A lot of my favorite reading comes from reading about topics that interest me, people I admire, and experiments in business. I think most books and courses aren’t a good use of time since you probably only remember 5% of what you read. For instance, I found myself skimming the childhood portion of Steve Jobs’ biography by Isaacson to get the parts that discussed business.

I like studying anyone who achieved significant success. Elon Musk is probably the best living example of someone who has done it repeatedly. The following is another list of people who have built more than one company valued at over one billion dollars:

• Steve Jobs (Apple and Pixar)
• Elon Musk (Paypal, Space X, Tesla)
• Ken Xie (Fortinet and Juniper)
• Jack Dorsey (Twitter and Squareup)
• Richard Branson (several Virgin brands)

Gambling: : Evidence of Widespread Irrational Behavior

Close to 50% of discussions I heard before noon on the night of a  $600M+ lottery draw morning in San Francisco involved the lottery.

This leads to several potential reasons why people buy:

1. Many people are bad at math (statistics, is a subset of mathematics)
2. Many people rationalize poor decisions to seek a temporary high (ie. Impulsive, short-term minded behavior)
3. Many people place far more weight on the upside rather than downside of a situation

• It only took 3-4 months to get my first non-secured personal credit card offer in the mail.
• As mentioned in the post here on getting US credit, the number of steps for a non US citizen can be tedious
• This $10,000 unsecured card offer is from a firm I’ve never heard of.
• I just sent them a refundable check for $37 to get this new card set up.

In fact, risk management should be integrated as at least 25% of the discussion in any real world decision. In the real word, at least 25% of discussions involve some element of risk control/management.

Humans are predictably irrational in that we make decisions that are suboptimal but we’re predictable in our decisions over a large enough sample.

Behavior can be modelled and humans can use this intelligence and data to make the best decisions.

If you’re a store and you sell 20 ice cream flavors, how do you know which ones you should sell? Would you be better off or worse off if you sold sold only 10 flavors?

How should you email people to get the best response?
Does it make sense to be rude?
Should you send a proposal to someone first or wait for them to send you one?
Is it best to appear new or experienced?

Humans consistently make lots of suboptimal decisions instead of like a chess player who thinks “What is my best move?”

Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney both hired me as a consultant to win the Republican primaries where there was a conflict of interest.

The interesting thing is they both appeared at the same event at the same time, so even though I attempted to step out while they were there simultaneously, they kept wanting to be together.

Realistically though, I think both every candidate mismanaged their donations and everyone’s ads were a waste of money. If they honestly think they earned a return on their investment from advertising on TV, they are kidding themselves.

I gave out solid advice on how to actually acquire voters in a more predictable manner via performance-oriented and data-driven decision making.

I can almost guarantee none of the candidates know how many donations they received resulting from a specific advertisement. In 2012, there’s no excuse for not knowing your numbers. There should a clear target or a clear result from any action. Otherwise, politicians are gambling!

1. Use at least two computers, each designed for a specific type of project (eg. work only vs. recreation only)
2. For Windows Users: Use a unique “user” login for each project you do, so each new user is instead a “unique project.” I’ve found this very helpful for ensuring my computers run quickly because each user has a unique set of programs installed with much less unnecessary software running in the background.
3. Use a tool like Springpad/Evernote to take notes and create a new notepad for each new major project

• I think a good analogy of achieving maximum speed is to borrow an analogy from BitTorrent sharing.
• Instead of relying on 1 web developer, for example, why not have 1,000s of web developers bid on each individual project you do? Only using 1 developer creates a bottleneck. Hiring or downloading, in the case of torrents, from multiple parties, mitigates risk and helps increase speed.
• Instead of assigning a project to one person, why not break up a project’s tasks into 10 bite size pieces and assign them to 10 different people?

How do you manage these tasks?

• Project management tools (basecamp, teamlab etc)
• User permission logins (Every item you use should have a unique login)
• Shared documents (eg. Google Docs/Zoho Docs)

Your key objective as a leader is to great a blueprint, a roadmap, or a canvass.

You should also provide clear instructions and find talented people to execute. Spread risk among multiple parties. Don’t blackbox yourself to only one provider.

Speaking from personal experience, if you’re a non-US citizen and don’t have a social security number, you might run into a lot of challenges. A lot of government agencies and private bureaus aren’t cross-trained to private the information you need in many cases, so you might also be unintentionally misinformed.

1) Get a US Visa: (eg. TN/E2/EB-5) – Involves following their instructions on http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1326.html
2) Get an I94 when entering the border to US, typically from US Customs and Border Protection (insist on this being completed and don’t enter your country of origin without this supporting document)
3) Get a US mailing address and I was told the city must match the city where you’ll visit a Social Security Address.  Since I tried to get one in New York and was making a trip over to California, I had to immediately use a hotel address I was staying at in New York and then call the Social Security Office in New York later with my reference number to use my California address.
4) With your US Visa and I94, go to the Social Security Number (SSN) office with the US visa, an I94 and proof of address
5) Wait about 4 weeks for the SSN to arrive in the mail
6) Open a US bank account (you might need an SSN to get one unless you physically go in or have ANOTHER US signer on the account)
7)
a) Use the SSN to get a secured card (even a brand new secured card might be denied so you need to build a banking relationship). These secured cards cost up to $30/year and claim to report to the 3 big credit bureaus: Transunion, Equifax, and Experian
b) Optionally, get secured line of credits through your same banking relationship (You are basically paying interest for the privilege of eventually getting credit)
8.) Ensure the bank guarantees approval on the secured card (eg. Wells Fargo can do this. Capital One told me they can’t.).  The minimum deposit is $300.
9) Generate history on this SSN by paying off your secured card. Eventually, banks claim you’ll automatically be offered a non-secured card after successful payment history
10) Use a non-secured card and gradually increase its limit with good payment history.

I hope this post is useful for others who follow in my footsteps. There is a lot of misinformation out there but this is what I found works.

P.S. you can get around some requirements and get corporate credit with a US corporate tax ID to apply for credit (eg. getting a US cell phone with T-Mobile; however, other carriers like AT&T may not budge)

Disclaimer: Don’t use this as legal advice and do your own due diligence