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"History is just one damn thing after another" I was a History major in college.  Basically that means that you read a ton, write a ton, and try to understand why certain events happened - and - what those events did to cause things to happen afterward. Much of what

How do you know if an idea, product, team, or business is a good bet? In the short run it's always unclear. Probabilities suggest that evidence or proof is pretty thin in the beginning.  Good ideas can struggle.  Bad ideas can succeed.  If we focus too much on the short

"If you've been playing poker for a half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy" - Warren Buffet We've all spent time in large, recurring, intentionally important meetings.  The type of meeting where you get together with other busy people to cross-functionally address

It's the push and pull of creating anything remarkable.  It's something every entrepreneur, investor, leader, or creator of remarkable things struggles with.  If they don't, they're either lying to you, or to themselves. Is your Judgement right? Or did you miss something in your blind spot? Was your Judgement right,

When we set out to do anything we form a mental picture or "forecast" of what can be achieved with proper focus and execution.  Forecasts, given their nature of predicting the future are often wrong.  Ideally they're wrong in a favorable sense, where we exceed our aim.  Obviously sometimes we

Note: I wrote the following in an internal email to the team here at Sovrn. A big perk of my job as CEO is I get to meet with all sorts of interesting people. Many of the people I meet are fellow entrepreneurs, CEOs, and aspiring company leaders. A few

I get to live and work in Boulder, CO.   Some have described Boulder as "25 square miles, surrounded by reality", and I don't think it's all that far off.  Boulder's a phenomenally beautiful place, quite literally surrounded by a 43,000 acre green-belt of permanent open space buffering it like

Values are a reflection of what you want your behaviors to be.  Values are always aspirational, sometimes inspirational.  Values are what you believe. Your beliefs + your behaviors = who you are.   Collective beliefs + behaviors of a group = the culture of the group. I've worked in different companies and cultures.  I've observed,

If we see things through probabilities & bets, we give ourselves a built-in opportunity to improve. Armed with this perspective, we can develop and then seek to improve our systems. Systems allow us to better evaluate probabilities, and place better bets. A revenue forecast, for example, (supported by existing customers,

Work on something that matters to you more than the monetary rewards you get for doing it. Create value for other people faster than you create value for yourself. We succeed when we help others succeed.

Human nature is to compete. Especially among motivated and high-performing people competition is always “on”. Its tempting to value collaboration over competition, but I think that misses the point. One is a consequence and the other is a cause of being successful. Human’s compete. Compete for resources, dates, money,

It turns out WE are the audience.  We buy the toothpaste.  We take the vacations.  We check out the new ‘whatever’ it is we want to buy.  We are the people that get marketed to.  And we are the people that the entire advertising industry

A few days ago I drove over to the CU campus and participated in the Obama administration’s Startup America roadshow. To be honest, I didn’t come with very high expectations, but I did keep an open mind. What I saw and heard confirmed (2) things. I’m a

At breakfast the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. Lots of people take on challenges.  Losing weight, running a marathon, climbing a rock, starting and building a profitable business.  It all seems to get easier once you get past the point of no return and you’

Great things happen when you’re on a roll. Coming up with a smart idea usually kicks off more smart ideas; more smart ideas lead to innovations. Being confident in what you know and what your doing has a positive reinforcement in making you feel more confident, more creative, more

I like mountain biking analogies.  Like business there are different styles, types, and terrain.  Some people ride singlespeeds, some free-ride, and some ride on bike paths (dirt or no dirt). I was forwarded recently an excellent article written by Ben Horowitz.  Ben and I've never

I downloaded Color for my iPhone this morning.  At first I didn’t “get it”.  Snap photos, first of myself, then of random things and people. If you’re the only one on Color it worse than sucks – it doesn’t actually make any sense. After walking around

What a great metaphor.  I’ve been recently inspired by a couple of articles on similar subjects.  The first is the ever-entertaining Ben Horowitz in a recent column he wrote for Fortune.  The second a syndicated article in Techcrunch by Mark Suster. They got me to thinking

 A few years ago Black & Decker was trying to market their drills. They hired an advertising agency to help them with their positioning. The agency team began working to understand what Black & Decker's target market was (home users) and what made the drill unique (lightweight,

I have an issue with authority. Not that I’ve been arrested or committed any crimes … my issue is more in the sense of my career and how I approach things. I’ve always been one to challenge the status quo, call the spade a spade, push for

I love Dropbox. Part of the reason I love it so much is that it solves real "business" problems that most I.T. departments either don't agree with, or don't have tactile experience with. It's also not lost on me that there

It's in most people’s nature to try and place anyone or anything in a bucket.  A bucket lets them easily sort things.  The issue mostly has to do with filtering through the noise.  It also helps by not having to think too much or too hard.

I absolutely hate to lose.  Hate it.  Its one of those things that I know can be a fault of mine.  That doesn’t stop me from letting it drive me nuts especially when I know I could’ve done more or been better.  I don’

In school I was an "OK" student with "OK" grades. It turns out that I was more interested in other stuff than I was in the stuff I was hearing in the classroom. That changed when I got to grad school. The difference was that I wanted to learn the

Honestly, I don’t know for sure.  I’m pretty sure.  Sure enough so that I believe it goes off, but I can’t prove it doesn’t instead stay on when the door closes. The light is incandescent so it emits heat.  When I open the