Comments for Ryan Jacobs . Org

Comment on One Of These Things First by Cameron

Cameron — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:10:54 +0000

Sweet man. I liked that. Your voice is great for Nick Drake.

Comment on What Does a Vegetarian Eat, Anyway? by Charlie Plopper

Charlie Plopper — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:06:54 +0000

Hi Ryan, Your Mom and Dad are visiting us right now. Your Mom said you are trying being a vegetarian. I’ve been vegan for 10 years now for health reasons. It has worked out well, but you need to be sure to have balanced meals over the day. I put together a one page chart that has all the food groups on it, what foods fit in each group and how much of each you need to eat everyday to have a complete, meat-free diet. If you would you like a copy, email me and I’ll send you one. It is all regular food, just more or less of some kinds with different nutrition values.

Comment on What Does a Vegetarian Eat, Anyway? by Jean

Jean — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:30:18 +0000

I like this. You should keep posting this sort of stuff.

Comment on Pirates Vs. Ninjas, Game-Theory Style by Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:09:20 +0000

Hey Elliot, glad you found me! You’ve pretty much got it. Pirate #5 should offer 97 to himself, 1 to Pirate #3, and 2 to Pirate #1 (because Pirate #1 could get 1 by waiting for an offer from Pirate #4).

Also, it turns out that this is only a theoretical answer – when humans are involved, inequity aversion comes into play. Then it gets fun.

Comment on Pirates Vs. Ninjas, Game-Theory Style by elliott

elliott — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 06:22:00 +0000

Just found this blog from an old link on GMATClub! As a current undergrad music major myself, your profile caught my eye.

I’ve been working on this problem for the past two or three minutes, and I think I have a solution. Is it 98-0-1-0-1? I worked backwards starting with pirate 1 and kept moving up logically.

I tried looking up the answer online, but I couldn’t find anything.

Thanks!

Comment on “Super Green Drink” by Pat J.

Pat J. — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:57:39 +0000

Ryan, You are one of a kind!…and funny.

Comment on “Super Green Drink” by Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:20:58 +0000

For the record, I’m 100% aware of the irony in thinking that nonfat dairy products are creepy yet being totally willing to purchase and imbibe something called “Super Green Drink.”

Comment on Finance Guy by Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 02:22:36 +0000

Ryan, did you know that if you google “Rady School of Management Ranking” your blog pops up on the first page? Way to keyword!

Comment on Down With DRM by Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:12:38 +0000

For Amazon, the mass market cash cows are the name of the game. People go to Amazon because they know Amazon will have those books and will sell it for cheaper than a traditional bookstore. DRM is a necessary component because those who control the content will not allow it to be distributed through any channel that does not protect its IP rights. I’m actually working on a deal right now involving a video DRM-provider that sells products to CE companies and distribution channels like cable and satellite, and it’s pretty much the same idea. Amazon actually does offer certain self-publishing services already, and I wouldn’t be surprised if at some later point they decided to publish under their own imprint. However, my guess would be that they would publish discount versions of content that is already in the public domain because the costs of acquiring that content are very low. Amazon is essentially a volume business. They sacrificed profitability for a number of years in order to increase their market share. Now they are a major distribution channel and their volume is such that they generate billions in free cash flow per year (check out their latest 10-K, it is truly amazing). The more scale they get, the more profitable they become and traditional booksellers who have far fewer inventory turns, longer payment cycles and much higher fixed costs are basically getting blown away. The biggest problem for Amazon right now is that they are in a fight to the finish with Apple to determine which device (and hence which distribution service) will dominate the landscape for those mass market cash cows. Amazon’s approach has been to drop Kindle prices and try to increase its market share that way, but it’s unclear whether that will be enough to overcome the potentially greater mass appeal of the iPad. One clear beneficiary has been the publishers, who can now force Amazon back to the bargaining table and prevent them from demanding lower wholesale prices in the future.

I think the future for independent content providers may look a lot like Pandora. Most of the music on Pandora is actually indie. Thanks to the power of their music recommendation system, Pandora is able to take people’s starting preferences (which generally tend towards mass market songs and artists) and nudge them towards things they would not have otherwise discovered. The main problem with replicating this approach is the investment it requires. Pandora employs scores of great musicians and makes them undergo a rigorous training process. They need to decide not only whether a song is “good,” but they also need to determine the core attributes of each song, which can be subjective If Amazon or any other content provider were to attempt this, they would likely need to develop whole new sets of core competencies. Amazon currently does have a recommendation engine, but like Netflix’s, it is software-based and generally seems to be less effective than Pandora’s (and may be less likely to orient people towards new content if the recommendation engine is driven by the preferences of other users, as is often the case).

Comment on Finance Guy by Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:52:52 +0000

I’m not sure having a single buyer constitutes liquidity in a given market. I was thinking you might be able to do some kind of private placement that is exempt from the securities laws, but I don’t know if the trustee model allows for that. A derivatives market would not work if the company still retained the ability to set the value of shares. In any case, valuation is something I’d be very interested in as an employee. I have no doubt that your data are correct and that companies with these plans are much more likely to be concerned about their employees’ long-term well-being and to provide a wide range of benefits that they believe will make their workers better off than companies who have no such plan. The question is what is optimal for the company, the employee and (if you are inclined to think in this way) to society at large. It seems to me that there is room for many different approaches, depending on the context. As a legal matter I think that courts understand this, as they very seldom intervene in company decisions regarding capital structure. Do you happen to know if there’s any data on how employee ownership plans affect a company’s cost of capital? Does it in effect restrict them to raising money through debt, or create barriers to public offerings or private investment funds?