Russ: This is The BusinessMakers show, heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com. This is that show. In fact, this is episode #320 of that show that focuses on the innovators and the entrepreneurs.
John: Yeah, these people, well actually, for 320 weeks, that's amazing. But I gotta tell you, the entrepreneur class is unique, I think, in the world. Not that there aren't entrepreneurs all over the world, but there's such a heavy concentration here in the United States of America that I think, even though they think other countries are catching up to us, like China and all that, the fact is the entrepreneur class here is the backbone of the economy, and as long as they still exist and it becomes more numerous, which is what's going on right now, I think we'll end up being fine.
Russ: Well, that's key to it.
John: Yeah.
Russ: And speaking of entrepreneurs, here's a shout out for the EO Houston -
John: A shout out.
Russ: - yeah, for the EO Houston gang. That's the Entrepreneur Organization of -
John: Oh, right.
Russ: - of Houston.
John: Yeah, right. Yeah.
Russ: They're kind of teaming up with us these days, and -
John: I heard they gave you -
Russ: - _________ doing a good job.
John: - a gold medal, they knighted you, or something.
Russ: They did.
John: They did, yes.
Russ: Yeah, I think -
John: Sir Russell Capper -
Russ: Right, I'm trying to get -
John: - of Sandwich.
Russ: - I'm trying to get you in, too, so don't worry.
John: Well, I'm not an entrepreneur.
Russ: Well, but it doesn't matter.
John: I just play one on the radio.
Russ: All right, and here's our lineup for today. First up, Sheryl Rapp, cofounder, actually, of The UP Experience, that event that happens once a year in Houston, Texas, bringing some very interesting speakers to town, and then that's gonna be followed by an interview with David Underwood of TopSpot. We're talking about SEO there. But first, [break in audio] that's right, it's time for the BusinessMakers School of Business, and this is not your business-as-usual school.
John: That's right, Russ, it's not your grandfather's business school.
Russ: No, it's not.
John: In fact, it's not your father's business school.
Russ: No.
John: Actually, it's not your older brother's business school.
Russ: It's not even your business school.
John: It's not even -
Russ: It's our business school.
John: It's our business school, and it's just great. We're both deans, and -
Russ: That's right.
John: - we don't have to raise money.
Russ: That's right.
John: We don't have to worry about buildings, although I wouldn't mind having this microphone named after me someday.
Russ: I would like tenure is what I would like.
John: ________ tenure.
Russ: Do you think we'll ever get tenure?
John: Okay, I now bequeath you tenure.
Russ: All right. All right. We kick off the School of Business each week with a quote of the day -
John: Quote of the day.
Russ: - and today the quote comes from Robert Heinlein, the U.S. science fiction author, who lived from 1907 to 1988.
John: Oh, really?
Russ: Yeah, and -
John: What happened in 1988?
Russ: He died.
John: Oh, okay. All right.
Russ: Yeah, he quit living. He quit breathing. All right, and here's the quote: "Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something."
John: Well, I kind of dispute that a little bit.
Russ: Okay.
John: I know a lot of entrepreneurs get up earlier than I do, and I get up pretty damn early. So, I would say they are lazy in some regards. They're disgruntled, I'd say, more than lazy, because they're always finding a better solution to something that already exists.
Russ: Okay. Well, I then would suggest that you come up with a quote that personifies this idea.
John: Hey, look. I'm just here doing a show. All these Schools of Business, I think you could cull a couple of good quotes out of there if you wanted to.
Russ: You could. All right, and that brings us to This Week in Business History, what happened towards the end of July in business history, John?
John: ________ a pretty interesting week here. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, some serious stuff, and some not-so-serious stuff, so we're gonna start off. This week in business history, in 1893, Henry Perky - now, Henry Perky was a good natured man.
Russ: Yeah? You have to be with that name.
John: You know, if your name is Henry Grouch, people are gonna know your demeanor.
Russ: Right.
John: But this is Henry Perky, and who else but a guy named Henry Perky could patent shredded wheat?
Russ: All right.
John: Okay.
Russ: Let's hear it for Henry.
John: It's good for you, you know?
Russ: Shredded wheat is good.
John: Shredded wheat, 1893, okay?
Russ: That must fall in the serious category in today's _________ -
John: Well, I don't know. This is lighthearted stuff, some of this. Okay, this week in business history, in 1900, the hamburger. You've heard of that, right, the hamburger?
Russ: Yeah, I guess I've heard of that.
John: It's created by Louis Lassen in Connecticut -
Russ: Cool.
John: Okay? All right. Connecticut, the birthplace of the hamburger.
Russ: You bet. All right.
John: This week in business history, in 1914, the Foxtrot is first danced at the New Amsterdam Roof Garden in New York City. A guy named Harry Fox. Okay? This week in business history, in 1943, the birthday of Mick Jagger.
Russ: My goodness. Quick math, that means that Mick Jagger is now 68.
John: That's right.
Russ: Yeah, still rocking -
John: Still rocking.
Russ: - at 68.
John: I don't know whether he's still drugging, but he's rocking, that's for sure.
Russ: That's right.
John: Okay. This week in business history, in 1944, a little serious, really serious stuff here, the first German V-2 rocket hits Great Britain.
Russ: Oh, man.
John: I read up on this thing a little bit before the show, and when the rocket would dive - whatever it would do. They would load it with enough fuel to kind of guide it, and it had the gyroscopic control, or something like that, which would really make them accurate, and when that warhead would hit the ground, it would hit it going 4,000 miles an hour. So, it would burrow itself into the ground and cause the explosion, which is what caused all the damage. There were several thousand of these things made, and some of them didn't hit anything, but enough of them did to really put a scare into -
Russ: Harrowing. You bet.
John: - _________. Okay, this week in business history, in 1946, the first bikini is shown at a Paris fashion show.
Russ: Now we're back into the serious stuff again.
John: There we go, and the same day, the very same day, the United States detonates, does some nuclear testing with the A-bomb at Bikini Island.
Russ: Oh. Well, those are related, maybe.
John: Those are related. Yeah. I think they got mixed up. I think they wanted to toss the A-bomb at Paris, and they wanted to have the bikini fashion show at Bikini, but they got their e?mails mixed up.
Russ: Oh, okay. Okay.
John: This week in business history, in 1952, Fidel Castro begins his rebellion, the 26th of July Movement against Fulgencio Batista's regime, and a young Michael Corleone was there, obviously -
Russ: Yeah, yeah.
John: - __________ at the table, and they're passing the gold telephone that AT&T gave __________ -
Russ: Yeah.
John: so, fortunately, Michael Corleone got out in time.
Russ: Yes, he did. All right.
John: This week in business history, in 1958, the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Act, NASA.
Russ: Wow.
John: Yeah. Right, and that's an interesting government agency, because when it started, I mean they had this mission, they thought they had a purpose, a higher calling -
Russ: Right.
John: - than their own self-interest, and it was a very entrepreneurial government agency there for the longest time, and now they have the Space Center Houston, where you can go see SpongeBob SquarePants, you know? ___________, like, "What happened?"
Russ: But is Space Center Houston related to NASA, or is that like a little private endeavor off to the side __________?
John: Whatever it is, NASA had something to do with it because it's on their land.
Russ: SpongeBob SquarePants.
John: You wonder what happened.
Russ: What happened?
John: I mean -
Russ: Somebody coming back -
John: - I mean they got space stuff down there. I just saw a commercial for it -
Russ: I know. No, I just -
John: - the other day. ________ cartoon characters.
Russ: - I don't understand ________.
John: I don't know whether it's SpongeBob, but they've got some loony thing going down. I don't know. It's just amazing how they - you remember Kennedy at Rice Stadium -
Russ: Right.
John: - __________ ten years we're gonna put a man on the moon and return him safely, and it just got the country all riled up. Now it's cartoon characters in space that are used to -
Russ: Okay.
John: Okay. All right.
Russ: ____________.
John: I don't know whether I can continue after that.
Russ: All right.
John: All right. This week in business history, in 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.
Russ: Yeah.
John: That's right, _________ space vehicle.
Russ: Driving around on the moon.
John: All right. This week in business history, in 1978, Louise Brown, the world's first test tube baby, is born.
Russ: Okay.
John: This week in business history, in 1990, the first Saturn automobile rolls off the assembly line. It started off as a good idea, you know?
Russ: Yeah, and then it's over now, too, right?
John: It's all over, baby.
Russ: Yeah. Yeah.
John: Okay. This week in business history, in 2002, the accounting law referred to as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and we've had one of those guys on the show.
Russ: Michael Oxley, yeah.
John: Right. Yeah, and he's now running NASDAQ, of all things.
Russ: He's assistant chairman, I think.
John: Assistant chairman, yeah. Hopefully, they -
Russ: Or vice chairman, or something.
John: - won't let him become chairman.
Russ: I don't think they give him the controls ever.
John: No, don't give him the keys to that car.
Russ: No.
John: Okay. The accounting law referred to as Sarbanes-Oxley is signed into law by President George W. Bush.
Russ: Right.
John: He should have vetoed it, but he didn't because of the fever pitch over Enron and World Com _________.
Russ: Right, and as you always say, we had laws already that -
John: I know.
Russ: - made all that stuff against the law -
John: Right. Yeah.
Russ: - and now we've got laws on top of those.
John: Okay, so, "We're really gonna punish you this time."
Russ: Right. Right.
John: I mean murder is against the law.
Russ: Right.
John: Does that stop anybody from killing anybody?
Russ: No.
John: No.
Russ: Well, that'd kind of stop me.
John: It's a legal -
Russ: I would probably be committing murder all the time if it wasn't against the law.
John: That's pretty funny.
Russ: All right.
John: This week in business history, in 2005, July 24th as a matter of fact, Lance Armstrong won his seventh Tour de France.
Russ: Yeah. Do you think he was juiced?
John: I don't know. He's kind of living under a cloud right now.
Russ: ___________.
John: I know, it's just - if I were that guy, I would stay out of the public eye.
Russ: That's right.
John: He can't help himself.
Russ: I'd quit making commercials and stuff, -
John: I know.
Russ: - and dating celebrities. I'd just -
John: I would just -
Russ: - take it easy and hang out.
John: - _________ a long trip somewhere.
Russ: All right.
John: Maybe go live in a cave.
Russ: That's right.
John: Okay. This week in business history, in 2006, Fidel Castro - this is the thing about dictators. They just never know when to stop. Fidel Castro hands over power temporarily to brother Raul Castro.
Russ: But I think Raul still has control, but it's amazing -
John: You mean Fidel has.
Russ: - that Fidel is still alive.
John: Yeah -
Russ: I know Raul is in charge, but -
John: - I know. These guys, you know, I think they realize when their time is up that they're gonna have to - that there's a chance - you know, I think they're basically atheist -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - but I think deep down inside, they think, "Well, you know, there could be an afterlife, after all."
Russ: Yeah, "Maybe I better straighten up."
John: Or, "Maybe I better not die."
Russ: Right.
John: So, you know, they try everything they - I mean they know they cannot atone for all -
Russ: ___________.
John: - their bad stuff that they've caused to happen: throwing people in jail, the torture that's still going on.
Russ: So, you think that's what motivates Fidel to survive?
John: I think that's why these guys live so long. You never hear about these guys keeling over of a heart attack.
Russ: Right.
John: But you've got Chavez, now he's got cancer.
Russ: Yeah, he's pretty sick.
John: He's pretty sick, so he's probably already - that's why he's in Cuba, getting all that great healthcare.
Russ: That's right.
>John: I wonder why they don't have it Venezuela. I thought that was a worker's paradise over there, you know?
Russ: Does that wrap up today's history lesson?
John: I hope so. Okay.
Russ: Good lesson.
John: Okay. All right.
Russ: All right, and that brings us to the Jargon Challenge Round, also known as our vocabulary lesson, where I go out and find a new word or phrase and hide it from John all week, and I challenge John to come up with the definition -
John: The definition. Right.
Russ: - of this word or phrase. Today's word is actually a two-word phrase. It's a noun -
John: A noun?
Russ: - and it's champagne problem.
John: A champagne problem.
Russ: What's a champagne problem?
John: Hmm. Champagne problem. Well, I think it could be you experience something that you perceive as very celebratory, very momentous, kind of a good-news thing.
Russ: Okay.
John: You celebrate it with drinking a bunch of champagne with your wife or your friends, but you find out very soon afterwards that what you thought was good was actually the exact opposite: it was awful. And you drank so much champagne that you figure you're really in a champagne problem.
Russ: Well, that might work, but that's not the definition that's circulating throughout society today.
John: ____________ circulate out in society. I'm -
Russ: It's all over the place. Everybody uses this phrase, except you.
John: I'm sure if I went to downtown Houston, and the first 100 people I'd run into down there I said, "Do you know what a champagne problem is?" I don't think any of them would know.
Russ: All right.
John: Maybe one of them, maybe because one of those people would be you.
Russ: All right, here it is.
John: All right. Go ahead.
Russ: It's a choice that's a problem. It's a choice between two positive or ideal things.
John: Oh.
Russ: A problem that actually demonstrates one's good fortune. So, you've got a champagne problem. You know, "We'll give you this nice, new mansion, or we'll give you this cruise ship. Which one do you want to take?" __________ -
John: Right, or you're selling your company, and one guy wants to buy at 50 times earnings, the other guy wants to buy at 40 times earnings.
Russ: Yeah, but you like the guy better that wants to pay 40 times earnings, but the other guy is more money, so it's a champagne - both of them are just great.
John: So, you buy it from the 50-times-earnings guy -
Russ: You sell it to the 50-times-earnings -
John: - yeah, you sell it to him, and you drink the champagne. You find out the next day he doesn't have any money.
Russ: That's your kind of champagne problem.
John: Yeah.
Russ: Yeah, you're hung over then -
John: The FBI shows up at your door the next day.
Russ: That's the day after champagne problem.
John: Okay.
Russ: All right, and that brings us to Dumb Moments in Business History. You have a story for us today.
John: I've got several things. I run across these things, so let me just kind of go through these -
Russ: Sure.
John: - __________. Okay, number one, Bank of America. It looks like they're gonna have a second quarter loss of $8.83 billion due to this mortgage fiasco.
Russ: _________ they're finally recognizing those things, aren't they?
John: Yeah, they have to account for that champagne problem spree they went on _________.
Russ: Yeah, that champagne problem. Yeah.
John: It was counterfeit champagne -
Russ: That's right.
John: - with Country Wide, and I tell you, if __________ McCall were dead right now, he'd be spinning in his grave over what's been going on with his bank. I mean he worked hard to get this thing going and big, and everything, and it's just been very problematic -
Russ: So, that's why he wants to keep living right now, because he knows if he were dead, he'd be rolling over in his grave.
John: He's gonna have to take - actually, it wasn't his decision to get into the mortgage mess, okay?
Russ: Right. Okay.
John: So, anyway, here's another -
Russ: ___________.
John: - one. San Francisco is gonna shut down some courtrooms, lay off 200 workers. It says the San Francisco Superior Court announced recently that it's laying off more than 40 percent of its staff, because they have to close a $13.75 million budget deficit caused by the state budget cuts. That's gonna take a lot longer to get stuff adjudicated -
Russ: Yeah. Well, my God, what about the poor trial lawyers?
John: The poor trial -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - well, it's gonna take five years for a lawsuit to get through.
Russ: Oh, my God.
John: Well, you know, and you can make fun of the trial lawyers, but -
Russ: Yeah, you can.
John: - our system, our free enterprise system wouldn't exist without the rule of law -
Russ: That's true.
John: - and the courts play a big part of that -
Russ: Yeah. Absolutely.
John: - and I'm wondering if San Francisco, I mean courts of law are like the basic, fundamental building block -
Russ: Right.
John: - of a successful society, -
Russ: Right.
John: - really, and if -
Russ: If you can't afford them anymore -
John: - you can't afford your courts, I mean what the heck are you spending all this money on over there? I mean you've still got a lot of money floating around that state, and they can't afford to run their courts.
Russ: That's a good question.
John: The next thing you know, -
Russ: What are they doing with their money?
John: - they'll be taking their police out of cruisers and putting them in electric vehicles, or something. Can you imagine chasing a crook in an electric vehicle? If that crook can manage to go past the 40-mile -
Russ: Your range anxiety kicks in.
John: - your range anxiety kicks in.
Russ: All right.
John: And then, I just heard about, or actually I saw a film clip recently. Buffett is complaining about Obama's critical take on corporate jets and everything, because -
Russ: Buffett -
John: Warren Buffett.
Russ: - critical of Obama.
John: Yeah, _________ -
Russ: That's interesting.
John: - and Buffett has NetJets, that's one of his deals -
Russ: Right.
John: - and what this goes to show is why you really can't hitch your wagon to extremely intelligent people, because Buffett is a smart guy -
Russ: Right.
John: - no question. He's a good stock picker, and he's really built this massive - he's picked great companies, and all this, but nobody is intelligent in every field of endeavor -
Russ: Right.
John: - and -
Russ: He's not good in picking presidents.
John: - he's not good. He screwed up. I mean, he backed a socialist and now, all of a sudden, he's upset over the tax policies of the corporate jets.
Russ: All right.
John: I say, to thy own self be true.
Russ: There you go.
John: Okay. All right.
Russ: All right, and before we wrap up today's School of Business, it's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneur's Playbook.
John: And here's Greg Price, always on time, and looking good, too.
Russ: And on the piano.
John: There he goes. A one, and a two, and a - [break in audio].
Russ: All right, and that wraps up today's School of Business. Stay tuned in for our interview with Sheryl Rapp of The UP Experience, followed by an interview with David Underwood of TopSpot. This is The BusinessMakers show, heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com.
