Tag: Leadership

We’ll Keep Doing Us, Thank You Very Much

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The new mayor of Oakland on President Trump, Uber’s move, the gentrification and housing crises, and why cities are the antidote to Presidential politics


The Bay area has added half a million jobs since 2000, but only built 54,000 new units of housing. Therein lies the root of the region’s affordability crisis: Lots of new tech-related jobs, but not a lot of places to put those new employees. That means workers have to commute much longer distances, and an already overstressed transportation infrastructure now groans with commuters stuck in endless congestion.

Traffic and sky-high housing prices mean the best paid workers will spend top dollar to live near a city center — and that means gentrification. Blue collar workers, artists, and pensioners are pushed out and marginalized, sometimes moving into unsafe spaces not meant for communal living. Such was the case in Oakland earlier this Fall, when a deadly fire broke out in a warehouse occupied by artists and young people, killing nearly 40.

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Steph Curry is Redefining Teamwork, On and Off The Court

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NewCo Shift Forum — Speaker Spotlight


The Golden State Warriors are a team full of superstars, with some of the best individual talent in the NBA. Much of the Warriors success, though, is due to their relentless focus on putting personal glory aside and working together as a team. Here’s the proof: they have led the NBA in assists the past three years by a significant margin, showing their ability to create opportunities as a team, not just as individual talents. The formula is working — it led the Warriors to a historic 73-win season in 2016, and an NBA championship in 2015.

Steph Curry, as point guard and reigning league MVP, is the chief evangelist of the team-first focus. He’s changing how basketball players are viewed on and off the court, especially given that there’s another side to him that you might not be familiar with: he’s also an avid entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist, and is actively getting involved in the startup world.

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Civil Liberties are Essential for Business and Prosperity

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Entrepreneurs Pledge to Safeguard Freedoms; Advance New Economy Jobs in America

As American entrepreneurs and business leaders, we believe that the historical commitment to civil liberties as set forth in the United States Constitution is a unique advantage for U.S. businesses — one that is inextricably linked with our global competitiveness and success. Any threat to fundamental civil liberties is bad for American business. It is incumbent on us as entrepreneurs, leaders, and patriotic Americans to speak up. We believe that the rights and liberties enshrined in our Constitution and Bill of Rights are under threat and need to be safeguarded.

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How My Little Pony Gave Me A Top Performing Team

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Get Shift Done: Management

In 2010 I accepted a new position as a Senior Manager. On my first day I found out more about the teams I’d be leading — one team was considered a high quality team, performing at its peak. I’d have a manager overseeing that group, and little to worry about.

Then there was the other team.

My new boss had been managing them directly, and his description of them was less than complimentary. In fact, he made them sound like a bunch of misfits, barely a team, hardly able to get anything done. They sounded like the Bad News Bears of technical teams.

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Confessions of a Funded Female Founder

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Entrepreneur Tanya Van Court of iSow, speaks with Laurent Ohana of Parkview Ventures at The Scale Collective, an event for female founders, investors, advisors, and business partners; November, 2016. Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images.

Part 2: Acknowledging differences in how men and women build companies.

This is the second part of a two-part series. You can read the first part, here.

As I said in the first part of this series, I’ve noticed tendencies in female founders that I think partially answer the question, Why aren’t more female founders funded? None of these tendencies are “bad,” by the way. Most contribute to our collective strengths as founders and business-builders. But they speak to a mismatch in assumptions between investors and entrepreneurs. They should not be avoided at all costs but rather noticed and accounted for when necessary.

1. Women favor functionality over cool new shit; but many investors prefer cool new shit.

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Holiday Office Hours

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Recently fat tweeted about the tech industry’s failure to evaluate computer science students for internships. To summarize: it’s a shitshow. Jacob, better known as fat, is the co-founder of a podcasting app, co-created bootstrap the 2nd most popular open-source project on Github, lead teams at Medium and Twitter, and has spoken at international tech conferences. Jacob recently took an internship test anonymously and failed. If one of the best can’t get into the tech industry? Who can?

As the year comes to a close, I’ve been reflecting a lot on my career, the future, the past, and the present (2016, you’ve been a doozy.) When thinking about companies I’ve had the chance to work with, and the people I’ve met, I always come back to how thankful I am for those who took me under their wing. The people who took a risk hiring me when I was young and inexperienced, the people who supported me taking on more responsibility later in my career, and the people who took the time just to chat. My career exists because of those people.

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How to Manage Up Well

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Get Shift Done: Management


We all have a boss. Even CEOs report to someone — a board of directors, investors, customers. But, as ubiquitous as reporting to someone is, there is very little instruction given on managing UP. And yet it’s a skill that is crucial to your success, and the success of your entire team.

So how do you effectively manage your manager? Here are my 5 rules for managing up.

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Founders: How to Stop a Huge Time Waster Before It Starts

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Get Shift Done: Management


Soon someone close to you will propose the ultimate time waster. They will tell you it’s essential you implement it in your company. They will say you can’t scale your company without it. Their intentions will come with the most genuine and positive intent. For them, their recommendation is a no-brainer.

They will tell you that you need a performance management process. As a founder, you despise the term and what it stands for. YOU NEED TO ADDRESS IT HEAD ON or it will surface again and again.

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How To Manage Your Team Like a (Good) Boss

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Get Shift Done: Management

Image by Jens Lindner

Now that you’ve read Line Management 101 and have the basics down, how can you up your game? In other words, how can you manage your team like a (really good) boss?

If you think back to your pre-boss time, one of the most irksome things about managers was their seemingly-random availability. Now that you’re a manager yourself, you understand that your direct reports don’t see everything you see. They might not understand why you’re available one week and not the next. In the absence of information, people make up their own explanations — and they’re often not good ones.

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