Did Keef really need the dough?

Other than posing in a great picture by Annie Leibovitz (click for better res) I can't really imagine Keith Richards being in need for the Louis Vuitton money.

Mikhael Gorbachev did the same for LV but, as far as we know, he at least does need the money. What a shame. He's been the brain behind the change that brought down communism for good, and he needs to resort to acts like these, while many others, preferably ex-KGB agents with an eye for capitalist style fraud, accommodate themselves with juicy fortunes in the billions.

C'est la vie, as Italians say...

What biz is all about...

Take a look at this nerd face (Zuckerberg, founder and chief of Facebook) and tell me how he managed to convince one of Google's top executives, Miss Sheryl Sandberg, to come and work for him. Then read FSJ's comments on the news.

Here's an excerpt. I believe he's darn right about the raison d'être of any of these social networking ventures for kids and nerdy adults...

'You have to remember what Facebook's core business is about. It's not about helping people stay in touch with friends or express themselves. It's not about changing the world or creating an ecosystem for small apps makers. It's not even about selling ads. Facebook is a vehicle through which a bunch of investors in the Valley hope to turn a small pile of money into a much bigger pile of money by selling shares in the public markets. That is Facebook's core business. That is its raison d'etre as they say in Latin. This is a company created by, for and about venture capitalists. It's not a company so much as it's a narrative. A fable. A fairy tale. Zuckerberg himself is incidental except that it makes the story a little better to have a boyish little Harvard dropout (cough Gates cough) in flip-flops and fleece jacket as CEO.

Worse yet, right now Facebook is a friggin Ponzi scheme, with Facebook's venture-funded apps partners making money primarily by selling ads to Facebook's other venture-funded apps partners. Infinite loop? Um yeah. Moreover, Facebook itself is being propped up and kept alive by the Borg, simply so it can serve as a thorn in Google's side. And frankly the Borg will be happy to keep this thing alive and to help Z-Boy and his backers make obscene billions as long as Facebook saps energy from Google and distracts them and draws away their talent. Z-Boy, clever fellow that he is, is happy to serve as the Borg's proxy in its war against Google, so long as he's richly compensated, which he will be. He spotted a war between giants and cleverly turned that to his own advantage. Well played, kid'

Honestly, this is one of Fake Steve's best stories. Ever.

PS. The Borg, for those of you who feel lost, is Microsoft's Gates, whereas the Z-Boy is Zuckerberg himself.

Yet another ode to El Jobso...

Interesting Fortune Magazine story about his Jobness. Here's an excerpt:

'Jobs' personal abuses are also legend: He parks his Mercedes in handicapped spaces, periodically reduces subordinates to tears, and fires employees in angry tantrums. Yet many of his top deputies at Apple have worked with him for years, and even some of those who have departed say that although it's often brutal and Jobs hogs the credit, they've never done better work.

How Jobs pulls all this off - how this bundle of conflicting behaviors can coexist, to spectacular effect, in a single human being - remains a puzzle, even though more than a dozen books have been written about him. Jobs is notoriously secretive and controlling when it comes to his relationship with the press, and he tries to stifle stories that haven't received his blessing with threats and cajolery.

This story is one of them. While Jobs agreed to be interviewed by my colleague Betsy Morris on the subject of Apple's selection as America's Most Admired Company (see What Makes Apple Golden), he refused to comment for this story, which had been in the works for months. Dozens of people who work or have worked with Jobs did agree to extensive interviews, most insisting on not being named (even if praising him) for fear of incurring his anger.

History, of course, is littered with tales of combustible geniuses. What's astounding is how well Jobs has performed atop a large public company - by its nature a collaborative enterprise. Pondering this issue, Stanford management science professor Robert Sutton discussed Jobs in his bestselling 2007 book, "The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't." "As soon as people heard I was writing a book on assholes, they would come up to me and start telling a Steve Jobs story," says Sutton. "The degree to which people in Silicon Valley are afraid of Jobs is unbelievable. He made people feel terrible; he made people cry. But he was almost always right, and even when he was wrong, it was so creative it was still amazing." Says Palo Alto venture capitalist Jean-Louis Gasse, a former Apple executive who once worked with Jobs: "Democracies don't make great products. You need a competent tyrant."
…'

The story was published in parallel with the one praising Apple as the number one most admired company for 2008 in the world. If you want the entire list go here.

Carnival in Hasselt

In three weeks we'll celebrate Easter in the Catholic Christian world and in Hasselt, provincial capital of one of the nine Belgian provinces, Limburg, they have been celebrating over this last weekend the 2008 Carnival! Say what? Well yes... we were equally shocked at the news. As I was having a coffee and relaxing at the King George pub, at the corner of the Grote Markt, a local chap, sitting next to me and watching me pulling out my photographic and video gear started a smalltalk with me. 'Yes', he admitted in his local accent, sipping his kriek (cherry) beer, '...it's kinda late for carnival... but that's the way we do it for centuries.'

'It's normal' said my youngest son a little later. 'In Limburg everything is slower than in any other place', he said, bursting in laughs about the locals enjoying a reputation of not being as smart as in the rest of Flanders. Known old story: every country has a part of its population being laughed at as being double-digit IQ's.

It's not fair though... other than their singing accent that sounds quite funny, Limburgers are extremely amicable people and equally smart with the rest of us, if not smarter.

The dude on the picture above was huge and played the trumpet... he looked like a zombie risen from his grave where he was laid with his red Baron uniform and all, after he crashed his plane in the Great War. If you are curious to see more of my shots from the carnival, link here.

Is Apple as smart as it looks?

Well, I couldn't say. Their approach (stubbornness I should say) to delay the introduction in every country of the EU, preferably unlocked, of their marvelous iPhone is beyond comprehension. It's right now that the greenback hits all-time lows and has got some more to go southwards vis-a-vis the Euro as 2008 advances. Apple needs to reach the sale of 10 million iPhone units by year end 2008 and... they claim they are on track. But it wouldn't hurt them at all if they secured even more that target with some extra units released in miserable countries like the Benelux, South Europe, Switzerland, etc... The bonus they get by the dollar further deteriorating will make up for most of the lost profit from unlocking the phone (meaning they won't get any added revenue from operators with exclusive rights). Any iPhone launched in Europe will bring them the best part of 750 bucks per unit whereas their equivalent cost remains virtually the same per unit.

Why they don't just do this and keep ignoring the largest part of a 500 million consumer market is a HUGE mystery to many of us...

As of this writing there is nobody with a clue about if or when there will be any iPhone launch in any of the remaining 24 countries of the EU. Should someone teach Messrs Jobs and Cook some geography about our markets? Who knows... they might be jealous of Gates and his Zune, only released in the US of A.