Welcome
Open conversation on digital Strategy Innovation & entrepreneurship
From My notes
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation where the operator, an individual or organization, pays returns to its investors from new capital paid to the operators by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the operator. Operators of Ponzi schemes usually entice new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent.
Ponzi schemes occasionally begin as legitimate businesses, until the business fails to achieve the returns expected. The business becomes a Ponzi scheme if it then continues under fraudulent terms. Whatever the initial situation, the perpetuation of the high returns requires an ever-increasing flow of money from new investors to sustain the scheme.
Some opinions:
— By Sergio Romo
— By Mathew
— Mark Cuban :
Rather than individuals benefitting or getting hurt, VCs are playing their own game of ‘bubble yes’ or ‘bubble no.’ What’s happening now is that if you’re an original investor in Twitter (as an example), that was great because the next VC who came in paid a higher valuation, gave some money to the company, but gave most of it to the first investors or to management….Then the next level that came in, they gave it to the previous. It’s more like a Ponzi scheme. It’s almost like an old chain letter.
Jumping to conclusion is not yet a good idea, but it’s worthy to dedicate some thoughts to the topic.
Putting the means of production into the hands of the masses but withholding from those same masses any ownership over the product of their work, provides an incredibly efficient mechanism to harvest the economic value of the free labor provided by the very many and concentrate it into the hands of the very few.
More on Digital Sharecropping
At copyblogger
At Coschedule (where I took the quote from).
Justine Musk, first wife of billionaire Elon Musk, knows a thing or two about wealth and hard work — her ex-husband is a founder of PayPal, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and has an estimated net worth of $12.1 billion.
She recently posted a response to a Quora thread asking the question “Will I become a billionaire if I am determined to be one and put in all the necessary work required?”
Her answer is “no,” though she says that the Quora reader is asking the wrong question altogether.
“You’re determined. So what? You haven’t been racing naked through shark-infested waters yet,” she writes. “Will you be just as determined when you wash up on some deserted island, disoriented and bloody and ragged and beaten and staring into the horizon with no sign of rescue?”
She then offers some advice:
“Shift your focus away from what you want (a billion dollars) and get deeply, intensely curious about what the world wants and needs. Ask yourself what you have the potential to offer that is so unique and compelling and helpful that no computer could replace you, no one could outsource you, no one could steal your product and make it better and then club you into oblivion (not literally). Then develop that potential. Choose one thing and become a master of it. Choose a second thing and become a master of that. When you become a master of two worlds (say, engineering and business), you can bring them together in a way that will a) introduce hot ideas to each other, so they can have idea sex and make idea babies that no one has seen before and b) create a competitive advantage because you can move between worlds, speak both languages, connect the tribes, mash the elements to spark fresh creative insight until you wake up with the epiphany that changes your life.
The world doesn’t throw a billion dollars at a person because the person wants it or works so hard they feel they deserve it. (The world does not care what you want or deserve.) The world gives you money in exchange for something it perceives to be of equal or greater value: something that transforms an aspect of the culture, reworks a familiar story or introduces a new one, alters the way people think about the category and make use of it in daily life. There is no roadmap, no blueprint for this; a lot of people will give you a lot of advice, and most of it will be bad, and a lot of it will be good and sound but you’ll have to figure out how it doesn’t apply to you because you’re coming from an unexpected angle. And you’ll be doing it alone, until you develop the charisma and credibility to attract the talent you need to come with you. Have courage. (You will need it.)
And good luck. (You’ll need that too.)”
Get up early (five o’clock)
Go to bed early (nine to ten o’clock)
Eat little and avoid sweets
Try to do everything by yourself
Have a goal for your whole life, a goal for one section of your life, a goal for a shorter period and a goal for the year; a goal for every month, a goal for every week, a goal for every day, a goal for every hour and for evry minute, and sacrifice the lesser goal to the greater
Keep away from women
Kill desire by work
Be good, but try to let no one know it
Always live less expensively than you might
Change nothing in your style of living even if you become ten times richer
The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task at hand covers both bases, but not often.
This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.
A good example is Phil, a New York photographer friend of mine. He does really wild stuff for the small, hipster magazines— it pays virtually nothing, but it allows him to build his portfolio. Then he’ll leverage that to go off and shoot some retail catalogues for a while. Nothing too exciting, but it pays the bills.
Another example is somebody like Martin Amis, the bestselling British author. He writes “serious” novels, but also supplements his income by writing the occasional newspaper article for the London papers, or making the occasional television appearance (novel royalties are generally pathetic—even rock stars like Amis aren’t immune).
Or actors. One year John Travolta will be in an ultrahip flick like Pulp Fiction (“Sex”), another he’ll be in some forgettable, big-budget thriller like Broken Arrow (“Cash”).
Or geeks. You spend your weekdays writing code for a faceless corporation (“Cash”), then you spend your evenings and weekends writing anarchic, weird computer games to amuse your techie friends (“Sex”).
It’s balancing the need to make a good living while still maintaining one’s creative sovereignty.
This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.
And nobody is immune. Not the struggling waiter, nor the movie star.
As soon as you accept this, I mean really accept this, for some reason your career starts moving ahead faster. I don’t know why this happens. It’s the people who refuse to cleave their lives this way—who just want to start Day One by quitting their current crappy day job and moving straight on over to bestselling author—well, they never make it.
Anyway, it’s called “The Sex & Cash Theory.” Keep “it under your pillow.
There are days when you wake up in the morning, and you feel you have done an horrible mistake with your life, like being in a creative business and live from your ideas wasn’t such a good idea afterall.
For these kind of morning, the book from Hugh MacLeod, Ignore Everybody can be a powerful read. Honestly describing what kind of struggle you will have to face in your career, it’s a great book to put things in perpective.
Here it is in short:
- Ignore everybody.
- The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours.
- Put the hours in.
- If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
- You are responsible for your own experience.
- Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
- Keep your day job.
- Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.
- Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
- The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.
- Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.
- If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
- Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside.
- Dying young is overrated.
- The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.
- The world is changing.
- Merit can be bought. Passion can’t.
- Avoid the Watercooler Gang.
- Sing in your own voice.
- The choice of media is irrelevant.
- Selling out is harder than it looks.
- Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
- Worrying about “Commercial vs. Artistic” is a complete waste of time.
- Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.
- You have to find your own schtick.
- Write from the heart.
- The best way to get approval is not to need it.
- Power is never given. Power is taken.
- Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.
- The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.
- Remain frugal.
- Allow your work to age with you.
- Being Poor Sucks.
- Beware of turning hobbies into jobs.
- Savor obscurity while it lasts.
- Start blogging.
- Meaning Scales, People Don’t.
- When your dreams become reality, they are no longer your dreams.
Extra bonus: after you’ve read the book, go check the reviews on amazon, it’s great to see what kind of harsh critics are there, because it reminds you that no matter how much someone seems to have “make it” – there will always be people to look down on you, and this true even for the best. So keep calm and carry on.