Our twins are about to wrap up their first semester and one thing is clear: 30 years after I went, and 20 years after the web exploded, college has barely changed. Sure, students all have smartphones and laptops, but they also carry around big text and heavy textbooks, go to lectures with frontal presentation from professors and take exams in blue books. They go for four years with maybe a semester (or possibly even a year) abroad if they are lucky. They declare a major at some point and the ...

Our twins are about to wrap up their first semester and one thing is clear: 30 years after I went, and 20 years after the web exploded, college has barely changed. Sure, students all have smartphones and laptops, but they also carry around big text and heavy textbooks, go to lectures with frontal presentation from professors and take exams in blue books. They go for four years with maybe a semester (or possibly even a year) abroad if they are lucky. They declare a major at some point and the ...

The women who have come forward in tech in the last few weeks, including Susan Fowler, Niniane Wang and Sarah Kunst have shown great courage. Their courage will be the catalyst for lasting change, provided all of us turn this into a sustained effort. Having been in tech for over two decades as an entrepreneur and investor, I have sadly looked into allegations of sexual harassment on more than one occasion. The majority of these cases turned out to frustratingly go nowhere, as initial allegati...

The women who have come forward in tech in the last few weeks, including Susan Fowler, Niniane Wang and Sarah Kunst have shown great courage. Their courage will be the catalyst for lasting change, provided all of us turn this into a sustained effort. Having been in tech for over two decades as an entrepreneur and investor, I have sadly looked into allegations of sexual harassment on more than one occasion. The majority of these cases turned out to frustratingly go nowhere, as initial allegati...

We have had all these innovations and have always found new things for people to work on. This is the Lump of Labor fallacy all over again. You are a Luddite! What makes you think this time is different?This is the rhetoric aimed at people like myself who argue that we need to fundamentally rethink how the economy and society work because digital technologies changing the world. I have taken to replying “you are correct, but you are looking at the wrong time frame.” What all of the above obje...

We have had all these innovations and have always found new things for people to work on. This is the Lump of Labor fallacy all over again. You are a Luddite! What makes you think this time is different?This is the rhetoric aimed at people like myself who argue that we need to fundamentally rethink how the economy and society work because digital technologies changing the world. I have taken to replying “you are correct, but you are looking at the wrong time frame.” What all of the above obje...

I have been blogging less recently. One reason is that I have been working on talks such as the one I gave recently at Techonomy in Detroit and the one I am preparing now for TEDxNY. The other reason though is that I have been reading a lot about buddhism, hinduism, neuroscience and physics. I don’t yet have a lot to say about my new insights as I am still learning and digesting but I wanted to share what motivated my interest. Unbeknownst to me it started with a blog post I wrote a while bac...

I have been blogging less recently. One reason is that I have been working on talks such as the one I gave recently at Techonomy in Detroit and the one I am preparing now for TEDxNY. The other reason though is that I have been reading a lot about buddhism, hinduism, neuroscience and physics. I don’t yet have a lot to say about my new insights as I am still learning and digesting but I wanted to share what motivated my interest. Unbeknownst to me it started with a blog post I wrote a while bac...

Last week I was in Detroit to speak at Techonomy’s one day conference there. I had never been to the city before and enjoyed meeting Mike Duggan, the mayor, Beth Niblock, CIO, and many other people working hard to turn things around. It is a fascinating window into challenges I believe we will face more broadly going forward. Here are the video, the slides and a transcript of the talk. (Transcription by RA Fisher Ink) Kirkpatrick: Good job, thanks so much. You know, like I said before, in the...

Last week I was in Detroit to speak at Techonomy’s one day conference there. I had never been to the city before and enjoyed meeting Mike Duggan, the mayor, Beth Niblock, CIO, and many other people working hard to turn things around. It is a fascinating window into challenges I believe we will face more broadly going forward. Here are the video, the slides and a transcript of the talk. (Transcription by RA Fisher Ink) Kirkpatrick: Good job, thanks so much. You know, like I said before, in the...

A number of people have published lists of things that Marissa Mayer should fix as the new CEO of Yahoo. Several of these recommendations include firing a lot of people. And we can now also read Marissa's first memo to Yahoo employees, which clearly tries to alleviate fears of layoffs. My own theory of organizational change is a bit different and it is based on observations of several successful and failed turnarounds going back to my days as a management consultant. You can’t have chang...

A number of people have published lists of things that Marissa Mayer should fix as the new CEO of Yahoo. Several of these recommendations include firing a lot of people. And we can now also read Marissa's first memo to Yahoo employees, which clearly tries to alleviate fears of layoffs. My own theory of organizational change is a bit different and it is based on observations of several successful and failed turnarounds going back to my days as a management consultant. You can’t have chang...

The debt showdown in Washington is supremely frustrating as it illustrates the complete inability of our current political system to deal with the structural changes that we are facing. At present course and speed things will get a lot worse before we can hope for them to get better. Trying to fix the budget without fixing the underlying problems in the economy and society is the proverbial attempt to prevent the sinking of the Titanic by rearranging the deck chairs. Here are several areas in...

The debt showdown in Washington is supremely frustrating as it illustrates the complete inability of our current political system to deal with the structural changes that we are facing. At present course and speed things will get a lot worse before we can hope for them to get better. Trying to fix the budget without fixing the underlying problems in the economy and society is the proverbial attempt to prevent the sinking of the Titanic by rearranging the deck chairs. Here are several areas in...

I woke up this morning thinking that I should write a post on privacy, having read Fred’s post and danah boyd’s two posts over the weekend and Charlie’s post this morning. Then I realized, I should probably check what I have written about privacy here before, since it seems to be a recurring topic. So I re-read my own post from March of 2009 and concluded that my thinking hasn’t changed enough since to warrant a new post. The key quote is this:I believe what we are seeing is the transition fr...

I woke up this morning thinking that I should write a post on privacy, having read Fred’s post and danah boyd’s two posts over the weekend and Charlie’s post this morning. Then I realized, I should probably check what I have written about privacy here before, since it seems to be a recurring topic. So I re-read my own post from March of 2009 and concluded that my thinking hasn’t changed enough since to warrant a new post. The key quote is this:I believe what we are seeing is the transition fr...

So I haven’t seen “The Social Network” yet and there is a good chance I won’t get around to it at all, as I am crazy busy at the moment (and fighting off a cold). But I have read enough reviews that I have a good sense of the positions people are taking. I am a fan of much of John Hagel’s writing and thinking and so was not surprised to see him come up with an excellent review. The gist of Jon’s piece is that “old media” feels compelled to construct a negative narrative around what is happeni...

So I haven’t seen “The Social Network” yet and there is a good chance I won’t get around to it at all, as I am crazy busy at the moment (and fighting off a cold). But I have read enough reviews that I have a good sense of the positions people are taking. I am a fan of much of John Hagel’s writing and thinking and so was not surprised to see him come up with an excellent review. The gist of Jon’s piece is that “old media” feels compelled to construct a negative narrative around what is happeni...

Yesterday was an impressive day in tech news. Here are three announcements that caught my attention:Wolfram Alpha releases an APIApple makes in-app purchases available for free appsGoogle announces it will distribute ebooksI believe that each of these is important in their own right (and they may make it into their own blog posts). But what is mostly on my mind is how much is changing and how quickly that change is occurring. When people ask me whether investing in web services is a long-term...

Yesterday was an impressive day in tech news. Here are three announcements that caught my attention:Wolfram Alpha releases an APIApple makes in-app purchases available for free appsGoogle announces it will distribute ebooksI believe that each of these is important in their own right (and they may make it into their own blog posts). But what is mostly on my mind is how much is changing and how quickly that change is occurring. When people ask me whether investing in web services is a long-term...