Seth Levine's VC Adventure

Back in the saddle

At Mobius/Foundry we take the week between Christmas and New Year off from work. Combined with a few days before, Christmas this makes for a pretty nice break from the office. Historically I average about 50% for being able to actually take meaningful time away from work over this time period (there have been a handful of years where an end of the year deal has made this impossible). This was one of the good years.

I forget sometimes how nice it is not only to take time off but how great it is to stick around every once in a while during a holiday. Especially in a place like Colorado, there just a lot to do close to home. We split our vacation between our place in the mountains (got our girls on skis for the first time and had some great back-country days!) and at our house near Boulder (more back-country skiing with my wife thanks to some opportunistic babysitting).

I'm charged up for 2008. Lots to write about. . . Lots to do. I'm looking forward to sharing it with you through VC Adventure.

The most inspirational songs of the 80’s

For a fun diversion take a look at Cracked.com's list of "The 10 Most Terrifyingly Inspirational 80's Songs". Don't know that Danger Zone or You're the Best (Joe Esposito?!?) would be on my personal list. And how can you possibly leave out Foreigner's I Want To Know What Love Is (which, in a true highlight of my life, I was able to see performed live by Foreigner about 5 feet from the stage at a conference I was attending)? For that matter, how can Wanted (Dead or Alive)] not be at the top of the list – it blows the rest of the group away without a doubt!

Of course there will be disagreements about this sort of thing (why else put out a top 10 list?) – but the trip down memory lane is a fun one.

Be sure to read the article itself – it's hilarious: "There are two kinds of people in this world: People who love Journey ironically and people who love Journey genuinely." or my personal favorite: [Wanted (Dead or Alive)] was written in that small window of the '80s when a blue collar steelworker from New Jersey with a terminal case of hockey hair could write songs about being a cowboy and be taken seriously."

Enjoy!

crunch

i wouldn't recommend doing this to your wheel. the fall (over my handlebars and very fast, but off the trail and at least not on top of any rocks) was not nearly as painful as the walk to the car (about 4 miles and with my bike on my back – at least it was my hardtail which only weighs about 17 pounds). so much for the HuGi (guess i'm in the market for a new wheel) …

Personal traits

I had lunch with someone last week who truly personified a quality that I admire – humbleness.

I was surprised by this, not only because most people simply aren't very humble, but also because despite being young (I'm not exactly sure his age, but it was likely 24 or 25) he had actually accomplished quite a bit – founding a finance firm, raising some capital and finagling his way into a handful of really interesting late stage deals (of course his perspective was that he really hadn't done anything yet . . . but that was just him being humble).

When I was in my mid 20's I don't recall being particularly humble (actually, I recall being pretty pleased with myself). I really regret this. When I think back, with all of the perspective the last 10 years have brought me, it's amazing how naïve I was (and how loathe I was to admit it). I hope these days I have a little more balanced perspective of myself.

I meet people all the time that have it all figured out – it was refreshing last week to spend time with someone who is so self-aware.

Modern day Pavlov

I made a simple change in my life a few weeks ago that ended up being much more dramatic than expected.

For reasons extraordinarily practical – I wanted to keep my phone on at night when I was traveling without being woken up 30 times overnight with the 'chrip' of a new email – I turned off the email notification on my Dash. (I know - I could have created a new profile and programmed it to allow the phone to ring but I was in a hurry so I just modified my main profile.) A few days passed before I realized that I wasn't constantly interrupting what I was doing at any given moment to check new emails as they came in – no longer a slave to the friendly ping of my phone happily announcing each new message as it arrived (like Pavlov's dogs, I had lost my power to resist).

Brilliant. I'm much happier now.

The kindness of strangers

The world is full of people who have gone out of their way to be helpful to me over the years. I’ve been reminded of how powerful kindness can be in the past few weeks as a relative stranger - a ‘friend of a friend’ who I’ve actually never met in person, just over e-mail and phone – has gone out of their way to help me out and as a result is making something extremely important to me much easier.

This truly is what makes the world go around.

Letting go

Everyone deserves to have one truly outstanding dog sometime in their lives. For us this dog was Beau – our 100lb yellow lab. Beau was a truly sweet dog.  It’s hard to describe what this really means to those who never met him, but Beau was gentle despite his size and sweet in a way that sets him apart from all of the other dogs we've known.  His favorite pastime was to present people with a series of toys (typically stuffed bones and animals) when they walked into the house while vigorously wagging the entire back half of his body – just before making several laps between their legs.  Much to our amusement and unlike most labs, Beau didn’t enjoy things like swimming (which he never learned to do), hanging out outside (when we would leave the door to the back open, he would sit just inside the house – choosing to be inside rather than out) or fetching a ball (he preferred to watch as you retrieved the ball yourself, jumping up and down upon your return in an attempt to egg you on to once again throw the ball so he could watch you retrieve it). His great pleasures were the hikes we all took together and sleeping (preferably on a sofa or futon).  He was a good companion to our other dog, Rosie, and the two would sleep together on the same doggie bed – spooning each other through the night.  He had this funny habit of cocking his head to the side when you would talk to him – turning almost completely sideways the more you raised the pitch of your voice.  My wife used to joke that if he could talk, he would have a Barry White voice – very deep, but kind and soft.  We would often talk in this voice for him around the house (as in “I could not possibly eat another piece of hamburger . . . well, on second thought maybe I could”).  She gave him an appropriate Barry White-esque theme song in St. Germain’s Sure Thing – and would joke about the things he would do in his music video to that song. Beau had endless patience with children. First with our next door neighbor’s daughter (who would sometimes fall asleep when we were watching her using Beau’s stomach as a pillow) and then with our daughter, who would use Beau as a jungle gym – climbing over him, pulling his ears and tail, pretending to ride him like a horse, or kissing him on the head. Beau loved the attention and would lie with his tail wagging, tongue out, smiling doggie-style.

Beau died yesterday at the age of 14.  He was a good boy . . .

Are you a Yankee or a Rebel

NPR has the answer.

now that's helpful

Someone started ordering chai for our cafeteria and of course I had to check it out.  Having never made chai from a package you can imagine that I had some concerns about whether it would come out right - what would I do if it was too hot? what if it wasn't creamy enough?  Not to worry - thankfully the package contained exremely helpful instructions (click on the image below for a better view). 

Baby loves disco!

Let’s face it – disco is a universally loved form of music (well . . . almost). This is certainly true of the under-6 demographic. 

I witnessed this phenomenon first hand last weekend as several hundred kids and their parents descended on the Boulder Theatre to rock out to the sweet beats and floating falsetto of the Bee Gees, Diana Ross and other 70’s greats. 

I can promise you that you have not experienced disco until you’ve seen a mass of kids rocking out, complete with bubble machine, lights and disco ball.

I think our two year old had almost as fun as my wife and I did <g>

Birthday wishes

Birthday wishes to Ben Casnocha who turns 18 today. 

Ben sent an e-mail out last week asking a bunch of folks for their advice about life at that age.

I’m afraid my response was a little late to make it into his post with some of the material he received. Here was my 2c (extra points for the haiku):

always have more fun
by enjoying what you do
it's all the journey

Two things that I wish someone told me when I was 18:

• you can never travel too much - especially when you are young (I  should have taken time off to do this)
• you are never delaying living your life - you are living it every moment of every day; put another way, life isn't actually about a series of events or hitting milestones - its about getting there; i was in way too much of a rush when i was young to get somewhere and didn't spend enough of my time enjoying the journey

Going Bald

One of my most memorable experiences from when I was an investment banker in New York (and one of the things that really turned me off from banking, now that I think about it) happened one year at our team holiday party. 

One of the associates I worked with was going bald . . . all except for one spot on the very front of his head, which he refused to cut off despite it looking ridiculous - a wispy clump of hair in the middle of his otherwise bald forehead. We made endless fun of this hair over the years and that night, after much drinking, the group took up a pool to try to get him to shave it off for good. As I recall the pool got up to some absurd number - $15,000 - $20,000. Amazingly he didn’t shave it off (although it did, of course, eventually fall out). Looking back, this was a silly display of ego from the heads of the group to throw around that kind of money (clearly to impress the rest of us, who were in no position to offer more than a few bucks up).

I was reminded of this story when I received a note from my friend Usher saying that he was going to shave his head in support of a charity that funds childhood cancer research. I wish I could have gone back in time and taken the money on the table at the banking party to give to Usher. Not able to do that, I thought I’d blog about it in hopes that some of you might consider supporting him in his cause along with me.

Slowing down

Check out the 10 mph project. I bumped into them when they passed through my neighborhood (attracted by its funky architecture and bright colors). They spent a couple of months traveling across the country on Segways and filming their experiences. Browsing their site is a kick. You can also check out a clip from their video by clicking on the big ‘trailer’ link at the top of the page.

It’s a great reminder that slowing down often gives you a completely new perspective.

A few Links

Brad . . . if you're reading this, I really am working today . . . honest . . .

Yes, yes video

drunk-dialed

lazy monday (from chris)

Don't mess with me

Greg Galanos, one of the Mobius partners, likes to joke around by creating tee-shirts with people’s images superimposed into a theme. He created an extremely amusing Jack Bauer tee shirt for Brad (see Brad’s post on it here), which reminded me that I had been meaning to post my own Greg tee-shirt.

This is me as the angel of death. I’m a bad-ass <g>

Be sure to click the image to see it in all its glory.

Thanks Greg

Stanford is for geeks!

A friend of mine (and Stanford alum) proudly sent me the following link to the Stanford Engineering Puzzle (apparently a regular feature on their web site).  Despite neither going to Stanford, nor frankly having had any shot of even getting into the school should I have thought to apply, I found the puzzle rather amusing. 

I think Macalester is the Stanford of the mid-west . . . or something like that.

Thanks to Chris for the link.

(ok - just spell-checked this and am humbled to let you know that Stanford is in the TypePad dictionary while Macalester is not)

Colorado Rocks

I imagine you’ve noticed that I’ve been silent over the past few weeks – taking some time off from work and blogging over the holidays.

Not to gloat (WARNING: I’m about to gloat), but Colorado is a great place to live. In the same two week period I was skiing in deep fresh powder (multiple times), snowshoeing and cross country skiing with amazing mountain vistas and (here’s the really great part) mountain biking (in shorts!).

Unbelievable. I love this place!

Gobble Gobble

Last week a few of us played a little joke on our colleague Chris by putting a 6 foot tall inflatable lighted turkey in his driveway for him to find late one night as he came home.  He returned the favor a few days later by leaving it on my desk (fully inflated) early one morning. 

See the pictures of what we're now calling the 'giant turkey' below.

All this spurred a few turkey haiku's which I thought in the spirit of the season I'd share with you (these were authored by me, Chris, my wife Greeley and friend Laura):

great turkey surprise
oh where will you show up next
in some neighbor's yard

gobble gobble great turkey
arrives each fall season here
to all children's joy

giblets too large, hah!
inflated turkey ego.
pull the plug for now

way too much turkey.
tryptophan is kicking in.
must go to sleep now

turkey day is near
stuffing for the bird and me
better bring the TUMS

who cooked this turkey?
so very dry and tasteless,
please baste more often.

In your mind's eye

I love the way the mind works. I spent years studying cognitive psychology, which was my college major (I was the psych geek who paid you $3 to sit in front of a computer for 10 minutes and take a test where what I told you I was testing for was not what I was testing for . . . ).

My dad sent me the following link, which is pretty fun.

http://www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html

If I Only Knew

By all measures my "date" with Ben Casnocha was great (see my original post here, his here). As he points out, you skip a lot of the get-to-know you bs when you’ve had such rich interaction before actually getting together (particularly reading each others blogs, which really do provide nice insight and context). If you’ve ever read Ben’s blog, you already know that he’s light-years ahead of most high school students and remarkably well rounded and thoughtful. From the start this was all pretty apparent (he actually bought my coffee, which sounds like a small thing, but I can assure you probably wouldn’t have crossed my mind when I was in high school). We had a wonderfully wide ranging conversation (which interestingly included a bunch of “I wrote about (or read about) this on my (your) blog . . . “). Of particular note was the concept that perhaps Ben should give ‘life college’ a try rather than going to a school for four years. Not sure his parents are into this, but it’s a great idea and, while I was definitely jaded by my own experience (which leads me to believe that people should probably go to college but skip business school, perhaps because that’s the route I took), I actually think that given Ben’s goals this may be a pretty interesting concept.

I wish I was as clued into life as Ben is when I was in high school (or college . . . or after college . . .).

We could have kept going for hours but unfortunately I had to get to another meeting. I know we’ll get together again to continue the conversation.

If you get a chance to meet Ben you should – he’s definitely doing great things. . .

Bookends

I’ve had a couple of experiences in the last month that have alternately made me feel good about the human condition or wonder why people can be such jerks.

First the positive experience which essentially involved two strangers going out of their way to help me out. One in particular was pretty inspiring. My car battery managed to die in the parking lot of the Safeway up in Fraser on a recent Sunday night. I had just picked up a carpet steam clearer (the kind that doesn’t work very well, but I still feel compelled to rent every once in a while). I was in the process of walking this up the hill back home when I was passed by a car who turned around to see if I needed help (it was pretty dark out – god only knows what he might have thought I was dragging behind me). This guy drove me (and my steam cleaner) back to the Safeway and jumped my car. He then gave me his card (he’s a retired Delta pilot) and told me to call him in the morning if the car wouldn’t stat again for another jump (all this after I told him that I was planning on leaving at 6:30am to get back to Denver in time for work). Pretty amazing (incidentally, the 2^nd stranger in this story was the guy who ended up giving me a jump in the morning when, as I was not very surprised to learn, my battery was still dead). I’m sure many of you saw the movie Pay it Forward and I feel a little sappy saying this, but I’ve actually been looking to try to pay back this man’s kindness by helping someone else out in need. In my book its all karma.

Unfortunately I’ve also had an experience recently that reminded me of the other side of human nature. It’s a long story and not worth going into, but the net of it was that a simple misunderstanding was turned into a big (and much more time consuming and expensive) to-do because rather than picking up the phone and calling, someone assumed the worse and blew the situation up in a way that will ultimately result in a worse outcome for everyone (not to mention taking about 4 months to work out rather than less than a week) I don’t know what it is about some people that makes them act in this way . . pretty pathetic if you ask me.

I’m going to re-read the first story here – it much more of how I’d like to think of my fellow humans.

Milestones

My daughter reached an important American milestone yesterday - her first credit card offer.  Four months shy of her 2nd birthday I'm not entirely sure she's ready to handle the responsibility, but I did send the response card in to see what would happen (I circled her date of birth and indicated her occupation as 'pre-school student').  I'll keep you posted.

Fun or Funny

I’ve had a few frustrating things going on this week and my attitude around them forced me to remember an old adage that I used to use when I was guiding back-country hiking trips (when inevitably we’d get rained on or someone would have forgotten something and people would get upset). 

It’s either fun or funny. Choose.

Depending on my mood my response can range from laughter to “fuck you – it’s neither and I don’t want to play this game” (talking to myself, of course). Of course most times it really is either fun or funny (or feels better when put in one of those categories) and when forced to choose it typically puts me in a better mood. 

Lost in translation

I love playing around with Google Translate – mostly to look at web sites or read blogs that are written in other languages.  I’m also a big cycling fan and after this year’s Tour I decided to write to the German cyclist Jan Ullrich – one of my favorite riders and the third place finisher in this year’s contest.  I wrote my note in English but also translated it into German using Google. I had forgotten about this note until a few days ago when I actually received a note back from Jan (I’m actually pretty sure it was really from him – it certainly made my day!).  I translated it back to English also using Google, but decided that it was too important to leave to chance, so I forwarded it to a German friend of mine in Frankfurt for a second opinion.  Turns out Google did a pretty nice job translating his response, but was apparently too literal in translating my original note.  I found it pretty amusing and thought I would repeat it here – a good lesson in lexical vs. conceptual meaning.

My original note was meant to say:

Jan - You are a wonderful bicycle rider.  I've enjoyed watching you in this year's tour (as every year).  You are a great champion.  Know that you have many american fans!

(translated with Google translate - sorry if the translation is rough).

Your faithful fan,

Turns out I actually wrote:

Jan, you are a wonderful bicycle co-rider. I enjoyed being careful for you during this years Tour (as in previous years).  You are a big champion.  Did you know that you have many American ceiling-fans!

(translated with Google translate you – sad, if translate is coarse)

Your reliable ceiling-fan!

Apparently I’m Jan’s only talking ceiling fan <g>

(In case you were wondering, Jan’s response to me was: Thank you very much for your support!  You are helping me a lot! Sorry I am only replying to your letter now.  Best Regards, Jan)

Putting a stake in the ground

Back from vacation and quite refreshed . . .

One of the things we did in Maine was visit the LL Bean outlet (ok . . . we’re tourists . . .). Going there provided an example of making your threats real – in this case a positive one. LL Bean is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.  No exceptions. They are so serious about this that they actually don’t have locks on the doors to their store. Pretty powerful example of putting a stake in the ground about something they believe strongly in.

More thoughts on Occam's Paradox

I’ve been re-reading my Occam’s Paradox post as well as the comments and trackbacks (which are excellent – please click through them if you have a minute).  I fell a little short of really saying what I originally intended for the post, which was that I think that we have a tendency not only to make things more complicated than need be, but also to focus on too many things (and therefore the wrong ones).  As a result we try to assimilate too much data to make decisions (not recognizing the massive diminishing returns on this effort) and try to pay attention to too many things.  I wrote a post a while ago about trying to cram too much information into financial models that argued that more complex models are not necessarily better or more accurate.  I’m realizing now that I’m connecting the dots here that this is exactly the type of behavior I’m talking about in Occam’s Paradox. [By the way, there’s an entire post to be written about how VC’s play into this in their decision making (how many customers do we need to talk with, how many models should we run, etc before we make an investment decision?) – but I don't think I should go there in this post].

I came across two posts that I wanted to bring your attention to that speak to this general subject area and that are both worth taking a look at. The first is “Decision Making” by my fellow VC Blogger Will Price (be sure to click through this blog to the link for the Bastardi and Shafir paper – On the Pursuit and Misuse of Useless Information).  The other, Focus is the New Black, is by Paul Kedrosky.  The title speaks for itself – it’s a great read.

Please keep the comments (both public and private) coming - I'm enjoying this thread very much.

Occam's Paradox

Remember Occam’s Razor? It’s the principle (that you probably learned in high school physics) that states that the simplest solution to a given problem is probably the best.

I’ve been thinking recently about complexity in business and in life and think there’s a corollary to Occam’s Razor that perhaps should be called Occam’s Paradox - the propensity of humans to make things more complicated than they need to be.  I don’t pretend to know why this is, but I notice it all the time (both in my own life and with other people).  I guess it’s just easy to start down the road of dependency mapping (i.e., making everything you do a part of a larger matrix that has many interdependencies). 

I watch this tendency in the companies I work with as well. Lots of dependency mapping; lots of “if’s”, “but’s” and “its not that simple”.  Now – I get that life and business are complicated.  But I’m talking about how we react to that complexity.  We have the choice to either drown in complexity or to cut through it, because although the challenges we face in life and business are clearly complex – the solution to those challenges generally are not (generally the difference is in recognizing what you control and what you don’t control and not wasting a whole lot of time on the latter – perhaps a subject for a future post). 

Keep that in mind the next time you are sitting around the board table or at a management meeting (or at dinner with your family) and see if you relate to it (let me know).

Cheese

Today is the 36th anniversary of the first moon landing (July 20, 1969).  Moon's almost full, so you'll get a great look at it.

Google put up a moon site recently - www.moon.google.com.  Be sure to zoom all the way in <g>.

TSA in action

i can't tell you how much safer i'm feeling now. i'm writing this on a flight from denver to chicago (on my danger sidekick, by the way). i almost inadvertantly took aboard an allen wrench set (in my bag from when i rode my bike to work last week and perhaps the most blunt object in my bag). the fact that i somehow got it with me to chicago in the first place aside, i know i'm much safer now that its been confiscated (apparently under the 'tools' clause of the tsa's list of banned items). if not, right now, someone could have taken the set and be using it to LITERALLY dismantle the plane. . .

i’m glad to know that sending penguins through security is not distracting them from checking for these sorts of things!

Bike to work day

Today is bike to work day in Boulder. I’ve been meaning to ride my bike into work for a while, so today seemed like a good day to start.

Here are a couple of observations from the road:

- Riding in is a fantastic way to start the day.  I got to work and felt great.  I was completely energized and awake after my roughly 15 mile ride in.

- Leave your computer at home. I forgot to do this last night and as a result had to lug my laptop on my back (along with a change of clothes, which would have also been a good thing to have brought into the office the day before my ride). What didn’t feel all that heavy in mile one felt like a ton by mile ten . . .

- I live in the sticks. I didn’t realize how many miles of farmland I actually pass on my way to work.  Zooming by at 60mph most mornings it fails to register with me. Riding at a more moderate 15 or 20mph I got to take it all in.

- God – Colorado is beautiful. For about 8 or 9 miles of my ride I was riding with unobstructed views of the rockies, including Longs Peak

- Bike lanes are everywhere here. I probably only rode about a mile this morning that wasn’t in a bike lane – excellent!

- If there is a water main break and you get passed by a car you will get very wet.  ‘Nuff said.

- There are a lot of other cyclists out on the road.  I passed more than I thought I would (hopefully people out like me for bike to work day).  Everyone waved or nodded – very nice.

So it can be done. Assuming all goes well on the ride home I plan to do this again.  I hope you’ll think about it too . . .

Thinking of grandpa

My grandfather died on this date two years ago. He was a great man and I’ve been thinking about him all day.

(As an aside, my wife pointed out that it would probably be a more appropriate to do this on his birthday rather than on the day he died, to which I responded that, as a Jew, it just feels right this way . . . <g>)

My grandfather was truly of the ‘greatest generation’ – growing up through the depression; dropping out of high school to help support his family where he was one of 11 children; eloping with my grandmother; serving in WWII; raising children; working a variety of jobs, but always making ends meet; enjoying retirement; taking care of his wife when she fell ill and eventually died; living life to the fullest. I was lucky to spend so much time with him - summers here in Colorado growing up and, more recently after I moved out here, frequent visits and our weekly breakfasts. 

I learned many great things from my grandfather. Among my favorites was a Yiddish saying that he taught me about embracing the path one is on (rather than what could have been).  The (loose) transliteration is:

“Iffin dine bubba oud gattsen baitsen, ze vould been dine zayda!”

Which means: “And if you’re grandmother had balls she would have been your grandfather!”

Something to remember the next time you start down the “if only” line of reasoning.

Thanks  Grandpa.

What Is Love?

I’ve been asked a bunch what I’ve found most surprising about being a new dad. My wife, Greeley, and I have talked about this a lot as well. I’m thinking about it right now – on a flight and looking through some family pictures on my laptop – and the answer is actually really easy (and I think shared by a lot of parents – at least I know that both Greeley and I feel this way).

The love you feel for your child is completely overwhelming – and for me the intensity of it was unexpected. Seriously – it’s totally different from anything I’ve ever experienced. I love my wife very much and in a way that is different from and more intense than I feel about anyone else. But the love you feel for your child is truly transformational. 

It’s amazing to bring a life into the world – one that is completely dependant on you for a time. Human babies are probably the least capable of taking care of themselves than any other species.  And nature’s way of making sure that you do a good job of it is to fill you with immediate and strong emotion towards your baby (and incidentally seems to make young babies look a lot like their dads when they are very young; which, very amusingly, according to my father-in-law is “how they used to do things before Morry Pauvich was around to do talk shows with paternity tests”).  Well – I’m here to say that it works!

Taking 100% responsibility

I have a concept about relationships that I really like (even if I sometimes forget to follow its teachings): 

In any meaningful relationship (business, personal or otherwise) each person should be 100% responsible for that relationship.

I used to think that a relationship involved each of the parties to be responsible for 50% (i.e., and therefore the total 100% would be taken care of). I guess that works in theory, but if you think about it, your relationships will be much more meaningful (and fulfilling) if you take 100% responsibility for them. This plays well into my recent post on communication. If each person in a relationship is taking 100% responsibility for the communication in a relationship that communication is likely to be much more frequent and meaningful than if each person is waiting for it to happen ½ of the time (which is, of course, what happens if each person only takes 50% responsibility).

I’ve had a couple of break-downs in communication in the past few weeks – one with one of the CEOs I work with and another with a member of the executive team of one of our portfolio companies - and I realize that in both cases if I had taken full responsibility for the communication these break-downs would not have happened. These were relatively minor, but being a VC is largely about the relationships one has (with entrepreneurs, with CEO’s and executive teams, with other VCs, with people in the extended community in which we live and work, etc.) – so taking them seriously is really a key part of my job. Hopefully next time I’ll remember my own advice . . .

Is this the future?

Is this what the future will look like?  You tell me . ..

http://oak.psych.gatech.edu/~epic/

Things I learned on vacation - part II (the vacation curve)

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 take vacation.

I’ve noticed that there seems to be a real ‘need to take vacation’ curve, which if you graphed it would look something like this:

 

 

Under this theory, your need for vacation (where the X axis is the time since your last vacation and the Y axis is your need for another vacation) first rises relatively linearly, then hits a plateau of some sorts and then rises exponentially. The key if to know when you’re at your plateau and then take time off (rather than wait until your vacation need starts to escalate rapidly). The curve changes based on what’s going on in your life, how good your last vacation was, how much you are able to step away on weekends, etc.; but I think it follows this general pattern and has roughly the same shape.

Just before I left, I wrote a post saying that I was going on vacation. Dave Jilk commented on the difference between taking a trip and actually taking a vacation (see the comment here). While I disagree with the bringing the kids along part of the comment (he thinks that’s because our daughter is still very young), I completely agree with the distinction (and have been quoting him liberally when talking about my vacation).

So don’t forget to take some time off, and definitely don’t confuse trips with real vacation. You deserve it.

Things I learned on vacation - part I

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 and eat the frosting out of the middle and then eat each of the cookies.  She did this every time she ate an Oreo. That’s how intuitive the Oreo Cookie is – a one year old can figure out the right way to eat it without any instruction or guidance.  

All of the companies I work with should strive to have a product with that kind of appeal . . .

Taking Time

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 up the rays and relaxing together.  And no – I’m not bringing my laptop with me . . .

Go Sox!

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 me.

 

A high school friend of mine wrote to me the other day. He’s been reading my blog but was disappointed that I hadn’t posted on some important topics from our childhood:

 

“you gonna write anything about the red sox or patriots or just how to write financial models?” He asks.

 

Well, here you go, Dan. . .

 

I grew up just outside of Boston, so the events of the past few months have been pretty amazing to me.  I always figured that the Red Sox would win the World Series sometime in my lifetime – I just wasn’t sure when. I was 14 in 1986 when the Sox came within a strike of winning it all.  I actually didn’t see the famous Buckner gaff live. I had been babysitting down the street. The parents of the kids I was sitting for came home and we watched a little bit of the game together. When it was clear to me that the Sox were about to win I ran home (about 5 houses away) to enjoy the moment with my dad.  When I got home my dad locked solemn and told me that the Sox had blown it.  I, of course, thought he was pulling my leg, so I called his bluff and ran into the family room to celebrate the victory.  Long story short, that evening is one of the most vivid memories of my childhood (being a Red Sox fan is truly a scarring experience). 

 

I’m going to give credit for the Rex Sox win this year to my 1 year old daughter (at least partial credit).  In late summer my wife and I were in Boston for a wedding about an hour south of town.  We spent a couple of days in the city to visit some friends and enjoy some time near where I grew up.  My other best friend from high school (actually the twin brother of the author of the jab quoted above) is the sports director for one of the local Boston TV stations.  He arranged one morning for me and my daughter to get access to the ballfield. I can assure you that it was absolutely a highlight of this life-long Red Sox fan’s life to walk into an empty Fenway Park with my daughter on my back (decked out in her infant sized Rex Sox ball-cap), walk down to the first row of seats and then onto the field.  I had a camera to document the moment – picture of Sacha on the infield grass; me holding her in front of the green monster; her sitting on the visiting team bench (presumably putting a curse on them).  Pretty amazing.

 

I’m, of course, convinced that her visit to the field brought good luck in the post season. At least that’s what I’m going to tell her . . .

Cover your wells!

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 down the block that is under construction. It was dark and the window well was flush with the ground – I almost fell in myself. Beau was pretty seriously hurt. Friday we thought things were over for him (he couldn’t walk at all), but now things are looking a little better as he’s regained use of his front legs and some use of his back legs. He’s taking steroids and we’re hoping that his back/spinal chord was bruised (in which case he’ll regain much of his abilities) and not broken (which would be very very bad news). While the accident was clearly my fault (he wandered off and should not have been in a position to fall into the well), I have a couple of observations:

1) I can’t believe how many window wells are uncovered. There were more uncovered wells around us than covered ones (and these are wide, deep wells). Most had little or no lip on them. Many were very close to a walkway or alley. One is our own well, which is probably 7 feet deep and has only about a 6 inch lip. We ordered a cover for it when we moved in, but it isn’t ready yet.

2) I’m amazed at the local codes. I know that they codes are weak, because when we bought our house we asked for one of the window wells to be covered and were told no, citing that it wasn’t code. As I understand it, in my county the only wells that are required to be covered are those within 3 feet of a curb/walkway or within 15 feet of a door. The one in question at our house was about 3 ½ feet from the sidewalk. 

I think it irresponsible of builders and homeowners not to do something about exposed wells. I also think the codes need to be changed. We called the guy that we hired to make our well cover this morning to try to hurry things up. In the meantime we’re going to see what we can do to make things safer at our house. We’re also going to ask our neighbors to do the same. As sad as we our about what happened to our dog, things could have been much worse if it had been a child who had wandered off. While I don’t even want to think about that situation, I found out from some of our neighbors that several children have fallen into wells in our community (resulting in a few lawsuits).  This is a scary situation. My wife and I are going to petition the local zoning board to try to get the rules changed.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

 

In the meantime,  if you have a window well please cover it! 

Hats Off!

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 to life as a VC (or just life in general) where we sometimes forget that our jobs are to throw hats over impossible walls and figure out a way around or over them. Sure, gathering data is important; taking a measured stand is important; and jumping off of a bridge with the idea that you will figure out how to make a parachute on the way down is probably not the greatest idea. But sometimes the right thing to do is to jump into the unknown and take the stand that you will figure it out.

 

This story has relevance to blogging as well. I wasn’t expecting the ‘holy crap’ feeling I had last night after I had posted my first blog entry and sent a note around to some friends letting them know that I was on my way. What am I going to write about, and who is going to care anyway? A friend wrote to me after he had read my first entry saying that he too had been thinking about starting up a blog, but that the anticipation of feeling exposed and out there after taking the jump was stopping him (he actually used more colorful language not worth subjecting y’all to).  Well – my hat is lying firmly on the other side of the wall. Not sure if I’m going to find a way over it, but here’s to trying!

 

sjl

 

p.s. RB – hat’s off, man!