Image source:V10,las7enpunto,seriouswheels,glvautoshow

Let’s be realistic here, the economy is in the crapper and your 401k looks about as arousing as you do after a cold shower. What’s a Burgundy drinking, ’stache rocking, web surfing Internet denizen like you to do? Diversify your skill set by ogling watches you’ll never be able to afford and learning what makes them tick.

Most of these watches are more complicated than college calculus and have more history than you could learn in a lifetime. You might even need an engineering degree and an instructional tome to figure out how they work.  Regardless, all these watches (for one reason or another) are ridiculously cool and absurdly expensive. Sell the Ferrari, liquidate the stocks, and pick up one of these bad-ass timekeeping devices.

The Patek Caliber 89 - $5,120,000

Buying this watch would require selling 3.5 Bugatti Veyrons, which happens to be 70% of the total number they sold in 2005. The closest most of us will ever get to a Veyron is drooling over it on Top Gear. It’s all about perspective here people.  Three Veyrons. Say it out loud – Three. Veyrons.  So what makes this watch worth $5.12mil?  For starters, it is the most complicated watch on the planet with 33 complications. Essentially, it requires a degree in mechanical engineering to understand, but suffice it to say it has everything but the kitchen sink. It also took more time to design than you spent in college (including those extra years “studying” chemistry).

Split Seconds Patek Philippe Reference 1436 By Tiffany & Co. – $214,000

It’s emblazoned with the Tiffany & Co. name, so you know it’s gonna be expensive.  Compared to the rest of the watches on this list though, it’s actually pretty cheap. Well, you know, if two-hundred grand can ever be considered cheap. You’re getting the Patek and the Tiffany names, what else could you want? The ability to time two events that start simultaneously but end at different times – you didn’t think those fancy blue hands were just for show did you?

Patek Philippe Ref 5016P – $762,000

Rounding out the Patek trinity is the Ref 5016P (The P stands for platinum, duh). This watch is the second most complicated wristwatch (the first one was a pocket watch so it doesn’t count) that Patek has produced. The problem with watches of this caliber the need for adjustments, but Patek has an app for that. If you keep this moon-phase, perpetual calendar, retrograde behemoth running continuously it won’t need adjusting until 2100.  That’s something your children’s children’s children will most certainly appreciate.

The Breguet Marie Antoinette – $XX,000,000

This watch was originally designed by Breguet himself and has more pieces (823) than an iPhone.  It’s self winding, has a minute repeater, perpetual calendar, equation of time, jumping hour, power reserve indicator, and a bimetallic thermometer – everything but MMS messaging.  It took forty-four years for the original to be constructed and Breguet and Marie Antoinette both died before it was completed.  Ultimately, the original watch disappeared, never to be seen again. When Swatch acquired Breguet, an Indiana Jones style quest for the watch began.  When they came up short they reproduced the watch using only the images of the original. Breguet has received offers in the eight digit range, but still refuse to sell.

Jaeger-LeCoultre Gyrotourbillon 1 – $400,000

This watch is clearly complicated, but it has a feature some of the others don’t, a tourbillon. What’s a tourbillon? A wrist-mounted anti-gravity device.  Tourbillons (in the most basic terms) prevent gravity from adversely affecting accuracy. Normal tourbillons only rock one-axis anti-gravity, this tourbillon rocks two.  No word yet on when the third and fourth axis will be integrated.

Rolex Submariner – $234,000

At some point in time, everyone has held, worn, or owned a Rolex Submariner.  This one is special because it was held, worn, and owned by the one and only Steve McQueen. That’s right, the “King of Cool” owned this particular submersible, self-winding, stainless steel oyster bracelet Rolex. You’re getting time, Rolex, and bona fide badassery.

Vacheron Tour de l’Ile – $1,250,000

Vacheron is the oldest watch manufacturer still in existence since its inception in 1755.  250+ years of history allows them to make watches that eclipse most others.  The Tour de l’Ile has tourbillon, two faces, and more complications and parts than even the Breguet Marie Antoinette (hopefully without the beheading) making it the most complicated serial wrist watch ever made. It’s worth JUST shy of a Veyron… unless you buy used.

AP Royal Oak Grande Complication – $560,000

Audemars Piquet (that’s where the AP comes from obviously) does it again with the Royal Oak Grande Complication. The Grande Complication is another watch that has a perpetual calendar accurate until long after you will no longer be alive.  It has a lot of the same complications as the other watches (minute repeater, split seconds chronograph, aforementioned perpetual calendar) but presents them in a way that doesn’t require a thousand page instruction manual just to read. Real men don’t use instruction manuals.

Richard Mille Tourbillon – $525,000

Look at it. It looks like a Rube Goldberg machine had sex with the Gugenheim and the offspring was skeletonized.  Quite a few of these watches have modern elements, but none of them have the modern design that this watch does.  Made of aluminum, titanium, and awesome it would be the perfect compliment for the new clear hood you just put on the Ferrari.

Ulysse Nardin Triplejack Minute Repeater – $340,000

It may be crazy, but this watch seems like holds some deep, dark, historical secret that only Nicolas Cage can uncover.  But that may just be the three Jacks “hammering the bells to separate the quarters from the minutes.” Sure, it’s more expensive than a Ferrari, but something about this watch just seems a lot less complicated. Since when did you just want to tell time with your watch?

As you can see below, the list shows the category of the website, its number of monthly unique visitors, page views, and whether or not the website accepts advertising.

The announcement was made on the official AdWords blog. In fact this list was developed to help advertisers target big websites that accept ads.

According to Google itself “the list excludes adult sites, ad networks, domains that don’t have publicly visible content or don’t load properly, and certain Google sites,” so keep this in mind.

Here are the blogs I spotted on the list:

• #246 – The Huffington Post – 12 million Uniques
• #434 – Engadget – 8,1 Million Uniques
• #540 – Gizmodo – 6.7 Million Uniques
• #696 – Mashable – 5.6 Million Uniques
• #850 – TechCrunch – 4.7 Million Uniques

If these numbers are accurate they reveal some very interesting data. For example, Mashable is as big as PCWorld, one of the oldest and most established tech publications. Similarly, Engadget is as big as the Washington Post (on the web only, obviously). And The Huffington Post as big as Digg (counting uniques only, not page views).

1. Go, make something happen.

2. Do work you’re proud of.

3. Treat people with respect.

4. Make big promises and keep them.

5. Ship it out the door.

When in doubt, see #1.

Take a look at just about any industry with many competitors–colleges, hotels, sedans, accounting firms (especially accounting firms)…

The websites bend over backwards to be just like all the others. You can’t identify one hotel website from another if you delete the name of the hotel (unless there’s a beach or a snow-capped mountain in the background).

Sometimes, we try so hard to fit in we give consumers no choice but to seek out the cheapest. After all, if everything is the same, why not buy what’s cheap and close?

How about a site that says, “Here’s why we’re different.” And means it.

(Easy to read this and nod your head, but… what’s your resume look like?)

Let’s talk about the future of Harley Davidson. Motorcycles from OUTER SPACE! And what does that mean? Laser cuts. Laser cuts all over the place. Options. Wheels. Great things. All of this under the title “2020 Harley Davidson 1,” designed by Jonathan Russell. There’s other features, like two ways to sit, greatnesses here and there, but the most fabulous of these is the Apple Computers inspired laser-etched perforations in the aluminum which gives translucency enough to let the LED lights underneath shine through.

As Russell notes, the perforations are evident in the newish Apple Macbook Pro, which has the “no-light-when-off” but “shiny loveliness when turned on” features that we all know and love. This is used on the cycle to display gauges and GPS systems on the gas tank surface. In a similar move, the perforated aluminum behind the seat hide and reveal the tail lights and turning signals.

Non skid treads. Enlarged V-Twin engine, hidden battery and oil tank. Such a lovely chrome “picture frame” for the engine this doth make. Gas tank, airbox, oil tank, and battery all located inside the tank area.

Wrapped two to one exhaust. Perimeter breaks for ultra-stopping.

Due to the long history of flat track racing Harley’s got and the designer wanted to represent, this motorcycle’s got such a power to weight ratio as to rip it up with extreme speed on roads across the country.

Comfortable, aggressive, fabulous.

Designer: Jonathan Russell

• Truth
• Assertions
• Alternatives
• People
• Money

The truth section describes the world as it is. Footnote if you want to, but tell me about the market you are entering, the needs that already exist, the competitors in your space, technology standards, the way others have succeeded and failed in the past. The more specific the better. The more ground knowledge the better. The more visceral the stories, the better. The point of this section is to be sure that you’re clear about the way you see the world, and that you and I agree on your assumptions. This section isn’t partisan, it takes no positions, it just states how things are.

Truth can take as long as you need to tell it. It can include spreadsheets, market share analysis and anything I need to know about how the world works.

The assertions section is your chance to describe how you’re going to change things. We will do X, and then Y will happen. We will build Z with this much money in this much time. We will present Q to the market and the market will respond by taking this action.

This is the heart of the modern business plan. The only reason to launch a project is to change something, and I want to know what you’re going to do and what impact it’s going to have.

Of course, this section will be incorrect. You will make assertions that won’t pan out. You’ll miss budgets and deadlines and sales. So the alternatives section tells me what you’ll do if that happens. How much flexibility does your product or team have? If your assertions don’t pan out, is it over?

The people section rightly highlights the key element… who is on your team, who is going to join your team. ‘Who’ doesn’t mean their resume, who means their attitudes and abilities and track record in shipping.

And the last section is all about money. How much do you need, how will you spend it, what does cash flow look like, P&Ls, balance sheets, margins and exit strategies.

Your local VC might not like this format, but I’m betting it will help your team think through the hard issues more clearly.