Quick post today on a potential interview question that doesn't often get covered on WSO.

It's not one you'll hear during on-campus interviews for your first gig out of college, but it's something you'll likely encounter somewhere down the line. Namely, you'll come across it when you're looking to move into a new position with a new firm. So, what's the question I have in mind?

What's your current compensation?

For a variety of reasons, both personal and professional, I've recently given a great deal of thought to the concept of motivation.

A friend of mine recently proclaimed his belief that what best motivates people are incentives. Money, power, title, and various other perks. He argued that, at their heart, people are most motivated by tangible outcomes, with financial compensation being the most effective.

While this sounds fairly obvious on its face, I'm not sure that I agree. Yes, money and power are fantastic motivators. But, I'd argue that there is an even more powerful motivating force. One that, when properly channeled, can push you much further than money or the promise of a promotion. What is that motivating force?

Adversity.

I recently watched the entire first season of House of Cards, Netflix's first foray into original programming. All-in-all, it was pretty solid. The plot is full of twists and turns and it does an excellent job capturing the inane bureaucratic non-sense of Washington while still keeping the audience engaged.

Now, while I recommend that anyone with an interest in politics watches the show, this post isn't about that. It's about the future of television programming.

Let's be clear. What Netflix has done with House of Cards is radical. On February 1st, it didn't just release an episode of the show. It released the entire first season. An entire season of original programming with major star power released on a single day. Is this the future of television programming? Let's speculate.

As I've covered before, JCPenney's ongoing "turnaround" is something of a disaster. Ex-Apple Store guru Ron Johnson's vision for JCP's transformation involves a bold new Target-esque advertising campaign, the death (and return) of coupons, and transmogrifying its stores into a collection of specialty shops and "town squares."

To date, the transformation hasn't exactly gone according to plan. While the specialty shops are big winners on a dollar-per-square-foot basis, the rest of the store is suffering. On top of that, the stock price has been hammered, with the company losing 40% of its value since Ron Johnson took the helm in November 2011.

Considering the challenges it faces, one would expect Mr. Johnson to be working tirelessly to make things right. That seems safe enough to assume, right?

According to an article in Bloomberg, Facebook is working on a mobile location tracking app in its continued efforts to monetize its mobile user base.

Some of you may already be aware that Facebook records the GPS coordinates of its users when they do things like post status updates on their mobile device or check in at a location. The app they're currently developing goes further. It tracks a user's location in the background, all the time, in order to provide a host of targeted ads, offers, information on relevant events, and to let you know when your friends are nearby.

Now, I understand Facebook's desire to monetize their monstrous user base. And I understand the demand from Wall Street analysts that it does something on the mobile frontier. But, in all seriousness...does anyone actually want this sort of big brother non-sense on their smart phone?

As I'm sure many of you already know, flu season is here. And apparently, it's one of the worst seasons in recent memory. We're talking vaccine shortages and a staggering number of cases being reported.

Lucky for me, I managed to avoid getting the flu. Not so lucky for me, I've got a cold from hell that's left me feeling like I caught the bubonic plague.

As I've spent the last few days trying to keep this beast at bay, I got to thinking. Is there anything worse than being the sick guy at the office? When you're putting in finance hours, you'll eventually play that role, so today's post is about how to cope with spending 14 hour days in your cube hacking away at a model while you've got a hacking cough.

On Tuesday, I wrote a post about life in PE when thing are going according to plan. My focus was to give everyone a general feel and a high level overview for what portfolio coverage is like since it takes up a great deal of your time as an Associate. And, let's face it, the health of the portfolio is the lifeblood of a fund. It not only determines the net worth of the partners over the course of five to seven years, it also determines the true longevity of a private equity firm.

If your portfolios perform well, your valuations will show it. The value creation will be evident and you'll probably look at a couple earlier-than-expected exits. And when it comes to raising a new fund, this goes a long way. Locking in solid returns with timely exits is an absolute boon for fund raising, both for bringing back existing investors, increasing their stakes, and attracting new LPs.

But, what if the portfolio isn't performing up to par? What are the implications?

What is life like at a private equity firm when things aren't going according to plan?

This week I thought I might do a little writing on my time in private equity. Specifically, I'd like to compare and contrast life in private equity when a fund's portfolio companies are performing well with life in PE when a fund's portfolio companies are performing poorly.

To be clear, I can only provide the perspective of an Associate, so I've never been in a position to have money tied up in a fund. I imagine the stresses of being a Partner are far different than those of a pre-MBA Associate, given that your net worth can change drastically based on whether or not your portfolio companies meet or beat their forecasts.

With that said, let's dive into today's post in which I'll focus on life as an Associate when one's portfolio companies are performing well.

Business Insider is out with an interesting story on geo-location startup Foursquare. Apparently, an Analyst from PrivCo, a research firm that covers private companies, believes that Foursquare will fail in 2013.

Wow. Frankly, I've always found Foursquare to be sort of silly. Perfect for the "look at me, look how great I am" crowd, but not of any serious use. But, given the nature of social media companies and the possibilities for monetization when one has a massive network built up, I always sort of assumed that Foursquare would end up going public or getting gobbled up by a company like Apple, Google, or another titan with interest in breaking into the social scene.

I certainly didn't think they were at any real risk of failing. Let's take a look at some of the risk factors the company has that could lead to its downfall in the next twelve months.

The US military continues to strain relations with the Pakistani government through ongoing and relentless drone strikes into sovereign territory along the Afghan border. And while you'd expect the people of Pakistan to reject all-things American in response to our efforts, it turns out that isn't the case.

Why you ask?

Shockingly, it's because of a growing Pakistani middle class' love of American fast food.