Every story has a beginning. Here's Moniker's:
‘That was my MBA,’ concluded Mark, my once macro-economics professor at Oxford.
‘Your MBA?’
‘My Business Attempt,’ Mark laughed and rubbed a palm over his bald pate. He has this self-deprecating sort of laugh that suits his soft voice perfectly.
We were sitting in Mark’s office, catching up. It had been a while. He had a few more papers under his belt; I had just relocated to Beijing, where I was sort-of-writing a screenplay, sort-of learning Mandarin, sort-of doing a lot of things, I guess…and sort-of thinking about starting up a business. A few months before, Mark had come out of some pretty serious surgery to have a tumor removed from his brain. He had always been one to make the most out of life – now he just talked about it more. He continued.
‘Everyone should do an MBA. Everyone. Not for fame or to get rich – those are pretty boring goals in the big picture – but so that you learn how to build “stuff” that lasts. How do you take an idea – it’s just a thought in your head, and god knows where it came from – and turn it into real stuff, that people can see and play with and be affected by?’ ‘I can’t teach it to you. You can’t learn it at business school. You have to put your own money and your own security on the line. It’s scary. But if you get there…’ Mark was groping for the words to share his emotions. ‘…It’s really cool. Until you’ve experienced what it is to take economic risk and build capital, you’re missing out on one of the central ideas of our civilization.’
He had me hooked. Damn, but Mark knew how to hold his students’ attention.
I laughed. ‘I guess the biggest question—’
‘The only thing I would say,’ Mark’s mind, moving fast, was already onto my next question, ‘is this: aim for luxury. That, and do something disruptive. But aim for luxury. Make something high quality, because that’s where the growth is. Here’s the one macro-economic statistic that every entrepreneur, I mean every entrepreneur, needs to know: real income in the average household is rising only about 1% per year, after inflation and all that. But in the top 20 or 30 percent of houses, it’s like 4% a year. It may not sound like a big deal, but over time, it’s a huge gap. That one statistic totally shapes the spending habits of the Western world. Why do you think BMW, organic foods, Starbucks…’ He rambled a long list I can’t remember them all, ‘are all doing so well?’
‘Maybe I can—‘
‘And now you’re living in China,’ Mark, half-rising, cut me off again. ‘I mean, how cool is that? It's the final stop in global manufacturing. Every name that stands for quality, at some point in the process, is doing stuff in China. Labor costs are low, logistics are world-class. It’s a no-brainer. My generation still has this outdated idea that China factories only churn out garbage. I guess some still do. But your generation knows better. The good factories, the ones doing business for Intel and Apple and Armani, they’ve all flown in experts from the US and machines from Germany. And now you’ve got this amazing tool called the Internet to fit it all together. There’s a billion ways you can put it all together and do something really disruptive and useful and fun. Wow.’
He slumped back in his chair. An apostle of entrepreneurship exhausted by his latest revelation.
Finally, he just nodded. ‘Yeah. Get your MBA.’
He glanced at his watch. ‘Whoa, time’s up.’
We shared a laugh. Just like old times. Mark was right. It was time to catch my flight back to Beijing. We stood up, shook hands.
His eyes were still twinkling, excited about the maybe’s he’d just tossed up. ‘See you ‘round, Mark.’
‘See you. Good to catch up.’
‘Yeah.’ I stepped out into the hall, let his door close behind me.
‘And don’t forget to write about it!’ He shouted through the wood.
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