My last few weeks in NY were hectic, as expected.  Hence, the infrequent blogging…

This is my first day back in Istanbul as a resident, despite the fact that I lack a residence, just yet.   This is a stop-over, as I continue on down to Southern Turkey, first for a sailing trip in Gocek, then 10 days near Bodrum.

The sense that I have moved from NY has not yet sunk in, as my current itinerary is very similar to a typical summer vacation I’d take to Turkey.  It should start feeling different when I start going to work on August 1st.

As I am now on vacation, there will still be few posts…

As I previously suspected (and mentioned) my family’s decision to move to Istanbul is now firm.

This is very exciting for me.  First, some macro reasons:

– Turkish economy grew by almost 10% in 2004.  This historic rate follows two strong years of growth, at 8% and 6%.  Of course, before that was the horrible 2001 slump of -7.5%. These figures suggest that Turkey is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, with a GNP of $300 billion ($4,200 per capita income) and a very large young population with relatively-high purchasing power ($7,700).What entrepreneur does not salivate over these figures.

– Turkey seems to have turned a corner regarding political stability. Ironically, my explanation for this is the large debt burden that the country is carrying ($162 billion in 2004). There’s a Turkish proverb: Debt whips the man into shape.  When a country’s future is mortgaged so heavily, even the most corrupt political establishment is forced into pragmatism.

Then, some personal reasons:

– I left Istanbul at the age of 17. At 33 now, I have spent my entire adult life in the US.  My wife’s figures are similar.  We now feel that we owe it to ourselves to experience life in Turkey.  The fact that our families also reside in Turkey amplifies this feeling of debt.

– Mark Pincus had a good post about leverage recently.  As an entrepreneur, I share his dilemma.  And Mark suggests three ways to create leverage as an entrepreneur.  When you cross these options with the universal "bigger fish in a smaller pond" truism, it becomes obvious that I, as an entrepreneur, can create more leverage in Istanbul, compared to New York.

I will continue to blog about my career options and decisions.

One last note, this blog post was typed at 31,000 feet, just past Cardiff, over the Atlantic Ocean on Lufthansa flight LH 400.  I love the new level of connectivity we are beginning to enjoy.

I am back in San Francisco, first time since 2003.  It is amazing how the city has developed over the last couple of years.  The urban revival template that one sees in many major cities around the world is also evident in San Francisco.  The newly renovated Ferry Building downtown is a nice example.  It reminded me of the Chelsea Market in NYC.

My good friend Kerim recently bought a new home in San Francisco.  Since I am currently selling our condo in NY, I am keenly observing the real estate situation.  There are some very scary signs of a bubble (e.g. your cab driver telling you about the investment properties he’s buying, ads in NY Times about real estate investment seminars, etc.)  Remember internet stocks in 2000 anyone?

At the same time, a home has a very different utility curve than Pets.com stock. To start, you can live in it.  You can borrow against it at government subsidized terms.  To counter, Kerim tells me that in the last 70 years, San Francisco real estate has returned an annual 8%, not including rental income.  That rate is also true for the last 10 years.

It will be interesting to see what happens as the interest rates go up.

There’s a good Op-Ed article (requires free NYT registration) in today’s New York Times, by Steven Pinker, the author of How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate, two of my favorite books.  He brings up an interesting point about natural selection.  If homosexuality is genetic, as it is being proven, how come it has not been selected out a long time ago?  The answer must lie in some other advantages inherent to homosexual animals.  Pinker points out a few possible answers, but leaves it there.

I am curious to see how the right-wing, religious, anti-science lobby will respond.  I find it appalling that in 2005, this is a discussion topic in the US.

Being not as busy as usual, this week I had the opportunity to visit the Tim Hawkinson exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

It is one of my most enjoyable museum visits in a while.  I had seen Hawkinson’s "Uberorgan" in the Atrium of the IBM building a couple of weeks ago.  It’s sheer size (so large that it could not be exhibited at the Whitney) and the intricacy of its mechanism (a signature Hawkinson feature) had impressed me quite a bit.

Visiting the full exhibition was breathtaking.  I find that I am generally drawn to art that is pattern intensive.  Hawkinson takes it a step further.  The patterns exist at both the physical level, as well as the at the mental processes that factor in to the creation of his brilliant pieces.

I’d highly recommend a visit if you are in or around New York before May 29th.

I was reading Fred Wilson’s post today on ESORS and it reminded me of another interesting solution proposed for the securities industry:  Balance Sheet insurance

The idea is that the SEC requires companies to buy insurance against fraud/mistakes in their financials.  Which would, in turn, require insurance companies who price this risk to create their own audit model to evaluate different companies’ financials.  If you’re Enron, with an extremely complex set of accounting, your audit would be more expensive, increasing your premiums.  This system would create an incentive for companies to simplify their accounting and/or build a strong level of trust with the insurance community.

If a company was caught cheating or with a mistake in their financials, investors’ losses would be reimbursed by the insurance policy. So, if Enron blew up, the shareholder value would not be lost.

I think this is a brilliant idea.

Wikipedia definition:   "A weblog, web log or simply a blog, is a
web
application which contains periodic time-stamped posts on a common webpage."

Tuesday evening, I had a discussion on this very topic with a few luminaries of the blogging world at a dinner organized by David Teten.  People’s various definitions included the following characteristics:

– Syndication – via RSS or or similar tools
– Connectedness – This was brought forth by Ross Dawson.  He thought links are the most defining characteristic of blogs.
– Dynamism – The frequent posting of entries

I personally think the line between a "website" and a "blog" is fairly blurry.  I’d love to hear different definitions of blogs, if you come across any.

Less frequently than I would like, I pick up a book that immediately lures me in.  The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle has so far been that type of a book.  The last time I felt like this about a book was reading Atonement by Ian McEwan.  His new book Saturday will be next in line.

This is my first post to SortiPreneur.  The objective of this blog is to provide a chronicle to my transition  (as an entrepreneur) from New York to Istanbul.

I intend to share ideas, thoughts, and reactions to what I am observing.