Running Around!

My buddy and I have been emailing back and forth on where we rank Roethlisberger in terms of elite NFL QBs. I think he’s overrated — and it’s not that I don’t like him. I actually thought Pitt made a great pick when he came out of Miami of Ohio. I just didn’t think he was an elite QB — like top 5 in the NFL. After Big Ben led two great drives for Pitt at the end of the Pitt/Tenn game, I had to go through the tape to see if my feelings have changed.

I thought the highlights were a little funky so I went back and watched every Pitt pass play. Thoughts:

–I think Big Ben’s gaudy stats are misleading. 33/43 for 363, 1 TD, and 2 picks. (one of the picks was a halftime hail mary so it shouldn’t be counted against him.)
–the first reason is that the most of his completions are short dump offs and quick outs, 0-5 yards within the line of scrimmage. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s just something to factor in when I ask the question how accurate is this guy.
–I thought Tenn did a horrible job game planing. They generally rushed 4. Pittsburgh often blocked with 6. Sometimes 5. I don’t think I ever saw then block straight up. Even on the Javon Kearse sack where he came in unblocked — Tenn showed 6, Pitt showed 6. 1 Tenn player dropped into coverage, 1 Pitt player leaked out. So 5 on 5. It just turned out that the remaining players weren’t matched up man to man and no one was on Kearse. On the very next play. The very next play. Tenn rushed only 3 (!) and Roethlisberger had all day. I would say that describes to me his protection. All day. Pitt was always +1 or +2 in terms of blockers and Roethlisberger had plenty of time. The previous 2 sacks were his fault, I think, for holding the ball a incredible amount of time.
–Another example, on the pass play that set up the game winning FG, Tenn rushed 4 and Pitt blocked with SEVEN! (two of them eventually released but that was after several seconds and even then, it was still 5 blockers against 4 guys rushing)
–On pass plays of difficulty (beyond 5 yards and into some coverage) — I thought he was average accuracy. That being said, on passes to Santonio Holmes, he had a really great touch — they have some sort of chemistry.

So let me ask the question another way. What about his two big drives - the one to send it into OT and the game winning one in OT? I would actually argue against Tenn here. The reason is because Pitt’s running game was bad the whole game. So Pitt then had to throw in those situations. And frankly, because Tenn was putting no pressure on Big Ben — he had all day for eventually one of his guys to get open, even if Tenn had extra cornerbacks in the game. And he found them. So that’s definitely a big plus for him.

It’s also a plus that he was able to do what he did with the ground game being as bad as it was.

Not trying to hate on Big Ben — but Tenn did not figure out (or really try, frankly) how to put pressure on Big Ben or to adequately cover the short passes. Let’s say this was against a team with some sort of pass rush where he had to make plays? I think Pitt loses.

I’m taking this great screenwriting class at iO West right now taught by John Hindman (writer/director of “The Answer Man” which premiered at Sundance this year and stars Jeff Daniels and Lauren Graham.) While watching a lot of movies isn’t one of our assignments, I started keeping track of which movies I watch week to week after starting the class and figured I would just blog about it.

Magnolia
3 hour+ movies are really intimidating to me. It’s like 2 movies in 1. That being said, Magnolia is spectacular. The acting is great with just a tremendous cast. Tom Cruise’s turn as Frank TJ Mackey is remarkable — one of his best performances. It’s also Paul Thomas Anderson which is hard to beat. I know it’s hard to set aside so much time, but well worth it.

The Cove
Absolutely go see this. Might be the best or second best doc I’ve seen all year (”Sergio” which I saw at Sundance was also stellar.) I think when I first heard the premise, I was thinking, “What? People are slaughtering dolphins in Japan?” Yup. That’s it. They’re slaughtering dolphins in Japan. And a small group of activists are trying to stop them and bring awareness to the issue (people outside of this small town, even in Japan, don’t know about this). Interestingly, the doc also raises some other very troubling issues (the group slaughtering the dolphins tried to introduce dolphin meat throughout the Japanese school system to familiarize children with the taste even though dolphin meat is extremely toxic — mercury poisoning.) Important issue and well done. What more can you ask?

Rudy
I probably saw this for the 5th time and it’s just as good as the first time I saw it. So moving and inspirational. I got swept up watching it again. Sean Astin and Charles Dutton don’t get nearly enough credit for their marvelous performances.

500 Days of Summer
Really really nice movie. Fun, interesting, fresh. Zooey Deschanel has just a wonderful, charming turn. It’s also short — 90 minutes. I’m not necessarily saying short movies are better, but there’s something about a movie that packs in everything you wanted to see and leaves you feeling incredibly satisfied yet only took 90 minutes. It’s great. Heck - I even started listening to “The Smiths” after watching this movie!

Jaws
I started my heavy movie watching much later in life so I’m still catching up on all the movies that fall into the category of, “What?! You never saw [insert movie title here]!” Obviously Jaws fits into this category. Quite a movie. Quite a movie. Now, I know lots of people are totally afraid of the ocean because of this movie. No worries. I was already afraid of the ocean before this movie. By the way, the unintentional comedy of Jaws is great. Like when Roy Scheider comes back in and says, “I think we need a bigger boat.” So understated and so wonderful.

I’ve been trying to close my TimeWarner account. In packing up, I was quite meticulous — even taping the remote controller to my cable box. However, in the mayhem, I put my cable modem in who knows where. So I go to Time Warner on 23rd St. (they charge you $40 if you schedule a pick-up AND the pick-up people want a 4 hour window). I don’t have my cable modem so the guy is like, “It’s $90.” I’m totally fine paying it — it’s misplaced in who knows where and I’ve already looked for it and I want my account closed. (part of the reason is that they charge you every day while the account is open — so with the cost of cable + Internet, my account charges can easily exceed $90 in a few weeks.)

Instead of just assessing me $90 which I requested — the guy says that I need (and apparently even if I had all my stuff I had to do this too) to call a particular number the next day, find out the total balance / credit and at that point, if I have found my cable modem, that’s cool. Ok.

I just called. Apparently I have a credit but I still need to account for the cable modem. I say I want to pay the $90 penalty. The guy tells me that he can’t have me pay the $90 because someone else needs to assess me the fee. He then says that I should call my local TimeWarner branch so that they can assess me the fee (I’m not making this up. He apparently can’t do it himself.) He gives me a # to call.

I call the #. The guy seems almost exactly identical to the last guy and then tells me that I should go to the local branch on 23rd St. to close this out (again, not making this up.) By the way, both guys had to put me on hold to talk to the supervisor about what to do. One guy said he had never even seen this situation before. I don’t know how that’s possible. Anyway, so now apparently what will happen is that after 6-8 weeks, their system will figure out that I still owe a cable modem and send me a notice that I owe $90 for it. They will then send me a bill for it but since I have a credit, I can THEN pay the balance. But I cannot pay it now.

They promised me that they don’t tack on any outrageous late fees or whatever else with it. They also said that they annotate my account with all these conversations so if I have a problem, they’ll know that I called. I’m borderline speechless.

The Writer’s Guild has a fascinating series of panels on screen writing. Each week, they pick a genre (action/adventure, drama, comedy, etc.) and bring together what has so far been a fantastic group of accomplished writers and (probably more importantly) good panelists. A few nights ago, I was at the session on drama and James Gray (We Own the Night, Two Lovers) described some of the things that he did for We Own the Night. To get Mark Wahlberg, he apparently called him every day (left a message on his voicemail) for 9 months. Every day. Eventually Mark said, “I guess I could do it. I think I have some time…” And then James proceeded to schedule the shoot around Mark’s schedule.

David Goyer said something which I found absolutely fascinating. Here’s a guy who is frankly one of the top screenwriters out there. Besides Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, he has worked on the Blade trilogy and is now working on X-Men Origins: Magneto. He said that’s the life of every guy on the panel. He said that 90% of the work he’s generated, he’s generated through relationships he’s developed / past working relationships — not his agent. (which coincidentally, economically makes sense since agents only get 10%) Still — pretty amazing huh? Here you have one of the best and most well known action/adventure screenwriters out there (represented by one of the most powerful agencies out there, CAA) and the people he’s getting work from are people he knows. I suppose this is remarkably similar to my own experiences in the tech world — but a really stunning reminder of the power, strength, and necessity of personal relationships.

Bob Woodward on Charlie Rose [link] talks about trying to find Obama’s center of gravity — essentially what’s the defining aspect of his agenda / what he’s pursuing. He mentions that when W was first elected, he presumed that the center of gravity would be the Bush tax cuts and spent 9 months researching it. Of course, that all went out the window once 9/11 happened.

So that’s my theory. Sure — he wants to crush al Qaeda, get out of Iraq, find peace in the Middle East, reform health care, expand education, and all that. But it’s part of a larger vision. Government that works. Fight against injustice. What I would term a common sense Presidency.

Tim Kurkjian was on Mike & Mike this morning and went through his all-time baseball team.

C: Bench
1st: Gehrig
2nd: Hornsby
SS: Wagner
3rd: Mike Schmidt
LF: Ted Williams
CF: Willie Mays
RF: Ruth
Righty Starting Pitcher: Walter Johnson
Lefty Starting Pitcher: Lefty Grove
Closer: Mariano Rivera

He was then asked about having only 1 active player on the roster and he thought that:
–Pujols, if he keeps up his pace, has the chance to displace Gehrig — which he said if you know how great Gehrig was, shows how great Pujols is.
–If ARod stayed at SS, he would’ve displaced Wagner.
–Randy Johnson is behind both Lefty Grove and Warren Spahn in terms of lefties, but not by much.
–Ken Griffey Jr. probably had a chance to displace Willie Mays but got hurt. (which is saying something because right behind Mays is JoeD)

A thought exercise I had was let’s say I was fielding an actual team — so it wasn’t just a collective accolade. Would I make any changes / which players would I try to get on this team?
–Ricky Henderson: Tony LaRussa calls him the most dangerous hitter he’s ever coached. And LaRussa has coached McGwire, Canseco, and Pujols. I love Ricky because of his ability to get on base, work the count at the start of the game, and then steal every base in sight. On a team like this, I might even have Ricky start over Mays just because there’s so much power every else in the lineup.
–Jeter: I hate to use the word “intangibles” but Jeter is super smart and crafty. He’s shown a propensity for showing up big on big stages.
–Manny: It’s a weird list here because I’m not going to put Bonds or McGwire on this list because of steroids, yet I feel no reason to leave Manny out. I guess there was no doubt in my mind that Manny would be right back where he was when he came back from his suspension. I know Manny did PEDs but it’s not even like Bonds to me — who went from great to unstoppable. Manny has always been unstoppable. Best hitter I’ve ever seen.
–Ichiro: My one knock on Ichiro is that he doesn’t walk enough, thus, his OBP isn’t as high as I’d like it to be. In a weird way, this makes him as a not ideal leadoff hitter because he always makes contact with the ball. (I should note that his OBP this year is .394 with a .362 batting average, which is spectacular)
–pitchers? I’m really wracking my brain on this one. Unfortunately no on one of my favorite pitchers, Maddux, because his post-season record isn’t as good as his regular season record. Same with Clemens. I like Randy Johnson a lot. Maybe Pedro Martinez. Only knock on him is he’s vulnerable if you work the counts. Then there are the very short-term wonders, like David Wells or Kevin Brown who have had some of the most spectacular seasons ever (and throw in Kerry Wood and Mark Prior to that list). But that list is long.

I somehow made it to Whole Foods today, filled a basket with food, and made it all the way through checkout without realizing I didn’t have my wallet with me. I’m not usually this absent minded, though I think I did this one other time when buying a sandwich. Anyways, I was thinking that I literally had no alternative way to pay. None. Nothing on my key chain. I couldn’t give them my phone number like when you forget your rewards card. Why doesn’t this exist? Of course, authentication is a problem but what happened to all the biometric stuff? Couldn’t they have something that authenticates you via fingerprint that accesses a pre-paid account similar to PayPal? Why do I always hear so much buzz about new forms of payment yet see so few actual new forms of payment (and the ones I actually see, like debit cards, actually provide me zero benefit?)

I always complain that I never see famous people around (though the last time I was in Brooklyn, I walked past Paul Giamatti who lives in the same neighborhood I lived in in Brooklyn Heights. Random fact. His father was Bart Giamatti, former commissioner of baseball — and probably my favorite commissioner since I’ve been following baseball.) Now I think I know the reasons why.

2. I really don’t recognize people when they’re out of context. I see all these photos with captions saying the celebrity’s name and I barely even recognize them then. I’ve had plenty of “that person sort of looks like that person” sightings, but I rarely go “Oh yes, it’s that person for sure.” This reminds me of a funny story. One of my former colleagues at Google has two young kids. He said that his kids have difficulty remembering him (their FATHER) out of context. For instance, he once went to pick up his daughter (maybe 3 years old? 4?) at day care. His wife usually does this. His daughter didn’t recognize him.

I recently read a blog posting about an interviewee’s experience of interviewing at Google (via Jess Lee on FriendFeed) and at the end of it, he discussed her pros and cons of working at Microsoft vs. Google. As someone who has worked at both places, I thought I would comment a little on his comments. I spent 4 years at Google in their product team. I only spent a couple of months at Microsoft contracting in their MSN group (I did strategic planning for them. In fact, if I didn’t take the offer from Google, I was to work on Microsoft’s competitive response to Google.) I also spent a couple of years at amazon.com so I’ll throw in a few bits here and there. The blog posting from Ferozeh is here [link]:

• “Google = sunny weather Microsoft = a lot of rain if you are going to be working in Seattle.”

NC: Less true than I thought. Coming out of college, I initially specifically crossed off companies that were in the Seattle area because I don’t like rain. I ended up living in Seattle for 3 years and loved it. There’s no doubt that it’s sunny nearly 365 days a year in the Bay Area (at least in the Mountain View area where Google is headquartered.) The weather is more unpredictable in SF. It does rain in Seattle (obviously) — but in a much different way than I expected. It seems to rarely rain heavy (I almost never had an umbrella with me) — however, when it does, it’s almost as if the weather is spitting at you. I often wore a jacket with a hood because of this. The summers in Seattle are spectacular — way better than anywhere else I’ve been. However, the winters are horrible — sometimes going several weeks without (effectively) seeing the sun.

• Some of the people I have talked to who are already working at Microsoft and Google suggest that Google is relatively more hectic than Microsoft

NC: Absolutely. I’m sure things have changed some since I’ve been at both places, but Google was much much more hectic than Microsoft. I think culture filters through to everything so you could’ve probably guessed this just by looking at their products and release cycles. Google releases all the time — Microsoft moves much more slowly. Working at Microsoft is working at a very big company that wants to be a very big company. Working at Google is working at a very big company that wants to be a small company (not always successful, but at least the desire is there) amazon.com is (though this is 7 years ago now) was working at a small company that wanted to be a big company. It really was a small company but frankly, was looking to create the bureaucratic structures of a big company.

• Microsoft has a better health insurance offering.

NC: I thought Google’s health insurance / overall benefits was quite good. However, Microsoft’s is rock solid. As a contractor, I wasn’t on Microsoft’s plan, but quite a number of my friends are at Microsoft now and the benefits plan was a significant reason for them joining / them staying. I have a broad understanding of their plan and it definitely strikes me as better than Google’s and light years better than amazon’s.

• Google’s pay can be higher but I am not sure how they measure upto Microsoft’s if you take into the high cost of living in the Bay area.

NC: I always read (and hear) quite a number of complaints about Google’s pay. Personally, I always thought compensation was quite good at Google. Microsoft is very good as well, but different. Microsoft’s pay is quite stable whereas you can make a much larger amount from Google via bonuses, grants, etc. That being said, Google’s base salary ranges are quite competitive — but if you’re looking to maximize that number specifically, Microsoft might be higher depending on the position. I would say amazon’s is far behind both of them on this front. The cost of living in Seattle is excellent though. Excellent. (no state income tax too)

• Microsoft is huge conglomerate and very diversifed which means that you can always move to different department from writing drivers to game development. At Google significant projects are web based advertising or tools thus limiting your choices.

NC: I would go further than this. It’s not just what’s available to you in terms of products, etc. There’s a very different culture at work at Microsoft/amazon.com vs. Google. Moving into different groups, crossing into different functions (product management to marketing to finance, etc.), etc. was common at amazon.com and Microsoft. Very common. Recruiting internally was also almost at a fevered pitch. So opportunities were high. The mentality at Google (shockingly) was much more on stability. Almost like a Soviet-style centralized planning model. You were needed here and therefore you were moved there. Poaching across divisions was heavily frowned upon and could lead to big political problems. People move, but it’s often at a breaking point. Someone is thinking about leaving the company, someone is really unhappy, serious problems between you and your manager, etc. Something like that didn’t have to happen at a place like amazon for you to move. You could be perfectly happy in your current position but another group really wanted you and offered you something that was a step up — you could depart for that in a totally amicable way. That being said, if for whatever reason you’re the type that other groups want — and you’re making a break (e.g. going to leave Google, etc.) — then the floodgates open and no one will hold you back because they’d rather you go somewhere else in the company than leave it altogether obviously. One of my friends was even able to negotiate a multi-million dollar, multi-year contract.

As an outsider to all the companies at this point, I would say that just in terms of pure interesting projects, I have to believe Google has the clear advantage here in terms of products to work on.

• You don’t get to know which team you would be working for if you are hired at Google until you start work. On the contrary at Microsoft you get to interview with the team you’ll actually be working with. This can become serious if at Google you get stuck in a stupid project. I know one guy who was offered both from Google and Microsoft and chose Microsoft because he didn’t know what team he would be working for at Google and he didn’t want to risk being stuck in a stupid project or team.

NC: This was a very surprising thing to me about Google. They really view you (at the lower levels) as chess pieces simply to move around. Except here, it’s not a chess board but rather an Excel spreadsheet. Oh, we need someone to work on X? Change the zero to a one and put your name next to it (with no discussion from you). At amazon.com and Microsoft, what people were working on was a frequent source of discussion and frankly, the dynamics were different. At those places, the employee had the leverage because they were being recruited across the company. So if a manager did something like that, the employee would just take one of the myriad internal offers he/she had and move on. At Google, this theoretically could be done, but it’s much more difficult and less kosher. In other words, there wasn’t that much incentive to be a good manager in that sense.

So yes, this is a big drawback of Google. Not only not knowing what project you’re going to be working on, but sometimes even knowing who you’re going to be working for or how that structure works. This type of stuff is spelled out rather clearly at amazon.com/Microsoft simply because the person recruiting you is typically the person who will be managing you. Makes sense right? It’s not a machine where you’re hiring people into the machine. Some person at amazon.com is saying, “I want YOU for my team.” Totally different dynamic.

That being said, at the time, the organizational structure of Google was significantly flatter than Microsoft. It changed quite a bit in the time I was at Google, but for similar functions, I noticed that Google would have several fewer layers than Microsoft — and that makes a big difference not just in terms of visibility, but also in terms of just sanity in terms of getting stuff out the door.

• If you work for Google at Mountain View you get a lot of opportunites to move to startups and other companies since the hub of tech companies is California and not Washington. If you at Microsoft this is one drawback where you don’t have as many startup opportunities.

NC: This is not something to underestimate. I felt very much like an outsider to the tech community living in Seattle… and I was working for amazon.com and Microsoft! The number of people who work in tech is just fractional. Put it this way, if you wanted to work in finance, you’d live in New York right? If you want to work in tech, you gotta be in Silicon Valley. It’s not even close in my mind. There are exponentially more people in start-ups, tech companies, venture capital firms, etc. The concentration of talent is amazing. Even the accidental nature of running into people associated with the industry is crazy. One of my tae kwon do instructors was a partner in a venture capital firm. This type of stuff doesn’t happen in Seattle. I would sum this up by saying, don’t delude yourself into thinking that [insert any non Silicon Valley city here including Seattle, New York, Austin, etc.] is anywhere near Silicon Valley in terms of the tech community. Or the fact that you’re working for a great tech company in a non-Silicon Valley city makes up for it. It doesn’t. Also, while you’ll invariably meet and work with great tech people in these smaller cities, it’ll be a tiny fraction of what you see in Silicon Valley.

• Apparently Google has a higher brand recognition than Microsoft according to some survey. Working at Google can turn you from a Geek into a chick-magnet as I have observed that the fairer sex is more impressed with “I work at Google” than the other way round. Google is associated with a lot of “cool” factor that Microsoft isn’t. If Google experiences the same explosive growth as it did in the last 10 years who knows you could turn “I work at Google” into a pickup line

NC: Cool factor is definitely true. That being said, is Google like a gold stamp whereas Microsoft is not? Not really. Especially in the Bay area, Microsoft is quite well respected. There are red flags, but people would certainly stand up and look at someone with that pedigree. Same with Google.

I’m listening to the B.S. Report now and Bill Simmons and Chad Ford said something really interesting. Simmons said that it’s interesting how we hear all these rumors of potential trades but the ones that actually go down have not been talked about. The Spurs trade for Richard Jefferson being the most timely example. I haven’t heard a peep of this trade. Chad Ford replied that it was a trade that they should’ve saw coming but no one did. The Bucks have been trying to shed payroll so they could re-sign their own free agents and the Spurs have been looking to re-do their team in some way.

I agree with both Simmons and Ford. Way too much chasing of rumors out there and not enough original analysis to figure out what are logical responses to team needs and pressures.