Tuyen's Blog

Steve Jobs at the Cupertino City Council Meeting


Steve Jobs spoke at a Cupertino City Council Meeting tonight re: the building of the new Apple HQ on land they previously purchased from HP.  Interesting tidbit re: his early interaction with Bill Hewlett and his connection with the city where he grew up.  Given Apple's importance to the area, I'm sure his presence wasn't required at this meeting so it's a good sign that he was able to attend given his recent health issues.  Still looking physically frail, it's clear his mind is still as sharp as ever as he answered questions from the council members.  At times he looked somewhat perplexed at the questions asked which it was clear had no bearing on anything of true importance.  I loved his response to one council member who questioned whether this new building would be "good for Cupertino".  
Council Member Wang:
"People are curious as you know what city residents could benefit from this new campus?"

Jobs:
"Well as you know, we're the largest tax payer in Cupertino.  So we'd like to continue to stay here and pay taxes... Because if we can't then we have to go to somewhere like Mountain View...  And the largest tax base would go away."
How's that for an answer?  Typical Steve.  Get well soon.

Lots of Warriors news ... Mark Jackson as head coach and Ellis trade rumors

Wow, lots of news today for the W's. First a confirmed event - Mark Jackson is announced as the new head coach. Not 100% sure of the success of this choice but it does mix things up a little bit (not necessarily a bad thing). However, without any NBA coaching experience, Jackson will have a tough road ahead of him leading a team that is not the most disciplined. Up tempo may be exciting to watch but doesn't always lead to many championships.

As for the Ellis for Iguodala trade rumors, that one might be interesting. Of course, Iguodala is not as dynamic a scorer as Ellis but he does have size, can rebound better, and may fit better with Curry. However, he is a year older and $11.1M more over the next 3 years ($2.5M, $3.7M and $4.9M). If he plays like he did in 2006-2008 then this could work. However, if he's more like his 2009-2011 numbers then this is a bad trade. Still, it'll be hard to see Ellis go. He was definitely exciting but in the long run, there was no way the Warriors could win with two undersized guards.

I'm not saying LinkedIn is overvalued ... but I'm saying LinkedIn is overvalued

I was just looking at LinkedIn's stock price today and something stood out. Not the $81+ current stock price but the P/E ratio of 1,217.61. That's correct 1,217.61. For some perspective, Yahoo! (which is struggling) has a P/E ratio of 19.45. Google, which is still on a roll but not the darling it once was has a P/E ratio of 20.54. You can argue that a hot company liked LinkedIn versus Yahoo! is not contest. However, versus Google? Not so much.

For the record, I'm not a stock guy. There are probably some nuances to the P/E ratio that don't tell the full story, etc. Also, I really like LinkedIn as a service. It's invaluable to me as a networking, recruiting, prospecting tool. But to give you some perspective, I've spent tens of thousands of dollars a month advertising on both Yahoo! and Google, each. Again, that's PER MONTH. Since LinkedIn has been in existence, I think I've spent a total of less than $500. Again, I may be atypical and maybe I'm an old fart and not with it like the cool kids who grew up on social media but it's hard for me to understand that valuation. I sincerely hope they grow into it and continue being successful.

Jerry West joins Warriors front office as adviser

The Golden State Warriors hired Jerry West on Friday to work with the front-office team in an advisory role and be a member of the executive board. West will assist the basketball operations staff and the business arm of the team, reporting directly to new owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber.
via sports.yahoo.com

This is HUGE! Just look at what he did for the Lakers and Grizzlies. A big step in the right direction.

Beware of speed loss tether-ers...

I'm sitting at the cafe (which doesn't have WIFI) and doing some work. For instances like this, I use a non-sanctioned tethering app - HandyLight (one of the best $0.99 apps ever). Don't bother looking for it - Apple yanked the app on July 20, 2010. It takes a few semi-complicated steps to get everything setup but once you've gone through it a few times, it takes less than 30 seconds to tether your iPhone to your laptop. One thing I did notice was that things seemed to be slower than usual when surfing on my tethered laptop. I did a quick speed test and noticed that the download speed on my tethered laptop was almost 33% slower than directly to the iPhone itself. Upload speed was almost 40% slower. Not sure if the physics behind tethering means there will always be this speed degradation no matter what method you use - sanctioned or unsanctioned. If so, the value proposition of paying $20 EXTRA a month to tether your laptop to your iPhone seems much less appealing.