Author, Investor, Speaker, Mentor
I recently dove into Jay Goltz’s New York Times post, How To Be An Entrepreneur, and Stay Married. I thought it was an insightful piece, but to me, it was missing the most important part: What entrepreneurs should do differently to stay married. Having recently celebrated my 16th anniversary (and the 18th consecutive year in … Continue reading What Entrepreneurs Should Do Differently To Stay Married
The world bombards us with conflicting advice. On the one hand, we’re told that quantity is the key factor in success. Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule states that practice is the only path to mastery. The Beatles played 10,000 hours of gigs in Germany before returning to England and stardom. I’ve certainly leveraged the benefits … Continue reading Quantity, Quality, and Inactivity
It’s hard to believe that it’s been 12 years since I became your dad. While I knew that it would change my life, I didn’t know how much it would affect both my daily activities and my overall perspective. I still remember being 11 years old, and wishing I could stay that age forever. Even … Continue reading A Letter To Jason On His 12th Birthday
Entrepreneurs are frequently admonished to “stay hungry.” These words are almost like scripture, having been cited by Steve Jobs himself in his legendary 2005 Stanford commencement speech. Intuitively, these words seem to be true across a host of domains. Starving artists of all types feel the curse of the sophomore slump; going from hungry unknown … Continue reading Don’t Stay Hungry
I loved this recent blog post from Steve Blank because it spoke to one of my main problems: How to decide whom to meet with: http://bit.ly/14WtJxt “The meeting requests that now jump to the top of my list are the few, very smart entrepreneurs who say, “I’d like to have coffee to bounce an idea … Continue reading If You Want To Learn From Someone, Offer To Teach Them
I love this HackerNews item on the key questions you’d use when programming a Paul Graham bot to dispense startup advice. Here are the questions/phrases: “Who needs it?”“Who uses it?”“Who *really* needs it?”“What problem does this solve?”“Does that problem *really* need to be solved?”“What is the worst problem in your life?”“In any given day, how … Continue reading Paul Graham’s Office Hours Questions
It’s a paradox. Any time you hear the story of a wildly successful person, they tell you to “do what you love.” Yet for most, this advice rings hollow. How do we reconcile these two facts? The problem is survivorship bias. It’s probably true that people become successful by doing what they love. But it’s … Continue reading Doing What You Love
Angry bear courtesy of icanhazcheeseburger A lot of Silicon Valley types are perfectionists. They always worry that their solutions are imperfect. That’s when I advise them to follow the “Angry Bear Principle”: You don’t have to outrun the angry bear–you just have to run faster than the other people the bear is chasing. Whenever people … Continue reading Outrunning the Angry Bear
This insight comes from famed TV producer Stephen Bochco (Doogie Howser, NYPD Blue) by way of Neil Patrick Harris, who told the story on Kevin Pollak’s chat show.Harris became a TV star at a very young age, thanks to Bochco, but after his run as Doogie Howser ended, he went through a long dry spell. … Continue reading The Parable of the Waves
Competence isn’t a bad thing, but it’s no longer enough. Maybe there was a time when you could build a successful life based on “pretty good.” But those days are gone, along with three martini lunches and wearing hats all the time. Pretty good works in a stable environment because of the principle of leverage. … Continue reading Competence Kills