A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Yesterday’s post focused on Tesla’s hacking and the lack of focus on security by tech, which is serious.

Today’s post is also about Tesla and I think it’s hilarious.

First, two facts.

• People who grow up in the US know that marketing language should not be taken literally.
• KG tells me that there are more Teslas in Norway per capita than anywhere else.

But Norway isn’t the US.

Tesla is being sued because a number of Norwegians don’t think the product lives up to the hype.

Some 126 owners of the Tesla Model S sedan’s P85D performance version are seeking unspecified reimbursements after the model only reached 469 horsepower instead of a pledged 700 hp, said Kaspar N. Thommessen, an attorney at Wikborg Rein law firm representing the plaintiffs.

Elon Musk is having a very bad week.

Poor Elon.

Hat tip to AnandSanwal/CB Insights for pointing me to this story.

Image credit: Hiking Artist

Years ago when I bought a hardware firewall an engineer friend told me that it would cost around a nickel (or it may have been 25 cents) to add the feature to a computer’s motherboard.

However, doing that would disrupt the hardware business, so it was/is easier to leave users as easy prey to hackers.

Which brings us to California Governor Jerry Brown, who just signed a law requiring all smartphones to have a kill switch by July, 2015.

CTIA, a trade organization for the wireless industry, thinks the legislation is a terrible idea.

“Uniformity in the wireless industry created tremendous benefits for wireless consumers, including lower costs and phenomenal innovation,” said Jamie Hastings, vice president of external and state affairs for CTIA, in a statement. “State by state technology mandates, such as this one, stifle those benefits and are detrimental to wireless consumers.”

Here’s a simple solution to the annoyance of uneven legislation.

Add “anti-theft technology turned on by default,” as required by the California law, to all phones wherever they are being sold.

Of course, if Apple, Samsung and Motorola Mobility, etc., had responded proactively to calls for a kill switch new laws wouldn’t be necessary.

Flickr image credit: One Way Stock

Tuesday’s post involves lawyers, so I thought I’d check out what’s been said about them and it seems they’ve been unappreciated and unloved for centuries.

Clarence Darrow neatly summed up the problem with the law (no surprise there), “The trouble with law is lawyers.”

While Oliver Wendell Holmes offers a wonderful description of what they bill for, “Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.”

Charles Lamb doesn’t sound too sure of lawyers’ antecedents, “Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.”

Will Rogers offers a typically witty explanation of when ‘ethical’ and ‘legal’ parted ways, “People are getting smarter nowadays; they are letting lawyers, instead of their conscience, be their guide.”

Lucille Ball explains the great contribution lawyers made to one of the most famous shows ever aired on television, “How I Love Lucy was born? We decided that instead of divorce lawyers profiting from our mistakes, we’d profit from them.”

Danny DeVito provides a cogent explanation of why people hire lawyers, “Of course I’ve got lawyers. They are like nuclear weapons, I’ve got em ’cause everyone else has. But as soon as you use them they screw everything up.”

Tammy Bruce reminds us that legal leopards don’t change their spots, “Unfortunately, what many people forget is that judges are just lawyers in robes.”

But it’s Thomas Jefferson who gets the last word today when he drives that point home, “If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?”

Doesn’t seem much has changed over the years.

Flickr image credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Is your company

1. legal or
2. honorable?

Surprisingly, in spite of scandals and lawsuits people still seem to have trouble understanding that they are different—not joined at the hip.

I could write a lot on this subject to go along with all the articles and advice already out there, but I’m a believer that stories, especially true stories, carry more power.

Such is the story of MetLife that, along with Prudential and John Hancock, will pay out more than a billion dollars for their completely legal but totally dishonorable actions.

The difference between an annuity and life insurance is that the former is paid to a live beneficiary, while the latter is paid to the dead beneficiary’s heirs.

A live beneficiary makes a fuss if the check doesn’t arrive on time.

Heirs only make a fuss if they know abut the insurance policy.

MetLife and the others were very careful to check to see if annuity beneficiaries were among the living, since they could stop paying if they weren’t.

But they saw no reason to cross reference deaths with their life insurance holders, because then they would have to pay.

An absolutely legal decision—but…

“There is simply no reason why insurance companies shouldn’t be scrubbing their policy lists,” looking for matches with the Social Security Administration’s master death index. (…)They stressed that insurers had generally checked the Social Security death index regularly to see whether other customers, who bought annuities, had died. In that case, the insurers stopped sending payments.

Stories are powerful teaching mechanisms.

The difference between legal and honorable should be crystal clear.

Flickr image credit: John Murphy

I keep getting asked why I’m not more surprised at what’s happened, both good and bad, in 2008. People know that I deplore the duplicity and stupidity that got us into this mess; they also know that I’m an econ-idiot and didn’t see it coming.

So why am I so calm? How can I just shrug and focus on moving forward, with nary a backward glance? Come to think of it, why is that my typical reaction to so many screw-ups?

So in deference to my friends and colleagues who’ve been asking, and in honor of the start of a new year, I’m going to share my secret here, publicly, with everyone.

While many people are adherents of Murphy’s Law, it doesn’t give nearly the mental, emotional, physical, even psychic protection that O’Brien’s Law gives.

What? You’re not familiar with O’Brien’s Law?

Then for your erudition I will state them here together, so you can understand why I’m a passionate believer in the O-Law as opposed to Murphy’s.

Murphy’s Law
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

O’Brien’s Law
Murphy was an optimist.

And that, my friends, is why nothing really surprises me any more.