Technology

Blocked by the Great Firewall of China

A small claim to fame, the time when I was blocked by the Great Firewall of China. Exactly how controversial were my opinions?

Tunes

Giuseppe Ottaviani live performance on A State of Trance

Watching Armin van Buuren geek out to this live performance from Giuseppe Ottaviani is pretty cool.

Principles

A few things I hold to be true

These are the truths I hold to be true. They're personal to me and how I live my life. You should have your own. You will, at least, know where I'm coming from.

Principles

Principles by Ray Dalio

I'm currently reading Ray Dalio's new book Principles. Rather than write a review—for a book already reviewed numerous times—I'll update this post as I read.

Principles

Vex Robotics at Willow Glen Middle School

I have seen first hand how local communities impact the lives of students outside the classroom. I'm proud to mentor my local school's robotics team.

Principles

How do you know you're right?

Ray Dalio updates Principles. He discusses how to test the validity of what we hold to be true.

Tunes

Listening to #ASOT831

Great new release this week from Above & Beyond, called My Own Hymn. Another high velocity episode of the greatest trance radio show on the planet.

Creativity

Why I migrated from WordPress to Ghost CMS

WordPress is an amazing project and I happily blogged with it for a long time. In this post I explain why I switched to Ghost for my personal blog.

Business

Listening to Masters of Scale feat. Sheryl Sandberg

Great scale leaders know how to pivot. Every day, there are new competitors, new threats, new opportunities. There’s no simple, straightforward set of marching orders.

Business

Listening to Masters of Scale feat. Mark Zuckerberg

If you’re Steve Jobs, you can wait for your product to be perfect. For everyone else, if you’re not embarrassed by your first product release, you’ve released it too late.

Business

Listening to Masters of Scale feat. Brian Chesky

If you want your company to truly scale, you first have to do things that don't scale. Hand-craft the core experience. Serve your customers one-by-one. Then figure out how and what to scale.

Haiku

Issa: Winter seclusion

I enjoy this poem for the lesson it teaches about patience. It is often in these moments, listening "to the rain in the mountain," we learn a great deal about ourself.

Haiku

Basho: Summer grass

The samurai found an honorable death in battle. In Basho's poem, the futility of our efforts becomes plain. All we have are our actions in any given moment.

Haiku

Takahama: The winds that blows

The human condition desires control. Control of our circumstances, our environment, yet very little of ourselves. Takahama's haiku challenges us to embrace change.

Creativity

Astro Teller on the future of education and moonshots

I am certain that the education system of the future does not involve rote learning or standardized testing. Like Astro Teller, I'm concerned about the way our children learn today.

Principles

Ray Dalio on forming principles

If you're looking for a modern guide to success, I recommend Ray Dalio’s Principles. He suggests you, "think for yourself—to decide 1) what you want, 2) what is true and 3) what to do about it."

Principles

Management philosophy

Sunzi’s Art of War has been a strategic inspiration for Western businesspeople for many years. Yet strategy without knowing how to conduct oneself in "battle" is of no use.

Publishing

Writing "the fact that ..." doesn't make a fact

Writing "the fact that" doesn’t automagically make anything fact. Does Wall Street really judge founder CEOs differently to non-founder CEOs? I don't know, but I do know short-term results interest the Street and that they don't really care who delivers them.

Tunes

Listening to See Me Speak In Color by Rocket Empire

I’m building a website for a client today. It’s a chill project. So are these tunes from Rocket Empire. If you subscribe to Spotify, enjoy!

Marketing

Don't hide spam in product update emails

Don't put spam in product and security update emails unless you like unhappy customers. Here's how AwardWallet gets it wrong.

Tunes

Listening to I AM OMNI (produced by Tricky)

IAMOMNI's eponymous full-length debut brings back memories of Massive Attack, Portishead and DJ Shadow, but with an LA twist. Enjoy!

Technology

Periscope and the future of "broadcasting"

Imagine rebroadcasting disparate users at a live event, or a location over time. I share my vision for the future of live, social video broadcast.

Business

Lefsetz still throwing cheap shots from the cheap seats

Sadly many people like watching a train wreck, so to speak. Which is why Bob Lefsetz pulls a crowd, first in music and now in tech. He's wrong about Twitter, and Apple Music.

Business

Non-founder CEO "moral authority"

"Some believe that as a non-founder CEO, Costolo lacked some of the moral authority needed to make major changes to Twitter." If true, Twitter shouldn't be a public company.

Startup

Don't think timing matters, Bill Gross says it does

Hard lessons learned in being first to market, when what matters more is timing.