I am returning to a theme that I feel quite strongly about.I blog on WordPress using a host that I have selected and can move from at any time. WordPress is open source software and I can download it and run it on my own machines if I want to. I don’t. But being able to do that is...
life lessons
Auto Added by WPeMatico
When a CEO has been removed for failed leadership, it is best to have a new CEO waiting in the wings to take over. I have been in the middle of this transition many times and have often been the person announcing the change to the company and introducing the new CEO. I have seen this done well and...
Transferable soft skills are crucial regardless of operating in a high-performance work setting or negotiating going-out rules with a 3-year-old.Read the full...
Look at any successful person; Angela Merkel, LeBron James, Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Bezos, and you will see someone who has benefitted tremendously from one or more mentors in their life. Nobody gets somewhere on their own. Everyone has help.I was reminded of this when I read this touching...
Watching the election returns last night made me think about all of the math we are learning in the last year.Now that our elections include different kinds of votes that have different demographics associated with them (mail-in votes, early votes, same-day votes), the absolute numbers move all...
Hi Everyone. Happy 2021.Today, as is my custom on the first day of the new year, I am going to take a stab at what the year ahead will bring. I find it useful to think about what we are in for. It helps me invest and advise the companies we are invested in. Like our investing, I will get some...
I remember when I was a kid and my parents would put presents under a tree and for weeks we would wait excitedly for the moment when we would get to open them. It was a great tradition that ended when we grew up, moved out, and started families of our own.Our family did the Christmas present...
How do we become better known, better liked, and more trustworthy? These are the 3 main aspects of influencing anyone in life.Read the full...
Overcoming depression is a long and challenging process. Here’s what else I have learned.Read the full...
Over the last few decades webinars have been growing in popularity, but with the rise of pandemic - when traditional face-to-face tools are unavailable and more and more people work remotely - they became a crucial part that fills the gap between offline and online business communication. Read the...
I learned yesterday of the passing of Arnold Waldstein. Arnold was as regular a reader of this blog as there ever was or ever will be. His warmth is what I will remember most. He cared about people.Arnold was a born and bred NYer who went to Silicon Valley and built a career in marketing. He...
"For every complex problem, there's a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." - H.L. MenckenRead the full...
When I go back and read my Jan 1st post on what would happen in the 2020s, I am reminded how hard it is to predict the future. The Covid Pandemic changed everything in 2020 and likely for years to come. And yet it was not one of my predictions, even though Covid was already spreading in China at...
Saving money and running a sensible budget has long been important to most people. However, as additional challenges and pressures develop throughout this year, this is becoming more critical than ever for more people. Saving money on a large scale is not always easy, however, there are many small...
Stockdale had no reason to think that the day’s mission was to be anything unique. Read the full...
I have always been fascinated with the theatre and aspired to "learn" theatre (still do). Between 2017 - 2019, I was part of a Playback Theatre group in Bangalore called The Actors Collective. I was involved passively for a few months and some months very very passionately. As I revisited some of...
I am not working today. USV gave everyone the day off. It is Election Day in the US. I believe it should be a national holiday so everyone can have the day off and vote. I can’t think of many things more important than participating in the selection of our government.I saw that over 100mm...
In almost thirty five years of working on boards, the hardest decisions I have had to make involve removing the CEO. It is an important decision and one that must be made from time to time. I am not a fan of removing the CEO until and unless it is abundantly clear that it must be done.But when...
As I have written here a few times, I prefer to do video meetings from a couch (vs a desk). I find it allows me to stay present in the meeting and not get distracted by everything on my desk. I call these couch setups “Zoom Rooms” and I have been doing this long before the pandemic but this...
"All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I'll never go there." - Charlie MungerRead the full...
I’ve written about the power of having a really great setup for doing long video meetings. I call it my “zoom room” because it rhymes. I use Google Meet and a bunch of other video services regularly in my Zoom Room so it’s not so much about the video service I use.One of the challenges...
Photo of a brand new car without a plate number.Read the full...
We humans crave a perfectly ordered world though the chances of something going as intended is fairly rare. When there’s more than one human being involved in the equation, the predictability goes for a further toss. What do we do when things do not turn out as intended? Instead of being curious...
We gravitate towards people who are like us and will most likely believe what we believe. Doesn’t it feel good when others conform to our ideas? Who likes being told that they are not right or what they believe is far from reality? Read the full...
Why? What? How?Read the full...
I know so many people who don’t have landline phones. They simply have their cell phone and use it for everything.But I also know a lot of people who are working from home (or a rented place, a vacation home, etc) right now and struggling with their cell phone reception and other issues.I...
I’m staring at a pile of paper on my desk that is my stack of things I found on the Internet that I want to read.It’s a bit ironic to write this on a blog, but if I come across something on my computer or phone that is longer than a page or two, I print it out and read it on paper.I...
Early in my career, I placed a lot of focus on doing more in less time. I thought I was being productive. The reality was I was simply scrambling from one task to the next without clarity on whether my work was effective or how I could do better. I focused on the end goal, the result I wanted to...
Last December, my friend Brad Feld stopped by to see me in Los Angeles and I proudly showed him my home office with a separate Zoom Room. He looked at me with a quizzical look on his face and said “why don’t you have two screens on the wall?” I asked why and he explained that Zoom allows you...
One of the great joys of the work I do is I get to watch the leaders of our portfolio companies grow over time.I’ve had a number of moments over the last few months where I got off a call or a meeting and thought to myself “wow, she’s a new person.”Growing as a leader takes time,...