Home of Emanuel Ferm

Recently an old friend asked me if I wanted to be rich. “Of course” was my answer. A simple question with – for me – an obvious answer. But judging from the shower of various accusations, the subject of money apparently is more provoking than I thought. Since I couldn’t care less about having money to spend, but I still wish to be rich, I gave it a second thought.

Money is nothing more than a means of measurement. I have an ambition of creating something, be it a company, a product or an idea. And since I want to be a part of the development, from idea to (hopefully) establishment, I probably will want my own company. From here the argument is really simple – if I’m good at what I do, and play my cards right, I will earn relatively much money.

Is my motivation money? Of course not. It couldn’t be. It’s no different than the philosophy of truly great companies. Take Apple as an example. The same thing is also clearly described in Good to Great, by Jim Collins: one of the main reasons for a persistent success is the ability to value what the company creates more than creating stockholder value. It’s a paradox, yes, but one that has to be dealt with.

You seldom create something lastingly great if your primary ambition is money. Instead this occurs when your passion and focus is solely on the creation of a product. If what you create is good, money will follow. Christopher Ahlgren, founder of Spotfire and earning 125 MSEK from the Tibco acquisition, also stressed this fact at a lecture at Chalmers earlier this year. I remember him saying that “it’s a sign that many people like what you created”. He also said something like “Is it fun to get that much money? Hell yeah! But that’s not why I created Spotfire.”

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that there are far more ways to measure if what one works with is great or not. Access to cool technology, for example. Or the ability to travel and meeting many talented people. Or the ability to generate lots of money through innovation. Money is certainly not the only measurement possible.

To me, asking if I want to be rich is thus like asking if I want to contribute with great things. Of course I want to, and I’m going to do my best to fulfill it all.

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One could also say that it’s about survival, in a biological sense. The more wealth you’re able to accumulate, the more fit for survival you are in the modern jungle. It’s the same as the cave man with the most wolf skins – he was better at killing wolves thus climbed the food chain. Also, the cave man probably got more cave girls…

Everyone should read Atlas Shrugged. You may not fully agree with Ayn Rand’s philosophy (I certainly don’t), but none the less it’s an extremely refreshing read. Among the vast amount of thoughts expressed, anyone will find something to learn. Here’s what I found, and what caused me to think.

By what standard do you let people judge you? What framework of rules determines what rules you follow? Or break? It can be none but your own.

Do not say that you’re afraid to trust your mind because you know so little. Are you safer in surrendering to mystics and discarding the little that you know? Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.

Money and selfishness debunked, mostly. If all you do is first and foremost for your own winning, and the only payment you accept is money, no one will have to second guess your motives. It’s really nothing else than full transparency, in perfect accordance to ones own desires and values. While one probably should retain some level of scepticism here, this belief is what makes Atlas Shrugged so provoking.

A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved.

There is no such thing as “the will of the people”. It’s merely the ruling power’s favourite argument; effective since it cannot be argued against while being disguised with such unselfish words. And remember, unselfishness equals goodness. Or does it?

Happiness through production, achievement and creation. Only the self-made man can be truly happy, and a good day’s work plays a large role in it.

Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy–a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind’s fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer.

“Who am I to know?” is the lowest of thoughts, equal to as if to say “Who am I to live?” Herein lies the essence of the question “Who is John Galt?”

Don’t fear philospophy. All it does is to teach you how to think.

One could argue, as often happens, that Sweden is a great country. The arguments usually refer to our social welfare model, the lack of poverty and a well developed democracy. But Sweden is not famous for Nobel prizes in science (even though we hand them out), or great academic results, or cutting edge technology, or many other signs of excellence. I’d say that Sweden is very good at a lot of things, but its only greatness lies in not being bad.

A good example is the early education for kids, as I remember it very clearly myself. I was extremely average in primary school, while there were 3-4 students at the lower end of the bell curve, and 1-2 at the upper end. Each of the students struggling to keep up with the rest of the class had extra hours with 1 teacher assigned to each of them, to fully customize the curriculum for their special needs. This is the great thing about Sweden.

However, what was done to fully capture the talent and ambition of the 1-2 students way ahead of the class? Nothing. They were kindly asked to slow down. And really, imagining any other reaction would be impossible in Sweden — the world capital of crab mentality.

Failing to help early talent blossom is at least a crime as big as if not assisting the struggling students. It’s really an analogue for the broken window fallacy in economics – in the short term it’s easy to believe that spending resources on the struggling students will contribute the most to the overall performance of the class. But all it really creates is an equally average mass of disillusioned kids.

As long as talent and ambition is not met with appropriate resources, but instead frown upon with arguments such as “if you’re so good, you’ll manage anyway”, there will be a large number of possibly extraordinary children who will never learn to love a subject, whose ambition will never be satisfied and who will end up just as average as everybody else.

The elimination of all things bad is not a sign of greatness. Only of ugly mediocrity.

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The term “struggling student” is really not very accurate, since top achieving students struggle too. At least as much. I didn’t find a better term.

The hardest of all questions dealing with my future has to do with what I actually want to work with. I see two aspects to this question that I have to straighten out before I can fully invest in my plans for the future. One deals with the kind of work I want to do (alternatives revolving around R&D or management or consulancy), and the second deals with what kind of organization I want to work for. While I haven’t figured out much on the first aspect, I have identified 4 different kinds of organizations that I truly can see myself working for.

A consulting firm
Being currently employed as a consultant, I really do like my work. I certainly would not mind to further pursue a career in this field, with my main objectives being to effectively gain experience of many segments of the market and it’s players (because no, you don’t work nine-to-five as a consultant). I believe it would be the perfect starting-point for possible future start-ups of my own, with a good contact’s network to aid me.

Despite Software Engineering being my major right now, I’m quite interested in the management consulting field. Through my work I’ve met many Accenture people, I know a few people working for McKinsey and Triathlon (based in Gothenburg) are quite cool indeed. But one doubt remains — what do consultants actually know, despite PowerPoint skills and business-speak?

A large but awesome company
I have allergy against large corporations. As Tom Peters puts it: “big stinks (mostly)”. I’m afraid the caricature picture I have, containing fancy nonsense titles, complete incompetence and yesterday’s ideas, is mostly true.

But! There are a few truly awesome companies that could be regarded as large, but still cool. I would take a job at any of these, hands down, if only to have the opportunity to work with the fantastic people there that create the magic: Pixar, Apple and Google. Seriously, I could be their janitor.

A smaller and hyper-creative company
This category contains all those mostly unknown but technology-intensive companies. I discover one every day, and their key characteristics are re-thinking of what a company should be like, mixed with an overdose of creativity. It’s basically the large and awesome companies mentioned above, but in their cradle. It’s everything from start-ups writing business plans, to 5 year old underdogs.

My own company
This is by far the most attractive alternative right now. What greater pride than owning, running and making your money all on your own? While contributing to society with something new, useful and beautiful? This kind of organization is by far the most challenging, and central to it is a brilliant idea. I don’t have this idea yet. But once I have it, World Domination Inc. will soon be well known.

I have considered starting Yet Another Software Company, but unless I figure out how to give it a unique characteristic I won’t do it. Mediocrity is not enough. There are enough firms doing websites and CMSs. I want to build something new – take an idea and shape it into a product. Note that building something not new but radically better, also falls under this category. That “radically better”-part is what’s “new”, think cellphone-to-iPhone.

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All 4 alternatives are quite hard to achieve, and that’s completely the purpose. The beauty of the career game is that I control myself. If I don’t get hired by (for example) Pixar, no one else than myself can be blamed. Aiming and trying is a victory. And that’s what makes it all the more fun – to see how far I can go.

There seems to be a growing opinion that university is a waste, some even claiming that it might be the next bubble to burst. While any institution should be critisized, the arguments against higher education seem to have missed what it’s all about. The university is and should only be a forum and a filter.

University is not hard, not unless you study something you don’t like. The only people I have met that fail subjects do so because they don’t spend the time required. Anyone, and I mean anyone, can obtain a diploma if they want to. And that’s exactly what I mean by filter – university filters out the ones that have some ambition and some will to put in some effort.

The one thing that no other medium can offer, but a university can – and should – is a forum. While I could self-teach me an equivalent amount of knowledge to my education through Wikipedia, the Internet could never offer me the chance to meet like-minded and ambitious students and competent professors. It’s the whole networking-thing that I love the most. It’s invaluable, and utterly difficult to achieve in any other way.

Some of the upcoming rockstar industrialists go to the same school as me. Period.

But a good forum is very difficult to achieve. It’s probably more of a utopia than a present fact. The main reason, I believe, is professors that are damn good at their subject but lack anything that can be related to pedagogy. Also Chalmers’ (incredibly stupid) policy of hiring professors with an impressive academic curriculum shuts out the people with extensive industry experience, with real, tangible and valuable knowledge. I believe that more of the industry perspective would add much quality and balance to education. Bottom line is, let passionate people in and blackboard-staring researchers out. Engage in debates and discussion rather than PowerPoint slides, and a fantastic forum will occur.

If there’s a bubble to burst, it better create action against the confined, nose-in-the-book culture in favour of a forum for people who by any means possible want to push development forward. Academics were born to serve the industry, and it should remain there.

As an engineer-in-progress it’s easy to observe some new technology and think “wow, this has great potential!”. The technological factors are overwhelming, so much that all other factors for success are disregarded as “details” to be solved along the way. Especially economic ones.

My favourite example is the moon. Certainly we could build a habitable station on the moon. If we can, and the technology is pioneering and awesome – then certainly we should! Right?

Enter the killjoys. The ones asking “and then what?”, “with what money?” and “why?”. I believe, to be successful as an engineer and entrepreneur I have to accept them as relevant. I must even be able to give answers – good and convincing answers. In other words, I must endulge myself in the languages of economics and marketing. Technology is not only about technology. Maybe even the least.

Examples are the thousands of shiny new webapps, services and communities sprouting the web. I dare say most of them are build before a functioning business model is figured out. “Users = money” has been proven not applicable, mainly due to the lack of money within advertising. Facebook, Twitter and many other services simply are not profitable. Why invest and build something, if not for profit?

Perhaps the starch truth is that for the vast majority the web can merely function as a complement – an accelerator – for the company’s core business. Just as The New York Times is now implementing paid online news, most of the other free services will have to actually start …selling something. Crazy I know – selling something to be profitable?!

But as a tech enthusiast, I sincerely hope that functional business models will emerge so that all those webapps remain free. Technology on its own is pretty awesome.

This spring I enjoyed taking the best course yet at Chalmers — Mathematical Modelling. Hands down to Dag Wedelin for keeping a high pace with excellent tutoring and lectures.

The course was composed by supervised weekly modules, each dealing with different “kinds” of problem solving. The last one, however, was of a more open-ended nature allowing for a personal structure in the report. I’m quite proud of my result since I managed to squeeze in a few interesting arguments that I have been pondering for a long time:

Personally, I understand concepts better when presented with their opposites, or merely an alternative. Hence, “mathematics as a tool” is for me much more understandable when it can be argued that – for example – constructional calculation could be substituted with intuitive guesses, experienced estimates, or architectural drawings. When building a small cottage, calculating the strength of a stone wall is superfluous, and the measuring of a roof beam unnecessary. The conclusion of this argument is that while real world activities have been getting more and more complex (for example building a bridge), a need for a new “tool” must have emerged. I believe that this tool is mathematics. Just as a hammer is a tool for a blacksmith’s sword, mathematics is a tool for engineers to dress and decorate the world.

The report in it’s glorious 11 pages of LaTeX beauty is available here.

Running is the only form of physical activity I do, and has been for the last few years. The short reason is that it’s cheap and effective, while the long reason is a bit more …extensive.

For me, running is a metaphor of much of what I believe in life. It has the greatest simplicity of any form of exercise, and I’m not dependent on anyone else but myself to reach the goal. The road takes me through people, nature and urban environments. There are steep hills to climb rewarded by downhills. And long stretches where the goal just seems to approach infinity, yet I always reach it.

Also, I enjoy the sound of movement — constantly going forward. I never listen to music while running, and I never measure the time.

All I need are my shoes.

Among the few places in the world I have visited, there are two that stand out. I frequently think of them and I constantly try to plan trips there. They are Rome and Bangkok. I love them for completely different reasons.

I probably love Bangkok for much the same reasons as Fredrik loves Tokyo. It’s huge, there’s always something to do, people are nice and numerous, food is great, clubs are awesome, shopping is massive and it’s far away. I spent a month there, and I was never bored. Living in a huge city is a special feeling, that I think can only be understood when experienced. If I was there I could go to the cinema now, do some shopping if I wanted, or just go out to some amazing restaurant. Here? It’s dead. Rome on the other hand, appeals to my “finer” senses. Art, culture, food and history is what I love the most, but it’s not the whole picture. Again, I believe it has to be experienced, because the atmosphere in the small streets, the piazzas, the historic locations and art galleries is something unique. It’s simply beautiful. I wish these photos could give a more fair picture. There’s something special with a city that puts flowers at Ceasar’s statue to commemorate his day of death. Or where remains of ancient colons serve as flower pot stands. Or where you can reach out and touch some of the greatest pieces of art ever made.

The title? Ingmar Bergman’s “Smultronstället” is called “Wild Strawberries” in English!

I think this has to be my fifth blog. Hopefully it will be the last in a long chain of unsuccessful attempts to fit in the “blogosphere”. Because yes, dear future employer, I know you want me to have blog.