Monthly Archive for June, 2008

Goodbye Gates

Published on June 27, 2008 in Business. 10 Comments Tags: , , .

Bill Gates Mugshot
This Friday marks the final day of Bill Gates’s 30-plus year career as the founder of the modern technology age’s most massive, dominate, and iconic companies, Microsoft.

I’m tempted to try and post a biography, but better ones can be found elsewhere, and I wouldn’t know where to begin telling the story of such a famous man. He is not just any mere millionaire. Bill Gates is among the most visionary, intelligent, and greatest men who ever lived. It is a small list of people who make a mark in history so significant as to be placed in school textbooks for ages. My guess is that Gates will be on that list.

Wired is commemorating his retirement with a timeline of his life’s most notable moments.

I have handpicked some of the highlights:

  • October 28, 1955- William Henry Gates III is born in Seattle. His grandmother Adelle nicknames him “Trey,” the cardplayer’s term for a three. He later becomes an avid poker player. [As most mathematicians are]
  • 1967- Gates, a difficult sixth grader, asks his mother, “Have you ever tried thinking?” [From a young age, he was a profound thinker beyond his years.]
  • Fall 1967- Gates’ parents enroll him in Lakeside School, an exclusive boys school in Seattle. He is the smallest kid in the class, yet has size 13 feet. [I'm not sure what they were trying to say with the foot size fact, but nerds are well-endowed in all the right places.]
  • September 1973- Gates enrolls at Harvard University. Academically, his record is spotty — having a near-photographic memory helps him cram, but he often misses class, neglecting showers and living on pizza and soda while programming and playing poker. He befriends Steve Ballmer, who lives down the hall in the same dormitory. [Story of my high school years]
  • April 11, 1993- On a chartered flight from Florida to Seattle, Gates proposes to Melinda. He has the plane make a stop in Omaha so the couple can go ring shopping with Warren Buffett.
  • July 17, 1995- Gates becomes the richest man in the world at 39, with a fortune of $12.9 billion. Microsoft’s revenue for 1995 is $5.9 billion; the company has 17,801 employees. [He would hold the top spot for 13 years until 2008 when he was passed by both his old friend Warren Buffett and America Movil's Carlos Slim.]
  • January 13, 2000- Gates steps down as Microsoft’s CEO to become chief software architect, handing over the reins to Steve Ballmer. [Ballmer will be standing in for Gates as the company's primary figurehead.]
  • 2002- According to a poll of teenagers in Hong Kong and China, Gates is more idolized than Chinese Communist icon Mao Tse-tung. [The World is Flat author Thomas Friedman wrote best (this line being paraphrased from memory), "In India, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America, Britney Spears is Britney Spears. That is the problem with our culture."]

After all these years, the timeline can finally be closed with:
June 27, 2008- Bill Gates’s last day as a Microsoft employee.

MobLogic TV

Published on June 21, 2008 in MobLogic, Politics and Video. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

CBS’s content is questionable at times. Two and a Half Men, like most sitcoms, reuses the same storylines for nearly every episode and is one of the greatest sitcoms I’ve seen solely because Charlie Sheen is indisputably the greatest actor of all time. Why? Because he plays himself in every role.

This post isn’t about Two and a Half Men though. CBS has been branching out from its roots to mix two types of media: television and the Internet. Youtube’s success inspired tons of web video startups, CBS being no exception.

I now introduce you to MobLogic TV, a political show started by CBS that asks the public for their opinion on major modern issues, as well as investigates the truth behind events.

What I really appreciate about this venture is that CBS isn’t really mass-marketing. MobLogic feels homegrown, like a production team is making the shows without corporate influence and are deciding on when and how they’d like to cover topics, many of which you would never hear from more mainstream media.

Beware of a slightly Democratic spin on things. This is probably due to the nature of Republican’s to be more content with the current situation of the nation. Any show this question-heavy would end up slanted toward Democrats asking Republicans about the state of things, and I’m hoping that it will question Obama’s office equally when he is inducted. There are episodes where both parties are equally represented.

Now your first episode introductory episode of MobLogic:

And a second episode that’ll give you a clearer picture of what the show is about:

I’ll be including MobLogic videos in my posts occasionally, partly because I really like the show and and partly because I want CBS to sponsor me.

And I Thought High School was Wild…

Published on June 18, 2008 in Business. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Broadcom's Logo

There were a lot of things wrong with Broadcom.

First of all, whoever designed a corporate logo that looks vaguely like the company’s stock chart from 1998 to 2002 should either explain his or her reasoning to the public or take a class in inspiring artistry.

Second, at no major fault of its own, Broadcom became the 90s technology bubble’s broadband semiconductor darling only to come crashing down with the rest of the stocks in 2000. At least Broadcom, unlike most technology companies at the time, built chips that products actually use to this day (Nintendo’s Wii and DS systems use Broadcom parts for online connectivity). But the meteoric rise and fall of the company’s stock was pumped by Chief Executive Officer Henry Nicholas III, a youthful, energetic engineer born in Cincinnati, Ohio with an appearance similar to Alan Rickman from his Hans Gruber Die Hard days. Such charisma may be an inspiration to investors and employees while business is good. The company was founded in 1991, and in less than a decade, he found himself valued at over $2 billion.

However, along with the drop in the stock price came a drop in profits. When tested at actually managing a business in trouble, rather than one in a growing marketplace during the technology rush, Nicholas chose to opt out of the public eye before it poked his.

I realize a lot of this sounds kinda bad, but I’m simply applying some context before I give Nicholas credit.

If Nicholas is to be applauded for anything (when I say “applauded”, keep in mind that I don’t actually endorse drug-induced casual sex), it’s for teaching every other executive in history, even Hugh Hefner, how to properly throw a party.

In April, Nicholas voluntarily submitted himself into rehab-for-the-stars, The Betty Ford Center, after he confirmed suspicions that he was an alcoholic. If only it ended there.

Henry Nicholas IIIThe New York Post’s subtly titled “ROCKIN’ THE COKED-OUT ‘ORGY’ CAVE” exposed Nicholas’s life in ways he was likely trying to keep underground. It turns out that many of his employees are suing him for unpaid wages of all things. After reading the article, you’ll wonder why that was their major gripe and had to let the investigators handle the rest of his shenanigans. Some men may have vices, and others, well, they’ll compete with Caligula for the king of crazies.

Henry Nicholas III had the makings of a real-life “Iron Man.”

He was a 6-foot-6 genius billionaire with a chiseled frame, physical endurance and a taste for fast cars and gadgets.

He even had a secret cave….

Continue reading ‘And I Thought High School was Wild…’

Welcome to The New Blog!

Published on June 16, 2008 in Uncategorized. 4 Comments

Senior Picture

This is the new blog of Logan Frederick! For those who know me, I most likely need no introduction. For those who don’t, I’ll give you a quick rundown:

I’m an incoming college freshman attending the Ohio State University with a major in Finance, potentially a switch or double major with Economics.

My personal interests are in line with my majors. Broadly speaking, business in all its forms is a passion of mine. Business encompasses economics, marketing, management, finance, mergers and acquisitions, and more topics worth studying.

Programming is a pastime of mine that I haven’t really kept up too well. I’m self-educated to a basic level in PHP and MySQL. Mostly I know enough to maintain this website and tinker around the code myself to make it fit my needs.

Web development went hand-in-hand with Web 2.0 and the history of the Internet. The Internet continues to grow in size and usefulness as more great companies leverage it to improve business efficiency around the world.

Going back as far as I can remember, gaming has easily been the most fun and relaxing hobby any teenager can enjoy. That is why I have worked for two years as a contract news reporter at The Escapist Magazine, a video game magazine and media portal.

As for the blog, posts will come frequently but not on any set schedule. Some weeks you’ll get one a day, in busier times or while I’m working on longer pieces it’ll be once a week. Topics talked about will fall under anything discussed above, and length will not be the same post-to-post.

My first post was the 2008 economic paper I wrote for Facebook and my AP Government class. Major economic pieces will from here on out be broken into different sections and posted in smaller chunks to allow for easier reading.

Improving the site will be an ongoing project, so be sure to check in to see what new changes have been made. The RSS feed link is already offered in the top right section to allow for easier reading.

Enjoy and here’s to the blog’s success!