Transparency Trustfund
Back in June I wrote a brief note in which I enthused about just-launched flash sale site Fab.com. My ardor was fueled not only by the site’s great product and design, but also by founder-CEO Jason Goldberg’s commitment to a level of transparency surprising in any company, especially an early stage, venture-funded one. From Day [...]
Get Out and Play
Stuart Brown champions play. Doctor, psychiatrist, founder of the National Institute for Play, I first learned about his work when he appeared in conversation with Krista Tippett and Paul Holdengräber several years ago at the New York Public Library. Since then he’s been a featured speaker at a TED-sponsored conference on play, published a book–Play: How [...]
Phil Jackson’s Spiritual Mashup
This photo makes me laugh–especially Dennis Rodman, second from left. What a handful. It was taken in 1997 after the Chicago Bulls had won five out of the six NBA championships they would take under Phil Jackson, before he moved on to coach the LA Lakers. This past weekend I had a conversation with a [...]
All Hail Chrissie Wellington
Chrissie Wellington is one fierce bundle of awesome. If you’ve never heard of her–and if you’re not obsessed by triathlons or you don’t know someone obsessed by triathlons, you may well not have–she is one of the dominant triathletes racing today. Chrissie’s specialty is the Ironman distance–a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile [...]
Rational Conversation
I’ve never met Fred Wilson. He writes a blog, AVC. I don’t read his blog regularly. But I find reason to visit once or twice every couple of months. When I do, I am always struck not only by the easiness of Fred’s style, but also by the caliber and depth of the smart conversations [...]
Girl Power
First Natalie Massenet, now Arianna Huffington. In less than twelve months’ time, two super fabulous female entrepreneurs have inked high-profile, multimillion dollar deals for the companies they founded, using the internet as their launch pad. Natalie started online luxury retailer Net-a-Porter in London in 2000. Arianna, of course, founded eponymous news aggregator Huffington Post in [...]
Ferocious Integrity
Last summer as I was thinking about how to tackle several thorny personal and professional situations in my life, I picked up Susan Scott’s book Fierce Conversations. At its core this is a book about relationships, not conversations. But as Scott says, “The conversation is the relationship.” And when conversations are superficial, controlled, inauthentic, avoided, [...]
Awaken Possibility
Last fall I came across a two year old TED talk from Boston Philharmonic conductor Benjamin Zander, entitled “On Music and Passion”. I’d heard good things about The Art of Possibility, the book Zander wrote some time ago with his wife, Rosamund. Passion and possibility are favorite subjects of mine, so I watched. I grew [...]
