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Indulge me while I think out loud. I'm trying to decide if I like the phrase "poke people in the eye with the truth" or not. Help me by reacting to the following rant - good, bad, bullshit - and feel free to poke me in the eye with truth if you've got some, just [...]

I've tried to aggressively shift to video conferencing instead of audio conferencing for anything longer than a 15 minute call. I'm also giving a lot of talks around the world, especially on Startup Communities, so rather than travel and burn a day (or more), I'm doing 30 minute videoconferencing things remotely. And, as anyone who [...]

On day two of my 14 day visit to Miami Beach, I realized that the hotel WiFi at the W Hotel was not going to work for me. Once again I was at a Starwood Hotel, which I love, except for the abysmal WiFi and WiFi policies. In this case, performance of WiFi in my [...]

I love getting post board meeting emails that are retrospectives from execs in the meeting. This one came a week ago from Jeff Malek, the CTO and co-founder of BigDoor. They've been on a tear lately and are in the process of a massive set of Q1 launches for new customers. We had a solid [...]

I expect many of you have read at least one book on Steve Jobs and Apple since Jobs' death. If you, like me, grabbed and consumed a copy of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, I have a recommendation for you. Go buy a copy of Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired-and Secretive-Company Really Works by Adam Lashinsky. It's much better, [...]

Six weeks ago I saw a tweet about a new thing from Codecademy called Code Year. It promised to teach you how to code in 2012. I signed up right away and am now one of 396,103 people who have signed up as of this moment. Like a good MIT graduate, I've procrastinated. When I [...]

My close friend Ben Casnocha and Reid Hoffman's new book The Start-Up of You is officially out. And - it's #1 on Amazon. Not just in some obscure category like Business & Investing: Small Business & Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurship, but #1 in all books on Amazon. That's awesomely cool. And well deserved. I met Ben about [...]

I spent all day Sunday at Silicon Flatirons' Digital Broadband Migration Conference. This is a key national conference held in Boulder at the intersection of technology and public policy with a particular focus on the Internet. This year's conference subtitle was "The Challenges of Internet Law and Governance." I was pondering something all morning that I [...]

I gave a talk titled "Resistance Is Futile" yesterday in Park City at the annual meeting for one of our LPs. This is a version of a talk I've given several times, starting at Defrag last fall. The slides don't change, but I make up the talk each time and tune it to the audience. When I [...]

Every company I'm involved in keeps track of numbers. Daily numbers, weekly numbers, monthly numbers. Ultimately, all the numbers translate into three financial statements - the P&L, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement. While these numbers are sacrosanct in the accounting and finance professions, they are lagging indicators for most startup companies. Important, but they tell [...]

I first heard the word "grinfucker" a decade or so ago from a close friend who was a former investment banker. He said, in response to a meeting we were in with a person who was very polite and charming "he's such a grinfucker." I loved the word and, as I found out later, it [...]

Over the past two years I've been struggling mightily with the dynamics of "classical VC funded board of directors" and how these boards work. When I hear a VC say "I'm an active board member" it gives me the same nauseous feeling I get when someone says "I'm a value added investor." I've been on some awesome [...]

Put this in the "every business traveller thinks this on a regular basis" rant category. Sure - I'm whining, but I imagine I'll feel better after I get done. I doubt it has any impact on the universe, but hopefully it'll be a story that rings true to some of you out there who travel [...]