life lessons

After skipping a year last year, USV held its annual team party last night. It has felt great getting back to getting together with friends, family, and co-workers this holiday season. It has meant a lot of rapid testing for me, all negative thankfully, including one this morning. We...

After skipping a year last year, USV held its annual team party last night. It has felt great getting back to getting together with friends, family, and co-workers this holiday season. It has meant a lot of rapid testing for me, all negative thankfully, including one this morning. We...

Like most holidays we celebrate, the essence of the Thanksgiving holiday hides underneath our celebration of it. Ask anyone about Thanksgiving, and you will hear about turkey, stuffing, a big meal, family, and maybe football. I’m fine with all of that, particularly the stuffing and family...

I am returning to a topic that I have talked a lot about on this blog. A number of years ago at our annual CEO Summit, we had Angela Duckworth speak to our portfolio about Grit, the topic of her excellent book on the subject. In Angela’s research, she determined that the single greatest...

I was rooting for Phil Mickelson all weekend to win the PGA at age 50. I’ve watched Phil for thirty years and I’ve seen all of the highs and lows and there have been many. He plays the game of golf with a level of creativity that can often lead to problems. He is a risk-taker which isn’t...

I do a lot of “bulk emailing” but I hate sending bulk emails. I prefer to personalize emails and send them one by one so that the recipient understands that the email came from me. What that has meant is that I take google sheets full of email addresses and I cut and paste a message into my...

One of the gifts that I got was the ability to stay positive. I am grateful to my parents, my wife, and my genes (and anyone else responsible too). It is such a superpower. I don’t just mean optimism. I mean saying nice things about people. I mean keeping a smile on your face. I mean...

The last two months have been challenging in NYC. It has been cold, rainy, and snowy. There has not been a lot of sun. And the pandemic has things locked down. I know so many people who have found the last few months very challenging. At the same time, more and more friends and loved ones are...

I wrote yesterday about a couple of Zoom tricks I learned last week. Unfortunately, I messed up that post and conflated two different features and confused everyone. So I am going to try this again. If you are tired of looking at yourself on the endless Zoom meetings we are all doing all day...

After almost a year of being on Zoom all day, I am sick and tired of looking at myself on the screen. But I don’t love going off video and then everyone seeing a black box with a profile picture of me. So I learned a new Zoom trick in a board meeting last week. If you check the box in the...

Show me a successful person and I will show you someone who has made a ton of mistakes. That’s how things go. You can’t really learn from your successes. You can try to replicate the wins and sometimes you can and sometimes you can’t. But mistakes – those are powerful learning moments. I...

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...