Until leaving PBS at the end of 2008 I could claim I had been fired from every job I ever held, which isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds. Leaving PBS after 11 years broke that pattern, but not for long. Now I have been fired from Home-Account, my mortgage startup. How does one found a company and then get fired from it? That’s easy: you get in a fight with the CEO. At least that’s how I tend to do it.
These things happen all the time in startups where emotions nearly always run high and the CEO (not me) wins. That’s the case here, so life goes on. And, as I discovered after every previous firing, life tends to get better. It sure did in this case, because I have segued into working with one of my heroes.
I’m blogging with my friend Jerry Goodman, who writes under the name Adam Smith. Maybe you know the guy. He had a weekly show on PBS for 14 years (we are both refugees) and before that wrote three monster best-sellers that defined modern financial journalism — The Money Game, Supermoney, and Paper Money. My book Accidental Empires deliberately copied Jerry’s writing style as he likes to remind me.
Jerry also co-founded Institutional Investor magazine, New York magazine, and was Tom Wolfe’s editor at Esquire. I am not worthy.
Jerry and I are blogging for a financial publisher called Asset International that caters almost exclusively to institutional investors so you probably haven’t heard of them. AI is run by Jim Casella, who was many years ago my boss’s boss’s boss at InfoWorld. He fired me there, too. But like other people have — including Steve Jobs and Stewart Alsop — Jim has hired me back, so I must have some value, however fleeting.
I’m the junior partner in this venture which is titled Adam Smith’s Moneyworld after Jerry’s old show. He hangs with titans of finance and lives to write about it while I do my usual, which is to explain complex systems. If you like such things and wonder how the world of money really works, please check us out.
Lucky thing for me I had been dragging my feet about signing up with Home-Accout. Now I won’t ever!
That might be a big mistake. My beef with the CEO was about how to promote the service, NOT its usefulness. H-A is still the best of its type BY FAR. It is also now the engine behind refinance.com, so you can go there if you prefer. I’m still expecting to make a lot of money from H-A, just less than I might have had I stayed.
Bob,
Can you use whatever clout you might have with Money World to allow RSS to deliver the whole article, and not just the first 1000 (or whatever – I didn’t count) characters? I so prefer to use my RSS reader for all content, and am happy to click thru to comment (as I have here).
Thanks,
~ Paul
actually i’d just be content with “prev” and “next” links, as right now to read the backlog i have to keep hitting the back button the the archives listings after i read one.
I’ll suggest it.
Hi Bob,
Could you get Moneyworld to explain something that has been baffling me for years now?
It’s to do with shorting. My understanding is that many of the shares used in shorting are lent by the pensions funds, for which they get paid (and a good thing they are, since the lent shares are used to push the investment prices down).
How is the money made from lending short shares booked, and who ends up with it? (I.e. is the performance of my pension based on just the basket of shares, or are the short lending profits added in?)
Thanks.
The company that holds the shares usually DOESN’T get paid for their use — the broker does. The short not only has to give back (or buy back) the shares he has to cover any lost dividends, so the whole thing is transparent to the actual owner but a profit center for the broker who provides the borrowed shares (for a fee) and then sells them for the short (earning another fee). But that’s in the case where they even bother to find shares to short. A much more evil concept called “naked shorting” doesn’t bother to borrow shares at all. They literally sell shares that don’t exist! Now how the heck does THAT happen? It’s the brokers again. With naked shorting, which is illegal in many places by the way, it is possible to sell more shares than are outstanding. Imagine the self-fulfilling prophesy THAT produces.
Bob – the big pension funds all get paid to lend their securities, and book it as income, like dividends. Of course, the broker’s stock loan department marks the cost up a bit to the borrower.
Thanks.
So are both dividends and share lending income included as profits in the performance of the pension shares? I don’t recall ever seeing the values listed in pension performance reports.
Naked shorting is so mad that I’ve never been able to get my head around the concept!
That was, for modern markets, the whole point of derivatives – to allow trading unconstrained by the limits of the number of stocks available (ignoring the occasional delivery squeeze, of course).
Hi, Bob-
Good luck on your venture. If you want to understand macro-economics, I would strongly recommend studying the blog of William Mitchell, and Australian economist of the MMT school, who is trying to keep the debt terrorists off our backs, among other things.. The motto might be “real economists worry about inflation, not debt”.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/
More scholarly version:
https://www.levy.org/pubs/wp_580.pdf
Inflation (printing money) and taxes are the ways we pay government debt, thus the root cause of the problem is government spending. Iissuing debt magnifies the spending in the form of the interest on the debt.
No, the root cause of The Great Recession, and all the others which have preceded it is income inequality. That’s what happened in the Gilded Age, the first industrial age depression. Capitalists, today, keep bitching: “where’s the consumer? where’s demand? we won’t hire until demand picks up”. Yet they, with the Bushes and other Right Wingers, took the country from 1% taking 8% of national income to 1% taking 24%. The Middle Class has all but disappeared, and along with them, consumers. You can run an economy with such inequality, you just need lots of police force to keep poor people from stealing food. In other words, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
So we should give the people whatever they ask so they won’t kill us. Great Plan! Seems to me that’s already been tried in Cuba and the Soviet Union. Equality “in fact” vs. “of opportunity” makes eveyone who doesn’t flee equally poor.
What Robert said — bravo!
Another big factor was unbridled and unsound speculation. Fast forward to 2009, and – deja vu!
I’ll check him out, thanks.
Is there an RSS feed at the new site?
I don’t think so. The technology is, to say the least, quaint. I’m pushing them toward the present.
Needs a mobile interface, just like this site.
I agree. I have suggested it.
I like a lot most of your postings but … what is the point of this blog, I don’t really get it…?
The point is to put my kids through private schools. They asked us to do it and we are being paid.
The primary readers are the managers of the 5000 largest asset pools in the world — everything from mutual funds to pensions to sovereign funds to hedge funds. The AI folks just felt that we could provide to that audience a different perspective they might find useful or entertaining.
This is my job.
https://www.adamsmithsmoneyworld.com/
Page not found.
“I’m blogging with my friend Jerry Goodman.” Is that him on your right? He seems quite accomplished for his age.
Jerry is 79 and cranky.
No RSS?? FFS!!
I haven’t kept up with Moneyworld since the TV show (and I’m not sure which happened first the show ending or my stopping cable service) but I always assumed he was actually named Adam Smith (by coincidence). Duh.
I’ll have to “tune in” again (online).
Congrats on your new, old friends, Bob. As I’ve followed you since the days of reading InfoWorld, The Rag, I recognized a few of the old pals you mentioned.
I’m looking forward to your analyses as they arrive, and as always wish you the very best. You are still one of my few top-shelf reads, and with the state of journalism these days, you may one day be the last one standing. Thanks for that.
And man, are your boys growing!
J. Date
McKinney, TX
That’s because all the others could afford to retire. Damn my devil sperm!
On Wednesday 3rd Mars, I held a presentation on Product Development at my university. I used clips from “Triumph of the Nerds” to portray the power struggle between Apple CEO J. Sculley and Apple founder S. Jobs in 1985. I don’t need to mention, in the end It all worked out quite well for all parties involved.
Really? I don’t think Sculley would say that.
Hey Bob
Your buddy Jerry looks rather young in that picture….. Read this link about debt and wondered what your thoughts were on it…
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/it-is-now-mathematically-impossible-to-pay-off-the-u-s-national-debt
Think of it as perpetual interest and it sounds horrible. Think of it as “overhead” and it is more tolerable. The world has been here before. In the 19th century England sold bonds called “Consols” that NEVER matured. Kind of like my mortgage…..
Concerning the Home-Account business, I signed up as soon as I heard about it. At the time it was described as “beta” (didn’t know a company could be in beta but whatever). The log in to the site never had any information that I could see but I looked forward to the ability to refinance my home with a good long term low interest rate, with Home-Account connecting me to the right people for the loan (that was what they were suppose to be doing, right?). Then my log in quit working. I tried to contact the web master (no response) and then I called the phone number to try and talk with a live person. The phone number only gave me options to leave messages with different offices – only one option worked and the only voice mail box I could reach was full. In the meantime, the “company” was charging my credit card monthly — it seems that part of the business was running smoothly.
Finally, I gave them one more shot by sending another email stating that if I didn’t hear from them immediately, I was going to report them to my credit card company as a scam. To their credit, they called me personally the next day and agreed to refund all of the charges and cancel the account.
It is a shame that things worked out that way. The idea was a good one. But the execution was/is a disaster. I will have to see if something ever comes of Home-Account but at this point I consider it a bust (at least from my point of view).
agreed. i had similar experience and never saw any value. After the disappointment in the service i then found that there was no cancellation page so i had to email them. Never got a response but at least the charges stopped.
Pretty much echoes my experience. Furthermore they were not even collecting enough information to accomplish what Bob claimed they would do. Exactly how can you figure when I’ll save money if you do not know any specifics about my 2nd mortgage? I actually brought the issue up with the company and their response made it clear that they did not understand what they were doing. Epic failure.
There is a lot of value at H-A in its unique underwriting engine and its banking relationships. The problem with the company is getting traffic to monetize those unique resources. If it isn’t getting the job done for you I suggest complaining to the COO, Nikul Patel [nikul@home-account.com]. He’s a good guy.
Pay-per-action affiliate programs solve traffic problems at a low cost.
This is WAY off topic, I know.
For years, my favorite blog of the year was Bob’s annual review of how he did the previous year, with a success verses failure rating.
I can’t find that this year. Did you do one Bob?
If not, please consider it.
Thanks, Bob
I gave it up. that was YOUR favorite and PBS’s favorite, but not MY favorite.
Hi there – first off, longtime reader, but this is my first comment. I thought I might as well say thanks for posting this piece, and I’ll be back!
Bob,
Why don’t you record your podcast in stereo? I mean, use both channels (left and right).
thanks,
antonio,
We’re using a new plug-in for the podcasts after a weird failure with the previous one that was really much nicer and took care of the stereo/mono stuff. I’ll do as you suggest from here forward.
If only I could bounce back as quick as you, life would be so much less stressful.
Bob, will you PLEASE make sure the audio on your podcast goes to both left and right channels!!!! And if you’re not going to record in stereo, at least send the monaural to BOTH channels. It is really, really, really annoying to have to listen to an podcast with only one channel working.
For some reason after reading this article and comments I’m inclined to go out and buy a AC/DC CD.
Cringely, the clock has started. I give you less time than I give most marriages.
Maybe you can start a “fired from your startup” club. 🙂 Other notables you could extend invitations to would be Martin Eberhard and Sandy Lerner.
Bob,
My wife also was forced out (fired) from her job. Now we are trying to decide what to do. We are considering starting a business or an organization and I was hoping you could make some suggestion or share ideas on how to put together an internet presence on the quick & cheap. The key is that we would need to be able to take donations or orders at some point after establishing the initial presence. At my job I manage large IBM iSeries systems and would drop one in in a second, but the cost is way too high so that would have to come into play much farther in the future if ever.
Thanks,
Michael
Hi Mr Cringley.
After reading some of your delicious articles,
I agree with you:
“I do my usual, which is to explain complex systems”.
It is no surprise your history of hirings and firings.
As knowledge is power,
your are a power leaking Mr Cringley,
for some guys in the dark side of the force.
Congratulations!
Sincerly
Miguel Angel Sanchez
Nothing wrong with getting in arguments with the CEO.
:O)
Make Money at Home…
Nice one for the post. Thanks I really enjoyed reading it and will share it with my followers….
You lead an interesting life.
It’s to do with shorting. My understanding is that many of the shares used in shorting are lent by the pensions funds, for which they get paid (and a good thing they are, since the lent shares are used to push the investment prices down).cheap VPS
It isn’t easy to get fired from a company you start-up. Unless of course you go public or otherwise sell more than 50% of it. When you own the majority share you can’t get fired. 🙂
Thanks dude. It was fun hearing
That might be a big mistake. My beef with the CEO was about how to promote the service, NOT its usefulness. H-A is still the best of its type BY FAR. It is also now the engine behind refinance.com, so you can go there if you prefer. I’m still expecting to make a lot of money from H-A, just less than I might have had I stayed.
Thanks very good o/
Maybe you can start a “fired from your startup” club. 🙂 Other notables you could extend invitations to would be Martin Eberhard and Sandy Lerner.
good thanks o/
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We’re using a new plug-in for the podcasts after a weird failure with the previous one that was really much nicer and took care of the stereo/mono stuff. I’ll do as you suggest from here forward.
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