Summary: House Judiciary Committee Hearing on Hate Crimes (2019)

At the House Judiciary Committee's hearing yesterday to examine and discuss white nationalism and hate crimes, Google admitted to manipulating search results based on subjective factors if content was controversial, i.e., "on the border." Only Rep. Tom McClintock of California pushed back hard, saying the power to decide what speech is acceptable and what is not can be dangerous. 

I've personally had an innocuous comment I tried posting on Instagram blocked before I was able to post it, showing the reach of AI. The reason given in the pop-up box was that I was "bullying" an Iowa wrestling coach and former Olympic contender, but no reasonable human being would classify my criticism as bullying. As Rep. McClintock pointed out, "bullying" can be pretext to censor legitimate criticism, and in doing so, prevent progress and transparency. On a more basic level, allowing corporations power over acceptable speech could also become a way to extract an "advertising tax" on individuals and businesses to resolve an image issue if they are caught in an algorithm's web. Such a dynamic feeds monopolies (and more difficult anti-trust enforcement) by favoring large over small businesses. 

People in positions of power ought to be scrutinized fairly and on all the facts. An unaccountable entity--whether corporate or government--picking and choosing which facts to include or exclude enables poor leadership. Worse, it prevents local leaders and voters from properly utilizing their powers, causing a loss of credibility on all sides and potential backlash (e.g., President Trump). By the way, that Iowa wrestling coach I tried posting a comment about? Almost no one knows he was accused of sexual assault, leading to an interesting (and public) court battle (Brands v. Sheldon Community School, 671 F. Supp. 627 (N.D. Iowa 1987)). 

My Twitter recap of the hearing is below: 

Two other issues arose: 1) many states lack appropriate hate crime laws, so the federal government should consider establishing a better minimum baseline; and 2) both state and federal laws do little to nothing to address widespread "doxxing" problems, i.e., revelation of private contact information specifically for purposes of harassment. 

Informational Wars in the 21st Century: the Collapse of Creativity

I should be packing for my upcoming Singaporean trip but instead, I re-watched the finale of Star Trek: Next Generation, and the material still captivates. As any Netflix subscriber will tell you, one good show often leads to another, and the 1987 premiere didn't seem dated, either. It got me thinking: why do I enjoy older movies and older dialogue, whether Hitchcock or Hepburn (Audrey, not Katherine)? Why do I often find the old superior to the new? And how is it possible the American intellect has declined so precipitously over the past 30 years? 

Growing up, I loved libraries and bookstores. Any random selection would do, and within minutes, I'd settle into an incredible story. Later, I discovered college bookstores, and within them were even more incredible stories that challenged my brain and entertained my soul. I knew I would never find myself being bored. 

In 2001, a few years after graduating college, I visited Singapore and experienced an anomaly in the world-literature continuum. A few books displayed never-before-seen admonitions: "For Sale Only in Singapore/Malaysia." Standard operating procedure assumed all governments control their reputations through "information boosting," i.e., ensuring their version of events is placed at the top of the shelf, but I didn't know about trade agreements or intelligence tactics and couldn't have told you the difference between MI5 or MI6. Although SEO wasn't yet a priority for private and state actors, its concept was present in that tiny bookstore, revealing the possibility of artifice. 

It was also in Singapore, a former British colony, where I first learned the power of international designations. An NUS professor revealed Singapore had been designated as a "developed," not "developing," country, excluding it from numerous international grants, even though most of its land mass could be called rural in 2001. After two years in one of the West Coast's most expensive and most diverse law schools, tiny Singapore is where I received my first international perspective. Singapore couldn't help itself; as a port-focused city-state, it had to embrace globalization before the term became fashionable in Western academic circles. 

I returned to the United States for my final year of law school wiser but not warier. 9/11 would happen shortly afterwards, and my next seven years would be spent eliminating over 75,000 USD of student loans during a severe recession. Only later would the issues of globalization and informational warfare return to my mental purview. They arose not willingly, but when I finally noticed no bookstore challenged me, no magazine captivated me, and the new could not compare with the old. I was starting to become bored. 

Today, I googled an unfavorable but famous event in a foreign country that should have been easily found. Instead, my search results contained fake news links designed to capture exactly the search terms I'd used, but in ways that concealed the actual event--and therefore the truth. The links included most of the event's general details, but the female protagonist had been replaced by a fake male one, and none of the names were real. During various hacking episodes, I'd suspected we'd progressed from geographical content restrictions to online bleaching, but de facto censorship of legal activities in America was new to me. Only Yahoo--allegedly one of the worst search engines in America, saved from obsolescence by its investments in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan--had the "right" result in the middle of the first page, a single link surrounded by deliberately engineered fake news. Incredibly, SEO manipulation had, in this instance, made my limited analog brain more powerful than one of America's most valuable technology companies. 

"Everything you see is propaganda," I once told a middle school class, and my opinion hasn't changed. Information wars and actions in furtherance of those wars are more obvious when a book's cover discloses geographical limits or when the most prevalent story about another country involves chewing gum, but unbiased information has always been an endangered species. I am young enough to remember Silicon Valley's battle cry, "Information wants to be free," but they never promised accuracy or context. 

In Star Wars, the engineer's revelation of a design flaw in the Death Star gives the rebels hope. Similarly, once we become aware of the informational flaws we receive daily from public and private news sources, perhaps we, too, can recognize "hidden" manipulation not just in search engine algorithms, but in social and mainstream media and even in the very people elevated into positions of power. If we achieve this higher level of understanding, humanity's hope wouldn't be founded on false optimism but upon the realization our species has evolved in the past and can continue to evolve beyond its self-defeating patterns of scapegoating, wishful thinking, and hyperbole. 

Gene Roddenberry, a military veteran and the creator of Star Trek, built his entire life around the inevitability of human progress. He declared, "The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars but by its ability to prevent them." Sadly, by this metric, the United States has failed its citizens, children, and veterans continuously since Vietnam. Having fought one unjust war after another--losing almost every one of them while economic competitors China and Japan focused on domestic infrastructure--America's current Establishment has little choice but to glorify militarism. Such propaganda requires economic support and job preferences to maintain momentum and, most of all, to bury past mistakes. Once activated, the machinery of militarism rarely sets its own boundaries; an enemy always exists just over the horizon, and more measures may always be taken to promote the appearance of safety. 

Few people in America see the connection between the TSA's expansion, its privatized body scanning machines, and the military's concern with employing returning veterans; even fewer realize the trillions of borrowed taxpayer dollars involved reduce not only America's economic potential but its future flexibility; and perhaps fewer still can conjure an alternative result for those same taxpayer dollars (hint: think Tokyo). Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s prescience is worth remembering: "If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read 'Vietnam' ... A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." (From 1967 in, of all places, New York City.) 

Let us now return to the original question: why does the old look, feel, and read better than the new in America when the opposite should be true? Consider that in normal societies, the younger generation is apt to forgo established customs as the older generation's knowledge degrades, diminishing claims to authority. Consider too that in abnormal societies, the old maintain their grips on the future by suffocating change through laws and punishment. And finally, note that diseased societies send their young to die for meaningless purposes, removing opposition as well as potential change agents. I say to you today, if the old appears shinier than the new, it is a sure sign of authoritarianism, evidence the youth are being suppressed or their imaginations stifled. Dr. King answered correctly in 1967, but I will go further: a military/police culture of following orders is incompatible with art, philosophy, nuance--and therefore creativity. 

When little boys and girls are deluged with images linking violence and war to heroism regardless of whether such wars are just, America's adults have replaced responsibility with desensitization and irrationality. 

When the table of brotherhood can only be set if every man reserves his right to a shotgun or a rifle, the spirit of the law has perished. 

When the sweltering heat in which our troops are stationed generates no lasting regional peace but instead parched national pocketbooks, America's vision has been a desert mirage all along. 

When our soldiers claim the ethos of courage while administering death by drones, we are living in a Greek tragedy of our own making. 

When our police officers consider themselves above the law, order becomes subservient to its half-witted cousin, obedience. 

If our judges refuse to read the papers presented to them and instead rely upon secondhand memorandums, the book of justice will remain unused. 

Now is the time to reform our sacred institutions by removing the sacrilegious from their temples and pulpits in Congress, courthouses, police departments, corporate boardrooms, and war rooms. There will be neither cohesion nor stability until each citizen is assured corruption has been driven out and the exorcists given their due. 

To that end, it may surprise you to learn the Muslims had wisdom we lack. They separated civilians, merchants, and the military by placing them in physically distinct areas. The medina was the place of business and barter, and the forts and minarets stationed fighters at a distance. The mosques provided sanitation five times daily in the required act of wudu before prayer, mixing practicality with spirituality. Such arrangements required respect for logistics and infrastructure, not just weaponry. The distance between the two spheres of influence created built-in advantages beyond the freer development of calligraphy, science, algebra, and art; for instance, complaints arising in the medina (aka city) would need time and effort to reach the forts (aka military outposts), increasing the likelihood of legitimacy and thus an appropriate remedy. 

Oman

It may not be easy for an American historian to admit, but the aforementioned separation might have been the only truly "separate but equal" arrangement in modern history. 

Ultimately, if we do not understand some of humanity's problems have already been solved, we will neglect the task of modifying pre-existing solutions to current times and invite a cycle of arrogance. If we compound our error by ignoring history and amplifying propaganda, we will pollute the intellectual waters our children require to swim. Above all, if we are to have a dream worth mentioning, it must be one that facilitates a peaceful transition from old to young as well as a transfer of timeless knowledge. If each successive generation must start the Great Global Novel from scratch, our progress will be needlessly haphazard with no guarantee of reaching the final page. 

Today, the American Dream appears to have been a lie to all but the most talented, the most lucky, and the most likely to inherit. As I seek a better life in Singapore, I hope one day, America rediscovers the generosity of spirit that made it a beacon for honest men and women of a certain character. In the meantime, I'll be in Singapore, taking my chances and charting the unknown possibilities of my existence. May we all live long and prosper. 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2018) 

Google 2012 Annual Meeting, Facestuffing Edition

Welcome!  Above is a pic of the dessert served at Google's 2012 annual shareholder meeting.  (Thank you, Larry, Sergey, and Eric!)  I've attended many Bay Area shareholder meetings (see right hand side of blog, about a third of the way down), and I used to blog in detail about Google's annual shareholder meetings.  The company now uploads them on YouTube, so a blog post seems redundant; however, if you're interested in some older reviews, here is one from 2009 and another review from 2010.  I miss the more informal earlier meetings, when it was just Sergey Brin and Larry Page on two stool chairs answering questions.  Of course, back then, fewer shareholders attended.  

One tidbit you may not pick up from the video--almost everyone who attended is a senior citizen or retired.  (The meeting usually starts around 2:00PM, which means almost no one can attend except for retirees.)  This year, the meeting was fairly uneventful.  Neither Larry Page nor Sergey Brin attended.  We had one shareholder who liked the fact that Google stood up to China, said he used to be in the Air Force, and ended his spiel saying how he would deal with China: "Bomb them."  He didn't look like he was joking.  I asked the executives to better fine-tune the captioning features on YouTube videos.  I've noticed that except for a few Khan Academy videos, the captioning feature is almost worthless.  Most of the words are not consistently transcribed, and over the past two years, the captioning feature hasn't improved much.  I asked Mr. Schmidt to imagine a world where he had a grandchild who was deaf, and the grandchild would one day come to him and say, (paraphrase) "I love the internet, but I can't fully engage with it.  Was there something you could have done back in 2011, 2012, and 2013 to fix this?" I said I hoped he would be able to give his grandchild a satisfactory answer.   

Anyway, if you're interested in more shareholder reviews, scroll about a third of the way down the right hand side of this blog.  You will see plenty of firsthand accounts of various shareholder meetings, including Berkshire Hathaway, Disney, Electronic Arts, Apple, Starbucks, and more.  The rest of the blog discusses diverse topics, including economics, politics, law, India,  little-known films, and even Mark Twain.  

Google's Annual Shareholder Meeting (2010)

Google held its annual shareholder meeting on May 13, 2010. Google offers shareholders a free lunch every year. The picture above shows the kind of food available (in case you're wondering, yes, I did stuff my face). I really enjoyed the rice and chocolate eclairs.

Google typically posts a video of its annual meeting on YouTube as well as a transcript prepared by a certified court reporter, so there's plenty of information about the meeting available to the public. (See here for another review.)

CEO Eric Schmidt briefly mentioned Google's great results, saying "All is well after a year of great turmoil." During the meeting, Mr. Schmidt showed a fun commercial for Chrome called "Chrome Speed Tests," which highlighted the web browser's incredible speed.

I thanked Larry Page for showing up this year and asked him what he thought was the next "big thing." Mr. Page said that Google Translate is going to be a game-changer. The two-thirds of the world's population not yet online will greatly benefit from fluid translation services, which can be used in telephones and other mobile devices.

CEO Schmidt mentioned Google's plan to enable people to text-message in their native language and have it automatically translated into the receiver's native language. Although most of the world's populations do not have ready internet access or computers, many people have mobile phones, even in so-called "Third World" countries, so an effective translation service would connect almost the entire world together. Later, I thought about how an automatic translation service could preserve some little-used languages, which in turn could help preserve a small country's or people's cultural heritage. I also think it would be wonderful if a small business-owner who speaks only English could sell products directly to someone in China or other countries. Down the road, if Google creates a program that translates spoken languages, American business-owners could more easily hire and sell to immigrants who may have difficulty speaking perfect English. In addition, older immigrants--who may have difficulty learning and speaking English--would be able to communicate better with their grandchildren and the general public.

One side note: I thanked Mr. Page for attending this year and said I was feeling sentimental about previous meetings, where the atmosphere was more casual and he and Sergey would be dressed in jeans. Mr. Page immediately gave props to CEO Schmidt, touching him on the arm and reminding me that CEO Schmidt was also present at previous meetings. CEO Schmidt then joked that he also wore jeans at the previous meetings. I thought it was a great moment, because sometimes, founders and successors don't get along (e.g., Accuray, Inc.) and besides, who doesn't love a billionaire bromance?

Google had a product demo section, where I discovered sites.google.com. I coach youth basketball, and I've always wanted to create a website for my teams, but I've never had the time. Well, Google has already done it for me and other coaches. If you go to Google's "sites" page, you will find a template called "Soccer Team" that can be used to post game times, agendas, and pictures. It's a ready-made website that community centers, YMCAs, and private clubs can use to help streamline programs and help their players keep in touch.

There were some embarrassing moments for Google. Google received multiple complaints about the responsiveness of its Investor Relations department. One shareholder complained that Google took three weeks to return her phone call. Another shareholder said she was unaware of the annual meeting because she never received a proxy or an email notification and made it to the meeting only because a friend told her about it.

After the meeting, several shareholders went to the front to speak with CFO Patrick Pichette about their issues receiving proxy materials and notices. Mr. Pichette was very patient and explained that Google may be slower to respond to individual phone calls than other companies because of its engineering mindset. He said that Google was an engineering company, and engineers tend to think that if something is done properly, all the information is available online and there is no need to pick up the phone.

I don't understand why the company's CFO was handling these kinds of complaints. Typically, routine shareholder complaints would be handled by Investor Relations, not the CFO. At the same time, perhaps CEO Schmidt didn't feel comfortable referring shareholders to Investor Relations because shareholders were complaining about that particular department.

I've raised issues with the way Google's Investor Relations Department treats shareholders before. For one thing, Google doesn't permit any questions or comments during the shareholder proposal portion of the meeting. It allows a shareholder to set forth a proposal and then moves directly to a vote. If other shareholders have information or comments about a particular proposal, Google does not allow them to express themselves until after the proposal has been voted on, making comments a moot point. A more reasonable course of action would be to allow comments, but to limit the comments to one minute or less.

After the meeting, I spoke with someone in Google's Investor Relations, and she didn't seem entirely happy to talk to me. Not only that, but she didn't have any business cards on her. Google gets one day a year to interact with individual shareholders, and its Investor Relations employee doesn't have a business card to give shareholders? (At all the other shareholder meetings I've attended, Investor Relations has provided me with a business card if requested and actively encouraged me to follow up on any issues I had.) Outside, I ran into the same Investor Relations representative again, and when I asked her whether she had figured out the source of the problems mentioned by other shareholders, she curtly told me, "There was no problem." So let me get this straight: shareholders don't get notice of the meeting, and Investor Relations doesn't think there is a problem? Really? (By the way, I heard through the grapevine that even some Google employees/shareholders didn't know about the annual meeting until they received an email telling them the cafeteria would be closed due to the meeting.)

In most companies, Investor Relations is an overlooked and underutilized department, and I've never understood why. Investor Relations is the first place shareholders look when they have issues with a company, so if the department is stocked with unprofessional employees, the entire company's reputation suffers.

Some companies have wonderful Investor Relations people. Brocade Communications has a particularly excellent department. Tessera Technologies also has a great department. (Props to Sr. Director of Investor Relations Moriah Shilton, who seems like a consummate professional.)

On the other hand, an inexperienced or unprofessional Investor Relations employee can harm a company's reputation. After all, if a company can't manage to properly execute an annual meeting or treat individual shareholders with respect, you start to wonder what else the company can't handle. For example, at Visa's (V) first annual meeting, an Investor Relations representative demanded my name and personal contact information when I took a picture with the CEO. She then told me I couldn't publish the picture. Well, if a CEO is happy to pose for a picture with a shareholder, why bother the shareholder after the picture is taken? Here I was, at a company's first annual meeting as a publicly traded corporation, and I get accosted SS-style. (So far, no other company's Investor Relations department has demanded my papers.)

One year, at McAfee's (MFE) meeting, which was very short, I picked up some cookies and soda and began eating in the conference room where the annual meeting had been held. The Board of Directors also got some food and sat in the same room and started shooting the breeze. So far, so good, right? Well, McAfee's Investor Relations, apparently concerned about my presence, got up and shooed the entire Board into a different room. God forbid she actually introduce herself or the Board to the one shareholder who decided to show up to the meeting. I briefly attended a British elementary school, and yet, my only experience with a schoolmarm type has been at McAfee. (It's a shame, too, because McAfee's CEO is actually a nice guy.)

It's funny--I've attended McAfee's annual meetings twice, and each time, I think I was the only non-employee there. Yet, each time, the company had large tables of food and drink available. It appears that McAfee's Investor Relations department uses the annual meeting to fatten up the Board and treat non-employee shareholders like lepers. What's even worse is McAfee's competitor, Symantec, runs a great annual meeting and gives shareholders free software or other useful items. If you're a consumer company, why give people an excuse to favor your competition?

Anyway, back to Google. One Google employee seemed to think that shareholders could easily print out proof of ownership of shares and bring that to the meeting for admission. The problem is that you have to own shares as of the "record date" to attend the meeting, and the record date is typically several months prior to the annual meeting. So if shareholders come in with a current printout of their holdings, that wouldn't necessarily entitle them to admission, because they could have bought the shares after the record date. I'm not saying these issues are simple, but why have Investor Relations departments if they can't help ordinary shareholders navigate the increasingly complex world of shareholder proxies and regulations?

Shareholders who have issues with their proxies need to be more pro-active. Many Investor Relations employees don't seem to understand the machinations involved in individual shareholder notices because so much of the work is outsourced. Here's my advice to shareholders who stopped receiving annual meeting notices and proxies in the mail: contact your brokers and tell them you want to elect to receive copies of your proxy materials by mail. You have to actively opt back into the hard copy system if you want paper copies of shareholder materials. After July 1, 2007, companies no longer have to mail you hard copies of proxies and may email you a link to their materials on-line. Unfortunately, with all the online spam, some shareholders may not be getting notices because emails are being diverted into their spam folders.

I will close on a positive note. As most people know, Google offers its employees tons of perks, but I discovered two more of them: on-site washers and dryers and smoothies made-to-order, including a delicious banana/chocolate combination.

It's good to be King, and right now, Google is the King. Long live the King.

Google's Annual Shareholder Meeting (2009)

I attended Google's (GOOG) annual shareholder meeting today, May 7, 2009. As usual, the meeting took place on Google's campus. In the past, meetings were an intimate, casual affair. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google's founders, would sit on stools and answer shareholder questions. I loved watching these two young men up-end Santa Clara County's normally uptight corporate culture. Sergey was especially fun to watch, because if he didn't think your question or comment had merit, he'd take you on directly. During one meeting a few years ago, when a shareholder chastised Google for not doing enough to combat China's censorship, saying other companies were being more pro-active, Sergey sneeringly pointed out that Yahoo had just helped China jail a reporter. In any case, I should have known it was all too good to be true. This year, neither founder attended the meeting. The meeting took place in a larger conference hall instead of an upstairs room above the cafeteria. I suppose this development is a natural progression--more shareholders attend the annual meeting, and most companies move away from their founders as they grow. Still, I hope Sergey and Larry come to next year's meeting. It wasn't the same without the two of them sitting up there, jeans and all, ready to answer questions without a corporate-style verbal filter.

I missed the lunch, which was held at 12:30PM. (I still managed to get two It's-It ice cream treats and a cold salad to tide me over). The meeting itself started at 2:00PM. David Drummond, Google's Senior VP and Chief Legal Officer (and a Santa Clara University graduate--go Broncos!), handled the formal part of the meeting. During the formal part of the meeting, a Chinese activist [Update: his name is Jing Zhao] wanted to make some comments on a shareholder proposal relating to online censorship; however, Google's procedures do not allow ordinary shareholders to make comments on proposals prior to voting. Google only lets the shareholder who placed the proposal on the ballot to speak for a few minutes. Thus, Google acts as a partial censor at its annual meeting--at least with respect to comments that may impact how shareholders vote on stockholder proposals.

Many shareholders vote their shares in person at the meeting and may be influenced by shareholder comments. Allowing ordinary shareholders to comment on proposals only after voting is closed is tantamount to the American government banning CNN from making political comments until after national election polls are closed. Google ought to limit the time a shareholder can speak on proposals to three minutes and let anyone who wants to comment specifically on a proposal have their say. This change would strike a reasonable balance between allowing activists to disrupt the meeting and restricting the flow of information to shareholders.

As for the person who wanted to speak, his first language isn't English. I've seen him at other shareholder meetings commenting on stockholder proposals relating to China. He is against China's censorship policies, but his broken English makes him difficult to understand. In this case, when he wasn't given an opportunity to speak, he quietly walked out of the meeting. When he tried to speak at Cisco's annual shareholder meeting, the CEO allowed him to speak briefly. After the meeting, a Cisco investor relations representative took him outside and listened to him. Cisco handled the situation much better than Google, but I am confident Google will learn from this experience.

CEO Eric Schmidt handled the informal portion of the meeting. He spoke for about ten minutes. His main points were these:

1. There is no recession in information.
2. Google is making advertising ridiculously easy.
3. Mobile is wherever you are. ["Search" can be part of the person, unrestricted to a place.]

During the Q&A session Mr. David Drummond talked about censorship as being bigger than just China. He said it also took place in non-authoritarian countries. In a really interesting comment, he said that police have visited Google in the middle of the night because Google would not share information. He later mentioned Germany and France as two non-authoritarian countries that apparently engage in some censorship.

A shareholder asked about company morale now that Google's "legendary" perks have been reduced. CEO Schmidt said Google still had amazing perks, including fifteen(!) food options/cafeterias. Mr. Schmidt is correct--Google still has fantastic perks, and the perks aren't limited to tangible items. A casual stroll through Google's offices shows that employees have the freedom to do pretty much anything. One employee, Mr. Tan Chade-Meng, has pictures with lots of famous speakers posted outside his office, and most Google employees decorate their work space as they see fit. I saw a bunch of international flags, stickers from different American states, and even pictures promoting a pirate club. Google even has on-site medical doctors who can prescribe medication, so no employee has to go to the hospital unless something really serious happens. Of course, Google employees still get free food, soft drinks, coffee, and massages (Google gives massage certificates to employees on their birthdays). Google employees may also bring a friend twice a month to the cafeteria for a complimentary meal. In short, I wouldn't worry about Google's employees. They are expected to work hard and are allowed wide latitude as long as their work gets done.

Another shareholder asked Google not to split its stock. He was concerned with market manipulators and short sellers.

Other shareholders commented on how to improve various services, especially Google's language translation tools.

Overall, Google's shareholder meeting was well-done, but not a great experience. It almost felt like the company had matured into just another big corporation. Many shareholders fell in love with Google because of Larry and Sergey's vision. Without them at the meeting, Google risks having a so-so shareholder meeting instead of an annual event on par with Berkshire Hathaway, Apple Inc., and other wonderful companies.

Bonus: here is Eric Savitz's take on the meeting. The picture above is of Eric and me. For those of you who follow his blog, he seems like a really cool guy.

Audiocasts of annual meetings are here. Video of the annual meeting is here.

Google Short Term Roundtrip Completed

In case you are following my trades, today, on 09/30/2008, I sold 100 GOOG at 412 dollars. I made 5.4% on the short-term trade. GOOG may go higher, but every wise investor's primary rule is, "Don't be greedy." Or, as Cramer says, "Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered."

Now I have to go figure out what is going on with Cypress Semiconductor (CY) shares. I know they spun off Sunpower, but Yahoo Finance is showing that CY shot up over 60% post-spinoff. I had some CY shares and bought more AMAT yesterday because it appears Obama will win the election; if so, solar power companies will benefit from his tax credit/subsidy plan. Even so, CY, the stand-alone semiconductor company, increasing 60+% (according to Yahoo finance) seems strange and incorrect.

More on the CY spinoff here: http://www.thestreet.com/story/10440059/1/a-wacky-debut-for-cypress-semi-stock.html

Update: I am now the proud owner of 17 shares of SPWRB. Spinoffs are always nice, especially when they are in tax-deferred accounts. Calculating a basis for spinoffs come tax-time deserves its own level of hell in Dante's Inferno.

Update: GOOG According to Yahoo finance, Google stock closed today at $320.50/share, but something fishy is going on. In after-hours, GOOG is trading at $413/share. Meanwhile, Google's finance page shows a closing price of $342/share. Thus, we have three different prices for the same stock. I always think some major player (Gordon Gekko reborn?) is manipulating shares somehow when this kind of discrepancy occurs.

Inefficiency happens more frequently than people would like to admit. For example, when I placed my trade to buy 100 shares of GOOG at a market price, I bought shares at $391--even though immediately before the trade, and immediately and at least a minute after the trade, GOOG shares traded around $388. Someone pocketed (stole?) the three dollars. Multiply that by thousands and millions of shares traded daily, and you can see that someone is making massive amounts of money.

Google a Short Term Trade?

On September 29, 2008, I bought 100 shares of Google (GOOG) at around $391 per share and may buy more tomorrow. I am optimistic that once the bailout package is re-worked, it will be passed on Thursday, and the overall stock market and Google stock will increase.

Google has several short-term catalysts:

1. The Google phone (the T-Mobile HTC G1) is set for a timely launch; the iPhone craze has subsided, allowing consumers to notice a competing product; and for now, the G1 lacks any problems, such as the launch problems Garmin (GRMN) is having with its nuvifone.

See U.K. article below for more information on the G1:

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/article4830543.ece

2. The U.S. Antitrust Department should not interfere with the Google-Yahoo deal. Jeff Jarvis has an excellent article on this issue:

[T]he problem with going after Google is that - unlike typical monopolies - it didn't steal its booty like a pirate in the night. It didn't win by being closed and proprietary. Google won by being open and distributed - which is not the image of the monopolist.

(from http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/15/digitalmedia.google)

3. As stated above, the House will pass a revised bailout bill soon, and the market should jump at least 200 points on that day. Short-term volatility will favor companies unfairly beaten down by the financial sector, such as State Street Corp. (STT), which didn't directly invest in subprime, and cash-rich companies, like Google (GOOG).

On a side note, when I bought the Google shares, I placed a market order rather than a limit order, causing the trade to execute at 391 rather than the lowest available price (at the time) of 388. Remember: when trading in volatile markets, place a limit order.

The information on this site is provided for discussion purposes only and does not constitute investing recommendations. Under no circumstances does this information represent a recommendation to buy or sell securities or make any kind of an investment. You are responsible for your own due diligence.

Fun Shareholder Meetings

A friend once asked me about the most fun shareholder meetings to attend. Here is my list:

1. Apple, Inc. (AAPL) To believe how charismatic Steve Jobs is, you have to see him in person. Long-time shareholders always attend, and the techies ask intelligent questions and swap user tips with other shareholders. Plus, the Board is filled with top-level people, including recently, Al Gore.

2. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B). You can buy the "B" shares to get into this meeting, which were selling at around $4,390 (much less than the "A" shares, which cost $132,350 for one share as of June 2, 2008). Berkshire Hathaway is fun because of the Q&A session with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger; the live entertainment (Jimmy Buffett and Susan Lucci have appeared recently); and the annual video, which once showed Warren beating LeBron James in a one-on-one game (I still want to buy Warren's "1/8" number jersey, but they don't offer it anywhere!). Mr. Munger and Mr. Buffett work together so well, it's almost like seeing an elite, educational Laurel and Hardy show. In addition, there's lots of shopping to be done. I bought some great Fruit of the Loom underwear and some See's Candies at a discount.

Some caveats: the meeting's value depends a bit on the questions asked--if the questions asked are terrible, the meeting won't be as great. Also, this event has gotten so huge that it feels overcrowded--about 31,000 people attended this year. For example, I had to wait in line for about 45 minutes to partake in a food buffet. In addition, some of the events are spread out around Omaha, like Furniture Mart and Gorat's Steakhouse, so you need a car and GPS to be able to experience all the events.

3. Starbucks (SBUX). Starbucks' meeting is similar to Berkshire Hathaway's in the sense that a surprise guest comes every year to perform. In 2008, k.d. lang sang three beautiful songs, an experience worth attending just for her. Obviously, coffee is offered, but the meeting itself is the reason to attend. Starbucks usually unveils new goals and new items to the shareholders first, and I knew more about future plans than non-Seattle employees did for about a month after the meeting. A goody-bag is offered to shareholders on the way out. One downside--a huge line awaits all shareholders wanting to attend, so get there early and hope it doesn't rain!

4. Peet's (PEET). Peet's meeting is fun for several reasons. First, it is still a relatively small company, so the meetings feel like a family event. Second, the food and coffee are delicious. Third, sometimes the meeting is held at a roasting facility, which allows shareholders to get a sense of how the business is run.

5. Electronic Arts (ERTS). This one is a kick. If you want to see the environment in which video game designers work, check out this shareholder meeting. ERTS has an arcade, air hockey, foosball, and several other games, all for free. I spent an hour (okay, three) reliving my high school days in the arcade playing some John Madden football. Some other online games are apparently offered on the computers near the arcade, but I used that to check up on a work matter (I had to review a tentative court ruling the day of the meeting). ERTS has a Starbucks inside its company. You never have to leave the company, basically. It's a bit like Yahoo's set-up, where it's a little city within a company. The presentation also includes a preview of upcoming games on a big screen. And the best part of of it all? ERTS gives out a free video game to its attendees every year. Booyah!

6. Google (GOOG) is a new company, but it knows how to take care of shareholders. Food is offered (a friend told me they served filet mignon in 2008), and the founders sit on stools in casual-wear and answer questions in an informal setting.

7. Intuit (INTU). This one I mention only because they have given out valuable free software in the past. If you buy your Quicken software and live locally in Mountain View, CA, you might be better off just buying one share of the company and attending the meeting. The former CEO, Stephen Bennet, was very friendly at the meeting I attended a few years ago--he even replied to an email I sent. (I try to praise and point out responsive CEOs.)

Please add your own favorites in the "comments" section. I am always looking for fun shareholder meetings. I heard McDonald's and Coca-Cola's meetings are great, but I am not traveling across the country on my own dime for a shareholder meeting until I get more information. The big one I've neglected to mention is Walmart's annual meeting--it's supposed to be a big bash, but it's hard to take a few days off to travel to Arkansas and keep up on work.

Curt Hazlett, in a March 28, 2005 article, “Annual Meetings Can Be Valuable Tools for Journalists,” describes one reason I go to shareholder meetings–they offer valuable insight into a company:

http://www.businessjournalism.org/pages/biz/2005/03/
annual_meetings_can_be_valuabl/