kazabyte

What I Did Over My Summer -- Make that Autumn -- Vacation

2012-12-17T20:16:54Z

Many of you have been wondering - where's Wayne and what has he been up to for the past 3 months? Well, I've been spending time at the University of Washington in the department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE). Earlier this Fall, I took a Visiting Faculty position at the UW. I've been teaching CSE 403 (the senior level software engineering course) and doing some research along the way. I'll be here for about a year. This has been a great experience thus far. It's a chance to work with some of the best computer scientists in the world, teach at a great academic institution, and engage with really awesome students. It's a road previously traveled - I did a similar stint in 2001-2002, also at the University of Washington.

Why did I do this, you ask? Well, after a serendipitous conversation with Professor Dan Grossman, the opportunity to teach presented itself last summer. I jumped at the opportunity. I was interested in helping the UW Computer Science department - what better way than to teach students in a area where I have a great deal of experience? And, for me, I was really interested on many fronts:

To learn from students and a generation of people that that I don't spend much time with
To explore state of the art "stuff" going on in computer science
To think about what I am going to do next

Further, I wanted students to know more about startups and entrepreneurship. My experience recruiting at the UW was that computer science graduates were exposed to a lot of opportunities at great big companies (the Googles, Facebooks, Amazons, and Microsofts of the world) but not so much exposure to the world of smaller companies and starting up. I ran a successful seminar in front the UW Industrial Affiliates meeting in October: Great companies from both the Bay Area and Seattle presented and I helped widen the "opportunity pipeline" between students and industry. I'll try to run this program again next year. BTW, the UW CSE Industrial Affiliates program is a great way to engage with the department, especially if you are a startup. One of the best benefits is the opportunity to recruit great students from a top computer science program. Only Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, and CMU rival the UW in my humble opinion.

So how did class go? What knowledge did I impart on students? Well, here's my summary of the experience. And, if you want to see the course curriculum, check out this site. Overall, my approach was a little different than the past. My goal to was to bring "real world" knowledge and experience into the classroom - stuff that students don't necessarily get from their typical academic experience. It was a great quarter working with great students.

Last, it's been great reconnecting with some "old (as in people I've known a long time)" friends -- Ed, Hank, David, Gatano, Simon and meet some really great "new" faculty -- Magda, Steve, Luis.

Will the Real Mitt Romney Please Stand Up?

2012-11-04T20:52:39Z

It's two days before election day. In actuality, two days until the last day to vote. Most of my friends, either by choosing to vote via absentee ballot or being required to vote by mail, all ready have. From those that have not and are still on the fence with regards to the Presidential election, I hear a common refrain:

Who is Mitt Romney? What does he stand for? What is at the core of his values? His "flip flopping (e.g. abortion rights, healthcare reform, taxation)" is confusing. I think we collectively have asked:

Will the Real Mitt Romney Please Stand Up?

(Apologies to Bill Stewart and Goodman-Todsman of "To Tell the Truth" fame)

Flip Flopper? Yes. But Why?

Based on positions taken, it's clear where Mr. Romney stands, today. However, such positions are very different from his positions in the past. I'm guessing they may be different than those in the future. Is he just another politician, speaking whatever is currently convenient? A man who can't make up his mind? Is he irrational? Or perhaps, a rational flip flopper? I say no to all of the above.

I've looked to his LinkedIn profile for a clue. A Harvard MBA. A consultant during the hey day of being a consultant. A consultant turned CEO. All great credentials. I've worked with the best of the best consultants. I've worked with great CEOs. I've even worked with consultants turned CEOs. He's one of them.

After discounting all the other reasons why we know so little about Romney's convictions and values, I've realized there is one explanation -- he's a consultant at his core. A consultant turned CEO. And, if elected, I think he'll be a consultant turned President.

See, many consultants rarely have convictions of their own. And, they lack imagination. They have a goal or problem to solve. Employing tactics of gathering smart experts and opinions, diving into the problem, applying methodologies of their firm, consultants "get to to the bottom of the problem and find a solution." Or, maybe just telling the client what the client wants to hear. Cynically or real, the joke most often told by a consultant seems to be, "My job is to look at a client's watch and tell him (her) what time it is." Rarely, it seems, that consultants have opinions of their own. And, even less common, do they formulate imaginative, creative solutions. Rarely do personal values or convictions enter the equation.

Consultants-turned-CEOs often employ the same strategies. Such CEO's rely on the success of their past. They use the consultant's methodology to solving problems. And, oftentimes they create a complete disaster or fail to turn around a company because of the lack of imagination or personal insight.

Mitt Fits the Suit

Is this the real Mitt Romney? A consultant-turned-Presidential candidate? His resume certainly points to this. Sure, proponents point to his business leadership as qualifications for the Presidency. If you want a consultant in the White House, maybe this makes sense. If you want a President with convictions and ideas of his own, maybe not. And, if you are searching for core values, I'm guessing you won't find them. That's by design.

(Caveat: I await the comments of "Not *ALL* consultants or consultants-turned-CEO are this way." True enough. Lou Gerstner was a great consultant turned CEO. I only speak in generalities. YMMV.)

Flip Flopping on Flip Flopping

2012-11-03T20:05:07Z

Throughout the 2012 Presidential campaign, Mitt Romney has been accused of being a "flip flopper." He seems to have changed his position on many key issues: health care, abortion rights, immigration. Many, supporters and detractors alike, have come to question what he stands for. Does he stand for anything? (My analysis of the root source of his convictions is coming in a future blog post. Stay tuned.) People, especially politicians, who changes positions (in fact positions that seem to be 180 degrees apart), are often labeled, pejoratively, as "Flip Floppers." "Flip Floppers" seemingly holds contradictory positions or, in a temporal context, currently believe and support ideas that they opposed in the past. George H. W. Bush, George Bush, John McCain, Sarah Palin (remember the "Bridge to Nowhere?"), and of course Mitt Romney come to mind. To be fair, Barack Obama (on gay marriage) does not escape the scourge of being a Flip Flopper.

Flip Floppers

Flip Floppers have a bad name. After all, how can you trust someone whose position is often changing? I myself have looked critically and pejoratively at Flip Floppers. I'm a believer in logic, math and science. Consistency is an important value and artifact of this believe system. Illogical and inconsistent argumentation are easily discounted.

It's easy to rationalize such inconsistencies in the "Real World," however. Premises are often times unclearly stated. The language (say English) to build an argument is probably inherently ambiguous and fails to express precise meaning. Hence, formal logic is often too brittle to express how we must reason about the real world.

While still clinging to the value of logic, science, and math, I must concede -- the rigidity of such systems must account for the possibility of Flip Flopping.

I'm flip flopping on flip flopping!

Temporal Context

"Times Change."

Time really doesn't change. This is a strange saying. A misnomer. However, it's easy to see the circumstances in which ideas are formulated, conclusions based, and actions taken change. Whether it be social values, Constitutional amendments, demographic shifts, economic climate, the circumstances of a decision are important predicates of those decisions.

Therefore, I understand why a person -- a candidate -- may support a position, legislation, or an ideology that is different from that of the past. The premises for one's views are different. So, it's logically consistent to have a different position because of the changing hypotheses. Hence, there's a logical explanation for a flip flop. So, I found my rigid values against flip flopping now suspect. I've flipped flopped!

Note however, this is not the only reason for a flip flop. I suspect that Romney's flip flopping might not be based on this logical conclusion. (Again, more coming.)

In Technology

Technology changes at a remarkable pace. Some say exponentially fast. Hence, the premises we make with regards to technology are constantly changing. Consequently, the conclusions we draw and the opinions we have should also be changing with changing technology. Even so, sometimes we "dig in" and stick to our guns on ideology. I think this is wrong. We must adapt. The "pendulum of technology" swings wide, but not necessarily fast.

Examples are rampant. Thin clients vs fat clients. Cloud computing/storage vs. customer premise ownership Waterfall SW development vs. Agile. Consumer applications vs. enterrprise solutions. Out-of-the-box software vs. custom configured solutions. Lots of processors vs. more memory. Fast networks vs. big processors. My favorite: Compile time typing vs. runtime typing.

Language Typing

For years I've clung to the value of strong typing. At compile time. It's not hard to see why -- in my formative years at the University of Washington going to Xerox, Bell Labs, Sun Microsystems, and BroadVision, strong typing, early typing, compile time object hierarchies ruled my thinking. From Pascal, Eden, and Emerald to Mesa and C++ to CORBA/IDL and then Java, strong compile time typing provided the basis for sane system design. Creating "contracts" through interfaces that hid implementation seemed to be the path to software safety and scalable systems. It's certainly served me well.

Then in the late nineties, a disturbing reality reared its (ugly) head -- it was clear the web was not going to be build on these principles. Statically typed languages were failing us. We couldn't build scalable web systems. We couldn't move fast enough and we couldn't adapt to change quickly enough. Dynamically typed, interpreted languages would rule the naughties. Perl, php, Python, Ruby, JavaScript were destined to be languages of choice for the Internet. Languages that deferred (or ignored) typing until very late. How could such systems be safe or scalable?

But, it is clear what would happen; programmer productivity, the safety resulting from interpretation, and garbage collection would rule supreme. Compile time typing was dead. Long live dynamic typing and interpreted languages. Indeed, the web was built this way. Flip flopping, I've since deployed systems in Python, joining the bandwagon.

The Pendulum Swings

The pendulum has swung far right. We're all on the Python/Ruby/php bandwagons. However, I sense a change back to the left afoot. Strong typing, compile time typing, type safe languages will have their day in the sun again. And we'll all flip flop again.

As for Romney

Does my technology example shed any light on Romney and his values? Maybe. However, I suspect his flip flopping is rooted in something different -- the formulation of positions based on the process of a consultant. More coming...And, expect even more flip flopping in the future.

About Last Night: Seattle...Startups...You?

2012-10-23T17:49:48Z

Last night, I hosted "Seattle...Startups...You?" A gathering to help students at the University of Washington (especially those in the Computer Science & Engineering Department) understand why they might want to join a startup or start one on their own. As previously noted, while students have great exposure to great big tech companies, we wanted to introduce them to why a startup (in Seattle) might be a fun, exciting, and rewarding alternative. We did this in conjunction with the department career fair and Industrial Affiliates meeting.

While I had hoped this would be a good, informal gathering, we were well "oversubscribed" -- we were counting on 50 students showing up -- over 100 packed the room, from the CSE department as well as others. I'm sure the great food sponsored by Flipboard and door prizes sponsored by Topix (Thanks to both!) helped, but initial feedback from students show that we've provided great information that students want.

I've received a few requests for the presentations, so here they are:

Introduction (Wayne Yamamoto)
Big Companies vs. Startups (Anthony Wu)
Brave New World: Technology, VC, Seattle (Chris DeVore)
What's up with Silicon Valley (And Why Should I Care?) (Chris Tolles)
5 Habits of Successful Startup Engineers (David Creemer)
Internships at Startups (Robert Chu)
From the trenches (Jason Tan)

Thanks to all presenters and attendees. It was a great event. I hope this week is a fruitful career fair and Industrial Affiliates Meeting!

BTW, if you are a company that wants to know more about the UW Computer Science & Engineering department or want to recruit out this department, consider becoming a University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering Industrial Affiliate. It's a great program and the UW CSE is a great department!

Startups...Seattle...You?

2012-10-18T01:26:31Z

The Computer Science & Engineering Department at the University of Washington is one of the best in the world. Led by Hank Levy, David Notkin, and Ed Lazowska, this department competes with the best of the best -- Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, and CMU. Recent hires reflect the awesomeness of CSE and project where this department is going. Of course, I'm biased; I've spent time here as an undergraduate, grad student, Visiting Scholar and now Visiting Faculty. I'm proud to be able to stand near such talent.

Over the years, I've recruited out of this department. In addition to great researchers, great engineers have also emerged from the ranks of its students. Jeff Dean, Greg Badros, and Christophe Biscalia are only a few great people that recently did time here. So, it's fertile ground for finding talent.

However, when working at a startup, I've often found it difficult to recruit at the UW. Why? Because it's been tough to compete with the Microsofts, Amazons, Googles, and Facebooks. A small company gets lost in the noise and the sheer mass of big companies. Thankfully, the department is recognizing the value of startups in the tech ecosystem and it now is actively promoting startups to students with a special career day. (This Tuesday, October 23).

Getting startups in front of students is a great first step. However, there's still a gap -- there seems to lack information about why startups are fun, exciting and rewarding. Students just don't have enough exposure to startups. Why are they are different than big companies? Why might they be better? Why is Seattle a great place to do a startup? I want to help fix this knowledge gap. So, in conjunction with the career day, I'm hosting an event on campus at the University of Washington to promote the startups - why it's a great experience, why it might be for you. It's on Monday, October 21, 2012 at 6:00. All students are welcome. (If you are not a student and want to attend, drop me an email or a DM on twitter at @kazabyte and we'll figure something out.)

Everything you wanted to know about startups but were afraid to ask.

Here's the flyer:

Higgs Boson: A Personal Perspective

2012-07-04T22:47:28Z

[Alternative Title: Belated Father's Day Tribute to My Father]

I'm sure many of you, including me, have pondered grand questions such as "What is the origin of the universe?," "What is the meaning of life?," "Why is there something rather than nothing?," and "What happened before the Big Bang?" But, in all likelihood, you only managed to scratch the surface of the surface of such questions. Perhaps you have come to some satisfying nonsecular conclusion along the lines of "God." Or, you were left unsatisfied that you'll never know.

Well, today, we presumably know more. Unless you've been living under a rock without Internet access, you know that scientists at the CERN research center have announced they have evidence of the Higgs boson. Confirmation of the existence of this particle fits in nicely with some current theories on the order of the universe.

As an armchair scientist, this is quite exciting. However, on personal level, I've had mixed emotions. I knew this day was coming. Well, at least I was pretty sure. But, for my entire lifetime, I've been taught differently. That, even with the discovery of the Higgs boson, something was missing -- an accounting for gravity.

During the last months of his life, my Dad sent me a few emails. Including the following:

From: yamamotog@xxxxxx.com
Date: June 25, 2010 1:46:56 PM PDT
To: wayne....oto@yyyyy.com

Subject: Re: Public Lecture by Bernard Schutz of AEI, Potsdam, Germany

Way back, I was interested in gravity waves. I thought I could generate gravity waves and detect them using some sensor to detect them to prove gravity waves exist. I was going to generate gravity waves by rotating a massive cylinder. I thought this will generate gravity waves but I hadn't figured out what I could use for the sensor and therefore I didn't know how strong a wave I needed to generate so that I could detect it and therefore I didn't know how big a cylinder I needed nor how fast I had to spin it.

I would have been very disappointed if the universe is filled with something like Higgs Boson. Then I think "mass" could be made from gathering Boson particles, not from what I thought is more elegant mechanisms like "Geon" which is a trapped photon within its own gravity field. If "Higgs Boson" or something like it is responsible, all one has to do is find them like all other elemental particles physicists were looking for in accelerators and still are. I personally would have found no fun in that. When I wrote this, I thought about my adviser. (Couldn't remember his name. He had only one ear lobe.) Fun days.

Dad

My dad died later that year, never knowing for sure whether the Higgs boson existed or not.

The Theory of Everything

Though I didn't know it growing up, I've realized that my dad was in search of the Theory of Everything. Yes. Everything. That's a pretty big audacious goal. Sure, maybe it's something you think about occasionally. But my Dad "went deep," based on science and math. For a long time, I thought he was only in search of a Grand Unified Theory. Big in its own right but clearly smaller than a Theory of Everything.

In the late 1950's/early 1960's, he was about to take an appointment at the Institute for Advanced Study, when he realized that the University of Washington wasn't quite the right place to study theoretical physics. But alas, he and my mom got married, had a child on the way, and decided that such intellectual pursuits didn't quite fit in. So, he settled on fighting and winning the cold war. But that's another story.

What If?

I find it quite tantalizing to think what if my father had gone to IAS to find a Theory of Everything. Would he have figured out how gravity fits in with electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions? Sure, Albert Einstein was all ready dead and he couldn't help. But Kurt Godel was still there. Would he have worked with him to unravel the mysteries of the universe? Or prove that we really can't understand the mysteries of the universe? After all, in 2002, after considering Godel's Theorem on Incompleteness, Stephen Hawking declared a Theory of Everything impossible. I find this all deliciously satisfying because of my personal intrigue with Godel (as many of you know).

Or maybe I'm just a boy proud of his dad.

Disappointment? Not.

Would my dad really be disappointed today if were alive to hear the CERN Large Hadron Collider results? I've been pondering this for more than a few months. Would his beliefs for understanding the universe be invalidated?

I think not. In many of the announcements and commentary on the discovery of the Higgs boson, there seems to be an acknowledgement that gravity is "outside of the model." I take that acknowledgement as a "hat tip" to those in search of an explanation of gravity, including my dad.

And despite his potential disappointment that the universe might be less "elegant" with the Higgs boson, I believe he "moved the needle" in our understanding of the universe. That makes me proud.

Rest in Peace, Dad. I know that this is a usually a non-secular wish for those that have passed. And, in the name of science, it doesn't quite make sense. However, ironically, I think I can say this, both figuratively and literally.

Happy Belated Father's Day, Dad.

United States Bill of Rights

2012-06-14T23:17:49Z

It's Flag Day. What better day than to remember and reflect on the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and its Amendments. Especially the Bill of Rights.

I. Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion and Petition

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

II. Right to keep and bear arms

A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

III. Conditions for quarters of soldiers

No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

IV. Right of search and seizure regulated

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

V. Provisons concerning prosecution

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense t
o be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

VI. Right to a speedy trial, witnesses, etc.

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be
confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

VII. Right to a trial by jury

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

VIII. Excessive bail, cruel punishment

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

IX. Rule of construction of Constitution

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

X. Rights of the States under Constitution

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

jingjing(1)

2012-05-21T18:30:09Z

Jing Jing has been a favorite Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto for nearly forever. Well, at least since the closing of Louie's. It's sort of a famous nerd hang out from yesteryear. We'd go there all most every Friday for lunch. Years have passed and the gatherings have waned. I'm trying to resurrect the weekly gathering. Unix to the rescue?

JJ(1) JJ(1)

NAME
                       jj -- request a dining event at Jing Jing. Jing Jing is located at 443 Emerson, Palo Alto, CA, 94301. Tel: (650)-328-6885. Web: http://www.jingjinggourmet.com/2005/default.asp

SYNOPSIS
                       jj [ -d date ] [ -t time ] [ -s ] [ -r list ] [ -h ] [ -o ] [ -a id ] [ user .... ]

DESCRIPTION
                        The jj utility is an invitation for a sharing a meal at Jing Jing. It takes each user and records them as the proposed attendees. If no users are specified, it is an open invitation for anyone.

OPTIONS
                        -d          The date of the event, specified as DD-MM-YYYY. If no -d argument is given, today is the default date.

                        -t           The time of the event, as specified as HH:MM, in 24 hour time. If no -t argument is specified, 11:55 is the default time.

                        -s            Use the Wayne standard meal specification. The standard specification is parameterized by the number of users specified.

                        -r           list is a quoted string specifying requests for dishes in addition menu items that might be included in the -s specification. Commas separate dish items. Note that the -r list is a heuristic only.

                        -h           Hiptard mode. If -h is specified, utility is applied to Mission Chinese, not Jing Jing.

                  -a      An identifier for this request. If there is a previous identifier on the given date and time, users are appended to the jj request all ready identified.

                        -o           Old codger mode. Print a random famous Palo Alto restaurant story to stdout. Example: A Digital Equipment salesman dining at Louie's is loudly arguing with an engineering manager about the cache architecture of the KL 10. The waiter, after taking their order, says beneath his breathe, "It's a 32K two way set associative not direct mapped cache" and scurries away. The salesman is left with mouth hanging open -- what could the waiter know? Turns out the waiter was Jeff Rubin, a systems programmer at the Stanford AI Lab, working as a waiter in exchange for Chinese lessons.

BUGS
                         Since id in the -a argument is user generated, ids are not guaranteed to be unique.

                          Users specified are only people that have been requested to attend not those actually attending. The -s calculation may compute an undesired result because of the difference between those invited and those that actually attend.

Savvy Investor Kills It on Facebook IPO

2012-05-18T17:16:13Z

Serial entrepreneur, Wayne Yamamoto, is quietly embarking on a new parallel "hobby." Investing. While merely a side show to his day job as CEO/Executive Director at Charity Blossom, he, like many successful entrepreneurs, dabbles in early stage investing. Today, given the availability of some Facebook (FB) shares, he astutely went "all in." But, he quickly "got out" within a few hours. We can't confirm the exact execution of the trades, but we speculate that he was in at $38/share (the IPO price) and out at $41/share. While this is only a 7.89% gain, on an IRR basis, it's been noted that this is over a "GOOGLE (sic) percent a year."

To put this perspective, returns of 50%/year on a IRR basis would easily qualify a VC or Private Equity fund as a top 1% fund. Unless you are a limited partner or insider you will probably never know the actual returns on a VC or PE fund. But it's pretty safe to say that even "rock star" investors such as Ron Conway, Jim Breyer, or Alex Lloyd will not see this kind of return in aggregate. While many note that FB may still have some upside, this kind of IRR will probably never be seen again.

(Aside: Given the values of transparency and quantitative measurement that VCs "sell" to their portfolio companies, why is this data about VC's themselves so carefully guarded?)

We may never know the exact numbers of the gains made by Mr. Yamamoto. Perhaps subsequent filings such as the Facebook 10K may reveal such information. However. he was reportedly seen filing a Form 911 at the local Porsche dealer. We'll try to extrapolate from this to understand the magnitude of this deal. Stay tuned.

In a short statement, Mr. Yamamoto said, "I'm not a professional investor. My job is to build successful companies and organizations. But, some investments are just no brainers." Indeed, Wayne is noted for being an early engineer and VP of Engineering at Broadvision (which he helped grow to a publicly traded company with a $20B+ market cap) and is the co-founder of MerchantCircle, which was sold to Reply! for $60 million last year.

Disclosure: The author is still long on FB.

[ For the humor impaired: :-) Or, alternatively, maybe I'm humor impaired. ]

10 Papers/Books You Should Read

2012-04-17T23:17:09Z

2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing. Arguably he is the most important computer scientist ever, and the ACM A.M. Turing Centenary Celebration will be held June 15-16, 2012 in San Francisco to commemorate his birth. This will be an amazing event. Thirty four Turing Award winners will be attending. The first Turing award was given for the year 1966 (46 years ago), so having 34 award winners in the same room is remarkable in its own right. For those not in the field of computation, winning the Turing Award is our industry's equivalent of winning a Nobel Prize. For those of you in the field, if you are are not desiring to attend this event, I just can't take you seriously.

In commemoration, I present my top 10 list of all time greatest papers/books written in the field of computation. At least,the top 10 papers and books that I've read and that h

ave influenced me. I consider this all most required reading for anyone claiming to be in technology. In no particular order of importance:

10. "Hint for Computer System Design", Butler Lampson.

9. "The Mythical Man Month," Frederick P. Brooks.

8. "Bayesianism and Causality, or, Why I Am Only a Half-Bayesian," Judea Pearl.

(In 2012, Turing would have been 100 years old. So, I guess this is really the 99th anniversary and arguably the centenary of his birth is in 2013. I find this "off by one error" to be deliciously ironic.)

It's Important to Have a Goal

2012-04-10T18:50:55Z

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

-- Alice's Adventure in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis is a great story. I read the book, saw the movie, and heard Michael lecture about it. And, yet, at the end of each, I was left with the same question. What was this story all about? Or more precisely,

What was the goal of Billy Beane and the Oakland A's during the time period when Billy was the general manager?

Reading the book, watching the movie, hearing the lecture, and even searching Wikipedia doesn't make this clear. Was it:

Win a World Series?
Win the most games?
Increase yearly profitability?
Increase the market value of the team?

You might say it's nitpicking. I say these are pretty different goals. And goals that might not be consistent. And, from an objective standard, if the goal was to win a World Series during this time period, then Billy and the A's were unambiguous failures.

Sure, they were able to win a lot of games. And, they were able to win a lot of games per dollar spent. Some argue this was the goal. But, in reading, watching, and listening, this is not clear.

I have no idea about increased profitability or increased market value. Judging by the empty seats -- rather the tarp covered upper deck -- at the Coliseum, I'm guessing, they failed at the latter potential goals as well.

Statistics: A Sound Tactical Approach

In general, I'm a believer of the approach taken by Beane -- using math and statistics to make objective decisions. Which, lead to good results. Define metrics, test, measure, repeat. If you throw in some intuition and "hunches," I think it works even better. Stuff like Bayesian Inference even allows for this. And, going off the deep end, there's even hope for a science of causation to be even more effective. Thank you, Judea Pearl.

However, in Moneyball, all the great math, statistics, and science seem to be for naught. Why? Because of the lack of clarity regarding a goal. What were Beane/A's trying to accomplish? I have not idea if they were successful. Whether they chose the right metrics. Or tests. How could they without knowing what they were trying to accomplish? (Is it possible that they did know and only I missed the point?)

In the words of Yogi Berra, misquoting Carroll:

"If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else."

The good news is that, maybe "somewhere else" is somewhere good too.

What Does This Mean for Silicon Valley Startups?

It seems so obvious. Having a goal is important. It's strategic. However, sometimes we lose sight of this because we get overly wrapped up in the tactics. You know -- why it's important to test and measure. Run that A/B test. Understand your customers. And, the granddaddy of them all -- the importance of the pivot. While these tactics are important, it seems like we should be laser focused on understanding the big goal.

Maybe you measure your company against lots of visitors, big revenue, or awesome user experience. You might be "hitting it out of the park" on these metrics. And, sometimes, you prioritize your actions against these metrics. In the end, however, how do these numbers reflect the progress towards your goal? Or worse, are you spending resources to achieve these metrics and losing sight of the big picture -- your end goal?

Of course, maybe I'm wrong. You could wander around drunk on Burbn, stumble onto some pictures, and then exit for a billion dollars. Then, it doesn't matter what your goal is or was. Without question, I'd say a billion dollars is success.

And, then again, Michael Lewis didn't do so bad for himself either.

(Aside: Here's my naive opinion on what it takes to win the World Series: You need to put the right arms on the mound to beat the best teams in a 5 and 7 game series. Being able to beat a lot of mediocre teams won't get you there, even though you will win a lot of games. Pitching is key. Good pitching costs money. You need the pitchers to win. Thus, beating the best in the World Series costs money...Unless, as Bill Gerth reminds me, you were the 1975 Cincinati Reds.)

How Photographs Steal Your Soul (or Why We Willingly Give It Away)

2012-03-26T18:28:33Z

When I was a college freshman at the University of Washington, I took Anthropology 100 -- An Introduction to Anthropology. As in many introductory college courses, students were sometimes amazed by factoids that were thrown out that were believable, seemingly true but maybe based on little scientific evidence. In this class, we were told that there were tribes in Africa (or maybe it was South America) that believed that if your picture was taken, your soul would be stolen. So, they didn't want their pictures to be taken. To this day, I'm not sure if this is true or some racist urban legend propagated by an institution of higher learning, worthy of snopes debunking.

Fast forward to the 21st century, I now believe this at some philosophical level. When our picture is taken, it is potentially accessible by many. How that image is used, altered, and re-purposed, is largely out of our control. We've given up a little part of ourselves. The more pictures of us taken and used, the more we give up, and the less control of our identity that we have. In effect, little by little, we give up a bit of ourselves each time a picture is taken and used. In the end, indeed, I think we are giving away a little bit of our soul, picture by picture.

And, perhaps more interesting, our souls aren't being stolen, we are happy to give it up, without thinking about it too much. Typically, we are "tricked" in do so, in exchange for some benefit. For example, in order to see a taping of the Tonight Show, you are handed the card above. Attendance to show is billed as free. But when you arrive, you are told that to see the show you must agree to the "contract" on the card. After driving out to Burbank, standing in line for 2 hours, you are handed the card just before you enter. What are you going to do? You justify to yourself, not wanting to disappoint the rest of the party that you came with, what harm could come with a picture or a voice clip being used?

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to say that NBC can take your picture or record your voice for any reason at anytime, regardless of whether it happens during the taping of the show or some other time. And then use it for whatever they want anytime in the future. A picture taken here, an advertisement used there -- your "soul" is taken from you, just a little bit.

Indeed, the cost of "free" is pretty expensive. Perhaps each individual release to use a little part of you isn't very big, but the use and loss accumulates over time. And you can never get it back. In the extreme, imagine for the moment how this affects you if you are famous and there are thousands if not millions of pictures of you that are seen a billion times. Have you lost control of your life and soul?

Increasingly, as privacy concerns rage on Facebook, the iPhone, Google, and Path, we're seemingly happy to give away a little bit of ourselves every day. Today, it was brought to my attention that "free give aways" or drawings on the Internet are rampant, in which the "fine print" allows our "soul to be stolen." I recently saw a contest with a prize of $10,000. You enter by signing up for the service and then there is a viral element that gives you more chances to win if you get other people to sign up. In exchange for entering (not winning the contest), you basically give up rights, similar to the NBC contract:

"...Sponsor may use the winner's name, likeness, image, voice, photographs, biographical information, address (city and state) and written statements made by the winner about the Sweepstakes and Sponsor for promotional purposes, in all forms of media, in perpetuity and without monetary payment or additional consideration."

"Free giveaway," ironically, seems to mean that not only is the giveaway free; you are giving away your soul for free. A quick search on the web show that these kinds of contests are rampant.

Perhaps in the age where we expect Google, Facebook, and music to be "free," I shouldn't be surprised. We almost demand stuff should be free. However, we should realize that the cost of free might be expensive. We might just be giving away our souls.

Update: Shortly after posting, it's been pointed out to me that perhaps Pinterest, the current fascination on the Interwebs, is the most egregious soul sucker via pictures.

Rick Santorum to Save Programmers

2012-03-17T02:04:14Z

Unlike Al Gore, Rick Santorum makes no claims to being the "Technology Candidate." After all, he's not the inventor of the Internet. And, yet his clear Pro-Life stance will certainly impact the world of programmers, technology, and the Internet. While his agenda has yet to be made public, the unspoken word is clear -- He is here to save programmers. To save them from a world lacking morality. A world called "Unix."

The Roots

The beginning of modern programming started basically in the 1960's and flourished in the 1970's. The liberal agenda beginning with the Kennedy administration combined with the birth of modern "Time Sharing Systems" followed by personal computers created a "perfect storm." These decreasingly expensive computational devices empowered Individual, encouraged radical thoughts, and challenged the tyranny of the main frame. The radicals creating Unix had names and faces -- people like Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, and Brian Kernighan followed by Richard Stallman, Bill Joy, Marshall Kirk McCrusick and others. Typically long haired and bearded, these men were out to change the natural order of the time. Could they be trusted? While almost always denied, accusations of being communists were commonplace. Just by looking at at this motley crew, you have to wonder.

Dig down beneath the seamy exterior, their moral fiber is quickly revealed. Clearly radicals, they had their own "Bible" -- a book far different that the Bible known to you and me -- authored by Ritchie and Kernighan.

Their mascot? The devil himself!

From this, a world far different than that created by God was created. A world called "Unix." This world had a language all of it's own with a lexicon not understandable by mortals: "Awk," "grep," "sed, "ed," "vi"....this list goes on. It is a secret language -- a code -- used by the technical elite -- to control, transform and rule the world. To special decoder, called "permuted index" was created to decipher the language. However, the decoder itself was also incomprehensible to any one on the outside.

These people must be saved! Unfortunately, programmers flocked to Unix, creating a following that would change the world like no other movement, other than -- Christianity!

The Language of Evil

Sitting in on early conversations with these bearded radicals, we are able to truly understand the evil and why they must be saved. The world of Unix is a world of evil. A world where we casually and commonly talk of:

- "aborting your children"
- "sending signals to kill"
- "debating why ABORT is better than TERM"
- "fingering your co-workers"
- "operating in promiscuous mode"
- "chmod 666"
- "accessing your friends private members" (a relative new concept introduced by Bjarne Stroustrup)

And, in this world, children come from an process of "spawning" -- fork() and exec()? This is not God's plan. This is not natural.

Fortunately, the newbie programmers of the 21st century are sheltered from much of this unpolished and rampant evil. New virtual, interpreted environments on top of Unix have been created. Thus, new programmers need not be exposed to such evil. But, underneath bubbles the cauldron of bad.

The Unspoken Agenda: New Hope to Free Us from the Depravity

Can Rick Santorum save us from the depravity of it all? Can Rick get to the core of the problem? Can he free us from this life of Hell and set us straight?

A secret memo yet to be released says baby steps must be taken and core issues must be addressed first. His Pro-Life agenda make it clear what the priorities are:

First, pragmatically speaking, we can't get rid of SIGABORT immediately. However, we must legislate that whenever a process aborts a child, its parent must be notified first.

Next, more radically, SIGKILL, SIGABORT, and kill(1) must be removed from the operating system. Killing is wrong and abortion even worst. Who will protect our unborn children?

Next we must review the tools of the devil that cause us harm. Inappropriate commands are to be removed or renamed. head(1), tail(1), top(1) are at the top of the list. Clearly these overtly sexual if not homosexual references must be banned.

We must never allow our children to be killed our aborted. Rampant deviant sexual acts -- e.g. promiscuous access to your "privates" allowed by members within in a class (just because they are "friends"), "fingering" anyone you want -- must end. Don't even get me started when a parent shares a pipe with a child. Stop it all!

Last, because of its play on words that mock our nonsecular Christian world, bash (the Bourne Again Shell) shall be banned. That's not funny.

Unix: Evil at Its Core

Ultimately, no matter what Rick does to clean up this mess, I think it must be acknowledged -- At the core of this problem is Unix. And, Unix is evil, as revealed in its name -- a pun and homophone of eunuchs. Indeed, it's an operating system named after and acknowledges the ultimate act of a "no mo"-sexuality. Ritchie, Thompson, and Kernighan mock us. We must rid the world of Unix. (Note: "Unix" is actually a play on "Multics," but we'll ignore that fact.)

Stop Unix today! Whether it be Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS, or System V, they are all bad.

Only with Rick Santorum can we eliminate this scourge on our country!

(Microsoft has not commented for this piece.)

A Programmer's Response

Rick Santorum considered harmful. A statement of where he can go to has yet to be issued.

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Props to AT&T. Really.

2012-02-16T05:48:38Z

(The useful title for this post is, "How to setup a temporary international data plan with AT&T.")

It's easy to jump on the anti-AT&T bandwagon. Typical complaints usually center around crappy voice coverage, a crummy website, outrages fees, or unlimited data plans that are actually limited. Me? Admittedly, I've been an AT&T defender and apologist at times -- I cut my teeth as a programmer at the fabled Bell Labs, so it has a special place in my heart. So, I've refrained from complaining too much.

International Data Roaming Plans Are Complicated

I've always been pained by egregious fees for data services when traveling out of the United States -- about $20/MB. And choosing the *right* plan was difficult and confusing. So, I always signed up for the (most expensive) data plan at $199.99 for 800MB. AT&T would prorate that for the number of days you actually used the plan within a billing cycle. So, if you traveled for 3 days, you'd get about 80MB of data (3 days * 800MB/30 days) for about $20 (3 days * $199.99/30 days). And if you went over 80MB, you could always tack on more days at about 27MB/day at $7/day, after you returned.

Whew. That was still a bit complicated. And, even more so if your travels crossed a billing cycle. But, if you carefully managed your data utilization (painfully using "airplane mode" or turning off cellular service), you could get by. It was worth it for the cost conscience traveler.

New and Improved! Monthly Usage Prorated. Data Usage Not. Hooray!

On my recent trip to Mexico, things got surprisingly better. A lot better, especially for short term travels. I found that AT&T changed its policies so that they will still prorate your service based on the number of days you are traveling abroad. BUT, they don't prorate the amount of data you get. For the $199.99/month plan, you'd get a budget of the full 800MB, even though you only paid for 3 days of service. So, for $20, I was able to get (all most) all the data I wanted without worrying too much about going over my allotment. (Note that I wasn't able to watch unlimited Netflix movies but you get the idea.)

Sure, I'd like to have "unlimited" data wherever I go, whenever I want. But, turning on an international plan for the number of days I'm traveling for up to 800MB is a pretty easy and effective solution in the mean time.

Good job AT&T, with this policy change!

Caveat: I'll be singing a new tune and writing an update to complain if my bill this month doesn't work out this way!

97 Failures Is the Key to Success.

2012-02-02T23:21:32Z

As noted in a few blog posts, when Ben and I co-founded MerchantCircle, we were met head on with skepticism...."You know nothing about media and local...or the Internet."... "Look at all the dead bodies pursuing the holy grail of getting to small businesses. How could you possibly succeed?"..."You guys are naive and crazy....but, possibly, if it all works, brilliant!"

All of this was true. But we believed in the space. We believed we had what it took to be successful. And, while we didn't have the obvious answer to what was going to work, we believed we'd be able to figure it out. Because....

We knew we could build a machine to figure it out. We'd use two tools -- statistics and an experimental methodology. And luck.

Hopes and Dreams Failure.

Figuring out how to acquire merchants as customer at low cost and scale was a key concern. Our initial hunch was "build a social network of small businesses and go viral." It was the pitch when we raised the series A -- a hopes a dream story. We raised on a Powerpoint presentation and had no really proof points that this would work.

And, it didn't.

New Big Idea.

So we brainstormed over other ways to get customers. We cycled through a bunch of ideas. Some were reasonable but hard to proof. For example, we hypothesized that, even though it was 2005, there was still an opportunity build traffic through organic search. This was a fairly technical exercise. And, we knew building traffic through SEO was a long game, requiring patience. And it might not pan out. We rolled the dice anyway and went down this path.

Fortunately, this worked out in the long run. We acquired boat loads of merchant customers organically over the years with an added bonus of large consumer traffic that converted into significant ad revenue.

Crazy Ideas.

Because SEO is a long game with risk, we started to think about other ideas. Some of it was obvious. Like affiliate marketing. SEM. Email campaigns. Direct mail. Telemarketing. Some it was absurd. Radio advertising. Creating coupons on the fly for local businesses. Dressing up as a singing chicken delivering a telegram. (I can't remember if this was Mark, Daniel, or Ben.) Give away fishbowls to local merchants (Don't ask). And a bunch of others that were even more crazy. (DM me if you want to know.)

We probably cycled through 500 ideas. Nothing was too absurd.

100 Experiments. 97 Failures. 3 Successes.

We then formulated some hypotheses. Which ideas were truly absurd? Which might work? We weren't certain any of them would work! Ultimately, we decided to execute on 100 experiments to test which ideas were good. We needed to build a machine and culture where we could quickly setup and execute our experiments. For each one, we wanted to do as little work/implementation as possible and spend less than $100. We figured it was no use spending a lot of time or money on a failure. Fail fast, in modern parlance.

Our goal was to find 3 approaches that worked. We figured that three of them would. But the problem was -- it was kinda hard to tell which ones did. It was easy to get fooled by false positives and false negatives. Or maybe sometimes we weren't so rigorous statistically. Or someone wanted an outcome so badly he tortured the data. If I never hear a faulty argument about the importance of the R-Squared being greater than 80%, I won't shed a tear. :-)

Regardless, when we saw a glimmer of hope of an experiment with a good result, we ran with it. There were probably 10 of these. We went deeper. Spending $1000 each. When we whittled it down to three, we spent around $10,000 each.

So, all in the cost to run all the tests to get to something that worked was less than a $100,000. It felt like a pretty good use of money.

3 Successes? Maybe. One Exit? Definitely.

Did we really choose three winners? Were there better ideas that we falsely rejected? It's kind of hard to tell. But we were able to run with 3, in which at least one of the three worked well.

Coupling these with a working SEO strategy, we were able to successfully bootstrap our customer acquisition efforts. 10,000 other steps after executing these three ideas, we guided the company to a successful exit.

Retrospective

Fast forward to 2012. Would this strategy would today? From one perspective, it seems it could. I just read how PunchTab cycled through a bunch of widely different ideas before settling down on the current idea. It also seems to be vaguely compatible with the idea of building a minimum viable product within the context of a lean startup. However, our experiments were narrowly focused around specific customer acquisition goals within a set strategy to win on the local Internet. We weren't experimenting to find the "big idea." Second, we weren't so interested in iterating and refining an idea after an experiment. Either it was working or not, and we were moving on if not. Last the cost of doing an 100 experiments in search of a success was not without cost. At $100,000, if you are early stage, this might not be affordable.

If you are boot strapping, maybe this doesn't work because of the capital requirements. You can't afford to do 100 experiments. With 97 failures. And, raising enough money at this early stage might be difficult.

But for MerchantCircle, this all worked out fine.