Blog
What happens if we squeeze too much?
The mantra of modern life (if there is one) is to leave nothing on the table; after all, why would we? The gurus tell us we should try harder and seize all of the efficiency we can get out of our work. We should cut all waste in our organizations.
How to build a great engineering team from the ground up
When building a house, if you want to develop one that will last, you will start with the foundation and make sure that's done right. After the foundation, you build the walls, then the roof, and then finally spend a long time inside and outside, adding the finishing touches. You
It's a Savage World
It is a far more savage world we live in than we are led to believe. Reasonable people would like the World to be moral, ethical, fair, and more humane, but it is not that way underneath. The modern World is especially adept at concealing its Savagery from us. Yet,
Love Boredom, Love the Grind
Boredom is a greater threat to our ambitions than failure. I have spent a lot of time dissecting my failures in life, and I've rarely blamed boredom for them, but the truth is that many of my failures, and probably yours too, are due to getting bored. Unless we learn
Rage Driven Development
I have observed that some people are fueled by something different than the rest of us. These people can attack a problem no matter how large, how much bureaucracy or mess is in the way; in fact, for them, the more, the better. These people all have one thing in
From House Hacking to House Stacking
House stacking is when you use the process of house hacking, and you repeat it nearly every year to stack multiple rental homes and start building what the pros call a portfolio. You do this while never quitting your day job and making the entire process as passive as possible.
New York after the Virus
There is lots of talk that New York is sick, and more specifically, New York City is dead. New York City has big problems in the post coronavirus age, as the office space tumbles, companies institute work from home and start dumping leases to save money. There is no question
From Stringed Cans to the Khala
I grew up in a town of fewer than 100 people and had no access to technology up to the age of ten. Up to that point, everyone knew each other on a first-name basis, and we lived off the land. The only thing I had at that time that
Equity and Risk at Startups
The rewards in a fast-moving venture-backed Startup are tied to risk, not to contributions. If there is a successful exit, the question of fairness sticks out because employee number 20 may contribute no less to a venture's success than employee number 10 does; in fact, they may contribute even more,
House Hacking the American Dream
House hacking is the act of buying a home and using it to build wealth while leveraging the most American thing since baseball, the 30-year fixed mortgage. The process of house hacking involves living on one part of a house you buy while renting the rest so that your monthly
