Oculus VR Seems to Forgot How They Become Successful

(3/26/2014) This is an exemplary story of modern capitalism. A startup, Oculus VR, just announced that it is sold to Facebook at $2B. If it is a virtual game company starts from private capital, it would be just a regular acquisition. However, Oculus VR "raised more than $2.4 million on Kickstarter in September 2012," and this sale pisses many sponsors off. This is different from a homeless person winning a lottery from passer-by's generosity. It ruins the passion in many people who are willing to help to fulfill a dream. Facebook's Oculus VR may still be successful in the future. However, how will the Oculus founders do to win back people's trust in them?

Lesson learned: Never forget about where we come from!

中文感想：一個受群眾募資而成功的公司，昨天宣布將被FB以20億美元買下，結果是讓那些曾經熱心捐助的人感到背叛。我的結論是，做人（或者是公司作為一個法人）不應該忘本！

Independent Contract Truck Drivers Can form Labor Unions

(3/21/2014) The lifestyle of truck driver in the U.S. is long-hour and stressful, especially for those long-haul drivers. To work independently and gain flexibility on their working schedule, some truck drivers become "owner operators" as a self employed (or free-lanced) commercial truck drivers and hired by carriers. It supposes that owner operators have more freedom and take more controls about their assignment and working schedules. But these independent contracted truck drives normally have to pay higher insurance for themselves. Some trucking carriers intentionally use independent contractors to take drivers of their employees to avoid payroll taxes and compensations. A positive side-effect of using independent contractors for the carriers is that the contractors cannot form a union since they are not employees.

Now it can be changed. A carrier from California now accepts an agreement with their "independent contractors" and allows them to form a labor union and cannot ask contractors whether they belong to a union or take retaliation. Now the independent contractors can take collective actions against the carrier if they think the working conditions violates their labor right.

Franchise Owner's Dream

(3/7/2014) Recently, several cities raised their minimal wages to improve the workers of low-skill jobs. Business like McDonald, Berger King, Papa Johns or UPS local store... are against raising minimal wages and say their franchises will be forced to raise the price. What they said might be true because many franchises are running in a very thin margin. This article has a very good analysis about Franchise business and the lives of being franchise.

A quote from this article "Franchisees don’t enjoy the market powers and economies of scale of their parent companies. Rather, they run small businesses with narrow profit margins, high failure rates, and plenty of anti-corporate grievances of their own. Anyone who wants to help immiserated fast-food workers, in other words, also needs to spare a few thoughts for their immiserated bosses."

DRM K-Cup for Keurig?

(3/5/2014) Will consumers buy proprietary k-cup coffee just for the Keurig coffee maker? Well, I think Keurig may overestimate its muscle to push consumers around. Time will tell. You may wonder why Keurig wants to take such a risky move. Well, Keurig is selling its coffee machine cheap expecting consumers will buy its k-cups. However, coffee is not like printer toner and people have very different tastes on their preferred coffee. So Keurig cannot really secure its profit from selling its K-kups. Consumers can buy Starbucks or other brandname's cups. There are plenty of knock-offs in the cup and in the coffee machines as well. This disruptive innovation to people's coffee drinking behavior may turn out to be short glory days for Keurig.

Costly Winter for US Airlines

(3/3/2013) It has been a very costly winter for U.S. Airlines. Snow storms pounded onto the U.S. midwest and east one after another and the cost to the airlines can be as high as $6 billion. Passengers are frustrated too. Not only the flights can be canceled, it take a longer time to rebook an alternative flights since the airlines have been cutting flights in increase its load factor. When my flight back to Taiwan early January was canceled due to a snowstorm, my travel was delayed for two full days.