Stream of Ry

I was reading through Mark Suster’s Both Sides of the Table (just subscribed by e-mail yesterday!) and stumbled upon his article My life as a CEO (and VC): Chief Psychologist and as listed by Fred Wilson, Matt Blumberg and Howard Lindzon (all in Mark’s post) a CEO does the following:

• Sets the overall vision and strategy of the company and communicates it to all stakeholders
• Recruits, hires, and retains the very best talent for the company.
• Makes sure there is always enough cash in the bank.
• Don’t be a bottleneck (make sure you aren’t holding up people’s work)
• Run great meetings (don’t be a productivity drain on the company)
• Stay fresh (be mentally and physically fit & attuned to what is going on in the world)

“As a CEO of a venture backed business myself and founder of many others, I would add one thing…Thick Skin.

If you fail, you need to start all over. As you start to succeed, you will hear from people like me…’armchair quarterbacks’ . If you really succeed, everyone wants you to fail eventually so you need even thicker skin.”

I liked Mark’s condensing it to just Chief Psychologist. I’m printing out his article (digitally, onto my Dropbox) for safekeeping.

To everyone that greeted me (in no particular order) high school batchmates, high school classmates, grade school classmates, DCS friends, EEE friends, UnPLUG/Dilnet friends, UP classmates and professors, AS3 campmates, Inoventlings, POSNet people (who started a thread in the mailing list just for the greeting!), Ma’m Deng and Meric of 8layers, Uskraelinger venner fra Norge, AFS venner, Loudcloud core, and finally the conspiracy of my lovely girlfriend, Angel, with Porkchops (Ernesto, Rexell, Jeffrey, Allan, Thet, Karl) and my crazy not-so-little bro. Foiled by our b*tches Zarra (2yrs old, same “birthday” as me!) and Sophie (approx 3mos old, we got her 2 weeks ago).

To everyone that greeted through whatever means (FB, SMS, IM, Telephatic / Emphatic, the Force, etc):
Maraming salamat sa pagbati, tusen takk for hilser, thank you very much for the greeting.

That last one deserved a special mention because unbeknown to me, my girlfriend and Porkchops were sneaking around the house to surprise me by 12 midnight with a set of birthday cupcakes (which says HBD RYS), pizza and Mirasol’s bihon. Fortunately, our doggie was inside the house to stop their sneaking about by her growling and barking. I was really tense when I heard her bark. That bark that says “Intruder alert!” so imagine my confusion (and perhaps state of shock) when I saw my girlfriend there holding cupcakes (who by the way is terrified of our dog) followed by a “supplies!” by the Porkchops. First thought that crossed my mind was “Shit, we’ve got no food.” Thanks, and you definitely made my day (and so early to boot). Pics plz.

On another note, we finally got our Mayor’s Permit for Loudcloud Inc. Too bad we don’t have the plate.

The past year has been a very long one. Exactly 365.25 days. I’ve put in a hell a lot of work through code and will most likely continue to do so in the coming years. We’re still continuing in our advocating for both use and contribution to Free and Open Source Software, and would like to double my efforts in doing so. I’ve also recently started taking better care of our dogs and really understanding how I can raise them better (trust me, I feel like a dad already). Also, that perpetual promise to workout more.

For everyone that supported me (fans? LOL), thank you very much. For my co-advocates, persistence!

I’m looking forward to yet another fruitful year.

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Reading this article’s comments, I saw a couple of Kape‘s posts and decided to compile them here.

All credits go to him/her.

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Your honorables,

The Reproductive Health Bill is not a new bill.

It’s no secret that the RH Bill has been languishing in Congress for the last 16 years.

And unfortunately, the problems we face today are not new as well.

Because after all your fancy words have been said and done, your economic numbers and scientific data thrown about, one thing will remain for sure: outside on the streets, life is a living hell for a majority of Filipinos.

We’re still plagued by high infant mortality, high maternal deaths, overpopulation, & a skyrocketing HIV and abortion rate and it’s the worst it’s ever been in our history.

And for the last 16 years, people in Congress have been trying to pass the RH Bill, a piece of legislation that would holistically address these issues. And this bill has been held back, delayed, and shot down by Anti-RH lawmakers such as yourselves for reasons that were either legal, economic, or religious.

But it also seems that for the last 16 years, these problems that I have mentioned have gotten worse. So tell me, your honors, if your alternate solutions to the RHBill are so great, why haven’t you implemented them in the last 16 years? Why haven’t I felt its effects on a national scale? Your honors, tell me: After 16 years, why are we STILL where we are?

And since the RH bill has been shot down so many times by lawmakers like you, in effect, we have been trying it your way for the last 16 years and we haven’t seen any tangible results at all. The mortality numbers are still there and staring at us in the face.

So as a member of the public and as your boss – so to speak – allow me to say that either your solutions to these problems have failed, you aren’t doing your job, or you are just plain ineffective as public servants.

I sincerely believe it is time for us to try a different strategy, a new one. We don’t have much choices anymore. Your side has never really presented us with any. It is time to turn away from this ineffectiveness of the last 16 years. It is time to activate the RH bill and let the power of education, information, and choice create a better Philippines before it’s too late.

Because unless you Anti-RH lawmakers can present a cohesive, concrete plan of action to solve these problems holistically TODAY and right now. I’m not going to wait for another 16 years.

Let the RH Bill start doing it’s work or get out of the way. Because if you have no better solutions, then you are just part of the problem.

Sincerely,

A Filipino named Rystraum Gamonez

(from Carlos Celdran)

There’s this very popular phrase among startups: “Fail fast”

It comes from the (bogus?) statistic that only 1 out of 10 startups survive. So,
one should try out 10 ideas very fast to get to that 1 survivable idea.

Here’s my not-so-fast failures so far, sub-divided by eras in my life.

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