I had a nice run this morning around the Charles River. It’s a version of a run I’ve done many times in the past when I used to live here. There was one “category” of problem, which I’ll refer to as the Scooter-Bike challenge. I started at 8:52am, which was at the absolute peak of the “rush to get to work/class/wherever” experience. I didn’t think much about it as I often run at this time in Colorado and rarely notice any humans.

Recently, a friend of mine told me about the experience of giving his kid his first cell phone (I think around age 11.) As part of the experience, he decided to write up a contract with rules of engagement. He went through it with his kid in detail and they both signed it. I had stored this away to blog and thought of it yesterday as I was walking to dinner from Harvard Square to Central Square. The number of people walking down the street staring at or typing on their phones blew my mind. While many of them were college-aged (given Harvard and MIT), some were older. I know some of this is the density of the city (vs. where I live), but the dynamic surprised me, especially since it was a beautiful early fall evening.

Following is an abridged email that showed up in my inbox recently that caused me to stop and think for a few minutes. I took a look back through your posts before I crafted this email. So much of what you write about is focused on men who are succeeding, that I wonder if you are going to write something about women like Simone Biles. She is doing some pretty amazing stuff on the mat, bars, vault, and beam. I know you support women so I feel a little bad about calling this out but am curious. Is my perspective so biased that I see fault or bias where there is none? You did write about JOMO and that was written by a woman. But that was one post out of 10-15 that I scanned through. And this is your personal blog so you can write about whatever you want. My concern is that you are followed by a lot of men who you could influence with your openminded approach to more than just sci-fi, investing, and health. I’ve read Snow Crash and thought it was fascinating but it’s definitely not my typical cup of tea. Perhaps we women are not your target audience. To which I will add that it would be really helpful if you could use your platform for the good of women, not just men. Because in the end, we all win if we have a more level and equal playing field including opportunities, products, and services. 

Amy and I had dinner recently with Chris Couch, a friend from MIT who I hadn’t seen in 25 years. Before we had dinner, Chris sent us an email with a link to his High Altitude Photography Platform along with the video from Mission 1 of the HAPP. Chris has a day job, so this has been his hobby for the past two years. It’s pretty epic – both as a project and a hobby. And, it’s reflective of the kind of brain many of my MIT friends have.

Last week David and I spent some time at the Techstars Sustainability Accelerator in partnership with The Nature Conservancy. Their demo day is happening on October 30th in Denver and you can register here if you’re interested in attending. If you want to see what actual world-changing startups look like, you’ll love this particular demo day. The ten companies that you’ll hear from are working on problems like how we remove carbon from the atmosphere, better manage our water, make valuable products from waste, and keep companies accountable for critical supply chains like coffee, seafood, timber, minerals, cotton, and palm oil. Each company is a venture-backable for-profit that has the possibility of creating both big financial and impact outcomes.

One of the many great things about the Governor of Colorado is that he’s an entrepreneur, having started multiple successful technology companies, including BlueMountainArts.com (acquired by Excite for $800m) and Provide Commerce (IPO, then acquired by Liberty Media for $500m). He’s also a co-founder of Techstars with me, David Cohen, and David Brown. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that one of Jared Polis’ relatively early new initiatives as Governor is the Colorado Digitial Service.

Eliud Kipchoge runs on his way to break the historic two hour barrier for a marathon in Vienna, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2019. Eliud Kipchoge has become the first athlete to run a marathon in less than two hours, although it will not count as a world record. The Olympic champion and world record holder from Kenya clocked 1 hour, 59 minutes and 40 seconds Saturday at the INEOS 1:59 Challenge, an event set up for the attempt. (Jed Leicester/The INEOS 1:59 Challenge via AP)

Today’s the last day of my ProLon Fasting Mimicking Diet. I wrote about my start in a post titled ProLon Day 1. I was a little nervous about trying this so I figured I’d blog about it to bust through any anxiety I was having about trying it. I find myself very happy with it on Day 5. I’m not hungry and have only had a few stretches where I was hungry, and I think most of them were a result of someone (where 50% of the time that someone was Amy) saying “Are you hungry?” which then caused me to think about it.

I love randomness. It’s an essential part of how I live and work. Today’s example of randomness is the book event for Do More Faster that David Cohen and I are doing at the Barnes & Nobel in Boulder at 4 pm today. It’s open to anyone and we have no idea who is coming or what the actual agenda will be, but we know that even if it’s just the two of us sitting at a B&N together, we’ll have fun and learn something.