Warren Meyer

Coyote Blog Mission

Coyote Blog is the work of Warren Meyer, a small business owner in Phoenix, Arizona. The name Coyote Blog came from two sources. First, it’s a reference to my adopted home of Arizona. Second, it’s a salute to my favorite all time cartoon character Wile E. Coyote, and, of course, that most famous of small businesses: ACME. The original mission was to cover some of the day-to-day travails and lessons learned in running a small business. That is still part of the mission, but since I have about the same attention span as an 8-year-old boy mainlining Hershey Bars, I have found myself wandering all over the place, from business to economics to libertarian philosophy to sports to electronics. Some good examples of what I do here include:

Real-life small business experiences:  Buying a company;  Working with the Department of Labor; Case Studies on the Minimum Wage;  What's on my Desk Today; Getting an SBA Loan

Economics:  The myth of Zero-sum Economics; 60 second refutation of socialism; Business Relocation and the Prisoners Dilemma; Technocrats, government and disasters; Roosevelt's NRA: America's Flirtation with Fascism; Gasoline Supply and Demand; Hoping for Price Gouging; Peak Oil; In Praise of Robber Barons

Libertarian political commentary:  Respecting individual decision-making, The real implications of a Privacy Right, Technocrats get their comeuppance, A defense of Open Immigration, New Alien and Sedition laws, Opposing Special Rights for the Press, Iraq war, The Kelo decision, Free speech, Danger of Politics without Philosophy  

Frustration with runaway torts:  Jackpot Litigation; Coyote vs. ACME

Camping (my business):  New American nomads;  This RV is just wrong

Attempts at humor: How to spot a dictatorship; Coyote's Law;  Making fun of the UN and the Internet;

Sports: The Baseball Closer Role is Nuts

ACME Products:  Instant Girl; Ultimatum Gun; Earthquake Pills

How I Married Well:  My Wife, the Fashion Diva;  My Wife's Fashion Awards (and here)

Before finally leaving the corporate world for my own business, I worked for nearly 20 years at a range of companies including Exxon (as an engineer), McKinsey & Co (as a management consultant, whatever that is), Emerson Electric (as a marketing and strategy guy), Honeywell (ditto), and at a series of Internet companies of varying levels of success such as Mercata and Whitepages.com (as a general manager). I have an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a mechanical engineering degree from Princeton University (go tigers), both of which provided fine diplomas that grace the wall of our laundry room but which taught me very few skills that are any help day to day running a small business. I have a wife and two kids.

My Company is primarily in the business of running recreation facilities on government lands. Typically, we lease certain facilities from the government (e.g. campgrounds, marinas, stores) and run them under concession contract, paying the government a percentage of sales. This percentage is typically competitively bid. Since we pay the government, rather than vice versa, our relationship is more one of tenant to landlord, though we must agree to many more operating standards and restrictions than is typical of most tenants. My current business is one of those happy confluences of interests, combining my political interest in private alternatives to government management with my personal interests in recreation and the outdoors.