Books

On my run to Boulder on Saturday, I listened to The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything by theoretical physicist Michio Kaku . My run was about four hours long, which was roughly the time it took to listen to this spectacular book. The quick summary from Wikipedia follows: Kaku explores the history of unification theories of Physics starting with Newton’s law of universal gravitation which unified our experience of gravity on Earth and the motions of the celestial bodies to Einstein’s general relativity and quantum mechanics and the Standard Model . Kaku dubs the final Grand Unified Theory of relativity and quantum gravity The God Equation with an 11-dimensional String theory as the only self-consistent theory that seems to fit the bill. ...

I listened to Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times on Audible over the past week. It was spectacular. Danielle Morrill recommended it to me. We had an intense up and down journey together with Mattermark, which was doing great until we made a fundamentally bad decision around the company’s strategic direction. The ride down, especially against the backdrop of what I expect would have been a success if we hadn’t made that strategic decision, was extremely challenging. We both learned from it, and it’s been awesome to see the journey that Danielle has been on since. ...

I sort of took a Q1 Vacation last week. 2021 didn’t really feel like it started for me until January 21st. Yeah, I took a company public on January 4th, but then January 6th happened. It was a cold, dark, and anxious stretch where January felt like it had about 51 days in it. Then I was deep in SPACland and lots of deals and financings. I definitely had some “I just need to get to March 26th, and then I get a break” in my head. ...

Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture is weekend reading for anyone who wants to understand me and my generation. I was born in 1965 – right at the beginning of the transition from “Boomers” to “Xers.” I’m glad my parents had me in 1965 instead of 1964, where I’d spend my life arguing (maybe with myself) that I’m not a boomer. A millennial friend of mine didn’t know anything about Generation X, so I sent her a copy of the book. I suppose I was teasing her too much about being a millennial, which was just me mostly being a typical ironic Gen X slacker. ...

Today’s book recommendation, for anyone interested in venture capital, is The Business of Venture Capital: The Art of Raising a Fund, Structuring Investments, Portfolio Management, and Exits by Mahendra Ramsinghani. A decade ago, I got a cold email from Mahendra. He was investing in Detroit and eager to write a book about the art and science of venture capital. At the time, Jason and I were just finishing up the 1st edition of Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer And Venture Capitalist and I was enthusiastic about helping anyone else working on a book that demystified venture capital investing. ...

After my blog post Book: The Soul of an Octopus I received a flurry of emails telling me I needed to watch the movie My Octopus Teacher on Netflix. I watched it last night and it was beautiful. I’m fascinated by which blog posts generate email responses. Sometimes is zero. Sometimes it is a lot. This one was a lot. Octopuses are crazy interesting. And Craig Foster is pretty awesome. ...

My favorite animal is a polar bear. For some reason, I have always related to polar bears. When I’m reincarnated, I hope I come back as a polar bear. I’ve always like octopuses but never thought much about why. After reading Sy Montgomery’s incredible book The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness, I now know why. It’s simple – we don’t understand how they think. ...

I haven’t been posting about my reading lately. While I continue to read at my typical pace , I think I was a little tired of writing book reports, but that has passed. Last night I read The 80/80 Marriage: A New Model for a Happier, Stronger Relationship . Kaley and Nate Klemp have written an excellent book that can help any married couple improve their relationship. This is especially true in the time of Covid, given all the additional dynamics about being home together most of the time. ...

I love Neal Stephenson . I’ve read all of his books, some of them multiple times. Well, except the Baroque Cycle trilogy, which I’m saving for a special period of time to get lost in them, and from everything. Last week I read In the Beginning…Was the Command Line . For the second time. This time I read it on my Kindle, which was fitting. Stephenson wrote it in 1999. As we exit 2020, it’s a great reminder of the place technology was around 20 years ago. It shows how much has changed and how little has changed. ...

Amy and I watched Tenet the other night. When we finished, she turned to me and said, “That was one big, hot mess of a movie.” I sat for a moment and said, “I’m not sure it was any good, but I’m not sure.” I just watched the trailer. While these are clips from the movie, there’s no correlation in these clips to anything that gives you a feeling for the movie—more hot mess. ...