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  • Executive Compensation: How Much Should A Founder Receive As Salary During An Earn-out Period?

    His market salary is a fair salary. There is no other concept of ‘fair’. If he does not get a market salary, then the cash value of his earnout is decreased by the difference between his current salary and his market salary. 

    If this was not covered in the agreement whatsoever, then there might be an argument to be made that he is due market compensation or they are artificially reducing his earnout by depriving him of income he could make elsewhere. If it was covered and he agreed to it then that’s likely to be a problem.

    However, these things are very difficult to negotiate unless you have some sort of leverage. If he can lose the earnout by not performing, or the business will not perform well enough to capture the earnout without him there, then he may have a very difficult time with it.

    As an acquirer I have generally benefited from underperformance of retained executives. There are a lot of people like me out there.  For that reason it’s best to have someone with investment banking experience work on M&A deals and not business lawyers.

    https://www.quora.com/Executive-Compensation-How-much-should-a-founder-receive-as-salary-during-an-earn-out-period

  • What Are The Best Pieces Of Advice For Founders Wanting To Start Companies That Build Physical Products, Given The Current Funding Climate Where Incubators And Accelerators Seem To Focus On Web, Mobile, And Social Companies?

    The question is really too broad as stated. 

    We’d need this information:

    1) Do you have a market and can you prove it? Meaning can you list specific customers or specific distribution channels to reach customers with? Or are you hoping to build a product that will sell itself?  Because that doesn’t happen unless it’s either sex or money.

    2) What is your plan to produce this product in volume? And do you have production estimates from reliable firms?

    3) Do you have a prototype that works already? 

    4) If you produce this product and get any traction at all, who would be interested in buying your company, and who do you know at those organizations?

    5) Can you explain how this product is valuable to someone in 30 seconds or less? or does it require specific domain knowledge?

    6) Does your product require external infrastructure or investment by others in order to sell and distribute or can you sell it over the web, or directly without externalizing any costs?

    These questions determine what kind of funding sources you’ll have to pursue.

    As someone else said, if you have an interesting idea, Kickstarter works wonders. If it doesn’t fit the Kickstarter profile, then there are always people with money willing to invest in product companies if you have a market, an exit they can understand, a production plan they can understand and a product they can understand.  Right now, multiples for social companies are speculatively high. So they attract the easy money.  But if you want to raise money for something that isn’t ‘hot’ you need to find people who have experience in the same industry you’re in, so that they can at least understand your idea.

    Generally it’s better to work nights and weekends to get your first customer(s) and then go to investors when you have a production or distribution problem.  “Early Stage” investments are a random number generator: they are unpredictable and effectively a matter of luck — and you simply have to knock on a lot of doors to find that luck.  Time is better spent on the product or on a customer.  The low capital requirements of social media are attractive despite the fact that it’s proven hard to make money in the space. The high capital requirements for products are not attractive. A patent on a product that can be sold to a large company is a net positive. All things being equal,  a consumer product is not — the point is that it’s a pretty complex question.

    https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-pieces-of-advice-for-founders-wanting-to-start-companies-that-build-physical-products-given-the-current-funding-climate-where-incubators-and-accelerators-seem-to-focus-on-web-mobile-and-social-companies

  • A Reply To Paul Craig Roberts: We’re Not Exporting Democracy. We’re Exporting Co

    A Reply To Paul Craig Roberts: We’re Not Exporting Democracy. We’re Exporting Consumer Capitalism. http://www.capitalismv3.com/2012/02/17/a-reply-to-paul-craig-roberts-were-not-exporting-democracy-were-exporting-consumer-capitalism/


    Source date (UTC): 2012-02-17 20:09:29 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/170600778493472768

  • Pravda Rails Against Fox News Without Realizing That They’re Looking In The Mirror.

    Over on Pravda, the popular, nationalistic and jingoistic Russian news agency, Fox News is attacked for it’s nationalist sentiments. I replied:

    Fox news is not exactly a minority business. It’s the most popular cable news channel. A better point of view, would be that Fox caters to the same audience that Pravda does: Nationalists. Just as Russians feel they are a threatened minority, so do white americans. And from that perspective, both the Jingoism of Pravda and Fox news serve the wants of their audiences. FWIW: Americans were against communism, not Russians, or even a Russian empire. And frankly, if Russians would rebuild their empire, if for no other reason than to secure their borders, the world, and the west, would be a better place. However, forming an alliance of any sort that would assist Iran in becoming the core state of islam, by uniting Syra, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan into a military-political block, is not going to help either Russia or the west. Islam is a political system not just a religion, and it is naturally more despotic than even the byzantines.

  • Thanks for adding me to the group

    Thanks for adding me to the group.


    Source date (UTC): 2011-08-25 14:28:00 UTC

  • Dell is a better fit culturally for MSFT. But Dell has a strong server business.

    Dell is a better fit culturally for MSFT. But Dell has a strong server business. MSFT’s problem is laptops. Not Servers. ie:HP.


    Source date (UTC): 2011-08-19 15:38:08 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/104577898203185152

    Reply addressees: @iankennedy

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/103104056574218240


    IN REPLY TO:

    @iankennedy

    “The situation is akin to Microsoft buying Dell: Would HP and others be happy about that?” http://t.co/vrCfkYa #googorolla

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/103104056574218240

  • Other than RIMM is a bad long term bet

    Other than RIMM is a bad long term bet.


    Source date (UTC): 2011-08-19 15:35:57 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/104577349705662465

    Reply addressees: @dkberman

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/103179245571940354


    IN REPLY TO:

    Original post on X

    Original tweet unavailable — we could not load the text of the post this reply is addressing on X. That usually means the tweet was deleted, the account is protected, or X does not expose it to the account used for archiving. The Original post link below may still open if you view it in X while signed in.

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/103179245571940354

  • Answers To Questions On Libertarian Criticism

    I. Curt, what does “Exchange under trade is different from exchange under market.” mean?

      [callout:]All social philosophies, whether marxist or libertarian, which claim universal application of their philosophy to all social classes, are luddite, regressive, anti-market philosophies whose underlying premise is to obtain the benefits of the market economy at a discount by getting the other sects to subsidize their economic advantage.[/callout]

      As such, a market is administered, managed and “governed”. Trade is not, since portable several property does not require institutions other than self defense. ie: libertarianism (at least the jewish wing of libertarianism, not the christian wing of libertarianism) is a luddite philosophy – it is regressive. Protestant upper Middle Class Classical Liberalism which split into two sects, the ‘liberal secular humanist’ or liberal and collective vs the ‘libertarian’ or conservative and individual, does not make the error inserted by the lower class Catholics (social democracy and Jews (marxism and socialism). All social philosophies, whether marxist or libertarian, which claim universal application of their philosophy to all social classes, are luddite, regressive, anti-market philosophies whose underlying premise is to obtain the benefits of the market economy at a discount by getting the other sects to subsidize their economic advantage. I should note that economic democracy, is a class cooperative philosophy rather than a universalist philosophy — as long as national credit is only released by the consent of the house of commons (since all borrowing is at the expense of the citizenry as a whole). II. RE: >> I’ve understood that , rather than three coercive technologies, there are two: force (the tribal chief) & fraud (the witch doctor). I’ve yet to understand your three.

        III. RE: Politics market = city. city = polis. politics = the technology organizing people who are cooperating in markets.

      • Hi. Thanks for the invite. Interesting posts. But having built or founded a numb

        Hi. Thanks for the invite. Interesting posts. But having built or founded a number of companies from 5M-150M, I have to say that most of the inspirational propaganda read be entrepreneurs is largely nonsense. Most CEO’s are quantitative operational disciplinarians, quantitative disciplined salesmen or quantitative disciplined master craftsmen and by and large they are pedantically boring to people outside of their field. Ideas are cheap. Passion is cheap. Planning is cheap. Strategy is cheap. Operational discipline is costly. Credit is very expensive. But most importantly, customers are priceless: they are the ultimate scarcity. If you have customers, then you have a business. If you don’t, you have a very expensive form of entertainment.


        Source date (UTC): 2010-07-26 23:45:00 UTC

      • Dana, so glad you found me! Didn’t know how to reach you. Miss you always. Seatt

        Dana, so glad you found me! Didn’t know how to reach you. Miss you always. Seattle misses you.

        Hugs – curt


        Source date (UTC): 2009-01-29 10:47:00 UTC