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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24600052017-02-01T04:38:50.066-08:00Adventures in CapitalismThoughts on business, entrepreneurship, and life from a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and writer.Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-20505137089808488882017-01-29T21:03:00.002-08:002017-01-29T21:03:52.329-08:00How To Change The Minds Of People Who Voted For Trump

I know that many people are frightened and angry because of the actions of the Trump administration, and rightly so. It's very tempting to express that fear and anger by insulting or verbally abusing those who voted for and/or support Trump. But doing so, while it might make you feel better in the moment, is not going to have any positive impact. Have opposition criticisms of a leader you support, be it Obama, Bush, or Clinton, ever convinced you to change your mind? Or did the attack on "your" leader simply cause you to harden your heart further? It may take a while, but I think the most effective approach is to simply ask, and keep asking, consistently, continuously, and in many different ways, "How does this specific Trump administration policy make you personally better off? We are not going to change minds by calling Trump a racist, a misogynist, or a demagogue. Many of his supporters may very well prefer a whiter, more male-dominated America, where educated "elites" exercise less power. To put it in terms my Silicon Valley friends will recognize, to Trump's supporters, these are features, not bugs. But many people voted for Trump because they felt that he was the only candidate offering them potential solutions that would better their lives--less globalization, fewer immigrants, more jobs for "real" Americans. Trump's solutions are unlikely to work. Cajoling a small number of companies to preserve a small number of American factory jobs is not going to help more than a infinitesimally small proportion of people who voted for Trump. I believe that Trump and his team realize this, and believe that their best chance to keep those voters from realizing that the Trump administration is going to make their lives worse, rather than better, is to keep them distracted by trying to focus their attention on "enemies," be they foreigners or those coastal liberals who look down on "real" Americans. I'm not arguing against protests or condemnation of the Trump administration. These seem to me to be justifiable and potentially useful. But reaching out to people who voted for Trump requires a different approach. And in a year or two, when they are still working the same job (or not working) and their lives have not improved one iota, I think they may very well start to listen.

Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-58291682436370646152017-01-24T15:15:00.000-08:002017-01-24T15:15:06.302-08:00The Mathematical Formula for SuccessIf failure is more likely than success, what is the formula for success?

If you're really lucky, you might succeed right away. In that case, you could retire immediately and rest on your laurels. But this seems unsatisfying. Very few people have the willpower to walk away from the roulette wheel right after they win, and even if you do, you have to put up with hearing the "L" word (lucky) being used to describe you for the rest of your life.

Most people concentrate on maximizing their chances of success. "If I just think hard enough," these folks say to themselves, "I can plan my way to success." Yet while intelligence, hard work, and brilliant insight can increase the chances of success, they certainly don't guarantee it. As the smart, hard-working, and very-successful Mark Pincus likes to say about his startup Tribe, "I started one of the first three social networks, and I still managed to fail." There doesn't seem to be a way to tilt the odds fully in your favor.

The best strategy seems to be to increase your number of attempts to succeed, or "shots on goal" as they might say in soccer (football) or hockey. Yet while this increases both your expected number of successes, and reduces the chances of getting ended up with zero successes, the numbers game doesn't change the expected value of each attempt.

To make the numbers game work, you have to do two other critical things, in additional to increasing your shots on goal:

First, you have to reduce the cost of failure so that even a string of failures doesn't take you out of the game. If you're forced to leave the table when you're down, you'll never end up in the black. Reducing the cost of failure can also improve your expected value.

Second, you have to aim high (though not so high as to eliminate the chances of success) so that the rewards of each success far outweigh the costs of the failures along the way.

We can write this equation as follows:

Success = Sum (1 to N, where N = #Attempts) for f (Chance of Success * Benefits of Success - [1 - Chance of Success] * Cost of Failure)

(Feel free to offer a better mathematical statement in the comments; I'm not a mathematician!)

Successful venture capitalists try to solve for this equation.

VC funds invest in 20+ companies per fund, giving them a very good chance that they'll have at least one success, and a good chance to have more than one.

But funds also reduce the cost of failure by investing smaller amounts up front and doubling down on what appear likely to be the winners in the portfolio. The option value to abandon investments that don't seem to be working helps reduce the average cost of failure in the portfolio.

Finally, venture capitalists focus on "venture scale" investments--startups that could conceivably be worth billions of dollars. These outside outcomes (such as Amazon, Google, and Facebook) can make up for a multitude of failures.

(Note that VC firms also try to increase the chances of success by providing useful advice, key introductions, and useful services, but these efforts supplement, rather than replace, the three principles outlined above).

Nor do you have to be a wealthy venture capitalist to follow this strategy. I'm employed it in my own life, by being open to interesting and unusual opportunities, avoiding any that risked my financial or professional ruin, and prioritizing potential upside over what I believe is the illusory sense of safety.

I have failed many more times than I care to remember, but because I kept the costs of my failures low and stayed in the game, people only seem to remember my successes!

Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-39204192637283623532016-12-21T21:24:00.004-08:002016-12-21T21:24:47.328-08:00(Yet More) Things To Do In Palm SpringsThis year, we've continued our practice of using Palm Springs as a convenient getaway during our standard winter vacation in LA. Despite Palm Springs being a small town (population 43,000), we're still finding new places to visit.

The highlight of the trip was our visit to the Palm Springs Air Museum. For an aviation and history buff like me, it was a great way to spend the day. While this museum is small in comparison to, say, the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, its tight focus on American military aircraft from WWII, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War allows it to cover its chosen topics in much greater depth than I've ever seen elsewhere.

Throughout the museum, I learned things that I never knew before. As an example, despite having read seemingly endless books on military aviation in my childhood, today was the first time that I learned why the Dauntless dive bomber went by the designation "SBD" (the program that developed the plane called for a Scout/Bomber, and since the plane was produced by Douglas Aircraft, a final "D" was added).

The museum also benefits from its laser focus on the actual airplanes. I've never seen so many historic airplanes in one place, including almost every major American warplane from WWII. It even features lesser-known planes like the PBY Catalina. The only planes missing were the B-24 and B-29 bombers (the B-24 is very rare, with just 7 remaining examples in the US; the B-29 was probably too massive to fit into the museum).

While the entire day was awesome, two highlights stand out. First, the museum has dedicated one of its hangers to its B-17 Flying Fortress, one of just 10 flight-capable B-17s left in the world. Not only was it amazing to see a piece of history in person, we were even able to climb into the plane and crawl from the cockpit, through the bomb bay, all the way to the tail of the plane. It was difficult for me to clamber through the fuselage while it was standing still in a well-lit hanger; I can only imagine the challenge of doing so while the bomber was flying at 35,000 feet, engines droning at deafening levels, wearing an oxygen mask, machine guns blazing while Luftwaffe fighters attacked!

(Click here for a photo of me on the B-17)

Second, the museum is well-staffed with volunteer docents, most of whom are veterans of the US military. One of the docents, Jim (USN, retired) spent about 45 minutes with us, answering questions and telling stories. Essentially, we got a private tour! Another docent coached me through a takeoff (successful) and landing (almost successful) on the F-22 flight simulator. If you visit the museum, definitely take advantage of the knowledge of the docents!

The museum is busy building its newest hanger, which will house its Korea- and Vietnam-era jets (which include an F-4, F-100, F-102, F-104, F-105, F-14, F-16, and F-18). I'm looking forward to returning to see the new hanger and exhibits when they're ready.

Of course, no vacation would be complete without eating. We had two enjoyable, new dining experiences this time. For lunch, we visited the El Paseo Grill in Palm Desert. It's not fancy (though it does have a lot of cool art on the walls), but it is quite tasty. I had a spicy chicken sandwich with Jamaican jerk sauce. The chicken was perfectly cooked, the sauce was spicy but not too spicy, and the bun (I indulge in carbs when I'm on vacation) had a satisfying surface crunch, but was soft and chewy on the inside.

We also had an early dinner at TRIO Restaurant. TRIO offers a great deal--the three-course prix fixe meal, which is available from 11 AM to 6 PM every day, is just $19.95. We had their fried calamari, roasted beet salad, steak frites, and steak salad, with bread pudding and brownie for dessert. The food and service were excellent, which helps explain why the restaurant was busy, even at 5:30 PM on a Wednesday. It's a very canny business model; the prix fixe deal helps maintain high utilization at off-peak times. Meanwhile, when we left the restaurant at around 6:15, it was approaching capacity as the less price-sensitive crowd streamed in. They even offer a separate happy hour menu, which we will have to sample another time.

The only disappointment was that rain started pouring down shortly after dinner, which caused us to cancel our trip to the WildLights festival at The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens. As much as I hate to let our tickets go unused, getting drenched is not my idea of a fun vacation. Hopefully we get a chance to go next year!
Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-28112995468690587602016-12-06T20:17:00.001-08:002016-12-06T20:17:18.230-08:00Are you doing everything in your power to win the game you've chosen to play?Little known fact: I am the Michael Jordan of family game nights. Over decades of gameplay, I am undefeated across a variety of games, ranging from Trivial Pursuit to Cranium. And like Michael Jordan, I play to win with a ruthlessness that borders on the pathological.

(This, by the way, is why I've vowed never to play Risk again--every game of Risk I've ever been involved with ends in a fight.)

But I normally don't think about the rest of my life as a game. Maybe I should.

I just had a mind-expanding conversation with the redoubtable Rob Siegel, the Teaching VC. Rob asks his students at Stanford's business school a very pointed set of questions:

What is the game you've chosen to play?

What is the unfair advantage that gives you an edge over everyone else?

Are you doing everything in your power to win?

Rob's questions hit home for me. I'm pretty darn lucky in terms of what I get to do with my life. The work I do is pleasant, prestigious, and rewarding. I have everything that money can't buy. But maybe because of that, I've been content to be an incrementalist.

I tinker with the levers in my life, making small changes here and there, trying to make things just a little bit better. Since my big picture is pretty good, I've focused on the little picture.

Rob's questions have me thinking that I need to make sure that I periodically think about the big picture--specifically, how I intend to spend my next decade.

What is the game you've chosen to play?

What is the unfair advantage that gives you an edge over everyone else?

Are you doing everything in your power to win?

Rob points out what another wise friend, Kashi Tahir, has also expressed. I generally do things I'm comfortable with. Fortunately, doing things I'm comfortable with has delivered pretty good results so far. But the question isn't whether I've had an impact--the question is whether I've maximized my impact.

Why am I Michael Jordan on game night, and Mr. Rogers in my professional life? Maybe it's because this is how Michael Jordan acted at times. But there's plenty of room on the continuum between asshole and Care Bear.

What is the game you've chosen to play?

What is the unfair advantage that gives you an edge over everyone else?

Are you doing everything in your power to win?

These are questions I'll be pondering for a while. What feelings do they evoke in you?Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-54681540194704862952016-11-12T15:30:00.001-08:002016-11-12T15:30:34.695-08:00Hard Work AND Decisive MomentsWhen it comes to telling the story behind their success, most people will either tout the value of hard work, or tell the story of how a single decisive moment changed their life forever. In reality, you have to do both.

If you focus solely on hard work, you overlook the importance of being ready to be decisive when the right opportunity presents itself.

If you focus solely on decisive moments, you feed the notion that success is based on luck rather than effort.

This past week, I went on a Paly High freshman trip to Yosemite with my son, Jason. Long-time readers and friends will probably know that camping is just about the only thing I'd be less likely to attend than Burning Man. The things we do for our children....

Along the way, I had the pleasure of sharing a car and a cabin with Will, one of the other parent chaperones. Will has led a fascinating life, with plenty of hard work and decisive moments.

In 1967, he was drafted into the Army. During infantry training, another trainee foolishly tried to pry open a misfire and triggered an explosion that sent shrapnel into Will's knee. After reconstructive surgery, he wasn't able to continue his training, so he was assigned to night guard duty at the base's computer center. One night, the warrant officer in charge of the computer center was having trouble getting an important report to print. Will saw what he was doing wrong, and broke protocol to offer his help. The officer, who really needed that report right away, forgave the breach and accepted the help, then told Will to report to him the next day. The officer promptly pulled Will out of the infantry, promoted him, and put him to work running the computer center. He spent his entire tour of duty working on computers, and never did ship out for Vietnam. When he was discharged, he got a job at IBM, and worked there for nearly 40 years.

On the one hand, Will clearly experienced a decisive moment. If hadn't spoken up that one night, he might never have caught an officer's eye, and he could have been sent to fight and possibly die in Vietnam. That moment changed the course of his entire life.

On the other hand, that moment was only possible because of hard work. Will's dad was one of IBM's top scientists, and Will had spent his entire childhood playing with electronics and IBM computers. The only reason he was in the Army was that, like many a hacker before him, he found school boring, and flunked out of college, losing his draft deferment.

(Will experienced another key decisive moment, which led to him becoming the world's leading expert on color calibrating high-end projectors and televisions, which in turn led to his working with Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, and many of the world's greatest directors, but that is a story you'll have to get from him!)

In my own life, I've experienced decisive moments, like being asked to collaborate with Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha on the ideas that became The Alliance. Like Will, that was a single decisive moment that changed the course of my life. But it was only possible because I had spent the previous decade thinking about those ideas and writing over 2,000 blog posts.

Success is about hard work AND decisive moments. The hard work builds your skills and brings you the opportunities. But you still have to have the courage to seize them when they present themselves.Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-38354529199523364312016-09-03T16:56:00.000-07:002016-09-03T16:56:02.269-07:00Donate to a Great Cause and Talk With MeOn September 17th, my son Jason will be swimming in the Aquathon to benefit Abilities United, a great organization with a great mission--helping adults and children with disabilities be included and appreciated.

As usual, I'm going to leverage the power of the internet to advance this cause!

If you go to Jason's Aquathon page and donate $100, I'll be happy to schedule a phone call with you to discuss whatever topic you choose (your startup, the state of the Los Angeles Lakers, or any other topic that doesn't violate the laws of the United States).

If you donate $500, I'll meet with you in person in general vicinity of Palo Alto.

If you donate $10,000, I'll be happy to fly to your location and meet with you! (No war zones, please)

You can find Jason's Aquathon page here:
http://www.abilitiesunitedevents.org/page.aspx?pid=405&tab=0&frsid=3738

Happy Labor Day!Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-20168390830768168462016-08-06T23:43:00.002-07:002016-08-06T23:43:43.641-07:00What I Think About The 2016 US Presidential ElectionI'm not going to waste time explaining why I think Donald Trump should not be president. That dead horse has already been thoroughly pulverized. Instead, I'd like to discuss why Trump's candidacy matters, and what we ought to learn from it and do about it.

Even though the press narrative this week is that Trump's support has "collapsed," he is still currently projected to receive 42.6% of the popular vote, to Hillary Clinton's 49.1%. And this is despite running an incompetent, amateurish campaign with almost no local organization and no advertising spending. Clearly, his message resonates with a significant number of voters.

Trump's strongest base of support are white voters without a college education. After the Republican National Convention, his lead over Clinton with this group approached 40%, better than any Republican candidate since Ronald Reagan in the 1984 election, which he won in a historic landslide. The difference is that in 1984, these voters made up 62% of the electorate; today, that figure is about 34%. So why does his message resonate so well with them?

I would characterize Trump's message as largely negative; he is anti-immigration, anti-globalization, and anti-establishment. The message he sends to his voters is that the establishment has betrayed them, and has pursued policies that hurt their standard of living.

The scary thing is that he's right. Immigration does appear to hurt the wages of low-skill workers. American manufacturing jobs continue to decline, and globalization appears to play a role. And the two major political parties tend to focus on issues that just don't help uneducated whites. They don't believe in the pro-business policies of the Republican Party, or the identity politics of the Democratic Party. Even if they agree with some of the socially conservative positions of the Republican Party, these are far less important than the economic pain they feel.

The fact is, whites without college degrees have had a terrible couple of decades. They have declined economically ("From 1979 to 2012, the median-income gap between a family headed by two earners with college degrees and two earners with high-school degrees grew by $30,000, in constant dollars") and demographically ("Since 2010, racial and ethnic minorities have accounted for 91.7 percent of all population growth in the US. The share of the US population that is foreign-born is four times what it was in 1970, having risen from 4.7 percent then to 13.1 percent in 2013").

And most of the wealthy, educated elites of the country don't seem to care. Or more precisely, we don't have any exposure, and thus empathy for this group. In 2015, the unemployment rate for Americans with a professional degree (like, for example, a Harvard MBA) was just 1.5%. The figure for a those with just a high school diploma was 5.4%, and for high school dropouts, it was 8%. The median income for professional degree holders was nearly four times that of the dropouts. That's like the proportional difference in per capita GDP between the United States and Bulgaria.

The problem is that the wealthy, educated elites, who are concentrated on the coasts, and in big cities, are a tiny minority. Educational attainment in the United States is at an all-time high, yet only 32% of those 25 and older have graduated from college. College graduates are a minority, and by a wide margin. Yet this minority controls the media, the government, and most of the wealth of the country.

Imagine if you lived in a country where a small minority controlled all the wealth and power, dominated the media and entertainment world, and seemed to revel in looking down on you as if you were a lower form of life that deserved nothing better than your squalid existence. I suspect that's how it might feel to be a white person without a college education in the America of 2016.

Now imagine that you had a chance to stick it to that stuck-up ruling class, simply by voting for a particular candidate. Yes, their propagandists might write endless editorials about why no one should vote for this candidate, but why would you listen to them? They don't seem to care about, respect, or even consider you an equal. Screw them.

It's at this point that many people start muttering about the dumb, "information-poor" voters who vote against their own economic interests. The implication seems to be, "Isn't it a shame that we let those dumb hicks vote?" If you believe that, you're betraying the very principles of democracy.

True democracy is based on a simple rule: One person, one vote. You don't get more votes for being rich, or for having a fancy degree, just like you don't get more votes for belonging to a particular ethnic group. Disenfranchising people for their education level is no better than disenfranchising them for the color of their skin.

This is as it should be! This is the way that democracy reflects the fact that all humans have equal rights, even if they don't have equal abilities. When we say that everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the right to vote is what helps them keep that right.

If 42.6% of people plan to vote for Trump, the answer isn't to belittle them and try to berate them into changing their minds; it's to try to actually understand their motivations and desires.

People are voting for Trump because they feel like the system is rigged against them, and thus they don't see it as legitimate. That's no different than feeling like the police are targeting you because of the color of your skin (because they are), or that you're less likely to get a promotion because you're a woman (because that's also true).

I believe we need a better social safety net, including higher-quality public education, and universal healthcare. This doesn't mean socialism; mankind has tried socialism and capitalism clearly kicks its ass. It makes zero sense to pay taxi drivers vastly more than doctors. But you don't have to take away the incentives to excel in order to treat those who don't excel with compassion. The United States is one of the richest countries in the world. Our per-capita GDP of $53,000 is more than sufficient to reward the creators and builders, while keeping people from starving in the streets.

Donald Trump's supporters believe the system is rigged. They're right. The question is what we're going to do about it, since voting for Trump obviously won't help.Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-53656468694194033082016-07-31T16:45:00.001-07:002016-07-31T16:45:12.263-07:00The Miserly Safety Net: Another Modest ProposalIn the past, I've extolled the virtues of the miserly safety net, especially when it comes to housing. It just occurred to me that it might be possible to expand this net to cover all the essentials of life.

When I think about the essentials of life in the United States, it boils down to four simple things:

Food

Shelter

Healthcare

Education

We have specific programs aimed at food, healthcare (Medicaid), and education, which is why I concentrated on shelter in my last modest proposal. But what if we aimed for an all-in-one solution?

Imagine public housing developments with the following characteristics, in addition to providing free (if spartan) accommodations:

Unlimited supply of Soylent-like nutrition products (this would allow people to get a free and nutritionally complete--if bland--diet)

Weekly clinical visits by a nurse practitioner for basic and preventative healthcare

Unlimited access to MOOCs, with weekly visits by an educational "concierge" to help take advantage of those offerings

Socialism? Perhaps. But this seems like the kind of socialism that would save money over our current, all-too-porous safety net. It also seems like a more interesting experiment to run than a basic income program.

Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-52408679550162371752016-07-08T08:00:00.001-07:002016-07-08T16:55:04.812-07:00We Are Not EnemiesThis is been a difficult week in the United States, as the tragic murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling have been followed up by the murders of at least 5 police officers in Dallas, including Brent Thompson, a grandfather who had just gotten married two weeks earlier. Normally, I don't comment too much on this kind current event, because I fear that I have little to add to a discussion that is already filled with loud voices. However, this time it's personal.

My wife and daughter have been in Dallas all week for the USA Fencing National Championships; Marissa competed yesterday. Their hotel is a block away from the shootings, so close that when the attack began, they could hear the shots ring out and the screams of the crowd from the hotel swimming pool (needless to say, they got inside as quickly as possible). They had walked through the scene of the crime several times earlier that day, and could easily have been out there during the attack.

Many people think that living in Silicon Valley is like a bubble, and they are largely correct. As I drive from gleaming corporate campus to gleaming corporate campus, or up to the boardrooms of Sand Hill Road, it's easy to think that my little corner of the world is separate and protected. But ultimately, we are still part of the larger world, as this week's events demonstrated to me. These aren't someone else's problem, they're all our problem.

And the root cause of the problem is that as a society, many people have chosen to emphasize our differences rather than what we share. These people, including prominent politicians, but also private citizens, and, even if you're not willing to admit it, probably you and me at some point, have portrayed other Americans as "the enemy."

"They just don't get it."

"I just don't understand those people."

We seem to have lost the ability to separate disagreements from hostility.

Let's be clear. We are not enemies. Police officers are not enemies. The Black Lives Matter movement is not an enemy. Even Donald Trump is not an enemy (though he sometimes talks like one).

America has real enemies, who wish to harm our country, its citizens, and their way of life. These enemies don't recognize or care about our disagreements; the simple fact that we are Americans is enough to make us a target.

And even when engaging in combat with our enemies, regardless of their level of evil and atrocity, we should behave honorably. We should not terrorize civilian populations, or torture prisoners.

It is human nature to want revenge. It is our great challenge to rise above that desire to seek justice instead. Crime should be punished, but using due process, not vigilante justice. And if the criminal justice system is biased, it should be reformed, not circumvented at gunpoint.

In that sense, Dallas represents what's great about America as well. In the wake of the dreadfully unjust murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, the protesters in Dallas assembled peacefully to advocate for reforming the system. The officers of the Dallas PD were there to facilitate the protest, closing off streets and respectfully working with the protesters to help the rally run smoothly. And when the shooting began, both protesters and police officers showed their heroism and bravery. Police officers moved protesters to safety, and rushed towards the shooting to address the threat. One protester, Shetamia Taylor, threw herself on her sons and shielded them with her body when she heard the shooting begin (she was shot in the leg, but is recovering in the hospital).

The shooters apparently targeted police officers in a misguided attempt to avenge the deaths of Castile and Sterling (and so many other black men) at the hands of police officers. The irony of targeting innocent members of a group simply because of their membership in that group appears to have been lost on them.

We need to remember how much we share, and see each other as individuals, and groups of individuals, rather than as "the other." We need to humanize, not dehumanize, our fellow Americans, and to work within the laws (to which we've all implicitly agreed by living here) when we want to seek change, whether that change is to reform policing practices, or to loosen restrictions on gun sales.

Laws aren't always just--Southern segregation laws were only overturned 50-60 years ago. Law enforcement isn't always fair, and clearly wasn't in the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. Yet vigilante justice is a poor and poorly-thought-out alternative. Cops who won't play by the rules, and vigilantes who deal out justice to those who have perverted the system may make for entertaining movies, but they are a terrible model for real life. Steven Pinker notes that throughout most of human history, when we lived in tribes or in a feudal system, about 15% of people died violent deaths. Compare that to the homicide rate in the United States today, which is about 4 deaths for every 100,000 people per year, and we're orders of magnitude safer than than the bad old days of might makes right.

(Note that even this rate is a disgrace; our homicide rate is 4X that of the United Kingdom. Also, black people are 3X as likely to be killed by police as white people.)

I doubt my words will convince those who derive power, prestige, and/or money from divisiveness to eschew their harmful tactics. But we don't have to listen to them. They only have power when we allow them to change our hearts and minds. So the next time you're tempted to blast "them" on Facebook or write an angry tweet about "those people," try to resist. They are not your enemies. You may disagree with them, you may dislike them, but they are still fellow Americans. You should try to change their minds peacefully, and if they react with violence, don't seek vengeance, seek justice. Gandhi famously said, "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind." The protesters and police officers in Dallas understood this. The attackers did not.

UPDATE: Here are the names of the five officers who died in the attack (via the Washington Post):
Brent Thompson, a 43-year-old transit police officer; Patrick Zamarripa, a 32-year-old police officer who served three tours in Iraq with the U.S. military; Michael Krol, a 40-year-old officer who joined the Dallas police in 2008; Lorne Ahrens, a former semi-pro football player and 14-year veteran of the Dallas police; and an officer identified in media reports as Michael Smith.Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-83523310209366166382016-06-04T16:58:00.004-07:002016-06-04T16:58:45.245-07:00Muhammad Ali (1942 - 2016)When Cassius Clay was born in 1942, it would take 12 more years for Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas to order the desegregation of public schools.

When Muhammad Ali died in 2016, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, tweeted, "He shook up the world, and the world's better for it. Rest in peace, Champ."

I take great heart from the demonstrated fact that the world can change a lot in three-quarters of a century. Not only did Muhammad Ali live to see many injustices righted (though many more certainly remain), he played a major role in bringing those changes.

That's why, when he dubbed himself "The Greatest," the country came to agree with him.Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-79060478032684427842016-05-28T17:43:00.002-07:002016-05-28T17:43:26.950-07:00The Tragic Death of BloggingI come not to praise blogging, but to bury it.

Blogging is dying a tragic death, killed off by the inexorable and irresistible force of Adam Smith's invisible hand.

When blogging first emerged, it promised a better way to consume content. For avid readers like me, it was a dream come true. Finally, people could publish content that would be universally available, and content consumers could easily subscribe to content they wanted to read.

Instead of having to constantly check the front pages of various websites, readers could simply wait for their RSS readers to deliver a personalized, curated subset of the Internet, consistently formatted for reading.

And for a while, blogging prospered. But the same things that made blogging such a godsend for readers made it a nightmare for commercial publishers. Curated subscriptions made life easier for readers, but also depressed pageviews, and more importantly, advertising impressions. Plain formatting made it easier to read and comprehend writing, but didn't provide opportunities for pop-ups, pop-unders, takeovers, and all the other fearsome members of the modern advertiser's bestiary.

Google's decision to kill off Google Reader was the key symbol of this shift. Even Google, which is perfectly content to invest billions of dollars in pursuing nuclear fusion and immortality, was unwilling to support a medium which actively worked against its hunger for advertising impressions.

Today, commercial publications have either dropped RSS feeds entirely, or hide them away in obscure corners. They'd prefer to act like slot machines, using unpredictable rewards to encourage readers to visit on a regular basis for dopamine hits, wasting time but generating valuable impressions.

Facebook's dominant newsfeed is non-deterministic; Facebook's algorithms decide what we do and do not see, in part based on what will allow Facebook to better integrate the sponsored posts that generate its revenues.

With the death of RSS, blogs no longer have subscribers; they must rely on social media for distribution, which means focusing more on clickbait headlines and popular, shareable topics. Astonishingly, the last refuge that writers have for building a faithful audience is the 30-year-old technology of the email list. And email, as remarkably durable as it has proven, isn't public like a blog.

Yet I intend to keep blogging in this space. I still want the ability to create the content I want, and to allow people who are interested to read it, without forcing them to check back multiple times per day or to suffer through takeover ads.

You see, I'm not a commercial publisher. I don't make any money from this blog. And that allows me to keep producing content for the sake of readers, not advertisers.

It may be that the golden age of blogging was simply a fleeting dream, and that this end result was inevitable. But it still produced an amazing amount of content and public good, and even if true blogging is now the province of hobbyists, it's still important that individuals have the ability to publish whatever they want and have it be accessible to the entire Internet.Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-32019014129325878452016-04-18T18:17:00.002-07:002016-04-18T18:17:35.590-07:00The Goal Of Communication Is To Be UnderstoodI often warn people that it's shockingly hard to communicate your thoughts to someone else. Far too often, I speak with entrepreneurs who are frustrated by how their employees or even co-founders don't understand what needs to be done.

That's when I tell them, "The goal of communication is to be understood." Your responsibility goes beyond making the effort to state things clearly (or so you believe); it extends all the way to conveying the meaning of your words and confirming that your conversation partner has understood them.

This is one of the reasons I often recommend that people short-circuit lengthy email chains by picking up the phone. It's easy for people to think that all they need to do is hit "Reply". After all, then their response is on record. And they get to feel good that they "did something" about an issue. But writing a good email doesn't mean that the recipient will understand. If you're a leader, you should hold yourself to a higher standard.

That's why I was interested it read some of the scientific backing for my advice, from Heidi Grant Halvorson:

"Most of the time, Halvorson says, people don't realize they are not coming across the way they think they are. "If I ask you," Halvorson told me, "about how you see yourself—what traits you would say describe you—and I ask someone who knows you well to list your traits, the correlation between what you say and what your friend says will be somewhere between 0.2 and 0.5. There's a big gap between how other people see us and how we see ourselves."

This gap arises, as Halvorson explains in her book, from some quirks of human psychology. First, most people suffer from what psychologists call "the transparency illusion"—the belief that what they feel, desire, and intend is crystal clear to others, even though they have done very little to communicate clearly what is going on inside their minds.

Because the perceived assume they are transparent, they might not spend the time or effort to be as clear and forthcoming about their intentions or emotional states as they could be, giving the perceiver very little information with which to make an accurate judgment."
The transparency illusion explains why so many people think they've been clear, and yet have communicated far less than they believed. It affects everyone, even the very intelligent. Sometimes, someone will be talking about an important issue, and it's clear to me that they think they've been crystal clear, and I'll have to tell them, "I have no idea what you just said."

If you think other people are getting what you're saying, you're wrong. Don't stop communicating until you've confirmed that the other party understands what you've said.

Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-1379734307282326712016-04-13T13:22:00.003-07:002016-04-13T13:22:36.680-07:00Grappling with mortality and meaningI'm not certain what precisely led to my contemplating my death.

Several of my good friends recently lost their fathers.

I was also on an airplane flight, which, all statistics on safety aside, always makes me think of the Grim Reaper.

Whatever the reason, I found myself at 35,000 feet, my eyes closed during the middle of a very full flight, thinking about life and death.

I'm dying. You're dying. We're all going to die, including all the ones we love. And after we die, after the grief of our surviving family and friends, most of us will soon be forgotten.

(Ironically, all that will be left of most of us in the "physical" world will be our social media posts, however long Google, Facebook, and Twitter last.)*

In the grand scheme of the universe, all of us are petty and insignificant. It existed for billions of years before me, and it will likely continue to exist for billions of years after me. And even during my actual lifetime, the vast majority of human beings will never be aware of my existence; the wider universe beyond our small planet will be completely unaware.

Sobering thoughts, especially when crammed into a Southwest Airlines coach seat.

I wasn't content to leave my thoughts in this somber place. I'm a happy person, not an existential philosopher, and I couldn't bear to walk off that plane in a state of angst!

Here's what I concluded:

As long as I'm alive, I'm going to keep going until I can't. What's the point of giving in to angst and despair? How does it help me or anyone else that I care about?

(Not to mention the high cost of black sweaters and cigarettes.)

We get to decide whether this struggle is meaningful or meaningless. Whether we're so tiny and insignificant that nothing we does matters, or whether the opportunity to overcome our insignificance and make a dent, however small, against the odds makes it a fight worth fighting. There's really no way to prove that one of these approaches is truer than the other, but I can tell you that believing that my life is meaningful seems a whole lot more useful to me.

Since there is no proof, perhaps it is a matter of faith. If so, I believe in meaning. I believe in the struggle. And I believe that however much time we get, we should make the most of it.

* Note that I specifically refer to the physical world. The question of whether there is a separate spiritual world that does not follow the laws of the physical world is essentially unknowable, so I'll leave it to you to decide what kind of deity and/or afterlife in which to believe.

P.S. I think it is altogether characteristic that even when writing about death and existential angst, I couldn't resist making a joke. I think fun is another one of those ways to bring meaning to our lives!Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-70786462038762170582016-04-03T20:52:00.001-07:002016-04-05T12:50:21.187-07:00The Psychology of Slavery in the SouthWe all know that the Civil War happened because of slavery. The South fought for the right to keep African-Americans as slaves, the North fought to outlaw slavery. While this is a bit of an oversimplification, it isn't wrong.

Here's the funny thing: Only 25% of white Southerners held people in slavery (I chose not to use the term "owned," because we shouldn't be allowed to own other human beings). Only 12% of those slaveholders held more than 10 people in slavery.

In other words, slavery was only economically dominant for about 3% of white Southerners. And yet, the South went to war, and over 260,000 Confederate soldiers died (out of a white population of 5.5 million).

In other words, nearly 5% of the white Southern population died in a war which was fought for the economic interests of about 3%. The equivalent death toll for today's US population would be over 15 million, or greater than the population of any state other than California, Texas, Florida, or New York.

The antebellum South had a level of wealth inequality that would shock Piketty. And yet, the 97% went willingly to fight in a ruinous war that offered them little economic benefit.

One explanation that strikes me as both sad and terribly plausible is that focusing on keeping slaves in an inferior position in society allowed poor white Southerners to feel better about their own situation. Rather than highlighting the gap between rich and poor, Southerners chose to cast the spotlight on the gap between free and enslaved.

Today, more than 150 years after the end of that terrible war, and the even more terrible institution of slavery, we still have politicians trying to divide us, and offering to make some groups feel better by demonizing and denigrating others. Hopefully those who follow these kinds of politicians stop to ponder the fate of the antebellum Southerners who allowed their prejudices to carry them into disaster.

UPDATE: The statistics cited above come from "The American Civil War," from The Great Courses. The professor for the course is Gary Gallagher of the University of Virginia.Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-2805900745779408352016-02-17T19:08:00.000-08:002016-02-23T12:45:16.323-08:00Bachelor Parties and The Business Model of Objectification
I spent the weekend in South Beach at a bachelor party for one of my HBS classmates. It's hard for me to count the number of people who, when notified of these plans, either A) noted that I wasn't the bachelor party type, or B) commented, "Wow, that sounds just like 'The Hangover.'"<o:p></o:p>

My responses were, A) "You're right. Bachelor parties involve spending money, cigars, spending money, alcohol, spending money, and scantily clad women without advanced degrees. There's pretty much nothing that appeals to me about a bachelor party except spending time with old friends. Fortunately, that's enough." And B) "Dear God, I hope not."<o:p></o:p>

(Personally, my idea of a perfect bachelor party would involve great food, playing sports, visiting a museum or two, then lounging around and having small-group and 1:1 intellectual discussions before retiring early to get a good night's sleep, but I understand that I'm a bit atypical in this respect.)<o:p></o:p>

Fortunately, the weekend went off without any major hitches, except for damage to our wallets. As our fearless leader noted to me afterwards, "We partied as hard as it's possible to do without making any truly bad decisions." Nonetheless, I suspect it's better not to go into any detail about how Johnnie Walker Blue Label and "El Diablo" played a role in the weekend.<o:p></o:p>

What I will do is to comment on business models—specifically, the male willingness to pay to spend time with attractive young females.<o:p></o:p>

On our first night, we went to popular dance club, and were ushered to our private booth, which came stocked with a dedicated team of servers (attractive young women scantily clad in black uniforms with a lot of fishnetting) who then brought us copious amounts of ridiculously overpriced alcohol. I had never gone to a club or experienced bottle service before (this is probably the first and only bachelor party I'll ever attend where all the men are financially successful 40somethings trying to recapture their youth), so I found the concepts mystifying at first, but gradually I was able to unravel the business model.<o:p></o:p>

Unlike a straightforward gentleman's club, where men directly pay exotic dancers for specific services, a club caters to two audiences: Attractive women, and men with money. I had supposed that men paid for overpriced alcohol to please the attractive servers (a minor variation on the gentleman's club transaction), but the actual dynamic is more complex. In fact, the club's primary asset is its ability to pull in attractive women. Most clubs actually seed the market by paying attractive women to go to the club. These are not escorts or performers—in fact, their amateur status is what makes them valuable. An attractive woman might be paid $500 to go to a club for the evening; her role is simply to enjoy herself. Don't even ask how much the bottle service "girls" are paid. The club's revenues come from the men who are then willing to spend money on overpriced alcohol in an attempt to attract the women in the club to their table. To get a prime table, you might have to commit to spending thousands of dollars on alcohol which you might otherwise purchase for a total of $500 at Costco. The club is dark and disorienting, with music playing at ear-splitting levels. The poor lighting helps the participants appear more attractive by hiding physical flaws, while the noise forces men to rely on their spending to convince women of their worth. (The disorientation is probably similar to the strategy of a Vegas casino—disorient patrons so they lose track of time and what they're spending) When I shouted into one of my friend's ears to ask how on earth he ever managed to have a conversation in a club, he shouted/replied, "I don't. I say something, but I understand that I'm essentially talking to myself. You can't possibly hear what the other person is saying, so you both just nod and pretend to understand." Personally, I see no appeal to meeting people in an environment where you can't have an intellectual conversation, especially members of the opposite sex, but that's obviously not a stance that is shared by the majority of clubgoers.<o:p></o:p>

(Side rant: Why is it okay to call women "girls?" It seems insulting and infantilizing. I certainly wouldn't want to be referred to as a "boy".)

Men who don't spend a lot of money have to rely purely on their physical attractiveness and dancing skills to meet women, assuming they're even admitted. Because of their lack of contribution to the bottom line, these men are tolerated so that the club can maintain the appearance of being a hot spot for the young and beautiful, rather than the young and beautiful of the female gender, and the older but wealthier of the male gender. A club is essentially a real estate developer on steroids—each night, the club has to convince people that it is a good neighborhood, then sell off its real estate as dearly as possible. The good news for the club is that the dynamic ensures a continuous flow of irrational alcohol purchases—as soon as a table runs out of alcohol, the men have to spend more or lose the women they've managed to attract to their table to others tables which are more plentifully supplied.<o:p></o:p>

I didn't enjoy my club experience, not just for the reasons above, but also because I was repulsed by how we might be seen. If I were to look at our table through the eyes of an attractive 25-year-old woman, I would see a bunch of 40something men with greying and/or thinning hair, not nearly as attractive in their eyes as younger, fitter, more stylish men their age, but who are willing to provide free alcohol in exchange for being around me. Now I'm an old married guy who has no need to impress single women, but even if I were single, I would want to attract companionship based on what I view as personal merits such as intellect, sense of humor, and conversational skills, not simply my willingness to open my wallet. (Side note: This is a fundamental problem for the wealthy, and one of the reasons they like to associate with each other. One of the only ways to be sure that someone isn't spending time with you because of your wallet is to spend time with people who are equivalently rich)<o:p></o:p>

Yet as we'll see, this business model repeats and repeats itself.<o:p></o:p>

The next day, we spent all afternoon in a private cabana at our luxury hotel. Each weekend, this famous hotel transforms one of its pools into a giant beach party. As with the club, we secured our prime real estate by committing to spend thousands of dollars on alcohol and food, which were delivered to us by attractive young women wearing skimpy uniform bikinis. As with the club, the hotel carefully curated the guest list to obtain an optimal mix of the young and attractive, and the older and wealthier. As I looked around the pool, I noted that the people with private cabanas were disproportionately male and older (there were parties of older women as well as older men). Again, conspicuous consumption was a key communication tool. One of the options was for a champagne spray. When you ordered this option, four bikini-clad servers would come out, each riding the shoulders of one of the young male employees of the hotel (who, while young and handsome, were dressed in shorts and polo shirts) and carrying a bottle of champagne. They would then parade around the pool to the cabana that had placed the order, open the bottles, and shake the contents onto the people at the cabana. In other words, this was conspicuous consumption in its purest form—the champagne wasn't even being drunk, and could easily have been replaced with $1 seltzer water. The cost of this performance was an even $1,000. The benefit is that it would attract the attention of everyone at the pool, and thus convince more attractive women to make their way to the cabana. (I will note that we did not purchase this option, considering it wasteful.)<o:p></o:p>

As with the club, I pictured how attractive 20something women in bikinis would view a cabana full of older, largely-out of shape gentlemen. It's also a matter of perspective. At one point, bespectacled gentleman in his 60s, bald and pot-bellied, sauntered past, and I joked, "Look guys, it's Rupert Murdoch!" This got a good laugh, but then I realized that while he looked old and fat to us, we probably looked the same to the young women of the pool, who were exactly as far from us in age as we were from "Rupert."

Finally, one of my friends related to me his take on private equity and hedge fund conferences. At these conferences, potential LPs such as family office managers, travel to Las Vegas, Miami, or some other vacation destination to meet with fund managers, who send their investment professionals (who are largely older men) and marketing directors (who are largely younger, attractive, well-educated women). As my friend put it to me, "Fat, balding family office guys are allocating 10% to alternative assets anyways. It doesn't really matter who they give it too, especially if they have a good brand. They just want a pretty woman to take them out to dinner and pretend to flirt with them."<o:p></o:p>

What all these stories have in common is a simple theme: Men are willing to pay money to be around attractive women who wouldn't otherwise spend the time. This isn't prostitution; none of these examples include sex (at least in the case of our bachelor party). In fact, I suspect that the men who are a party to this transaction would never consider patronizing a brothel or paying a sex worker. They would see it as either immoral or reputationally disastrous (think of Eliot Spitzer AKA the "Luv Guv"). Yet social hotspots and business meetings are seen as perfectly acceptable (or at least acceptable enough to admit to patronizing, while still trying to hide the receipts from their wives).<o:p></o:p>

Needless to say, this is sexist, atavistic business model, whose only virtue is that it is voluntarily entered into and viewed as attractive employment. I believe in freedom of choice, and that people should be able to pursue business options as long as they aren't illegal. Yet I can't help but feel that the world would be better off with fewer such transactions. <o:p></o:p>

Back when I was an undergraduate studying philosophy and literature, we often discussed the problematic way in which works and institutions tend to objectify women. The business model I describe above objectifies women by using their physical attractiveness as the coin of the realm in what is essentially a financial transaction, aided and abetted by environments that are carefully designed to reduce the participants options until all they can do is participate in those (lucrative) transactions. But the irony is that the same thing is happening to the men that provide the money that fuels this model. They too are being objectified, reduced to a disembodied wallet with no intrinsic non-financial value.<o:p></o:p>

If you're currently a man who participates in this economy, you might want to consider how the rest of the economy sees you. I know that I wasn't very comfortable with how it looked on me.<o:p></o:p>

P.S. This criticism doesn't mean that didn't enjoy the weekend. Our fearless leader and the various hospitality professionals we worked with got the weekend to run like a well-oiled machine (the grease, by the way, was copious amounts of money). I had a great time catching up with old friends over fine meals and while enjoying the Miami sun. I even enjoyed the various cab rides, because they gave us more chances to talk. I also had a number of interesting conversations with the women we met, including one far-ranging talk about what we thought of different philosophers. We touched on Socrates, Plato, Kant, Mill, Locke, and many others. I dwelt on my concerns above because they made for a more interesting and important intellectual discussion.<o:p></o:p>

P.P.S. I'm also not criticizing the individual participants. As I noted, the environments are carefully designed to reduce their freedom of action. I just want to help them be more aware of the implications of their activities.<o:p></o:p>

P.P.P.S. If you think it's inappropriate for married guys to go to clubs or pool parties, might I recommend that you read Mark Twain's story, "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg". If you're short on patience, skip to the end for the punchline.<o:p></o:p>

UPDATE: This Reddit AMA from a Miami nightclub doorman gives you good insights into the mindset of the club:

"If a well dressed fat woman and an equally proportioned well dressed fat man go into a club, which one do you think is going to make the club more money? The woman, who is probably expecting someone to buy her drinks and will likely be disappointed, or the man who will be buying drinks like they're bringing back Prohibition next week in an attempt to blunt a physical shortcoming during his social interactions?"

Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-78738380237741076112016-01-22T22:48:00.003-08:002016-01-22T22:48:32.475-08:00The Melancholy of the HappyI am probably one of the happiest people in the world, but even I feel melancholy every once in a while. While I'm lucky enough that these feelings are both rare and invariably transitory, I'm struck by the fact that I feel like I shouldn't write about them.

It's not because I'm afraid that revealing that I'm not always happy will negatively impact my image or be bad for "the brand" (since everyone in Silicon Valley is contractually required to have a specific personal brand!). Rather, it's the sense that I shouldn't voice my feelings when I have so little to complain about.

The irony, of course, is that I've written about the need to have compassion for the fortunate:

"I find this lack of compassion appalling. The thinking seems to be that we need to compete on our miseries, and that ultimately, we must all defer to a starving genocide victim somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa. I don't believe that compassion is a zero-sum game.

Having problems, even first-world problems, is emotionally draining. Having difficult choices, even if all the options are enviable, is still difficult."

Yet somehow, when it comes to showing compassion to myself, my brain decided to take a holiday! I also advise many entrepreneurs to reach out for help, and not to struggle alone. In our glossy Facebook-driven world, it's easy to believe that everyone is happy.

It's funny how we often fail to take our own advice!

So if you are both happy and fortunate, consider this post your permission to feel a little down from time to time, and to talk about it. You'd be surprised how many people will be relieved to discover that you're human after all.

P.S. I'm not actually sure whether I was melancholic, or just had gone too long without writing a blog post. Writing this one certainly made me perk up!

Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-43032273471115025542015-12-13T11:55:00.002-08:002015-12-13T11:55:47.794-08:00The Effort-Outcome Model For Evaluating Your Portfolio LifeOne of the perils of living a portfolio life is the need to decide how to allocate your time and energy among potential initiatives. The challenge is that most initiatives are full of uncertainty. In an effort to structure my thinking about my own life, I decided to create a classic chart, with one axis representing the level of personal control I had over the outcome, and the other the expected value.

I dealt with the uncertainty over outcomes by creating a bar that I thought was roughly equivalent to the 20th and 80th percentile outcomes, and added a yellow star to indicate the median outcome. Here is the chart:

As you can tell, I've anonymized the different options. It's not surprising, therefore, that I've chosen to focus more effort on the top outcome, which offers both the greatest personal control, and the highest median expected value. But I can envision plenty of other cases where I might need to make a tradeoff between expected value and personal control over outcomes. Personal control matters, because it indicates how much your efforts are likely to help; going "all-in" in terms of effort on an initiative where you have little personal control over the outcome is wasteful. But expected outcomes also matter; you might personally control an outcome, but if the value of the outcome is negligible, such effort is also a waste of time. Note that this is necessarily an incomplete picture--it doesn't take into account total effort/investment required, or how much you enjoy the work--but most useful tools focus on a subset of the situation.

How does your own life look?Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-63155324044284078232015-11-15T22:56:00.001-08:002015-11-15T22:57:33.431-08:00Paris, ISIL, Evil, Law Enforcement, and WarWe stand with Paris.

Like everyone else, I was appalled and saddened by the recent attacks in Paris.* One of the strange things about modern life is that the news media intimately acquaints us with vivid images of atrocities and suffering even as their geographical distance makes it nearly impossible for us to do anything to help. We're human, and when events make an emotional impression on us, we feel the need to act.

After the attacks of 9/11, people around the globe lined up to donate their blood. Blood banks in America collected an extra 600,000 units of blood after 9/11. But since blood is a perishing commodity, more than 200,000 units were discarded, unused.

I'm no more immune to this urge than anyone, but I'm cognizant of how the hot surge of emotion can overcome reason, which is why I'm going to try to work out my thoughts about the attacks with as much caution as I can muster. Hopefully this essay will help people think through these issues as well, rather than being discarded, unused.

Evil
The attacks seem obviously evil, but I think it's useful to examine why they seem so to us.

The first thing is that they involve killing. It may seem obvious, but death is generally the greatest ill we can encounter in life, and it is permanent and irreversible. This means that we should strive to avoid taking human life.

Indeed, the basic function of a government is to keep its citizens safe. We grant the government a monopoly on the legal use of force, and in return, we expect fair treatment and protection. This is one of the reasons why we react so strongly to police officers who murder innocent people. It is a violation of the basic prohibition against killing and a breach of the implicit contract with the state.

As a side note, this principle explains why gun control is essential. Giving citizens unfettered access to guns means giving people the power to kill other people. I don't know about you, but I don't trust the average citizen with the power of life and death. I'm not sure I trust any citizen with that power. Most arguments against gun control boil down to the ability of armed citizens to deter crime. Yet arming citizens to take on criminals is like swallowing a spider to catch a fly--it might work, but it's a pretty suboptimal alternative.

Thee second factor that speaks to the evil of the Paris attacks is that they targeted the innocent. The people killed weren't criminals, combatants, or even aware of being targeted. They were simply attending a concert, dining out, or attending a soccer game.

In a statement claiming responsibility for the attacks, ISIL said Paris was targeted because of France's role in the airstrikes against ISIL, and for being a "capital of adultery and vice." These two justifications violate two different principles--the first being that military force shouldn't target innocent civilians, and the second that disagreeing with social mores does not justify violence. We'll discuss the issue of war later on in this essay, so I'll focus on the issue of "morality" in general.

In a world with a multiplicity of philosophies and religions, it's difficult to talk about morality. Difficult, but not impossible. Whether you subscribe to Mills/Bentham utilitarianism, Kant's Categorical Imperative, or the teachings of Buddhism, the most fundamental right is that of freedom and self-determination. You don't have to be an enthusiastic fan of Bitcoin or dream of owning your own island to appreciate the importance of freedom.

Groups and cultures that seek to restrict individual freedom are generally in the wrong. It is wrong for certain cultures to require women to wear restrictive clothing. It is wrong for France to bar women from wearing restrictive clothing. Let people wear what they want, have sex and marry whom they want, and inhale what they want. It's none of our business. If there are externalities like the healthcare costs of alcohol or tobacco usage, tax the heck out of those substances to pay for those externalities.

Sometimes, freedoms come into conflict, as with abortion, where a woman's right to control her own body conflicts with the rights of the unborn child growing in her body (and those of the father). Here, we have to decide on what we think is a fair process for making a decision (passing laws, judicial review) and accept that humans and their compromises are imperfect. If you agree to the process (e.g. by remaining a citizen of the United States), but you don't abide by the resulting compromise, you're essentially like a spoiled child on a playground who tries to take his ball and leave. This doesn't mean obeying every law, but it does mean accepting the consequences of civil disobedience in service of a cause.

Yet none of these careful nuances matter in the case of the Paris attacks because ISIL plays no role in the laws and behaviors of French citizens! Using deadly force to punish the people of another nation for behaviors that have no impact on your own life is both meddlesome and foolish. Any group or culture that believes in taking such action is irrational and evil on the face of it.

Law Enforcement and War

Given the evil of the Paris attacks, the question is, how should one respond? The French government responded with airstrikes on ISIL's "capital" (more on this later) after President Hollande called the attacks "an act of war."

A key part of any such response is to decide if your actions are law enforcement or war.

Law enforcement consists of the state taking action to apprehend criminals and put an end to their crimes against individual citizens.

War consists of the state taking action against an enemy that represents a threat to the state.

Law enforcement officers should avoid the use of deadly force unless there is no alternative.

War is predicated on the use of deadly force, and assumes that diplomatic alternatives have been exhausted.

Given that ISIL claimed state-level responsibility for the Paris attacks, I think the French government has the right to consider it an act of war. Yet the process of defending against such attacks has far more in common with law enforcement than war. Terrorists aren't like armies massing on your border; they are hard to detect and often hide inside your own population. Even the world's most powerful military struggles with nation building, as the US military has found at great cost over the fast 14 years.

The other problem with war is what is euphemistically called "collateral damage," because it sounds better than "innocent people killed in the process of trying to get the bad guys." The desire for vengeance is deeply human and instinctive, but airstrikes are likely to kill innocent civilians, most of whom probably hate living under ISIL rule.

The reality of war is that lots of innocent civilians die. The question is whether the alternative is worse. During World War 2, the Allies didn't bomb the Nazi concentration camps. Doing so would have killed innocent prisoners. But doing so might also have prevented many deaths.

If President Hollande and other world leaders decide to invoke the concept of war, I hope they commit themselves to their chosen course of action and have the fortitude to see it through. ISIL has done a remarkable job of making enemies of nearly all of the surrounding states in the Middle East, the United States, Europe, and Russia. This gamble will pay off if ISIL's enemies content themselves to minor moves and overheated rhetoric; the resulting morass will let ISIL congratulate itself for standing up to "corrupt Western powers" and help it recruit more fighters. I hope it turns out to be a bad gamble.

What You Can Do

On the one hand, I know that changing a Facebook profile photo is a small gesture. On the other hand, millions of small gestures add up. Each time someone sees a tricolored profile photo, they feel a sense of collective purpose. I don't see anything wrong with that.

In addition, I think that one of the best things we can do in the coming days is to stay calm and try to act with patience and reason. One of the great things about democracy is that it generally reflects the will of the people. One of the awful things about democracy is that it generally reflects the will of the people. ISIL is an evil force that we need to fight. But we need to fight in a smart, disciplined, effective way.

* There is an entirely different discussion that we could have about why attacks in Paris have a global impact, while similar attacks in Beirut, and worse atrocities perpetrated by the likes of Boko Haram attract little comment or outrage in the Western world. I suspect that the reasons are a combination of affinity and shock. Affinity in the sense that most Americans identify more with Paris (especially those who have visited it) than Beirut, let alone Nigeria (this is part cultural and yes, part unintentional racism), shock in the sense that Paris is generally thought of a safe, cosmopolitan city, far from war and suffering. Perhaps I'll take up this subject at greater length another time.Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-59607497549293184852015-11-08T17:30:00.000-08:002015-11-08T17:30:03.102-08:00What KRS-One Teaches Us About Silicon ValleyI am an unapologetic booster of capitalism in general, and Silicon Valley in particular. It's even in the name of this blog! Yet I've found myself playing the role of skeptic in an increasing number of conversations lately.

As our current bubble (yes, I said it!) reaches new heights, it seems like all anyone in Silicon Valley can talk about is how they're "crushing it," "killing it," and building the next great "unicorn." Never mind the violence of the language (which deserves its own separate essay--is it any wonder that so many women have been repelled by the current zeitgeist?); what's striking is the monomaniacal focus.

That's why I enjoyed David Heinemeier Hansson's recent essay asking startup folks to "Reconsider" the standard unicorn-hunting model. But while DHH makes some great points, I think he overlooks the psychological barriers to swimming against the currents.

Here's where I'm going to issue a content warning--I'm going to use a quote that contains slang terms that aren't family-friendly. Stop reading now if you're concerned.

I know a lot of successful young people. These are entrepreneurs who have achieved a level of success that 99.999% of humanity would trade their lives for in an instant, but aren't the subject of regular magazine covers. Their material needs have been met, yet most of them are still casting about for their next startup, trying to become a venture capitalist, or in most case, both at once. Yet when I talk with them, few of them actually want either of those lives.

The problem is that in Silicon Valley, if you're not an entrepreneur or investor, you're nobody.

The old-school rapper KRS-One has said, "Capitalism is a pimp and ho system. You are either a pimp or you're a ho." In Silicon Valley, if you don't fit into one of the two standard buckets, no one knows what to do with you.

As shallow as it may sound (and make no mistake, it is shallow), if you go to any event that features "networking," if you're not an entrepreneur or investor, you might feel like a leper. People you meet instantly start looking over your head for another, more valuable target, and disengage from the conversation as if you were radioactive. It takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to ignore what everyone else seems to think is important.

Yet that's precisely what you need to do to be happy.

Don't let the trade press and social media tell you what is and isn't important; all they care about are clicks and shares. By that logic, Donald Trump is the most important person in America.

The funny thing is, when you stop trying to be something you're not, the right kind of people--thoughtful, interesting--will gravitate towards you. "Whew," they'll say, "Finally, someone I can talk with!"

And if, after you decide that you don't need to chase unicorns, you find that you actually do want to start a company or invest in startups, more power to you!

My hope is not that you'll become an entrepreneur or investor, or that you'll reject those labels. It's that you'll figure out what you actually want to do--not what others want for you--and do it.Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-35455962030446059712015-10-30T12:50:00.003-07:002015-10-30T12:51:17.557-07:00You're not indispensable (except when you are)
When Jesse Noller's essay explaining why he had essentially left his software community made it to the top of Hacker News, I read it with great interest.

Noller was one of the pillars of the community, but by pouring all his time and energy into the community, he neglected his marriage and family, and ultimately lost both of them.

Here's a passage that really struck home for me:

"You can't be emotionally all in on everything. You can't make another 24 hours appear to be "present" for everything. Instead, I stole time and ran my emotional credit card like it was limitless.

I stole time from my family, from work, from everything. I stole it from me, I gave time, emotion and empathy freely to anything and everyone.

My values - what I should have been caring about - were, putting it bluntly, completely and totally fucked.

Online communities are an interesting animal; they've given me so much, and I've made friends all over the world. It's opened career doors and more for me, it's supported me when I'm or my family was down.

However, "community" is not the gift that keeps on giving, it is the gift that keeps on taking and taking and taking. If you don't set clear and absolute boundaries, it will drain you dry and move on.

I see the warning signs that were posted all over now, looking back. A good friend and mentor warned me, Dusty, my now ex-wife was telling me. The fact I had a rough relationship with my oldest daughter was telling me. All the signs were there.

Take, take, take, give, give, give - for what? To change the world? Can a programming community change the world? Can it hug you when you're sitting alone at night on the couch staring at a black TV? The friends you make, if you can touch them, can.

Otherwise, No.

Will it raise your daughters or be there for your wife?

No.

That was my job; and I bombed."
When I was a young employee of D. E. Shaw, I never took any vacation time, despite having an unlimited vacation policy. I always felt I was too "indispensable" to be away from the office.

Of course, when I got the chicken pox, and was quarantined at home for two weeks (several of my co-workers hadn't had the disease, and during the Dark Ages, there was no chicken pox vaccine), the company somehow managed anyway.

It is very rare that you're truly indispensable at work, even if you're a founder CEO. If you are, you've done a piss-poor job of building your management team.

In contrast, you truly are indispensable at home. No number of nannies, cleaners, tutors, and other helpers can substitute for having a husband, a wife, a father, or a mother present.

There is a famous quote that most of you have heard that seems appropriate here. It was spoken by Brian Dyson as part of a graduation speech at Georgia Tech in 1991:

"Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – work, family, health, friends and spirit … and you're keeping all of these in the air.

You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – family, health, friends and spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same."
You're not indispensable. Except when you are.Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-75623419539061442812015-09-27T11:08:00.004-07:002015-09-27T11:08:51.647-07:00Fighting the Imposter SyndromeThe great Eric Barker just wrote generally about fighting the effects of the Imposter Syndrome, in which successful people are convinced that they are frauds, and do not deserve the success that they've achieved.

Imposter syndrome is extremely widespread, affecting 70% of successful people, according to a study by psychologist Gail Matthews. If it affects you, you might think you're alone, but it probably affects your successful friends as well.

I believe that entrepreneurs are especially prone to imposter syndrome, in part because their press clippings tend to paint a glowing picture of them and their companies that would make the most outrageous Facebook-brag look modest.

Eric's post offers some great advice for those who find themselves feeling like frauds:

"Focus On Learning: Forget appearing awesome. You can get better if you try, so focus on that.
"Good Enough" Goals: Stop trying to be prefect. (Yes, that was a typo. I'm not fixing it. It's good enough.)
Take Off The Mask: Talk to someone you think is facing the same issue. You're not alone."
Let's take each of these in turn.

Focus On Learning
The entrepreneurs I admire most are the ones who admit their lack of omniscience and focus on learning. This doesn't have to mean following the advice of others; rather, it means keeping an open mind, yet taking a skeptical and experimental approach to the world. If you focus on the status you've achieved, you'll worry about losing it. If you focus on learning, you'll realize that no one can take away what you've learned, and that there is always more to learn.

"Good Enough" Goals
If you measure yourself against others, you'll never be happy. There's always a bigger fish. Even Mark Zuckerberg, who has achieved more at a young age than anyone since Alexander the Great, could still be disappointed. Adopting modest goals doesn't mean that you cut off achievement; at one point, Larry Page and Sergey Brin offered to sell Google to Yahoo! for $1 million, and were bargained down to $750K by Vinod Khosla. The deal only fell apart because Excite refused to pay that exorbitant sum. Oops.

Take Off The Mask
This is where having real friends and loved ones comes in. In my own life, I have been the subject of both adulation and scorn. But I never let either affect me that much because I am fortunate to have a spouse that loves the real me (and married me long before either the adulation or the scorn) and true friends who don't really care about who thinks what in the Silicon Valley bubble. For goodness sake, maintain relationships with people outside the Valley.

You shouldn't feel bad if you find yourself falling into the imposter syndrome. But you don't have to suffer alone, and in silence. Follow Eric's advice, and you'll be able to see yourself as you truly are, and understand that what others think doesn't matter that much.

Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-38439443515127553032015-09-27T10:18:00.001-07:002015-09-27T10:18:19.075-07:00The Implied Assumption of SuccessOne of the mental traps that I try to avoid is what I'm going to term "the implied assumption of success."

This trap occurs when entrepreneurs say something like, "If I raise $2 million instead of $500K, I'll be able to get much farther, so I should raise $2 million."

The issue, of course, is that the implied assumption of success glosses over the fact that your chances of raising $2 million are probably very different than your chances of raising $500K.

I was struck by another version of this when I read the seemingly contradictory facts that mobile browsing traffic was 2X that of native apps, and that native apps accounted for 80-90% of our time on mobile devices.

The punchline is that both are correct. Far more people visit mobile websites than use mobile apps, but people spend far more time on the few mobile apps that they bother to use.

"Deepest engagement for the longest period of time happens in apps, so apps matter, and they matter desperately for brands who want to connect to customers. But since, as we've seen in our research, apps-per-smartphone users is maxxing out at an average of 50-60, and no-one besides Robert Scoble is going to install an app for each company, service, or site he or she interacts with, your mobile web experience has to be good, and it has to be strong."
In other words, a person who downloads and regularly uses your app is way more valuable than someone who just visits your mobile website. But this doesn't mean you should invest all your efforts in your mobile app. Indeed, consider the plight of major retailers--of the top 30 US retailers, only 2 of them drove more than 50% of their mobile usage via app: Amazon and Walmart.

The implied assumption of success tricks us into investing in desirable, but lower-probability initiative. When you are considering several alternatives, make sure that you account for the probability of success, not just the magnitude of potential benefit.

Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-55774801449505100862015-09-25T12:23:00.003-07:002015-09-25T12:23:40.754-07:00Entrepreneurs who slack off after raising money aren't entrepreneursPaul Smith recently wrote about the phenomenon of entrepreneurs who slack off after raising their seed round:

"Here's what I see three quarters of startups doing immediately after they raise a seed round:

After months of working 60 hour weeks (and the rest, usually) to launch and demonstrate early growth to convince investors they're worth it, the founders start working 9am til 5pm, five days a week — they're taking it easy before the hard work starts;

Because raising money offers a financial opportunity to address their work/life balance, their Facebook feed slowly fills up over the following weeks and months with snaps from weekends away on city breaks, at parties and gigs;

They almost certainly find the time for a holiday, or a trip home to see the family, because they deserve it;

A new apartment or house is high on their priorities since they can now pay themselves proper wages;

There's finally time to make amends to a long-suffering partner — perhaps they can finally plan that dream wedding they've talked about for months.

If this is still occurring in the weeks after the raise has happened, these startups will likely be dead before they raise Series A.
I agree with Paul that these are terrible signals. What is mind-blowing to me is that this even needs to be said.

Personally, I always find that I work *harder* after raising money than when I bootstrap or self-finance. My mentality is that once I raise money, a bunch of people have put their trust in me, and I am going to work like a maniac to avoid letting them down.

Yes, the investors are typically professionals who can afford to lose their investment, but that's not the point. If it's not okay to discriminate against people for not having money, it's not okay to discriminate against people for having money.

As a founder, you've agreed to become a good steward of your investors' money. If you don't treat it more carefully than you treat your own, you've abdicated your founder's responsibilities and become an employee.

I can still vividly remember the moment I realized this distinction. Back at my very first startup, during the height of the Dot Com boom, I asked my employees to do some work to avoid wasting money. One of my product managers said, "Why are we going through all of this hassle just to save $25K per month?"

It was all I could do to keep from launching myself at him.

Founders have a higher duty than employees. In the book, "The Horse and his Boy" from the Chronicles of Narnia, King Lune of Archenland describes the duties of the king to his long-lost son, the crown prince:

"For this is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there's hunger in the land (as must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land."
You could hardly come up with a better definition of what it means to be a true entrepreneur and leader.

Chrishttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-63750168321066575702015-09-24T07:09:00.006-07:002015-10-04T22:25:25.217-07:00Extreme Altruism and You
This morning, I read a long profile of an extreme altruist, who believes in a) giving away as much as possible and b) focusing on whatever will provide the greatest benefit, regardless of whether that means helping loved ones or strangers.

In one passage, she worries that she'll have to give up her dream of becoming a mother:

"But once Julia opened herself up to the thought that children might not be necessary – once she moved them, as it were, to a different column in her moral spreadsheet, from essential to discretionary – she realised just how enormous a line item a child would be. Children would be the most expensive nonessential thing she could possibly possess, so by having children of her own she would be in effect killing other people's children. Julia talked about this with Jeff and she grew very upset. Once the prospect of giving up children felt real to her, it felt terrifying and painful."
In the end, she agrees to her husband's logic:

"He calculated that if the child gave away around 10% of its income, then they would likely break even – that is, the money their child would donate would be equal to the money they did not donate because they spent it instead on raising the child. Of course, this did not take into account that it was better to give money now rather than later, especially to urgent causes such as global warming and Aids, so some discounting would have to be factored into the calculation. All this made Julia feel better for a while, and even though she realised that it would be pretty weird to tell a child that they expected it to pay for its existence in the world with a certain percentage of its income, she figured she was going to be a weird mother anyway, and her child would probably be weird, too, and so perhaps to a child of hers all this would seem perfectly sensible. Finally, Julia decided, sometime before her 28th birthday, that she would try to get pregnant. Their baby, Lily, was born in the early spring of 2014. The thought of leaving Lily in order to go back to work upset her, but she knew that she had to start earning again so she could keep donating. She felt that there were people in the world who needed her money as much as Lily needed her presence, even if their need did not move her as Lily's did."
For people like me, who are wired with a "normal" level of altruism, this kind of thinking seems batty at best, and monstrous at worse. I'm not ashamed to admit that I care a heck of a lot more for my kids than anyone else's, and that I pour a disproportionate amount of money into rendering their childhood safe, health, happy, and fulfilling.

My guess is that the instinctive revulsion most of us feel to the idea of extreme altruism is based on the basic principles of evolution. Natural selection favors those who pass on their genes; people who agonize over whether or not to have children, and then refuse to care more for their children than strangers are pursuing a losing strategy as far as Darwin is concerned.

That revulsion I feel is billions of years of self-preservation taking one look and doing the cartoon "cuckoo" gesture.

But, our modern environment is radically different than what existed for most of human history. The challenges that face most of us these days aren't figuring out how to scratch out enough food to avoid starvation. It may be that extreme altruism, while individually maladaptive, is what our species needs to survive, since our own essential instincts will cause us to consumer more than our environment can support.

While it may be tempting to dismiss extreme altruists as wack jobs, I seem them as a useful experiment--an insurance policy that explores on way that human behavior may need to evolve to suit a new environment.

Just as long as they don't ask me to join them. I'm running a different experiment!

UPDATE: Slate's Laura Miller did a great job of encapsulating most of my feelings in a single passage:

"Do-gooders take something we all want to believe is quintessentially human—the willingness to extend ourselves to strangers—and place it in direct conflict with something that is even more fundamentally human: caring for our own.

The result is a bit like a reverse version of the famed Uncanny Valley effect, in which a representation of a human being becomes more disturbing as its resemblance to an actual human being increases.

Do-gooders are already human, of course, but as they ratchet up their selflessness, they begin, ever so slightly, to depart from the fold. They look like us and talk like us, but they abide by rules that we understand we could only adopt were we to abandon something that feels essential to ourselves."
Chrishttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2460005.post-40713095477998337932015-09-07T11:04:00.000-07:002015-09-07T11:04:01.697-07:00A Capitalist Visits Burning Man"You? And Ben? Going to Burning Man?"

When my friend, co-author, and business partner Ben Casnocha and I announced that we were going to Burning Man, the reactions we received, both in person and on social media, ranged from disbelief to shocked disbelief.

My typical in-person response was, "Why are you so surprised? Is it because I hate the outdoors? Despise hippies*? Don't do drugs? Avoid parties? Enjoy sleeping? Dislike electronic dance music and any dancing outside a ballroom?"

* It's important to understand the context of my allergy to hippies; I grew up in Santa Monica, with classmates who had names like Rainbow, Cinnamon, and Blaze. Wealthy hippiedom was the dominant culture, and was less focused on generosity and giving and more on ostentatious self-righteousness. Throw in the fact that hippiedom during this era was anti-science and anti-technology, and you can understand how my feelings developed. Spending the summer in Santa Cruz in 1999 didn't help.

The irony is that I believe that many of Burning Man's attendees go for the hedonism, cloaked in the guise of community. Since I don't have any vices that Burning Man satisfies, the only reason to go was for the art, community, and experience. I can't speak for Ben, but judging from his own Burning Man post, we went for the same reasons.

When people ask me to describe Burning Man, I've taken to calling it, "a crowdsourced bizarro Disneyland where the attendees run the attractions." What I mean by this is that Burning Man shares a couple of crucial characteristics with Disneyland, but differs in almost every other way.

How Burning Man is like Disneyland:

It's a safe environment. I wasn't worried about anything, other than choking to death on the omnipresent dust, or getting run over by an art car. Part of this may be due to the Burning Man spirit; more cynically, I'd argue that the price tag and inconvenience make Burning Man unattractive to criminals.

It's clearly distinct from the everyday world. Just like Disneyland, passing through the entrance takes you to another world. Money isn't allowed. Normal rules of behavior don't apply. You expect everyone to be friendly.

There's an endless array of things to do. Everywhere I went, there were exhibits, ranging from the half-assed to the breathtaking. With 70,000 attendees, there were probably thousands of camps that welcomed visitors.

How Burning Man is not like Disneyland:

No central organization. There's no helpful cast members who ask if you need help if you look confused for a couple of seconds. In fact, the least friendly, least helpful person that Ben and I met the entire time was the volunteer who was staffing the central information building. When I asked him how to find the "Geek and Greet" dinner for BRC's tech staff and vendors. He answered gruffly, "Look on the map." When I couldn't find it and went back, he said, "Try harder." If that happened at Disneyland, he would have been summarily executed.

Constant hardship. The dust is an enormous pain. Even on the rare occasions when there isn't a dust storm blowing, the dust gets everywhere and makes any and every activity difficult. I can't even imagine trying to have sex while covered in dust! I also spent the entire time carrying a heavy backpack (to make sure I had enough water) and futzing around with my goggles and scarf to make sure they weren't leaking dust.

Wildly varying standards of quality. Camps and exhibits ranged from carefully engineered to slapdash, and from awe-inspiring to profoundly lame. The highs are higher, but the lows are lower.

Not family-friendly. Duh.

I'll post my raw notes at the end of this piece (written down at 7 AM in the driver's seat of a Toyota Avalon, which is where I slept the night), but I'll focus on the highlights, lowlights, and lessons learned.

Highlights:

The spirit of radical inclusion. I love welcoming communities, like Stanford or the Unreasonable Institute, and I found a similar feel at Burning Man. One guy, Jeff, politely asked us to move our car (it was on top of his canvas tarp), then gave me a three-minute silent hug to welcome me to Burning Man. I love this kind of openness (though as I noted to Ben, if he had started to move his hands down my back, I would have broken things off--not that there's anything wrong with that).

Enthusiasm. Ben and I both noted that there's something incredibly appealing to us about sincere enthusiasm, whether from the scientist who told us about the geography and ecology of the Playa, or the burner who was getting ready to celebrate her 10th wedding anniversary at Burning Man. She and her husband met at Burning Man, got married at Burning Man, and celebrated their anniversary every year at Burning Man.

The maker spirit. Simon Fire Edition 2.0 was what people love about Burning Man--enthusiastic engineers who put their electrical, mechanical, and computer engineering skills to work to build a delightful and whimsical attraction.

The enormous scope of the event. The playa is 2 miles across, making it the size of downtown San Francisco (but a lot more logically laid out and navigable). I especially enjoyed the view from the 4th floor of the Altitude Lounge, which let me see nearly the entire playa. I went in the afternoon, then went back at night to check out the night-time view.

The view at night. When the sun goes down, the entire playa becomes a bizarro version of Disney's Main Street Electrical Parade. Flashing colored lights and gouts of flame are everywhere, and rather than lasting 30 minutes, they go all night.

Lowlights:

Did I mention the dust?

When a port-a-potty in the middle of the desert has been in use for the better part of a week, it's not a pleasant sight or smell. Each stall contains a small mountain of human excrement which is all too visible and pungent. I can only imagine the horror of being a woman in that environment.

For me, the nights, while visually stunning, are pretty unappealing. It ultimately depends on how you feel about raves, drugs, and EDM. The entire playa becomes a gigantic, psychedelic rave. To me, this is the least interesting part of Burning Man. The party sounds and feels like any other party, just in the middle of the desert. Parties rarely offer the chance for thoughtful conversation or reflection. (In fairness, if I were in the market for a Playa girlfriend, perhaps I would have felt differently, since then the vast quantity of gyrating, scantily-clad, intoxicated women would have been a feature, not a bug. One of my campmates was incredibly affectionate with the woman who was obviously his girlfriend. She was an interesting character, who was a circus acrobat from New York who did nude photography of other circus performers. When we asked her how she'd met her boyfriend, she replied, "I met him yesterday night.")

Not truly a lowlight, but it did strike me that Burning Man is a remarkable case study in capitalism. Rather than a monetary economy, it runs on an attention economy, and there is only so much attention to go around. Attracting visitors to your camp is a winner-take-most affair; just like at a trade show, the biggest parties sweep up 90% of the party-goers. Tons of camps were open for business, but were completely empty. At one point, Ben and I walked past a puppet show, where the performers were performing without an audience. (To be fair to the audience, the puppeteers weren't very good.) When someone actually stopped, the performers were ecstatic. Attendees who set up camps for visitors invest colossal amounts of money, time, and hard work with uncertain psychic return.

Lessons Learned for next time:

Rent a trailer with a toilet, sink, power, and air conditioning.

Noiseproof your sleeping area (if you're a light sleeper)

Treat it like Disneyland. Get a copy of the guidebook, and plan out which camps you'll visit and when. At the very least, mark the places you want to visit on the map.

Take advantage of the mornings--it's not yet hot or dusty, and there's still plenty to see and do

Ultimately, I'm glad I went to Burning Man. I freely admit that I optimized my trip to minimize downside, rather than maximize upside. I kept the visit to 24 hours (which is actually up from my original plan of 8 hours, which would have allowed me to avoid trying to sleep in the middle of the desert).

Ironically, Burning Man was less of a physical challenge than I expected; the worst part of the trip was actually the charter flight back to the Bay Area, where I became ferociously airsick, and had to pull a Ziploc out of my backpack in case I needed an airsickness bag.

If I were to return, I'd follow my own lessons learned, and spend longer on the Playa. We actually spent a little time in the trailer of an experienced Burning Man staffer, and it both incredibly pleasant and a huge relief from the external hardships. Of course, renting a luxury trailer to eliminate the hardships of Burning Man is both a) expensive, and b) against the Burning Man ethos of self-reliance, so I don't know when I'll make a return trip.

Of course, if one of my readers is a member of a luxury camp and has an extra spot, let me know! Same time next year?

Raw notes:

Insanely dusty. Dust storms are constant.

Hands are constantly dry and covered in dust

Not as hot as expected (though this year may have been unusual)

Trailers are awesome (provide shelter, refrigeration, air conditioning, a toilet)

Port-a-potties suck, and fill up with excrement

It's easier to interact with people during the day, versus the nightly raves

Lots of EDM, especially at night. Occasionally heard a little jazz or 80s music.

The Playa is visually stunning at night--colored flashing lights and flames everywhere.

The radial structure makes it easy to navigate, but it's still hard to find stuff

It's an attraction where all the attendees *are* the attractions

People send vast amounts of time and money to set up free clubs, art galleries, restaurants, etc.

I speculate that they are seeking meaning, or at least meaningful connection

Attracting visitors is a winner-take-most affair; just like at a trade show, the biggest parties sweep up 90% of the party-goers. Tons of camps were open for business, but were completely empty

The view from the 4th floor of the Altitude Lounge was amazing.

Simon Fire Edition 2.0 was what people love about Burning Man--enthusiastic engineers who put their electrical, mechanical, and computer engineering skills to work to build a delightful and whimsical attraction.

People meet at Burning Man, get married at Burning Man, and celebrate their 10th anniversary at Burning Man!

Silently giving and receiving a three-minute hug is a very interesting experience. You are communicating with another human being in a very unusual way.

I can see the appeal of Burning Man to celebrities--you have the chance to be anonymous (especially during a dust storm) and yet still be treated well

A party at Burning Man still sounds like a party, and if you don't like drinking, drugs, and dancing to ear-shattering EDM, they still suck

Over and over again, we kept saying, "That looks like something out of Mad Max."

I actually wished I had worn a watch; I was afraid that the dust would kill my phone!

Chrishttp://email@example.com