January 2009
14 posts
1 tag
Putting Yourself Out There
A very close friend recently complained to me that he found Twitter to be nothing more than a vehicle for narcissism.
I’ve been chewing on his point for a few days now as my rebuttal at the time didn’t feel particularly inspired. While I implicitly knew that Twitter was so much more than that, I was having trouble cogently explaining why.
So I was delighted to see an amazing post...
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Obama's Ambition
Barack Obama gave his first televison interview as president yesterday evening. And he did so to al-Arabiya, the Dubai-based satellite network that is one of the largest English-language TV outlets aimed at Arab audiences.
This is a first for an American president and a remarkable indication of Obama’s ambition. He is coming in fresh, looking to make an immediate positive impact in the...
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An Ode to Content
It seems every day I hear or read at least one thing about the death of the content business.
Now to be clear — there’s very good reason for this. Traditional publishing models are broken as the web continues to democratize the creation and distribution of content. Print businesses are burdened by excess cost. Expensive marketing channels give way to buzz building through...
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WatchJohn Forte, Life Has Just Begun
A moving music video from an old acquaintance who’s finally come home. His story is a classic one of struggle and redemption. His moving piece entitled First Day out of Prison accompanying the video in today’s The Daily Beast is a must read.
Welcome home John!
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Andrew Bird, Masterswarm
It’s been an...
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“It just is, and maybe it always has been, the great New York obsession. Maybe...”
– Lockhart Steele, And the Blog Goes On - NYTimes, 1/25/09
(via fred-wilson)
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While the World Watched
Yesterday, Barack Obama decidedly changed our country’s tone. His inauguration speech represented a conscious and deliberate shift from the tenor of the Bush administration and the Bush Doctrine specifically. As I listened to one of the great orators of our time, a number of specific themes struck me as the essence of an emerging Obama ideology, one in sharp contrast to that of his...
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“We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give...”
– Joseph Lowery, Presidential Benediction, 1/20/09
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Staying the Course
Great chart from the WSJ on how the presidents stack up.
A look at U.S. presidents’ job-approval ratings.
Sources: Gallup, AP, WSJ.com research.
It always looks good in the beginning. The trick is how you look in the end…
A Sense of Purpose
After a lengthy renovation (and I mean lengthy!), I finally moved back into my apartment late last week. And though I literally couldn’t wait to return home, I was actually surprised by the almost immediate positive shift in mood and demeanor it precipitated.
More than somewhere to just hang your hat, a home is a center, a jumping off point from which you engage with the rest of the world, a...
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And the Spigot is Finally Shut
The NYTimes yesterday ran a front page story entitled China Losing Taste for Debt From the U.S. This was only a matter of time. The tremendous boom in U.S. spending over the past decade was largely financed by China pouring over a trillion dollars into U.S. debt and housing securities.
In fact, the NYTimes points out that over the past five years China has actually spent up to one-seventh of its...
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The Changing Face of Risk
I spent some time yesterday with a close friend who has been an investment banker for his entire 10+ year career. He worked at a shop he loved led by an industry superstar and advised interesting companies on complex transactions.
But one day everything changed. The markets collapsed, his firm vanished and his career was literally upended overnight…ultimately leaving him searching for a...
“Call it insurance if you like, but it’s not the insurance most people...”
– Michael Lewis and David Einhorn on credit-default swaps, The End of the Financial World As We Know It - NYTimes, 1/4/09
Finally a way to explain the implicit leverage and danger in the CDS market that everyone can understand. And, yes, the whole neighborhood is on fire…
Looking Towards '09 and Beyond
On my flight home from Israel yesterday, I caught up on some long overdue reading including a piece by Malcolm Gladwell in November 10th’s The New Yorker entitled The Uses of Adversity. In it Gladwell chronicles the life of Sidney Weinberg, the storied leader of Goldman Sachs from 1930 to 1969 who’s rags-to-riches story is the stuff of Wall Street legend. Gladwell’s larger...