Jul 5, 2022Talking DevOps with Dave MangotI recently interviewed Dave Mangot, founder of Mangoteque, on an episode of the Private Equity Funcast to discuss the ins and outs of DevOps. Dave has a wealth of experience on the front lines at companies like Salesforce, Barracuda Networks, Cable & Wireless, MeridianLink, and SolarWinds. …Private Equity12 min readPrivate Equity12 min read
Oct 5, 2020How to get your domain blocked by our BarracudaIf you want me to block your email domain, it’s a pretty simple process: Send the same sales email to everybody at our firm (this mostly happens with partner email addresses). We get this all the time from recruiters. Attach files to an intro email. If I don’t know you…Email2 min readEmail2 min read
Aug 24, 2020I’m not your partner, podnahNobody tries to sell me anything anymore. Instead, they offer to be my “partner.” Most emails that I get includes some variation of the phrase “we partner with private equity firms to [word salad]…” Partnerships are the end-game status of long and fruitful vendor/customer relationships. …Private Equity3 min readPrivate Equity3 min read
Aug 14, 2020We are all mostly snowflakesI am a big fan of Lewis Black’s comedy. In one of his legendary rants, he asks the audience whether or not milk was healthy for people to drink. Half the people voted yes, and half the people voted no. Based on the audience’s answer, he made the point that…Snowflake4 min readSnowflake4 min read
Jul 30, 2020Enough with the superlativesStarting in the early 1980s, I came up through the technology ranks as a sales engineer. The sales representatives that I worked with and the senior sales engineers that trained me always reminded me to focus on “FBA” when talking about our products. “FBA” was sales engineer shorthand for “features…Software2 min readSoftware2 min read
Apr 28, 2020Why are we still running software on mainframes?The state of New Jersey recently put out a call for COBOL programmers to help fix problems with their unemployment system. The NJ system is straining to handle the considerable amount of additional traffic resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic layoffs. I’m not surprised that New Jersey’s unemployment application system is…Mainframe4 min readMainframe4 min read
Apr 15, 2020I am never going to be your customerJim Morrison was right, strange days have found us. March 2020 is the first time in thirty years that I have gone more than two weeks without getting on a plane. Let that sink in. I read lots of books, and I kill time in airports starting at my Kindle…Technology5 min readTechnology5 min read
Nov 19, 2019When tech-enabled process automation goes awryHertz overcharged me by six hundred dollars, and here is how it happened. I have been traveling for business since 1985, and I log about a hundred thousand miles a year, almost exclusively domestic travel within the continental United States. Travel has gotten so much more comfortable in the thirty-four…Travel9 min readTravel9 min read
Jun 11, 2019Silly vendor, segues are for kidsWe closed on a new deal at ParkerGale this week. We’re a small private equity shop, and we buy a company or two a year. In this internet age that we live in, it’s impossible to keep these deals private. Not that we want to keep them private, we don’t…Venture Capital3 min readVenture Capital3 min read
Mar 7, 2016My “Maslow” hierarchy of application needsAlmost everybody is familiar with Abraham Maslow’s famous paper outlining the various levels of human motivations. Maslow’s hierarchy is built as a pyramid, with its foundation based on physical needs: food, water, and oxygen. The second layer is safety and security. Next up is love and belonging, followed by esteem…Maslow5 min readMaslow5 min read
