I just got off the phone with Mike Stonebraker. It was a very special and somewhat emotional conversation. You see, it was just announced that Mike has won the $1 Million Turing Award. It is the “Nobel Peace Prize of Computing.” Every year, for about ten years, Mike has been nominated for the prize and
Category: Entrepreneurship
How I Negotiate Term Sheets as a VC
Over time, I’ve developed a certain approach to negotiating term sheets with entrepreneurs. The whole “email a term sheet document” back and forth method seemed inefficient to me. And, it put too much focus on redline edits rather than listening to each other. So, I don’t trade paper as a starting point. Here’s what I
Your VC Isn’t Enthusiastic. What to Do?
Sometimes, VCs behave in puzzling ways. Say you’re an entrepreneur, and you’ve made good progress with your company. But, you sense your VC isn’t jumping up and down. My advice? Take that VC out for a coffee or a meal and ask him/her this question: How are we doing relative to other companies in that
Confronting the Past
Everyone has a dark secret, I’m convinced. It’s likely something that happened to us in the past, and a memory which we no longer want to retrieve. But, when a whisper of that moment resurrects, it can bring on sudden and seemingly unexplainable feelings of fear, shame, anger, and self-loathing. One of my favorite parts
An Armenian Grandmother and Persistence
I recently meet with Ara Kouchakdjian. His family’s story is incredible. it’s about grit and courage. So, I asked Ara to write a guest post. Here it is: All of us who work in early stage companies have learned the importance of persistence. For some, we learned it from a sports coach, for others it was a
Finding a CEO Mentor
I had breakfast with one of our CEOs this morning. It’s a great way to talk about the company, and his career progression, in a relaxed environment. One thing he has done is brought on some CEO mentors to the Board. I’m a big fan of bringing “CEO coaches” to a Board, as I think