Valleyspeak: If you talk about his ponytail, Jon Schwartz will let you stroke it
Jonathan Schwartz speaks his own language, where "the edge of the Mission" means "a big house on Church Street" and "try and buy" means "General Motors should be a phone company." So his new Forbes Q&A needs some Valleyspeak interpretation. Here are translations for the tough bits.
Forbes: How are you different from Scott?
Schwartz: There's ample evidence of our differences. You need only look at our haircuts or sports preferences, or he drinks Budweiser and refers to wine that comes out of a bottle as "fine wine."
Translation: "Look how unconventional yet refined I am! You're getting my ponytail into the headshot, right?"
Will you listen to more digital music, watch more digital movies, make more digital phone calls? The answer can only be yes.
Translation: "I do horoscopes too. Listen: 'Is there love in your future? All signs point to yes.'"
Four more passages explained after the jump.
Forbes: Will we see double-digit profitability for Sun again?
Schwartz: If you mean, do I aspire to double-digit profitability? Absolutely, yes.
Translation: "I'll take a shot at it, but it's not like that's my job."
When it comes to efficiency, there are no two bigger fans in Sun than Mike Lehman [Sun's chief financial officer] and me. That's why we've decided to share an office.
Translation: "The savings in office space should make up for the $700 million we lost this year."
No. 1...
Second...
Thirdly...
Translation: "See my counting method? Unconventional! Here, touch my ponytail."
I don't think ponytail is going anywhere.
Translation: "Not 'a ponytail.' Just 'ponytail.' Like 'Madonna.'"
