And Now for Something Totally Different

I was doing some calculating. The math exercise in which I was engaged contemplated the intersection of gasoline consumption, people, and the "green" movement.

When I think of a "green planet", my mind's eye sees a pasture, farmland, trees, etc. It does not see New York City. It does not see Houston, Texas. I think most people share an imagery consistent with mine when contemplating "green." I also think that when most people think of "un-green" they think of hydrocarbons. Using something other than oil as an energy source is generally referred to as "green."

Ok...so what we have established here is that cities are not the image of "green" relatively speaking and hydrocarbon burning is a root cause of "un-green". If you want to be green and more a part of the green movement like our farmland dwelling cousins, then burn fewer hydrocarbons. It is pretty simple.

So here is the math exercise. I mapped out the population density of each state in the union based on inhabitants per square mile. I then obtained the per capita gasoline consumption for each of those states and here is what it showed:

• The per capita gasoline consumption of Alaska dwarfs that of New York. It's not even close by a factor of something like 2x. In other words, the data very very clearly showed that the higher the population density..the less the per capita consumption of gasoline.
  

So...it might be said that...if we define "green" geographies on the notion of per capita hydrocarbon avoidance, then the "greenest" place in the United States is New York City. Said another way, if we want to reduced hydrocarbon emissions around the globe, one method could be for all of us earthlings to move to what may otherwise be perceived as the least green place on the planet....the "concrete jungle."

An Observation About Service Companies

I have heard many times in my investing career the expression.."Sounds like a service company." The comment is meant to be somewhat derogatory reflecting an investor's preference to invest in "technology development" rather than service companies built on technology developed by others. I am thinking about this in the context of data network mngt. These companies typically manage a system made from components created by others. The person making the comment "sounds like a service company" would rather invest in the company that creates the components. There is a lot of merit to this view.

Here is another view. Service companies reflect not only a form of competency but also a culture that may be more conspicuous to the customer than that of the component manufacturer. The word "service" implies a human interaction in some sense. The persistence of the service interaction only further calls out the visibility of the corporate culture behind the service provider.

So let's say for a second that each human is different than the next and excellence among humans is less common than it is more common. It is possible then to conclude that one leader's culture machine will be different than another's and it is less common rather than more common to create one that is excellent. In fact...in a way it may be much more complicated to create excellence in the service company world than it is the product product company world.

The reason I ponder this point is that we have invested in just such a company which I believe is "winning" partly because of its positive culture which is observed by the customers and partly because of the ngeative culture of a primary competitor which the customers also observe. The service offering is not that different. BUT the attitude is different. And I think as a result of this attitude...huge financial gains are being made by this portfolio company.

Now I can't really develop and rely upon an investment thesis centered purely on culture...I can only observe (and to a degree speculate)...that one can create huge competitive advance in this area for a company that is selling something not far from "plain vanilla."