We’ve been investors in littleBits since 2013. Last night, littleBits was featured as an example in the 60 Minutes segment on Closing the Gender Gap in the Tech Industry.
Among other things, I’m especially proud of Ayah Bdeir’s leadership on this issue over the years. There are two great interview segments with her that discuss (1) To increase girls in tech, focus on ages 8-12 and (2) The importance of teaching girls to fail.
Several friends have mentioned that I’d love Cal Newport’s writing. I finally got around to reading his most recent book, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World and my friends were correct.
Newport is famous for being a millennial, computer scientist, and a
Digital Minimalism is complementary to Jaron Lanier‘s book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, but I found Newport a lot more comfortable and convincing. More importantly, it reinforced a number of changes that I’ve already made in my life over the past few years.
I’ve deleted Facebook, shifted almost all of my interactions on the few social media services that I use (Twitter, LinkedIn) to broadcast only (where I broadcast out things to anyone who cares to follow them). I’ve limited my online writing to my blog, which I’m fine being reposted in other places. My inputs are now what some refer to as Slow Media, where I can read and consider the input, rather than react to endless stimuli.
I’m an introvert in an extrovert’s world. I like to be alone, with Amy, or with a maximum of four people (usually me, Amy, and another couple.) In contrast, I spend a large portion of my work time with groups larger than four people. Figuring out how to manage this duality, while staying mentally healthy, has been a life-long challenge.
Newport’s concept of digital minimalism helps me with all of this. He refers to a distinction that MIT professor Sherry Turkle makes in her 2015 book, Reclaiming Conversation. In her book, Turkle draws a distinction between connection, her word for the low-bandwidth interactions that define our online social lives, and conversation, the much richer, high-bandwidth communication that defines real-world encounters between humans. I care deeply about
Newport has an entire chapter on solitude, nicely titled “Spend Time Alone.” He makes the important distinction between spending time alone with other stimuli (music, podcasts, audible, streaming media) and real solitude. I immediately understood this as well, as I almost always run alone and naked (without headphones). The examples of how Lincoln used solitude was extraordinarily well written and inspiring.
In addition to the framework around digital minimalism, Newport unloads on the reader with numerous tactics. I use some of them but found a few new ones to add to my repertoire.
A big thanks to Ben Casnocha, who was the most recent person to push me over the “you must read Cal Newport’s stuff.” I’ll read Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World soon, after I enjoy some sci-fi mental floss next since the last few books I’ve read were heavy-ish.
I participated in a one hour Crowdcast yesterday with Techstars and 43 North about How to Build a Successful Startup Ecosystem in your City. Some of the thoughts from my upcoming book The Startup Community Way are in the hour, along with a bunch of things Techstars is doing around this initiative.
powered by CrowdcastIf you are in a city somewhere in the world working on developing your Startup Community and are interested in learning about the new Techstars Startup Ecosystem Development product, drop me an email.
I’ve been doing a three-year future org chart exercise with the CEOs of a number of the companies I’m involved in between $25m and $250m in revenue.
This can be done on a napkin, a sheet of paper, or a whiteboard. It should not be done in PowerPoint, Google Slides, or a fancy org chart maker app. It should be done in real-time, without preparation, and in front of a small group, which could include co-founders or board members. But, start with a small group – no more than four people in total.
Draw your current org chart. If this is difficult, messy, or ambiguous, then slow down and talk it through with whomever you have in the room. You probably have some opportunities for improvement here.
Do not draw any empty boxes. Do not have any TBH boxes. Try to avoid dotted lines, although own up to them if they exist. Given that you are at least $25m in revenue, go two levels down (your direct reports and their direct reports.)
Now, stare at it for a while and discuss with
Write down all of your thoughts and feedback. Don’t change your org chart, but try to decide what you don’t like about it. Identify when you have the wrong person in a role, or when they have too much, or too little span of control. Are all your direct reports white guys? Are they functional peers? Do you trust them and respect them equally? Do they communicate well with each other – both one on one and as a group? If you were to rehire them today for the role they are in, would you? Are you paying them too much or too little? Do they have too much equity or too little? Or is the org porridge just right?
Close your eyes and image three years into the future. You are three years older. If you have kids, they are three years older. If your parents are still alive, they are three years older. There are new politicians in office. The New England Patriots just won the Super Bowl again for another year in a row, but no one except people who live in New England care. You still get way too much email and VR is still pointless for anything except video games.
Open your eyes. Your business is somewhere between two and three times bigger than it was when you closed your eyes. Do not look at your old org chart from three years ago. Draw a new org chart. This time you can have empty boxes and TBH. You still don’t want dotted lines if you can help it.
Once again, go two levels down. But start with the CEO box. Are you still in it? If not, are you in a different box on the org chart? As you fill out the future org chart, once again only go two levels down. Make a list off to the side of people you have in the company today in senior roles who you don’t think will be with you in three years. Make a different list of the people who in senior positions today who will still be in the company, but won’t be in the top two levels of the organization.
Now, compare the org charts. Are there any changes you would (or should) make now, rather than in three years? As with the current org chart, discuss this with the people in the room. Let them challenge you, allow yourself to be defensive and feel whatever feelings you have, rather than try to please them or get to the right answer. Let it be uncomfortable.
As a bonus, design your ideal board of directors for three years from now. Once again, start with your current board. Close your eyes. Then draw your future board. Instead of names, put characteristics in the boxes. After you’ve done this, you can put names against the future board members when the person fits the characteristics.
Again, discuss.
Now, bring more people into the room.
Walk everyone through today’s org chart, the future org chart, the current board, and the future board. Pause after each one for feedback or thoughts, especially on the future org chart and future board. Finally, go person by person for feedback on where you have ended up.
If you take this exercise seriously, it will take an hour or two. While you don’t have to do it face to face, I’ve found it most effective if the first set of people involved is in a room in front of a whiteboard. If you attach this exercise to a board meeting, do it at the end, and go out for a meal afterward.
As the CEO, record all of what you did (at the minimum, take photos with your phone.) Put it off to the side for a week, but then revisit it and decide what changes you are going to make and how you are going to make them to your team to get from today’s org structure to the org
Every year, one of my favorite things to read is the Berkshire Hathaway annual letter. The 2018 version is out and, as always, is a beautiful thing to read if you have any interest in business and economics.
I particularly loved Warren Buffett’s reflections at the end of the letter in a section called The American Tailwind, which follows:
On March 11th, it will be 77 years since I first invested in an American business. The year was 1942, I was 11, and I went all in, investing $114.75 I had begun accumulating at age six. What I bought was three shares of Cities Service preferred stock. I had become a capitalist, and it felt good.
Let’s now travel back through the two 77-year periods that preceded my purchase. That leaves us starting in 1788, a year prior to George Washington’s installation as our first president. Could anyone then have imagined what their new country would accomplish in only three 77-year lifetimes?
During the two 77-year periods prior to 1942, the United States had grown from four million people – about 1⁄2 of 1% of the world’s population – into the most powerful country on earth. In that spring of 1942, though, it faced a crisis: The U.S. and its allies were suffering heavy losses in a war that we had entered only three months earlier. Bad news arrived daily.
Despite the alarming headlines, almost all Americans believed on that March 11th that the war would be won. Nor was their optimism limited to that victory. Leaving aside congenital pessimists, Americans believed that their children and generations beyond would live far better lives than they themselves had led.
The nation’s citizens understood, of course, that the road ahead would not be a smooth ride. It never had been. Early in its history our country was tested by a Civil War that killed 4% of all American males and led President Lincoln to openly ponder whether “a nation so conceived and so dedicated could long endure.” In the 1930s, America suffered through the Great Depression, a punishing period of massive unemployment.
Nevertheless, in 1942, when I made my purchase, the nation expected post-war growth, a belief that proved to be well-founded. In fact, the nation’s achievements can best be described as breathtaking.
Let’s put numbers to that claim: If my $114.75 had been invested in a no-fee S&P 500 index fund, and all dividends had been reinvested, my stake would have grown to be worth (pre-taxes) $606,811 on January 31, 2019 (the latest data available before the printing of this letter). That is a gain of 5,288 for 1. Meanwhile, a $1 million investment by a tax-free institution of that time – say, a pension fund or college endowment – would have grown to about $5.3 billion.
Let me add one additional calculation that I believe will shock you: If that hypothetical institution had paid only 1% of assets annually to various “helpers,” such as investment managers and consultants, its gain would have been cut in half, to $2.65 billion. That’s what happens over 77 years when the 11.8% annual return actually achieved by the S&P 500 is recalculated at a 10.8% rate.
Those who regularly preach doom because of government budget deficits (as I regularly did myself for many years) might note that our country’s national debt has increased roughly 400-fold during the last of my 77-year periods. That’s 40,000%! Suppose you had foreseen this increase and panicked at the prospect of runaway deficits and a worthless currency. To “protect” yourself, you might have eschewed stocks and opted instead to buy 31⁄4 ounces of gold with your $114.75.
And what would that supposed protection have delivered? You would now have an asset worth about $4,200, less than 1% of what would have been realized from a simple unmanaged investment in American business. The magical metal was no match for the American mettle.
Our country’s almost unbelievable prosperity has been gained in a bipartisan manner. Since 1942, we have had seven Republican presidents and seven Democrats. In the years they served, the country contended at various times with a long period of viral inflation, a 21% prime rate, several controversial and costly wars, the resignation of a president, a pervasive collapse in home values, a paralyzing financial panic and a host of other problems. All engendered scary headlines; all are now history.
Christopher Wren, architect of St. Paul’s Cathedral, lies buried within that London church. Near his tomb are posted these words of description (translated from Latin): “If you would seek my monument, look around you.” Those skeptical of America’s economic playbook should heed his message.
In 1788 – to go back to our starting point – there really wasn’t much here except for a small band of ambitious people and an embryonic governing framework aimed at turning their dreams into reality. Today, the Federal Reserve estimates our household wealth at $108 trillion, an amount almost impossible to comprehend.
Remember, earlier in this letter, how I described retained earnings as having been the key to Berkshire’s prosperity? So it has been with America. In the nation’s accounting, the comparable item is labeled “savings.” And save we have. If our forefathers had instead consumed all they produced, there would have been no investment, no productivity gains and no leap in living standards.
Robin Hauser’s Film Bias at the Boulder International Film Festival 2019
Amy and I are long-time supporters of the Boulder International Film Festival. The 2019
Bias, one of the documentaries that we helped fund, is making its Colorado Premier and showing on Saturday, March 2,
Robin Hauser, the director, is spectacular. Amy and I supported her previous moving Code: Debugging the Gender Gap, which was dynamite, incredibly informative, and very accessible.
I expect Bias to be even better. I encourage you to buy a ticket and go see it at the BIFF 2019.
My partner Seth Levine has written several posts over the years on the
His 2019 post, titled creatively How To Get A Job In Venture Capital is excellent. Things have changed in the last decade since his 2008 post titled How to get a job in venture capital (revisited), which was an update from his 2005 post titled How to become a venture capitalist. All three posts are worth reading.
Following is a teaser for each of the key points Seth makes.
- Take the long view. Despite the relative increase in the number of venture firms, there still aren’t all that many jobs in
venture .
- Get involved in your community. Venture and entrepreneurship aren’t spectator sports and are best experienced from within.
- Get involved in companies. There are lots of great ways to help out companies directly.
- Network. Most people are terrible networkers. They treat networking transactionally and they are always looking to take from their networks vs. give to them (good networkers adhere to the #givefirst mentality)
- Engage. Lots of venture capitalists put out a lot of content and it has never been easier to engage with the venture community. Comment on
blog and Medium posts, follow VCs that you respect on Medium and Twitter, send them ideas and thoughts on what they’re writing about and investing in. Stay active and top of mind.
- Look for any way in. Your first job in venture is typically the hardest to get.
- Work for a startup or start one of your own. This was true 10 years ago and it remains true today.
- Invest if you can. With investment becoming slightly less regulated there are opportunities to put even modest amounts of money to work through platforms like AngelList and others. If you have the ability, it’s not a bad way to show an interest in investing and give you something to talk about in your networking.
- Persevere. Getting a job in
venture is hard and can take a while. Likely it won’t happen. Keep the long game in mind, have fun while you’re going through the process and keep at it.
If you are interested in a job in venture capital, go read Seth’s posts How To Get A Job In Venture Capital (2019). And How to get a job in venture capital (revisited – 2008). And How to become a venture capitalist (2005).
Day 1 of Sphero’s RVR pre-order campaign is off to a great start (> 1000 backers, > $250,000 in the first 24 hours.) It’s Day 2, but for some people in the tech world it’s always Day 1, so if you missed RVR, go take a look and jump in on the pre-order fun.
I was on vacation during valentines day so I’m a little late. But, robot valentines day transcends time, especially since I love robots.
Misty is shipping soon, but you can follow along and pre-order now.
Sphero has announced RVR, a go anywhere, do anything programmable robot. It launched on Kickstarter today and is available, along with a bunch of other fun pre-order options.
Over the last eight years, Sphero has made a bunch of different robots. We’ve been discussing the “every-programmer” robot for a while, which is both hardware and software hackable. Watching RVR come together from the inside over the past year has been pretty awesome.
If you are into robots, programming, STEM, or the future, go visit Kickstarter and pre-order RVR today.