The Rogers News

Category: Commentary

  • Dot.com Stock Investing Principles

    I think about investing money in stocks frequently. I’m young and can afford to take more of a risk now than I ever will be able to in the future. With that said, I still think the guiding principle for all investing should be “buy for the long-run.” That is, buy stock that you think will increase over the long-run, not something that will spike in a month, offer a small return, and leave you pressured to sell.

    After reading Fred Wilson’s post on A VC about why he just bought Amazon stock and recently purchased Google stock, too, I thought back to Warren Buffet’s age-old approach of buying stock in companies that supply a good that consumers consume regularly. E.g., Coca Cola, razor blades, etc.

    One of Fred’s reasons for buying Amazon stock is that, despite their large PE ratio, Amazon is the first place his family shops for anything – even before going to a local store.

    So, is there a principle to be extracted from this approach to buying dot.com stock? Should we be looking for the Dot.coms that are irresistible replacements for everyday errands? That seems to make a lot of sense.

    Afterthought – With increased demand to have things delivered, won’t there be an increased demand on delivery companies like FedEx, DHS, UPS, and the USPS? I would imagine they’re thrilled that people are buying more online than local stores.

  • Primary Season Lurks – Do I Care?

    I received the following email this morning from my friend Zack:

    My apologies for the mass email. I am loath to send one, but this is important.

    Please consider donating to Ron Paul, the presidential candidate I support, today Dec. 16th. There is an effort underway to raise $10M in a single day, breaking all records. When he is sworn in as the next president, Ron Paul will immediately bring our troops home from Iraq and all overseas bases. With the tremendous savings, Ron will lead the effort to abolish the federal income tax. He will cancel the Patriot Act, and restore Habeas Corpus and the rule of law.

    Today I stood for 2 hours on a freeway overpass and showed a 4’x8’ Ron Paul sign to about 15,000 cars and trucks, in the snow and sleet. I have donated to Ron, and I believe in him. I voted for Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004, but this year I am voting for Ron – a man of principle and integrity. He is the only candidate I have ever donated to.

    Regards,

    Fives / Zack

    I want to care about politics. It seems like the mature thing to do. However, I’ve always been turned off by the effort required to acquire a good understanding of the candidates. This results in me just deciding I like the Republican nominee because I favor smaller government. But, I’m not settling for that reasoning this year. The government is huge and not getting much smaller regardless of who is sitting in the Oval Office.

    Ron Paul has been in news I read A LOT. I don’t think he’s as popular in a traditional nightly news sense, but if you look on Digg, Reddit, and YouTube you’ll find a lot of “Ron Paul 2008 – Hope For America” buzz.

    I’m not sold yet, partially because I haven’t had time to do the research myself. I will, hopefully before the Michigan primary. But, from watching this video he seems to be one of the most respectable candidates running – by that I mean he’s well spoken, experienced, and doesn’t have mistresses scattered across NYC.

    The first primaries are:

    * Iowa on January 3rd
    * Wyoming on January 5th (Republican only)
    * New Hampshire on January 8th
    * Michigan on January 15.

    I’ll be in Michigan during the New Hampshire primary, unfortunately. It would be exciting to be around for that.

    The Democratic primary schedule is available here.

    The Republican primary schedule is available here.

  • Where Have All The Bloggers Gone?

    Mike Lewis wonders why his old blogging buddies have quit or opted for other less demanding sites like Facebook, MySpace, and, dare we say, tumblr. My comments in response to his post and why I think people are smart to move aware from “heavy corporate” blogs towards “social light” blogs:

    I’ve started using Tumblr. The ability to reblog other’s posts and track who has reblogged my posts is a refreshing new approach to “commenting.”

    No longer are we forced to scatter our thoughts across various unconnected websites. Comments, by default, put the commenter at the service of the author.

    The downside to Tumblr seems to be its propensity towards encouraging cliques. It’s almost like public email.

    MySpace and Facebook seem too diluted for anyone who actually wants to be heard.

    Blogging seems old and linear. No amount of plugins can save it in the long run. It’s only a matter of time before more is expected from the medium.

  • Identity vs Efficiency

    I read 300+ blog posts a day thanks to Google Reader. It’s my homepage. Every time I open my browser I’m bombarded with new postings. I’ve done this for almost a year now. Before that I visited the individual blogs.

    Jakob Lodwick makes the following point in a post today:

    This urge to make everything automatically syndicated and aggregated into custom streams does have a trade-off. You’re trading identity for efficiency.

    This provides a few shocking realizations for me.

    1. All that I’ve done online lately is consume and reorganize. I don’t create enough. Sure, I’m creating right now. But, it’s not enough. This is partially a result of being in law school, which has significantly squashed the time I have to think about meaningful creative endeavors. Or even read a novel.

    2. In the past I’ve spent hours modifying the look and feel of my other blog – Yugflog.com – so that it is appealing and appropriate to the subject matter. If all of that was never seen because it was only read through RSS feeds, that would be a lot of wasted work on my part.

    So what? While the 2D web-space is becoming increasingly visually stimulating and full of rich content, my way of dealing with it is to reduce it to uniform text in a linear stream. Not only that, but no one blog, micro-blog, tumblelog, video site, or website stands out. All of the information is slurred together.

    I should care more about who is saying what.

    I should care more about what it looks like.

    I should care more about giving back as much as I take in a qualitative, not quantitative, manner.

    To do that I’m going to stop reading my RSS feeds every spare second. I’m going to evaluate what I can do with my time that would be either (a) more productive or (b) more creative.

  • Deep Conversation on IM

    Me: link.
    Her: link.
    Me: link.

  • On Looking Professional

    Zack: You should cut your hair and trim your beard before you interview for an internship.
    Me: I would definitely do that.

    (I am a law student with shaggy hair and a beard. I don’t look like a lawyer should look. I’m aware of this. I just don’t care right now. When will I ever get a chance to carelessly grow a beard or have longer hair again? The fact that “I don’t know” is a possible answer to that question is reason enough for me to do it now – not later – not never.)

  • Congrats Red Sox

    It was nice to see the Red Sox win on Sunday night, although I would have preferred the Rockies to win a couple games. I hate to see anyone get swept in four games as solidly as the Sox took care of the Rockies. There were a couple moments when the games were enticing, but overall the series lacks the drama on which you want a world championship event to end. The resulting chaos of Boston winning in Boston would have been priceless, too. Bitter-sweet. Maybe next year.

    Curt Schilling, the Boston Red Sox veteran strike throwing pitching machine, has a blog titled, “38 Pitches,” which I just found today. His comments on the World Series and baseball are worth a look.