Published in Tenwall's Views·Sep 26, 2022On Leadership: Crappy Execution is a Waste Startup Leaders Cannot AffordExecution makes all the difference for practically every startup. It’s a core risk venture capitalists evaluate. — Forces arrayed against startup leaders are well-known and myriad: capital constraints, lack of brand awareness, lack of distribution, unequal access to labor, and, until the growth stage, foggy notions at best about product-market fit. …Leadership13 min readLeadership13 min read
Published in Tenwall's Views·Mar 10, 2022On Leadership: Why Alignment and Agreement Can be Used to Speed Teamwork (with Adam Reynolds)Agreement and Alignment are often, incorrectly, assumed to be interchangeable words when, in reality, they have distinctly different meanings and purposes within the context of efficiently working teams. Being conversant about these differences helps teams perform at higher levels. (Note: Adam Reynolds, now of Adam Reynolds’ Leadership and Tim worked…Leadership7 min readLeadership7 min read
May 25, 2021New Book: The Entrepreneur’s Weekly NietzscheWith a small cameo from yours truly… Whenever one gets a chance to read something from Brad Feld, like The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche, about entrepreneurship, take it. His initial experiences as an entrepreneur and his subsequent 25+ years in venture capital give him a unique blend of on-the-ground intel coupled with thousands of entrepreneur examples in his…Entrepreneurship3 min readEntrepreneurship3 min read
Published in MistyRobotics·Jun 23, 2020Misty Comes Alive TodayThe dynamic force that is a sophisticated interactive robot performing useful tasks comes to market today. — Anyone following these pages knows that Misty Robotics has a dream of enabling everyone to be able to solve problems with robots — wrenching the arcane technology world of robots out of the hands of the few thousand capable roboticists, globally, who have historically been called upon to deliver robot…Robots6 min readRobots6 min read
Jun 14, 2020Open letter to my white CEO, VC colleagues: “meritocracy” is likely a racist policyWe need to challenge the underlying assumptions behind some of our strongest beliefs. I mentioned in the last blog post, #BlackLivesMatter, I’m reading a profound book on antiracism by Ibram Kendi (How to Be an Antiracist). Ibram is a professor who has studied thousands of historical pieces on slavery and racism. He posits a few core points (among many others): the word “racist”…Anti Racism9 min readAnti Racism9 min read
Jun 10, 2020#BlackLivesMatterAs a citizen I’m profoundly committed to antiracism; as a corporation leader, I struggle with what is the role of the public voice of a corporation. # BlackLivesMatter to me and, as a citizen and human, have always mattered to me. I’m posting this note from my personal account, not the corporate account associated with the company I lead, because the subject matter is incredibly straightforward for me as a citizen but quite complicated for me…BlackLivesMatter10 min readBlackLivesMatter10 min read
May 12, 2020“Dude, where are the Robots!?!”In a COVID-19 world that seeks to separate sick from healthy, why are there so few robotic solutions that help? I was having a conversation this week with Andra Keay, the omnipresent always-active executive director leading the Silicon Valley Robotics non-profit. Andra talked about the dramatic increase in non-robotics companies coming to her and seeking solutions: “Dude, where’s my robot?!” (because most have been led to believe there’s a robot…Robots5 min readRobots5 min read
Published in MistyRobotics·Apr 28, 2020Introducing The Misty II Solution HubThe journey towards Phase II of the 10 Year Plan begins today. — A little less than three years ago, Misty Robotics emerged from the skunkworks lab at Sphero, became a separate entity, and started pursuing its own unique vision of a robotic future. We outlined that future in one of our very first blog posts, The 10 Year Plan. Now, we’re six…Robotics6 min readRobotics6 min read
Published in MistyRobotics·Aug 8, 2019Nodebots Day: Misty in the HouseMisty had another great opportunity to meet developers Saturday, July 27th was International Nodebots Day, a day to celebrate programming robots with Javascript (for more info about Nodebots, check out http://www.nodebots.io). …Programming5 min readProgramming5 min read
Jul 21, 2019How does Misty compare to other robots?“Personal Robots” are an entirely new category of robot We get asked this question a lot: “What’s the closest competitor to the Misty robots?” It’s a good question, because there’s not a straightforward answer. In the broadest sense, our competition is the mundane and boring human tasks that we perform…Robotics6 min readRobotics6 min read
