这是一位来自莫斯科的模特，她一直梦想成为芭比娃娃，她花了几年时间将自己“塑造”成最接近芭比的样子，现在她梦想成真了，性感照走红网络。
最后一张是真正的芭比模型!
Friday 30 September 2011
Here's A Big Flow Chart To Help You Figure Out Which Kindle Is Right For You
Four years ago Amazon introduced the original Kindle. Two years ago, there was just two models: the Kindle 2 and the large screen Kindle DX. After this week’s announcements, Amazon is now selling 14 different models under the Kindle brand.
The current Kindle lineup varies on no fewer than 11 different features by my count, with 2 to 5 possible variants for each of the 11 features. Many options are tied to others and can’t be chosen independently. Adding to the complexity, there’s not even a specific price for a particular feature. Depending on the model, getting rid of the “special offers” advertising can add $30, $40, or $50 to the price, while adding 3G can cost either $40 or $50. Even with these price variations, 13 of the 14 SKUs are crammed into a price range of just $120, from $79 to $199.
Here’s the Kindle product tree, rendered as concisely as humanly possible. Click through if you want to see the chart full size - I couldn’t get it any smaller, despite omitting the width/height/depth differences between the various models:
Image: Michael DeGusta
And the inevitable comparison…
Technically Apple has 18 different iPad models while Amazon has “only” 14 different Kindles. However, Amazon has taken (or perhaps just ended up with) a vastly more complicated approach to segmenting and differentiating the Kindle models.
Here’s the iPad product tree:
Image: Michael DeGusta
What’s Amazon Up To?
Everyone expected the Fire tablet but I don’t think many expected Amazon to introduce two new model lines (the basic Kindle and the Kindle Touch) and keep the existing “Kindle Keyboard” models, in addition to the DX.
One possibility is that they’re just running off old inventory, but that’s definitely not how Amazon’s positioning the older models. If they really wanted a simpler lineup, the old models would clearly be labeled closeout, not included on the top of each Kindle page and in all of their comparison charts, etcetera.
A second possibility is that Amazon couldn’t internally reach consensus about the product line, but that doesn’t match up with Amazon’s history nor Jeff Bezos’s demonstrated personal leadership style. Amazon isn’t Microsoft or Google.
So the most likely possibility is that Bezos and Amazon somewhat bizarrely believe this lineup is a rational one. It’s a range of options they apparently think will each find a substantive enough user base to justify the extra product line complexity and production/support hassles.
Why Amazon ended up with so many models in such a relatively narrow space is unclear, but right now the message from Amazon seems pretty clear to me: “we stopped making any choices, so you’re gonna have to start making a lot of them.”
This post originally appeared at The Understatement.
The current Kindle lineup varies on no fewer than 11 different features by my count, with 2 to 5 possible variants for each of the 11 features. Many options are tied to others and can’t be chosen independently. Adding to the complexity, there’s not even a specific price for a particular feature. Depending on the model, getting rid of the “special offers” advertising can add $30, $40, or $50 to the price, while adding 3G can cost either $40 or $50. Even with these price variations, 13 of the 14 SKUs are crammed into a price range of just $120, from $79 to $199.
Here’s the Kindle product tree, rendered as concisely as humanly possible. Click through if you want to see the chart full size - I couldn’t get it any smaller, despite omitting the width/height/depth differences between the various models:
Image: Michael DeGusta
And the inevitable comparison…
Technically Apple has 18 different iPad models while Amazon has “only” 14 different Kindles. However, Amazon has taken (or perhaps just ended up with) a vastly more complicated approach to segmenting and differentiating the Kindle models.
Here’s the iPad product tree:
Image: Michael DeGusta
What’s Amazon Up To?
Everyone expected the Fire tablet but I don’t think many expected Amazon to introduce two new model lines (the basic Kindle and the Kindle Touch) and keep the existing “Kindle Keyboard” models, in addition to the DX.
One possibility is that they’re just running off old inventory, but that’s definitely not how Amazon’s positioning the older models. If they really wanted a simpler lineup, the old models would clearly be labeled closeout, not included on the top of each Kindle page and in all of their comparison charts, etcetera.
A second possibility is that Amazon couldn’t internally reach consensus about the product line, but that doesn’t match up with Amazon’s history nor Jeff Bezos’s demonstrated personal leadership style. Amazon isn’t Microsoft or Google.
So the most likely possibility is that Bezos and Amazon somewhat bizarrely believe this lineup is a rational one. It’s a range of options they apparently think will each find a substantive enough user base to justify the extra product line complexity and production/support hassles.
Why Amazon ended up with so many models in such a relatively narrow space is unclear, but right now the message from Amazon seems pretty clear to me: “we stopped making any choices, so you’re gonna have to start making a lot of them.”
This post originally appeared at The Understatement.
10 Founders Under 30 Who Grew Their Startups To $100 Million + Exits
Aaron Patzer was 28 when he sold Mint.com for $170 million
Aaron Patzer graduated from Duke University in 2002. In 2007, he took home the $50,000 prize at TechCrunch 40 for his startup, Mint.com. Mint is a financial tools and management platform that helps people keep track of their spending. In September 2009, two years after its launch, Mint was acquired by Intuit for $170 million.
Max Levchin was 27 when PayPal IPO'd and 35 when he sold Slide to Google.
Max Levchin has a couple of successful startups under his belt. In 1998, he cofounded a company that would be renamed PayPal. In February 2002, PayPal went public and was later bought by eBay. Levchin, who served as CEO, had a reported 2.3% stake, which was worth about $34 million.
In 2004, Levchin founded Slide, a platform for creating and sharing content. It was acquired by Google in August 2010 for $182 million.
Catherine and David Cook were 21 and 22 when the company they cofounded, MyYearbook, was acquired for $100 million in cash and stock.
In 2005, Catherine Cook and her brother David moved to a new high school. They felt out of place, and wanted a way to meet friends quickly. The developed MyYearbook, and it quickly spread to students across the nation.
Shortly after launch, Geoff Cook, Catherine and David's older brother, joined the team. He grew the company to a $100 million acquisition in August, 2011. QuePasa, a Latino social network, bought MyYearbook for $82 million in stock and $18 million in cash -- just enough to pay off the $17 million the siblings had raised from investors.
Jared Polis was 24 when he and his parents sold Bluemountain greeting cards for $780 million
Polis launched an e-card business with his parents in 1996 called Bluemountainarts. Three years later, Polis sold Bluemountain to Excite@Home for $780 million. Polis was CEO and pocketed about $150 million. Now he is a member of the House of Representatives from Colorado's 2nd district.
Stephan Paternot set stock market history when he took TheGlobe public at age 24
Paternot created TheGlobe.com when he was a junior at Cornell University. TheGlobe was an online chat, messaging and webpage-making service. It went public in November 1998; stock closed at $63 per share, giving TheGlobe a $1 billion+ valuation. The next year, the stock crashed. In 2008, the company folded completely.
Jeff Arnold founded WebMD in his twenties. Stock soared to $100 per share...before plummeting.
Jeff Arnold created a heart monitoring system and sold it for $25 million. He took the money from the sale and founded a new company, WebMD. Within one year, the company was valued at $20 billion. WebMD merged with its competitor Healtheon in a $7 billion merger. Arnold was 30 when he left the company in October 2000. After its stock had traded higher than $100, it plunged to $3 per share in late 2001. Fortune called Arnold the "poster boy of the Internet bubble."
Marc Ewing became a paper billionaire by age 30 when he founded Red Hat.
Marc Ewing created a Linux distribution called Red Hat Linux. His company was acquired by Bob Young and the two created Red Hat Software. Ewing was CEO, and the company went public in August, 1999. At the peak of the Internet bubble, Ewing was worth more than $900 million. He took some time off with his millions in 1999 and started spending a lot of time rock climbing.
Marium Naficy and Varsha Rao founded Eve.com in their 20s, which sold to IdeaLab for $100 million in cash.
Naficy and Rao met while working in finance in New York. They both wanted to start a company, and the decided to sell makeup to women online. At first, investors told them it was a bad idea. "Women don't shop online!" they said. Of course, that was wrong. In a Mixergy 2010 interview, Naficy explains the eventual acquisition of Eve to IdeaLab. The founders were 30 when it sold.
They bought the whole company. It was a competitive situation between Idealab and LVMH, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, that at that time was trying to expand Sephora into the US and they only had one store in the US. And we had about double the traffic online as Sephora.com at that time. So, it was advantageous for LVMH to buy us to move us out of the way of Sephora. So they made the initial bid. Idealab outbid them, bought us for cash. Then eventually, there were a lot of things that happened. Subsequently, we actually ended up selling to LVMH after all. So, if you type in eve.com now it actually goes into Sephora after all. So, we actually sold the company twice. The first time was for about $100 million in cash to Idealab.
BONUS: Jared Hecht (24) and Steve Martocci (29) sold GroupMe for a near $100 million exit one year after its launch.
Steve Martocci and Jared Hecht cofounded group messaging service GroupMe last summer. Last month, they sold it for a rumored $85 million to Skype. Not quite a $100 million+ exit, but close enough in our book.
BONUS: Dave Morin could have sold his company for $100 million to Google, but turned it down.
Dave Morin, a former Facebook employee, created a more private social network called Path. Three months after launch, he was rumored to have turned down a $100 million acquisition offer from Google.
Why?
His confidante, Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, says it was peer pressure.
"I can't take full credit," says Moskovitz, "but we happened to be on vacation together. It was me, him and Brian Singerman of Founders Fund. It just was really clear from Dave's body language and what he was saying that he didn't want to do the deal. He was feeling pressured to do it. People were telling him, 'Take the deal, don't risk it all.' The lesson learned is [founders should] set expectations higher [for themselves and their companies]."
15 Tips on How Successful People Think
The world's most successful people have one thing in common: they think differently from everyone else.
This is how John C. Maxwell introduces hisNew York Times bestseller, How Successful People Think (he's also written a ton of leadership books, which have sold around 19 million copies worldwide). Because we also believe that smart thinking will change your life, we picked up a copy from Barnes & Noble. Here are the best takeaways.
1. Thinking is a discipline. If you want to be better at it, you've got to work at it
Consider developing a thinking schedule like Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy, who sets aside a half day every two weeks, a whole day every month, and two or three full days every year. Source: How Successful People Think
2. Figure out when you need to focus your energy, and then use the 80/20 ruleDevote 80% of your energy to the most important 20% of your activities. Remember that you can't be everywhere, know everyone, and do everything. And avoid multitasking: it can cost you 40% efficiency. Source: How Successful People Think
3. Smart thinkers expose themselves to different ideas and types of peopleThey're also selective about spending most of their time with people who challenge them.
4. Its' one thing to have an idea, another to follow through"Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date."
5. Thoughts need time to develop. Don't just settle on the first thing that comes to mindRemember the last time you had a brilliant idea at 2 a.m., but it sounded sort of ridiculous when you woke up the next morning? Thoughts need to be "shaped until they have substance" and need to stand the test of "clarity and questioning."
6. Smart people collaborate with other smart peopleThinking with others yields higher returns. It's like giving yourself a shortcut. That's why brainstorming sessions are so effective.
7. Reject popular thinking (which often means not thinking at all)Too many people act, hoping that others have thought things through first. To reject popular thinking you must be OK with feeling uncomfortable. Also remember that right now, there are a bunch of other people out there deciding to think for themselves -- and they're the ones who are successful.
8. The best thinkers plan ahead, while leaving room for some spontaneityWhen you're strategic, you reduce your margin of error. Simply having vague ideas of where you are and what you want to accomplish will get you no where. The keys to being strategic: 1. break the issue down, 2. ask why the problem needs to be solved, 3. identify the key issues, 4. review your resources, 5. put the right people in place. Henry Ford once said, "Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into smaller parts."
9. To think differently, do different things
Try new routes to work, meet new people, read books you might even consider boring. The key is exposure to new ideas and ways of life.
10. To appreciate others' ideas, you need to value other ideasYou can't think you're always right. Give other concepts a chance.
11. Have an agenda -- for the day, and when you meet with peopleToo many people only plan for the day. Smart thinkers take time to plan out their weeks, months, and long-term goals -- and then they follow through. They also don't walk into meetings, parties and coffee dates blind. They decide what they want to learn from people before walking through the door.
12. Reflective thinking gives you perspective and confidence in your decision-making skillsIf you're not reflecting, it's holding you back more than you think. As Socrates said, "An unexamined life is not worth living."
13. Get over negative self talk. Winners think in terms of "I will" and "I can"Smart people don't see limitations. They see possibilities. Former baseball star Sam Ewing once said that "nothing is so embarrassing as watching someone do something that you said could not be done
14. Creative people are dedicated to ideasThey embrace ambiguity, don't fear failure, and hang out with other creative people.
15. Naturally optimistic people find it hard to be realistic thinkersA realistic perspective allows you to get close enough to a problem in order to tackle it. Facing potential consequences also helps you be more efficient, and it gives you credibility. To become a more realistic thinker, you must: 1. appreciate the truth, 2. do your homework and get the facts, 3. think through the pros and cons, 4. consider the worst-case scenario, and 5. align your thinking with your resources.
At the end of the day, it's important to remember we can all change the way we think "Learning how to master the process of thinking well leads you to productive thinking. If you can develop the discipline of good thinking and turn it into a lifetime habit, then you will be successful and productive all of your life."
This is how John C. Maxwell introduces hisNew York Times bestseller, How Successful People Think (he's also written a ton of leadership books, which have sold around 19 million copies worldwide). Because we also believe that smart thinking will change your life, we picked up a copy from Barnes & Noble. Here are the best takeaways.
1. Thinking is a discipline. If you want to be better at it, you've got to work at it
Consider developing a thinking schedule like Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy, who sets aside a half day every two weeks, a whole day every month, and two or three full days every year. Source: How Successful People Think
2. Figure out when you need to focus your energy, and then use the 80/20 ruleDevote 80% of your energy to the most important 20% of your activities. Remember that you can't be everywhere, know everyone, and do everything. And avoid multitasking: it can cost you 40% efficiency. Source: How Successful People Think
3. Smart thinkers expose themselves to different ideas and types of peopleThey're also selective about spending most of their time with people who challenge them.
4. Its' one thing to have an idea, another to follow through"Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date."
5. Thoughts need time to develop. Don't just settle on the first thing that comes to mindRemember the last time you had a brilliant idea at 2 a.m., but it sounded sort of ridiculous when you woke up the next morning? Thoughts need to be "shaped until they have substance" and need to stand the test of "clarity and questioning."
6. Smart people collaborate with other smart peopleThinking with others yields higher returns. It's like giving yourself a shortcut. That's why brainstorming sessions are so effective.
7. Reject popular thinking (which often means not thinking at all)Too many people act, hoping that others have thought things through first. To reject popular thinking you must be OK with feeling uncomfortable. Also remember that right now, there are a bunch of other people out there deciding to think for themselves -- and they're the ones who are successful.
8. The best thinkers plan ahead, while leaving room for some spontaneityWhen you're strategic, you reduce your margin of error. Simply having vague ideas of where you are and what you want to accomplish will get you no where. The keys to being strategic: 1. break the issue down, 2. ask why the problem needs to be solved, 3. identify the key issues, 4. review your resources, 5. put the right people in place. Henry Ford once said, "Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into smaller parts."
9. To think differently, do different things
Try new routes to work, meet new people, read books you might even consider boring. The key is exposure to new ideas and ways of life.
10. To appreciate others' ideas, you need to value other ideasYou can't think you're always right. Give other concepts a chance.
11. Have an agenda -- for the day, and when you meet with peopleToo many people only plan for the day. Smart thinkers take time to plan out their weeks, months, and long-term goals -- and then they follow through. They also don't walk into meetings, parties and coffee dates blind. They decide what they want to learn from people before walking through the door.
12. Reflective thinking gives you perspective and confidence in your decision-making skillsIf you're not reflecting, it's holding you back more than you think. As Socrates said, "An unexamined life is not worth living."
13. Get over negative self talk. Winners think in terms of "I will" and "I can"Smart people don't see limitations. They see possibilities. Former baseball star Sam Ewing once said that "nothing is so embarrassing as watching someone do something that you said could not be done
14. Creative people are dedicated to ideasThey embrace ambiguity, don't fear failure, and hang out with other creative people.
15. Naturally optimistic people find it hard to be realistic thinkersA realistic perspective allows you to get close enough to a problem in order to tackle it. Facing potential consequences also helps you be more efficient, and it gives you credibility. To become a more realistic thinker, you must: 1. appreciate the truth, 2. do your homework and get the facts, 3. think through the pros and cons, 4. consider the worst-case scenario, and 5. align your thinking with your resources.
At the end of the day, it's important to remember we can all change the way we think "Learning how to master the process of thinking well leads you to productive thinking. If you can develop the discipline of good thinking and turn it into a lifetime habit, then you will be successful and productive all of your life."
Friday 2 September 2011
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