Santiago Bilinkis l Risk and Reward - Trying to live a life out of the comfort zone

A while ago, while talking with a friend, she asked me for a tip saying that she did not know what to do with her life. She was running in circles for months, without deciding what to do. My answer was simple: “No matter what you choose. Flip a coin and let chance decide”.

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In Officenet there is no air conditioning. In the summer we suffer for the extreme heat and in the winter we shiver with the cold. But soon we are going to solve this.

More than 10 years ago it asked a group of people in our Office of Corporate Acclimation to work on defining the purchase of an air conditioning equipment to resolve the issue. In this time they made trips to see companies from other countries to see if the temperature in their office was OK, we met with representatives of several companies that sell air conditioners, we surveyed our employees, suppliers and visitors on their favorite temperature
and did some other things.

In these recent days of heat, we had some people fainting because of the high temperatures. But, luckily, in the winter we only had one person with severe respiratory problems from the cold. I estimate that within a year and a half the Acclimation area is going be able to make the best decision on what equipment to buy to give our employees the working environment they deserve. They are very important to us.

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For those who could not see it live on Sunday but want to watch it, this is the video of Argentina para Armar last Sunday, where together with other Entrepreneurs we talked about how to deal with the crisis. I also include my presentation from Palermo Valley.

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In this world, there is no sure recipe to succeed. But making sure we fail is quite easy and we can do it ourselves, without help from anyone.

A few years ago I read the book “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho. I did not like it at all. The basic philosophy can be summed up in that “when a person really wants something, the whole universe conspires so she/he can realize her/his dream.” It is, in short, the prototypical “you can”, carried to the extreme.

This week I wrote a post on the impact of the financial crisis. In a comment, with great diplomacy Ines (which by one of those coincidences happens to be my mom!) objected to my vision of the crisis as an opportunity, assimilating it to that kind of philosophy.

I acknowledge I may have sounded like that, but nothing is further from my way of thinking. This is a world that in general conspires so that most people do not have what we want. It is almost never true that “if you want to, you can”.

Both the “if you want, you can” and its logically equivalent “If you can not is because you do not want to” are cruel oversimplifications. They generate false expectations, then put the blame on us when we fail.
In my view there is, however, a very important rule that is almost universal: “If you DO NOT want, you can NOT”.

What this rule says is quite different from the other two. It states that something good never occurs without the power of the will to make it happen. The will is not enough, but it is essential.

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This week Officenet won the Mercurio Award, given by the Argentine Marketing Association, in the Technology category. This award recognizes the companies with best marketing in the country. For me this is the best prize of all because it wasn’t won thanks to me but despite me!

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Even when it was not the central purpose of the Endeavor trip to Silicon Valley, given the difficult times we live in the issue of the financial crisis arised in almost all talks.

Here is a summary of the most interesting things that were said and my personal view on that subject, from the charming beach of Barracas, on the banks of the Riachuelo (a fetid river two blocks from my Buenos Aires office).

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In this historic Election day, my friend Enrique sent me a video that I found really interesting and wanted to share with you. And soon after I published the post, Martina sent me another version, this time “uncensored” so ypou will also find it below. And for more reader feedback, you may want to see the Spanish post on the winners of my latest contests, with the “acceptance speech sent by Fede Munichor!).

The fact that voting is not mandatory in the US gives place to interesting dinamics. I always wondered what would happen if in our countries voting was optional. I tend to think that, if even Americans have to be called upon to vote, that here the only people that would vote are those who get some dirty money from politicians to do so.

Anyway, in case you are not interested in all these stuff, you will at least enjoy seeing, among others, Scarlett Johanson and Cameron Diaz or Di Caprio and Tom Cruise (according to your preferences).

My favorites…? Borat and Jason Lee. And Jennifer Aniston… but she appears so little!

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Perhaps the most shocking thing of knowing how Venture Capital in Silicon Valley works is to see the huge contrast with what happens in Latin America.

I am a friend of several of the people who lead or work at the main funds in the region. But back from my trip I could not help but feel disgust for how they carry out their role as VCs .

What is the problem? The problem is that Venture Capital is essentially about risk. All the VCs we met during the trip made that very clear.  And here, nobody wants to take risks .

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What impressed me the most in this trip was to find out how the Venture Capital funds in Silicon Valley work. The contrast with what we entrepreneurs in Latin America are used to is gigantic.

Let’s see the main aspects:

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