Archives / May, 2020

I’ve been reading a lot recently about the relationship between uncertainty and mental health. Specifically, it’s well-documented that uncertainty drives significant anxiety. This is logical on many levels but what I didn’t realize is just how deep-seated it is. In a time when there’s an incredible amount of uncertainty, I think this is something that everyone needs to take a step back and understand. Even people who haven’t lost jobs, don’t have loved ones impacted by COVID, and whose kids are doing well in online school are affected. Uncertainty provokes a kind of “fight or flight” response in the human brain. As we try to escape the idea of uncertainty, we analyze a situation in an attempt to make ourselves…

A few weeks ago, I posted that Foundry had made the decision to remain out of the office until at least June 1st. We’re fortunate that we’re in the position to work effectively this way – because of the kind of work we do and the way our company is set up (not to mention that we’re a team of 14). While we miss seeing each other, we felt it was safer to keep everyone at home. I’d actually been thinking for months before the crisis about the changing nature of work and had intended to write a post titled something to the effect of, The Future of Work Is Remote – a trend that I thought would be accelerated when…

I was at the grocery store the other day and thankfully most people were wearing masks (a big change from a few months ago when I was literally laughed at when I wore a mask to that same story, early on in the crisis). However, walking around, people’s body language really struck me. In our efforts to socially distance, we are going out of our way to stay away from each other. That’s exactly what we should be doing, but I felt like there was almost a veneer of distrust and mistrust between people. What people are thinking is made harder to understand because everyone’s facial expressions are hidden behind their masks. Is that person smiling at me or growling…

Entrepreneurship in the United States is changing pretty dramatically – in ways that many of us have failed to notice or understand. Specifically today’s American entrepreneurs are more likely to be female and non-white. In fact, the number of women-owned businesses has increased 31 times between 1972 and 2018 according to the Kauffman Foundation (in 1972, women-owned businesses accounted for just 4.6% of all firms; in 2018 that figure was 40%). Meanwhile, the fastest-growing group female entrepreneurs are women of color, who are responsible for 64% of the new women-owned businesses being created. There’s a lot more to dig into here, which I’ll do in future posts. But it’s urgent that we begin to understand this because we’re failing to…

In mid-March, I wrote a post about how Foundry Group had joined a number of other businesses in the early adoption of work from home and other practices to stem the spread of COVID-19. We recognized that this would be an essential part of helping create social distance and by doing so, flattening the curve. As Colorado and many other states are moving to a more relaxed set of policies (although Denver and Boulder are waiting a few more weeks until they follow the rest of the state), we’ve decided that for Foundry we’ll continue our work from home policy until at least the end of May (Brad’s post on that here). We’re doing this because we’re in the fortunate…