I had great heart-to-heart conversations this week with many of our portfolio company CEOs. The themes spanned a number of topics, but they all revolved around, more or less, “grit.” I’ve found that grit takes form in many shapes, depending on the person’s personality. For some, grit means getting angry. For others, it is about
The Boston Fire
A few days ago, I was in Cambridge for a board meeting. Across the river, we could see a building on fire, surrounded by fire trucks. As you may have read, two firefighters perished. This morning, I saw the Tweet below. I’m going to end this post here, out of respect for the dead and
When Will the U.S. End?
I had a sudden thought the other day in the shower: when will the U.S. end? I mean, every empire or super-power hits the skids at some point, and so, we’re not going to be an exception. I have been thinking of some disparate data points: Some high school friends commenting about how hard it
Why I’m Limiting Facebook
I’m a huge fan of social media. It is fun to connect to new people and read curated content. But, I’ve decided that, over time, Facebook has become less relevant in my life. I hate saying that since my classmate Sheryl Sandberg is the COO, and I owe her for coming to speak in Boston,
Free Speech and Racism
I yesterday was pretty stunned to see a Facebook post making fun of Asians. As the comments and “likes” rolled in real-time, I frankly couldn’t believe it. But, after thinking about it, I’m going to assume that the author (someone from my high school class) meant it as a harmless joke. The topics which I’d like
Polarized Politics
Late Saturday night, a high-school classmate sent me a Facebook chat message: So what is your point? Are you with [another high school classmate] and the other [Orange County] fools or do you believe in meaningful and potent American soft power politics in China of three generations of slave descendants in the White House? My