Press On
March 30, 2014 2 Comments
The Buffalo Story
March 29, 2014 4 Comments
Once the Buddha was walking with his disciples. He wanted some water and there was a pond, but just then a buffalo entered the pond and stirred up the mud so that the clean water became muddy water.
The Buddha still wanted some water from the pond, but his disciples protested that it had become dirty.They suggested waiting till they came to some other pond nearby. The Buddha smiled at them and kept walking.
When they found no other pond nearby, the Buddha said: ‘Go back and get the water from the same pond’. The disciples said: ‘No, it’s dirty’. The Buddha then said: ‘Go check’.
When the disciples went back, the water had settled and they could take some of the water to the Buddha. When the water was taken in a cup, it settled down even further and clear water was on the top. The Buddha then said: ‘The mind is like this. If the mind is agitated, wait for a while, it will settle.Leave the mind be for a little while and it will settle down. It cannot be disturbed forever. All these disturbances are momentary. So do nothing , just give the mind a little time, wait, and it will settle.
And it’s the same with everything in life, sometimes you have to learn to be with it and allow it to settle. If you are in a hurry for the water in the pond to settle, it won’t settle, it will get dirtier.
The Roller Coaster Life Of James Altucher
March 28, 2014 1 Comment
Ever wondered what it feels like to lose a great deal of money?Here’s a first person account:
When I built my first company in the 90s I did everything smart until I did everything stupid.
We built websites for entertainment companies. Bad Boy Records, Miramax, Time Warner, HBO, Sony, Disney, Loud Records, Interscope, on and on. Oh, and Con Edison.
Then I saw that kids in junior high school were learning HTML. So I sold the business. $15mm. About a year later. I hedged and cashed out. Sold all my shares. The $15 million was now cash.
I bought an apartment for millions. I rebuilt it. Feng Shui! I bought art. I played a lot of poker. I began investing in companies. A million here. A few hundred thousand there. One IPO I put $2 million in at $20 and watched it go to $0. They made wireless devices for deaf people. Huge market. Read more of this post
Why Go Private?
March 28, 2014 Leave a comment
Being the promoter of a public company is seen as prestigious.So why do promoters sometimes opt to make their company private again?The simple answer is often the possibility of Private Gains.Public share holders and promoters often have vastly different perspectives on making money,vastly different time horizons when it comes to harvesting gains,vastly different risk perceptions and holding power.Here is an example:
In early ’13,Dell had a total market cap of about $22 billion. They also had about $11 billion in cash, which meant the stock market was valuing the entire business at $11 billion ($22 – 11). The company had a price-to-earnings multiple of about 8.5.
So the situation was that, if Michael Dell and private equity investors put in $2 bilion, used the cash on the company’s books and borrowed the remaining $9 billion, they could control the entire company without the hassle of having public shareholders.
The flexibility of not having public shareholders would enable Michael to do what has needed to be done for years, and that is massively streamline the company’s manufacturing and sales forces (probably through layoffs), re-focus the core PC business, grow the enterprise and consulting businesses, and make the company generally more Lenovo-like or IBM-like. Read more of this post
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