Monday, March 3, 2008

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles

No snarky, self-consciously ironic, NSFW post here. Jennifer 8 Lee just wrote a book called, "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles." Haven't read it so I can't hype it but I was pleasantly surprised to see her set the record straight with one fact regarding my Pop, Yongsik Lee. Yes, this is how I went to college. My Dad invented the first fully-automated fortune cookie machine and I witnessed first hand the #1 requirement in starting a business: sweat.

I spent one year writing fortunes and in true outsourcing (ie, laziness) fashion, I hired a Harvard JD/PhD in Philosophy to write the fortunes for me. I paid $.50 per accepted fortune. A true CPI model. A man before my time. I never actually calculated the lifetime value of a fortune so maybe I wasn't really before my time...

Congrats, Jennifer, and look forward to reading your first work!