Peter Thiel and Bruce Sterling: Separated at Birth?

I saw Peter Thiel and Bruce Sterling, back-to-back, on the closing day of Southby this year.

While on the surface, if you didn’t know much about either one, you might be convinced that it would be hard to find two people more different.

Yet, while the style and composition of their remarks was very different, I found the underlying convictions that they championed to be remarkably similar.

But, first the differences:

Thiel is a billionaire, Silicon Valley investor, best known for founding Paypal and later investing on Facebook, as was so notably highlighted in The Social Network.

Sterling is a non-billionaire writer and speaker, best known for co-founding the cyberpunk movement with novels like Islands in the Net and Heavy Weather.

Thiel is a halting, deliberate, monotone speaker, who has perfected the VC speaking style of stingily, slowly revealing information as he continuously repeats phrases like, phrases like, phrases like, phrases like… you get the idea.

Sterling is a free-flowing, highly descriptive, non-repetitive speaker who exhorts and yearns, chastises and cheerleads, complains and cozies up to the audience… all the while, making it clear that, if he thinks it needs to be said (‘sickness industry,’ ‘gangster bankers,’ et al), he won’t hesitate to say it.

Thiel is a white button-down shirt, rolled-up sleeves, khaki-slacks wearing guy.

Sterling is a long-haired, laser-cut hoodie, jeans and bolo-wearing guy.

Thiel uses slides.

Sterling doesn’t.

Here’s the thing, though. In the language of Thiel’s remarks, they are both advocates of “Determinate Optimism.”

For anyone that saw Thiel’s talk, do you remember the 2×2 matrix he used, with the industries/professions that fell into each of the quadrants?

“Engineering and Art” were in the Determinate Optimism quadrant (upper left).

To somewhat unfairly label for a moment, Thiel is an engineer, while Sterling, an artist.

Here are things that (I believe) they both believe:

• Have a plan; plans matter.
• The pursuit of truth matters.
• Those who make their living on process and uncertainty do so for one reason: control. With control, they gain (or fight to retain) power. Their goal is for their orthodoxy to become ‘the religion.’
• ‘The religion,’ by its very nature, fears and resists disruption – often violently.

At least, these are some of the shared patterns that struck me, when I reflected on what they each said.

What does this mean?

My opinion: while you can make a good living being an indeterminate pessimist, you’ll rarely change the world and you’ll never make history.

If you disagree or heard it differently, I’d love to know.

An Odd, Rewarding Southby

I just finished SXSW Interactive 2013.

I’m a major fan of SXSW, or “Southby,” as it’s now known by most of the digerati.

I’ve been to many, many tech and business conferences all over the U.S. and the world.

But, never have I been to one that achieves the year-over-year improvements in logistics, programming, audience, and experience, as well as Southby. It’s the total package – one, in my opinion, that everyone needs to attend, at least once.

Yet, this Southby was a bit odd for me, from a participant standpoint, because for the first time since the very first interactive, I did it as an entirely solo experience.

I didn’t have another friend, member of my family, or work colleague that I buddied up with. I wasn’t a speaker, member of a company cohort attending/ exhibiting, or festival volunteer.

I don’t exactly remember the first Interactive I attended. I think it was 1996 or maybe 1995. All I remember is that it was the days when Bruce Sterling still invited the interactive crowd over to his house for an after party.

At Sterling’s talk this year, one of the questions Hugh Forrest, festival director (“that’s spelled with 2 r’s, as in: some are for work, I am ‘For Rest’” – nice one Hugh!) asked the audience for a show of hands for who among us recalled going to Bruce’s house for that party.

I wanted to raise my hand, but the honest-to-goodness truth was I never went, even though I could have, during a couple of those earlier years.

Back then, as it still is today, I’ve found that the after-hours scene of Southby just isn’t my thing.  I figure “why go to a Southby party when I can go to a party anywhere, anytime, and yell at (excuse me, visit with) people in Austin over loud music, over-priced drinks, and no seating?”

So, for me, the reason for Southby has always been the day programming.

That’s why it’s been such a great thrill to be both a multi-time speaker and advisory board member of Interactive.

Hugh says Southby is all about the community. I’d agree. But within that community, what I care most about is the ideas, the discourse, the unscripted Q-and-A that the community has with one its own who - for his or her moment - gets to be on stage as the center of attention.

Because of lots of professional and personal duties this year, I was only able to bookend the festival this year, going to the first and last days, Thursday and Tuesday.

During those days, though, I attended talks by Bre Pettis of Makerbot, Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas (my birth state; that’s me with the Sentor), a session on manufacturing pirates in China (lessons of the Shanzhai), Inman of The Oatmeal, Peter Thiel, and Sterling.

No parties, receptions, breakfasts, food tents, happy hours, courtesy lounges, or free lunches.

Instead of nachos and Shiner, my feasting was on ideas. And, once again, for SXSW 2013, the ‘feast’ was abundant, flavorful, and deeply satisfying.

Did I miss the experience of being part of a team or even a dynamic duo at Southby? Maybe just a little.

But as odd as returning to a fully solo participant experience was, the rewards were still there. See you in 2014!

Tracy: the Musical

I was listening to Tracy Chapman‘s first album on the way back from travels recently and the thought struck me: it is a perfectly conceived soundtrack for a modern folk musical!

The songs are about race (mainly black and white), rich and poor, the daily injustices of the powerful over the weak, unrequited love, escape to a better place… It’s got it all.

I thought: If I were to write the musical, I would name it after the lead character, simply entitled “Tracy.” But it wouldn’t be autobiographical.  It would be purely a work of fiction, but born of Chapman’s authentic, original music.

It would open with the album’s opening track: ‘Talking about a revolution.’

It would start on the edge of a tough, poor neighborhood. A lone, man would appear…

[ begin scene 1 / song 1 ]

He starts quietly singing ‘Don’t you know… Talking about a revolution… It starts… with a whisper…’

‘Don’t you know-owe… Talking about a revolution… It starts… with a whisper…’

It would be a new day dawning on the set. People would be edging into the streets to go to their jobs, schools, public assistance, free breakfast lines, or just to hang out.

The song would build to the crescendo line: ‘Don’t you know you better run-run-run-run-run-run, run… Run! Cause (fin-al-ly) the tables, are starting to turn: talking about a revolution, who-oah.’

[A chase would run across the stage...]

[ end song 1 ]

[then, dialogue explaining what just happened and set up scene 2]

[we meet the lead character Tracy]

[ begin scene 2 / song 2 ]

[ensemble sings 'Why?']

‘Why do the babies starve, when there’s enough food to feed the world?’

‘Why when there’s so many of us, there’s people still alone?’

‘Why are the missiles called peacekeepers, when there aim’s to kill?’

‘Why is a woman still not safe, when she’s in her home?’

‘Another day. War is peace. No is yes. We’re all free.’

‘But somebody’s going to have to answer. Time is coming soon.  When the blind remove their blinders. And people see the truth.’

< repeat / etc. >

[ end scene 2 / song 2 ]

There’s more:

• Tracy sings a solo at her job of ‘Mountains O’ Things’ – kind of a contemporary turn on Tevye’s ‘If I were a rich man’ in the classic Fiddler on the Roof
• ‘For My Lover’ – sung by Tracy’s former live-in boyfriend, who has been jailed out-of-state but obsesses about her and about getting loose
• ‘For You’ – a heart-breakingly tender, beautiful love song.  I would start it as a solo by Tracy of her love for a boy who knows her as a friend, but not a girlfriend.  Then, the boy would sing the second verse to his girlfriend.  Finally, Tracy and the boy would sing the final verse as a duet, but to their respective loves, all the way to fade to the end…

…plus six more songs.

In my mind’s eye, the concept is like a cross between West Side Story and Les Miserables, with a 1980s, African-American urban backdrop.

Maybe, some day, I’ll get around to the rest of the script.

The Golden Era of Law & Order

For a couple of holiday seasons now, the one Christmas gift I’ve been wishing someone in my extended household would get me (but hasn’t yet) is the complete DVD compilation of Law & Order, the original franchise series.

Besides tying Gunsmoke for the record, longest-running TV series of all time, I think it is noteworthy because it was the perfectly-crafted, INTJ-targeted television show.

But, if I couldn’t have the whole series on DVD, then I’d have to pick the sequence of years when Jerry Orbach (detective Lennie Briscoe) was paired, first with Benjamin Bratt (det. Ray Curtis) and then with Jesse L. Martin (det. Ed Green).

I consider those the “Golden Years” of Law & Order.

Orbach, who was an accomplished theater performer and movie actor before he had a second career with Law & Order on TV, is the image of a committed-but-caring, wise-cracking-but-serious-about-getting-the-bad-guys, New York City detective – even if his portrayal bordered on farcical at times.

But, it is just that farce that helps make the show so weirdly enjoyable, for me.

Let me give you three brief scenes.

Nearly every show started with the initial crime, breaking for commercial just after the detectives briefly arrive on scene.  Invariably, Lennie would crack a wise one.

First scene, case in point:

Lennie’s partner, referring to a dead woman found in a hospital clinic: “She comes in for a biopsy and manages to get killed.”

Lennie: “I guess that’s why they call it managed care.”

Second scene:

A frequent foil for Lennie and his partners was the medical examiner Elizabeth Rodgers (wickedly, expertly played by Leslie Hendrix).  Here’s one of their exchanges.

They are talking in the medical examiner’s lab, nearby a victim on which the ME has been performing an autopsy.  The wall phone rings and the ME answers it and listens.  Then:

Med examiner: “Phone for you, detective.”

Detective, as he reaches for the phone and then suddenly pulls his hand back: “Is that brains?”

ME, pausing as she looks at her hand and then the phone that she’s still holding: “Egg salad, I think…”

Detective: “I’ll use the other phone.”

Finally, third scene – one of my all-time classics, with the dialog speed of a 30 Rock scene, again in the ME’s lab:

Lennie: “When can we get the final report, doc?”

ME: “Look, I’m busy. I got a body in the next room waiting to have a javelin removed from the chest.”

Lennie, dryly: “So… what made a nice girl like you get into this line of work?”

ME: “Free javelins.”

I know, I know – you probably saw that one coming.

In fact, I have no doubt that the appeal of the show was that most viewers thrived on that “I see it coming” element of the Law & Order plots.  A formula show, yes – the ultimate one, given its longevity and the fact that it still lives on, with differently titles variants, like Criminal Intent and Special Victims Unit.

There’s always next Christmas.

The 12 Months of Qin-mas

The Qin dynasty (not to be confused with Qing, seriously!) was the first imperial dynasty of China and, thus, is the namesake of modern China.  (Qin = Chin, in pronunciation.)

It is with tongue-in-cheek but also great respect for the warmth and industry of my many new Chinese friends, that I reflect on a charmingly odd 12 months living in China with this riff on the 12 Days of Christmas.

I give you The 12 Months of Qin-mas.

“On the ______ month of Qin-mas, my true love gave to me…”

TWELVE middle-aged ladies: they were out by the Xintiandi subway stop, most every night, country & western line dancing to Alan Jackson on a boom box

…An ELEVEN a.m. bon vivant: but what was extra-special about this middle-aged gent was that he had a hair comb-over so long that he had literally shaped it into the style of a golf cap, complete with brim

…TEN well-dressed dogs: little dogs are the norm in Shanghai: poodles, terrier, pugs, etc. But, what distinguishes them are their outfits: shoes, pants, coats and hats – most dogs are much better dressed than many people you see

…A NINE amp power drill: being wielded by a guy in the pouring rain squatting in a puddle of water, plugged into an exposed electricity outlet, with everyone else walking in the puddles & rain too – me included!

…EIGHT little kids squatting: in fact, pretty much every little kid under the age of two has a slit in the rear of their pants so they can “do their business” directly where they stand or squat… a visual tribute to the pragmatism of the Chinese parent

…SEVEN-foot tall Yao Ming: former Houston Rockets basketball superstar was a neighbor in my apartment complex – you can’t miss him, as he is probably the tallest person you will ever see in a Starbucks, anywhere – and told me during a brief chat that he really liked Austin because it was a “such a quaint small town”

…SIX legs, no pants: the legs being attached to any three women, who are often linked arm-in-arm (although a pair of women is more common) in the winter, basically only wearing black leggings below the waist, with their derrieres barely – not always – covered by a warm sweater, top, or coat. You’ll have to give it to Chinese women: a majority of them have the figures to get away with the style; a combination of their fruit & vegetable diets and genes, no doubt

…A FIVE second stun: when a well-dressed young woman strolled up and swatted me with a rolled up newspaper, as I was sitting with my wife on the outside deck at a coffee shop, one lovely Sunday afternoon.  About the only thing we could think of that had caused her moment of huff was when I had given her an odd stare, searching what I thought was her perplexed face, after she stood aimlessly behind my chair for a few seconds. All I can say is Rebecca nearly fell out of her seat, laughing so hard, as the woman strolled off and I was left speechless.

…FOUR-foot tall trash bag: this was the dark-gray, heavy-duty variety of trash bag, which in itself is nothing unusual, until you see (by all appearances) a normal-looking guy walking down the street wearing it for wardrobe, shaped like a pair of Cossack pants – and looked pretty stylish, in fact. No, it wasn’t raining.

…A THREE story tall tower of cardboard: …and Styrofoam, stacked & tied down, being peddled by an elderly gent at least in his sixties on a bicycle cart for delivery to the recycling center. Seriously, it was taller than the average house; those pictures you may have seen about amazing Chinese feats of transportation ingenuity aren’t Photoshop’d – they’re real!

…TWO ladies walking: they were strolling in opposite directions, but directly towards each other, neither ever swerving until the point when they literally stopped in front of one another, nose to nose – just like in the Dr. Seuss book – before they each sidestepped to go around the other

…And a partly-carved hole in my ceiling. Shortly after returning from a trip to the US in August, we noticed after a heavy rain one afternoon that there appeared to be a wet wood around the doorframe of our apartment’s hallway bathroom.

We lived on the twelfth floor of a thirteen floor building. So, we naturally assumed that a leak had sprung in our above-stairs neighbor. We called the property manager, who sent a few different repairmen to inspect.  They said there wasn’t a problem on the 13th floor and, thus, they needed to inspect further, so they cut a big hole in our hallway ceiling.

From that point forward, about every other week on average, they sent a few people over to stand on a chair, stick their phone-illuminated flashlights (they never seemed to have a real one) up into the dark recess of our ceiling space, argue for one to ten minutes and then say to Rebecca and me “call us when it rains.”

It rained, we called, repeat cycle. Through monsoons (literally!), fall/winter freezing rain, and… well, you get the idea. As of our final moment of departure, the hole was still there, four and a half months after we first reported the leak.

My SxSW Cover Set +1

Guys like Todd Rundgren, Alice Cooper, and Ian Anderson, are inspirations for me.

Not because they’re old rockers, who can’t seem to stop, like Ozzy and Steven Tyler (both of whom I also like, by the way).

It’s because, they were never satisfied with achieving stardom in a particular musical era.

Instead, they took that success and moved on to start something new.  I suppose I admire Madonna for the same reason.

Their model of musical reinvention gives me hope that one day, bridging from my semi-professional musician days of 30 years ago, maybe I’ll take another crack at it as well.

If I did, I’ve got one or two originals I’d do.  But for the most part, my first imagined act would be as my own techno-rock version of Girl Talk.

And, if I got a SxSW booking with this act, then this would be my set list:

• Ladies & gentlemen, part 1 – Presidents of USA 1:38
• Just tonight – Jimmy Eat World 3:27
• People people – Undead 6:27
• Waitress – Live 2:49
• Findaway – Silverchair 2:57
• No attention – Soundgarden 4:27
• Ungived - Stone Temple Pilots 2:35
• Welcome to the fold (the shortened, FM version) – Filter ~5:00
• Complain – Kings X 3:19
• Half the world – Rush 3:43
• Tie your mother down – Queen 3:46
• Horse to water – REM 2:19

NOTE: I’ve favorited live performances of many of these songs on my YouTube channel, under the Rock or Pop playlists.

Last, but not least, I’d wrap it up by adding one original, up-tempo Todd Rundgren-esque tune, that runs about three minutes, which I could shorten or lengthen a bit, depending on the remaining time left in my hour.

As Brian May sings on Queen II (one of the great rock albums in history): “Some day, one day.”

Professional Discretion: A Personal Reflection

I’m sitting on a plane returning to the US from Shanghai. As we were taxiing on the runway, this couple who obviously works in the same company, has begun to discuss personnel issues.

The man, who appears to be the superior to the woman, has begun to complain about information that she apparently shared with a colleague in another department.

“I don’t understand why you turned me in like that,” he said. “If we are going to build a different kind of culture, we’ve got to stick together and support each other,” he continued.

She seems slightly defensive, yet replied back to him with her point of view. I won’t include it here, tempting as it is, to avoid sharing embarrassment for the company and perhaps their colleagues.

The man has moved on to more philosophical HR topics with her – still specific about their company – about how decisions are made to target and lay people off.  He apparently deems the process arbitrary, capricious, and on the whole rather unfair. (Class action lawsuit, anyone?!)

Mind you, the guy isn’t whispering. He is speaking with a room-level voice, leaning across the aisle, because his colleague is in a seat across from him.

Since it is one of those transatlantic planes where the center seats are slightly staggered from the side seats and I’m sitting on the aisle directly behind the woman, we form something of an intimate, if unwanted, triangle.

I’m feeling like Harry Potter with his stealth cloak, standing right beside Snape or one of his cronies, conspiring some sort of dark, evil deed on Gryffindor.

They’ve kept going on so long that I’ve finally stuck my earbuds in, because we’ve taken off and reached sufficient altitude.

At least I can get some relief by listening to King’s X and drowning out the corporate dirty laundry being heaped in front of me – not to mention the other 15-20 people within two rows of easy earshot of the conversation.

Has something like this ever happened to you? A situation where you were in a very public place and two or more people started talking about what would generally be considered a confidential business matter?  Perhaps you were in the group.  Maybe you are one of the people that started or carried on the conversation.

In the age of public social networks and the generation of “always on” communications, it seems discretion has disappeared as a value that few, if any, of the American public, well… values(!) any more. And don’t get me started on the influence of reality TV!!

It hasn’t always been this way, at least not in the professional circles in which I’ve worked most of my life.

This summer, I celebrated the 30th anniversary of my first “real” job as a professional, when I started as a new-hire consultant in the Houston office of Arthur Andersen & Co.’s management information consulting division or MICD.

I had 7 job offers coming out of my MBA program at Texas A&M with AA&Co. offering the lowest starting salary. Yet, I took it for several reasons: the variety of projects, the outstanding career path to the partnership that all of the Big 8 firms offered (which few people ever stayed long enough to reach), but most of all the vaunted Andersen training.

From the moment you arrived at Andersen, you began your training, beginning with 3 weeks straight of 8 hours a day of Method 1 “Foundation” courses.

After that, you immediately shipped off to the Firm’s worldwide training center in St. Charles, Illinois, a suburb just outside of Chicago for 2 weeks of immersive, 16-hour days with other new hires from around the world. I found it completely invigorating.

A foundational driver of the training was equal parts professional training to the technical, skills-based training you received.

And, even though most of us in MICD were being groomed to be code-jockeys on systems integration projects rising up to eventually sell them (where you made the big bucks), every consultant got training in professional ethics and the basics of being an auditor.

This training included rather extensive readings, videos, and role-playing exercises on how to conduct oneself on behalf of the Firm.

Among the reading materials, as I recall, was a handbook written by the Firm’s namesake himself, Arthur Andersen. In it, he wrote of the near-sacred trust that the auditor assumes when he or she begins working on behalf of a client.

This trust included high ethical standards, among which were integrity, discretion, confidentiality, and generally conducting oneself  in the highest manner of loyalty, on which others could depend – others being your fellow “Androids” (as other Andersen co-workers and alumni re sometimes called), your family, your business associates, your friends, and most of all, your clients.

We role-played situations involving being discrete. We took tests about being discrete. Then, we watched each other’s backs when we saw Andersen colleagues potentially violating the ethos of discretion.

If you were in a hotel elevator with 1 or 2 colleagues discussing a matter – even if on trip away from the city to a training event – if someone not with the Firm got on, you stopped talking about the matter, or switched subjects.

There was no such thing as a “working lunch” in a public setting, meaning discussing client or other Firm matters at a local restaurant where people at the next table might overhear.

And you never – ever – discussed client business in an airplane, bus, train, subway, or any other public transport. It wasn’t done.

If you saw (or heard) it happening among any of your other colleagues – even if you didn’t know them – you were to counsel them, gently but firmly, to stop.

About the only time I encountered private or confidential information being shared in public was when there was a deep discussion about a particular issue being vetted.

In the process of crossing from a private location – say, a rental car – to a public location – say, the shuttle bus to the airport – occasionally the passion of wrestling with a topic would carry the conversation forward.

However, all it usually took was a nudge or a look, once someone realized the risk, and everyone immediately switched gears. That was it. No more talking – period.

To disregard these values was a major career inhibitor. (The great irony to all of this, of course, is the way in which AA&Co. suffered its demise at the hands of rogue partners in the Firm’s Houston office who aided and abetted the Enron debacle – ultimately, receiving a corporate death penalty vis-a-vis a felony criminal indictment for the Firm’s actions.)

I left many years before that, in the mid-80s, to begin my path as a start-up entrepreneur.  Likewise, the consulting partners of the Firm “left” their audit and tax brethren to form Andersen Consulting, later renamed to Accenture, now a global, management consulting giant.

I suspect some of the early partners who were around when the split happened still get down on their knees every night to say prayers of thanks for the vision, if not profound lucky break, from which they benefited by going their own way.

But, I have great fondness for my time at the Firm. I learned a lot. I transitioned from being a college kid in a three-piece suit to an experienced professional.

And I met some fantastic people who shaped my business persona. Many of them, I’m fortunate to say, are still colleagues with whom I stay in touch, with a smaller handful among my closest professional partners, still to this day.

One thing’s for sure, while today’s indiscrete public ethos has likely lowered my guard a bit, I doubt you’ll ever  hear me talking in public about what my business partners or clients are doing …that is, unless I want you to know about them. If you do, nudge me – the ghost of Arthur Andersen will do the rest!

Now, let me get back to that couple’s discussion on the plane. Yes, they are still at it.

In fact, the guy has written out a whole list of employees by name on a sheet of paper that is plainly visible, with different categories of assessment.

(Here’s a picture I took – I tried to be discrete when taking it.)