Bad analogy. Partners in big firm get big bucks as the "rainmaker", legal skills are not why partners are paid well. If an attorney has only legal skills but no ability to land business, he will always be a junior partner at best or fired and replaced by a more promising graduate. Good attorneys are a dime a dozen, but rainmakers are worth three times as much.
That is not true. First, there is a common type of rainmaker who has developed a reputation as a very good lawyer. Second, the other reasons lawyers become partners are a) to reward them for their skill and loyalty to the firm, b) because of their connections which they use to negotiate, c) because of their skill in managing associates or simply the entire firm.
What happens when you get sick and need to take 10 days off? Family emergencies? A company with a "team" can give you that margin of safety. A One Man Band is great, but is not sustainable for long, because life happens. Startups are built to scale so that founders can step back and enjoy the fruits of their labor.
The idea that the goal should be to work for a bit and then "step back and enjoy" while other people take over is a bit of a weird aspect of silicon valley. Successful small businessmen in most fields expect to continue operating their businesses long-term, maybe with a few employees. One of my uncles ran a shop for 45 years! I don't see what's wrong with being a tech small business long-term, either. Past the bootstrapping phase you do need some trusted people to cover while you're on vacation or sick, but it doesn't have to be a huge operation to get to that.
This is also the case with many professional fields. There are plenty of lawyers, accountants, marketers, etc. who start a small firm and then run it the rest of their life without expanding much, if at all. There's nothing wrong with a lifestyle business, it's just not a "startup".
Many startup founders are overworked — I usually put in maybe 3-4 hours a week into Planscope (when I'm not actively working on any major new features.)
I'm not opposed to delegation at all, I don't want to be glued to a screen — I just haven't put all the necessary pieces in place yet. 90% of support requests can be handled via cut and paste by a virtual assistant, and having someone on-call for server issues is easy enough.
A labmate of mine recently shared his term for this [1]: "Bus Factor" -- as in, the number of people who could be hit by a bus and still have the team / company / project function.
With a single-person company, the bus factor is essentially zero... unless you're a master of automation.
[1] Though he said it was common among his peers in Austria.
What happens is you have your systems set up so you don't need to tend to them if you don't want to/can't. What daily business does a single individual running an internet shop really have to tend to in the age of automation?
I want a better enterprise security environment similar to Blackberry's. More business level productivity suites can be collaborative within a company if only the OS could support it. This is where Win8 holds most promise. Apple will retain market share with hipsters, girls and grandma, but power users are looking elsewhere. Nothing wrong with that.
Admittedly I know nothing of "business level productivity suites," but why would you think that WP8 holds the most promise? Judging by WP7, which I've been using for 2 months now, I would imagine WP8 hold no promise. I'd also imagine that apps like Glassboard hold the most promise.
The most relevant question is "whether the college experience (including life experiences and consequent employment value) is worth the attached price tag?" It's one thing when you are paying $5,000 per semester, but at $40,000 per year for 4 years? Unless those 4 years leads to an positive cash flow of $10,000 per year thereafter to repay this debt, I just don't see the rationality of paying so much for non-incoming producing B.S./B.A. degrees (biology, psychology, sociology, languages, etc.).
And this is why Groupon's business model is unsustainable - bad news travels faster and is more vocal than good news. Any business owner on the fence about using Groupon walks away after reading this post.
The "fines for being wrong" can also include lawsuits when you inappropriately reject a customer because what your salesperson thought was Farsi turns out to be some Indian dialect because he's simply bad at recognizing languages and was recently reprimanded for his failure to recognize Farsi, so now he's more likely to commit a false positive due to paranoia. Good luck with that lawsuit.
The Federal Law says nothing about selling to a person who has no intention of bringing the item back to Iran, but simply has either a Farsi accent or was born in Iran. There was no mention of an Apple policy that requires its employees to ask "What is your citizenship?", but instead automatically assume nationality based on the comment "I'm from Iran." If the onus is on the consumer to clearly state his citizenship, then shouldn't there be a sign that lists the legal conditions of purchase?
I am most bothered by the fact that the Apple rep recognized Farsi and inquired further. So is it pure coincidence that the Apple rep knows Farsi or is every Apple retailer trained to recognize Farsi? And even if the Apple rep recognizes Farsi and inquires further, what if the consumer lies and says "no, I'm speaking Hindi", then what? Polygraph test? Bring in an interpreter? Call security to escort them out?
It's his "trial" skills. There is a team of lawyers, each lawyer skilled in one particular aspect of the case. Mr. Boies's specialty is pulling all the information collected/discovered by the various attorneys and creating a grand advoacy plan that includes strategy and argument. So an attorney incredibly astute at patent law may not be so good when it comes to verbal argument (specifically, appealing to the sentiments of the jury is an art in itself, and few attorneys are able to master this skill) and overall case strategy, but is able to effectively assist Mr. Boies in preparing for trial.
As a former litigator turned startup founder, I can attest to the difficulty of assembling the right team with the ideal point man for a trial, and when you do find one you respect, he is worth every penny. David Boies is one such man - nobody has gotten fired for hiring him as the lead trial attorney.
