What is News Worthy

  • Is Musk the new Murdoch?
  • .
  • FTX & Bankman-Fried: Is Silicon Valley Responsible?
  • .
  • Google Search Result: A cluttered Maze
  • .
  • Stanford Hospital Acquires Fremont based Washington Hospital - Obamacare effect?
  • .
  • Bond King is Back and Has a message to Powell: STOP RAISING RATES!
  • .
  • Average selling price of GM has reached BMW, Benz Territory- Legalizing Cannabis effect or just another bubble market?

Silicon Valley Vibes!

  • Tesla & SpaceX didn’t listen to WS and Pundits …Should Twitter & Musk Now?
  • .
  • Would you allow Siri to drive you around?
  • .
  • Finally Adobe is Discounting its products and services
  • .
  • SalesForce departure….is it voluntary or…?
  • .
  • Dot Com burst brought Java Programmers to earth…..are we there yet?
  • .
  • Contract Workers: Secret for Google & Apple not reducing headcounts?

FANG News:

  • Not A Royalty …Just the Benefits, Please! Harry, Megan & Netflix
  • .
  • Where is Bezos….enough Romance & Honeymooning..Amazon shareholders need you!
  • .
  • Is Google missing Eric Schmidt?
  • .
  • World minus USA wedded to WhatsApp more than any other platform.. should FB reap the benefits soon?
  • .
  • When Microsoft drops its subscription fees will it feel the pain? As the new generation does not know Office, Really!

Thursday, January 25, 2024

7 Reasons for Tesla to Divorce Musk!


  • Too much Baggage
  • Finally can license FSD from Waymo that really work
  • Can attract Real Talent
  • De-cult the Investment Climate around Tesla
  • Take Tesla into the next stage of Expansion: Services and Finance
  • Break up Tesla into baby Teslas ( Energy/ Distribution & Services / Transportation- AutoPlus) 
  • Overhaul Board

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Can Malone kill CNN?

 Was AT&T made to make John Malone rich? Over several decades every restructure or change in strategy has involved buying or selling from Malone making Malone Rick and look smarter and smarter!

As they say fool me once…twice..blah blah blah some oneness to coach AT&T management about that! The. Again who cares!

Ted Turner had a vision and mission and eventually sold out and bought a state and a ship load of buffalos…..CNN took its fair share of misguided tour with extended cousins from HBOs and the likes!

And now Malone - with the stated goal to make it a news channel again! With a slight bias towards conservative ideology - can he?

Can he be the middle ground between Murdoch and Koch? Or just be Malone and break it up add a little lipstick to some version of the other trackers and sell a little for a boat load to another AT&T management?


Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Maybe 2023 will be ……

 2023


Going Right

  • war : Biden, Putin summit with Macron, Xi and Z
  • Musk : Twitter raises capital @ higher valuation
  • Inflation & dollar tumbles 
  • China : Jack Ma is back; China starts bailing out Property market
  • Powell : Surprises market with rates direction


Not So Right

  • Apple : Earnings warning
  • Harris : becoming President
  • Covid : Chinese opening lead to spread globally
  • Oil & Gas : War polarizes Energy market and EU unity suffers
  • Iran targeted by U.S. and EU

Twitter Investment Paid off for Elon Musk!

 Selling Tesla shares to over pay for Twitter?

And in hind sight looks like the best investment one could make!


Are we there Yet?

 Is it Y2k, Dot Com Burst, GFS….or are we getting closer and closer to the Great Depression?

War - Tick,

Automobile driven Bubble - Tick,

Pyramid Schemes - Tick,

Political Chaos - Tick…..

Debt, debt and a mountain of debt everywhere and coming to refinance at a more realistic valuation and sky high interest rate…Tick

Shadow Banking and regular banking whose books are artificially inflated by pick a number valuation….tick

new Economy vs Old Economy - Tick….

Federal Reserve….what Federal Reserve …?…..when the heads of the most powerful printing presses of the world are run by lawyers ….

Looks like we can go on and on and on….but one thing that is making it closer to the end of what ever we gotten used to in the capital market is Bloomberg TV…Beginning the new era with Technology and Disruptions of old economy paved the way for Bloomberg finally planting its presence in Silicon Valley with mega coverage of anything and everything Technology and the dawn of new era…..till NOW…..suddenly the program got a couple of run of the mill anchors replacing the founding Anchor…and the holidays saw the absence of it altogether with some meaningless programs……and on top of that during the prime trading hours Balance of Power - a Fox look alike program more political that capital market stretched its already boring hour to TWO….hopefully it is the holiday yawn and the British leadership running the boat taking their journey to the King’s land for the merry holidays….

Is 2023 here yet?


Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Person Behind the Curtain…Pulling the strings??

Why name a King just for the Bond Market…when you have someone whose power goes beyond the capital market…..ability to change the fortune for a lost politician?

Ability to nudge the IMF to slap the newly elected British PM and her team? Leading to her down fall and bringing back a lost candidate to the throne? A PM maker..?

The current Global Capital market and their players have been playing second fiddle to just one person all year long…..

And so does the power players in Washington….from debt market to political capital…all from behind the curtain and in front of a camera once a week …..in Bloomberg’s Wall Street Week!


Yes the new King of the Hill is Larry Summers!

If one had listened to his 15 minutes a week interview…..played the bookies or the markets ….one could have played the winning hand week after week all year long!


Hats off to Larry Summers for being right consistently!

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

And the King is back?

 Just when we are ready to crown the replacement for Bond King….with reach and influence beyond the past King…


He shows up!

Yes- the Bond King himself writes and speaks about what he is good at doing- Nudging and pushing the Federal Reserve to where he wants them to go next!

With an OpEd in Financial Times and a follow up interview on CNBC…..his message is loud and clear: Powell…Stop the carnage and Rate Hikes!!

Can Twitter Make Musk the first Trillion Dollar Man?

One just has to look at the power of Twitter!

No one wants to leave it even though there is no direct monetary rewards for using it…and no matter what their bias towards Twitter’s polarized management practices are…both before and after Elon Musk!

The spontaneity of its reach and influence on any topic and any population is yet to be realized and felt by the financial community…

As the great Ford is often quoted as saying  ‘you listen to the pundits and we will be building carts with 400 horses and not a Model T’…..or as they say in Silicon Valley if only Jobs had listened to the Wall Street power brokers upon selling Pixar to Disney and joined Disney as a Technology Evangelist he might be the CIO of Disney now!

So what could delay Twitter making Musk a Trillionaire? Stepping down as Chief  Twit and bringing in a CEO!

When maybe in a decade…at the peak of next Technology boom!



Slowing to Smell....!

After going through several blogs I came to the conclusion that it is very difficult to write about your day to day life!

Fascinating to see how creative people are and how so many people around the world are able to choose a variety of topic and pour their heart out and paint something so wonderful- full of life and color!

Need Humor! Need Depth and more than anything need perspective! I found it is easy to write about something substantial in which a person is well versed in. It made me think - I went around the last few days looking around and paying attention to everything from nature to relationships!

Now curiosity started posing a question - what is more important to writing? Chosing a topic or having the patience to research and articulate about the impressions that every day events brings to a person?

I thought I will try this every day! For 30 Days!

Impulsive and spontaneous
!

No research - just type as the feelings flow and as the words can portray! Thanks to the Blackberry - now I can try doing that the moment the urge happens without waiting!

As I was deciding on this I found myself in a shop - decided to pull my Blackberry and type what I saw around me...so begins my first piece.

PS. Since Blog has major restricitons on how many posting and what kind of flexibility one can have using the standard template I will try to find a work around using a couple of gadgets to display a couple of days posting at any given time till I figure out a way to display the history!

To avoid dilution of this site I have moved the experiment to another blog under

http://dailylifesigns.blogspot.com

The following is a sample on content with no photos- the Daily Life Signs posting will be more of a pictorial experience!






Walking around a woman's shop!

Looking at the colors in a woman's shop is like peeking into a kaleidoscope. However, one doesn't have to change to feel the vibrant mood.

Amazing styles and fascinating fashion! Trying to coordinate gives the several option that is needed to meet the day to day lifestyles of varying moods and differing ages.

Age appropriate colors! Shades for fading moods!

Bold red!

Sober red!

Flashy red!

Bland red!

Blood Red!

Romantic Red!

Decisions! Decisions! and Decisions!

Deciding the color at the time of shopping gives the option to choose and refine to the various rainbow moods that a person possibly can go through in a fast paced connected world!

Sizes and fits to match every form and need.

Having a choice helps in refinement!

And helps!

In Decisions! Decisions and Decisions!

Startup Wisdom!

May be there is a reason they want a Money Man to run the venture- but the following tip will save a buck or two! This will list a couple of grey hairs to keep!

  • Success is contageous- start it immediately!
  • Share the Vision but not Leadership!
  • Smart money is great - but Lucky Money is even better. Get some!
  • Being passionate is essential - but only after motivation to make money.
  • Establish the TRUE Pecking Order!
  • Let Sales be part of your core strategy- everything else can be bought!
  • If you havent done Selling START DOING IT NOW!

Building your 2nd Million!

Skip the first million and go straight to the second- as the first one is the most difficult one to bring home! The second one can be as tough as the first one but is never tougher than the first one! You can make money - working - investing in stocks/etc - real-estate - starting a business - others Choose your area of interest first as this will help you identify the opportunity and make you easily motivated to work on the 2nd million!

Not in any particular Order!

  • First lets know the facts: 1) Your work life is 40 something years (even at conservative estimate) so lets make sure we plan that Properly
  • 2) Lets identify opportunity to make money with out too much effort- living for Today is Good but lets not lose today's free money in the process like - benefits, tax breaks, sale,coupons,etc
  • 3) Lets not try to make ALL THE MONEY in the same way! Lets break the objective into smaller chunks and assign different ways to make them individually
  • 4) Put the 1st Million in Auto-pilot and set a 10 Years plus Time table
  • Convince yourself that you need the Money
  • Set a time line to achieve the goal.

Relationships - Learning to enjoy them!

Do we retain relationships? Expectations out of frienships vary from society to society & age group to age group. How long do we carry them? Some of them bring fond memories- and some not so pleasant! Here you can expect to see nuggets from my experiences and analysis!

Family & Friends: We spend less time with family than with friends- yet we feel more comfortable with family than friends- Why? Is it because we dont have expectations with family members but we have some on friends?

Allowing the other person to finish their train of thought builds a very long lasting relationship - as it makes you understand the other persons point of view fully & also to respond being aware making even an opposing point of view reasonable.


  • Cherry Pick your arguments - Left or Right Brained!
  • Make every encounter a transaction - this will make leaving baggages behind easy!
  • Qualify the type of relationship - however strange it might be
  • Chasing friendship is not always helpful as it leads to compromise.
  • Family circles - define it and accept it whether you like it or not!
  • Its ok to do different activities with different people!
Prof Dr Peik A Monie's Corner

  • if being number two is not enough go to a lower market
  • .
  • proceeds from a street dog dont bark
  • .
  • shooting the papparazi dont break cameras

DIGITAL IRIS - An inexcusable view of the photograpic world!

Let me see if I can add a few lines every week highlighting my 2 cents on photography- my experiences and desires

Things that make good photos -

- excellent and expensive set of lenses; in this digital era spend less on the body and keep investing in the high end lenses as the lenses will not lose value and the body is still under construction!

- accessories and the right tripod; never underestimate your advantage with a tripod

- plan & choose the subject and the location

- know your subject well!

- look and follow the calendars; simple things like a night with a Full moon- we dont realise that it does not happen every day - if you narrow it to the summer when the sky is still blue - I guess it becomes a couple of times a year- and if you factor n the location and your availability at that location and time...so Knowing the calendar and season helps for a good but not so common picture

- Take some luck with you!

  • Print and Enlarge Some Too
  • Delete Bad Pictures from Storage
  • Isolate Subject's color
  • Assess various profile
  • Add a subject to the frame
  • Take Nature after rain - they look better
  • Transparent Objects like flowers have creative effect with light behind them
  • If you want to enjoy the trip - leave the camera behind!
  • Define the subject for the shoot out trip
  • Take a survey trip before the real shoot out
  • Learn & Buy the Best Tripod
  • Always take a handy utility camera
  • Use Multiple exposure & shots in action oriented moments- this will help you pick the ideal snap - as even a fraction of a second makes a HUGE difference in photos.
  • Know your camers settings!
  • Understand Shutter Lag
  • Understand the camera shakes

AfterMarket Pulse- The boring Services Industry!

Keeping it inefficient is good for every one- A success story and why it will be restricted to a handful in the services Industry- A serious look at the Service Industry and my views on improving them. As a society we have accepted that everything breaks down and needs periodic maintenance. We are willing to pay both money and time to accomodate such services. What we have not done is define what is the service level that is needed for every such incident. From household appliances to industrial equipments we are forced to accept the cost and quality that the market offers. In such a sellers market room for mediocracy is enormous- giving way for opportunities. Yes predicatability is not always easy when it comes to failure or repair - or for that matter to identify what is wrong once the item is broke as it is not always possible to run the equipment ot see what is going wrong! And there are companies that can afford stupidity & those that cannot- if you want to change choose wisely!

  • Three steps: 1) Localize Failure 2) Response to Events 3) Time to Life
  • Inter-dependency at a higer level accelerates return
  • Resposiveness is rewarding - even if it is just to show on site of event!
  • Failure Prevention is difficult - yet possible
  • Know your Industry problems: Inventory, Turn time, Forecasting Failure, Estimating Cost, Finding Talent, Automation tools
  • Know your industry Practices- Swapping parts, using refurbished items, penalty
  • Define Quality of service
  • Attract talent - as service industry does not attract fresh talents
  • Innovote service packages

About Me

Seen me go through cycles driven by Age, Money, Deception, Affection, Success, Failure, Fear- etc. The current cycle puts me in a middle aged bucket with sculpted bitterness trying to tame it to embrace the sweet crime of success and affection.