Dispatches from Underway

My wife and I have recently made a big decision. After over eleven years living in London, we’re moving back to the US… to the San Francisco/Bay Area of California!

Wait… what?!?

Jed Christiansen

Dec 17, 2014

Startups want operators — what about Special Forces?

First thread: I try to go out of my way to help current and recent military members to transition to civilian jobs and careers. I remember how tough it can be to translate the very rich experiences I had in the Navy to something that…

Jed Christiansen

Dec 12, 2014

Trending on Product Hunt during YC’s Demo Day — the Seed-DB experience

I had a bit of a weird experience on August 19th this year.

It was Y Combinator Demo Day, and I knew to look out for startups launching so I could enter them in Seed-DB

Jed Christiansen

Dec 11, 2014

No regrets… ever

definition of regret:

re·gret — r???ret/

verb

1.feel sad, repentant, or disappointed over (something that has happened or been done, especially a loss or missed opportunity).

Jed Christiansen

Dec 9, 2014

Highly recommended read — “The Martian”

I originally heard about “The Martian” via this tweet from Clay Bavor, a VP for Product at Google. As he wrote:

If you’re an engineer, you must read The Martian.

If you’re into space, you must read The Martian.

Jed Christiansen

Dec 8, 2014

Accelerators and the focus on Demo Day

If you check out seed accelerators for long enough, you’ll come across one relatively consistent criticism. (Particularly for the lower quality programs, I have to say.) That criticism is that accelerators focus way too much on Demo Day. I believe that founders…

Jed Christiansen

Dec 4, 2014

Life with my “distraction-free” phone

Earlier this summer I read two posts by Jake Knapp (a design partner at Google Ventures) about his “distraction free” iPhone: how he started it, and what it felt like a year later. In a nutshell, he found himself getting constantly distracted by his iPhone, and…