Book

Recently, my friend Ross Baird came out with a new book, The Innovation Blind Spot . In the book, Ross outlines and diagnoses a problem that I’ve been exploring for over a decade: our innovation economy neglects many people and ideas. Ross kicks off the book with some pretty stark statistics: despite the fact that promising startup communities (such as my hometown of Boulder) are thriving, in most communities in America, firm creation is the lowest it’s been in a generation. With women making up less than 10% of new startups that are funded and African-Americans and Latinos making up less than 1%, it’s obvious we’re not seeing the best ideas in our innovation ecosystem. ...

In response to my post Book: Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape several people asked me for the feminist literature reading list that Amy had put together for me. Following are the other ten books that I’m working my way through this fall. Sexual Politics by Kate Millet Sisterhood is Forever by Robin Morgan The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde Ain’t I a Woman by bell hooks The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens by Alice Walker A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf Beyond God the Father by Mary Daly ...

“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” – Margaret Atwood A few weeks ago, after reading the New York Times Sunday Review article The Book That Made Us Feminists , I asked Amy for several recommendations for books that were foundational to the feminist movement. I purchased all that she suggested and added them to my infinite list of books to read. ...

Amy and I just spent a week of vacation off the grid in Aspen. I ran, read, and hung out. I had a fantasy about writing, but didn’t get to it. We watched Narcos Season 3, ate at a bunch of Aspen’s restaurants, and had an Amy pre-birthday dinner with our friends Dave and Maureen. And we napped – a lot. I hadn’t had a vacation since mid-April, which is unusual for me as Amy and I try to take a week off the grid every quarter. On day three, which was a Monday, I settled into a total chill zone which lasted all week. I did my long run on Friday (instead of Saturday) and cruised from Aspen to Basalt. I then slept most of the day on Saturday when I wasn’t reading or eating. Yup – I’m marathon ready. ...

I read Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant’s book Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy a few weeks ago. It’s a must read for every human on this planet. Some of you know that I’m a huge fan of Adam Grant. His book Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success is a key inspiration for the #GiveFirst moment, my own personal philosophy, and my upcoming book #GiveFirst: A New Philosophy for Business which should be out in 2018. ...

The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia’s Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries was one of two books I read this weekend (the other was Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness ). It was outstanding. I made it the August book club book for my dad and my brother. And then, this morning, I woke up to the following headlines. Putin bans VPNs to stop Russians accessing prohibited websites Apple Removes Apps That Allowed China Users to Get Around Filters This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who is paying attention. There is now a long history of governments trying to control the Internet. One approach over government is censoring the Internet; another is weaponizing it. ...

On May 23rd, I got an email from one of my favorite sci-fi writers (and close friend) Eliot Peper . It was titled “My very first scifi short story” and said: “David Cohen shared the idea that inspired this story. I drafted it last week. Thought you might enjoy and would love to hear what you think.” I was in the middle of grinding through my email backlog, so this stopped me in my tracks as I spent the next 15 minutes reading Eliot’s new short story. The first few sentences grabbed me. ...

I’ve written this post in the style Geraldine used in her book. As you read this, assume that I’ve failed miserably at it and Geraldine is 1000x funnier and more clever than I am. I had a weekend of books. Amy’s cold drifted over into my part of the world so I slept a lot, ran a little to try to clear out the goo in my head, and read until I feel asleep again. And I ate nachos, several times, which I never do at home. ...

If you have purchased the hardcopy edition of Venture Deals 3rd Edition, you can now buy the Kindle version also for $2.99 via the Amazon Kindle Matchbook program. Jason and I have been asking our publisher (Wiley) for this for a while and we are psyched they’ve agreed to it. It came about after a number of you asked us if we were going to do this, so thanks to y’all for pushing us on it.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that my dad Stan is one of my best friends. So is my brother Daniel. Over the last decade we’ve been doing regular things together like an annual trip (me/Dad, Daniel/Dan) and monthly dinners (me/Daniel). Last month I proposed a new idea – a monthly book club between the three of us. We’d rotate choosing the book of the month. We’d read it separately but talk about it over the course of the month. Then, the next person would pick the next book. We’d iterate on the process – maybe we’ll end up doing a real book club video call for 30 minutes once a month to discuss, maybe we won’t. ...