As a kid, my parents used to have a monthly gourmet group with a group of friends (they are still doing it monthly 35 years later) where they got together, cooked a fancy meal, and sat around late into the night talking. We joined up with about 15 friends several years ago and started a similar tradition in Boulder – we get together about six times a year for a fantastic evening we call Chez Gourmet.
Last night was Spanish Tapas Night at Chris Wand’s house. The food was magnificent (I cheated – $200 at Wild Oats buys a lot of tapas) but the conversation was even better. Rajat Bhargava and I were holed up in the corner of the couch talking about the incredible Kalamazoo Promise (Raj is from Kalamazoo – it was announced this week that any Kalamazoo Public School graduate has the opportunity to attend any public State of Michigan University or Community College for free due to the incredible generosity and vision of several anonymous donors). Our conversation rambled around and we ended up talking about a competitor of StillSecure’s (Raj’s company) that had been consistently lying to prospects and customers about their products’ capabilities (which StillSecure was benefiting from as the truth eventually came out.)
We quickly moved on to politics and as we bantered around how absurd it is that people lie, Raj said something that really stuck with me – “Truth Is The Absolute Defense” – which he attributed to Alan Shimel, who has worked with me and Raj for a number of years. I woke up thinking about how simple, yet profound, this is.