Why is Easy Business Math So Hard?

Years ago, I was a new-ish employee at a startup that was both (a) 100% set on becoming a massive enterprise software company, and (b) celebrating closing a $20k annual contract with one of the biggest companies in the world. “But wait…” I said, nervously. “How many companies out there actually need our product?” 5,000? […]

Liter of Cola

Without thinking that hard about it (and probably moderating my red hot take as a result), this is one of the best scenes from any movie ever made. (More than a few f-bombs in here, if you’ve got a kid around.) I’ve obviously watched this a million times, but I’ve never really felt obligated to […]

You Fix What You can Reach

Elephants One consistent factor across the now numerous early-stage companies I’ve worked at for the last decade or so is the presence of proverbial “elephants in the room”. Everywhere I’ve been, there has always been something bigger and more fundamentally important than the things we were working on, that everyone senior-enough knew was more important, […]

Viva La Resolution

At the end of February, I left my job at Botify after an extremely eventful two years. I enjoyed my time there, and worked with a lot of cool people (from all over the world!) in a very weird, largely COVID-dominated environment that forced me to interact with everyone almost entirely via Zoom and Slack. […]

Engage

I saw this piece on Eric Clapton’s sudden turn to COVID politics in the Washington Post, and thought a lot about people in my life (many who are older) who have taken sudden political turns. “He’s the anti-Bono,” says Bill Oakes, who managed Clapton’s label throughout the 1970s. “He is the epitome of someone who […]

Legitimacy, Enforcement, and What Comes After

I am not the first person on the internet to tell you that since 2016, the number one thing that’s been eroded and removed from American society is the idea of “norms” — things you “can” or “cannot” do not due to a specific consequence (like going to jail, or being removed from office), but […]