John Arrow

I think many people have an unjustified fascination with celebrities.

Rarely have I been tempted to go out of my way to meet someone just because he or she is famous. However Bill Gates has been one of my role models since I was 8, and I was willing to go through some interesting measures to meet him.

I recently heard that Bill would be speaking to computer science students at the University of Texas.  I even got up at 6AM to stand in line to get a ticket for the speech, but was turned away because I’m not a CS major.

Next I tried calling my dad who works for Microsoft. Unfortunately because the speech was the next day he couldn’t get me a ticket in time.

I’m not sure what I would have done next to get a ticket, because later that day a certain UT professor called me up to see if I wanted his unused ticket. Problem solved.

Hmm… Ok so at least I now had a ticket, but would I actually get to meet him? He would almost certainly be surrounded by hundreds of people trying to do what I wanted to do.  I needed a more concrete plan.

Anytime a VIP flies into Austin, they get off their jet at a private terminal located on the other side of our local airport.  I had seen countless celebrities, politicians, and CEOs at this terminal during my pilot training.  It’s actually a really cool place to hang out if you’re easily star struck.

There was no doubt in my mind that this was the place to try to meet Bill.  My friend Brian (another entrepreneur) and I cleverly narrowed down the time that the world’s second richest man would be arriving at Austin. Sometime between the hours of 9PM and 4AM.

When we arrived at the airport we were greeted to the sight of 8 police cars and several more identical dark colored SUVs. Unlike a normal airport terminal, the private terminal is only about the size of a convenience store. Surely two college kids walking into a heavily guarded executive terminal would raise flags.

This wasn’t going to be easy.  We needed to not look overtly suspicious. We needed to look like we were supposed to be there.

As we got out of my jeep, I grabbed my flight bag from the back seat and two aviation headsets. These would be our props.

Immediately upon walking inside the terminal, I could sense a dozen uniformed eyes glaring at us with suspicion.

We ignored them and walked confidently over to a nearby table in the lounge.  Then I began rummaging through my flight bag and started pulling out maps and flight planning tools. The officers were leaving us alone.  We were in!

My friend and I passed the time by working on our laptops and engaging in “business talk.”  Simultaneously we kept up the charade that we were planning out a night flight, by keeping the table messy with airplane paraphernalia.

All of a sudden I look up to see three officers approaching our table.  One of them continues to the vending machine.  The other two are now towering over us.

“So what are you doing here this late?”

The officer asking the question was definitely suspicious, but he managed to do so in a manner that was almost friendly.

We told him that we were thinking about taking a flight later tonight, but had to wait for the weather to improve. (By the way this was not an outright lie. We were after all thinking about it.)

He semi-bought the story and proceeded to tell us of his connection to the aviation world.

Side note: When anyone learns that you are a pilot, they ALWAYS tell you about how they have a friend/brother/uncle/neighbor who also flies airplanes. I personally don’t mind this and actually like it when people are excited about aviation.

I very subtly asked the officer why there was such a large police presence tonight.  He then became stern and said the only thing that he could tell us was that a VIP was flying in tonight and that he was not at liberty to discuss the matter any further.

There was a moment of awkward silence and then the officers preceded to walk back into the main terminal. Yes! We had not been kicked out.

Approximately 15 minutes later we heard a loud commotion and saw at least 9 black secret service agents walk past us. Brian and I got up from our table and curiously followed after them.

We got there just in time to unmistakably witness none other than Barrack Obama leaving the terminal for his black SUV.

It turns out we somehow had gotten the special flight tracking mixed up, and that Obama had flown into Austin a day earlier than his scheduled debate with Hillary Clinton.

However I guess I will have to be content with seeing the runner up to the Whitehouse, instead of Mr. Gates.

I don’t work that hard. On average I’ll only spend 1 to 3 hours a day on “real” work and that’s only because I enjoy working. Sometimes I’ll go several days without doing anything remotely considered to be work. It’s not because I’m lazy. Actually it’s quite the opposite…

When I started my first internet business in high school, I thought it was critical that I worked non-stop. I incorrectly made the assumption that my newly found success was the direct result of hard work. I remember a time when I actually decided to skip a family vacation when there was a chance I would not have access to high speed internet.

A lot has changed since then. For starters I now realize the old adage “hard work pays off” is false.  Instead it is intelligent and highly focused efforts that reap rewards. I’m going to echo the sentiment of Kiyosaki (author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad) when I say that the rich do not work for money, they actually MAKE money. There is a huge distinction. A doctor who receives an annual salary will never be wealthy. Despite receiving a relatively decent wage, he is caught in the cycle of sacrificing his time for money.

On the other hand I have setup an enterprise that perpetually generates revenue with little to no injection of my personal time. The key is to eliminate as many repetitive tasks as possible with automation. For tasks that cannot be effectively automated, I simply hire/outsource individuals to fulfill the necessary roles.

This leaves me with an abundance of time. Time to advance current projects. Time for friends. Time for adventures. Time for new endeavors.  And most importantly time to appreciate life.

Most people spend the majority of their life working 8 hours day in and day out to advance someone else’s vision.  For me this would be hell. The very thought of trading my most valuable resource (time), for currency makes me cringe.

My Yahoo Lawsuit  (Part 1)

In a typical month I’ll spend between 7 to 9 thousand dollars with Yahoo. In return Yahoo sends a large amount of potential customers to my websites.  Not to mention they also send me bizarre presents on holidays. It’s one of the best investments that I make.

I like Yahoo, I really do. Unfortunately they are not the best managed company.

Ever sense Yahoo launched its uber anticipated project (code named: Panama) there has been troubles.  For Yahoo the Panama Project was supposed to be the Holy Grail that would allow the company to narrow its growing gap with Google.

Instead of enabling Yahoo a competitive advantage, Panama hurled the company into a full fledged identity crisis.

Is Yahoo a search engine? Are they an advertising company? A web portal? An IT consulting company? A social network? An ISP? An email provider?  A photo sharing site?

I really don’t know what Yahoo is… And neither does Yahoo.

There is no denying that Yahoo is involved (and successfully so) in a wide breadth of businesses.  However the fatal flaw of Yahoo is that none of their different business units play well together.

A few years ago I read a quote in Wired that really summed up the situation at the time:

“While Google was busy becoming what Yahoo! used to be, Yahoo! has become what AOL should have been. “

At the time circa 2004 this perfectly described the situation. Now it is Yahoo staring face to face with a decline. The company’s best bet would be to take Microsoft up on their offer.
Anyways in addition to purchasing advertising with Yahoo, my company also uses Yahoo Business Web Services.  I won’t go into the details, but essentially there a technical problem with these services that caused me to loose a small percentage of sales but more significantly waste a lot of time.

Despite my company’s relationship with Yahoo, they essentially refused to even admit there was a problem. As a result this problem persisted for 12 days, when it could have been easily addressed in 12 hours.

So I sued them.  Normally I leave all litigious matters to lawyers. However there was not that much money on the table and I thought it would be more fun to represent myself.  This was going to be interesting.

The Travis County Court house is only several blocks from the UT campus. One day after class I rode my bike down there, filed a couple papers, paid a $60 filing fee and Voila!  I had initiated a small claims lawsuit with the world’s most visited website.

After that not much happened with Arrow V. Yahoo for about 5 weeks. In fact I actually had forgotten that I was suing Yahoo, until one day I get a call from their legal department.

The guy on the phone reminds me of Toby from The Office. One of his first questions is why I felt compelled to have the lawsuit sent to the CEO of Yahoo

He basically asks me what Yahoo can do to make this go away. I tell him that Yahoo can reimburse me for my expenses relating to the incident. He offers me about 5% of what I ask. I refuse and say lets just figure it out in court.

About a month later I get this certified letter from Yahoo, alerting me that a motion for Summary Judgment has been filed and that I will need to appear in court a month from now.

Initially when I filed the case I was actually expecting that Yahoo would rather settle than actually fight me. Looks like I was wrong.

Prior to the summary judgment hearing I go back down to the court house. This time I file subpoenas for a support representative of Yahoo and the company’s COO.

Given that both of these people are located in California, I am hoping I can call Yahoo’s bluff.

A week later I get a call from the court house, saying they don’t have jurisdiction to subpoena someone in California.

It looks like I will actually have to put on my lawyer skills and litigate this case. Fortunately, I used to watch lots of Alley Mcbeal so I fell prepared. Calista Flockhart was hot.

The basis of my case hinges on the following:::
-Breach of Contract
-Gross Negligence
-Scienter (Known wrongdoing)
-Direct Compensatory and Consequential Damages (resulting from the above)

I love arguing so I was I was really looking forward to this.
I arrived at the court room about 15 minutes early and immediately identified Yahoo’s attorney sitting in the Defendant’s box. I went over and introduced myself.

She looked very young and a little nervous. We made idle chatter for a few moments and then I took my seat in the Plaintiff’s box.

As I began reviewing my notes, I could feel the Red Bull I drank 30 minutes earlier kicking in. I was sooooo ready for this.  (I used to despise energy drinks until a girl I briefly dated got me to try them. Still my preferred to drink is most certainly water.)

Then the judge walked in. I felt like a runner standing on a starting line seconds before the gun shot.  The case was about to take a turn that I never would have expected.

To be continued….