Author, Investor, Speaker, Mentor
On September 17th, my son Jason will be swimming in the Aquathon to benefit Abilities United, a great organization with a great mission–helping adults and children with disabilities be included and appreciated. As usual, I’m going to leverage the power of the internet to advance this cause! If you go to Jason’s Aquathon page and … Continue reading Donate to a Great Cause and Talk With Me
I’m not going to waste time explaining why I think Donald Trump should not be president. That dead horse has already been thoroughly pulverized. Instead, I’d like to discuss why Trump’s candidacy matters, and what we ought to learn from it and do about it. Even though the press narrative this week is that Trump’s … Continue reading What I Think About The 2016 US Presidential Election
In the past, I’ve extolled the virtues of the miserly safety net, especially when it comes to housing. It just occurred to me that it might be possible to expand this net to cover all the essentials of life. When I think about the essentials of life in the United States, it boils down to … Continue reading The Miserly Safety Net: Another Modest Proposal
This is been a difficult week in the United States, as the tragic murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling have been followed up by the murders of at least 5 police officers in Dallas, including Brent Thompson, a grandfather who had just gotten married two weeks earlier. Normally, I don’t comment too much on … Continue reading We Are Not Enemies
When Cassius Clay was born in 1942, it would take 12 more years for Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas to order the desegregation of public schools. When Muhammad Ali died in 2016, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, tweeted, “He shook up the world, and the world’s better for … Continue reading Muhammad Ali (1942 – 2016)
I come not to praise blogging, but to bury it. Blogging is dying a tragic death, killed off by the inexorable and irresistible force of Adam Smith’s invisible hand. When blogging first emerged, it promised a better way to consume content. For avid readers like me, it was a dream come true. Finally, people could … Continue reading The Tragic Death of Blogging
I often warn people that it’s shockingly hard to communicate your thoughts to someone else. Far too often, I speak with entrepreneurs who are frustrated by how their employees or even co-founders don’t understand what needs to be done. That’s when I tell them, “The goal of communication is to be understood.” Your responsibility goes … Continue reading The Goal Of Communication Is To Be Understood
I’m not certain what precisely led to my contemplating my death. Several of my good friends recently lost their fathers. I was also on an airplane flight, which, all statistics on safety aside, always makes me think of the Grim Reaper. Whatever the reason, I found myself at 35,000 feet, my eyes closed during the … Continue reading Grappling with mortality and meaning
We all know that the Civil War happened because of slavery. The South fought for the right to keep African-Americans as slaves, the North fought to outlaw slavery. While this is a bit of an oversimplification, it isn’t wrong. Here’s the funny thing: Only 25% of white Southerners held people in slavery (I chose not … Continue reading The Psychology of Slavery in the South
I spent the weekend in South Beach at a bachelor party forone of my HBS classmates. It’s hard for me to count the number of people who, when notified of these plans, either A)noted that I wasn’t the bachelor party type, or B) commented, “Wow, that sounds just like ‘The Hangover.’” My responses were, … Continue reading Bachelor Parties and The Business Model of Objectification