3 Lessons from 3 CEOs

Good things come in threes, they say.  So here are three lessons from three CEOs that I chose to take away.

 

Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft

 

As of this writing, Microsoft’s market cap is 1.19 trillion dollars.  It is the largest company listed on the US stock market.  Its growth over the past few years is thanks in no small part to its CEO, who took the reins in 2014. 

 

Nadella trusts his people, and relies on them in their areas of expertise.  In a Fortune Magazine article profiling Nadella, he credits success to the CFO, Kathleen Hood, and their head of HR, Kathleen Hogan.  He doesn’t hog the limelight, but allows others to shine in their roles.  And that is something I strive to do within my team and across the organization.

 

David M. Solomon, CEO, Goldman Sachs

 

Goldman Sachs has had its share of controversy, especially during the Great Recession of 2009.  But David M. Solomon has been transforming Goldman Sachs even before he became CEO.

 

More importantly, David M. Solomon is a DJ, known as DJ D-SOL, who performs at clubs all over.  He is not defined by his job as a banker.  He makes time to his passion. 

 

I play the piano, maybe not at the level that people will pay to see me perform, but I enjoy playing in church.  I also love to drive, so I drive as much as I can and enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

 

John Addison, former CEO, Primerica

 

John Addison currently sits on the board of Primerica.  He started there as a business systems analyst.  I picked up John Addison’s book, “Real Leadership”, a year ago. 

 

The biggest lesson I learned is in the first chapter: Decide who you are.  In the exercise at the end of that chapter, he advises: “List the top two or three people whom you most admire, along with what it is about them specifically that you seek to emulate in your own life.”  And I think I did just that right now.

 

 

Reminder that Roads Have Magnetic Sensors

The entry ramp from Mathilda onto 101 Southbound is under construction.  Only one lane is open.  This week, the old carpool lane is open, but the metering lights on the regular lane is still on during rush hour. 

The problem is that drivers are stopping at the carpool lane light, but waiting for the metering lights on the other lane to turn green.  It will never turn green because it doesn't detect cars waiting.

This is a gentle reminder that our roads have magnetic sensors.  In this case, the sensors are at the end of the line, depicted by the red rectangle below.  This means that each lane has its own sensor.  And so even if the metering lights are red on the right hand side, they will never turn green because the cars are on the left hand side.

I unfortunately did not find any traffic rules on how to handle this, but according to this article, California drivers must treat them the same as broken traffic lights - stop then proceed with caution.

Musings on LEDs for Cars

One of the front turn signal bulbs went out in my car.  I went to the local auto parts store to find a replacement.  These days, there are LED alternatives.  And since I’ve read and heard about the benefits of LEDs – longer lasting, lower power requirements for the same brightness, etc. – I decided to buy a pair of turn signal LEDs.  And this is where the trouble began.

It turns out, the packaging of LEDs for cars are marked with “For off-road use only.”  I find this surprising.  Cities have been racing to replace their street lights with LEDs.  The regional power company has been encouraging households to replace their bulbs with LEDs.  But without delving much into the why, I bet that legislation or rules set forth by the NHTSA disallows such replacements.  This is unfortunate.

The second problem is that because of the low power draw, the light still flashes quickly as if the bulb is out, because the relay is not built to handle LEDs.  This means I have to replace the flasher relay as well to one that can handle both LEDs and incandescent bulbs.  And this brings us to the final problem.

A pair of LEDs was $20, and the flasher relay was another $20.  Regular bulbs were $8 for a pair.  To replace the flasher relay, I had to remove the bottom panel of the dash to reach it.  Even then, the relay and the wiring harness wasn’t exactly easy to reach.  Moreover, I replaced a reliable Denso part with something of dubious quality.  (Denso has been supplying Toyota for a very long time, and is partially owned by Toyota.)  Did I now increase the risk of an electrical fire in a car that my wife drives more often and my kids ride regularly?

While the end result of getting it to work was satisfying, I’m not sure it was worth the cost and the trouble.

Prepping For The Rest Of Us

In 2012, National Geographic first aired the show "Doomsday Preppers".  It introduced "prepping" to the national consciousness, and opened up an entire subculture of extreme disaster preparation.  Online, one can find a myriad of sites and discussion forums about such preparations, where acronyms like SHTF (sh*t hits the fan) and TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) are commonplace.  "Preppers" or "Survivalists" prepare for anything from the collapse of government to the zombie apocalypse.

The basic premise is sound.  Even ready.gov urges everyone to have some sort of emergency plan and basic emergency supplies.  While preparing for the zombie apocalypse may be a bit extreme for the rest of us, being prepared for disasters that are more likely to happen is simply common sense.  Even having a fire extinguisher is one step towards being prepared.  You're not expecting a fire, but if there is one...

In Project Management, teams list all the possible risks, and ranks them in both impact (high, medium, low) and probability (high, medium, low).  Because there could be a large number of risks, typically, those that are high impact and high probability, or high impact and medium probability are discussed and planned for mitigation.

Similarly, a person or a family can realistically look at all risks and rank them in both impact and probability.  For example, in certain parts of California, there is a risk of wildfire or earthquake.  In the home, there is also a risk of fire.  A person may have a higher risk of injury because of his or her age or medical condition.  This evaluation is personal and subjective.  It is up to the person or family which risks they are willing to accept and prepare for.

The next step would be to plan for such risks.  In case of fire for example, where will you go?  Where will your family meet?  Who will you call? What will you save (if at all possible)?  Apart from an immediate evacuation scenario, you may want to plan for a "shelter-in-place", or an emergency evacuation that allows for some time to grab a few things.

Finally, in an emergency, one must take care of the basic needs: air, water, food, clothing, shelter, and safety.  If you can address all of these in your readiness plan, you are well on your way to "prepping".

Can you really control your online presence?

Anyone can Google anyone by name and find information about that person, or at least, people who have some online presence.  Unfortunately, as I painfully found out, you can't always control those results.

Searching by my nickname and last name, "Cliff Cada", returns the results I want.  The top result is my LinkedIn profile.  The second is my Salesforce Trailblazer profile.  The problem with the second result is that is my work profile.  I have a separate Trailblazer profile that doesn't even come up.

If the searcher is more savvy, that person can search specific sites like Facebook or YouTube.   If I search for my name with quotes in Google, which tells Google to find the entire string together, I stumble upon this YouTube page with my name on it.  This isn't my page.  I attempted to contact YouTube, provided them my information, even a copy of my passport.  And they said that wasn't enough for them to shut down that account.  If that other person posts offensive videos or negative videos, that may affect my future employment prospects, or even put my current employment in jeopardy.

I suppose if you are famous or rich or both, you can employ a PR team and a legal team to control your brand both online and off.  But for regular folks like me, I can only do so much before hitting a wall like what I assume to be a YouTube bot that automatically rejected my request.

It is always a good idea to periodically Google yourself, and ensure the top results are reflective of the online presence you want to project.

Where to put an Emergency Fund

Most financial planning advice will tell you to have three to six months of living expenses in cash or some other liquid asset.  The last 9 years, interest rates were so low that parking your cash in a savings account yielded next to nothing.

The recent interest rate increases allowed some banks and financial institutions to offer Money Market accounts with 10 to 15 times higher interest rate than a regular savings account.  CDs of course offer a bit higher interest rates, but then you will tie up your money for 11 or 12 months at a minimum, which defeats the purpose of an emergency fund.  You need it to be relatively liquid.

As noted in many websites such as NerdWallet and The Ascent, Money Market accounts have limits on the number of withdrawals per month.  But hopefully, you only need to withdraw money in emergencies - A/C needs replacing, major car repair, roof replacement, job loss, and such.  This is not for frivolous purchases, or even running out of grocery money for the month.

Anyway, a quick Google search returns the top two as of this writing are Marcus by Goldman Sachs and CapitalOne 360 Money Market.  They are able to give high interest rates because these are online only offerings.  I hesitated at first, because I wondered how I would withdraw the money.  It turns out, you can transfer it to your existing checking account, even if it was at another bank.  I'm pretty sure there is some delay here, like two business days, so I would not recommend to put everything in such an account.

Sold on the idea of higher interest rates, I decided to give both a try.  While both are relatively easy to set up, I would recommend Marcus for ease of setup.  Marcus allowed me to add a joint account holder right in the application process, while CapitalOne required that I go to Account Management AFTER the account was set up.  Also, CapitalOne threw a few errors saying that "details cannot be displayed" or "cannot perform action at this time", something about the account being new.  With Marcus, I was able to change the account nickname for example.  Both took less than 10 minutes, as long as you have all the information you need, like SSN.

CapitalOne has a lower interest rate, but has a bonus if you maintain a specific balance in the first 90 days.  So if that's what you're after, go for CapitalOne.

You will also find that in the fine print, the APR rate quoted is only for $10,000 and above.  Anything below would drop the APR down to something like 0.87%.  So keep that in mind.

All in all, I would still go with Marcus just for the ease of use.  Note that interest rates are variable, so it is worth checking every six months whether you can get a better rate elsewhere.