsoever — short of a trip to “Spare Oom”, where time runs on a different schedule… Perhaps I’ll get a little more time in a couple of days. Till then, I suppose.

Afternoon delight

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Reviews

Beware of GISOL

➡ Updated 11/4/2008: See FOX News expose GISOL for the crooks they really are, and watch the two people behind the scam literally run from the camera. Watch the video on YouTube or below, and make sure to read through my original post about them, as well as the over 300 comments posted by other people who were each scammed by GISOL. My thanks go to Mike of Report-Gisol.com for doing the legwork to get these criminals on TV.

These same crooks have been calling me from private phone numbers, harassing me, and trying to intimidate me into letting them post responses on my website. They’ve tried repeatedly to post comments on this post and on my other post about them, and I refuse to let their lies go through to the live site. They need to be in jail.

I wrote a post over a year ago detailing my nightmare experience with GISOL, a supposed web hosting company whose performance was missing in action and whose promises were stuffed so full of lies they were busting at the seams. I encourage you to read about what I had to say, but more than that, to also read the comments. You see, my story struck a chord with other users who were lied to and swindled out of their money by the thieves at GISOL, and they left poignant comments detailing their plight.

Today, another poor soul left a long comment explaining what happened to her, and I was so incensed I needed to do something more. I dugg my own post, and if you have a Digg account, I encourage you to digg it as well. Also, forward the link to my post to your friends and other folks who you know. Let’s get the word out about that rotten apple called GISOL. They should NOT be in business. They’ve got an F rating from the Better Business Bureau, tons of complaints have been filed against them, yet they’re still around. It’s just not right. Let’s tar and feather them, and let’s run them out of town.

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Events

The first DC TECH cocktail

Ligia and I attended the first ever DC TECH cocktail last night. We had a great time, and I brought my 5D along, of course. I took lots of photos, and posted them to Flickr. Everyone in attendance had a good time. They were all so busy networking or listening to demos that most didn’t even notice me taking photos, which made for some nice candid shots. I honestly don’t know how they could concentrate or hear each other with all that loud music the club had put on, but I guess they got the job done. The event was organized by Frank Gruber and Eric Olson. Nick O’Neill helped with the event. If you know any of the people in the photos, please let me know so I can properly identify them.

Jonathan George and Eric Olson

Clarence Wooten, Frank Gruber and Nick O’Neill

Blair, Jen Consalvo and Frank Gruber

There were a lot of people in attendance. I’m glad things worked out well for Eric and Frank. The cool thing about TECH cocktails is that they give companies a chance to demo their products to interested folks without having to pay to attend. The people who attend also don’t pay. The entire thing is sponsored by helpful companies, and that’s pretty nice.

Tech Cocktail DC

Stephen Walk

Greg Cangialosi

Blue epiphany

Tech Cocktail DC

Tech Cocktail DC

Tech Cocktail DC

Tech Cocktail DC

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gabe Rivera

Tech Cocktail DC

Tech Cocktail DC

Red rain

Tech Cocktail DC

MCCXXIII

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Thoughts

Price wars are bad for everyone

I believe a lot in equitable pricing. A product’s price should be able to net its creator a decent profit — not a huge profit, not a tiny profit, because that makes it hard to go on, and certainly not a loss. That’s why I’m really annoyed with the recent price wars in the hardware industry. Scoble reports tonight on his blog that Seagate didn’t meet its projections in this last quarter because of horrendous price wars among hard drive manufacturers. An unnamed manufacturer was willing to lose over 100 million dollars just to maintain their foothold in the market. Beta News reports that AMD lost half a billion dollars in this last quarter, and that’s directly related to its price war with Intel.

This is bad. In the end, what was gained by the price wars? Companies lost money, their employees were overworked (to meet R&D and production deadlines), and everyone ended up stressed out. Did any company emerge as a winner? No, they didn’t.

I would love to see the frenetic pace of business and competition slow down to something more rational, more sustainable. I for one can imagine how stressful it must be to work in companies where you’re constantly pushed to meet deadlines, and more deadlines are coming at you down the pipe. I treasure the sense of accomplishment that I feel when I’ve just finished a project and know I’ve got a lull before the next one lands on my desk. No such thing goes on at these companies. Not only do they constantly have to find ways to tighten their belts and “restructure” by firing people, but at the end of the day, their bank accounts don’t really show the results of their efforts. What’s worse, they may even end up in the red.

I for one am willing to pay a little extra for my hardware, if I know that the pace of work at these companies is rational, and that employees there are treated well. Remember, we are all employees in one way or another. How would we like it if we had to work extra every day or got fired just so some Joe Blow can brag that he got his hard drive for $20 less?

[Added 4/20/07] Lest you think the consumer wins, think again. What we as consumers get out of this is bad design or bad quality control or bad customer service and support, or any combination of these three. The companies cutting prices have to skimp on something. You can’t rush things, cut prices AND provide a wonderfully designed and reliable products with great customer support. If you don’t believe me, see Julie’s comment below.

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