Crossroads

At the intersection of technology, finance and the Pacific Rim.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

My Way

So sang Frank Sinatra. And the importance of each individual and country doing it their way has never been more important. There was an article on the International Herald Tribune on the turnaround of Japanese corporations, who for the most part are doing it in a way that remains consistent with their core values as follows:


Fujio Mitarai, the president and chief executive at Canon, who recently succeeded Okuda as the head of Keidanren, is noted for drawing a distinction between the global and local aspects of corporate management. The new-look Japanese company, according to Mitarai and other executives, accepts world standards in terms of balance sheet and cash flow management, transparency and cost controls while preserving Japanese practices in areas like employment and close ties to suppliers.

No executive in Japan argues that Japanese companies were obliged to maintain unrealistic employment levels as a matter of social responsibility. But many assert that they limited the suffering among employees, at home if not always abroad, and persevered in circumstances in which many American companies would simply have closed.

Almost all job cuts during the recession years, for instance, came through attrition or early retirement plans, not layoffs. Equally, while large companies were unquestionably rigorous during the recession in passing on new competitive pressures to suppliers within what is known as the keiretsu system, long- term ties were by and large undamaged

This is not to say that the "Japanese way" is superior--though the writer may imply so (now that the pain of the last 15 years has receded). I only mean to say that each country, company and individual needs to find their own path, in line with their values, skill sets and aspirations. The US way (cut cost sharply, deploy capital elsewhere) is far quicker as a route to recovery--but fast is only one part of the social equation.

And many of you know my opinion that Japan's difficulties were tied as much to demographics as to anything else. Malcolm Gladwell, who wrote a highly influential book called the Tipping Point, which is on my recommended reading list, had an interesting perspective on demographics and economic growth; he (using the research of a couple of Harvard economists) cites the importance of the dependency ratio--the number of working age vs. the "too young or old to work" age-- as a key driver of growth:

Demographers estimate that declines in dependency ratios are responsible for about a third of the East Asian economic miracle of the postwar era; this is a part of the world that, in the course of twenty-five years, saw its dependency ratio decline thirty-five per cent. Dependency ratios may also help answer the much-debated question of whether India or China has a brighter economic future. Right now, China is in the midst of what Joseph Chamie, the former director of the United Nations’ population division, calls the “sweet spot.” In the nineteen-sixties, China brought down its birth rate dramatically; those children are now grown up and in the workforce, and there is no similarly sized class of dependents behind them. India, on the other hand, reduced its birth rate much more slowly and has yet to hit the sweet spot. Its best years are ahead.
The logic of dependency ratios, of course, works equally powerfully in reverse. If your economy benefits by having a big bulge of working-age people, then your economy will have a harder time of it when that bulge generation retires, and there are relatively few workers to take their place. For China, the next few decades will be more difficult. “China will peak with a 1-to-2.6 dependency ratio between 2010 and 2015,” Bloom says. “But then it’s back to a little over 1-to-1.5 by 2050. That’s a pretty dramatic change. Thirty per cent of the Chinese population will be over sixty by 2050. That’s four hundred and thirty-two million people.” Demographers sometimes say that China is in a race to get rich before it gets old.

Economists have long paid attention to population growth, making the argument that the number of people in a country is either a good thing (spurring innovation) or a bad thing (depleting scarce resources). But an analysis of dependency ratios tells us that what’s critical is not just the growth of a population but its structure. “The introduction of demographics has reduced the need for the argument that there was something exceptional about East Asia or idiosyncratic to Africa,” Bloom and Canning write, in their study of the Irish economic miracle. “Once age-structure dynamics are introduced into an economic growth model, these regions are much closer to obeying common principles of economic growth.”
This is an important point. People have talked endlessly of Africa’s political and social and economic shortcomings and simultaneously of some magical cultural ingredient possessed by South Korea and Japan and Taiwan that has brought them success. But the truth is that sub-Saharan Africa has been mired in a debilitating 1-to-1 ratio for decades, and that proportion of dependency would frustrate and complicate economic development anywhere. Asia, meanwhile, has seen its demographic load lighten overwhelmingly in the past thirty years. Getting to a 1-to-2.5 ratio doesn’t make economic success inevitable. But, given a reasonably functional economic and political infrastructure, it certainly makes it a lot easier.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Koreans at Work

This from today's Joong Ang Daily Newspaper:

The workplace is not exactly heaven for a lot of us. But in a recent survey, Koreans were among the most stressed and unhappy on the job than employees in 15 other countries. The majority of 1,016 Koreans polled recently by a U.S.-based human resources consulting firm said they are evaluated unfairly, their private life is disrupted by the burden of a huge workload and their work-related stress is intense.

For the full article, please refer to this link.

I have been trying to find this survey, without success yet. Actually, Koreans can take comfort in knowing that they are not alone and that their counterparts in the US have similar concerns. Why do we have these kind of results? These are very complex issues that deserve much reflective thought. And what is the best way for dealing with these issues?

There are no single solutions to complex problems such as this one. Several ways of combatting the issue come to mind. First, companies need to emphasize the development of not just the technical skill set of their workers, but developing the human skill set in its fullness--this means personal development, nurturing a sense of composure, and personal change management. Second, companies will need to adjust to working couples (especially those with kids), not the other way around. Third, companies will need to find ways to enable their employees to "inter-mix" their professional and personal lives. All of these changes would have a tremendous impact on the work environment as we know it. This is a big problem....and opportunities lie for those who can help fix them.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

We all wonder what it takes to have a global view of investing. And as noted in earlier posts, there are as many routes to success as there are successful people. The interview I have copied below is not from a particularly "famous" investor, except perhaps to those who invest in his funds. I found the interview with Barrons to be noteworthy in several respects: a) note the world view, the ability to place his investment environment within the context of global economic and political events of today; and b) his view of the close ties of Bill Gates and Warren Buuffet and the resultant expected investment outcome. Two qualities of an astute investor come out from the interview: the ability to anticipate events and the ability to see their ripple effects (sometimes 2-3 cause/effects away in a chain reaction). Questions from Barrons are in italics.

Big on Bill and Warren
Interview with David Richards, Private Investor
By SANDRA WARD

EVERYTHING AND NOTHING HAS CHANGED in the two years since we last spoke with David Richards, a private investor and former money manager at two of the most venerable and silent investment outfits around -- Capital Research & Management and PrimeCap. His gold and energy picks have performed brilliantly, and the consumer he's been so worried about just now appears to be cracking. Still, the long-awaited financial disaster he's expected has yet to occur, despite 17 interest-rate hikes, and the dollar has held up better than he imagined, too. Just wait, though. Looking past the blue sky and sun-sparkled sea surrounding his saltwater farm in Maine, Richards is braced for calamity. How Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway fit into the picture, we'll let him explain.

Barron's: Let's get your take on the Federal Reserve's latest move. Were you surprised it took a break and seems to be fighting a slowdown in the economy?

Richards: No.

Do you consider it the right move?

No. [Federal Reserve Chairman Ben] Bernanke is in the mode of wishful thinking. He is betting the economy slows down as a result of the increase in interest rates he has already brought into play and the decline in the housing market, which is continuing to weaken. That's occurring. But inflation is getting back into the system. There's been an illusion that it wasn't happening because people have concentrated on the core CPI [consumer-price index], which excluded all the areas that have seen big price increases. Those price increases are now having a broader impact on many products and that is going to continue to be the case.


The inflation that was out there had been understated, and now it's being recognized for what it is. So Bernanke is faced with rising inflation and he will have to raise rates again.
Central banks around the world have been raising rates.

Did that make it more surprising the U.S. took a time out?

The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Koreans hiked rates recently. It is a global inflation play and central banks are raising rates, some more aggressively than others. To me, this is like 1979, when there was rising inflation and the Fed was behind the curve and inflation got out of control -- and, eventually, as Paul Volcker did then, it will be necessary to raise rates dramatically to curb inflation. We are quite a long way from that.
For now, look for rising inflation and a continued uptick in short rates, which will create a financial crisis of some kind. Then, Bernanke will cut rates because, of course, the housing market will be in the crapper. That will not lead to lower long-term rates but, in fact, to higher rates because confidence in the dollar will go down. So it's a really bad situation.

How do you prepare for such a worst-case scenario?

In the short run, try to have companies that have some possibility of protection against inflation. You should also avoid companies that are leveraged or whose customers need to borrow money to buy products because their cost of credit is going to go up.

Categories to shun include retailers, finance companies, credit-card companies and banks. Those are the areas I have shorts on. On the long side would be oil and gold. I have also recently bought a big chunk of Microsoft [MSFT] and an average position in Berkshire Hathaway [BRK-A].

Why?

There are two big events that happened with respect to Microsoft and Berkshire. What is intriguing to me is the combination of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. People pay money to have lunch with these guys, and they have lunch with each other every day. So you have two of the smartest guys in the world, two of the richest guys in the world, and they are buddies and they teach each other different things. With Berkshire, there has been succession risk due to the fact that Warren is 75, and Charlie Munger is 82.
Buffett's deal with the Gates Foundation reduces that risk. It reduces the risk because Gates is on the Berkshire board and he has invested $350 million or $400 million in its stock, which to him is chump change, but it is not insignificant. In the next 20 years, the Berkshire stock owned by Mr. Buffett is going to be transferred to the Gates Foundation. So Gates has a tremendous interest in seeing to it that Berkshire is run well after the demise of either Buffett or Munger or both. In the meantime, Buffett is teaching Gates about finance. And the evidence of that is that two or three years ago, Microsoft got out of the business of using options to incentivize its employees.

That had been a pet peeve of Buffett's.

Yes, because it basically transferred money to the employees or the managers at the expense of the shareholders. All mature technology companies are going to have to get into that mode eventually, and Microsoft is already there.
One of the things I always like to look at with an investment is whether the owner is on the premises. With Berkshire, clearly that's true, and with Microsoft, that's true. People forget about Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, but he has about $10 billion of Microsoft stock and a significant financial interest. More important, he is smart and he is tough and he is proud.
When he upped spending on research and development, the market took it as a negative and drove the stock down four or five points. The market made a mistake. Microsoft, as an investment for the long term, depends on continuous innovation. They have to assure their customers they will be innovative and that no one else is going to come into any field that is relevant to the first-class operation of the products they are selling. And, to do that, they have to spend a helluva lot of money. That it is a pre-emptive strategy.

Isn't that the problem, though? The spending hasn't resulted in much.

Not really. You can't say they haven't been successful. Revenues are still going up. The profits are still there. Google (GOOG) has taken share in search, but Google is a long way from taking serious share from anything else that Microsoft does. The only competitive player out there is Apple [AAPL], which is also a very intriguing company. I have a tiny position there. It is a very innovative company. It has a competing operating system and it is clearly in an innovative mode.

Why own Berkshire?

Both Microsoft and Berkshire have important things I want to have in this environment. They have cash. They have products they can raise prices on, particularly the insurance side of Berkshire. The stocks trade at around 15 times earnings, which is not very expensive. The other reason I own these two is because I reduced some of my position in oil and gold a few months ago by about 15% to 20% and decided to diversify. But I'm still heavily invested in oil and gold, and if the Fed is forced to ease after this potential financial debacle I foresee, those investments will provide protection.

Do bonds interest you?

When bonds were yielding 10% and 12% years ago, somebody referred to them as certificates of confiscation. At about 5% today, there is no real return in bonds and they might as well be certificates of confiscation. People like Bill Gross are bullish on bonds because they think the Fed will cut rates because housing is so weak. That's a possibility. If the Fed cuts rates, bond prices will go down because of the loss of international confidence in the dollar. I don't have a position in bonds. The dollar surprised everyone last year by showing more strength than expected.
The risk comes as inflation continues. After the Fed pauses, maybe the next time it meets as well, they realize they've got to raise rates again because of inflation. Then we'll begin to get some real pressure in the mortgage market and the asset-backed bond market.
The asset-backed bond-derivative business has been based on statistical analysis of historical data over the past five to 10 years, which was basically a period in which interest rates went down and housing prices went up. The risk analysis is irrelevant to what the period ahead is likely to be, which will be a period -- at best -- in which the housing market stays flat in some areas and goes down quite a bit in some others, and interest rates go up instead of down.
So you are going to have a much different degree of tension in the system, and there is a risk the analysis on the various tranches of these assets is basically wrong. It is going to turn out to be too optimistic.

Risk is not being paid for the way it should be at a time when everyone is under tremendous pressure to seek higher yields. The big municipal and state pension funds are underfunded, and can't make the 8% to 9% return assumptions in a 5% world. They're subject to the snake- oil salesmen coming out of Wall Street, and that's why there is a flood of money going into hedge funds and private-equity funds and derivative securities, under the assumption they will save them from raising taxes to fund the pensions at a time when people are desperate.
The idea that you can take a trader from Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley and give him $5 billion to run a hedge fund or put several billion dollars into a private-equity fund and have it give you a higher-than-normal return -- after 2% fees and 20% of the gains, in an environment where interest rates are going to go up -- is totally nuts. The record of these guys is based on an environment in which interest rates were going down. The fees are too high, and the environment is much different than it was and it is not going to work.

Talk about the consumer. It seems we are seeing a pullback. What's your view?

The consumer is under a lot of pressure. People have used their houses like an ATM [automated teller machine] and have increased their debt from second mortgages and home-equity loans and used that to buy all sorts of consumer goods or to renovate and improve their houses. There could be a sudden sharp drop in consumer spending, and that seems to be developing. I want to be in companies that have very strong balance sheets that don't have to borrow money and where the products, like gasoline and the Windows operating system, are bought by people who don't borrow money in order to buy them.

How high does oil go?

I don't know. You could see rising investment and you should get some economizing because of the high price. On the other hand, there is evidence that some of these big fields are rolling over in Mexico, Kuwait, and now there is the North Slope problem.
Another problem with major oil-producing countries is they've got so much cash that they have little incentive to encourage exploration and production. This is true of Russia, Venezuela and even Saudi Arabia. They look at their portfolios and decide maybe they should have oil in the ground, instead of cash in the bank. And when you get outside these big OPEC producers, you have a problem finding enough oil to make a lot of difference in global production.

Oil is so important that we haven't seen much of any reduction in usage in this country, even though gasoline prices have gone up to more than $3. If you think about how the average car uses around 1,000 gallons a year, you are spending a $1,000 or more extra for the gasoline, relative to the financing of the $20,000 or $30,000 vehicle, and insurance on top of that and just for the convenience factor of driving to the shopping center. The whole American distribution system is based on going to Wal-Mart and Lowe's and Home Depot and Target. The last leg of the distribution system is the SUV driven by American housewives.
The adjustment process will happen, but the investment is so great, there's huge inertia. Plus, the price of oil in real terms is still lower than it was in 1979 or '80. In relative terms, it was $90 or $100 a barrel back then and, at that time, oil was a bigger percentage of gross domestic product, and living standards were less and so the sensitivity was greater.
Also, there have been huge changes in efficiencies since the oil crisis in the 1970s. And the incentives for finding oil were greater then than they are now. That is, the risks of investing in oil exploration were less. Now you worry about finding oil in Russia and Nigeria. You worry about whether you can go into Venezuela. Companies in Bolivia got a surprise when the new government came in and raised taxes on finding gas. The companies still make money, but instead of making a huge profit, they are making a smaller profit.

How does the geopolitical scene affect your scenario?

U.S. foreign policy is out of line with the economic situation the country is in, and it has been for the last few years. We are living on borrowed money, and we are living on imported oil.
We are living in a world today where people are increasingly angry at us, including our creditors and our oil suppliers. We don't give them any incentive to behave differently. President Hu Jintao of China comes to the United States, and he is not accorded the trappings of a full state visit. Talk about insulting your creditor! The administration goes to St. Petersburg and [Vice President Dick] Cheney makes a speech that basically insults the hell out of the Russians. He tells them how to run their country. This sort of bullying unilateralism is just nuts. The whole Arab world is angry at us because we sit on our hands and do nothing to prevent the Israeli destruction of Lebanon. Why should they buy dollars? Why should they buy U.S. assets?
Our behavior has been stupid and insulting and arrogant and, financially, these guys could say screw it. Russia, for example, has $250 billion of reserves. This was a country that was bankrupt several years ago. Their finance people have concluded that they shouldn't hold so many dollars and need to diversify into euros and gold.

The Chinese are making noises about revaluing again because they have inflation problems. Wages and salaries in China are going up at a very rapid rate: The minimum wage in the south rose 17% recently. More seriously, the shortage of skilled workers, managers, accountants and financial people is extraordinary, and they have to bid for local workers. That means the cost of producing stuff in China will be rising. The cost to American consumers of exports coming out of China is definitely going to go up. There has been a huge margin squeeze there, and prices are now going to be pushed up.

And Wal-Mart has agreed to unionize its Chinese stores.

Yes. The big benefit the big-box retailers saw from sourcing in the Far East and shutting down sourcing in the U.S. is basically over, because there is very little left to shift and, secondly, the price of goods coming out of China is going up. That's another factor in the inflation equation.
Overall, what's changed in your investment thinking in the two years since we last spoke?
My views haven't changed too much. What has changed is the discount of the things I was concerned about. Oil and gold have gone up a lot, and the stocks have gone up a lot so there are more risks in those areas than there were back then. But I don't want to hold cash because the dollar is going to go down. I don't want to hold bonds. I don't want to hold any consumer stocks and financial stocks. I would rather have gold and oil in the ground.
If you buy ExxonMobil [XOM] or Royal Dutch [RDS-A] or Chevron [CVX], they've got oil deposits in the ground.

What about foreign stocks?

I still have some Russian stocks, but it is not a big position, only about 3.5%, because it's unclear what will happen in the 2008 elections.
What's your overall portfolio look like?
My long positions exceed my short positions by 30%. Oil represents about 50% of the long portfolio and gold 30%. Microsoft is at 11% and Berkshire Hathaway is 4%. I have 3½% in Russia.

I've got 48 different short positions, mostly financial-service companies, retailers and consumer-discretionary companies, including 10 home builders and Harley Davidson [HOG]; Lowe's [LOW]; Home Depot [HD]; Best Buy [BBY]; and Coach [COH]. SPDRs [exchange-traded funds that represent sectors of the S&P 500] make up 15% of the total short position.

Thanks, David.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Leadership

So what do you do after you have been President of the US for eight years. How do you "retire" and get on with your life at the age of 53. The NY Times describes his activities at his annual conference of government, business, entertainment and NGO leaders:

What sets it apart from other such high-minded conferences is Mr. Clinton's insistence that participants not just discuss these daunting problems but also do something concrete about them — or not be invited back. A staff of four works full-time on "commitments management."
Since the program began with a conference in September, almost 300 corporations, individuals and nonprofit groups have committed more than $2.5 billion to an array of good works, his staff says. Some projects would have happened anyway, but Mr. Clinton estimates that more than half are genuinely new.

"More and more people were saying to me all the time: 'What can I do? What can I do? Tell me something to do,' " Mr. Clinton said in an interview. "I just heard it all the time. So here we are in New York. The United Nations meets here. We can bring together all kinds of people from all over the world. So I just decided to organize a 'What can I do?' conference. And then try to do it every year for a decade."

At the risk of being trite, this is seeing a problem as an opportunity.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

As many of you know, I am a believer in emerging markets as being the driver of much of the growth over the next 10 years--and driving growth means that you can expect to see much innovation coming from unexpected places. Take transportation, car manufacturing, an industry which has not fundamentally changed much in fifty years. Yes, new competitors like Toyota, Hyundai etc. and the players have changed over the years, but the game has stayed fundamentally the same from a technology view. Yet there are a number of factors intersecting--a busy crossroads, if you will. These include sharply rising gas prices, global warming, pollution (so thick you can taste it in the air), congested driving conditions, and new markets that stress affordability. For an interesting take, see this article by Amelia Gentleman in the International Herald Tribune on India's largest electric car company.

Note the compact size, new materials, low cost, and the contouring of design to driving conditions. It is far too early to even suggest that this company will be a success, and arguably the odds are heavily stacked against it. But with gas being so expensive, people recognizing the environmental hazards, electricity being subsidized in places like India, and a burgeoning group of local car manufacturers, it is quite conceivable that new forms of transportation will emerge in these countries -- low cost electrical or hybrid vehicles; and with their potential market volume and the cost-down opportunities that the market scale affords, it would be only one step away to drive toward the larger export markets.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Strategy and Entrepreneurship

I am back after a week in Kangwando. I participated in the KDI School seminar on how to teach cases--teachers teaching teachers. All an effort by the school to improve continuously the skill in stimulating learning in the classroom.

There was an interview in the WSJ with Sunil Bharti Mittal, CEO and Founder of Bharti Airtel, one of India's largest cellular companies and most interesting question was as follows:

WSJ: What was the toughest decision that you had to make?

Mr. Mittal: Four years back, if you go into the history of Bharti Airtel, it was not a question of if, but when this company would collapse. Our stock was at 20 rupees (43 cents) compared with 380 rupees today. The whole market capitalization of the company was three-quarters of a billion dollars versus $16.7 billion today. This company had operations, it had revenues and it had brand. But it was dying because we were faced with unfair regulations. One decision we had to take was whether to stand up and fight with all that we had, or to lie on the ground and let the storm pass. Either you win or die, or conserve your energies for another day and retreat. We retreated. Then we rose, and rose very strongly, and came back.

In this case, energy equals capital. Most of the time, I see businesses pounding away, wasting precious resources during difficult times. Retreat and preserve and let others blast away at each other.

Monday, August 07, 2006

An article in Forbes cites the following:

"If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if an hour, I am ready now." That maxim comes courtesy of Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the U.S.

I hope at some point in your life you will be pitching for money, for capital for either a new business initiative within your company or an investment or for a start-up company. The key is being concise and avoiding a "blah blah" presentation, meaning a lot of words without a lot of meaning or visualization. For how this is done, the article gives a lot of good examples of what not to do.

Friday, August 04, 2006

Car Stereos and Customer Service

The two are not exactly synonymous with each other. But this was in David Pogue's (NYT) rececent post:

Way back in January, in the Dark Ages of this blog (when it didn’t permit graphics, categories or even comments), I lamented that the audio unit on my 2000 Toyota Sienna minivan had died.
“The local Toyota repair-shop guy was big enough to admit that we could do a lot better, features-and-pricewise, by replacing it with a non-Toyota model,” I wrote. “Anyone out there know how I should begin my shopping for such a thing? Is there, like, one well-known Web site that reviews third-party head units, for example?”
WOW, is there ever! No fewer than 25 people–that is, just about everyone who read my not-a-blog back then–all responded the same way: “What you want is Crutchfield.”

To finish reading this story, go here.

Companies have a limitless number of ways to communicate with their customer--but this does not necessarily lead to better communication. And the finance mentality which often tries to take each transaction and break it down for profitability--this was the way McKinsey did it in the times I worked with them--will often get in the way of customer service. It puts a spotlight on costs, measuring for return where there is apparently no direct one. Measurements are fine, but as said (too) many times, you have to also feel the customer experience.

Anyway, the post by David Pogue made me wonder who Crutchfied was. So I went to their site and found this. Very revealing about how to be successful in 1976 and 2006.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Nike: Just Do It!

Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, reportedly will be donating over a $100Mn to the Stanford Business School. It is believed to be the largest donation ever to a B-School.

The rise of Knight and Nike is interestingly chronicled at this link. Most interesting story from Knight: "A few years ago there was a poll in China to name the greatest man ever. The winner was Mao, but there was a tie for second between [revolutionary hero] Zhou Enlai and Michael Jordan of the Chicago Red Oxen!".

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

There was an interesting interview in the WSJ with Peggy Yu, who with her husband runs the largest e-commerce site in China. After reading through the interview it is easy to see why she was able to raise $27MM of capital from principally US venture firms. No buzzwords--she has her own thoughts on running the business.


Some interesting excerpts are below:

WSJ: You are in the book-selling business. Is there any particular business book that you have found useful?
Ms. Yu: "The Making of an American Capitalist" [Roger Lowenstein's biography of Warren Buffett] has had a lasting impression on me, and I go back to that book often. I've never met Warren Buffett in person, but from the book, he comes across as a person with vision and a lot of patience who does a lot of quiet thinking and deliberation. He sticks to several simple principles he believes in. At the same time, he is not stubborn.
And one of his biggest principles, return on investment, affects a lot of my thinking. Whenever I spend money, I always think of value. If I spend this much here while I spend that much there, what's the value I derive from each area. He is extremely sensitive about these yardsticks.

WSJ: Is there one thing you wish that new hires at Dangdang already know when they come in?

Ms. Yu: Skills can be taught. Attitudes and habits are more important. I wish we could find a lot of people who are natural learners, who enjoy learning. I believe attitude decides your fate.

WSJ: Is there anything that you know now that you wish you had known when you were starting out?

Ms. Yu: Setting standards. I think benchmarking is extremely important. If there are no rules, everybody can work very hard, but in all sorts of directions. And then people get into argumentative moods. And people are using different yardsticks and aren't able to evaluate the situation very objectively.

WSJ: What is the most important piece of technology that you use?

Ms. Yu: My cellphone. On average, I send out 1,200 to 1,500 text messages to people every month. I also use it to check on prices in stores. I look around a store, I key in an ISBN number or some other number, send it to Dangdang, and instantly I know the Dangdang price versus the store price.

WSJ: What advice would you give to someone starting out now in your field?

Ms. Yu: Identify customer needs. Every single company sings the same song: "We are customer oriented." But most really don't pay that much attention to customers. To me, everybody is a customer. When I talk to you, you are a customer to me at this moment. I need to use language and examples that make my point clear to you. When I talk to my secretary, my secretary's my customer. I need to make things clear and easy for her to understand, and easy to give me feedback.

And I think for entrepreneurs, I have another philosophy that is very useful, which is, I always live well below my means. So money is never an issue for me or for the company.