Bus to Tahoe

Right now we are on the way back from our company off-site and I am staring out the window at the beautiful Sierra Nevada and blue skies that seem to extend forever.

In my lifetime I have worked for a variety of large and small companies. They all professed that they valued their employees, but I have never been so spoiled as I am now. How many large, international companies can shut down every year for almost a week, besides investment banks, to celebrate the end of a fiscal year and to build teamwork?

We spent most of our time in sessions learning about the company, but there were also opportunities for me to check e-mail, domain parking accounts, etc. Here is a photo I took while enjoying the view of Lake Tahoe and checking Sedo:

One of the sessions was a talk by Jonathan Turner of the Qatalyst Group, Frank Quattrone’s latest venture. He talked primarily about the current state of Internet advertising and managed to dazzle a room full of folks despite their fresh hangovers.

Hearing about Internet advertising in such a comprehensive and current way was wonderfully insightful. The most interesting statistics were the average CPM rates for a variety of verticals and business models. For example, WebMD was on top and the social networking sites were at the bottom. This relates to Internet advertising as a whole, but especially for niches like domain development and investing. If we’re not considering where the ad dollars are flowing before choosing our next project or investment then we may as well be rolling dice.

But mostly Jonathan is just a really great guy. He gave me advice on my largest social networking site and shared some ideas for who is currently doing deals in that space. Here’s a picture of us just before dinner:

After dinner everyone danced and drank until the wee hours, and had even more fun than the night before.

I have a lot more to say about M&A and some thoughts on long-term domain investments, but that will have to wait for Saturday morning.