As part of the VC Advisory Board for Microsoft’s Emerging Business Technology group, I like to say that I work for Microsoft three days a year (this is how often the EBT VC Advisory Board meets).  We have a meeting coming up this week and – as I get ready to trek up to Redmond – I […]

I recently posted about the signs that a board should consider replacing the CEO.  My partner Heidi Roizen came up with these as her answer to a question posed by Pascal Levensohn for a new paper that he is writing on the “Ten Signs That It’s Time to Make A CEO Change in A Venture […]

I’ve been a long time fan and supporter of the work of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City.  In the mid 1990’s, I was an “entrepreneur-in-residence” there, which was basically a fancy phrase for “consultant” (I spent a day a month working on a set of programs run by Jana Matthews called “Learning […]

No – I’m not referring to Ken Lay.  One of my favorite local newspapers (ok – I have three of them – I don’t want to have to choose) wrote an article on Addicts for Gadgets highlighting the Crackberry.  I challenge you to find your friendly neighborhood VCs (me and Seth) in the article who […]

I’m in Paris again this week spending time with Amy.  She’s basically stopped talking English, so I don’t understand anything she says to me anymore, which – while we have a fantastic relationship – also seems to work pretty well and is probably not that different from most male / female relationships.  Unlike my last […]

I recently agreed to be chairman of the National Center for Women & Information Technology – an organization run by Lucy Sanders (ex-CTO Avaya Labs) – whose mission is to ensure that women are fully represented in the influential world of information technology.  Lucy and NCWIT are the real deal – in its first year we’ve raised […]

I had a pair of situations recently with executives from two different companies that reminded me what a pleasure it is to work with A+ people.  I won’t single them out by name in order to not embarrass them, but they know who they are.  Both demonstrated what I call “an unexpected display of class” […]

I was at a Rally Software board meeting where we spent a chunk of time finalizing and approving the 2005 operating plan. A big part of the discussion – not surprisingly – was on the sales ramp and the corresponding expense base (and timing of opex growth throughout the year based on a prediction of […]

Ed Roberto – CEO of Newmerix – has started a blog. He joins Matt Blumberg (Return Path), Jim Lejeal (Oxlo), and JB Holston (NewsGator) as CEO bloggers in my current portfolio. I’ve added Ed to the CEOBlogList – which is a fun evolving list of CEO bloggers. I’ve known and worked with Ed since 1998. […]