February 2012
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Bringing (Un)Sexy Back
When a lot of people start their business, they do it for the wrong reasons - they do it for the parties, they do it for the women (or men), they do it for the press, they do it for the stock and they do it for the money. They go out of their way to try and get a weekly mention by Mike Arrington or a tweet from Sarah Lacy. This can be an effective strategy but it’s not always a winning...
January 2012
4 posts
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““Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.””
– Leonardo Da Vinci
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Disrupting Hollywood
I took my five-year old to the movies today. I spent $30 combined on tickets and two small popcorns. Here’s the problem, I really don’t have a problem paying that much for a movie, but I know a lot of people that do.
Maybe not this year, and probably not next, but at somepoint, the movie business is going to become more broken that it already is. The masses simply won’t be able...
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December 2011
6 posts
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Making Goals More Manageable
Setting goals this time of year has become pretty cliche. That said, very few people who don’t set goals for themselves rarely do anything of significance in their lives. With that in mind, I think we can all agree that it’s important to set some sort of goal for yourself, no matter how big or small.
I set a lot of goals last year - 10 in total. I didn’t accomplish all of them,...
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Reflections on 2011
2010 was not a good year for me. I’ll spare you the details, suffice to say that the year ended with a thud. My professional life was spiraling out of control fast, so fast in fact that it was beginning to affect my personal life. I was unsure of where I wanted to be and where I wanted to go.
What a difference a year makes.
I’ve spent the last few days reflecting on 2011 and...
November 2011
4 posts
WatchThis is a little project that I put together for work. It outlines how people feel and gives a clearer idea about what #OWS is all about
““Fuck this, let’s show him what a tablet can really be.””
– Genius at work… More here
What Are You Afraid Of? →
Bryce had a really good post on fear yesterday. Definitely required reading…
My daughter dressed up as Justin Bieber for Halloween.
A few weeks ago this wasn’t a big deal.
She’s a Belieber through and through. Always has been. But when she started talking about costumes with kids at school she started to worry. All of the kids in her class and all of her friends…
October 2011
6 posts
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The Others
Like a lot of my colleagues and friends, I’ve taken great interest in the #occupywallstreet movement that is taking place in many cities across the nation. Unlike some of the people involved, I don’t cleanly fit in either the 1% or the 99%, so I’ve been watching to try and really figure out what this is about and where I belong.
I don’t belong in the 1% crowd - I...
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Spin Control
A little bit of drama erupted in the Valley on this quiet Saturday afternoon when ATD journalist Kara Swisher released an email that was written from Chamath Palihapitiya to the founders of AirBnB, in which he basically turned them down in their latest round of financing.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, and I won’t get into the details of the deal, suffice to say there are three...
September 2011
5 posts
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Making Things That Matter
There have been a lot of complaints lately, mostly coming from talking heads on TV (who, for the most part, have no idea what they’re talking about) complaining that one of the reasons our company is in a rut is the fact that our country ‘doesn’t make anything, anymore.’
My buddy Bryce wrote a really interesting post the other day about what he makes as a venture...
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Hip/Hop's Hegemony in the Age of Kanye
I typically don’t repost entire articles, but this one was too good not to share. Find the original one here (Note - the original title is ‘Jay-Z’s Hegemony in the Age of Kanye’ but I’m retitling because I think it applies to hip/hop in general).
Watch the Throne by Jay-Z and Kanye West may not prove to be the enduring hip hop classic that many people expected when...
August 2011
4 posts
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Haves and Have-Nots: Thoughts from Unconscious...
The other day I was catching up with a friend on the phone and he made a point that I had been thinking about subconsciously for the last little while - the fact that our society is more and more turning into the haves and the have-nots. Below are some of my random thoughts on the subject (note: I’m usually an optimistic person, but this subject always casts me in a sour mood):
- It’s...
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Whose House is This? My House...
Start-up airbnb ran into a little trouble this week. Basically, a person rented a room in their house to another person using airbnb’s service and the person who rented the room ended up trashing it and a lot more.
As you read the techcrunch article, there was intimation that airbnb would have trouble getting through this situation, and why not, millions of people use the services and it...
July 2011
9 posts
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If You Want It, Go Get It
My friends Dave and Bryce wrote two excellent posts (read them here and here) about the problem with Venture Capital disappearing from the midwest region of the country. Specifically both of them wrote about the problem that Utah was having (and for what it’s worth, I think Utah is a good microcosm of what it’s like as a non-tech hub).
Bryce’s article was more from a VC...
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The Best Way to Compete is Not to Compete at All →
My buddy Bryce makes a really good point (and uses iPad as an example) of how sometimes the best way to compete is not to compete at all. This is definitely required weekend reading..
The rise of the iPad became that much more interesting this week as sales numbers from Apple’s quarterly earnings poured in.There’s been plenty of clear and concise analysis done over the last few days, so I will...
“Place more emphasis on your activities and contributions than your title.”
– (via dwellman)
Our Unemployment Crisis
The unfortunate reality about this economic recovery that we’re experiencing is that it’s going to take us a lot longer to climb out of the hole we fell into. It’s going on two years since unemployment in this country has crossed the government’s ‘official’ tally of 9%, however, the U6 or the ‘real’ unemployment rate remains much higher.
Most people...
June 2011
6 posts
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““Unsolicited Advice: If you’re at anytime unsure if your performance is...”
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““Don’t focus on numbers for the sake of numbers. Focus on the things that...”
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What Makes A Classic Track
Borrowing from a post appearing in Rolling Stone from Jay, the same could be said for a lot of things in life:
A great song doesn’t attempt to be anything — it just is.
When you hear a great song, you can think of where you were when you first heard it, the sounds, the smells. It takes the emotions of a moment and holds it for years to come. It transcends time. A great song has all the...
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Capital for Start-ups
Jason Calacanis asked an interesting question today when he asked “If a start-up could raise money on SecondMarket, why would they bother to go public?” Great question. I’d like to park it for a minute and give some background before I answer it.
For the past couple weeks I’ve been thinking about ideas that would give start-ups better access to capital. Currently, one of...
May 2011
10 posts
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““Sometimes you need perspective. You’ve been right in front of greatness so...”
– Hov
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Location, Location, Location
My friend Bryce had a really good post today about how Venture Capital funds are starting to become concentrated within a few distinct firms (do yourself a favor and go read the post). He points out that one of the results of this could be that access to local capital could be much harder to come by. I think he’s absolutely right and would like to expand upon this a bit more.
I’ll be...
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