Next up in the StockTwits.TV Do More Faster Interview series is Ben Huh, the founder/CEO of Pet Holdings, better known as the guys who do ICanHasCheezburger, Fail Blog, and about 50 other crazy and hilarious sites.
I was introduced to Ben several years ago by my friend Micah Baldwin (Graphic.ly CEO, TechStars Mentor, contributor to Do More Faster, and hilarious dude in his own right.) I care deeply about community and have learned a lot about it from both Micah and Ben. Ben was pretty serious sounding in this interview, so if you need a good end of the work week office laugh, one follows. But – listen to the interview with Ben – you’ll learn something.
see more Monday Through Friday
Our friend Howard Lindzon (StockTwits CEO, TechStars Mentor and Investor) did an interview series with a number of the contributors to our book Do More Faster. I’ll post one each day or so over the next week. They are all short (15 minutes or so). Howard starts the series with an interview with me and David Cohen (TechStars CEO and co-author with me of Do More Faster.)
This interview happens via Skype when David and I were at my house in Keystone (where we came up with the idea for the book) during the recent TechStars Managing Director retreat. In NY starting tomorrow is the annual TechStars Alumni Retreat (gang – sorry I’ll miss y’all) followed by TechStars for a Day for folks that have applied to the New York program.
If you are an entrepreneur I hope this stuff inspires and informs you. Or, in the worst case, occasionally amuses you (if you listen carefully around minute 9, you’ll learn about my “fuck me once” rule along with why I think work-life balance is important.) Enjoy.
David Cohen and I were interviewed on KRON Channel 4 in San Francisco for Do More Faster. It was our first TV interview around the book and was fun.
It’s a good example of giving more than you get and letting the universe do its thing. Gary DiGrazia, the CEO of Mindjamz, emailed me with some questions about his startup. I didn’t know Gary but as is my habit I gave him some quick feedback. We went back and forth a few times and then he told me that he helps produce the KRON 4 Weekend Morning News show and asked if I wanted to do an interview about Do More Faster on it. Um – duh – yeah! Two weeks later we tape an interview which just aired.
Karma Matters. Oh – that’s one of the chapters in Do More Faster (written by a long time friend of mine, Warren Katz, founder/CEO of MaK Technologies.)
On Monday, 10/11/10 from 6:15pm to 7:30pm I’ll be interviewing Greg Maffei (CEO of Liberty Media) and Michael Zeisser (SVP of Liberty Media) as part of the Silicon Flatirons Entrepreneurs Unplugged series. Over the past few years I’ve become good friends with Michael as he’s been a dedicated mentor to TechStars Boulder and contributed a chapter to Do More Faster. I’ve also gotten know Greg as he’s been active in and provided leadership to the broad Colorado technology landscape, as well as being CEO of one of the most significant and important technology companies in Colorado.
Tomorrow, I’ll be at the Liberty NetLeaders Forum ’10, an invite only event for 200 software / Internet executives that Liberty hosts once a year. I’ll be introducing my friends and colleagues Mark Pincus (Zynga CEO) and Bing Gordon (KPCB partner and Zynga board member) who are going to talk about “Building Zynga”. I’m sure the conference will give me plenty of interesting things to bring up at our Entrepreneurs Unplugged session on Monday.
Please join us on Monday at the Wolf Law Building (2450 Kittredge Loop) at the CU Law School. I really enjoy being the interviewer for these sessions and the feedback on our events continues to be great. I think Greg and Michael will be particularly interesting guest.
Registration is open and the event is free.
Earlier this week I did a one hour interview on “Meet the Angels” sponsored by Tech Coast Angels (one of the LA Angel groups.) It was supposed to live but for some reason there were some problems getting into the webcast. It’s now up on the web – if you were trying to watch it and couldn’t, it’s posted below.
Live video event with Brad Feld from TechCoastAngels on Vimeo.
Once again I’m moderating the Entrepreneurs Unplugged series hosted by Silicon Flatirons. Our first interviewee – this coming Monday night – is Andre Durand, the founder and CEO of Ping Identity.
Andre Durand brings 18 years of software industry executive leadership experience to his role as founder and CEO at Ping Identity. Durand co-founded Digital ID World, the identity industry conference (acquired by IDG in 2007). Prior to Ping Identity, Durand founded Jabber, Inc., an instant messaging and presence management software provider (acquired by Cisco in 2009). While at Jabber, Durand incubated the Jabber Software Foundation, a non-profit established to facilitate growth of the Jabber Open Source project. Prior to Jabber, Inc., Durand was founder and CEO of Durand Communications, a bulletin board software provider (acquired by Webb Interactive in 1998). Durand holds BA degrees in Biology and Economics from the University of California.
The event begins on Monday 9/20/10 at 6:15pm with brief networking and runs until 7:30pm in the ATLAS Building on the CU Boulder Campus. The event is free but please register in advance.
I’ve always enjoyed hanging out with Om Malik. We’ve had a handful of nice, relaxed discussions about some deep stuff. Last week I took a break from Google I/O and spent an hour and a half with him. We spent about an hour talking about life and some very personal things and then did a thirty minute interview which includes a really nice post on GigaOm about me and Foundry Group.
Om does a great interview and really brings out the best in people. The next time he emails, he’ll have me at “Brad, would you talk to me about …”
I promise I’ll write something thoughtful tomorrow and not torture you with more video and audio.
Over the weekend, I did a fun interview with Howard Lindzon on StockTwits TV during his annual Lindzonpalooza event. We covered a wide range of entrepreneurial topics and gave each other plenty of good natured shit. Eek – I’m a looking a little chunky – note to self: more running, more swimming, less eating. Or maybe it was just the camera.
This afternoon I did an interview with Jon Hansen on Blog Talk Radio about an article that Ariana Huffington wrote on the Huffington Post titled When It Comes to Innovation, Is America Becoming a Third World Country? Jon does a good, thoughtful, long form interview.
And – as a special bonus, I met Alan Levy, the co-founder and CEO of BlogTalkRadio, at Lindzonpalooza. What an awesomely small world.
Andrew does a nice interview. We covered plenty of ground, including failure, when to really call it quits, the concept that “life is a fatal disease”, global vs. local failure, working on things that matter, what I think “fail fast” actually means, how to evolve your business (using Return Path and NewsGator as the examples), my obsession with product, how we decided to invest in Pogoplug, more on product and release tempo, a story about my grandfather, a story about Laura Fitton and why I care about OneForty, why it’s so important to always give more than you get, how the Defrag and Glue conferences came about, some book recommendations, and why fear and anxiety are emotions that have zero value to an entrepreneur.
Business Tips via Mixergy, home of the ambitious upstart!