How Diversity Fuels Innovation and Creativity
On Monday March 30th 6:30-8:30pm at Impact Hub Boulder I’ll be part of a panel discussing the questions “What’s the big deal about diversity in business today? Isn’t everyone on board with
On Monday March 30th 6:30-8:30pm at Impact Hub Boulder I’ll be part of a panel discussing the questions “What’s the big deal about diversity in business today? Isn’t everyone on board with
If you are a founder or employee of a startup in Boulder and want to increase the overall effectiveness of our local Boulder government, please help us fund the Code for America Fellowship in Boulder. We are raising a total of $75,000 to match the $75,000 being contributed to this effort by the City of Boulder. So far $30,000 of the $75,000 has been funded by my partners at Foundry Group, Rally Software, and the Anchor Point Foundation (the foundation that Amy and I run). If you’d like to contribute, either email me or donate online at the Code for America site.
I got the following question the other day. “If you get a chance, I’d request you to write a blog post about various business decision related conflicts or misunderstanding that might occur in a partnership and how you folks at the Foundry Group resolve it. My partners and I grapple with such challenges quite often.” Every VC firm is different so to answer a question like this, it’s important to remember that the answer is one specific to Foundry Group. Never forget that VCs Are Like D&D Characters.
I’ve decided to try something new on this blog. Rather than using up full posts for short announcements, I’ve added a new block for announcements at the top of the home page. It’s in orange, will generally be only a few lines, and include a link. Since these are just blog posts being formatted differently, they will show up in the RSS feed and the daily email. In addition, there is a page in the Archives for the announcements.
If you are a technology product manager in Colorado, take a look at the new Colorado Product group. The first meetup is on 4/2/15 and features a talk from Adit Vaidya, Product Manager for Facebook Groups.
Following is a guest post from Zack Rosen at Pantheon about his experience shadowing Jud Valeski, founder and then-CEO of Gnip for a day in 2012. Behind the stories of most first-time venture-backed CEOs building startups and attacking markets at breakneck speed, there is usually a tight network of mentors and peers showing them the ropes of company building. That’s certainly been my experience at Pantheon—we likely would not exist if not for the crucial help of James Lindenbaum, Adam Gross, Steve Anderson, Ryan McIntyre, Brad Feld, and all of the advisors who have assisted us on our journey.
I first discovered David Eagleman in a 2011 New Yorker article titled The Possibilian that Amy had torn off and put in my “to read” pile. It was a fascinating long article on his research, life, and ideas about time and death especially around the question, “Why does time slow down when we fear for our lives?” In the section about studying drummers (yup – it’s a wide ranging article), Brian Eno is introduced. I’ve been intrigued with Eno ever since college when I listened to his Ambient albums over and over.
I’ll be interviewing Yoav Lurie and Justin Segall of Simple Energy on 3/31/15 from 5:30 – 7:00pm. Register and come join us.
I recently received a long email from a CEO, who I don’t know, about an anxiety attack he had. At the end, was a pertinent question that I don’t think I’ve ever addressed before. “What is my responsibility to openly communicate this important matter to the Board? And how do I balance what I feel is a need for material disclosure with a desire for privacy around my personal health information?”
Amy and I are spending the week in Dubai on the annual Wellesley Art Trip. I’ve been doing some of the art stuff, visited one of our LPs, and have been getting together with local entrepreneurs and investors. Yesterday, I had a magnificent two and a half hour lunch with three guys from BECO Capital – Dany Farha, Amir Farha, and Sorusch Amiri. It started ten days ago with an email from Sorusch in response to a tweet I wrote asking for a recommendation of a book on the history of Dubai.