Climbing The Mountain

Entrepreneurs nowadays are an impatient bunch. We want things to happen fast. We live and swear by mantras such as “Do More. Faster.” We want to leave our mark, have impact and make a dent in the universe — often discounting the time and energy that is required to do it.

Cut The Jargon

For some bizarre reason some people think they need to use a bunch of jargon (or worse buzzwords) to make themselves sound smart. Sadly I hear a lot of entrepreneurs fall into the same trap. They string sentences filled with as many hip buzzwords as they can come up with, create elaborate sentence…

Probability Analysis

When we lived in London my daily routine was to do a quick rain check: How likely is it that it will rain today? Based on this probability analysis I would pack an umbrella (in case of certain rain), a light rain coat (in case of a chance of rain) or brave the elements (if, for once, it…

Surround Yourself With The Right People

The German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said: “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him”.

I believe this sentence to be of fundamental truth.

A Heretical Holiday Gift

Last spring I met Eliot Peper at a coffee shop in Mountain View. Over some steaming craft-roasted cappuccinos we mind-melded over creativity, entrepreneurship, and our mutual love of books. Eliot had just released his first novel, Uncommon Stock: Version 1.0, which came out in March…

The Deep Dive

I spent the last two and next two days at the Nike Foundation / Unreasonable Girl Effect Accelerator — an insanely great two-week long accelerator program focussed on ventures which positively impact the lives of girls living on less than $2.50 a day.