Essays
This is a slight revision of an idea I blogged about here. Here’s something they don’t teach at school: the simplest way to become a better thinker is to take whatever you think is right and ask if it could be wrong. Put another way, if you’d
Essays
Here’s something they don’t teach at school: the simplest way to become a critical thinker is to take a consensus view and ask what it would take for it be false. Put another way, if you’d like to be a better thinker form a habit of asking,
Essays
Photo by Adeolu Eletu Preface Venture capital (“VC”) found me through entrepreneurship. In fact I knew nothing of it until I came across the blogs of early-stage investors Fred Wilson and Paul Graham. At that time, I was reading everything I could find on startups and technology. I had a
Excerpts
“The best, most complete friendships are those in which friends love and wish each other well as ends in themselves, and not solely, or even primarily, as means to further ends—social advancement, amusement, the promotion of some cause, or even mutual edification or improvement. In such friendships, the friends
Tech
Source: Safar Safarov (@codestorm / Unsplash) Have you ever wondered how computers work? What’s really going on in your smartphone, tablet, or personal computer? What are the high-level concepts and ideas that power one of humanity’s greatest invention? As a venture capitalist I often spend time thinking about technology
Essays
This is a sample of a monthly book recommendation newsletter I send to almost 200 readers each month. You can sign up for it here. One of the best life changes I’ve had this year is fixing my sleep. I now routinely sleep around 7 hours a night and
Essays
Available on Netflix If you’re a startup founder, artist, investor, or anyone working on something hard, you’ve got to watch the HBO/Netflix documentary about Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre. It’s not just about the music business either. The 4-part series is an extended biopic about two
Excerpts
This is a sample of a monthly book recommendation newsletter I send to almost 200 readers each month. You can sign up for it here. In February I spent time thinking about “hits”. Only a tiny fraction of films, out of hundreds released each year, generate blockbuster returns. Only a
Essays
Some say privacy is dead. For a while, I thought so too. In an age where more than 90% of all the world’s data was created in the last 2 years and where we are increasingly and more easily sharing lots about ourselves and friends, the easy thing to
Essays
A few days ago I watched the documentary Iverson. It’s about the life of the basketball player Allen Iverson. He was a favourite ball player in my teens, a period when I used to play the sport many times a week. Iverson was small for a NBA player. At
Essays
I was listening to an episode of the Freakonomics podcast series “The Secret Life of a CEO” and I found this segment with David Rubeinsten, the billionaire co-founder of the private equity fund Carlyle Group, timely: RUBENSTEIN: “My biggest concern is I’m now 68 years old, and actuarial tables
Essays
It’s taken a while but I’ve decided to return to more frequent blogging. I’ve held back often, going several months without writing anything due to fear of not having much insight to offer. I also deleted a bunch of blog posts I published many years ago, since