RMBS--Look to Sun for advice
By Vanessa Richardson
Redherring.com, September 15, 2000
Over the phone, Y.C. Sun is telling me what I can expect to happen during the next five years of my life.
"Next month, you'll be spending a lot of money. November is fantastic with lots of job-related opportunity. Next year you'll be famous with recognition, promotions, and money all coming in. You'll be doing a lot of writing in the next five years and becoming either a freelance writer or a consultant, but you'll definitely be getting your big break in the next two years."
As I ponder the best time to hit my bosses up for a raise, I stop to think a minute. Should I really believe this guy?
A lot of people do. Mr. Sun, a 50-year-old computer consultant who does fortune-telling on the side, is revered by a Silicon Valley clientele -- from entrepreneurs to venture capitalists -- that takes his predictions very seriously. Because this is the Valley, Mr. Sun, who goes by just his last name, fields many questions related to startups. Some common ones: "When will I earn my first million from options?" "When should I set my company to go IPO?" "How should I furnish my offices so employees work harder?"
In exchange for his advice, Mr. Sun receives a mix of cash and stock options. He says he can't comment on the particular stocks because he has signed confidentiality agreements.
"I've found it useful for major business decisions," says Victor Sun (no relation), a Quebec-based venture capitalist who's been consulting with Mr. Sun for 20 years. "If I want to place an order on a stock, I call Sun and ask him, 'What are my chances the next week?' He tells me what week or what month looks good. I believe it's useful to have some guidelines. Maybe it's just a Chinese thing but it seems to hold true."
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Westerners may snicker, but the vast majority of Chinese believe in fortune-tellers' predictions and visit them regularly, according to a report done last year by the Chinese Association for Science and Technology.
With so many engineers and programmers crossing the Pacific to work in the U.S., many fortune-tellers are setting up shop here.
For Mr. Sun, it's just a family tradition. His father was a fortune-teller in Hong Kong. As a child Mr. Sun would sit at the table to listen, impressed by the power his father had over his clients' life choices. "They respected his advice and went away happy," he says. "That was cool to me."
Mr. Sun then went on to college in Taiwan and later earned his masters degree in computer science in the United States. Even though he runs a computer consulting firm in San Jose, California, he spends his free time making phone calls and even house calls to his clients. He likes to keep his work and "hobby" separate, so he doesn't get into details about his day job.
Mr. Sun relies heavily on two methods in order to answer questions. The first is I-Ching, the 2,000-year-old Chinese law of the universe, which relies heavily on the theory of Yin/Yang and the five elements -- metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. To find out how these apply to an individual, he asks for the person's date, time, and place of birth, and then uses palm and face reading to fine-tune his predictions.
The second method is the Tao theory of feng shui, which is supposed to increase energy and optimism by changing the immediate surroundings of the individual. Mr. Sun tells people how to rearrange furniture in their home or office in order to get more positive energy flowing. When it comes to business matters, Mr. Sun uses both methods to create a composite chart for a company's prospects. "If I have a management exec as a client, I'll get as much information as I can about the business, but I'll also look at his home and interview his family to see how those factors relate. Many cross-checks mean a near-perfect prediction. If I can get 80 percent of it right, then I'm an expert."
THE TAO OF TECHNOLOGY
Even though Mr. Sun has been predicting fortunes for the 20 years since he moved to the States, his focus on business-related advice has been fairly recent. He was hosting an astrology show on a local Chinese TV station in 1997 when he started getting a lot of questions from employees at Rambus (Nasdaq: RMBS), then a small private chip maker. The employees wanted to know how they would do financially after their company went public. Mr. Sun went on to track the company after its IPO that May and noticed a relationship between the company's stock price and the employees he was advising. "I can read technical [stock] charts but I prefer to look at a stock differently, through the five elements," he says. Rambus has increased its value by 937 percent since its IPO, although its superstitious employees probably were frantically checking their charts last year when the stock was in the tank.
Now that the Valley is mired in job-hopping, Mr. Sun has been asked more often whether a client should switch jobs. "Normally I look at their individual chart but if it's a dot-com company, I also look at the Web page to try and figure out its five elements," he explains. "If there is a picture, I also use it to make a decision."
Regarding a decision to merge one company with another, Mr. Sun tries to find out the exact dates when key people quit or were demoted in each company in order to determine whether it will be a good fit.
Individual and company birthday charts are also used to determine the best time to seek a round of VC funding; feng shui is used to determine where employees should sit in order to get the creative juices flowing. In one case, Mr. Sun helped a Santa Clara, California, "PC-related company" when it moved to new offices in the East Bay, outside of San Francisco. He helped the company's execs determine how the office should be laid out, paying special attention to the CEO's office.
Mr. Sun is considered one of the most credible fortune-tellers in Silicon Valley because of his work experience as a computer consultant. "He's more relevant because he's working in high tech," says Elaine Chen, chief financial officer of a Fremont, California-based startup that she declines to name because she's planning a startup of her own. She's been a client of Mr. Sun's for seven months. "I've seen other people and they have no clue about business. Their responses are out in left field." When she considered leaving her current job to start a company with a partner, she consulted Mr. Sun who concluded that the pair would make beautiful business together. "His advice has generally been good," she concludes. "He can't guarantee everything though -- we're still waiting for the funding he has been predicting."
ALMOST PERFECT
Mr. Sun says he's the first to admit that his predictions are not always correct, but is confident in the fact that they're more bound to come true than not. The reason: he aims to be specific. "The module for determining money is very easy to spot on the chart, and from this I can determine the funding one will get and when," he says. Mr. Sun also "Westernizes" the I-Ching theory by putting in variances for geographic locations, presidential candidates, world economic trends, and, of course, Alan Greenspan.
Speaking of the stock market, Mr. Sun gives annual predictions about the stocks he thinks will do well. Among his current favorities are Cienna, which he has recommended since 1998, and Atmel, which he bought Wednesday because it's "number was up."
If all of this sounds a little far-fetched to you, you're not alone. "If [Mr. Sun] could actually do this, he'd be a millionaire," says Michael Shermer, director of the Skeptics Society in Pasadena, California, and author of Why People Believe Weird Things (W.H. Freeman, 1998).
Fortune-tellers, psychics, and the like are "preying on human greed and desire to get something for nothing or very cheap," Mr. Shermer says.
Is there any actual danger in giving credence to fortune-tellers? "There is a danger in losing time and money and effort that could be spent in other ways," Mr. Shermer says. He adds that his "general advice about fortune-tellers is: 'Stay away. They're flimflam artists. They're in it to make money -- from you, not from predictions.'"
If you're using a fortune-teller, don't look to score any points with VCs. Jim Breyer, managing partner of top-drawer Accel Partners and a VC for 13 years, snickers when asked what he would think of an entrepreneur who consulted a fortune-teller. "It would be a deeply concerning sign," he says. "Luck can and does play a critical role in everything we do, but fortune-tellers as busienss advisors would possibly be the last straw."
Mr. Breyer adds, "Unless they can convince me that they increase the luck quotient of a deal, I'd be deeply skeptical."
Mr. Sun shrugs his shoulders at the many naysayers who dismiss Chinese fortune-telling as hooey. "I'm not in this to convince people to try and use this," he says. "No, it's not foolproof, I admit. But if people don't believe it, I can't help them."
Says Ms. Chen, "People use different motivations to make themselves feel better. This just happens to be the one I use. It's like a positive influence. He ultimately tells me to believe in myself because whatever happens is for the best."
Mr. Sun, the Canadian venture capitalist, has relied on Mr. Sun for more than financial advice. He believes the fortune-teller can predict his health. "Nine years ago, I was having intestinal problems and taking a drug, but it was making me feel even sicker," he relates. "I called him to ask if I should go off the drug. He said to wait until June or July to give it up. In November I would feel ill again but the next year I would feel better. Well, in July I had the liver transplant and in November there was an organ rejection so somehow he seemed to predict it."
As for this reporter's chart reading, the fortune-teller seemed so positive about my future that my skeptical nature demanded some bad news. He paused for a minute, then said, "Well, I see high cholesterol and some skin problems." Hmmm. Not a bad tradeoff for his positive predictions. |
