dhikchik ("dhik chik!")

Couldn't have been better... I missed season 5 but this sums it all

As late as the first half of 2008, no prominent macroeconomist or important economic forecasting organization predicted that the economy would not grow in 2008 (or 2009), let alone that it would crater as disastrously as it did. But, undaunted, the same economists who totally missed the recession turned back to the same quantitative, scientific models to predict how the economy would recover, only to be mainly wrong again. CEOs keep on giving quarterly guidance based on their sophisticated financial planning systems and keep on being wrong — and then get slammed not for bad performance but for their failure to predict performance exactly as they promised mere months earlier...

To obtain that understanding, we need to supplement the quantitative techniques brought to us through the march of science with the artistic understanding of and facility with qualities that our obsession with science has brushed aside. We must stop obsessing about measurement so much that we exclude essential but un-measurable qualities from our understanding of any given situation. We must also consider the possibility that if we can't measure something, it might be the very most important aspect of the problem on which we're working.

Can we call this behavioral modeling? Or is there such a thing that exists already?

Q. Can you give me an example of the value and the question?

A. Well, some of them are behavioral questions. One of our values is, “Create fun and a little weirdness.” So one of our interview questions is, literally, on a scale of 1 to 10, how weird are you? If you’re a 1, you’re probably a little bit too strait-laced for us. If you’re a 10, you might be too psychotic for us.

It’s not so much the number; it’s more seeing how candidates react to a question. Because our whole belief is that everyone is a little weird somehow, so it’s really more just a fun way of saying that we really recognize and celebrate each person’s individuality, and we want their true personalities to shine in the workplace environment, whether it’s with co-workers or when talking with customers.

Good read - Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos.com interviewed by Adam Bryant. Interesting perspective on senior management hiring towards the end of the interview.

Asked about those advertising-related connections, Andy Rubin, vice president of engineering at Google, made the company's goal clear. "Our primary business is advertising... a superphone [like Nexus One] is a great way to access the Web, and that... supports our whole business model, which is advertising," he said. The new phone and store represent "the next front of our core business," he added

If Google's phone store does well, it could affect phone sales at brick-and-mortar retailers, possible leading to consolidation among the thousands of smaller stores operated by wireless carriers, Dulaney predicted.

But he also said it's too early to predict the impact of the business model, with only one Google phone for sale so far. He noted that many of the details are still unclear. For example, Google hasn't named the third-party vendor that will take orders for and mail out the unlocked phones.

Dulaney also predicted that sales of unlocked phones would be strong, although not necessarily in the U.S. "There's a huge demand for unlocked phones all over the world. Google will do well selling them, but the question over time is how well they will do."

Google should give Nexus One free to everyone with a monthly commitment of clicking at least 2 ads on Google for the first month (at 10 cents CPC it comes to $180 for first month). That recovers cost of phone and lifetime ad revenue from the phone is a bonus :)