Life.
Focus, habits, family, and everything else
- A bigger container
An idea I like from Zen Buddhism is becoming a Bigger Container. My understanding of the idea is this: There are a lot of difficult/bad/sad/scary things going on in the world, ranging from serious global issues, war, famine, terrorism, etc; to things in your city like homelessness or joblessnes; to...
- Teaching kids to invest
I’ve written a bunch about why it’s expensive to be poor, why we need better tools for managing money, and how to move from a labor mindset to a capital mindset. A big takeaway for me is that accumulating wealth isn’t just a functional activity, it’s a mindset that needs to be learned, and taught.…...
- How to make big problems small and small problems big
Avoidance is to be avoided. — Nick Grossman (@nickgrossman) February 22, 2018 I’m on a plane right now. I always find plane/train rides to be some of the best times to focus and get work done. On this trip, I managed to get two “monkeys” off my back — little tasks that have been lingering… Continu...
- You need a budget
I’ve written for a long time about my desire to re-build personal finance infrastructure in ways that benefit people with the least money. We see new personal financial products all the time targeting high value customers, but it still feels like they are ignoring a huge, and important part of the ...
- From a labor mindset to a capital mindset
I’ve been quiet on the blog lately — writing is one of those things that’s hard to build a habit for, but always pays big dividends when you do it. Every time I’ve gotten into a good blogging rhythm I am undoubtedly surprised by the feedback I get (good and bad!), but more importantly, by… Continue...
- Service
The week before last, we lost a dear friend to cancer. Deb was an incredibly sweet, caring and giving person. The memorial service last weekend was held at the elementary school where she taught first grade for the past 15 years. The room was decorated — to the hilt — with hearts, butterflies, an...
- Changing seasons
Today is the last day of September, and I’m happy and relieved to see it go. I’ve been holding my breath. September is a violent month. That may seem like a ridiculous thing to say, but I think there’s some truth in it. Something about the end of the summer and the abrupt change to… Continue readi...
- Labor Day: Project Repat
Yesterday, in the process of cleaning out my closet and donating a bunch of old clothes, I did something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: got going creating a t-shirt quilt for my old “sentimental” t-shirts. I’m a bit of a t-shirt hoarder, especially when it comes to shirts that memorialize some ...
- Optimizing for energy
In the world of startups and investing and ideas, things are always chaotic and fluid, and as such a key skill is to somehow cut through the noise and find focus. That’s on a micro level, like what do I do for the next five minutes, and on the macro level, like am I (or… Continue reading
- Learning by doing
I had lunch yesterday with someone who has been investing in the crypto / token space recently — having pooled together a small “fund” from friends and family. It’s a short-term vehicle (like, 6 months), and a large part of the goal is simply to become hands-on familiar / capable investing in token...
- Keeping it simple
We recently had our daughter’s birthday party, and we held it in a public park near our house, where there’s an old parks department building. The sun plan was outdoors, but of course it thunderstormed and we didn’t have a back-up plan. So we called an audible and asked if we could use the back… C...
- What’s your medium?
Yesterday, I caught up with my old friend Gary Chou. Gary was the first General Manager of the USV Portfolio Network (predating Brittany and Bethany), and has since been running Orbital, a community space and “studio for building networks” (which happens to be in the original Kickstarter building o...
- Getting Help
I’m on vacation this week, and we have some old friends and their family staying with us. Last night we got to talking about therapy (like psychotherapy) and how valuable it has been for me over the past few years. Maybe four years ago I started seeing a therapist on a bi-weekly basis. There were…...
- The joy of fixing things up
I am on a plane right now, watching home renovation shows on HGTV, thinking about how much fun it is to fix things up. Doing projects around the house (last year I built an exterior staircase and made new kitchen countertops, the year before that I built a mudroom), coding and buding apps, and worki...
- Getting in over your head
I was out last night with some of the little league coach dads, and we got to talking about whether it’s better for our kids to be bumped up a level (but be at the lower end of skills/experience) or stay back a level and have a chance to really excel. The consensus was that… Continue reading
- A little better every day
I just got done coaching my son’s baseball practice. It has been amazing to watch this group of 7 and 8 year olds improve over the course of the season – learning the fundamentals and now starting to make some pretty great plays. I had a great baseball coach as a kid. I’ll never forget the… Continu...
- The Service Recovery Paradox
I’m writing this from a plane. I’ve been in the air for an hour and everything is fine, but for a few minutes before the flight, things weren’t fine. At roughly the time we were supposed to board (on an already late in the evening flight), the gate attendant came over the mic to announce… Continue...
- Experience ↔ Design ↔ Policy
People often ask me how I ended up working in venture capital, and more specifically in a role that deals with policy issues (“policy” broadly speaking, including public policy, legal, “trust & safety”, content & community policy, etc.). Coming from a background as a hacker / entrepreneur with an u...
- The new normal
The week before last, my in-laws were hit by a truck while crossing the street after dinner. The time since has been a disorienting whirlwind of sadness, fear, hope and thankfulness. My mother-in-law suffered a very serious brain injury, and while she has cleared the first hurdle of basic survival,...
- Learning to skate
For the past few winters, I’ve been teaching my kids to ice skate. Above is my son Theo at hockey practice a few weeks ago. At a certain point along the way, I got the bug and realized that skating was awesome and hockey was a beautiful sport. So for the past year or so,… Continue reading