Ask El Diablo

[Howard Treesong]

[ QUOTE ]
How long could I conceivably go without having a "full-time" position before it became a big problem w/r/t my resume?

[/ QUOTE ]

Until recently, I ran recruiting for a major law firm. If your other credentials were good, I wouldn't blink if you had a year on your resume where you were a professional poker player. Poker has sufficient cachet these days that it won't hurt you overmuch, but I wouldn't overdo it, either.

I'd much rather see that than an unexplained gap.

[Howard Treesong]

You noted that you'd been deposed several times. Who was the most effective cross-examiner, and why? Conversely, who was the lawyer that did the best job preparing you for your deposition, and what was it that made them effective?

[lapoker17]

[ QUOTE ]
Bay Area and Boston area are definitely hotbeds full of entrepreneurial tech people, but it's becoming a lot more commonplace to do in other places too now. Austin, Atlanta, LA, and other places are all seeing a lot more startups. Still, in terms of resources and like-minded individuals, the Bay Area is a clear number one and Boston is a clear number two.


[/ QUOTE ]

no DC? maybe even ahead of boston.

[Rev. Good Will]

El D,

I live in Brooklyn Heights, right near the Brooklyn/Manhattan Bridges. Can you recommend any good dim sum/dumpling place to check out? Or should I just take a train to Canal Street?

[MatthewRyan]

El D, what are you thoughts on Jonny Walker Blue Label?

[CrayZee]

I'll take Restaurants for $1,000.

Answer: "El Diablo's favorite fast food restaurant."

What is...?

(And why?)

[El Diablo]

CZ: Chick-fil-A, because it is the most delicious fast food plus not even all that bad for you. Original chick-fil-a sandwich and nuggets are the best stuff on the menu.

MR: Blue Label is good, but overpriced. I'll start a whiskey thread here soon, but in the meantime go search for my OOT whiskey thread for options that I think are better for that price range.

RGW: No idea in Brooklyn. I've been to Jing Fong a couple of times and enjoyed it, but Daver says that is just OK and there are much better.

la: Here's the Q3 2006 info from PWC Moneytree.
Silicon Valley $1989M 31.85% 250
New England $578M 9.26% 87
LA/Orange County $543M 8.69% 56
Texas $534M 8.55% 49
NY Metro $390M 6.24% 56
Southeast $358M 5.73% 56
DC/Metroplex $332M 5.32% 54

Howard: I've been deposed a handful of times for either labor or patent law stuff. I'm not sure if what I went through on the patent stuff was actually a "deposition" or not. Not sure what you mean by "effective" cross-examiners. A couple of them were horrible because they just didn't have any idea about what they were talking about and what the rigth followup questions were. I think their client is at least partially to blame for that. The only useful advice I ever got on this topic was from the first lawyer I had preparing me for this process. He basically said, you'll want to explain stuff, but don't. Just answer yes or no most of the time and provide as little information as you need to to honestly answer the question. Your job is not to prepare their case for them. I followed that advice every time and almost every attorney has commented on how good I am at the process. Without that advice, I would ahve been horrible, because I definitely would be inclined to explain my answers a lot more.

Colt: I assume it's a mod or longtime 2+2er, beyond that haven't given it any thought.

f2p: There's really no such thing as "standard terms" when it comes to raising private capital. Every deal is different. The most important part of the process is finding people you trust to be involved with you, either by knowing them or via referral from people you know. Otherwise, especially for online type ideas, ideas being stolen is a very real concern.

Eagles: No. I think most would be surprised at the whole concept of me participating regularly on an Internet forum.

Tron: Yes, I know many famous tech bloggers!

NCJ: I was about to respond that haakee is a much better guy to address questions like that, but looks like he's intently reading this forum as expected!

Shawn: Given your experience at both a startup and then a BD manager at Google for 3 or so years, you could easily go indefinitely without a real job and jump back into the tech startup world.

anduril: See my comments above re: Blue. I have a cigar from time to time, but know little about them. I'm looking forward to learnign a lot in the cigar thread.

[mmbt0ne]

ED,

I have a few more questions, mostly about VC and China.

1) How do you think the current Chinese market compares to the current US market? How about the 1999 US market?

2) Why are US companies so horrible at moving their ideas over to China (eBay, etc)?

3) What are the chances of the Chinese cracking down on some of the blatant plagiarism by Chinese firms on US companies? It seems like the common school of thought is "very little" as plenty of US dollars are flowing into the formation of these companies.

For example...

[cbloom]

El D,

do you have a good tax guy who can do poker? Is it worth it for a normal person to pay the higher fee for a really qualified tax preparer?

[iversonian]

"The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." Ecclesiastes 9:11

So far, you seem to have had a very fulfilling life. How much of that do you think was due to your innate talents and other positive qualities developed through force of will vs due to random chance?

Suppose there were a million alternate universes, each with an El Diablo born under identical circumstances until he enters high school (which is about when we can be held fully responsible for our actions). Each instance is given a slight kick to randomize events. Events happen, like your father dies, or you meet some bad friends, or you fall in love with music, etc., distributed by probability of each occuring. How do you think your life looks in:

a. the 10th percentile quality life?
b. in the 90th percentile?
c. Where would you rate your life today at? i.e., how lucky have you been?