Personal Growth

Last night, I had the pleasure of joining Meetup.com GC David Pashman‘s NYU Law class on Internet and Business Law for Technology Companies as a guest speaker.  Over the course of the past semester, David’s students have played the role of internet company General Counsel, working on a variety of le...

Mmmm Continue reading

Saying no to things is something I’ve always been bad at.  I have always been (and to some extent, have prided myself on being) more of a “why not” guy than a “why” guy. This has many of advantages — I’m open minded and I end up doing tons of interesting things w interesting people.… Continue readin...

Andy and I were talking yesterday about how both of us really struggle on email, especially during busy weeks when we’re really focused on something (travel, a project, etc).  I can’t tell you how many emails I start with: “I apologize for the long delay here…” I described it as being afraid of the ...

There are at least two startups that I know of (Pave and Upstart) that facilitate VC-style equity investment in individuals.  Upstart describes this as “the startup is you”. In both cases, the idea is as follows: raise money from backers in exchange for a percentage of your future earnings.  The ide...

For some reason I have always liked talking to taxi drivers about their business.  Maybe it’s because my dad was a NYC taxi driver back in the 70s, or maybe it’s because driving a taxi is such a classic immigrant path to building a life here.  And it’s certainly because of the amount of tech… Contin...

I’m writing this from the DC metro, which I love.  Getting from the airport to downtown dc is one of the great joys of traveling.  I can’t think of a single airport that is as conveniently connected to a major city by mass transit. But the point of this post is not to talk about… Continue reading

(I’m writing this on the amtrak to NY as my computer quickly runs out of battery, and I have no charger, so this’ll be short…) Somehow, earlier this week, I came across Zenep Tufekci’s piece from last spring in the Atlantic on Social Media’s Small, Positive Role in Human Relationships.  I liked it, ...

I can’t claim to be the most disciplined or organized person, but I’m working on both. I have, however, done a lot to smooth out my moment-to-moment work process, to help me do things more quickly & easily, and to help me avoid distractions where I can.  I can only hope that I win more… Continue rea...

I am working on my presentation for this week’s Personal Democracy Forum, which is looking to be a great event. My talk is entitled: “Powered by Us: Architecting Policy for a Connected World”, and I’m going to be talking about the policy implications of peer networks on the web.  We can think of “th...

At Albert’s suggestion, I’ve started reading Nicholas Taleb’s Antifragile.   It really is a powerful idea to think of things that get better with stress, not worse.  And it’s really interesting to think about how to build antifragility into your life in various ways. Here’s one (tiny) example: email...

What happened yesterday in Boston so sad and awful.  And it’s deeply scary.  All of the communities I’m part of — family, work, school, city — have been shaken by this. But the most important thing we can do coming away from this is not get scared in our core.  If that happens, they win… Continue re...

Today I turn 34. For some reason, I can’t get Fred’s post about turning 17 for the third time out of my head. As I have been approaching this milestone, I can’t help but feel like I’m turning the corner to a new phase. I definitely feel like the last 17 years have been about figuring… Continue readi...

For the past two months, Frannie and I have been doing yoga.  It’s a totally new thing for me.  I was skeptical about it at first, but it’s been totally awesome and perspective changing.  Even though I am completely inflexible and unaccustomed to all of the poses (and perhaps because of this), doing...

Last week I was playing ping pong with Zander and the topic of conversation (naturally) turned to canal skating in Ottawa. You see, in Ottawa during the wintertime, the city’s canals freeze over and they turn into  temporary frozen streets.  As you can see above, Ottawans turn to using them for thei...

Despite the extent to which I talk and think about car sharing and other newly possible. web-enabled modes of transportation, the truth is I still don’t use too many of them on a regular basis.  Need to work on that. It seems as though I need to travel to SF to get the urge to get around town in new...

I met with an entrepreneur yesterday who, in passing, mentioned Warren Buffett’s method of prioritizing (ruthlessly).  To sum it up:                Jot down a list of the 25 most important things you want to accomplish (in a month, in a year, in life).   Circle the 5 absolutely most… Continue readin...

For the past few months I have been seeing an executive coach, which has been really helpful for me. One of my issues is that I tend to keep too much work bottled up in my inbox / in my to do list.  This is a drain on productivity and a source of stress.  Part… Continue reading

Happy MLK Day everyone. I just spent the last half hour reading MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.  To be totally honest, I don’t think I’ve ever read it in its entirety before.  It is incredibly powerful and moving.  I encourage anyone reading this to take some time with it today. I pulled a few ...

Yesterday, I went down to DC to visit the US Dept of Health and Human Services – and presented to their Innovation Council (a cross functional working group on innovation) about opportunities to bring “networked thinking” into the health space. This is clearly such an important area, with huge oppor...