bkeyes

Funny this should come up today.

I just got a notice from my credit card company that Evernote just charged my credit card after 2 'successful' cancellations of my subscription each of the last 2 years, and the complete deletion of my account several months ago.

Hopefully these will become more widespread - I'm not in NY or CA.

Only if you hit the transmit button.

For what it's worth, I teach my children not to listen to their teachers, because while most teachers want the best for their students, without doubt, their assumptions are typically outdated, and were probably already wrong when they were young.

Check out JustinGuitar.com - tons of free lessons, songs, etc from beginner to advanced and lots of extra, extremely good paid content as well.

Even if they are reading too much into the OP, the advice is sound for anyone starting any job, especially at the start of their career with little on their resume.

Maybe they want to diversify and not have so much in cash (ie: USD) because they think it will get devalued over the coming years, especially compared to Bitcoin.

I'm building GridBeams (http://www.gridbeam.com/) in my garage. I've wanted to play with them for years.

Seemed like a good time and I needed something to get me off the computer and away from constantly looking at all of the news.

The first few I made were a little ugly and off. Now they are getting nicer and I'm faster. I've got 4 8 footers done. I'll start cutting them up and building some small things today.

I'm going to use some with my daughter to prototype the inside of van she's converting to travel and live in.

Vertical integration can certainly be a great approach and can have many advantages. It can also limit your risk of exposure to outside events.

However, my point is and was that controlling your whole supply chain is impossible.

Computers are critical to everyone's supply chain, including YKKs. If they aren't and YKK can fall back to pen, pencil, and paper then they are dependent on those manufacturers and industries.

Again every business and every one is DEEPLY dependent on hundreds if not thousands of others.

Never heard of them. Their company setup is pretty impressive. However to say 'relies on absolutely no one else for its supply chain' is an extreme exaggeration and frankly impossible.

They don't make the computers, fiber optics, switches, exchanges, or software that their web site requires to run. They don't own the fleet of trucks, boats, and planes required to get their product to their customers - or their raw materials from plant to plant. They likely use rubber mats in their plants but I don't think they have a rubber plant. Unless they use outhouses I'm pretty sure they don't make toilets and sinks and plumbing. I don't know if they produce their own electricity but I'm sure they didn't build a generating plant from scratch....and on and on it can go.

If you haven't read it, search for the essay - I, Pencil - I'm sure YKK uses pencils as well.

The point is noone is even remotely close to being their own supply chain every one is deeply dependent.