Ian Sefferman

Slicing and dicing the iPhone App Store

Fri, 22 May 2009 16:15:14 -0400

In the past week or so we’ve (AppStoreHQ) launched a bunch of new features that allow you to discover the exact iPhone app you’re looking for. Now, you can browse by price, rating, and category. Then you can drill down based on any of those parameters as well. Search works much the same way. So, I figured I’d take it for a quick test drive and try out a query:

Start with a search for pyramid.
Drill down to apps between $2.00-$4.99.
Find me only the Games in these results.
I only want 5 star rated apps.

Voila! Now I have the perfect app for me, Pyramid Bloxx. And, since I’m writing about Pyramid Bloxx, I might as well include some information for my readers by including our widget: Find iPhone apps at AppStoreHQ

AppStoreHQ Latest Blog Posts widget

Tue, 12 May 2009 19:46:00 -0400

We just released our new Latest Posts widget. Basically, it’s an embeddable widget of our homepage, showing the latest blog posts about all mobile applications. Here’s an example:

Find iPhone apps at AppStoreHQ

It’s embeddable as a widget on Google, Facebook, Netvibes, etc, as well as on any web page. Embed it using the Get/Share button at the bottom or learn more by visiting the AppStoreHQ blog.

Flight Control iPhone App

Wed, 06 May 2009 13:56:54 -0400

For the past week or so, I’ve been playing Flight Control, one of the most addicting games I’ve played in a long time.

For those who haven’t yet heard of Flight Control (it’s possibly the top selling iPhone app), basically your goal is to take some planes and make them land on a runway without crashing into each other. Simple. But addicting.

Anyways, if you haven’t played Flight Control yet, I highly recommend checking it out at AppStoreHQ and reading the description, seeing other blog posts about it, and reading reviews.

Find iPhone apps at AppStoreHQ

Keeping The Ride Alive in Seattle. April 18, 2007.

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 14:20:55 -0400

Keeping The Ride Alive in Seattle. April 18, 2007.

"[Today] is Paul Revere Day, so wear your Keep The Ride Alive T-shirts with pride to commemorate the..."

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 14:17:00 -0400

“

[Today] is Paul Revere Day, so wear your Keep The Ride Alive T-shirts with pride to commemorate the midnight ride of Paul Revere and the power of an individual: “On April 18th, 1775, Paul Revere and other riders set out to warn the American farmers and villagers that the time had come to fight for our freedom.

As individuals, these riders combined to help launch the American quest for independence- an independence that gives each of us opportunities and the freedom to engage in our own personal rides that can make a difference.

So on April 18th, we salute Paul Revere and the others who fought for our freedom, demonstrating the power of a single individual. To them we owe not only gratitude for our freedom, but also the responsibility to KEEP THE RIDE ALIVE- as a reminder of our own potential as individuals.”

Happy Paul Revere Day!

”

- by Colleen.

Today is a great day, where over 350 people across this country (and in 7 other countries) are wearing a Keep The Ride Alive t-shirt to honor the midnight ride of Paul Revere and the power of an individual.

Whether or not you’re wearing a shirt, take a moment to tell someone about what Paul Revere did 234 years ago today and how one person can make an impact!

Dear Facebook's 200,000,000th user, here's what you missed...

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:14:44 -0400

With all the backlash recently against Facebook, I’ve been thinking about writing a post about the Good Ole’ Days, back when I joined in college. UChicago was probably 10th or 15th on the list of schools allowed to join Facebook, and within UChicago users, I was number 28 to sign up (you could tell this back then because your user ID included the ID for your school followed by your ID, in my case it’s: 2900028). Now that there are 200 million users on Facebook, I felt it’s time to share some things that later users may have missed or that were never publicized.

So, user 200,000,000, here are some things you missed in the last few years:

The Creator: Every time Facebook would open up at a new school,user ID 1 would be reserved for The Creator, aka Mark Zuckerberg. He would friend all of the early users for each network. At some point, he must’ve thought this was unprofessional, didn’t scale, or something, and he got rid of this account. Now if you go to a URL like http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=2900001, you’ll see it just redirect you back to the homepage with no warnings or errors.
The Official Beer Pong Tournament: Back when Facebook didn’t know how to make money (oh wait…), they tried lots of questionable tactics. One of the more “successful” ones, at least until the lawyers got involved, was the annual Facebook Beer Pong tournament. They would invite people from all networks to come to a beer pong tournament where they charged entry fees and took a cut. Sadly, I don’t think this lasted more than one or two years.
No outside network contacts: It took quite a bit of time before you could friend people at other schools. This meant that Facebook really was just a directory of the people at your school and nothing more. There was no connecting with high school friends, business colleagues, or anyone else. If they didn’t go to your school, they didn’t exist.
Date Registered: For bragging rights, there was a field on every profile page for the Date Registered. Being one of the only features of the site at the time, it was actually something that people cared about and took more seriously than I can rationally explain now.
Lack of…: Speaking of lack of features, as the 200 millionth user here are some you’ll take for granted, but were not always part of the system:
- Photos. It was years before there was any photo system in Facebook, so feel lucky to keep up with your friends visually.
- Wall. The wall did come pretty early, but it wasn’t always there. This was really the first step to interaction on Facebook. Before that, it was just a directory.
- Status. These days, keeping up with someone is as easy as following their status. Back then, not so much.
- News Feed. The news feed was by far the most revolutionary thing that Facebook ever did. It not only changed the way people interact with Facebook, but really with the web as a whole. It’s probably the most copied feature of Facebook, and for good reason. Facebook is nothing today without the News Feed.

Welcome, 200,000,000th user, and enjoy yourself.

Sincerely,
Ian

Leaving Amazon: What I learned over the last four years

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:09:52 -0400

Most of the people who read this blog likely already know this, but for those who don’t it’s worth making public.

Last Friday — March 20, 2009 — was my final day working at one of the greatest, most innovative and well-run companies in the world: Amazon.com. This comes after three years of full-time work and a summer internship in 2005. Surprisingly (or not, if you know Amazon’s growth), that made me older than something like 80% of all Amazon employees in Seattle, the headquarters (and older than a much higher percentage of ALL Amazon employees).

I wanted to write up a quick note about my experiences at Amazon as well as some hints as to what’s in store next for me.

In my opinion (which is, admittedly, very biased since Amazon has been the only company I’ve ever worked for full-time) Amazon is perhaps one of the greatest companies led by one of the most brilliant CEO’s and leadership team in the world.

During my final one-on-one with my manager, he asked me what my biggest takeaways from my time at Amazon were. It wasn’t a question I had necessarily thought about before that time, but it didn’t take me too long to come to an answer:

Customer obsession is the single most important asset you can have as a company. Every second of every day you should be able to know exactly why you are working on whatever it is you are working on and how that helps the customer. What about it makes their life easier and their experience with your company better?

I worked as a software developer on the Email Platform team. That meant, among other things, we were responsible for sending massive amounts of marketing and transactional mail to customers. Obviously, not all customers find this to be the greatest experience, so it was particularly important for our team to ensure that we did not send spam, and we targeted each mail directly to those customers who would be interested in receiving the mail. The words “customer experience” were perhaps two of the most uttered words on our team each and every day.
Frugality and Innovation are not only both extremely important, but also work hand-in-hand. One of Amazon’s core values is Frugality. In my opinion, this was born out of necessity and intelligence. It’s no secret that Amazon didn’t make a profit for quite some time and the media was predicting their demise (Amazon.bomb), so they simply couldn’t spend money frivolously. Anywhere they could save money, they did; even including the desks they give to employees (“door desks” made out of 4x4”s for legs and a door for the top). They worked hard and spent little to become the successful, profitable, respected company they are today.

But, I don’t think this is the only reason Frugality is a core value. Amazon’s focus on customer experience means that they are always trying to lower prices. If the company can do something more cheaply and pass those savings on to the customer, they will.

This focus on frugality means that the company has to be highly innovative. It it always trying to find new ways to do things more cheaply and efficiently in every aspect of the business. Amazon is a well-oiled machine in that regard. They never stop exploring and never settle for the status quo as the only way to do things. From my vantage point, the rate of change at Amazon is unrivaled.

These two core values from Amazon will last a lifetime and will be there in every subsequent job I do.

If you’re wondering what’s next, I’m not going to spill the beans on everything quite yet, since it’s all still very early, but I’ve begun working with a couple great and super-smart folks on a project I’m really, really excited about.

Forget Skittles, WeAllHateQuickbooks is brilliant

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:40:41 -0500

I was undecided how I felt about the Skittles marketing gimmick (showing the Twitter search results for “skittles”). In the end, I decided it was brilliant, at least short-term. I’m still on the fence as to whether it amounts to something good long-term for a huge brand like Skittles.

However, for a smaller brand, like Less Accounting, who are competing against an established competitor whose product everyone hates, it really seems brilliant. Which is they they launched WeAllHateQuickbooks. It seems like the perfect way to position themselves as the solution to the Quickbooks problem.

P.S. Here’s their take on it.

[via Jackson Fish Market]

"Within seconds, a diminutive dynamo of a man embraced me and whispered in my ear: “Fantastic!..."

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:37:37 -0500

“

Within seconds, a diminutive dynamo of a man embraced me and whispered in my ear: “Fantastic! I’m in. You’ve got your first investor!”

He turned out to be Rich Silverstein of Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, one of the four best creative ad agencies in the world – and with the Clios in the reception area to prove it. An F1 fan from the days his San Francisco ad agency handled the HP F1 account for Williams, Rich had initially been skeptical: “An F1 team now? With the economy like this and Honda pulling out? Boy, you guys like a challenge…”

Then he got it. Then he understood the brilliance of Bernie Ecclestone’s F1 ecomony, the strong, rule-changing reaction of the FIA – and the simplicity with which a Skunk Works F1 team could be assembled in the US.

We were truly on our way. For Ken and me, this was maybe the best moment of our working lives to date – and other investors would follow within days.

Now, a short month later, we have exceeded our investment targets and have the capital we need. The support and enthusiasm for USF1 has been nothing short of overwhelming. As clichéd as it is, the NASA-speak is irresistible: we have lift-off!

”

- Peter Windsor on the forming of USF1. I’m extremely excited to see how this comes together, and hope for all good things! But, I’m slightly surprised at the lack of publicity about who are the investors. This was the first mention I could find; even running a “lean, mean, and Skunk Works” F1 team takes a lot of cash, so I’d love to know who it’s coming from.

The Business Is Evil Argument

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:18:26 -0500

Today I overheard some people talking about Twitter and Facebook. They were talking about lots of uninteresting things, in my opinion, but there was one thing in particular which caught my attention. I call it The Business Is Evil Argument. It goes something like this:

Person A: Facebook recently claimed that they own all your data you place on Facebook forever.
Person B: Really? Wow. That has interesting Intellectual Property fallout. What if you ask your friends via Facebook whether they like an idea you have for a startup? If you then go pursue that idea, Facebook could wipe you out by saying the idea is actually theirs because they own the data where you conceived of the idea.

This is what I call The Business Is Evil Argument. It’s the equivalent of spreading FUD. Consider me naive, but I believe the majority of companies actually like their customers and users and want to provide them with a valuable service. They wouldn’t be in business if they didn’t, and they certainly wouldn’t be successful.

In this case, why would Facebook ever want to steal your idea that you happened to message to a few friends on their service? Doing that would bring such punishment from their users (remember the News Feed/Beacon/TOS/etc backlash?) that after just once, everyone would flee the service.

Note to self: Google provides free IP Geolocation

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:06:27 -0500

This is why I like tinkering with new things: not only do I learn said new thing, but I tend to learn a lot more. For example, I’ve been hacking on a random Rails app since last Friday, to help me experience first-hand Git, GitHub, Collaborative Filtering, restful_authentication, attachment_fu, RSpec, etc.

Then I decided to dive into jQuery. I’m no level 67 front-end master, but I like to pretend I can fake it until I make it. And, since jQuery seems to be getting all the attention these days, I figured I’d check it out. One thing I thought about, with regards to loading big javascript files is the size. Caching is obviously good. That thought brushed off the cobwebs in my brain and reminded me that Google hosts many JS frameworks you can use, meaning the user may already have it loaded.

I looked up the Google hosting, which brought me to Google AJAX Libraries API. I dove in a little deeper and found this:

google.loader.ClientLocation
When an application makes use of the AJAX API loader, the loader attempts to geo locate the client based on it’s IP address. If this process succeeds, the client’s location, scoped to the metro level, is made available in the google.loader.ClientLocation property.

There are lots of IP geolocation solutions out there, but they’re often bad and/or expensive. But, because of random tinkering, I now know of a good solution for free. And this post will forever serve to remind me of that fact.

"And yet Detroit was once a vibrant place, the fourth-largest city in the country, and it lives in..."

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:25:06 -0500

“

And yet Detroit was once a vibrant place, the fourth-largest city in the country, and it lives in the hope that those days, against all logic, will somehow return. We are downtrodden, perhaps, but the most downtrodden optimists you will ever meet. We cling to our ways, no matter how provincial they seem on the coasts. We get excited about the Auto Show. We celebrate Sweetest Day. We eat Coney dogs all year and we cruise classic cars down Woodward Avenue every August and we bake punchki donuts the week before Lent. We don’t talk about whether Detroit will be fixed but when Detroit will be fixed.

And we are modest. In truth, we battle an inferiority complex. We gave the world the automobile. Now the world wants to scold us for it. We gave the world Motown music. Motown moved its offices to L.A. When I arrived 24 years ago, to be a sports columnist at the Detroit Free Press, I discovered several letters waiting for me at the office. Mind you, I had not written a word. My hiring had been announced, that’s all. But there were already letters. Handwritten. And they all said, in effect, “Welcome to Detroit. We know you won’t stay long, because nobody good stays for long, but we hope you like it while you’re here.”

Nobody good stays for long.

We hope you like it while you’re here.

How could you not stay in a city like that?

…

Because what they see — what all Detroit sees — is a nation that appears ready to flick us away like lint. We see senators voting our death sentence. We see bankers clucking their tongues at our business model (as if we invented the credit default swap!). We see Californians knock our cars for ruining the environment (as if their endless driving has nothing to do with it). We see sports announcers call our football team “ridiculous.” Heck, during the Lions’ annual Thanksgiving game, CBS’s Shannon Sharpe actually wore a bag over his head.

”

- The Courage of Detroit, Mitch Albom.

This is a great article on Detroiter’s pride. It’s something that’s very real but difficult to understand, and definitely not replicated anywhere else.

Localized Energy Independence and the P2P Grid

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 16:21:07 -0500

(Note: Admittedly, this is an area in which I have very little knowledge or education. This is also a very un-fleshed out idea. But, hey, blogs were made for uneducated people to make broad generalizations, right? If you’re more well-informed here, please do comment.)

As we move towards energy independence, I think we should be looking at the energy industry with more of a blank canvas than we are currently. For example, we simply take for granted the power grid and the fact that energy comes from some external provider. Rather, while things like wind turbines and solar panels and battery technology become more efficient, cheaper, and smaller, it seems like we could get to the point of localized energy independence. That is, my house (plus all my belongings: car, etc) could be energy independent.

Obviously, this isn’t something new, people have been saying this for quite some time. What few people are talking about, however, is the fact that once each piece of property becomes energy independent is that we can then re-build our grid to be more P2P. I don’t want to be without power and cut off from the world simply because my solar panel broke and I ran out of my battery reserves. I want to leach, just for a little bit, from my neighbors. They won’t mind, because it’ll come back to them when they have a problem (it’s like knocking on the door asking for sugar!). Of course, power companies aren’t completely forgotten; they can take the role of the “supernodes” we see often in P2P applications.

I think this would really open our country up to thinking about power in entirely different ways:

It would mean that you can use whatever energy you can provide to your property the most cheaply (and, of course, we could tax those using unclean energy to make it less cost-effective). That opens up worlds of possibilities like, for example, Tyson farms using chicken schmaltz to power their trucks (a great way to recycle waste).
With more power sources (i.e. one per property), our fault tolerance actually rises. No longer will we have to worry about entire regions blacking out due to software bugs since all bugs will be localized to one or just a few properties.
Furthermore, if we continue to develop clean power sources without thinking about decentralization, we do run the risk of actually adding single-points-of-failure to our electrical grid. If we go, say, with a combination of wind and solar, most of the solar farms will be in the southwest while most of the wind farms will be in the plains. These farms will be large and will be consolidated very closely to each other. Enemies will have comparatively fewer targets to look for to knock the grid out.
Rather than having the same shitty power companies to deal with, where we still spend money on power each month, the power companies will become the “supernodes”, who can store our excess power each month until we need it back (and only charging us if we really do go over). Moreover, they can become the technicians who help restore power in case of failures. Their role shifts to a more service oriented company which means competition can begin and the consumer will win as prices fall and quality rises.

My Thoughts On An Auto Bailout

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:20:00 -0500

Anybody who knows me knows what Detroit means to me. If you’ve been keeping track, you also know I was against the financial bailout. The Auto Industry bailout has been harder for me to decide my true feelings. I can come up with compelling arguments both ways, not to mention the emotional investment I have with Detroit (and the family ties to Ford).

First, the financial industry is really a bunch of douchebags (sorry, friends, who work there, but you know it, too) who are too greedy for their own good. The workers in the Big 3 are, for the most part, hard working, blue collar factory workers who deserve every dollar they get. If the financial industry was bailed out, so should be the Big 3. +1 for the bailout.

But, cars are fairly substitute-able, and I’m happy to have the best company win. -1 for the bailout.

But, we’ve already given $3.5 TRILLION dollars to financial companies.. What’s another $25 billion to keep people in their jobs long enough to make a difference and hopefully cause these companies to change for the better? I likely wouldn’t feel this way if we hadn’t given so much out already, but since we have, hey, let’s just keep going! +1 for the bailout.

The Big-3 haven’t been mismanaged for a couple years, they’ve been mismanaged for at least three decades now. They don’t deserve a bailout on that basis alone. Moreover, their executives don’t even understand how badly they’ve mismanaged the companies. It’s shocking to me how much of an idiot Rick Wagoner is. And let’s not get started on the executive pay which is clearly not tied to financial performance. -1 for the bailout.

The Biggest Reason: Unions

But, the biggest reason why I think the Big 3 should NOT be bailed out is because of the unions. There is no question in my mind (and this comes from someone with grandparents receiving a pension check — which they don’t need to survive — each month from Ford) that the unions are at least 80% to blame for the failure of the Big 3.

The Big 3 are unfathomably nice. It’s shocking to me, really. As a 24 year old, I can’t imagine any company being as nice to me as the Big 3 are to their current and former workers. (Hey, I’m not complaining about the many discounts my family has received on Fords, Jaguars, Volvos, and others. But we probably didn’t deserve it.)

And the Big 3 continuously backs down the unions. The unions finally made some concessions a couple years ago, but not nearly enough, and not nearly early enough.

But now, in the midst of bankruptcy of the Big 3, they say they won’t make any concessions. Seriously: are they sick?

Now I am 100% confident that the Big 3 must go bankrupt. For one reason: to be able to have a fair way to get out of the unions. This is their chance for a mulligan. A chance to get with the times, and offer competitive pay and benefits, without losing their shirts in the process. Something that benefits both the employees and the employer and aligns the interests of all involved, from the factory workers to the CEO.

UPDATE (11/19/08): I just saw Gary Becker, Nobel laureate and UChicago professor, had written much of the same as I did:

Nevertheless, I believe bankruptcy is better than a bailout for American consumers and taxpayers. The main problem with American auto companies is that during the good times of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, they made overly generous settlements with the United Auto workers (UAW) on wages, pensions, and health benefits. Only a couple of years ago, GM was paying $5 billion per year in health benefits to retirees and current employees because their plans had wide health coverage with minimal co-payments and deductibility on health claims by present and retired employees. In those days, the UAW was one of the most powerful unions in the US, and it bargained aggressively with the auto manufacturers, carrying out strikes when its demands were not met. When the American auto industry began to face tough competition from Japanese and German carmakers, they were saddled with excessive pay to their workers, and vastly excessive pensions and health benefits to their current and retired workers.

Two Things on Politics

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:10:54 -0500

I’m not a real political guy, and am certainly not a supporter of a single party (as evidenced by my 4 Democrat, 4 Republican, and 3 Libertarian votes this year), but on this Election Day Eve I do have a couple (not original) thoughts about the overall health of our democracy and how to improve it.

1) We learn as children, and often talk about as adults, that voting is our duty. If we really believe that, let’s make it mandatory. I’ve heard arguments against this, but really, none of them are particularly convincing to me.
2) Along with making voting required, let’s do our best to help lessen the impact of our two party system. One idea I support, which is simple and elegant, is Instant Runoff Voting. It won’t solve the problem entirely, but it’d certainly make it more appealing to vote for a third-party candidate without feeling as though my ballot was wasted.

"Its always the new idea that re energizes this country. Industry, manufacturing, transportation,..."

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:13:06 -0400

“

Its always the new idea that re energizes this country. Industry, manufacturing, transportation, technology, digital communications, etc, each changed how we lived and ignited our economy and standard of living. Tax policy has never done that. The American People have.

Entrepreneurs who create something out of nothing don’t care what tax rates are. Bill Gates didn’t monitor the marginal tax rate when he dropped out of Harvard and started MicroSoft (btw, it was a ton higher than it is today). Michael Dell didn’t wonder what the capital gains tax was when he started PC’s Limited, and then grew it into Dell Computer. I doubt that any great business or invention started with a discussion or even a consideration of what the current or projected income or capital gains tax was or would be.

”

- Mark Cuban - The Cure To Our Economic Problems

Just so we're clear: CXO pay is STILL a problem

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:47:59 -0400

Lost in the news of WaMu’s collapse is this piece:

But the seizure and the deal with JPMorgan came as a shock to Washington Mutual’s board, which was kept completely in the dark: the company’s new chief executive, Alan H. Fishman, was in midair, flying from New York to Seattle at the time the deal was finally brokered, according to people briefed on the situation. Mr. Fishman, who has been on the job for less than three weeks, is eligible for $11.6 million in cash severance and will get to keep his $7.5 million signing bonus, according to an analysis by James F. Reda and Associates.

Let’s do the math:
Fishman started on September 8. The sale of WaMu happened on September 25. That’s 14 weekdays. Let’s assume he was working 10-12 hour days, so we’ll say on average 11 hours. 14*11 = 154 total hours as CEO. If he doesn’t receive any severance, he will have made $48,701.30 per hour. If he receives his full severance, he will have made $124,025.97 per hour.

Of course, had they not hired anyone, a similar outcome was likely.

"For years now, they’ve told us that we can’t afford—that the government providing healthcare to all..."

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:18:48 -0400

“For years now, they’ve told us that we can’t afford—that the government providing healthcare to all people is just unimaginable; it can’t be done. We don’t have the money to rebuild our infrastructure. We don’t have the money to wipe out poverty. We can’t do it. But all of a sudden, yeah, we do have $700 billion for a bailout of Wall Street.”

- Sen. Bernie Sanders on Democracy Now! (via glueslabs) (via toldorknown) (via tedr) (via rafer) (via bijan)

"This is when I realized how trained I was in the processes at my former workplaces. This email would..."

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:18:12 -0400

“This is when I realized how trained I was in the processes at my former workplaces. This email would have been delayed until it was perfect at Crate and Barrel, and I had trouble releasing the design when there was a way to further improve it. After fixing this there would be another thing and then another thing. A 2-day project would drag on for a week of redesign, approval, and development. Instead we deployed what we had because it is better than what we have now. Done. I finally got Real.”

- Behind the scenes: Getting Real with free Campfire accounts

Obama's Economics and his background from The University of Chicago

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:31:00 -0400

The Libertarian Case For Obama:

3. One word: Osmosis. You couldn’t live in Hyde Park or teach at the University of Chicago with the intellectual curiosity of a Barack Obama without gaining at least some understanding of libertarian economics. That can’t be said for most of the reactionary left-liberal wing of the Democratic Party dominating Capitol Hill. But I believe Obama is educable on free markets and I’m convinced that Democrats are ripe for a return in the next decade to the liberalism of our party’s founder, Thomas Jefferson.

As a UChicagoan, there at the same time as Barack, I absolutely concur with this statement. No matter what your views, learning something about Chicago economics will happen, and will affect you.

For another interesting look at Obama’s economic thoughts, check out this NYT Magazine article from August, entitled “Obamanomics: Barack Obama, A Free-Market-Loving, Big-Spending, Fiscally Conservative Wealth Redistributionist. It explains more about how UChicago affected his economic viewpoints:

Obama, when I asked him, agreed that his years surrounded by Chicago School thinking affected him. He tends to assign his motives to more intimate narratives, though, and he said that his grandmother, a high-school graduate who rose to become the vice president of a bank and was the family’s main breadwinner, had the biggest impact. “She had to think very practically about, How do you make money?” he told me. “How does the system work? That led me to have an orientation to ask hardheaded questions. During my formative years, there was still ideological competition between a social-democratic or even socialist agenda and a free-market, Milton Friedman agenda. I think it was natural for me to ask questions of both sides and maybe try to synthesize approaches.”

There is plenty of evidence that this synthesis isn’t merely a part of a candidate’s inevitable tack to the center for a general election. In Obama’s memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” he sympathetically recounts a conversation he had with a Kenyan farmer, in which the man complains both about rich people who won’t pay their fair share of taxes and about burdensome government regulations on coffee growing. In Obama’s second book, “The Audacity of Hope,” he goes further: “Reagan’s central insight — that the liberal welfare state had grown complacent and overly bureaucratic, with Democratic policy makers more obsessed with slicing the economic pie than with growing that pie — contained a good deal of truth.”