Hey everybody! There’s still some Kool-Aid in the punch bowl!
I mean, they’re backed by Goldman Sachs. What could go wrong? It’s not like they’ve ever deceived their own clients. Oh, wait.
I remember when Groupon was getting ready to get bough by Google. But, their finance guy blabbed about it and Google pulled out within hours of learning about the leak.
I remember where I was when I first heard Greece was in deep doo doo (at a depth not seen since The Treaty of Versailles).
It was a Sunday. I was at the original DuPar’s at Third and Fairfax. I’d brought my NY Times. The front page said it all: Greece was behind with both his landlord and the repo man.
The Greek government faced possible collapse on Tuesday as ruling party lawmakers demanded Prime Minister George Papandreou resign for throwing the nation’s euro membership into jeopardy with a shock call for a referendum.
Ironically, the film Grease was the first Hollywood musical to make a profit in the ten years that preceded its release.
via WRAPUP 5-Greece risks meltdown after bailout vote bombshell | Reuters.
In 2008, a teenager was killed by Greek police and it lead to a riot that lasted longer than a week. Today, a middle-aged man died. Anarchist rumor has it that the trade unionist, Dimitris Kotsaridis, fell from the glass awnings over Syntagma Square and had a heart attack. The word inside the square was that he was fighting with the authorities. Just rumours, not fact. Nevertheless, that’s what we were hearing, true or not. Either way, rumor is spreading and anger will probably follow.
via People Are Burning Alive on the Streets of Athens | VICE.
The 24 arrestees, comprising 15 women and nine men, spent several hours in a jail in South Boston, but are unlikely to face any serious charges.
“I had grossly underestimated the level of extraordinarily unethical and even fraudulent behavior that had occurred on such a large scale,” Ferguson tells All Things Considered host Melissa Block, in a conversation airing Friday.
via Inside Job Director Charles Ferguson, Taking Wall Street Firmly To Task : Monkey See : NPR.
The Chiat/Day relationship with Steve Jobs and Apple is nothing short of legendary. That legend goes something like this:
Chiat was hired by Apple to create the (also legendary) Ridley Scott-directed, $1 million, only-aired-once-cause-it’s-so-goddamn-special 1984 commercial that introduced the Macintosh line of computers during the Super Bowl.
Big Brother on the telescreen in the Apple 1984 commercial
When Jobs was forced out of left Apple, he used some of his newfound wealth to put Chiat/Day on retainer as his personal ad agency; basically, he took them with him when he left the company.
Artist's rendering of Jobs departure
The Building
The ad agency used some of that money to build a new office building.
LOL Binoculars
Completed in 1991, Chiat’s Gehry-designed building on Main Street in Venice is a globally-recognizable structure that boasts office space of 71,935 square feet teamed with the iconic presence of Claes Oldenberg‘s enormous binocular edifice arching over the original parking entrance. The building is within sight of the original design space of Charles and Ray Eames, a stone’s throw from one of our favorite Austrian’s old hangout spots (e.g. Gold’s Gym), and across the street from the original Venice Short Line Ocean Park Yard trolley station (it’s now an MTA bus depot and you can still see some original rail tracks from before the buses took over).
In 1996, the ad agency left that building and moved to Playa del Rey. Jobs was running NeXT computer when that company was bought by Apple. TBWA/Chiat-Day created a self-contained subsidiary called Media Arts Lab. This new organization would be dedicated to a single client, Steve Jobs.
Apple’s New Rivalry
“Make no mistake: Google wants to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them.” – Steve Jobs addressing Apple employees in early 2010
Apple (Jobs) seems to thrive on competition. See Microsoft (Bill Gates) for more info. Jobs has always had a reputation for being the “cool kid” amongst the tech giants. Your cute lab partner in chemistry class? Steve’s ex-girlfriend. And like any good Alpha geek, he’s got a chip on his shoulder. Just let him think he’s in charge and everything will be cool.
Steve Jobs (Noah Wiley) confronting Gates (Anthony Michael Hall) about Windows in The Pirates of Silicon Valley
I’m still researching the origins of their personal relationship, but they’ve been neighbors for years. Schmidt was a big deal at Sun when they developed Java and then went to run Novell before leaving to head Google. He’s taught at Stanford. It seems like the guy has been in the Valley since grad school.
Fast-forward to 2010. Rumours develop of a rift between Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs.
It’s like watching Lex Luthor fight Dr. Viktor von Doom: baaaaaad aaaass (I leave it up to you to figure out who’s who in that simile)
So, this post will never be done. I have to publish it now or I will never stop working on it.
But the saga continues…
Further reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/technology/14brawl.html
UPDATE: An anonymous source at Google confirmed that this theory is not unlikely. Internally, Googlers are a little jealous of the unstoppable climb in Apple’s share price. Coupled with the its fanaticism, the reality distortion field (RFD) at Apple breeds contempt amongst the faithful toward any perceived non-believers.
For anyone who’s been complaining about the ever-worsening state of our Federal government’s finances over the past ten years, consider the concept of the zero-sum game: this should be familiar to all the free market (Chicago School) fans who can quote Gordon Gecko soliloquies like baseball stats; someone wins, someone loses.
So, smart guys (I’m looking at you, Quants), we on the bottom are making less every month. I’ve retraced my steps, and I can’t seem to find them over here. I’m just wondering…
Has anyone seen out money?
I mean, the money had to go somewhere, right?
You bet I wanna talk about class warfare.
Anyone who’s ever split a dinner check more than six ways should be familiar with this phenomenon. Sometimes one or more people don’t cough up enough dough. And for whatever reason, they aren’t going to own up to it. Maybe they are nurturing an unhealthy emotional grudge against one of the other dinner patrons, but the bottom line is everybody else has to put it a little more than they should have to.
REMINDER: You’re not one of the super-rich. I know you think you are, but you’re not. We’re not interested in you, so relax. You can keep your yacht, the Bugattis, and the islands in the South Pacific. We don’t want those. We just want you to cover the check.
I need to state that because it’s important. So many of us like to think of ourselves as “rich” or “powerful” when it’s just statistically almost impossible. There’s just such a small number of us (statistically) in that segment of the socioeconomic strata.
We’re all brought up to think we’re “haves” and not “have nots”. I’m not sure how it’s done exactly, but I’ve spoken to enough people on this subject to know that more often than not it’s the rule and not the exception.
The super-rich had best start paying their fair share of the tax base; either that or file a flight plan and keep your passports handy.
Read this for more info: Scary New Wage Data.
Other links to check out:
http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/richest-400-taxpayers-see-incomes-double
I’m tired of all the Meg Whitman ads on my site. Even if I didn’t dislike her politics, I’d still be disturbed by the amount of money she’s spending on her campaign ads.
So, enjoy!
Kyle Hayes
My friend Kyle has a blog. Kyle is The Master.
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