One conversation at dinner
Long tables in loud restaurants aren't well suited for conversation. In reality, you'll likely only talk to the people right next to you or right across »
Speed dating
Before dating apps, speed dating was the de facto way to meet large numbers of potential partners. In some ways, this may have been more efficient. »
Liquidity for early employees
Early employees at fast growing startups often have the vast majority of their wealth tied up in stock options. Unfortunately, until an exit, they have little »
Design thinking is about mental discipline
Design thinking is a mindset. Everyone is capable of deferring judgement and building on others' ideas, but most people haven't developed the mental discipline to suppress »
Morning meetings
I'm a night owl. I hit peak productivity at around 2am. I appreciate that there are few distractions then. While this is great for solo work »
Asking questions to get the information you want
People have lots of good ideas that never get shared. How you phrase questions about sensitive topics dramatically changes the substance of the answers you receive. »
Bitcoin and SMTP
There are a surprising number of similarities between Bitcoin and SMTP. Both protocols are intended to be decentralized and to transfer things - value and mail. »
Making the right type of slides
There are two types of slides: ones that are meant to be presented and ones that are meant to be read. In a presentation setting, I »
Does anyone say that they're not a fiscal conservative?
Many self-describe as "socially liberal and fiscally conservative." But, what does that really mean? According to wikipedia, fiscal conservatism advocates avoiding deficit spending, the »
The power of popcorn
Today I went to a demo day. Each startup had a booth in an exhibition hall with T-shirts, stickers, and demos on display ready to woo »