Author, Investor, Speaker, Mentor
Let me emphasize that I am neither an economist or politician. Yet when I read articles like this recent New Yorker piece on the minimum wage, I feel compelled to share my take. In his piece, James Surowiecki does a good job of teasing out some of the main issues around low-wage work these days. … Continue reading Why The Minimum Wage Doesn’t Help The Poor
If you’re a psychology junkie like me, you’ve probably heard about the Stanford marshmallow experiment: http://bit.ly/Wga2Ne In this experiment, 5 year olds were offered a choice: Eat a marshmallow now, or be left alone in a room with a marshmallow. If they went 15 minutes without eating the marshmallow, the researcher would give the child … Continue reading Self-control is irrelevant to success in the game if you believe the game is rigged
I preface this post with the admission that I have always been a child of privilege. I come from a family of well-educated Chinese immigrants; my mother is the only member of her generation on either her or my father’s side of the family that didn’t earn a Ph.D. (she only has a measly Masters, … Continue reading Searching for Equality in a Winner-take-Most World
The underappreciated engine behind the startup boom is the reduction in startup costs…but not for the reason people think. Most people believe that the lower costs of starting a company (thank you, Amazon Web Services!) have resulted in a startup boom because it has allowed more people to start Web companies. This is true. Many … Continue reading Why, mathematically, startups make more sense than ever today
Superstar science author Steven Johnson (I’m a big fan of his book, “Where Good Ideas Come From“) recently wrote a critique of claims that Silicon Valley is turning into Gilded Age America–a land of unfathomably rich oligarchs that are oblivious to the poverty around them: http://bit.ly/11ouEWF Johnson points out that the Valley’s love of open … Continue reading Silicon Valley isn’t about the money…it’s about the money
These days, many people have a negative view of business. Think of Occupy Wall Street, for example. That negative view is even starting to impact the startup world. I’m seeing more stories about how so many startups are creating me-too products that don’t solve real problems. There is a solution to this negative view, and … Continue reading The best way to harvest value is to create it
I recently read an Atlantic Monthly piece on how healthy, affordable fast food could be a boon to women by freeing them from the drudgery of cooking. The author’s point is that if you could buy a healthy dinner for a family of four for less than $24 ($6/person), fast food would actually represent a … Continue reading Is Fast Food Any Faster Than Cooking At Home?
…if Twitter weren’t down. Chris Yeh-ism of the day: “Revolution plays well to early adopters, but the mainstream is looking for solutions, not revolutions.” (from a comment on Oliver Young’s blog)Great insights from Gil Yehuda: Same people plus same process yields same results. To get different results, you need different people, or a different approach … Continue reading Things I Would Have Tweeted…
My good friend Jackie Danicki has a great post up on why people who talk about “public ownership” are stark raving mad.Lots of things are owned by the government or state – roads, schools, hospitals, etc. Just because they’re paid for by taxpayers does not mean we own them – coercing “investment” from the public … Continue reading Why Profit Motive Is The Best Way To Ensure The Public Good
Fred Wilson has posted a very thought-provoking piece, arguing that the VC industry is raising too much money. His essential argument is that VCs are raising so much money that the total number and amount of exits cannot possibly deliver a good industry-wide IRR. I agree with Fred’s analysis, but wanted to go a little … Continue reading Why Venture Capital Is Limited In Scale