how radical

Not new lessons

“They are not new lessons. Never owe any money you can’t pay tomorrow morning. Never let the markets dictate your actions. Always be in a position to play your own game. Never take on more risks than you can handle. But all of those were old lessons, unfortunately. Even though I didn’t see it coming, those lessons which are timeless allowed us to in effect profit from it rather than suffer from it. Good businesses, good management, plenty of liquidity, always having a loaded gun; if you play by those principles you will do fine no matter what happens. And you don’t ever know what’s going to happen.”

- Warren Buffett on key lessons from the financial crisis, via Andy Parkinson’s 20 Punches

The 7 Immutable Laws of Investing

I’m pretty sure this will be the most valuable article I read all year, investing or otherwise. 

The Seven Immutable Laws of Investing.

They are as follows:
1. Always insist on a margin of safety
2. This time is never different
3. Be patient and wait for the fat pitch
4. Be contrarian
5. Risk is the permanent loss of capital, never a number
6. Be leery of leverage
7. Never invest in something you don’t understand

Talking goals and bootstrapping with Andrew Warner of Mixergy

I officially met Andrew Warner last month at Superconf, where we were both judges for the startup blast competition. Unoffically, I feel as if I’ve ‘known’ him for much longer since I’ve watched dozens of his previous interviews. It was an honor to talk with him for an hour about Slicehost, DevStructure, setting goals and bootstrapping a company. Andrew interviews entrepreneurs (almost daily!) with the goal of inspiring and informing his audience. He’s a natural behind the microphone, as I confirmed at Superconf, and I really enjoyed our chat. If anyone has questions about the interview please get in touch. The interview and transcript can be found at Mixergy.

If you meet Matt Tanase in person, ask him to show you the wallpaper photo on his phone. It’ll probably be of a jet that he’s aiming to buy one day, and the photo is one of the ways he motivates himself to keep working so he could earn enough to buy it.

The Conversation #22: The Secret Sauce

I joined Dan Benjamin on the Conversation yesterday for another chat about startups and business. I could talk with Dan for hours, it’s so much fun. Show notes and audio/video link below.

Dan Benjamin talks with Matt Tanase of Slicehost and DevStructure. They discuss creating demand for a product and your business, marketing on a budget, building an audience, getting your users to help market for you, the importance of a co-founder, acquisitions, and more.

http://5by5.tv/conversation/22

Simplicity & Convention

“The only weapons we have are simplicity and convention. Tattoo that on your forehead in reverse so that you always see it reflected in the screen. What is truly decisive on the battlefield are attitudes: hard work, responsibility, and paying attention to reality instead of the voiceover in your head.”

Link

render :js in Rails 3

I just wasted a ton of time trying to get render :js working. I hope this saves a google visitor time or someone tells me what I was doing wrong. 

According to guides.rubyonrails.org, render :js should work, but I kept getting an error about nil formats. Some people used render :text, but even after setting :content_type to “text/javascript”, it would just display the text. So I finally gave up and used the javascript_tag. This was all done in a helper. I also just wanted to post something using Markdown to Posterous.

UPDATE: Markdown didn’t work, so I’m using a gist.

  def things_I_tried   # didn't work   render :js => "alert('sucks')"   render :text => "<script>alert('blah')</script>;", :content_type => "text/javascript"   # worked   javascript_tag("alert('ftw')")  end

Engineering Perfection

“Here’s the thing about engineering, and this car is all about engineering: A machine is never finished, never fully optimized. Engineers subscribe not to Aquinas but Augustine. No machine is ever perfect except when it marches toward perfectibility.” - WSJ on the Perfect Porsche

The Conversation: Scratch the Itch

Dan Benjamin, one of my favorite podcasters and RoR man about town, invited me onto The Conversation today to discuss startups and acquisitions. It was awesome talking business and an honor to appear on the show. I have listened to every episode, along with The Pipeline and 5by5’s other shows. Dan has an awesome radio voice and is an amazing interviewer. It was also great catching up with Troy and Garrett, both of whom I met through Slicehost.   MP3 LinkItunes
Video Link
Transcript

Love what you do

 “But this game is really, really important to me. It’s done a lot for me. It’s done a lot for my family. As much as I’ve been through, I don’t take any start for granted, ‘cause I never know when it’s going to end. And I love doing it. I really do. And I love everybody in this clubhouse and I don’t like anybody I play against when I’m between the lines. That’s just the way it is. It’s super, super important to me.”

Goals are good…