[Coronita]

Uh oh…. TSM reported their numbers are coming in light, partly due to Samsung dropping Qualcomm.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/tsmc-sees-q2-sales-dip-104701958.html

TAIPEI, April 16 (Reuters) – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) on Thursday said revenue is likely to fall in the second quarter from the first, due in part to the loss of business at one of its key customers.

The world’s largest contract chip manufacturer expects a decline of 7 percent to 8 percent in April-June. In the three months prior, revenue was flat on quarter but grew 50 percent on year, pushing net profit beyond analyst estimates.

The forecast comes a week after rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said it used its own chips in its just-released flagship smartphone instead of chips from Qualcomm Inc, which contracts a large share of its production to TSMC.

“A key customer’s business loss to an IDM … will negatively impact our business,” TSMC Chief Financial Officer Lora Ho said in a quarterly analyst conference, without identifying the IDM or the customer.

[Coronita]

[quote=flyer][quote=flu][quote=flyer]Agree with flu and FIH that rental properties (residential and commercial) are also a great way to go. Regardless of education and career choices, getting into that game years ago in San Diego and elsewhere has also really paid off for us, and just about everyone we know. As BG said, there are definitely challenges, but that is to be expected, and, in most cases the issues can be managed.[/quote]

Ok flyer, totally off topic now. but since you brought it up, I’ll ask. How does one even get started with commercial real estate on a small scale? Beyond fishing through loopnet (which some have said it’s the worst way to buy commercial RE)… If you don’t feel comfortable sharing publicly, it would be great if you could PM me. Would be interested in picking your brain about this, without being fed to the sharks. The last arrangement any family member had with commercial RE had to do with a property that was in Manhattan Beach found by a family friend that had a good rental stream, since it was that was a large land occupied by corporately owned fast food restaurant for which the corporate entity paid for the building and lot maintenance and the property taxes, so the only thing the partners did was collect the rent check and renegotiate the lease every 10 or so years. Unfortunately, the guy that found us this thing tried to squeeze all the other partners out after the thing really appreciated, so everyone ended up selling their respective stake and forcing everyone to get out of that clusterf of an arrangement, and killing the goose that laid the golden egg, so to speak..

So what’s the secret sauce into the world of commercial RE? And do you have anything in San Diego? Would prefer *not* to be involved in any sort of partnership with people that I don’t know well. I’m not interested in any sort of bullshit from PETDNT (piggington experts that don’t know shit), but would be in debt to folks that really know what they are doing to provide some “education”. Rest assured any sort of involvement I would possibly be in would not disturb the 1% club that you belong to, as my financial impact on that club would be like 0.0000000001% if any…. :)[/quote]

flu, don’t mind your questions at all, and if we had anything going on that would work for you, we’d be glad to chat, but, commercial is now a thing of the past for us. I brought it up because we were once very involved, but, as the city developed, and our holdings became more and more valuable due to the locations we held, it seemed wise to cash out.

Commercial is much more complicated these days, probably because people seem to be a lot more complicated these days, (reference the scenario you mentioned) but many of our deals were made with family, friends and a handshake–if you can believe that–and that’s probably the only way we would have been comfortable being involved in that type of business at that time. It was all very “old school,” so I’m probably not the best person to talk to concerning today’s marketplace.

If I remember correctly, I think you’ve mentioned working with some of the realtors on this forum concerning your investment properties, which, from their posts, sound like great people. Any chance of talking to them or people they might know about current commercial opportunities?[/quote]

I wish the good professionals I work with residential also work with commercial, but unfortunately, they don’t. With what family has experienced, it made me leery of just cold calling to people pitching they are commercial RE experts without some reputation of being trustworthy.

We didn’t get screwed. We almost got screwed, we came out pretty clean and ahead.. But just going through the discovery of digging up a lot of dirt on the individual and then push the other partners to vote the guy off the management team was a major PITA. Turns out he was bilking another investment group of 15-20 people that were his long time friends for millions over the years…. Guy was a real piece of work. On the outside, he appeared benevolent, as he use to donate millions to charity. That money was money he stole from a lot of his friends, some of them as far back as grade school friends, and I suspect the reason why he did that was to con other people into trusting him.

[Coronita]

Intel is gearing up to fight against Qualcomm big time. They took a lot of our employees over the past few months, by throwing a pretty big comp package at them. Looks like they are trying to acquire part of Spreadtrum too.

I’m surprised no one has tried to take over ARM yet or Nvidia or finally put AMD out of its misery.

That NXP and Freescale tie-up will be interesting. Use to be a $20/share stock back in 2012 when they were just starting nfc.

[Coronita]

[quote=flyer]Agree with flu and FIH that rental properties (residential and commercial) are also a great way to go. Regardless of education and career choices, getting into that game years ago in San Diego and elsewhere has also really paid off for us, and just about everyone we know. As BG said, there are definitely challenges, but that is to be expected, and, in most cases the issues can be managed.[/quote]

Ok flyer, totally off topic now. but since you brought it up, I’ll ask. How does one even get started with commercial real estate on a small scale? Beyond fishing through loopnet (which some have said it’s the worst way to buy commercial RE)… If you don’t feel comfortable sharing publicly, it would be great if you could PM me. Would be interested in picking your brain about this, without being fed to the sharks. The last arrangement any family member had with commercial RE had to do with a property that was in Manhattan Beach found by a family friend that had a good rental stream, since it was that was a large land occupied by corporately owned fast food restaurant for which the corporate entity paid for the building and lot maintenance and the property taxes, so the only thing the partners did was collect the rent check and renegotiate the lease every 10 or so years. Unfortunately, the guy that found us this thing tried to squeeze all the other partners out after the thing really appreciated, so everyone ended up selling their respective stake and forcing everyone to get out of that clusterf of an arrangement, and killing the goose that laid the golden egg, so to speak..

So what’s the secret sauce into the world of commercial RE? And do you have anything in San Diego? Would prefer *not* to be involved in any sort of partnership with people that I don’t know well. I’m not interested in any sort of bullshit from PETDNT (piggington experts that don’t know shit), but would be in debt to folks that really know what they are doing to provide some “education”. Rest assured any sort of involvement I would possibly be in would not disturb the 1% club that you belong to, as my financial impact on that club would be like 0.0000000001% if any…. 🙂

[Coronita]

It’s funny that people want QC broken up but intel is going on a shopping spree.

Looks like Intel is going to buy RB based VIA Telecom.

http://www.siliconbeat.com/2015/04/15/intel-said-to-offer-500-million-for-san-diego-based-via-telecom/

[Coronita]

Come to think of it, I know of a lot of great engineers that didn’t come from Ivy league schools. A lot of them went to lesser well known engineering schools. But they went their because they were top of the class in Asia and India, and the respective U.S. colleges ended up giving them a full scholarship to their masters of engineering /computer science degrees here in the U.S. And when we did interview them, obviously the were really intelligent. That’s why we hired them fresh out of school years back at Qualcomm and the company got them an H1-B. A lot of them weren’t able to move and eventually got their greencards, but they did get to enjoy an effective 16:1 stock split from then until now.

Funny how that works…Sometimes it’s great to only have one kind of options (pun intended).

I don’t think those folks any any folks in their situation would have been complaining about any sort of “low / depressed salary” now. I guess a lot of non-H1-B’s probably didn’t want to take the job because they thought the pay might have been lower than elsewhere in SoCal. Big financial mistake. Huge!

[Coronita]

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[Coronita]

[quote=bearishgurl][quote=flu][quote=AN][quote=flu]Off the top of my head…

Reddit (Yale)
LinkedIn (UPenn Wharton)
Google(Ok, it’s Stanford but close enough)
Yelp(Harvard)
Yahoo and beloved Marissa(Stanford)
HP (Meg is Princeton and Harvard)
eBay: Stanford
Juniper Networks: Stanford
Tesla: UPenn (Musk is a Wharton Alumni and was undergrad in physics)
Amazon (Princeton)
Apple (Duke. It’s not ivy, but elitist enough :))

I’m sure there’s many more I missed, even the startup ones that aren’t well known. I guess we can argue now what is considered tech and what is considered not tech.[/quote]
Base on that list, I say, go to Stanford, not Ivy :-P.[/quote]

Stanford is harder to get in 🙂 At least if you do get in, tuition is free if your household income is less than $150k. In the bay area, I did run into a bunch of Stanford grads, and they were pretty capable. The school runs like an incubator[/quote]

Well, and, uhhh, I hear freshman at Stanford are closely monitored and not allowed to have cars or offered parking spaces. My understanding is that they are restricted somewhat in even leaving campus without an “escort,” at least for the first quarter. Any Piggs correct me where I’m wrong here.[/quote]

Don’t know, don’t care, though I would find it unbelievable. Lunch time!

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]The CFO of Maxwell Technologies also has B.S. (no masters) from SDSU. Seems to me that if you want to get a business management position for a San Diego company, B.S degree from SDSU is a great value. Apparently these local tech companies don’t place much value on Ivy league or Masters degrees in general.[/quote]

Sure, if you say so. Whatever, I’m not a CFO/CEO and no longer aspire to be. My time has come and past. If you are and aspire to be, great. Enjoy…

I care more about finding more rental properties these days to generate more passive income than I care about being a better engineer/architect/lead (whatever fancy title an employer gives me). Show me the money, and that’s all that matters. You know, in case my kid can get in and does want to go and it’s a right fit. And if my kid doesn’t get in and doesn’t want to go, more money leftover for me and my kid. Either way.

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone][quote=flu][quote=deadzone]Sure Engineering may not be as lucrative as it once was, thanks to the overall threat of outsourcing/H1B. But, still beats the pants off of most professions for pay potential on average doesn’t it?[/quote]

Starting out, maybe. Over the life of the profession, most definitely not, unless again you hit it with the stock options/RSU grants.

I don’t see many single income earnings engineers without stock options able to afford to live in carmel valley, unless they are a dual income family.

I do see plenty of dentists, doctors, lawyers, self-employed business folks, or enigineers with side businesses or that dabbled into other non-engineering-job related things that supplemented their income though…

.Just saying.[/quote]

You are just frustrated that your neighbors can afford to drive better cars than you. But you need to step back and look at the big picture, you are better off than 99% of the world. Your thinking is typical of the American consumerism culture, always wanting/needing to have more material goods than your neighbor. You need to take a trip to some normal city in the Midwest or East Coast, it will make you feel better about your lot in life.[/quote]

Actually, I’m not frustrated at all. Actually, if I wanted to live how 75% of the american population lives, I could afford to drive what really wanted too…on borrowed money. But I do like having money in my bank account so if tomorrow I do get outsourced, It wouldn’t make a damn difference, except being able to qualify for another refinance probably, and more of a pride thing of holy shit, I finally got laid off after so many+ years working in the field…..lol… Then again, I can always wait for stated income loans to come back…ha!

My neighbors drive equally POS cars too for a differentreason. They have 3-4 kids they have to feed and send to college… So they can take their $40k/year per kid and multiply that by 4 and then multiply that by 3 or 4….I only got 1 …Ha!

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone][quote=bearishgurl][quote=deadzone]Okay, give me one example of a Tech company that is run by Ivy grads? I just picked two of the most important San Diego companies, not cherry picking.

Reality is getting an Ivy degree does not give you a leg up in any type of tech career. Certainly not if you want to live/work in Socal which everybody here obviously does.

Also FLU, you are the only person I have ever heard that complained about Engineering not being a well paid profession. Can you name another white collar profession that you can pull nearly six figure starting salary immediately after a 4 year degree from a lowly state school? Pharmacy is the only profession that pays better starting out, but usually that is a 5 year or more degree nowadays.

But no, you are not going to get rich being an Engineer or most any other profession. Most wealthy people are trust funders. A fortunate few get lucky with IPOs, real estate etc. but I don’t consider those careers.[/quote]

Deadzone, Accounting pays nearly $100K right out of the gate IF the student passed their CPA Exam and got their masters degree (which is one additional year [or less] over the Bachelor’s degree requirements, depending on curriculum of the school’s business programs). Many public colleges and universities all over the country are now offering ALL the credits for a Master’s in Accounting (incl subspecialties) for the same price as undergrad credits PROVIDED the degree candidate walks at graduation only ONCE and stays at the same school and works through BOTH programs diligently and full-time, either consecutively or concurrently, graduating in a timely manner.

NOT ALL Engineering grads make $100K immediately upon graduation. It completely depends on the graduate’s field of study, demand in that field in the locale they they’re applying for jobs in and the salary levels of that locale. In SD, I could see $65K as a more realistic starting pay for many recent engineering grads and I could see some types of engineering grads (civil eng?) possibly having to relocate out of SD to get any job at all in their fields.

I agree that an “Ivy degree” doesn’t really matter on the west coast in obtaining entry-level positions in almost all fields. I have no idea how much sway it holds for employers hiring for entry-level positions on the east coast. In any case, it’s probably not worth it to pay for ALL one’s college credits at an Ivy school. In paying only for graduate school at an Ivy school (if that’s what one aspires to do), this would have the same result out there in the “real world” because the ink on the diploma dries the same, IMO.[/quote]

I agree with you on accounting. I don’t know about starting salary of six figures, that is probably not the norm. But, my brother is the CFO for a large public company and he has nothing but B.S. degree from a non-elite public university. Another example is the CFO at Viasat, he has B.S. only from SDSU. These two folks are making the kind of money that they could purchase FLUs dream car and no Masters degree required. MS degrees in many cases are waste of time, you are usually better off getting real world job experience. I think a lot of companies realize this because randomly searching through Bios of various large company Officers, I was surprised at how many of them listed BS degrees only (or no degrees at all).[/quote]

And I’ll make the argument that for every 1 person you think that fits that mold of “not needing XYZ”, there are probably 100+ or so people that would have been better off if they had more doors open.

It’s nice that your brother was able to find a path that didn’t require that much higher education and was in the right place at the right time and made the right decision. You would think that with his direction that he made, and since it was such a sure thing, then clearly you should be a CEO/CFO of a company right now too right? I mean, clearly the path to his success was so obvious, and since he is your brother, it should have been really easy to copy his success, right? And clearly, we we wouldn’t be complaining about affordability of home is San Diego right now , right?

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]Sure Engineering may not be as lucrative as it once was, thanks to the overall threat of outsourcing/H1B. But, still beats the pants off of most professions for pay potential on average doesn’t it?[/quote]

Starting out, maybe. Over the life of the profession, most definitely not, unless again you hit it with the stock options/RSU grants.

I don’t see many single income earnings engineers without stock options able to afford to live in carmel valley, unless they are a dual income family.

I do see plenty of dentists, doctors, lawyers, self-employed business folks, or enigineers with side businesses or that dabbled into other non-engineering-job related things that supplemented their income though…

.Just saying.

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]
You are nuts if you believe H1B is not a threat. Do you want your kids to have to compete with lower cost imported labor? Regardless of how “good” they are, net result is negative for the American worker. Just like with all the immigration debate, the only Americans that benefit from this are the employers.[/quote]

Did I say they weren’t a threat in some way?
Previously, I merely pointed out that you’re worrying about the wrong thing (if you’re worried at all) The H1-B business model is less of a threat than completely moving the entire group/division to a remote location, where you can save a lot more money, more so than hiring H1-B versus non H1-B. Most big tech companies have some remote office location now, and most big companies do this to some extent because it is more cost effective than hiring H1-B, in this day and again. You are so far behind the times if you think that H1-B is still the problem, and so out of touch with what companies really try to do these days..

I have not seen throughout the many years of hiring at my company that we paid someone on H1-B less than someone for the same position that wasn’t on H1-B. It probably does happen at a less than idea job at some seedy company, or for contracting work, which is more of a chop shop thing anyway. The entire contractor/contracting thing is just a seedy business model to begin with, and usually for shitty jobs and shitty temp positions, in a game between recruiters and headhunters and employers .

Every big company that wanted to “save on labor costs” for FTE’s did so by setting up a shop overseas because “for the price of 1 engineer we can hire here in the U.S. H1-B or not, we can hire X engineers in bangalore or beijing”, as they say.

And, I’m merely responding to your response about how great engineering is relative to other white collar professions, and pointing out the contradictory things you just stated about how great engineering is at the same time how lousy it can be wrto a threat from H1-B….

Do doctors run the risk of getting outsourced (right now?) How about lawyers? How about real estate agents? Again, I’m not complaining about engineering, because like I said, I like doing it. But clearly, financially it’s not *that* great if you factor everything, not just a starting salary. Who gives a shit about starting salary. I think W2 income ends up being taxed such that your first 3-4 months out of every year’s total paycheck goes to the IRS and FTB anyway…

And, no I’m not worried about an H1-B. Never had, never will. I’m more concerned about a company calling it quits and moving the entire division overseas when it’s no longer innovating and just doing incremental enhancements.

[Coronita]

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[Coronita]

Ok, that’s an interesting point then….

I guess the bigger question is, if cost wasn’t an issue, and your kid did get into Stanford or an Ivy League school and get into say SDSU or UCSD, would you still encourage your kid to go to SDSU or UCSD or would you encourage your kid to Stanford or an Ivy League school?

For me, if cost and my kid’s ability wasn’t an issue, it would be a no brainer, I’d encourage the former.

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