Entrepreneur, Explorer, Angel.
Sometimes all at Once.
15TH March 2023
Culture - Family and Friends - Fatherhood - Food - Friends - Parenting - Social - Timely
Millennial Vows
I was at two grand weddings last year. And by grand I don’t mean big cathedrales, long gowns with longer trains, a Rolls with a string of cans, or guest lists a mile long. I mean grand in that they were each set with the grandest background imaginable: the open sky. One was on a trout stream. The other in a barn the couple built with friends. Weddings are a significant milestone in life, and they often reflect the cultural norms and values of the time. The typical wedding in the 1980s (I had one!) was a reflection of the baby boomer generation, known for ostentatious and extravagant lifestyles, exemplified in popular culture by characters like Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. However, as we move into the 2020s, millennials have […]
22TH February 2023
Creative problem Solving - Family and Friends - Food - Social - Timeless - Timely
I’ll be making Dinner with AI
I love to cook and serve friends at the table. The organizing I could do without…
03TH February 2023
Culture - Family and Friends - Food - Health - Sport - Timeless
One thing I wish I could have back
I played in my son’s annual Dads and Lads Rugby challenge recently and came to the quick conclusion they had something that we were running short of. And the one thing I wish I could just grab a box of from my Orthopedic each time I visit. Cartilage. Ah, cartilage. The one thing that kids take for granted and parents would love to have back. It’s like the lost city of gold, always just out of reach. But unlike the lost city, there’s actually something we can do about it. Or, well, there are things we can do to try and get it back. It’s like trying to catch the wind in a bottle, but, a little hope is better than no hope isn’t it? Slightly better. First, there […]
08TH April 2019
Business Tricks - Entrepreneur - Food - Good Story - Timeless - Uncategorized
Avocados also come with Values!
Entrepreneurs are mad for Avocados- in shakes, on toast, even guacamole. it’s perfect as protein, and even better as a value reminder. Yes, true! I caught Seth’s Godin mention the Avocado principle recently: it’s a well cited mantra in the Bay and especially at 500 where I learned so many incubator scale tricks. It goes something like this: If you wait until you really want an avocado, the market won’t have any ripe ones. You need to buy them in advance. But… If you eat an avocado that’s not quite ripe, you won’t enjoy it. AND, you won’t have a chance to enjoy it tomorrow, when it would have been perfect if you had only waited. If you live your life based on instant gratification and little planning, you’ll either never have […]
22TH March 2019
Food - Social - Timeless - Uncategorized
A Diet should include ANYTHING you consume.
We did a Whole 30 diet this year… plantains seemed to be the most appreciated Whole 30 hack… I probably ate too many of them. But otherwise, I learned to have a discerning eye for labels, looking for sugar, additives and sneaky stuff I had never noticed before. So, with a little self control, I was pretty much able to regulate anything that entered my body… But with all this effort around regulating what goes into our body, what about what goes into the mind… “George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed. He’s making sure […]
19TH February 2018
Cuba - Family and Friends - Food - Havana Culture - Leadership - Timeless - Uncategorized
On Celebrations and Cigars
The most appreciated gift I bring home from Havana is cigars. Wrapped by the best hands in the business, they seem to imply… “party coming soon”. I’m told this by aficionados because I certainly am not one. Usually, the reason to celebrate this way is having a baby, closing a financing, manifesting an exit. Sometimes it’s a personal best that takes a lot of work and has a defined moment worth savoring. They also combine very well with Cuban rum, which isn’t a coincidence either.
13TH January 2017
Angel Investor - Culture - Entrepreneur - Food - Leadership - Mobile - Timely - Uncategorized
Looking out, at the world.
“Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman’s Odyssey Exupery has long been one of my favorite authors, and this is one of my favorite quotes. Amazingly, it took me a pair of Spectacles by the soon-to-be-public Snap, Inc. to reconnect with the thought. I think this is a tremendously exciting product, arriving at a moment we actually need a bit of a reset on perspective. Here’s the why: our look-at-me world is a race to the bottom. And the race to the bottom feeds upon the instant gratification that has taken hold of our world. No-one is really to blame. It’s just that hit of Dopamine that has become so addictive in segments of our society: […]
24TH October 2016
Culture - Family and Friends - Food - Good Story - Leadership - Parenting - Uncategorized
Henkleman and Homestead; Elevated Sense and Soul
Henkleman is rated as one of the top ten restaurants in the US. But that doesn’t begin to tell the story. Really.
The place has a soul. A soul that can’t be conjured from a snappy logo, a celebrity chef, or a burst of social marketing
19TH February 2016
Food - Leadership - Uncategorized
Set the table. I’ll take care of the rest.
Oh mother @#$%^&* that’s hot. Yes, but it has to be, to put the right edge on the fish. And so began my re-immersion into a professional kitchen after some thirty years hiatus. But this wasn’t any kitchen, this was a NYT Extraordinary Rating run by a teutonic teddy bear named Thomas here in Greenwich. And this wasn’t just any job, it was, by all accounts a therapy that got me through a rough patch. Theresa and Thomas knew me a bit. I had been a guest at a few dinners a year. And I convinced them once to allow me to cook dinner for thirty of my friends and family on a special birthday a few years ago. That was another time, entirely. I say convinced, because Theresa gave […]
07TH May 2013
Angel investing - Business Tricks - Creative problem Solving - Food - Leadership - Timeless
An Entrepreneur’s Diet: Ramen & PBJ
Being an entrepreneur is a lumpy business at best. And while I’ve written extensively about the mortality rate (95%), I’ve never written about how hard it is along the way for those 5% destined for greatness. It ain’t easy, and it ain’t easy on everyone. This is a basket of Ramen Noodles and Peanut Butter, presented on my Birthday by a very appropriate, thoughtful entrepreneur I backed; Xin Chung. Xin certainly has the moral authority to present the gift: he was liberated from Saigon as a child, spent time in an internment camp, and grew up in Valdez Alaska before settling into SoCal and pursuing his dreams as an entrepreneur. He is now Founder and CEO of TrustCloud which has emerged from a “walk in the wilderness” with 10k passionate users and a growing […]
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