In Search of the Perfect Investment

Last night I did what I’m best at. What I have most fun doing. I helped organize the vision and plan for a company. It is Internet-based. The key is not to figure how to monetize the business (earn profits) but to get zillions of people to visit the site — without spending millions of advertising dollars. They call it “gong viral.” Do what Google, Facebook, YouTube, Skype or LinkedIn did. Do something great, be noticed. But do it for free.

The idea is to get the hordes to inundate, but not overwhelm you. You don’t want your computers to crash and burn (like Nasdaq’s did last Friday on Facebook’s IPO). You don’t want your visitors to hit a wall and to be disappointed with their first experience with you. These younguns have a short attention span. Burn them once. They won’t come back.

The good news is that cloud computing — especially from Amazon — means you can actually scale your business which, in your early stages, might easily be as fast as 100% growth per hour. I’m not kidding. Per hour. This is a new world. There’s software, computer power and networking abilities out there that will accommodate growth beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook is worth $18 billion as a result of a business that’s only eight and a bit years old. No one has ever created wealth that fast.

You want part of this? You need three things:

1. An idea.

2. At least one brilliant programmer. Zuck is good.

3. $100,000 to get started and $1 million to keep going.

If you play it right, you won’t have any trouble raising as much money as you’ll ever need or want. Read yesterday’s Surowiecki piece in my column. Today’s investors, despairing of horrible interest rates and a desultory stockmarket, are eager to throw money at Internet-based startups — even if they don’t fully understand crazy birds or social networks.

What they do understand is enthusiasm, and visitors to your site.

Yesterday’s stockmarket was nice. It popped 135 points on the Dow. But it won’t last. This is fundamentally a weak market. Europe is not solved. Asia is slowing down. And our employment is miserable.

Facebook was a whopping success — for Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg sold zillions of dollars of his own stock. He paid his initial investors back with a whopping gain. He paid his underwriters handsomely. And he retains control (51%).

He owes nothing to investors on the IPO. He’s said he’ll manage the company “for the long-term,” meaning Facebook remains his plaything, to do with it as he wishes.

There’s nothing wrong with this. It was stated clearly up front. It’s why I told you, my readers, to get a few shares pre-IPO and sell them immediately.

Sadly, NASDAQ botched Facebook’s debut last Friday and many of us got a lower price for our shares than we should have.

Should I battle with Fidelity over the price they sold my “market order” on the lousy 50 shares they gave me, instead of the 10,000 I asked for? Or should I simply ascribe it to another of Fidelity’s many foibles, also called inadequacies?

Back to Australia? I left Australia in 1966 to travel for a year and then to start an MBA in September of 1967. I became entranced with America (despite the Vietnam War). And when I graduated in June 1969, I elected to stay here. Australia was boring, small and insular in the 1960s. But it’s grown up a lot. Many of its businesses are world class. Its economy has been superbly managed, helped along by huge mining exports, especially to China. Australia is now a nice place to live, a nice place to retire to. This morning’s Wall Street Journal reports Australia as the happiest industrialized nation in the world. If you haven’t visited, please do. Australia makes a great vacation. It’s got great sights. The people are friendly and speak the Queen’s English. You’ll understand them after a day or two. Here’s the Journal’s piece:

Australia Tops OECD Better Life Index

What is the happiest nation in the world? The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development published its Better Life Index, and Australia came out on top.

SYDNEY-Australia is living up to its nickname of “the lucky country,” with a new survey marking it as the happiest industrialized nation in the world based on criteria such as jobs, income and health.

Having sidestepped the economic malaise gripping much of Europe and with near full employment owing to a once-in-a-century resources boom, Australia has come out on top ahead of Norway and the U.S. in the annual Better Life Index compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The findings come despite fresh signs that not every Australian is enjoying the benefits of the resources boom, with tourist attractions seeing a drop in visitors and many manufacturers rethinking their Australian operations because the strong local currency has made exports uncompetitive. A rising cost of living also is weighing heavily on consumers, who are tightening their purse strings or using the Internet to hunt for bargains on items that can be purchased overseas.

Australia topped the OECD’s Better Life Index if each of the 11 categories is given equal weight. See the other top 10 countries overall.

But the promise of higher living standards is drawing migrants from across the world. Davide Mazurek, 22 years old, moved from Tuscany in Italy to Australia six months ago and is in no hurry to return. Having worked as a farmhand in Victoria state, Mr. Mazurek next plans to pitch his tent in the remote northern city of Darwin, a frontier in Australia’s energy boom.

“I don’t want to go back to Italy now with the euro crisis, I like Australia, it’s better here, the wages are better,” he said.

But he admits that he finds Australia’s cost of living pricey and that is eroding his efforts to save money. “The rents are expensive.”

See how countries ranked and customize the results to reflect what matters most to you.

The OECD survey-which rates its 34 member countries on categories like housing, jobs, education, health, environment and work-life balance-shies away from explicitly giving any one nation an overall top ranking, but if each of the 11 categories is given equal weight, Australia’s cumulative rank rises to No. 1, according to the OECD website. It is followed closely by Norway and the U.S.

Australia’s high rank-based on data from the United Nations, individual governments and other sources-is largely due to its strong economic performance despite the economic turmoil in Europe and anemic growth in the U.S.

Strong demand for iron ore and coal exports means Australia’s unemployment rate was 4.9% in April, compared with 10.9% in the euro zone and 8.1% in the U.S. More than 72% of the working-age population in the country is employed, compared with the OECD average of 66%.

Unlike many of its developed peers, Australia’s government plans to return a budget surplus in the next fiscal year and forecasts its net debt to peak just below 10% of GDP, a fraction of the borrowings seen elsewhere.

The Australian dollar has recently dipped below parity against the greenback, though it remains at historically high levels and is also strong against the euro and pound, giving shoppers fire power if they travel overseas.

But there are weaknesses too. While the index found that Australians rank their satisfaction with life at 7.4 out of 10-higher than the OECD average of 6.7-they are noticeably less bullish in their day-to-day life, with 74% reporting positive daily experiences. That’s less than Americans, Irish and even Spaniards facing job insecurity due to the country’s hefty debt pile.

The reasoning for that is pinned on an Australian consumer that has become overly cautious, analysts say.

“Australian consumers have been almost as gloomy as their counterparts in the U.S. and Europe, notwithstanding the gulf between Australia’s economic performance and that of most other ‘advanced’ economies,” said Saul Eslake, an economist at Merrill Lynch.

Despite a minority government that’s sinking in the polls after a series of scandals involving key lawmakers and policy missteps, some 71% of Australians trust their political institutions, compared with an OECD average of 56%.

In addition, 85% of people in Australia described their health as good, well above the OECD average of 70%. The survey also found that Australian men spend nearly three hours every day cooking, cleaning or caring-one of the highest scores across the OECD’s 34 member countries and ahead of men in the U.S., Germany and Canada.

Diala Ibrahim, 31, emigrated to Australia from Lebanon as a child. She and her fiancé now are mulling whether to move to London, where he is currently based, or to remain in Sydney. Her clear preference is for life Down Under because she finds the quality of living higher.

“[Australia’s] environment is clean, there’s no pollution, there’s no war, there’s law, there’s order. You don’t find that in all places,” Ms. Ibrahim said.

You can read the Journal entire piece here.

Talk about tasteless.
A small zoo in Alabama obtained a very rare species of gorilla.

Within a few weeks the gorilla, a female, became very difficult to handle. Upon examination, the veterinarian determined the problem. The gorilla was in heat. To make matters worse, there was no male gorilla available.

Thinking about their problem, the Zoo Keeper thought of Bobby Lee Walton, a redneck part-time worker responsible for cleaning the animal cages. Bobby Lee, like most rednecks, had little sense but possessed ample ability to satisfy a female of any species.

The Zoo Keeper thought they might have a solution. Bobby Lee was approached with a proposition. Would he be willing to mate with the gorilla for $500.00?

Bobby Lee showed some interest, but said he would have to think the matter over carefully. The following day, he announced that he would accept their offer, but only under five conditions:

“First”, Bobby Lee said, “I ain’t gonna kiss her on the lips.” The Keeper quickly agreed to this condition.

“Second”, he said, “She gotta wear a ‘Dale Earnhardt Forever’ T-Shirt.” The keeper again readily agreed to this condition.

“Third”, he said, “you cain’t never tell no one about this.” The keeper again readily agreed to this condition.

“Fourth”, Bobby Lee said, “I want all the children raised Southern Baptist.” Once again it was agreed.

“And last,” Bobby Lee said, “I’ll need another week to come up with the $500.”

Harry Newton who drove back into New York yesterday afternoon from his country palace 126 miles north of the city. As he crossed the bridge into Manhattan island, he started sneezing; his throat got itchy and his eyes watered up. New York City’s air sucks — automobile emissions, pollen and pollen. There are great reasons to live in New York. But its air is not one of them.