One of the good things that has come out of the pandemic is that my college friends and I Zoom each month. When our reunion was cancelled, I emailed the gang to see if people would be interested in meeting up on line. And, I’m glad people said they were. I lived with the same
Category: Books
Book Review: ‘We the Possibility’ by Mitch Weiss
For my second vaccine shot, I went to a large facility where the workers were cheery and friendly. I was in and out in 20 minutes. The process was very smooth from entry to exit. It struck me that I take government for granted. When roads are paved, street lights work, and schools function, I
Book Review: Tom Eisenmann’s ‘Why Startups Fail’
Tom Eisenmann’s Why Startups Fail is a gem of a book. As I’ve blogged before (here), the success rate in venture capital is only about 33%: a super-majority of investments made by people who supposedly know what they’re doing comprises of flops. Some mainstream-media articles extol and chronicle successes that, truthfully, are few in number;
‘Why We Sleep’
I’ve been reading a lot of physical books from our town library since the holidays. Reading has been a healthy way to escape from the news of the day. And, now that the HBS semester has ended, I have more time. On the VC front, I also have more time: the companies on whose boards
Tony Hsieh
I never met Tony Hsieh (pronounced “shay”). But we were in an investment together decades ago, before there was a Zappos, before he was famous, and during the Dot-Com Bubble. When I was working on an investment (Ask Jeeves, which went IPO), I saw “Venture Frogs” listed on the cap table. I asked Rob Wrubel,
‘Just Mercy,’ the Movie
For a thoughtful and poignant movie, look no further than Just Mercy, which is based on Bryan Stevenson’s book of the same name. A sub-group of our family saw it yesterday and really enjoyed it. This is a “real life” story about a man was framed for a murder and put on death row and