Mark Pincus Blog

Buying yhoo at $23.32

I'm assuming its trading down on its recent weak numbers and lowered guidance. At 30B mkt cap I like it and think this should increase pressure to sell which should move the stock back up on rumors and actual offers. May take a year but see a $28-30 price on speculation or real occurence. Buying half my target amount here in case we see more weakness. At $20, I'd say go in big.
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Remembering Tom

my best friend tom died a year ago this week. i wrote a whole post which was appropriately erased by msft crashing my browser. instead i have included two great videos our friend james put together and my original post.

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.

Has Zuckerberg created a new fashion style for valley business?

At fb app dev meeting. Can't help noticing 4 guys in the room in flip flops. Maybe its just summer. But can't remember so many exposed toes in a business meeting.
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RVM - when something is rear view mirror...

Lately I've started to refer to people and incidents that are RVM. For me that's a reminder that many points in a given day are not worth any further brainshare. The mind numbingly stupid people representing even dumber big corporations.

Sometimes its feels like I've landed in the matrix and all these people are just programs. What's nice is how predictable they are. But getting frustrated is as dumb as yelling at a video game.

This is why I appreciate burning man, a place where the programs seem to get warped to a point of being totally entertaining, enabling one to come home and see the art in a plane that can't fly because one of its toilets doesn't flush.

As blues traveler said almost 20 years ago,

"it won't mean a thing in 100 years"

I guess that's what makes it all so RVM:) Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

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Is anyone keeping track of how big goog is?

Did you notice that goog just announced $3.87 billion in quarterly revs and nearly $1 billion in net earnings??

Is that insane? Remember when everyone wondered if 'new media' would ever make revs?

I have to admit I never really imagined these kind of numbers. Staggering. Goog may be the greatest business the world has ever seen. And to think its still not the most highly valued... Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

Why the airlines will all fail - centralized systems don't scale

Sitting on yet another swa flight on the ramp. This time waiting to fix the toilet for a 45 min flight. Two weeks ago delta kept us on the jfk ramp for two hrs after the pilot showed up late and we missed our takeoff. Course this caused us to miss our connection in slc and spend the night there.

The pilot just announced that we're they're afraid to fly for 45 min with only one bathroom working so they make us wait for an hour to fix it, only to decide to leave anyway.

How many times to we have to prove that centralized systems don't scale? The world's communist based economies have failed along with us conglomerates, mainframe computers (more or less) and of course there's the us govt.

I can't wait for the day we see the headline, "last major us airline goes brankrupt", oh wait, by then there won't be newspapers either:) Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

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Searching for great engineers to work on facebook applications

our texas holdem app is growing at a nice clip on facebook. we're very interested in recruiting full time and part time engineers to work on this and other applications. if this sounds fun and you have skills in java, flash and/or c++, email me (mark-at-tribe-dot-net).

Can a public company CEO really be this stupid?

this is supposedly a compendium of postings from the ceo of whole foods on yahoo finance under a made up screen name. it's simply unbelievable.

Rahodeb's Greatest Hits July 13, 2007 3:26 p.m. For about eight years until last August, Whole Foods Market Inc. CEO John Mackey posted numerous messages on Yahoo Finance stock forums under the logon "Rahodeb" (an anagram of Deborah, Mr. Mackey's wife's name). Rahodeb cheered Whole Foods' financial results, trumpeted his gains on the stock and bashed Wild Oats Markets Inc., a company that Whole Foods is currently trying to acquire. Rahodeb even defended Mr. Mackey's haircut when another user poked fun at a photo in the annual report. "I like Mackey's haircut," Rahodeb said. "I think he looks cute!" Below are some posts of particular note. Rahodeb on Whole Foods Mackey the boastful, on Nov. 29, 2000: "Obviously WFMI is no Wal-Mart (not yet anyway!)" Criticizing rival Sunflower, an organic grocery store opened by Supervalu: "Sunflower isn't too impressive. These guys won't hurt Whole Foods. Wait and see." Predicting Whole Foods will someday be a mammoth, June 25, 2004: I believe that what is really happening with the stock is that some really smart institutions are finally realizing what I realized many years ago: Whole Foods Market is going to be a really large company someday. They will hit their $10 billion sales target by the end of the decade (probably before then) and they won't stop there. It will double to $20 billion 4 years after that (18% CAGR) and probably double again from there to $40 billion within 5 years of then. The entire food retailing segment is undergoing a huge transformation. Wal-Mart is going to dominate the low price side of the business and Whole Foods is going to dominate the quality/service/healthy side of the business. Those companies stuck in the middle -- Safeway, Kroger, & Albertsons -- have huge labor union problems that aren't going to go away, but are likely to only get worse. The future has never looked brighter for Whole Foods than it does right now. Soliciting advice on corporate strategy, in June 1999: "If Whole Foods acquired Harry's do you think they should keep the Harry's name or change it to Whole Foods Market? How strong is the brand name/goodwill in Atlanta for this company?" Rahodeb on His Identity Claming to be George W. Bush, denying he's John Mackey, in January 2004: "I've stated my identity on this board before, but no one apparently believed me. I am George W. Bush and a long-time customer of Whole Foods Market. I own quite a bit of stock in the company and have owned it since the IPO back in 1992. … At the end of the day it doesn't matter what my non-screen identity really is or what yours is or who anyone else's is on this board. "dcc7 [the screen name of another member of the forum] has claimed that my true identity is John Mackey. You can believe that one or not. Doesn't matter to me. If I really am Mackey, then I'm the ultimate insider at Whole Foods and you would be well served to pay attention to what I have to say on this board. If you don't believe I'm Mackey (admittedly the idea seems pretty far fetched) then you should still pay attention to what I have to say on this board if my ideas and arguments make sense. If they don't make sense or you disagree with me -- well that's what bulletin boards like this are all about." April 25, 2006: "I am a smartass. So what." Rahodeb on World Events Commenting on President Bush's 2004 re-election, Nov. 3, 2004: "3.5 million popular vote victory, over 51% of the total vote, and when it is all said and done -- 286 electoral votes to Kerry's 252. "The anger and hatred of Bush by the Left has not produced victory but rather defeat. Combined with additional seats in the Senate and the House, the defeat of Tom Daschle in South Dakota , and a majority of State Governorships (plus future Bush nominees to the Supreme Court) means that the Democratic Party continues to lose support and power in America . Time for the Democrats to accept reality, regroup, move away from the Michael Moore's and other Leftist extremists in their Party and move back towards the center. If they do, then they might begin to win more elections and eventually regain majority status. If they don't -- well the Republicans will dominate political power in America for decades to come." On a book called "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Bjorn Lomborg, in October 2004: "Well, 'The Skeptical Environmentalist' was pretty convincing to me and I've read very widely about the environment for many years. Lomborg has challenged the current environmental paradigm of doom and gloom. Anyone who authoritatively challenges consensus beliefs is going to be viciously attacked by people who see the world differently. People don't like to change their beliefs and prefer to dismiss and attack opinions that differ from their own. "I recommend your reading Lomborg's own defense of the critical attacks on his personal website. Again I find his defense intellectually compelling." Rahodeb on John Mackey Criticizing Mackey for the company's weak investments outside of retail, in October 2000: "Everything Whole Foods has done outside of retail hasn't worked." And again in November 2000: "Despite WFMI's ineptness in investing in businesses outside its core retail expertise, the company continues to open great new stores with high sales, produces strong comp sales growth for stores over 12 months in age, and continues to grow core retail earnings at a 20%+ clip." On Mr. Mackey's personality and message: "Mackey's message seems to be that Whole Foods is going to run its business for the benefit of its customers, employees, and its long-term investors--not to please the Street or sell-side analysts. Based upon the strong rise in the stock the message has been well received by the Market, if not by the sell-side analysts. "I like the message. Why should Whole Foods worry about inflation when they can't do anything about it? They shouldn't and they don't." On a June 2004 New York Times Magazine piece about Mr. Mackey: "Overall I thought the article was good. However, I'm more enthusiastic about Whole Foods than the journalist was. It seems hard for him to believe that a business can be both profit seeking and socially responsible at the same time."