This blog has moved to TalkMarkets.com
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
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Thursday, October 23, 2008
How the crash has affected things
So a lot of time has passed since my last post. I have no excuse except that I've been working my butt off, seven days a week, night and day since there is so much to do at SA. The market crash has been a boon for our traffic- we've been breaking records every day and easily get over a million hits daily. It's really created a fury of extra work for us all. But at the same tie, our only source of revenue are ad sales which, like every company, has taken a hit. Especially since most of our adverisers are financially related. So everyone is trying to help out in any way we can- being careful not to leave computers on overnight, using a little less light, leaving the water running a little less, etc. It's a shame since the people here really work hard. Especially our tech team. I'm often the last one to leave, but when I'm not, it's always someone from the tech team who is still here, or the ENTIRE tech team. There's been days that they haven't left till the wee hours of the morning. It's very impressive and I have great respect for them. Of course the ones who are married probably get a lot of flack for it back home. Regardless, I have no doubt that once the current situation eventually passes, the company will only be stronger.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
NY's New Amazon Sales Tax Really Bugs Me
I'm still really annoyed about this new sales tax law where I now have to pay sales tax for most online purchases I have shipped to NY. It just seems to me that all around it was a bad idea. For people who still really don't want to pay sales tax, there are still plenty of websites where they won't have to. I've switched much of my shopping over to many of them. But some of the best sites like Amazon and Buy.com are affected. A lot of these other sites are more expensive, less reliable, have fewer options or have slower or costly shipping. The law itself is probably illegal and now NY State is being sued. All in all, it will probably just cost everyone a lot more money and not generate much for NY State after they are done dealing with all the complaints and lawsuits and such. Plus lost revenues for some of the NY affiliates being driven out of busines. If you are not familar with the situation, I wrote a whole article about it on Seeking Alpha here:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/86766-amazon-overstock-gamble-may-pay-off
Here is the text:
"I was surprised to notice how silent Amazon (AMZN) appeared to be vis-à-vis New York’s new tax law during the company's earnings call yesterday. Thomas Szkutak, Amazon’s Senior VP & CFO, brushed off questions regarding the tax issue as “too early to comment.” By contrast, in Overstock’s (OSTK) latest Q2 2008 earnings call transcript, the company had much to say about the issue. What really caught my attention was when Jonathan Johnson, Overstock’s SVP, stated that the New York State Senate had voted to repeal New York’s most recent tax law which would put this whole mess behind us.
For those of you who weren’t aware, New York State passed a new law that went into effect on June 1, 2008. The law, dubbed “the Amazon tax,” requires all internet companies with affiliates in NY State to charge sales tax on shipments bound for New York. The State expects this to increase tax revenue by $50 million.
Why is this law a problem? Well, according to the Supreme Court’s 1992 ruling in Quill v. North Dakota, companies are obligated to charge sales tax only for states where they have a physical presence. That is why New Yorkers may have noticed that they need to pay sales tax when making an online purchase from sites like Best Buy (BBY), Circuit City (CC) or Barnes & Noble (BKS), but not from sites like Amazon, Buy.com, Overstock and others. The former group has a presence in virtually every state, while the latter set does not. Technically, New Yorkers were always supposed to pay sales tax on purchases from sites like Amazon to the government, but since the web stores weren’t forced to collect the tax, few actually paid.
New York State has found a way around this law by stipulating that New York based affiliates could be constituted as a “physical presence,” though until now, they have generally been interpreted as advertising vehicles. Affiliates get paid a commission for driving a customer to online stores. Websites like Amazon have thousands of such affiliates.
Why is this law important? It means that one of the major advantages that a company like Amazon had over a company like Barnes & Noble is that they did not have to charge sales tax to New Yorkers. This often resulted in a lower overall price. Now these companies do need to include tax and it remains to be seen if their more price sensitive customers may no longer be as loyal. I, for one, am not. And while a $1.00 sales tax on a book may not be enough to dissuade a customer from making a purchase, tax on a laptop, which could easily add over $100, might.
So how have companies responded? The harshest response came from Amazon and Overstock, which have independently filed lawsuits against New York State challenging the constitutionality of the new law (note: by filing independently, they are forcing New York to defend themselves against two lawsuits rather than one; a considerably more expensive undertaking). Meanwhile, most sites such as Amazon and Buy.com have complied and as of June 1st, have been charging sales tax to many an unsuspecting New Yorker. An email to each of these companies inquiring as to why the sites now charge NY sales tax resulted in an almost identical response which can be summed up as: New York passed this law, if you have a problem with it, contact them. As a result, I am sure I was far from the only one who complained to the New York Legislature about this.
Overstock, followed by other online retailers were even more creative and decided to dump its 3,400 New York affiliates. Not only did this protect the company from having to charge sales tax in NY, but it sent a clear message to Albany: keep this law and you will hurt New York small business owners. As a result many sites like 5StarAffiliatePrograms.com have started a grassroots effort to pressure New York to repeal the law.
There are a lot of online shoppers in New York, and while Amazon and Overstock complain that such a law is unconstitutional or too hard to implement, what it really comes down to is that 10% or more of their customer base is affected by this new law and may defect to the competition. This poses a major threat to these companies’ profitability which is already being affected by the economic downturn.
Why should those of you who do not live in New York care? If you ever want to ship an item to a friend or relative in NY, you’ll have to shell out a little extra for NY sales tax, one of the highest in the country. Even worse, if New York gets away with this law, other states may follow. California has already considered implementing an “iTunes tax” which would have charged tax on all music downloads, but the law was defeated in committee. At least for now.
So where do we stand at this point? It seems that Overstock and Amazon’s gamble may have paid off. Faced with angry customers, worried affiliates and looming lawsuits, New York State may be about to back down. The Senate voted unanimously on a bill to repeal the law and the bill has now been passed on to the Assembly for review. But there is a long way to go until the battle is over. Regardless of what happens, I will likely never see the $15.11 in sales tax I just paid to Amazon for my most recent order.
AUTHOR’S UPDATE: Thank you all for your comments and thank you to user "dumb money 76" for providing some interesting contrast to my article. Mr. (or Ms.) dumb money 76, you are correct on several points. As I mentioned in the article, New Yorkers have always been required to pay sales tax on their online purchases but few if any do. In a similar vein, people are supposed to pay income tax on the profits they make from selling their old junk at garage sales or on eBay. But again, few do. What I failed to mention however, is that one has to keep in mind why brick and mortar stores charge sales tax. The money is used for services that benefit these stores such as maintaining roads, repairing electricity, trash collection, etc. Amazon, Overstock and other sites based outside of NY receive no such benefits. NY's "Amazon Tax" may be closing a loophole in the law or even leveling the playing field as you suggest, but I'm not convinced Amazon should be subsidizing the government services that Barnes & Noble receive in NY. And is it really leveling the field? There are advantages and disadvantages to buying an item online besides sales tax. A customer may save on the sales tax but at the same time, they may have to pay much more for shipping and/or endure lengthy ship times. And in the spirit of true competition, Barnes & Noble should not petition that Amazon be forced to charge sales tax as well (brick and mortar companies have been lobbying for this law for years) but rather should be forced to find creative ways at competing with Amazon on their own core strengths (price is one of Amazon's core strengths not theirs). For instance, one way Barnes and Noble successfully accomplished this has been by offering Manhattan customers same day delivery, something Amazon's business model could never offer.
Perhaps a solution would be to charge sales tax to all customers with the tax revenues going to the website's home state. For instance, Overstock is based in Utah, so it might make more sense for them to charge Utah sales tax on all sales which could be used to subsidize services within their own state, not New York. But of course that would involve a huge overhaul of our current tax laws. But am I against a sales tax as some readers have suggested? As a consumer, I of course prefer paying lower prices for items but as a U.S. citizen I appreciate the value that paying taxes offers to society. But those who made this accusation are missing the point. The question isn't whether Amazon should be charging tax to New Yorkers, the question is whether New York's new law is technically illegal? And regardless, is it bad for New York? While I am no law expert, I think it is a stretch to claim affiliates qualify as a legal presence. And yes, I do think it can hurt NY businesses. First of all, if NY succeeds in keeping this tax on the books, other states are virtually guaranteed to pass similar laws of their own. Which means people may shun NY based internet companies, for those based in states that haven't passed such a law. Additionally, larger internet stores will likely follow Overstock's lead and shun them as well. Overstock may have been trying to send a message to Albany that the law will hurt NY businesses, but it was also a simple mathematical equation. As explained in their most recent earnings call transcript (seekingalpha.com/artic...), they calculated that they would lose more business by charging sales tax to New Yorkers than they would by abandoning their NY affiliates. If NY actually fights the lawsuits and wins, I think we will be seeing Amazon employ the same math and if their calculation brings the same result, Amazon’s affiliates will be out the door as well. Why haven't they done this yet? Amazon is very focused on customer service and my hunch is that they believe NY will either back down or lose the lawsuit. If that happens, there will be no need to kick out their NY affiliates and will have generated tremendous goodwill by not having done so. Especially in light of Overstock's abandonment of theirs. Plus many of Overstock's 3,400 NY affiliates will likely join Amazon now that Overstock has closed its doors to them. When this all blows over, many of them will probably choose not to rejoin Overstock. So as much as I hate paying more at Amazon, I thin this was a good move for them.
As for the user “Lisa” who requested an update, there unfortunately isn’t much to report. While a bill to repeal the law has passed the Senate by a wide margin (voting 6-24-08), it wasn't passed until the last day of New York's Session. The bill still needs to be approved by the Assembly to become law and that can't happen before the next Session which will not be until January, 2009.
Meanwhile, I’m afraid my article may have been overly optimistic. Even if the bill to repeal the tax passes the Assembly, according to Saul Hansell at the NY Times (bits.blogs.nytimes.com.../), it seems that Governor Paterson will likely veto it. So at the end of the day, those that want to see the Amazon tax repealed may have their hopes hinge on the outcome of Amazon and Overstock's lawsuits. And that could take a long time to resolve. It will also cost NY taxpayers a lot of money in lawyer's fees. Unfortunately, New York is very creative at finding ways to charge sales tax and if they lose the lawsuits, they'll likely find some other way to increase tax revenues. Anyone else remember when New York State sent agents to stake out New Jersey malls in 1992 to record NY license plate numbers? They were trying to crackdown on New Yorkers crossing the border to save on the lower taxes. It makes me wonder if New York would be more effective in increasing tax revenues by being competitive and actually lowered the NY tax rate. Then maybe our neighboring states would be flocking to NY stores instead of the other way around. "
I find my shopping options are rather limited now. There were actually a few purchases I was going to make but at the last minute, I found that with tax, the total price was now above my reservation price and I decided not to make the purchase after all. I am also a little dissapointed that the new law wasn't better advertised. I would have made some big ticket purchases before the deadline, but now that I procrastinated, I ended up paying much more. I would have even appreciated the websites like Amazon having some kind of pop-up warning me about the law rather than not realizing I was about to pay more than originally expected. But such is life.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/86766-amazon-overstock-gamble-may-pay-off
Here is the text:
"I was surprised to notice how silent Amazon (AMZN) appeared to be vis-à-vis New York’s new tax law during the company's earnings call yesterday. Thomas Szkutak, Amazon’s Senior VP & CFO, brushed off questions regarding the tax issue as “too early to comment.” By contrast, in Overstock’s (OSTK) latest Q2 2008 earnings call transcript, the company had much to say about the issue. What really caught my attention was when Jonathan Johnson, Overstock’s SVP, stated that the New York State Senate had voted to repeal New York’s most recent tax law which would put this whole mess behind us.
For those of you who weren’t aware, New York State passed a new law that went into effect on June 1, 2008. The law, dubbed “the Amazon tax,” requires all internet companies with affiliates in NY State to charge sales tax on shipments bound for New York. The State expects this to increase tax revenue by $50 million.
Why is this law a problem? Well, according to the Supreme Court’s 1992 ruling in Quill v. North Dakota, companies are obligated to charge sales tax only for states where they have a physical presence. That is why New Yorkers may have noticed that they need to pay sales tax when making an online purchase from sites like Best Buy (BBY), Circuit City (CC) or Barnes & Noble (BKS), but not from sites like Amazon, Buy.com, Overstock and others. The former group has a presence in virtually every state, while the latter set does not. Technically, New Yorkers were always supposed to pay sales tax on purchases from sites like Amazon to the government, but since the web stores weren’t forced to collect the tax, few actually paid.
New York State has found a way around this law by stipulating that New York based affiliates could be constituted as a “physical presence,” though until now, they have generally been interpreted as advertising vehicles. Affiliates get paid a commission for driving a customer to online stores. Websites like Amazon have thousands of such affiliates.
Why is this law important? It means that one of the major advantages that a company like Amazon had over a company like Barnes & Noble is that they did not have to charge sales tax to New Yorkers. This often resulted in a lower overall price. Now these companies do need to include tax and it remains to be seen if their more price sensitive customers may no longer be as loyal. I, for one, am not. And while a $1.00 sales tax on a book may not be enough to dissuade a customer from making a purchase, tax on a laptop, which could easily add over $100, might.
So how have companies responded? The harshest response came from Amazon and Overstock, which have independently filed lawsuits against New York State challenging the constitutionality of the new law (note: by filing independently, they are forcing New York to defend themselves against two lawsuits rather than one; a considerably more expensive undertaking). Meanwhile, most sites such as Amazon and Buy.com have complied and as of June 1st, have been charging sales tax to many an unsuspecting New Yorker. An email to each of these companies inquiring as to why the sites now charge NY sales tax resulted in an almost identical response which can be summed up as: New York passed this law, if you have a problem with it, contact them. As a result, I am sure I was far from the only one who complained to the New York Legislature about this.
Overstock, followed by other online retailers were even more creative and decided to dump its 3,400 New York affiliates. Not only did this protect the company from having to charge sales tax in NY, but it sent a clear message to Albany: keep this law and you will hurt New York small business owners. As a result many sites like 5StarAffiliatePrograms.com have started a grassroots effort to pressure New York to repeal the law.
There are a lot of online shoppers in New York, and while Amazon and Overstock complain that such a law is unconstitutional or too hard to implement, what it really comes down to is that 10% or more of their customer base is affected by this new law and may defect to the competition. This poses a major threat to these companies’ profitability which is already being affected by the economic downturn.
Why should those of you who do not live in New York care? If you ever want to ship an item to a friend or relative in NY, you’ll have to shell out a little extra for NY sales tax, one of the highest in the country. Even worse, if New York gets away with this law, other states may follow. California has already considered implementing an “iTunes tax” which would have charged tax on all music downloads, but the law was defeated in committee. At least for now.
So where do we stand at this point? It seems that Overstock and Amazon’s gamble may have paid off. Faced with angry customers, worried affiliates and looming lawsuits, New York State may be about to back down. The Senate voted unanimously on a bill to repeal the law and the bill has now been passed on to the Assembly for review. But there is a long way to go until the battle is over. Regardless of what happens, I will likely never see the $15.11 in sales tax I just paid to Amazon for my most recent order.
AUTHOR’S UPDATE: Thank you all for your comments and thank you to user "dumb money 76" for providing some interesting contrast to my article. Mr. (or Ms.) dumb money 76, you are correct on several points. As I mentioned in the article, New Yorkers have always been required to pay sales tax on their online purchases but few if any do. In a similar vein, people are supposed to pay income tax on the profits they make from selling their old junk at garage sales or on eBay. But again, few do. What I failed to mention however, is that one has to keep in mind why brick and mortar stores charge sales tax. The money is used for services that benefit these stores such as maintaining roads, repairing electricity, trash collection, etc. Amazon, Overstock and other sites based outside of NY receive no such benefits. NY's "Amazon Tax" may be closing a loophole in the law or even leveling the playing field as you suggest, but I'm not convinced Amazon should be subsidizing the government services that Barnes & Noble receive in NY. And is it really leveling the field? There are advantages and disadvantages to buying an item online besides sales tax. A customer may save on the sales tax but at the same time, they may have to pay much more for shipping and/or endure lengthy ship times. And in the spirit of true competition, Barnes & Noble should not petition that Amazon be forced to charge sales tax as well (brick and mortar companies have been lobbying for this law for years) but rather should be forced to find creative ways at competing with Amazon on their own core strengths (price is one of Amazon's core strengths not theirs). For instance, one way Barnes and Noble successfully accomplished this has been by offering Manhattan customers same day delivery, something Amazon's business model could never offer.
Perhaps a solution would be to charge sales tax to all customers with the tax revenues going to the website's home state. For instance, Overstock is based in Utah, so it might make more sense for them to charge Utah sales tax on all sales which could be used to subsidize services within their own state, not New York. But of course that would involve a huge overhaul of our current tax laws. But am I against a sales tax as some readers have suggested? As a consumer, I of course prefer paying lower prices for items but as a U.S. citizen I appreciate the value that paying taxes offers to society. But those who made this accusation are missing the point. The question isn't whether Amazon should be charging tax to New Yorkers, the question is whether New York's new law is technically illegal? And regardless, is it bad for New York? While I am no law expert, I think it is a stretch to claim affiliates qualify as a legal presence. And yes, I do think it can hurt NY businesses. First of all, if NY succeeds in keeping this tax on the books, other states are virtually guaranteed to pass similar laws of their own. Which means people may shun NY based internet companies, for those based in states that haven't passed such a law. Additionally, larger internet stores will likely follow Overstock's lead and shun them as well. Overstock may have been trying to send a message to Albany that the law will hurt NY businesses, but it was also a simple mathematical equation. As explained in their most recent earnings call transcript (seekingalpha.com/artic...), they calculated that they would lose more business by charging sales tax to New Yorkers than they would by abandoning their NY affiliates. If NY actually fights the lawsuits and wins, I think we will be seeing Amazon employ the same math and if their calculation brings the same result, Amazon’s affiliates will be out the door as well. Why haven't they done this yet? Amazon is very focused on customer service and my hunch is that they believe NY will either back down or lose the lawsuit. If that happens, there will be no need to kick out their NY affiliates and will have generated tremendous goodwill by not having done so. Especially in light of Overstock's abandonment of theirs. Plus many of Overstock's 3,400 NY affiliates will likely join Amazon now that Overstock has closed its doors to them. When this all blows over, many of them will probably choose not to rejoin Overstock. So as much as I hate paying more at Amazon, I thin this was a good move for them.
As for the user “Lisa” who requested an update, there unfortunately isn’t much to report. While a bill to repeal the law has passed the Senate by a wide margin (voting 6-24-08), it wasn't passed until the last day of New York's Session. The bill still needs to be approved by the Assembly to become law and that can't happen before the next Session which will not be until January, 2009.
Meanwhile, I’m afraid my article may have been overly optimistic. Even if the bill to repeal the tax passes the Assembly, according to Saul Hansell at the NY Times (bits.blogs.nytimes.com.../), it seems that Governor Paterson will likely veto it. So at the end of the day, those that want to see the Amazon tax repealed may have their hopes hinge on the outcome of Amazon and Overstock's lawsuits. And that could take a long time to resolve. It will also cost NY taxpayers a lot of money in lawyer's fees. Unfortunately, New York is very creative at finding ways to charge sales tax and if they lose the lawsuits, they'll likely find some other way to increase tax revenues. Anyone else remember when New York State sent agents to stake out New Jersey malls in 1992 to record NY license plate numbers? They were trying to crackdown on New Yorkers crossing the border to save on the lower taxes. It makes me wonder if New York would be more effective in increasing tax revenues by being competitive and actually lowered the NY tax rate. Then maybe our neighboring states would be flocking to NY stores instead of the other way around. "
I find my shopping options are rather limited now. There were actually a few purchases I was going to make but at the last minute, I found that with tax, the total price was now above my reservation price and I decided not to make the purchase after all. I am also a little dissapointed that the new law wasn't better advertised. I would have made some big ticket purchases before the deadline, but now that I procrastinated, I ended up paying much more. I would have even appreciated the websites like Amazon having some kind of pop-up warning me about the law rather than not realizing I was about to pay more than originally expected. But such is life.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Who is David Jackson?
My new boss is the CEO of Seeking Alpha. His name is David Jackson. But who exactly is David Jackson, I don't know. He is a mystery to me. On the one hand, he seems like your average friendly guy. But he is clearly also someone extraordinary and I don't understand how I had never heard of him before. When I first met him, I immediately knew I wanted to work for him and he was the main reason I accepted the position. He seems to be quite modest and it is probably how he's managed to stay off the media's radar for so long. Which, truth be told, is probably NOT the best quality for a CEO to have. But he's done amazing things with the company. Seeking Alpha started out as his hobby and it is now hugely successful and growing at leaps and bounds. He has this knack of just completely winning people over and his enthusiasm is contagious. He managed to get one of the top venture capital firms (Benchmark - the same group who funded Ebay, 1800 Flowers, and other highly successful companies) to invest in our company which, in those days, was probably a crazy idea. But every time he speaks, he really impresses me. Simply put, he is brilliant. He totally reminds me of a young Michael Bloomberg (only perhaps a little nicer). Will David build the next billion dollar financial empire? I don't know, but the few companies that make it to the top have some one like Michael Bloomberg or David Jackson at the helm.
Bloomberg was (and I'm sure still is) an absolutely amazing place to work. The caliber of employee they hire are really top notch and many of the best people I ever worked with were my fellow Bloomberg employees. Why did I start working at Bloomberg? It all started with a not so successful book called Bloomberg by Bloomberg written by... you guessed it, Michael Bloomberg. In hindsight, I suppose it was mostly a self aggrandizing account of Mike's life and the success of his company but hey, he is a self made billionaire so he must know what he is talking about. Regardless, I was completely captivated by this book and I decided right then and there that he was the man I wanted to work for after college. I sent out only one resume... to Bloomberg. I decided that is where I was going to be hired! Luckily, they did hire me or I would have been forced to send out some additional resumes pretty quickly.
At Bloomberg I was fortunate to have a lot of direct access to Mike. For one, it was the way he wanted Bloomberg L.P. to be. There are few walls and no private offices at Bloomberg. Everything is out in the open and Mike sat at a regular desk among everyone else and encouraged his employees to approach him. He used the same restrooms, ate the same food, even his salary was tied to be equivalent to the lowest paid employee in the company. Of course he owned 80% of a billion dollar empire so the impact of such a decision was purely psychological. But it demonstrated that he was in touch with the employees and their needs.
I saw him more frequently than just the chance encounters in the men's room though. Part of my job was to conduct exit interviews and analyze world wide turnover directly for Mike. I also ran the new hire orientation every Monday and when he had time, he spoke to them. But once each month, no matter how busy he was, he always made sure to have breakfast with all the new employees that had started that month. It was my job to organize and bring him to this monthly breakfast. At the time, I didn't even realize how unique I was that I probably had breakfast with Mike more often than many of his 10,000 employees put together. All I thought is how much I learned from this man during these meals. Whenever he would speak, we would drink in his words and totally believe that our company really was the best company out there.
Mike could be tough, or so I've heard. I never witnessed anything negative myself but heard some horror stories from other employees. And of course the news media has carried accounts of how he sexually harassed women or asked pregnant employees to get abortions. Some employees swear these accusation were all true and I suppose it wouldn't surprise be if they were. But it wasn't the total picture. Mike really cared about people and helped when he could at both the macro and micro level. On the one hand, he would give hundreds of millions of dollars away to charities and on the other, he would give individual underprivileged youth a chance at changing their lives by giving them internships at Bloomberg (another project I oversaw for a while). I remember one time an employee's home burned down and he called me and told me to get her family temporary housing arrangements and arrange for a local supermarket to provide them with food everyday and he didn't care how much it cost. I don't think most CEOs of a company that size would even have known that one of their employee's lost a home. David is the same way. It makes working here a pleasure on a whole different level and it's been a while since I felt that way about an employer.
Bloomberg was (and I'm sure still is) an absolutely amazing place to work. The caliber of employee they hire are really top notch and many of the best people I ever worked with were my fellow Bloomberg employees. Why did I start working at Bloomberg? It all started with a not so successful book called Bloomberg by Bloomberg written by... you guessed it, Michael Bloomberg. In hindsight, I suppose it was mostly a self aggrandizing account of Mike's life and the success of his company but hey, he is a self made billionaire so he must know what he is talking about. Regardless, I was completely captivated by this book and I decided right then and there that he was the man I wanted to work for after college. I sent out only one resume... to Bloomberg. I decided that is where I was going to be hired! Luckily, they did hire me or I would have been forced to send out some additional resumes pretty quickly.
At Bloomberg I was fortunate to have a lot of direct access to Mike. For one, it was the way he wanted Bloomberg L.P. to be. There are few walls and no private offices at Bloomberg. Everything is out in the open and Mike sat at a regular desk among everyone else and encouraged his employees to approach him. He used the same restrooms, ate the same food, even his salary was tied to be equivalent to the lowest paid employee in the company. Of course he owned 80% of a billion dollar empire so the impact of such a decision was purely psychological. But it demonstrated that he was in touch with the employees and their needs.
I saw him more frequently than just the chance encounters in the men's room though. Part of my job was to conduct exit interviews and analyze world wide turnover directly for Mike. I also ran the new hire orientation every Monday and when he had time, he spoke to them. But once each month, no matter how busy he was, he always made sure to have breakfast with all the new employees that had started that month. It was my job to organize and bring him to this monthly breakfast. At the time, I didn't even realize how unique I was that I probably had breakfast with Mike more often than many of his 10,000 employees put together. All I thought is how much I learned from this man during these meals. Whenever he would speak, we would drink in his words and totally believe that our company really was the best company out there.
Mike could be tough, or so I've heard. I never witnessed anything negative myself but heard some horror stories from other employees. And of course the news media has carried accounts of how he sexually harassed women or asked pregnant employees to get abortions. Some employees swear these accusation were all true and I suppose it wouldn't surprise be if they were. But it wasn't the total picture. Mike really cared about people and helped when he could at both the macro and micro level. On the one hand, he would give hundreds of millions of dollars away to charities and on the other, he would give individual underprivileged youth a chance at changing their lives by giving them internships at Bloomberg (another project I oversaw for a while). I remember one time an employee's home burned down and he called me and told me to get her family temporary housing arrangements and arrange for a local supermarket to provide them with food everyday and he didn't care how much it cost. I don't think most CEOs of a company that size would even have known that one of their employee's lost a home. David is the same way. It makes working here a pleasure on a whole different level and it's been a while since I felt that way about an employer.
A little history...
Okay, a little history about myself. I graduated from Binghamton University with both a BS and BA degrees. After graduating I began working at Bloomberg L.P. in Manhattan. After about two and a half years there, I was lured away by the big promises of the .com world. Interestingly, this was after the .com burst. I remember countless Bloomberg employees left lucrative positions in hopes of getting in at the ground floor of what might be the next Yahoo!. Most of them ended up unemployed. But in my case it was a safer transition. I joined an electronics wholesaler who had a brick and mortar business for 15 to 20 years and had only then decided to expand into the world of ecommerce. But it meant that their chances of going under were close to zero since the wholesale side was doing well. I was originally hired as a business consultant to create an online presence but after one year, they convinced me to stay on full-time as the director of online operations. I was with the company either as a full type director or in the capacity of a consultant for close to six years.
I've also founded a few small start up companies and was a business consultant to a few other companies, most notably Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings (AAWW). The company owns two airlines, Atlas Air and Polar Air and is the largest operator of 747 aircraft in the world. Afterwads, I decided it was time to pursue some higher education and I received MBA's from Tel Aviv University's Recanati School of Business and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business. Though pricey, I felt I received an excellent education with a strong international flavor.
Currently I work as the Director of Contributor Relations for Seeking Alpha, the leading provider of stock market opinion and analysis from blogs, money managers and investors. The company really has an amazing product which we feel very stongly about providing to the financial community completely free. Check them out: http://www.seekingalpha.com/. We have over 1300 contributors, print over 160 articles per day and have numerous other popular features such as free quarterly earnings call transcripts of over 3000 stocks, reports on Jim Cramer's picks, research tools and more. But I didn't mean for this to be a commerical for my company. I'm still relatively new and the euphoria hasn't warn off yet.
I am also married to a beautiful, charming and intelligent woman. Together we have (so far) one 14 month old son who always manages to bring a smile to the face of every one he meets. He is simply amazing. He's really come a long way from his first four months of his life where all he did was cry!
I've also founded a few small start up companies and was a business consultant to a few other companies, most notably Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings (AAWW). The company owns two airlines, Atlas Air and Polar Air and is the largest operator of 747 aircraft in the world. Afterwads, I decided it was time to pursue some higher education and I received MBA's from Tel Aviv University's Recanati School of Business and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business. Though pricey, I felt I received an excellent education with a strong international flavor.
Currently I work as the Director of Contributor Relations for Seeking Alpha, the leading provider of stock market opinion and analysis from blogs, money managers and investors. The company really has an amazing product which we feel very stongly about providing to the financial community completely free. Check them out: http://www.seekingalpha.com/. We have over 1300 contributors, print over 160 articles per day and have numerous other popular features such as free quarterly earnings call transcripts of over 3000 stocks, reports on Jim Cramer's picks, research tools and more. But I didn't mean for this to be a commerical for my company. I'm still relatively new and the euphoria hasn't warn off yet.
I am also married to a beautiful, charming and intelligent woman. Together we have (so far) one 14 month old son who always manages to bring a smile to the face of every one he meets. He is simply amazing. He's really come a long way from his first four months of his life where all he did was cry!
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