Job offers – the magic numbers

I was talking to my brother about the various parameters of the job offer, tax rates. etc. Just came up with a list which might be useful to folks looking for a new job. Here it goes – let me know if I am missing something:

 Offer components
 
1 Annual Salary
2 Sign On Bonus
3 Stock Options / Awards
4 Relocation Package
 Home furniture
 Car reloc
 
 Things to evaluate an offer
1 Type of role, which company, technology
2 Annual raise
3 annual bonus
4 annual stock options , awards
5 401K match
6 ESPP plan
7 State tax
8 Rents / Home purchase prices

                                                                                                                 Useful links    

1 Federal taxes http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=150856,00.html 
2 Rents comparison    
3 Home prices    
     
     
     
     
 Offer Comparison Chart    
1 CA http://www.bankrate.com/brm/itax/edit/state/profiles/state_tax_Cal.asp   
2 WA 0   0
3 WI http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_statetaxrate_WI.html#taxrate   
4     
     
btw, he is graduating 12/15/2007 (if your company has openings, please send me a note )

desis night out (or is it?) – day after thanksgiving

I had done this night out a couple of times before – hanging out with a bunch of friends to get the ‘best’ deal during the thanksgiving sales. These stores do a great job selling the deals that most of us are bought into it. In th end, we come out spending a lot more than we wanted, because we got the “best” deals – in reality the stores win .

In all fun, it is great to get that adrenalin rush and seems ok when a few hrs of sleep are no big deal or so easy to overcome. Not a big fan of it today.

But I wanted my wife to experience this. So this time, on nov 22nd thursday night, we drove past the circuitcity in bellevue and at 8.30 PM saw about 30 people in line. So we went to the desi store and picked up 2 tamil movies, saw the movies till 3.15 AM and decided to go to the Kohls and Target sale. we reached there around 3.30 AM and managed to be within the first 10. At 4 AM when the shop opened, people rushed in while we simply strolled – no hurry since we did not want anything specific. In the end, did pick a few things and the billing line was about a mile long inside the store.

we went to the Target line around 5.15 AM and were the only desis around. so anytime, someone thinks we are the crazy ones searching for deals – think again, we did not have any thanksgiving dinner invitees and did not rush back to the Kohls or Target shopping lines. we were free the entire day and

we did not have to treat the Thanksgiving sale specially because it was just another day of our lives – we always need a good deal

we heard that the circuitcity line had grown to 4000 before the shop opened the next day. Maybe we need an online portal that shows the waiting time in each of these stores and folks wiating in the line can send a picture or SMS from their cell phones – ‘waitsmart.com’

cheers

challenge flag in cricket

cricket definitely needs more tweaks to make it interesting. not proposing that NFL rules be adapted right away – but most of them make sense. We definitely need more involvement from coaches, because it brings a cerebral aspect to the game. a concept of trickery started in 1992 WC with pinchhitters opening the batting and spin bowlers starting the bowling. that was great.

Maybe it is time to introduce the coaches challenge. Looking at articles like – http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/indvpak/content/current/story/321001.html makes this a requirement. a key player gets out to a bad decision, and on top of it he gets fined!! Why not have a coaches / captain’s challenge. if the challenge turns out to be right he gets back the opportunity to do it again or else the team is docked 5 runs or 1 over [ given that the whole process is about 5 mins which is the time to bowl 1 over and assuming the current run rate is 5] It will bring a new involvement from the crowds who can look at the giant screen and help in the decision.

one more step for cricket to replace base ball in the US ..

rediff article – “tips to become a good successful entrepreneur”

good read for the entrepreneur wannabes 

Tips to become a successful entrepreneur

http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2007/nov/07ranjit.htm

Getting started

Tip #1: Don’t worry about not being courageous enough for the uncertainty of the business world, as being an entrepreneur has nothing to do with courage. People who observe entrepreneurs leaving a secure job and taking the plunge into the unknown sometimes marvel at their courage (or foolhardiness).

Most successful entrepreneurs that I’ve met, however, don’t see themselves as particularly brave. In fact, they do a lot of homework and make contingency plans that take into account the possibility of failure.

I’ve met a number of entrepreneurs who have left McKinsey & Co., my first employer after business school, because they recognised that becoming a director at McKinsey is not guaranteed for even some of the hardest working, smartest people that you come across in the business world.

Becoming a director at any large organisation has much to do with factors that are not in your control, including personal relationships and the economic cycle that the company happens to be in when promotion decisions are made. While organisations try to be fair, they operate in a world that isn’t, and if you recognise that staying put is not necessarily safe you are more likely to get over the fear of venturing out.

Tip #2: Look for a big idea, and be rational.

There’s no point taking a big risk if you have a small idea, and from an economic perspective, it’s logical to concentrate on expected value, which means the potential value creation times the probability of actually achieving it. So if your job is 100% secure, and the chances of entrepreneurial success are only 10%, then compare your future salary against the expected future value of your venture (the ‘payoff’) times 10%.

If the expected value (payoff times 10%) is more than your salary, then logically you should give it a try. However, most people are irrationally risk averse, so if the expected value is not vastly higher than their salary, they would opt for the more certain outcome.

On the other hand, people who are destined to become entrepreneurs are more likely to be sceptical about the security of their job, so they wouldn’t assign a 100% probability to the so-called safe option.

Tip #3: Start small.

In Tip #2, I said it’s important to think big, but for most entrepreneurs it’s also important to start small. A good example is SchoolTrainer, which was started by a Delhi-based Hindi and Math tutor. He has a big idea, but has started out small (just himself).

He currently has less than 100 teachers on his panel, but expects to scale up to a thousand over the next few years. Starting small enables you to experiment, work out the bugs in your systems, and prove your idea. The discipline of a tight budget also forces small companies to do what customers ask them to do. Companies that start operations with a lot of resources often scale up too quickly, waste money and enjoy the luxury of not having to listen to customers.

Tip #4: When faced with the fear of giving up a secure job, concentrate on the equally frightening possibility of someday looking back with regret.

In other words, if you think the risk of entrepreneurship is high, consider the risk of losing a fortune by letting an opportunity slip out of your hands. Of course, explaining this to conservative family members (usually a parent or spouse) may be difficult. For some people, even a 10% chance of failure is too high to contemplate, no matter how big the potential payoff is.

A 90% chance of failure is out of the question. Conservative family members will only be convinced if you have an airtight back up plan, which leads to Tip #5.

Tip #5: Have a backup plan.

One entrepreneur I know asked his employer, a very prestigious professional services firm, for a leave of absence. This gave him time to verify that his idea had merit. He knew that if he failed (which he assumed was likely), he could always return to the relative safety of a conventional career. His friends and acquaintances thought he was gutsy, but he knew he had a safety net.

In the end, he was able to prove his idea during his leave of absence and was able confidently to convert his leave of absence into a separation. He was shrewd, not brave.

LDAM

I have been thinking about writing this article for a while – LDAM, not el damn = Long distance arranged marriage. Spoken to a few friends in private to help through this process. A new phenomenan for the last 5 yrs which has taken off thanks for startups like bharathmatrimony.com, shaadi.com,etc. In short, folks advertise in web sites, email correspondanes flow, astrologers are ringed up, IM lines open up, contract gets signed, sometimes cancelled and eventually the marriage happens. This is actually a more complicated work flow than what folks think it is. For those of you have done conference calls, you will realize this difficulty, communicating with someone with no visuals is tough. but in reality, this is inevitable, being 10000 miles, there are nothing better to do.

some best practises – take control, lose your pride, keep the communication frank and open, decide on the first person when things match, do not compromise, take every proposal seriously, dont lose it all when something does not work, be fair.

I started my advertising process in 2004 – very soon realized that my parents and I had a mismatch in selections and had to take charge. One thing I realized is to come up with a core set of values that are very keen to me, started thinking on stuff that i cannot compromise on. I did not prepare and was convinced that I will do nothing special but just be myself. My first experience without any dress rehearsal was almost out of mouna raagam, we were waiting at her place and she was yet to return from work . Obviosly this did not work out since we were very different – i had not emailed the person before, nor had I talked to her before and all it took me was a couple of hrs face 2 face to figure this out. we were able to connect on some common interests but very different in some core values – luckily for both of us, this did not work out. I met a couple of folks and then returned to the US uncommitted.

Then there was a lot of coaching exercises for my parents over phone where we were working as a team – getting the right match. Then in 2005 Sep, I had another trip. In this trip, my parents were “closely” working with a family – as always, my cousin sister had also gone to meet the family got her reads (which I valued more), i spoke to the girl’s relatives in the US, etc, etc. about 15 days before leaving to India, I requested  the girl’s email id and got it. i sent an email but no response – apparently the email account was “not working”. I tried sending a couple of more, apparently there was some computer and email problems. about 3 days before  I left, we got the news that the person is engaged with the family apologising. This is where the whole “fair” thing comes into perspective. I wonderd why people behaved this way inspite of I being open in all aspects. The truth is people are different – everybody wants to have options, backups and it is a pity that it has trickled down to matchups – damn LDAM.

i am glad about these experiences. it had no effect on my approach, it actually strengthened my approach and i continued to be the same. a couple of days, before leaving back to the US in sep 2005, my parents wanted to meet another family. I had  goatee, wearing a T-shirt, jeans and slippers and was at my friend’s place chatting. My parents had setup an adhoc meeting in 2 hrs and I was ready -well heck, I had done this a couple of times now and did not need any more prep. The next couple of hrs were spent talking about the most serious stuff – long term plans, work life balance, r2i plans, religious beliefs, staying with parents, my personal likes, the kind of person I am, etc. It was real serious stuff – was wondering if the person thought I was a nut. being so serious in the 1st meeting. but the reality of the situation is that for folks like us, we have to make the most important decision of our life in probably the least amount of time. so you got to get all your Qs cleared up in whatever way that suits you. You have to be convinced about the decision, from all angles. believe me, it does not require all that much of time either. Luckily for me, the girl said yes and we are happily married. Somethings in life are worth waiting for

In summary, take your time, do it your way, can be done in a couple of meetings of 2 hrs , be fair and be smart about the realities if something does not work out. Lean on your friends wisdom and learn from their stupidity (if any).

LDAM does work but needs a little coaching tweaks for you and your parents.

Happy LDAMing!!

quiet strength – tony dungy

just started reading ‘QUIET STRENGTH’ and it seems to be setting the pace really well. Very curious to understand the management style of tony, aka ‘Gandhi of NFL’ getting it done without “losing it”, the first african american coach to win the super bowl, the person who overcame adversity, loss of his son, and instills principles, priorities in his players to play at the highest level. in the intiial phases, the book seems to take a bit too much about this religious faith, too many articles from the bible and might be a turn off to some. hopefully it gets better down the line. will let you know.

i always enjoy reading some of the books about coaches, mostly NFL. it conveys a lot of smart management techniques which are applicable to folks who want to pursue management, entrepreneurial careers. getting players who make million dollar pay checks, troubled personas, different backgrounds and getting this together and play for the TEAM vision is indeed unique. there have been different approaches to coaching and will continue to be . you see the chucky personality (john gruden) – young aggresive and getting it done. you see the tuna personality (bill parcells) – old school, but making the players earn respect, conveying a cold feel towards players but contrary towards his guys. then there is tony dungy who gets it done in a very simple style, dont get me wrong, very passionate about winning but not necessarily showing this eternally via emotions.

 more to follow… stay posted

mellowing with age – the gr8 maestro

Just reading an article off cricinfo about sachin mentioning his batting adaptations over the years -‘Sound of bat hitting ball is still a special feeling’. The changes in his mental frame right now with after so many years of service to international cricket. we could hear the critics say ‘I always told this before’ – but seriously it is not rocket science to predict that ones natural reflexes will slow down with age and does it even matter? each of us need to set the bar for ourselves and as long as one delivers the goods the rest does not matter.

To me, the article heading stands out ‘Sound of bat hitting ball is still a special feeling’ – after so many years, this guy has the drive (no pun intended) to play at the highest level, his commitment to the game has always been more 100% and his playing has been inspirational. To have a consistent mental poise at 15, refined and got better at 35 years old has been unique. being successful at what you love and being one of the best is achievement.

kudos to the one and only man who scores 100s in both cricket and outside of it!

hope his swansong thrills us as much as his entire career has been.