Author, Investor, Speaker, Mentor
One of the big dangers that entrepreneurs (and everyone else) face in Silicon Valley is the temptation to conflate money and self-worth. I was reminded of this by an entrepreneur that I’m coaching, who has been dealing with the whipsaw effect of fluctuating net worth and income. Making money and/or getting a big payday through … Continue reading The Dangerous Conflation of Money and Self-Worth
The popular belief is that entrepreneurs are “hungry” because they come from modest backgrounds. Here in America, we love a great “rags to riches” story. Of course, it should be noted that America’s two richest men, Bill Gates (son of a wealthy attorney) and Warren Buffett (son of a stockbroker/Congressman) don’t exactly provide validation for … Continue reading Wealth and Entrepreneurship (why the rich get richer and why we should help the poor)
Venture Capital legend Tom Perkins stirred up quite a bit of outrage with his letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/1aGMGJy In this editorial (which Perkins presumably dashed off without showing it to any competent public relations professional), he criticizes what he perceives as a rise in unfair criticism of the wealthy. … Continue reading You can be a dick and be right
Like many people, I’m not fond of hipsters. To me, skinny jeans and Hitler mustaches look ridiculous, not stylish. Which is why my antennae went up when I read about Brooklyn’s (hipster ground zero) latest specialty store, the Brooklyn Porridge Company, which serves artisanal porridge. http://bit.ly/18KgmEn A bowl of gluten-free, non-GMO, porridge costs $7.95. Porridges … Continue reading Hipster Hatred and Conspicuous Consumption
I’m torn about what to write about IfOnly, a new service I ran across last night: http://www.ifonly.com/ IfOnly is an incredibly cool service. It allows you to purchase unique experiences like a group swim clinic for up to 10 of your friends with Olympic champion and TV broadcaster Summer Sanders–a mere $8,000. I immediately looked … Continue reading The Silicon Valley Luxury Trap
Everywhere one looks, Silicon Valley seems ascendant. Tech companies like Apple and Google are among the world’s most valuable and admired, while tech titans like Larry and Sergey, and Mark and Sheryl are given the first-name-only treatment of offline celebrities. Silicon Valley has even stuck its nose into broader society, helped by the fact that … Continue reading Will Success Ruin Silicon Valley?
One of the reasons that VCs and angel investors often get swelled heads is the fact that people kiss our asses all day. It feels good to have smart, talented people speak glowingly of your wisdom and plead for your help. But the dark side of having money is the doubt it creates. If entrepreneurs … Continue reading The problem with having money
The myth of Silicon Valley is that it is a perfect meritocracy where things like wealth and class are irrelevant. The truth is that while Silicon Valley and the startup world are better than most other institutions, wealth and class still play a role. The vast majority of entrepreneurs are young, well-educated, well-off men, who … Continue reading Wealth, Class, and the Startup World
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
I was fascinated by a recent PBS video that covered research being done at UC Berkeley on wealth, privilege, and human behavior. The upshot is that in controlled experiments, wealthy people tend to behave more selfishly and dishonestly than the poor:http://bit.ly/1azIjMa Of course, people might think, that’s how they got to be wealthy! But if … Continue reading Wealth and dishonesty are correlated, but the arrow of causality isn’t what you think