Venture Capitalist for taxi drivers...

I love taxi drivers here... I think about 1 in 5 are really great fun. Either they are very talkative or they are 'interesting'. The guy who drove us when we went out for dinner last night fell into both categories... He seemed to have mistaken me for either a publisher or a venture capitalist. The minute we got into the taxi (with me in the front seat), he started telling me about what bad drivers Singaporeans are. He went on to how badly people actually understood how cars work, then gave me this example. He'd heard of someone driving an automatic, when the accelerator jammed on the floor, leaving the car going at 210 km/h. The person hit the breaks, but this only slowed the car to 80km/h and it kept accelerating. The guy eventually crashed. He asked me what I would have done.... I said, as it was an automatic, that I would have put the car in neutral. He claimed I was only the third person he'd asked who got it right....

His basic premise seemed to be that if people understood how cars worked (especially automatics) then they would be able to avoid accidents. He also started describing a system similar to how pilots learn to fly, whereby you learn where to focus your attention.... In hindsight it actually sounded like a good idea. The guy claimed to be writing a book and just needed a publisher or an illustrator. I'm not sure that he actually wanted seed money from me, but more that he seemed to imaging that I had a whole network of contacts who might be able to help... In some ways, I kinda wish I'd got his number, I think it would have made a good book and might have been fun to work on....

He also claimed to have an invention and an idea for a website which were going to make hundreds of millions, he just couldn't tell me about them (I guess he didn't have a 'non-disclosure' agreement on him for me to sign)

(through the whole of this Minna and Nachen were sitting in the back trying really hard not to laugh)

Still love taxis and kinda wish I'd been an investor....