Hashemian Blog
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Friday, October 22, 2004
Google Nears Yahoo
With help from its earning's announcement last night, Google seems poised to overtake Yahoo's market cap in short order. The gap is hairline thin as I write this.
It's hard to imagine that a company of such humble beginnings could surpass Yahoo in such a short time. But then again that statement alone is astonishing in its own right. It wasn't long ago that Yahoo itself was considered a speculative company with a sky-high stock price. Now it's almost looked at as an established and viable denizen of the corporate world.
And yet we wonder if Google's lofty valuation is justified. Who knows? If you consider that its market cap is almost triple that of Amazon.com, that question may have some merit. But then again Amazon.com's market cap rivals that of Raytheon, a large defense contractor with 78,000 employees.
<Google Nears Yahoo>
// posted by rh
Friday, October 01, 2004
Goodyear Making Good
Late August on a trip from Connecticut to Virginia my car broke down in the center lane of the Jersey turnpike. The alternator had died and the battery had little juice left to keep the car going. So on this hottest hour of the hottest day of August, I stepped out of the car, pushed it to the shoulder in the middle of the angry traffic, and not having a cell phone walked a mile to the nearest rest stop to call for help.
At the end of the day I found myself in a motel in Burlington, NJ. My car had been towed to a Goodyear service station that was closing for the day and there were no open car rentals offices at that hour.
The next day, I made a call to the service station and made sure they had started to work on the car. Anxious to continue with my trip, I rented a car (I definitely recommend Enterprise, they pick you up!), and finally made it to Virginia to visit my Grandmother.
The next day I called the service station and found out the car was ready and the day after that I set out to Burlington, NJ again to pick up the car and return to Connecticut. I returned the rental car (again, I recommend Enterprise, they drop you off too!), paid the repair bill and got back home. The car drove just fine.
About 3 weeks later, the alternator started to make screeching noises and then a couple of days after that the noise stopped and the charge indicator lighted up on the dashboard. I knew I was running on my new battery alone and I had little time. I had a warranty on the repairs but how could I possibly go to New Jersey again? It is an old car and I thought it was time to junk it. What bothered me was that the repairs had lasted less than a month and I had no recourse.
But before junking it, I decided to call the Burlington service station and at least give them a piece of my mind about their repairs. But much to my surprise the manager apologized and told that my local Goodyear service station would honor the warranty -- A ray of hope. Calling the local Goodyear station went better than I could possibly imagine. The manager patiently listened to my case, took my information and promised to call me back. Yeah right, I thought.
Right he was, he did call back, made arrangements for me to bring the car over immediately, and showed concern by encouraging me to buy a new battery (which he would reimburse) to install in the car, in case the current battery died on the way there. The repairs took about an hour, didn't cost me an extra dime, and the car is back on the road. On top of that, a few days later I received a call from him just to make sure everything was well and I was satisfied with the service.
Thank you Bill O'Russo and thank you Goodyear. You've got yourselves one very satisfied customer.
<Goodyear Making Good>
// posted by rh
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