So, I got a call the other day from a friend of mine wanting me to take a position at his company.

The catch is that his company is located in Las Vegas. This prompted a friend of mine to come up with a list of what she thinks the top 20 reasons why I couldn’t work in Las Vegas are:

1. Would be too tempted to play a sit-and-go poker tourney on my lunch hour.
2. It’s way to fun to visit, and if I lived there it would lose its luster
3. The weather in June
4. The weather in July
5. The weather in August
6. Too many all you can eat buffets won’t be good for the waistline.
7. Too many cash poker games might leave me broke.
8. Living where you are surrounded by 1/2 naked, drunk, easy women could lead me down a bad path
9. Who would take care of Mongo? ( My fake dog who she would have to take care of if I ever actually got him )
10. Though the Pai Gow bonus can make you rich, it can bleed you dry too.
11. Vegas is no Chicago
12. The Cubs are in Chicago
13. No sports teams in Vegas
14. Vegas is a LOT further from Notre Dame than Chicago is.
15. Access to free tequilla cannot be good for my virtues
16. The bar / club scene in vegas is crazier than in Chicago
17. Living in Vegas could lead to Elivs overload
18. Because she thinks it’s a bad idea
19. Two words: Bachelorette Parties
20. All of the free red bull and all night poker would give me a heart attack.’

Now, one could argue against #16, #19, and #8, but I couldn’t argue with #20. During a recent trip to Vegas, I played poker from 12am to 7am one morning, and had about 12 red bulls. I thought my heart would explode.

Ah, good times.

Paul Graham outlines some lessons for anyone wanting to create a startup. His great essay “The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn” details 7 lessons, each one of them explained in simple and easy to understand terms.

I recently talked with an eager CEO of a startup who could stand to learn lesson #5, “Commitment Is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy”. Now, I have an essay to point him to.

Thanks, Paul.

Highly recommended.

So, a day after he threatened to pull out of his junior
middleweight title defense against Oscar De La Hoya, Ricardo Mayorga said he would still fight.

Apparently, he was unhappy with the $2 million payout in his contract, and wanted $8 million for the fight. The big word there is “contract”. This was followed up by a quote from Mayorga’s promoter, one Mr. Don King, to say this (emphasis mine):

“You sign an agreement, you make a contract, you live up to it. You never get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate. You
got a right to say yay or nay.”

What a great quote. I am amazed sometimes at how cautious people at when picking a tv show to watch, yet are carefree when dealing with much more serious things like a job offer. Negotiating is a lost art. People are all to quick to forget that when getting an offer from anyone to do anything, You got a right to say yay or nay. If you don’t like the offer, say so. If you want something else, ask for it. The worst the other person can say is ‘no’.

Negotiating almost always is between two parties. An offer should be attractive to BOTH parties involved, not just the one making the offer. In the end, you’re the one with all the power on your end. If you
agree to an unfair deal, you have no one to blame but yourself.

The political philosopher Thomas Hobbs wrote in Leviathan about men and how they come to agreements over services and how “value is determined by agreement” or “You get what you negotiate”.

Don King, a modern philosopher.

Tim O’Reilly knows. It’s a little old, but I think is puts forth some very interesting points.