To be honest, when I first began studying statistics social justice never entered the equation. Like most people in America, I think, I was concerned about problems like crime, poverty, low educational attainment of minority groups. Like most people, my concern didn’t translate into much actual effort on my part. No, I took my first…
Last week was very productively spent at Unite 2014 learning about all things Unity. In case you are not into game development, Unity claims to be used by over a million game developers around the world. While I rather suspect those statistics are up their with Second Life and Twitter counting everyone who ever signed up…
I picked up Guy Kawasaki’s book, Reality Check and was immediately turned off by his assertion that Silicon Valley is a meritocracy like nowhere else on earth, that it doesn’t matter what school you attended, how much money your parents have, as long as you can code. A few pages later, he quotes approvingly a venture…
Tom Peters has written quite a bit about the huge market opportunities in providing goods and services designed for two populations – women and old geezers. I thought of this today as, for the thousandth time, I went through the pre-check line only to have my titanium knee set off the security alarm and get…
I read a blog post where the author said the women who dropped out of programming “should have been discouraged” because it’s not for everyone and many women try to use smiles and flattery to get men to do their work for them. I actually have had the experience the author cites, but with both…
Got interrupted by coding, meetings, flying across country, teaching judo, more meetings and flying back across country. Just finishing The Hard Thing about Hard Things and and I thought it was a terrific book EXCEPT for the part about not hiring people from your friend’s companies. I completely disagreed with this, and even though I…
Really useful advice for start-ups on How Not to Die from Paul Graham emphasized The number one thing not to do is other things. If you find yourself saying a sentence that ends with “but we’re going to keep working on the startup,” you are in big trouble…. We’re taking on some consulting projects, but…
I attended Survivor 8, the Tech Coast Venture Network fast pitch competition last night, and I thought I’d give my thoughts in case you are considering attending a similar event in the future. In keeping with the 30-second format, I’ll give you my take away now – it is worth it if you have an…
I’ve written about the challenges of finding a mentor previously, Why the cool kids won’t hang out with you. Let’s be frank, if you are old and pumping gas, not too many people are interested in you as a mentor, but the last few years have been good here at The Julia Group, and the…
Feeling confused and hypocritical. I have read a lot of sad posts lately about sexual harassment, by women in the technology industry who were sexually assaulted, women in science who were verbally harassed. The reaction to the harassers of many people (and I admit, my initial response) has been akin to “burn ’em at the…