Author, Investor, Speaker, Mentor
Since I started advising Cube26, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to gesture-based controls. The most hyped company in the space has been Leap Motion, which raised over $44 million to bring its 3-D motion control technology to the market. Quite a number of investors to whom I introduced Cube26 begged off, citing the … Continue reading To Succeed In The Market, Be Specific
While the startup life can be full of excitement, it can also be incredibly repetitive. Take the pitch, for example. Many entrepreneurs dislike fundraising because they have to deliver the same pitch over and over. I’ve lost track of the times that people have referred to themselves as a wind-up toy. Yet if entrepreneurs think … Continue reading Getting to the point is a cardinal virtue
Today, I saw a post on the future of venture capital–a very popular parlor game in the Valley–which focused on how the rapidly declining cost of starting a company had rendered the traditional VC model invalid: http://bit.ly/18lSFMa “The dramatic drop in the cost of creating a company over the last decade ($2 million in the … Continue reading The Future of Venture Capital…is Venture Capital
Q: What do you get when journalists get paid by the number of pageviews their stories generate? A: The Troll economy. Not to sound like a grumpy old man (though I am) but what passes for journalism has sunk to a new low. As far as I can tell, headlines are now chosen based on … Continue reading The Troll Economy
It’s impossible to argue a point on Twitter without leaving an opening for debate. It simply isn’t possible to lay out a nuanced argument that addresses the main potential objections in less than 140 characters. As a result, any tweet can be debated. In some ways, this is bad, because it further contributes to our … Continue reading Twitter is a Debate Machine
Amazing writing from Olympia Nelson, an 11th grader: From the moral high ground, they can damn a girl for visual promiscuity, yet enjoy the spectacle at the same time, both with the same misogynistic motives: I like your form but I’m able to scorn you. You’re what I want but you’re less than me. Girls … Continue reading “Social media doesn’t need adult control. What we need is some good taste.”
Atul Gawande is a wonderful writer who happens to be a doctor. His last book, “The Checklist Manifesto,” was a best-seller that focused on the power of simple checklists to change behaviors. Yet his latest article in the New Yorker, “How Do Good Ideas Spread?” focuses on the limits of the relatively simple checklist approach: … Continue reading Behavior Change comes from the Human Touch
Inc Magazine recently ran a great piece on “The Psychological Price of Entrepreneurship.” http://bit.ly/15avBVM The piece, which includes some revealing stories from entrepreneurs who found themselves on the brink, touches on some of the psychological reasons why entrepreneurs are particularly vulnerable, such as their tendency to feel emotions more strongly and take more risks than … Continue reading The Overlooked Reason Entrepreneurs Are Vulnerable To Depression
Like many people, I’m addicted to reading about Steve Jobs. I’ve said before that he’s a towering figure whose name will be on a par with Ford or Rockefeller–an all-time great. But I’ve also had a hard time reconciling the greatness and pettiness of the man. I recently read a Wired article from 2012 that … Continue reading The Real Lesson of Steve Jobs: Results Trump Personality
I live in Palo Alto, which is a pretty wealthy neighborhood. Add in the fact that there are a lot of only children, and you have a lot of kids whose rooms look like an FAO Schwarz showroom. Under those circumstances, a lot of parents are tempted to make sure that their kids get all … Continue reading The Material Doesn’t Matter