Universal Constants
How is Social Enterprise?
A friend recently commented to me that he was really excited about a new business he was about to undertake, but then added almost apologetically, “I know it’s not much of a social enterprise.” This seemed odd to me because in my experience Jason is as socially/environmentally/interpersonally conscious a person as I know. To me it was obvious: as long as Jason didn’t stray from his own values and ways of being, whatever ventures he undertook would by definition be social enterprise. As always, he would find a way to make sure nobody he interacted with was worse off for it. And if successful, at least a few groups of people (including himself and his investors)...
Education 2.0
In what turned out to be the most popular TED talk of all time, Ken Robinson asked us to wake up and smell the coffee: our system of education is stuck in the Industrial Revolution where it was invented. Moreover, it’s killing creativity, crushing spirits, and preparing students, not for success and wellbeing, but rather unemployment and dysfunction. Waiting for Superman confirmed this this, adding that the public schools in the U.S. are bankrupt, both financially and morally.
Yet, all around the world, there are signs that the Berlin Wall of education reform is crumbling. Here are a few shining lights:
TEDucation
No single institution or movement has done more to spark...
Practical Artificial Intelligence
There’s an old saying in computer science circles that when we have no idea how to make a piece of software do something smart we call it “Artificial Intelligence” but once it’s solved we look back with 20-20 hindsight and say it was “Software Engineering”. A computer becoming the world chess champion is the quintessential example of this. Once considered a holy grail of AI, by the time Deep Blue actually dethroned Kasparov, the computing world yawned, “Oh it was just brute force computing power, nothing truly intelligent is really happening”.
Beating the world champions at Jeopardy was slightly more interesting because we acknowledge the...
Open Letter
By now you’ve no doubt heard about the allegations against me in a Federal civil suit regarding Full Tilt Poker. Because of the seriousness of the allegations I’m not able to comment at all about the pending case, much as I would like to. From a moral, personal and interpersonal perspective I feel I’ve got nothing to hide. And since I trust in our system of justice and have the utmost respect for my legal counsel, I will refrain from talking about the case until it’s resolved.
What I would like to express here is concern for my family, friends, colleagues and supporters who believe in me and who feel my pain as if it were their own. It sucks to have to endure...
Investing in Superstars, part 4
[NOTE: I updated this post with more detailed examples]
Background: part 3, part 2 and part 1.
In the interview with Jon Gunn in Part 3, I mention that I’ve been thinking of what “version 2″ of the Personal Investment Contract might look like. Here’s the model:
Investment Amount - Same as before, intended to give the individual some time to pursue their passion (or figure out what that is) without having to worry about how to support themselves.
Maximum Return - The cumulative total amount that the investor can receive as return on their investment. If and when this amount is reached, the contract is over.
Annual Exclusion - The amount of annual income the...
Investing in Superstars, part 3
For the background to this post, start with part 2 and part 1. The follow up is part 4.
I get a lot of questions from folks who are interested in learning more about Personal Investment Contracts and so I felt it was time to synthesize some of the most common ones and give you some answers.
Who is the first person you invested in?
A film maker named Jon Gunn.
What is your relationship with Jon outside of this investment?
He is my brother-in-law, and a former business partner of mine in an instructional DVD company we co-founded with Phil Gordon. I’ve also invested in a couple of his independent films.
Why did you invest in Jon directly?
I have been a big believer in his talent...
Innovation as Moral Leverage
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” (Margaret Mead)
“Be the change you want to see in this world” (Gandhi)
There is an idea virus within American culture that has the power to destroy. The idea is that technology and innovation are fundamentally good. Whether you consider yourself a technologist, an entrepreneur or a scientist (all labels I use to identify myself at times) I’d like to propose an alternative to to this idea and an inoculation against the virus.
Observation #1: Innovation amplifies whatever values and beliefs are held by the innovator.
For...
Complex Adaptive Monetary Policy
Complex Adaptive Monetary Policy (CAMP) is, in essence, a reconciliation of Keynes’ top-down view of macroeconomics with Hayek’s bottom up view. The particular details of the proposed policy below are not as important as the recognition of the fundamental forces at play and empirical evidence that we are at a very dangerous chaos point in history. Both Keynes and Hayek have deep truths to tell, and we discount one or the other at our collective peril. For those who want a primer on the great debate, this rap battle sums it up better than any text book could. Now on to the idea…
The fragility of the global financial system (as measured by the US dollar) is a...
Attachment as Internal Bureaucracy
The human mind is not unitary. We have competing preferences, compartmentalized beliefs, contradictory thoughts, and conflicting emotions. The recognition of this dividedness is hardly new—in the Society of Mind, Marvin Minsky describes how our mental sub-agents interact to create our intelligence, and therapeutic methods such as Zen Big Mind and Internal Family Systems give us tools to better understand and interact with these parts of ourselves. And we acknowledge our sub-selves casually when we say “part of me wants to do X, and part of me thinks it’s a terrible idea”.
The Internal Family Systems model, which I have been working with for about a year and a half,...
What is Fear?
Based on an informal assessment and polling I’ve done recently, here’s what we fear:
Identity
LOSING ONESELF
Death / Pain / Insignificance
BEING WRONG
Self-Exploration / Failure / Change
INAUTHENTICITY
Being Found Out / Self-Expression / Lying
Control
EMOTIONAL
Power / Anticipation / Fear-Itself
OTHERS
Intimacy / Just Doing It / (Lack of) Freedom
THE UNCONTROLLABLE
Disaster / Crisis / Unknown-Unknowns
Authority
RIGHTS
Being Unworthy / Unmet Expectation / Meaninglessness
MORALITY
Unfairness / Inequality / Injustice
RULES
Doing it Wrong / Shame / Guilt
Each of us has a unique profile of what fear is depending on how we...
Personal Cosmology
In some measure or other, progress is always a transcendence of what is obvious. (Alfred North Whitehead, Process & Reality)
Science tells us that there are Four Fundamental Forces: Electromagnetic, Strong Nuclear, Weak Nuclear, and Gravity. The Reality that Science helps us perceive consists of Time, Space, Matter and Energy. If we accept TSME as the basis for Reality, then we can do Science. Without these things as Fundamentals, the activity of Science makes no sense. You are doing something, metaphysics or philosophy perhaps, but not Science.
What if we played a game though and I asked you to come up with an alternate cosmology, a way to make sense of the world around you...
How to Be a Good Representative
Are you someone who has been given (and accepted) responsibility for someone else’s well-being? Maybe you are an elected official? A board member? A parent? A friend? If so, you may resonate with the following realization I just had about my own successes and failures in the role of Representative.
I used to believe that what a Representative does is to act and react as if they were the one being represented. I felt like my job was to get inside their head, and channel them, sort of like a medium or a conduit. The problem with this though is it always ends badly. Why? Because it’s an impossible job.
Nobody can speak for you, as if they were you. Sure, if you...