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Australia’s East Coast
Most Meaningful Australian Experience: In 2001, I visited an old friend, baseball teammate Jamie McDonald in Australia. We took a bus trip all the way from Brisbane to Whitsundays. We had a great time and adventure; till this day we share that bond. #2: I probably couldn’t have been a Navy Seal. 13 top things…
Kurtisms
7. Salary (Nov. 11th, 2007) Everyone gets a base; the rest is just a bonus. 8. Startup Exits (Nov. 11th, 2007) Startup Success seems to be 50% hard work, 50% intelligence, and another 100% luck 9. Time (Nov. 11th, 2007) Time moves too fast when you are not paying attention. 10. Pain (March 24th, 2007) Pain goes away…
On VCs
11/2007 It seems the best VCs have mastered the at of meddling in other people’s affairs. 01/2009 New VCs are popping up and YC is surely creating a stir. AH is exciting if they really create a keiretsu. 01/2013 VCs cannot keep up with the activity of startups even though Moritz says SV doesn’t need…
Chaos
11/2007 Great businessmen seem to have the ability to make chaos into structure, or at least ostensibly so. 06/2009 Are all startups this f’n Chaos @Boku 01/2012 Chaotic markets offer opportunity for those who take risk and try to calm the chaos 10/2016 Post Vipassana, Chaos doesn’t exist. Nothing is chaotic. It is all meant as its…
Low Hanging Fruit
03/2008 Low-hanging fruit is low hanging because it’s rotten; why do business people go after low hanging fruit. That’s a rotten business strategy… 03/2013 Low hanging fruit is sometimes essential to get a startup off the ground. Customers who want the product, need the product and want to work with you. Maybe its not so…
Time 2
There is no time, only place. Time is made by man. Time is an evil that dictates one’s circadian rhythm. If you control that rhythm, then time is obsolete.
On Time
2008: Cherish (even the mistakes) the past, live the present, prepare the future. 2013: Learn from the past, be in the present, prepare for the future 2018: Embrace who you are right at this moment in time. Anything else doesn’t matter.
Kakuma Ventures: Building Companies in a Refugee Camp
Starting Kakuma Ventures to Empower Refugees Kakuma is a small city of 200k people where displaced people want to create opportunities through entrepreneurship by building companies Most Meaningful Experience: Discovering some of the challenges people had in the refugee camp and being able to lend a hand to people who really want to learn. To…
Poem: Never to Look in a Mirror
Never to Look in the Mirror What if there were no mirrors? I met some kids yesterday who never looked in a mirror and when i showed them one they were amazed. I realized something and wrote a poem:
My First Humanitarian Footsteps with Innovation Africa in Uganda
My First Humanitarian Footsteps with Innovation Africa. Building water wells and solar energy in the desert to help others Most Meaningful Experience: Adapting to the environment and learning about the region I was wracked with uncertainty going into my first humanitarian project in Uganda’s Karamoja region. I’d just read about the horrors of Idi Amin’s…