Ben Casnocha: The Blog

Looking for Contacts and Resources in Japan, China, and India

My worldwide adventures to explore globalization on the ground, meet cool people, and understand other cultures and my own better, continue this fall! In October I intend to travel to Japan, China, and India for six weeks. I am looking for:

1. Contacts -- Do you know people in any or all of these countries? Do you live in one of those countries? I'm looking for shelter and/or good conversations.

2. Advice -- If you have been to these countries and have tips, I'm all ears. I'm not particularly interested in, say, specific restaurants as much as more general guidance.

I have no firm plans in any of these countries. I will probably go to Tokyo/Kyoto in Japan, Beijing and some places in the west in China, and Mumbai/Bangalore in India, but it's wide open. I'm particularly interested in meeting businesspeople, academics, journalists, educators, or young people in leadership positions. In addition, I'm interested in checking out offshore shops in China and India.

It's harder being an English speaking American citizen in these countries than it is in Europe, which is why I'm hopeful I can connect with as many locals as possible.

For those who don't know, I recently spent seven weeks in Europe and stayed with blog readers and friends of friends and everything worked out marvelously.

Please email me if you have any connections. Thank you very much!

Is a Killer Instinct Necessary in Business and in Life?

Must you hate your opponent?

In one of my all time favorite movies, Searching for Bobby Fisher, the prodigy chess player Josh Waitzkin talks with his coach about an upcoming match against a highly touted player.

"You have to hate your opponent, Josh, they hate you," coach Bruce Pandolfini says.

"But I don't hate him," Josh responds.

"You have to hate him. Bobby Fischer hated his opponents," the coach says.

At the end of the movie Josh ultimately wins the crucial match, but not before offering a draw to his opponent (which is rejected).

I recently met a business executive who gave up chess as a hobby because it was "too brutal" -- the glorification of destroying your opponent and seeing the blood as pieces go down. His favorite chess games are when he "isn't playing chess" but when he's "dancing on the board."

The executive extends this metaphor to business: cooperation is the answer, he says. Winning is important, but most effective in the spirit of cooperation.

Is a "killer instinct" necessary in business? Must you hate your opponents? I have to say I've been struck by my friend Chris Sacca's (Google) frequent tip of the hat to Yahoo on his blog, or Jeff Nolan's (SAP) occasional nod to Salesforce.com.

Everyone wants to win and kick the competition's ass, the question is how this spirit should manifest into entrepreneurial truisms. Thoughts?

The Big Drivers of the Next 10 Years

Several months ago blog reader Sean Ness of the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto invited me to one of their events. I couldn't make it, but Sean encouraged me to stop in one of these days to learn more about their work. In-between meetings last week I spent an hour at the Institute for the Future and came away really impressed. In their own words...

The Institute for the Future (IFTF) is an independent nonprofit research group. We work with organizations of all kinds to help them make better, more informed decisions about the future. We provide the foresight to create insights that lead to action.

After giving me a tour of the facility, we sat down and Sean described some of the big trends they see developing over the next decade. Some of the themes that most intrigue me:

• A "group economy" threads together past visions of emergence, new kinds of capital, collective action, grassroots economics, etc.
• "Lightweight infrastructure" builds grassrootes economies into physical structures.
• "Sensemaking" is about the importance of focal points and maps in an ever-less-bounded world. Physical context increases in importance.

After a good chat Sean handed me seven thick research books on everything from "The Future of Global E-Education" to "Cooperation in Business in the 21st Century." When I got home to my computer I had three emails from Sean -- links to blogs that may interest me, additional reports not released to the public, and an introduction to someone I could find interesting.

That's what I call professionalism! IFTF keeps a low profile since it does much of its work on a confidential basis with private sector clients, but it's an organization worth keeping tabs on if you -- like me -- are trying to figure out what trends are going to converge in the future to shape the world we live in.

Podcast Interview With Me On Entrepreneurship

Vic Podcaster from HotFromSiliconValley.com, the most active podcast company in the Valley, recently interviewed me. We talked briefly about entrepreneurship, my company Comcate, and the like. Despite zero prep on my end (it wasn't scheduled!) and a couple interruptions during the interview, Vic did a good job editing and producing it. If you want to hear what I sound like, give it a listen.

Link to the MP3

Formal Book Review: I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe

From time to time I write formal book reviews on works I particularly like. Previous formal book reviews have been on affirmative action, national security, the CIA and Afghanistan, atheism, and the prodigious mind of David Foster Wallace. This review is on I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe, an entertaining and thoroughly researched take on a bright, rural, innocent college freshman adapting to campus life. Thanks to Jesse Berrett for reading a draft of this.

It is painful to read about a bright young mind destroyed by violence, insane parents, or any other of society's corruptive influences. We try hard to identify gifted youth and steer them toward pure brands of life which can incite their intellect to invent and change and publish without distraction. We have magnate schools, MacArthur Fellowships, centers for gifted children. Anything that staves off vices which make the gifted regress to simply average out of pure self-consciousness. Many would place America's top-notch universities in the same boat: beautiful, ensconced campuses attracting the brightest minds from all over the world, devoted to the joint pursuit of ideas. This vision, Tom Wolfe shows in his newest novel, is grossly inaccurate.

His protagonist Charlotte Simmons is a brilliant high school student. She wins all the academic awards, delivers the valedictorian address, and is repeatedly told that she will shape the future we all live in. Moreover, she's drop dead gorgeous. Charlotte, though, is not an east-coast boarding school student. Her lower-class family hails from a small town in North Carolina where the Southern accent rides high and cursing / drinking / sex are absent from an adolescent's reality. Money is tight, clothes and make-up sparse. Charlotte is, in short, the sole pride of this small mountain town, and so receives a full scholarship to attend among the most prestigious universities in the land: Dupont. Some say Wolfe modeled Dupont on Duke University, which is probably an accurate guess, as Charlotte also considered Yale and Harvard. Dupont attracts the smartest and richest students, which means mostly white, attractive, upper-class students who studied at elite private high schools. When Charlotte arrives at Dupont for real academic challenges and "the life of the mind" as she puts it, she instead finds a stuck-up roommate, co-ed bathrooms, and endless alcohol and casual sex. The culture shock is overwhelming for Charlotte. Not just the blatant displays of wealth and SAT-tutored perfect white kids, but the anti-intellectual current that runs contrary to the brand name "Dupont". Sex, kegs, and jocks trump academic achievement at every turn.

Innocent Charlotte grapples with the competing tugs of mind and body: her quest for serious intellectual pursuit and her stated commitment not to drink or have sex, on the one hand, and her hormonal urge to do just that, on the other. This tension drives the narrative, as we see Charlotte creep, and creep, and creep. It starts with going to a frat party. Then a frat party where she sips a drink. Then a frat party where she sips a drink and dances with a basketball player who seeks out "fresh meat". Then a frat party where she sips a drink and dances with a guy and follows the guy to a room, only to then realize a room in a frat house with drunk college students means a room for sex. "I want some ass! I need some ass! Anybody know where's some ass?" one man yells at the party. As she progresses up – or down? – the ladder, I'm torn. I don't want her to become as dirtied as the alcoholic jocks or materialistic bitches (and "bitches" is truly the most accurate term for these designer outfit girls who live in her dorm), but I also don't want her to sit in her dorm room all day in miserable isolation.

Washington Monthly Releases College Rankings With Different Criteria

The U.S News and World Report college rankings really are as corruptive as they're made out to be, not only to high school students but in the way it has universities acting (yes - you can "game" the system to improve your ranking). Washington Monthly recently came out with their own college ranking guide, with different criteria. I haven't read through it all, but I'm very supportive of alternate systems. You may be surprised at which schools are in the top 20!

There's Never Been a Better Time to Be Alive

Andy Sack, a successful entrepreneur, good guy, and born-again blogger, asks:

I have a question for the blogosphere --
Is the world more fucked up today than it was 20 years ago?

Absolutely not. There's never been a better time to live. Putting aside all the very obvious modernization advances which expand and deepen what we can do during our short time on this planet, there are also various positive social indicators. In America at least, teen pregnancy is down, child poverty is down, teen suicide is down, drunk driving is down, violent crime is down.

Pining for the good ole days is old-person-talk. There's never been a better time to be alive! So, go live!

The Mighty Micro-Multinational

Globalization, in the business context, is not just about seeing a McDonald's on every street or a small start-up outsourcing their programming to India.

For start-ups it can mean: a) realizing the potential of a global customer base and, b) the potential of a global employee base.

Business 2.0 had a great article a few days ago on the mighty micro-multinational. When the fascinating trend of micro-businesses -- ideas which require little capital and target niches -- meets globalization, you get micro-multinationals.

The benefits for a small company becoming globalized are not limited to cheap labor in developing countries. Instead, it's about finding the best talent, period. The risks of a more decentralized, impersonal workplace are meaningful but with diligent focus on processes and collaboration technology, it can work. This also means individuals armed with cultural and linguistic skills, and contacts, are going to be in high demand.

Thanks to Shantanu Bhagwat for the link, who writes a great blog on globalization and European VC.

Quote of the Day

"Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some people move our souls to dance. They awaken us to new understanding with the passing whisper of their wisdom. Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon. They stay in our lives for awhile, leave footprints in our hearts, and we are never, ever the same."

I saw this posted on a wall of a house I stayed at in London. It was a personal email. I don't know if it's a "quote." Regardless, the fact that my eyes happened to pass it makes it all the more beautiful.

The most wrenching cases are when people enter your life, leave your life, and years later you realize the impact they had, when it's too late....

Hating Your Country While Abroad and Then Returning

A lot of people have asked me recently what it's like being back in America after two months overseas. I'm still reflecting.

My friend Ramit Sethi just sent me this fantastically provocative post by a guy who's traveled extensively reflecting on how American backpackers view their country after returning home. Some of his comments don't apply to me (no 3rd world countries yet) and some I don't even agree with. But he does tackle the bash-your-own-country syndrome with humorous crudeness.

There is no way to avoid seeing the USA differently when you come back, I'm afraid. But there are less self-cannibalizing ideas of "differently."...

I find that my cultural observations about Guatemala are usually really about me. "These people are mean" means "I am lonely." "Those people are loud" means "I feel excluded." "This country is great" means "I love being unemployed and drunk." When I start talking about America on the return, I'm usually still just talking about myself.

A fine point. Doesn't this apply to most things? It's amazing that what people say usually shows more about who's saying it than what's actually being said.

In Livingston, in a bar, one of my cobackpackers started up with the whole "I'm so glad to be away from all that shit, all that wholesale corporate shit, all that unthinking consumption, all that overly aggressive American culture, all that Bible thumping and fast food and 9-5" routine

I set down my beer, and gestured for the guy to lean over.

"I've got a hunch about America, dude..."

"What's that?"

"...You're doing it wrong."

Divebars. Jukeboxes. Allen Iverson. Beerball. Super Mario Kart. NetFlix. LiveFuckingJournal. The way my girl looks in that skirt.

An aversion to whitehats and fast food might be a reason to leave the country, but it's no reason to bash it. To fail to find a place for yourself in the USA might be a failure of fucking imagination, but it ain't a failure of the culture to provide.

Although I may have taken a different approach, I agree in principle that when people moan about "getting away from all that wholesale corporate shit," I groan. If you want to be hyper-consumerist, thump your bible, eat at McDonald's, and work in a cubicle from 9-5 each day, you have the freedom to do so. But guess what? I don't do any of those things. A lot of people don't. And it's just as easy.

My sense is this guy would get along well with P.J. O'Rourke who wrote Holidays in Hell. Here are some excerpts of Holidays in Hell. Warning: You may find O'Rourke's commentary on countries and America highly offensive, disgustingly xenophobic, and so forth. I endorse none of it and agree with only some of it.

The Toughest, Most Embarrassing Moment in Pursuing My Dream

My friend Michael Simmons runs the New York-based company Extreme Entrepreneurship Education. I hear from and reach out to a bunch of young entrepreneurs, and am impressed by about half of them. Michael is definitely in that category. He publishes a newsletter that goes to 4,500 young people and asked me to answer this question that he may feature in his newsletter alongside my bio:

What was your toughest, most embarrassing moment in pursuing your dream?

I thought about this for a bit of time and nothing obvious popped up. Perhaps this is because I try not to think about my life as moment-driven inasmuch as on a continuum. "Moments" are sexy. Entrepreneurs credit a breakthrough moment of insight that turned their business around. People talk about a life-changing moment when someone said something that changed the way they see the world. I don't buy it. Moments make it easier for us to condense time and construct our life narrative.

Plus, like all good self-delusional happy people, I also think I've suppressed most embarrassing moments deep into the dusty dungeons of my unconscious. I don't think I've lost the lessons -- after all, these "truisims" I hold in my head must have come from somewhere -- but I can't easily connect the dots between specific scars and specific lessons.

But to answer the question, the "toughest" moment I've had in my entrepreneurial career probably was on the eve of a major executive hire in early 2003 when I was 15. Anytime a founder hires an outsider to run his or her "baby" it can be emotional. For me, it wasn't so much reliquishing control inasmuch as the vastly greater financial and time committment that comes with hiring a full time and full salary outsider.

After a key negotiation meeting I resigned to my bedroom and collapsed on my bed. Nervous. Scared. Exhausted. At that time I wanted my world to disappear, for the stresses of my business life to fold into the seeming normalcy of freshman year high school life, which seemed so far away from my reality.

The guy we ultimately hired picked up on my body language and change of mood -- a good sign -- and we worked through what I was feeling. I also chose to go outside of the "inner circle" of advisors I had relied on so intensely and instead reached out to an adult friend who was familiar with the business yet far enough from the scene to offer a more dispassionate look. In the end, we pulled the trigger, with me the enthusiastic endorser of the deal, and as I write in my book (which you'll have to read to get the rest of the story), "That day was the first day of the rest of my life."

A big lesson is that no matter how much you think you're prepared to step over the ledge, it still is scary as hell once you tip-toe up to it.

 

What has been the toughest, most embarrassing moment you've experienced in pursuing your dream?

Sexuality Categories and Pornified Culture

The 21 comments appended to my post Girl-on-Girl Hookups and Sexual Categories covers some interesting ground by the same crowd which so thoroughly analyzed the issue of independent bookstores and globalization. I recommend you read through them slowly if you're interested in issues of sexuality, feminism, or the effects of a pornified culture on young people.

Here's a summary of the discussion:

1. My post noted the "new trend" of experimental sexuality among young people, so-called "Lesbian Until Graduation."
2. The comments conclude that the trend is not exactly new. Experimentation in this respect ebbs and flows over the decades. Sexuality historian Jesse Berrett argues that today's casual lesbianism at parties, for example, may though be new in its  "publicization and serving of male desires as mediated/invented/augmented by porn. I have to say that this sort of performative sexuality does strike me as new, and not as good."
3. Steve Silberman argues that human sexuality has always been more fluid than the official view suggests. Perhaps it's the strict bifurcation -- straight or gay -- which is the fad, since homosexual behavior has been genetically "conserved" for all these years in both humans and animals.
4. Fluidity acknowledged, Chris Yeh says, but it's hard to see any large long-term spike in homosexual behavior in the future given that "Homo Sapiens was designed so that a majority of adults would engage in monogamous heterosexual relationships (this is what is required to promote childbearing and childrearing)."

So I think we can be more precise about the trend we're currently seeing on high school and college campuses: it's probably not more sexual experimenting or more lasting experimentation (in that a higher percentage of the population in the future will be gay), but rather it's a different kind of experimentation, perhaps, than in the past. Whereas in the past 20-30 years it's been true experimentation, one could argue what we're seeing today is less mutual and more male-aggressive, even if males aren't involved in the act such as in girl-on-girl hookups.

Feeling More American AND More Cosmopolitan

After traveling in 10 countries over the past two months I feel more American than ever before. But I also feel more globalized, more cosmopolian, more similar than different to Europeans, and strangely enough, less American. It's a weird duality that my friend Pierre Claus pointed out.

What things will I do when I return home? I will get into a gaz-guzzling SUV and drive down a 5-lane freeway. I will go to Costco and buy 10-packs of cereal, 6-packs of ketchup, and everything else in massive quantities. I will ask for water at a restaurant and not pay for it. I will inhale air at a restuarant and not smell a cigerrette for miles. I will eat peanutbutter and jelly on bread and on saltines. I will eat pancakes -- not thin Dutch style pancakes, but thick pancakes with butter. I will eat American crepes -- not French thin crepes, but ones stuffed with all sorts of food spilling over the plate. I will eat American pizza (pizza with 10x the toppings).

I will be entrepreneurial. I will take risks. I will be a capitalist. I will proactively confront and criticize friends and colleagues in the spirit of eternal forgiveness. I will listen to some country music. I will walk down a street and see people from all walks of life who say they're American, and I'll enthusiastically support their own self-declaration.

I will be optimistic. I will see each moment as precious. I will believe that tomorrow will be even better than today. That tomorrow will bring the answer I've been looking for, the person I've been waiting to meet, the good news that's been stuck in traffic.

I will enjoy season-less San Francisco weather. In other words, I'll enjoy a moderate climate, and I'll put on a jacket if I walk out the house after 5 PM, 365 days a year.

Most of all, I will pursue happiness. I'll pursue it seriously, knowing that if I don't, I let society tell me how to be happy. I will pursue it knowing that I came into this world alone, and will leave the world alone, but that in the intervening time I should enjoy social connections.

I won't be just American. I'll be a more cosmopolitanized Ben Casnocha, whose allegiance doesn't extend to a state as much as to humanity.

I will, I hope, be more fully human.

The Intellectual Fad of Cultural Relativism

When I was considering attending the University of Chicago (more on that whole process later), one of the things which appealed to me about the school was its emphasis on the "knowledge most worth knowing." In other words, some knowledge is more important than others.

I believe some ideas are better than others. I believe harmful ideas deserve to be destroyed.

I believe some cultural customs are better than others. Customs which promote harsh sexual and physical abuse of women, for example, are not as good as customs which allow a person to be free from brutal oppression. In Culture Matters, various essayists argue the reason some societies succeed more than others is in part due to their culture (the values, protocols, habits, and so forth) and not simply economic incentives.

But cultural relativism seems stronger then ever, especially in the minds of young people. "Who are you to judge someone else's religion?" one of many commenters charged on my post about the Iranian girl hanged after being raped by an older man. Who am I? I am a rational person who believes the abuse of women in some Arab countries should be stopped.

In After the Neocons Francis Fukuyama explains the evolution of this thinking:

Cultural relativism -- the belief that reason was incapable of rising above the cultural horizons that people inherited -- had in fact become ensconced in contemporary intellectual life. In was legitimated at a high level by serious thinkers like Nietzsche and Heidegger, transmitted through intellectual fads like postmodernism and deconstructionism, and translated into practice by cultural anthropology and other parts of the contemporary academy. These ideas found fertile ground in the egalitarianism of American political culture, whose participants objected to having their "lifestyle" choices criticized.

What I worry about is a young person who's been drilled for 20 years to be "tolerant" of anyone and everything. Can that person hold strong convictions? Can he criticize someone's ideas while still loving the person?

I don't believe in any single Truth nor in any single Answer to tough questions. And life's beauty comes from a rainbow of perspectives and choices. But must we deny the existence of universally good things and the existence of unquestionably evil practices?

The final interesting issue is the question of whether a free person from the West, for example, should try to involve him/herself in the matter. One commenter said we shouldn't, unless a country's insanity is forced on other countries like in the case of Hitler. This argument usually says that countries will evolve naturally toward the universally good things, and we shouldn't interfere with that process. I agree modernization is a natural process, but we can't be totally passive esp. if you're like me and belive in the "tragic" view of human nature. If a person and a country has a moral conscious, it must engage. Matters such as the abuse of young women in Arab countries seems like a no-brainer. A censored internet and repressed free speech rights in China is more complicated, though I still think those in a open society can and should help others be aware of alternative ways of life.

Comparing U.S. and French Culture: Observations from the Ground

I couldn’t wait to experience French culture myself: Is the food really that good? Are the government policies really that backwards? Is it really anti-business? Are the women really all skinny? Are they really not friendly to tourists? Are the cafes really as central to the Parisian street as they say? Are the people as intellectual and artistically gifted as some say? Are their French Fries as tasty as America’s Freedom Fries? The French like to think of themselves as exceptional. Because of the extraordinary people I was fortunate to meet and stay with, even for a short period of time, I believe I can paint some reasonably accurate observations and contrasts about the French mentality and culture.

In Loire Valley I stayed at the home of a businessperson, psychologist, author of a book on U.S./France differences, and owner of a successful consulting company which sends executives from large companies from all over the world to visit companies and cultures all over the world. His wife is an academic. They both have spent 20+ years living in America, despite both being born in France. So combined they posses tremendous insight on the differences. In Versailles I stayed with the former President of Vivendi International Games division and his family. He’s an executive who’s worked around the world. In Paris I stayed with an experienced management executive and his family, who’s worked with international colleagues inside his multinational corporation. Obviously there is selection bias in this sample so I am not saying it’s representative. But it’s what I heard.

Big Conclusion #1: France has a rich culture and history. It’s a physically and intellectually beautiful place: home to hills and castles, philosophers and art.

Big Conclusion #2: Absent a revolution or major reform, France will not have a relevant future. Thus, there will be a revolution in the next 15 years.

Characteristics of French culture that may hinder future growth:

• Culture of “being” and not “doing.” Work is not seen as more admirable than not working.

• Implicit over explicit. Context is important. Part of the intellectual workout is figuring out hidden meanings. This may be “fun” but wreaks chaos in a business environment. (Not only in French; Irish language built like this too)

• Ideas can be more important than facts. The problem can be more interesting than finding a solution. (French business meetings 3/4 time on problem, US/UK business meetings 3/4 time on solution.)

• “Win-win” doesn’t exist. If you win, it’s at somebody else’s expense.

• Socialism: entitlement spending out of control, young people feel entitled to government services without giving back anything, centralized state-run universities are low quality, state-controlled labor system perverts incentives for employers, high wealth taxes drives out rich people and employers, and so forth.

• Community and society – government tentacles are so ubiquitous that “society” never really starts. The idea of “community” doesn’t exist in French culture. The word “community” translated has a negative connotation.

• The epistemology of the word “work” in French is “torture”

• Young people don’t think about success as much. In a survey, 70% of French youth said they’d like to work for the government, ie a job for life with little risktaking.

• The high bar to be considered a true French citizen and unemployment makes successful immigration integration a challenge.

• Confrontation (frank feedback) and intellectual diversity discouraged. Most boardrooms and executive suites filled with people with similar degrees from same schools who think the same way.

• Loss of faith in political system. Many told me, “We need a hero who can reform this. It will take a real hero. A Margret Thatcher.”

Elements of French culture that may help it survive:

• Intellectual vigor and creativity – both held in high esteem

• The world “entrepreneur” is French – so they have to understand the concept…somewhere

• Lesson of humility: young people grow up surrounded by Renaissance art and see their challenger. American young people create cheap pop culture whereas French youth surrounded by higher aesthetic standard.

• Immense history: can learn from its past

• Design: a fine eye for aesthetic and culinary standard.

France is a great place to visit – indeed, a must visit – and would be a great place to retire. But right now I wouldn’t want to study or work in France. I hope the French people -- who, contrary to what I was told, struck me as friendly and helpful even to an English speaking tourist -- will debate the potentially perilous future of their country. And I hope during reform, they work to maintain the best of French culture while modernizing their economic and political instruments.