BlogSat

A couple of weeks before Jack Dorsey came back to Twitter , a friend im-ed me a link of a talk Dorsey had given at Stanford earlier in the year. The line before the link to that talk was "He is the next Steve Jobs." Ever the skeptic, I responded with "Hmmm....really? I'll be sure to check the video out." I did early next week. I was particularly curious, because for months I'd admired both the execution of and the product design at Square , the company Dorsey had founded; and I'd loved his Golden Gate talk (embedded below.) There's a lot of interesting things he said there, but the part that really resonated for me was the point he made about building something beautiful: The idea of "Let's build the Golden Gate bridge. Something memorable and you can be proud of - not some crappy bridge that may work but no one remembers or drives on" - particularly since as he says, so many people are ok with building crappy bridges. How can anyone...

There are times while reading the Economist , that I've felt like getting up and cheering. That's right. Standing up, fist-pumping with my lips pursed determinedly and going "oh, yeah." (Look at yon baby pic attached.) Yes, I know I'd look ridiculous. I've wondered why, and my answer was generally because the magazine consistently says smart things with solid reporting and great insights I often agree with a lot of their views and analysis their sense of humor and whimsy (oh, its there!) works for me. I'd always believed that the main reason the magazine was able to elicit this response was because they often took a stand - not the writers - the magazine. Articles back people, or condemn policy, or make recommendations without equivocating. They always phrase it as "This magazine supports..." or "The Economist strongly condemns..." or "We affirm that .." But watching the Jack Dorsey Golden Gate bridge talk made me realize ho...

I read a great couple of posts today on bus as I headed back into the city (sprinkled in the middle of a Dexter mini-marathon) First, this great post by Ben Horowitz on why CEOs shouldn't feel the pressure to be needlessly positive and often honesty (and transparency) is the best policy. Second, this incredibly thoughtful essay by William Deresiewicz on what constitutes leadership: and the importance of focus and iteration, and the role of solitude in it. I recommend reading both, especially the latter. There's a lot that I took away that applies to anyone supposed to, or who aspires to, lead (CEO or not) Be honest and direct: sugar-coating doesn't work. You're almost never as good at spinning things as you think you are and people can tell. Being honest will get more people thinking about the problems you're trying to solve and that's a good thing. They're more likely to respect you for it as well. Any organization becomes a bureaucracy after a while. ...

Warning: I was in bit of a ranting mood as I boarded a late-evening bus back to NYC when I started this post, but didn't get around to finishing it much later, so the tone may change a bit. :) There's an interesting interview with Mark Pincus., well.. there's an interview with Mark Pincus, in the NYTimes. Now Zynga is extremely successful right now, and Mark Pincus seems like a pretty smart guy. I was at a conference where Pincus was on a panel and he was by far the most interesting and opinionated person there, and clearly pretty sharp. But I have a problem with this article. I find the "everyone is a CEO" terminology annoying and condescending. Why on earth do people feel like they need to be told to be the CEOs of something to do their job well? The real problem I have with this: its seldom true. I appreciate the power of the words to inspire and the empowerment that people feel when you tell them this. For example, you're probably a lot more likely to t...

I like the idea . Somehow, I've ended up reading about the idea twice or thrice this week. I loved the idea of one.   Jim Collin's talks about his idea here: " The idea of a personal board of directors came to me when I was in my 20s. I drew a little conference table on a sheet of paper with seven chairs around it and wrote names on them of people I admired. I pasted it above my computer and would look up and in my mind poll the personal board when I was wrestling with tough questions. If I was really stuck, I might talk to some of them. It's sort of like a group of tribal elders that you create for yourself. " There seems to be a more standardi structured approach as well that talks about the different kinds of qualities that you should look for in the members of your board. Now to just go about creating one. One more New Year resolution to add.  That's one more thing: I haven't done this year's resolutions yet.:)