MADE IN DETROIT

uchicagoadmissions: Did you watch ESPN’s Top Ten Plays on...

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:41:31 -0500

Did you watch ESPN’s Top Ten Plays on SportsCenter last night? If you did, you would have seen LeBron James, Dwayne Wade…and this Matt Johnson shot. With one amazing last-second move last night, Matt gave the Maroons a win over Emory and broke UChicago and UAA records with 49 points for the game.

Seriously, go Maroons!

A serious productivity question

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:33:14 -0500

A serious poll: Are you more productive (and able to finish everything you need to finish) when you have your day scheduled completely or when you leave your schedule open for free time throughout the day?

For instance, I have the following I need/want to complete on any given day:

Respond to emails.
Contact current users for feedback.
Contact potential users.
Write code.
Read and digest analytics.
Project management.
Product brainstorming.
Pay bills.
Fundraise and/or pre-fundraise.
People management.
Blog/social media/content marketing.
Recruit employees and/or advisors.

Obviously, that’s a lot of stuff. I currently keep my schedule open as much as possible, unless it’s committed to someone else. But I always feel as though I’m missing some of these things — should I be explicitly scheduling time for each?

"What is Detroit‘s Brand? If you’re not from there, you might only think of Detroit as the city with..."

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:08:20 -0500

“

What is Detroit‘s Brand?

If you’re not from there, you might only think of Detroit as the city with the massive population contraction. Or the one abandoned by the auto industry. Or the place with all the racial tension.

Or maybe when you watched the Super Bowl last year, you were introduced to a Detroit you hadn’t considered. You saw Eminem driving a Chrysler 200 through a hard-nosed, never-say-die, lunch-pail city with the Joe Lewis fist suspended proudly by the riverfront (ironically located just outside of General Motors’ headquarters).

Whatever your impression of Detroit, I can tell you that if you’ve never spent any time there, it’s wrong. You may think you know about the city’s grit, but unless you meet gritty Detroiters, you don’t. You may think you understand the concept of reinventing blight into opportunity, but until you walk through the Russell Industrial Center or the Heidleberg Project, you don’t. You may think that as an enlightened white person, you understand the psychology of blacks who are just a few generations removed from slavery. But until you walk through the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, you don’t. (And even after that, you don’t.)

”

- Detroit’s Brand Is More Than The Sum Of Its Advertising

Yes. YES. YES!

How you know you have great investors

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 12:36:16 -0500

I’m extremely lucky. I have great investors. Every day, I learn a ton about every topic imaginable from an active, experienced, smart, humble, and just plain awesome Chris DeVore. He’s not in some posh corner office or playing golf; he sits out in the same open space approximately 4 feet from where I sit.

Chris just closed an $8M fund for Founder’s Co-op. When the news was released, I realized the difference between good investors and great investors.

Good investors make money for their LPs. Great investors make money for their LPs and have entrepreneurs who love them.

The number of entrepreneurs backed by FC who are excited to see FC succeed with another fund is the surest sign that Chris and Andy are great investors. Just take a look at the tweets for that GeekWire article. Or take a look at the comments. They’re all positive and encouraging, and a large percentage are from entrepreneurs who have already been backed by FC and love them.

I’m extremely lucky. I have great investors. And I hope this latest fund is a big success for them.

Stale code

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:34:59 -0500

Developers talk often of code smells: cues that might mean your code isn’t written as well as it should be. There’s also a general notion that the best code never needs to be touched after being written. It’s so perfect that there are no bugs and it works for years without intervention.

I assert that, in a living and growing application, code which never needs to be touched has its own smell: the smell of stale code. Like all code smells, it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it very well could be. With a startup, if you aren’t growing, you’re dying. With stale code, if you aren’t refactoring, you’re smelling.

Code that never gets changed tends to become legacy code more quickly than oft-refactored code. It becomes dead weight, people forget how it works, and thus it becomes a black box. It locks you into old, non-backwards compatible versions of frameworks and libraries.

Perhaps we should rethink how amazing our code is just because it never needs to be refactored?

3 simple rules for 2012

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:26:00 -0500

I decided to come up with 3 simple rules to live by in 2012.

Be a good person (have a strong moral compass).
Work hard.
Don’t take life too seriously. (You’ll never get out alive… thanks, Van Wilder.)

"The 2000 purchase of KB Toys, then one of the country’s largest toy retailers, became one of the..."

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:49:13 -0500

“

The 2000 purchase of KB Toys, then one of the country’s largest toy retailers, became one of the most contentious.

As in most Bain deals, the partnership put up a small fraction of the money — in this case $18 million — and borrowed the rest of the $302 million purchase price. Just 16 months later, the toy company borrowed more to pay Bain and its investors an $85 million dividend.

That gave Mr. Romney and the other partners a quick 370 percent return on their money. But it also left the toy company with a heavy debt burden. Before long, the company began closing stores around the country and laid off 3,400 workers. It filed for bankruptcy protection in 2004.

”

- Buyout Profits Keep Flowing to Romney.

I know lots of interesting things go on in LBOs/private equity deals, but this seems to me to be the pinnacle of Bain playing “who’s the bigger idiot” with banks… and winning.

Laugh. Think. Cry. That’s a heck of a day. Don’t...

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 22:50:00 -0500

Laugh. Think. Cry. That’s a heck of a day.

Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.

It’s Jimmy V week. Donate now to cancer research (100% of donations go directly to research).

Dixie with no more casts! :) (Taken with picplz.)

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:39:41 -0500

Dixie with no more casts! :) (Taken with picplz.)

Lemonade: Detroit

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:58:08 -0500

Lemonade: Detroit

Keith is showing us SCIENCE at his UChicago lab. (Taken with...

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 14:59:12 -0500

Keith is showing us SCIENCE at his UChicago lab. (Taken with picplz.)

What up, Chitown. (Taken with picplz.)

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 17:17:54 -0500

What up, Chitown. (Taken with picplz.)

One day in Detroit and it snows. (Taken with picplz.)

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:23:40 -0500

One day in Detroit and it snows. (Taken with picplz.)

On role models

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:02:48 -0500

I’m not perfect. Far from it. Morally, ethically, athletically, and any other way I could be perfect, I am not.

But, I grew up with parents who tried to instill a strong sense of right versus wrong in me. Because of them, I try to live life with the goal of “explicitly do right” rather than just “don’t do wrong.”

And, for better or worse, I — along with the majority of boys I know — grew up with athletes as my role models. Those role models last today. I still idolize those rare sportsmen who can achieve the highest level of success in their profession AND do things The Right Way.

When Tiger got in his car accident just about two years ago, I tweeted:

He was a role model of mine: someone who did things no one else has ever been able to do, someone with extreme physical attributes AND mental fitness. Someone who had family values first (remember his relationship with his dad?). Someone who gave back to the community. Someone who was an athlete and intelligent (Stanford, anyone). He was doing it The Right Way.

So when the crash happened, I just hoped for the best. I hoped his career wouldn’t be hurt.

Fast forward and we all know how this plays out: Tiger is an asshole. He tried to hide as much as possible, and for a long time didn’t even take blame for what happened. He may have done some great things in his life, but he hurt the people who should have mattered the most to him, and he’ll never recover from that.

This morning, Joe Paterno (another apparently stand-up guy who wins The Right Way), embroiled in a scandal of his own, offered his resignation at the end of this season. It was the only logical choice for him. Here’s some snippets of his resignation letter:

I am absolutely devastated by the developments in this case. I grieve for the children and their families, and I pray for their comfort and relief.

…

This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.

My goals now are to keep my commitments to my players and staff and finish the season with dignity and determination. And then I will spend the rest of my life doing everything I can to help this University.

If you ask me, this is the voice of a man who understands the grave mistake he made. Heck, his first statement is for the well-being of the childen, not himself, or the university.

Clearly, JoePa didn’t actively Do Right, and instead he just Didn’t Do Wrong. And, it’s on a colossal scale: child molestation within his facilities is far worse than Tiger’s infidelities or Ohio State’s free tattoos. Hence, he had to resign; there was simply no other option. Further, it’s entirely saddening to me to know that everyone will remember him for this, and not for the 50 years of good he did as a head coach. Time will tell if there’s more to this story, but right now I’m inclined to believe what he’s saying.

Which is why I’m actually upset with Penn State’s Board of Trustees decision this evening to not allow JoePa to continue to coach the remainder of this season, firing him effective immediately. If JoePa is seriously committed to the university (I believe he is), and he understands that his inactions caused great harm to these young boys (I believe he does), I’m surprised the university isn’t going to use him to help repair the damage caused, rather than shut off one of their greatest assets, who (I would guess) would be willing to do anything for that school.

The story hasn’t even begun to be written about what happened at Penn State, and it could turn out JoePa was a terrible person, but I hope not. I want to believe he is the guy everyone has thought he is. Albeit, one who made a huge mistake.

Regardless, over and over again I’m learning that there’s no such thing as an all around role model. Everyone cuts corners. Bill Gates is an amazing, philanthropic, man, but he built Microsoft in slimy ways. Steve Jobs was a product genius who denied his daughter for a long time. Tiger Woods could swing a golf club, but couldn’t keep it in his pants. JoePa could graduate a ton of academic all-american football players playing at an elite level, but couldn’t follow up on a child molestation report about an assistant coach.

To me, this all boils down to: Be your own role model. A role model for yourself, and a role model for others. I make plenty of mistakes, but I hope to be the type of person I wish I could see on TV. The type of person I hope my future children will look up to. Someone who makes mistakes, but only makes the same mistake once and makes up for them when they happen.

Look at the little being so good on the plane. (Taken with...

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:14:36 -0500

Look at the little being so good on the plane. (Taken with picplz.)

Love Google’s description of Bon Iver here.

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:49:54 -0400

Love Google’s description of Bon Iver here.

Detroit doesn’t pat itself on the back. It gets the job...

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:23:07 -0400

Detroit doesn’t pat itself on the back. It gets the job done.

— Barry Sanders

"Student question. Growing disparity in wealth and income. Money concentrated in hands of just a..."

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 02:22:52 -0400

“

Student question. Growing disparity in wealth and income. Money concentrated in hands of just a couple people. You among them. You’re doing pretty good. (Laughter.) But money influencing politics. Citizens United court case. Who has money influences information getting out. What should we be focusing on as a nation.

Gates: The world at large is less inequitable today than at any time in history. Number of people in abject poverty, as a percentage, is at all-time low. Innovation means it will continue to go down. I do think in most problems time is on our side. Absolutely right there are some big fortunes and it’s not good to have a society where you don’t have mobility between different income levels. ducation ought to be good enough to move between them. Maybe self-serving, but I wouldn’t say it’s because a few people are very rich, I’d say it’s because we aren’t doing enough job on education.

Warren Buffett and I are two wealthiest Americans. Believe rich should give away wealth more than they do. Warren is only person to have a tax named after him. You can be very frustrated with the political system, I certainly am. Met with House members to talk about science cuts. Don’t think getting rid of wealth will solve problems. Need to fix education system, get cost of health care down, and society will feel more equitable.

”

- Geekwire: Gates to students: Don’t try to be a billionaire, it’s overrated.

This seems like a smart, pragmatic, and reasonable opinion about balancing capitalism and wealth disparities.

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square..."

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:07:51 -0400

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

- Apple’s “Think Different” Campaign (via ladimcbeth)

What the Health is Happening? Trying to be a "Market Creator" is Crap, and Don't Waste Your Time Stalking Competitors (Part I)

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:47:33 -0400

habitlabs:

He’s taught me, over the past 6 months, an invaluable lesson: Competitive advantage doesn’t arise from ideation or the ‘unique’ view you have of the market.

It arises from building the sh*t out of something people love (PG also tried to teach me this one, but I was infinitely more stubborn last summer). It arises from being proactive.

It arises from knowing the problem intimately, throwing solutions at it obsessively, until you own the solution. It’s a ‘problem’ oriented focus, not a market or market positioning oriented focus.

This means feeling competitive is pretty much mental masturbation at this stage.

The only competition we *really* have is internal.

When we execute on our very unique vision by building defensible, ‘heavy lifting’ tech we will not only ‘own’ the problem of health behavior change, we’ll also ‘own’ the solution.

Lessons learned (the hard way):

1. Quit worrying so much about the competition.

2. Don’t waste your time worrying about what everyone else is doing.

3. Keep an eye on the market, adjust plans at the micro level, but if the market or competitors really surprise you, you probably haven’t been paying enough attention (or your team doesn’t count ‘experienced market creators/visionaries’ as part of the ranks).

Love that.