Life

Is this what the future will look like?  You tell me . .. http://oak.psych.gatech.edu/~epic/

I was writing a post before I left on vacation about balance. I struggle with this a lot – the real (and perceived) pressures of my job, travel, time with my family, etc. I was writing about how difficult is can be to balance the business and personal aspects of your life, but now that I read it, it sounds kind of ‘woe is me’ rather than particularly profound (so I’ll spare you and not post it). That said, the spirit of the post is right on – and there’s nothing like vacation to remind you how important it is to find this balance. There’s also nothing quite like a vacation to remind you how important it is to actually…

One of the nice things about sitting on the beach for a week is that it gives you time to think about a few things. I won’t profess to having had profoundly deep thoughts, but I’m working on a few posts that cover some of the topics I was thinking about as I soaked in the rays. First a light topic, but one that actually does have a real message despite its levity. My 13 month old daughter discovered the joy of Oreo Cookies on our trip. Here’s the catch, though – she knew exactly how to eat them.  Seriously. Having never ever eaten or even seen an Oreo before in her life, she proceeded to pick up the cookie, pull it apart…

I’m really bad at taking time away. I mean real time away where I’m completely out of touch and can fully recharge – not the run away for a long weekend but bring your laptop with you kind of away. I need to get better at this – it’s not fair to my wife and daughter and it’s not fair to me. Brad is very consistent about taking real time off – he and his wife take one week a quarter where they go away and completely relax. I need to follow their example more. My wife and daughter and I are going to do just that for the rest of the week and into next week. We’ll be soaking…

One of the things I’ve been thinking about as I’ve been sitting down to write is the balance I’d like in my blog. My intention was to write a professional blog, but with a personal twist –not a blog just about the mechanics of being a VC, but my personal observations of the VC world and my growth as a venture capitalist. A few people have written in and reminded me not to forget about writing some posts about me with the idea that my VC observations will be more meaningful if I occasionally write posts that have nothing to do with being a VC, but give some background about how I got here and what else is important to…

This isn’t a post on venture capital or anything else related to business but rather something much closer to home . . .    If you have a window well, please make sure it is covered. My wife and I have two dogs, one of whom is a 12 year old yellow lab named Beau. Beau is quite possibly the sweetest dog ever born (I’m of the belief that every person gets to have one truly exceptional dog in their lifetimes – Beau is this dog for us).  Beau wandered away the other night. We couldn’t find him for several hours. I finally started checking the window wells in some of the adjacent houses and found him in an uncovered well at a house…

Someone once told me a story that I think about often. It went something like this: Two friends were walking together through some fields when they came to a high wall. The wall stretched as far as they could see in both directions. As they were talking about what to do in this impassable situation one of the men takes off his favorite felt hat and throws it over the wall. The other looks at him and says “why did you do that – that was your favorite hat,” to which his friend responds “now we’re going to have to find a way over that wall.” A little corny perhaps, but the lesson is a good one and particularly relevant…