IESE - Columbia MBA Blog

Bye Bye Calatrava

2007-05-29T20:42:00.004-04:00

It’s two in the morning. Ok I am ready to sleep. I turn off the light but I cannot sleep. I keep thinking. I am in Milan. As I was two years ago. But the guy who is lying in the bed is not the same. He has changed. He has changed a lot. Not in his essence, but in the way he thinks, in the way he see life and the world. In his habits. In his friends. And my memories go through the last two years. I think about the moment I went out of the parking of Calatrava for the last time. I turned left. I miss Calatrava now. I have the clear picture of how via Augusta looked like in that moment. I should have turned right, have a trip in the city. Once more. The streets I’ve been through many times. I should have gone to the gym on Sunday. Would have been the last time. Because the last time I’ve been through those streets and to the gym and to the beach and to anywhere else, I didn’t do that with the consciousness that were the last one. Oh my god. I need to go back there, I need it. I feel something in my stomach. I want to be there. And my memory now goes back a little bit more. I went into the elevator. I pushed -3 to go to the parking. I am just one floor down and I hear Noelle calling me because I left something. I reach -3 but I push again 7 to see what I left. By the time the door opens, we are both crying. I big hug, and we both cry on each other’s shoulder. And I am crying now. Drops on my keyboard. And back again. Marco leaving the flat. Big hug, then he turns the corner of the living room. I hear “giorgiooooo” and he comes back. Another hug. It’s tough to say goodbye. It’s tough to realize that the people you’ve been living with for 2 years are going to be far from you. Not to far maybe, but won’t ever be the same. And now flows of random memories. Where is Marco saying “chicos… Photo!” when we take the elevator to go out. Where is Noelle saying “I’m fucked up for this… let’s put some music!”. Where is Huy, the most disorganized organized Vietnamese German on earth. I need him. I need Rafa drunk at our place even the day before the marketing exam. I need to hear that Matteo has just got another fine for being drunk on a moto. I need the daily habits of meeting people around, having people coming at home unexpectedly and to visit people just because I was passing by. This is all gone. I want to stay there. Ok we need to work. But I want to stay in Barcelona, with all my friends working in the same town. I want to stay in my flat, with my friends at few blocks from me. I want to wake up on Sunday morning and have pictures of the weekend to look at. I don’t want a time machine and relive these two years. I just want to continue but with everybody in the same place. And this is not possible. Everything is gone. Maybe the only thing left is Matteo drunk on a moto. I really hope he buys one here in Milan.

Dedicated to my extended calatrava family: You know I can't smile without you I can't smile without you I can't laugh and I can't sing I'm finding it hard to do anything You see I feel sad when you're sad I feel glad when you're glad If you only knew what I'm going through I just can't smile without you

Bling Blonde

2007-05-23T06:52:00.000-04:00

What Am I doing in Barcelona in these days? Hang around, take some pictures. This one for example (in eixample).

A pure classic...

Young girls love poo

2007-05-15T19:14:00.001-04:00

Last update was March 31st. Why? Don't know. For me writing a blog comes natural as a flow of random words out of my brain (do i have one?). And my brain is on only when under pressure, which is not the state I am in in the last month and a half. I've been traveling in spain with some of my best friends from IESE. Then graduation day and then again vacation. But i cannot stay in this state too long. That's why I asked BCG to anticipate my starting date to June 4th instead of September. I don't have money to travel as i would love to do and I am bored of asking money home. Now I don't want to force myself too much to write something so i will just post some pictures from the last weeks, starting from the spain roadtrip to the last event, Chris and Kathi's wedding!

Jumpin under the windmills in memory of Don Chichotte!

The advantage of being the taller of the group: we were 6 in the car but I was on the passenger seat!

Matteo is sleeping? Let's jump him!

A close up of Matteo on the atlantic coast between Santander and Bilbao

Salamanca, university city. Let's have some action!

You don't need a reason to jump

It didn't work out very well...

Many things to remember of this trip... among them for sure:

Matteo Marcietta bullshitting every other sentece. Like when we entered salamanca and just by being there two minutes he made an estimate of the size of the city and the population and compared it to Piacenza. Definitely he will found the PCG (piacenza consulting group).
Huy who booked an hotel in san sebastian and we've been looking for it for two hours ending up on the hills just to find out that the hotel he booked was not in San Sebastian (and Matteo's "logrobobos" in the middle of the phone call with the hotel, a word that in spanish does not exist at all!).
Huy's "PERDONAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
Saturday night at VIP Cielo of Pacha in Madrid with Diego. Back at his house at 8 in the morning and eating whatever was in the fridge, even cold meat with chocolate cookies. Suddenly, at 2pm in the middle of my best REM phase of my life, a very high tone voice woke me up yelling "A Despertarseeeeeeee!"... coplued with sheets pulled out of the bed and bulbs at full light in the room. Nice to be woken up by Diego's cute nephews!
Diego joking about Huy "Yo no hablo espanol, yo solo chupo poja" and Huy "chupo pollo??"

Fuck i think i already forgot many of the funny things... i should have wrote this post long time ago. Shame on me. Here we go with graduation..

El trio italiano

With La Mamma and Il Papà!

I guess you know all of them

Graduation is the less funny part of the MBA, probably the one that i will remember less of these two years. It's just a ceremony where your parents discover what the hell have you been living the previous two years and have a glimps on who are this new friends with wierd names you always talk about! Then some hanging around in Barcelona with the few people that are still around in Barcelona...

Lovely Martina... Who said that models are dumb?

A nice daily trip to cadaquez, delicious village in costa brava.

An absolute must: the Dalì museum in Figueras! What a fuckin genius!

And finally here we go with the wedding, one of the most funny weekends of my life. Chris and Kathi got married in Neaudau, a small town in Austria. For most of us, this will be the next big step of our life, after the MBA. For most of us, this will be the moments when we will get together again, time for memories and hugs, laughs and tears.

Black Tie Ladies and Gentlemen

The just married couple with the IESE friends

Could a jumping pic be missing? Naaaaaaaaat

At 8 in the morning after the big party, with still lot of willingness to party!

Touching the bed at 9am and waking up at 11 can be a tough experience

How to forget people having 4 beers before the ceremony, being two days in a row hungover as part of the wedding celebrations, Francis going to bed at 9, and waking up 2 hours later still with the tux and cufflings on! Not to mention the trip into the fetish shop in Wien when i learnt that Oh-De Toilette can be a movie and that Young Girls Love Poo! Francis: "Hey we have been to a fetish shop this afternoon on our way back from the wedding!" Alexandre:"Already?" Ian:"Did you mean 'Oh really' or 'Already'?" A friend of Francis in a motel (with tiny walls), hears some voices from the room next to his Man voice (angry tone): "Where is it!!!?" Man voice (again): "Where is it!!!?" Tiny lady voice: "It's in my ass" Man voice: "You're damn right, it is!"

Out of Club Med

2007-03-31T14:10:00.000-04:00

Our two year vacation is finished. Sad to say, the MBA is over. After 19 months of hard studying and partying we are going to move out of this Club Med vacation disguised as a serious thing. Let's jump in the library! To celebrate the last day of class and my birthday (which is actually in two days but who cares?) we had another calatrava roof-terrace party. Unfortunately I don't have any picture yet but i will post them as soon as possible! I think i need them also to remember what happened. Still i feel like a red fish swimming in a bowl of gin! Joder!

Copenhagen

2007-03-25T17:56:00.000-04:00

I knew it would have been an amazing dinner since the beginning... when Huy, who was trying to figure out if it was feasible to share a cab, asked Marco:

"Marco, how do we get to the airport?" answer...
"drunk!"

Valerio, Marco, Matteo, Huy and I decided to spend one weekend in another city. Copenhagen was the place nobody have visisted before. It turned to be an amazing weekend. One of those that afterwards makes you share a common intent: "we should do this at least once a year for the rest of our lives!"

The city itself was amazing even though to be honest we have been out in daylight only 6 hours in three days. But for the time we have been walking around the weather was amazing. Chilly but absolutely sunny. People there is not used to sun, so as soon as it comes out you see short skirts, flip flops and open cabriolets everywhere! Not to say we were more interested in the first two. Obviously the best memories come from the nightlife. Through some contacts in smallworld Huy managed to let us into two great clubs. I never saw so many blond girls in a club. Not even at the Billionaire in the opening night in July! Amazing. Matteo decided that he wants to be buried on the danceflor of Luux, one of these clubs! Ok now it's time to give grades.. so let's move to the..

The grades report

Huy Grade: 2. He starts the weekend with some horrible sunglasses but immediately suprises everyone with a contact through smallworld that will change our trip. Few phone calls and we are in guest list for the best club in town. Would have been a 10 if he didn't wake me up at 7.30 in the morning saying "Hey, it's already 10 and we have to go out of the room in 10 minutes". Would have been 6 if he didn't make me pay a drink betting with me when i was already half drunk. Would have been a 5 if he didn't ask me to limit my creativity and my prose in the name of our friendship. But he's right, friends might be lost, prose and creativity are always there. But still.. take your 2 motherfucker! :) Incrediball.

Marco Grade: 7. He is always the best. At the airport he arrives with two big bags while i was just a handbag. Three pairs of shoes, a suit and an uncountable number of shirts. That's a strategic approach for the vacation. He takes everything with a structured approach that at the ends pays good results. If he didn't hit on any girls was just because he is a good friend and turned his attention only to us. The only moment in which he was lost was in Christiania. Those dogs might bite more than any private equity partner. Method man.

Me Grade: 6. Disorganized as I am i was in charge of booking flights and hotel. We arrived in Copenhagen and i didn't even know the name of the hotel. Very good. But relax guys, at the end everything went well. I tried to teach them how to walk as a whealty people but they just thought it was funny. And indeed it was. I love my friends. That's why I gave up on that blonde beauty at Da Vinci to have fun with them at Luux! But maybe is because I have only one blondie on my mind right now.. Misunderstood.

Valerio Grade 8. He arrived in Copenhagen already sick. Sorethroat, closed ear and headache. He left the city in an even worse condition. But of course when he saw a couple of big tits at NASA everything was fine. But he's going to meet his Super Duck in New York in one week so loyalty to the gf was more than due. He drunk like hell but still at the restaurant he was ordering food without chees because it's not healty. We will miss him.

Teo Grade 10. Always drunk. Always walking around with eyes like a radar and chest pushed outside. Whatever happens for him is ok. No complains. The picture shows the typical face expression of matteo in copenhagen. Amazed by the blondies he decided that he could have died at any moment. And he wanted to be buried on the danceflor of Luux. Killed by the pussy.

Now i'm back home with a pile of things to do for tomorrow. The last week of the MBA is ahead of me. How sad! Two presentations for tomorrow to close DISER and Corporate Strategy, three cases for last sessions of Globalization & Strategy. I can't believe.. the last three cases of my life. Well.. life is a case.

Global Warming, Local Partying!

2007-03-22T12:15:00.000-04:00

Today I just closed my DIPLO course with a speech about global warming, about how bad it is to have pollution that destroys the plane we live in.

But i didn't believe in what i said. I love global warming. Global warming means, in March, local partying. Starting from BBQs everyday on our terrace! That's the way it goes at the end of the second year.

The usual suspects get shit faced even on a relaxed sunday afternoon! Yummy foooooood! Here we gooo! Group action! Chris and Therese, the only first year who was partying the weekend before the exams! I love her!

Now it's 5.30 and i'm going to the airport to carch a flight to Copenhagen. Time to cool down at 5 degrees after being sunburned in barcelona for almost a month. See you in a few days!

MBAs @ Dinner

2007-03-16T06:47:00.000-04:00

Last night we had the "Graduation 2007" dinner. Some 400 people from our year were supposed to attend this dinner organized just before the end of classes. A sort of unofficial farewell dinner which at the end was attended probably by only half of the students.

The dinner was organized with the "buffet" formula... which many MBA students wrongly thought has something to do with the mighy investor of Berkshire Hathaway. That's probably why 200 people came and also why other 200 didn't. The dining room was organized in two areas. The area where long tables were used to put serving dishes, and an area with small tables where people were supposed to sit after taking a plate of food. Well.. this 200 hungry and thirsty MBAs crowded this restaurant when no food was on the tables yet.

That's the way it was supposed to be. But then it came food. And unfortunately, at 9.30, starving MBAs have no more friends, no more rules, no more ethics between them and the food. But you may think "They are still MBAs. Second years. Future managers..". Absolutely... and that's why all the weapons learned in Operations Management were used in order to get the highest amount of food.

Veritcal Integration (at the bottom): people understood the efficiency of sitting directly at the delivery tables. Reduced lead time, decrease in inventory levels, reduced risk of traveling in the room.
Increase Capacity : people understood that instead of using the small plates (some 18 cm diameter), it was much better to steal from the kitchen the big ones used as buffet-trays (some 30cm diameter). Doing that, with just one round at the delivery tables you could take food for the whole evening. Brilliant.
Lean Production Process : The innovators that increased capacity didn't consider the fact that food was not always the same. Extra capacity is good for volumes, but decreases flexibility. Innovator weren't late to come even in this. People got rid of the plates. They started using the forks to eat straight from the delivery trays. Amazing
Vertical Integration 2 (at the top): instead of sitting at the delivery table, some visionairs started to sit at the kitchen desk, where waiters were supposed to get the delivery trays and take them do the delivery tables. This is very smart!

All this made me think about what i learned in my "globalization & strategy" class about how cultural differencies and problems of adaptation play an importan role when entering new markets. I think I ate probably 20 grams of food in the whole eveining. I studied operations. I know about lean production. But still i cannot go to a buffet and sit at the delivery table. Or use my fork to take food straight from a tray. Reputation is an issue, good manners are a must.
But probably it's just a question of cultural difference and there is nobody to blame about this.

15 seconds are not enough

2007-03-16T06:38:00.000-04:00

I always thought that fifteen seconds of popularity were not enough. So i played some small part as an actor in ads when i was a kid. But then my parents told that there were better ways to be popular that passed through study and hard working. So I went to the college, the university and the MBA. But none of them brought me fame and glory. I also made myself ridiculous taking videos (or "wideos" as Marco would say) with Noelle and posting them to youtube. No success either. So I decided to go back to my roots. And here I am, screened for Ray Ban in Times Square. And I also thought that success is not as such if is not shared with someone else..

I love my first years!

2007-03-08T15:33:00.000-05:00

It's been three months that i'm here in barcelona and I have to admit that lots of first years are really cool. Or at least the ones I met so far.

The Italians for example are super-divertidos and at the same time with their heads on the shoulders (it's an italian way of saying, don't know if it sounds stupid in english). First years girls are amazing. Not to mention the acutioned dinner they prepared for us second years, they kept surprising me every day. Last but not least, this invitation they sent us (not all of us.. just a small circle of friends). They are so cool! Four of them decided to invite four of us each of them as a farewell dinner before we leave. Really sweet. This is the kind of things that makes me melt like ice in Bogatell.

Funds of Fun

2007-02-26T19:01:00.000-05:00

Ok this is just for me, because I don't want to forget it.

Today we discussed the LBO of Ducati. Ducati, today a high end bike producer, was bought in 1996, when it was on the edge of the bankrupcy, by Texas Pacific Group, a private euiqty fund based in the US. The fun part is that the partner in charge of the transaction from the buyer side was in class and told us some funny story. The idea was explaining how in 1996 was to deal with italian entrepeneurs, which i think is not much more different than today, although today the PE market is more developed and people is used to that. Here are some stories

There is one thing italian entrepeneurs care of, after football: avoiding taxes... and mistresses.
The former owener of Ducati was used to have a private with a bed at the top flor of the headquarters. I took it away. What to do you think was his relation with me? Did he like me? Obviously not, i took away his sex room!
He (always talking about the previous owner) was still on the board of the company, so he had to sign the financial statements. I gave it to him and he said "i'm not signing it" and i said "why?"... after some seconds of silent he said "give me three millions"
Talking about ducati: of course this company has no profits. Profits meant taxes. So better tunnel the cash in Montecarlo or to some cute lady.

While he was telling this stories, our professor was embarassed and was hiding behind some paper! :)

Pontius Pilot

2007-02-24T15:25:00.000-05:00

In a vane attempt to clean my soul i went to the mass tonight. If you are used to hear the mass in Italian is really wierd to recite it in English. It looses part of its weight. Not because of English itself, but because you perrceive it in a more detached way. Really wierd. The most funny thing is how they translated the name of Ponzio Pilato. Pontius Pilate. Why do you have to transalte names? And the way it is pronounced in english always makes me think that he was a pilot flying on a plane like this... The priest was mentioning three tempations for the men... temptations we have to be able to escape and resits. The world, the flesh and the... well.. i forgot. However, I would have raised my hand to ask "and the fourth one:

THE MULTICULTI!!!!!!!!!!

Anders and Evgeny: Denmark vs Russia

Mark, the big man in a fast forward move

At our stand, Italy was providing Wine (25 liters), Limoncello (5 liters) and the mighty Negroni (7 liters). No explanation is needed for the first two but few words must be spent for the latter. Negroni is a very typical long drink in Italy. Is made of 1/3 of Martini Red, 1/3 of Gin and 1/3 of Campari. Served with a slice of orange. It's very strong, but the taste is really good.
I decided to use the multiculti to spread the Negroni culture. I thought it would have been really painful. And seriously many people tried it and said "wow.. this is really strong!". I thought there would have been many victims of Negroni. Piles of dead bodies around the italian stand. And indeed they were. But not for the negroni.. for the cold Risotto with mushrooms that matteo did.
Basically we brought some pasta and risotto to serve as our flag dishes. And we brought a microwave oven as well, since these are dishes that have to be served warm. And that's the way we started to serve them. But after a while we noticed that people didn't care about warm or cold. They just tasted it and said "oh.. this is good". Mmm... ok let's stop this hassle of warming up everything. Let's serve it cold. Unfortunately the cold risotto is like cement. Two spoons, and your stomach is sealed.

Mexican Rafa trying to cross the border with California

Huy warms up for his spanish afterparty

Part of the italian team establishing connections with foreigners

One of my personal achievements for the multiculti was the replica of the world cup, that we proudly carried around singing and dancing and toughly defended from multiple attempts to steal it by brazilians and germans (envy is an ugly beast!).

We are the champions..

The multi culti was a great success. Competitions, good music, tons of food and billion liters of alcohol made the whole fair a real mess. The most common question the day after, however, was : "what is this white stuff on my shoes and pants?". Apparently the floor was covered with a white dust, a kind of dried water paint, that melted with alchool and whitetened shoes and trousers of everybody!

Dirty shoes

Tales from another century

2007-02-18T08:01:00.000-05:00

As an italian, very often you are identified abroad as Pizza, Mafia and Mandolino. Given the fact that i never saw a mandolino in my life, i am very proud of the pizza I always had some doubt in identifying myself with the Mafia.

Mainly because i come from Milan, a city in the north where probably the Mafia has planted its seeds as well but for sure is not as visible and rooted as it is in the Sicily. One of the historical reasons why mafia and other crime organization were born in the south is the lack of institutions mixed by centuries of foreigners' dominance of those regions during the XIX century. Local bandits started to supply the need for protection and for somebody above the others able to impose some rules on the society. In sicily they had strong traditions that needed to be preserved, and the Mafia was the grantor of these rules. Rules that survived for centuries and that people wanted them to survive forever. Then Italy was unified and new institutions and bureaucratic figures came into place trying to substitute the old ones. But was not a great success. People still belive in the rule of man rather than the rule of law that came from Rome. People still saw in the Mafia the ideal grantor of what they believe are their values and traditions, even though the price to pay was a burden of terror, intimidations and cospiracy of silence.

Among these old traditions that needed to be carried on forever, was the role of the woman and, most important, the behavioural rules among man and woman.
So, for example, if you smile at a girl, basically you are proposing yourself for marriage.
If you look at a girl without previous consensus from her brothers, you are in trouble.
If you have sex with a girl before marriage, you are dead.

But how was all this enforced? Easily. Suppose on a sunny day you are walking downtown with your daughter and you notice somebody is looking at her. So, you go to the local mafia CEO and you kindly make him aware of this. The next day, two big guys go to the poor boy and propose him a deal: his life in exchange of not looking at her anymore. However, even if the Mafia is till well rooted in Sicily, these rules cased to exists anymore.

Now that you know everything about how Mafia ruled in south Italy, i tell you a story.
Yesterday I was in Sutton. I was commenting on a girl with Valerio when a guy came to me and said "hey you motherfucker stop looking at my girlfriend". We didn't even reply. We laughed and continued talking with the other people who were with us. After two hours, we were dancing at 4 meters distance from the same couples even though i didn't even notice that. At a certain point, two brave guards of the club came and thrown me and Valerio out of the club. The reason: we were annoying those ladies. Whaaaaat???

Welcome to catalunya 2007. Welcome in the XIX century of Italy.

Sunny Thursday

2007-02-15T08:14:00.000-05:00

bip

bip

bip bip

bip bip bip

bibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibibi

clack

Alarm stopped. Oh my god. What an headache. Who am I? Where am I? What day is today? Ah yes.. it's thursday. Memories start to come back to my mind. Clearer.

I was at an anti-valentine party yesterday. I remember I entered the club and they gave me a red tape, so people can see that i'm free. But soon i've been stopped by three super ugly girls which made me think that maybe is bettere to hide that tape and come back to the old fashion habit of being the hunter and not the hunted. At least you can choose.

And.. well yes there was that girl I like. And that other one that likes me. And the wierd german one. And lots of italians, and marco and and and. Well. Whatever. Another night spent with friends drinking a lot and laughing even more.

Then you wake up after five hours of sleep and you remember why you set the alarm. Because you have DIPLO! The only class of the day. And you fight with your coscience that wants you to wake up and attend the class, while your rational side tells you that is going to be another useless class. But ok, let's go. As soon as i stand up i recognize the typical floating movement that is a straight sign that some alcohol is still in your veins. Then you see the clothes left somewhere in the room that still carry the horrible smell of smoke and sweat (not mine, which is even worse).

I jump on the moto leaving the helmet open on the front to refresh the face. I meet some people in IESE who tell me "hei george.. tough night yesterday.. isn't it?".
Mmm..
I'm sittin in class now. And in front of me there is Brian Leggett, the teacher. I look at him and I immediately recognize that he is even more hungover than I am. Program of the day: to watch "Scent of a Woman".

And I ask myself.. what the f**k am I doing here?!

Lost in Grace

2007-02-12T13:38:00.000-05:00

This evening i've been in charge of getting the whisky for our "whisky and cigars" night organize by the omonimous club. Yes, in IESE we take drinking and smoking very seriously.

So I went with my moto in Gracia to get the whisky and i've been driving for half an hour completely lost in these small streets of this area of Barcelona. It was quite an hassle because of the traffic jam, the non sense one-way streets of Barcelona and this cage between my legs that force me in a very not-natural position on the seat.

But then... whoooo... finally at home

NO! Suprise! I don't have my keys. Just a few calls to realize that none of my flatmates will be home in less than an hour. So i'm sitting here in front of the door of my flat, sitting on my cage of whisky and the laptop on the legs. Having nothing to do, because i cannot study anything with the automatic light of the stairs that turns off every two minutes, I decided to share with you, my reader, this quite boring experience.

If you feel like passing by the street I will be please to receive some humble food like caviar and salmon on crispy bread.

Old memories

2007-02-08T08:16:00.000-05:00

I just find out on youtube this video of Nirvana performing in a very dodgy place close to my house. The hall is located in a small town (some 3000 inhabitants) 30 Km out of Milan, in Italy. It was 1989, Nevermind was not out yet and Cobain and his band were not famous. They came to Italy. They came to this small town. They came in that small club. And Everybody still remembers them..

Warning: very technical article ahead

2007-02-02T06:45:00.000-05:00

Several similarities couple together entrepeneurs starting a new business and men establishing relationships with women.

First of all, you need a target market and money. Once you have them, you can start. Selection and due diligence are most of the times (wrongly) skipped to exploit the benefits of an early execution. This leads most men to enter really lousy ventures with very bad girls. But let's look at the bootstrap.

Financing takes a fundamental role in this. You can go from the self financing girl to the multiple round financing and again up to the never profitable girl.

The self financing girl is the one you meet at Sutton at 5 am. She is already drunk because either she has been drinking by herself or she has been offered drinks by other club pretenders (trade financing). You don't have to do anything more than milk the results as much as you can. In a BCG matrix, this is the cash cow business. If you are lucky, she come home with you the same night, if you are not, she is still in bed with you when you wake up. Suddenly you realize how drunk you must have been the night before. ROA is quite high especially if you consider that the cover charge of sutton has been a sunk cost even before you entered the venture with the girl. However, this kind of situaions can be common in Barcelona but not that common in developed countries like Italy, where, to achive this high returns, you really need a competitive advantage backed by some disruptive technology (the last one was in the seventies: the Casio watch with embedded calculator!)

Some girls bring you in very common but tough situation of multiple financing. You pay the first night, but results don't materialize. So you think of a second round financing and still, results struggle to come and you keep carrying forward the NOL (net operating losses). You are torn, because you have already invested a lot of money (let's say two dinners and drinks) and you don't know if to risk another investment (the third might be the lucky one) but can also turn you down lower than when you already are. Usually in these tough moments, other stakeholders rise their voice. Typically, the one who's most pissed of and claims something, is the manager in the middle, the bold one.

One criteria to analyze business opportunities is always the scalability of the business. Unfortunately, girls are rarely scalable even if a recent study showed that bisexuality and threesomes are at 2% CAGR. Usually scalability can be achieved on a geographical level but synergies are hard to achieve and I would even hypotize that there are some disconomies of scale in that. Globalization and imports from cheap-labor countries can, in the long rutn, increase supply and consequently lower prices, at least when you adjust them over inflation.
Some entrepeneurs, especially the ones that spend lot of time abroad, adopt a business model based on a flahship store at home coupled with a franchise network in the other main cities.

However, we shouldn't forget that knowledge of the market is crucial. It's much easier to operate in a local market than to expand internationally. A network of friends and resorts is also a nice to have that might improve your reputation and easiness to conduct business. But always keep an eye on the operative level, because steal of assets and equity is still common practice especially in emerging markets.

In the long run, returns and profits tend to decrease and capital invested tends to follow the rule of "decreasing marginal returns" which is quite common in business. Product lifecycle is always that one. Rapid growth followed by plateau that then turns to rapid decline. The lenght of the cycle depends on the base timing in which you enter the market and the CAPEX that the girl is willing to invest on herself. Some of them can finince maintenance on internally generated cash flows, other ones just ask you the credit card.

Depreciation is usually higher than CAPEX, which inevitably makes you think that you rather invest in a new plant than maintain the old one. Unfortunately, after five years or so, the woman is able to leverage on your commitment to trigger a lock-in mechanism called marriage. This immediately rise a huge barrier to exit that might be impossible to overcome. Strategic buyers are quite rare in the industry and IPOs opportunities are limited. Spin-offs are common but costly. Most of the time you need to drop your manufacturing plant, your company car, fringe benefits and sign some earnaout clause on your future cash flows. Not necessary to say that all this, decrease your potential to expand into new ventures (investments in disruptive technologies).

There are several kind of investments. From early stage financing (which is illegal in almost all the countries) passing through seed financing to later stage and up to banckrupcy and turnaround situations. Turnaround, however, is still considered a niche market for the ones who really want to put their hands in the dirt.

Some entrepeneurs lose their grip on the business over a certain period of time. It's not uncommon to see situations in which the entrepeneurs decides to put himself aside and let somebody else to manage the business.

Pure Morning

2007-01-30T07:02:00.000-05:00

In these days my flatmate noelle is really into movies production. Among the thousands of videos edited, there is this one which brings me back to this winter break in Finland.

George, a real entrepeneur

2007-01-28T16:50:00.000-05:00

After one year and a half spent on business cases, the very big learning point is that all the succesful business were drawn on a paper napkin and started in a garage.

The other way round not necessarily works. So it doesn't pay if you spend the weekends in your garage with a pencil and a pile of paper napkins in your hand.
Anyway.. Most of the time you read of entrepeneurs who got their business idea when they recognized that they need something that was not available on the market and they started producing it by themselves. So, for example, the owner of technogym was, 20 years ago, a muscle-fanatic who needed some weight machine and started building some of them for his own use.. and then started selling it.

And i told you about this necessity-driven business because I just burned my frozen pizza which was supposed to be the dinner for tonight. This created a necessity and this necessity made me discover that bread with gorgonzola cheese and salmon are a very tasty fit!

How not to win a competition

2007-01-27T14:05:00.000-05:00

During the last three days, I've been involved in the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC).

The idea is the following. Students form six teams of five people each and analyze six business plans from real entrepeneurs. Due diligences and interview are done and then each team acts as if it was a real Venture Capital Fund and select one business plan to invest. A panel of ten real venture capital partners evaluate the investment decisions and the due diligence process made by each team and elects a winner.

We didn't win. Indeed, some signals during the days before should have told that in advance.

The day before the competition not all the team members were aware that we were the VC and not the entrepeneur
Lamberto was in charge of changing the slide during the presentation while Diego was commenting. He fell asleep and tried to recover after seeing Valerio waving his arms from the opposite side of the room. After being stuck on slide one for 3 minutes out of 6, the presentation lept ahead to the final slide.
Valerio wrote the executive summary of the investment without having read the business plan we choose.
I was supposed to be the king of the valuation and at 3 a.m. i was still reading through a pile of non-sense technical notes from HBS.
Only two people out of five have read the business plan. And they were smoking on the terrace while the others were working.
At 4 a.m. Lamberto finished the presentation of the investment decision leaving the name of the company blank (some XXXX).
At 4.30 a.m. the name of the company was on the presentation but instead of CV Warehouse the name was WcWarehouse... which posed some doubt among the team members.
Everybody before the final decision thought we were the absolute winners.

Finally this hassle is over and now we have an extra excuse to go out and party. My religion forbids me to read more than six business plan a week.

Brain & Company

2007-01-23T15:34:00.000-05:00

In november, when I was in NYC, I was contacted by a consulting company. The phone call was about an opportunity for a full time job at their Milan Office. I said: "ok, why not, let's do this interview". They told me the people from the Milan office would have contacted me soon to let me know when and where the interviews would have taken place.

Silence

Three months later, a nice lady calls me with a sort of embarassed tone and asks me "Ehmm... Mr. George Ottathycal... here is the Milan office of B***. Is it too late if we ask you to have an interview with us?"
Surprised i said "well, it's too late indeed. I already signed up a contract with a competitor".

"Oh I'm sorry, i think your cv has been hiding under a pile of other paper"

"Goodbye".

It's a fuckin' GDP competition

2007-01-21T18:47:00.000-05:00

Few days ago the spanish prime minister declared that by 2010 Spanish GDP per capita will be higher than Italian one.

And since that declaration, it's tough to be an Italian in Spain.

Thursday afternoon. I go out of the school, the car is not where i parked it. Stolen? No. Towed. 200 euros to have it back.
Thursday night. After the BOW, on my way to another party i hit the invisible curb that splits two lanes in pedralbes. Two tires fucked. 320 euros to buy new ones.
Saturday. Big decision. I rent a scooter. I can't stand using the car in Barcelona anymore.

Saturday night. I'm in a club. At 4.30 i decide to go and a friend of mine ask me a lift home. Ok fine, but i don't have an extra helmet. But i think "but who careeeees??".
Jacket flying in the air, smiling face, wind in the eyes. I felt like Gregory Peck in "Vacanze Romane".

After 2 minutes, in balmes, i see a big checkpoint of the local police. I stop. The guy sees me from some hundreds meters of distance. Coming towards me and poiting in my direction he moves his head saying "yes dude.. u see right, it's the police".
Not only I had to pay 105 euros, which is fine, but i had to wait one hour and a half to have all the modules filled up and my ticket given. Unbelivable. Spanish can be lazy even in collecting money.

However, during the long waiting time, they know how to entertain you. First of all the policemen come in different shape and behavior. You have the tall skinny one with the sense of humor of a fire extinguisher, the fat guy always angry but with the veto power and jus primae noctis over the colleagues, and the one that is totaly aphatic, looking at the watch just to reach 7am, the time in which their shift ends.
They stopped a guy on a car, completely drunk. Breath-test. You have to blow a lot of air to let the machine calculate the % of alcohol. But i didn't thought that much.
Policeman, while the guy was blowing in the tube: "Siga, siga, siga, siga, siga, siga, siga, siga, siga, siga, siga.... HEI! porque ha parado!!!!??"
Drunk guy: "Se acabò el aire!"

So now spain has 625 euros more in its GDP and Italy will have the same amount less since i will cut costs in the next future.
Ah well.. i forgot to mention that i went to an AMAZING party held by first years girls for a restricted elitarian group of second years. As soon as party pictures are available I will write about it.

Toed again

2007-01-18T16:00:00.000-05:00

Today my car has been toed again. Second time since I'm here in BCN. Nothing more to say, except 200 euros to have it back. Tomorrow i will go and rent a scooter. I cannot bear anymore to be so upset. And i don't want to live my last days in IESE with the pain of moving around the city.

And by the way the girl at the police station didn't notice that the signature on the ticket was "fucku bitch".

Ok now you may think that i don't know that indeed the car has been towed and not toed. Indeed it's true. I made a mistake. Thanks noellie for made me notice.
We should celebrate this by making some stairs. I think a new stair would fit perfectly in our livingroom.

Talkin' on the balcony

2007-01-13T10:51:00.000-05:00

The funny thing about the MBA is that by the end of the second year we have seen so many injuries that in comparison the world war was just mickey mouse episode.
I was just talkin about it with noelle and the reason is simply that everbody gets engaged in sports of every sort and kind, from rugby to hiking. Sports that many didn't even practice before. The mindset is the one we had when we where fourteen. A kind of "i'm invicible" and "i have everlasting energy in my body". But osteoporosis is subtle and starts early, and broken bones are just around the corner.

Talking about injuries it came to our mind the day when an MBA fellow crashed into a glass door. Usually this kind of accidents belong to candid camera shows only and they don't seem that painful. In his case it was. He was kind of lobotomized for 1 month. So we were trying to emulate the accident and it seems difficult to understand why people hit the door with the head instead of with the foot. And probably what happens is just that yuo hit first with the foot but then the body doesn't have the time to react and just follows in the direction of the door.

The awful thing is that when you hit the door with the foot you have few fractions of a second in which you realize that in a while something really painful is going to happen. You know you head is the next. And you can't do anything to avoid it.

The same thing, but for a different reason, happens when you crawl in the dark of your room at 4 in the morning, waving your arms in the dark in a desperate attempt to reach the bathroom without turning on the light (that otherwise will flash your eyes to death). And is exactly at that point that you do the fatal step and you hit the corner of the bed with the small toe.
At that point the event is just concretized in a low tone sound and the an interrupted movement of the leg. And it is exactly at this point that you realize what happened and you know that in a while a really painful intterrupt will hit your brain.

...

...

...

...

...

...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I didn't faint... almost

2007-01-12T10:26:00.000-05:00

New York State Law 2165 indicates that anyone taking 6 credits or more must provide the universities with 2 measles, 1 mumps and 1 rubella.
That's why, before leaving for the US I did, in Italy, the vaccinations mentioned above and I sent a paper to the US signed by the doctor that said that I am immune. Unfortunately in the US they have 2 shots while in Italy these 2 shots are used only on kids while adults have a single shot, but with a higher dose of drug.
Obivously no way to convince the health office of Columbia that I am fine with my immunization. So my grades are on hold until I don't provide this proof.

Today, bored by this neverending ping-pong of email between me and the health office of Columbia, I decided to make a move and have a blood test in a Hospital in Barcelona. In this way I should be able to have a certificate that I am fine with the Columbia requirements.
This for me is a big step because every time I have a blood test, I faint. Every superhero has his flaw. Superman has the cryptonite, Bertrand has Tibidabo, I have the needles.
I faint whenever I expect it less. Even after 10-20 minutes from the test. The most tragicominc occurence happened in the elevator of an hospital in Milan. I wooke up when the elevator reached the ground floor and people witing for it saw the door opening and a body (mine) lying on the floor. Really embarrassing, i won't whish for it not even to my worst enemy.
So I was prepared to that. But this time didn't happen. They told me to stay a bit ona chair and I felt comfortable.
So i went to pay and get my bill to get the results back.
141 Euros!!!! (170 dollah!).

I fainted.

iTrip, iPod, iSpeed

2007-01-09T11:25:00.000-05:00

Just arrived at IESE. Sitting in the library trying to put some order in the pile of paper i have in the pigeon hole.
I arrived in barcelona after a 8 hour trip by car started around 6 a.m.
I was happy to experience my new iTrip with my (old) iPod. It doesn't work that well in the cities where the whole bandwidth is covered by radio stations but works very well on the highway. So i started my trip with the idea of doing it as quickly as possbile. I was trying to keep an avarage speed of 160 Km/h which means that as soon as was possible i was pushing very hard on the gas. In Italy everything fine. In France they stopped me four times and i've been cought once also by the camera.
Fuck!

The worst one was when they pulled me out the highway and i had to follow them in a town in the countryside!
I was driving with Jimi Hendrix telling me something like:

Angel came down from heaven yesterday
She stayed with me just long enough to rescue me
And she told me a story yesterday,
About the sweet love between the moon and the deep blue sea
And then she spread her wings high over me
She said she's gonna come back tomorrow...

And while i was being carried away by his voice, not paying attention to the cars around me, that i noticed something. And I told him: "Hey Jimi, there are two angels, not one. And they are waving from that blue car!".
Then I got closer and i noticed a yellow sign on the trunk: "Gendarmerie". And they were not waving, they were telling me to slow down.
So i slowed donw a little. But i thought "ok if i slow down too much is like admitting that i was going too fast". So i kept going at 140-150 for a bit. And that's when they really got pissed off. They overtook me again and this time they made me follow then in provence!

Every time was difficult to explain why i was going fast.. I told them that I know only three words in French: Yves Saint Laurent!
They also knew only three words of english: Driving License please
Mmm.. i guess i cannot use the art of speaking learnt with Brian Leggett and not even my negotiation skills learnt with Velamuri.
Then I tried to say that indeed it was not 180 but 150 which is very close to 130 which is the limit and also that there were not that many cars around at the moment.
And it worked out! No tickets. Every time they told me "ok.. but beware that next time we will withdraw your driving lincese!". "ok ok..."
The only thing pending is that picture they took with the camera. I saw the flash firing in front of me. In theory they shouldn't send anything since i have a foreign plate. But I fear the moment i have to travel back to italy. Mmm.. maybe i should pass through gibilterre, morocco, libia and then all the way through italy from south to north. That's a good idea! Hooray!
I just hope that all this hassle is not just because of the world cup.

El post fantastico

2007-01-08T13:15:00.000-05:00

One of the funny things about Spain is how they dub movies and tv series.. and how they translate titles. Take for instance the spanish version of "The simpson". Ok the title is left unchanged even if I'm sure somebody would have preferred it to be renamed in "Los Nueno". But while all over the world Homer says "Doh!" as exclamation, in spain he says "Mosquees!". Don't ask me why.
The best, however, is knightrider. In Italy is called "supercar". Which is quite funny but not as funny as "El coche fantastico" of the spanish version.
I wrote about this just because it happened to me today to watch at the very first episode of this serie. At the beginning, Michael Knight is not David Hasseloff but another actor that then is shooted on the face and with surgery, made by the knight foundation, is reshaped as Hasseloff.
So he has been shooted almost to death but then he weaks up as David Hasseloff!
What a double trauma!

Back to the future

2007-01-08T04:42:00.000-05:00

It's monday morning and is going to be the last one in Italy. Tomorrow, around five or six am i will leave for Barcelona. By car, again. If it happens to you to live around the autoroute that connects milan to barcelona, passing through Genova, Nice and Montepplier, just come to one of the crossing bridges and wave when you see me on my black VW.
I spent these days in Milan basically doing nothing and everything. Nothing because if I have to summarize what i did i can say only "visiting friends". But my schedule was quite tight. I was happy to se all of them but sometimes i had the feeling that something has changed. With most of them I still have many things to say and reasons to spend time with. With others I had the feeling that something is broken. They don't have any interest in knowing what i did these years, they don't even want to know and They keep talking about thins i'm not interested in talking about. It's something like going back to a world that i don't feel like mine anymore.
By the way.. this not the whole picture of my break in Italy. For instance, I enjoyed a lot spending some time with my nephew. Isn't he so cute?

I also had some time to read a book i bought in NY, watch some movies i always wanted to watch, download some new music.

Muhammad, a prohep for our time
The biography of the eminent life of Muhammad, which explains how Islam was born and developed through the life of its prophet. Interesting, I always wanted to know something more about this faith, just to know something about what is going to be the topic of the next century. Nice to see how jihad was not a concept of holy war and how Islam was born with the idea of giving an identity to the arabs living in Mecca and at the same time spread good value and peace among them. Hard to think that someone 1400 years later came up with 9/11.

Anything Else
Nothing is like love, luckyly.
Not so recent movie by Woody Allen. I saw this movie on a 42inch plasma TV at my best friend's house. Was great. You can see how this movie has been shooted with perfect lights and how the lips of Christina Ricci rise at the corner when she looks at him at their first meeting in the Village. I saw it again on my crapy TV at home and was horrible. I always thought that plasma monitors where just a new status symbol for the masses but I have to admit that there is a real intrisic value in it! Ok a part the device, the movie is really good. The plot is very easy, a troubled relationship between a young writer and a very fashinating but complex girl. She is vary nasty with him and he is so in love that ends up carrying the whole wieght of this relationship, helped by the not always wise suggestions of an improvised friend Woody Allen. I should have watched when it came out, in 2003.

David Bowie
The man who sold the world, China Girl, Heroes. But not only these, I would also mention "while my guitar guitar gently weeps" by George Harrison. By the way, did you know that the real name of david bowie was David Johnes but he changed his surname to not be confused with another David Johnes of the group "The monkeys". In the sixties, with his music, he was so far beyond that people therew tomatoes at him when he performed in clubs.

Ok time to pack now and then some visits to some art gallery in Milan. See you soon in BCN!

Lapland

2007-01-03T10:40:00.000-05:00

Happy 2007 dear reader. How was your new year's eve? Write it as a comment while i take time to tell you how was mine. As you can see from the subject of this post, I've been to Finland, and more precisely in Lapland as a guest at Juha's house. He is a nice fellow of the MBA who invited me and other 25 people to his countryhouse in Lapland. And it came out to be a great holiday that gave me the opportunity to celebrate the new year's eve with some of my closest friends at the MBA sorrounded by a beatiful landscape of deep snow and soft hills.

(Noelle, Ash and I jumping. I almost touched the sky!)

During this trip i learnt several things such as:

- how to drive a raindeer (I also got an official driving license!). The trick is to yell "hop hop hop" and clap hands to increase speed, be quiet to decrease. No handbreak turns are possibles however
- santa claus exists and i saw him!
- in lapland there are more raindeers than people and every raindeer has an owner, there are no free raindeers.
- how to ride a snowmobile at high speed (but unfortunately no driving lincense this time)
- a finnish shaman told me that i am a sort of inseminator who's task for 2007 is to make raindeers pregnant. In the meantime I have to keep practicing with girls (hey girl-reader, just drop me an email and i will try to fit you in my schedule).
- how to survive after three sessions of "sauna at 100 degrees + dive into the snow".

Ok that's it for this post. There are so many other funny things to tell and show but i am very busy and most of them i am sure will be published by Pradeep and Noelle in their blogs!
For the ones who are in BCN, see you soon!

NYC & Columbia: From A to Z

2006-12-19T17:54:00.000-05:00

A as Asian Girls. Lots of them. I would say 70% of the ones around, especially on campus. If you love the kind, this is da place to be.

B as the Bell Curve, a remote shade of the first year grading system. No one cares anymore about it, because professors don't use it anymore! And without doing anything, at the end of the term is still raining "A"s.

C as Central Park. Two corners down the campus you have the best place for a nice autumn walk or a 10k run up and downhill. Lakes and paths give you one of the best overview of the skyline of downtown.

D as dates. You don't have relationships or affairs. You have a date. You go out together, you sleep together, if u are a man you pay restaurants and drinks (a lot), but fundamentally you are free to have more than one date at a time and nobody is hurt by this. ROI is low, ROE (return on effort, is high)

E as Espanol. Impressive how everything here is in double language, English and Spanish. Like in a big IESE: but with many more Yolanda Serras!

F as Fitch. Abercrombie & Fitch. Probably the only store that you can find in NY but not in Europe. Trendy clothes at cheap prices. It's worth a visit just to be sorround by half naked male and female models pretending to be clerks. It was supposed to be under "A" but then i wouldn't be able to fit the asian girls.

G as Guest House. I would say the club i loved more. No cover charge, high selectivity at the entrance, soft lights, nice people, good music. Ok probably the best music in town is still at CIELO.

H as Havana. The best corn I ever ate is here. An probably will be the best also for you. Don't miss the mojito too. Five of them at 5pm are the best kickstart for the night.

I as IESE! Obviously i missed home. I missed Huy, Matteo, Noelle, David, Rafa, Enrico, Marc, Bertie, Alexia, Jan Erik, Inigo... ok i cannot write hundreds of name. Sorry for the ones i haven't mentioned.
But I am glad i came here for the people I met. So many people and sooo nice. I really want to keep in touch with them and I hope this will be easy since are almost all italians! Italians rule at columbia.

J as Jose Padilla. Huy gave me his 6 mix and i kept listening to it for 3 months. Definitely the soundtrack of my exchange at Columbia. Addicted.

K as Kuruvilla. My surname for the first 25 years of my life. Then somebody at the city register made me notice that my surname is Ottathycal. So i changed everything, my driving licence, my id, my emails. But not my signature. It's difficult to change surname. I can't belive Sean Combs changed his name in Puff Daddy.

L as the free Lunch. There's no free lunch? I had so many at the companies' presentations. And it's really free because you can grab your piece of pizza and walk away. At IESE you cannot even carry a coffee in a classroom. Here you can have beers and pizza while the head of goldman sachs is presenting the company (and paying for your pizza).

M as Marco Seboldi! Flatmate in barcelona, flatmate in NY. I don't understand how he can bear me around all this time but i know i can always count on him And this is great!

N as Networking. Columbia gives you an exposure to alumni, professionals and companies that unfortunately IESE cannot do. Lots of events on and off campus. The best way to look for a job if you are not happy with the summer internship.

O as oranges. I'm bored to hear that "you cannot compare apples with oranges". Why the fuck are they not comparable? Obiviously they are! Let's start with the color. One is orange, the other is red, yellow or green! And if you peal them, there are many more differencies inside!

P as Parties. Too many i would say. But that's the essence of the second year.

Q as a Quarter of a Dollar. As for the other coins, given the short period i stayed here, i refused to learn their value. So i never used them. The result is that now I have a pile of coins in my room that are worth some 50 dollars. I think i will end up givingh them to the homeless who beg for change.

R as ratios. If there is one thing that you really use a lot during the second years, are the ratios. ROI, ROE, Gearing, Debt Coverage. Whatever you do, you end up with a ratio that should tell you something important. The rest, is useless and you leave it to the first years.

S as back in Shape! A light school workload, the availability of a huge gym on campus and central park round the corner made me able to go back in shape after a summer spent eating like a fat pig in Rome. However, without the role of smoke and alcohol better results would have been achieved.

T as tacky. Finally I got to know how to say this in english. And in New York you have plenty of occasions to use it, especially if you enjoy watching at people.

U as Uris Hall. It is the building hosting the business school at columbia... and the Uris Library, Uris Deli, Uris Lehman Brothers room.. and so on.

W as the amazing Easte of money I experienced here. Without even noticing it, I completely used all the intership salary plus the rent i got from my flat in Milan. Now my post-MBA vacation in Asia and/or South America is really @ stake. I need another internship to cash in something.

X as the eXpress line of the metro. It never works when you really need it, which is around 4 or 5 in the morning.

Y as Youth. When you do an MBA you shift back your mind to the age of youth. You go back to school, to parties, to freedom, to late hours, no sentimental relationships, no responsibilities. Then, after the MBA, this will end. And we'll shift back to the real world of a boy (or a girl) of 28. And maybe, we'll realize that something or someone important has been lost along the way.

Z as Z. "Who's Zed?". "Zed is dead baby, Zed is dead!" (pulp fiction)

Did i miss something? Ah yes, I missed the V. Indeed I missed her a lot.

A comment on "Doing Business 2007" by world bank

2006-12-17T18:46:00.000-05:00

When I read the “Doing Business Report” I was trying to put myself in the shoes of an entrepreneur or manager in a multinational company facing the question “now that I know all these things, should I invest in Country XX?”. For me it was like taking a decision of picking a restaurant given the knowledge of ingredients the cook is going to use to prepare dishes.

As a first general overview, I would say that this paper is organized from a country perspective rather than a business one. For each topic under exam the authors give examples and guidelines out of experiences of countries that are good reformers and others that are not. This approach can be useful for countries that want to improve on one or more specific topic (taxation, investments..) but is less effective to the eyes of entrepreneurs and companies that want to do business with or in a given country. But then, reading the detail with which topics are treated, it doesn’t seem that they are covered in deep enough to be a useful guideline for governments. The paper is focused on the indicators and a lot of words are devoted to explain how they were built and the methodology used to give scores. Which is fine, but the result is a long list of tables filled with numbers with few room left for a thorough discussion. It has to be argued who is the real target of this numbers and tables. The private sector? Governments? Or just a random reader interested in learning, at a very high leve,l which countries are reforming and how are they doing it? I will discuss what is good and bad of the paper and why I think the paper is not very useful neither for reformers nor for companies and entrepreneurs.

The first step to analyze the usefulness of the report is to understand what are the things companies look at when it comes to do business and what are the things that countries can do to make it happen. Even if the two things share the same background, there is a misalignment in terms of timing and dimension of the variables involved. Companies have a look from a macro perspective and give more weight to the profitability of today than the potential drawback in the remote future, in a perfect Net Present Value way of thinking. Many times managers have to take decision in tight time constraints and they don’t care if countries have put in place reforms that are sticky to bring tangible results in the short term. Countries, on the other hand, work on small variables that sometimes are seen as unpopular among business people or are just a small piece of change in the whole economic infrastructure. Companies and governments work on the same ground, but the outcome of actions taken by one party are not always what the other party is looking for and at the right moment. In this sense, if the Doing Business report shows that a country has decreased trade costs and time, it is still not a reason why a company should start a business there in the next few months. To trade you need partners, ports, facilities, roads and shippers that reach the country. These things take time to develop. On the other hand it can make sense to start a business with a country with high trading costs if you have a great partner to deal with, accessible ports and good infrastructure backing your business. So it might be better for a company to trade with France than Georgia even if the latter has a better ranking in terms of openness to trade. In addition, the goal of the reforms mentioned in the report have a long-term horizon, compared to decision made by companies which have a shorter time perspective. Many reforms don’t have an immediate outcome in a country’s economy and take some years to show the first results. Companies, on the contrary, act in a highly paced environment and most of the time they need to take decision very fast to generate a competitive advantage by being the “first mover”. Many investors like Ray Viault recognize the “first mover advantage” as one of the keys to be in developing countries. Again, this does not mean that a country should not reform, but that is not straight forward that new reforms introduced in a country make it immediately attractive to companies. Enabling laws that protect investors or getting an easier access to credit doesn’t build infrastructures and consumer demand from one day to the other. It takes time to trigger this chain of improvements and to establish double-sided market.

Furthermore, countries have limited resources to implement changes. It’s clear that with unlimited resources you can try to improve on every aspect mentioned by the report. But reality is different, and it’s tough to make changes happen. Having to chose which reforms to implement a country face the risk of choosing a mix that is not very effective. The topics are all complementary and mutually supportive. When multiple reforms are applied the outcome is not clear and straightforward. It’s unclear if it’s better to have a favourable taxation system but a below-average access to credit or the other way round. Every country has its own mix of good and bad things and ever business can benefit from them in different ways. As it is difficult for a country that performs well to understand which reforms were the main cause, it’s even more difficult to establish a real causation between improvement on a variable and development of the private sector and growth. If it is difficult for a government to put reforms in practice, it’s even more is even more difficult for the private sector to understand and exploit them.

The methodology used by the team that built the report is itself focused on specific assumptions that limit the scope of analysis on specific industries and businesses. Pick for example the topic of “investors’ protection”. The score on this topic is given on a specific situation in which a company is involved in a big asset purchase transaction which the authors claim is part of the normal business activities. I agree that this is a typical case in which frauds by executives are done but I am not sure if such analysis would grab many other ways of stealing assets and profits put in practice by smart directors. Accounting rules for example are many times tricky and easy to exploit. When Hermitage Capital was investing in Russia, one of the problem was the way financial statements were kept. Transparency of information by itself doesn’t prevent managers to use complicated accounting rules to steal profits from the company. These things happen in developed countries, just think about Parmalat in Italy or WorldCom in the US; in developing countries are enormously amplified. In the case of Gazprom the steal of assets was done on a daily basis, something which cannot be monitored so easily by investors not so active as Bill Browder. In addition, the report talks about auditors and give a grade based on their presence before the transaction takes place. This, again, is not a bullet proof guarantee for the investors since most of the times this external subjects are more corrupted than the company directors.

The presence of regulatory laws and agencies like the SEC is not a guarantee either. As a metaphor, it is still considered unsafe to walk around in Caracas even if homicide is punished by law in Venezuela. Even in the US, if something goes wrong with an investment, you can complain to the SEC. You can complain to state regulatory agencies. You can complain to industry organizations (for instance the NASD, an organization of securities dealers.) Thousands of people with legitimate complaints contact those regulators every year. And very few get any money back! Why? The SEC is charged with enforcing laws, not with recovering damages for individuals. The people who work for the SEC are regulators. They can check to see if laws were broken and that correct practices were followed. They can refer cases to prosecutors. But they don't recover money for investors.

Despite the critics I did against the effectiveness from the point of view of the investors, the report is more useful for reformers. From their point of view, if societies get their institutions “right” and also adopt the “right” policies, they will create an “enabling environment” for development that will transform positive economic stimuli into long-lived, virtuous circles of development. In the 2006 report trade barriers has been introduced. As noted by Jeffery Sachs, a crucial factor that allows a country to grow is technology. Technology is imported in a country through trade, either directly by local companies or indirectly through the economic engine generated by foreign investments. The growth of booming economies like China and India has been characterized by huge decrease in trade barriers, even if would be naïve to assert that all of this improvement in growth should be attributed to the greater openness. They have been engaged in wide-ranging economic reforms covering trade and other areas. But still, easiness of trade is one of the strongest growth enabler on which many economists agree. However, the five indices measured by the World Bank are not enough to tell how well positioned is a country around the topic of trade. Cross-country and, as the World Bank itself says, “behind the border” policies are also critical to a country’s investment climate. These include regulations and institutions overseeing local and foreign investment, capital markets, customs, taxation, labour, private ownership, legal recourse, and so on. The ability to trade is limited when a country is landlocked in a poor region. Ports and economic zones, like Bangalore, are the way by which India and China started their amazing path of growth, boosted, it is true, by huge foreign investments and donations from countries and foundations. But how many countries can have all this? In many countries key export sectors remain dominated by state participation (despite large scale privatization programs) and face issues in terms of governance, pricing, financing, A country can lower its import tariffs, decrease the time needed to perform the custom checks but if it doesn’t have a physical point of access to trade partners it will difficulty access the global markets anyway. In poor economies the fist trading partners are most likely other countries with similar product needs. The success of trade improvements of a country may be limited by the work done by its neighbours. Pick Georgia. The report doesn’t say anything about the tight link that exports of this country with Russia. According to The Economist Intelligence Unit, the structure of exports shifted somewhat in the first half of 2006 compared with the corresponding period of 2005 due to Russian bans on some products like wines, scrap metal and mineral water. And this is not a minor issue for Georgia. Two-thirds of domestic production of wine was exported to Russia. Scrap metal is another of Georgia's main export items. Moreover, the structure of Georgian exports is still tilted towards low value-added goods, and this is unlikely to change in the short term, as the industrial sector still needs to undergo radical restructuring. This leads to a future of exports still linked with neighbours countries’ economies.

Georgia is known to be a good follower of World Bank’s suggestions. The country has been improving considerably year after year. On average, the country has risen 40 position in rankings from year 2006 to year 2007. The GNI per capita has growth 30 percent in the last year and comparing the report of 2004 to 2007 it is notable how the same index has more than doubled, showing a strong correlation with improvements on almost all indicators (at least the ones that were present since 2004). I heard critics about the fact that for many countries to follow blindly the World Bank suggestions is the only way to get funds from the IMF. In this case it is curious to observe how Georgia performs relatively bad on newly introduced indices like “taxes” and “protection of investors”. A sign, maybe, that the country is reforming only where and when it is monitored.

The role of institutions plays a fundamental role when it comes to implement reforms following the guidelines of the report. A poor country which lack of formal and informal institutions can fall in the trap of following the index just from a numerical point of view and worsen an already sick situation. The effect of reducing firing costs in a country where unions don’t exist and workers lack of basic rights can be a step back in evolution instead of a leap ahead. Going over Georgia once more, without any doubt it has improved a lot in recent years. Georgia's notable improvement seems related to what was reported in the World Bank's Doing Business 2006 report, which trumpeted Georgia's recent introduction of major reforms to its labour laws, removing restrictions on working hours and dismissal procedures, and thereby lowering firing costs to some of the lowest levels in the world. However, Manana Kochladze, regional coordinator for the Caucasus for the Central and Eastern European Bank watch network, reports that "due to its absurdity, the introduction of the new labour code in Georgia caused protests by the entire population including businessmen. Even from a neo-liberal point of view, the new code does not bring a lot of gains to employers and it creates instability for employees." Indeed looking at the indices about the rigidity to fire employees you can notice how Georgia has a score of 0 in a region with an average of 37 and compared to the OECD which has an average of 27. We can say that the world bank gives a direction to pursue when implementing reforms, and this directions goes from 100 to 0. But the numbers don’t tell the whole story, which demonstrates that maybe the optimal score is somewhere before the 0. On the other hand, a reduction in firing costs in countries like Italy or Spain, where ironically we can say that workers are not employed but “adopted” and unions are anachronistically too powerful, would be for sure a gain in competitiveness and growth of the economy. In the specific case of Italy for example, the main reason why Alitalia, the flagship airline, is going bankruptcy is the inability of the government to fight against union and renegotiate the pilots’ contract and relocate them from the “old” national hub of Rome to the new one in Milan. Every year Alitalia has operating losses mainly because it has to pay transfer costs to pilots and crew from Rome to Milan. And there is now way to renegotiate the contracts. In this sense, the effectiveness of reforms in countries where institutions are consolidated will be more effective. Indeed every reform taken by the government needs an underlying social infrastructure characterized by transparency of information and balanced bargaining power among the parties affected.

What could have been useful are the suggestion on “how to reform” given at the end of each topic. The overall flow of discussion is well done considering the fact that it’s not a mere “do this and do that” list but covers side topics and externalities like corruption and give examples of recent reforms. However, the discussion stays on a very high level, showing that the purpose of this section is not to educate governments on how to implement reforms and improve on some indices. The cut with which arguments are treated in this section suggest instead that the target audience is a reader not very skilled about what concerns economic policies and government practices. Moreover, the report, compared for example with the one done by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), lacks a thorough analysis of the political environment (which places for example corruption as a main topic and not a secondary one), the policies towards private enterprise and competition and the quality of infrastructures.

Going back to my culinary example, these topics are like ingredients for cooking a good dish. Countries are the cooks, companies are the hungry but refined customers. It’s not by telling the customers which ingredients are you putting in the dish and their quality that you ensure that the meal will be good for them. They will just taste the dish ignoring the ingredients that are into it. They will come out with their judgement or they will just observe and listen to the comments of other customers. Moreover, customers have different tastes. What is good for someone might not fit the taste of someone else. However, remains the fact that a cook needs to use only the best ingredients and a good recipe if she wants to come out with a great dish. You cannot make a good omelette with rotten eggs.

A la esquina

2006-12-15T18:17:00.000-05:00

One of the cooles bar-restaurants in New York is called "la esquina". The corner.
It is one of those places that you have to book one month in advance if u are not a VIP, which is exactly what i did. I became a VIP!
The curious thing about this restaurant is that from the uside is just a cheap tiny diner in soho. Except that there is a door with a guard in front and a girl with a list. You say your name, the guard open the door and after a steep stairs, passing by the kitchen, you end up in an amazing bar restaurant, crowded like hell, where they serve mexican food on the waves of good music. I tried to shot a video of the entrance. I tried twice and the results were very poor. However, here is what I did.

Christmas Party

2006-12-14T15:59:00.000-05:00

Wednesday evening: christmas party at Olivia's place. In less than half an hour from the moment they entered the flat, everybody was drunk. Amazing party! Lot's of people, many i knew already, many i met for the first time there. It's amazing how this is different from IESE. After three months you see people you have never seen before, even if they are studying at the same school. But is cool, you always meet new and interesting people at every party and event!
By the way... I haven't taken many pictures yesterday and the few ones where all blurry and with bad colors. I cannot wait to have my reflex in my hands again! But i took a great video for you. Enrico popping bottles of champagne with the knife!
After the party we went to a club in the lower east side. As if the 40 bottles of champagne we had at Olivia's place were not enough, we decided to kill the night with tequila shots. I think there is a big competition between tequila and champagne producer to elect the best "headacher" drink in the world. Just imagine when you drink both of them!
Not satisfied, we moved to one of the most amazing flat I saw in my life, in the Trump Tower. Wow. A big flat all for us. I found it very MBA-typical to walk around in this flat at 5.30 in the morning when people was all so drunk and still to hear something like "... ah yes five times ebitda" in a conversation!

End of term

2006-12-13T18:56:00.000-05:00

And also this term is over. On monday i did my only exam of the term and today i closed the last assignment. Now I have almost one month of vacation which starts here in NY and will end in Milan passing by a new year's eve in Finland.

Today we received an email from Pat Robison, the exchange coordinator of IESE, who told us that our grades won't be transferred to IESE. Whatever is our grade here, we will get just a note about our experience in another school. No translation.

Hey Pat! Next time tell this in advance, so instead of going out six days a week i will go out seven!

By the way it's nice to see that people at the MBA don't work hard only for grades. Honestly i said to myself "in exchange i won't put so much effort in studying" but at the end, since i like the courses i took, I put a lot of effort in trying to do every assignment and exam at my best. And I think i performed very well (always modest). But Also Marco, Ramon and Till.. everybody is focused and wants to learn as much as they can.

At the same time I was astonished to see how some people have a behaviour that you don't expect from the MBA. Kind of childish approach in doing team assignments, lack of professionality driven by a motivation that sounds like "well it's not a real job, who cares". Personally I still see the MBA as a playground to practice being professional. A place when you are allowed to make mistakes and nobody will fire you. So why don't take advantage of it and try to take it seriously when it comes to team work? Apparently somebody don't share my vision.

Despite the exams of this week, last weekend I had so much fun, as always. Three friends of mine from milan where here and I took it seriously when it came to organize for them a good nightlife. During the day i let them going out for shopping and sightseeing while i was studying. Then at night we went to all the nice clubs and restaurants i've been so far. On Friday we went to Piano to celebrate Noellie's birthday! Oh my god i was so drunk the day after. I cannot even remember such an headache since ages!

And guess who was here as well? My HERO! Who? Bertrand! The guy that on the video i posted few days ago broke both his feet. I was so glad to see that his improment curve has an exponential shape. He is already without casts and apparently he will be able to walk shortly. Shortly in the sense of "soon" not "short distances". Ok maybe soon he will do only short distances. Ok.. whatever.

Overall I am very glad I came in exchange but i will explain why in another post. Now i need some rest because i'm going to a cool christmas party at Olivia's place. Woo hoo.

Economics of love

2006-12-08T11:55:00.000-05:00

If you feel totally or partially hurt or offended by stereotypes about love, men, women, dates and stuff like that, please don't go beyond this point.

Common stereotypes confirmed: Yesterday was the last day of class. The very last one was Turnaround Management. As I said the course itself didn't teach me that much but the professor is a really smart and brilliant man. Always ready to make jokes as well as to give real-world suggestion to future managers.
I would say that here at columbia courses have very good teachers but at the same time are not very very good. At least the ones that i took.
During the last class of International Economics our teacher brought to us the results of a very corious research he is following about men, women and mate selections.
Have you ever heard what is the very first thing a woman looks for in a man? "Oh.. I love a man that makes me smile and laugh all the time". Well, men are fooled by this concept twice. First because they think that woman smile and laugh on the same basis as men do, which is the sense of humor. It is not. Second because women lie. To the interviewer and to themselves.
A recent study from the department of economics at columbia has proven that, as it happens for corruption and other sins, asking people questions about the criteria to choose a partner is not possible. You cannot ask people how many times did they pay bribes and you cannot ask people what they are looking for in a mate. They will lie because they don't want to give a stereotipized image of themselves. And they don't want to be part of the stereotype even in their own coscience.
On top of that, it seems that the "it makes me smile" is a result of two different functions for men and women.
For men is something like: Smile = F(humor/jokes/ability to adapt to situations/good mood..)
For women: Smile = F(wealth)
But as wealth by itself doesn't bring happyness, it seems that is not true that women really look at that as first criteria.
To cut it short the research study confirmed that:

- if asked most of the men put a high relevance to intelligence as a choice criteria but then they all preferred the 5 beauties rather then the 5 girls from the MENSA
- men look for a hot body and don't care about intelligence (in italy we say "il bus l'è il bus, e l'usel l'ha gà mia i occ")
- men don't want a girl that is smarter then themselves (but that's phisically impossible anyway.. joking!)
- girls look for phisical aspect for short term relations but not for long ones
- girls know NPV and they are able to calculate men NPV in one second: where have u been in vacation (1 day in sardinia is better then 2 months in costa brava), where do u live, which school have u been.. very subtle questions!
- if you are a man, you go in a club and sit beside a very handsome man, your chances to be picked up by a girl don't decrease.
- if you are a girl and you sit beside another beautiful girl your chances decrease by 15%.

Dropping bombs: My grandfather has a big passion for fishing. So he used to go to this small lake and sit for hours with his fishing can waiting for a fish to bite the fly. Hours spent without any result on the border of the lake. But this was his passion. And another passion where explosives. So after four hours he just put away the can and dropped a bomb in the water. In a second all the fish came on the surface.
I was talking with a friend of mine for Harvard. He said that in the sorroundings of the campus girls hear the teachers from the business school and they quickly learn the NPV. And they are quite good in calculating your NPV in a club. So after hours in the club without girls talking to you, HBS students that feel really desperate just drop the HBS bomb in the coversation. Big fishing!
Fortunately here in New York the Italian/BCG/Columbia bomb is not needed.

Dimishing marginal returs: Another result is that the rule of diminishing returns apply to girls but not to men. To explain the rule, pick for example a tractor. If you give a tractor to a farmer in the US the incremental benefit for working the land is minimum because he already has tractor and probably he is not able to exploit the whole benefits of the new one. But if u give it to a farmer in Mozambique, he can improve productivity by 1000%!
Now, if a girl met 10 men she can be interested in let's say 3 of them. If you give her 20 men, she is interested in 5 (not 6).. if you give her 50 she can be interested in 6! Why? Because girls tend to maximize the function MAX(value_of_each_man). The more, the more picky is the choice.
Men follow just a straight line. Meet 10 girls, interested in 5. Meet 20 girls, interested in 10, meet 30 15... and so on. Why? Because men try to maximize the function SUM(value_of_each girls). The more, the better.

Exchange at Columbia? A wise choice

2006-12-05T14:30:00.000-05:00

This is really cool

2006-12-03T23:53:00.000-05:00

Recently, i good friend from IESE broke both his feet while shooting a short movie. Two casts and three weeks later, the movie went public.

Honestly i think that IAN diving into the sea and coming out of the pond at iese is one of the best things i have ever watched!

All the nodes come to the comb...

2006-12-03T09:45:00.000-05:00

I know the title doesn't make much sense in English. It's just a straight translation from an italian sentence. It says that at the end, all the (bad) things that you do and stay hidden for a while, at a certain point will come to light. Like passing a comb into hairs with nodes.. at a certain point the comb get stuck into a node.
If you have read the posts of the last 3 months you will notice tales about clubs, dinners, sport... lot of leisure time. What about preparing for the exams? That's the time where the nodes come to the comb!
My schedule for the next week forsee:
- an assignment for turnaround management
- an assignment for emerging markets
- an assignment for introduction to venturing
- a take home exam for advanced corporate finance
- an exam of emerging markets
The good thing is that I think everyone is almost screwed up as I am. I go to the library and I see really puzzled and scared faces around, which makes the whole thing very funny! It seems that everybody was sleeping from august to december! Nevertheless, everybody still takes time to go out at night. Personally I had a quite cool weekend at night but I studied hard during the day. Now I'm taking some daytime to go downtown to buy some presents for friends (which is a thing that makes me very happy) and then back to the excel models.

A typical after-club in new york...

2006-11-30T22:43:00.001-05:00

Donors

2006-11-29T14:16:00.000-05:00

Last night I went to the opera at the Lincoln Theater. The play performed was "Tosca" by Giacomo Puccini. The columbia card works well for theaters and museums. Either you have free entrance or you pay a very tiny amount compared to full price. A pity it doesn't work for clubs too... However, given the fact that the columbia card is a sort of option to buy tickets at a certain price, it might be interesting to calculate its value. But then prices of museums have no volatility... there is only a time value based on the fact that you don't execute it becasue tickets are sold out. Mmm.. too complicated.
By the way, the opera was amazing. I like Tosca a lot. Well, Turandot was also a good one. The scenogarphy of the play was something unbelivable. Really really well done. I tried to take pictures but I was immediately caught by one of the waiters (i don't know how you call them in english).. who told me that if I took a picture the would have thrown me out. Ok sorry. So no picture for you reader. But trust me was really cool. Just a picture of me, Francesca and Pietro before the beginning of the performance. What was a little bit less cool was the theatre itself. For sure was technically futuruistic, but the furnitures and the overall architecture design has a doubtful taste. And as always, everything was sponsored by some donor. Every chair has a nameplate on it. Personally i put my ass for two hours on the face of Mr. and Mrs. Powell. Then you open the brochure of the play and at the end you have 4 pages of donors with also the money each of them has put in. Obviously ranked by amount provided. Only the top 20 provided some 19 million. Columbia is the same. All the buildings and facilities are sponsored. Every seat has a nameplate on it. I'm not criticizing it. I just think is curious how this doesn't happen in Europe. I think it is just a question of mentality and how historically in the US people had to donate to provide themselves of missing public services. And the results are cool. If you see the facilities of Columbia you'll notice that are quite impressive. Most of the times donors are not individuals but banks and big firms. Now I'm sitting in the Lehman Lounge. It's just a little bit wierd when in a museum you have the paintings displayed by the name of the donor rather than the name of the author.

What really excites me..

2006-11-26T20:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went for a 5 hours walk through brooklyn down and the downtown. Finally I also crossed the brooklyn bridge. There are some areas of brooklyn like Bedford Ave which are really cool, it has nothing to do with the rest of New York! But a part from all this turistic stuff, what really excites me are things like this glass. I think it is really cool.

Basically if you look through the glass from with a trasversal vision, you see everything. And you can notice that at the beginning you can see the small desk on the left side of the room behind the glass. But then as soon as you change the angle and you look thourgh it with a diagonal incidence, the glass shades!
Another thing that excites me and i need to discover are the mechanics of a combination lock.

Enviroment unfriendly

2006-11-26T17:59:00.000-05:00

I am quite impressed by how in the US environment is not taken that much into consideration. Cars have 8000cc engines and at central park the police car stays parked the whole day with the engine on. Always ready for action! During the summer you have +40°C outside and -20°C inside houses and offices because of terrific AC usage, during the winter it's the other way round. These days it's so cold outside but as soon as you enter into the building you are sorrounded by this sub-saharian hot temperature that forces you to go around with flipflops, t-shirts and underwear. And we cannot switch it off, it is centralized and the whole building has the same hot temperature.
I don't understand.
But today a new word entered my vocabulary: BUMMER!
I'm in a bummer.

A little bit like christmas...

2006-11-24T22:29:00.000-05:00

Yes.. this is more or less the thanksgiving in NY. The streets are empty, the weather is cold, trees are already without leaves, heaters run at hundreds degrees in the houses.. an people share a big meal in large family groups. Even shops are close.. and TOM'S RESTAURANT as well! This restaurant is open 24/7... it's the first time I saw the famous red sign turned off!
Within our group of italians in NYC we decided to follow the US tradition. We were 20 sitting around a long table with food for 40 or maybe 60 people. The king of the table is obviously the turkey. I'm wondering if at the whitehouse when they announced "we have turkey now" George Bush tought something like "mmm.. did we finish with Iraq already?".
By the way.. our thanksgiving meal was composed by a mix of US and Italian tradition with a bit of German-Thai infusion. Understood?! We take food seriously!
- 2 turkeys, one made in Italian style, the other stuffed in american style;
- 3 kg of potatoes cooked in the oven
- 3 15-people size dishes of parmigiana (pronounced PARMIGGGIANA)
- 15 bottles of high-end wine (no spanish wines indeed)
- 3 cakes (1 shaped like a turkey.. in italian we would call it "pacchianissima")
- 2 home made focaccia with olives (mighty Francesca!!!)
- 5 liters pumpkin soup
- several hand rolled ham-pinapple rolls!
- grilled vegetables
- 10 kgs of ragu (souce made with tomatoes and meat.. used to put on cannelloni)
- 20 hungry guests

Me and Marco were in charge of the soup. I was at the mixer. No, not playing music, mixing the soup, to make it like cream
It has been a second of distraction.. i lost the focus on the blender and a bit of 100 C° of soup spit on my arm. I burned my arm!
Even if all the girls in the house discovered their "nurse" instinct i wasn't able to avoid big bubbles on my arm. Quite disgusting today, i cannot look at it! Also Lamberto joined our group. I was happy because even if we are both in NY the fact of living in uptown (me) and brooklyn (lamb) makes it difficult to meet every week. Even during the night most of the time we are not in sync and when I go to club he goes out with some hot girl and viceversa (Well.. not so many girls for me..)
After almost 6 hours spent at the table we where all pythonized (see Peter Luger's pst to know what it means) and we decided to watch an old italian commedy movie called "Vacanze di Natale 83". A masterpiece of the italian trash commedy! In theory, US tradition brings people in fron of the TV to watch football..
By the way.. here is a picture of Valerio and Francesca busy with an alternative intepretation of the usage of dishes...
Tonight, I was supposed to go out again. I wasn't able. I went out tuesday, wednesday, thursday.. I will go to a party tomorrow. I can't make it. And lots of assignments in pipeline. Put aside parties, thanksgiving, parties.. this is still an MBA!

Dedicated to David

2006-11-21T19:34:00.000-05:00

This video is dedicated to david for three reasons:

Because he put that cosby video that i didn't understand. So here is a video that has nothing to be understood. It is self explanatory for every language.
Because he wants to buy a Ducati
Because he said i should buy a sidecar (and stay on the side) and I told him that we italians are all born on a moto

This video is taken on the final part of the highway that links milan with genova. This part of the highway is famous because during the weekends many riders challenge their friends, themselves and their lives on this narrow set of turns. With a car there are some turns that you can do at no more than 80 km/h (and u hear the tyres sliding) or 150-160 if u have a Carrera 4s.
Look around minute 5 he does a wheelie into a tunnel. Impressive!

I need some breast rest

2006-11-20T20:49:00.000-05:00

Thank you thanksgiving. It's monday and my week is already over. No classes until next monday. I needed some rest. I have to take some time to visit the city with the daylight, walk into some museum, eat the turkey. I think I need also some rest from the nightlife of NYC. Well I'm not having a good start with this proposition.. I planned already to go to the French Tuesday tomorrow, another party in a club on Wednesday.. but overall i would like to not go beyond that. My liver is in a bad shape and deadlines for 3 papers are approaching.

In three weeks the term is over! Unbelivable. I'm already sad of leaving NYC in a month. I didn't expect to get so into the life of the school in this short period. I was talking about this with Medea today. I think I've been quite lucky to get introduced into her and all the other italians since the first days. Many exchange students are doomed to stay among themselves because it's not that easy her to get into groups of already formed friends. Whatever..I would like to have a bag to put all of them in a bag.. and with them the streets of soho, the cafè havana, the clubs in 27th street, tom's restaurant, central park, the monday class of private sector, the atomic clock of Amar Bidhe, the squirrels crossing the campus with the mouth full of nuts.

Awwwwww..

And by the way, I've included two cool pictures i took this weekend.

The "wooo hooo" saga

2006-11-19T11:09:00.000-05:00

Can you believe that at columbia you have a course called "Innovate or Die"? Sounds wierd, isn't it? I'm wondering what's on the sessions' outline.
Session 1: kill your competitors..
Session 2: slap your lazy secretary..
Session 3: a hundred ways to fire your employees...

Woooo hooo!

In IESE, we have mas o menos the same course: "Dilemas Humanos"

By the way, I'm talking about this because the dean Glenn Hubbard (it's not a fantasy name, it's real!) just wrote an article on the FT in reply to Anita Roddick's position that those with an eye toward entrepreneurial careers can't and don't benefit from an MBA education ("Don't get a business degree, get angry", November 15). The dean's starting senctece "I should say that I greatly respect Anita Roddick and admire her success as a business leader." seems something that come out of the Word Editor Grammar Check on an original sentence like "shut up, you stupid b**ch".. but let's say it comes from his heart. The summary of Glenn Hubbard's position is that at top school they don't prented to teach you how to become the new Bill Gates but rather give you a mindset that allows you to better exploit opportunities that you might encounter in your life. And it's fuckin' true. I mean... not all the succesful entrepeneurs were born because IBM gave them the opportunity to produce a "side" component for their machines. Most of the time entrepeneurs just see the opportunity to replicate some other people's idea or maybe change it a little, relocate it in another country, or apply it to another context. And if i have to add something out of my brain, in the deveoled world i think the space for opportunities is becoming quite narrrow. Only if you have breaktroughs like the PCs and Internet this space broadens and gives room to the people to find their own succesful path. The MBA gives you an extra torch that you can use to move in the shadow.
Going back to the things that really matter. Look at this combined picture. They are exactly the same! I remember when I was young and I was at the gym talking with a lawyer friend of mine. We were used to ride the ciclettes for some twenty minutes talking shit. Among the stupid things you discussed, one day he told me about the theories of Cesare Lombroso about criminal anthropology. Basically his theories say that there are some phisical features of the human bodies that are common in criminals. So, for example, if you have a big chin, your eyes are distant more that 3 cm one from the other, your lips are not the same size.. either you are a picasso or you are going to kill somebody during your life. It's funny to think how life has changed. This man spent his whole life to study these kind of relations. Than one day, in a remote valley in the black forest, a german guy called Franz Heukampf was born.. and with an excel sheet you can run a regression analysis and you have the exact forumla for this. Two minutes work!

Woooo hooo (second wooo hoo of the post!)

And that's what I did on the Columbia-IESE deans. And I discovered that if you:
- are not bold but your hairs have this "see-through" effect
- your head has an upside down trapezoid shape
- you are not elected chairman of the FED
- the suit has the same shape when you wear it and when you put it on the hanger
- you can say wise things disguised as non-wise things, and the other way ronud
congratulations.. you are a dean!

Woooo hooo (final one!)

2006-11-17T14:51:00.000-05:00

Candice said my nickname should be Georgie. And then she sang me this US nursery rhyme.

Georgie Porgie, Puddin' and Pie,

Kissed the girls and made them cry,

When the boys came out to play

Georgie Porgie ran away.

Gini Coefficient

2006-11-12T20:33:00.000-05:00

I was googling around to look for some let's call it "inspiration" for a final report of en exam on economics, when i stepped into the Gini Coefficient! The Gini coefficient is interesting first of all because it has the same surname as a good old friend of mine. But if this is not enough, it is interesting also because it is used to measure wealth inequality. I've found a very easy explanation of the Gini coefficient on, guess what, wikipedia. Check it. Just want to report the graph that shows the path of this coefficient for some countries. A coefficient close to 1 means lot of inequality.. the more you are close to 1 the more the curve that relates share of wealth and percentage of population gets closer to the shape of the "capacity/queue". Clearly the gini curve doesn't tell the whole story of inequality and it's measure because for example a wide country tends to have a higher coefficient than a small one. But still is considered a reasonable measure of inequality. Interesting to notice how US is growing while many european countries are decreasing. The US high inequality attracted many people in the past and is still attracting many people.. the ones that are self confident, that want to risk, the one that want to fight for the right side of the curve. Europe is more attractive for the ones who fear the left side. But it also attract people who want to stay on the right but can't cope with inequality and don't want to stay on top of a peak with a high cliff behind them.

Hell & Heaven

2006-11-11T20:52:00.000-05:00

They say New York is the city for singles. Indeed if you go around at night, you go into cool clubs, that's the New York you see. Every weekend I put myself into these shoes, going out until late, getting almost drunk at guest house or marquee, sweating my clean shirt and eating pizza in 110th street corner with Broadway. It's cool. Lots of girls around, an easy task if compared to snobby girls you can meet in Milan, good music, strong drinks. Even the restroom is cool. I spent 10 minutes talking with the waiter (with cufflings) in the restroom. He was very proud of his offer of parfumes and candies! Wow... this is Heaven! And that's how you feel. You thank God that you are single! Or not? Mmm maybe this is not heaven, this is hell. And I think that especially when I put my sneakers on at noon, trying to get rid of the hungover by having a run in central park. You walk into the park and you see another New York. The landscape is amazing. The autumn foliage shows unbelivable colors and patterns. I love this park. I love this season. And among all the couples in the park, I am running by myself. This is Heaven! I hate to be single! Or not? I'm confused.

Like a Python

2006-11-08T23:10:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we went to Peter Luger, the famous steakhouse in Brooklyn. For those who don't know it, don't worry. It's basically the best place where you can eat a steak in New York, and probably one of the best in the world. On the menu they have only steak. It's both restaurant and butcher shop. The meat? Amazing. Tasty, soft like butter. Mmmmm... And in quantity. So much meat that I think I had around 1kg of meat just by myself.
After that I was in a sort of trance... Have you ever seen one of those reports on Discovery Channel where a python eats an antelope and then is there... paralized by the digestion, with a big belly, vulnerable.. able to move only the eyes. That's exaclty how I felt. They charged me on a cab and went home.

Uh??

2006-11-07T17:06:00.000-05:00

I didn't understand one thing so I sent an email to the professor... and this is his reply.

Good observation. The choice between one and the other is not always definite. In most high leverage cases the cost of debt is very close to the unlevered cost of capital and the difference is small. When the changing debt schedule is predetermined the natural choice is the cost of debt. I computing wacc every year one is forced to assume that the debt ratio stays constant during that year, which means that debt moves up and down, however little, during the year with the value of the firm in order to keep the debt ratio constant as assumed for the year. That imparts additional risk to the tax shield: the risk of the free cash flow and makes it appropriate to discount the tax shield at the cost of the unlevered firm. The choice in practice varies. Whenever it is felt that the amount of debt is highly dependent on the cash flow, the cost of unlevered firm is used. Otherwise the cost of debt is used. The example of p. 93 is continued in the following pages and the 2nd para of p. 99 makes reference to the results attained with one or the other assumption. As you can see the difference is relatively small. Finally, one important point to consider is that by computing wacc every year one is assuming that the tax shield is discounted at the unlevered cost of capital. Hope this helps.

Now I don't undestand naffing! (nothing)

Death Capital Markets

2006-11-06T21:42:00.000-05:00

Once again one of the advantages of being in exchange is the fact that you broaden the faculty you can listen to. As I already said, in "Private Sector & Intl Develpoment", I have the pleasure to have Fisman which is a sort of super young guru of economics. On top of this, we have started an amazing series of guest speakers which is really impressive. From Bill Browder (read about him @ gazprom) to Jeffery Sachs. Jeffery Sachs is the head of The Earth Institute at columbia, a renowned macroeconomist and special adviser to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, responsible of important successes in economic reforms in Poland and Bolivia. He is the author of many books like "The end of poverty" and you can see him talking with the presidents of many countries, the pope and Bono. Today he was talking to us. For the first time I heard an american speaker who didn't talk only about "let the free markets rule the world". He is the advocate of "yes to the market economy but no to the free-market ideology". Even if he doesn't criticise the idea of the free market his main theory revolves around the idea of the "poverty trap" in which some countries are locked in. For historical, rich-countries-behavior, geographical, environmental and other exogenous reasons some countries are now locked in a poverty status by which they won't be able to escape if left to themselves and let the "free markets" do its job. If you are in a poor country which is landlocked (no ports around which develop a trade) you are basically fucked up. If you have oil, drugs and diamonds you are exploited by rich countries and probably someone will drop troups once in a while to make some mess. If you don't, you are screwed as well. It's false the idea that countries like India and China rose on their legs and made the path towards growth. They received huge financial aid from foundations and governments and they had the luck of being able to develop special economics zones from which to start development. Look at bangalore for example. For a country like India it is impossible to develop from scratch good infrastructures for the whole country. It's easier to develop special zones in which concentrate the government spending and use them as highlights to attract internetional funds. Unfortunately not all that countries are that lucky to have the phisical possibility to such development. But still Jeffery Sachs sees as the only way to help poor countries to use huge financial aids from developed coutries. Many argue that high corruption will make this effort useless because probably money will flow to some swiss bank account. His idea is to provide funds straight to local government and plant a high control over spending by intenational observers. And while to help 1 billion people to escape death from malaria it would be enough that rich countries collect 3 bucks per person, it has more echo in the news the fact that saddam will be hanged rather then 20.000 children dying every day in sub-saharian countries.

Death in the middle

2006-11-06T20:25:00.000-05:00

Even if was very happy with the offer of BCG Milan, I decided to ask for the London office. There were several reasons why I asked that, now there are several reasons minus one. However, I'm still convinced about it. Few days ago I've been contacted by the worldwide head of BCG recruiting who called me because she didn't know I asked that transfer. So she englighted me about the process, the interviews and so on. The fun thing is that I had to explain to her first which are my reasons. So I started talking about the fact that the private equity practice is based there, that I think in the city I will be closer to a substantial network of iese alumni and also personal friends who work there since many years. And again the fact that I would like to have some international exposure also in terms of office diversity. Then I had my big ace in the sleeve which was "and you know what.. even if you think I'm an asshole, I think I want to stay in London just a few years and then go back to Italy..". The message i wanted to convey was "no worries, i'm not going to bother you that much". No time to mention this and the recruiter said "ok ok.. good reasons, the important thing is that you don't say you want to stay just few years!". Wow. That was my ace card! Mmm..
Then I discovered that I have other three case interviews with London office partners. My chances to fail this step are very high. And then i also learned that now is not that straighforward that I can go back to the Milan office. So I'm already projecting me in January in a desperate research of the last resort employer. Wow. This is the death in middle.

Halloween

2006-11-02T21:26:00.000-05:00

Halloween in NYC is crazy. Among the parties, french tuesday was the best. This home made costume was amazing. The LCD monitor was real! Marco.. Good luck she has the camera.. i left mine at home! What a big mistake. I missed a lot of cool pictures! We hired him as a cleaning lady afterwards. I tried hard with this girl but then i found something i wasn't expecting to find :)

Branca Branca Branca...

2006-10-29T18:41:00.000-05:00

Leon Leon Leon!
Look at the economist's cover page. Well, think about at Columbia first years as this soldier. Professional, very prepared, super equipped with top noch technology. That's probably how banks see columbia first years. During the first term they study corporate finance, corporate strategy, capital markets. Things that at IESE are done only from the second term on. On top of that, Columbia first years are exposed to an amazing number of seminars, company presentations and extra courses that make them extremely competitive in the summer internship market. Just to give an example, on saturdays there is the option to attend a 9am-5pm class on valuation. On friday, you can go to spend one day on the trading flor of a top bank. By the end of october a first year is able to do a DCF valuation of a company!
On the other hand, I was at dinner last night with a bunch of people from a bank and among them there were some of the bankers who met our IESE first years during the banking tour. Well... their first impression was not the best i have ever heard. Compared to Colubia's first years, IESE's remind me the mighty brancaleone troup. But honestly, I love it much more.

Pimp my night

2006-10-27T18:24:00.000-04:00

I was looking for a dress for these halloween days. Here in NY halloween parties start one week before and go on until tuesday. Amwesome. I was not sure if to dress like a superhero or something else but suddenly I stepped into this bycicle I said: this will be mine. And here is my outfit. Cross border between a pimp of the 70s and Lenny Kravitz! All da hoes fo' me, pleaz!

Bankrupcy

2006-10-27T09:55:00.000-04:00

In medieval Italy moneylenders conducted their trade from benches set up in town squares. When a moneylender became insolvent, his bench was broken — sometimes over his head. This custom became so associated with insolvency that banca rotta, Italian for “broken bench,” eventually became bankrott in German, banqueroute in French and bankrupt in English.

God is Love

2006-10-24T17:15:00.000-04:00

Hundreds of years ago the majority of the people was tanned during the summer. They had to. They were farmers or other kind of workers exposed to the sun ten hours a day.At that time, to be pale like a WC was considered super cool. The grand grand grand father of Michael Jackson was ruling the dance floors. Today most of the people work in an office, eveyrbody is pale. Tanning centers are a succesful business, hip hop rules at Pink Elephant and Michael Jackson is on trial.

At the time of war and conquerers, it was very easy to sell a religion that promised peace & love. The target customers were people who saw their house on flames, their land stolen, their relatives killed on the battleground. The product was a religion that tells you that God is Love and life after deathis a place called paradise where everything is white and blue, candid and private bathroom for everybody. Wow. I would have gone for it. I'm sorry but today this doesn't sound so attractive anymore. The youth of today is not attracted by "god is love". Love is inflated. They want more action, adventure, guns, wars, virgins! Do you want to see a place where everything is white and blue and candid: take a plane and look out of the window. Have you ever seen a virgin? Religions, like everything, are cyclical. And now we know that this cycle lasts around 4000 years.

Ok, now i have to stop writing because the plane is suffering an incredible turbolence. No no, is not that i cannot type or that i'm scared of it. It's just too funny to watch at the old man sitting next to me. He is trying to eat his chicken served into the plastic box. The turbolence makes his arm move in the opposite direction of the plate and the whole thing is hilarious. It seems that the fork and the chicken are two magnets with the same polarity!

Thank you notes

2006-10-23T18:46:00.000-04:00

During all the career shit that you go through during the MBA, whenever you get a business card you should send thank you notes to tell your interviewer how glad you are that they dedicated time to you and so on. Some times these emails are true, most of the times they are just fake, but anyway they show you are well mannered. Sometimes you feel you just really want to say thank you to people is close to you, and it's not a question of being well mannered, it's just something that comes from your inner soul.

Thank you Noelle, Marco, Huy, Matteo, Bertrand, Rafa, Ramon, Lamberto, Valerio, Mamma and Calatrava. For the email, for the quick chat, for the long call, for the couch, for the afternoon eating chips and dried mango, for the hug, for giving up the dinner with the blonde girl, for the cast, for the words, for the smile, for the songs, the small peluche, the capoeira and all the rest. It was a great weekend!

And thank you Vera for the 6 months before.

Ok i think i should write some thank you notes now.

And then they killed the fridge

2006-10-15T16:35:00.000-04:00

Another party, another long night of fun. But then a mistery sorrounds the house. Who killed the refrigerator?

Shortest surname ever

2006-10-15T16:34:00.000-04:00

Not only is one letter, not only it is a vowel, it is the shortest of the voewl to pronunciate!

Intellectual property

2006-10-13T23:04:00.000-04:00

Even if nowadays investments in emerging countries are "cool" and "exotic", several things must be considered that might be more than just an issue. Among these i would mention corruption, poor legal system, weak coporate gonverances, transfer of assets and equity and last but not least, the lack of intellectual property. Somewhere this concept is missing at all, somewhere else the concept exists but the poor legal system and the conflict of interests makes it difficult to be enforced. This regression just to say that reading The Economist (October 14th-20th 2006) i'm amazed to see on page 9 how the journalist used a term that I used on this blog few weeks ago. Cereal Killer! Hey that was mine!

Eccheccazzo! (italians rule at columbia)

2006-10-12T00:29:00.000-04:00

So far the Italian community of Columbia has proven to be super cool. Most of them are McKinsey sponsored people, which makes me re-think my opinion about the company's culture. They are really nice, smart and party-lovers. Good mix isn't it? I share with some of them some classes and team-projects and I'm really going along very well with them.
Last week we met at a very cool party at guesthouse, one of these top clubs in NY where people line out for hours before giving up and going somewhere else. I don't like to queue for clubs and i went there just because of some contacts of Serena. We were guests of someone table and I faced a continuous flow of bottles of alchool that threw me on the ground in few hours.. I was very wasted but still conscious! Yesterday Valerio invited me to join him and others to the French Tuesday. This is a be-weekly recurring event in NY which takes place every time in a different club. Apparently these french are trying to keep the event for members only (valerio, who is a member, told me that to be elected you have to be invited by other members and the submit your cv and other stuff... bah!). The invite said "Dress code: business chic". I've been through business casual, business smart, business formal... business chic found me a bit unprepared at 8pm... 30 minutes before the appointment. Ok.. let's go for the suit.
Before going to the party we met some people at Serena and Medea's place. They have a fabulous flat on the 72th. I love wooden flor,red briks and pop-art on the walls! Other people joined the warm-up at the flat. Ops.. what i see... jeans and sneakers. Mmm.. puzzled face (mine and valerio's). Ok let's try to go to this french party. The guy at the entrance was french obviously.. with that typical o-ring lips expression... So we started to enter.. crossing the fingers for the guy in jeans. Ladies first! The guy, keeping the eyesight to the height of the waist kept repeting for each of us entering..
Enjoy..
Enjoy..
Enjoy..
Enjoy..
Enjoy..
NO.
Fuck! He stopped the guy with Jeans. So.. REWIND! Everybody out. Ok we cannot leave one guy out alone.. let's go somewhere else together. We went for dinner and I have to say that to be a plan B was really nice. We laughed so much! Here is Valerio trying to show how big was the diamond on the ring of a columbia student recently get engaged (but Serena immediately pointed out that size doesn't matter, it's the purity that counts).

One thing I need to mention about the recruiting environment here. There are a lot of presentation and events by banks and consulting companies. More than in IESE. Every day there is a schedule of 6 presentations at least. Impossible to attend all of them unless you have the gift of ubiquity. However, the funny thing is that all the students dress up in super business formal attire. Nice suits, shining black shoes, cufflinks, leather bags. Wow.. very serious stuff is going on here. But then you go there and what happens during the presentation? They offer you pizza and beers! But not analcholic beers. Real beers! And very greasy pizza! So you are there with a bunch of first years eating pizza and licking sticky fingers (every body licks his/her own)! Is it serious? In IESE this would never happen!

Phoenix

2006-10-08T02:08:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting in my room at the Marriott desert ridge resort. It's 2 in the morning, New York Time. I decided not to take into account this 3 hours delay otherwise i will fuck up my biorithm.
What am I doing here? Nothing. Just enjoying the weekend offered by BCG. Me and Lamrbetto left on friday from NY to come here and meet anothe hundred of BCG alumni from all over the US and have some fun with outdoor activities.
As I said, i left from NY on friday. Probably the worst flight of my life after the one I did when i was 2 years old and I jumped from the window. At the time I cut my head and you can still see the scar when I have very short hair. This time I was almost dying from dishidratation. The flight was 2 hours late. Ok fine, can happen. But once they get all the people on te plane, we had to wait on the track for 2 hours. There were almost 50 flights lining up to wait they turn to take off. The captain said is always like that in JFK on friday. And while the plane is waiting to take off, nobody is allowed to stand up, not even the flight assistants. So.. no water or food for other 2 hours. The the plane took off. Wow... now finally we can have some water.
But still.. no water. Because the US Airways probably went into some cost cutting project by McKinsey and there were only two assistants for 200+ people. So we had our first glass of water only after 5 hours. Very nice. Flight US Airways.
Trying to spend this 8 hours on the plane i start reading the usual emercengy card. And I noticed that here in the US they know they have so many fat people that they need to include them in the emergency plan. Look at the fat lady on the picture below. She is soo fat tha she cannot bent on her legs. Well it's nice they think to minorities like fat people (even if i bet here can be a majority). But.. where is the fat lady now... oh, they forgot her on the plane!!! Ok, flight apart. Today we had an outdoor activity in the desert. Offroad with the HUMMER! Amazing! At a certain point I also saw the death on my side telling me "hei george, no jokes now, it's your turn!". Yes because the slope was very very steep and we went into a hole.. ok too difficult to explain but this Hummer is really a supernatural car, i don't know how it didn't flip over! With me, together with lamberto there was also Elisa, the official recruiter of BCG all around the world and future colleague of mine in Milan. Don't be fooled by her pretty face, you will fear her during the case study if you have an interview with her!
Ok now it's very late. I need some sleep! Good night.

Columbia Classes (so far)

2006-10-04T19:14:00.000-04:00

After one month I think I can give a fair assesment of Columbia classes I choose.

Introduction to Venturing:
Very good class. You learn how entrepeneurs started their ventures. You analyze typical problems like financing the venture, dealing with taxes and laws regarding ownership and liabilities.. and so on. The professor is really good even if I hate the fact that he project this atomic clock on the wall and 10.45 sharpt he starts. If you come in at 10.45.01 you are out! But seriously. Not even one second! At the beginning i thought it was a joke.. until I saw him in practice. A part from that, i think in this class there is a really useful thing that other professors in IESE should do. Basically students have to submit a survey about your opinion on key facts about the venture and what you will do if you were in the shooes of the entrepeneur. Than the day after he create a presentation with a merge of all these opinions clustered by type "financing/execution/idea/business plan".. and from that the class builds up the discussion. This saves a lot of time and makes class participation more effective!

Turnaround Management:
Turnaround management. Just by the name you know that this class is super cool. This course sucks! (like Goldman)
This class is horrible! First of all I don't understand what the professor says. Ok that's my problem. However, the class is basically "applied accounting". It's nothing more than dumb adjustment and forecasts on of sales and balance sheets, an application of what you learn in the first year at IESE. So you spend 3 days in preparing complex excel models that have the only complexity of being tricky in the way numbers are hidden in the text of the case. And that's it. Sometimes he says that turnarund is all about understanding customers, understanding people and the organization. But then he doesn't go further than that. Learning points so far: ZERO!

Private Sector and International Development:
Very cool class about how the private sector is influenced by corruption, juridical system and other factors in the context of the emerging markets. My takeaway for this class will be a framework to better understand private equity in emergin markets (i.e. India). The professor is super young but super cool. He is very funny and even if the classes are mostly lectures, he keeps the class attention and participation very well.

Advanced Corporate Fiance:
If you loved corporate finance, you'll love this course. If you didn't maybe was just because of Estrada. This is basically corporate finance applied in the real world, where you have to deal with risk management, options, companies in emerging markets, small caps and so on. The pace of the class is much faster than with Estrada at IESE which is justifiable by the fact that they expect people really into the topic. I'm the misfit. The professor is amazing. He is a banker, and he has so much experience that he really goes into the detail of each transaction. Talking about VW he also went into the different production process of an alluminium engine versus a steel one! And again in borland he explained us everything about databases in the early 90s.. I love the way he pronounce the word "finance" and "cash flow" but it's hard to explain. One day i will bring my camera and record his voice (or.. if u see me around just ask me and i'll imitate him on the spot)! I think it's a great class even if it's going to be tough.

Ok now after this boring report, I share with you some Comments of The Week!
Talking about an entrepeneur who wants to open a restaurant with piano bar in Pittsburgh: "A piano bar in Pittsburgh? The steel city? I fear for the piano man!"

About an ex-model ex-morgan stanley woman: What makes these former models think they can be successful entrepeneurs?

About a Drycleaners business: If Hardvard dorks can't open a drycleaner, we are all doomed

Same guys who wanted to open the drycleaner: Too bad they missed the opportunity for on-campus recruiting

A guy wearing a suit enters the class 5 minutes late. Professor: i assume you are not used to make up your tie.

Conversation between a student who always bullshits and the professor. The students raise his hand and then desists from talking. Professor: This is called self-moderation Students: Yes, this is one of the things I learned in business school Professor: Mmm.. usually this is something that you learn in your childhood.
This is the roof top Marco where me and marco are used to go as a starter for the clubbing nights. Soo cool.
And just below it, lot's of clubs like cielo, pm, marquee, home, guest house..

Obituary

2006-10-02T22:03:00.000-04:00

Today, reading the Economist (don't be shocked, I don't understand what I read), I didn't believe my eyes. It's just a few weeks that I'm missing from Barcelona and news about my death are already sneaking in the business world. I'm not surprised by the news about my death itself. It's well known that famous people face this issue. Osama is said to be dead but then a new video is found on TV. And the other way round. My grandmother is convinced that she has seen Elvis Presley in her bathroom last year. And my dog was the only other witness. But unfortunately he is dead (mmm.. quite a "thriller/spy story" I would say).
Ok but back on the track. I was saying that the thing that surprised me most was the fact that there is already a New King George. WTF is that? Is that a king George. Come on... how can be credible a guy dressed up like that. This guy can only make serious comments!

Now look at this advertising in the NYC underground. I didn't understand what they are advertising.. but if yuo look carefully I would say that the only one who celebrated something here, is her husband.

Burglary

2006-09-30T12:54:00.000-04:00

This morning we have been intervieed by the police. They knocked at the door around 12.00. I was still with my eyes semi-closed and the typical headache by vodka-redbull. They were asking me if I heard something yesterday night because there was a burglary in the flat in front of ours, same aisle. I was confused.. i didn't even remember were I was between 8pm and 10pm. So i asked help from the backoffice... "Hey Marco.. Till.. can you come here". Marco was ok, he was already showered, dressed up well, went out to buy eggs for the breakfast. But Till... TILL! He appeared out of his room in underwear. Ok so far nothing special. But there was a police woman. And you have to see her face when till went away showing that he was wearing underwear in the wrong way.. we the hole on the back!
Well at leat here in US they try to investigate. In Italy we are so used to burglary that when you call the police station the best you can hear is "Bad for you! Bye.."

Cafe Havana

2006-09-28T23:22:00.000-04:00

Daddy Paddy

2006-09-26T19:47:00.000-04:00

Today i was referred that during the "class 2008" introduction to the MBA, Paddy Miller suggested everybody to go in exchange in New York... because his doughter is there, and she is single.
Too late Paddy... we already found her! (she is the second from the left)

Tough weekend

2006-09-23T12:53:00.000-04:00

It's saturday morning and I'm sitting at my desk trying to concentrate on some homework. Impossible.
Some friends of marco are in town to celebrate the bachelor party of one of them.. As you can see germans are very prudent. Two of them wear seat belts even for walking!
And here is the picture of the future groom.. Ladies calm down.. he is out of the market now!
We started on thursday evening with the famous Columbia Happy Hour. A serious event that graduating students have analyzed using the usual Porter's Five Forces Model. On Friday we opted for a relaxed evening... but that was just the initial intention. We ended up at Cafè Havana at 5pm eating grilled corn (amazing, a must of NYC!) and drinking mojito. One, two, three, four... oh my god. At 6,30 i was already wasted. Here you have the groom during the mojito super charging. By the evening i went to FIZZ.. a very snobby club for members only where columbia had organized a party. One, two, three, four drinks. At a certain point you don't even recognize that you have just wasted one hundred dollars in drinks. Oh my good my poor finances... Is there anybody who wants to leverage my wallet, it will help me to reduce my cost of capital. Paybacks for the investors? Mmm.. i will think about it. Btw, i wasn't with them last night but we all came home around four. For sure they were more wasted than me. I avoid you the nasty pictures of the five of us this morning. The corridor seems the movie set of "dead man walking"...
Yesterday i also stepped into two funny things. The first one is this street race between an American Cab (Ford) and an Italian One (Lambo). And Lambo is not Lamberto. What? Do you think the winner is not actually a cab? Yes it is.. who else can buy a yellow car!
The second thing is this. It's interesting because it helped me understand why every time i say "i'm from IESE" people look at me very strange. Basically for them is like going to barcelona and tell the people that you study at the prestigeous school "BCNeta". With all respect to the garbage collectors.
Other posts about tonight at CieloClub will follow. Maybe

Cereal Killers

2006-09-16T15:10:00.000-04:00

Till and Juanra have just came back from Fairway, the grocery store i mentioned some post ago.. the one in which you phisically enter into the refrigerator to get cold food (and the flu).
While they were there, I received a phone call from Juarna...

Juanra: "eeeee... George"
Me: "digame"
Juanra: "i think you should talk to Till"
Mr: "why?"
Juanra: "he is buying everything!"

Indeed in our house the shelf life of any item in the kitchen is very low. The highest turnover rate is reached by the Muesli shelf. Since marco introduced the Zerman tradition of Muesli (to pronouce this word i have to flip and bent my toungue in an unnatural way), everybody is eating these cereals. With milk, yogurt, ice cream.
Yesterday Alexia brought me to the best place in town to get a burger. It's so cool how you get into this place. Is a tiny fast food hidden behind the reception desk of an hotel in downtown. To get in you have to go behind a curtain towords a small corridor. And then here we are! The hamburgers are sooo good! I need to post a picture just so that Alvaro gets a little envious of that (this is his favourite place in NY). Then to get rid of the whole bunch of fat food we happily go to the gym or to central park for a healthy run. Here is an amazing view of the east side of central park that i took one of those running days. Now i'm going to go out for the first italian party event of the season.. the kick-off of the NYC winter parties.
Before going out I want to share some pictures I took at the happy hour.
Me and marco deep into the hawaian spirit..

.. while Juanra was a little skeptical about our performances on the dancefloor.

You cannot see his hands but guess what Ramon is doing!

First week report

2006-09-14T18:27:00.000-04:00

During this week i've been busy with classes, events, group assignments. Here in NYC the students are already at work. And surprisingly the workload is quite high. So far i've noticed some things that might be the result of a first and superficial overview but also might be confirmed by time:

- here students a really smart.
- career services are more professional, structured and efficient than IESE's ones.
- the school access to job market is better even if is mainly focused on US, especially for the industry (seems to be impossible for foreign student to access the industry job market.. which is a tragedy if u are not looking for banking or consulting and u want to work in a non-US country).
- class participation is absent if compared to iese.
- the case method is not properly applied.. class are more or less lectures with cold call.
- it seems that my name is very fancy which cause a strong attractiveness to cold calls.. i've experienced thousands of cold calls already. i'm scared. - US people abroad define foreign people as "locals".
- US people in the US define foreigners as "foreigners".. or "invaders"
- US people, either abroad or at home, define me as "exotic".

Said that.. i will post some pictures i took. Unfortunately i'm still shy enough to not use my camera always, so i'm still missing the cool pictures at the events. But i will improve so to share with you drunk people, cool clubs and so on. On Tuesday we have been to the World Business Forum. Many good speeches but, because of the classes, i had the opportunity to listen "only" to Rudy Giuliani and Jack Welch. Both of them were amazing. Really carismatic people. After that the IESE students were invited to join a dinner with "Mr. Strategy" Ghemawat. His speech was very good too.. but the best thing was the lunch on the 65th floor of the rockfeller center! :) I really had a good italian mozzarella! And i was happy to find out that there is also a cool italian restaurant few blocks from where i live. They are tru italians. This reminder on the small blackboard was a clear sign of the italian pride for the world cup :) Ok now i'm going to my first Colubia Happy Hour! Basically instead of the BOW here they allocted the expenses of a full term course on a virtual class called happy hour. The difference is that instead of using that money to pay the teacher they use it to pay drinks and food. The DJ is soo cool.. you won't even notice that he is around 50 years old! Last time I had 9 beers in 3 hours. Not baaaaad!

Crispy Bananas

2006-09-05T08:31:00.000-04:00

Yestarday was shopping day. Me and marco went again to one of this big malls to buy groceries for the house. As I said in my previous post, everything here is big. At the entrance of the supermarket you get one of these big trolleys. At the biginning i thought there were also the doors to enter and drive it such big it was. But suddenly, with big surprise, you find out that the aisles of the supermarket are super narrow. People fight at every crossing. Your weel is stuch with some other's one and you pull to regain your driving freedom but at the same time you notice that you have just squized one of thise super tiny old ladies against a wall of prezels! Oh.. sorry madame. Then again you are forced to buy big quantities of everything. 200 lbs of yogurth, 100 lbs of nuts. You mix them and in 2 days, before it expires, you need to eat 300 lbs of yogurt with nuts! In Italy i was to see meat and cold stuff stored in refrigerated shelves. Here in the US is different. It's not the meat that is in the refrigerator. It's you that you have to phisically enter the refrigerator to get the milk. I was not prepared and i entered the refrigerator with my italian hand craft made shirt snobbing all that fancy "fairway" jackets... but after two seconds i was riskying to be frozen (and probably packed and sold out) like a beef sirloin. The supermarket was quite cheap and the quality of the food was good. The way the items where stored in the shelves can be a nightmare for every opereations' and logistcs' professor. Moreover, everything is crunchy, chubby, yummy or crispy. Even the grapes and the bananas are crispy. And by the way i'm eating one of this bananas and it doesn't taste like a banana. It tastes like a banana ice cream. Which is different.

Out in NY

2006-09-03T14:46:00.000-04:00

First days in New York. We have spent quite a lot of time buying stuff for the house. Then on Saturday big plans to go out and have a walk in downtown. And here comes the rain. Never seen all that water coming from the sky. Only in the movies maybe. And I remember at that time i thought "it can be like that, it's clear that is a fake rain created on the movie set". Unfortunately i have to admit that it's all true! The two typical things that you can see on the streets of new york are frames of bycicles chained to poles and broken umbrellas. Plenty of them. At evey corner you see trash bins full of umbrellas. It seem the cemetery of the umbrellas. I think that reason is that in this grand canyon of buildings the wind blows following the direction of the streets and everytime people turns a corner they are not prepared to change the orientation of the umbrella accordingly to the wind. And it breaks. Everything it's big here. Rain, cars, trucks, food packaging. It seems to be back to childhood, when you are 4 or 5 and you have to climb to sit on the chair, hold the class with two hands and jump to watch yourself at the mirrorin the bathroom. Look at this yougurt and spoon! I think they are taking "the big apple" too literally. In these days noellie is in town and so we are discovering New York nightlife with her and Casey! Tonight we have planned to go to a very cool club.

Back to basics... kitchen basics!

2006-08-31T20:25:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, there were Marco and George moving into a new flat in Barcelona and spending a week going around the city to buy basic stuff like forks, knives, toilet paper..
An year later, the story repeats itself.
We have been lucky. The flat is brand new.. So new that when we were approaching to open the lobby door, two working men overtook us saying "wait.. we are mounting the furniture".
Then for the whole day was an ongoing movement of plubmbers, elecricians and other workers setting us the flat. So the flat is clean, new, big. But there is nothing except the very basic things (a bed, a drawer, the refrigerato, the oven..) But we have to buy ourselves the glasses, the iron, forks.. And again salt, pepper, oil, cleaning stuff. I think we did some 20 km by foot today.
The guy who manages the building on behalf of Columbia told us to not buy anything and just eat regularly at the hot-dog shop at the corner. I looked at him and I said "hey, I'm Italian, the kitchen is my realm!". So he started saying something i didn't understand but I suppose he was making fun of me and of the italians reconnecting the speech with old memories of past students.
I really don't understand the english they speak here! It's not the same as in IESE. At the customs:

Officer: "Hi"
Me: "hi"
Officer "ma orts mnts ees?"
Fuck i missed the complete sentence.. good start George.
Me: "Sorry?"
Officer "May I have your passport, I-20 and the other documents please?"
Me: "ah yes.. sorry i didn't understand.. here it is"
Officer: "can u t s finger h yr"
I understood it has something to do with the finger.. ah yes the fingerprint through this tool.. ok but which one?.. ok let's try this
Officer: "I said left please!"
Fuck.. 50% probability never works in my favor
Officer: "When ve ime in I?"
Ok he is asking me when i've been last time somewhere.. but where?
Me: "when i've been where?"
Offier: "India"
Me: "Oh well last year.. no.. two years ago.. or maybe three because was in december.. well i don't remember, but you can check the passport print.."
Then the last question that i understood
Officer: "What are you in the United States of America for?"
Me, taking an arrogant/proud face look: "I'm going to Columbia, i'm studing business administration"
The officer didn't reply, but looked at me with a puzzled/pity face.

Now i'm wasted and i would like to go to bed but we have to wait for Ramon Roqueta who has just landed at JFK. I think he might americanize his name in Ray Rocket.

Milan - New York

2006-08-30T21:59:00.000-04:00

This is just a summary of few hours spent across italy and the us. Before leaving italy I had some drinks with friends. As you can see from the picture above we were all men, I would say because we didn’t want to be distracted from drinking but most probably just because few girls are in our group and accidentally all of them were in vacation. After some bottle of wine later downgraded to beers I started to have a blurry vision of the world around me. ON my way back home I decided to take some picture of my beloved Milan and due to the complementing effect of the fast drive vibrations and the drunkenness I thought they were grate pictures. But today, in a sober mood, I found out they were not. But at least you can see Milan exactly as I saw it. Isn’t it great? To go to NY I did a stop in London. On my first flight from Milan to the UK I was happy to see that the plane did a round trip around my hometown. I took a picture and I circled my town. Is it my fault if I was unluckily assigned a seat over the wing? But trust me my town is exactly there! Due to the new security policies all passengers are thoroughly screened and to do this everyone is asked to take off the shoes. Sometimes I don’t understand how people can survive the smell of their own feet. Again, the smell made me high and I started to see blurry shapes again. I had to spend three hours at Heathrow and I stepped into two interesting things. The first one is these patata bravas which made me think I wrongly took another flight to Barcelona. The other one is this weird signal. Partly because I admit I was worried for the latest threats in the air, partly because I had nothing else to do and partly again because efter the multiculti I am attracted by whatever starts with “multi” (multiple orgasms are the best so far), I decided to go into the room and pray a little. It was the first time for me in a multi-faith prayer room. I felt a little puzzled. I thought that in a place like that you have more than a god watching at you and I wouldn’t be prudent to pray just one of them few minutes before taking a plane. You know these people from the past.. they can be very touchy! So I prayed the ones I knew… given the fact that I know only the most popular ones that are advertised by the media. I did also some bikram yoga position.. you never know. The tree position was more like an eggplant position but what matters is the effort… anyway.. Unfortunately I think I missed some big name up there, because I had the unluckiest seat on the plane. On the left I had one of those people who don’t come prepared for the flight with the right amount of things to do and so they just do what you do. Fine if you read the economist while I’m reading it, but at least don’t do that disappointed face if turn the page too fast! The worst was the one on the seat in front of mine. I don’t know how he made it but every second he was moving on the seat making it moving back and forth. I was watching a movie on a LCD that due to this movement was virtually chaning from 3inch to 42 inches. Just to figure out the situation, I’m pressing the keybord with my tongue. By the way, now i'm at Casey's flat. The city seems really amazing. I just had time to go out for a quick dinner where the waiter told me to not take pictures. But please let me post this photo that shows what you can see if you put the nose out of the windows of this amazing flat!

Breaking NEWS

2006-08-29T10:10:00.000-04:00

Some of you remember that i've lost my flag during the multiculti party held in Febuary.
THE FLAG IS BACK!
I've found in a box of stuff still unpacked from Barcelona. I was packing for NY and Zaaaaac! The flag.

The following picture captures my happiness for the good news.
Despite the initial happyness i'm really scared of things disappearing in mysterious circumstances during my whole life. I clearly remember when i was young and was left home alone for a couple of hours in the afternoon. There was a very yummy cream cake in the fridge. One with ice cream, strawberries and so on. Nobody went in and out of the house during those two hours and when my parents came back, the cake was disappeared from the fridge. Guess who was pointed and the responsible? Me!
But I swear i didn't eat that cake. It just disappeared.
They never trusted me about that.
Back to the flag, no picture is available now because the flag itself is still under shock and doesn't want to reply to journalists about what happened during these long 6 months. However, furthere details will follow in the next days.
Stay with us!

Hasta luego Barcelona

2006-08-28T09:11:00.000-04:00

In a couple of days I'll be in New York for the MBA International Exchange Program. Before moving there I decided to spend some days in the beloved barcelona. Even if i didn't spend my time in flat in Calatrava 1, I passed by just to have a quick nostalgic look and meet Noellie in her 1-day-stop there. A part from the broken dumbvator and the broken dishwasher, the most astonishing news is that now the doors of the elevator at the entrance of the garage are painted in yellow Isn't it very cool?
Ok I agree, not cool at all.
Some first years are in town, and they already call themselves "the gang" even if they don't look exactly like the crips or the bloods. Maybe because the MBA has not started yet and they are taking everything too seriously. Understood the situation, Keith and I decided to show them how to get drunk in barcelona. Keith is without doubt deep in the part.
A part from that, i really enjoyed once again life in Barcelona and i'm sad i won't be there for the best term in the whole MBA experience. But I'm sure New York will be fun as well.

How come?

2006-08-18T10:42:00.000-04:00

How come i forgot to publish this picture? I just found it in my BCG laptop that i was going to empty before giving it back to them.

Viva Sato!

Summer Internship

2006-07-31T13:17:00.000-04:00

What The Fuck! What Happened To George? World Food Programme!

For those who were missing me so much i just want to tell you that i'm alive, it's juts that i'm doing my internship in BCG and, as you expect from a consulting company, it's very very demaing in terms of working hours and I don't have time to post new messages on my blog. Here is a picture which is quite representative of what's going on.

Ok i was joking. This was just a weekend organized by BCG in Rome to let summer consultants enjoy the summertime and know each other. But overall i'm happy with my internship. I've been lucky in terms of working hours because the client is not very demanding and the team is not forced to work overnight. But let's go step by step:

Rome:

Rome in summer is a very lovely place to be. The city is amazing, lot's of cool places to have lunch, dinner or just a walk. During my short stay i've been out for dinner every night and summing all them up i think i've been more time to the restaurant than my grandmother in her all life.
Want to eat the best fish in rome?
Go to "Federico I", via della colonna antonina 48
Or to "Hosteria del pesce", via monsterrato 32

Want to have the best ice cream?
Giolitti (don't know the address but it's behind pantheon, quite famous, just ask)

Want to go in a nice club at the beach?
Guerrino, lungomare amerigo vespucci,Ostia

Want to be cheated and robbed of some 50 euros?
Take a cab!

As a foreign visitor the probability of been cheated is almost 0.999 which, for the sake of semplicity, can be rounded at 1. Every time a new colleague is coming on the project we do the silly game of guessing how much it will cost to travel a route which should be aroud 20-24 euros. New colleagues always pay a price ranging from 45 to 95 euros!
The way they can cheat you are basically three:

1) They start the journey with 10-15 euros already on the meter. It shouldn't be higher than 2.33 or 5 if they pick you up in the city after a phone booking.
2) They use tariff #2 instead of #1 even withing the city center. The difference is around +70% more from 1 to 2.
3) This is the best one. You give a bill, say 50 euros. The reply showing a 5 euro bill and saying: you gave me 5, money is missing. They do this after distracting you or exploiting a moment in which u are not concentrated on the action.

BCG

BCG is a very wonderful place to work. Considering that we are talking about consulting, so you cannot escape from demanding working hours and travelling a lot, i can say that:
1) People are really really nice. Which is very importat in a context in which you spend with your colleagues 5 days a week for 20 hours a day!
2) The working environment is very professional and the internal resource and capabilities are huge and powerful.
3) You can feel that the company's policies are made to help peaople overcome the disadvantages of being a consultant (not only in monetary terms).
I've received an offer for the post-MBA. I'm still thinking about it. I like the job, i like being a consultant because it's true that is challenging and very stimulating for the brain but there are still some conflicting things with my expectations in terms of private life. Moreover, I want to understand if it's possible to change office and be employed in the UK office for example. I'm sick of Milan.

WFP

World Food Programme is a UN agency that delivers food to poor countries or areas affected by natural disasters, war and so on. People working there are not that different from the ones that are in a normal company. Is not because it's a UN agency and cars have a diplomatic plate that people are different. But it's true that you feel you are doing something good in your daily job. That you are dealing with human lives. In the room next to mine every day there was a conference call to Lebanon. I found it very cool.
If you want to work in a real international environment and you like travelling a lot, this shold be for sure something you might consider.

Barcelona

While i was working, life in Barcelona was going on. Parties and BBQ on my terrace saw many people going back and forth from my flat, on calle calatrava 1. We subrented the rooms to other students to recover part of the expenses but we ended up with a broker dumb elevator, 25 days of trash left out of the door without nobody noticing it (except our neighbors i guess) and other broken/dirty stuff. My girlfriend spend some days in Barcelona (not in my flat) and sent me this funny video.

She added: "Hey can you see.. zis is at least 50 zentimeters"... and I "You mean.. fifteen?"... "Ne ne ne, FIFTY!". Obviously even if I have to admit this is a huge drill it's closer to fifteen rather than fifty. But how i can blame her, it took me so long to convince her that mine was 25!

italienische Politik und moderne Wände

In Italy's political environment things are getting worst every day. Few months have passed since the new left wing party has taken place as the majority in the government but the seeds of mismanagement of the country are already flourishing. The left town government of a small city in the north-east decided to build a wall to isolate one area of the town from the rest. Berlin down 17 in 1989, Padova up in 2006! I'm wondering if they are going to build other walls. Yes because the hot summer and the overcrowded jails gave them the brilliant idea to promote a law to discount 3 years of penalty to everybody… late summer sales. Some hundred thousands people are now freed, whatever was the crime they where discounting… also people who has not been judged yet. Hey it's summer time, who cares? The important thing is to have a clear idea on foreign affairs. Clear ideas? Mr Prodi, our Prime Minister, gives samples of his wisdom from the countryside. He doesn’t know exactly how many soldiers are going to be sent in Lebanon, doesn't know why they are going there,what is the role of our troops and where to find the funds. He is just too sleepy to think, he just say "I agree" to what others decide. Anyway he feels safe within the walls of his 18-rooms castle. But from the news this is just a rural house, because he is not Berlusconi, he is a left wing leader. However, while Italian troops are ready to leave for the Middle East, I'm wondering where all those idiots that during the right-wing mandate were chaining themselves to fences in the street to protest against the war. Do they know that this is not peacekeeping but peace enforcing? And do they know about the walls in Padova? Why they are not in the streets with the flags of Che Guevara? Street protest exists only when the right is at the government. Very good. But other leaders are giving samples of their wisdom. D'Alema, our foreign affairs minister is going around Beirut with Hezbollah ministers, following blindly that anti-sionist spirit that is typical of the Italian ignorant arm of the left. Bertinotti, the extreme-left leader, to not appear less active in this Italian summer, sent greeting cards to Fidel Castro to tell him that he is close to him and is really looking forward to see him back on the throne of his dictatorial regime. In all this mess, my father is becoming every day more and more worried about the daily threat of robberies in the houses. So he decided to build a 5-meeters wall around our house. No not here, in our house India. IMF says that real estate prices in India are skyrocketing. Our fence did the same. Eighty thousand Euros. For a wall? For me is a great relief. I feel less guilty now for having invested only sixty for the MBA.

Section A - Forever

2006-06-15T10:37:00.000-04:00

Guys guys guys, first year is over. I've been super lazy again after the MBA olypmics and i haven't wrote that much about life here. Nevertheless it was the one of the best period and that's why i spent not that much time with my buddy laptop. Weather is amazing and helps you making the workload less heavy. Fortunately i did good midterms because after that i haven't studied that much and my final exams went quite bad. But.. who cares??? Now i'm looking forward to start my internship who knows where (maybe turkey, maybe rome..) and to go to NY next term. But honestly i will miss barcelona, i will miss..

Noellieeee: who had to bear my bad mood in the proximity of exams and with whome I shared so many moments of real fun and joy ("joy" is a trademark of OpusDei). She alone scored 250 point at the olympics, accounting for 1/4 of the whole points of IESE and almost double the point of SDA Bocconi :) She is our movies wizzard, the girl of the house, the number cruncher (??). Marco: I won't miss marco, marco is coming with me at Columbia.. yeaahhh! We will kick asses there, as usual. Huy (but you can call him "UI UI"): the most German of the Vietnameeses! A great friend, a super kind person... even when he sleeps. But don't touch his waist, he really gets upset (one day he will punch me, i know it!). Vera: she's just amazing. Ok now i have to stop the list of personal profiles otherwise i will spend the last two days in Barcelona writing the blog. But i have a special thought for almost everybody here.. even Xavi from the cafeteria!

So i just say to myself... "please, go ahead... george"

Section A: the best section ever. If you were not there, you can't understand. The best section, the more fun, the best mix of people i have ever lived with. The last day we had 1 hour of "comment of the year" and amarcord pictures of these first 9 months spent together. I was crying which is, listening to Videla, more or less the same feeling you have when you have a coffee in Rome.

MBA Olympics in a nutshell

2006-05-30T07:30:00.000-04:00

As I don't have that much time to write on the blog even though there are so many things to say about the Olympics, I decided to write only the following picture of the tipical question you may hear during a 3-day sport event for MBA students. First Day: "Hey, does anybody have beers?" Day Two: "Hey, does anybody have cigarettes?" Last Day: "Hey, does anybody have cases for tomorrow?"

Shut the f**k up, beach!

2006-05-22T14:49:00.000-04:00

Need to catch up.

2006-05-18T07:12:00.000-04:00

I need to catch up a little with my blog. It's a while that i don't update it and it seems that i'm losing memory of what happened after the exams. Partly this is true because of the erasing effect of alchool on my brain but also because verba volant, scripta manent. So let's try to do a quick wrap up. If I were German i would have done it in a chronological order. Unfortunately I'm Italian, so i will use an absoooolutely messy approach.
Barca Won the Champions League
Ok ok, you might complain that you don't have to read here to know about it. But I've been there. I've been with Fernand drunk at the bar who switched from crying to be totally without control. I've been in the bar where at minute 42' the owners experienced a stockout in beer (even if they claimed they've been helped in the inventory planning by M. Sachon). I've been in placa catalunia where people was partying like animals with tons of alchool and home made fireworks. After 1 hour after the end of the match circulation in the center was almost impossible. Me and Huy with a moto had problmes in getting out of the traffic jam. Above you can find some analytical graph about what happened during those hours. GDP of Catalunia had a boost of 10%, but it was a nominal shock.. some shops where broken and goods stolen (real shock!). By the way, I also include a picture taken in placa catalunia.
Great speech from Pedro Videla
Pedro Videla, our global economics teacher, is the son of a former chilean comunict diplomats. Actually we still have the doubt that he is the son of a former chilean dictator.... Anyway, he always tells us nice stories among which i will try to deliver you this one. "When I was a kid, I was used to go to east Berlin with my parents. My father's intent was to show me how the ideal world should have been. In Berlin there is a high tower with a restaurant on top from which you can see the whole city. People had to make reservation 15 years in advance to be able to have dinner there. At the time we were listeing to that silly song.. Imagine (a world without money!?!?!). During these dinners my father was used to talk about politics with this friends and i spent time at 360 degree windows. I saw Berlin. West Berlin, full of lights, Coca Cola banners, life. East Berlin, deep in the dark, no life. So i asked my parents.. 'Are you sure this is the right side of the world?' and my mother replied 'Yes.. on the other side there is a corrupted world, they have prostitution!' and i thought 'That's good, that's individual initiative!'.
Giulietta in town
We had our midterms and finally we had a weekend off. Giulia, a friend of mine from Italy who lives in London, came to visit me with a friend. It was a good weekend. It was an amazing weekend with a wonderful weather. I just hanged around, went out until late in the morning and eat a lot. On saturday Madhur prepared for us a wonderful indian dinner. Unfortunately he forgot to buy paper towels but the indian wisdom provided a great substitute.. After that we went to Shoko, a very nice club at the beach. In this kind of clubs you can really feel the power of Barcelona. I love this city! I was even proud of my great parking skills, part of my italian inheritance. So proud that when i went out i couldn't belive that my car has been taken away by the local police! Jodeeeeeer! 40 minutes by foot to go to the police station and 200 euros to have my car back! But still a great weekend.

George the Cavemen!

2006-05-12T13:47:00.000-04:00

Another step towards the end of the year! Yesss

Today we closed the last midterms of the year... I felt quite unprepared in almost every subject. But the lion king of ingonarce was for sure about Global Economics. I remember an exercise in which i entered a vicious cycle of prices going up and down that i wasn't able to control in the whole bunch of graphs on my scratch paper. At a certain point I even thought about writing "i don't know exaclty what is going to happen on prices, employment and interest rates when you open the borders to immigrants but for what i can see you are going to be in a deep amount of shit!".

I looked around to have some eye contact with a desperate like me but everybody seemed very concentrated on the exam... Fuck?! Am I the only one in trouble?
Then i started to think at something else and I tried to figure out how was life when to live you don't need to think about interest rates, economics, swaps and so on. The cavemen!
But then i thought that actually i dosen't seems to be so many caverns out there. Honestly, think about it? How many caves have you seen in your life? Is not that easy. First of all you need mountains. Rocky mountains. Then you need some geolocical even that creates the cavern. The scope is very narrow. So... where the fuck were the cavemen living?
The answer is "I don't know".. as usual. But at least i didn't have to spend so much time on a book to come to this silly conclusion.

Preparation & Diversification

2006-05-09T16:50:00.000-04:00

I think these midterms are lived differently by the IESE community. Maybe it's the good wather, maybe is being close to the end of the first year, or maybe it's the nature of the courses... Well, whatever it is, I think students are less willing to spend days closed at home studying like hell. One thing that i learned in Corporate Finance is about the benefits of differentiation. Following this suggestion I immediately applied it to my weekend. In a normal context i would have studied 24 hours/day. This time my time portfolio included nightlife, dinners and lunches with friends, afternoon at the beach.. and so on. Regarding the beach time. There was a nice RedBull Flight Race on saturday. Lots of people. When everybody was with the nose pointing at the sky to see these stuntmen of the air, i pushed my diversification strategy even further and i took this cool picture on the upper corner of the post! By the way i'm not saying that i did't spend some time at home in my "nerd" clothes trying to understand economics. I leave you with a dilemma about the following picture.

Extreme outsourcing in India?...

or just me on skype with Rombo?

Milton Friedman

2006-05-09T02:46:00.000-04:00

"Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon"

But i'm sure the bakery down in via Augusta is putting a lot of effort too!

Preparing for the mid-term exams

2006-05-06T07:56:00.000-04:00

Lamberto, Inigo and I were preparing Operations Strategy. In particular we were discussing the trade-off between service level and the incentives of each actor in the channel to keep inventories.
Inigo: "George, should we talk about transfer prices?"
Me: "Inigo, it's all about transfer prices"
Inigo: "Come on, I'm serious!"
Me: "Me too!"

Cool Video by Columbia

2006-05-04T14:40:00.000-04:00

Leading Global Economics: ITALY!

2006-05-02T15:09:00.000-04:00

The absolute multi award prize and whatever winner of global economics, a third term class, is ITALY. Whenever there is the necessity to give an example of GDP biased by underground economy, low level of indipendency between central bank and government and so on.. Italy is always mastering the charts! Listening to our professor it seems that even Bolivia, which experienced a money growth of 430%, is better then my lovely country.
Apparently in Section B the professor (Nuria Mas!) asked "yyyyyyeeeeee... what is the cause of inflation?" and from the back row "ITALY!"
The only thing is that nobody told these guys that Italy is the only place on earth where you can get good food, hot girls, awesome winter/summer/spring/fall resorts, good looking people and wonderful weather... and, listening to the people from the south, a lot of Free Lunches!

Sunny weekend

2006-05-01T10:51:00.000-04:00

This long weekend was very relaxing. Yesterday we had a great BBQ on our terrace, from 3pm until 11! There was even time for a second round of meet over the grill. Today I joined the MTB club training in sight of the MBA Olympics and i discovered that: - i'm totally out of shape - going uphill is very painful - going down is even worst! A part from that, Barcelona reveals again itself to be the best city i ever lived in. In a sunny day like this you can either spend the afternoon at the beach or have "nature" experience in the hills like the one we had. Marco had to surrender to this steep slope! and these guys as well... ok maybe too late.. We conquered Tibabo... YEAH!

Forced to celebrate

2006-04-26T17:46:00.000-04:00

Very quickly because i'm quite upset. Went to Lambretto's place to see the match. Me and Noelle went there with the scooter. Barca passed and Milan has been kicked out. So I decided to go immediately to bed to forget about this. Ok me in my bed! On the way back i was sorrounded by cars beeping with the horn "beep beee beeep beeeeeeeeep" to celebrate barca. Unfortunately the moto I'm driving has a little problem with the brakes and everytime you use it does a sort of beep beep which i found it useful when a hot girls is on the sidestep. We arrived at crossing with a red light.. pulled the brake to stop.. "beep beep" and suddenly a concert of "beep beeeeeep" from the motos and cars around us!!!! :(

Pareto

2006-04-25T18:13:00.001-04:00

Operations Strategy. Prof. M Sachon was introducing Vilfredo Pareto and his law. Knowing that Enrico is Italia he asks him "Enrico, who is Pareto?" and Enrico ".. well.. i don't know.. but i think I heard his name before".. so Sachon insists "Enrico what have you studied?" and Enrico "Economics!" (said as if it was an excuse for it) and Sachon "Pareto was one of the most famous Italian economists!"
In 1906, Italian economist and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country, observing that twenty percent of the people owned eighty percent of the wealth.
As an MBA student i've learnt that this rules applies almost everywhere!
You know 20 percent of you stock takes up 80 percent of your warehouse space and that 80 percent of your stock comes from 20 percent of your suppliers. 20 percent of the girls you hook up in Barcelona provides 80 percent of your sexual satisfaction. Also 80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your sales staff. 20 percent of your customers provides 80 percent of your profits and so on. Useful, isn't it? So your job as a manager is to focus on this 20 percent. I think the problem is to understand which is this 20 percent.
Actually in italy 80 percent of the wealth is in the hands of one man.

Italy (aka Mamma, Pizza & Berlusconi)

2006-04-17T15:57:00.000-04:00

While everyone was having trips in Morocco, Romania, Norway, The moon and so on, i went back to Italy to see my family. Now i'm back and someone blamed me for not writing anything on the blog. The point is that when you go back to your hometown you recognize that there life is always the same routine. Everybody is the same and does the same things as when you left. So when you go back you review something you have already lived at least once in your life. That's why I haven't anything special to write.
The only thing that worried me very much is the fact that everyone said "hey George, i see you in a good shape!". Well in Italy this is a super scary thing. Yeah because this is what your relatives say and within brackets is the real meaning:
- Oh my god! What happened to you? Do you need more money for food? Please go to the restaurant if you don't feel like cooking everyday. Meanwhile, i will bring you to the hospital to take some examinations. (you are in perfect shape, you spend more time at the gym than on the books, your nickname at school is something like "king of the abdominals" or "prince of fitness"... great, continue this way).
- I see you skinny. Are you ok? Do you eat enough? (You haven't loss weight, you have preserved the shape).
- I see you in a good shape. (You are between 5 and 10 kilos overweight.. for you two floors by stairs it's becoming really challenging).
- Wow George, I think you are having a good time in barcelona! Look what a nice belly. (You have given up even to fight against obesity).
I won't tell you exactly what they told me but i'm sure my objective for the third term is focus on Gym, Beach and Tan!

Columbia.edu

2006-04-07T13:27:00.000-04:00

Hola guapos. I just got my grades and the exchange list has been done. I've been selected to go to Columbia. And not with random people. With Marco, Till, JuanRa and Ramon! Such a coooooooooool group! As u can see from the picture i was very (positively) surprised by my grades and consequently to be chosen for the exchange. I rally like the idea to not only visit New York for the first time but also to spend 4 months there! Isn't it amazing? I hope i can meet a lot of people there! Now it's already time to look for an apartment there, to manage to find someone to subrent the wonderful calatrava flat. Mmm... should i have to change the name of the blog consequently? Noo...
By the way, today last day of classes before the easter vacations. I took some pictures with Noelle's camera. Here you can see me and Enrico.Since i'm sitting beside him I spend most of the time in a parallel case discussion with him that nothing has to do with what is going on in class, but he is really cool.
On the other side of my row seats Rafa. We were talking about snowboarding and the skitrip. "hey rafa, what have u done that saturday night".. "oh well, we stayed out partying until 6 am".. "oh that's why you came on the slopes around 2".. "oh yeah, me and achilleas started skiing at 2pm but after 2 runs we said - hey, it's too tiring here, let's go for a beer" and continued "finally i understood why snowboard is not for me, at the beginning i thought it was because i was going goofy, so i changed to regular.. but still no performances, so i thought i had to change my posture on the board and put more the weight on the front leg.. but still no improvements.. and finally i saw the light... it's just that i'm not in shape!"

Luis Valencia & Triple Birthday

2006-04-03T15:46:00.000-04:00

This weekend we went to Valencia to celebrate Paul, Marcus and I's birthdayz!It was an unbelivable experience... absolutely great. We had so much fun i won't be able to describe it in a blog post.
We left of friday afternoon and started to party around 10 in Valencia. The first night passed by in different clubs in the city center and i was able to bring my lazy ass into bed around 6,30 in the morning. Unfortunately for me, Ian went to bed around 4 and at 10,30 was already in my room yelling, jumping and clapping hands "hey come on.. let's rent a bike and visit the city...". My legs weren't able to sustain a bycicle race in the city so I, with huy Matteo and Male, opted to a more comfortable mean called "car". We had an aswome paella-based lunch in a cool place at the beach suggested to us my Marc, who was born there.We stayed at the beach where somebody was also so brave to take the first bath in the sea.. among them Jan Erik, the king of Norway!Then the evening started and i have only blurred images in my mind about what happened. I remembered that everything started with a cultural clash. In Italy when it's your birthday you are expected to offer drinks and food to celebrate. By mistake i did the same when we had some bottles of good spanish wine stepping against the norwegian tradition. Apparently in Norway the guests pay. Therefore JanErik felt himself in charge to couter offer me other wine.. and all the others felt in charge to recover my expenses for the wine (more than 50 euros per bottle) in cocktails and drinks to be consumed during the following hours.

Coke Explosion & Bread Loss

2006-03-28T16:21:00.000-05:00

Hey today I went to the bakery and i bought a sliced bread. Then the lady asked me if i wanted a plastic bag in addition to the paper one.. and i said "nooo...tranqilla!" which means "no, tranqilla". Then i jumped on my bycicle.. made a few meeters, stepped into a hole and... crack.. the bag opened and all the slices of bread fell on the sidewalk, like pieces of the domnica. Shit! Then i went home and i thought "ok.. i'll have a cold coke.. put one in the fridge yesterday"...
yesterday.. fridge.. oh my goooooooooooooooooooooooooood
So i opened the fridge and the picture shows what i found.

New term already started... :(

2006-03-27T06:35:00.000-05:00

Hey! It was just last friday that we were doing our last exam out of 6 and we are already sitting in class for the new courses. Here are some pictures of the last exam (damn managerial accounting) and the happy moments just after it. During the weekend i had the opportunity to have a very long sleep (from 3 to 15) on saturady and i was so happy of finally being able to get rid of my chronicle headache. But then saturday party ended up at 7 in the morning and my friend the headache is back again. Yohoooo

Good Luck?

2006-03-21T14:55:00.000-05:00

We are at the end of the second term. The exams start tomorrow. The last thing that every professor told us before the final greetings was "good luck for your exams". Everybody replies "thanks".. with a tight smile.
Hey! Stop for a second!
Good Luck to everybody? This makes no sense at all. Yes because you know that it cannot be that everyone gets an A.. or that at least nobody gets a C. So it has no sense to wish good luck. You can tell good luck to a restricted number of people, with the aim of having these people be better than others. But to everybody is like going to two boxers before they go on the ring and tell to each of them "hey, i really hope that you win, with my whole heart".

Thoughts from Managerial Accounting

2006-03-20T15:43:00.000-05:00

If your daughter goes out one day to sell lemonade and comes back with 1000$, maybe you should ask yourself if what she was selling was lemonade.

Mr Cankle

2006-03-19T14:36:00.000-05:00

Barcelona - 18 March: The famous football player George has been seriously injured at his ankle during the match that took place tonight at the Alfons Comin stadium.For him it seems clear that the football season it's over but a brilliant career in biking has just opened its doors.In this thought moment he is supported by his personal shaman... Sergio (here in a psycadelic picture taken under the effects of Peyote).. and sorrounded by hot girls :)