Philip Wen’s Virtual Residence

Finally- Live Mesh on the Mac!

Windows Live Mesh

Ever since I started using Live Mesh about a year ago, I have been waiting for the Mac client.  Not that I turn on my Mac often, but this may just give me more reason to use it.

Nowadays, a computer is basically a browser appliance to me.  Since I spend most of the time inside Chrome (and Firefox when it’s required — such as running VMs remotely), the question of my OS of choice has become somewhat of a moot point.  Because Chrome only runs on a PC right now, I am mostly on a PC’s right now anyway.  I am a big proponent of cloud computing, and am more of a fan of browsers than of OS’s.

Would it be too much to ask if I say I am waiting on a Live Mesh Linux client?

Google Lay Offs or Google Rumor?

Google`s stock plummeted this year

News have been traveling around the circles recently that Google is looking to shave down some expenses.  Today, this article floated up to the top.

Considering the rate that Google have expanded over the past few years, this one wouldn’t sound too surprising to me.  The way they would go about those lay offs don’t sound too far fetched either.  Google has accrued an army of System experts, whether Computer Systems or the Legal System.  But to think that they would lay off approximately half of their workers is a hard to imagine– the Google today is an Android compared to its RoboSapien past. Having ½ of Googlers running the show would be a bit too skeletal.  Then again, with GOOG losing more than half of its Market Cap over the past year, only the brainiac Googly bean counters would know best just how many heads would need to roll.

Internet Ad spending has been contracting at a rapid race, not just because of the economy, but the direction that the ‘net is going toward. (I will talk about this topic some other time)  I wonder if Google Trends is picking this up?

Regardless of its validity, it will be interesting to see how Eric, Larry and Sergey have in store to steer the Googlybot through this downturn.

Tags: Business, google, lay offs

Yahoo - Jerry Yang’s Ouster

Jerry Yang and David Filo - at Stanford in 1994

Jerry valued his prized brainchild a little too high initially and is now paying the price for it.  See the posts here and here.  This is a classic case of the endowment effect- it is sad that the passion that Yang had for the company is also the one that is bringing him down from the top post.

What can we learn from this?  Once the company goes public, it belongs to the public.  And that no matter how much of a brainiac you are, you can’t escape the boundaries of human psyche.

Endowment effect is a double-edged sword.  Wield it wisely.

As for Jerry - I am sorry man.  Sometimes popular consensus is more important than having “the passion” and doing the “right thing”.  Just ask Galileo.  Or not.

Tags: jerry yang, Yahoo