2014 Berkshire Hathaway Takeaways

Once again I attended the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in Omaha, NE. And once again, it was a pleasure to hear Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger get grilled with 6 hours of very tough questions. These guys are my personal heroes, and like other meetings, I came away just a little wiser. The funny thing … [Read more…]

Your Business Fighting Style

I’m a major MMA fanboy, as well as a lifelong practitioner of combat sports. As a kid in the 80’s, karate and ninjitsu were in vogue. So was boxing, thanks to Mike Tyson. In the 90s, Brazillian Jiu Jitsu came into popularity after a skinny guy named Royce dominated much larger opponents with his then … [Read more…]

How I Read

I’m a reading machine. My wife likes to call me “a book with legs”, in reference to Charlie Munger’s description of his erudite self. I guess that’s a good description, as a given week usually consists of a reading a book or two, and almost a hundred articles. Hey, I’m a firm believer that reading … [Read more…]

Code Weak

It’s national “Computer Science Education Week”. Industry and Obama wants everybody to get out there and learn to code. The push to get everybody tech savvy is noble, but I wonder exactly what problems are solved when people learn to code. On one hand, people who invest the time to learn to code will at … [Read more…]

Best Work Goodbye Email…Ever

Got this from a buddy. Sent from a VP at a very well known company who decided to do other things with his life. You won’t know who this is, but the lesson is among the best you’ll learn in your life. Here goes. “Well here we are. Mixed feelings. Deep love. Urgency. Let’s just … [Read more…]

Working At A Startup While Raising A Family

We recently had our second child a couple of weeks ago. His name is Ethan, and he’s truly a joy. Our other child, Milo, is 2.5 years old. I’ve occasionally read about how risky it is to raise a family while working at a startup; I also read about VCs not supporting startups whose founders … [Read more…]

Culture Clubbed…

The Culture Club – This place is so f*cking cool! Culture is one of the top 3 thing that I believe a business must get right in order to survive, let alone thrive. If people positively resonate with the culture, then amazing things can happen. Conversely, if the culture sucks, people don’t give their best … [Read more…]

Mr. Money Mustache…

I’ve been called a cheapskate, overly frugal, etc, etc. I guess my wife inherited that badge of honor when she married me. Whatever you want to call us, we’re not in debt and steadily working toward leaving the rat race as soon as humanly possible. And that’s a great thing. Some of you may want to … [Read more…]

Some call it lean startup. Others call it common sense.

A couple nights ago, I attended Sessions @ The Leonardo, a monthly fireside chat in SLC featuring top tier tech and business entrepreneurs/investors. This month was Charles Adler, Head of Design and co-founder of Kickstarter. He gave a pretty humble story of Kickstarter’s beginnings. Like most successful startups, Kickstarter began with a mission to change … [Read more…]