Listen Up For Voice

One of the few silver linings of Covid-19 has been reaching out and speaking to friends and family. Kristen and I have a yearly KPI involving the number of times we should call close friends and family. We’ve both blown…

Network Effects, Platforms, and Payments

Today a report came out that M-Pesa processed 99.6% of the value of mobile money deposits in Kenya. This should raise eyebrows for a couple reasons. M-Pesa processes about $38.5 billion a year, or almost half the Kenyan GDP for…

No Motivation

The past few weeks have been difficult. The physical constraints put upon us during Covid-19 have manifested themselves mentally. In my case, I’ve especially struggled to motivate myself to work. This has been surprising. Initially, the extra time seemed like…

What I’m Doing to Stay Healthy

After one week of remote learning it’s becoming apparent what sorts of actions I need to take to remain mentally, emotionally, and physically health. Habits help. Since my days are largely unstructured it takes some motivation to begin and finish…

Remote Learning Helps Introverts

My MBA classes moved online this week. We’re using ZOOM to dial in and the professors usually set up a small studio or just share their screens. For the circumstances, it works pretty well. I thought it doesn’t capture the…

Everything Is Slow Nothing Works

Berlin is shutting down right now. The schools are closed, the bars are closed, the museums are closed, the FREAKING bars are closed. COVID is forcing quarantines, lock downs, and shut the heck downs all around the world. This is…

Design Of The Week

Ok readers, today I’d like to share a brilliant design implementation I found. Go to the New York Public Library instagram page and look through their stories. They are publishing open domain books on their page as “Stories”, and it’s…

PayPal’s Bet On China and My Opinion on Hong Kong

I support Hong Kong and their protest against the Chinese government’s infringements on on their freedom. Surprisingly, that honestly wasn’t that hard to write, but based on what’s happening in the US now you’d think I was a geopolitical analyst…

The Future Is Creation

There’s an internet rule of thumb about creation, and it says that 90% of the participants of a community only view content, 9% of the participants edit content, and 1% of the participants actively create new content. Power users and…

Tech Satirizes Itself

If you know me you know I love satire. And if you enjoy satire too then you’re in luck, because this week’s New Yorker released one of the best articles on big Tech which looks like satire, but is actually…