Author, Investor, Speaker, Mentor
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ cover essay for The Atlantic, “The First White President,” explores the role of race and racism in Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States. Coates’ essay, has been widely read, and drawn praise and criticism (a sign of success; the goal of nearly every writer is to elicit a reaction from … Continue reading Donald Trump, Race, and the GOP
On Thursday, we turned in the manuscript for Blitzscaling. While there is still a lot of work to go before the book appears on shelves (physical or virtual), I wanted to write and share some of my thoughts about the experience of being an author while they were still fresh in my mind. The story … Continue reading Lessons On Writing A Book
Like Indiana Jones, when confronted by Nazis, most of us want to punch them in the face. American white supremacists like Richard Spencer are so obviously and cartoonishly evil that the temptation is to treat them like movie villains, and dispatch them with heroic fisticuffs. However, it’s critical that we resist this temptation to go … Continue reading Violence is (almost) never the right answer
Too often, diversity and meritocracy are presented as opposites, when in fact, the two go hand in hand. The grand irony is that many of those who use the concept of meritocracy to argue against greater diversity are in fact working against the interests of a true meritocracy. The biggest logical fallacy that most pro-“meritocracy” … Continue reading Why Diversity Increases Meritocracy
Those who favor and oppose diversity actually share very similar concerns. This thought occurred to me when I read the end of this interview with Slack developer Kaya Thomas: The interview ends with the following exchange: “Brown: As one of the few black women in the industry, have you ever felt tokenized? Thomas: Yeah. It’s … Continue reading Common ground between those who favor and oppose diversity hiring
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It’s probably hard for us to imagine, from our modern perspective, how revolutionary these 35 words were. When the Declaration … Continue reading 35 Words
It’s safe to say that Silicon Valley’s reputation hasn’t been having a good year. Uber has reached the point where the number of pages that claim to be “the definitive list of Uber scandals” runs off the first page of Google results, with widespread sexual harassment and discrimination resulting in the termination of over 20 … Continue reading Silicon Valley in the Mirror (a Trump Silver Lining)
The fall of Uber’s Travis Kalanick offers an interesting gloss on Donald Trump. If anything, Kalanick had a stronger position than Trump. Rather than narrowly winning an election in which he lost the popular vote, Kalanick had absolute control over Uber thanks to his super-voting shares. And unlike Trump, who is a mediocre real estate … Continue reading Travis/Trump: What Uber Tells Us About The White House
As someone who makes a living with words, it bothers me that so many choose to use them wastefully, extravagantly, and paradoxically enough, cheaply in today’s political discourse. Many have argued that our politics are at the most polarized point in recent memory. To date, I’ve scoffed at the alarmists, pointing out that the invective … Continue reading If Words Matter, Use Them Responsibly
I just spent a fantastic week in Doha, Qatar, working with the researchers and entrepreneurs of the Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) Research To Startup program. In this program, the first of its kind in Qatar, we brought together about 20 entrepreneurs from around the world (including a couple of local entrepreneurs) to work with the … Continue reading Notes from Doha: Building Silicon Valley in the Desert