2008 Annual Report
Letter From the Founder
The past year marked a financially tumultuous one. Everybody and their mama seemed to go bankrupt or get bought out. Since there were few investors willing to carry my personal debt, I exercised the former. I'm now qualified to run an investment banking firm. If only I had the ability to print my own money like the u.s. treasury. Then I could have boasted of financial judiciousness, while secretly passing off all my obligations to future generations.
There is an upside to the doom and gloom of this alleged financial crisis. Each one of us has an opportunity to reflect on how such financial troubles begin, and, in my case, be reminded of who we want to be? Twenty-five thousand children die of completely preventable ailments everyday. The mere contemplation of solving such a tragedy requires one to walk the line between grand vision and grand delusion. Every second wasted is another dead child, and given that I seem to be the only rational, competent individual out there that actually cares, the temptation to forgo patience and take on extra financial risk is a strong one.
The way of the tortoise has been taught probably as long as teaching existed. The steady, reliable, methodical, controlled, patient individual is the one who achieves lasting success. Yes, there are plenty of hares who acquire a disproportionate amount of resources, but did they really achieve anything? Hares are quick to disparage the tortoise and boast upon their "accomplishments", but where's the repeatability? Was their success just a mirage?
Two years ago, all the hares seemed to be back to their pre-2001 gallop. Where are the hares today? They are literally worse off now then if they had followed the way of the tortoise. 
Financial news journalists talk about the trillions that have been lost since the economy started tanking. Such a statement is akin to saying that the emperor lost his new clothes.
Make no mistake, there are times when it's necessary to roll a hard six, but such risky, possibly spontaneous decisions should be the exception not the rule. Yeah, the kids are dying; yeah, I'm the only one who cares, but trying to emulate the hare (even partially) was a mistake. The more that people come to directly rely upon me, the more my organizations, which are a reflection of me, need to emulate the methodically dependable tortoise.