Philip Wen’s Virtual Residence

What to expect from this bleak outlook on the economy

No matter where you turn, you can’t escape the depressing mood that has all but permeated all of media.  Blogs, Destination sites, TV, Radio– even ads have started using “The Downturn” to start their segment or its headlines.  For people that are constantly soaking in business news, I can’t see how there is any bit of ray of optimism left.

Then just a few minutes ago, I hit this blurb.

Downright discouraging, isn’t it?

So what is going to happening to the millions that have or about to lose their jobs?  With the job market shrinking rapidly, will these people just sit at home and hang their heads in despair?

Nope.  That’s not how the economy works.

For the fortunate few that have what it takes to immediately re-enter the workforce, things will immediately go back to normal.  Out of those that are not as lucky?  What will happen to them?

Of course, some (perhaps many) will suffer through some pretty rough times.  But as long as people are willing to fight and plow ahead, I have yet to hear that people can die from economic depressions.  Emotional depression can be deadly, but people do not die from the lack of money.

In this Land of Opportunity, it means a big chunk of these folks are actually enterprising enough, and will try to use this “down time” to try their luck at entrepreneurship.  After all, isn’t that how the Economy usually pulls itself back on its feet?

See this post here.  And if you are too lazy to, let me just spit out a quote from it here:

“Students are increasingly open to taking entrepreneurial risks now that the economy doesn’t exactly guarantee a dream job anyway” - Peter Winicov

So while we are only at the beginning of this downturn, and it may seem like the rain is really pouring down hard, the lesson here is - Don’t let it get you down.

Why?  Because!  Just because everyone is jumping off that bridge, doesn’t mean you have to.  The herding pattern is what got us here in the first place.  To quote that famous Apple marketing campaign: “Think Different.”

For some perspective on why there is never a better opportunity, let me quote our great friend Al:

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity” - Albert Einstein

Paul Graham also wrote about this subject here.  And since he may be infinitely more successful than I ever will be, perhaps you will listen to him.

If you’re too lazy again, here’s the gist: “Fortunately it has gotten very cheap to run a startup, and a recession will if anything make it cheaper still.”

Let me put it this way - You have to take risks to succeed, and if you don’t have a job anyway, you really aren’t risking much. ;-)  With the cost of running businesses being so low nowadays, you really don’t lose much even if you fail anyway.

So what are you waiting for?

Update: This topic seems to be the subject du jour.  See articles here.

Tags: Business, Entrepreneurship, Opportunities, Start Ups, Technology

Finally- Live Mesh on the Mac!

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?

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