Filed in Colorado | Environment
A question I rarely ask, “Why do I live in Colorado?” is regularly answered in ways like it was today. Driving from Denver to Boulder I interrupted my cell phone caller with “There is a bald eagle in that tree right there.” – Don’t worry Mom, I wasn’t driving. -
It is these regular, yet surprising scenes of our wonderful state that reminds me, long before I forget, what brought me here in the first place.
This is Pinewood Derby Week for Pack 377 and my first derby since the early ’70s. The wheels are wider and the block of wood does not have a cockpit pre-cut but the rest seems to be the same. My first car I built with my dad a little more than a year before he died. It is one of the few scouting memories of him I retain and building this year’s car collection has brought some fond memories forward.
Today, we painted the cars in preparation for Wednesday’s weigh-in and Friday’s Derby. We cut them Thanksgiving week and sanded them in early December. Since then we’ve been waiting for some warmer weather so we could finish them in the garage. Yesterday, we decided we would have to risk the kitchen and hope the enamel paint did not get applied to anything that mattered. Other than hands and pajamas, only a few spots on the chairs have been painted so far. Oh, and the cars. It seems Lightening McQueen is this year’s favorite model as we have two red speedsters to go along with a black caddy and a blue and orange rocket.
Filed in Home
I took our holiday decorations down today. Or rather I should say I dug them out of the frozen snow. Always afraid of being compared to the Griswalds, we pride ourselves in having our Christmas decorations pack away by New Year’s Day. Our indoor decorations were packed weeks ago, while our outside decorations were stuck under the forty plus inches of snow we got between December 20th and 27th.
So, today it was time to get it done. Only about 8 inches of snow remains in our front yard, but it was the two inches of frozen snow / ice which held firmly to the electical cords. Each had to literally be dug down to the grass and pried out of the snow pack. The extension cords remain buried under the snow while my neighbors can now rejoice that our lighted deer will no longer meet them morning, noon and night.
Filed in Management | Technology | Venture capital
Tom Evslin’s post Web 2.0 – Greater Initial Investments Required suggests that early Web 2.0 companies seized the advantage of low cost technical infrastructure and low cost marketing to gain cost advantages. These companies were able to get big cheaper and faster than the first generation internet companies. While he agrees with Fred Willson that the technology cost will remain low, he suggest the lower promotion expense is now behind us. The low cost of technology results in a lower cost of entry and will in fact increase promotional spending and the need for capital.
In any event, both men are suggesting there will be capital required to grow these companies going forward. Those who are putting their business plans together without consideration for this cost increase will at least have some tough funding questions or worse some serious costs overruns.Â
Filed in Economy | Management
Why are private boards putting more value on the efforts of top managers than comparable public companies? With no doubt there have been compensation structures for CEOs that were neither aligned with the interest of the shareholders or other stakeholders in the corporation. However, the comparison between the pay at the top of the organization and that at lower levels really misses the mark. This comparison just happens to be simple to calculate, easily understood and highly contentious.
The true value of a CEO is her ability to improve the value of the company. The best way to measure this is to compare the value increase to other similar companies in order to remove the value increase or decrease that impacted all companies in the sector.
The cost of the CEO should be market driven with significant portions based on performance. What is the market rate for a CEO with these skills and necessary experience? Just as the top performers in movies or baseball games are paid many multiples the salary enjoyed by their peers due to the short supply of “stars”, CEOs are short in supply as well.
What is surprising here is that private companies with active investors on their boards are offering higher compensation for these talents than the generally less active boards of public companies? I would suggest that the backlash of the “compensation scandals” have the compensation committee of public companies swinging too far in the conservative direction. The swing was needed, let’s hope it does not continue so that public companies become the minor league training camps for CEO destined to play in the private company major leagues.
Public CEOs take to private firms in order to get top dollar as shown in Private Firms Lure Chief Executives With Top Pay – New York Times