Mark Pincus Blog

opposing view on walmart from another reader

from yet another reader on walmart...

Interesting. Your correspondant's experience and mine are a little differnet. Isn't that what makes blogging great?

My wife worked at Wal-Mart for a few months several years back, during a rough spot financially. I've asked her about this topic and she reported that Wal-Mart was just a place to work. Neither better, nor different than other large retails stores. Small diff - the chance to work up into management are supposed to better at Wal-Mart. YMMMV.

I also note that in our corner of Wisconsin Wal-Mart has not driven out the small biz. The local hardware stores are in place, the downtown is thriving albiet as a niche shopping area and not general merchandise. Wal-Mart has also created business in that part of town - new restaurants, new office buildings, new shops are in that area where there was once .. nothing.

Perhaps Wisconsin is different than wherever your correspndant lives.

from a reader who worked at walmart

have i mentioned how much i love blogging?!

hey mark,
i used to work at walmart. and i know it isnt a good company to work for. they are extremely demanding, and provide little compensation. the figure you produced of $13861 year sounds right. but break it down: that equals $266.55 week or $6.66 hour-and that's AVERAGE! how many people make less? when i worked there i was an asst dept mgr, and my three children were dependant on rural medical programs. the deductibles were high, and you didnt qualify for prescription drug benefits until after a year of service.
in the small towm i live in, walmart is about the only place to shop. nearly all the small businesses that had been here for decades are gone now. places my grandparents and parents shopped at.
and it's true, everything they sell is inferior quality. clothes dont last long, as washing them discolors and they fall apart.
when sam was alive he had a "buy american" policy. when he died that went out the window. they began staying open 24/7 and moved their purchasing headquarters to china. so much for american jobs!
if youre salary, you can work all the time, and they will let you. everyone gets christmas off to spend with the family. if your hourly, you get written up if you go over 40 hours a week. they want their people to stay at $6.66 an hour-imagine that figure?
ironically, i own 300 shares of walmart stock. my dad bought a hundred shares 20 years ago and it has split twice. it just sits and collects dust, but they knock the dust off occassionally with a nickel dividend.
perhaps it's intersting to note that the waltons are very large givers and supporters of the republican party. they gave $3,000,000 in 2004 for support, and only $6,000 to employee relief. why the gulf (huge). they put their money where their heart is: reelecting kings' bush and cheney.
all we can do is two things: take aour dollars elsewhere, and VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Respondse to my murry gunty censoring post

First, barak, the ceo of six apart, emailed to say I could ignore the customer support person which was nice.

Here is the response from one reader below. I will say that I think 6A needs to come out much stronger in assuring bloggers that they will never interfere with our content or I'm outa here.

"To put this situation mildly, this request is ridiculous. The fact that they would even email you at all on a TOS violation is ridiculous. You should have every right to post whatever you want, even if it happens to be libelous - which I personally don't think it is in this case. As much as I respect the Movable Type team and their supporters (particularly Andrew Fife in these comments), this is your blog and you should be able to say whatever you want on it. Aside from the fact that MT shouldn't be in the content business in the first place, the namby-pamby recommendation for "fixing" the issue seems childish and ineffective to the point that it shouldn't be suggested at all."

Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

Murry Gunty is trying to keep me quiet about his past

i received the email below from six apart yesterday, asking me to 'edit out' murry's last name as it invaded his privacy. (murry is the kid who was caught cheating in a school election at harvard business school). what's amazing is that murry's story made the wall street journal and he himself wrote a letter in the school paper apologizing to his parents.

this brings up a number of questions.

1. can anyone tell me what the privacy laws are around something like this? do you have a legal right to stop someone from publishing a story around your name after it has been in a large public paper?

2. should any of us be trusting our blogging fate to six apart when the company is so willing to bend to any outside request and try to force us to change our blogs?

3. i wish that murry could take a more positive approach to all this, comment on my blog, talk about all you've done to overcome, how you've found an ethical path.

Six Apart (Six Apart) said:

07/27/2006 01:39 PM

Dear Mr. Pincus, I apologize for the need to contact you. I've recently been notified that one of your blog posts contains a small violation of TypePad's Terms of Service. The blog post located at http://markpincus.typepad.com/markpincus/2006/01/10000_words_on_.html contains the name "Murry Gunty." Unfortunately, because of the combined information in your post, this together with the rest of the post is enough to be considered an invasion of Mr. Gunty's privacy. There's no need to remove the post; it just needs to be slightly edited. If you could please remove Mr. Gunty's last name, then it would no longer be enough information to be considered invasive of his privacy. I would very much appreciate if you could edit out his last name in the next 48 hours.

My best friend, tom cole, died last night

burning man 05
Originally uploaded by markpinc.

my best friend, tom cole, died yesterday of a heart attack. for those who knew tom, you can email me (markpinc-at-gmail.com) for more information on services which will be in cleveland and aspen.

i'm not sure why tom ,who was 43, died. i guess we'll never really know. those of you who ever met him know that he was an original. he lived by his own rules (unlike the rest of us). he never really worked, didnt have much money and was one of the happiest, most present people i've ever met.

i've always thought that tom lived life the way an immortal would. he spent a year teaching himself the guitar. he never had to be anywhere else.

i named my first company, freeloader, after tom as he was sometimes living on my couch at the time (it was a long running joke). but i was the real freeloader. i've been riding tom's coat tails for 15 years. if you go by what people bring to the table, nobody ever came close to tom. he had this ability to find humor in the seemingly mundane world around us. he could turn me onto some totally random tv show (like ultimate street fighter) or start a conversation with someone i would have never made eye contact with only to find out they were a total gem.

tom noticed and appreciated the world around him and i was often the fortunate benficiary. i used to tease tom about the wayward odd souls he often adopted as friends. i only just now have realized i was the most wayward of the bunch and probably his biggest project.

i dont know what life will be like without tom around. i guess i'll have to start bringing more to the table if i want the kind of life tom provided, but nobody can fill his shoes (or sarong).

i want to repost the heartfelt post of our friend james here. i hope that in the coming weeks i am able to articulate my own feelings so eloquently...

Our friend Tom passed away yesterday. I had known Tom for many years, but only peripherally. It has only been in the last year and a half that I have gotten to know him. I loved him very much, perhaps more than I even realized. Of course, I now know the full impact he had on me now that we have lost him. I do not think I ever said, “Tom I love you,” but I think he knew. I was fortunate to have spent so much time with him this summer. He became one of my best friends. We drove to Aspen together and had so much fun. We hung out a lot at Mark’s house, sometimes with Mark, sometimes with our friend Aaron, and sometimes with his girlfriend Rachel. One of my favorite things we did was go on our “urban walk” up Tank Hill and through the forests around twin peaks with Kirby and Zinga. Tom was one of the gentlest souls I have known. He was extremely intuitive, sensitive, and wonderful with people. We really talked. We talked about our relationships, our friendships, and life. Tom loved his girlfriend Rachel deeply. Tom really cared about his friends. This is evident from his countless long-standing friendships with so many people. Tom was one of the most thoughtful people in his personal interactions. He felt deeply. I changed in a positive way because of knowing Tom. The time I spent in Aspen hiking with Tom was very meaningful to me. If there is one thing I can credit Tom for teaching me that week, it is to truly be myself and to live life on my terms. Tom, wherever you are I love you and miss you.

I have two movie clips that have Tom in them from our Trip to Aspen on the links above. There are also some of my favorite pictures of Tom in the Aspen Photo album.

this is from mo clancy...

What I saw in Tom wasn’t the offbeat, funny guy always with the witty comment. I saw a deeply sweet, sensitive soul who felt the world intensely and sometimes that was too much for him. But he fiercely loved and he cared despite that – and usually without saying a word. Tom could stand next to you and you could feel it.

We need to open up the bidding for buying off US politicians

Vanity fair has great in depth coverage of the washington scandals surrounding san diego congressman cunningham who pleaded guilty to accepting 2.4M in bribes to direct defense contracts to cronies.

What amazes me is that his alleged co-conspirators, kyle foggo (cia), jerry lewis (congress) and defense contractors brent wilkes and mitchell wade haven't been charged with anything. Not to mention all the folks in the pentagon who played along, allegedly to get congressional buyoff on the 2B dollar F-22 deal.

This is what happens when we are all apathetic. Thank g-d for mainstream media who continue to be the only watchdogs trying to keep tabs on all the corruption.

Our govt continues to be a cheap auction. Cunningham directed 100's of millions in return for thousands in antiques.

Here are some actual numbers showing how cheaply we can buy a congressman (and the defense appropriations committee)...

140k bribe (for a boat) = 16 M 50k bribe = 17 M

I can't wait for the day when we the people get a chance to bid openly to buy off politicians and contracts. If this system were just put online at least it would be open and competitive. Then maybe the better projects might win. At least these sleazy, dumb old white men wouldn't be the ones getting rich and the margins might go down.

Besides, with this system of openly bid payoffs the money would be greater and we might attract smarter people.

What really bugs me is that cuningham was only sentenced to 7 years and now they're talking about letting him out earyl for cooperation and in light of his cancer and 8 yrs remaining life expectancy.

How do you send bernie ebers, a stupid football coach, to jail for life and then show leniency to a totally corrupt congressman? What's the message there?

We have to find a way to take over the us govt and send these f'ing carpet baggers to jail.
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

We need to open up the bidding for buying off US politicians

Vanity fair has great in depth coverage of the washington scandals surrounding san diego congressman cunningham who pleaded guilty to accepting 2.4M in bribes to direct defense contracts to cronies.

What amazes me is that his alleged co-conspirators, kyle foggo (cia), jerry lewis (congress) and defense contractors brent wilkes and mitchell wade haven't been charged with anything. Not to mention all the folks in the pentagon who played along, allegedly to get congressional buyoff on the 2B dollar F-22 deal.

This is what happens when we are all apathetic. Thank g-d for mainstream media who continue to be the only watchdogs trying to keep tabs on all the corruption.

Our govt continues to be a cheap auction. Cunningham directed 100's of millions in return for thousands in antiques.

I can't wait for the day when we the people get a chance to bid openly to buy off politicians and contracts. If this system were just put online at least it would be open and competitive. Then maybe the better projects might win. At least these sleazy, dumb old white men wouldn't be the ones getting rich and the margins might go down.

Besides, with this system of openly bid payoffs the money would be greater and we might attract smarter people.
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

Web 2.0 vc investment level

Siliconbeat reports on the level for Q2 of around 750 million (I think). It would be great if someone broke this out by consumer, business software and infrastructure and by stage.. It seems like the consumer startup invesment has the lowest roi and least chance of getting paid back this late in the cycle.
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

Israel - Doesn't seem to matter who's right since we all lose

Its weird to watch the way a conflict in one small part of the world can stoke up everyone else to take sides and get so heated. Its almost like the world cup gone bad.

Its also weird how these things seem to develop in such a way as to allow both sides plenty of moral ammunition for the claim of 'right side'.

Most of us can agree that hezbollah and hamas were wrong attacking israeli soldiers. But then we'll split on whether israel's response was justified and hezbollah's subsequent reaction of firing missiles was justified.

By the time we're done fighting each other, nobody can remember how it started.
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

Why net ad rates are undervalued

A commentor asks why I think this and what about the massive increase in inventory reducing prices.

While I do agree in the short term there are reasons to see a dip in cpms like the huge increase in community page views which are less attractive to advertisers, I believe at a macro level there is still an imbalance between the price for net attention vs other media types.

Newspapers at 50 dollar cpm's are over priced and likely only keeping advertisers because they are the only consolidated local media. Or said differently probably face massive downward pressure as net alternatives for local attention emerge.

People say craigslist has wiped out value in the classifieds and this is only partly true as most of these listings would never have existed in a paid space.

I also believe that all forms of measurable media will sell at a premium long term as it will enable marketers to be more scientific and give them a revenue generating role in the corporation. Besides, every newly minted mba wants to buy internet, especially if they're the new asst PM for colgate toothpaste.

If anyone has more specific research on media ad rates, I'd love to see it. Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.