Russ: Good morning. This is The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com, and we are about those that most positively affect our lives and most positively affect our economy.
John: That's right, and we kind of hope that's going to continue in the next 4 years of the Obama presidency. I'm sure it will. But they do. They are the ones. They are the artists and the athletes, and they are the ones that are the most relied upon, even though I'd say the majority of the population in the United States doesn't even think about them.
Russ: Well, I think you're right about that.
John: Uh-hunh (affirmative).
Russ: But we think about them-
John: Well, we've got the whole show based around them. We better think about them.
Russ: Absolutely. They better do well.
John: I know.
Russ: All right, and here's our lineup for today. First up, for the AFLAC BusinessMakers Flashback, we're going to roll back to about 30 days ago when the Houston Technology Center had their Technology Showcase, and I had the pleasure to visit with Dr. Yasmin Wadia, the founder and CEO of Laser Tissue Welding. This is the company that is leading the way in enabling hemostasis and sutureless surgery.
John: Wow.
Russ: It is a cool innovation.
John: Sutureless.
Russ: Sutureless surgery. Real cool.
John: Hmm. That'll be interesting.
Russ: And then for our Featured Guest segment this morning, we're going to forget about the future and look back deeply into our past because my guest will be Bennett Greenspan, the founder and CEO of Family Tree DNA, the world's first and largest DNA testing service. I encourage you to tune into this one because you're going to find out about a real cool service. But first... that's right, it's time for the School of Business, and this is not business as usual school.
John: That's right. I think we work harder on this than these-because schools, most of them, I mean, they're highly-you know-they've got a big bureaucracy there. They've got teachers, they teach 2 classes a week, they-
Russ: You bet.
John: Their office hours are maybe 4 hours a week-
Russ: Yeah. Plus in this tight economy, well, we're in an advantageous position-
John: That's right.
Russ: -because we can't cut back because it's just us.
John: It's us.
Russ: All right. And the first thing each morning in the School of Business is the Quote of the Day.
John: Quote of the Day.
Russ: I'm totally 100% confident that you'll love this one.
John: Well, we'll see.
Russ: Yeah, I really am.
John: Alright.
Russ: Alright, and here it is...
John: I can hardly wait.
Russ: Its from Warren Buffett.
John: He lost 77% of his value this week.
Russ: Yeah, I know, but here might be why.
John: Okay.
Russ: "Beware of geeks bearing formulas."
John: All right. I remember that one.
Russ: Yeah, because you loved it. You suggested it.
John: That's right. See, that was based on the fact that the securitized mortgage system-
Russ: Right, right.
John: -people would invest in it.
Russ: Right.
John: What they did is they had a real complicated formula to predict how these things would-what their rate or returns would be, among other things.
Russ: Way too complicated.
John: Yeah, way too complicated. See, it didn't factor in the, uh, monkey and the wrench-
Russ: Yeah.
John: -meaning that a lot of these mortgages were sold to people who couldn't pay them back.
Russ: That's right.
John: -so that is what he was talking about.
Russ: All right, and that brings us to This Week in Business History. What happened during this third week in November in business history?
John: Well, I've got a rip-roaring list here, and I'm going to get started quickly. This Week in Business History, November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln gives what I consider probably one of the best political speeches ever written.
Russ: Oh yeah.
John: Now I know Barack Obama, whether you agree with this guy politically, he really does give a great speech.
Russ: He is impressive.
John: Right, but the great thing about the Gettysburg Address, not only did Lincoln give it in a brilliant location-
Russ: Right.
John: -that is, the Gettysburg battlefield-
Russ: Right.
John: -but he wrote it himself.
Russ: Okay. Wow.
John: And very few presidents-
Russ: He didn't have a speech writer.
John: He didn't have a speech writer.
Russ: Wow.
John: So Lincoln's little speech, as he later called it, actually is engraved in there in the Lincoln Memorial along with his second inaugural address which is considered one of the classics.
Russ: Oh yeah.
John: And it, too, was a short speech.
Russ: Yep, that's right. Very impressive. Okay.
John: Okay. Moving on to 1865, this is 2 years afterwards. The revolving firearm was patented by H. Smith and D. Wesson of Springfield, Massachusetts.
Russ: Also known today as Smith & Wesson, right?
John: Smith & Wesson, and the revolving, yeah, the six-shooter.
Russ: The revolving firearm. 143 years ago.-
John: Yeah.
Russ: -that thing was patented.
John: That's right.
Russ: Cool.
John: Okay. Going to November 18, 1898, the famous inventor, John Ernst Worrell Keely, died on this date.
Russ: Yeah. And what did he invent?
John: Well, he was the discoverer of the vibromolecular, vibroatomic and sympathetic vibroatheric forces as they apply to induced mechanical rotation by negative sympathetic attraction, and I would venture to say we probably wouldn't be here today if that hadn't been discovered.
Russ: What in the world?
John: He claimed he had discovered an invisible substance that supposedly pervaded all the universe and led the discovery of this vibromolecular and vibro-
Russ: Yeah.
John: And he managed to make a living by having people invest in his -
Russ: Uh-oh.
John: -theory so he could harness these vibrations to power machines.
Russ: So it wasn't for real, eh?
John: Yeah, well, after he died-you know-"The evil men do live after them," according to Shakespeare, and they inspected his laboratory after he died, and it was shown that his fabrications were mostly powered by compressed air carried in a system of hidden tubes.
Russ: Do you think there might be a lesson to be learned there?
John: That's right. And its like Enron if you can't explain what this thing is in a couple sentences, then I'd stay away from it.
Russ: Do you think they were using some compressed air over there at Enron?
John: They were using a lot of hot air over there at Enron, I'll tell you that. Okay. November 15 in 1904, now here's something that's for real. The internal combustion engine is patented by J. F. Duryea of Springfield, Massachusetts.
Russ: Whoa.
John: And the same day-
Russ: Yeah?
John: The safety razor is patented by King C. Gillette.
Russ: Whoa, what a day!
John: I mean, you talk about- These 2 things have lasted a long time.
Russ: Yeah, they have. Wow.
John: Because before the safety razor, which has a cover over it-
Russ: Right.
John: -and just a little bit of the blade sticks out, people were using straight razors, like a blade.
Russ: Cutting themselves all the time.
John: Yeah, right, like that Sweeney Todd.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Okay this week in 1956 Buddy Holly makes his final recordings for Decca in Nashville.
Russ: Whoa. Buddy Holly.
John: He was in town to appear at the Disc Jockey Festival.
[Music: "Peggy Sue"]
John: In 1960, November 17, Ray Charles has his first U.S. number 1 hit when "Georgia on My Mind" made it in 1960.
Russ: Wow, that surprises me that "Georgia on My Mind" was his first number 1 hit-
John: Right.
Russ: -because he had quite a few.
John: Oh yeah. "What I'd Say," "Hit the Road, Jack," and oh, I loved "I Can't Stop Loving You."
Russ: Oh yeah.
John: That was a great song.
Russ: That was huge.
[Music: "I Can't Stop Loving You"]
John: All right. Oh, okay. Here we go. November 17, 1962, the hits just keep on coming because "Big Girls Don't Cry" by the Four Seasons was at number 1 on the U.S. singles.
[Music: "Big Girls Don't Cry"]
Russ: The Four Seasons. Man, that was a happening time, too.
John: That's right. That's right. Now, the thing is, you know how they got the title for that song?
Russ: No. How's that?
John: Okay. The producer of the group who also was in the group was watching a western and it was John Payne and Rhonda Fleming, and he, uh, slaps her and he says, "Why aren't you crying?" and she says, "Well, big girls don't cry," so he-
Russ: Wow.
John: -because he was looking for a name for this tune he had, and that's how he got the song. Okay, 1970, the late Isaac Hayes, because he just recently passed away, hit number 1 with the theme from Shaft.
Russ: Oh yeah.
John: But it actually won the Academy Award for best song.
[Music: "Shaft Theme Song"]
John: All right. In 1971-this is amazing-a Japanese company named Busicom wanted to build a new line of calculators, so they approached this little-nobody ever heard of this firm, called Intel-
Russ: Yeah.
John: The name was short for Integrated Electronics, and they asked for a dozen silicon chips to handle the calculator's functions, and a team of Intel engineers, led by Ted Hoff, Jr., decides to take a different route. Instead of a dozen chips, they put all the calculator's main functions into one single, new chip, and there comes the first microprocessor-
Russ: Big, big, big, big stuff.
John: -called the Intel 404.
Russ: Cool. Cool story.
John: Man, it's amazing how this stuff gets started.
Russ: I know. Cool story. All right.
John: Okay. November 20, 1976, we all know that the Soviet Union is full of crackpots.
Russ: Oh yeah.
John: Well, this was the date that one of them died.
Russ: Okay.
John: This guy was a doozy. Trofin Denisovich Lysenko died, and he did enormous damage to Soviet agriculture-
Russ: Agriculture. Okay.
John: -in ways that are astounding.
Russ: All right.
John: He became convinced that the principles of genetics were all wrong, and he began to denounce the scientists who discovered them. Now, contrary to genetics, he believed that he could grow entirely new strains of wheat by adjusting the environment where he grew the wheat. For example, he claimed that seeds soaked in cold water would grow better in cold climates.
Russ: He just sort of came up with this, eh?
John: Now these ideas were promptly and, rightly so, rejected by the Russian scientists who actually were real scientists.
Russ: And they were really pretty smart scientists back then.
John: That's right.
Russ: They grew a bunch of smart scientists.
John: But here's where the problem is.
Russ: Yeah?
John: Okay, he ingratiated, he became friends and almost became a scientific mentor of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
Russ: Ah, we're getting politics into the process now.
John: That's right. So his opponents were imprisoned when he was installed in this position of power.
Russ: So the scientists were put in prison?
John: They went to the gulag, and then his ideas were put into practice on a large scale in the Soviet Union's collective farms-
Russ: Yeah, I bet those worked out well.
John: -because his theories were mandated across the country. Of course, that's why the agricultural 5-year plans had to be revised every year, okay?
Russ: Once again, government controlling innovation doesn't seem to work.
John: All right. This day, November 15, 1977, the 100 millionth U.S. Ford was built.
Russ: Gee, what a number. 100 millionth Ford.
John: Yeah, that's right.
Russ: Now they probably won't make it to the 200 millionth, do you think?
John: I don't know.
Russ: All right.
John: Last but not least, November 15-a lot of stuff on November 15th 1987.
Russ: Yeah, it's a hot day.
John: Dire Straits...
Russ: Yeah.
John: -the first artist to sell over 3 million copies of an album in the UK. It contained 5 Top 40 singles.
Russ: Wow, so it must have been a hit, like maybe "Money for Nothing."
John: Yea...
[Music: "Money For Nothing"]
Russ: Okay, there's been lots of money for nothing going on lately-
John: Oh yeah.
Russ: -and a little bit of nothing for money going on these days, too.
John: I know. You take your pick.
Russ: All right. So does that wrap it up?
John: Hey, that's all I can come up with.
Russ: Well, what a day, though.
John: What a day.
Russ: I mean, from the Gettysburg Address to a pawnsy scam artist to a Soviet agricultural-
John: -quack.
Russ: -quack to "Big Girls Don't Cry" and to "Money for Nothing."
John: I know.
Russ: Woo.
John: I mean, so there's something in there for everybody.
Russ: You bet.
John: Okay.
Russ: Good, good job.
John: All right.
Russ: All right, and that brings us to Navigating Business Jargon. This is our vocabulary lesson and more and more we like to make it clear that we don't recommend using these words, do we?
John: You can use them as long as you practice them.
Russ: All right. You can.
John: It takes a long time to get them right-
Russ: The way we do it is I get to choose the word, and I say the word, and John has to guess, speculate the meaning.
John: And I have no idea what the word means.
Russ: That's right.
John: Yeah. All right.
Russ: Here's today's word. It's a phrase. It's a noun. Peanut buttering.
John: Peanut buttering.
Russ: Yeah.
John: You all know about buttering up the boss, right?
Russ: Yeah, yeah.
John: Trying to make yourself look good in his eyes.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Well, peanut buttering is when you, uh, do it in such a fashion that it gets crunchy.
Russ: No, you're wrong.
John: Okay. Was I close?
Russ: No.
John: Okay.
Russ: This word means the tendency to evenly distribute resources across the full range of a product rather than focusing on a few core value propositions. Kind of like a socialized method of prioritizing.
John: Oh okay.
Russ: All right, and that brings us to Dumbest Moments. Do we have a dumb business story to share this morning, John?
John: Man, I'll tell you, sometimes you think you've seen everything or heard everything-
Russ: Yeah.
John: Well, there's a cafe in Salt Lake City-
Russ: Okay.
John: Okay? They're having troubles. They fired the long time manager.
Russ: Yeah.
John: It's called the One World Cafe, by the way.
Russ: The One World Cafe.
John: Yeah, fired its long time manager and they had a staff revolt that just-they just walked out.
Russ: What did they fire him for?
John: Well, the owner, Denise Cerreta, actually has a pricing arrangement where, when you come to the cafe and have lunch or dinner or whatever it is, you pay what you think the meal is worth.
Russ: Oh, my goodness.
John: Okay? This is costing the restaurant about $8,000 to $10,000 a month. Now she's blaming it on-
Russ: -on the manager, right?
John: Yeah, the manager-
Russ: He's not cooking good enough.
John: Yeah, "We don't have enough experience, blah, blah, blah," but just that one decision, I mean, got to price on what you feel the meal is worth and deliver-
Russ: So wait, wait, wait.
John: -and if the meal is not worth that, then people don't come.
Russ: Yeah. So you're saying it's a restaurant and people can come in and they eat a meal and they decide what it's worth and pay right there.
John: Yeah, right. Now these were donations.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Now the meal donations once averaged $10 and have now fallen to $7.
Russ: Well-
John: It's a 30% decrease in your revenue-
Russ: Why don't you focus on real business, man, if she's going to run a real business. Jeez.
John: Well, it looks like- I've got a picture of it here, and it looks-it looks like a nice-it looks like a Starbucks or something.
Russ: Hold it up to the microphone.
John: There we go. See? Look at that. See?
Russ: All right.
John: There you go. All right. Okay.
Russ: All right.
John: I'd say it's a pretty dumb thing.
Russ: Yeah, I would. That's not, uh, the way you're supposed to run a business.
John: No.
Russ: All right, and before we wrap up the School of Business, it's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneur's Playbook, so let's welcome Greg Price on the piano.
John: Yeah.
Russ and John: One and a two and a-
[PKF Texas - The Entrepreneur's Playbook]
Russ: And that wraps up the School of Business. Stay tuned for the AFLAC BusinessMakers Flashback with Dr. Yasmin Wadia, the founder and CEO of Laser Tissue Welding and then our featured guest this morning, Mr. Bennett Greenspan, the founder and CEO of Family Tree DNA. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com.
