One of My Most Frequent Pieces of Advice: Be Politely Persistent

One of the hardest things for most entrepreneurs to know is how hard to push in situations where people tell you “no.”

Understanding the Power of Your Human Networks

We all intuitively know how important human connections are in business but for many people it’s like exercise or eating well — one of those things you keep meaning to get around to.

Why You Shouldn’t Decide Anything Important at Your Board Meeting

This article originally appeared on TechCrunch. There is an old saying in poker that if you don’t know who the sucker at the table is — it’s you.

How do I Really Feel About Anonymous Apps Like Secret?

By now you likely know that Marc Andreessen weighed in on anonymous apps in a 12-part Twitter diatribe.

Anonymity. As the old joke goes, “on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog.”

When Does Establishing a Good Startup Culture Outweigh Being Cheap?

Almost every startup company starts off “scrappy” and there’s a well established culture in the tech startup scene to embrace the “be cheap at all costs” mentality.

How I Got the Monkey Off My Back — Today Was a Good Day

I become a venture capitalist in September 2007 — exactly 6.5 years ago.

I spent my first year developing proprietary deal flow and learning the business and then the Sept 2008 / Lehman Bros collapse /…

Relaunching Both Sides of the Table

My blog had been looking tired for a year or two. The problem is that with Wordpress I just found it a bit too cumbersome to change the design on my own.

Here’s Why it Was an Epic Month for #LATech

A few years ago I started calling the local tech ecosystem down here #LATech. I had an agenda. We graduate more engineers in our greater region than anywhere else in the US. We have top 25 engineering schools than anywhere else, too.