Picto Diary - 13 - 17 November 2017 - Founders Fund Annual Meeting
Above: Union Square. San Francisco, CA. 13 November 2017
Image captured from 25th floor room at San Francisco Marriott Hotel.
Last time I was at this hotel, late September, TIMDT was pushing me around in a wheel chair.
Above: Starbucks. Sutter Street, near Union Square. San Francisco, CA . 14 November 2017.
5:30 AM. Corner seat. Need it. Lottsa people up early. Some definitely require watching. Haven't seen this many people sleeping on streets since Calcutta.
Above: San Francisco sky line. TransAmerica Tower. 14 November 2017. San Francisco, CA.
Image captured from patio, at cocktail hour, of The Battery, on Battery Street.
Founders Fund Annual Meeting for LP's.
My annual view into Silicon Valley. Real time observation of as much human creative energy as has existed in one place, ever. Shaping our future, like it or not.
Presentations on successful FF investments:
Flexport
Stripe
Bitcoin
Nubank
Wish
...among others...
I loved hearing Flexport CEO/Founder Ryan Peterson's four learnings about building a business:
1. Pay attention when problem presents itself. Think its too big? If not you, who?
2. Don't wait for permission.
3. Don't wait until project fully baked. See an opportunity before completion? Go for it!
4. You can't design future. Evolve it. Get in game and start iterating.
Apparent Silicon Valley Player (mostly white male) Dress Code: 😉
Billionaires: Dark suit, white open collar, no tie dress shirt, black dress oxfords.
100 millionaires: T shirt, jeans, Adidas running shoes.
Millionaires: Blazer, polo shirt, chinos, desert boots.
Lottsa beards these days.
At cocktails heard in private conversation with SF billionaire:
1. Anti Trump noise from left will attenuate.
2. Tax deal will pass; put wind in Trump sails.
3. Worried about millenial generation.
— at The Battery.
15 November 2017 - No Entry
Above: Clayton Christensen. Harvard Business School Professor. Presentation at Little America Hotel, Harvard Alumni Association of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT. 16 November 2017.
Pre event:
Mwah (sic): As you said three years ago at a SLC speech, do you still believe that electric cars won't be disruptors until they can compete on "refueling" time and range with gasoline powered cars?
CC: At the top end, yes. E.g.. Tesla, GM, Merc, BMW. We're not going to get disruptive growth from this segment.
China, however, could burst through with disruptive growth with its low cost, small, plastic, electric cars entering market at $4M. 400K copies sold last year.
Presentation Notes:
HEALTH CARE.
Chart shows how productivity improvements at all levels of health care delivery will actually lower costs and improve quality.
INNOVATION
Disruptive innovations create growth. Cars, Computers....made available to masses... affordable and acceptable.
Sustaining innovations. Make good products better. But they don't create growth.
Efficiency Innovations. Make more with less. Current Toyota production system 15% less than any other producer. Eliminate jobs but create free cash flow.
US/Europe awash in cash, capital because of beaucoup efficiency innovation. From whence will we get growth? Hard to see right now.
Post Script:
CC: Democracy can only be sustained in environment where people voluntarily decide to be law abiding. It is religion that reinforces these principles.
Having heard the above, after the event, I recommended to Professor Christensen Pierre Manent's 2015 book, French best seller, "Beyond Radical Secularism." Book links strong culture to religion and weak, declining culture (in France) to secularism.
Dr. Christensen seemed appreciative of having received this book recommendation. I hope he reads it. Its content is congruent with his view about religion and democracy, cited above.
Above: Park City Hospital. Physical Therapy Section. 17 November 2017.
Snow.
At PT. Wendy.
Continuing progress on broken tibia plateau (08 August 2017) and surgical repair a week later. Plate and eleven screws.
No pain, but still tenderness and swelling in surgery area. Am told this swelling is normal.
Upping walking to two miles a day.
Use PT once a week through year end; gym and equipment more often.
Final visit to surgeon Davis (knock on wood) 28 November 2017.
Ski Feb 1 a loose goal...I will "listen to the leg."
— feeling determined at Intermountain Park City Hospital.
Addendum:
Are those your new Gucci gym shoes??
Desert,
Palm Desert, CA
Over 70, no dress code. Actually, I was wearing slip ons for much of my recovery time because it was so difficult to bend the leg to get real shoes on. As of this writing I'm back to real work out shoes.
Why swelling ?
Not using enough icing perhaps after exercise/swelling ?
Hand,
San Jose, CA
They tell me its normal. I guess its a message that, though things seem to be going well, the healing is not yet finished. No pain in any case. Occasional tenderness in knee area.
Comments on Lee Child's, "The Midnight Line."
Don't worry. Tom Cruise will make a hash out of this book as a movie too.
JK,
Denver, CO
Have read all of the series. Fun.
Dr Bill,
Mesa, AZ
I agree. This will be my last
The Archbishop,
Big Sky, MT
try alan furst.
Privateer,
Hancock, ME
I’m still chuckling over the proper tense of the word for more than one duffus.
Peterbilt
Bountiful UT
LOL - our reading lists must be similar. I've read all of Child's books as they've come out. Good reads.
I've been stuck in these Swedish detective novels for the last two-three years. Friend sent me three for my birthday, figuring I'd be laying around with a busted leg - Sebastian Bergman series. 500 pages with small print (she ordered out of Germany, came via AMAZON, paperback). PIA to read - tried reading glasses, no good. So have to struggle about 12 inches from my face... killed four hours last night between 1:00 AM and 5:00 AM---just about done with book # 2. These are no airplane readers.
So far I've not had to resort to reading my own books.
One, MOTORCYCLE ADVENTURER, scored as an XMAS wish from the Editor-in-chief at MOTORCYCLE CONSUMER NEWS. Might result in sales of 5-10 copies LOL.
Best,
Dr. G,
Crow Agency, MT