Andy Kessler

Wired: Cashing In, Selling Out

Poker is hot. Binion’s World Series of Poker on ESPN and Bravo’s Celebrity Poker have huge ratings. Maybe they should bring the cameras to Silicon Valley, where entrepreneurs live for the high-stakes game. Sun Microsystems is a classic example. Two decades ago, CEO Scott McNealy took some Motorola microprocessors and bluffed his way into all sorts of new markets, from stock exchanges to telcos to webhosting. Bluff, press, win; invent more, bluff, and press again - that’s what entrepreneurs do. McNealy has been a master. I’ve made and lost wages investing with a game called Pass the Trash but that’s another story.

TCS: Google Street Fight

This article appeared on Techcentralstation

Gotta love it. Two 30 year olds, armed only with Lava lamps and 100,000 cheap PCs spitting out Google searches, are flipping the proverbial bird to blue-blood suspender-wearing Wall Street. And why not? Google is the most profitable company I have ever seen. Their 60% operating margins make Microsoft look like pikers. There are certain unwritten rules for structuring a tech company and filing for an initial public offering and Google just broke them all.

WSJ: Let’s be Frank

I guess we just need villains to take the blame for our own stupidity. My old colleague Frank Quattrone was convicted on three counts of obstruction of justice on Monday. Guilty? Innocent? Who knows, but he is taking the fall for a lot of sins. And that, I suppose, is how eras end.