The Future on Autopilot

Self-driving cars are not science-fiction. This generation will grapple with the societal implications of the automation of much of personal and commercial transportation.



Many desired technology innovations—personal jetpacks, thriving moon colonies, an iPhone that doesn't need to be charged daily (ha!)—may never be realized, but one is a lot closer than most people think: self-driving cars. While interning at Google this summer, I witnessed sister company X's autonomous vehicles on Mountain View roads and attended speaker events with people on the project (with which I had zero involvement), and have become convinced this is the future. The technology, while still improving, is indeed viable—a when, not if situation—and the changes it represents could improve personal safety, relieve congestion, lower transportation costs, and reduce environmental impact.

The most salient benefit of self-driving cars is that they will eventually be able to perform inarguably more safely than human drivers, whose errors account for hundreds of thousands of deaths around the world each year. Able to "communicate" with one another, self-driving cars will also maintain speed and handle relative positioning more efficiently than human drivers, improving traffic flow and changing development patterns. But there's much more to it. Currently, the cars we own remain unused most of the time, taking up space when they are not taking us from Point A to Point B. Optimally, a (clean emissions) vehicle would be in operation as much as possible, serving the needs of many commuters, so fewer people would require vehicles exclusively their own. Among the smaller pool of total cars needed to serve a population, those in use would be far less likely to idly occupy a parking spot. Much of the urban and suburban space currently dedicated to parking lots and garages could be repurposed for more productive ends, including green space.

For Your Eyes Only

Ephemeral-photo service Snapchat is betting that it can stick around longer than one of its trademark disappearing messages. To justify a $3 billion valuation, it has to find a way to make money and hold on to a traditionally fickle user base.

Yesterday afternoon's Wall Street Journal report that mobile photo-messaging service Snapchat apparently rejected a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook has come as a surprise to many in the business and tech world. The surprise is two-fold, actually -- not just that Facebook would pony up such an astronomical amount, but that Snapchat itself believes it could be worth far more. Eyebrow-raising assessments of a relatively new mobile app I first heard of only a year ago and which is most notorious for engendering media hype over the app's potential facilitation of "sexting".

As with other high-profile Internet company acquisitions, such as Facebook's $1 billion purchase in April of fellow photo-app Instagram (with its 13 employees and $0 revenue) or Yahoo's $1.1 billion purchase in May of blogging-service Tumblr (which had never turned a profit), there is again considerable general befuddlement over the economics of such a deal and whether these high-premium purchases of niche competitors are a further proof of the re-emergence of the "dot-com bubble".

So what does Facebook see in Snapchat? It's easier to first eliminate the explanations that don't make sense:

XX = ?

Heated political rhetoric about abortion and a "war on women" obscure the dismal reality that is gender inequality in America

We've heard ad nauseum for months that women¹ will decide this election, and both Republicans and Democrats are trying hard to court their votes.  And yet the most memorable episodes in recent weeks relating to women have been Senate candidate Richard Mourdock (R) describing pregnancies from rape as "something God intended", Rep. Joe Walsh (R) stating that "modern technology and science" have eliminated threats to pregnant women's health, and Rep. Todd Akin (R) -- who sits on the House Science Committee! -- positing that the female body can terminate pregnancies from "legitimate rape".

Despite what the debased and disgraceful dialogue of this election season would have us believe, gender issues go far beyond rape, abortion, and reproductive rights.  Although there's a tendency to think we're set because women now outnumber men in the workforce and in the ranks of college graduates, proclaiming "The End of Men" remains hyperbolic.

We live in a society where women earn less than men even in the same field, where they are shut out or opt out of leadership roles in the workplace, where they are considered unprofessional if they do not paint their faces and wear health-ruining shoes, where the normal and routine biological process of menstruation is treated as taboo, where the custom is to take their respective husband's last name at marriage, and where pointing out these incongruities is considered radical (the word "feminism" having somehow taken on negative connotations).²

Business for Profit and Social Change

Innovative business opportunities exist which can benefit corporations while serving the poor and middle-class in countries around the world.



One of the topics I have been most interested in over the past few years is innovation and entrepreneurship designed for non-traditional or under-served markets.  Mohammed Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, popularized the use of microfinance as a means of sustainably helping people lift themselves out of poverty.  Today, microfinance has become one of the hottest areas in the NGO/development world.

The late C.K. Prahalad published a book in 2004 called The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid in which he talked about the potential business opportunities that existed to serve the world's poor (the "bottom" of the "financial pyramid").  Bill Gates described this as a way to "fight poverty with profitability".  To me, this represents a far more effective method than simply handing out money, which is unsustainable and of dubious effectiveness.  Involving the "bottom of the pyramid" in the modern economy, on the other hand, is win-win, with companies incented to provide goods and services to new markets, and those customers receiving access to what they need.

Defending "Goldmine" Sachs?

Earlier this week, The Times of London published a much-read article on Goldman Sachs that featured an extensive interview with the company's CEO, Lloyd Blankfein.  Blankfein drew much attention for a quote in the article, said light-heartedly, in which he claimed to be "doing God's work".

Predictably, many people didn't see or care for the humor there--elsewhere in the article, an unnamed Goldman employee wryly notes, "We don't club baby seals.  We club babies."  Across the blogosphere and throughout the media, criticism of Goldman has continued to grow in recent months.

Because Goldman is indisputably the king of Wall Street, and because much attention has been placed on prominent ex-Goldman leaders in key government positions, the firm is a lightning rod for criticism during the current financial crisis.  Yet, bombastic quotes aside, the main impression I came away with after reading the article was a sense of reinforcement in my belief that Goldman is simply smarter and better at what they do than anyone else out there.

Truth is, even before the financial system's implosion, Goldman was more successful and more competent than its competitors.  Its acumen at realizing the severity of the sub-prime mortgage crisis early on is just one example--the article notes "When the credit crunch hit, [Goldman's] losses in the mortgage sector were only $1.7 billion, lower than any other big investment bank. UBS lost $58 billion."  It should also be pointed out that Goldman never underwrote anywhere near the amount of bad mortgage debt as did competitors like Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, and Goldman still hedged its risk in order to limit its losses and avoid catastrophe.

Charges against Goldman of illegal market manipulation or of having sinister influence over government policy are pure paranoia.  Yes, Goldman has benefited handsomely as a result of the banking industry bailout.  But, as Blankfein points out, Main Street needs Wall Street in order to generate economic growth.  Huge paychecks and bonuses?  Well, Goldman makes gigantic profits, and the bonuses make up only a small percentage of those.  Hey, Tiger Woods also makes a boatload of money.

Well, it's on that issue of compensation that I'm sympathetic to the critics, not just of Goldman, but of the entire banking industry.  On the one hand, I believe that that these companies should be allowed to determine their own compensation plans and reward success as they see fit.  On the other hand, the Wall Street banks make their huge profits (which enable their huge bonuses) by placing enormously risky bets--bets which they know are covered by the government if they bet poorly.  Since the government can't afford to lose Wall Street, Wall Street can play fast and loose.

I think the issue at the heart of the matter is how we view our economy.  We are comfortable with the idea of business offering tangible goods and straightforward services, relatively easy to quantify and categorize and explain.  We are far less comfortable with the idea of money made on paper, from the endless buying and selling and re-shuffling of assets and debt and commodities and securities.  To the casual observer, it's just money being created out of thin air.  Forget slamming the mighty Goldman Sachs for being the best player at this game, the real question at hand is whether it's sound to have an economy so dependent on this type of operation.

I don't know the answer to that, but unfortunately I think there won't be serious discussion on this topic, or it will be drowned out by typical class-warfare sentiments.

Video Games are Big Business

I'm not much of a video game player--I don't have an Xbox, Playstation, or Wii in my apartment, and my gaming is limited to a rare bit of Madden or the like at a friend's place. Yet in recent years, it's no secret that video games have gone from being the pastime of kids and nerds to being in the mainstream--titles like Madden, Grand Theft Auto, and Guitar Hero are all centerpieces of pop culture. Not only that, they're a big business.

My eyes popped at an AP headline today that said "'Call of Duty' game sells $310M in 24 hours". That is referring to a new game called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which apparently sold a staggering 4.7 million copies in North America and Britain on its first day on sale. The $310 million is revenue from only those regions, not even total worldwide sales, but it still makes this game the "biggest-selling launch in the history of entertainment".

Wow. That's a bona-fide blockbuster, and far more so than any Hollywood theatrical release. By comparison, the biggest movie opening of 2009 was Transformers 2, which made "only" $109 million its first weekend. It's the only movie released this year that has a total gross more than Modern Warfare 2's opening, so even though movies nowadays often rely on DVD sales for half their revenue, there's no question this game has put up some serious numbers. View this as a sign of a shift away from the traditionally dominant players in the entertainment industry.

The Sports Stock Market

My Diamondback column today proposes a merger of the financial markets and sports:

I think many athletes, especially those in junior leagues or fresh out of college, could hedge the risk on their contracts by selling shares entitling owners to a certain percentage of their future earnings.

Take our star junior linebacker, Erin Henderson, for example. Many experts think he could be a second-round pick in the 2008 NFL Draft. After leaving the Terps, Henderson could decide he wants to secure some money up front, and thus he could sell shares of himself equivalent to 2 percent of his career NFL earnings. His ticker symbol: ERIN … or better yet, STUD.

Henderson would get money right away and, assuming he gets signed by a team, additionally earn 98 percent of a still-hefty paycheck. Both player and investors have the potential to gain. For all you fantasy football gods out there who love to brag about your ability at finding the next best thing before anyone else, getting in on Erin early would be a terrific opportunity to make some money.

Read the rest here.

Siegel on The Future for Investors

I recently finished reading The Future for Investors (2005) by Dr. Jeremy Siegel, the well-known Wharton professor who authored the widely cited Stocks for the Long Run (1994). In his latest book, he outlines his methods for selecting winning stocks for the long-term in the context of current and future trends.

The major points of the book, as I saw it:

• Beware the "growth trap"
  

  In a nutshell, this means avoiding overpriced companies and industries.
  
  According to Siegel, fixating on high-growth companies or pursuing technological innovation is a mistake. (The subtitle of the book, in fact, is "Why the Tried and the True Triumph over the Bold and the New.") Such stocks often have high price valuations that indicate substantial built-in investor expectations. Thus the difference between expected and actual earnings is less, producing lower returns.
  
  The same factor can apply to industries, where he says fast growth causes increased competition amongst companies and too-high investor expectations, both of which negatively impact returns. "The financial and technology sectors expanded greatly over the past years [since 1957]," he says, "yet gave mediocre to poor returns." The three best performing sectors, Siegel says, have been health care, consumer staples, and energy--the latter of which has experienced a "significant contraction in market share."
  
  Siegel extends the "growth trap" lesson even to the issue of emerging markets. He uses the example of comparing Brazil and China. From 1992-2003, Brazil's economy grew at only 1.8% a year, less than one-fifth of China's. China, Siegel points out, also had a stable currency, no inflation problems, and political stability; Brazil was the opposite. Yet investment returns in Brazil averaged 15% a year while in China returns average -10% a year. The reason: "low prices and high dividend yield."
  

• Seek high dividend-yield stocks
  

  "From 1871 to 2003," Siegel writes, "97 percent of the total after-inflation accumulation from stocks comes from reinvesting dividends. Only 3 percent comes from capital gains." Dividends are the Holy Grail of Siegel's investing strategy. Companies that pay dividends regularly, he says, inspire shareholders' trust in management. More importantly, high dividend yields lead to higher returns, where re-invested dividends act as a cushion from a decline in price They also, due to the increased number of shares now owned by the investor, accelerate returns once a stock's price turns up.
  
  Siegel refers constantly to a list of the 20 top-performing survivor stocks of the original S&P 500. These companies, which beat the index over the past 47 years by between 2.8-8.9% a year, all paid dividends.
  
  One important point to consider here is the role of taxes, which Siegel glosses over. Of course, if you are investing in an IRA or other tax-sheltered account, this isn't a problem.
  

• Foreign markets will play a vital role in the global economy
  

  The impending demographic crisis in the developed world, Siegel warns, will have consequences. With an aging population leading to more retirees (who are also living longer) supported by fewer workers, the assets of older people will decrease in value and force the retirement age upward.
  
  However, Siegel thinks the answer lies in what he calls the Global Solution--"aging populations in the richer countries...supported by the young workers in the developing world." He posits that the growth of emerging economies like China and India will allow young people in those countries to purchase the assets of older people in developed countries, allowing the latter to enjoy "an ever-lengthening retirement without any reduction in the standard of living."
  
  The emergence of China and India, along with other promising countries like Russia and Brazil, is not without precedent. Siegel points out that in terms of U.S. per capita income, Japan has gone from 20% to 96% in the past 40 years; Singapore from 14% to 58% in the same time. In the last 25 years, South Korea has gone from 17% to 50%. I found it interesting that he says China could achieve the same goal with a productivity growth rate half of what it has averaged over the last 25 years, meaning it's more than likely to happen.
  

Those were the topics in the book I found most interesting. Siegel also covers other investment strategies, which I am not advocating here, in less detail. The strength of his book, however, lies in its discussion of the aforementioned themes. If you already have some experience with the stock market, and are interested in a look at what lies ahead, I think you'll find it worth a read.

Would You Like a Curry Pan With That?

Check out "Brand Magic in India", a great article in BusinessWeek about how popular American consumer brands are adapting their products to appeal to the Indian market. Some have more success than others. Kellogg found that Corn Flakes didn't fly in a country where people just don't like to start their mornings off with cold milk. Due to that cultural quirk, the product was doomed. Pizza Hut struggled to sell pizza with what we think of as traditional toppings--then introduced a "Tandoori Pizza" tailored to the local palate, and saw store traffic quadruple.

"The best brands," author Brad Nemer says, "are confident enough to adapt without compromising their core strengths. When faced with a new technology or market, they can translate the value proposition in meaningful ways that are consistent with both their heritage and their potential."

Consider the case of McDonald's, whose beef-centric product line was rendered useless in a country where cows are sacred to the Hindu population. You won't find pork products in Indian McDonalds either, so as to not offend Muslim sensibilities. Not only that, but a good number of Indians don't eat meat at all. What to do? Offer a vegetarian line, and a non-veg line free of beef or pork, of course. Vikram Bakshi, McDonald's managing director of India North, says "Today 70 percent of our menu is 'Indianized.'"

Top seller is something called the McAloo Tikki, described on the McDonalds India website as "Fried breaded potato & peas patty that is flavoured with a special spice mix, fresh tomato slices, onion, and veg. tomato mayonnaise between toasted buns." Don't miss the Paneer Salsa Wrap, Veg McCurry Pan, and the Chicken Maharaja Mac, all of which are favorites on the menu.

And yes, you can still get fries with that.

Not Business as Usual

(Click to enlarge.)

Bummed out by layoffs, corporate scandals, and outsourcing? Chin up, there's good news too. Readers of this blog will recognize a combination of ideas from a couple of previous posts last month in my newest Diamondback column, "Finish Your Homework". Here I acknowledge the threat of international competition in the "flat world" but point out why the U.S. needn't be too worried. Space restrictions required my magnum opus to be trimmed a bit, but I think it still gets the point across. An excerpt:

...several factors stand in the way of either China or India knocking the U.S. off its preeminent perch. Let us not forget the world’s most important and admired businesses today — companies such as Apple, Starbucks, Google, eBay and Goldman Sachs, to name a few — are distinctly American. I would tell my fellow Robert H. Smith School students it is probably unnecessary to bone up on Mandarin (though it couldn’t hurt) and we should not worry about spending our careers chasing after jobs in New Delhi or Shanghai. Nonetheless, one thing is clear: There are a lot of people on other continents out-hustling us Americans. While for now they might only represent a minority of their populations, more of them are springing up daily to take advantage of increased opportunities.

Click here to read the rest.

$2 Billion for Facebook?

This week's BusinessWeek report that Facebook, the online networking site, could fetch up to $2 billion in a sale doesn't seem to have raised enough eyebrows--and that has me worried. The proposed sale to a media giant like Viacom seems to me to be yet another example of "Old Economy" types paying outrageous sums for "New Economy" technology and companies they don't really understand.

Yes, Facebook is enormously popular. In little over two years, www.facebook.com has become the 7th most visited site on the Internet. For those not in the know, Facebook is an online directory and networking site for college students (the site also recently expanded to high schools). There isn't a college student in America who hasn't heard of Facebook, and virtually all off them are users of the site. Facebook has transcended noun status to become a verb as well. On campuses, to "Facebook" someone is easily as common as the verb "Google" is in popular culture.

But for those of you above the age of 30 and not in the know, Facebook allows users at each school to post profiles and link to friends, classmates, and people with shared interests. My profile, for example (see right), has a picture of me along with details like my major (finance), contact info, clubs and jobs, and favorite music ("hip hop, classic rock"), books, movies, etc.

All this makes the company sound like a worthwhile investment. Rupert Murdoch certainly thought so. Last year, his News Corp. paid $580 million for MySpace, an online journal site which has been in the news lately because some people on the Internet--gasp!--publish lewd content or misrepresent themselves or prey on underage children. None of this has hurt MySpace, and Murdoch has been lauded for his forward-thinking. (Reuters CEO Tom Gloceg called the acquisition a "turning point", adding "Sites like MySpace are rebuilding our world.")

Yet I've heard no one propose any avenues for Facebook's continued growth over the years. Right now, its revenue comes from the advertisements on the site. I think, however, that advertisers will find that most high schoolers (and middle- and elementary- schoolers if Facebook goes down that route of Kids Without Credit Cards) aren't exactly the type to buy products online. Currently the site gets a lot of page views from its college students, but now that its presence is established, growth will level off.

All things considered, I just don't like the idea of a company which makes its money exclusively through advertisements. Google may seem to defy this notion, but at least that company has tremendous room for expansion. Even then, I thought Google CFO George Reyes delivered a long overdue announcement last month when he announced "Our growth rates are slowing... We are going to have to find new ways to monetize the business." Shareholders didn't like to hear that news, but I'm glad management is confronting a future challenge.

I've told college friends in the past that Facebook, were the company to ever go public, would be the perfect IPO to get in on and ride for the short term. When even people like David Brooks give inches in their newspaper column trying to understand this online fad (he declared Facebook "rollicking but respectable"), you know the company has drawn a lot of attention. But "fad" is a good keyword here. I can't identify a sound fundamental reason why it'd be a good idea to pay an outrageous sum of money to own this company. Facebook, for its command of the young demographic alone, is worth something, but my figure would be a fraction of that $2 billion. Sumner Redstone, consider this your warning!

The Ink & Dead Tree Business

The recent sale and impending dismantling of the Knight-Ridder publishing empire seemed to be yet another sign of the unhealthy state of the newspaper industry. Yet in Monday's Washington Post, Robert Kaiser argues against that prevailing wisdom, saying "Newspapers have become some of the most profitable businesses in modern America."

While Kaiser argues, justifiably, that he prefers a newspaper to be privately held so as to be shielded from "Wall Street pressures", he says that most newspapers are nonetheless beating the 5-10% profit margin that traditional manufacturing industries like.

Is he right? I decided to look up how some leading newspaper publishers did in 2005, and for fun, compare that to the performance of some top companies in other industries. Check it out:

(Profit margin = net income / revenue)

All data via 2005 income statements from Yahoo! Finance.



* - General Motors has not released fourth quarter results from 2005, so data is through three quarters. Starbucks fiscal year is Oct. '04 - Sept. '05.

So while Kaiser was exaggerating a bit, it does appear that newspapers are holding their own. The six publishers above are, in order, the largest newspaper publishers by market cap, and each of them are turning decent profit margins. (Though Knight-Ridder was just bought by McClatchy, who intends to sell a number of the KR papers.) Tribune stacks up favorably against Dell, a company with revenues in the same ballpark. Gannett can arguably be compared to Apple.

In this light, reports of the demise of the "ink and dead tree" business appear to be unfounded. What remains to be seen is how newspapers adapt to deal with competition from other mediums that are stealing advertising and providing alternative content.

The Bright Side of American Business

Last week, I talked about foreign competition to U.S. business, citing reasons why countries like China and India are succeeding in the New Economy. But in closing, I also provided reasoning for why the U.S.'s strengths will allow it to maintain its superiority. For example, I offered that our "service-oriented economy" was equipped for the globalization era and pointed out that "our country is second to none at fostering an innovative and entrepreneurial environment."

In today's Washington Post, Sebastian Mallaby picks up where I left off to argue that "the heyday of American business may actually be now." Among the factors he lists are worker productivity, companies' return on equity, American management techniques, and better business practices. The "X factor", he says, is that we can meet contemporary challenges.

American business excels at managing service workers and knowledge workers: at equipping these people with technology, empowering them with the right level of independence and paying for performance. So the era of decentralized "network" businesses is the American era.

Moreover, America's business culture is perfectly matched to globalization. American executive suites and MBA courses are full of talented immigrants, so American managers think nothing of working in multicultural firms. The immigrants have links to their home countries, so Americans have an advantage in establishing global supply chains. The elites of Asia and Latin America compete to attend U.S. universities; when they return to their countries, they are keener to join the local operation of a U.S. company than of a German or Japanese one.

So the shift from manufacturing to services; the gallop of globalization; and the rise of information technology that flattens corporate hierarchies: All these forces come together to create an American moment.

Read the whole article; it's an interesting counter to the popular notion that America's competitive edge is in decline. And, if you're discouraged by news stories about companies like Enron and GM, check out the newly released BusinessWeek 50. Apple, Halliburton, Amgen, Goldman Sachs, Starbucks, and a plethora of energy companies, among others, highlight the best that American business has to offer today. For now, it appears Uncle Sam is doing A-OK.

Enron's "Conspiracy of Fools"

"These people who made $50 million a year, they destroyed the company because of their greed."

"How will I be able to file for unemployment and food stamps?"

-- Enron employees react after the layoff of 4,000 workers in Dec. 2001

We all remember the basic story: Enron Corporation had long been a giant in the business and political world. Its fall came swifter than anyone could have imagined. In 2001, as evidence of staggering corporate malfeasance slowly came to light, Enron's stock fell from $85 to a mere $0.30, ruining the lives of thousands of investors and employees. Enron also turned out to be just the first in a series of high-profile companies whose fraudulent practices were exposed, turning the first half of the decade into the era of robber barons getting their comeuppance. Out of the wreckage, Congress would pass the controversial Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the most important securities reform since the New Deal.

Now in a recently released book, Conspiracy of Fools, New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald recreates the long and twisted saga of the biggest corporate failure ever. In a 750+ page account written in the style of a John Grisham thriller, the book is a blow-by-blow detailed account that chronicles Enron from its very beginning to its disastrous end. Along the way, we are introduced to the whole infamous cast of characters, led of course by Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and Andy Fastow.

The first 2/3 or so of the book makes for a decent read, but isn't particularly scintillating. Eichenwald starts back more than a decade from the events of 2001, to show how everything came to happen the way it did, but occasionally while I was reading this section I was impatient to get to the thick of the story. Furthermore, Eichenwald's detailed description of Enron's complex financial maneuvering are rife with technical jargon aimed a bit above the average reader. While the laymen such as myself get the general idea that something is going wrong, Eichenwald's efforts here would probably be better appreciated by a reader with a background in accounting or finance. Still, the story of Enron is a long and complicated one, and Eichenwald does a good job (in the space of about 500 pages) to bring all the key pieces of the puzzle together.

With the setup complete, the book dazzles in the last 250 pages, moving at breakneck speed to keep up with Enron's stack-of-dominos collapse. Conspiracy's most page-turning moments come with its "insider" perspective on an out-of-control train wreck. Everything is there: the futile efforts of Enron insiders to notify the company of trouble ahead; the executive coverups and insistence that everything was okay; and of course, the ultimate, tragic demise. The story is well-written and superbly told--as I turned through the last pages of Conspiracy of Fools, I was left profoundly saddened by the culture of incompetence and arrogance Eichenwald reveals.

The book has its share of heroes and villains, though the former group obviously fights a losing battle. Eichenwald's chief protagonist and Bad Guy is Enron's CFO, Andy Fastow, who ruined Enron with his phony financial shenanigans and embezzled millions of dollars for himself, family, and friends. Eichenwald has drawn some criticism for not focusing as much on Enron's president, Jeff Skilling (portrayed as emotionally unbalanced and easily manipulated), and CEO Ken Lay (portrayed as a mostly clueless figurehead). On this note, I too find fault with Eichenwald. Regardless of the level of direct complicity on the parts of Skilling and Lay, they are at fault for allowing what went on to ever happen. Positions of great power come with the necessity to exercise responsible oversight, especially when the stakes are as high as they were.

All in all though, Kurt Eichenwald has done a terrific job in putting together a readable, informative, and entertaining presentation of one of the most important events in recent American history. Conspiracy of Fools tells a story too important for us to forget.