“The Boy Scouts of America provides a program for young people that builds character, trains them in the responsibilities of participating citizenship, and develops personal fitness.” That’s how the Boy Scouts describe themselves at scouting.org. I support that mission wholeheartedly; it’s why I’ve encouraged both of my sons to participate in Scouts for years. Both…

At the risk of turning into a blog-stalker that only talks about his boss, I wanted to write up something I did in June as a direct result of watching a speech Joe gave on our “culture of distraction“. Joe’s entire speech is worth listening to, as it touches on a number of issues that…

A popular debate in the tech world is whether failure is good or bad. Eric Schmidt reminded people that at Google, “we celebrate our failures.” Taking a contrary position was Jason Fried from 37Signals, who wrote back in 2007 that “I’ve never understood Silicon Valley’s obsession with failure.” NPR’s Melissa Block recently visited Silicon Valley…

In March, John Carroll died unexpectedly while jogging around the lake on campus at the University of Richmond. John and I were classmates together over 15 years ago, and reconnected when he returned to the law school as a professor leading the IP law clinic. John contributed an article to the first issue of the Richmond…

For years, my favorite Michael Lewis piece has been his New Yorker magazine article about Shane Battier, The No-Stats All-Star. (I wrote about why that piece spoke to me here.) As of last weekend, I may have a new favorite: his recent baccalaureate address at Princeton. The entire address is worth watching, but here’s the…

One of my responsibilities at Google Ventures is to plan the growing number of workshops that we offer to our portfolio companies. In the last several months, we’ve offered workshops on a variety of topics, including SEO, AdWords, latency, technical recruiting and candidate sourcing, A/B testing, and business development. With each new workshop announcement earlier…

A few months ago, I flirted with buying a new car. I’ve driven a Subaru B9 Tribeca for nearly 6 years, and I was attracted to a sedan that would get better mileage. The Tribeca’s a fine vehicle, and since my commute has mostly involved driving to transportation (train in Illinois, the Google shuttle in…

I used to use the same password everywhere. In 1993, I crashed a Clinton inauguration party at a restaurant in DC, and for years my password was a derivative of that restaurant’s name. I’d read somewhere that it was a good idea to include numbers in your passwords, so I picked a number and my…

Welcome to the new year. If your current job isn’t thrilling you and you resolved to find a job you love in 2012, be sure to visit the Google Ventures job board. Our growing portfolio of start-ups are hiring – as of this writing, there are 371 jobs waiting to be filled. Whether you’re looking…

Comcastic image from barbariangroup.com. Last month I contemplated something unthinkable (for me): I thought about breaking up with TiVo. I started my relationship with TiVo 11 years ago, with a Sony DirecTiVo box that I still consider among the best consumer electronics purchases I’ve ever made. Since then, I’ve gone through several TiVo boxes, as…