GeekMBA360
Career Advice At The Intersection Of Business And Technology
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Why I like retail
I have been posting very infrequently since May because I started a new job. I left online advertising and returned to the E-commerce world. I really enjoy working in the e-commerce world. E-commerce is retail, low margin, and ultra competitive. But, I like the fact that I’m working with hard, tangible products. I’m actually selling real products. There is a very clear score card. Good or bad, my performance is measured by well defined metrics. This is so much better than product management... |
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Another round of Microsoft Layoff
I heard today that Microsoft had another round of layoff. I’m not surprised. I live in Seattle and I’m surrounded by people who work in Microsoft. In the past 6 years, I knew only two people who told me they love working for Microsoft. I thought they’re either stupid or crazy. I do have some very intelligent and capable friends who work there. But, they don’t work there because they love Microsoft. They have specific career goals or personal financial goals. Microsoft is stepping stones... |
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Prediction: The display advertising network bubble is about to burst
In the past few weeks, I learned directly and indirectly that several highly successful ad sales guys quitted their display ad sales jobs and switched to different niches of online advertising. These are sales guys who accounted for 20-40% of their employers’ annual revenue. They were not laid off. In fact, most of them just got promoted recently. Why did they quit? If you ask them, they probably won’t tell you the real reason. After all, it’s hard to trust what came out of the mouths of... |
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P90X
Has any of you done P90X? I was channel surfing the other day, and saw the P90X infomercial. I have to say it was very well done. I did a little bit research on P90X. Beach Body, the company that markets P90X, have sold 1.5 million copies of P90X. Each copy of P90X sells for $120 plus shipping. So, P90X is a $100 million+ business. Wow! I have to admit that I’m thinking about giving P90X a try. I like it because 1) it provides a structure – exercise and diet plan are clearly laid out for... |
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Unforced error
Last week I came across an interesting article on the chain of events led to General McChrystal’s downfall. Here is my favorite quote from the article: As an executive, Obama has little tolerance for what he calls "unforced errors" — mistakes that are entirely preventable. In that regard, McChrystal’s team had committed an unforced error on a major scale and at the most inauspicious time. “Unforced errors” are no brainers. They are entirely preventable. “Unforced... |
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Why I sometimes hate to work with freshly minted MBAs
A lot of them are super arrogant. A lot of them are super greedy — they want to make a lot of money as soon as possible. They’re only interested in "strategy work". They talk big and think big. But, they cannot execute. They care more about job titles than job content. They think they’re analytical because they know how to use excel spreadsheet to build models. I don’t mean to over generalize. But, a lot of MBAs are like what I’m describing above. If you’re... |
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My failed blog redesign
In April I rolled out a new blog design. I sent out a tweet in early April that I was beta testing the new blog design. I actually spent about 3 months to re-design the blog. Why did it take me so long? I have very little free time. The re-design included changes in front end, back end, as well as database. So, it was a lot of work. Unfortunately, after two weeks of beta test, I decided to roll back the changes. Can you guess what is the single biggest reason for my decision to revert back to... |
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Secretive to a fault
I recently talked to a start-up. This company has been around for a while, but it’s super secretive. It has a bare bone web site. You can find very little useful information about the company. Its address is list as a PO BOX number. Their physical address is not available anywhere online. When I discussed a job offer with them, I asked questions such as "total number of shares outstanding, current valuation of the company, company burn rate, etc.". The answer I got is that "we... |
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Give yourself a big raise
It’s pathetic. One friend hasn’t gotten any pay raise for three years. He works for a Fortune 500 company and he had no performance issues. Most people I knew got 2-5% annual pay increase in the past couple of years. Even if you switch jobs, the pay raise is no longer the 10-25% you can normally expect. My suggestion to you: do NOT bet on salary increase by your employer. It really does not matter. Let’s say you get a 5% increase. How much more money will you get per... |
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Exit interview
I recently had an exit interview. I was leaving the company. As part of standard HR practice, the Human Resource Manager met with me for half an hour. She started the conversation by saying: "Before we talked about the details such as COBRA, your last check, vacation balance, etc, we want to find out why you’re leaving the company. We’re not like our parent’s generation who will stay with the same company for their whole lives. We understand people will change jobs. But,... |
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The awkward role of product management in online advertising network companies
I don’t envy any product management professional who work for any of the online advertising networks. There are tremendous amount of hype in the online advertising network industry. But, I’m going to make a controversial statement today: most ad networks are ad agency in disguise. They’re essentially ad agency for the digital world. Two groups of people have the power leverage in online advertising network companies: ad sales, and ad operations. Online advertising is a transaction... |
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Is your work contributing something to humanity?
It’s puzzling to a lot of people — my friend Jay is quitting his finance career to get into operational side of a high tech start-up. Jay is a brilliant young financial analyst. When I use the term “brilliant”, I really mean it. Two and half years ago, Jay started telling all of his family , friends, and co-workers to pull their money out of the stock market. He told everyone to put their 401K money into cash account. He said that a major financial meltdown was inevitable.... |
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Why head hunter is important for your job search
I recently saw a job ad on Craigslist. I applied immediately because it looked really interesting and challenging to me. I didn’t hear anything back from the company. A few days later, I saw a job ad by a head hunter on Craigslist. It was the same job description, but the employer name was hidden. I emailed, and within 2 hours I heard back from the head hunter. He didn’t think I had all of the required experience and background, but he wanted to at least chat with me. One thing led... |
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The Magic of Thinking Big
“We might not have believed it when we said it in our first team meeting in the fall, but if we focus and do our jobs, then why can’t we play for a national championship? That’s been our focus all along. I walked out of that room and I kind of thought, ‘I hope we’ll get a chance to do this.’ This is a great story.” — Brad Stevenson, Head Coach of Butler University Men’s Basketball Team. We all know now that Brad Stevenson took his Butler team... |
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Search Engine Optimization Still Matters
Lately I have read several articles saying that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not that important any more. Google is becoming smarter and smarter. As long as you have excellent content, Google will find you and let the world know about your content. I’m not so sure. You might have noticed that I recently made some changes to this blog. When I started blogging 18 months ago, I made the rookie mistake of using the default Permalinks Setting of “http://www.GeekMBA360.com/?p=123″.... |
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Foreign Young Professionals in China Mini Series #2: Tsinghua MBA at Big Pharma
Today, I would like to share with you part II of Foreign Professional in China series. I recently interviewed Mr. Robert Yu, who is a fellow Cal Bear and received his MS in Biology from Northwestern. Like Marie Cheng, Robert also took the road less traveled, and got his MBA from Tsinghua University. Robert is currently working at Pfizer China. Robert was very insightful and generous in sharing his journey. I’m sure you’ll enjoy this interview. Background I was born in Hong Kong and... |