Breadth vs. Depth

I’ve been a breadth person for most of my life because my philosophy has always been to keep my options open. I am now learning to be a depth person.

In University I switched from Computer Engineering to Electrical Engineering just because I wanted my options open. Electrical Engineering would have allowed me to do either as I already had many programming courses and projects, even though I liked computer engineering more and that's where I ended up after school.

I started working at Microsoft 3 years ago when I was 21 and I have jumped technology areas 3 times in 3 years, not counting the smaller projects I’ve taken up on the side. During my first 2 years, I wanted to get into consulting. I’d get bored too quickly. 6-8 months of doing the same thing and I’d be itching to try something new, and I thought consulting was the answer. I’ve now realized it generally takes doing the same thing for much longer to accomplish something meaningful.

Observing and talking with many professionals at various stages in their careers, from Vice Presidents to entry level professionals, I’ve recently started to realize the importance of having depth. The importance of just picking a technology, industry, business, whatever, and just beating the shit out of it. Going at it for years and years and becoming the best in the world at it. Even successful serial entrepreneurs spend years in each of their businesses before cashing in and trying something else.

One of the areas I’ve put this into practice in the past year is in activities outside work. 2-3 years ago I was all over the place. I remember there would be weeks in which I’d work 70 hours, go to acting class once a week, boxing class 3 times a week, guitar lessons once a week, going out with friends 2-4 nights a week and golfing (I’m not used to sleeping much, thanks to the University of Toronto. And I mean that in a good way). Such a lifestyle meant I didn’t accomplish much in each of the areas. I never acted in small theatre, I never had an amateur boxing match, I never played at golf tournaments.

A year ago, I decided to cut my plethora of activities and just focus on guitar. I began to realize how much more passionate I was about guitar compared to everything else I was doing. And that decision paid off. I started playing guitar 10-20 hours a week. Sometimes I start at 10pm after I am done with work and keep playing till 3-4AM (I have headphones connected to my amplifier which is why I still have neighbours). My guitar skill level began to improve exponentially. In May, I performed live in a band at the Experience Music Project museum for a small audience of about 50 people. Within guitar-playing, I am passionate about lead guitar work. I was only doing simple lead guitar work for a couple of songs at EMP. Since then, my skill level has gone up even further. In November, I will be playing at a bar in Woodinville WA (Details still to be confirmed), and I will be the lead guitarist in all the songs and will be doing some Metallica solos.

So the point I am trying to make is that with the same amount of effort and energy, I’d get nowhere in 5 endeavors, or somewhere in one endeavor. And I’m now trying to figure how to apply this to my professional life.

However, for depth, you need passion. You need passion that will get you going late in the night on the most minute details, for YEARS. I’ve done that for months because I am a passionate person, but I find it hard to continue to work on the same technology for years. And I’ve realized I just haven’t found something I can work on for years and years without getting bored. I’m working to change that in the upcoming 6 months and hopefully will be blogging about it then.
Case in point, Bill Gates. He found that thing he could work on for years and years, at a very early age: operating systems. I also think the earlier you find that passion, the more likely you are to succeed. And by succeed, I mean financial and personal success.

Breadth on the other hand is good to have to augment your depth. Most successful executives and managers I see at Microsoft picked an area they were passionate about, beat the shit out of it by spending long hours for years and years which is what got them promoted to senior levels, and at the same time kept some level of breadth to know what’s going on in other areas. Anytime you talk to them about any industry, they will know at least something about it. An advice my former manager gave me was that anytime you read anything, think about how it affects what you are working on. So even if you are in technology, and reading about the stock market or business, (or even Us weekly :) ), think about how it affects you.

People with much more breadth than depth have very interesting experiences. For example, I’ve seen people who have done very unorthodox career switches. Some have been in the army for 10+ years before starting as entry level engineers at Microsoft. Such experiences mean they have so many stories to share, so many interesting life experiences to talk about. And they grow fast, but in most cases, a person who spends 20 years in industry will be at a level higher in his/her career than an identical person who spends 10 years in the army and 10 years in industry. At least in my observations.

In the end it comes down to what you want. An interesting life with many different experiences, finding and fulfilling smaller passions, or a much more accomplished life where you find your one big passion… and beat the shit out of it.

Blog Driven Reading

At the beginning of 2009, I set myself some goals for blogging and for reading, because I enjoy reading and writing. I've blown my reading target out of the water. My target for the year was 20 books and I completed that in 6 months. I feel like the sales executive that meets his annual quota in 6 months and then parties for the remainder of the year.

However, my blogging has been terrible. I'm logging on to my blog after a month. And looking at my blog makes me feel sick. My initial goal was to blog every 2 weeks. While browsing my blog folder on my computer, I saw many blogs that I started but couldn't complete doing the research needed to finish writing the blog. I've come to realize that blogging often requires more reading and research than I anticipated.

To solve this problem, I've come up with a new approach I am going to try starting next week. I've coined it "Blog Driving Reading". I'm going to let the blog topics I have in mind drive what I read versus going on amazon and ordering books I find interesting. This would allow all the time I spend reading to contribute to my blogging, and I'll get the best of both worlds.

It may already be working because I just blogged.

The basic elements of the Clean Tech Industry

The Clean Tech concept is not old. In fact, there were electric cars produced in the 1830s and the first wind mills are reported to have been built in the 9^th century. However, the combustion engine became the driver of innovation in the second industrial revolution due to convenience, efficiency, and price – oil was very cheap. In fact, many entrepreneurs have been trying to start clean tech companies for the past 40-50 years, but they did not get traction because oil seemed plentiful and cheap.

We based an entire revolution on those assumptions, and in the last 10 years, our assumptions have been challenged and, some would argue, broken. Oil is not cheap and abundant anymore. Here’s a graph from http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm with historical oil prices.

The second factor is availability. When the second industrial revolution started, oil was abundant and easy to extract. Now we are seeing oil becoming more and more difficult to extract. Per square foot of land, oil provides more energy than solar or wind energy sources. I don’t think we’ll run out oil, we just won’t be able to extract it in a cost-effective way. There will be some ‘sustaining innovation’ in drilling technologies to help extract oil that is otherwise difficult and not feasible to extract. There are varying estimates, but the most widely accepted peak oil forecast is the year 2020.

The instability in the Middle East is another variable that affects this factor. I think much of the reason there’s so much investment in alternatives to oil is because of political reasons. Western countries want to remove their dependence on foreign oil because instability in the Middle East region makes it hard to plan and forecast oil prices and supply.

Conceptually, Clean Tech means using processes in nature to help us produce energy, without disrupting the earth’s natural processes. Since usage of oil emits CO2, nature is disrupted by more than natural emissions of CO2. Using solar or wind energy sources just use existing sources in nature to generate electricity.

We can break down the Clean Tech industry into the following areas

· Energy Generation: Using alternative sources to generate energy. This includes Solar, Wind, Tidal, Geothermal, etc...

· Energy Distribution: Enabling a new way to efficiently distribute energy in a network by upgrading existing power grids into smart grid

· Energy Storage: Innovating in new ways to store energy so houses

· Energy Services: Each industry has a ‘services’ industry which entails technical support, reselling, and distribution of the products in the clean tech industry

Next, I will blog about each area.

Solar Incentives: Could Ontario Be the Next Germany?

Original article: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/04/solar-incentives-could-ontario-be-the-next-germany

The introduction of Ontario's Green Energy Act, modeled after the successful German Feed-in Tariffs, is expected to fuel rapid growth in the clean energy market in Ontario.

by Greg Boutin and Jon Worren, Riverdale Partners

If Ontario's Bill 150 (the Green Energy and Green Economy Act) is passed as expected in May, Ontario will become the first North American jurisdiction with an incentive system modeled after the German feed-in tariffs (FITs), according to incentive expert Paul Gipe. With proposed tariffs of up to CAN $0.802 (~US $0.64, EUR €0.47) for every kilowatt-hour of solar-power generated, fixed and guaranteed for 20 years, the province would have the most favorable incentives currently available worldwide for systems below 100 kilowatts (kW). More lucrative, even, than current German incentives under the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG).

Ontario’s proposed Green Energy Act passed a second reading on March 11 and was ordered to the Standing Committee on General Government for public comment, ending May 5. Changes to both the act and the feed-in tariffs may still occur, but as it is almost certain to pass (the Act is supported by the Ontario Liberal Party, which controls 71 of the 107 seats in the Legislative Assembly), the Ontario government started a parallel process on February 10 to work out the deployment details.

Credit: Jon Worren, Riverdale Partners

In a separate initiative, the Ontario government will also launch a CAN $250M (~US $200M, EUR €150M) Emerging Technologies Fund, which should be operational on July 1st, 2009. This fund will match investments from private sources such as venture capital firms in Ontario-based technology companies, including cleantech firms. It might be leveraged by innovative solar companies seeking to establish a broader presence in Ontario by developing technologies locally.

Based on our experience in helping renewable energy companies to model the economics of their technologies and scale their businesses across markets, we believe that the combination of the Green Energy Act and the Emerging Technologies Fund will dramatically improve the business conditions for cleantech endeavours in Ontario. Combined with the province’s integration into the NAFTA space, traditionally low manufacturing costs, and abundant skilled workforce, this Act may actually turn Ontario into the most attractive beachhead for European and Asian renewable energy technology companies seeking to expand in North America.

So How Does Ontario Compare to Germany?

Looking solely at installed capacity, the comparison between Ontario and Germany is laughing material. While Germany has over 5,000MW installed, the whole of Canada has less than 50 MW California, the largest PV market in North America, has 530 MW by comparison. Capacity-wise, Ontario therefore has lots of catching-up to do, being today where Germany was roughly 20 years ago.

Comparing the inputs to the economics of energy is more flattering for Ontario. It might surprise even Canadians themselves to learn that Ontario receives more sunlight than Germany, which is located a little further north than the Canadian province. In fact, large parts of Ontario get 10-15% more sunlight per year than southern Germany.

Since the incentives take the form of a feed-in tariff in both Ontario and in Germany, as opposed to California where they are added to the electricity savings (through net metering), local electricity rates are less important to the ROI of solar systems.

On the other hand, Ontario electricity rates are much lower than in both Germany and California, meaning that public support to expand the energy supply side has not been as strong as in those two jurisdictions. Instead, the political “carrot” used to motivate the Ontario public and justify the Green Energy Act has been the promise of a province free of coal-fired plants.

Comparison of Germany, Ontario and California:
Key economic drivers for solar photovoltaic projects (Riverdale Partners analysis)

Top Economic drivers for solar PV projects	Germany	Ontario	California
Feed-in-tariffs, in US $/kWh	0.53 (declining 5-10% p.a.) Guaranteed for 20 years Sources: [1], [2]	0.35 – 0.64 (proposed) Guaranteed for 20 years	No FIT Incentive of 0.15 on top of electricity savings, for first 5 years (declining rate based on installed capacity step-scale) – Add to average electricity rates for a rough comparison with FITs
Average electricity rates, in US$/kWh (estimates include “hidden” fees such as distribution fee, debt retirement and other regulatory charges)	0.15- 0.25 Source: (1)	0.06 – 0.13 Source: [1], (2), (3), electricity bills	0.08 – 0.20 TOU rates go up to 0.40 Source: (1), (2), [3]
Solar Insolation, annual average (kWh/m²/d)	3.15 kWh/m²/d Munich Source: NASA	3.57 kWh/m²/d Toronto Source: Ground monitoring station, via Retscreen	4.95 kWh/m²/d Los Angeles Source: NASA

Note: all amounts converted to US$ at April 6, 2009 exchange rates

Ontario FITs Favor Systems Below 100 kW

For systems up to 100 kW in size, the Ontario FITs at the proposed rates would be superior to the German FIT. That is especially true for residential and smaller rooftop installations with rates of CAN $0.802 (~US $0.64, EU €0.47) for every kilowatt-hour of power generated by rooftop solar photovoltaic systems below 10kW. It’s worth noting that, in 2007, systems below 10 kW made up 40% of the German market; it appears that the Ontario FITs will stimulate a similar initial focus on smaller systems. Like in Germany, Ontario systems would benefit from a guaranteed 20-year fixed rate.

Proposed Feed-In Tariffs for Solar PV in Ontario
Technology	Capacity	Tariff in CAN $ / kWh	Tariff in US $/ kWh	Tariff in EURO/kWh
Rooftop	Up to 10 kW	0.802	0.64	0.48
Rooftop	10-100 kW	0.713	0.57	0.43
Rooftop	100-500 kW	0.635	0.51	0.38
Rooftop	500 + kW	0.539	0.43	0.32
Ground Mounted	Up to 10 MW	0.443	0.35	0.26

Note: all amounts converted using April 6, 2009 exchange rates

Is It Time To Set Up Shop in Ontario?

The main critic of the Act is that it does not establish long-term targets for renewable capacity. As the government suspended the the previous policy, which paid a fixed CAN $0.42 (~US $0.34, EU €0.25) per kWh to all solar project categories, two years after its introduction, some observers argue that regulatory policy stability is not guaranteed, and the Minister can still change policies if political priorities shift.

While regulatory uncertainty remains indeed a source of risk, some cleantech companies have decided not to wait for more assurance from the government, and jumped in with announcements of new installations in Ontario. Everbrite Solar, a division of Toronto-based Everbrite Industries, has licensed a turnkey manufacturing technology from an unnamed supplier overseas, to invest CAN $500 million in a photovoltaic manufacturing facility in Kingston, Ontario. Arizona-based First Solar and solar project developer Recurrent Energy of San Francisco acquired and are planning to develop multi-megawatt solar projects in Ontario, and thin-film module manufacturer Nanosolar Inc. is seriously considering to set up a regional assembly plant in the province, according to a local newspaper.

It has been made clear that the Act will favor businesses with Ontario operations and include requirements for a certain amount of domestic content (at a level yet to be decided). With the Ontario value chain in cleantech needing significant strengthening, early movers are likely to see significant advantages. Apart from a handful of local manufacturers, additional suppliers are needed to get new projects off the ground. Ontario-based companies like ARISE Technologies, 6N Silicon, Timminco and Menova Energy are technology leaders, but they all depend on outside partners to complement their offerings. This need is likely to create opportunities for best-in-class providers from Europe and Asia.
Other incentives to setting up operations in Ontario include the Next Generation Job Fund (NGJF), which covers 15% of the cost of establishing operations in Ontario for direct foreign investment, and generous R&D tax credits covering a wide range of activities. Universal healthcare and a federal pension plan, Ontario’s proximity to a market with over 400M people through NAFTA, and a very cost competitive workforce compared to the U.S., with the third largest manufacturing base in North America (after Texas and California), complete the picture.

So, while this is not a foregone conclusion by any measure, the stars seem to increasingly align to make the Ontario market more attractive. The key question is whether ambitious global players can afford to miss the train if Ontario emerges as a new solar locomotive?

The Path To Success in Ontario

As we alluded in our previous article in Renewable Energy World magazine, Roadmap for A Changed Landscape: Consolidation and Integration in the Solar PV Business, businesses with a winning formula must take advantage of international expansion opportunities like this, or risk being rapidly outflanked by their competitors. With average factory gate prices of crystalline modules already 24% down on 2008 levels due to overcapacity, and module prices decreasing, favorable business environments like the ones being created in Ontario should be explored pro-actively.

While doing so, new market entrants will need to carefully consider a number of factors when planning their moves in Ontario, relying on smart networking and targeted partnership strategies to grow their business locally. We will detail some of those considerations in an extended version of this article, to appear in the upcoming print issue of the magazine.

Back in the stock market!

I decided to get back into the stock market yesterday. I realized I hadn't made any contributions to my Roth IRA for 2008 while doing taxes. And when I did make a contribution, I decided to invest it as well.

Although consumer confidence is low, markets are crashing, and it's a recession, I think it's a good time to at least test the waters because:

1) Historically, whenever officials declare it to be a recession, we are already 1-1.5 years into the recession and the bull market or recovery has already started

2) Even if we havcn't bottomed out, it's really hard to time the bottom, and we are probably much closer to the bottom than we are to the top. 

What makes me nervous is that the DOW has been struggling to cross 8,000, which could mean it has found a ceiling and will start dropping again.

I decided to invest in two ETF's. A solar energy fund (TAN) and Brazil (EWZ). My reasons were very simplistic. Both are hammered right now. Both are definitely going to grow in the future. I'm watching the market closely and hoping I am right.

 

Feedback on Amazon Kindle 2

I had the opportunity to try out the Amazon Kindle 2 for a week. I read a lot of books and so wanted to try out the Kindle as I think it is going to change the way we read. We’re probably heading to a world where books will be obsolete and replaced by electronic devices which will enhance our reading experience. Such devices allow us to carry many books without the load of carrying physical books, search through books faster, and better manage our notes and highlights.

 

Here’s the feedback I have for Kindle:

The good - These are things I really liked:

·         I loved highlighting and being able to search my clippings. Often times while reading I will come across something that inspires me and make me want to take a note for a task or a reference for a blog entry.

·         I like that it tells me how much of the book I have completed reading, by percentage.

·         The dictionary is very useful. Perhaps it could even be linked to Wikipedia. This way a reader’s flow isn’t broken when he comes across a word or concept he doesn’t fully understand.

 

The bad - Things I think could have been better:

·         The view is not in sync with the book page number, or chapter. This makes it really difficult to figure out where in the book I am. It’s also hard to ‘flip through’ pages and then go back, which is a common user scenario while reading books.

·         Page turning transitions are not very smooth. There is a bit of a break as the next page is loading, although probably under a second. This can disrupt a reader’s flow.

·         Placement of the next page buttons and previous buttons is a bit confusing. The left next page should just be ‘previous’. That way if I press the right button, it goes to the next page, and the left button, it goes to the previous page. Also, for languages that are not left to right, it will just work the opposite way.

·         I was reading a book with large tables that spanned multiple pages. Since it was too large for the screen, the tables were truncated even if they fit in a single page in the actual hard copy book.

 

The ideas - Kindle is still in the early product stages. Here are some ideas I think will be cool in the future.

·         Built in lighting in screen. This would allow us to read even in the dark

·         Colour screen. I’m pretty sure Amazon already has this on their list

·         Anti-reflection screen.

·         An easy way to skip sections or chapters. We can go back to the table of content and then click on the next section/chapter but that is too many clicks

·         Some plan that allows unlimited books membership and gives the kindle for free, kind of like a phone plan. That would help make the kindle more affordable

Green Festival 2009 in Seattle

I spent the entire weekend of March 28-29 at the Green Festival. I went to listen to talks and check out green products on March 28 and spent March 29 volunteering at the Green Festival.
My first realization was that I definitely need to go to more conferences. It helps me open up to areas outside my immediate world. One thing that was common amongst the speakers I heard was praise for Barack Obama. I think it’s because they feel they will get somewhere when negotiating green policies with the current administration.

I heard Kevin Danaher in his talk on “Building the Green Economy”. He also happens to be one of the founders of Green Festivals. I liked his talk a lot because he was an entertaining speaker and gave many practical examples of green project and their saving. He had a strong focus on San Francisco and one interesting project he talked about was building a green building in downtown San Francisco that would be cheaper to operate, and then subsidizing it for teachers allowing them to live in San Francisco if they teach in schools in San Francisco instead of spending 3 hours a day commuting. It was refreshing to see green efforts help solve some of our social problems as well.

I then went to David Korten’s talk “Agenda for a New Economy”. I thought it was a bit radical, especially when David likened getting our ‘freedom and independent’ from Wall Street to when the US got independence from the British. He’s proposed a new economy that is wealth based with smaller community banks. And throughout his talk he really criticized Wall Street mercilessly. Because of such an immoderate stance, I didn’t come out feeling convinced with his talk.

Two talks were enough for a day for me and I spent the rest of the day checking out green products in the fair. There were many energy efficient products, organic food items, and schools with environmental studies. There was even a green massage that I was tempted to try out! I really wondered why some of the exhibiters had stalls in the Green Festival because they seemed irrelevant. I spent most of my time checking out energy efficient rooftop tiles as well as solar powered tiles. I’m no expert but I couldn’t really tell the aesthetic difference between energy efficient and regular rooftop tiles.

Volunteering the next day was fun. I was placed at the waste disposal facility and was sorting and differentiating compost, glass, cardboard, recyclable stuff, and waste. I also took out a trolley and went around the fair where other volunteers would empty their compost, recyclable, and waste cans into my trolley in separate bags. It did make me wonder why we even need to do all this sorting beforehand, why we can’t just have systems smart enough to do this all by themselves. I know it’s not that easy. There’s a process to raise all the tape on cardboard boxes by using heat. We’ll need something similar for pretty much every waste scenario. Still, something to think about.