Blue whales. I couldn’t fucking stop researching blue whales. I was 12 and my teacher had just explained to the class that blue whales are the largest mammals on planet Earth. In hindsight, this reaction was my first confirmed sighting of what in The Nerd Handbook I call the “annoying efficient relevancy engine”. Something in… More

In my teens, I got migraines. Maybe it was growing pains, but all I knew is that randomly and without warning, I’d get a splitting, seeing spots, curled up in a dark room headache. Painkillers didn’t help. Meditation merely distracted, diet was out of the question — hello, teenager — and I got regular exercise… More

Until recently, I’d never been to IKEA, mostly because of fear. I knew there would be things I wanted, but the IKEA reputation kept me away. What I heard: It’s huge It’s a maze You can’t get out in less than three hours It’s full of people. While I guess I need flat-pack design furniture… More

My management team was bickering. Two managers in particular: Leo and Vincent. Both of their projects were fine. Both of their teams were producing, but in any meeting where they were both representing their teams, they just started pushing each other’s buttons. Every meeting on some trivial topic: Leo: “Vincent, are you on track to… More

The Editor and I don’t argue, we discuss. We’re arguing… discussing over a glass of red wine my concern over our collective attention spans. Not just she and I, but everyone. The whole damned planet. I say, “Information just keeps getting smaller. We’re sharing our bright ideas in 140 characters now and no one is… More

In Silicon Valley, you burn a lot of calories. It’s not just the daily burn of your gig, it’s everything else involved in staying afloat in a valley which is constantly reinventing itself. You sign up for every new service and spend the prerequisite 3.7 minutes to determine “Does this matter?” You surf the web,… More

The brother-in-law lives in the ‘burbs and needed five trees removed. Not big trees — 10 to 15 feet tall, six-inch trunks. Not a problem. I live on the edge of a redwood forest in Northern California. There are sturdy oaks, playful maples, lovely madrones, weed-like bay laurels, and, of course, giant redwoods. But the… More

On my short list of professional competitive differentiators, I would list my inbox strategy. I have a zero tolerance policy for unread mails. Zero. Any mail, however big or small, which lands in my inbox, is instantly read. There is an industrial strength set of mail filters that move mailing list noise out of the… More

Most interesting ideas come to me between 8am and 10am. This is sacred time. The day is young, I am rested, and the coffee is fresh. I spend most of this time in the car driving to work. The music is providing a creative, catalyzing ambiance to structure my thinking. I create two or three… More