Mark Pincus Blog

WSJ apologizing for corporate fraud!

there was a great oped piece in friday's wsj where they actually argued that the whole bruha over corporate fraud in the late 90's has now been proven over done. they figure that there have been far fewer companies and execs convicted than one might have imagined and therefore we can now see that there wasnt as much wrong doing as we all thought.

they actually argue that lay and skilling were just a few bad apples. wow. guess they chose to ignore that 10% of US public companies restated earnings last year alone. and fannie may was just another dozen bad apples managed by 7 bad apple board members. and the investment banks that just agreed to a record $7 billion in penalties to avoid criminal prosecution must have been making up for their few bad apples too. starts to add up to a pretty crowded orchard!

here's the state of major media in 2006. the nytimes is so worried about being seen as a bastion of liberalism that they are afraid to call palestinian suicide bombers terrorists. the wsj is so ready to get back to good old capitalism that they are ready to pretend that we dont still live amongst institutionalized corporate fraud.

what ever happened to honest journalism? i know the answer so dont bother. who says we ever had it!

inconvenient truths about al gore

i have to say that while i'm generally happy to see al gore's new movie 'inconvenient truth' get so much attention as it will raise our consciousness around global warming, it's also bothered me how far everyone seems to be going with urging us all to see it 'to do your part'.  i have a number of mixed feelings about all this and al gore.

first, it's a brilliant presentation and shows incredible vision on gore's part to have been crusading for this for so long.

second, if the content of this article from guerilla news network is accurate it paints gore to be like most politicians, a painfully mixed bag of good and bad.

In fact, Al Gore’s voting record as a senator was surprisingly conservative until he rolled his eye toward the White House. Throughout most of his career, he was pro-life and had an 84% anti-abortion rating from the National Right to Life Committee. From 1979 – 81, he voted five times on the side of a Republican sponsored rider that granted a tax exemption for schools like Bob Jones University that discriminate on the basis of race. He was openly anti-gay, calling homosexuality “abnormal” and “wrong,” and telling the Tennessean in 1984 that he did “not believe it is simply an acceptable alternative that society should affirm.” Gore was such a strong supporter of the gun lobby – ultimately voting against the critical 1985 legislation for a mandatory 14-day waiting period for handgun purchases – that National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre once said, “We could have made Al Gore NRA Man of the Year – every single vote.” Finally, when it came time to vote on conservative Supreme Court nominees, Gore publicly praised but voted against the scandal-ridden Clarence Thomas. He voted in Antonin Scalia. If the wider public had been more aware of his legacy, few would have recognized the Al Gore of 1988 who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination.

third, it bothers me that the movie doesnt spend 5 minutes on informing us what actions we can take to address the problem.

and fourth, i met al gore at the TED conference and he had no interest in my eparty idea so i decided to have no interest in his global warming (just kidding).

da vinci code movie sucks! miss it!

i wasted 2.5 hrs (which felt like 4hrs) on this horrible movie which didnt do justice to the terrific book. tom hanks put in his worst performance ever. seemed like he had a cold or was just very low on energy. the female lead (still no idea who she was) was a complete zero. i got the feeling even the albino dude (in the one role ever written for him) was wondering what he was doing here. 

Bush's new rhetoric - heard at hayden hearings today

anyone listening to today's confirmation hearings for general hayden for cia director will pick up on the new rhetoric.

so now they're saying that

1. this administration claims it has already stopped al qaeda with its covert actions, evidenced by the lack of successive incidents. they repeatedly reference several proven cases. dont you think they would publicize any evidence to support their war on terror? they seem to publicize false evidence. why not real?
2. the biggest threat to our country is all the leaks. this has helped al qaeda more than anything else. if it werent for the leaks (and the amin having to answer to the people) all would be well.
3. anyone who disagrees with the policy of unauthorized wire taps and phone record searching is simply 'ignorant'. they repeatedly refer to the 'uninformed critics'.

it was also humorous and painful to hear general hayden talk about the level of checks and balances he employed at NSA. he pointed to the NSA general counsel! wow, that makes me feel safe. so he asked his employee whether his actions were ok. then he said that within a few weeks of the operation they briefed 'leading members' of the house intelligence committee. so it sounds like he informed a few republicans too. but then he complains about the level of leaks and implies that if he just didnt have to tell anyone what he was doing we'd all be safer.

folks, when are we all going to wake up and realize that the government is using fear of an invisible enemy to perpetuate unchecked power, spending and corruption?

bambi francisco says myspace is 8.2% of google's traffic

bambi has an insightful post asking when myspace/fox will launch their own search engine. she sites an analyst who claims that myspace is now the top traffic source for google at 8.2%. this doesnt make any sense to me. i would think that sites like aol and ask would be far bigger sources.

Seems like we're all caught between phones and pda's

I've spent the past few weeks testing various approaches to handle my phone, pda, email. Lately this seems to be a topic with everyone else too.

First conclusion - they all suck. Everyone agrees that while the treo is great for pda and ok for email its a horrible phone. I tried the new 700 with windows. Buggy and horrible just like real windows.

Then I tried the new smaller blackberry 8700. Not the stupid double letter one. Too small for easy typing and bad phone with the same shitty calendar that takes 10 clicks for one new entry.

Final conclusion - just go with a great little phone (LG seems best) and a blackberry (old style) for email.

I'm still screwed on my calendar and have been searching for a way to easily enter new appointments on the road and sync with my desktop.

Is RIM asleep at the track wheel? Their software hasn't improved ever.has anyone tried building with their sdk? Must be an opportunity there. Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

stephen colbert tears bush a new a-hole

one of the most heroic speaches i can remember hearing. check out his address (and part II) to the white house press dinner. amazing to actually see him stand a few feet from bush and totally roast him. according to democracy now, the mainstream media completely ignored his speach and chose to only report on how funny the president was with his impersonator. even the nytimes skipped it until they finally had to report on the internet reaction.

he takes the opportunity to roast every republican in the room and fox news. he hits every bad scandal from plume to the retired generals dissenting against rumsfeld. he totally mocks bush. he turns to him and says he admires his energy policy of cutting tumble weeds on his ranch to put into mesquitte powered cars.

Are you really doing good by conserving today?

I hate to sound un-PC, but I've recently found that my efforts to be more energy efficient seem to require making bad econmic decisions which makes me wonder...if we all did this would we help or hurt the economy.

I've been working on putting a solar system at my colorado house to heat my pool. Good idea, right? Well, how about if it costs so much that it would take 20+ yrs to pay for itself? The solar guy was shocked and confused when I asked to see the economics though he was ready to explain all the environmental benefits.

Does this mean that only people rich enough to not care about money can do environmentally friendly investments?

my capitalist dna tells me that any time we do something that is not efficient use of capital its bad for society.

Maybe we're supposed to do these things for appearances, like when your friends are over and they ask you where your recycle bin is (uh, I'm in between bins). Or how we're all supposed to act happy to drive prius's even though they still cost a lot and don't look like fun.

Is it guilt capital? Well, I know how we americans and especially myself are using more than our fair share of the planet's resources so if I just recycle my bottles, drive a prius and waste a ton of money on solar panels maybe it'll make up for it.

I can't wait for the day when it does pay to make the right environmental choices and I hope our next president will lead the way on policies that incent this. In the meantime, ill hold off on the opportunity to invest 50k in solar panels to save 200 a month on heating a pool for three months.
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

warner making some smart moves

i've been critical on these pages that mark warner isnt standing up to the republicans. however, this newsweek story shows mark is making smart political moves. he may not be emerging as these savior leader many have hoped for, but he is a super smart guy. maybe mark is taking an approach with a greater liklihood of actually winning. the real questions remain - who is mark warner? we may only find out if and when he's in office.