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Thank for the memories
I am the family historian. Over the last five years I have been pretty much able to put together the story of my family and in some case I am able to cover nine generations from a time before declaration of independence to the birth of my grandchildren. And I have collected photographs that go back as for as the…
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Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade
I just had an amazing experience reading Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade. This book is about how genetics can help us recover the history of man. I learned so much from reading this book and I strongly recommend it. It is easy to read and does not require a deep knowledge of genetics. Combining this book with Jared Diamond’s…
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Japan and me, then and now
I am in Japan showing my wife Deborah this wonderful country for the first time. I have not been back to Japan since 2000 when I visited with Richard Li (I was on the board of his company PPCW at the time). It was just before the bubble burst and Richard and Massa (Son) were both boasting that they were…
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Those who couldn’t and did
After the last tech bubble burst in 2000, I developed a classification system for the people I knew and or would meet that were shaped by this. It was a two by two matrix to deal with how people handled their stock (including options). There were four possibilities: 1) Those who had stock that they could sell and sold…
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Life 2.0
I am trying to wean myself from being a “human doing “to become a “human being” and have only had moderate success. The trouble with retirement is you no longer enjoy doing what you are good at doing but you are not good at doing what you enjoy. This makes you go back to old patterns. I spend a lot of…
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Bush must be thankful for Imus
George Bush must be so thankful for entertainers who do stupid things. They keep the focus of TV news shows away for him. When you look at the priorities of the news organizations (do the reflect the priorities of their audiences or create them) you have to think we are living in a mental institution. Here we are locked in…
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Is business like surfing
To be successful as a surfboarder, you first need to go to the beach. Not just any beach but one with the right waves (it is too hard to make a wave although many people in business think they can). Then you have to fight your way out with all the little waves trying to push you back and knock you…
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Young Enough to be my grandson
Yesterday I had a two hour lunch with a young entrepreneur. While I am use to working with men and women young enough to be my children (like Simon and David the founders of www.heavy.com), this was the first time I can remember meeting with a CEO who was young enough to be my grandson. He was born in 1984…
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Kissing Behavior
I know it is April Fools Day (it is also the first night of Passover and just 15 days to filling your taxes). But today, I learned something that really explains some kissing behavior. A male friend of mine evidently had the best kiss of his life from a lesbian friend. I heard that and a light went off in…
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The 1849 Gold Rush and the Internet Bubble
Mike Hirshland sent me a story on Valley Wag about Industry Standard pre burst (that is post bubble). It is interesting and you can read it here. It caused me to reflect on another time in this history of the bay area, the 1949 Gold Rush. Here can read about that here if you do not remember the stories (which…
Thoughts and experiences of an eighty one year old Wild Duck.
587 posts since 2006