There's a recent article on Forbes.com entitled "The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives" which discusses the common traits of senior executives at formerly successful companies and why these habits led to the decline of the companies.  It's worth a read.  Here's the link:   http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/01/02/the-seven-habits-of-spectacularly-unsuccessful-executives/

Fortune has a good article  today about the pitfalls of investing in a hot tech company after it goes public.  The article, written by Kevin Kelleher, is entitled "OpenTable's Rise and Fall is a Cautionary Tale," and discusses the rise and fall of OpenTable's stock price and the reasons for this.  Essentially, the article identifies two primary reasons for the rise and fall of the stock price: the "herd mentality of momentum investors"; and the "company's business is beginning to face some headwinds."  It's worth a read.  Here's the link:    http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/01/03/opentable-rise-and-fall/

First Round Capital has posted a holiday video that parodies Rebecca Black's Friday video.  Creative and worth a watch.  Here's the link:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP4HiZt3DFE&feature=channel_video_title

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

A recent article by Jerry Weissman on Forbes.com entitled "Vinod Khosla's Five Second Rule" essentially told me that my presentations would never pass muster for Mr. Khosla.  In the article, Mr. Weissman states:

"[Mr. Khosla] puts a slide on a screen, removes it after five seconds, and then asks the viewer to describe the slide.  A dense slide fails the test -- and fails to provide the basic function of any visual: to aid the presentation."

Here's a link to the article:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/jerryweissman/2011/10/26/vinod-khoslas-five-second-rule/

I'm going to have to apply this rule to my next presentation to see if my slides can be improved...

I'm in the midst of reading "Steve Jobs", the authorized biography by Walter Isaacson and have found it to be, so far, a fascinating read of a visionary, complicated man.  There have been a plethora of articles on Steve Jobs in the press over the past several weeks, but in the past couple of days a few articles have really caught my eye.

The first is an opinion column by Walter Isaacson in the New York Times entitled "The Genius of Jobs".  To me it is a good glimpse of the tone of the biography and well worth a read.  Here's the link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/steve-jobss-genius.html?pagewanted=all

Another is his sister Mona Simpson's eulogy for her brother Steve that was delivered on October 16 at the memorial service at the Stanford chapel.  Very touching.  Here's the link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/mona-simpsons-eulogy-for-steve-jobs.html?pagewanted=all

Jean-Louis Gassée, who worked with Steve at Apple and who is featured in the Isaacson biography, writes his own review entitled "Steve's Bio: A Personal Perspective", which I found to be enlightening.  It can be found here:  http://www.mondaynote.com/2011/10/30/steve%E2%80%99s-bio-a-personal-perspective/

Finally, I find Steve's commencement speech at Stanford University at 2005 to be incredibly motivational.  Here's the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

Interesting article on the erosion of the American Dream from Nin-Hai Tseng of Fortune Term Sheet.  Here's the link:
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/24/american-dream-is-gone/

There is a review in the Atlantic of the movie Margin Call: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/10/margin-call-a-financial-crisis-film-thats-on-the-money/247116/.

I saw this movie, and was a little disappointed.  The movie focuses on the drama of a firm dealing with its exposure to Mortgage-Backed Securities, but only deals with MBS at a very high and vague level.  Perhaps the subject matter is too complex to adequately explain in a movie, but without understanding more about the issue, the movie lacked substance to me.  And maybe I went to the movie with expectations that were too high, given the positive reviews I read and the great cast.

So set your expectations lower and enjoy the film!