Sachin Rekhi’s post PayPals Wars and its Lessons for Today’s Entrepreneurs caught my attention as I surfaced between US professional football (NFL for the locals) league play-offs this weekend. While there is much about the post that is spot-on right – strong vision coupled with short term pragmatic goals, push decision-making down as far as possible, etc. – Sachin makes the case that “It’s all about assembling an A-team.”… Read the rest
[Life Back West] December 2009 – The Darkest Days
In earlier times, people in the northern hemisphere marked the winter solstice – the time of the year when daylight for the hemisphere is at its shortest – with rites and rituals. Even today those traditions live on with things like the California Revels and their event productions held in Oakland.
This time of year was regarded as marking the sun‘s ebbing presence in the sky, and the deepest moment of the cold winter’s dark.… Read the rest
[U.S. Independence Day] What Made the Founders So Special?
It’s easy in troubled times – the Great Depression and World War II in the 1930’s and 1940’s, the late 1960’s and today’s times all come to mind – to wax nostalgic for the "good old days" and the presumed leadership that guided a nation’s people through those times.
Great leadership, whether it’s community or corporate, are leaders who effectively take a community or company from Point A to Point B: Moses, for example, or A.… Read the rest
[Canaan Partners’ Workbook] How to Ask for Money
There are at least two parts to effective communication: a “wrapper” or form in which the information is shared, and the data or actual content of the information itself. Miss both and you bomb, and get one right but not the other and thing can get bumpy.
My colleague Dr. Jo Whitehouse of Jumpstart BioDevelopment flagged a great resource courtesy Canaan Partners for entrepreneurs seeking start-up investment or just general investment period [Disclosure: Dr.… Read the rest
[Life Back West] May 2009 – The Ties that Bind
This Sunday approximately 3,500 people, many of them strangers, will hop on their bicycles or take up their ride support stations and start a 545 journey that will last seven days from San Francisco to Los Angeles for AIDS LifeCycle 8 . It’s the 16th such undertaking dating back to the mid-90’s to raise money for AIDS support groups in Los Angeles and San Francisco.… Read the rest
P.S. – “I Love You” and Other Forms of Communication
When I ran Human Resources for the drug distribution side of McKesson , prying 15 minutes from a distribution operating shift for employee communication basics was like taking bear cubs away from their parents.
Why is this important to you? Because the lessons McKesson supervisors learned should inform the communication practices of anyone who manages people from senior execs to first line supervisors.… Read the rest