a few of the things that they forgot to teach me at mit …that i wished i had known about sooner

A few of the things that they forgot to teach me at MIT

…that I wished I had known about sooner...

For example…the origin of “Buffalo Wings”

Q: How many of you have wondered:

“Why don’t Buffalos fly?”A: Their wings are clipped and sold by

restaurants as appetizers!

Would you believe they were created at The Anchor Bar in Buffalo, NY???

How this talk came about...

• Stuart: “How about an Internet talk?”

• Me: “How about a talk on charity?”

• Stuart: “So how about a talk that people would want to come to?”

Agenda

• Your money– How to make it, how to keep it, how to give it

away

• Your time• Your business• Your health• Your family

– How to get the kids to do what you want

Details

• On my website

• Type– Steve Kirsch

into www.go.com

YOUR MONEY

Best “thumbs up” investment

• EV1• 42 mi range; 3 hr recharge; zero maintenance• Faster than my NSX (0 to 30mph)• 180 mph (in first gear)• Very effective donation to our environment• Anyone interested in helping change the laws

for ZEVs in HOV in CA

How to consistently get a 60% average annual return in the stock

market

Buy and hold

10 stocks max

Microsoft, Cisco, Dell, Oracle, AOL, Sun, Intel, ...

What your stockbroker doesn’t want you to know: why trading

stocks may be riskier than gambling in Las Vegas

•Spreads

+

•Stocks are completely unpredictable over the short term

= YOU LOSE

Company announces great earnings (above expectations) but

its stock tanks. Why?

“Who the hell knows?”

• Market explanations are done AFTER the fact

The two most important facts about the stock market

• The market is always right

• Stocks go up when demand exceeds supply

Why mechanical trading systems don’t work

Because I’ve lost money in every proven, tested system I’ve tried

How Steve personally made over $200 million in a year

1) Infoseek went from 5 to 100 in little over a year

2) Having 6M shares didn’t hurt either

How to buy real estate for no money down

Anyone seen those Carleton Sheets infomercials (14 yrs on TV!)?

Do you think he’s doing that to help you get rich or him?

Carleton Sheets, Tom Vu, Dave Del Dotto

• Few houses that you can buy with no money down. Many areas have zero.

• Assumable loan programs are disappearing.

• Buying houses and sticking renters in them is really hard work and can be dangerous. Wait until the first time you have a trashed house without any money coming in to pay the rent.

Get rich quick…

• Outdated techniques

• No personal consultations without big $$

• Risk: declining prop values, tenants leave

• Complex

• Can’t get a loan from the bank

• Not enough detail on preparing offers

• Course is meant to appeal to uneducated with little money

Carleton Sheets

• He doesn’t tell you: The real money is in the live seminars! The tapes are just a selling tool.

• Think of 100 people in a room for two days that paid $3,000 each.

• $150,000 a day is more than you can make in real estate

Where are they today?

• President of Allen Club in Atlanta: Jail

• Charles Givens: dead

• Tom Vu: 20/20

• Dave Del Dotto: selling long distance cards

A better charity alternative to private foundations or donor-

advised funds

Supporting organization to a community foundation

$1M and up

Why it is better to donate to charity sooner than later

• No tax advantages to giving after you are dead

• No personal satisfaction to giving after you are dead

• Giving can benefit yourself or your family

deviated septumPresbyopiahair lossSnoringLactose intolerancepsoriasisreceding gumsnear sightedtorn ACLtype I diabetesmacular degenerationringing in my ears

Charitable investments that could save the world

• Asteroid identification

• Nuclear disarmament

How to donate to charities when your stock is locked up

• You can typically donate the stock, but the charity can’t sell it

• Charity can short the stock

• Allows you to give charity lots more money AND gives you a bigger writeoff

• Typically done through a community foundation

How to give intelligently

• Figure out the areas important to you

• 20 different criteria

• Fund people, rather than projects

• See my website for details ...

How to legally avoid paying capital gains taxes forever

Always sell at a loss

Donate the stock

Die

A complicated technique...

How to precisely value Internet companies

• Finally…for the first time...the secret formula revealed…

• Say someone asks:

“Is Yahoo overvalued?”• You say...

Well… If you have to ask, you just don’t get it, do you?

Some of my other really cool toys

• Panasonic digital phone system + FLASH voicemail/attendant

• Dragon NaturallySpeaking Mobile

• Harman/Kardon Take Control

• Covad DSL

• Tek 840/DP printer

• Runco rear projection TV

• Miele washer/dryer

• Vantage lighting control

• Audio Ease Monaco

• Wolf FlashBake

• BlackoutBuster

• Mouse Systems optical mouse

• Dual Pentium NT system with 4 OSes

• SGI 1600SW flat panel

• Sony DCR PC-1

YOUR TIME

A tour of the high roller villas at the Bellagio: how the “other

half” live

Fastest way to search the web

• http://express.infoseek.com

• Best way to index your site:

Ultraseek server

http://software.infoseek.com

YOUR BUSINESS

Do you have what it takes to start a company??

• Q: Why are most startup companies started by mediocre people?

• A: The really smart ones know better!

• So if you rely on Dogbert’s Management Handbook for advice, you probably qualify

How to recruit really good people

• Take your time• Network• Advertise in places where great people NOT

looking for jobs would be– Java Search Engine– Big Fast Index (Python, C)– Personal assistant– Managing director for my charitable foundation

How to tie a tie

• What’s the right length?

• How many loop around your neck inside-out?

Two courses everyone should take after they graduate from

college

• Presentation skills

• Negotiation skills

• Survey…how many have taken these?

How to get your web page to the top of the search results page

Pray

The single biggest mistake you can make when starting or

running a company and how to avoid it

Hiring the wrong CEO

How Steve made $10 million for his second startup company as a result of attending a 4 hour free

course taught at a hotelNegotiation skills

How to sell $30 worth of lemonade in only 20 minutes on the Stanford campus and how it

relates to commerce on the Internet

The most important skill for success in the real world isn’t

taught at MIT, but that’s starting to change

Interpersonal skills

How to get higher status frequent flyer privileges even when you

don’t have the miles to support it

Ask!

YOUR HEALTH

Your hair

• Propecia

Medical collaboration

• Myth: all these medical researchers help one another and build upon each other’s work

• Reality: – Highly competitive

– People out to discredit others and promote their own ideas

– Collaboration is interdisciplinary or university/commercial

How to avoid being a casualty of our medical system and receive premium, high quality medical

care

Ask!

Befriend a doctor

Research; find the best

You spend a third of your life in bed: what you need to know

about sleep

•Survey: How many people average … hours/night?•James Maas, “Power Sleep”•8 hours, most important is at the end•Chocolate•dairy products and lactose intolerance can make your night miserable

This means that…

• Most students are learning while they are impaired

• They don’t know it because it is unlikely they would have learned it anywhere

• Having Maas give his entertaining 1 hour talk on sleep on sleep at MIT is a simple act that could make a substantial impact on the effectiveness of an MIT education

How cancer and AIDS may someday save your life

Cancer cells don’t age and divide fast… immortality?

AIDS isn’t attacked by the immune system so can be useful in gene

therapy

A charitable contribution to research that may save millions

of lives, win the Nobel prize, and make millions of dollars to boot.

Targesome

Agreed to donate all profits to charity

Ironic: IRS won’t let me donate money to this...

Protecting your jewels…

NSV vs. regular vasectomy

How to save your marriage…

Somnoplasty vs. LAUP

YOUR FAMILY

My best personal investment (it was $15,000 and it’s more than

paid for itself already)

Kodak DCS-520 digital camera

Check out the sample on my web page

How to get your kids to always finish their meals and go to bed

on time

I’d love to explain this, but I’m out of time...

My personal notes

• I’m on the board of 6 non profits if you count Infoseek

• Revenue and daily pageviews are same

• how many came for “how to get your kid to do ..” this? I’ll save it for last.