Zahid Lilani – Technology and Social Media for Business

Steve Jobs Still Happy With $1 Salary

Posted on 22. Apr, 2010 by Zahid Lilani. View Comments

In the tech industry it is very common for people to have the knowledge about Steve Jobs’ $1 salary but in the real world, some people reject that its true and some just say HOW?

I am going to answer that HOW question since it is a fact that Steve Jobs only makes $1 in salary.

The guy who was once asked to leave Apple, came back with more than just vengeance. He decided that he will prove to everyone that he is the MAN and yes, he is!

Since 1997, Jobs has not taken a salary of more than $1 per year. You ask “How does that happen?” Well it is very simple, he has 5.5 million shares of Apple stock, which makes him a Billionaire on paper. Though he hasn’t sold anything yet

Now you are saying, “So if he doesn’t sell stock then how does he do it?”

Steve Jobs sold Pixar Animation to Disney in 2006. That was an all stock deal, that means, no cash was exchanged. Since Jobs was the majority shareholder, the deal made him the largest individual shareholder with 7% of Disney stock, 138 million shares.

Disney pays dividends though Apple doesn’t. It declared $0.35/share cash dividends on December 2, 2009.

$0.35 x 138 Million = $48 Million

Tax rate on the dividends is 15% but if he received a regular CEO salary, he would be in the highest income tax bracket of 35%.

Is he avoiding paying taxes? Not really. He is not doing anything wrong or illegal. He has an option and he is using it. There is no harm in being smart about your money.

My6Sense Helps You Reduce Social Media Noise

Posted on 06. Mar, 2010 by Zahid Lilani. View Comments

Thank you Shari for a wonderful guest post about My6Sense. It is now my turn to pitch in and share whatever I know and think about the app.

My6Sense is basically Google Reader without the noise. It senses what you like to read and then ONLY shows you relevant stories.

Not only is it great for news stories and blog posts, it does the same exact thing for Twitter. When you follow little more than 100 active Twitterers, there is usually a tweet every second and it is hard to keep up. Though I appreciate people telling me the color and taste of their frozen yogurt, what I really use Twitter is for stories and blogging topics. That’s were something like My6Sense comes in handy.

The most interesting feature of the app is its “intuition” engine.

As you can see in the pic, My6Sense knows me pretty well. It takes some time reach a high range but it is worth it. Once you are up there, relevancy is amazing.

My6Sense has a lot more features than I am going to talk about here, I personally don’t use all of its features but it might be useful to you. Here is the list of all its features

You can download my6sense from the iTunes app store for free.

I would love to hear from you if you already use it or have downloaded it after reading my post and have something to add. Post all your comments and questions below.

SmartPhones are Getting Smarter, Especially when Users Find the Right Apps

Posted on 05. Mar, 2010 by Zahid Lilani. View Comments

This is a guest post by Shari Sax. Social media evangelist, a mentor, a friend and overall a passionate writer.

Recently I got a chance to meet with two Israeli gentlemen, whose company My6Sense has plans to use “Digital Intuition” to help mobile phone users save time and be more productive.

Founder Barak Hamachov is the “Visionary Geek” of the company, whose primary aim is to build applications based on a cell phone user’s “implicit feedback,” i.e., building and individual’s preference based on (a) content read; (b) time of day phone is used; and (c) friends/community.

“We don’t try to understand your preferences, simply to mimic them,” he explained.

Barak and company CEO Avinoam Rubinstain were in San Francisco recently to discuss their future plans with Silicon Valley early adopter Louis Gray, whose firm the Paladin Advisors Group is helping promote their efforts.

Here are three videos I took at a press conference November 16, 2009.

Louis Gray began the presentation discussing INFORMATION OVERLOAD and how we are going to deal with it.

He discussed how Google Reader, Friendfeed, Twitter and Facebook are trying to help with some new offerings. And then he introduced My6Sense as the iPhone app that can allow users to have their RSS feeds catalogued for them by relevance, so that the information they want most is right upfront.

In the second video, Louis tells the story of how Facebook let him down because the social media site does not know how to update him with the most relevant information – and he didn’t find out he was an uncle until many hours after his nephew was born. With My6Sense, Louis feels that he will not miss the most important data that he wants to see:

In Video 3, Barak Hachamov shares the vision of his company which intends to manage today’s three major trends: mobile, social stream, real-time stream.

My6Sense intends to be a personal filter that looks at your behavior and builds a preference model to make sure that what you most want to see is brought to you first:

Guest post by Shari Sax. You can follow her on Twitter or read her blog at ShariSax.com.

(I have used my6sense iPhone app and I you can read about my opinion of the app here)

Is Google Buzz Here To Stay?

Posted on 02. Mar, 2010 by Zahid Lilani. View Comments

By now you have heard about Google Buzz and maybe given it a shot. At least you tried couple of times then you said “I think I should just check my email.”

You have to give it to Google that they were very smart about their new offering. Instead of launching it as a separate product like Wave, they launched it as a part of something already successful. In case you didn’t know, Gmail is the 3rd largest free email in the world.

I personally started out with Hotmail but always felt that email should be fast and easy. Gmail is fast and easy and that is why after using both Hotmail and Yahoo! I decided to divert everything to Gmail. Every time any website asks me for an email, I give out Hotmail. When people ask for email, I give them Gmail.

Lately, I haven’t had much time to play with it but so far it has been an okay experience. I don’t use Twitter much because when I ask a question on Buzz, I do get a response. On Twitter it is like I am shooting an arrow in the dark. I have more followers on Twitter by the way. Most people who are following me on Buzz are not really friends and I was little worried the other day that why exactly are all these people following me anyways but its all good, I embraced social media exhibitionism almost a year ago and don’t regret it… yet.

Buzz is here to stay because of many reasons, some of them are:

- Acts like FriendFeed but it is not.
- People who think Twitter is stupid love Buzz.
- You don’t have to work extra hard, its right their in your inbox.
- Real-time.

Gizmodo has written an excellent post on “What is Google Buzz?” which I suggest you read.

What do you think about Google Buzz? Like it? Hate it?

Free Food: First Google and Now Facebook

Posted on 11. Feb, 2010 by Zahid Lilani. View Comments

Article Summary

Facebook is currently using the same strategy that was used by high tech companies during the dot com era, providing food 3 times a day to its hungry employees. Facebook and Google are the only two tech companies in Silicon Valley that have a company owned cafeteria where food is provided to employees free of charge.

This tradition of feeding employees was initially started by HP back in 1950s when it first started giving out gifts to newly married employees and having free snacks and coffee. The philosophy behind this perk was that happier employees are more productive. Google was the first company in 1999 to take the philosophy one step further by having a resident Chef to cook meals.

Though Facebook is the new kid on the block, it competes with Google in many aspects and one successful strategy for Facebook has been to attract former and current Google employees. Almost two years ago, Facebook hired Google’s top Chef Josef Desimone who now serves 12,000 meals a week using mostly organic, sustainable products. Surprisingly, for the serious food lover, Facebook now offers cooking classes where the 50 member kitchen staff teaches employees how to cook.

The reason Facebook offers food to its 800 employees is to encourage them to work long hours. When employees know that they will get food at work, they focus more on work and less on thinking about what to eat or where to dine out. Facebook is not talking about the expense associated with offering quality food but estimates that it will generate revenues around $500 million this year that will justify having a small food expense.

Quality of food has attracted top talent to Facebook and has kept them working twice as hard. During lunch and dinner the cafeteria offers a “vegetarian entree; two main courses of meat, chicken or fish; a salad bar; two types of soup; and two desserts.” Apart from the cafeteria, mini-kitchens can be found throughout the building where people can pick up snacks and salads when the cafe is closed.

Mr. Desimone is one happy Chef because he gets weekends and holidays off unlike other Chefs who put in long hours during special occasions and weekends.

Original Article:
With High-End Meal Perks, Facebook Keeps Up Valley Tradition – NYTimes