I wish Baidu would be more like Google

I read a very good article from Keso, a famous Chinese blogger, on the questions that if Baidu only exists for the purpose of marketing. It was deleted later, and I guess, because of the pressure from Baidu. But i still want to share it because it is the weakest part in China's Internet world now, and people have to face the problem.

Keso said the innovation will not naturally grow because of the increasing number of Internet users in China. Unfortunately, Baidu believed the other way, he said. "That's why Google is almost like half of the Internet, and changed the way people and enterprise work, while Baidu still positions itself as a marketing tool. It worked well in the past eight years, but Baidu is losing its edge in the impact on China's Internet. It's more about population business, and it's risky. He said Alibaba, instead, is doing something interesting to have enterprise more efficient.

Having been in silicon valley, it's amazing to see how a few big companies such as Google and Cisco pushed the whole industry. A lot of start-ups already planned to be bought by them in the future, while in my opinion, is a good thing. Big companies are not good at innovation, and buying small companies is an efficient way to go. Looking at Baidua and a few other big Internet companies in China, not a lot of them actually did merger and acquisition. They all believe they can do it themselves, while losing touch with the industry trend.

Baidu is safe for now, with the good financial numbers; but safe shouldn't be enough for this no.1 internet company in China. They should go further and set up a vision for China's Internet. Only until then they can be called a great company.

The Michael

He is still a super star on the stage




He loves climbing trees(while that stupid journalist wasn't dare to), and he adores kids(while that stupid journalists kept asking stupid questions). He was hurt after opening himself so much. Sigh！！！

Are you kidding me? Citi raisedemployee salary by 50%

Even i have a lot of friends working in investment banking, I still can't believe it. Citi just got bailout money, and it is just using this to compensate its employees. Come on, the excuse of losing employees doesn't make sense, since right now there are so many bankers on the street begging for a job. oh, poor US taxpayer.

How different between Facebook and Kaixin

I am a daily user of two social networking websites: Facebook and Kaixin(kaixin001.com). Facebook is for networking with my Stanford friends, while Kaixin is for networking with my friends in China. Kaixin is said to be the copycat of facebook of China; however, it is not true just in terms of my behavior.

Difference 1: name.

I use real name on facebook, and all my friends use real name. However, I use fake name on Kaixin, while I know there are plenty of friends using fake name too(amazing we can still find each other)

Difference 2: activities
I usually look at the news feed on facebook to learn what my friends are doing: I leave msg to them, comment on the pictures, as well as upload photos; However, I don't often change my status on Kaixin, neither do my friends. I never have a profile photo there, and don't upload my vacation photos. I spend 90 % of the time on playing games with friends. We buy and sell each other, plant garden, and raise a lot of pigs, rabbits and cows as pets.

Difference 3: interactions with the site
I get plenty of msgs in my facebook account; I never communicate with facebook system. On kaixin, most of the message I get are from the systems, such as "your friend just bought you in 60000 dollars", or "you was just award 1000 dollars".

It will be some interesting research topic for academia on why such difference is generated. I am sure there is something related with different culture, or different user behavior. This may suggest that social networking website may have a hard time to expand globally. And there is always some opportunities for companies who work hard on learning local behavior.

How to create and implement a policy?

China issued a new rule on requiring PC makers to include filtering software in new PCs recently, quoted to filter the harmful pornography content from the youths . I am confused by where it came from and the way it implemented the policy.

Three questions:
(1) If this policy only targets at youths, why every PC needs to include this computer? not every household has a young kid.

(2) If parents are worried about this, then why don't give them the option, say put a CD in the PC pack, to let them set up themselves?

(3) Curing a disease has to cure from the fundamental. Why don't spend more money on regulating those pornography website, instead of making a national-wide expensive policy like this? I would be curious to know how much taxpayers' money is spent on this? and is there any open/transparent bid on who is going to be the software provider?


If those questions can't be answered, then this policy is destined to be a bizarre.

M&A still going on in Silicon Valley

When things are cheap, everyone is moving, especially big guys, Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel....

SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 4, 2009 – Intel Corporation has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Wind River Systems Inc, under which Intel will acquire all outstanding Wind River common stock for $11.50 per share in cash, or approximately $884 million in the aggregate. Wind River is a leading software vendor in embedded devices, and will become part of Intel’s strategy to grow its processor and software presence outside the traditional PC and server market segments into embedded systems and mobile handheld devices. Wind River will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel and continue with its current business model of supplying leading-edge products and services to its customers worldwide.

Transforming Journalism

Today I went to a conference organized by MIT/Stanford Venture Lab held in GSB. It is called News in the 21st centure: who will read print anymore? As a former news person, I definitely sense a lot of enthusiasm in the conference, and different touches on the future of the print industry. There's a guy named Rob Curley from Las Vegas Sun showing a bunch of projects they are doing on interactive media including a relationship of mafia and a map of history of different building in Vegas.

A few interesting topics include if Twitter is a type of journalism. Over half of the people in the room raised hands when asked if they use twitter. However, some people argue it is not journalism because no one is double checking sources.

Another thing is the comparation of usage of Kindle and iPhone. only three of four in the room have Kindle, compared with over half owning iPhone. This is interesting to see because Kindle is planning to change the whole newspaper industry(while only a few news person use it right now). If there's a book reading function on iPhone, I am sure it will be much popular than Kindle. another start-up idea?!!!

One thing I remember clearly is someone said: the question is not if newspaper will survive, but will journalism survive? Trained in journalism, I know how important the double-check sources and don't take annoymous quote are. However, do we still need those in an era with abudant information? I am seeking an answer.

my take-away from Berkshire meeting

have been busy with class work for a week and finally came back to talk more on the Berkshire meeting. A few take aways I would like to share:

(1) A song named "my favorite managers". Berkshire made a music video rewriting the song of "my favorite things" in the Sound of Music. It exhibits the pictures of all the Berkshire managers in the video. A lot of times we see investors invest in a company without even knowing the management. here I can sense that Berkshire is really proud of its managers, and help promote them any time. I love the video.

(2) Both Charlie and Munger said good words on the government, which has surprised a few of my classmates.

(3)Munger, which is always cool, suggested people not to pay much attention the ratings.

(4)Who can succeed Buffett? I guess there will be no one. He is not only smart, but also good at building relationships. I think he will be a very good politician before learning that he actually came from a politician family. He said his successors have to learn how to build relationship with business managers, sellers, other investors and shareholders. and I think he achieved those in an excellent way."They have to understand different needs of those managers, and knowledge of individual personalities and meet different demands"-WB

(5)Both of them said investment is more about emotional peace, instead of high IQ. and I totally agree.

(6) "authority does not go to the position -- it goes to the person", this makes me think a lot.

(7) What's Berkshire's competitive advantage? the answer is surprisingly "little turnover". people buy and hold it for a long time, which no other companies can catch up. An interesting quote from Munger is "a lot of the corporate America are running from headquarter, with profit forecast in different branches. The stupidity of managing practice will give BH comparative advantage."

There are more transcript here, though it is not accurate. One of the best things is just go to the shareholder meeting yourself, since people hear different things from the same conversation.

The wisdom of two men

here is my notes from the Berkshire Hathaway meeting. kind of in a rush, but still a lot of interest things. I read the news on WSJ and FT today, and they definitely missed a lot of information(I know editors are tough and spaces are limited). So I hope you can find more things you are personally interested from my personal notes. The numbers are based on the order of questions.

Warren and Charlie are definitely two of the smartest people i've ever seen, and the most modest.

1. Bought two equity options, from 15.14 to 9.94. 4.9 put options, have 15 to 21 years to run. Has to be lowered at that time. Will make time.

2. Financial literacy

3. Wells fargo: doing the best they can (munger: insane accounting)

4. Discount rate. (they got to do sth in b-school_

High IQ tends to fail, should give some points to others

5. Moody’s rating. It is all anticipation on housing price, not primarily payment system. Don’t pay attention to rating.

6. There’s real activities pick up in lower to middle end housing under 750K; right now it is eating up all the inventories(this is the second way, and the first way is to create demand)

7. Four managers 39% plus dividend. Better than average. “they are ready for the job, but should still learn how to build relationships with potential seller, shareholders, and other managers. They have to understand different needs of those managers, and knowledge of individual personalities and meet different demands

8. Teach value investing. 1-how to value a business 2- how to think about market

Invest in things you understand. Try to get rid of beta in the first 10 mins.

Investing is more about stability and inter peace of the decision.

“it’s simple but not easy”

9. Munger-just reduce nonsense. Your emotion is more important than your IQ. There is resistance to a new human kind to new ideas.

10. Authority goes with the individual, not with the position.

11. People’s behavior changed after the crisis. More people came to our website to save money. In the first 4 months, there are 600,000 policy holders.

12. It should be again S&P 500. The intrinsic value of Berkshire should be going up.

13． Wells fargo good business model. Leverage causes me trouble in the world

Control emotion. Don’t let u sell it because of the emotion

If they own a farm, they can’t get a quote everyday. You have to look at the asset itself to see if it is intelligent investment.

14. the government bailout should be used on infrastructure. Intent is the right thing. It will have consequences on its scale. We don’t think it should be a free ride.

M: hugely electricity improvement

15. borrowing cost higher compared with companies with high guarantee. Real problem for us now. We use borrowed money for utilities. 58 billion

16. They cause leverage to run wide. They cause counter partners to sign sth difficult. Move market in different way. Pop up in unpredictable way. After 1920, congress said people can’t borrow a lot of money to go again the securities. Federal reserve introduced swap. Still 50%, but can do 100% now.

Settlement date got pushed down. Hard to find another person on the other side. More dates, more and more default.

“Great crash”

Ben graham would not like this idea. He would be willing to buy and sell mipriced.

M: derivative dealers take two advantages: 1.??? 2. Being in the same line of clients and have better advantages. “it’s a dirty business”. “ we need less in America”

17. Freddie and fannie, preferred stock was gone. No reason to go up equity. There are lots of earning power there.would buy those wealth there. Chrylser: not a sustaible business model. When common equity is wiped out, the business doesn’t worth a lot of money.

18. competitive advantage: unique shareholders, low turnover rate of 20%, deeply embedded culture. You can’t do this elsewhere. Need to add the right ones.

M: a lot of the corporate America are running from headquarter, with profit forecast in different branches. The stupidity of managing practice will give BH comparative advantage.

“what would they do differently if they own the whole place”? usually asking the CEO. That’s the difference with other companies. They know we are not going to leverage it up.

19. When we buy companies, we buy tips. We want our partners to understand. We are reluctant to sell them. We own some stocks for some decades. If we were wrong, we sell. 6.6 billion; sold a couple of million in J&J just because of its cash flow level.

20. I like the personal contact. Different attitude. Webcast will turn into a TV show.

21. Inflation: we are following policies,

2.3 trillion

It’s not the taxpayer who are paying. It is the people who have a lot of purchasing power. Shrinkage of real-value dollar. It may be the Chinese who are paying for it.

(1) Earning power. You will have your share of national economic pie if you are best in your practice.

(2) Best products and wonderful business. Coca-cola. People will pay to buy the products they favorite.

M: invest in coca coal instead of government bonds

Declare ( I got paid)

22. Washington post

We would not buy one third of the newspaper no matter what price is. 1700 newspaper. They don’t have the price power, losing the customer and advertisers. They are not essential for them anymore. Changing everyday.

As long as we don’t think it will not make up a loss, we will stick to it.

Keep looking for a good model.

M: national tragedy They kept government honest. They will not be disireable. This is life.

23. south florida will be a problem for a long long time considering many units there

24. importance of opportunity cost – face problems in Sep and Oct. we love to have money around. $5 billion GS. We were faced with chaotic market for opportunity cost calculation constantly. Have to measure billion from one to another. Big transaction cost. It is a sign of opportunity cost.

25. Nature of advertising. We know half works, but don’t know which half. We will never stop with the advertising. We want every American investors to buy it, probably not China. Will spend more money this year. 800 million this year, compared with 600 million past year. We want Geiko and Coca to be in everyone’s mind. We are getting more than advertising money.

A brand is a promise.

We are a low-cost producer.

26. Irish bank??? Its more about business model. Best bank in the country. should have understood the exposure to development-related loan. “I just wasn’t paying attention”

WAMU-there were a lot of signs. You can get a lot of trouble leveraging.

The figures are there, just people didn’t notice.

Huge differentiation between businesses.

M: allow a conservative bank to show a lot of earning when they made a lot of big loans. If accounting has made a big job, then banks will not do this. I am ashamed.

Afternoon:

1. Get uneven

2. M: BYD investment is worth it, feel privileged to be connected to. 17000 engineers, and beat all the JVs with foreign brands. People need batteries. The founder is young.

3. Moody downgrade didn’t affect the borrowing cost. But affect the brand globally

m-“they show considerable independence”

4. “in the end you will find I am right because Munger is smart and I am right” -WB

5. Wind energy “net exporter of energy” love the idea of putting in more in wind. One of the advantages we have is we are a big tax payer. We will do more in utility business. In the pipeline, we did well by not investing in dynergy in 2002.

M-in any utility subsidiary we will be leaders

Fairest opinion based on fairest opinion

6. 4 trillion in money market account, sep meeting in coglone

7. Scale causes lower return, a few percentages in our intrinsic value over S&P 500. It will not be 10 percent any more. Cant happen with big money

8. It’s very hard to imagine we will have nothing to do in China. We want to buy more in BYD, but they didn’t sell it.

9. 1 trillion reserve can’t hold US assets. 250 billion in paper. They have reluctance to put in US government bonds. The purchasing power will be deducted. They are running a trade plus. China has the most successful economic policy in the world. They lost purchasing power a bit, and that’s great policy. US and China should be friendly nation.

10. (admit mistakes)

11. Don’t believe in contracts. It’s about the passion. Will they keep the same passion no matter what will happen. It’s all about mutual trust.

12. we will not spin off any business since we have wonderful business. See’s candies generate a lot of cash flow; if they can’t use it, we will use it somewhere else

13. what people need-water, over populated countries

14. 3 billion swiss francs invested in a swiss securities(12% a year) . get called.

15. Nationalized the annuity business is a good thing. Public got outraged.

16. Keep hedging on euro dollars. Could be a pain in the next year.

17. Honor and system: shareholder is the honor, executive is the system

18. We find people who love their business

19. Interest rate were much higher last sep, so good opportunity to buy into US equity. Corporate bonds is cheaper and disorganized, Mcdonald burger, cheaper, happy since I am going to buy it for the year. Wait for 1973 1974

20. Picking is not the game, but pricing is the game.

21. Household information is important, residential construction.

listening to Buffet in Omaha

I am in Omaha these days, attending this big annual shareholder event for Berkshire Hathaway. There are 35,000 people coming for the meeting. It's amazing how people respect Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger, and they are definitely the smartest people i have ever seen who can execute. Taking down a lot of notes, I learnt a lot on investment philosophy and their sense of humor. Stay tuned.

Should Lenovo buy IBM PCD?

Business school is interesting to me since there are always a lot of role-play opportunities. In the role play, we can be senior managers, outrageous employees, bankers, board members and so on. This week, my fellow classmates and me are bankers helping Lenovo bidding for IBM's PCD division during the synthesis seminar, one of the newly created classes in our class.

It's interesting to look back at the deal again, and debate among ourselves on whether Lenovo should buy the PCD division from IBM. There are definitely a lot of downside and risks in doing that. However, I can sense the excitement of Lenovo managers when they first thought about the deal. such a great opportunity to expand to the global market. From our analysis though, the risk is also pretty high. Even IBM can't make it profitable, and how can Lenovo do that considering the cost saving will be very limited. Is there any other good target needing less money than 2 billion plus? Sure, there are, though not glorious.

Financial Times made the M&A the front page on Thursday, talking about M&A market are coming back. However, how many of them will work? A perfect business model for me will be to grow organically step by step, and that's the way to build a long-term business. Oracle may be too rich to keep the $7.1 billion in its pocket, but is Sun a good choice? and how much synergy can it bring?

It's a crazy world now, and I believe cash is King, always.

Is it a good time to start a company?

For some reason, I missed this post in my Google reader thread. But the comment is still up-to-date in my opinion. Enjoy.

To summarize, it is a good time to start a company if you can get funded. ha, quite a chicken and egg topic.

Lucrative secondary market

Today, we talked about liquidity in the asset allocation class. A very famous professor, a veteran investor too, said that the reason that LP now want more liquidity is that they want to buy the cheap assets in the secondary market. A lot of people got caught in putting more weight on private equity and now has to offer at a huge discount.

Maybe a good time to start a distress debt investment vehicle?

Start a company in the valley or in China?

My friend Marc raised an interesting question a few days ago: start a company in the Valley or China? I personally have been struggling with this question for a long time. So here is my two cents. would love to hear the feedback.

Start a company in the Valley:

1. Good weather(save a lot of time)
2. Lots of investors
3. Lots of start-up peers
4. Lots of bright engineers inspired by the dream
5. Good life style(all super outdoor, good to your health)
6. Good food(Chinese food:))
7. Good Stanford alumni network(good for me)

Start a company in China
1. Cheap operational cost
2. big and potential market
3. Bright engineers but hard to be inspired by the dream
4. Good food
5. lack of entrepreneur with successful track record
6. Familiarity of the market and culture(that's just for me)
7. Decent family time(that's for me, too)

What I expect more from Amazon Kindle?

I still remember one of the interesting cases I did in my Strategy class in the 1st MBA year is on Amazon Kindle. Philip Leslie, a very smart professor, asked us the question in one of the exams on the business problems for Kindle.

At that time, I was still not a Kindle user, while I hope I was. I am in a trial with Kindle for a whole week, and there's so many things I expect more. Technically speaking, Amazon is trying to change the whole experience of reading a book, and it's hard imagine a person already read books for at least over 20 years before he or she tries Kindle. I hope Amazon does have a Chief Experience Officer for Kindle to actually design an enjoyable product.

(1) a bigger screen. Currently, there are only 12 lines in one page, which is such a pain for the fast reader like me. I get bored with pressing the "next page" button all the time.

(2) a touch screen. I do like drawing on a book, and i hope i can have a pen and draw on Kindle, just like my IBM Tablet can. If it is hard, then how about a scroll ball that my favorite Blackberry has?

(3) removing the keyboard. who needs a Key Board on a book reader? if you want to type an artcile, using laotop will be much faster. Removing the keyboard with definitely reduce the cost and make the Kindle available to more people.

(4) A folding screen. That will make Kindle more like a book.


(5) Move the power button and wireless button from the back to front. Come on, right now when I want to turn on or off the Kindle, I have to look for the button on the back, which is really not convenient.

The reason why users are crazy about Apple product is its super user experience. you can easily get addicted. For Amazon who is famous for its operation efficiency, there's still a long way to go on the product design part. Speaking of this, I believe Amazon will change fast. Look forward to trying the Kindle verson 2 and so on.

Google CEO: newspaper is dying

When radio was invented, people said newspaper was dying; when TV was invented, people said newspaper was dying; now when search was invented, Eric Schmidt said newspaper is dying.

It turned out people were wrong for the first two times; then how about this time?

Eric Schmidt, a lecturer in Stanford Graduate School of Business, gave a speech to all MBA students on Tuesday. The main topic is trying to inspire the frustrated MBA students that America still has hope. However, it is more like a lecture on Google's vision in the media world.

"(The traditional media didn't get it; Internet is built on the abundance, not on scarcity. It is a "max" system, and they should try to maximize the distribution". Schmidt said. "Online behavior is very important now, and the maching can learn what you like".

Coincidentally(or not), Google publicized that it will match online adverts with Web users' viewing habits today. It is another controversial technique on people's privacy, but hay, Google always has this in all its services such as Gmail and Google News. and soon, everything becomes a standard.

I agree for Google, it is a strategic and smart move. Advertisers would love this because right now not a lot of people click on the small ads on the right of search results. But this turned out to be a traditional model, just as ads on newspaper or on TV. Schmidt's saying on the traditional media model is definitely contradict to what Google is doing now. Internet is a media, not different from newspaper and TV, though it has a fancy name "technology".

Do people still need newspaper? Sure, but in different format such as on PC or mobile. Do people still want to read a piece of paper to read on the train or at breakfast? Sure. The need is lower, but still there. I have bias on newspaper, while every time newspaper turns to survive and be stronger. Finger crossed!!!

Behind-the-scene story of Jack Ma in Stanford GSB

Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group, was in Stanford GSB to give a speech to Stanford students and Silicon Valley engineers. I gave a welcome speech at the beginning, and asked Jack to do a MBA case with Stanford some time.

However, he didn't really like to do so. He told the audience: "all MBA have said are correct, but they can't execute it", or "professors are paid to speak". I respect a successful entrepreneur like him, but definitely he didn't realize the value of business cases. Chinese businessmen may think they are born to be successful businessmen, and don't have to learn from the history. Personally I don't think that's correct, a lot of business practices are the same from the old days to now. and hopefully people can learn from the experience to avoid making the same mistake.

Speaking of this, Jack is still an inspiring speaker.

Maybe Obama works??

According to a report from State Street, North American institutional investors are regaining confidence while other regions are not.

Investor confidence is rising, according to the results of the State Street Investor Confidence Index for February 2009.

The index measures investors' confidence on a quantitative basis. It analyses the actual buying and selling patterns of institutional investors.

The index found global investor confidence increased by 12.7 points to 72.9 from January's level of 60.2. The increase was mainly driven by North American institutional investors, whose confidence climbed 13 points to 64.5.

There is evidence that institutional investors appear to have "left behind the extreme gloom that characterised their outlook towards the end of 2008," concluded the report.

Difference between my Chinese thinking and American thinking

A native Chinese under an elite American education system:

Speaking in the class
my Chinese thinking: respect what professors say
my American thinking: challenge what professors say

Working with partners
my Chinese thinking: try to get along with first even he doesn't perform well
my American thinking: fire him when he doesn't perform well

Meeting with new people
my Chinese thinking: talk and chill first
my American thinking: let's talk about business

Going to a party
my Chinese thinking: have to go because the host came to my party last time
my American thinking: i am busy and don't really want to go

and there are more........

PIMCO_Stop the Decline of Asset Prices

PIMCO, headquartered in Newport Beach, Cali, is one of the asset management firms I respect. it said the most important thing for an asset manager is to control the risk exposure on its web front page, which is very true. Bill Gross, one of the companies, just published a report on stopping the decline of asset prices as a way to revive U.S. economy. Very interesting theory, just want to share.

PIMCO’s thesis for several years has held that the levered global economy long ago morphed from a banking-dominated regime to one that hid behind securitized lending and structures resembling a “shadow banking” system. SIVs, hedge funds, CDOs and increasingly levered mortgage and investment banks fueled asset appreciation in all investment markets, which in turn propelled real economic growth and employment to unsustainable levels.

To PIMCO, the remedy for this deflationary delevering and mini-depression is simple and almost axiomatic: stop the decline in asset prices.

That is the same thing as saying that current yields must come close to matching the economy’s embedded cost of debt if default is to be avoided.

PIMCO’s advice to policymakers is as follows: you can’t bail out everyone, yet economic recovery is not possible unless certain critical asset sectors are not only reliquefied, but rejuvenated in price.

Capitalism at its philosophical and practical center depends on credit, and while new loans can be and are being advanced via the banking system, it’s a much more difficult task to force shadow banks to lend. That lending depends on securitization which in turn depends on stable and eventually higher asset prices than currently exist.

The original text is here.