Category: Quote

Startups: The Open Road

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Open_Blue_Road
There’s an article in this week’s New Yorker (link) that i found on Caterina.net about the painter Luc Tuymans, who describes how he creates his work: “It’s like I don’t know what I’m doing but I know how to do it.” The article’s author, notes that “uncertain ends, confident means is about as good a general definition of creativity as I know.”

That quote made me thing of the activities around launching a company.  You never know what’s going to hit you but you know that you’ll be able to solve it when it comes.  It makes me think of one of my favorite quotes:

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road

– Walt Whitman

I have found that you must be both excited and confident and if you are, it’s very fulfilling.  Just some words to think about over the weekend

Getting Beyond ‘Z’

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Was reading The Dartmouth Alumni Magazine the other day and it had some great quotes from Theodor Geisel, a prominent alum and extremely successful author under the name Dr. Seuss.

dr_seussWhile at Dartmouth, Theodor was editor of Dartmouth’s comedy magazine called The Jacko. That is  until he got caught drinking on Easter eve and got kicked out.  By his fraternity (Caste and Gauntlet) he was voted least likely to succeed and he graduated with a 2.4 in 1925.  Given all that he managed to go out and sell  more than 222 million books (66 titles).  That’s pretty amazing

Here are some good quotes:

My alphabet starts with this letter called yuzz. It’s the letter I use to spell yuzz-a-matuzz. You’ll be sort of surprised what there is to be found once you go beyond ‘Z’ and start poking around

Nonesense wakes up the brain cells. And it helps develop a sense of humor, which is awfully important in this day and age. Humor has a tremendous place in this sordid world. It’s more than just a matter of laughing. If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack

If you sat 50 years with your worms and your wishes, you’d grow a long beard before you catch fishes

I’d like to get beyond Z soon. It sounds like a good place to be.

dr-seuss-tree-big.jpg

Little Person & Synecdoche, New York

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Synecdoche, New York

I’m just a little person,
One person in a sea
Of many little people
Who are not aware of me.

I do my little job
And live my little life,
Eat my little meals,
Miss my little kid and wife

And somewhere, maybe someday,
Maybe somewhere far away,
I’ll find a second little person
who will look at me and say,

“I know you
You’re the one I’ve waited for.
Let’s have some fun.”

Life is precious every minute,
and more precious with you in it,
so let’s have some fun

We’ll take a road trip way out west. You’re the one I like the best.
I’m glad I’ve found you,
Like being around you
You’re the one I like the best.

Somewhere, maybe someday,
Maybe somewhere far away,
I’ll meet a second little person
And we’ll go out and play.
— Little Person, “Synecdoche, New York”

The lines bring me back to the movie “Synecdoche, New York” which is extremely provocative.  I’m not sure i would call it entertaining but i definitely enjoyed it. I’m pretty sure i need to see it again.  I do think Charlie Kaufman (the writer and director) is a genius.  He’s written some incredible films – all about the mind and how we intereact with it. In fact, here’s how i categorize all his films:

  • Most mainstream and accessible – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (How we deal with losing your mind)
  • Most clever and funniest – Adaptation (Having a twin brother do what you cannot)
  • Most creative and original – Being John Malkovich (Going into someone else’s mind)
  • Most thought provoking – Synecdoche, New York (How the mind deals with age, discouragement, wisdom and uncertainty)
  • Most exciting and sexy – Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (How the mind deals with two different lives)

I’m not sure which one is my favorite as they are all good in different ways.   Which ones do you like?

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A Breakfast with Nolan Bushnell

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Creativity by Nolan
Image by pescatello via Flickr

Last Saturday i was part of the METal group that had breakfast with Nolan Bushnell.  It was a really thought provoking.  My favorite part was the beginning of the speech which he came out and said:

Ideas don’t mean shit.  Everyone has good ideas.  Some better than others.  Only over time and work can you own an idea.  Just having an idea doesn’t account for a thing, but if you spend a year making an idea a reality only then can you claim an ownership of it.

Prior to the breakfast, i had never heard of Nolan.  If you don’t know who he is, let me list some of his accomplishments:

  • Founded the company Atari in 1972 and grew it to $2 billion in annual sales in 1982 and at the time was the fastest-growing company in the history of American business.
  • Founded Chucky Cheese in 1977 and turned over day-to-day operations in 1981
  • Founded in 1984 Etak which was the first company to digitize the maps of the world, as part of the first commercial automotive navigation system; the maps ultimately provided the backbone for Google maps, mapquest.com, and other navigation systems; it was sold to Rupert Murdoch in the 1980s. In May 2000 the company, headquartered in Menlo Park, California, became a wholly owned subsidiary of Tele Atlas.

Let’s just say he’s quite a badass.  At the breakfast he talked about those past ventures and some of the businesses he’s involved with – specifically bring social games back to an arcade-like area and transforming the educational system.

One piece he did talk about is how to stimulate creativity within a company.  He mentioned that he has a system to do this.  Saying:

With every company i’m involved with, I get the group of “thought leaders” together in a room. I then ask them to metaphorically to “keep one foot on base” and come up with what the 2-year product line should be. These are the logical products that a smart company should invest in.  I typically like to redo the 2 year roadmap every 4 months.

After i get the “one foot on base” ideas, then I ask people for their wild and crazy ideas. Each person must supply one. I’m a Nazi about getting each and every person to submit at least one off-the-wall idea.

Then we take a break, play football and drink a beer and go to bed.

The next day we get back together and i ask the group how they’d implement their wild & crazy idea. Doing so tends to lend credibility to a crazy idea and makes them actually possible. I have found that more good ideas and companies come from these crazy ideas than the  2-year product roadmaps

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Obama and ASU

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i have a few things to say about Obama’s commencement address at ASU this week.

First, i think the address itself was really good.  I like how he keep’s it real.  Even though he now officially part of “The System” he can still talk about short-term election-winning activities and doing what’s good for the country.  That makes me happy.  He says:

In the face of these challenges, it may be tempting to fall back on the formulas for success that have dominated these recent years. Many of you have been taught to chase after the usual brass rings: being on this “who’s who” list or that top 100 list; how much money you make and how big your corner office is; whether you have a fancy enough title or a nice enough car.

You can take that road – and it may work for some of you. But at this difficult time, let me suggest that such an approach won’t get you where you want to go; that in fact, the elevation of appearance over substance, celebrity over character, short-term gain over lasting achievement is precisely what your generation needs to help end.

I also thought it was cool how he was able to relate Winston Churchill to Kurt Warner:

Just look to history. Thomas Paine was a failed corset maker, a failed teacher, and a failed tax collector before he made his mark on history with a little book called Common Sense that helped ignite a revolution. Julia Child didn’t publish her first cookbook until she was almost fifty, and Colonel Sanders didn’t open up his first Kentucky Fried Chicken until he was in his sixties. Winston Churchill was dismissed as little more than a has-been, who enjoyed scotch just a bit too much, before he took over as Prime Minister and saw Great Britain through its finest hour. And no one thought a former football player stocking shelves at the local supermarket would return to the game he loved, become a Super Bowl MVP, and then come here to Arizona and lead your Cardinals to their first Super Bowl.

Each of them, at one point in their life, didn’t have any title or much status to speak of. But they had a passion, a commitment to following that passion wherever it would lead, and to working hard every step along the way.

But by far my favorite thing about him going to ASU and not getting an honorary degree is The Daily Show skit about it.  They just take ASU apart.  Click to watch:

Picture 13

Clint and Gran Torino

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I saw Clint Eastwood‘s latest movie, Gran Torino, last weekend and really liked it. Clint played an over-the-hill retired Detroit autoworker who is sour. He’s pissed off at the lack of respect displayed throughout society and his family and his bitterness creates some pretty funny moments.

I also was able to read this month’s Esquire magazine which features Clint. In this article you hear Clint describe an earlier time when kids had it rougher and people weren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty.

Some of his quotes:

we were always moving. Redding. Sacramento. Pacific Palisades. Back to Redding. Back to Sacramento. Over to Hayward. Niles. Oakland. So we were constantly on the road, and I was always the new guy in school. The bullies always thought, Here’s this big gangly guy. We gotta take him on. You know how kids are. We gotta test him. I was a shy kid. But a lot of my childhood was spent punching the bullies out.

My father had a couple of kids at the beginning of the Depression. There was not much employment. Not much welfare. People barely got by. People were tougher then.

We live in more of a pussy generation now, where everybody’s become used to saying, “Well, how do we handle it psychologically?” In those days, you just punched the bully back and duked it out. Even if the guy was older and could push you around, at least you were respected for fighting back, and you’d be left alone from then on.

I don’t know if I can tell you exactly when the pussy generation started. Maybe when people started asking about the meaning of life.

I’ve been hit from Clint from all sides. After i read the article, i then heard an interview of him on NPR where he talks about his Dirty Harry days and how he actually enjoys playing characters that are very different from him.   The mp3 for that interview is here.

I will say that i think Gran Torino is one of his better movies.  Not as good as Million Dollar Baby but still pretty solid.

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Slumdog Millionaire is the best of 2008

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Last week i saw the movie Slumdog Millionaire and it was amazing.  Easily the best movie i’ve seen yet this year.  It’s a story about an orphan in the city of Mumbai, India who rises from the depths of poverty to become filthy rich on the strength of his intelligence.

Some thoughts:

  • A scene in the beginning of the film when the main character (Jamel) has to jump through a pool of crap/sewage to get an autograph from his idol is one of the best scenes i’ve seen in a long time. Not only does it immediately introduce the two main characters (Jamel and his brother) but also perfectly depicts their completely different personalities.  The picture above is from that scene
  • The music in the movie is incredible. The pace of the movie is frantic and the music does a great job to keep it going.  I specifically love the MIA song in the middle of the movie.
  • the cinematography is awesome.  You can see lots of shots that are similar to Trainspotting (another Daniel Boyle film) but used in a different way here.  Instead of depicting a drug addict, it’s used to show the insane Indian culture
  • At the very end of the movie they have the stars (Jamel and his girlfriend) do a Bollywood-type dance.  I think this dance does wonders for how people feel when leave the theater and their impression of the movie.  The movie ends on a positive note but very little of the movie is upbeat and happy.  But by having a light and fun scene playing at the end, I was able to let a sigh of relief out and smile.  I think that really matters
  • I’ve been reading two books: The Post-American World (Fareed Zakaria) and Hot, Flat and Crowded (Thomas Friedman) – and both tell the tale of India and what it means for our future as a planet.  India is as important as China because of the size of its population and its embrace of Democracy.  This movie is the first film where i’ve seen the India described in these books, an India that is a Democracy, that’s over crowded, that is both corrupt and opportunistic, that is changing from being very poor to being very industrial, that is become more and more American.
  • By naming it the best movie of 2008 (so far) made me realize how few great films there have been in 2008. With maybe the exception of The Dark Knight, nothing from the summer or fall were even contenders for Best Picture. Hopefully there will be a surprise in the next few weeks (Doubt, Benjamin Button, Revolutionary Road) that will totally redeem 2008, but it’s seeming like a pretty bad year
  • The movie also shows how multi-cultural movies are becoming.  A good review on NPR says this too, saying:

Ours is, after all, an age when cross-cultural impulses inflect everything from music to presidential elections. And Slumdog could hardly be more cross-cultural: a romantic adventure set in India, financed in Europe, made by English filmmakers, featuring Muslim characters speaking Hindi, with a climax hinging on the answer to a question about a French novel. And it’s a blast.

Don’t let the above points distract you.  This movie is AWESOME and you should go see it.  It’s my leading candidate for best movie of the year.

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Milk

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I heard this quote this week from Noah:

Most people drink milk, just not in public

This is so true and frankly i’m sick of all the wierd looks i get when i get a big glass of skim with my sandwiches.  Why is it more publicly acceptable to drink beer at breakfast than order milk for lunch?  I never understood this.