Businessweek announce the best performing top 5 companies in the world - but the only competitors have to be S&P 500 companies.

Nope, last year’s #1 company, Google did not make the list, it was actually #34!

Here are the 2008 winners:

1. Coach - Yeah, seriously they make handbags.

* They were awarded for being the best at adapting to the shifting economy. Basically people are poorer, so they released cheaper handbags.

2. Gilead Sciences - A biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures and commercializes therapies for viral diseases, infectious diseases and cancer.

* They are being rewarded for innovating in medications for HIV patients. They’ve made a treatment that allows just ONE pill a day, rather than 20 that many patients have to take.

3. Allegheny Technologies - One of the largest and most diversified specialty metals producers in the world with revenues of $5.5 billion during 2007.

4. Verizon Communications - We all know Verizon, phone, cell phone and high speed interenet.

5. Questar - Questar Corporation is a natural gas-focused energy company.

Too bad for our friends at Apple, they were in at #6 - I guess if they had partnered with Verizon rather than AT&T, maybe they could have made the top 5?

So there you go enterprising CEOs - a list of companies to aspire to.

Popularity: 44% [?]

I actually have not RECENTLY met Mr. Buffet, it has been about 3 years, I met him while still in college through a program. A few of us were hand chosen to fly out to Omaha and meet him.

He does a program every month where some students come to spend a day with him.

Overall the day was great, we started the morning with a round table session with him where we discussed the U.S. Economy and how he chooses his investments. By the way, he straight out says that the U.S. is in deep trouble with China - we need to stop borrowing money from them.

He was a bit amusing - he has that “old man” sense of humor, but it was refreshing.

For example, he owns about 8% of Coca-Cola so he INSISTED that we all at least hold one drink in our hands and open it. He said, for every 1 of 12 opened, he made money. It was funny out of his mouth.

A few interesting points though…

1. He did not seem to want to talk about his family/kids.
2. He drives an OLD beat-up car.
3. Still lives in his old house
4. Office is NOT impressive and he actually leases most of it out.
5. Most people in Omaha are NOT fans of him - they think he’s cheap too…

Why I was not only disappointed, but even OFFENDED…

First of all, we were all college students paying our own way (and that was hard enough). But, would you believe that for the 30 of us, we all had to PRE-pay our lunch, it was $8 a person. That is a total of $240 that he could not even cover for us?

We ate at his “favorite” restaurant and it sucked - the chicken was dry, pink and felt like it was cooked the night before.

The entire time he was showing us his wallet with over $3,000 in cash in there and a black card, yet he could not even pay our $8 lunch?

The man is a genius, but he is seriously too cheap for his own good, but it was an honor meeting him - definitely one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

Popularity: 26% [?]

So, in an effort to continue doing my “CEO” reviews of different airlines, today I’ll review United Airlines. Just in case you’re interested, I’ve reviewed the following airlines so far:

Qatar Airways
Northwest Airlines

For United, I actually booked through US Airways (where I have a ton of miles) and again, was lucky to get the First Class upgrade for free. However, the flight was being operated by United Airlines.

The First Class here was ‘OK’ - I don’t have anything too good or too bad. The seats are NOT leather and are a bit smaller than even the Northwest ones were. My biggest 2 complaints here would be:

1. Seats not wide enough
2. No food (we were on a red-eye so it didn’t matter as much)

However, I was impressed with…

1. 100% on-time (down to the minute)
2. Friendly staff and willing to help
3. Check-in process - NICE, got to skip ALL lines (including security).

Overall, not bad - going across the country, the prices are about 100% more, sometimes 200% more. Given that, not sure if a 5 hour flight is worth paying THAT much for, but if it’s free - no big deal!

Popularity: 23% [?]

Part 6 of CEOs Dinner

Another great stat from last Thursday night’s dinner, this again from the same angel investor. He revealed something that I was shocked by!

The Inc 500 is a list that is published every year of the 500 fastest growing small businesses in the country (they do an Inc 5000) as well.

This investor revealed that over 85% of the companies on this list have never taken money from an outside investor! 85%!

So, think again if you want to raise money, is it really a good idea?

Popularity: 45% [?]

I suspect highly that this is a joke by Google or else someone there is on some good crack…

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html

Google is allowing you to BACK date your e-mails and send e-mails to the past (but of course only until April1, 2004 - launch date). This is such a weird April Fool’s joke, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense…

How do I use it?

Just click “Set custom time” from the Compose view. Any email you send to the past appears in the proper chronological order in your recipient’s inbox. You can opt for it to show up read or unread by selecting the appropriate option.

Here is another one…

Ahhh Google and their sense of humor - keeping it real and great culture.

All you entrepreneurs and CEOs can learn something from them!

Popularity: 28% [?]

Part 8 of CEOs Dinner…

Just to follow up to the stat we released earlier this morning (where less than 15% of the Inc 500 fastest growing companies actually take outside funding),  here’s another stat from the same angel investor (I told you he was chalk full of stats) that will knock your socks off!

Out of 19 Million small businesses, can you believe that only 15,000 are venture backed!?

So, again, if you’re looking for outside venture…

A) Now you know how hard it is
b) You also know that MANY are doing without it (actually an eclipsing majority are)…

I guess these “dinners” and “networking” really does work - I never knew all this!

Popularity: 39% [?]

CEOs Dinner Part 5

Just wanted to take a minute to describe the difference between an angel investor and a venture capitalist - it’s very important to know if you’re looking to raise money any time soon.

The bottom line to use is the number $500,000. If you’re looking to raise anywhere from $50,000 to $500,000, your best option is to use angel investors - most Venture Capitalists don’t want to get into any deal that small.

If you’re looking to raise $1M or more, now you’re out of the angel investor range (for the most part) and looking for venture capitalists. But, honestly, even $1M for most VCs is not interesting - typically they don’t want to talk for less than $3M to $5M. As you saw from yesterday’s post, the average investment by a VC in 2007 was $7M.

With that out of the way, what’s the DIFFERENCE other than money given?

Mostly, they are the same - they are people who are giving you money for a share of your company. However, Venture Capitalists do this for a LIVING, they are professional money sources. They also tend to take larger stakes and be much more ruthless about management - they also really meddle in your business much more (typically) than an angel investor will.

An angel investor on the other side tends to just be a very wealthy person looking for good places to put their money. Many times angel investors are investing for other reasons than just the financial aspects. They could be investing because they believe in you, are related to you, believe in your cause, etc…

Most angel investors will be much more relaxed and will also probably take LESS of your company.

The other benefit of an angel investor is that sometimes the deal can be crafted as a “debt” too - so they have “rights” to convert that debt into stock later, but for the time-being, they’re just loaning the money to you. Each angel investor has their own thought/view point on which one they prefer.

 A big thing to be careful of when you use angel investors…

Don’t give yourself a ridiculous valuation in order to sell LESS % of the company. It may seem like a great idea at the time, but when it’s time to do a venture capital raise later, your valuation may be too high for anyone to get involved!

Oh, also, positive side to angel investors is that venture capitalists like seeing some of that money in there - they feel just a BIT more confident (especially depending on WHOs money is in first).

Popularity: 44% [?]