Brian Greenwald
AGLOCO Development Team
Interesting site of the day: Well, this morning I read the most interesting site of the day for me. It was two comments on my last post written by David North. I have put them at the bottom of this post for easy access, but I also wanted to add that while some of the ‘chatter’ that gets in the comment section of this blog is not meaningful, many of the thoughts expressed there do register and do help shape the priorities and progress of AGLOCO. With hundereds of thousands of AGLOCO Members thinking about how to improve the company, AGLOCO should avoid the trap some companies hit when only ‘insiders’ do the thinking. And this should only grow stronger with time when the Viewbar is released and the number of AGLOCO Members moves into the millions. Here are David’s posts:
David North said,
April 11, 2007 @ 5:56 am
Hi Saket,
Don’t forget that you ARE putting something into AGLOCO, it just doesn’t happen to be cash. You are providing AGLOCO a free billboard on your computer screen and helping AGLOCO locate other free billboards on others’ computer screens. You are essentially a service provider to AGLOCO, supplying space in front of eyes. In that regard, you are no different than Google’s service providers, webmasters that give Google free space in their web sites to display ads. Google in turn monetizes that space in front of eyes (similarly to what AGLOCO will do) and pays the webmaster a portion of the money. In fact, Google pays many millions of dollars to webmasters every month, and makes a nice profit doing so.
There is another similarity between Google and AGLOCO that is worth noting. Google’s naysayers are many. Many of Google’s naysayers are smart people who have very valid concerns about Google’s ability to sustain its momentum, among other things. The presence of Google naysayers, and some of what they had to say, helped me decide how much risk I was willing to take investing in Google, as both a service provider to - and stockholder of Google.
David North said,
April 11, 2007 @ 6:29 am
Hi Volin,
With opportunity generally comes risk. The 2005 hurricane season was the most costly ever for big insurance companies, who racked up many billions of dollars in underwriting losses. What’s more, scientists, global warming activists and others were predicting it would only get worse. Nearly all insurance companies reduced their exposure to hurricane-prone regions, but Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway increased its exposure to hurricane prone regions. Many analysts (none of whom have amassed $40 billion personal net worth) thought Buffett (who has amassed $40 billion personal net worth) was nuts. And when the 2006 hurricane season was unusually mild, Berkshire Hathaway posted the largest annual book value increase of any company ever, thanks to record insurance underwriting profits. You can find Berkshire Hathaway’s annual reports for 2005 and 2006 at www.berkshirehathaway.com to see for yourself that Buffett did weigh seriously the predictions of scientists and others regarding future hurricane risks. Then he made a rational decision about the risk and reward potential of insuring hurricane-related damages.
What does Warren Buffett and insurance have to do with AGLOCO? AGLOCO represents an opportunity that comes with risks. Make an honest effort to understand both the opportunity and the risks, THEN make your decision about how much or how little effort to invest in AGLOCO, and you’ll be doing just what one of the world’s wealthiest people has done all his life to get to where he is.