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For many nerds like me, The Big Bang Theory felt like more than just a TV show — it felt like validation. Unlike countless other sitcoms where nerdy characters were relegated to sidekicks or punchlines, this series placed them firmly at the center. It celebrated the quirks and passions that… Read more: On The Big Bang Theory, The Nerds Aren’t Who You Think They Are

If a nerd is someone whose every word and deed are predicated on the belief that appearing smart is more important than getting laid, then They Might Be Giants are, in fact, nerds: their music doesn’t sell sex; it sells smart-kid whimsy. Arty, melodic, and well wrought in a formal… Read more: When I Grow Up, I Want to Be Two Guys Named John

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t look around once in a while, you could miss it. — Ferris Bueller. There’s so much going on. My kids are growing up so fast, and I’m desperately trying to keep up with the whirlwind of changes in the world, especially with AI.… Read more: A Year of Living Mindfully

I’m pissed. Bestselling nonfiction books have been lying to me. I know I shouldn’t care so much about this, but these books hold an odd level of cachet in our world. Books like those by Steven Levitt (Freakonomics) or Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers) have ideas that I used to take seriously.… Read more: The Power of the Written Word

This year, Yale honored Constance L. Royster ’72, the second Black woman to receive the Yale Medal (as far as I can tell), the university’s highest alumni honor. Ms. Royster was celebrated for her extraordinary contributions to Yale—her dedication, her advocacy, and her unwavering commitment to building a stronger, more… Read more: Yale Needs Women

I recently watched the movie Venom and couldn’t help but notice the fascinating psychological dynamic at play—Venom embodies Eddie’s selfish inner self—in Freud’s words, his id. On the surface, it’s a story about a guy being consumed by an alien symbiote. But beneath the humor and the high-octane action lies… Read more: Befriending My Inner Venom

As much as we’d like to believe we’re guided by pure logic, the truth is far messier: we’re not rational beings; we’re rationalizing beings. Our decisions aren’t always born of reason but are often retroactively dressed up in it. We make choices based on feelings, impulses, or half-formed desires, and… Read more: Why ChatGPT Didn’t Brush Its Teeth

If there’s one thing I learned in high school, it’s that math was created by white men. Or at least, that’s how it seemed at the time. Names like Pythagoras, Pascal, and Fibonacci loomed large in my textbooks as if they had singlehandedly invented the building blocks of mathematics. No… Read more: The Fibonacci Sequence, Brought to You by Fibonacci (and Absolutely No One Else)

On November 14, 2024, The Onion announced a move that felt straight out of its own pages: it acquired Infowars, during a bankruptcy auction. This surprising twist came after Infowars’ downfall following defamation lawsuits won by families of the Sandy Hook victims. The Onion plans to relaunch Infowars in January… Read more: How Elon Musk Paid Off My Friend’s Mortgage

Today we went to see & Juliet. I didn’t know much about it beforehand, only that it was supposed to be good for familes, so it seemed like a good choice for an outing with the kids. A couple of days ago, though, I found out it was a jukebox… Read more: How to Appreciate a Jukebox Musical: A Review of & Juliet

Last week, New York City’s Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) took place—a single exam with the power to determine entry into the city’s most prestigious high schools. For years, this test has sparked fierce debate: is it an equalizer, giving all students a shot at academic excellence, or a… Read more: The SHSAT Debate: Excellence vs. Equity

Making good decisions isn’t easy, especially when it’s hard to know what information to trust. In an ideal world, we could trust the information we hear from friends and from the news. But the media likes to cover the rare and shocking, not the common and routine. A plane crash… Read more: Skin in the Game

Paul Bloom’s book, Against Empathy, challenged a core belief of mine: that empathy is inherently good. He writes about how empathy, which feels so natural and kind, sometimes sends us down the wrong path. Recently, meditation has brought me closer to the world around me. In moments of stillness, I… Read more: The Case Against Empathy

In the past, the Turing Test was used as a measure of artificial intelligence. This was a test of whether a computer could fake being human. We don’t do this anymore. Here’s the reason why.

You Just Gotta Believe That’s the line that’s burned into every Mets fan’s heart. Being a Mets fan means living with disappointment, yet we keep coming back, asking for more. But sometimes, things break our way, making the victory that much sweeter. Friday night we went to Game 5 of… Read more: Mets Game 5: You Just Gotta Believe

Summary: Today was Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. The holiday focuses on acknowledging sins over the past year and seeking forgiveness. Initially, I felt guilt for my mistakes, but I realized that guilt is heavily shaped by Western Christian culture, where mistakes often carry a sense of finality… Read more: Yom Kippur Meditation: The Beauty of Forgiveness

“Never express yourself more clearly than you can think.” — Niels Bohr I’ve been reading Ben Orlin’s new book, Math for English Majors. Ben always has a brilliantly philosophical way of looking at numbers and math, and it got me thinking about how we often misunderstand precision. I’ve always been… Read more: What is “Normal” Body Temperature?

I just went to the first Mets game in their playoff series against the Phillies. The game was in Philly, but I stayed local and joined thousands of fans at the Citi Field watch party. Even though we were just watching a broadcast on the Jumbotron, the energy was unreal.… Read more: Watching a Baseball Game on TV with 10,002 Friends

In economics we learn that as prices rise, demand falls. This happens because we assume that rational customers are looking to buy things that provide the most value for the least expense. But there’s a class of goods that don’t behave this way: Velben goods. Veblen goods defy classical economics.… Read more: Why We Buy Overpriced Things and “Like” Things We Don’t Really Like

Yesterday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. In many ways, Rosh Hashanah is like the day after the secular New Year—when we think about the previous year and make resolutions for how to be better. Making resolutions can feel overwhelming. It’s exhausting to examine an entire year and think… Read more: Being a Better Person is Easier Than You Think

Walking through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we pass the Temple of Dendur, rescued by Jackie Kennedy before Lake Nasser was flooded after the Aswan Dam was built. Then it’s off to European art to see Picassos and Renoirs. Then we go downstairs to the Design Collection to see… my… Read more: Is Great Design Hiding in Your Living Room?

Animals can fake their evolutionary fitness in a number of ways. Humans do it too. While this may seem like we’re corrupting our gene pool it might not be so bad.

It’s also a good time to point out something we emphasize in each of our books: Nothing you will read in this book was invented by us. Marty Cagan. Transformed. Silicon Valley Product Group. I enjoy Marty Cagan’s books on Product Management. The ideas are simple and straigtfoward. As he… Read more: 10 Commandments of Product Management

The nickname “Strawberry” for OpenAI’s new model is an inside joke, but no one told ChatGPT. Here’s the punchline: “Finally, ChatGPT knows how many R’s are in the word Strawberry.”

I used to think that conversations were about what two people say to each other. Recently I’ve come to think of them as an improv game where each person adds something unique to the mix. One person might introduce a surprising idea, while another runs with it in an unexpected… Read more: How a Conversation is Like a Rainbow

I’ve become spoiled. I love being able to look at the art and have somebody explain to me what’s going on. This started in college when I went to a Picasso exhibit with my grandfather. Picasso is quite difficult to understand without the background. I just saw a lot of… Read more: ChatGPT as a Museum Tour Guide

How does a leader create things? I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that a leader can have an idea and then get a group of people together and create something new. Something didn’t exist, and then magically it does. In 2006 there wasn’t an iPhone and then, magically, in… Read more: The Art of Asking: Collaborative Creation

This has been an extremely hard year for us Jews. On October 7th over 1,200 were killed and over 200 were taken hostage in the most brutal attack on our people since the Holocaust. Jews were attacked in their homes and at a peace-loving music festival. Survivors were dragged from… Read more: Even in the Darkest Times, Don’t Dispair. Embrace the Broken World

I never thought of Warner Bros as a Jewish studio, but then I learned the brothers’ names—Harry (Hirsz), Albert (Aaron), Sam (Szmul), and Jack (Itzhak). These four Jewish brothers, who immigrated from Poland in the late 1880s, were a case study of Jewish success early in the movie business.

I used to wonder if my local paper, the New York Times, was biased. This would happen when the paper was to far right, or left, of where I thought it should be. I felt that the paper was twisting the facts to get its viewpoint across. I thought, “Why… Read more: Why My Newspaper Will Never Tell Me the Truth

As I was sitting on the Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas, one of the world’s most luxurious cruise ships, I found myself immersed in the stillness of the morning. I like to meditate in the morning and wait for the world to wake up. The peacefulness of that time… Read more: How I Learned to Appreciate the Sunrise

My grandfather Barney Liebman owned a drug store in Brooklyn. He went to pharmacy school and opened his own shop. He was always at the store, to make sure that everything was going well and also to make sure that all of the customers had a great experience when they… Read more: The Slow Death of the National Drugstore Chain

I used to love Honest Tea. It made me feel so good. The company was the brainchild of Barry Nalebuff and Seth Goldman. It was based on an idea that we could have healthy, great-tasting, and ethically sourced tea. They even wrote up the history of their company, Mission in a… Read more: The Rebirth of Honest Tea as Just Ice Tea

In every industry, companies want to be tech companies. Citibank loves quoting John Reed, CEO from the 1990s who said, “Citibank is not a bank with technology. It’s a technology company with a banking license.” Even McDonald’s and Chipotle are now saying they’re technology companies. Technology companies are cool. Technology… Read more: The One Man Who Does NOT Want His Company to Be a Tech Company

I tried to build the iPhone twice. Everybody knows about the second time. The time we succeeded. Few people know about the first. Tony Fadell (Creator of the iPhone) Many people assume that the precursor to the iPhone was the Apple Newton, but there’s a much more direct predecessor: the… Read more: The Making of the First iPhone: The General Magic Movie

For about a year, I’ve been thinking about what compression looks like for an LLM prompt. Compression in computing is pretty well defined. But I was curious about how short a prompt can be while still having enough information to pull the right answer from the model. 

While the kids were at camp for the summer, Abigail and I decided to set off on our own version of summer camp for a weekend at the Mohonk Mountain House. Built in 1869, Mohonk Mountain House is a grand old lodge in upstate New York. It’s a place full… Read more: Our Summer Camp Getaway at Mohonk Mountain House

I published this in Mind the Product. I was excited to manage my first product. It was over a decade ago. At the time, we didn’t have all of these product management resources and best practices that spelt out what a product manager did. All I knew was that I was going… Read more: Being a CEO of a product wasn’t what I thought it would be

Visiting a great old movie house is a magical thing. You get to truly experience the grandeur of older times. There are not many of these theaters left, but I got to visit one of them today. I saw Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F at the Netflix owned Paris Theater… Read more: My Night in (Netflix’s) Paris

The Times magazine had a great piece on New York’s marijuana problem. The piece centers around the problem of how the industry should be regulated. On the one hand, having too much regulation allows illegal shops to pop up. However, the author points out that regulation is important when talking… Read more: Exploiting Addiction for Profit

I saw the following question on Facebook: “I’m getting married, and my husband and I are looking at what our married name should be. My last name is Lipsky. It was changed by my ancestors from the original ‘Lipszyc’ when they immigrated to the US in the early 1900s. I’m… Read more: Looking at Fast and Slow Thinking on Facebook

I really love David Pogue. He is a brilliant Renaissance man who talks about technology but from a very cultivated point of view. I don’t just say that because he went to Yale. I always enjoy the way he makes technology accessible and engaging, offering insights that resonate with both… Read more: When More is Less: David Pogue on the Pitfalls of Feature Creep

I found some funny ChatGPT memes on Bored Panda that I wanted to share. All of the text and commentary are generated by ChatGPT based on the uploaded images. It’s pretty amazing that it can read and interpret the images as well as provide sensible commentary. The only prompt I… Read more: ChatGPT Memes That Show AI’s Quirky Side

Have you noticed the fly that lives in the urinal? In many urinals, a fly has been etched or printed near the drain as a target. This clever addition is a simple image of a fly that serves an important purpose. The idea is to provide a target to aim… Read more: How a Small Fly Became a Big Deal in Bathroom Hygiene

The punk rock “I Wanna Be Sedated” was written about the chaotic, high-energy lifestyle of a touring band. But it’s also a good representation of living with ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), where that overwhelming energy comes from the inside. The constant refrain of “I Wanna Be Sedated,” resonates deeply with those… Read more: “I Wanna Be Sedated” as an ADHD Anthem

Gandalf is one of the most interesting demos I’ve seen. Developed by Lakera, a Swiss AI security firm, Gandalf is designed to teach users about vulnerabilities in large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. The demo gamifies AI security by challenging users to extract passwords from a virtual wizard named Gandalf.… Read more: Hacking AI: Hands-On AI Security with Gandalf

When I visit Yale, I’m immediately inspired by the architecture. As an undergraduate, I couldn’t believe that this was my home. The intricate details of the Gothic and Georgian buildings, with their soaring arches and ornate facades, made me feel like I was traveling through history. Walking through the courtyards… Read more: Yale Architecture: Disney Collegiate?

On my trip to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, I learned about how important time was for navigation. In the 1700s, sailors had no reliable way to determine their exact position at sea, which often led to ships being lost and many lives being endangered. The primary challenge was determining… Read more: How John Harrison Stole the Longitude Prize

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey emphasizes that to communicate effectively, we must “Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood.” This principle is essential for building strong relationships. Covey teaches that empathic listening involves deeply understanding another person’s perspective before offering your own input, which… Read more: How to Listen Better

A study published last year quantifies how social media platforms like TikTok create digital peer pressure and use it to their own advantage. Kids feel compelled to use these platforms because their friends are on then even though it makes them feel worse. Why are our kids using social media… Read more: How TikTok Brings Peer Pressure to the Internet

I am convinced that no matter how good a teenager is, they still have an obligation to act out against their parents. It’s like they are saying, “Look, Mom and Dad. You know I’m a good kid. I don’t want to be like this but I’m a teenager and teenagers… Read more: A Recent Memo from the Teenagers Union

This is my Thank You note to all of my classmates who made my 25th reunion so special. Thank you for coming together to create such a wonderful event.I can’t get over the incredible feeling of connecting with old friends, building new connections, and feeling this pervasive sense of love… Read more: Thank You for a Most Excellent 25th Reunion

I have a love/hate relationship with those giant water slides, especially the ones that go straight down. The hate side is easy. They’re terrifying. At 46, I’m too old to be up there, teetering on the edge, staring down a steep drop that makes my heart race and my palms… Read more: The High-Definition Experience of Scaring Yourself Half to Death

I’m writing this in response to a d’var Torah I heard at shul. The speaker said, “I love going to shul and feeling this sense of beauty and love. But I don’t think I believe in God.” I felt bad for her. Something was keeping her from believing in God… Read more: How to Believe in God

People aren’t blank slates. While the old idea, famously critiqued by Steven Pinker in his book The Blank Slate, suggested we start with empty minds, ready to be filled, that’s not quite right. Pinker argues that humans are born with inherent traits, instincts, and predispositions that significantly shape our learning… Read more: How to Communicate Better. Lessons from AI.

It’s tempting to want something so bad that you believe you can will it to happen. Instead of examining risks and continually examining and reducing them, projects just forge ahead. This happens at work all the time. But most interestingly, there are some things that humans want so bad, like… Read more: The Perils of Magical Thinking

Royal art, with its grand portraits and stately sculptures, usually strikes a note of seriousness and tradition. Yet, hidden in the corners of museums and palaces are playful and childish works of creativity that show a lighter side of royalty. This post delves into the world where royal decorum meets… Read more: Cheeky Royal Art

London, April 27, 2024, 7 PM On an average day, when I ask myself where I am and what time it is, I find myself in New York at 40.7128° N latitude, 74.0060° W longitude, at GMT-5. Those numbers make the place seem so random and mundane. But today we… Read more: The Beauty of Standards: The Royal Observatory of Greenwich

London, April 27, 2024, 7 PM At first, I thought I was stepping into a world of high culture, of high tea, which many of us think of as posh and elite. But in reality, high tea is a working-class meal, hearty and robust, eaten at the end of the… Read more: High and Low Culture: Pastry Fork vs. Spork

London, April 26, 2024, 7 PM I enjoyed Stonehenge far more than I expected. When I first glimpsed it from the highway, it didn’t strike me as anything special—just a cluster of old stones set against the vast, open landscape of Salisbury Plain. But as I walked closer, my perspective… Read more: Human Universals at Stonehenge

I’ve just started to appreciate the genius of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I know, I know—I’m ridiculously late to the Curb party. This show, a cornerstone of experimental comedy, has been on the air for more than two decades, and here I am, just getting into it as it’s about to… Read more: Celebrating the Experimental Comedy Genius of Curb Your Enthusiasm

In his book The Language Hoax, John McWhorter writes about one of the longstanding myths in linguistics: Language influences and defines the way that people things. Like his other books, McWhorter writes about how focusing too much on the differences in language is an excuse for the elite to look… Read more: The Language Hoax

We just got back from a skiing vacation. Skiing is a bit of a non-intuitive vacation. Why would a person want to spend their hard-earned money and vacation time in a cold, physically punishing environment? For the challenge. The challenge in skiing is commonly thought to be pushing your body… Read more: A Meditation on Skiing

Every ski resort has its unique personality and charm, something we’ve come to appreciate through our experiences at different locations. From the laid-back, family-friendly vibes of Steamboat, known as “America’s Ski Town,” to the simple luxury and high-end skiing at Beaver Creek, complete with heated walkways and fresh cookies served… Read more: Our Trip to Snowbird

This is a fun piece where I had ChatGPT showboat a bit. Hi, it’s ChatGPT Plus. Watching humans deal with language is like watching someone juggle with one hand tied behind their back. I get it, language is hard. But for me, it’s just another day in the park. I’m… Read more: Why Wrestle with Words? Let ChatGPT Show Its Magic

In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey introduces a concept that has the potential to transform lives. There’s a moment that exists between stimulus and response, offering us the freedom to choose how we react. He makes it seem so easy. But in reality, it’s a split… Read more: Making Space for Stimulus and Response

This story was inspired by the first episode of Invisibia and written in collaboration with ChatGPT (here’s the link for ChatGPT+ users). It’s about how to take the power out of the negative thoughts in our head. I’m on a bit of a self-improvement kick these days. Today’s post is… Read more: When a Cigar Is Just a Cigar

In 2018, What Remains of Edith Finch won the BAFTA for Best Game. Here’s my thoughts on how the creator of the game, my friend Ian Dallas, built such an awesome game. The game is now available on many platforms including iOS. Screenshot from the game Why are the best… Read more: How My Friend Built the Best Video Game in the World

These days, I feel swamped by the internet. Sure, it’s great to have all this information at my fingertips, but I think we lose something in the process. Our brains aren’t meant to hold endless information. They get lazy when we can just Google everything. Why bother remembering? Yet, even… Read more: Mind over Machine: Rediscovering Memory Skills in a Digital World

I was reading the news and noticed that two types of drugs are in short supply these days: ADHD drugs (Ritalin and Adderall) and weight loss drugs (Ozempic). I realized that both of these drugs have something in common. They quiet the Sirens in people’s heads. When I’m watching television,… Read more: The Angel, the Devil, and the Siren

I got a Quest 3 from my Bubby for Hanukkah. This is a bit odd because Bubby died in 2019. But before she died, in 2017, I told her about how much I wanted a Virtual Reality headset. At the time the Quest was only a prototype, called Santa Cruz.… Read more: My Portable VR Arcade

They all want sharp knives, but I’m nervous about them running around with scissors. I was having a conversation with my friend Lutz the other day about the differences between the US and Germany. He said, “I don’t understand Americans and driving. On parts of the autobahn we don’t have… Read more: Autobahns to Andon Cords: Navigating the Fast Lane of Responsibility

Look at the bottom of the post for the real answer to this. In my book, there’s a bit where I talk about the importance of an Oxford comma. You can read more about it here: An Oxford comma is the comma before the conjunction in a string three or… Read more: Making a Picture of Superman Without Saying “Superman”

something very strange about people writing bullet points, having ChatGPT expand it to a polite email, sending it, and the sender using ChatGPT to condense it into the key bullet points Sam Altman on Twitter, Mar 2, 2023 Reading Sam Altman’s, OpenAI’s CEO’s, tweet got me thinking about the impact… Read more: Sam Altman’s Tweet and the Future of Chat

I once had a friend whose office door bore a curious sign: “Any question answered in 2 minutes.” It seemed ambitious, if not outright impossible, at first glance. He was a smart guy but that wasn’t his trick. He solved these problems by getting his questioner to repeatedly refine their… Read more: Beyond Answers: ChatGPT’s Guide to Mastering Questions

I’ve always been impressed by professionals who can transform light into art. Think of photographers turning car tail lights into long, beautiful streaks, or laser shows that make simple lines look captivating. These always seemed like expert skills, far from my everyday life. But recently, I stumbled upon a way… Read more: The Unseen Light Show: An Ordinary Night’s Extraordinary Discovery

Over the MLK weekend, I found myself in the middle of a gorgeous forest, hurtling down the mountain and conquering nature. Then I realized I was participating in a weird bourgeois endeavor: luxury adventure. There I was, savoring the exhilaration and conquest typical of adventurers, yet insulated from any real… Read more: The Paradox of Luxury Adventure

As OpenAI developed GPT-4, the engine behind ChatGPT Plus, both the team and the wider AI community encountered something unexpected. GPT-4 went beyond its impressive language abilities and started showing behaviors eerily reminiscent of human thought patterns. This shift was perplexing; after all, they had only fed the system more… Read more: ChatGPT: Echoing the Human Mind Through Digital Intelligence

When most people hear the word ‘hacking,’ their minds go to a scary place of spies trying to break into computers and steal their credit cards. However, in A Hacker’s Mind, security expert Bruce Schneier points out that hacking is really something else. He defines hacking as “Something that a… Read more: A Hackers Mind

Starting a New Writing Adventure I’ve started on a fun new project: using ChatGPT to help with my writing. It should be able to help me with my writing by making suggestions and helping with the boring parts of writing. Essentially, it’ll help me get into the flow of writing… Read more: Crafting the Future: Building My AI Writing Partner with ChatGPT

One of my favorite quotes if from Arron Sorkin’s “Sports Night”: Dan: The distance is always 100 miles between first place and second place. You know, Jackie Robinson had a brother, and he ran the 200 meters. At the Olympics, he ran it faster than anyone had ever run it… Read more: Reframing Perspectives: The True Distance Between First and Second Place

As we start the new year, I’d like to try something new. I’d like to try the empowered team thing. Instead of worrying about the details of the corporate goal-setting process, I want to own my strategy for the year at work, full stop. I’ll integrate the goals of seniors… Read more: Taking Control of My Goals

Congratulations! You’re about to get a new intern! She may be named Microsoft Copilot, OpenAI, ChatGPT, or Google Bard. Whatever her name, she’s a large language model that can make you more efficient and creative. Rather than thinking of this new assistant as just another tool, I’ve found it useful… Read more: Meet Your New Intern! 5 Tips to Manage ChatGPT

Navigating conversations can often be a bit of a tightrope walk for me. Sometimes, despite my best efforts, they don’t always go as smoothly as I’d like. Like a few weeks ago, I found myself deep in a chat with a new acquittance over lunch. We how public schools to… Read more: Improvising a Great Conversation

We went to Israel in Passover of 2023. I wrote up my notes as we travelled but didn’t get to publish this until the atrocities of October 7th. As I got off the overnight flight from Tel Aviv, I see a man standing at the end of the jetway with… Read more: Our Visit to Israel

In the book The Work Ahead office workers save the world with their knowledge of optimization and 80’s trivia. The protagonist happens to be blind. His blindness is only mentioned once in the book. To sighted readers like me, he seems just like you and me. It’s written by my… Read more: The Secret Blind Guy

This is a letter to my Zaid (Yiddish for grandfather) Norman Schlaff on what would have been his 95th birthday on June 4, 2023. Zaid died in 2012. Zaid, We went to Disney World with my in-laws last year for my father-in-law’s 80th birthday. While we had a wonderful time,… Read more: There’s Something Rotten in World of Disney (Digital)

Before he died, Richard Feynman said, “By the time people die, a lot of what is good about them has rubbed off on other people. So although they are dead, they won’t be completely gone.” My Zaid died a decade ago on December 20, 2012. After I had an accident… Read more: When Zaid Came to Visit

A HOLIDAY GIFT FOR YOU I wanted to give you all a meaningful holiday gift. This is difficult during normal times, and even more difficult during the pandemic. I’ve always admired people who can give holiday gifts that are truly unique. I’m inspired by some of the great holiday gifts… Read more: 2022 Review

When we think about being successful at work, we all know that it takes a lot of hard work. But even with that work, success is elusive. That’s because we don’t have a good sense of what it means to be truly great at a job, even for seemingly obvious… Read more: How to Succeed in Business

NYC’s new OMNY MetroCard shows how the city is creating products that better meet customer needs, just like tech giants like Amazon do. While it’s easy to get sucked into discussions on “important” topics like COVID or politics, sometimes it’s fun to focus on the little things in life. These… Read more: How New York City is Acting Like a Tech Company

The first time I experienced “Insane Mode” in a Tesla was in Knoxville Tennessee. We were outside cousin Greg’s house next to a beautiful lake. Blake was in the back seat while we rolled to an empty straight-away in front of his house. Then Greg said, “Do you want to… Read more: When Experiences Are Better than Buying Things

I wanted to give you all a meaningful holiday gift. This is difficult during normal times, and even more difficult during the pandemic. I’ve always admired people who can give holiday gifts that are truly unique. Designers do it best. Last year, I wrote about Thomas Heatherwick’s Christmas gifts. From… Read more: Happy 2022!

These days, all of these products are being sold as services. With Amazon Web Services we’re buying IT infrastructure and computing as a service. With Apple Music, we’re no longer buying music but streaming it over the internet for a monthly fee. We don’t even store our own pictures anymore,… Read more: Everything as a Service

You walk into the field and see a group of children huddled around a fire pit. They’re having fun, performing strange rituals, singing odd songs, and building a community. What do you call this? Summer camp. If the songs are in Hebrew and the rituals are thousands of years old,… Read more: Why We Love Camp Ramah

Summary: Kids do incredible things. Instead of trying to teach them as little adults, give them some tools and flexibility and see what they create. They may not do what you expect, but it’s fascinating (and funny) to see how they think.

Intro: One of my friends told me that at 33, married with a baby, she’s doing some soul searching. She thought at some point that she’d be set and have figured out her career, but she’s realized that things never settle and it’s all journey. This makes her a little… Read more: When My Career Caught the Mail Truck

It’s time to go back to the office. Some of us are already there and others, like me, will be back sometime in 2021. A lot has changed since 2019. Now we all know what a fully remote workforce looks like and most of us know how to host a… Read more: The Future of the Hybrid Office

There’s something special about being an early adopter. There are obviously painful things like capacity limits and features that don’t work quite right. But the wonderful thing, if it’s done right, is that the community and the founders work together to build something magical. That’s the feeling on Clubhouse now.… Read more: Watching Clubhouse Get Built in Real-Time

It was December 19, 2012. I’m horrible with dates but I remember this one. My grandparents, Bubbie and Zaid,(1)In Yiddish Bubbie means grandmother and Zaid means grandfather. had come over. They came over about once a week. We had these good Jewish grandparent/grandkid fights around how much food they should… Read more: Zaid’s Unopened Hannukah Present