Mark Pincus Blog

Working the system vs seeking redemption - 'american ganster' and 'redemption'

We saw the amazingly well done 'american ganster' last night.

Its interesting to compare the stories of frank lucas - who built a massive heroin business in the 70's by working the system - and stanley 'tukie' williams - who cofounded the crips gang in LA during the same time.

Lucas admittedly murdered at least one man and probably many more in addition to creating thousands of dope addicts by importing pure heroin and selling it super cheap. Williams also was responsible for destroying many lives.

While williams spent his adult life in prison and was executed in 2005, lucas spent only 12 yrs in jail.

Both men were changed by their downfall. Williams sought redemption devoting his remaining days to writing childrens books focused on steering away from gangs (the subject of another great movie 'redemption'). He won a pullitzer and was twice nominated for nobel prizes.

Lucas, who built his fortune bribing US military and police continued to work the system and even today in nymag interviews boasts about his triumphs with only muted comments about how he shouldn't have done it. Mostly, he says this was the only avenue he had to be 'white rich'.

I'm not sure if there's a moral to these stories other than that those who break the law seem to fare better if they continue to work the system. Tukie remained defiant till the end. Not sure that really got him much, especially when his goal was to help kids. Why not help arrest his former gang members. Did he remain loyal till the end to the wrong group?

Also, great biz lessons from lucas like don't be flashy, surround yourself with trusted people and make the system work for you. Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

Got an EA?

I'm looking for an A+ exec assistant to replace my A++ who is moving east. Can anyone help with leads?

This person should LOVE multi tasking, be super smart and totally 'on it' and have a GREAT sense of humnor.

Salary - $50-80k plus options Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

When LBO guys aren't the smartest in the room - putting hertz out of business

We were recently charged 107 a day to rent a toyota corolla plus an upgrade charge. Worst part is we were informed of these charges only by checking our receipt.

The service woman said, "sorry, now we have to charge much higher rates because we're owned by merrill lynch."

She told us they tack on huge fees if you do anything to change your original contract. This case we dropped at a different airport. Apparently, the PE owner or some poor exec at hertz figured out they can exploit a loophole to charge you crazy addons upon return.

This sounds like the gameplan of some hedge/PE fund that wants to drive up short term revs/cashflow to get a hot IPO without care for the longer term impact of ruining a great brand and losing its loyal customer base.

Can anyone recommend another car rental agency? Perhaps one that's not owned by a PE firm?
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

my dad supports obama...

What presidential candidate matches America's most critical needs, the unprecedented challenges we face, and the imponderable times in which we now live?

I believe there's only one, a man for whom I've begun to work, and whose candidacy I humbly submit for you to seriously consider.

That man is Barack Obama, and I did not make the decision lightly. As you likely have done, I've watched the political circus season and listened to each contender with rising skepticism. Obama was no exception. I've always classified myself as a political independent. I wrote speeches for Rockefeller, worked for Humphrey, did communications for John Anderson, Alan Dixon and Ross Perot, then worked for Clinton and Gore. As an old broken down PR flack, I've become somewhat baloney-immune.

But the other night Sherri and I met Obama at Lester Crown's and heard not only an amazingly charismatic ad lib give-and-take one-hour discourse, but heard convictions that have been sorely missed from the rhetoric of other candidates. (I had read his two books plus his many press conferences of the past year, but his vision of what America needs never hit home to me as it did that evening.)

Briefly, in contrast to all other candidates, Obama tells Americans what they DON'T want to hear, but must. He is almost the reverse of the consummate politician. He was in the forefront of the senators who voted AGAINST the war.His positions today are not based on a personal barometer or private poll to tell him what's popular. Unflinchingly, he tells it like it is. He asked for support from an affluent Chicago north shore core group --while telling them flatly that they'll have to cough up more taxes to pay for an ill-conceived war and to maintain our sagging infrastructure.He didn't mince words. He told us he would raise the personal income tax cap from 36% to 39%. He bluntly said that there's a price to pay in finding alternative energy and combatting global warming. Unlike others, he pleaded for us to realize that nothing comes for free. He's adamant that universal healthcare is vital and overdue to relieve our uninsured 40 million. He's the only candidate to go on record in saying that--despite the cost-- we may ultimately have to strike global terrorism at its heart --the Al Queda bases in Waziristan regardless of the international consequences. And he takes the lead in advocating a tough stance against a nuclear Iran. (Please see the example below of his words, delivered recently on that issue.)

Yes, I know. Every poll says Hillary is significantly ahead. But it's only October and much can happen by the 08 primaries. With your support, this remarkably fresh, frank and totally independent visionary can become the answer to the daunting dilemmas our nation faces.

If you should choose to help, please contact Jordan Kaplan at jkaplan@barackobama.com or call 312 819 2437.

Thanks for listening.

ted

when will we have consumer companies that talk to their users? (rather than spam and ignore)

is there anyone who appreciates the daily interruption of the apple and msft software update notifiers? for all that msft does to 'protect' us from pop ups and insecure software, why is it that we cannot remove their core functions from our windows pcs? there's probably a smart programmer or hacker who can tell me how to disable these desktop viruses, but i have never figured out a way.

a daily reminder to check for new windows software or install apple's latest is about as appreciated as telemarketing calls to my cellphone. i wish someone at msft and apple would ever get a clue. why cant those companies be more like google? googlers actually read and respond to this blog and many others, correcting wrong views on their company and bringing real criticisms into their company. it's a shame that we've never seen a senior executive from either of those companies interact with a blog.

i look forward to the day when senior execs at consumer companies try to be more like craig, start calling themselves 'customer support reps' and actually responding to users personally instead of on bad canned videos and from a conf hall dias, with their meaningless crafted marketing blather.

it is surprising that the rest of the most consumer net execs are as absent as msft and apple. i guess that means there's still room for yet another generation that will be even more transparent and consumer facing.

if this era has been defined by 'dont be evil'...the next may be 'dont ignore your users'.

How I got engaged...

to eveyone that we have not told yet, alison faith gelb and i are engaged. and to everyone who wanted to know the story here is a detailed account. [to everyone who really couldnt care to hear, dont read further.]

After spending rosh hashana with ali's family, I hijacked her and flew to vegas instead of sf where she thought we were having a quiet dinner at jackson filmore.

Ali started seeing weird lights in the desert and realized it was vegas. She started yelling in the back. Dave and I shut the pilot doors.

I told ali we were going for a fun vegas night because the past wk was hard for her moving to sf. She didn't think we were getting engaged. She said her nails weren't done and since I didn't care she thought it was going to be mexico over her bday.

We checked into the wynn (where we had our first date weekend despite judy's warnings). The front desk lady nearly blew yelling out 'congratulations. Isn't this ur anniversary?'

We went to our fabulous phat fairway villa where she proceeded to lay down and get sick to the point I couldn't get her up. She felt flu-ish like she had three heads. I started getting nervous that the whole plan was going south.

Finally got her up and out at 9:50 to catch the last seating at alex, a beautiful french restaurant where we were seated in a banquette. the staff was all set to give her the ring with desert with a dramatic lifting of a covered plate.

It was tough keeping all this secret from ali, especially with the waiter giving me knowing looks. I secretly gave the ring to the hostess, telling ali I was asking for aspirins.

I had an amazing 6 course meal (hers and mine) and then realized she was too sick and passed out for me to propose. At one point Ali woke up to say 'I'm glad were not getting engaged tonight!'

I stopped the desert ring in its trax realizing I needed a different plan having the waiter sneak me the ring back with the check.

Luckily, the chocolate desert brought her back. We stopped in the vip salon for tea and fruits, and with her forming whole sentences I realized she could now coherently accept a proposal.

(Ali points out that I never actually proposed but that's a small detail.)

I pulled out the ring and showed it to her and said, 'I've wanted to give you this for a while. Its been burning a hole in my pocket.' Ali got excited and I believe I put it on her finger but she's not sure. Then I said, 'I've searched for you, I've worked for you, I've grown for you.'

Then ali said, 'you have to propose to me.' At which time another couple came by and were first to congratulate us.

With ali feeling much better, we decided to go gambling, well I gambled and at one point almost hit a hard six for an $11k payout but happily ended almost even.

we made it home by 2am so ali could get up for her 7am conference call.

Since it was too late to cal everyone, we decided to post a picture of her hand with the ring on my blog and facebook to quickly tell the world.

I know ali plans to talk with each of you but we wanted to give you the whole story right away.

And of course ali's phone died this morning so she's having to wait till this afternoon to start dialing everyone.

We're landing in sf this afternoon. Ali wants me to add that (of course) she wants the ring size double checked and really needs her nails done and we haven't eaten all day.

iMacs are an iWaste

for all the time we think we save using imacs for multi media we should also admit how much time we waste on this weaker platform. can anyone tell me why my laptop just turns itself off if i'm inactive for more than 10 minutes? and no it's not on the battery

Zinga at tableTo play video messages sent to email, QuickTime® 6.5 or higher is required. Visit www.apple.com/quicktime/download to download the free player or upgrade your existing QuickTime® Player. Note: During the download

comment from former freeloader about tom

i love getting these comments from former friends of dearly departed tom cole...

I knew Tom from when we shared an office at FreeLoader. Every now and then I do the same thing most people do and I look for info on people I know online. I've never been able to find anything on Tom no matter how hard I looked. I just wanted to send him an email or find out what he's been up to or something. I FINALLY found a search string that yelded a result . . . and this is what I found. Only a few days ago my wife and I were talking about Tom after watching some of our wedding video for our 10th anniversary. Tom was at our wedding and, just as he did every day, his presence made everything shine just that much brighter. I had so much fun with Tom for that short period I got to work with him. It was only six short months, but I feel priveledged that I got to spend it sharing an office with him five days a week. For everyone else you've had a year to deal with this. For me, it's all happening RIGHT NOW and it's bordering on the unbearable. Mark; I can't even BEGIN TO FATHOM what this has been like for you. I know how close you two were and by the looks things continued to be. You have my heartfelt sympathy. I'm having a lot of trouble seeing the screen right now through the tears so I'll just stop.

3 office spaces available in my new building - ready oct 1st

My new building on vermont street will be super cool and offer startup oriented features not found in sf buildings.

* open, modern kitchen with espresso and smoothie machines * climbing wall (we hope) * atrium with lounge and lunch tables * nintendo wii * dog friendly

There are 3 open spaces available ranging from 500 to 2200 sq feet.

If you want space email me at mark-at-tribe-dot-net. Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.